What wage is just?

[YourNameHere]

Lots of tap dancing with words.
Just is what is morally correct.
No need to debate what is just.
Eventually those who exploit will not be able to dicker with God on judgement day. Please keep that in mind.

 

[vz71]

Obviously someone that didn’t read my post.

 

[leonhardprintz]

t’s even worse nowadays, as people claim that they are “stressed” and therefore cannot handle a job… Stress is definitely one manifestation of mental and emotional illness or disturbance, but…what exactly is stress?

I believe its the job of psychologists and the medical profession to judge whether or not a person is too sick or ill to work. If you wanna claim disability benefits, or early retirement in Denmark, then you will have to have the approval of two independent doctors in the employ of the government.

Can people cheat that system? Yes, I’m sure there are a couple of cases where that happens. Should the welfare system be done away with because of those cheats. Of course not.

As for the rest of your post I’m not qualified to have a discussion about stress from a medical perspective. I don’t believe people who receive a diagnosis of “severe depression” are just faking it out of laziness.

After President Trump won the election, there were stories on television news (network, not FOX!) about college students who required “safe rooms” and “comfort animals” to be able to function!! Is this even legitimate?!

I think you’re mixing together some concepts. I have never heard of a “safe room” outside of wealthy people having a “panic room” which can be referred to by that word. I have heard of a concept of a “safe space”, which is basically not a particular place, but rather it being possible for say… students of color to have a club, or a group, where they can feel free to speak freely.

Catholics and Christians have plenty of safe spaces in terms of that. I remember it being nice finding a Christian club at my high school where I could talk about scriptures without having to defend them.

As for the photos of rooms with stuffed animals. I have no idea what that is. I’ve only ever seen it on right-wing news channels, which make suspect its only a handful of cases, or that its outright fake news.

I might be wrong on that though.

 

[leonhardprintz]

Personal capital, like corporate capital, is mobile. Unless Denmark has extraordinarily stringent controls on capital movements out of Denmark, the 53% to 24% differential in tax revenues could motivate moveable capital to move out (cp).

Perhaps, though we (like you) have rather stringent rules about taking up a second nationality and then trying abuse a lower personal income rate over there while living in Denmark. The larger pattern is that rich and wealthy danish people tend to stay in Denmark.

I’m no different in that regard, though I’ve often wanted to take a year or two working in the US.

 

[Dracarys]

So I’m very much in favor of my taxes going towards supporting mothers of babies under one year taking that full year

Wow, there is no way I favor that. People have been doing fine for many years without such extended maternity leave. Realistically the responsibility would fall to the employer to pay. I said it above, but I will repeat that employers are NOT charities. Why do so many people see companies and taxpayers as bottomless pits of money?

Also I don’t recommend you use the far left NPR as a source for anything.

 

[Dracarys]

don’t live off the government dime. In fact I’m a month away from paying off a student loan I have. Though the government did pay for most of my college education, for which I am grateful.

That is hilarious! You claim you don’t live off the government but then say they gave you free college. Really? You see no contradiction there? When you say the government paid you mean taxpayers unless Denmark has money trees. Do they?

But if you can’t tell those coal miners how to do it, then you can’t tell them its possible. That’s what I asked you to argue for, and I don’t believe its an unfair challenge. That you can’t show a good case for something they can do, is actually an argument against your position.

Not true. Everyone is an individual and how I did it is not the same as how you or your neighboor would succeed. Since you live in a cradle to grave welfare state I noticed your tendancy to see everyone as homongenous and helpless. Most Americans don’t think like that.

Naturally. In fact, that’s true of most posts on this forum, when they aren’t citing verifiable facts. I

LOL based on Europe’s lack of recent ability to defend itself in any way I think your the with lack of facts.

 

[Dracarys]

will agree with you though that the danish military budget needs to be increased. But the idea that we aren’t paying you, or supporting you just isn’t tru

If you were paying your fair share it wouldn’t be possible you have your welfare state where you get free college and other goodies.

Now Denmark’s contribution to NATO is around 1.5% of your GDP. That is pathetic by any standard. Just imagine what you would have to do if the US became isolationist and told all of you to go it alone. Face it all of Europe is spoiled and relying on their big brother US.

 

[leonhardprintz]

That is hilarious! You claim you don’t live off the government but then say they gave you free college.

They certainly did. I guess it depends on whether you count them paying for five years of college education being the definition of “living off the dime of the government.” It was a great five years of my life, but it wasn’t the majority.

Everyone is an individual and how I did it is not the same as how you or your neighboor would succeed. Since you live in a cradle to grave welfare state I noticed your tendancy to see everyone as homongenous and helpless.

I don’t see everyone as" homogenous" (I assume that’s the word you meant to use) nor helpless. You’re painting a strawman. In fact I was careful to specifically cite particular examples, rather than talking about people as a whole.

You’re talking to a strawman liberal who only exists in your own head @Dracarys.

LOL based on Europe’s lack of recent ability to defend itself in any way I think your the with lack of facts.

I’ve reread this sentence a couple of times. Its rather broken grammatically. Did you mean to say “I think you’re the one with the lack of facts”? In that case what facts about militaries did you cite? All you had was your friend from the army? I have those as well, including one from the intelligence community.

Its a historical fact that the US military might has been constant in size. In fact if we turn the clock back to around WWII, the majority of firepower in the world was in Europe. Especially during the WWII the US ramped up its military exponentially.

This event is both a historical accident, and testimony to the power of the American industries.

However, I don’t think its something that cannot be replicated, though (and I’ll repeat it here for completeness) I think it will take the equivalent of a European Pearl Harbor before we change course.

If you were paying your fair share it wouldn’t be possible you have your welfare state where you get free college and other goodies.

Why not? Our share would increase from 1.5% to 3.1%. That’s 1.6% of our budget we’d have to move from other projects. That’s quite doable.

 

[Regular_Atheist]

Why do you think I’m a troll?

 

[Dracarys]

is immoral to pay a worker anything other than a living wage. I’d even, considering Rerum Novarum and Catholic social teaching, consider it a sin to pay anything else.

It’s immoral for a government to set a wage an force a company to pay it. Market rule of supply and demand sets prices and wages. As I have said the employer has no obligation to be a charity. If a company does not pay the wage the MARKET dictates they will not get good employees and that company will fail. No one is forced to work where they do. I am amazed that you socialist don’t get this.

 

[Dracarys]

They certainly did. I guess it depends on whether you count them paying for five years of college education being the definition of “living off the dime of the government.” It was a great five years of my life, but it wasn’t the majority.

My time in college was great too, but I paid for my undergrad, and took out student loans for my graduate degree. I didn’t go to school on the dime of a wealthy American. You used tax money from one of your wealthy Danes. I am amazed you don’t see the contradiction here. You are the spoiled result of cradle to grave socialism. Now please go thank a rich guy.

You’re talking to a strawman liberal who only exists in your own h

Your memory is short.Go back and look at your example of the laid off coal miners. According to you they are locked and loaded in poverty and can’t get out. Go back and read your prior statement.

Why not? Our share would increase from 1.5% to 3.1%. That’s 1.6% of our budget we’d have to move from other projects. That’s quite doable

First it may be doable, but you people will never actually do it. It would steal money away from your precious entitlements. The first Dane who does not get a free ride through college will whine and your government will relent just like the French.

Secondly we are still talking percentages here. You must realize that 3.1% of not much is still not enough. Instead living in your welfare nanny state you should have had an actual capitalist system that doesn’t hammer your rich people. The high individual tax rate in Denmark is 55%! In the state of California they also have money grabbing tax and spenders so people are moving to the states of Texas and Arizona where the taxes are lower.

 

[_Ruby]

My time in college was great too, but I paid for my undergrad, and took out student loans for my graduate degree. I didn’t go to school on the dime of a wealthy American. You used tax money from one of your wealthy Danes. I am amazed you don’t see the contradiction here. You are the spoiled result of cradle to grave socialism. Now please go thank a rich guy.

Except the (name removed by moderator)ut in vs value out calculation is done across a person’s lifetime. People who pursue higher education on average become higher earners who pay more tax across their lifetime. Therefore no ‘rich guy’ is footing the bill, the graduate is paying for their education across their working lifetime.

Why do you think tax money is already pooled to provide education for children from the age of 4-18? Its not altruistic. Societies and governments benefit financially from an educated pool of citizens. Who do you think paid for you to learn your ABCs?

 

[LilyM]

Dracarys:

My time in college was great too, but I paid for my undergrad, and took out student loans for my graduate degree. I didn’t go to school on the dime of a wealthy American. You used tax money from one of your wealthy Danes. I am amazed you don’t see the contradiction here. You are the spoiled result of cradle to grave socialism. Now please go thank a rich guy.

Except the (name removed by moderator)ut in vs value out calculation is done across a person’s lifetime. People who pursue higher education on average become higher earners who pay more tax across their lifetime. Therefore no ‘rich guy’ is footing the bill, the graduate is paying for their education across their working lifetime.

Why do you think tax money is already pooled to provide education for children from the age of 4-18? Its not altruistic. Societies and governments benefit financially from an educated pool of citizens. Who do you think paid for you to learn your ABCs?

Goodness - society also benefits when working parents are able to be at home with their children at night because they aren’t out working 2, 3 or umpteen side jobs. As do employers. Lower crime rates, better educational outcomes, more productive future generations of employees and patrons for your business.

Employers more directly benefit when employees are well-rested, mentally sharp and able to focus on their tasks because they aren’t tiring themselves out working x number of other jobs. Less mistakes, more efficiency, more productivity.

 

[vz71]

People are still willing to do an honest day’s work; the trouble is they want a week’s pay for it.

 

[Peeps]

I ended up taking a six-year maternity leave when my babies were born.

I was able to work part-time with my older daughter, but breast-feeding ended at 6 months. It just wasn’t working to breast-feed sometimes and not other times, and for me, pumping just didn’t work. (Perhaps with today’s better pumps, it might have worked for me.)

But when I was 8 months pregnant with my second daughter, i clearly remember wondering how on earth I was going to manage losing sleep with TWO young children, breastfeeding, and working, and I totaled up the tiny amount of money I would bring home after paying the cost of a daycare or sitter–and I talked it over with my husband, and the next day, I walked into the lab manager’s office and told him, “I’m not going to be back.”

For a year, he called at least once every two weeks to ask if I was ready to come back to work (there is a big shortage of lab techs that has always been and probably always will be).

I am SO GLAD that I stayed home with my daughters! They were extremely-well reared by me. Both of them were reading BEFORE they went to school–a goal that I had ever since attending college and seeing with my own eyes how the education majors were the wildest party-ers in the entire college, even worse than the music majors (most of them were playing gigs in the bars where everyone else was partying).

I was NOT going to have my daughters end up in a 1st Grade class with a teacher who partied his/her way through college and barely graduated with passing grades, and enjoyed trying new educational theories out on his/her students. Nope, I was determined not to send my kids to school until they already knew how to read just in case they ended up with a dumb-head teacher.

And it wasn’t just reading–they had a fantastic childhood–playing outdoors, hiking, meeting all kinds of people (we did “field trips” to meet people and learn about their different professions), reading stories to them at least an hour a day, gardening experiments (which always failed for me), cooking, picnics, chores, games, prayers, VBS, music–lots of music and singing…

…I just wish every parent could this. We were poor–always in debt–our one crumby car kept falling apart at least twice a month, but we didn’t have money to pay for a different car. We bought our kids Christmas presents at yard sales (they didn’t know the difference).

But it was worth it. I take credit (and give a lot to my husband, too!) for how my kids turned out.

I think a lot less money should be spent on public education (which is a failure for many kids and their families), and the money should be given to moms (or dads) so that they can stay home for that crucial first year of baby’s life and rear them well.

In other words, I would take the tax money AWAY from public schools and give it back to the parents. A much better investment, IMO.

I do realize the problems with this. A lot of young parents have no clues about child-rearing and would go crazy within a few weeks. To me, that’s sad that child-rearing has become a lost art/skill.

 

[LilyM]

People are still willing to do an honest day’s work; the trouble is they want a week’s pay for it.

And for every person like that, there’s an employer who is more than willing to have them work a full week and pay them enough to live on for a day … how exactly is that supposed to be equitable?

 

[Socrates92]

Who would take that job?

Anyone who wanted to.

 

[Dracarys]

Goodness - society also benefits when working parents are able to be at home with their children at night because they aren’t out working 2, 3 or umpteen side jobs. As do employers. Lowe

Ok, but society does not benefit from having to pay taxes to support you so you can enjoy your children and sleep in. What is with this entitlement attitude on this forum. You should not even be having kids if your still in college. If you do than use your own money, not mine.

 

[Dracarys]

Therefore no ‘rich guy’ is footing the bill, the graduate is paying for their education across their working lifetime.

Why do you think tax money is already pooled to provide education for children from the age of 4-18? Its not altruistic. Societies and governments benefit financially from an educated pool of citizens. Who do you think paid for you to learn your ABCs?

That is total nonsense. The wealthy who are actually working pay a much higher tax rate in entitlement welfare contries like Denmark. It’s 55% rate there. That is outrageous. Why should anyone who has worked hard, and risked their capital have to pay more than half their income so the lazy brat down the street can go to college and major in communications?

As for who paid for me to learn my ABCs it was my parents who paid for my parochial school education while paying high property taxes for everyone else’s kid.

 

[Dracarys]

People are still willing to do an honest day’s work; the trouble is they want a week’s pay for it

Sure, and if your current employer is not meeting your needs quit and get another job. This stuff is not hard.

I keep saying that it is the employees responsibility to have the skills, knowledge, or talent required by employers. You are not getting a raise simply because you exist!