BF2S Forums NY-NJ-PA politics discussion thread

SuperJail Warden wrote:

You talk about fighting back against the police but would be among the crowd of people panicking if some group took out a few cops. It's the same with every 'fight the power' libertarian and conservative.

I don't mind police in general. What I have a problem with is the complete lack of accountability. There are people shot by cops every day in this country and something like 0.0001 of cops ever face prosection for it because district attorneys have every reason in the world to not bring charges. Why? Because they need police testimony in order to convict people. If they go after a cop, the rest close ranks and refuse to provide testimony to the DA in the rest of his cases. DA's know if you prosecute a cop that their own career is basically over.

Cops are given a lot of responsibility and should be held to a higher standard than your normal citizen. Instead they are held to no standard and do as they please. So it's not about being anti-cop, it's about expecting them to follow the laws they are asked to enforce, not be above them.

I had drive through Manhattan to JFK today during the Soccer parade. Fuck everything about that. It took me 2 hours to get to JFK from Bayonne.

$15 minimum wage for fast food workers is fucking retarded. I support raising the minimum wage but $15 is too big too fast. Especially for people who make Big Macs. College grads are stuck in internships across the country and they want to give fast food workers $15 a hour? Stupid democrats

It's a gradual increase to $15/hour, just like they are doing in LA. 

Internships should be compensated (if they are real internships of any kind working for a known company in a career-related field you are pursuing) and are generally for real world work experience in anticipation of joining said field.  Comparing fast food workers to college interns is a bit silly Mac.

Not just fast food, every bottom feeder job now has to compete with $15 hour mcdonalds for workers, forcing them to raise their own staff wages. Everything is going to get more expensive. The real loser is the guy who was making $16/hour yesterday. He went from having twice the purchasing power of people making minimum wage to making the same. He's now gotta compete for housing with fast food workers.

uziq wrote:

so build more affordable housing.

everyone should have a decent living wage.

If serious, you're an idiot.

what's idiotic is predicating a nation's economic 'health' on a property bubble that only benefits the boomers and the hangers on, the private landlords and the property owners. a growing nation needs affordable housing stock to match rising demand. pretty simple. and yes, as a corollary to that, people who work full-time should be able to maintain a minimum standard of living, i.e. there needs to be a minimum wage in line with these costs of living (including basic and entry-level housing). obviously this seems idiotic when economic growth is based on property speculation and structural debt.

Last edited by uziq (2015-07-23 12:13:07)

Jay wrote:

People get by here. If they couldn't we'd have a ton more homeless people.

Never heard of being house poor, have you? Sure, they have a roof, but that doesn't mean they have enough to eat or wear, or to pay basic bills like water and electricity.

Jay wrote:

Equality for all = poverty for all.

I've reduced your statement to just the conclusion not because I only have contention with this, but because to debate the rest would take considerable time.

Americans who lean towards the Right tend to have a vision of any form of social spending eroding the competitiveness of markets and the inner drive to compete of citizens. More realistically, however, countries with limited or even moderate social spending see an increase in competitiveness and overall wealth, because now those at the bottom of society can actually contribute to the economy and compete themselves. Preventative measures like social housing or health care end up costing less and producing more wealth in the long run, because no longer are people declaring bankruptcy over a snake bite or broken arm. It's a novel solution: the more people working and having money to spend (even with a min wage floor in place) actually make everyone better off...well, almost everyone. Everyone except the very rich.

Pocshy2.0 wrote:

Jay wrote:

Equality for all = poverty for all.

I've reduced your statement to just the conclusion not because I only have contention with this, but because to debate the rest would take considerable time.

Americans who lean towards the Right tend to have a vision of any form of social spending eroding the competitiveness of markets and the inner drive to compete of citizens. More realistically, however, countries with limited or even moderate social spending see an increase in competitiveness and overall wealth, because now those at the bottom of society can actually contribute to the economy and compete themselves. Preventative measures like social housing or health care end up costing less and producing more wealth in the long run, because no longer are people declaring bankruptcy over a snake bite or broken arm. It's a novel solution: the more people working and having money to spend (even with a min wage floor in place) actually make everyone better off...well, almost everyone. Everyone except the very rich.

We have many social programs, and they disincentive work see:


Seattle was the first city to create the $15/minimum and some people working those jobs have been requesting fewer hours so they can retain their government benefits.

As for your argument, it’s only valid if prices are static, but they’re not and can never be. When you create a minimum wage floor, you are setting the bar for prices. Companies look at a given market and say “there are X number of people making Y dollars per year, if we set our price at Z, we can capture a chunk of the market”. Basically, if Microsoft didn’t think it was feasible for nearly every poor person to buy an Xbox and three games they woudn’t be priced at $300 for the system. They know people can and will stretch for a purchase like that (If you don’t believe me, I can post a nice school picture from middle school where all the kids on government assistance are wearing Air Jordans when paying $100+ for shoes was considered absurd by most people).

So now you raise the minimum wage. Do you think Microsoft is going to keep their price flat or are they going to move to capture more profit now that people have more money? Do you think your landlord is going to keep your rent flat if he knows your income just went up? Do you think the places you normally buy food from aren’t going to have to raise prices to pay for their own wage increases? Sure, there’s going to be a lag between when the wage is raised and when you start to see price increases, but how long will that be? A few months? A year? Then they’re right back where they started, except now everyone else is paying more for everything. That guy who was previously making $20/hour watched his disposable income evaporate because he was suddenly faced with more competition and higher prices. He’s now poorer.

Like I said, in any functioning economy, you need people at the bottom, and there will always be poor people no matter what you do. And frankly, burger flippers are as good as anyone to be at the very bottom of the totem pole. No skill required.

Last edited by Jay (2015-07-23 13:58:56)

Jay wrote:

Pocshy2.0 wrote:

Jay wrote:

Equality for all = poverty for all.

I've reduced your statement to just the conclusion not because I only have contention with this, but because to debate the rest would take considerable time.

Americans who lean towards the Right tend to have a vision of any form of social spending eroding the competitiveness of markets and the inner drive to compete of citizens. More realistically, however, countries with limited or even moderate social spending see an increase in competitiveness and overall wealth, because now those at the bottom of society can actually contribute to the economy and compete themselves. Preventative measures like social housing or health care end up costing less and producing more wealth in the long run, because no longer are people declaring bankruptcy over a snake bite or broken arm. It's a novel solution: the more people working and having money to spend (even with a min wage floor in place) actually make everyone better off...well, almost everyone. Everyone except the very rich.

We have many social programs, and they disincentive work see:

Seattle was the first city to create the $15/minimum and some people working those jobs have been requesting fewer hours so they can retain their government benefits.

As for your argument, it’s only valid if prices are static, but they’re not and can never be. When you create a minimum wage floor, you are setting the bar for prices. Companies look at a given market and say “there are X number of people making Y dollars per year, if we set our price at Z, we can capture a chunk of the market”. Basically, if Microsoft didn’t think it was feasible for nearly every poor person to buy an Xbox and three games they woudn’t be priced at $300 for the system. They know people can and will stretch for a purchase like that (If you don’t believe me, I can post a nice school picture from middle school where all the kids on government assistance are wearing Air Jordans when paying $100+ for shoes was considered absurd by most people).

So now you raise the minimum wage. Do you think Microsoft is going to keep their price flat or are they going to move to capture more profit now that people have more money? Do you think your landlord is going to keep your rent flat if he knows your income just went up? Do you think the places you normally buy food from aren’t going to have to raise prices to pay for their own wage increases? Sure, there’s going to be a lag between when the wage is raised and when you start to see price increases, but how long will that be? A few months? A year? Then they’re right back where they started, except now everyone else is paying more for everything. That guy who was previously making $20/hour watched his disposable income evaporate because he was suddenly faced with more competition and higher prices. He’s now poorer.

Like I said, in any functioning economy, you need people at the bottom, and there will always be poor people no matter what you do. And frankly, burger flippers are as good as anyone to be at the very bottom of the totem pole. No skill required.

Jay, you have the most pitiful understanding of economics, please just stop.

Many countries in the world function fine with a minimum wage without the sky falling on them. Forcing companies to focus on being efficient instead of beating down their employees works reasonably well. And not having ghettos and a ghetto underclass improves amenity for everyone.

I mean, I like seeing poor people smacked down by the police as much as the enxt man, but it makes for tension and disruption and isn't really a good thing.

uziq wrote:

Jay wrote:

uziq wrote:

what's idiotic is predicating a nation's economic 'health' on a property bubble that only benefits the boomers and the hangers on, the private landlords and the property owners. a growing nation needs affordable housing stock to match rising demand. pretty simple. and yes, as a corollary to that, people who work full-time should be able to maintain a minimum standard of living, i.e. there needs to be a minimum wage in line with these costs of living (including basic and entry-level housing). obviously this seems idiotic when economic growth is based on property speculation and structural debt.

There's plenty of affordable housing. It's just not where the writers want to live. Every time I read a story about a lack of affordable housing what I'm really reading is "boo hoo I've been priced out of trendy neighborhood X unless I want to live in a basement".

People get by here. If they couldn't we'd have a ton more homeless people. Take the words of privileged white people who have never known real hardship with a heavy grain of salt.

great argumentation, jay. we're talking about fast-food workers asking for a livable wage and to debunk my argument for affordable housing (in the context of fast-food workers and a minimum wage), you start banging on about "writers" and "trendy neighbourhoods". i was thinking more along the lines of cabrini green than williamsburg. i bow down to your titanic intellect on this matter. service workers organising and pushing for better working conditions/pay is clearly a ruse so all those liberal arts grads from swarthmore and pomona and wesleyan can get into a perfecty bouji basement flat and continue work apace on their avant-garde post-conceptualist poetry.

u fuckin dumb ass

And I'm saying people are getting by. It's not a life I'd want to live by any means, which is why I'm not. I worked in fast food during high school. Some of the ladies I worked with had a tough life, working multiple jobs and praying to be made a manager. It was still a better life than the one they left behind in Guatemala. But look at in perspective, we're talking about illegal immigrants and high school kids pouring bagged meat into a boiler and using caulking guns to portion condiments. This is not physically or intellectually demanding stuff. The hardest part is motivating yourself to actually show up for the meager wage.

After this increase, a married pair of burger flippers and caulking gun portioners will make more money annually than the median family does in America today. That's why it's absurd. (Median income = $52k, or about $26/hour, combined)

Nutritionist say that American food isn't worse nor do Americans exercise less than Europeans. The problem with us is that we eat much higher portions. Our food is a lot cheaper and people are used to getting a lot of food every meal. Making food more expensive may improve American health care.

Of course no one especially a politician will say that because people are so entitled.