Notices by 🎓 Doc Freemo :jpf: 🇳🇱 (freemo@qoto.org), page 9

@Paulos_the_fog @randahl

Why would I have to explain to you a quote I never made and has no relationship to this thread or anything I said?

@raymondlesley The correct answer is 2.

@freemo @randahl

Governments in civilized countries have imposed a statutory minimum salary to avoid exploitative employers from paying starvation wages but I suppose that offends your libertarian principles!

The problem with even the most generous statutory minimum wage is that it is seldom increased to keep up with inflation. The country where live, Luxembourg, is one of the few exceptions, that still indexes the statutory minimum wage (and all pensions, benefits and salaries both public and private) to the rate of inflation. When a 2.5% increase in prices is reached, everyone gets a 2.5% increase in salaries etc.

Welfare is not and never has been what folk want; what they want is decent work with pay that enables them to pay their rent or their mortgage and raise their families if they have one. It's the billionaires who run the world's largest corporations who are amongst the worst offenders for paying starvation wages with Bezos being a fine example!

@Paulos_the_fog

> Governments in civilized countries have imposed a statutory minimum salary to avoid exploitative employers from paying starvation wages but I suppose that offends your libertarian principles!

I am more offended by the loaded language to imply that anyone who doesnt agree with your approach to solving the problem isnt civilized.

You have only proven my point, it is /**the governments** responsibility to ensure the market is healthy, not the company. Applying a minimum wage is one way in which governments attempt to execute on their responsiblity to fix the markets, it is also a way in which they fail and make the markets worse.

Minimum wage has shown to increase the number of people who are jobless among the least skilled of the population (those without HS diplomas are most effected). Ergo minimum wage laws have caused more harm towards the groups they attempt to help, therefore, no I do not support it. Instead I support programs that are aimed at increasing the marketability of the population such as government paid education up to the PhD level and strong welfare programs.

> The problem with even the most generous statutory minimum wage is that it is seldom increased to keep up with inflation.

Thats not the problem, in fact, the more you increase it the more you harm the people most in poverty, those who are under-skilled. So no, doing that would just make it worse.

> Welfare is not and never has been what folk want;

A heroin addict wants nothing but heroin. Giving people what they want isnt what I care about. Giving people what they need is.

> What they want is decent work with pay that enables them to pay their rent or their mortgage and raise their families if they have one. It's the billionaires who run the world's largest corporations who are amongst the worst offenders for paying starvation wages with Bezos being a fine example!

Which is exactly why you need welfare and a generous paid education system up to PhD level. Welfare feeds the people and gives them a basic quality of life. That only buys them time. It is only from the education and training provided that a real solution comes, and that solution is exactly what you describe, the ability to make good money for reasonable work.

@randahl

@stux Absolutely, I mean its impressive engineering in its own right. Just pointing out that a low-heat high-temperature environment is quite unique and the heat is quite manageable once you block the IR.

@stux You are forgetting this is space... high temperature yes, but very very low heat. Once the IR itself is blocked by the shield the low pressure means that while the gas in the area is very hot there is very little of it, so it doesnt actually heat anything up.

You cant think of it as sitting in an oven at that temperature. Its actually a low-heat environment.

@Paulos_the_fog

Paying someone what they ask for is no more exploiting someone than it is to buy an item from one store because it was cheaper than another store.

Companies arent responsible for the state of the market, that is the governments responsibility to do.

@randahl

@Paulos_the_fog

If people are starving then the government failed to provide welfare. In a proper society there is welfare to ensure no one is forced to work as a slave. Then anyone who works chooses to. So If there is slave labor blame the government for failing to provide education welfare and food. It's certainly not a companies fault for paying the market wage, it's the governments fault for allowing a no free market to exist to begin with.

@randahl

The correct answer was 2... Seems no one got it right (I was the only one who voted 2).

@Paulos_the_fog

Paying someone a salary and providing them a risk free income while you take al the risk is not "exploiting" anyone. Lol.

@randahl

@Paulos_the_fog @randahl

No one claimed anything about everyone needing equal... But no demanding a share of another person's creation due to their hard work is complete nonsense. Other people generating wealth doesn't mean you deserve a cut

@randahl

> equality is not about everyone having the same balance on their bank account.

Exactly my point, agreed.

> It is about equal opportunity, and the US is moving away from that.

Also agreed, nor did I say anything to the contrary.

> Example: Literally thousands of people owned businesses which depended on Twitter, but a person of extreme wealth bought it and destroyed it.

Wealth can be destroyed just like it could be created. When he destroyed it he destroyed his own wealth making himself less wealthy, thus the point, wealthy people create wealth which is how they get wealthy (or inherit it in some cases), and likewise they can become poor (or at least poorer) when they make bad decisions and destroy wealth.

> The extreme inequality of the US has created a society which have characteristics of The Dark Ages, where a king could decide to burn down an entire city if he felt like it.

Nah you have it backwards. The lack of a free market (a market that can be gamed and is unfair) is what has sent us to the Dark Ages. Assuming it is due to wealth disparity as the driving cause is unfounded and just repeating the popular narrative rather than representing an understanding of the problem, which is quite nuanced.

@Paulos_the_fog

@Unatributed The what?

@selzero

You cant say you are a member of a group that is defined by its ideology and then say you dont support any ideology.

Thats like me saying "I am a christian but I dont support any particular religion".

@tuvok

I specifically covered this twice in my comments. Stuff is and should be taxed based on its luxury. Essentials are therefore tax free and luxury items highly taxed. So no quite the opposite.

@randahl

@JonathanTreffler

I specifically covered that in my comment, which seemed to be ignored. As stated the proportion of the tax (like sales tax and vat) should be adjusted based on how much of a luxury something is. Food and essentials are tax free, diamond rings and luxury cars are high taxed, etc.

Therefore no it is **not** a regressive tax, people who can only afford essentials live tax free, and those who waste their money on luxury are heavily taxed, something the poor cant do (and should avoid at all costs).

Since being rich should not be penalized, but wasting and destroying wealth should be, this is exactly the reason why I support such taxes.

@randahl

@fedops

Also assuming you mean the EU, then no you arent taxed "quite a bit more". I have lived in both the EU and the USA at the highest tax bracket, and the tax were about the same. Yes europe is a bit higher, but not by very much.

@randahl

@fedops

tariffs can be used for a lot of things, unfair practices are one, just like taxes they can and should be used proportionally to discourage undesired behavior, such as buying foreign goods over local.

Since tariffs should never be lifted I dont see much relevance in discussing the effects of lifting them.

Like taxes tarrifs can of course be used to target things unfairly. The assumption with any tool is that it in order for it to benefit society it must be used properly, and that means not using it to target the wrong sorts of companies or resources.

@randahl

@toriver

Simply saying a thing doesnt make it true. We have decades of economic theory and models that say otherwise.

@Paulos_the_fog @randahl

@fedops

No more so than everyone looses with taxes in general. I mean sure you hear people make the argument "everybody looses" and taxes are theft all the time. But the reality is, we need taxes to function and tariffs are a better way to get them than income tax.

Oh and by the way 28% of all goods entering the EU are taxed under a tariff... hardly the whole "only one advisory" and "its a trade war"...

@randahl