Trickle down economics

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That statement is patently false. We have tons of scholarships, federal tuition assistance, and special loan programs specifically for low income people to go to college
 
JanSobieskiIII said:
That statement is patently false. We have tons of scholarships, federal tuition assistance, and special loan programs specifically for low income people to go to college
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I suppose so few of them take up the offer because most of them are just too lazy? Or too stupid to qualify? How do you explain the fact that so few of them go to college? The most reasonable explanation is that despite your claims, they find it very very difficult to manage.
 
I’d imagine at least a very large percentage of them don’t want to go to college, and choose not to go. Most of my friends have never been to college.
 
@Cimachol

“ … Some jobs don’t require enough from the worker to merit the full cost of living. … I didn’t make a full “living wage,” but I made some money and was home to raise the kids. Should I not have been allowed to do that part-time work since it didn’t pay what you feel I should have been making? … The government can’t artificially boost the cost of something without lowering demand … increase the availability of training programs for various in-demand professions.”

I respect your personal experience, and … governments still don’t get it right. The gap widens to the detriment of close to half the population.

Governments make policy, policy has consequences. Poverty and low income restrict people’s ability to enjoy even basic needs, and when widespread, suggest policy makers are just not yet getting it right.

I think any job, requiring a full day’s work, must merit at least a full day’s benefit. It respects the dignity of the worker, and the dignity of work itself. How and whether that benefit reaches the worker will reveal the priorities and creativity of the government. Watch who benefits from the recent series of decisions. Wealth is wrung out and squeezed to the top. More gated communities are built to secure the plunder.
 
No? Heck around me most of the people that didn’t go to college are out earning their former classmates that went to college.

Amazon is huge in my area and they pay very well.
 
And I suggest it’s not even a problem. Never has been, wealth is not a fixed amount. Just because someone has more doesn’t mean others have less. I highly suggest you read the road to serfdom by FA Hayek. You’d benefit greatly. He was one of the most brilliant economists in the 20th century.
 
LeafByNiggle said:
So you don’t know why the disparity is so huge. I suggest it is systematic injustice.
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Why does disparity matter if virtually everyone is able to obtain the goods and services he needs?

What, then, is your remedy? Let’s be sure to distinguish between high income and great wealth in this, because they don’t necessarily coincide.
 
Socrates92 said:
I think you have to avoid blurring the lines between actual slavery, and what you call effective slavery. I’m guessing by the second you refer to work for wages which you consider to lower than what they should be, or cases of child labour. But unless the worker is actually held at the job by force because he would have better prospects elsewhere, he is not a slave, but is actually better off than he would be otherwise. Paying someone $8/day when he would otherwise be making only $6/day is not slave labour, nor is it even “effective” slave labour, really.
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I’m referring in this case to various situations where a worker is effectively impeded from choosing another job by some form of force or deception, but isn’t considered a slave under the law of the country they’re in. This would include, for example, situations where the employer artificially creates debt on the part of the worker, or withholds legal documents that the worker would need to seek other employment.
 
Ridgerunner said:
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LeafByNiggle:
So you don’t know why the disparity is so huge. I suggest it is systematic injustice.
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Why does disparity matter if virtually everyone is able to obtain the goods and services he needs?
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I have two answers to that. Both of them are questions.
  1. You say everyone is able to obtain the goods and services they need. Who gets to decide if this is true or not? Do we ask the people at the bottom if they are “getting the goods and services they need?” Or do we decide on their behalf? Something tells me you will not get the same answer if you ask them. And who would know better than those people themselves?
  2. You say what does it matter. Let me ask an analogous question. If we decided as a society that it would be appropriate to raise the income tax on the super rich only by 3%, what does it matter that they are paying a little more tax as long as they are able to get some return on their investments and can live a reasonably comfortable life style? (Certainly more comfortable than those on the bottom.) If you get to say when poor people have enough goods and services, maybe I should get to say when the super rich have enough goods and services and income.
What, then, is your remedy? Let’s be sure to distinguish between high income and great wealth in this, because they don’t necessarily coincide.
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One possible remedy would be to undo the recent tax breaks for the super rich, based on taxable income - not wealth. That way family farms that handle a lot of money but don’t earn much taxable income would not be affected.
 
MonteRCMS said:
King George supposedly said that if the colonists don’t like taxation without representation, see how they like taxation WITH representation.
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Monarchs weren’t always too fond of the “representation.” The truth was, though, that the colonists had it pretty good when it came to taxes.
 
If the government sees people working full-time jobs and yet not able to get by without outside help, what is the solution? I see two options:
  1. a system that subsidizes employers who don’t pay a living wage by helping out people in low-paying jobs who don’t have other income to make up the difference between what they make and what it takes to live–that is, the government helps families that only have low-wage earners, but not high school kids whose parents feed them. Providing health care coverage would be one way to do this; it doesn’t have to be a direct monetary subsidy. Not requiring these people to pay taxes is another way, since society benefits from their work and the low prices maintained by paying them such low wages.
  2. a system that requires employers to pay a living wage to those who work full-time at honest labor.
The alternative is to allow people to work full work weeks doing necessary work and tolerating a situation where they don’t make enough money to even get by. That is oppression. If it is tolerated by those who make public policy (that’s us), it is an injustice.

Choose how to keep people who do dignified work in a dignified living situation. Don’t act as if their problem or injustices they labor under have nothing to do with those who claim to be Christian.
 
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I think it is fair to say that it does not harm those who have a way to live a simple but secure and dignified life if someone else is able to live in splendor. Wealth disparity is not an injustice unless someone is suffering in an intolerable living situation. Feeling jealous that someone has more material wealth than you do when you have enough is not the same as suffering an injustice.

For instance, if the “poor” in this country were all food-secure, warm, had access to medical care and had a standard of living that others doing manual labor elsewhere in the world would find enviable, it wouldn’t necessarily be an injustice if some other people in this country made many times more than the poorest.

Of course, there is also the question of how much of the world’s limited resources those at the top were consuming, but that is another question entirely, one that the entire society might have to confront together.
 
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Absolutely. Work benefits society and the individual. It must be recognized and rewarded, through whatever devices result in a decent living condition, and well above living allowance given to non working persons. Far too many resign to live on “charity” (which is not true charity when lacking justice) since they are unable to afford the poverty of the working poor. People must be respected as more than a resource (name removed by moderator)ut to make money.
 
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Crocus said:
Absolutely. Work benefits society and the individual. It must be recognized and rewarded, through whatever devices result in a decent living condition, and well above living allowance given to non working persons. Far too many resign to live on “charity” (which is not true charity when lacking justice) since they are unable to afford the poverty of the working poor. People must be respected as more than a resource (name removed by moderator)ut to make money.
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Having said that, I think it is up to a society to decide if citizens would rather subsidize those who do honest work that won’t pencil out in a business model or if they want to force businesses to only employ those who can bring in a monetary benefit to the business that will cover a living salary. There isn’t anything inherently unjust with society deciding to pay to recognize work in a way other than employers directly paying for it. It is something to work out. Maybe some service is very necessary but it is also very necessary to keep the price of it low. If that is the societal decision, what choice is there to subsidize it in some way or other? Doing it by subsidizing labor costs is one way.
 
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PetraG said:
I think it is fair to say that it does not harm those who have a way to live a simple but secure and dignified life if someone else is able to live in splendor.
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It is also fair to say that it does not harm the super rich to tax them at 45% of their income. They will still be living a very comfortable life, secure and dignified.
Wealth disparity is not an injustice unless someone is suffering in an intolerable living situation.
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It may not be an injustice, but is it desirable for a society to promote a system that makes for extreme income disparity? And who gets to decide if their living situation is intolerable? Can we ask them? Or can we just decide for them based on what we think and what we know of their lives?
Feeling jealous that someone has more material wealth than you do when you have enough is not the same as suffering an injustice.
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And being taxed at 45% is not necessarily suffering an injustice either.
For instance, if the “poor” in this country were all food-secure, warm, had access to medical care and had a standard of living that others doing manual labor elsewhere in the world would find enviable, it wouldn’t necessarily be an injustice if some other people in this country made many times more than the poorest.
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Is that how we want to judge our own country? As long as there is some place on earth where people are worse off than our poor, we’re good. Nothing to worry about.
 
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