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he says at the beginning "i am not completely sure how bitcoin will play out." but still, he has a point.
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whatever you do, just don't sit on his lap.
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"Raising" the minimum wage would only result in more unemployed persons. If the minimum wage is higher than it is now, workers who's productivity does not justify the increased cost of their employment will be laid off. Any entry level microeconomic textbook (Mankiw, Krugman, etc.) will cite this same idea. Price floors (like the minimum wage) create surplus (in the case of min. wage - a surplus of unemployed persons) and price ceilings create shortages. Again, basic economics that would be cover in the first week or so of any entry level college econ class.
Raising the minimum wage is a feel-good political objective, not grounded well in mainstream economics. We'd be better off strengthening the earned-income tax credit instead, which would stimulate the aggregate demand that beetcoin is interested in.
don't know where you get your consensus, but refer to this link: http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/04/what-economists-think-about-raising-the-minimum-wage/?_r=0there is no consensus. what you don't seem to understand is that bigger corporations are making record profits, while employee wages are hitting record lows. the gap is widening, and the economy is dying because of it. there is less demand, since the "middle class" is unable to afford the things that it used to. putting more money in their pockets would mean more goods and services demanded, and big corporations still make billions but maybe not as much.
the richer the rich get, the more power they get. the more power they get, the more rich they get. it's a vicious cycle, and a zero-sum gain. that's why it's called wealth distribution.
You sound like a reasonable guy beetcoin. I am glad to have this discussion with you. Regarding Walmart gaming the system you seem to have simultaneously made two of my points for me. Large corporations love government power because more often than not they use that power to their own advantage whether it is subsidizing their employees or keeping out competition. If you are arguing against the welfare state which has historically increased poverty when implemented you have my support on that. But then you turn around and talk about the minimum wage. Once again I will ask you the same question. If an employer and employee both agree to a rate of compensation, who are you to jump in the middle and say the number should be above some arbitrary minimum? If I want to go work for Google for $5 an hour because I have a large savings account and can live on that small hourly rate comfortably for six months, and I value the education and experience I get working at Google more than money why should you care? A lot of people don't mind working for a low wage as a way to get their foot in the door and prove themselves before an employer will pay a larger amount. well the problem is that if walmart agrees to pay an unskilled worker the minimum wage at 25 hours a work week, that spills on over to the rest of the tax payers.. because walmart will usher and guide those very people to ask for government handouts, all the while the 4 waltons are in the top 10 in wealth. the 4 combind are worth $100 billion dollars. they are gaming the government handout system while saying "we don't have enough money.. but yeah, we have 100 billion dollars in assets." they can afford to pay their employees a living wage and make record profits at the same time, like costco does.. it's just that the wealthy people don't want to. if having $1 million more means you'd get to screw people out of $100 million, then no problem i guess. |
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The housing bubble. Cyprus. The fact that the american police drive around in goddamn tanks. Homeland defense buying ~300 bullets/american.
I believe there will be cataclysmic financial disasters in the near future. And that they will happen with little to no warning as we have seen so far. The key then, for us, is to spread awareness of an alternative. We have a few years, maybe. Five tops. Spread the word.
yeah this pretty much. what is frustrating is that most people i know either don't care or just don't know about it... because they are safe and warm, at least for now. |
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what you don't seem to understand is that bigger corporations are making record profits, while employee wages are hitting record lows. the gap is widening, and the economy is dying because of it. there is less demand, since the "middle class" is unable to afford the things that it used to. putting more money in their pockets would mean more goods and services demanded, and big corporations still make billions but maybe not as much.
the richer the rich get, the more power they get. the more power they get, the more rich they get. it's a vicious cycle, and a zero-sum gain. that's why it's called wealth distribution.
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The US dollar will not likely crash because too many filthy rich people have a keen interest in keeping the current currency system. Crashes that destabilize an entire nation are very rare, look at Argentina a few years back Btw the Argentina case was because that country filed for bankruptcy. The thinking that Bitcoin and other crypto currencies would survive is ludicrous because if the currency is worthless you can't pay your workers so no or very limited electricity, which means no internet (only for government functions but if the currency falls the government will fall 2) and no crypto currency.
No that "doomsday" scenario can be boarded up because it will never happen. I think if everything is controlled by a wealthy group it will be a resource grab under the guise of "helping" this or that particular country while plundering said countries resources. But if we go down that road we are giving in to the conspiracy bs. Not saying secret organisations do not exist or do not have any power but so long the ruling elite has the power firmly in their grip no weird scenarios like you are stating will occur.
WTF are you talking about? you need to explain why printing out $1+ trillion per year is not going to dilute the value of the USD, and how the wealthy elite (who are controlling the dollar) can prevent this from happening. saying "the wealthy elite are so powerful that they will prevent a crash from happening" is not enough. comparing argentina's economy to the U.S. economy is apples to oranges. if/when the biggest, most powerful economy in the world crashes, it will be a cascading domino effect that everyone in china, europe, middle east, africa, asia, central/south america will feel. |
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their motto should be:
"When you go with BFL, you'll see some Big Fucking Losses"
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Hey Beetcoin,
I agree with you that the middle class is under assault but it's not from corporations. If you think income inequality is a problem then reduce all the needless licensing and red tape that has to be followed for someone to start a business. And how do you know Walmart underpays its employees? Who are you who thinks they know better than the employee and and employer who arrived at an agreed rate of compensation that the rate they both agreed to was wrong. If a Walmart employee wants to hire you to negotiate his salary for him that's fine otherwise mind your own business.
they underpay their employees because most of them work under 40 hours at near minimum wage, so that they'd qualify for government assistance. when the employees get to that point, they have a designated "specialist" to help employees sign up for government benefits. they are literally gaming the system so that government can foot the bill. thinking that "businesses know what's better for everyone" is crazy to me. walmart makes billions of dollars, yet they pay their employees so little that they have a food charity drive for them, which they ask other employees to donate. see here: http://news.firedoglake.com/2013/11/19/walmart-holding-canned-food-drive-for-its-own-employees/what would make more sense is to up the minimum wage and to cut welfare benefits - reward the people who are willing to work, which is a pretty damn big number.. even if there are a lot of lazy people. the walmart that opened in washington DC had about 22,000 applicants and they accepted something like 2% of those people. |
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Bumping up again.
Thanks to everyone who's helped so far.
I've now created a post on reddit as well, so thanks for the advice.
Only 29,000 more signatures needed. A big drop from the 55,000 needed when this thread was started.
can you link us to the reddit thread? i'd like to see what kind of an impact that has had. 20,000 signatures sign i signed it a few days ago. at this rate, it looks like it will go through. we'll have to see if anything will really happen though. another idea: you could contact a talk show, such as ellen.. to get them to cover this story. that would probably put you over 150,000 even. |
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Can you make bounties bigger? Because btc is dropping.
The sponsor has a btc site, profits he earns are in btc. He has to pay in btc. Makes sense right? yeah, to be honest, in november the price shot from the 100's all the way up to 700ish, and he still honored the rate that he promised, so he's a standup guy i'd say.. he probably lost somewhere in the thousands for keeping his word. |
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Cancer is a pain, but fortunately oral cancer has an excellent survival rate.
That being said, bucket list suggestions:
-Play through Tail of the Sun at least once
-Try fugu
-Master 'Careless Whisper' on saxophone
-Master the saxophone
-Roughly 2 parts strong spearmint snowcone, slightly melted: 2 parts cranberry juice: 1 part vodka.
(It's one of those WHY IS THIS GOOD THIS MAKES NO SENSE IT'S GREAT drinks)
-Chill with sloths
boring. i'd need something inspriing, like skydiving, bungee jumping, or an ahuyasca retreat. or maybe see the wonders of the world. at least travel through a continent. i'd travel somewhere unsafe and dangerous, like parts of south america. |
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shit, sorry to hear.. hopefully things are alright. if it's cancer, go on a drug and hooker binge. might as well live it up. they say psychadelics may be a good way in coping with one's death.. so maybe you could try that if you haven't? better yet, go to an ahuyasca retreat in south america.
if it's the worst case scenario, then you should go sky diving or bungee jumping. why not? the cold fact is that you're going to die anyways, so if the bungee is loose or your parachute doesn't work, no biggie.
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i always hear this argument.. but no matter what you do, there will always be unskilled/uneducated people. sometimes you are so financially strapped that you don't even have the money or time invest in training for a new skill. the worst thing about it is that even if you did go to a vocational school, there are still less and less jobs available. here's an example of how hard it is to even get a super low paying job http://www.the-american-interest.com/blog/2013/11/20/dc-residents-clamor-for-walmart-jobs/more applicants get into harvard than a walmart.. This sounds like there are many unskilled people in America. Why are they unskilled? Is no one interested in learning how to do things that actually get good jobs and pay money? like i said, "good jobs" are a dying breed. the middle class is dying. and yes, there are a lot of uneducated people in america.. and it's moreso the ethnic minorities that get the shaft. it's not easy being broke, going to school and racking up a big bill for a "possible" job that may or may not pay out. for example, medical assistants pay $20k for training, and once they finish, they often start with $11/hour jobs. their debt just piles up while they earn $20k a year to live off of. |
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i always hear this argument.. but no matter what you do, there will always be unskilled/uneducated people. sometimes you are so financially strapped that you don't even have the money or time invest in training for a new skill. the worst thing about it is that even if you did go to a vocational school, there are still less and less jobs available. here's an example of how hard it is to even get a super low paying job http://www.the-american-interest.com/blog/2013/11/20/dc-residents-clamor-for-walmart-jobs/more applicants get into harvard than a walmart.. |
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you must live in a bubble. heard of the income disparity? the middle class is dying along with the economy. what do you think is contributing to this? why do you think 4 of the top 10 richest people in the U.S. are the waltons, yet they are "struggling" to pay their employees minimum wage at part-time rates, just so that government can come in and pick the rest of the bills for the employees?
These Waltons, how do they and their company makes money? Do they provide useful service? If not, why do they make money? Who are they taking profits from, underpaid employees? Are you saying these employees are actually contributing millions of dollars to economy, but Waltons are taking all those millions for themselves, and only paying them minimum wage? They must be very spectacular employees. im not sure where i said that they did not provide a service to society. what i said was that they game the system to pay employees at part-time wages, which means they won't make enough money and will require government assistance. it's so bad that even have their own "specialists" that help employees sign up for government assistance. |
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"Corporations" can only survive if they create value for its investors and shareholders (ie: selling attractive goods and services). Corporations are a good thing - they resulted in the creation of the computers we're typing on, the power that we use to run the computer, and maybe even the hardware that was used to mine the first bitcoins.
FTFY.. capitalism at its best. I disagree. A corporation has to create value for people other than investors or shareholders to exist. The investors and shareholders only make money if this happens. IE: Investors and shareholders in Apple wouldn't make any money if Apple made lousy products that weren't valued. It would be pointless for a corporation to only exist to serve its shareholders and investors. That would vastly reduce the amount of consumers it would be making goods and services for. corporations CAN possibly provide a service or product of great value to society, but it doesn't necessarily do so. its main concern is to make money, even if it means screwing over the rest of the population. that's the de facto way it is. I haven't heard of a corporation that's stayed in business very long by screwing over entire populations. The only way for a corporation to make money would be to provide valuable good or service that people want to buy. you must live in a bubble. heard of the income disparity? the middle class is dying along with the economy. what do you think is contributing to this? why do you think 4 of the top 10 richest people in the U.S. are the waltons, yet they are "struggling" to pay their employees minimum wage at part-time rates, just so that government can come in and pick the rest of the bills for the employees? The heirs to Walmart are rich because they're invested in one of the most successful retail companies on earth. Company is only successful because millions of consumers benefit from the valuable service that Walmart provides. Walmart should spend time working on how to accept Bitcoin and less time responding to political interest groups haha at this point i really don't know what to tell you anymore. you did not counter my argument, all you said was "walmart founders are really rich because they invested in the retail company." |
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"Corporations" can only survive if they create value for its investors and shareholders (ie: selling attractive goods and services). Corporations are a good thing - they resulted in the creation of the computers we're typing on, the power that we use to run the computer, and maybe even the hardware that was used to mine the first bitcoins.
FTFY.. capitalism at its best. I disagree. A corporation has to create value for people other than investors or shareholders to exist. The investors and shareholders only make money if this happens. IE: Investors and shareholders in Apple wouldn't make any money if Apple made lousy products that weren't valued. It would be pointless for a corporation to only exist to serve its shareholders and investors. That would vastly reduce the amount of consumers it would be making goods and services for. corporations CAN possibly provide a service or product of great value to society, but it doesn't necessarily do so. its main concern is to make money, even if it means screwing over the rest of the population. that's the de facto way it is. I haven't heard of a corporation that's stayed in business very long by screwing over entire populations. The only way for a corporation to make money would be to provide valuable good or service that people want to buy. you must live in a bubble. heard of the income disparity? the middle class is dying along with the economy. what do you think is contributing to this? why do you think 4 of the top 10 richest people in the U.S. are the waltons, yet they are "struggling" to pay their employees minimum wage at part-time rates, just so that government can come in and pick the rest of the bills for the employees? |
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omg it's the code that our alien overlords/progenitors have programmed into us!
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i am slow to react with my BTC since i know it's the wild west with BTC.. so i haven't really been scammed yet. if you're willing to take a lot of risks, maybe there's a good deal of reward.. but you will have to accept the chance of losing your money.
everybody should remind themselves to not be so greedy, as sometimes chasing the BTC may blind them from potential risks. your wealth is entirely in your hands.
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