Substandard Housing

[dwedeking2]

to some degree. but the extreme showcases a problem.

if money was a solution to the homeless problem couldn't we build one less air craft carrier and have the solution ?

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by dwedeking2

I've been managing a production shop here in key west (keys is where this conversation started). key west is an extreme example of the differences between haves and have nots.

I'm not sure money is the solution to homelessness.

to get applicants that are not violent felons or at the bottom we have to have a starting rate of $18 an hour. with that I've had employees fall apart after 3 months. before coming to key west I've managed people for 20 years and never seen this.

had one employee at $18 an hour who chose sleeping on the street vs a half way house. college educated.

I certainly wouldn't pretend to know the state of affairs down your way. I do know that some areas become so popular with visitors and new comers that they price the locals out of their own home markets. Sometimes the people who work in an area, especially in the service sectors, can't even afford to live where they work.

This is where the notion of the living wage comes in. It's not just a minimum wage. It's reflects the actual cost of living in a specific area.

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by letsgetsailing3

Unionization doesn't play well with globalization. It sends jobs overseas.

Jobs were going to be outsourced, unions or not. Unionbusting is mainly to increase profits and to remove a lever of power from the average working stiff.

The fact is that if you let capitalism work, the invisible hand will raise salaries. I know it doesn't seem like that right now, but sometimes it pays to not interfere with it too much. Low unemployment should result in higher salaries if the government doesn't try and muck it up.

Many regulations and controls dropped away from the financial industry starting in the late 90's. The industry accelerated... then drove into a ditch, circa 2008. Obama's recovery has been extended by the current occupant, and the official jobless rate is down, but there's a preponderance of insecure and low-paying gig jobs, and overall, financial precarity (how likely someone will be financially damaged by a life event - accident, illness, job loss) has increased.


So I don't quite share your faith that a hands-off approach will solve many of these economic and social problems

[Woodland Hills]

Originally Posted by letsgetsailing3

Unionization doesn't play well with globalization. It sends jobs overseas.

The reason the 1950's were the good old days was that the U.S. had the only intact production center after WWII destroyed those in Europe and Asia. Again, what worked then wouldn't work now.

The fact is that if you let capitalism work, the invisible hand will raise salaries. I know it doesn't seem like that right now, but sometimes it pays to not interfere with it too much. Low unemployment should result in higher salaries if the government doesn't try and muck it up.

How many decades should we wait for the invisible hand? We have very low, historically low, rates of unionization now and the jobs went overseas anyway. Now the jobs that can’t be sent away don’t pay a living wage anymore since management have all the power. How does that help working families?
As the saying goes: “There’s lots of jobs, I know people with 3 of them.”

[Woodland Hills]

Originally Posted by letsgetsailing3

Have ya SEEN California? There are plenty of loose marbles out there.

I lived in Los Angeles from 1986 to 2017. I enjoyed living in California very much and miss it to this day. If they had decent cruising grounds I never would have left.

[Davy J]

Obama's recovery has been extended by the current occupant, and the official jobless rate is down,

Ok, Sailorboy1, I'm with you and officially out......... There's people in here that think that 0bama had something to do with the US recovery..........

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by Woodland Hills

How many decades should we wait for the invisible hand? We have very low, historically low, rates of unionization now and the jobs went overseas anyway. Now the jobs that can’t be sent away don’t pay a living wage anymore since management have all the power. How does that help working families?
As the saying goes: “There’s lots of jobs, I know people with 3 of them.”

Many simplistic apologists for the capitalist system celebrate disruption, and assume that, while messy, it will eventually work out, if we just let “the invisible hand” do its work.
The “law of supply and demand” emerges from the contest between players.
God did not make being an auto worker a good job! Those middle class jobs, that we look back at with such nostalgia, were the result of a fierce competition between companies, and labor , as to who would set the rules of the game. Between the end of World War II and 1968, the minimum wage tracked average productivity growth fairly closely.
Then, the invisible hand became very visible indeed, by way of bitter strikes, and then transcended the market into the political process with the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 (the Wagner Act), the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947 (Taft-Hartley), and state “right to work laws.”
Over the past 80 years, these acts have tilted the rules first one way, then the other. The low wage jobs of today aren’t inevitable, any more than were the high wage jobs of earlier decades.
Since 1968, productivity growth has far outpaced the minimum wage. If the minimum wage had continued to move with average productivity after 1968, it would have reached $21.72 per hour in 2012 — a rate well above the average production worker wage. If minimum-wage workers received only half of the productivity gains over the period, the federal minimum would be $15.34.
And of course, raising the minimum wage is only one way to address the way that the current rules of our economy favor owners of capital, over human workers. Tax rates really do need some rethinking! Why do we have preferential rates for taxes on capital when it is so abundant that much of it is sitting on the sidelines rather than at work in our economy? Why do we tax labor income, when one of the problems in our economy is lack of aggregate demand, due to insufficient consumer spending?
We could change these relative tax rates, and even institute a “Wealth tax”, and use the proceeds to help fund a Universal Basic Income!
In fact, why not tax carbon rather than labor, substituting a carbon tax for social security taxes, among the most regressive of all taxes imposed?


“Raise Wages, Kill Jobs? Seven Decades of Historical Data Find No Correlation Between Minimum Wage Increases and Employment Levels” ~ by Paul K. Sonn, & Yannet Lathrop
➥ https://www.nelp.org/publication/rai...oyment-levels/

[Simi 60]

Originally Posted by dwedeking2

to some degree. but the extreme showcases a problem.

if money was a solution to the homeless problem couldn't we build one less air craft carrier and have the solution ?

And why would the "decision makers" in America do that?
There's no money in helping the poor or starving
There's money in bombs bullets and weaponry and business is BOOMing, even if you have to create an enemy.
And the owners of the benefiting businesses get the "decision makers" in.

[sailorboy1]

Originally Posted by Davy J

Ok, Sailorboy1, I'm with you and officially out......... There's people in here that think that 0bama had something to do with the US recovery..........

I didnt say that quote

[letsgetsailing3]

Originally Posted by Woodland Hills

How many decades should we wait for the invisible hand? We have very low, historically low, rates of unionization now and the jobs went overseas anyway. Now the jobs that can’t be sent away don’t pay a living wage anymore since management have all the power. How does that help working families?
As the saying goes: “There’s lots of jobs, I know people with 3 of them.”

Sure. Capitalism is the worst economic system, except for all the others.

And in spite of it being brought up at pretty much every campaign rally, I bet there aren't all that many people with three jobs.

How many people aren't making a living wage? I'm guessing that number is pretty low, and there are plenty of government programs in place already designed to support those people. The fact is that low unemployment is a good thing.

I believe in a government that helps regulate markets. But too much interference from government strips the economy of levers it needs to succeed. Which is why the U.S. economy is doing rather well.

If you raise the minimum wage, you increase the speed of automation, and raise unemployment for a certain segment of the population. This is arguably a very bad idea. If a kiosk is cheaper than a person, that person's job is definitely at risk.

[letsgetsailing3]

Originally Posted by Woodland Hills

I lived in Los Angeles from 1986 to 2017. I enjoyed living in California very much and miss it to this day. If they had decent cruising grounds I never would have left.

Oh, the weather there is great and it's absolutely beautiful.

But there are lots of loose marbles there. And a government that has no problem taking your freedoms and taxing you for the privilege.

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by Simi 60

And why would the "decision makers" in America do that?
There's no money in helping the poor or starving...

Perhaps there is money in helping the poor or starving (± $325 Billion).

Excerpted from near the end of , the previously linked article, “Poverty isn’t a lack of character. It’s a lack of cash”:

“... Granted, it would take a big programme to eradicate poverty in the US. According to economist Matt Bruenig’s calculations, it would cost $175bn. But poverty is even more expensive. One study[*1] estimated the cost of child poverty at as much as $500bn a year. Kids who grow up poor end up with two years’ less education, work 450 fewer hours per year, and run three times the risk of bad health than those raised in families that are well off...”

* 1. “The economic costs of childhood poverty in the United States” ~ by Harry J Holzer et al.
➥ https://www.scholars.northwestern.ed...-united-states

[letsgetsailing3]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

Jobs were going to be outsourced, unions or not. Unionbusting is mainly to increase profits and to remove a lever of power from the average working stiff.

Many regulations and controls dropped away from the financial industry starting in the late 90's. The industry accelerated... then drove into a ditch, circa 2008. Obama's recovery has been extended by the current occupant, and the official jobless rate is down, but there's a preponderance of insecure and low-paying gig jobs, and overall, financial precarity (how likely someone will be financially damaged by a life event - accident, illness, job loss) has increased.

So I don't quite share your faith that a hands-off approach will solve many of these economic and social problems

The economy isn't tied neatly to political cycles. Obama was either going to get a bounce from the initiatives George Bush put into place before he even got into office, or the world was going to be in for a very bad time.


And I'd blame crass commercialism, financial illiteracy, and easy credit for the fact that people don't put much into savings. It's not that people don't earn enough. They just have a bad habit of wanting things they can't afford. Of course that keeps the economy humming along, but that's another piece of the puzzle.

[Davy J]

I didnt say that quote

You're right, but now, somehow, the president of the U.S. is responsible for derelicts in the harbor......

[Davy J]

I told you, you should stay for the fun.............