Kyrsten Synema (D - Az) brings a cake into the Senate to downvote min. wage hike

[Einzige]

Democrats

clapclapclap

Don't give a fuck

Clapclapclap

About you, prole

Clapclapclap

[David Horn]

After nearly 50 years of neoliberalism, we're finally in the opening round of 'the next thing'. It's looking a lot more progressive, but it's still too early to say.

Political change never happens overnight, unless its a response to an attack or something equally immediate and devastating. Try not kvetching about the baby steps needed to start the journey in earnest.

[Anthony '58]

Not surprisingly, I agree with Joe Manchin.  Let's go to $11 an hour for now - so long as the minimum wage is thereafter indexed to an "unchained" CPI once the minimum wage does reach that figure.

And the Democrats have only themselves to blame - because of the Culture Wars, which they started - for being forced to compromise on this, and so many other issues.

[David Horn]

(04-02-2021, 12:21 PM)Anthony Wrote: Not surprisingly, I agree with Joe Manchin.  Let's go to $11 an hour for now - so long as the minimum wage is thereafter indexed to an "unchained" CPI once the minimum wage does reach that figure.

And the Democrats have only themselves to blame - because of the Culture Wars, which they started - for being forced to compromise on this, and so many other issues.

$15 is low today and far outdated by the time it finally arrives. $11 is an insult. If the minimum had kept pace since 1973, it would be $20+. I do agree that the laser focus on culture issues has been much of the problem. It seems to be that advancement on trend line A must be offset by stagnation on trend line B.  It’s not right, but it seems to be the case.  And no, I don’t have a solution for that.

[pbrower2a]

(03-29-2021, 11:09 AM)David Horn Wrote: After nearly 50 years of neoliberalism, we're finally in the opening round of 'the next thing'.  It's looking a lot more progressive, but it's still too early to say.

Political change never happens overnight, unless its a response to an attack or something equally immediate and devastating. Try not kvetching about the baby steps needed to start the journey in earnest.

As someone whose almost-entire adult life has been during the neoliberal era according to the Skowronek cycle I am accustomed to seeing short-lived terms of moderation from the rigors of neoliberal economics only for the politics to revert to the neoliberal norm, I almost expect another equivalent of Newt Gingrich's Contract for America or the Tea Party Movement after which the rigors come back anew as the reforms die and e4ventually get overturned. Life as social progress is one step forward and three steps back, and go back enough in political institutions and we might have Jim Crow again in race relations and a reversion to the economic norms of the "New Gilded Age" of the 1920's... or something that resembles the Planet Mongo on Flash Gordon serials. You know how that went: government served only entrenched elites and the only people who mattered were those elites.   

I do not kvetch about the baby steps. It's the three steps back that I almost expect based upon my experiences that I have seen before. America's economic elites are often no better than any economic elites that have ever existed from pharaohs to medieval nobility to slave-owning planters to the Soviet-era nomenklatura. Such people would not remain elites on their own merit except for denying entry to others except as replenishment through birth and ensuring that others get no opportunity other than to be overworked and underpaid while getting vague promises of a better world (quite often pie-in-the-sky-when-you-die) in return for misery with no promise of an expiration date. Economic elites have often failed to recognize any limits on their appetites that  they can partially sate only at the cost of mass misery that includes the denial of opportunity to improve one's lot. 

The generational cycle suggests that we are in a genuine crisis (COVID-19, which has killed on the scale of a shooting war) and that we will come out of it with either very new institutions or a major rededication of those that already exist. It is too early to predict how, but it will all seem obvious and inevitable after the fact. There -- the gangster Axis regimes were doomed from their first aggression due to the brutality inherent in their "New Orders". There. The Confederacy was doomed from the start because people can't eat cotton... and if the slaves flee the plantations, then food shortages start to starve the Confederate Army. There -- King George III couldn't micromanage "the Colonies" that had largely been left to their own devices due to distance and the competence of the politicians and businesspeople therein. 

The end of scarcity is the economic reality underpinning what follows what we now have. Two solutions exist. One is to ensure that most people are obliged to accept whatever terms the economic elites offer, which means that one has no chance of survival except by convincing those elites that one deserves to live in severe poverty in their equivalent of sweatshops, and that those who get nominally-high pay are obliged to pay monopoly prices for everything. This is not a free-market paradise in which people have meaningful chances to start mom-and-pop businesses, for monopoly and vertical integration will prevail, with the economic elites squeezing out what remains of any middle class of home-owners, small-scale farmers, and small businesspeople. Economic inequality will become about as severe as that in countries in which the royal family and close relatives command the proceeds from the extraction of oil or minerals. This would be a feudal order with a high technology of propaganda, surveillance, repression, and numbing mass low culture. If those elites want you to listen to country music and not to classical music, then you will listen to country music and express love for it -- or else. People might still get the vote, but they would vote as their employers direct -- which is fascism. Run afoul of this system, and die after being reminded that you will burn forever in Hell.  

The alternative is something in which people achieve their economic needs  easily and end up with much spare time because they will need to work much less than a 40-hour workweek. Such will be the same whether one lives in New York City or some little town in Mississippi. Social differences will largely reduce to the difference of vocational competence. Physicians will earn far more than will convenience-store clerks, but consider the difference in training and preparation for one as opposed to the other. Status symbols will be meaningless because most of them will be disposable. I can easily imagine a social-market economy appearing in America as a rational response to the distress that so many endure as the result of the neoliberal era which has played out.

It boils down to freedom or fascism. Note well that the Right has learned to use Big Government to its advantage.

[Einzige]

(04-02-2021, 12:21 PM)Anthony Wrote: And the Democrats have only themselves to blame - because of the Culture Wars, which they started 

(A) The Democratic establishment has no desire to actually raise the minimum wage.

(B) That said, the Democrats didn't "start the culture war", you tool. Who was President when Roe v. Wade was decided? Who held the majority of Court appointments then? As for gay rights, guys like Harvey Milk moved against the ossidied ultraconservative Democratic establishment, and justly so.

Amusingly, Synema was elected by making her identity as a bisexual atheist verypublic. She's a trash-tier conservative in absolutely every other respect.

© Joe Manchin is garbage and should be forcefully removed from his seat. Conservadems are the mot vile people in the country.

For the record, Anthony, there is zero taste out there for Ethno-American Catholic Social Jusfice Centrism. Zip. None. It always and everywhere sells out at every available opportunity.

[Einzige]

(04-03-2021, 09:43 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(04-02-2021, 12:21 PM)Anthony Wrote: Not surprisingly, I agree with Joe Manchin.  Let's go to $11 an hour for now - so long as the minimum wage is thereafter indexed to an "unchained" CPI once the minimum wage does reach that figure.

And the Democrats have only themselves to blame - because of the Culture Wars, which they started - for being forced to compromise on this, and so many other issues.

$15 is low today and far outdated by the time it finally arrives. $11 is an insult. If the minimum had kept pace since 1973, it would be $20+. I do agree that the laser focus on culture issues has been much of the problem. It seems to be that advancement on trend line A must be offset by stagnation on trend line B.  It’s not right, but it seems to be the case.  And no, I don’t have a solution for that.

Anthony has a gimmick in which he postures as an Old-School Nor'eastern Ethnic Democrat, a blue-collar Democrat for Nixon, Reagan, Dole, etc., and he'll tell you wot. It's super sleepy.

These guys -





- were not labor heroes. They were class traitors.

[David Horn]

(04-03-2021, 11:29 PM)Einzige Wrote:

(04-03-2021, 09:43 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(04-02-2021, 12:21 PM)Anthony Wrote: Not surprisingly, I agree with Joe Manchin.  Let's go to $11 an hour for now - so long as the minimum wage is thereafter indexed to an "unchained" CPI once the minimum wage does reach that figure.

And the Democrats have only themselves to blame - because of the Culture Wars, which they started - for being forced to compromise on this, and so many other issues.

$15 is low today and far outdated by the time it finally arrives. $11 is an insult. If the minimum had kept pace since 1973, it would be $20+. I do agree that the laser focus on culture issues has been much of the problem. It seems to be that advancement on trend line A must be offset by stagnation on trend line B.  It’s not right, but it seems to be the case.  And no, I don’t have a solution for that.

Anthony has a gimmick in which he postures as an Old-School Nor'eastern Ethnic Democrat, a blue-collar Democrat for Nixon, Reagan, Dole, etc., and he'll tell you wot. It's super sleepy.

These guys -





- were not labor heroes. They were class traitors.

Nothing unusual here -- at least for NYC, where Anthony was born and raised.  Conservative labor activist may seem to be an oxymoron, but the 5 boroughs of New York run the gamut from the neoliberal and wealthy UES of Manhattan to the neoconservative and very blue collar Staten Island.  Antony is decidedly Staten Island.

[pbrower2a]

(04-03-2021, 11:20 PM)Einzige Wrote:

(04-02-2021, 12:21 PM)Anthony Wrote: And the Democrats have only themselves to blame - because of the Culture Wars, which they started 

(A) The Democratic establishment has no desire to actually raise the minimum wage.

(B) That said, the Democrats didn't "start the culture war", you tool. Who was President when Roe v. Wade was decided? Who held the majority of Court appointments then? As for gay rights, guys like Harvey Milk moved against the ossidied ultraconservative Democratic establishment, and justly so.

Amusingly, Synema was elected by making her identity as a bisexual atheist verypublic. She's a trash-tier conservative in absolutely every other respect.

© Joe Manchin is garbage and should be forcefully removed from his seat. Conservadems are the mot vile people in the country.

For the record, Anthony, there is zero taste out there for Ethno-American Catholic Social Jusfice Centrism. Zip. None. It always and everywhere sells out at every available opportunity.

Ruling out fascists (including Nazis, Ku Kluxists, and Ba'athists) Marxist-Leninists, al-Qaeda/ISIS types, and tyrants of pure lunacy... 

the worst in America so far are those who have bought in or sold out to the cult of Ayn Rand, who believe that Humanity rightly exists to suffer to give the super-rich everything that they want lest everything fall apart.  That is much of the GOP, and that is Donald Trump.

[Einzige]

(04-05-2021, 10:02 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(04-03-2021, 11:20 PM)Einzige Wrote:

(04-02-2021, 12:21 PM)Anthony Wrote: And the Democrats have only themselves to blame - because of the Culture Wars, which they started 

(A) The Democratic establishment has no desire to actually raise the minimum wage.

(B) That said, the Democrats didn't "start the culture war", you tool. Who was President when Roe v. Wade was decided? Who held the majority of Court appointments then? As for gay rights, guys like Harvey Milk moved against the ossidied ultraconservative Democratic establishment, and justly so.

Amusingly, Synema was elected by making her identity as a bisexual atheist verypublic. She's a trash-tier conservative in absolutely every other respect.

© Joe Manchin is garbage and should be forcefully removed from his seat. Conservadems are the mot vile people in the country.

For the record, Anthony, there is zero taste out there for Ethno-American Catholic Social Jusfice Centrism. Zip. None. It always and everywhere sells out at every available opportunity.

Ruling out fascists (including Nazis, Ku Kluxists, and Ba'athists) Marxist-Leninists, al-Qaeda/ISIS types, and tyrants of pure lunacy... 

the worst in America so far are those who have bought in or sold out to the cult of Ayn Rand, who believe that Humanity rightly exists to suffer to give the super-rich everything that they want lest everything fall apart.  That is much of the GOP, and that is Donald Trump.

There's no practical distinction of policy between a Randroid in pragmatic politics (e.g. Paul Ryan) and conservadems. Conservadems pretend to be conservative only on culture war issues, but inevitably reveal themselves to be just as conservative on economics.

[Eric the Green]

(04-03-2021, 09:43 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(04-02-2021, 12:21 PM)Anthony Wrote: Not surprisingly, I agree with Joe Manchin.  Let's go to $11 an hour for now - so long as the minimum wage is thereafter indexed to an "unchained" CPI once the minimum wage does reach that figure.

And the Democrats have only themselves to blame - because of the Culture Wars, which they started - for being forced to compromise on this, and so many other issues.

$15 is low today and far outdated by the time it finally arrives. $11 is an insult. If the minimum had kept pace since 1973, it would be $20+. I do agree that the laser focus on culture issues has been much of the problem. It seems to be that advancement on trend line A must be offset by stagnation on trend line B.  It’s not right, but it seems to be the case.  And no, I don’t have a solution for that.

Anthony is not my "friend" and I disagree with about half of what he posts, but I am thinking $11 an hour is all we're going to get out of Manchin and the moderate Democrats and moderate-conservative Republicans-- if that. $11 is an insult, but they have a point that the pandemic is making it hard for owners to pay higher wages right now. So whatever we could get in the way of a gradual increase from $11 over the next few or several years would be a good idea. I consider this urgent. People are not getting a living wage, and $11 would be better than $7, even though both $11 and $15 are likely not a living wage. 

I do agree that many Republicans, enough to win primaries, today vote according to cultural and racial identity, not on actual solutions to meet needs. I consider this mainly their own fault. I don't consider Democrats to blame if their voters want cultural liberation. But much of this issue should not be a political matter anyway, unless it means a law needs to be repealed, or freedom from discrimination needs to be enforced, etc.. People on both sides, but mainly on the red side, today vote according to their culture even when it is irrelevant to other issues. This did not used to be true before the culture wars.

[Eric the Green]

(04-05-2021, 09:15 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(04-03-2021, 11:29 PM)Einzige Wrote:

(04-03-2021, 09:43 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(04-02-2021, 12:21 PM)Anthony Wrote: Not surprisingly, I agree with Joe Manchin.  Let's go to $11 an hour for now - so long as the minimum wage is thereafter indexed to an "unchained" CPI once the minimum wage does reach that figure.

And the Democrats have only themselves to blame - because of the Culture Wars, which they started - for being forced to compromise on this, and so many other issues.

$15 is low today and far outdated by the time it finally arrives. $11 is an insult. If the minimum had kept pace since 1973, it would be $20+. I do agree that the laser focus on culture issues has been much of the problem. It seems to be that advancement on trend line A must be offset by stagnation on trend line B.  It’s not right, but it seems to be the case.  And no, I don’t have a solution for that.

Anthony has a gimmick in which he postures as an Old-School Nor'eastern Ethnic Democrat, a blue-collar Democrat for Nixon, Reagan, Dole, etc., and he'll tell you wot. It's super sleepy.

These guys -





- were not labor heroes. They were class traitors.

Nothing unusual here -- at least for NYC, where Anthony was born and raised.  Conservative labor activist may seem to be an oxymoron, but the 5 boroughs of New York run the gamut from the neoliberal and wealthy UES of Manhattan to the neoconservative and very blue collar Staten Island.  Antony is decidedly Staten Island.

Carroll O'Connor played the type so very well.

But I know not what "UES" stands for.

"Neo-liberalism" is a very extreme right-wing view, and I am loth to apply it to liberals or even moderate Democrats, even if partially fitting. No doubt it has been so powerful in the last 40 years that many Democrats bow to it and compromise with it, as Bill Clinton did.

[Einzige]

(04-12-2021, 02:20 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(04-05-2021, 09:15 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(04-03-2021, 11:29 PM)Einzige Wrote:

(04-03-2021, 09:43 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(04-02-2021, 12:21 PM)Anthony Wrote: Not surprisingly, I agree with Joe Manchin.  Let's go to $11 an hour for now - so long as the minimum wage is thereafter indexed to an "unchained" CPI once the minimum wage does reach that figure.

And the Democrats have only themselves to blame - because of the Culture Wars, which they started - for being forced to compromise on this, and so many other issues.

$15 is low today and far outdated by the time it finally arrives. $11 is an insult. If the minimum had kept pace since 1973, it would be $20+. I do agree that the laser focus on culture issues has been much of the problem. It seems to be that advancement on trend line A must be offset by stagnation on trend line B.  It’s not right, but it seems to be the case.  And no, I don’t have a solution for that.

Anthony has a gimmick in which he postures as an Old-School Nor'eastern Ethnic Democrat, a blue-collar Democrat for Nixon, Reagan, Dole, etc., and he'll tell you wot. It's super sleepy.

These guys -





- were not labor heroes. They were class traitors.

Nothing unusual here -- at least for NYC, where Anthony was born and raised.  Conservative labor activist may seem to be an oxymoron, but the 5 boroughs of New York run the gamut from the neoliberal and wealthy UES of Manhattan to the neoconservative and very blue collar Staten Island.  Antony is decidedly Staten Island.

Carroll O'Connor played the type so very well.

But I know not what "UES" stands for.

"Neo-liberalism" is a very extreme right-wing view, and I am loth to apply it to liberals or even moderate Democrats, even if partially fitting. No doubt it has been so powerful in the last 40 years that many Democrats bow to it and compromise with it, as Bill Clinton did.

Neoliberalism is not a right-wing view. Indeed, many neoliberals are completely comfortable with State intervention and even some degree of welfare so long as the ownership of the means of production remains in private hands. It is not synonyms with Austrian economics or whatever. It means above all faith in the market to solve social questions- e.g. John Kerry calling for narket-based solutions to AGW.

[Eric the Green]

(04-12-2021, 04:08 AM)Einzige Wrote:

(04-12-2021, 02:20 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(04-05-2021, 09:15 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(04-03-2021, 11:29 PM)Einzige Wrote:

(04-03-2021, 09:43 AM)David Horn Wrote: $15 is low today and far outdated by the time it finally arrives. $11 is an insult. If the minimum had kept pace since 1973, it would be $20+. I do agree that the laser focus on culture issues has been much of the problem. It seems to be that advancement on trend line A must be offset by stagnation on trend line B.  It’s not right, but it seems to be the case.  And no, I don’t have a solution for that.

Anthony has a gimmick in which he postures as an Old-School Nor'eastern Ethnic Democrat, a blue-collar Democrat for Nixon, Reagan, Dole, etc., and he'll tell you wot. It's super sleepy.

These guys -





- were not labor heroes. They were class traitors.

Nothing unusual here -- at least for NYC, where Anthony was born and raised.  Conservative labor activist may seem to be an oxymoron, but the 5 boroughs of New York run the gamut from the neoliberal and wealthy UES of Manhattan to the neoconservative and very blue collar Staten Island.  Antony is decidedly Staten Island.

Carroll O'Connor played the type so very well.

But I know not what "UES" stands for.

"Neo-liberalism" is a very extreme right-wing view, and I am loth to apply it to liberals or even moderate Democrats, even if partially fitting. No doubt it has been so powerful in the last 40 years that many Democrats bow to it and compromise with it, as Bill Clinton did.

Neoliberalism is not a right-wing view. Indeed, many neoliberals are completely comfortable with State intervention and even some degree of welfare so long as the ownership of the means of production remains in private hands. It is not synonyms with Austrian economics or whatever. It means above all faith in the market to solve social questions- e.g. John Kerry calling for market-based solutions to AGW.

disagree. Kerry seeks government regulation and taxes, and that is not a market solution. Neo-liberalism is synonymous with Austrian economics, and is very extreme. No regulation, no taxes, only market solutions. Neo-liberalism is the Republican Party's philosophy. The Democrats compromise with it. I understand that from your extreme point of view on the other side, it all looks the same.

[Einzige]

(04-12-2021, 11:16 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(04-12-2021, 04:08 AM)Einzige Wrote:

(04-12-2021, 02:20 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(04-05-2021, 09:15 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(04-03-2021, 11:29 PM)Einzige Wrote: Anthony has a gimmick in which he postures as an Old-School Nor'eastern Ethnic Democrat, a blue-collar Democrat for Nixon, Reagan, Dole, etc., and he'll tell you wot. It's super sleepy.

These guys -





- were not labor heroes. They were class traitors.

Nothing unusual here -- at least for NYC, where Anthony was born and raised.  Conservative labor activist may seem to be an oxymoron, but the 5 boroughs of New York run the gamut from the neoliberal and wealthy UES of Manhattan to the neoconservative and very blue collar Staten Island.  Antony is decidedly Staten Island.

Carroll O'Connor played the type so very well.

But I know not what "UES" stands for.

"Neo-liberalism" is a very extreme right-wing view, and I am loth to apply it to liberals or even moderate Democrats, even if partially fitting. No doubt it has been so powerful in the last 40 years that many Democrats bow to it and compromise with it, as Bill Clinton did.

Neoliberalism is not a right-wing view. Indeed, many neoliberals are completely comfortable with State intervention and even some degree of welfare so long as the ownership of the means of production remains in private hands. It is not synonyms with Austrian economics or whatever. It means above all faith in the market to solve social questions- e.g. John Kerry calling for market-based solutions to AGW.

disagree. Kerry seeks government regulation and taxes, and that is not a market solution. Neo-liberalism is synonymous with Austrian economics, and is very extreme. No regulation, no taxes, only market solutions. Neo-liberalism is the Republican Party's philosophy. The Democrats compromise with it. I understand that from your extreme point of view on the other side, it all looks the same.

No, I mean that it literally is all the same. E.g. from Jimmah Carter's 1978 State of the Union Address.

Quote:Government cannot solve our problems, it can't set our goals. It cannot define our vision. Government cannot eliminate poverty or provide a bountiful economy or reduce inflation or save our cities or cure illiteracy or provide energy. And government cannot mandate goodness.

Carter introduced deregulation into e.g. airlines and beer and trucking, and prioritized passing these deregulation efforts over traditional Keynesian goals lime health care. Trying to fob neoliberalism off solely on Republicans or "the Right" is a lie.

What Reagan pushed before entering office was radical economic libertarianism. Capital doesn't actually like that. It isn't good long term. What it likes is "sensible" (i.e. pro-business) regulation and economic restructuring. So Reagan was reduced to pushing neoliberalism from the Right.

Capital has wings. Left-neoliberalism certainly exists - "progressive" identitariabism fused to pro-business policies.

[Classic-Xer]

(04-05-2021, 10:02 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(04-03-2021, 11:20 PM)Einzige Wrote:

(04-02-2021, 12:21 PM)Anthony Wrote: And the Democrats have only themselves to blame - because of the Culture Wars, which they started 

(A) The Democratic establishment has no desire to actually raise the minimum wage.

(B) That said, the Democrats didn't "start the culture war", you tool. Who was President when Roe v. Wade was decided? Who held the majority of Court appointments then? As for gay rights, guys like Harvey Milk moved against the ossidied ultraconservative Democratic establishment, and justly so.

Amusingly, Synema was elected by making her identity as a bisexual atheist verypublic. She's a trash-tier conservative in absolutely every other respect.

© Joe Manchin is garbage and should be forcefully removed from his seat. Conservadems are the mot vile people in the country.

For the record, Anthony, there is zero taste out there for Ethno-American Catholic Social Jusfice Centrism. Zip. None. It always and everywhere sells out at every available opportunity.

Ruling out fascists (including Nazis, Ku Kluxists, and Ba'athists) Marxist-Leninists, al-Qaeda/ISIS types, and tyrants of pure lunacy... 

the worst in America so far are those who have bought in or sold out to the cult of Ayn Rand, who believe that Humanity rightly exists to suffer to give the super-rich everything that they want lest everything fall apart.  That is much of the GOP, and that is Donald Trump.

I want to see the look on your face when you find yourself trapped and trying to live/trying to survive behind the iron curtain so to speak.

[Classic-Xer]

(04-03-2021, 09:43 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(04-02-2021, 12:21 PM)Anthony Wrote: Not surprisingly, I agree with Joe Manchin.  Let's go to $11 an hour for now - so long as the minimum wage is thereafter indexed to an "unchained" CPI once the minimum wage does reach that figure.

And the Democrats have only themselves to blame - because of the Culture Wars, which they started - for being forced to compromise on this, and so many other issues.

$15 is low today and far outdated by the time it finally arrives. $11 is an insult. If the minimum had kept pace since 1973, it would be $20+. I do agree that the laser focus on culture issues has been much of the problem. It seems to be that advancement on trend line A must be offset by stagnation on trend line B.  It’s not right, but it seems to be the case.  And no, I don’t have a solution for that.

I think you should go big and impose 60$. You won't have much of an economy left but whatever, that's beside the point.

[Einzige]

(04-12-2021, 09:54 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(04-03-2021, 09:43 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(04-02-2021, 12:21 PM)Anthony Wrote: Not surprisingly, I agree with Joe Manchin.  Let's go to $11 an hour for now - so long as the minimum wage is thereafter indexed to an "unchained" CPI once the minimum wage does reach that figure.

And the Democrats have only themselves to blame - because of the Culture Wars, which they started - for being forced to compromise on this, and so many other issues.

$15 is low today and far outdated by the time it finally arrives. $11 is an insult. If the minimum had kept pace since 1973, it would be $20+. I do agree that the laser focus on culture issues has been much of the problem. It seems to be that advancement on trend line A must be offset by stagnation on trend line B.  It’s not right, but it seems to be the case.  And no, I don’t have a solution for that.

I think you should go big and impose 60$. You won't have much of an economy left but whatever, that's beside the point.

The fact of the matter is that wage labor and money are almost entirely arbitrary. Why do cooks make ten an hour? Why not fifty, or fifteen, or five hundred? If adjusted radically upwards l, would not everything else adjust itself according to the "natural laws of the market" given time? 

But this isn't an argument for increasing the minimum wage. It's an argument for the abolition of wage labor.

[Eric the Green]

(04-12-2021, 08:03 PM)Einzige Wrote:

(04-12-2021, 11:16 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(04-12-2021, 04:08 AM)Einzige Wrote:

(04-12-2021, 02:20 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(04-05-2021, 09:15 AM)David Horn Wrote: Nothing unusual here -- at least for NYC, where Anthony was born and raised.  Conservative labor activist may seem to be an oxymoron, but the 5 boroughs of New York run the gamut from the neoliberal and wealthy UES of Manhattan to the neoconservative and very blue collar Staten Island.  Antony is decidedly Staten Island.

Carroll O'Connor played the type so very well.

But I know not what "UES" stands for.

"Neo-liberalism" is a very extreme right-wing view, and I am loth to apply it to liberals or even moderate Democrats, even if partially fitting. No doubt it has been so powerful in the last 40 years that many Democrats bow to it and compromise with it, as Bill Clinton did.

Neoliberalism is not a right-wing view. Indeed, many neoliberals are completely comfortable with State intervention and even some degree of welfare so long as the ownership of the means of production remains in private hands. It is not synonyms with Austrian economics or whatever. It means above all faith in the market to solve social questions- e.g. John Kerry calling for market-based solutions to AGW.

disagree. Kerry seeks government regulation and taxes, and that is not a market solution. Neo-liberalism is synonymous with Austrian economics, and is very extreme. No regulation, no taxes, only market solutions. Neo-liberalism is the Republican Party's philosophy. The Democrats compromise with it. I understand that from your extreme point of view on the other side, it all looks the same.

No, I mean that it literally is all the same. E.g. from Jimmah Carter's 1978 State of the Union Address.

Quote:Government cannot solve our problems, it can't set our goals. It cannot define our vision. Government cannot eliminate poverty or provide a bountiful economy or reduce inflation or save our cities or cure illiteracy or provide energy. And government cannot mandate goodness.

Carter introduced deregulation into e.g. airlines and beer and trucking, and prioritized passing these deregulation efforts over traditional Keynesian goals lime health care. Trying to fob neoliberalism off solely on Republicans or "the Right" is a lie.

What Reagan pushed before entering office was radical economic libertarianism. Capital doesn't actually like that. It isn't good long term. What it likes is "sensible" (i.e. pro-business) regulation and economic restructuring. So Reagan was reduced to pushing neoliberalism from the Right.

Capital has wings. Left-neoliberalism certainly exists - "progressive" identitariabism fused to pro-business policies.

As I said, neoliberalism is the policy of the Republican Party. Democrats have compromised with it because it is the prevailing philosophy, and is too popular. So Democrats in the neo-liberal era had some neo-liberal policies, but they also had some of those "sensible" policies. 

I don't agree there is such a thing as Left neo-liberalism. Neo-liberalism is the polar opposite of the Left in economic terms. It is social darwinism. It IS equal to radical economic libertarianism. I have used the term "libertarian economics" to describe the policies of such folks as Reagan, Gingrich, GW Bush and Paul Ryan here on this forum for 24 years. Those on the so-called Left who pursue some neo-liberal policies, like Carter and Clinton (both former southern governors) are moderates, and are not really on the "Left." 

But I would agree that "Capital has wings." Businessmen are not monolithic; some are more moderate, and understand that neo-liberalism is really destructive to the country, and thus really hurts their business. People like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet for example. Very much capitalists, but they support some more-moderate policies. You can't call those two "on the Left." But politicians of similar bent like Carter and Clinton do fuse some progressive policies with pro-business ones.

Democrats these days are moving left. Biden is moving back toward a new version of the previous pre-Reagan era philosophy of "embedded liberalism" of the Keynesian style. That is not leftist. It is nowhere near what you believe in, Mr. Einzige. But from your point of view, people of different views whom you disagree with seem to be all the same. But they are not. They all just disagree with you.

[David Horn]

(04-12-2021, 09:54 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(04-03-2021, 09:43 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(04-02-2021, 12:21 PM)Anthony Wrote: Not surprisingly, I agree with Joe Manchin.  Let's go to $11 an hour for now - so long as the minimum wage is thereafter indexed to an "unchained" CPI once the minimum wage does reach that figure.

And the Democrats have only themselves to blame - because of the Culture Wars, which they started - for being forced to compromise on this, and so many other issues.

$15 is low today and far outdated by the time it finally arrives. $11 is an insult. If the minimum had kept pace since 1973, it would be $20+. I do agree that the laser focus on culture issues has been much of the problem. It seems to be that advancement on trend line A must be offset by stagnation on trend line B.  It’s not right, but it seems to be the case.  And no, I don’t have a solution for that.

I think you should go big and impose 60$. You won't have much of an economy left but whatever, that's beside the point.

If we had followed the trend from the end of WW-II through roughly 1973, the minimum wage would be between $20 and $22 an hour.  People getting paid at that level have disposable income, meaning more spending overall.  More spending leads to more profits for businesses, who then need more workers to do what they do.  So how is this bad?