It was a joke. Where jobs are concerned, I am nothing close to naive.
Come on, it wasn't a joke: this is your full paragraph.
But its minimum wage. Its supposed to be low. You gain jobs that pay more. I am not saying that is easy or even doable for all but they are out there. I just got a job that is the exact clone of the job I just lost for $2 more an hour. Got my 1st paycheck yesterday and did a rough draft budget yesterday and its way more of a difference then I orginally thought. Most min wage jobs are for 16 yr olds anyway. How much do we really want tennagers paid? Adults? Get a job that pays more. They are out there. Rural? Work from home. Theres even more of those oppuruntities today.
Look - lots and lots of people are unaware of the depth of all the issues around minimum wage, unemployment, health insurance, economic impact...I'm certainly not an expert in all these areas. I know what I know from my own experience, just as you, just as the majority of us here. That's a big reason why these conversations exist. A few weeks ago, when you were between jobs, if someone had just told you to use your bootstraps, there were plenty of jobs for the taking, and you should be ready to accept a job that paid less than your previous one...you'd probably have gone through the roof.
Unemployment in America is a thing. Job scarcity is a thing. Poverty is a thing. It's a thing in many countries, not just this one - we hardly have the monopoly on these problems, and in many ways, looking at it from 20,000 feet, we are not even the most challenged of nations in this regard.
I'm not an economist (I'm in
@scout86's camp on that one, I find it really fascinating and also frustrating) - and I'm fortunate to have a super-solid job. So the only way for me to be a participant in the bigger picture of this problem is to try and get educated about what all the sides of the issue are, and to try and understand as best I can, the complexities on both sides.
@Anarchy - the stuff you shared is interesting and makes sense. And an unfettered anything seems to be a problem economically - including unfettered minimum wage laws. When I think about the concept of government vs. governance, it makes me keep butting my head against wondering what the components of a real solution really are. Governance certainly can't just come from government, there is individual responsibility invoked as well. Not just for the worker, but for the employer.
Curious what people think of this - it's a statement of opinion:
There is no need for responsible businesses to wait for a lead from government to assess whether they can afford to pay their low paid workers a decent wage.
from
It's time responsible companies committed to paying a decent wage
I recall many years ago, before the major economic downturn of 2001, the company I worked for did an internal compensation review. Things had gotten better for the company, the economy was doing alright, and it seemed like the wages needed re-evaluating. It was well-intentioned, but the result of it (about 6 years later, when the economy had tanked) was that people lost their jobs because the company 'could not afford to keep them'. But the problem seemed to be that a boundary line was never drawn at the top; so, the upper management group (people who were making decisions about the budget) were still earning much, much more by far than the individuals at the bottom of the ladder. When times were stable, the priority shifted to how to treat the people in the company better, or more appropriately. But when things got lean again, it reverted right back to making decisions that would (a) keep the company in business, and (b) retain the most valuable (? debatable) workers - the decision makers at the top. So, freeze increases, cut out the middle, and cut out the top end of all the lower wage jobs. Which was altogether kind of shitty. And this was a non-profit company. The same thing plays out on a larger scale with for-profit institutions, and the defense is always, "that's capitalism; you work harder, you make more". And the gap widens.
Ugh, I don't know, I'm babbling. It just bugs me. Best I can do is try and spend my own money in places that are more supportive of workers, spend less money in those that aren't, and look at my own neck of the woods and try and be a good citizen. But it always feels overwhelming.
'm not sure if others understand this, or if I'm just being paranoid,,,,,, I believe that Trump is trying to emulate Putin and his ways of governing..... I believe supreme power and dominance is his goal. In 6 months this man has set the US back 200 yrs. He is slowly stripping women's rights, he is alienating us from our allies, he is destroying trade. He's trying to stop free press, freedom of speech, and he's trying to strip away basic human needs in our healthcare and other programs.
I dunno, I think you are giving Trump much more intellectual credit than he deserves. I do believe at his core he's an American hustler, and his goal is to stay on top. His definition of 'stay on top' seems to have a lot to do with optics: he wants to control his own press, and he wants to appear successful, popular - he wants to look like a winner. Just observing how he's lived his life, he's quite used to being on top, then having to do damage control, then getting on top again. I think this presidency was something he was not prepared for, and his only interest is in how awesome the title is, and how exciting the campaigning is. I also suspect he completely understands the concept of being a figurehead. In other words, he's the 'face' of the 'brand' (the brand, in this case, being the USA) and understands a CEO's job is to set the public image for the 'brand', which is key for making gains in 'the market'. Since 'the market', for the USA, is either it's constituents or The World Stage, he puts on a show for both. He leaves the rest of it - the real work - to the people below him.
He doesn't grasp at all that many of those people aren't below him - they are actually parallel to him. (Hello, checks and balances)
None of this means he's harmless. He could do great harm. I think he's dangerous because he doesn't always know what he's doing, his party has already distanced itself from him in many ways, and no-one with any real experience is helping him to not f*ck up. I'm not sure he'd accept it, anyway.
I'm heartened, as far as World Stage goes, by the fact that at the G20, many other nation-leaders are trying to convince him to put the US back into the Paris accord. That at least demonstrates that other countries are aware we have a toddler running the US at the moment, but that they can't just write off the US altogether.
And I do believe that friction is what creates change. Stasis doesn't create change. We have real friction in the US right now. Including friction in the US government. Maybe this time the friction will get us somewhere. And it could be a better somewhere. It could also be a worse somewhere. Keeping the thought balanced keeps me from going nuts about it.
