BigBallinStalin wrote: DoomYoshi wrote:Nobunaga wrote:PLAYER57832 wrote:...The problem is that you (Nightstrike) think a business has the right to determine the worth of a human being based on the profit they wish to attain...
Jumping into the mix. Sorry, can't help myself.
Businesses don't attempt to determine the worth of human beings - they couldn't care less. They
do determine the worth of a human being's labor, however, and they have every right to do so, gauging the value of their labor against what they will pay them.
Not true, businesses don't decide "I want this to be the value for labor". Rather, t
hey use the labor that they can get cheapest.Unfortunately, this leads to a zero-sum game for the workers, as workers consistently bid lower, until everybody is working for nothing. The businesses benefit, and workers suffer.
The underlined simply isn't true. Let's think about it. Do all businesses hire the cheapest employees? Does the price of cheap labor only drive them?
You are talking individuals. The rest of us are talking the overall picture, the "average" or "mean". You are saying "but I know someone who rolled 100 6's in a row!..the dice must be fixed!" We are saying, "Overall, the dice balance out". BOTH can be true.
BigBallinStalin wrote:There's plenty more than hiring the cheapest. A company could hire someone for 20% more if they've got the experience....
All you are saying is that companies may pay more for people they consider to have more skill or to be otherwise more "worthy" in some way. (doing a job everyone hates, such as cleaning toilets, for example). That doesn't refute my assertion or the others at all.
BigBallinStalin wrote:If each party is willing to trade X for Y, and both gain from it after the exchange, then it isn't zero-sum.
Define "willing" and "exchange". By your theory, a slave who doesn't escape has "agreed" to stay and therefore is not a victim.
People will work to eat a little if that is all they can get, because eating even a little is better than not eating at all. Most employers won't sink that low, but look at the influx of illegal immigrants for how easily that get subverted. All it takes is a few employers who have no problem paying starvation wages or hiring workers who are illegal and therefore won't complain about bad conditions to drive the price of goods down to where, soon, everyone who wants to stay in business has to basically do the same thing.
THAT is the ultimate problem with your arguments (most of them). You want to allow companies to ignore very real and true costs under the theory that other things will just balance them out or somehow mitigate, take care of the problems. That doesn't happen. What does happen is that the system continues until it plain cannot go any longer. We keep using oil and water at high rates, without regard until we hit the point where we just cannot get any more at all. In a truly natural system, where the real costs were taken into account, all oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico would have had to A. put in much, much better protections than they have B. Had to contribute to real immediate response teams that could quickly deal with any issue C. put up bonds upfront to truly pay for damage to people who live and depend on the Gulf..and not just for a month or two, but real and true costs in perpetuity. That won't happen. BECAUSE it won't happen, nobody really pays what oil costs. We pretend, but don't even really know how much our use of oil will actually cost our grandchildren, never mind our great-great-grandchildren. Because we don't pay the real and true cost, because oil is artificially kept so low, companies with alternatives-- alternative fuels, alternative materials productions, etc, etc. They have to show not just that they are better and cheaper than oil, but that they are cheaper than this artificial level of supported prices for oil.
The cost of hiring the lowest skilled workers is just one of the costs that must be truly met. I am willing to argue over a 40 hour work week, weekends, etc. Maybe those things ARE luxuries. (I don't think so, but I am willing to consider debate on it) However, to say that its OK for someone to work full-time and not earn enough to eat, have a house and meet basic expenses of the 21rst century is just plain wrong.
BigBallinStalin wrote:Zero-sum is when I get the government to take 20% of your income, which then goes to me because "we need jobs for Uhmerica." That's zero-sum. It's a forced exchanged...
Funny... no one is making that claim except you. The claim I am making is that having jobs that don't actually support people is pretense, not advantage. It drains our society, forces people to depend on government subsidies, which drives up the taxes everyone else needs to pay.
You cannot talk about what a reasonable tax rate is until first talking about where our taxes go. A LOT of what our taxes go toward is very necessary (roads, for example). Other things, though, really amount to back-handed supports or gifts to special interest groups, including big business. Some support for individuals who cannot work, are disabled, even those who just cannot find a job for a time. Some supports are always needed, but when someone works a fulltime job and needs taxpayer support to just live.. that is a broken system. That is a broken WAGE system, not a broken tax system.
