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a liberal paradise

tsst

tsst

Deuce is watching!
“ A liberal paradise would be a place where everybody has :

guaranteed employment,

free comprehensive healthcare,

free education,

free food,

free housing,

free clothing,

free utilities,

and

only law enforcement has guns.

--------------------------

Believe it or not, such a place does indeed exist !

It's called prison. ”

– Author Unknown
 
Why does everyone assume all Liberals are left wing extremists?

Free Healthcare?

Most just want it to be affordable. Don't think it's ridiculous? An emergency flight from one hospital to another 200 miles away cost a coworker $30,000. Yes an emergency flight is expensive, but it's nothing close to a year's salary expensive. Health insurance? It can cost half a person's paycheck just to pay for insurance on a family of four.

The girlfriend needs surgery because of an accident. I can't cover her with my insurance because we're not married and I would have to drop out of school just to afford private health insurance (not to mention the deductibles and "Pre-existing condition" bull). She can't find a job because unemployment here is 30% and we can't leave because of my job. It's literally only because of the Affordable Care Act that we can get her the surgery she needs.

The funny part is, I don't actually agree with the ACA. I think it's an ineffective solution to a big problem. But it's not just an effort to get everything free, there are people who have a NEED for it and not just because they're lazy.

Free Education?

How about not having to put ones self in debt for 20 years just to get a decent job. The roommate loved paying $40,000 in education just to make $30,000 as a teacher. I love paying $200 for a textbook that contains less information than one from Barnes and Nobles for $50.

Not to mention the positive effect education has not only on the people educated, but the society they live with. An educated society has less crime, less violence and better morale. As a single male taxpayer with no kids, it irks me every time I see the property tax bill and realize I pay more toward schools than someone else with 5 kids! But I also realize that I'm investing in a future society that has fewer gang bangers and burger flippers.

I have a left wing family and right wing friends. Most of the difference is in how they view other people. Bring up Welfare or Socialized medicine and the left winger see's John the disabled guy, or Joe who got laid off and is now working two minimum wage jobs to feed his family.

Right Wingers see Frank lying about his back so the government won't stop sendign him checks, or Bob who refuses to get a job because his girlfriend's food stamps cover the food.

The funny part about the whole thing is that both sides are right. ALL of those people exist. Instead of working together to solve the logistics, we just assume the other side wants exactly what we don't. Both sides have good ideas and bad but for some reason we always focus on putting the other team down.
 
LazyLemming said:
... left wing and right wing ... Most of the difference is in how they view other people. Bring up Welfare or Socialized medicine and the left winger see's John the disabled guy, or Joe who got laid off and is now working two minimum wage jobs to feed his family.

Right Wingers see Frank lying about his back so the government won't stop sendign him checks, or Bob who refuses to get a job because his girlfriend's food stamps cover the food.

The funny part about the whole thing is that both sides are right. ALL of those people exist. Instead of working together to solve the logistics, we just assume the other side wants exactly what we don't. Both sides have good ideas and bad but for some reason we always focus on putting the other team down.
Click to expand...

Well said.
 
LazyLemming said:
Why does everyone assume all Liberals are left wing extremists?
Click to expand...

Unfortunately the extremes at both sides seem to have the loudest microphones right now.

As you alluded to, the OP is a caricature of liberals. Sure there are some whackos, but there are plenty on the right, too.
 
Blue Apple Herps said:
... Sure there are some whackos, but there are plenty on the right, too.
Click to expand...
I agree. I no more want the extreme right than the left. As a libertarian independent constitution believing mutt, I want as little "politician" in our lives as possible.
 
I have heard many times that once elected, a congressman or senator spends more time fundraising than all other duties combined. It's become all about money and reelection, not serving their district. Whether Rep or Dem, they have the same job -to stay in office. Until this changes, nothing else gets "fixed."
 
Our(America's) political system is broken to say the least. Conservative, liberal, they both have their down sides. Both parties spend too much time mud slinging the other and not enough time dealing with issues that MATTER.
 
What I would like is for our politicians, every single one, to be paid minimum wage. If they think other people can live on that much, so can they.

They should also only be paid for days and hours they actually work. No bonuses, no raises unless they also raise the minimum wage for everyone.
 
Raising the minimum wage would be disastrous for the economy. At least 80% of economists think so. It simply raises the price of goods and deflates the dollar.
 
Minimum wage was raised from $8 to $10 in the city I live in. Jobs were not lost, prices did not go up an appreciable amount if at all. When it was being voted on, we got told that companies would fire people, or leave the city, and that prices would skyrocket. Scare tactics.

$10/hr at 40 hrs/wk is still well below the poverty line. In San Jose, rent on a 2 bedroom appt is often $1800/month or more. If you share that with another person, and pay half the rent, a little over half your income goes to rent, leaving you with $10,000 per YEAR to pay for food, clothes, gas, utilities, health insurance, car insurance, car registration and repair, etc. It's ridiculous. You can't live on it.
 
We admit that the chances of cannibalism is corns is fairly slim, but we don't want to take the risk. Cohabbing also only benefits YOU, not the snakes. Raising minimum wage so people can *live* on one job, or at least one full time and one part time job, helps a multitude of people. The benefit to that isn't selfish.

Instead, the way people are paid now is more equivalent to cohabbing; companies want more and more profit. They aren't happy with a good amount of profit, they want MORE, always MORE so they pay their workers next to nothing. They want to save money, they want to save space... just like someone cramming several snakes into the same tank.

The prices at the corporation I used to work for were often double that of private veterinary hospitals, despite paying the same sort of rent (similar locations), despite the same costs for goods, despite providing the same services and products.

At my corporation, as a licensed veterinary technician with 7 years experience as a tech, I was making $12.50/hr. At a private practice, I could have been making $17/hr.

So why is it that a corporation that pays its workers significantly less has to jack up prices so high?

Because all they care about is the almighty dollar.
 
Chip said:
I cohabbed my snakes and nothing went wrong.
Click to expand...

Heh... that was a creative answer!

Raising minimum wage in a single city is a far cry from raising on a federal level. A McDonalds may have to pay it's employees more, but it can't really change it's prices to compensate because it's a franchise and prices are set by some guy 3 states away. Only the franchise owner is going to feel it.

Just because businesses didn't close down (That you know of) doesn't mean the economy isn't feeling it anyways. How many employees were laid off or had their hours cut? How many services got cut because it wasn't profitable enough?

The very basics of the problem is that minimum wage will always be MINIMUM wage. Those people will ALWAYS be making bottom of the barrel rates and the economy will always compensate so that it's not good enough to live off of.

Basically raising the minimum wage has the same sentiment I feel for the ACA. It's a wonderful thought but it's a failure as a solution. It won't really do much for the people it's supposed to help. Chip's point is that most economists (guys who are supposed to understand all this stuff) feel similar.
 
If your labor costs more, your cost of producing good increases. This expense is passed on through price increases.
 
Shiari said:
At my corporation, as a licensed veterinary technician with 7 years experience as a tech, I was making $12.50/hr. At a private practice, I could have been making $17/hr.

So why is it that a corporation that pays its workers significantly less has to jack up prices so high?

Because all they care about is the almighty dollar.
Click to expand...

Why would raising the minimum wage change what they care about? If they HAD to start paying $15 per hour, the corporation is just going to raise it's prices.

For a single business, that's no big deal. You can shop elsewhere or really a little more in veterinary bills won't kill a person's budget.

Now imagine when the farmers raise prices because workers are more expensive. The gas stations raise prices because their workers got more expensive. The truckers taking the produce raise prices because gas went up. The distributors raise prices because their paying more for the produce and to ship it. The grocery store raises prices because they're paying more for the produce AND for the employees.

Suddenly that extra $2.50 an hour is useless. Not to mention the people working at the private clinic are now paying more for everything, despite not seeing a pay increase!

There's certainly a wealth problem in this country. Denying that is blindness. But simply saying "Well you HAVE to pay employees more" isn't going to change that.
 
As I said, there were no appreciable job cuts (places are hiring, actually). And I've seen no change in services.

The economists said that San Jose would go through massive job loss and significant price increases. They were wrong.
 
LazyLemming said:
Why would raising the minimum wage change what they care about? If they HAD to start paying $15 per hour, the corporation is just going to raise it's prices.
Click to expand...

Because they don't want to make profit, they want to make ALL the profit.

If a private clinic can pay more than a corporation, despite all the same operating costs (except for paying a CEO ridiculous amounts of money), it's making my point for me.

The corporation I work for raises prices every year to a ridiculous degree. Two years ago, a phyiscal exam was $50. It is now $65. Bloodwork that used to cost $116 is now $160. The number one complaint against them is their prices. Average exam at a private practice is around $40. That $160 bloodwork costs about $80 elsewhere. Even our $38 rabies vaccine is done for $20 at almost any other place.

Not a single person got a raise. Our district manager lied to our faces when she told us 'lay-staff' at a town-hall style meeting that 2010 was the only year no one got raises. All us oldies stood up and began announcing the fact that most of us hadn't gotten raises in 5 or more years. The first raise I got was a whopping 15 cents an hour, 3 years after I was first hired. Then when the company did an internal census on their staff, I got bumped up to tech pay because that was the job I had been doing. And I finally got a "raise" when I asked to transfer to another hospital because the one I was working at was driving me crazy.

Three raises in 13 years. We didn't even get cost of living raises. Simply nothing while prices went up and up and up and up. More profit for the CEO, nothing for the workers. No upgrades to the hospital. I've been using 15 year old equipment on a regular basis. It's crappy stuff and constantly breaking down, but they won't spend some of their amazing profits on a new machine.
 
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