World is Falling Apart Thread (Locked forever)

[MrPopo]

Wow, Mike, I never expected such an assholish, ignorant post from you. Shine on.

Not cool Dave. I disagree with every single thing he wrote but this is not the appropriate rebuttal.

[J T]

There's a similar thing with the campaign promises around massively increasing the minimum wage. It has the same sort of appeal for those it will directly impact at first glance, but then you think through the larger economic ramifications. Increasing the minimum wage that significantly means you're massively increasing the cost of labor to employers. That gives them three options: increase prices, decrease the labor force, or take a hit on profits.

...or employees who make more money then go and spend more money, increasing the demand for your products and boosting your bottom line despite the initial extra up front salary costs.

This is the hope. There is also something else that MrPopo didn't mention, which is that salaries could be restructured so that higher-ups make less to be able to afford the higher minimum wage labor. Nevertheless, I don't really see them doing that willingly unless they absolutely have run out of options. McDonald's, who has long been proud of their ability to create low wage jobs that don't require great technical skills, has threatened to automate jobs in response to the proposed $15 minimum, which could mean in the future you will make your Happy Meal order on a touch screen which triggers robo-flippers to fry your burger before putting them on the conveyer belt that goes to the Segway servers that deliver them to your screaming children, who cry for the technodystopian future that they consume from, but that no longer supplies them jobs in highschool. OK, I'm being a little silly there, but MrPopo does have a point. Labor is affected by supply and demand as well. When you artificially raise the price of labor, but the demand stays the same, then businesses start to decide they may not need so much of a supply of labor and they cut hours and jobs. We have the $15 minimum here in Washington, and people should really be paying attention to this bold experiment. I'm not convinced it will work, but I'm very curious to see what actually happens.

I don't know if this is prevalent enough to make a major impact, but one byproduct of this is that some workers here have found that the $15 wages pulls them out of the income range to qualify for services like food stamps and medicaid, so they intentionally cut back their hours (if their bosses haven't already done this for them), so that they still qualify for social service programs. Of course, from another standpoint, businesses like Walmart have long depended on tax payer-supported social services to provide their employees with these benefits so that they don't have to pay for them and their employees can still have healthcare and food. This all largely effects just the restaurant and retail business world, so we'll have to see if prices go up, jobs go down, businesses close, exec wages change, etc. I hope the dems are right about this stimulating the economy, but I'm not sure yet that this will be the case and the hope for the plan is not exactly what one would necessarily expect to be the most probable outcome, though I certainly hope that Dsh is right since we already have a $15 minimum here in Seattle (of course our cost of living is also skyrocketing for other reasons, so it's really hard to say it makes a noticeable benefit to the poorest earners in our local economy).

[dsheinem]

Wow, Mike, I never expected such an assholish, ignorant post from you. Shine on.

Not cool Dave. I disagree with every single thing he wrote but this is not the appropriate rebuttal.

Mike said that I am unable to do anything but blindly follow a Dem and that I would support Hillary for only one of two reasons. I take immense umbridge to that, so fuck him.

[MrPopo]

(of course our cost of living is also skyrocketing for other reasons, so it's really hard to say it makes a noticeable benefit to the poorest earners in our local economy).

Yeah, that's the fault of my contingent; the large number of highly educated engineers moving in from out of state to work in the booming tech industry here with large salaries and a willingness to exercise said salaries. Charge what the traffic will bear, after all.

[J T]

Could you two please not degrade the level of discourse. I've actually been enjoying the recent conversation to this point.

[J T]

(of course our cost of living is also skyrocketing for other reasons, so it's really hard to say it makes a noticeable benefit to the poorest earners in our local economy).

Yeah, that's the fault of my contingent; the large number of highly educated engineers moving in from out of state to work in the booming tech industry here with large salaries and a willingness to exercise said salaries. Charge what the traffic will bear, after all.

Yeah, I know it's the tech people. Seattle has become a really strange place with so much wealth consolidated in one industry in one location. The class divide is getting huge as a result. I love the tech you guys make, but the economics are ripping my favorite city apart.

[Ack]

Seattle isn't as bad as San Fransisco either, which is perhaps the most extreme example of economic disparity.

But I think we're all missing the most important lesson of modern politics: presidents and commonfolk can all agree, Police Academy is awesome.

[J T]

Seattle isn't as bad as San Fransisco either, which is perhaps the most extreme example of economic disparity.

But I think we're all missing the most important lesson of modern politics: presidents and commonfolk can all agree, Police Academy is awesome.

Yeah, San Francisco is worse, which is why they are all moving to Seattle. Now we are starting to experience all the same problems. My house has increased in evaluation by about $100,000 in the last 2 years. That's not normal, and the resulting property taxes are a bitch. Not to mention that they want to now lift a levy lid so that they can get even higher (Popo, you might want to help fight that). I won't bore the messageboard with further local politics though since most of you don't live here.

To your second point, yeah, it's crazy. Pokemon is the most popular videogame craze, a Clinton may be in the office again, Russia is a threat, and the Police Academy movies are once more a part of our national dialogue. I feel like I'm stumbling backwards through time!

[MrPopo]

Yeah, my property evaluation went up 10% (in one year) when I got the notice a few months ago and it's been rising ever since I bought the place. I'm not surprised yours has risen faster since you're in the city proper.

But what's this about Police Academy becoming relevant? Is that just an Ack joke that you're running with or is that a real thing?

[J T]

But what's this about Police Academy becoming relevant? Is that just an Ack joke that you're running with or is that a real thing?

Bill Clinton mentioned in his DNC speech that he and Hillary worked hard to be good parents to Chelsea, though they disagreed sometimes on parenting issues, like the time that Bill and Chelsea watched all 6 Police Academy movies back to back.

It was a weird moment in his speech, which became even more sad when Chelsea said that Police Academy was her dad's thing and she and her mom liked Pride and Prejudice. Haha. Poor Bill. He thought he was sharing some bonding moment he had with his daughter, but it seems like she didn't really like the movies. And, wow, I enjoyed Police Academy in the 80s, but I can't imagine watching them all back-to-back without losing my mind.