POLITICS & DONALD Annoying Orange MEGATHREAD

[IkeTheGeneric]

If our economy continues down the same road it has been travelling, how will would an economic collapse be unfathomable? It's not like the system is a stranger to economic recessions/depressions. Here's some theoretical scenarios:

1. The top 1% continues to amass wealth uninhibited, labor reforms come slowly if at all. The middle class collapses, unable to keep up with the widening wealth gap.

2. Capitalism inevitably continues to expand, consuming resources faster than they could ever be replenished. The environment is destroyed, society collapses.

3. Major companies go bankrupt as the resources they sell begin to run out, the economy loses a lot of steam.

4. Major countries get into violent conflicts over scarce resources, which would end up about as well as you would expect it to.

5. Government becomes more imperialist / fascist in order to strong arm resources from other countries or to enforce a status quo as civil unrest arises. Both would probably lead to revolution.

Yes, let's reform our entire economical policy because of a few contextless worst-case-scenarios (if it isn't just complete baseless garbage)

A few of your incredibly strong bullet points there are neigh implausible. Long story short, these would make great fictional history novella worldbuilding, but eeeeeeeehhhhhhhhhh.

The last point is especially on the nose about being completely ridiculous. Do you honestly think that'll happen?

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[PhantOS]

I don't care if $15 looks like a big scary number (God forbid someone out there might receive something they don't deserve), you cannot live on minimum wage. Minimum wage was designed to be the minimum amount you can be paid in order to survive. Thus, it needs to be raised.

if you raise minimum wage literally every small business in existence will need to also raise their wages in order to adapt to a new supply and demand. as a result, you'd see a massive increase in money circulation and a decrease in value. or as people nowadays call it, inflation

you can't just advocate this entire system and not acknowledge the economic effects on how manipulating supply demand and incentive will forget everyone over

[Renderman In A Bowl]

I don't care if $15 looks like a big scary number (God forbid someone out there might receive something they don't deserve), you cannot live on minimum wage. Minimum wage was designed to be the minimum amount you can be paid in order to survive. Thus, it needs to be raised.

maybe work 12 hours instead of 8, you absolute dolt

[otto-san]

if you raise minimum wage literally every small business in existence will need to also raise their wages in order to adapt to a new supply and demand. as a result, you'd see a massive increase in money circulation and a decrease in value. or as people nowadays call it, inflation

minimum wage workers account for about 2.7% of hourly paid workers (x), and obviously an even smaller portion of the entire employed labor force. i'm not an expert economist, but it seems like describing massive inflation events may be a bit of an exaggeration in that case. of course, that number is only people receiving exactly federal minimum wage, and wouldn't include everyone working for wages in between the current minimum and any proposed new one, so if anyone could find the numbers for that it'd be useful info

[Karl Marx]

Yes, let's reform our entire economical policy because of a few contextless worst-case-scenarios (if it isn't just complete baseless garbage)

A few of your incredibly strong bullet points there are neigh implausible. Long story short, these would make great fictional history novella worldbuilding, but eeeeeeeehhhhhhhhhh.

The last point is especially on the nose about being completely ridiculous. Do you honestly think that'll happen?

The pursuit of profit will never end on it's own. Do you think wealthy old men who couldn't care less about the world after they die have any motivation to band together, abandon their source of income, and develop sustainable energy? We're nearing a point where the effects of climate change will become irreversible. Beyond that, there's nothing implausible about the blatant scarcity of resources. It's also not unrealistic that a country would become increasingly authoritarian as a self-defense mechanism (See: national socialist Germany).

if you raise minimum wage literally every small business in existence will need to also raise their wages in order to adapt to a new supply and demand. as a result, you'd see a massive increase in money circulation and a decrease in value. or as people nowadays call it, inflation

The beautiful thing about Capitalism is that it gives us two great options to remedy this issue:

Option 1: Keep raising minimum wage in order to ensure that people don't starve to death. Inflation rises each time.
Option 2: Ignore the rising costs of living and leave poor people to die.

maybe work 12 hours instead of 8, you absolute dolt

People already do this.

On the bright side, all you need to do in order to survive on minimum wage is find rent for $600, work 2 jobs, and live without heating or air conditioning. Good luck supporting a family, though.

[Kearn]

Jesus christ. Let me make it more clear. As time progresses, the cost of living goes up. No amount of deflation will stop this. Preventing the adjustment of wages for people who need it to keep up drives them into poverty. The middle class is already feeling the effects of this. Not sure if you realized, but the middle class' average household income is anywhere from around $35,000 to $75,000. Most people end up stuck near the $35,000 zone.

you do understand that labors and skills inherently have different values, right? do you think billionaires magically make money all by themselves without hiring thousands of 6-figure employees to build and design projects for the company and manage the production output? someone with a double bachelor's in mechanical and electrical engineering with 15 years of experience designing electronics for a firm is obviously going to make far more money than a 23 year old high school dropout working at the company's shipping center

The reason that Revolutionary Catalonia collapsed was because of joint cooperation between the Soviets, Fascists, and Liberal democracies. The anarchists didn't do this to themselves, this was an orchestrated destruction. What you've pulled out as a "Gotcha!" card is the aftereffects of this destruction.

>communists form military secret police
>communists kill dissenters with military secret police
>communists are not at fault for creating a military secret police and killing dissenters with said military secret police

k

I don't care if $15 looks like a big scary number (God forbid someone out there might receive something they don't deserve), you cannot live on minimum wage. Minimum wage was designed to be the minimum amount you can be paid in order to survive. Thus, it needs to be raised.

wew buddy can't wait for my totally sane $15 minimum wage in rural arkansas that totally will not obliterate everything the moment the economy sneezes

[Acerblock]

As much as I respect the man, I do think people like Bernie do lack nuance on the minimum wage debate. America is an extremely diverse economy, and Kearn does have a point. Different states, hell even different counties have different standards and costs of living. A blanket policy of $15 across the entire United States, yeaaahhhhh too simplistic.

[PhantOS]

Option 1: Keep raising minimum wage. The cost of living rises and poor people are left to die
Option 2: Ignore the rising costs of living and leave poor people to die.

ftfy

minimum wage workers account for about 2.7% of hourly paid workers (x), and obviously an even smaller portion of the entire employed labor force. i'm not an expert economist, but it seems like describing massive inflation events may be a bit of an exaggeration in that case. of course, that number is only people receiving exactly federal minimum wage, and wouldn't include everyone working for wages in between the current minimum and any proposed new one, so if anyone could find the numbers for that it'd be useful info

here's the thing, increasing minimum wage too much will by default force all surrounding businesses that pay close to but slightly above minimum wage to actually increase their skilled labor amount. its like, if the current minimum wage is $11 and your business pays workers $15 for harder, more qualified labor. if the minimum wage raises to $15 you'll be forced to raise your business' baseline wage in order to compete with the minimum wage. otherwise you'd have a lack of qualified laborers because those who are qualified can just work for the same amount somewhere else

[IkeTheGeneric]

The pursuit of profit will never end on it's own. Do you think wealthy old men who couldn't care less about the world after they die have any motivation to band together, abandon their source of income, and develop sustainable energy? We're nearing a point where the effects of climate change will become irreversible. Beyond that, there's nothing implausible about the blatant scarcity of resources. It's also not unrealistic that a country would become increasingly authoritarian as a self-defense mechanism (See: national socialist Germany).

But none of what you said is reasonably going to happen. Like, at all.

In fact I'm going to go a step further and say that things are going to continue to stay weird and confusing, and then quality of life is just going to get better under capitalism. Why? Because forget you Karl Marx, that's why

[Kearn]

As much as I respect the man, I do think people like Bernie do lack nuance on the minimum wage debate. America is an extremely diverse economy, and Kearn does have a point. Different states, hell even different counties have different standards and costs of living. A blanket policy of $15 across the entire United States, yeaaahhhhh too simplistic.

to add on to my point, DYK people in nebraska earn more than people in california after adjusting for purchasing power



https://taxfoundation.org/real-value-100-each-state-2016/

i don't know if this even factors in the higher tax rates in california, but if not it would mean even less income for californians

[Acerblock]

Honestly, not surprised.

[Karl Marx]

you do understand that labors and skills inherently have different values, right? do you think billionaires magically make money all by themselves without hiring thousands of 6-figure employees to build and design projects for the company and manage the production output? someone with a double bachelor's in mechanical and electrical engineering with 15 years of experience designing electronics for a firm is obviously going to make far more money than a 23 year old high school dropout working at the company's shipping center

I'm not exactly sure how this is a response to the point I brought up. Are you insinuating that people should be required to spend the money on higher education if they want to stay out of poverty?

>communists form military secret police
>communists kill dissenters with military secret police
>communists are not at fault for creating a military secret police and killing dissenters with said military secret police

k

Did you miss the part where the Communist party was not only collaborating with the Soviets, who were opposed to the existence of Revolutionary Catalonia, but had completely separate interests from the syndicalists attempting to create a functioning, autonomous society?

[otto-san]

here's the thing, increasing minimum wage too much will by default force all surrounding businesses that pay close to but slightly above minimum wage to actually increase their skilled labor amount. its like, if the current minimum wage is $11 and your business pays workers $15 for harder, more qualified labor. if the minimum wage raises to $15 you'll be forced to raise your business' baseline wage in order to compete with the minimum wage. otherwise you'd have a lack of qualified laborers because those who are qualified can just work for the same amount somewhere else

yeah that makes sense, tho i'd still like to see some actual figures on this to see what if the actual long-term economic impact is as bad as anticipated

[IkeTheGeneric]

Are you insinuating that people should be required to spend the money on higher education if they want to stay out of poverty?

You can't hold an entry level position forever if you want to move on towards a paycheck that'll afford you a comfortable lifestyle.

[HellHound]

>go to work in a metal foundry in a communist utopia
>get into an accident and wait in an hour and a half line for a state-appointed doctor
>get home, starve because all of the farmers have been told to work in metal foundries; crops are ready to harvest but everybody is told to work in factories
>die a week later