quote: If I recal correctly the student that stood infront of that Tank got ushered away by his friends, and as for people who get to labour camps and etc. *shrug* I didn't say everything they do is right or perfect but plenty of people who are sent to said camps are criminals and if they can contribute to society rather then rot away in prison I think its would be a better system.
Do you hear yourself? "Plenty" of the people interred in labor camps are criminals, and it's better to be sent to a labor camp than rot away in prison? How can you even say that with a straight face?
quote: If that was true you wouldn't be overthrowing democratically elected governments left and right, you wouldn't be abducting citizens OFF THE STREET and imprisoning them in a military base in Iraq and the Carribian.
Big difference between us and China, Blayne: when we do this, our press reports it and we can criticize it in public. A lot of us Americans are pretty darn upset about this, and make it clear. How many Chinese get that chance?
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Blayne Bradley
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They also have a legal system as well, there usually is a trial in China, and the people who you think are sent to labour camps ARE criminals, murderers rapists, etc.
I think that reasoning is that its much better to have criminals working to help society to pay their debt to it then for society to pay for them to have a home and 3 meals a day.
So what if your press reports it? Your press is INGNORED that is the worth of democracy in America, a hinderance for the quest of your leaders to make money.
In China the people that are arrested for dissent are ones who are organizing dissent to a degree that threatens stability, the personal opinions of individuals is not interfeared with, individual critizism is tolerated esp if its directed at aspects of failed policy and not at the legitimacy of the government itself.
But do I say its right? No, did I say that the PRC is perfect? No, however I do agree that it is justifiable on a certain level and for as long as America is the one belligerant power in the world I'ld prefer that the faster that China can rise to balance America the better.
But remember the rates in China of said arrests is decreasing, democracy year by year is growing more potent as Maoist thought keeps evolving, as I said over 1,000,000 villages are democratic and is moving up to the town level, democracy is coming to China and China has come to terms, they know that something horrible had happened and they apologized for it and have done their best to give the average chinese better lives as possible since a prosperous China is a rich and powerful China.
The reason why I accept said civil rights abuses is because I know they happen everywhere and I know that in the case of China they are exaggerated because it serves a purpose, it serves the purpose of trying to mentally prepare America for any future clash with China, I know that these abuses will one day soon end and the faster that China can reach economic parity with the west is also the faster that the abuses decrease in number.
Accept what China is and strive to make it better, because the alternative would've been far worse.
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quote: They also have a legal system as well, there usually is a trial in China, and the people who you think are sent to labour camps ARE criminals, murderers rapists, etc.
They're found guilty of being criminals, murderers and rapists, which isn't always the same thing. And when criticizing the government makes you a criminal, being a criminal isn't even all that bad.
quote: So what if your press reports it? Your press is INGNORED that is the worth of democracy in America, a hinderance for the quest of your leaders to make money.
I don't necessarily disagree, Blayne. The press in this country is often irrelevant and ignored by the public. But it's rarely persecuted by the government (although it's often misled). And as you've observed, the Chinese government is ALSO all about making money; that particular motivation is hardly exclusive to American leadership.
quote: Accept what China is and strive to make it better, because the alternative would've been far worse.
Why do we believe there could only have been one alternative? A China that didn't randomly arrest, torture, and brainwash its critics would be a nice start, don't you agree?
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Irradicate minimum wage. Minimum wage prevents homeless from working and earning an income.
No one will hire an unskilled person if they are forced to pay them more money than their work is worth. Once someone gets a job, they learn rudimentary job skills, like how to fill out forms and how to show up to work on time. They can use these job skills to market their work, possibly to another employee, for more pay. This makes the homeless man that couldn't get a job before richer both in skill and in income.
The fact is, employers will stop hiring employees when an employee's value is less than the cost of employing them. Without minimum wage, there will be less unemployment because more people will be working. This clearly benefits the individual because the individual earns income and gains job skills. This benefits society by keeping people working (people can't and do not commit as much crime if they are occupied by work).
What about earning a livable wage? What about earning more income? Get a new job. Market your skills to someone that will pay you more for it. Or, get a raise (or other benefits like safety or health care) from your existing employer that is afraid of losing a good worker.
The truth is, minimum wage really only helps those that are already working keep the wage that they are already getting and prevents creation of new jobs and a skilled workforce by keeping people at the very bottom skill level from getting jobs.
In a free-market capitalist economy, you just have to get used to finding new jobs sometimes or having your existing job canned. Protecting jobs is an illusion. That is a fact of life in the U.S. Best adapt to it as you can.
Posts: 338 | Registered: Jan 2001
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Maybe CEOs should get used to not making hundreds of times more than their workers while their jobs are protected by golden parachute schemes.
Maybe countries with economic clout should use that clout to improve the lives of sweatshop workers in countries to which work is now exported so the overall common standard of life improves, rather than lunging endlessly for the lowest common denominator in pursuit of a profit on paper.
Of the 9.2 million working families in the United States who are low-income, 74 percent work full time. People making minimum wage often have to struggle just to make rent and put food on the table, and you want to eliminate that tiniest of buffers? Why? So we can have our poorest working citizens living in tin shacks, like other countries?
The notion that the minimum wage eliminates jobs is a fabrication. Setting wages below a livable standard will inevitably destroy an economy that is based on profits derived from cheap overseas labor by eliminating the market that purchases those inexpensive goods in the first place.
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I didnt feel I needed to answer that considering that even Taiwanese citizens enter and leave China at will it should be obvious what the rules on movement are.
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quote:Tibet and Taiwan have always since around 700 and 400 years ago respectively been part of China and legally still do, regardless of the economic or political systems of the two.
If you have to take a nation by force away from its current inhabitants, then arguably it isn't yours. If the population despises you and would if they could throw you out, it's not yours legitimately, you're an oppresser. Just like China. Tibet and Taiwan don't want to be a part of China.
But that doesn't matter. Hail China!
quote:India? You really haven't been paying attention to the news, China and India have been discussing new trade contracts and other economic and territorial treaties, in fact China is even willing to give back some of the land it took and to cede claims on other areas on the border to help the process.
Wow, China is giving back territory it stole? Shocking! And yes, I'm aware that CHina trades with its neighbors. We conducted trade with the Soviet Union. France was Germany's biggest trading partner in the 30s.
quote:So thus China is at peace with its neighbours and once more about Taiwan is putting a GARGATUAN amount of effort to improve cross straight relations to encourage peaceful unification under two systems. Like Hong-Kong.
Not like Hong Kong. PRC regularly clamps down on freedoms formerly enjoyed by Hong Kong, and the people there aren't happy about it.
Anyway...I'm done arguing about this. Its pointless, and I'm tired just reading all the apologies and excuses.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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Tibet was liberated from the autocratic rule of the Dalai Lama, Tibet preliberation was a semi feudal society with a slave class, patriachal society with unequal division of land.
When the PRC liberated them slavery was abolished, equal rights given to all citizens, the land was divided equally among the peasants and a civilian secular government installed.
"Not like Hong Kong. PRC regularly clamps down on freedoms formerly enjoyed by Hong Kong, and the people there aren't happy about it."
And Hong Kong does a good job at challenging those laws, in fact there's been another recent democracy movement originating from HK and HK prodemocracy politicians have been meeting with top CCP leaders.
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Blayne Bradley
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"Wow, China is giving back territory it stole? Shocking! And yes, I'm aware that CHina trades with its neighbors. We conducted trade with the Soviet Union. France was Germany's biggest trading partner in the 30s."
That land had been historically part of the Han Dynasty centuries before, I don't recal the exact chain f events but both sides are equally responcible for the Indian-Sino war of 1962. Quite frankly the US stole parts of Texas and california off of Mexico will the US give back that land they stole?
Also, international trade and foreign exchange students are key to improving national relations. Canada was America's MFN for a while does that mean we'll go to war?
"Anyway...I'm done arguing about this. Its pointless, and I'm tired just reading all the apologies and excuses."
Only because you know you can't win the arguement as one sided as you thought you could. I have enough facts and evidence to support my viewpoint that I can argue this successfuly to a detent.
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quote: When the PRC liberated them slavery was abolished, equal rights given to all citizens...
Blayne, do you believe this? Do you really, truly, believe that China has given "equal rights" to its people?
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Rakeesh you are hardly being open minded or mature in this discussion.
Tom, yes I do. They are a secular nation that allows its citizens under the reforms of 1978 to own, purchase and sell property. It is a market oriented economy with socalist/Maoist leanings.
Every citizen of the People's Republic is equal in theory under the law, just as every citizen in the USA is theoretically equal under the law, but of course they're certains where that in practice doesn't work so good.
If you seriously expect China to be perfect and follow the American example of "democracy" then you are naive.
Can you trully say beyond a doubt that they aren't equal under the law? Have you been there? I'm willing enough to give the benefit f the doubt, I'm politically saive enough to recognize that things are getting better, but to expect them overnight to convert to full democracy dispite being Maoist for decades, disite being Confusious for centuries, and dispite having known Imperial rule for centuries as well....
They now have a governmet that did more for the people then every other government and dynasty since the First Emperor Q'ing Unified China.
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quote:"Anyway...I'm done arguing about this. Its pointless, and I'm tired just reading all the apologies and excuses."
Only because you know you can't win the arguement as one sided as you thought you could. I have enough facts and evidence to support my viewpoint that I can argue this successfuly to a detent.
You may be over-estimating the pursuasiveness of your arguments, Blayne. You certainly haven't convinced me, but I don't really have the time or the inclination to really get down and wrestle this one to the ground with you.
Anyone know if Ted is still as staunch a supporter of China as he was 3 or 4 years ago, when he was arguing from the same general position that Blayne is now?
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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Blayne Bradley
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posted
I geuss your too close minded to liston to my arguements and I'm too stubburn to drop it.
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quote: Maybe CEOs should get used to not making hundreds of times more than their workers while their jobs are protected by golden parachute schemes.
This is what consumers are willing to pay for the position by buying the companies products and services. Presumably, the CEO saves most of his money because rich people usually horde their money. This money can be used to invest in new products for the company, improving performance, causing profit to increase, which in turn causes workers wages to increase because the company will pay them to keep working at the company. Or, the CEO puts his money in the bank or in stocks. This gives the bank the ability to loan money so that other companies can do the same thing – invest in new methods to improve performance and thus profit for everyone. Or stocks give the money to those companies that do the same thing.
quote:The notion that the minimum wage eliminates jobs is a fabrication. Setting wages below a livable standard will inevitably destroy an economy that is based on profits derived from cheap overseas labor by eliminating the market that purchases those inexpensive goods in the first place.
"In general, there is no valid, research-based rationale for believing that state minimum wages cause measurable job losses."
I would probably agree with you, but you miss the point of my argument. Minimum wage prevents the creation of new jobs. It’s a selfish way for those that have jobs to drive out cheap labor so that they can keep their jobs.
quote:Maybe countries with economic clout should use that clout to improve the lives of sweatshop workers in countries …
Here is my plan: We can get those countries to pass $5 minimum wage laws, and then magically poverty and hunger will simply vanish.
quote:This is what consumers are willing to pay for the position by buying the companies products and services.
Really? Are consumers on the board of directors?
quote: Presumably, the CEO saves most of his money because rich people usually horde their money. This money can be used to invest in new products for the company, improving performance, causing profit to increase, which in turn causes workers wages to increase because the company will pay them to keep working at the company. Or, the CEO puts his money in the bank or in stocks. This gives the bank the ability to loan money so that other companies can do the same thing – invest in new methods to improve performance and thus profit for everyone. Or stocks give the money to those companies that do the same thing.
...Or the CEO puts the money into an offshore account, and never does a thing with it except keep it out of the reach of tax investigators, until he or she passes the funds off to his or her heirs, who do, if possible, less with it.
...Or the company just churns through lower level employees like kindling, since there's no lack of the unskilled and ignorant to fill the old positions, and the bean-counters feel the cost of the minimal start-up and training is exceeded by the benefit of having a chronically insecure workbase where no one can claim anything resembling seniority or demand cost-of-living adjustments for veterancy. Also works on a slightly smaller scale for new college graduates.
...Or the money just gets wiped clean off the books by crooked book-keeping and "socializing" debts.
quote: Minimum wage prevents the creation of new jobs. It’s a selfish way for those that have jobs to drive out cheap labor so that they can keep their jobs.
If it's selfish to want to be able to hold onto a job that pays enough to feed oneself and possibly one's family, then yes, it's selfish. If it's selfish only in the sense that it prevents the job in question from being done for a quarter an hour in Mexico or less in Bangladesh or Indonesia and prevents the company from being able to report a higher rate of profit, the term becomes somewhat moot.
quote:Here is my plan: We can get those countries to pass $5 minimum wage laws, and then magically poverty and hunger will simply vanish.
I'm not saying anything of the sort. The U.S. isn't competing with people who are making five dollars an hour, or four dollars an hour, or even two dollars an hour. It's competing in many cases with countries where teenagers work fourteen hour days for less than a dollar an hour in factories with no safety or environmental standards. We could try to change that, or we could call that an enviably employer-friendly marketplace. Frankly, I think the latter is the province of weasels.
We're in the process of destroying the market for the very products that we're having manufactured overseas. Products made at home can and do find a market at prices that are affordable and still allow their producers to pay their employees a fair living wage. Lunging after the trailing edge of the lowest common denominator will only bring an illusory sort of profit in the short term. In the long term, you're left with economists mumbling vaguely about service-based economies where ninety-nine people "magically" find enough work to perform in doing services for the hundredth person. It's like the internet bubble all over again: everyone reports revenue that only comes from banner-clicks, and the same nickel gets passed around over and over again, reported as a profit each time.
The money that goes to the top 1% has a way of staying there. Turning one job that pays starvation wages into two jobs that pay sub-starvation wages may look good in someone's books, but that someone isn't looking at working either of those jobs.
Y'know how we hear every twenty years or so that [assembly line production, automation, computers, the Internet Economy] are going to make everything so efficient that people are hardly going to work at all?
Notice it hasn't happened?
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
The CEO probably cooks the books or invests in an offshore account because of government regulation and taxation. Maybe they would be more likely to invest in stocks, etc. in the US without so much government interference.
I know of few major companies that do churn through new employees like you say. At any rate, churning through new employees gives employees work skills and references. They tend to want (or should want) to hold on to productive employees because productive employees make them money. Seniority and veterancy shouldn’t be worth much to an employer because an employer gains value from an employee from its job skills. An experienced employee could still be lazy or incompetent. Seniority and veterancy are false measures of value. Merit is a better measure of value.
quote:We could try to change that [working in factories with no safety or environmental standards], or we could call that an enviably employer-friendly marketplace.
How, I wonder, do you propose that we try to change that? How are we going to force employers to pay employees a higher wage when presumably they don’t have enough money to do so to begin with? Have you considered asking the employees whether or not they mind working for a quarter of an hour? Maybe that is the best job that they can get. If we destroy that, we put them out of their life. Preventing these jobs from happening probably just forces the employees into worse jobs (like child prostitution).
Offshoring things like programming projects makes the cost of developing a program less. This savings can be passed on to people that buy it, and since it is less more people will buy it. More people benefit from the productivity gains that it entails. Or, the company pockets the difference and uses it to invest in more equipment. At any rate, we gain by more productivity. In the meantime, the offshored workers improve their quality of living by making more than they could otherwise, and the offshored countries industries improve with the additional capital.
I don’t see the evidence supporting why profits will be false in the long-term and why this is relevant.
quote:Turning one job that pays starvation wages into two jobs that pay sub-starvation wages may look good in someone's books, but that someone isn't looking at working either of those jobs.
You’re forgetting that people gain from working rather than not working, and they can market their skills elsewhere and possibly earn more. I don’t see the evidence that eliminating minimum wage entails the simple substitution that you propose: one starvation wage for two sub-starvation wage.
Posts: 338 | Registered: Jan 2001
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quote: The CEO probably cooks the books or invests in an offshore account because of government regulation and taxation. Maybe they would be more likely to invest in stocks, etc. in the US without so much government interference.
That's one hypothesis. Of course, most of the headliner corporate crimes of the day have occurred after major patches of deregulation. And current tax laws are so full of loopholes that there are major accounting firms who make massive piles of money by jiggering things so multi-millionares pay no taxes at all and writing letters attesting to the legality of their bookkeeping. But, yes, it's possible that someone is saying "Sure, I'm making twenty million dollars a year. But if I just broke the law, I could make fifty million dollars a year."
Of course, it's also arguable that the illegalization of cocaine makes people more likely to sell crack.
quote:I know of few major companies that do churn through new employees like you say. At any rate, churning through new employees gives employees work skills and references. They tend to want (or should want) to hold on to productive employees because productive employees make them money. Seniority and veterancy shouldn’t be worth much to an employer because an employer gains value from an employee from its job skills. An experienced employee could still be lazy or incompetent. Seniority and veterancy are false measures of value. Merit is a better measure of value.
I see you're not reading the Wal-Mart segment of the forum. Are you aware that in some sectors their annual turnover is over 100%?
Have you also noticed that one of the fastest growing employers in the United States is temp agencies?
You're absolutely correct that seniority and veterancy aren't accurate predictors of an employee's efficiency or skill. But they are, in some cases, the _only_ recorded factors to differentiate employees. And they are in many cases the first factors to be considered when lay-offs are planned.
And while we're on the subject of false measures of worth, _money_ is a false measure of worth, though it's one of the most commonly used. How often do you read of movie-star CEOs who come in for eighteen months with seven and eight figure salaries, make enormous blunders, cost investors millions and thousands of people their jobs, and then leave with a nice retirement package?
Money as a measure of worth says you can poison the groundwater of a thousand people and make a million dollars. The problems that will be caused by the thousand poisoned people can be written off as unmeasurable or non-financial factors.
Money as a measure of worth says you can cut school spending to the point where the only available textbooks are useless, school maintenence falls to the point where school buildings are virtually uninhabitable, and finding qualified teachers is impossible. The problems that might be caused by students who never learned anything useful can be written off.
Money as a measure of worth says that for the benefit of short-term profit, you can reduce the ability of your consumer base to buy the product you produce over the long term. Of course, with your increased profit, you're going to put money into R&D and advertising, and expand operations, and hire more people at lower wages, which will make even more profit, which will...
"Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death..."
If you're lucky, that profit actually does get spent on company infrastructure rather than one of those superstar CEO's retirement or some VP's yacht, or just vanishing one way or another. But that trend can go on forever without actually benefitting the consumers or the lower level workers.
quote:How, I wonder, do you propose that we try to change that? How are we going to force employers to pay employees a higher wage when presumably they don’t have enough money to do so to begin with? Have you considered asking the employees whether or not they mind working for a quarter of an hour? Maybe that is the best job that they can get. If we destroy that, we put them out of their life. Preventing these jobs from happening probably just forces the employees into worse jobs (like child prostitution).
This sort of argument has been used to advocate against child labor laws as well...
A sweatshop doesn't rise out of a vacuum. It comes from a string of people trying to raise various levels or profit, usually in a situation where a small, monopolistic group controls the actual purchasing power and drives the buying cost lower and lower to increase their returns. Move operations over a border, increase profit a little, move it overseas, increase it more; make the workers work in an area that's boiling hot or freezing cold and has no temperature control, increase it a little more; skip the monthly equipment maintence exam, increase it a little more; hire teenagers rather than adults, pay them less, and coerce them with threats and violence, increase profits a little more...
A motto of "if we can increase profit we shall" leads to very dull profit/cost/loss graphs in one country, and one thug bragging to another that he's gotten _his_ workers working sixteen hour shifts and paying most of their salaries back to the factory to rent rooms to live in as he throws a teenager who's just been maimed by some odd piece of factory equipment out in the street in another. Don't tell me "they could be doing worse", of course they could be doing worse. Every human being has a capacity for enduring misery that ramps upward right up until their death. That doesn't mean you intentionally push it for the sake of profit. And it doesn't excuse anyone from saying "god-awful is good enough for these people, because it could be worse."
If companies are willing to decrease their profit margins just slightly- pay a dime for a product that sells for a dollar instead of a nickel- a tremendous amount of misery can be avoided. If companies make it clear that they _are_ paying attention to conditions in the factories where their products are produced and that they will take their business elsewhere if they receive reports of abuses, and are conversely willing to pay bounuses for reports of good worker treatment, things can get better. On the other hand, if companies make it clear that their one and only priority is their bottom line and expansion at the fastest rate possible, not only will things get worse and abuses be prevalent, but the company is likely to outgrow its ability to support itself.
Or the short version: How do I propose to change that? We pay them, and we tell them what we expect for that payment. Same as now, just a slight shift in priority.
quote:Offshoring things like programming projects makes the cost of developing a program less. This savings can be passed on to people that buy it, and since it is less more people will buy it. More people benefit from the productivity gains that it entails. Or, the company pockets the difference and uses it to invest in more equipment. At any rate, we gain by more productivity. In the meantime, the offshored workers improve their quality of living by making more than they could otherwise, and the offshored countries industries improve with the additional capital.
I don’t see the evidence supporting why profits will be false in the long-term and why this is relevant.
Because the free market is a blind fool. It has no moral judgement, and is perfectly capable of "enlightened" self-destruction. We have the resources to feed every person on Earth, but people starve. We have the resources to vaccinate every child on Earth, but people die every day of preventable diseases. We can make products that last beyond their warranties, and cars that get far greater gas mileage, but where's the financial incentive? We have made advance after advance in efficiency, as I noted at the end of my last message, but the gain is very high only for a very small percentage. The rest mostly find they need an increasingly advanced skill set in order to be slightly worse off than they were before.
The savings of offshoring CAN be passed on to consumers, or employees, but there is nothing in a free market that dictates that it will. And so, usually, it won't. Also, price is far from the only reason a product will or will not sell. But another joy of a profit-only motive is that the consumer usually gets to choose between a multitude of low-cost, inferior products on the market.
Companies don't move production to offer fabulous wages to the citizens there. Companies move production to offer jobs at the local rates, which are lower than their home rates. And when they leave, the places they leave are usually worse off than they were before. Agricultural communities lose their ability to produce food, small communities turn into sprawls.
People lose their jobs in the U.S., production is moved to Mexico: factories stand empty, towns turn into ghosts, basic infrastructures disintegrate, everyone suffers.
People lose their jobs in Mexico, production is moved to China: lather, rinse, repeat.
quote:You’re forgetting that people gain from working rather than not working, and they can market their skills elsewhere and possibly earn more. I don’t see the evidence that eliminating minimum wage entails the simple substitution that you propose: one starvation wage for two sub-starvation wage.
People work in order to gain the ability to provide for themselves and their families. Gaining skills is secondary, and poor compensation. Many jobs at the lowest levels provide very few transferrable skills, because the jobs themselves have been designed from the ground up to require very few skills so a new employee can be slapped into the position on a moment's notice. As for "marketing one's skills elsewhere", that assumes all manner of things including the mobility to go out and seek jobs and enough of a financial buffer to hold out long enough to pick and choose without skipping meals or rent checks. None of these qualities are guaranteed to even the minimum-wage earner, let alone someone not allowed a minimum wage. It also assumes the existence of other jobs, which that sweatshop worker in East Asia may render moot. The scenario you describe doesn't lend itself to "marketing one's skills"; it lends itself to leaping headlong at the first job someone offers you at any wage whatsoever, and kissing their feet that they've offered you anything at all.
A minimum wage isn't some trivial contrivance, some random piece of regulation, a number someone pulled out of a hat to frustrate management. It is people saying "This is what we consider the minimum amount of money on which someone can get by in our community." And given the struggles proponents have to go through to ever get it raised, it often isn't even enough for that.
So, here's a question: If in Country X you can buy enough food to keep alive on $0.25 a day, do you really think workers in the United States should conform to that wage level for the sake of contrived notions of competition and profit? And how many people are likely to starve before market forces cause food prices in the United States to become symmetrical to those in Country X which make that $0.25 a day survivable?
Drive a mile in any given mid-size city, and you can see the businesses that are flourishing in this climate: temp agencies, payday loan offices, and dollar stores.
quote: In King County, it found that 44 percent of renters are unable to afford rent for a two-bedroom unit. To afford a two-bedroom unit, renters must earn an hourly wage of $15.56. On average, minimum wage workers must work 96 hours per week to afford a two-bedroom unit. In Washington State, 35 percent of renters are unable to afford rent for a two-bedroom unit.
quote:The CEO probably cooks the books or invests in an offshore account because of government regulation and taxation. Maybe they would be more likely to invest in stocks, etc. in the US without so much government interference.
I know that I turned to car theft because my taxes were too high.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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romany, I followed some links to the report those numbers came from, and it's really scary.
quote:Once again, this year there is not a single jurisdiction in the country where a person working full time earning the prevailing minimum wage can afford a two bedroom rental home.
Moreover, there are only four counties in the country - Wayne, Crawford, and Lawrence counties in Illinois and Washington County, Florida - where a person or a household working 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year at the prevailing minimum wage can afford even a one bedroom apartment.
In 70% of the metropolitan areas in the country, the Housing Wage is at least twice the prevailing minimum wage. In 56 metropolitan areas the Housing Wage is over three times the minimum wage. This is illustrated in Out of Reach by the number of work hours per week per household necessary at minimum wage to afford a two bedroom home at the Fair Market Rent. This number allows the reader to focus on the differential between the minimum wage and the Housing Wage, but it also allows an appreciation of the challenges low income households face. In the first instance, the more hours necessary, the higher the cost of housing relative to the minimum wage. In the second instance, by considering this number relative to the standard 40 hour work week, it becomes clear that households that have multiple minimum wage earners contributing to the rent, earn higher wages, and or work overtime are still likely to have significant problems finding a safe decent apartment in the community where they work.
Renter households in 991 counties, home to almost 79% of all renter households in the nation, must work over 80 hours a week at the local minimum wage to afford a two bedroom apartment at the Fair Market Rent. In Pitkin County, CO, where the Housing Wage is nearly five times greater than the minimum wage, it would take nearly five minimum wage earners or two earners earning two and a half times the minimum wage working full time for a household to afford a modest two bedroom apartment.
I knew we had problems affording a place to live. I never knew so many other people had the same problem.
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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I can only speak for myself, but the arguments I had with Ted about China (and they lasted awhile) were relating to that spy plane incident at about that time. And so Ted's 'defense' of the PRC, to my recollection, had more to do with Chinese-American military relations than it did with Chinese human rights records (which he took a pretty dim view of, but as I recall felt had little to no bearing on the spy-plane issue).
That's what I remember anyway. I'd love for Ted to post more though and correct me
posted
I expect that that's probably what I was thinking of, Rakeesh. I only dimly remembered the arguments, not having taken an active role in them.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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Read those and tell me again that the solution is to do away with the minimum wage. The solution is to raise it. Significantly.
I have a hard time being sympathetic with the argument that businesses simply couldn't afford paying their workers a livable wage. (That's what I usually hear when people speak against raising it.) Maybe they're charging too little for their product. Maybe they need to be more efficient. Maybe maybe maybe... but the solution should be found elsewhere--and not in underpaying workers.
We struggle to make ends meet, and I would probably be considered rich to those people who are stuck in minumum wage jobs.
Minumum wage is shameful.
Posts: 2880 | Registered: Jun 2004
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
companies who already cheat and cook the books shouldn't be compalining if they can't raise wages a little.
"OH NO! Now I can't afford my second boat damn those pesky minimum wage laws."
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posted
Inflation rates are generally tied to food prices, which haven't changed that much, instead of the cost of housing, which definitely has.
Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
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You still haven't answered my question. Seriously, if you are going to just ignore the inconvenient facts about China's repression of it's own citizens, why do you bother posting at all about it?
Posts: 22497 | Registered: Sep 2000
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
Chinese citizens go abroad for educational reasons and tourism. Requires permission before hand but is not particularily special nor out of the ordinatry for most nations.
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You know as well as I that emigrating from China is not possible.
Any country that forces its people to stay whether they want to or not has some serious control issues.
I'm not exactly sure why Communist nations are the ones that do this on a routine basis. Other than a fear that the place would simply empty out because nobody wants to live like that.
Is there a reason you keep hedging on this?
And, by the way, you haven't answered about moving INSIDE the country either. If someone doesn't want to move into the housing provided by the state after the state flooded their old homes to build a new dam, what choice were they given? If they wanted to move out of China, were they allowed to? If they wanted to move to the big city and get a job, did they have that option?
C'mon. Just admit it. China controls the movement of its people to an extent that is not at all similar to what the world's major democracies do. It isn't a free society in that sense. And the reasons for it seem pretty clear -- the state controls people's lives.
Posts: 22497 | Registered: Sep 2000
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"Tibet was liberated from the autocratic rule of the Dalai Lama, Tibet preliberation was a semi feudal society with a slave class, patriachal society with unequal division of land.
When the PRC liberated them slavery was abolished, equal rights given to all citizens, the land was divided equally among the peasants and a civilian secular government installed."
Are you insane!?
Have you been to Tibet?
Have you met elderly monks who had most of the bones in their body broken and all of their teeth shattered while spending time in Chinese internment camps? Have you met people who witnessed the slaughter that happened during the invasion? Are you familiar with the people, such as the Panchen Lama, who were kidnapped as children because they were supposedly incarnations of powerful religious figures? Children who have been held for fifteen, twenty years without being seen by anyone?
And I am utterly flabbergasted that no one is addressing your long list of apparent complaints against the US... half of which are utterly ludicrous conspiracy theories which by their very nature are unproven and cannot be proven.
I don't even understand how someone can live as immersed in fantasy as you are. It's mind boggling. My mind has been boggled in ways I didn't even know existed.
Posts: 3580 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
I'm nor sure if paying someone $15 an hour to work in a diner or something similar will fix anything? The cheap, but good, meals will have to dramatically go up in cost just to cover the increased cost of labor. I have read many comments about how 'business' should just shell out more and more money because they are so rich. Well, the rules that apply to them will also apply to the local Mom & Pop stores, the small businesses. The only way to survive will to be part of a huge corporation, small busineses will not make it. Raising prices was one solution to cover the costs but doesn't that just start spiraling upward? Everything is then more expensive so the minimum wage is still not enough to cover the expenses.
Posts: 1918 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
I'm not sure if paying someone $15 an hour to work in a diner or something similar will fix anything? The cheap, but good, meals will have to dramatically go up in cost just to cover the increased cost of labor. I have read many comments about how 'business' should just shell out more and more money because they are so rich. Well, the rules that apply to them will also apply to the local Mom & Pop stores, the small businesses. The only way to survive will to be part of a huge corporation, small busineses will not make it. Raising prices was one solution to cover the costs but doesn't that just start spiraling upward? Everything is then more expensive so the minimum wage is still not enough to cover the expenses.
Posts: 1918 | Registered: Mar 2005
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quote: Professor Hicks does present a compelling arguement that the only way Oswald could have made that shot from the book depository would have been if a bunch of pigeons had come in the window, grabbed onto him, and flown him over the expressway. In fact, there were sightings of anti-Castro pigeons in bars the night before. They were overheard saying "Coup! Coup!"
quote:Originally posted by DarkKnight: I'm not sure if paying someone $15 an hour to work in a diner or something similar will fix anything? The cheap, but good, meals will have to dramatically go up in cost just to cover the increased cost of labor. I have read many comments about how 'business' should just shell out more and more money because they are so rich. Well, the rules that apply to them will also apply to the local Mom & Pop stores, the small businesses. The only way to survive will to be part of a huge corporation, small busineses will not make it. Raising prices was one solution to cover the costs but doesn't that just start spiraling upward? Everything is then more expensive so the minimum wage is still not enough to cover the expenses.
Maybe if we're not able to make it so that the person who serves us our food can also afford to eat and have place to live then we don't deserve to have our food served to us.
Posts: 2880 | Registered: Jun 2004
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
"And I am utterly flabbergasted that no one is addressing your long list of apparent complaints against the US... half of which are utterly ludicrous conspiracy theories which by their very nature are unproven and cannot be proven."
Read Noam Chansky he provides sources, then there's Bowling for Columbine that provides the figures of how many died in America's little games with the people of south America.
Zhao says that yes they can move from province to province. Though she had to go back to work before I could ask if special permission was required.
"Are you insane!?"
No.
"Have you been to Tibet?"
Have you?
"Have you met elderly monks who had most of the bones in their body broken and all of their teeth shattered while spending time in Chinese internment camps? Have you met people who witnessed the slaughter that happened during the invasion? Are you familiar with the people, such as the Panchen Lama, who were kidnapped as children because they were supposedly incarnations of powerful religious figures? Children who have been held for fifteen, twenty years without being seen by anyone?"
Have you?
Next, what happened to them had happened mostly to religious people/bhuddist monks/nuns. It has nothing to do with what may or may not have happened to the Tibetan people, you yourself have not provided evidence to contradict my and wikipedia's assertion that Tibet was a slave based economic system, that it was roled by a theocratic aristocracy, that the people were dirt poor and with little future.
And you also have yet to refute that the lives of the Tibetan people now, the government in Beijing had finished construction of the worlds highest railway and other infastructure garanteeing Tibets economic future, monestaries are being reopened and nuns and monks are being trained.
You cannot to any reasonably proove that the lives of the chinese people would be better any other way nore can you disprove that their lives are improving as fast as the economy can allow.
"You know as well as I that emigrating from China is not possible."
Yes it is, I know plenty of Chinese people from Hong Kong and Canton who came here from China.
"I'm not exactly sure why Communist nations are the ones that do this on a routine basis. Other than a fear that the place would simply empty out because nobody wants to live like that."
Actually that isn't technically true, the iron curtain only came in place in the late forties, communism in russia had been around for years and years and the restrictions on emmigration were nowhere near as strict as they were later on.
Also I remember one notable case where soon to be Comedian Boris Yakov left the USSR in his youth to live a life in America. and this i think was in the 70's-80's.
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China has made some remarkable accomplishments, and in as much as the Chinese government manages to govern so large and diverse a group of people at all, it is a remarkable accomplishment as well.
However.
The "one nation" attitude of China towards Taiwan should not be ignored.
The treatment of Tibetans and members of the Falun Gong sect should not be condoned simply because they are religious practitioners,
and the reaction to the non-violent democracy assemblies at Tianmen square should not be lightly forgotten or forgiven.
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
Read Noam Chansky he provides sources, then there's Bowling for Columbine that provides the figures of how many died in America's little games with the people of south America.
If your ideas of reliable sources are Noam Chomsky and Michael freakin' Moore, then there's absolutely no point in continuing this angle of the discussion. Chomsky is a hack, and Moore is a hundred times worse than a hack.
"Are you insane!?"
No.
I'm glad.
"Have you been to Tibet?"
Have you?
Nope, although several relatives and many of my friends have.
"Have you met elderly monks who had most of the bones in their body broken and all of their teeth shattered while spending time in Chinese internment camps? Have you met people who witnessed the slaughter that happened during the invasion? Are you familiar with the people, such as the Panchen Lama, who were kidnapped as children because they were supposedly incarnations of powerful religious figures? Children who have been held for fifteen, twenty years without being seen by anyone?"
Have you?
I have indeed. Well, I haven't met the Panchen Lama, but that's because he is in all likelihood dead, and if not he's at least being held without trial in an undisclosed location. Still.
I've also spoken with an ex-drug smuggler, who spent several years smuggling religious texts and other religious materials across the border into Tibet. Had he been captured he would have been imprisoned indefinitely or killed, as some of his friends were. For smuggling the equivalent of a crucifix or maybe a few passages of the bible.
Next, what happened to them had happened mostly to religious people/bhuddist monks/nuns.
Oh of course. So torturing and murdering people is okay, if they're monks and nuns. I'll remember that.
It has nothing to do with what may or may not have happened to the Tibetan people, you yourself have not provided evidence to contradict my and wikipedia's assertion that Tibet was a slave based economic system, that it was roled by a theocratic aristocracy, that the people were dirt poor and with little future.
Not sure how you got that from Wikipedia. Saying that Tibet was slave based is simply false. Yes, it was ruled by a theocracy, and I would have fully supported a change in that rule, if the people wanted it. But the difference between Tibet and, say, Iraq (or China), is that the Dalai Lama didn't torture and slaughter anyone who might try to change the government. It underwent many changes before China invaded, and would no doubt have gone through many more.
And you also have yet to refute that the lives of the Tibetan people now, the government in Beijing had finished construction of the worlds highest railway and other infastructure garanteeing Tibets economic future, monestaries are being reopened and nuns and monks are being trained.
Yes, China's influence has helped their economy, specifically increased tourism. Not much to do there but support tourists or raise yaks, and now I suppose less people need to raise yaks.
Is reducing the number of yak farmers really worth slaughtering hundreds of thousands of innocent people?
I guess the answer to that question would be where we differ.
Posts: 3580 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Yes it is, I know plenty of Chinese people from Hong Kong and Canton who came here from China.
Um...so, under what circumstances did they leave China? And under what circumstances did they decide to stay?
Blayne, the fact of their presence here doesn't mean anything. Maybe they escaped, maybe they came before Hong Kong was returned to Chinese rule.
I asked you about an average citizen from Beijing wanting to leave the country. Yet you STILL haven't answered.
If you choose to ignore the question, just say so. But 1/2 truths and skirting the question is just annoying.
So answer this:
If an average citizen in the countryside wants to move to Beijing, can they just do it, or is there a process of official approval that has to happen first? When they do it, have they got the same rights as everyone else or are they treated as illegals? currently this problem is under "consideration"
And, if an average citizen of Beijing wants to visit another country, can they just march down to that country's embassy, apply for a visa and once they get it, then drive over to the airport and depart?
Like people can do in a FREE country?
Let's use a trip to America as the example.
Tell us precisely what you believe the process to be.
And don't be a worm and wriggle around the question. Just answer the question.
quote:then there's Bowling for Columbine that provides the figures of how many died in America's little games with the people of south America.
Anyone who uses Michael Moore for a source is delusional, at best.
Listen Blayne, I don't pretend to be an expert in this. But even knowing nothing I can tell that you're spouting total b.s. Michael Moore and people you've met online who claim to be chinese are not the sources you want to base your whole philosophy on. It seems you really are interested in the region. In fact, infatuation would probably be a better word. But before you try to pass yourself off as an expert I have some advice: Get thee to a library! Read books, newspapers, and trade journals. Any reputable firsthand sources will do. Read them once, make up you mind, and then read them again to extract all the relevant sources, quotes, and footnotes.
Posts: 5462 | Registered: Apr 2005
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
Mao: A life, by Philip Short,
China! Inside the People's Republic! By the committee of concerned North American scholars.
Great Leaders of the 20th Century: Mao Tse-tung
I forget the auther but it was published by penguin books, london ,england.
"After 1907, a treaty between Britain, China, and Russia recognized Chinese sovereignty over Tibet."
"Neither the Nationalist government of the Republic of China nor the People's Republic of China has ever renounced China's claim to sovereignty over Tibet. In 1950 the People's Liberation Army entered Tibet, crushing the largely ceremonial Tibetan army and destroying as many as 6,000 Tibetan temples. In 1951 the Plan for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet, a treaty signed under Chinese pressure by representatives of the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama, provided for rule by a joint Chinese-Tibetan authority. Most of the population of Tibet at that time were peasants, working lands owned by the estate holders. Any attempt at land reform or the redistribution of wealth would have proved unpopular with the government. This agreement was initially put into effect in Tibet proper. However, Eastern Kham and Amdo were outside the administration of the government of Tibet, and were thus treated like any other Chinese province with land reform implemented in full. As a result, a rebellion broke out in Amdo and eastern Kham in June of 1956. The rebellion, supported by the American CIA, eventually spread to Lhasa. It was crushed by 1959, during which campaign tens of thousands of Tibetans were killed. The 14th Dalai Lama and other government principals fled to exile in India, but isolated resistance continued in Tibet until 1969."
Ok when a people rebel, expect some casualties.
As for Bowling For Columbine its been often regarded as his BETTER documentary by most people here.
While I think Noam's views in regards to Israel is extreme, nevertheless I see nothing made up about his sources or figures in regards to America's international terrorism in various south and central American countries, and I'm pretty sure its common knowledge as well, that you may never have heard of it tells that you probly never reserched the matter yourself.
"And, if an average citizen of Beijing wants to visit another country, can they just march down to that country's embassy, apply for a visa and once they get it, then drive over to the airport and depart?"
Yes, I know several who are hear receiving a education at my very college, 1 or 2 is even from Vietnam.
"Like people can do in a FREE country?" I haven't found yet whether is this is true or not yet I'll answer once I find out.
As for whats under consideration with migrants the fact that their own system is going through the moves of considering it shows that they are like most other governments, they set up a certain policy for X reasons and when decades later it's nolonger feasible they go about and rather democratically discussing if it should be changed and if it has to be changed they change it.
"Anyone who uses Michael Moore for a source is delusional, at best." I'm just saying that it gave quick figures about ow many south american's died in the regimes that America set up to overthrow democratically elected governments. I can provide another source as soon as its convenient.
"Saying that Tibet was slave based is simply false." How so? May I see a link please.
And I don't pass my self off as an expert, have I ever said so?
What I get tired of seeing everyday is seeing people gang up and critisize China unfairly, I did my reserch and try my best to provide a counter to do so.
But quit frankly you can't argue about ethical or moral standards in regards to geopolitics, each nation does its best to act towards their best interests, England had massacred the Irish on occasion, American's took away the land from the Indians and the Spandiards killed millions of people in South America and enslaved them.
Canada even has enacted laws to make it illegal for Quebec to separate, where's the denounciation of Canada? Chechnya wants to separate but Russia isn't letting them, but now oh, I c, they're allies now so we better not bother them.
The reason why people critisize China is because China is a developing nation that can and will rival the USA in the region and the USA has been doing what it can to limit or detract it without actually starting a war.
Washington's stance on these issues is trasparent, they're keeping these issues in the grey so that if war ever coems around they can use it as propoganda, if China was to suddenly become America's ally I can sure tell you that these discussions will disappear and be replaced by America's next enemy #1.
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quote: if China was to suddenly become America's ally I can sure tell you that these discussions will disappear and be replaced by America's next enemy #1.
I don't see China becoming America's ally any time soon. Do you?
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:Canada even has enacted laws to make it illegal for Quebec to separate, where's the denounciation of Canada?
That's a gross mischaracterization.
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
what do you mean? I read on an offical canadian government site, that laws were recently changed to make it as difficult as possible for quebec t sepaate now it takes a 90% majroity plus weeks if not years of negotiations for even a possibility for Quebec to separate.
"I don't see China becoming America's ally any time soon. Do you?"
Doesn't change the fact that if they were a ally we wouldn't be complaining.
If ROC had one they would've still have reclaimed Tibet ad they're wouldnt be an issue with Taiwan.
Also actually there are two possible ways in which Sino-US relations could go. Ever since the One China policy and the 1978 economic reforms relations have been improving dispite ups and downs, HoS for both nations have seen each other recently, think tanks from west point and the beijing academy of sciences have visited each other.
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