What would it take?

We should have a rule. For every point you want to make, you have to pick a point where the other side is right, and acknowledge it.



Or you have to post in the boobs thread for every post here. Sounds fair to me.

Or you have to post in the boobs thread for every post here. Sounds fair to me.

:biggthump

I guess my concern would be how do you set a living wage at a level that ensures a minimum safety net, yet doesn't completely remove all incentive to perform jobs that barely clear the minimum wage?

Let's say you give your guaranteed living wage of $400 per week (equivalent to $10 per hour at 40 hours). Do you create a moral hazard where bus drivers and EMTs and countless other folks in similar positions say you know what I'd rather sit at home because the couple extra bucks aren't worth it?

And my second concern would be, damn, it would take a very highly graduated tax bracket structure to pay for this. The Netherlands used to have its highest tax bracket set at 72% prior to 1990, but since moved it down to 52%. Not sure how they pay for everything in their system, but I do know that if your top tax bracket is too high you have a way of squelching innovation.

How can we get stats on the number of new products, new life-saving medical advancements and drugs, come from the Netherlands? Because that to me is the crux of the whole thing. Investing in a new idea takes immense guts and risk, both personal and financial, and there needs to be immense reward on the other side of it. Without that reward it's quite obvious that fewer people would take the risk on new ideas.

So I'm not sure, but I'd have concerns about anything that raises the top tax bracket too high. The immense financial reward available in the US is the carrot dangling in front of a lot of scientific and medical advancements.

I don't know, but maybe tax rates ought to be based on how many multiples of the living wage your gross individual income is. if living wage is 20,000 as an example, and you earn 20,000 apart from living wage, you have 1 multiple of living wage. 200,000 = 10 multiples, etc etc. So one scale would be something like:

100000+ you keep .1% or 2million as a minimum and up
10000-99999 you keep 1% or 2million as a minimum up to 20 million
1000-9999 you keep 10% or 2million as a minimum up to 20million
100-999 you keep 20% or 400k up to 3.98 million
50-99 you keep 30% or 300k up to 600,000
25-49 multiples you keep 70% so earn 500k, keep 350,000
10-24 multiples you keep 85% so earn 200k, keep 170,000
1-10 multiples you keep 95% so a minimum yearly life would be 39,000 (base 20000+19000).


In addition, you charge all company's regardless of size a 5% living wage tax.

Again, no idea whether any of these numbers work, which of course means I just wasted about 15-20 minutes making this crud up, because I must like to see myself type.

I do think something like this, along with getting rid of minimum wage, and alot of bureaucracy around thousands of different government welfare programs would have a tremendous effect on the economy. I think it would be positive. (oh and if you waste the 20,000 and look for more handouts we let Achmed handle it)

of course 20,000 is a number, I don't know what that really is, but it wouldn't take a cray supercomputer to figure it out.

Or you have to post in the boobs thread for every post here. Sounds fair to me.



Hopefully not a retro rule or me n Cred are going to spend the whole weekend posting boobs.
Actually maybe retro is a good idea? [emoji848]

hears another example of the corrupt media: Trump to Mexico: Take care of 'bad hombres' or US might send troops (http://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/01/trump-to-mexico-take-care-of-bad-hombres-or-us-might.html)

Take a look at the correction at the bottom: UPDATE: The AP updated its story with a spokesman for Mexico's president saying: "It is absolutely false that the president of the United States threatened to send troops to Mexico."

So you see whats going on? The AP put out a correction, but NBC chose to report the story as fact...before fact checking. interesting huh?

Fact checking in the ethics of journalism is a cornerstone. There is no argument there, it is a guiding principle.

I agree. For a lot of media companies, when they retract a story they don't put it out there like the original. I ain't debating media ethics with you though, I am all too aware of how shady they are on both sides of the aisle.

I agree. This is a guy who admires Lenin and quite frankly is pattern his tactics after him.

Steve Bannon, Trump’s Top Guy, Told Me He Was ‘a Leninist’ - The Daily Beast (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/08/22/steve-bannon-trump-s-top-guy-told-me-he-was-a-leninist.html)

When you hear comments like "the media should keep its mouth shut" is when you know the threat is real. People wanted to talk about how Obama was some secret agent muslim terrorist sent to tear down America, but here we actually have a guy on the national security trying to do just that.



I agree with free trade in principle, but the problem with that is it's going to just further expedite the manufacturing jobs to outside the country. We agree totally with the automation thing, and it's a huge reason why a basic income has being discussed in Congress.

OX06f3DPXt4



I can easily talk about Trump and I will point out the good things he does when he does them. However, must Trump supporters have their heads buried in the sand and refuse to acknowledge the shitty moves or justify them with bullshit excuses. Take for instance some of his cabinet choices.

James Mattis- Great choice
Betsy DeVos- Insane choice
Nikki Haley- great choice
Ben Carson- good choice but wrong area. Should be health service or surgeon general, not an area he has no experience.
Tillerson- awful choice with too many ties to Russia affairs

This is being unbiased. If you can't see why some of the cabinet choices are bad (or decisions) then there isn't much help. It's why people continue to treat politics like their favorite sports team. No matter how dumb the decisions the team makes, you will continue waving that flag supporting them week after week.

Good post NC, I agree with a lot of it, mostly your cabinet picks lineup. Seeing as how I know nothing about free trade and have no idea how to compensate for losing jobs to automation, I will stay out of that one. After being hesitant about his SC nominee I have warmed up to that one too, after all it is important to have a neutral judge to balance out the right and left on the bench. I was moreso mad about Congress' unwillingness to at least consider Obama's nominee.

And I totally agree on Bannon, I think people really aren't as upset about that as they should be. Removing the Joint Chiefs makes no sense and replacing it with one of your yes men makes even less sense. The power of the NSC should not be taken lightly.

just adding this about LW.

9% of the population makes over $100K/yr according to this link (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_States#cite_note-CPS_2015-2)

Assuming that the LW was only given to US Citizens making under $100k per year, the yearly outlay for LW payments is roughly 4.4 trillion dollars.

Reducing it to only people making under $50k would still be 3.5 trillion dollars ($20K * 176Million people)

The US GDP for 2016 was $18trillion.
Federal Gross Spending (http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/total_2016USrt_18rs5n) was $3.9 trillion dollars

Government Pensions $1.3 trillion
Government Health Care + $1.5 trillion
Government Education + $1.0 trillion
National Defense + $0.8 trillion
Government Welfare + $0.5 trillion
All Other Spending + $1.6 trillion
Total Government Spending $6.7 trillion

So theoretically if we got rid of the myriad of welfare/education/healthcare governmental entities, and rolled it one lump sum governmental LW block grant to the states, we would go from $3Trillion, to $3.5Trillion.

Could you imagine the shift of power that would create politically

just adding this about LW.

9% of the population makes over $100K/yr according to this link (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_States#cite_note-CPS_2015-2)

Assuming that the LW was only given to US Citizens making under $100k per year, the yearly outlay for LW payments is roughly 4.4 trillion dollars.

Reducing it to only people making under $50k would still be 3.5 trillion dollars ($20K * 176Million people)

The US GDP for 2016 was $18trillion.
Federal Gross Spending (http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/total_2016USrt_18rs5n) was $3.9 trillion dollars

Government Pensions $1.3 trillion
Government Health Care + $1.5 trillion
Government Education + $1.0 trillion
National Defense + $0.8 trillion
Government Welfare + $0.5 trillion
All Other Spending + $1.6 trillion
Total Government Spending $6.7 trillion

So theoretically if we got rid of the myriad of welfare/education/healthcare governmental entities, and rolled it one lump sum governmental LW block grant to the states, we would go from $3Trillion, to $3.5Trillion.

Could you imagine the shift of power that would create politically

You'd still have to provide the healthcare on top of living wage. $20K per year gets you bare essentials like shelter and food, but not healthcare. Those folks would still need Medical Assistance.

You'd still have to provide the healthcare on top of living wage. $20K per year gets you bare essentials like shelter and food, but not healthcare. Those folks would still need Medical Assistance.

There would have to be a way to create a real LW wage number. I used 20K for ease of numbers, but yes LW would need to include shelter, food, and very basic healthcare entitlement.

The point of the LW is that you have basic security needs met (the bottom of the pyramid), but you are still working. Currently nearly 50% of the US population makes under $25K(same link as before). If minimum wage were reset to $4/hour and still assuming a $20K LW then every person in the US working a 40hr job would make $27.5K (with the tax scheme i made up). And a person making $10/hour would make nearly $40K.

LW for 1 person $800/mo rent, $400/mo food, $400/mo basic healthcare =$1600/month or 19,200 per year,
so 2 adults together, would have 1600/mo rent, 800/month food 800/mo basic healthcare

again, theory is simple, and talking in a forum blog is even simpler. The deepest fact is that politicians would never give up all the power they have by controlling the purse strings.

One thing I would add is that as a back check, in order to be given your 2017 LW you must provide proof that you used some or all of your 2016 LW to provide you with stable residence, and healthcare. I would think rental receipts and insurance payment stubs would do that but of course the devil is always in the details.

I think we should take this time for a moment of silence for all those lives lost at Bowling Green. A go fund has been started for all the families affected by this tragedy. #NeverForget

https://www.bowlinggreenmassacrefund.com/