Social Movements, Low Wage Jobs & More

[Taskmage]

Re: Social Movements, Low Wage Jobs & More

And that was a single source, google it yourself you lazy arse - for once, it was something that was actually all over the news networks a while back.

You're the one trying convince people of what you believe. The onus is on you to look credible and provide valid sources. If you're just going to toss out claims and leave it to the audience to see if you're lying, you're no better than Fox.

[Taskmage]

Re: Social Movements, Low Wage Jobs & More

And here's another from freaking FORBES

Welcome to Forbes

Satisfied? Probably not but there's no convincing some people.

Uhh, this link goes to an advertisement that redirects me to the Forbes front page. That is not very convincing. You're calling Mezlo a lazy arse, but you can't even be bothered to see if your own links work?

[cidbahamut]

Re: Social Movements, Low Wage Jobs & More

He posted a URL. Who cares if it doesn't link to anything meaningful, he made the effort TM. GAWD...
</sarcasm>

[Armando]

Re: Social Movements, Low Wage Jobs &amp; More

If you worked harder and invested more in a career you'd get paid more and wouldn't have to cry about inequality.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_world_fallacy

The standard of living we demand in Western countries is unfair and unsustainable. The world's average salary is $1,480 per month(1) or about $18k per year. That's how much everyone would make if you took everything from the rich and gave it to the poor, creating perfect income equality.

I'm not convinced this makes any sense. The economy isn't a zero-sum thing:

Many economic situations are not zero-sum, since valuable goods and services can be created, destroyed, or badly allocated in a number of ways, and any of these will create a net gain or loss of utility to numerous stakeholders. Specifically, all trade is by definition positive sum, because when two parties agree to an exchange each party must consider the goods it is receiving to be more valuable than the goods it is delivering. In fact, all economic exchanges must benefit both parties to the point that each party can overcome its transaction costs, or the transaction would simply not take place.

In economics, the lump of labour fallacy (or lump of jobs fallacy, fallacy of labour scarcity, or the zero-sum fallacy, from its ties to the zero-sum game) is the contention that the amount of work available to labourers is fixed. It is considered a fallacy by most economists,[1] who hold that the amount of work is not static. Another way to describe the fallacy is that it treats the demand for labour as an exogenous variable, when it is not.

Historically, the term "lump of labour" originated to rebut the idea that reducing the number of hours that employees are allowed to labour during the working day would lead to a reduction in unemployment. The term has also been used to describe the commonly held beliefs that increasing labour productivity and immigration cause unemployment. Whereas some argue that immigrants displace domestic workers, others believe this to be a fallacy, arguing that such a view relies on a belief that the number of jobs in the economy is fixed, whereas in reality immigration increases the size of the economy, thus creating more jobs.[2][3]

It should be possible for third world countries to get out of poverty without the rest of the world incurring an equal loss of wealth. Looking at the total amount of money in the world right now only makes sense if you're satisfied with leaving the economic status quo the same, so you're not really looking at equality.

[cidbahamut]

Re: Social Movements, Low Wage Jobs &amp; More

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_world_fallacy

I didn't realize this was a thing. Definitely making a note of that for later.

[Taskmage]

Re: Social Movements, Low Wage Jobs &amp; More

Researching Malacite's (one good) link before I move on to the zero-sum objection. Seems interesting, but I think I see why it doesn't apply.

The examples refer to local or national economies, which are not closed systems, so obviously they can be somewhat elastic as labor and goods move in and out of them. My example referred to the economy of the world as a whole, which is a closed system and cannot benefit from trade with outside actors because by definition it encompasses all possible economic actors. It is in a sense zero-sum. The global economy can grow, and that global "GDP per capita" (using quotes because that's not really what it represents but stands in for the same concepts) can increase, but my point is that taking the world as it is now, if the world economy was clay in your hands there would not be enough clay to elevate every productive worker to the standard of living that Malacite believes should be the minimum. This is my cursory, unreferenced response.

[Malacite]

Re: Social Movements, Low Wage Jobs &amp; More

Uhh, this link goes to an advertisement that redirects me to the Forbes front page. That is not very convincing. You're calling Mezlo a lazy arse, but you can't even be bothered to see if your own links work?

wtf... ok going to fix that.

EDIT: Fixed the link, also, I would add to your last point that there are just so many varying circumstances in each Country that true global equality is a pipe dream. That doesn't mean we shouldn't still strive to better ourselves though. Really I'm just beyond sick of the rampant, selfish mentality of "me me me fuck society everything I have I earned entirely on my own and I'm not giving any back" which is complete utter nonsense and counter-productive to a healthy society.

[Taskmage]

Re: Social Movements, Low Wage Jobs &amp; More

So, regarding Mal's one good link,

More Than Two-Thirds Of U.S. Corporations Pay No Federal Income�Tax - Home - The Daily Bail

Annoyingly, the source for this article is only available to paid WSJ subscribers, and other articles that give the 69% statistic only attribute it to "some sources." Now I see why my teachers and professors have always thrown tantrums about bad referencing. What I did find was a video related to the article in which the author is interviewed, here. He says that this rise in untaxed corporations is due to a rise in "pass-through" corporations. In pass-through corporations, all profits and losses are distributed to the shareholders directly, for whom it counts as income and is subject to the personal income tax. So the implication that there's all this money moving around tax-free is false. It is taxed at a lower rate, but that doesn't make as good of a sound bite as ZERO TAXES.

As to the dramatically growing number of them, the Congressional Budget Office tells a different story. According to the CBO report, "In 1980, 83 percent of firms were organized as pass-through entities, and they accounted for 14 percent of business receipts; by 2007, those shares had increased to 94 percent and 38 percent, respectively." So if this data is correct, these untaxable companies have historically been far more prevalent, and while they have increased in number, the change hasn't been nearly as dramatic as other sources suggest. But what is the character of those corporations?

According to the CBO report, the primary source of this increase is the rise of "S Corporations." What is an S Corporation? It's an IRS tax designation that is reserved for small businesses. So far from being an indicator of huge corporations screwing the little guy and shirking social responsibility, the rise in non-taxables seems to be an indicator of small businesses and startups becoming more prevalent in the economy. Exactly the kind of thing I would expect you to support, but now I guess you wants to tax them more? Are we for helping the middle class now or screwing them?

This is why you shouldn't take anything you pick up off the mass media at face value. Your source just basically twisted your own values back against you and tricked you into supporting something against your own interests.

That doesn't mean we shouldn't still strive to better ourselves though. Really I'm just beyond sick of the rampant, selfish mentality of "me me me fuck society everything I have I earned entirely on my own and I'm not giving any back" which is complete utter nonsense and counter-productive to a healthy society.

Hey, man, I'm all for that. It just ticks me off when you come in with things like "public officials need to wake up, get off their ass, and do X" as if 1) just doing X was a simple, obvious thing and 2) if X happened then that would fix everything.

[Malacite]

Re: Social Movements, Low Wage Jobs &amp; More

I literally just picked a few out of the bazillion google results that came up, but yeah I totally understand the need to reference good sources - healthy skepticism and whatnot. Generally speaking though, Stewart & Colbert's writers are really good and check their stuff well in advance. I can only count on one hand the number of times they've actually blundered something.

Again, really sad (to me) that those 2 are infinitely more credible than the "professional" media outlets.


Also, now apparently the IRS is taking all kinds of heat (and people are trying to pin it on Obama, because the President totally runs the IRS...) for targeting conservative groups like the Tea Party. CNN had a decent interview about it earlier with Al Franken, and I agree with the senator (and Obama) - it's complete total nonsense and somebody needs to get sacked because you can't be doing that sorta thing; political orientation is not grounds for something of that sort no matter how much you may disagree with or dislike one side. I do however, agree with the questioning of tax exempt status for these groups; Educational? Don't back any particular candidates?!

Bull. SHIT. And this goes for any side, not just the tea party - these damn 501c(4) groups are a plague on politics, and in my eyes make me question the supreme court's authority, but that's a whole other issue I don't really want to get into at the moment.

[Taskmage]

Re: Social Movements, Low Wage Jobs &amp; More

They really are a shining light in the field of journalism. Not only does mixing news with entertainment actually make people want to get informed, but the obvious distortions made for the sake of humor cause people to actually consider their own feelings on the subject rather than taking everything at face value.

[Mezlo]

Re: Social Movements, Low Wage Jobs &amp; More

So, regarding Mal's one good link,

Annoyingly, the source for this article is only available to paid WSJ subscribers, and other articles that give the 69% statistic only attribute it to "some sources." Now I see why my teachers and professors have always thrown tantrums about bad referencing. What I did find was a video related to the article in which the author is interviewed, here. He says that this rise in untaxed corporations is due to a rise in "pass-through" corporations. In pass-through corporations, all profits and losses are distributed to the shareholders directly, for whom it counts as income and is subject to the personal income tax. So the implication that there's all this money moving around tax-free is false. It is taxed at a lower rate, but that doesn't make as good of a sound bite as ZERO TAXES.

As to the dramatically growing number of them, the Congressional Budget Office tells a different story. According to the CBO report, "In 1980, 83 percent of firms were organized as pass-through entities, and they accounted for 14 percent of business receipts; by 2007, those shares had increased to 94 percent and 38 percent, respectively." So if this data is correct, these untaxable companies have historically been far more prevalent, and while they have increased in number, the change hasn't been nearly as dramatic as other sources suggest. But what is the character of those corporations?

According to the CBO report, the primary source of this increase is the rise of "S Corporations." What is an S Corporation? It's an IRS tax designation that is reserved for small businesses. So far from being an indicator of huge corporations screwing the little guy and shirking social responsibility, the rise in non-taxables seems to be an indicator of small businesses and startups becoming more prevalent in the economy. Exactly the kind of thing I would expect you to support, but now I guess you wants to tax them more? Are we for helping the middle class now or screwing them?

This is why you shouldn't take anything you pick up off the mass media at face value. Your source just basically twisted your own values back against you and tricked you into supporting something against your own interests.



Hey, man, I'm all for that. It just ticks me off when you come in with things like "public officials need to wake up, get off their ass, and do X" as if 1) just doing X was a simple, obvious thing and 2) if X happened then that would fix everything.

I wish i could thank this 1000 times...

[Malacite]

Re: Social Movements, Low Wage Jobs &amp; More

They really are a shining light in the field of journalism. Not only does mixing news with entertainment actually make people want to get informed, but the obvious distortions made for the sake of humor cause people to actually consider their own feelings on the subject rather than taking everything at face value.

Which is the mark of a true comedian - it makes you think as well as laugh. I maintain that Carlin was the master, may he R.I.P. (I'm reading his semiautobiography right now)


EDIT: About an earlier point, specifically the health care costs: A lot of that is going to depend on public effort. There are things govt can do, like reinstating P.E. across the country in schools and curbing the content of advertisements (seriously, General Mills gets away with murder because all that crap is self-regulated! What a joke!) as well as subsidizing healthy foods instead of junk food and meat/dairy so much.

But ultimately it's up to ourselves. Good on Michelle Obama for her efforts, but I think Obesity really warrants being labelled as a matter of national security. The figures are staggering; In that HBO special I was watching earlier, I believe it was the state comptroller for Texas (school board etc.) that said in her state alone, Obesity is adding $30+ billion a year to medical expenses. The national figure I saw recently puts it up in the hundreds of billions. 1/3 Men and 1/5 women in the U.S. will develop some form of Diabetes in their life time, and for the first time ever we're seeing a generation that will live shorter lives than their parents.



If that doesn't scare the crap out of people I don't know what will. Being overweight (and especially Obese) increases your risks for so many problems, particularly heart disease which is the single leading cause of death in the U.S.; Actually, at least 5 of the top 10 leading causes of death in the U.S. are all preventable diseases that Obesity exacerbates tremendously. For the record, Canada's not much better either; We have stricter laws regarding food healthy safety but we still have our fair share of fatties. One particular difference that I only just learned is here it's actually illegal for clear beverages (like mountain dew) to contain caffeine.


EDIT: Also, while I doubt Mezlo and I will ever see eye to eye on anything, I would still like to apologize if I'm coming on too strong; I have natural tendency to get a little... crusadery , for lack of a better/proper term, about certain things because I can't stand ordinary, decent folk getting worked over by the system and those who abuse it. Kinda funny too, as I never really liked volunteering or anything when I was a teen but I still like to try and help in whatever way I can.

[Taskmage]

Re: Social Movements, Low Wage Jobs &amp; More

On the tangent, I still say that more research needs to be done into the possibility of epigenetic roots to the obesity epidemic. Dietary changes are the facile assumption, and that's enough reason for me to be suspicious of it, especially considering the carnival of fad diets in the last several years with totally contradictory bases. What I want to know is, how many of the people who are currently struggling with obesity are descended from mothers who took part in the starvation dieting that was rampant in the 70s and 80s? We know from the Dutch Hunger Winter study that children who experienced food scarcity in neonatal development have a stronger proclivity to store calories as fat and a greater vulnerability to heart disease, and that these effects can be passed down for multiple generations. It would just serve my sense of irony far to well if the pathological desire to be thin doomed generations of people to being fat.

[Malacite]

Re: Social Movements, Low Wage Jobs &amp; More

Of course it's more than just diet, I thought I addressed that.

But it is a major factor, coupled with increasingly sedentary lifestyles (including our jobs). According to the documentary I was watching (Weight of the Nation) on HBO, only 5 states now in the U.S. actually mandate P.E. in schools.

5 states. What, the, fuck?! Then you have all the horrible crap a lot of these schools serve for meals (yay Congress, way to classify Pizza as a vegetable on a really stupid technicality...) and the constant bombardment of adds on TV that aren't helping any. They were showing a bunch of old commercials (and by old I mean stuff I remember seeing on TV when I was 6 or 7) and I couldn't help but think to myself just how utterly evil some of these companies are. More surprising still, was the sugar content in several items; even in "healthy" beverages such as orange juice there was still 8 teaspoons of sugar per 12 ounces! 12 for apple and grape. (Side Note: Your body converts excess sugar into fat so it can store it for later use, which is why the sugar content in our food these days is such a big deal.)

It makes me think back on all the crap I used to gorge myself on growing up, everything from Caprisun to TV dinners... I'm lucky as all hell I have a relatively hyper metabolism, or I'd likely be a lot fatter than I am now. It's also why I'm taking steps to reduce my weight now, as our metabolisms naturally slow as we age.


EDIT: Now obviously not every company can afford to do what Google does, but damn if they aren't a shining example in a sea of crap - providing meals to workers as well as exercise equipment (and the time to use it). Honestly, I'd wager it would be far, far cheaper for some companies to make this sort of thing (at least the recreational facilities anyway) the norm than to continue along as we are now and the reason is simple - if your workers are healthier, that means lower health care premiums and less people getting sick/higher productivity. Probably wouldn't hurt for Congress to enact some form of mandatory paid vacation and reduced work scheduling bills;

The original one, called "The Black Bill" (named after the congressman who proposed it) actually called for a 30-hour work week I believe? It was around 25~30, to ensure that parents would have adequate time at home to spend with their families and rest between work back in the 1940's or 50's (I don't have the link handy, read about it on Bill Moyers' site a few months back). Ultimately it got set at 40 and has been the norm ever since, even though there are studies showing that working beyond 30~35 hours a week (TM brought this up a while back; what was the exact figure?) actually lower productivity. Which reminds me, America has consistently been shown to have the most productive work force in the world, but also the most stressed/overworked. And who's reaping the benefits of that? Corporate America. Even after 2008, year and year America's big corporations are posting ever-increasing record profits.

The people are getting hosed and somebody needs to do something about it - it sure as shit won't be Obama.

[Mezlo]

Re: Social Movements, Low Wage Jobs &amp; More

Also, while I doubt Mezlo and I will ever see eye to eye on anything, I would still like to apologize if I'm coming on too strong; I have natural tendency to get a little... crusadery

It's all good, if anything I think I came on too strong. I just get tired of people thinking they know what's best to do with my money. Even though Cid would disagree, I'm a fine upstanding citizen that works hard (10-11 hours a day), I pay my taxes, I give back to my local community, and I donate to the United Way every year during their drive. Do people give back more than me, yes, but do i give back more than most people, YES.