Vampyr Posted June 27, 2014 Report Share Posted June 27, 2014 I was thinking thjat maybe Vamp's post about breeding was a sarcastic comment, taking my post to its own logical conclusion. No, all species will breed until they have maxed out their resources. And then there is the stuff about printing food. Yeah, if food is ever going to be synthesised on a large scale, the printers would not be relevant; the huge vats In which to create the nutrient-rich whatever would be the useful technology; however, B-) bringing the raw materials and the energy required to create artificial food cannot, in any way that I can see, ever be cheaper or easier than bringing actual food. There is already a way to transport food in its lightest and smallest form. Powdered eggs, raisins and other dried fruits, meat jerky etc. You can take out the water, but what remains is a foodstuff that cannot be made any denser or lighter and still retain its value in nutrients, fiber etc. So to create, for example, an egg-like substance, the raw materials would have to be at least as heavy and fill at least as much volume as a powdered egg, and making the latter would require a lot less energy than forming the components from other chemicals. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Antrax Posted June 27, 2014 Report Share Posted June 27, 2014 Try to accept it though; much healthier that way.You don't seem to get it. This isn't a snark contest. It doesn't matter how much wit you use to coat ignorance, you still end up being wrong. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vampyr Posted June 27, 2014 Report Share Posted June 27, 2014 You don't seem to get it. This isn't a snark contest. It doesn't matter how much wit you use to coat ignorance, you still end up being wrong. LOL I am "ignorant" and "wrong" because I think that your predictions for the future are fanciful and impractical? Speaking of predictions of the future, where are my jetboots? My hovercar? I was supposed to have them long before 2014, and I want them NOW! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Antrax Posted June 27, 2014 Report Share Posted June 27, 2014 No, because you insist on generic sniping instead of replying to the heart of the matter. You can do it for every issue, it's borderline trolling. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vampyr Posted June 27, 2014 Report Share Posted June 27, 2014 Right. Now I get to find out how the "ignore" function works. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barmar Posted June 27, 2014 Report Share Posted June 27, 2014 Please be civil. We've already had one person complain about a personal attack against him in this thread, I don't want any more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kenberg Posted June 27, 2014 Report Share Posted June 27, 2014 I am thinking I might need a guide to this whole thread, maybe starting with his quote, as to what is serious and what isn't. I was thinking thjat maybe Vamp's post about breeding was a sarcastic comment, taking my post to its own logical conclusion. No, all species will breed until they have maxed out their resources. Thanks for clarifying. I generally hold my tongue on the subject of having children. Obviously it is a very personal choice. Also obviously, what is a personal choice for individuals has, in the large, consequences for society. It's tricky. Better, more secure, living conditions often lead to smaller family sizes though. Anyway, I will stick with what I think is the less controversial claim that society simply will not support a program that envisions long term support for a great many people without some plan as to how to get the supported ones to eventually (perhaps somewhat long term but intended to be finite) need less support. At least in the cultural environment that I inhabit, adults are expected to largely take care of themselves, and if they cannot do so then they are expected to see how, somehow in the future, they can come to do so. Exceptions are made for those in exceptional circumstances. I don't expect to see this attitude change anytime soon. But for 2100, I make no serious claim for predictive abilities. A note about tone: I think these highly speculative questions are the ones most apt top lead to difficulties. No one knows what the world will be like in 2100. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PassedOut Posted June 27, 2014 Report Share Posted June 27, 2014 To a life-long businessman like me, one of the most infuriating arguments of all is that raising the US minimum raise will damage the economy. Nick Hanauer has an article in politico that is right on the mark: The Pitchforks Are Coming… For Us Plutocrats The most ironic thing about rising inequality is how completely unnecessary and self-defeating it is. If we do something about it, if we adjust our policies in the way that, say, Franklin D. Roosevelt did during the Great Depression—so that we help the 99 percent and preempt the revolutionaries and crazies, the ones with the pitchforks—that will be the best thing possible for us rich folks, too. It’s not just that we’ll escape with our lives; it’s that we’ll most certainly get even richer. The model for us rich guys here should be Henry Ford, who realized that all his autoworkers in Michigan weren’t only cheap labor to be exploited; they were consumers, too. Ford figured that if he raised their wages, to a then-exorbitant $5 a day, they’d be able to afford his Model Ts. What a great idea. My suggestion to you is: Let’s do it all over again. We’ve got to try something. These idiotic trickle-down policies are destroying my customer base. And yours too.If the minimum wage goes up for everyone, no business can gain a competitive edge by abusing its employees with starvation wages. I'd like to see a national minimum wage even higher than $15 an hour. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gwnn Posted June 27, 2014 Report Share Posted June 27, 2014 Enough food produced. from here. Other similar supporting evidence here(at least 2,720 kCal per person per day produced already).Interesting, thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Winstonm Posted June 27, 2014 Report Share Posted June 27, 2014 To a life-long businessman like me, one of the most infuriating arguments of all is that raising the US minimum raise will damage the economy. Nick Hanauer has an article in politico that is right on the mark: The Pitchforks Are Coming… For Us Plutocrats If the minimum wage goes up for everyone, no business can gain a competitive edge by abusing its employees with starvation wages. I'd like to see a national minimum wage even higher than $15 an hour. It is so refreshing to me to see a conservative state views that are based on reason rather than magical beliefs. Upvoted. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vampyr Posted June 28, 2014 Report Share Posted June 28, 2014 It is so refreshing to me to see a conservative state views that are based on reason rather than magical beliefs. Upvoted. A potential problem is that a higher minimum wage might tip the balance, in some companies, toward developing/introducing more automated systems, thus eliminating jobs. I don't know how big a factor this would be. Can a McDonalds be run entirely by machine? It doesn't seem impossible. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kenberg Posted June 28, 2014 Report Share Posted June 28, 2014 The thing I like about a proposal to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour is that I can imagine a sensible discussion of its merits. I think it's not a good idea, but, unlike eliminating poverty in 2100, I think it is discussable. It's not just a matter of all employers facing the same law. Some, probably many, services are optional. I often go out for a cup of coffee at Starbucks. It's two bucks, so I sort of wonder why I do this. But I know some of the people and I enjoy the place, so I do it. I have long ago given up going to a bar for a scotch and soda. The price is too high for what I get. At some point, if the price of a cup of coffeee at Starbucks goes up further, Iwill just drink my coffee at home. The fact that Caribou may have increased the price to a similar amount will be irrelevant. I can take a case more important to me. I think I have mentioned that my younger daughter is a part owner and manager of a boarding kennel for dogs and cats. The recession hurt them It didn't put them out of business but it hurt them. The reason is simple. People started thinking about taking their dogs with them or leaving their dogs with friends, etc. They hire student help at the kennel. I don't kow what they pay them but I seriously doubt that it is 15 dollars an hour. If they did so, they would have to raise their prices. So would other boarding kennels, that much is true, but people have other options. In one case I know a neighbor kid comes in every day and spends some time with the dog. Or the dog visits a home where there are other dogs. Or just another home. Someone asked us recently if we could care for a dog for a couple of weeks. Setting prices is not just about competition between service providers. It also has to do with whether the public will find the service affordable. If not, the service goes out of business. This may not be an issue for some, but it is for me. I would rather focus on why adults end up in a minimum wage job. At an early age, 13 or 14, I held a job stacking stuff in a grocery store. Minimum wage was 75 cents an hour which is comparable, but slightly less when adjusted for inflation, to the current minimum. I was paid 60 cents an hour. I soon quit. As near as I can recall, that is the last minimum (or below) wage job I ever held. Rather than worry about exactly what the minimum wage is (I favor raising it, but not to 15), I think we should think about just why it is that so many people cannot move beyond a minimum wage job. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vampyr Posted June 28, 2014 Report Share Posted June 28, 2014 I think we should think about just why it is that so many people cannot move beyond a minimum wage job. What jobs are there? Factiories have traditionally provided large numbers of people with jobs with decent wages, but I don't see how anything but a punitive system of tariffs could bring/return manufacturing jobs to the US. Or to the UK. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PassedOut Posted June 28, 2014 Report Share Posted June 28, 2014 Setting prices is not just about competition between service providers. It also has to do with whether the public will find the service affordable. If not, the service goes out of business. This may not be an issue for some, but it is for me.The point is that with many more people having disposable income, there will be many more people in a position to enjoy the goods and services available. [but if Seattle now falls upon hard times because of the $15 minimum wage, it will show that you were right. If they continue to prosper, as I expect they will, it will show the opposite.] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Winstonm Posted June 28, 2014 Report Share Posted June 28, 2014 A potential problem is that a higher minimum wage might tip the balance, in some companies, toward developing/introducing more automated systems, thus eliminating jobs. I don't know how big a factor this would be. Can a McDonalds be run entirely by machine? It doesn't seem impossible. I think that is a fanciful stretch. A real problem (IMO) of the far right wing mentality (i.e., Randian thinking:PS not accusing you of this ;) ) is that humans can be grouped into two camps: them and us, or doers and takers as a more Randian expression. But humans are more complex and do not fit nicely into two categories - there is all manner of intelligence and not everyone is capable of the same types of activities (some quite high IQ individuals are totally hopeless in doing such things as washing clothes or changing a flat tire or hammering a nail). New educational evidence has shown that learning is quite individualized - and one-size-fits-all thinking does not work. In 1993 Ravi Batra (economics professor at SMU) wrote a daring book (daring because he opposed the mainstream economic thinking) where he admitted that he had changed his own viewpoint about free trade and predicted that free trade would turn the US into a country of service industry jobs rather than manufacturing jobs, and this would lower the standard of living for the middle class. Here we are 21 years later and bingo. John Nash, as portrayed by Russell Crowe in A Beautiful Mind, described Adam Smith's thoughts as "incomplete", that what is best for the individual is to make decisions based on what is best for the group. The very real John Nash won a Nobel Prize for this revelation. What is best for capitalism is a strong and viable consumer, made possible by a vibrant and strong middle class. This does not happen as a bi-product of capitalism but must be a societal choice enacted by political policies and enforced by government mandate. When it comes to unselfish behavior, sometimes we must be forced to learn what is in our own best interests, just as are children forced to learn the same lesson of sharing wealth. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Winstonm Posted June 28, 2014 Report Share Posted June 28, 2014 The thing I like about a proposal to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour is that I can imagine a sensible discussion of its merits. I think it's not a good idea, but, unlike eliminating poverty in 2100, I think it is discussable. It's not just a matter of all employers facing the same law. Some, probably many, services are optional. I often go out for a cup of coffee at Starbucks. It's two bucks, so I sort of wonder why I do this. But I know some of the people and I enjoy the place, so I do it. I have long ago given up going to a bar for a scotch and soda. The price is too high for what I get. At some point, if the price of a cup of coffeee at Starbucks goes up further, Iwill just drink my coffee at home. The fact that Caribou may have increased the price to a similar amount will be irrelevant. I can take a case more important to me. I think I have mentioned that my younger daughter is a part owner and manager of a boarding kennel for dogs and cats. The recession hurt them It didn't put them out of business but it hurt them. The reason is simple. People started thinking about taking their dogs with them or leaving their dogs with friends, etc. They hire student help at the kennel. I don't kow what they pay them but I seriously doubt that it is 15 dollars an hour. If they did so, they would have to raise their prices. So would other boarding kennels, that much is true, but people have other options. In one case I know a neighbor kid comes in every day and spends some time with the dog. Or the dog visits a home where there are other dogs. Or just another home. Someone asked us recently if we could care for a dog for a couple of weeks. Setting prices is not just about competition between service providers. It also has to do with whether the public will find the service affordable. If not, the service goes out of business. This may not be an issue for some, but it is for me. I would rather focus on why adults end up in a minimum wage job. At an early age, 13 or 14, I held a job stacking stuff in a grocery store. Minimum wage was 75 cents an hour which is comparable, but slightly less when adjusted for inflation, to the current minimum. I was paid 60 cents an hour. I soon quit. As near as I can recall, that is the last minimum (or below) wage job I ever held. Rather than worry about exactly what the minimum wage is (I favor raising it, but not to 15), I think we should think about just why it is that so many people cannot move beyond a minimum wage job. Ken, I suggest a read of "The Myth of Free Trade" to answer this last question. In order for people to move into higher paying jobs, those jobs must first exist. In our recent past, high-school educated individuals could earn a quite reasonable living at jobs with Ma Bell, or GM, or Ford, or any of the many manufacturers. Today, our society is much more binary, with high-end, high skill jobs that pay well and service jobs, which pay little in comparison. We also have a glut of unemployed - currently I believe it is 3 applicants for every job and that is down from where it was. Economies run not on supply but on demand - but the two are closely connected and easily confused. If no one could afford an Apple product, it would not matter how neat those products are - supply fills a demand, either actual or latent. Edsel showed that supply by itself does not produce satisfying results without an underlying demand. Edit: Btw, I am coming to the notion that a large part of the problem is the drive for profit-at-all-cost created by public stocks. I have some experience in this. Many years ago I worked for the Boyd Gaming Corporation in Las Vegas when it was a closely held corporation and it was a terrific place to work - great benefits and good pay. Then, they went public in order to expand into Mississippi and elsewhere - and the benefits and quality of the job got worse year after year after year. I haven't any idea how to solve this - but bonus pay based on yearly or quarterly profits should probably be expanded to 5-year or even 10-year averages - at least then the CEOs would have to take a long-term view of their businesses? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billw55 Posted June 28, 2014 Report Share Posted June 28, 2014 While I agree with raising the minimum wage in USA, I think $15 is too much right now. I think everyone is overlooking (or just not mentioning) an obvious consequence. When wages and prices both go up, that's called inflation, and the net effect does not automatically benefit low income workers. Also agree with Ken that some types consumer spending just stop when prices get too high. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Winstonm Posted June 28, 2014 Report Share Posted June 28, 2014 While I agree with raising the minimum wage in USA, I think $15 is too much right now. I think everyone is overlooking (or just not mentioning) an obvious consequence. When wages and prices both go up, that's called inflation, and the net effect does not automatically benefit low income workers. Also agree with Ken that some types consumer spending just stop when prices get too high. My reply is from Passed Out's posted link: The Pitchforks Are Coming...For Us PlutocratsWe’ve had 75 years of complaints from big business—when the minimum wage was instituted, when women had to be paid equitable amounts, when child labor laws were created. Every time the capitalists said exactly the same thing in the same way: We’re all going to go bankrupt. I’ll have to close. I’ll have to lay everyone off. It hasn’t happened. In fact, the data show that when workers are better treated, business gets better. The naysayers are just wrong. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billw55 Posted June 28, 2014 Report Share Posted June 28, 2014 I did say that I support a wage increase. Just not to $15. Surely you understand that there is a limit - that some number would be too high? I don't claim to know what it is, but I do think that nearly doubling it all at once is too much. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PassedOut Posted June 28, 2014 Report Share Posted June 28, 2014 I did say that I support a wage increase. Just not to $15. Surely you understand that there is a limit - that some number would be too high? I don't claim to know what it is, but I do think that nearly doubling it all at once is too much.I don't know that anyone wants to double the minimum wage "all at once." For example, Seattle is phasing in the increase for small businesses over a period of seven years. For large businesses that offer healthcare, the period is four years. Even large businesses that don't offer healthcare get three years. Businesses do need to plan, but these time frames should be more than sufficient. Let's see how Seattle does with this. I'm pretty confident that they will be able to handle it easily. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Winstonm Posted June 28, 2014 Report Share Posted June 28, 2014 To understand the importance of government intervention into minimum wages is simply to know US history: .... the experience of the United States from the 1930s through the 1970s, with the federal government taxing the top tranches of wealth at up to 90 percent and using those funds to build major electrification projects like the Hoover Dam and the Tennessee Valley Authority, to educate World War II veterans through the GI Bill, to connect the nation through the Interstate Highway system, to launch the Space Program, and to create today’s Internet. Out of those efforts emerged robust economic growth as private corporations took advantage of the nation’s modern infrastructure and the technological advancements. Millions of good-paying jobs were created for the world’s best-trained work force, giving rise to the Great American Middle Class. The obvious answer was to keep this up, with the government investing in new productive areas, like renewable energy. The change occurred in the 1980s with the advent of political policy based on supply-side economics. The past 30 years are the history of lower taxes, lax regulation, and a pro-business climate. The result is high unemployment, devastating inequality, and business hoarding what is estimated to be as much a 3 trillion dollars in cash - without demand, there is no need to invest. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike777 Posted June 28, 2014 Report Share Posted June 28, 2014 Perhaps a more realistic goal is to reduce poverty by 2100, to reduce hunger by 2100. I happen to favor taking many smallish multi approachs.I expect many of these options will fail and that is ok. One approach I would hope to encourage is the negative income tax where it does not yet exist but I would not put all of our eggs in just this one approach. In other words trying many different experiments on a somewhat smallish scale but I understand many prefer other approachs to the problems. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PassedOut Posted June 29, 2014 Report Share Posted June 29, 2014 I happen to favor taking many smallish multi approachs.I expect many of these options will fail and that is ok. One approach I would hope to encourage is the negative income tax where it does not yet exist but I would not put all of our eggs in just this one approach.Sure. Aside from expanding the negative income tax, what are the smallish approaches that you'd like to see tried? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barmar Posted June 29, 2014 Report Share Posted June 29, 2014 I don't know that anyone wants to double the minimum wage "all at once." For example, Seattle is phasing in the increase for small businesses over a period of seven years. For large businesses that offer healthcare, the period is four years. Even large businesses that don't offer healthcare get three years. Businesses do need to plan, but these time frames should be more than sufficient. Let's see how Seattle does with this. I'm pretty confident that they will be able to handle it easily.And Massachusetts just passed a state-wide increase, from $8 to $11, in $1 increments over the next 3 years. Unfortunately, in order to get this to pass, the proponents had to back down on automatically indexing it to inflation thereafter. So we'll have to battle this again in 5-10 years. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barmar Posted June 29, 2014 Report Share Posted June 29, 2014 But humans are more complex and do not fit nicely into two categoriesThere are 10 types of people: those who understand binary, and those who don't. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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