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Right, but the median income for the family (i.e., the ulative wages of both parents) is $55,000 a year. That's just not a lot of money.
Not sure why I need to address your strawman. Feel free to keep beating him up. Not all Trump party people are racist, but most white racists are in the Trump party. The Trump party officials quoted were more than happy to use the rank and file racism to their political advantage.
That isn't a goal post move, that is simply adding data.
But, I can see why you might object.
It shows:
1) Trump party didn't care about the merits of the policies proposed, just the politics.
2) Trump party was happy to bash the "Kenyan" in the white house for votes from racists.
Right, but the median income for the family (i.e., the ulative wages of both parents) is $55,000 a year. That's just not a lot of money.
It's common for people who feel this way to be one of those who have a low paying job. People who are doing the reaching out are often not the ones with something to offer.
But they thought it was ok to have 2 kids.
Show the statistics to support that claim.
That is the common dishonest claim on the part of conservatives. "they are wasting their money on cell phones, and are rich enough to have microwaves, so they must not need help paying their bills". It is an emotional argument, made to make people like DMC feel superior and smug. Unfortunately, it lacks any real evidence or definitional relevance. Pablum for the converted, and unconvincing to anyone who understands economics, which is why no serious academic papers can be found on the subject, but plenty of clips from talking heads can be.Not sure if you're passive aggressively referring to me, but it's not like I'm assuming these families buy the same overpriced clothes/food that I buy, I'm just talking about basic living expenses.
They're still paying for gas and car-related expenses (way more than I pay if they're living in a rural area since I walked to work back when I actually had to come into the office and I didn't have a loan on my car), still paying mortgage/homeowners insurance/property taxes if they own a house, but the biggest thing that makes no sense to me is how they can support two kids on $55,000 a year.
For all the unnecessary that I buy, I'd still think a kid is going to cost more. Diapers, baby formula, daycare (if both parents are working), a bunch of clothes that don't last very long before he/she grows out of them, school supplies, food, etc.
... and there it is.
So the iPhone is racist too?
lol I said that before your post, stop acting like you predicted anything dip
I don't need to quantify . You're not going to solve anything when I do. You're going to go right back to the racism/victim schtick. The numbers exist, flesh it out yourself you self righteous prick.
Exactly. You throw out baseless claims then demand stats when someone else does as if you're somehow going to provide a legit rebuttal instead of autistic screeching.
Unfortunately, I was in the middle of typing mine and didn't refresh the page until posting. Didn't see yours until after I posted mine.
Predictable to the last. Hostility, vacuousness, and no serious attempt at examining things you think are true.
You realize that this "autistic screeching" is your words, copied and pasted, word for word, right?
Of course. Having someone parrot you is the very essence of autism.You realize that this "autistic screeching" is your words, copied and pasted, word for word, right?
Yeah I'm not making excuses for that, I'm 100% on board with the idea that you shouldn't have kids if you can't afford them (I question it when Conservatives claim to be but they want to restrict access to birth control/PP/abortions/etc., but you don't strike me as that type), all I'm speaking to is the comment about whether 40% of America lives in poverty.
I don't think 40% of the country is living in full fledged poverty (the numbers also don't suggest it), but a family of four making $55k a year isn't very far from poverty. There's definitely no money being saved for retirement or for the kids to go to college, the family is always going to be one unexpected medical bill or car repair away from needing a payday loan, and they're buying ty, unhealthy groceries at WalMart because it's all they can afford (there's your obesity problem).
To be clear, some liberals definitely have a delusional vision about how the median American should be able to walk into a strip club and start throwing 100s around without a care in the world. It's definitely never going to be the case that the median American drives an Audi, buys their groceries at Whole Foods and their clothes at Neiman Marcus and takes a 2 week trip to the French Riviera every summer. The more realistic scenario and what IMO is indicative of a health middle class is a median family of four that makes ~$80k a year, has a savings account, 401(k), and can afford to occasionally spend money on entertainment.
Being the economic expert you are though, wouldn't the rise in median income simply fuel inflation so that the effective income level would be the same?
And congratulations to Federer: 100 les (20 of them Grand Slams)!
Not sure if this is sarcastic
I'm assuming your question is based off the premise that the cost of increased income would be passed onto the customer (and thus fuel inflation). I think the answer is yes there would be inflation but not so much that it completely negates the purchasing power created by the higher wages. Even if a company increased prices to completely offset the cost of increased labor such that the same levels of profitability are maintained, the cost to the customer isn't increasing by the same percentage that wages are increasing by. Most of Walmart's expenses, for example, come from cost of goods sold. COGs are undoubtedly somewhat affected by the cost of labor in transporting/warehousing supplies (plus labor costs of walmart suppliers), but it's far from a 1:1 correlation.
I think the more worrisome and valid argument is that higher wages increase the push for automation.
People don't realize how many jobs (and not just low skill jobs, medium skill jobs too) are going to be automated in the next 50 years because of digitization, AI, etc. There's a new product that can not only make McDonalds quality burgers from scratch but can also make better quality, gourmet burgers from scratch that you typically have to go to some y overpriced restaurant that chargers $20 for a burger to get, and there's already kiosks at some restaurants where you can place the order yourself. Before you know it, walking into McDonalds will consist of entering your order into a system that can ping the burger making software to make your order and then spit it out at the pick up window, with probably 1-2 tech guys and a manager at the store just to make sure things are operating smoothly.
Automation is what we really need to be solving for imo.
Andrew Yang's solution: UBINot sure if this is sarcastic
I'm assuming your question is based off the premise that the cost of increased income would be passed onto the customer (and thus fuel inflation). I think the answer is yes there would be inflation but not so much that it completely negates the purchasing power created by the higher wages. Even if a company increased prices to completely offset the cost of increased labor such that the same levels of profitability are maintained, the cost to the customer isn't increasing by the same percentage that wages are increasing by. Most of Walmart's expenses, for example, come from cost of goods sold. COGs are undoubtedly somewhat affected by the cost of labor in transporting/warehousing supplies (plus labor costs of walmart suppliers), but it's far from a 1:1 correlation.
I think the more worrisome and valid argument is that higher wages increase the push for automation.
People don't realize how many jobs (and not just low skill jobs, medium skill jobs too) are going to be automated in the next 50 years because of digitization, AI, etc. There's a new product that can not only make McDonalds quality burgers from scratch but can also make better quality, gourmet burgers from scratch that you typically have to go to some y overpriced restaurant that chargers $20 for a burger to get, and there's already kiosks at some restaurants where you can place the order yourself. Before you know it, walking into McDonalds will consist of entering your order into a system that can ping the burger making software to make your order and then spit it out at the pick up window, with probably 1-2 tech guys and a manager at the store just to make sure things are operating smoothly.
Automation is what we really need to be solving for imo.
I can’t understand why more people don’t acknowledge this or care to think about it. Whenever I mention this irl, I usually get an eye roll and a quick dismissal. It’s like everyone associates “robot” with some big metal contraption from a 50s sci fi novel. And AI? I don’t think any significant % of the public grasps the ramifications of the gains being made. What’s disturbing is that surely most politicians know this is coming. But very little is being said about it.
Most politicians are old and not as tech-savy/knowledgeable as most on this board. And it's hard to rail against robots.
Not sarcastic.Not sure if this is sarcastic
I'm assuming your question is based off the premise that the cost of increased income would be passed onto the customer (and thus fuel inflation). I think the answer is yes there would be inflation but not so much that it completely negates the purchasing power created by the higher wages. Even if a company increased prices to completely offset the cost of increased labor such that the same levels of profitability are maintained, the cost to the customer isn't increasing by the same percentage that wages are increasing by. Most of Walmart's expenses, for example, come from cost of goods sold. COGs are undoubtedly somewhat affected by the cost of labor in transporting/warehousing supplies (plus labor costs of walmart suppliers), but it's far from a 1:1 correlation.
I think the more worrisome and valid argument is that higher wages increase the push for automation.
People don't realize how many jobs (and not just low skill jobs, medium skill jobs too) are going to be automated in the next 50 years because of digitization, AI, etc. There's a new product that can not only make McDonalds quality burgers from scratch but can also make better quality, gourmet burgers from scratch that you typically have to go to some y overpriced restaurant that chargers $20 for a burger to get, and there's already kiosks at some restaurants where you can place the order yourself. Before you know it, walking into McDonalds will consist of entering your order into a system that can ping the burger making software to make your order and then spit it out at the pick up window, with probably 1-2 tech guys and a manager at the store just to make sure things are operating smoothly.
Automation is what we really need to be solving for imo.
I don't think automation is something you solve for. I think it is the solution. People have to evolve past the "good enough" level of skill and adaptation. Being a jack of all trades with shade tree mechanic knowledge is going to eventually land you jobless. Those jobs are fewer and fewer these days. Still, a person with the savvy to pick up those skills can enhance them targeted education based on forecasted demand. Perhaps if people didnt' pick their own careers, but tested out and got grants to pursue needed trades they could actually do, that would go a long way toward filling the employment needs of both sides. We won't do that though, it interferes with our ability to select liberal art degrees and become baristas and about income.
Last edited by DMC; 03-02-2019 at 02:17 PM.
Yeah he's far from the first guy to propose a UBI.
I'm sure you think it's a stupid idea, and I def don't agree with it as a here and now type thing, but 50 years from now when the economy is producing the same (or more) in goods and services per capita as it does now, except that it's able to do so with only a fraction of the human capital that it currently takes, how do you propose we deal with the billions of people who won't have any skills or abilities to earn money anymore? Should they just wallow in poverty because they weren't able to compete with artificial intelligence?
I'd still prefer we simply cut the hours of a standard work week such that everyone is contributing, even if it's only for 20 hours a week, but even then, an economy where there are tens of millions of completely able-bodied people in their 20s, 30s and 40s who can't find work no matter what cycle the economy is in is closer than you realize. I'm all for allowing Jeff Bezos to reap the reward and have exponentially more money than he'll ever need, but society isn't getting enough of a benefit from automation/AI as it should be.
Last edited by Will Hunting; 03-02-2019 at 02:50 PM.
Not saying 40% are in poverty.
40% are a single missed bill from bankruptcy or homelessness. It is expensive to be poor, and those people simply don't have any cash cushion for any unexpected shock, like a medical bill.
This is why one of the leading causes of bankruptcy is... medical bills. That carries a cost to the rest of us, when people default on other debts.
Agreed completely, but the industrial revolution showed us that government needs to play a significant role in making sure massive gains in worker productivity / technological advances benefit all of society instead of just those who own the means of production. What we're seeing now (a company like Amazon worth almost $1 trillion pays virtually no taxes and has warehouse workers make the same ty $25k a year that the cashier at Border's Book Store made despite the fact Amazon put Borders out of business because its $25k a year warehouse worker is exponentially more productive than the Border's cashier was) is a repeat of the industrial revolution when we still had child labor and 14 hour shifts in dangerous working conditions despite the fact worker productivity was skyrocketing and the factory owners had more than enough income to provide improved working conditions.
As I said in my last post, Bezos is the one who created the logistics network and systems that have led to Amazon's warehouse workers being so much more productive than the Border's cashier (despite being similarly unskilled), so this isn't some Marxist opinion about how the factory worker should reap the same reward he does, but the benefit of increased production shouldn't be flowing completely to those who own the means of production, which is effectively what happens without government intervention.
In terms of how people need to evolve, no arguments in terms of here and now reasons why someone can't find work despite an economy at <4% unemployment, but I don't think that changes what I said about 50 years from now. At some point the medium skill, trade jobs that are in high demand now will also go through a phase of automation.
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