Joe Biden endorses $15/hr minimum wage, Medicare public option - Polidicks

You are aware most gas stations are operated seperate from the gas/store aspect. Prime example is quicktrip basically licenses out the gas part to oil companies while QT handles the convenience store aspect. Gas pumps themselves would be fine, and most convenience store chains are already paying 14-17 an hour for their common workers.

I'm not completely sure that a higher minimum wage will result in higher gas prices, but you will see convenience stores swapping to more automated aspects to counter the new minimum. You know, because they want to protect their bottom line being mustache-twirling villains who are greedy and shit. Thing is, I doubt Biden's going to do this. Biden seems like the kind of guy who will do nothing but talk about how much he's helping America. If you are a democrat voter (and cmon, I think most of you are) then I implore you to vote for Bernie if you arn't already. I'd rather Trump lose to Bernie, a guy who's an outsider without deep corporate connections (as far as I can read him).

I hope you all realise that many western countries with so-called universal healthcare systems actually have hybrid systems - such as Australia which has co-existing Medicare and private health insurance. And even if universal healthcare is the goal, it doesn’t make sense for America to suddenly make the leap to it in one go; the impact on the health industry and the employees within it could be devastating. Some things just need to gradually happen.

Not to mention Bernie has the most chances to win against Trump, since he's the only one who has the potential to steal from his voter base.

Well that too. I'm sorry I can't find the thing about Bernie or bust voters for 2020, but there's still a sizable number that will vote Trump if they don't get Bern. Probably less then last time, but probably enough to maybe help push things in the direction the bank-litigators favor.

I do.

Medicare for all is gradual. It would incorporate people into the system over a 4 year period, starting with 55 year olds, then 45 etc. “Gradualism” almost always means “never.” It’s been 10 years since Obamacare, now what? We concede the battle up front and try to settle for a public option which will be fought tooth and nail by republicans just the same? Then what? Wait another 10 years for universal coverage? This is not acceptable to me. Tens of thousands of people die each year from lack of insurance and even more go into bankruptcy from medical bills. This immoral system needs to be changed now. We have the momentum and political capital to do it. The time is always right to do right. No more incrementalism, no more half measures. They burn us every time for the sake of the profits of a corrupt health industry.

The chart you posted shows that the minimum wage would be 10-11 dollars an hour nationally if it was indexed to inflation at its highest point (in real dollars), in 1968. Raising it to adjust for productivity, or how all workers wages have grown, is a bit different from just indexing it to compensate for inflation. I agree that raising it too fast would likely be the only way this would be catastrophic. However, I see a lot of people in this thread acting as if its impossible for a minimum wage increase to negatively impact workers at all. The research on it is largely mixed, but there have been multiple studies showing that unemployment, especially of unskilled workers, can be increased by measurable amounts after a minimum wage increase. It just makes basic sense that making workers cost more to businesses/corporations, which generally pursue maximum profits, will cause them to squeeze their labor-force even harder and find ways to cut jobs even more than they already undoubtedly do. Essentially, increasing the minimum wage can help those who have and keep their jobs, but it can hurt those who are looking for a job, and cause some people to lose their jobs and (a small amount of unskilled-labor based) firms to go out of business. Essentially it privileges the employed over the unemployed to an even higher degree. Let me be clear, I consider myself a socialist, but at least in the current free-market system, we have to acknowledge the realities of what would help and hurt markets, and as a result, people. (Rent control is another example of something that seems nice but isn't really that great for the market). A better way of going about this (other than workers seizing their workplaces, turning them into co-operatively owned and run ventures, and sharing profits evenly so everyone would make more than a living wage), would be to tax the profits of businesses as well as the incomes of their high-income employees, and use this money to make sure all unemployed people have a decent standard of living, as well as assisting underpayed-people to the point where they have a decent standard of living as well. No matter what you do a corporation is still going to try to make more profit, so taxing that and redistributing it is a better solution than implementing what is essentially a price control (floor, rather than the usual ceiling) on labour and causing resultant market shifts. You did acknowledge these realities, so this is not completely in response to you but also others in the thread.

We already do this. Are you simply proposing increasing these taxes?

I wasn’t aware that welfare was at such a level that poverty and homelessness had been eliminated... Why would anybody be arguing for minimum wage increases if everyone already enjoys a decent standard of living (which i would argue includes not having to work 2 jobs or 50 hours a week to make ends meet, being able to afford decent housing and healthcare, and so on)? (No, we don’t already do this. We’re already some of the way towards doing this, but until we do it, it ain’t done.)

Minimum was originally ba living wage meant to keep up with inflation but that got removed. I get paid 11.30 an hour at my job, based on inflation I'm below the minimum wage of the year 1980.

You're aware of income tax right

My time is worth more than dirt.

Are you intentionally missing the point? Do you think I have been asleep since the fucking 1920s? I wrote that we're some of the way there, meaning we already redistribute some wealth from corporations and wealthier people (well, like upper-lower class and up or something, but because it's a progressive income tax the rates increase for people who take in large amounts of additional dollars in income, meaning in effect it kinda redistributes the wealth) and use it to help the unemployed, low-income, etc.

Well, it's intended to. The issue with that is that people who have such wealth also have the wealth to hire on people to ensure they maximize their deductions to lower how high they are on that progressive tax plan while compromising their desired lifestyle in the last meaningful way possible. If everyone had the ability to just 'decide to start a new business to increase later net income access without directly increasing their personal income while presently using those businesses as a loss to decrease the amount of taxes they pay' then the economic landscape would look very different and inequality wouldn't be nearly as bad as it is. And, I mean, that's really the ultimate problem here: Income Inequality. The progressive taxes aren't working like how they used to because people have figured out how to move money with agility outside of the United States into tax havens, maximize the amount of tax subsidies they take on (which the Fed rarely lets people know about), hire on folks to manage their wealth in such a way they don't need to pay most of their money, etc etc. You can see it clearly by just charting the economy inequality over time. If it truly 'redistributed the wealth' then we would see only minor fluctuations of inequality Year-over-Year. And yet https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/133737/892c1715-3365-466b-9e8e-b11199c112db/image.png https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/133737/5d1c58a8-945d-45b8-8251-db0a6d7db35d/image.png

Okay so am I just a fucking idiot because I do not understand this line of reasoning Like do I just not understand economics in the slightest bit? Because it seems to me like this money isn't just gonna disappear. People don't just go home and immediately jam everything they make into their mattress and then never take it out. They spend it. People gotta pay rent, people gotta pay utilities, people gotta eat, people gotta pay for gas, people gotta pay for shit like car insurance, health insurance, home maintenance And then when all that is paid for they go out and spend it on stuff. And if they don't have to be working eighty hour weeks it seems intuitive to me that they're gonna spend even more because they're gonna go out and do stuff. They're gonna watch movies, they're gonna go to bars, they're gonna go to restaurants, they're gonna go out and spend on their hobbies because now they have time to spend shit on their hobbies And every time I see this argument I feel like I'm having a stroke. Like am I the only human being on the planet who knows literal dozens of people who would be out actively contributing to the economy if they just had more time and money Am I the only one who knows a bunch of people who burn up all their free time just barely managing to keep their heads above water 'til they're too broke and exhausted to do shit? It strikes me as a complete fucking red herring. Maybe these companies will rake in slightly less because they have to pay their god damn workers a living god damn wage but I have incredibly strong doubts that the whole economy will just collapse. I'd go as far to say that it'd get a huge boost because suddenly you have hundreds, thousands, millions, maybe even billions of dollars that are suddenly going into the fucking economy instead of slipping away into the pockets of massive corporations and subsequently being funneled through an unholy morass of tax dodges and offshore holding companies to be reinvested in other megacorps to start the whole cycle over again Am I just completely off my goddamn rocker?

I think the only thing you're really overlooking is the potential for greedy corporate fuckwits to jack up prices in response to a higher minimum wage to try and make up the hit they take to their bottom line. Which is just corporations being useless garbage as per usual and isn't an issue with raising the minimum wage itself.

If the minimum wage were raised, corporate dickheads would do that and thereby cause a ripple in the equilibrium a bit, but you give that enough that and those waves will subside. Walmart decides to start selling bread at $5 a loaf instead? Target'll decide to start selling it at $4. Then Food Lion will see that, and choose to compete by selling it at $3. Then Walmart realizes it can't keep doing its $5/loaf shtick, and kicks it down to $2, and so on and so forth with just about any product or service on the market, really. Prices might rise, but it'd be a short-term effect, and ultimately things would work out just fine.

Except that's not even close to how it works at the moment. The cost of living would not have risen to almost unsustainable levels otherwise. Unless you're going to small independent grocers or somewhere like Aldi's, you're paying almost the same price for the same brands across Wal-Mart, Kroger, Meijer, Target, ect. At most there is a .30 cent difference and that could just be to make up for transportation or other costs. Just checked 24oz bags of Wonderbread at each of those locations near me and the price difference is negligible. There's absolutely no competition price wise, the only difference is which brands or gimmicks (Target's food court, Wal-Marts guns, Kroger's bakery) the store has that differentiates it. Raising the minimum wage will fix nothing if corporations are allowed to simply jack prices up proportionally to the increase, which they will do, because why wouldn't they.

My line of reasoning (before some user pointed how and why it bullshit) was because i was told that if you do that you'd get massive amount of inflation (once again im wrong... Like ungodly wrong, i though i pointed out that i was wrong in the post)

How do we define fairly? Based on the minimum wage? Or based upon an idea of a "living wage" - something we have in the UK which is encouraged and businesses are shamed if they do not meet this? Or something else? Because I agree in part, a business should NOT require public funds in order to survive. It is a private enterprise, private of the state.

You're actually touching on the root of the issue which I think many people don't see: In order for businesses and rich people to GROW, they need to grow OFF OF the middle and lower class. This CAN be sustainable, but it isn't currently. What this means is that the upper class and profitable corporations can continue to grow and gain profit, but not if the way they're doing that is by soaking up all the new wealth that's being generated. A reasonable businessperson would support pro-lower/middle-class issues because they need the lower classes to do well for THEMSELVES to do well.

Bernie lite with a hint of Orange isn't going to do this country any favors, anyone who believes otherwise needs to take the blinders off.

That's the majority of the Democratic voter base

Are you literally saying that taxation will never be a solution to income inequality?? There is no way for our taxation system to adapt, or for us to remove a bunch of the deductions and write-offs or whatever that mainly wealthy people only use? This seems a little ridiculous, considering the examples we have from other countries.