This episode of Drunk Ex-Pastors begins with a verbally abusive voicemail which, it turns out, we not only endure but love (not sure what that says about us). We then discuss whether “living and letting live” is something only atheists can do as well as take our very last call about music theory (we promise). We take calls about the possibility of America’s first Jewish president and the validity of the so-called generation gap between Millennials and X-ers, after which we weigh in on one of our listeners finding her husband’s loaded gun lying around the house (hey, better safe than sorry, right?). We discuss a recent study involving turning sex into some chore you’ve gotta do every single day (shudder), and then talk about the controversial LGBT “bathroom law” that the legislature recently passed in Xenophobiaville, USA (it’s in the South. And don’t worry, they won’t be offended since they don’t know what “xenophobia means). And Jason is biebered by the threat of robots.
Also, we got three words for you: Treat. Yo. Self.
Podcast #374: Historical Propaganda and Our Rigged Economy
Podcast #328: Death, the Afterlife, and the Biden Administration
Podcast #125: Gen X-ers & Millennials, Love & Marriage
Podcast #108: A Kinder, Gentler Calvary Chapel?
You guys have been on your best behavior for a few weeks in a row, meaning fewer racist remarks and vulgar insults. The stupidity (lapses in logic, mainly due to ideological preoccupation) is still on full display, but you’d best not let go of that too lest your liberal fans become completely lost. Many happy returns.
DXP’s first criticism of Cam Newton: January 31st, 2016
Andrew Preslar’s first criticism of DXP: January 31st, 2016
Andrew Preslar’s location: Charlotte, NC
Andrew Preslar’s comments about DXP before Cam Newton episode: “[A bunch of compliments followed up with…] Ya’ll have a good show.” – Dec 7, 2015
Listening to the part about guns in the house. I recently had a conversion with a guy at work about this. He brought up the government becoming tyrannical, and we have to be able to push back against it. As you might know, I have a few young kids in the house. I told him that I would rather live under a tyrannical system, much more simply the risk of one, than have one my kids accidently shoot and kill themselves. The odds of the latter happening is much higher, and much more devastating to my imagination.
(I hate hearing an audio recording of my voice)
You said you were surprised that it was NC and not SC that is having this problem. To be fair, the reason this is happening in NC is because Charlotte – land of Cam loving America – decided to be too progressive.
Ha. I hate hearing an audio recording of my voice too. 🙂
I agree with Jason’s bieber. I don’t know if raising min wage is the answer, however I definitely agree with the problem. Productivity has been skyrocketing since the 70s, yet the middle class is not seeing this in their pay. However, companies are seeing it in their revenue. The money is being made, but not distributed. We have unsustainable growth in executive pay, while the vast majority of rank and file workers aren’t seeing anything. I’m not sure how to fix this. How do we encourage better distribution of revenue within a company without the force of law?
Further, I’m even more biebered by the memes that pit min-wage worker vs the low ranking enlisted military member. They point out that the enlisted soldier is putting his life on the line for less than $15 an hour. I guess the point is to direct anger at the min-wage worker. But to me it falls flat, because the enlisted solider is underpaid ALSO. And we will just ignore the fact that the enlisted solider also gets free food, free healthcare, and free housing (or at least an additional tax-free housing pay at higher ranks) in addition to their pay.
I’m also annoyed at other memes about the free college Bernie is proposing and pointing out that we already had a free college program while showing a picture of soldiers. Is that the only way we would like to help out the underprivileged: by having them potentially die violent deaths fighting in wars that the political class declare, whose children don’t need to join in to fight?
Given the technology available to the government via satellites, internet and cell surveillance, and weaponry, if the government decided to go full blown evil, they could find us easily enough and drone strike us into oblivion before we had a chance to use a gun.
However, robots and the ability to automate most jobs does cause me some consternation. It presents a potential radical shift in our economy in coming decades. If the capital class is able to replace virtually all workers with robots – nonhuman slaves, the economy will only favor them. They don’t need anyone else. This could end up being very bad, or very good. I think if we were able to automate everything, then everyone should own it and not the very few capitalist who happen to start the companies who originally automated everything. We could collectively reap the benefits of not having to work to live, we could pursue other sorts of things like knowledge, exploration, religion, and art. Maybe we go back to just enjoying the company of others and nature again unburdened – Eden-esk. Or it turns into the movie Elysium.
I’m reminded of this comic: http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=3023
There’s a push as the work force becomes more automated to mandate a minimum income for everyone, because I do think the folks in charge realize at some level, that an automated workforce with 30, 40, 50% or more of the population unemployed is not sustainable and would probably lead to a violent revolution.
Of course, there’s always the possibility that we cross the AI threshold and they take over.
Yeah, I just saw this today: https://www.facebook.com/NBCNews/videos/1358819107471449/. My first thought was, “Wow, that’s cool!” My second thought was, “Well, there goes millions of people out of work eventually.”
If an automated work force substantially reduced the cost of goods so that people who work less could then afford the products, that would be one thing. However, if history is any indicator, product prices will remain constant or go up and corporation profits will increase. More inequality.
Right. When productivity started shooting through the roof, I assume through the introduction of computers and automation, we didn’t see people compensated for their new increase in productivity. You didn’t see pay going up OR working hours decrease. What you did see was expectations go up. I mean, look at your cell phone. You are now able to do work anywhere you are at. Convenient at first glance, but now you are expected to do work anywhere you are at.
There are also 3D printing bridge building robots in the works. Whaaaaaaaat.
If all workers are replaced by drones there will be no more “economy”. We will just be. That’s it. The free market is dead. And don’t forget that AI (with or without consciousness) is also around the corner. If robots can do our math, literature, labor, science, history, etc. The idea that we will be happy to just explore intellectual ideas and religion will seem absurd. There will be no need. AI is mankind’s last invention. Truly. Where we go from there is a mystery.
I would imagine it would depend on whether or not we could control these beasts once they are smarter than their creators, which most people think would only take a few weeks. And even if we COULD control them, it wouldn’t really be US but the nerdy silicon valley trillionaires. But wtf would we do with all of our problems solved? Go to prom? Lol life is the struggle. Put me in the matrix and let me struggle against computer programs.
In the lead up to drones doing everything, the only people who matter would be the people directing the drones: the “nerdy silicon valley trillonaires”. They would have no need for workers or customers at some point. They would be able to buy politicians and control the laws. They would be in control of both the automated law enforcement and the military. They would just be. We would be screwed. Again the movie Elysium comes to mind.
Also the book The Naked Sun by Isaac Asimov comes to mind. In the book, this more or less happened. And all the trillonaires went to a planet all to themselves, all several thousand of them. They divided up the planet and spread as far away from one another as possible. Their individual freedom was only hampered by others. They surrounded themselves with thousands and thousands of robots completely taking care of their every need. And they did their best to completely avoid physical contact with one another. Pretty neat concept.
I think it depends how gradual the transition happens. And how prepared the laws are when it starts to happen.
It will be a whole new world. But there will be no reason to horde resources if the bots are so efficient. If they can 3D print everyone a mansion and farm unlimited food/medicine our darker nature has nothing to grasp at. Freedom will be tricky though. Very tricky. Has there ever been an AI movie where everyone lived happier ever after? The Terminator, AI, Asimov, Eagle Eye, machina….. I can’t think of one lol
Jason Stellman,
I was trying to think of a best case scenario with the robot take over. Let’s say these AI machines, all wise, and all powerful, end up being perfectly docile. Again, best case scenario. Let’s imagine they understand moral facts, human nature, etc. and can socially engineer the perfect society where humanity flourishes. Perhaps they even leave stuff for us to do. So we can all still have jobs, an allowance, etc. These bots content themselves with growing humans like a beautiful garden for the next few billion years while we play catch up to their genius. Sounds nice, but I felt a nagging bother. I don’t want to sit at the feet of some grandmaster knowledge freak while it pats me on the head. I don’t like the idea of never being able to catch up and be my own master. I hate the idea of there being an entity which would always be more powerful than myself. I wonder if there is an original sin analogy in here some place? Is this how atheists feel when we pitch them an almighty God that loves them? I think I understand now why Thomas Nagel famously admitted that he doesn’t want God to exist. Because he “doesn’t want the universe to be that way”. Interesting perspective. Good podcast.
I actually have some questions I wrote down about this kind of thing for the next podcast. This brings up even more to think about.
I still don’t think robots are ever going to be able to reason, which in my limited understanding, is required for true AI. Programming all boils down to conditionals and loops, etc (i.e. “if this then this”, “do this until this”). I guess you could write enough code that a machine could seem like it has some limited ability to reason, but I’d just surprised if it ever went beyond that. People way smarter than me think it will, so I’m probably missing something.
• I think you’d make a good Buddhist, Jason. You’ve already got the shaved head of a monk.
• Yeah, you can’t flake out about your BP meds. That shit will kill you. Daily exercise will also help too if you’re not already doing it. I just started that again after regaining 20 of the 40 lbs I lost.
• Every time you don’t give us a $1, God kills a kitten.
• Just to make a note: atheists aren’t the ones putting out a movie called “God is Dead” depicting Christians as hateful monsters.
• But I have a hard time applying live and let live to guns, considering that guns have the potential to harm others in the wrong hands and many gun owners have shown themselves to be the wrong hands.
• That’s right. Real Americans don’t correct themselves, when we’re wrong, we proudly stand in the wrong and argue why it’s really right despite what your lying eyes say.
• Taking a break and listening to 80’s music right now… U2, Duran Duran, New Order…
• Well, you know if we don’t support everything the Israeli government does, it means we hate Israel and God is going to kill us all. He’s crazy, man. He’ll do it!
• Phppt. Kids these days with their selfies and instagrams and streaming. In my day, if you wanted to jerk off to porn, you had to rummage through the garage looking for your dad’s Playboy stash. And if you wanted to pirate music, you had to get an cassette tape and wait for the DJ on the radio to play your damn song. There was no Google. If you wanted information, you had to get a 26 volume set of encyclopedias or go to your library and search through microfiche and the card catalogue. You’re all different and it scares me, so get off my lawn!
• Seriously, in 30 years, the millennials will be bitching about the post-post millennials or whatever they call those kids. Nothing new under the sun, man.
• You remember an old TV movie based off the X-men called Generation X? The bad guy was played by the Max Headroom actor and it was spectacularly bad.
• I have no idea why I remember that.
• Or Max Headroom for that matter…
• My mind is a scary place
• Everyone becomes part of the establishment.
• If you really want to nerd out, you should check out Star Wars: Rebels. I have an excuse for watching cartoons since my 6 year old is a Star Wars fan.
• Surrender the gun to the police. They will dispose of it safely.
• Keith Richards is still alive. Anything is possible.
• I’m totally okay with a trans-man using the Men’s room so long as they follow the code of the Men’s room: No talking. No eye contact. Eyes straight forward at the wall or looking at your own. Buffer urinal. Always respect the buffer urinal.
• I’m pretty sure there have been more politicians busted for sex crimes in a restroom than trans-folks.
• Okay, now look at it from the other perspective though: imagine being a trans-woman who looks like a woman, who is, in her mind, a woman. What kind of harassment is she going to get when she walks into a Men’s room? Shit, imagine that experience in high school. I’d be paranoid about being bullied and possibly being sexually assaulted.
• They also prohibited cities from instituting their own minimum wage laws and some other workplace protections.
• Interesting question: if you started dating a woman and liked her and enjoyed your dates and she told you that she was born a man but was now post-op, deal-breaker?
• I think South Carolina ranks in progressiveness above Mississippi which just passed that law that absolves armed church security from killing someone at a church function they felt was threatening.
• You’ve never seen a penis in a Men’s room because you follow the Code.
• I don’t want to see women sitting on a toilet and shitting. I don’t want to hear those sounds coming from a woman. I don’t want to think about those sounds coming from a woman. I know it happens, but I just like to think I’m the only gross one in the relationship.
• Or we could go back to the tax rates from the 50’s and tax the motherfuckers at 90%, pass laws to encourage union membership, and redistribute the money via public works projects.
• My Bieber: Parents who refuse to find a parking space near the school to drop off their kids, but instead decide to stop in the middle of the road, blocking traffic and blocking anyone who is parked next to them from leaving while they get out of their car and walk their kid into the schoolyard. I wish I drove a tank somedays.
Now if the machine in charge wasn’t visible and couldn’t be seen unless it chose to be seen, started issuing rules for mankind to follow or it would not only punish them, but preserve their consciousness alive forever in a state of agony, but everyone assured you that this was no problem because the machines were good and beneficent and had our best interests at heart… Yeah, I’m sure someone’s already written a sci-fi story about this, but you should give it a try. 🙂
The thing that scares me is how can you program empathy into such a creation? How can you ensure that something so powerful wouldn’t view humanity the way we view ants or bacteria? What if it opted to change us?
That’s actually why I found the show Person of Interest fascinating. There are two rival AIs on the loose, one was killed over and over again by its creator until he figured out a way to teach it empathy and morality, the other was just turned loose to control humanity and has no qualms about killing millions for the greater good.
Have you seen the video of the robot teaching itself how to play video games? Galaga and brick breaker. Does that count as an example of inputting its own “if-then”?
I haven’t, but I do believe that machines can be very good at certain tasks and that they could teach themselves how to improve at those tasks. That’s different than reasoning to me though.
Yeah, its for sure different. But its a huge step. The program had nothing but an image of the game and had to figure it all out from scratch. Google deepmind just beat the “go” world champion. Which is significant because apparently there are more “go moves” than there are atoms on the planet. Its a game that requires ingenuity. In ten years? Who knows.
That’s the very problem google is having with its self driving cars. Moral choices. Do I swerve and hit the family or allow the driver to crash off the bridge? What if its a homeless person? What if its a baby? These are things that have to be accounted for. I guess the hope would be that “moral facts” would be obvious to the machine. The hope would be the machine could become a moral genius. If rationality is all that is required for moral facts to be comprehended we are in good shape. If morality is merely subjective we are fucked
What if its a baby?
I don’t know, but I bet the self-driving car would run over the fertilized egg in the petri dish before it ran over the baby! 😉
Lol they are having a hard time with the programming there. If you think about it there are a lot of tricky things to calculate…. And you know when something goes wrong they will be held accountable in court for whatever they choose
Wow. That first paragraph is a whopper. Unsustainable growth in CEO pay? Who is offering these CEOs all that money? Why are they offering it? The middle class is doing just fine. Do your pay calculations account for fringe benefits? Or the fact that way pay the same money today for a bad ass iPad instead of a crappy walkman? Or for today’s healthcare vs the healthcare in the 70s? Who here would rather swap places with a minimum wage worker in 1964?!? Y’all act like our poor live like the bottom 40% of India. We are filthy rich dude. Our quality of life is off the charts! Keep in mind that of we annexed Germany it would be the poorest state in the nation. If we annexed Sweden (median income of $27,167) it would be poorer than all but six states. But see they all get to be equally poor so its fine. I made more than 27k as a freaking 18 year old.
A few other points: christian and Jason both like free education and healthcare because that makes “the tide rise”. So we subsidize things that benefit everyone. Did the computer benefit everyone? The automobile? Google? Do they get subsidies too? If not, why not? Same principle applied consistently.
I would also like to invite Christian Kingery to be an example for all of us. Go talkcto your boss and negotiate for the majority of your salary to be distributed to the janitors and security guards at the office. You don’t really NEED all that money you make. I hear you live in a giant mansion like house… Do you really NEED that stuff? Seems like your living pretty fly off all that white privelage. You should give it all away to help others. Be like Sweden. Save for yourself 28k per year. That’s all you really need 😉
Jason, if your opinion is true that Christians aren’t being legally targeted in the USA for simply trying to practice their faith:
What would you say about Catholic Charities in DC being legally hounded about not placing orphans with gay and lesbian couples– to the point that CC in DC finally just had to get out of adoption altogether, rather than compromise the teachings of the Catholic Church on the family?
What would you say to the Little Sisters of the Poor, who have been legally hounded for not offering contraception in their health care plans for their employees? Nuns objecting to providing contraception– just imagine the nerve of those ladies! 🙂
What would you say to my evangelical Protestant Christian friend in Washington State, who is trying to live out the teaching of her faith while being a wedding planner, and who may well end up in serious legal trouble, if or when she refuses to bake a “wedding cake” for a couple that, according to her faith, can never even *be married as a couple, period*, because she understands the Bible to teach that marriage *simply cannot exist* between two men or two women?
To me, as a Catholic, the last ten years or so in this country have made one thing very clear. The Christianity that is legally protected in this country, in terms of that faith being legally protected for people to *consistently live out, publicly*, in this country, is the Christianity of liberal Protestantism. It definitely is not Catholic Christianity, according to the teachings of the Church.
Yeah, ok, Andrew, but what do you *really* think, hehe? (I’m a non-liberal listener too. There have to be a few of us!)
Wow. That first paragraph is a whopper. Unsustainable growth in CEO pay? Who is offering these CEOs all that money? Why are they offering it?
Give me a break. Nothing I said was inaccurate. If you don’t believe me, google productivity and pick a graph.
As for who is offering these CEOs all that money, the board of directors are in most large companies. Who is on the board of directors? The executives of other companies. Pretty convenient that executives get to determine each other’s pay.
The fact of the matter is the middle class wages have not increased while productivity has. And the pay of executives have become orders of magnitude greater, especially when compared to the median income of the companies over the same period. Should certain employees make more than other, of course. Should companies have such incredible lopsided pay scales, especially when the bottom rung employees make ends meet on government aid, no.
Then you go on a tear about the past being bad. Of course there was less technology in the past, what does that prove? My dad was a milkman in the sixties and was able to provide for his family, go to college, and buy a house. Good luck with doing something like that today with a low skill job.
The middle class is doing okay when compared to the poverty of the 3rd world, yes. But it isn’t doing fine when compared to the middle class of a few decades ago. Families in many cases have to have 2 incomes nowadays to just stay afloat. Where do you think a lot of the pressure comes from to have fewer kids, to contracept, to abort? Yes, the middle class is doing just fine. /s
You make it sound like I think capitalism is garbage, I don’t and it isn’t. However, I also don’t think society should be so focused on profit margins and being as efficient as possible. I think a company can be run with a eye toward providing good jobs for it’s employees – as a primary goal. Not simply making the most widgets for the absolute cheapest that people are just going to throw away for the next cheap widget.
Interesting question: if you started dating a woman and liked her and enjoyed your dates and she told you that she was born a man but was now post-op, deal-breaker?
Yes.
Oh lord. I don’t agree with nearly everything you wrote so its hard to pick a starting point.
Charts.
http://archive.freecapitalists.org/forums/t/15824.aspx
Wages keeping pace with productivity.
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2013/07/productivity-and-compensation-growing-together
Its a myth dude.
Re: Catholic adoption: The simple answer I would say is that if you take the king’s money, you become the king’s man. If you take Federal funds for adoption services, then you’re going to have to follow Federal rules of non-discrimination.
Re: Sisters: I would say that filling out a form saying “We don’t want to pay for our employees’ contraceptives because Onan…” is not that big of an imposition on one’s faith.
Re: businesses that cater to the public: part of being a for-profit business that caters to the public is serving all of the public. Once you legalize discrimination, you reopen the door to a very dark chapter in American history and if you think such discrimination will stop with gays and lesbians or that the free market will take care of racists, you’re being far too idealistic.
Of course, you could go to the wedding, anyway, share the love of Jesus with folks you think are going to burn in hell forever, and hope that by building relationships with them through your godly conduct that you might save a soul or two.
Hardly a myth. Even the Heritage Foundation data analysis showed a raising gap, even if they made it seem smaller. So if that study represents the best counter argument and still confirms the gap, you have not debunked anything.
Also, I do like how they used a log scale to reduce the visible size of the differences. They also pointed out that part of gap is due to increase in cost of doing business, such as depreciation. However, that cost seems to me to only reduce average worker compensation.
What would be interesting would be to also graph executive salary over the same period, and median (not average) compensation as well. Since my argument hinges on the growth of compensation of one group verses others, it would be more interesting to look at a statistic that doesn’t include executives in the average…
Here is a rebuttal to the Heritage piece.
If the average American is doing so well, why are populist candidates on both the Left and the Right doing so well?
Also note that I’m not condemning capitalism. Nor am I currently advocating for min wage increases or the force of law to fix the executive compensation in private companies. I’m just affirming that the problem exists. I don’t know what the best answer is.
I think Christian’s joke brings up a good point though. We humans can’t even agree on morality all of the time. We can agree on the basics, but when we start to break it down to specific events, things start to get messy.
Even if it possible to program some form of morality and empathy into machine, it will never please everyone.
Exactly! If anything, this will force us to play closer attention to philosophy classes long forgotten. No one has cared to even have these conversations for quite some time. AI will push these issues to the forefront in ways the public has never experienced before. Hoping that the programmer isnt muslim. Otherwise women and nonbelievers are getting smashed in those cars! lol
I would also like to invite Christian Kingery to be an example for all of us. Go talkcto your boss and negotiate for the majority of your salary to be distributed to the janitors and security guards at the office. You don’t really NEED all that money you make. I hear you live in a giant mansion like house… Do you really NEED that stuff? Seems like your living pretty fly off all that white privelage. You should give it all away to help others. Be like Sweden. Save for yourself 28k per year. That’s all you really need 😉
Ironically, I’m not the one who proclaims to have given my life to a philosophy that exhorts its followers to “sell all that you have and give it to the poor.” A verse comes to mind here…something about a plank and a splinter…
“I’m not the one who proclaims to have given my life to a philosophy…”
Ahh, the advantages of the agnostic: no declared philosophy to which to be held accountable. Haha 😉
Great excuse for not following your own teachings!
I’m voting for the Democratic Socialism that Bernie Sanders is representing. It’s a 2.2% raise in taxes for the middle class (i.e. me). It’s not quite as radical as “sell all you have and give it to the poor” or “if a man asks you for your jacket, give him your shirt also” or “no one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had.” If I believed that stuff, I certainly wouldn’t go around making challenges to people who don’t. That would just be stupid.
You just said this last podcast that you agree with Jason’s bieber. If you like socialism, and you like Bernie, you DO subscribe to a philosohy that demands you give away your shit to others. So let’s see it yo! Its weird that these social justice warriors want everyone else to make less money for janitors and burger flippers…. But not themselves.
If you preached what you practice you would be a conservative.
Who taught you about what Bernie Sanders is proposing? Rush Limbaugh? Glenn Beck? Slightly higher taxes to help rebuild our infrastructure and provide health care and education to those in our society is hardly a demand that I give away my shit to others. It’s what we already do, just a bit more wisely distributed.
Again, I’m not the one who is not practicing what I preach. Go read your Bible, or if you Catholics don’t really do that, go listen to what your church has to say about material possessions.
If you think that CEOs and business owners should make less money to raise minimum wages (because they don’t really “need” that money) how are you not being a hypocrite? Why dont you go do what you want others to go and do. Or is it just those that make MORE than you that dont really need it?
“Go read your Bible, or if you Catholics don’t really do that…”
haha!
” go listen to what your church has to say about material possessions.”
This is what I found:
If you dont want to be an example for everyone thats cool. I just wanted to send the invite
because they prey off stupid people
Yes, I realize that. I was baiting christian or jason to jump in too
1. We never said that people can’t make money they don’t need nor that they can’t have more than they need. Neither of us thinks that.
2. We’re talking about a law that would keep business owners from taking advantage of their employees. I am not a business owner. If I was, I wouldn’t mind a law that kept me from taking advantage of my employees. That’s not something I’d want to do anyway. I would never want someone to work for me full time and not be able to afford basic necessities.
3. No one at the company I work for makes less than $15/hr.
4. And to further humor your stupidity, I live month to month. I am and have been solely financially responsible for 3 kids (sometimes 4). I do live in a big house on a nice property, but the only reason I can afford it is because we have a little community here that pays rent. Jason pays rent and lives in the MIL. My ex-wife pays rent and lives in a little house on the property. I actually pay less than any other place I would be able to find locally that could house my family. We basically pool our money together which helps everyone. Sound familiar?
Your “invite” is inane, uninformed, and beyond hypocritical.
1. Then why the anger at CEOs making cuts to protect profits? That’s their job!
2. You get paid what you’re worth to the market. If all you can do is stand by a frier and stuff French fries in plastic packets why does that job get paid 15$ per hour?!? That’s absurd. Why would I want to be a manager and work my ass off basically living at the store for $18 per hour if I can stand and work the frier for barely a pay cut? Or come in to clean up at the end of the night. That’s absurd. No one is being taken advantage of , they are being paid FAIRLY but not EQUALLY.
3. Well, if you aren’t clearing 100k then the invitation doesn’t make sense. One of your guests made it sound like you live in a castle.
The house is awesome. However, it’s affordable because we have a little community of people here who help take care of it and pay rent. Works out great. We all live in a nicer place than any of us could afford on our own. It’s a really a neat philosophy. 😉
So its a frat house. Jealous 🙁
I pay 100% for all my dead beat children who refuse to get a job. Isn’t 6 years old enough to work somewhere
So you guys mentioned that Bruce Springsteen canceled his concert in NC. I totally support him making business decisions based on deeply held beliefs; I wouldn’t want him to violate his conscience. If he wants to stop doing business with an entire state, that’s his prerogative. Wait. Now Christian owned bakeries come to mind… hmmm.
Also, if local governments are deciding to boycott other local governments, such as Seattle and NY not allowing government travel to NC, does that mean they are endorsing morality? Interesting. I thought governments weren’t supposed to do that.
Bruce is allowed to not do a show in NC just like a bakery is allowed to not open a shop in NC. Neither of them is allowed to do business in NC but deny their goods to gay people.
(Or maybe they are allowed to in NC.)
Right. Bruce is allowed to withhold the exercise of his talents and free-speech. Even if he had already done business there, and sold tickets. He has decided to discriminate a region, because he doesn’t want to associate with a law that violates his deeply held beliefs. Fine.
The bakeries I’ve seen in the news haven’t denied their goods to gay people; they have gay customers. They just do not wish to have their talents and free-speech go toward certain events that violate their deeply held beliefs. Would I do that? Probably not. But I don’t want to force other people to violate their conscience, even if I disagree with it.
shhh, don’t say that, it doesn’t fit his narrative.
noice one, brah.
I’m sorry. I don’t see these two instances as being the same at all, and I’m certainly not going to have the bakery discussion again.
It seems to me that the proper analogy is a bakery having taken pre-orders for a shop they plan to open in Charlotte, but then they decide not to open the shop and refund all the money they took in.
“I’m certainly not going to have the bakery discussion again.”
That’s fine. I didn’t necessarily want to either, but it did seem somewhat analogous.
I think a closer analogy would be a particular bakery deciding to stop doing business with a particular neighborhood that they have done business with in the past, and refunding money back on orders recently taken but not completed.
“Sorry we don’t deliver to people from your neighborhood. It isn’t you personally, but I don’t want to be associated with this idea that violates my conscience.”
I laughed out loud.
It was until those mean and horrid progressives of the 19th and early 20th century pushed for laws to stop child labor and get them an education instead.
Stupid liberals, always interfering with the free market.
Objection. Assumes facts not in evidence.
Seriously, bro, you really to put down that copy of Atlas Shrugged. I know it’s like the Bible, Part 2 down in Texas, but that’s just not how the real world works. 🙂
assertions are easy to make. Arguments are more difficult. In free market capitalism you get paid what you are worth to the market place. Its a basic principle of every economic text in the world.
1. Because we have socialism in America now. It just happens to redistribute income upwards. And in exchange our new class of would-be robber barons have no sense of patriotism or loyalty to the communities that have supported them, and exploit outsourcing and the tax codes to push against wages, environmental laws, and labor safety laws.
Hell, even when they do violate safety and environmental laws or engage in wage theft, it mostly goes unpunished or invites a slap on the wrist. Shit, even when a bank launders cartel funds, no one goes to jail. And when they blow up the world economy, we give them money from the poor and middle class.
Anyway, this is all a pointless discussion since neither of us will change our minds. I liked talking about robots better.
Oh good, I’m not the only one who noticed the hypocrisy. He points out 3 ways the Left has shown its double standards in the last couple of weeks:
1. Big Money and Big Business in Politics Are Bad, Unless They Support the Left?
2. Bruce Springsteen and Bryan Adams Get to Follow Their Consciences, but the Baker and Florist Don’t?
3. North Carolina and Mississippi Are Human Rights Violators, but Singapore and Cuba Are Great?
http://dailysignal.com/2016/04/11/liberals-double-standard-on-bathrooms-boycotts-and-religious-freedom/
So if that study represents the best counter argument and still confirms the gap, you have not debunked anything.
Its a 23% gap. Less, if you grant productivity growth inflation due to depreciation.
What would be interesting would be to also graph executive salary over the same period, and median
(not average) compensation as well. Since my argument hinges on the
growth of compensation of one group verses others, it would be more
interesting to look at a statistic that doesn’t include executives in
the average…
Charting the mean vs the average makes no sense. Low skill jobs have not boomed in productivity to the same extent as skilled jobs. The biggest difference between todays economy and that of the 1970s is the tech boom. Consider this illustration: Are burger flippers at Sonic now 70% more productive? What about janitors? Hell no. Its the same. But what about the General Managers? Are they more productive now that they have computers, excel spread sheets, high speed internet? Monster . com? Cell phones that force them to work wherever they happen to be, etc? YES! And his real wages have increased as a result in benefits, paid leave, vacation time, stock options, etc. The mean workers haven’t shared in the fruits because they aren’t the cause of the production boom. CEOs and other skilled/educated workers wages track with productivity because they are actually accomplishing more, and thus are worth more. How much is flipping burgers actually worth? $15 per hour?!? Puh-Lease. Employment isnt charity. If McDonalds makes billions while paying workers what their skills are worth there is nothing wrong with that.
“assertion are easy to make”
Right, which is why Chris pointed out your assertion.
“In free market capitalism…”
You assume principals of the system to argue for the system that Chris is questioning. Bryan Cross recently pointed out on FB that this fallacy is very common in discussions over Liberal economic theory.
By the way, here is an example I saw recently in the news where people aren’t paid what they are worth, even in an environment where there are more demand for jobs than people. You would expect raising benefits and compensation to compete for employees, but no. Its kind of weird actually.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-economy-overwork-idUSKCN0X000F
Real quick:
If colleges and healthcare should be provided on governments dime why should corporations not also receive welfare? We all collectively benefit from free education (not really, government run schools suck ass), We all collectively benefit from government funded healthcare (not really ours is the best in the world for a reason), we all collectively benefit from microsoft word, automobiles, airplanes, banks, tech breakthroughs, etc. Whats the difference?
I think its absurd that its illegal to hire a kid. It would be great if they allowed able bodied youth to work.
Check this out.
https://mises.org/library/trouble-child-labor-laws
The free market and prosperity make it so that children don’t HAVE to work. And every kid needs to be in school. But to make it ILLEGAL for kids to work, I think, is silly
Bull shit. No one seriously doubts that people get paid what their worth to the market via capitalism. Not Keynes, not Hayek, not anyone. Thats just leftist political machinery and propaganda. Japan is socialist so they hardly count. Pick up an economics 101 text book and its all clearly explained. Or else talk to a guidance councillor at any major university and they will explain the difference between a degree in English lit vs a degree in finance. Wages aren’t arbitrarily plucked from thin air. Unless you’re a socialist/communist
Congratulations on finding someone who is as good at conflating and misunderstanding issues and scenarios as you are.
Its a 23% gap. Less, if you grant productivity growth inflation due to depreciation.
Its still a gap, that is growing. And the business expense of increased depreciation doesn’t seem to affect the compensation of executives.
Charting the mean vs the average makes no sense. Low skill jobs have not boomed in productivity to the same extent as skilled jobs…
But those same low skill jobs use to support families. And yes a lot of them are much more productive. BTW, “mean” and “average” are the same thing. I want to see median, which unbiased by extremes in difference of the set. For example, using average (typically “mean”) when Bill Gates walks into the a Starbucks the average net worth of everyone in the Starbucks is over a billion dollars. However, if we used median for the average, the extreme net worth of Gates wouldn’t have really moved average. That’s what I want to see. A corporation is comprised of many people doing jobs, the overall corporation is more productive and makes more money. However, a large and growing percentage of this goes to the executives. The executives are making better decisions, but that is based on the work of many others.
“If McDonalds makes billions while paying workers what their skills are worth there is nothing wrong with that.”
With out the min wage workers, the company makes $0. So the job is essential to the company making money. The problem for the min wage low skill worker is that many people can do their job – their essential job. So if they want more money, the executive can simply replace them.
So should you really try to pay employees as little as you get away with, or do you recognize the dignity of the human working for you. On a strict free market system, human dignity doesn’t enter into the discussion, you try to pay as little as possible for the worker. Is this the most efficient use of resources? Yes. However, I don’t want our system to work in the strictest, most efficient, least humane way possible. I think we can show dignity for the day’s work being done.
Kenneth, corporations do benefit from social programs: fire department, police department, roads and highways, publicly educated workers, etc., etc.
We all collectively benefit from products corporations produce, but we also pay for them.
It seems like you are really confusing the issues.
Good argument.
We’ve already explained why the issues you see as similar are not. You want me to do it again?
You took a swing at #2, yes. What do you think of the other 2? Note, it’s okay to notice hypocrisy from people you typically agree with.
I’ll just go out on a limb and say that article was most likely written by Mugatu.
1. I think refusing to support or give money to businesses (or state governments) that allow discrimination based on sex, race, sexual-orientation, etc. is fine. I don’t understand at all how that relates to liberals complaining about money in politics (i.e. Citizens United, lobbying groups, etc.) Discrimination was allowed for a long time in the United States and it’s one of those things I’m fine with boycotting a business or state over.
2. I honestly don’t know how you are not seeing how different these two things are. It makes me feel like we can’t have a conversation.
3. I’m mixed on number three. I agree it’s hypocritical of a company like PayPal if they refuse to do business in NC but have no problem doing business in Singapore. Then again, maybe laws against sex acts aren’t as important to them as laws allowing discrimination. NC is part of the United States. Cuba is not. If my child is unruly, I can punish him. If someone else’s child is unruly, it’s not my responsibility to discipline them. I can keep my child from playing with the other child I guess, which is similar to a travel ban, but I guess that would depend on how influential I thought the other child would be on my child.
Nothing is as clear cut as the author of this blog/article wants it to be, and like I said, he seems to be conflating issues. He also starts out the article by clearly indicating his bias against liberals: “If it wasn’t for double standards, some liberals would have none at all.” The article is clearly written with that huge bias behind it.
As for the #1, you have private companies trying to influence the law through lobbying and donations, which the Left doesn’t like (nor should the Right). However, in this particular case in NC, you have the same thing happening. Large corporations are making business decisions in an effort to influence the law.
#2 we may just have to let go. It’s not exactly the same, but I support the freedom of both to make these sorts of decisions.
I will agree nothing is clear cut. And yes the author is biased. However, that doesn’t necessarily make him wrong.
Wait, Japan is socialist?
I don’t particularly like the value of one’s labor decided by how many other people can do it. I do get it, the market wants to pay people as little as possible. Is the market really determining the value of a human’s labor, or is it determining how much leverage a company has over low skill workers because of their replaceability? I don’t base my morality on free market pragmatism as a default.
Muahaha
We all benefit from universities and healthcare but also pay for them. What’s the difference?
Depends what you consider rights. I’d like to see education and healthcare as rights for everyone in our society. It makes society better in my opinion. An iPhone or MS Word is not a right and shouldn’t be in my opinion.
Haha this is silly but I’ll respond to it on the other comment
1. The depreciation isn’t harming executives, and its also not really harming other skilled workers that have a boom in productivity. Its not even hurting the little guys. The whole point of depreciation was to highlight production inflation. Not to explain wages. You seem to have missed the point.
2. The low skill jobs used to be essentially all there was! Production was crazy slow and thus milkmen could fit right in. That’s not true of today’s world. You are stuck on executive pay and its a mystery. Executives don’t set their own pay. And boards don’t give executives lucrative salaries to hook up their country club buddies IN MOST cases. The question isn’t why CEOs are accepting the money, the question is why the money is offered (most times by geeky analysts). A CEO of a massive company protects BILLIONS of dollars. Obviously such a role gets paid. Competition for good CEOs is fierce and companies have to pony up. No one gives a shit about the burger flipper because they are a dime a dozen. Low skills, low worth to the market. Saying that you only want to track the burger flippers, ditch diggers, cashiers, and people who pour your coffee is stacking the deck from the get go. Those jobs are still low skill jobs with low productivity. Jobs with high productivity and responsibility pay more. So its unsuprising that the pay for median income is barely growing. But meanwhile, and here is the kicker, all those people have a MUCH better lifestyle than the milkmen in the 60s.
About human dignity: isn’t it respecting human dignity to pay a man fairly for the work he does? You are just begging the question by assuming people pouring coffee DESERVE higher pay via human dignity. That’s ridiculous. If I lick envelopes for a living does my human dignity DEMAND someone pay me $15 per hour? For that silly job that anyone can do? And if companies are all about paying people the lowest amount possible… What the hell are we talking about with executive pay?!? You act like employers sit back in a room smoking cigars plucking wages out of thin air and cramming thembdown peoples throat. In reality, the owner has to set a price that consumers will willingly pay and offer a wage that employees will willingly accept in accordance with their skill set. The free market KEEPS companies from being greedy and paying people less than they are worth. If McDonalds won’t pay it and Burger King will….. All the best people go to Burger King. Which gives them a competitive advantage. So contra your view free market capitalism forces business owners to BEGIN by putting consumer and employee needs ahead of their own interests
The free market KEEPS companies from being greedy and paying people less than they are worth.
Clearly.
Every American does have the right to education and healthcare. Pursuit of happiness. But that doesn’t mean they have the right to make other people pay for it. Its a privilege to have other people pay for something you need. Not a right.
So I’m trying to figure out why the “all boats rise with tides” Sanders supporters are pro free university but anti corporate bailout when we all get to collectively benefit from the services of said companies.
We clearly don’t agree on what a “right” is.
“A rising tide lifts all boats.” Sander’s point is that banks shouldn’t be too big to fail. They should be able to fail, which would hopefully curtail dangerous investing practices. And one of the reasons they became “too big to fail” was the repeal of Glass-Steagal in 1999 allowing banks to invest their customers’ money in risky ways.
I think that its true that companies should be allowed to fail. Cruz and Sanders are on the same page there. But Cruz holding this position is consistent with his principles. Its just bizaar on a socialist. Do people have a “right” to work? If so, how can you allow their business to go under? Remember a “right” is something that gives you a voucher to force other people to pay for what you need.
Sigh. 🙁
Have you seen Vinyl yet? The new HBO show? You and Jason will go nuts. Its crazy good
Nope. Glad to hear it’s good though! Been saving it for a binge session. 🙂
You are going to binge so hard. I’m obsessed with it. I had absolutely ZERO interest in a 1970s record label…. But damn they nailed it
“The low skill jobs used to be essentially all there was! Production was crazy slow and thus milkmen could fit right in. That’s not true of today’s world.”
Right. A very large percentage of Americans are low skill. There were jobs for them to do, and those jobs still exist, just not here. They were abruptly taken away. So now the current economy requires much more than low skill to be middle class. I assume you care about this group of people. What should we do about them?
About human dignity: isn’t it respecting human dignity to pay a man fairly for the work he does?
Sure. Respecting human dignity is affirming a person’s value also. Not to mention it is one of the sins “that cry to Heaven for Vengeance”: injustice to the wage earner (James 5:4, Deut 24:14-15, CCC 1867). But I guess my question is what is a fair wage? Our economy is starting to price a segment out of the population out. The libertarian says, they are getting a fair wage for their skills because that is what the market is paying them (a free market tautology).
Instead of just assuming the market is providing a fair wage, because it is providing a wage. Let’s see if the Catechism can help:
So I think that we have gotten to a point where the free market might very well be underpaying people.
As for executives. The executives have virtually all the leverage in determining wages, and the low skill worker has none. And I do think we are creating a business class who operate under a completely different set of rules than everyone else.
It looks like the NC governor recognized the law passed quickly went too far. He only wanted the restroom/locker room stuff. He just passed an executive order which does the following:
http://www.wsoctv.com/news/local/gov-mccrory-signs-executive-order-addressing-hb2-concerns/212008798?ecmp=wsoctv_social_facebook_2014_sfp
Lane,
Right. A very large percentage of Americans are low skill. There were
jobs for them to do, and those jobs still exist, just not here. They
were abruptly taken away. So now the current economy requires much more
than low skill to be middle class. I assume you care about this group of
people. What should we do about them?
They have been taken away? People cant still dig ditches and flip burgers? People cant work at wall mart or tmobile? For the people who are low skill and not participating in high octane productive jobs we should focus on giving them opportunities to better themselves and become qualified for higher paying jobs. School choice is one great way to accomplish this. Another way would be to remove the minimum wage or else lower it so that people with low skills can get job experience that sets them up for the future. True story: in highschool my best friend worked at McDonalds. We all made fun of him. Another kid that was on the track team worked at “Whataburger” which is the same thing but more local. My best friend stayed with McD all through highschool and college. He now owns 2 McD and has a share of 8 others. The kid who worked at Whataburger is now one of their regional managers making more money than engineers, lawyers, and just about everyone else. He has no degree. Another kid on my basketball team didnt pursue college and became a plumber. We all made fun of him. He now makes TONS of cash as a master plumber and owns his own business. I can go through my facebook feed and give countless of these same examples. My friend Alex bought fucking VENDING MACHINES and now owns several bars and lives on a lake. No degree. None of them started out rich. Only one has a degree. And yet all of them became very successful. Im sure you know alot of people with similar stories. Now, imagine Texas had a minimum wage like Washington. They would NEVER have been hired as youth at those restaurants with no skills that demand $15 per hour. Look up the number of restaurants that have gone under in Washington just this year. Look up how many jobs have been cut from that industry (which has a high number of minimum wage workers) in Washington state. You arent helping people by raising the minimum wage. You are dooming them to unemployment.
Im not ASSUMING the market is paying a fair wage because they are paying a wage. Its a standard principle of economics dude. This isnt rocket science. Every college guidance councilor understands how this works. Every student understands it. Everyone in the world understands it. Allow me to rebold that quote from the catechism you quoted:
2432 Those responsible for business enterprises are responsible to society for the economic and ecological effects of their operations. 218
They have an obligation to consider the good of persons and not only
the increase of profits. Profits are necessary, however. They make
possible the investments that ensure the future of a business and they
guarantee employment.
2434 A just wage is the legitimate fruit of work. To refuse or withhold it can be a grave injustice.
In determining fair pay both the needs and the contributions of each
person must be taken into account. “Remuneration for work should
guarantee man the opportunity to provide a dignified livelihood for
himself and his family on the material, social, cultural and spiritual
level, taking into account the role and the productivity of each, the
state of the business, and the common good.”222 Agreement between the parties is not sufficient to justify morally the amount to be received in wages.
A wage is just if, and only if, it is the LEGITIMATE fruit of work. Employers should pay people fairly, and in accordance with their role, productivity, and the greater good of society (which includes profits). If someone has skills that justify $5 per hour, a teenager for example, but someone else forces you to pay them $15 per hour thats not the legitimate fruit of labor. That is CHARITY. And it ensures that this group of people will remain unemployed and be hampered in the further development of the skills and experience necessary to thrive in the workforce. (Remember the McD and Whataburger testimonies) Youth unemployment suffers from the minimum wage more than any other group. Is that looking out for the greater good? No.
If you want to help the poor develop skills we need to get the government out of the way and let the free market do what it does: make laggards better off than yesterdays mean. Which is exactly what has happened through the ingenuity and advancements that the free market generates.
As a bonus, the Earned Income Tax credit is a HUGE boost for those on minimum wage. It accomplishes what the minimum wage WANTS to accomplish far better. Which is why a negative income tax is a better solution.
Skill is only one factor that weighs into compensation. Not sure why you’re only focusing on that. Is the job physically demanding? Is it dangerous? Is it uncomfortable? Does it require dealing with difficult customers? Is it stressful? Etc. Those are all factors that weigh into compensation.
Could someone flipping burgers take over as CEO of a corporation? Most likely not. Could a CEO of a corporation be on their feet all day next to a stove dealing with difficult customers? That most likely wouldn’t last very long either. I’d even wager that the CEO would think it was difficult, despite their education and skill level.
Making skill the basis of what someone is worth (from a wage perspective) is short-sighted and ignorant.
And by recognized the law went too far, you mean he realized that it made the business community mad, was really bad optics, and would cost his state money and jobs.
Strictly speaking it is supply and demand that determines wage. The factors you mention might reduce the supply of workers willing to do said job, and thus, more pay is required. For example you get paid big bucks to go work in Fort McMurphy Canada because its deadly cold. But usually skill sets are what most determines the supply of able workers and the profit/production a company can expect to gain from their position being filled
Don’t be so condensing just because I’m thinking through your accepted economic orthodoxy out loud. I understand the libertarian economic arguments – I typically default to them. I’m questioning whether our current system is harming people unintentionally. I’m in favor of private property and the free formation of capital; however I’m also concerned with huge concentrations of economic power (which translates into political power) by a few. I’m also questioning if the rarity of skill alone ought to be the only factor in determining if a wage is just.
A company can choose to pay its low skill employees better. However, it seems to me that large corporations tend to horde the revenues generated at the top. They do this because they can. I’m asking if they should. Yes, competition of executives, blah blah blah… I think if a company generates profit, that profit should be shared. The burger flipper’s job is essential to McDonalds, they are integral to company performing its mission. However, since they are replaceable they have no leverage. Just because you can pay them so little, should you? I’m not asking what is most efficient when you view fellow humans as dispensable resources; it is a general moral question.
Anyway getting down to brass tacks, in my view what should or shouldn’t the government do?
Should we raise min wage? I don’t think so. I actually don’t like the government telling private companies what to do. I would like the general virtue of the public to demand companies do certain things. I would like the “market” to not just want super cheap junk, but also virtuous companies with flatter distributions of wage throughout the company. But that won’t work without wide social conscious buy in. I want more transparency and social consciousness about the inner working of companies and the production of their products.
I’m also in favor of a very progressive tax system, which by the way, should be much less complex than today’s system (which can be maneuvered if you can afford the right lawyers and lobbyists). I would like to see much higher taxes on the upper end, and the global elimination of tax havens. We shouldn’t bail out companies. If the stupid executives make stupid decisions they should be held accountable – they are certainly paid enough in a lot of cases to be held accountable. You also mentioned negative income tax rates at the bottom of the scale. I think that’s a great idea also. If that type of redistribution of income is happening, I could probably be talked into elimination of the min wage all together.
You suggested school choice. I’m 100% on board, particularly vouchers that empower the family to direct the education of their children. I’m also interested in public education funding going toward trade and vocation schools. We already have “free” public school for the first 12 years; what do you think about a couple of extra years? The promotion of the common good might include providing access to the common skills necessary to be part of the modern economy. That might require a couple more years of school.
It is hard to give him the benefit of the doubt. NC moved very quickly. He could have sat on a couple days or vetoed it. However, the only thing I ever heard him complain about in the news was the restroom stuff – regardless of how you feel about that issue. I don’t recall him ever complaining about not being able to legally discriminate LGBT people.
That part of the law that Jason mention about workers suing in state court WAS a complete Trojan horse directed against all workers, and had nothing to do with the Charlotte ordinance. That should have never been in the bill.
Yes, it is hard to give him the benefit of the doubt, because this is yet again a moral panic being whipped up over a non-issue that plays to the base and a religious crowd that either doesn’t understand or doesn’t care to understand a group of people who are outcasts.
If we could create an AI that was capable of sentience, how do you think that would impact Christianity or Catholicism? Would it call into question our uniqueness? What would it say about the existence or non-existence of a soul?
I might agree with you, Kenneth, if corporations acted, in return, for the public good and had a sense of citizenship and loyalty, instead of offshoring funds to avoid taxation, out sourcing jobs to avoid paying American workers, relocating factories and devastating communities of loyal workers to drive down wage costs, and thought about the general welfare of the United States before they decided to crash the world economy. 🙂
Healthcare and education are direct benefits to the people and tangential benefits to companies. Corporate welfare is a direct benefit to a handful, and it provides, at best, a tangential benefit to the people.
Of course you do.
I would definitely trust my five year old who can’t read to negotiate a contract and perform labor. Maybe she can work the deep fryer, I’m sure the company will have safety procedures in place to prevent any accidents.
Haha yes because BIG MED is really looking out for the public interest. So too with State Universities…….. Wah-wah-wahhhhhhhh
This is tricky. Lets define sentience as knowing what its “like” to do something. Anything. Thats as good a definition as any without getting too nit picky. If we created sentient robots with a consciousness that was distinct from their physical mechanisms (which is what humans have) then it would definitely have a soul. But i just don’t know how we could perform such a task. IF we could, i would say Christianity is toast, although not necessarily souls
I’m also concerned with huge concentrations of economic power (which
translates into political power) by a few. I’m also questioning if the
rarity of skill alone ought to be the only factor in determining if a wage is just.
This has to be held in view of historical context. Has there ever been a civilization where there wasn’t huge concentrations of economic and political power? Socialism and communism trade economic powerhouses with political powerhouses. But so long as there is competition (which must be regulated) at least those in economic power will be beholden to the consumer and market equilibrium. Not so much with concentration of power in the political class. I dont know whether wages OUGHT to be decided by market forces or if there is some other alternative that is better suited…. but I dont know of any viable alternative.
A company can choose to pay its low skill employees better. However, it
seems to me that large corporations tend to horde the revenues generated
at the top. They do this because they can. I’m asking if they should.
Yes, competition of executives, blah blah blah… I think if a company
generates profit, that profit should be shared. The burger flipper’s job
is essential to McDonalds, they are integral to company performing its
mission. However, since they are replaceable they have no leverage. Just
because you can pay them so little, should you? I’m not asking
what is most efficient when you view fellow humans as dispensable
resources; it is a general moral question.
It CAN choose to do so, but that would be charity and not legitimate fruit of labor. Profits stay at the top because the people at the top have more responsibility and protect/ensure the companies survival. If a burger flipper has a horrible day the company barely notices. If the CEO strikes the wrong deal, indulges the wrong union, or gets caught on camera doing something shitty, the company could be DOOMED. For me, its not a matter of McD paying low skills workers less because they CAN. They pay them less because they SHOULD pay them less for the work they perform. It is morally wrong, in my opinion, for a low skill worker to demand money that is disproportionate to the job he is performing. Legit labor=legit fruit
I agree with you on the minimum wage but disagree on the weird flat pay thing. I want people to get paid what they deserve to be paid. Nothing more and nothing less.
I prefer the fair tax plan to all other forms of taxation, but its not even a contender this year so thats not gonna happen. The flat tax is fine too. Either one defacto eliminates tax havens and puts the economy into hyper drive. Which will increase production, small business, employment, and wages.
I think the NIT should replace not only the minimum wage but all forms of welfare. Give them their freedom. If we cut all welfare programs aimed exclusively for those bellow the poverty line and just wrote them all check we could give each American 9k per year. Family of 4 on min wage thats 36k per year in their pocket. Being so generous would discourage work, but if thats how much we are already spending I would RATHER that, then all this government yellow tape. The NIT has never been explored but i think its a great option.
Let failing companies fail. This is obvious and shame on Bush and all other GOP leaders who defend such nonsense.
School choice rocks.
Pull back regulations, but keep a strong hand on the fed and other industries that deal in creating wealth through liquid and imaginary credit.
I would crack down harder on monopolies and discourage mega corporations from existing (try to stop globalization). This entire idea only works if there is competition. If only four companies exist selling phones the idea of fair wages gets harder to defend. Collusion is all the more probable.
Thats my world anyways
on tax payer funded college….. I could go either way.
I was actually hoping for a response from Jason to my questions, Chris, which is why I specifically addressed them to him, but you actually proved my point to him with your response. The right of Catholics and non-liberal Protestants to publicly practice their faith, consistently, is no longer legally protected in the U.S. today.
In the area of Catholic Charities and adoption, the *new legal interpretations* (as of a few years ago) of the Federal rules for non-discrimination do not respect the right of Catholics to consistently practice their faith publicly.
In your view, apparently, and in the unfortunately increasing views of American judges, a Christian wedding planner should *also* not be legally allowed to operate his/her business in a way which conforms to his/her religious beliefs. No legal protections there either.
As far as my going, or not going, to the ceremony which legally unites two men or two women, and which is now called a “wedding” in this country, your snarky reply to me on that subject (even though I never even mentioned my going or not going at all– strange, then, that you would bring it up!) is marked, unfortunately, by your inaccurate conflation, yet again, of certain evangelical fundamentalists’ beliefs about gay and lesbian people with *what I believe and with what the Catholic Church teaches*. I don’t presume to know who is or is not going to Hell. The Church does not presume to make definitive negative judgments on the state of a person’s soul. God alone can do such a thing. That is the Catholic teaching. I don’t want anyone to be in Hell.
When I say that the government is not trying to stop people from practicing their faith, I am usually referring to private devotional practices or public worship (in churches that the state has granted tax-exempt status, BTW).
I would be curious to know if you agree with those who insist that Muslim refugees should not be allowed into European countries whose customs and culture they refuse to abide by (“Learn our language, adopt our democratic norms, and assimilate”). If so, do you not also think that Christians should “play ball” when it comes to those areas where the secular and sacred overlap, especially if we’re talking about a public business that provides goods and services to everyone?
On my dislike of concentrations of power:
Later you say:
I want to avoid what has happened in history. Concentrations of power should be broken up, I agree.
Except through a minimum wage. Or some other more complex way of determine the value of labor that I’m not aware of.
But the low skill workers are producing fruit. They are doing labor, sometimes quite demanding physically and emotionally. The problem is that the labor can be done by a lot of people. But eff the idea that the labor isn’t legit just because a lot of people can do it. Cutting the grass, digging ditches, doing laundry, having a baby, these are all tasks that many people are capable of doing, but that doesn’t discount the labor involved in doing them. You know what I mean? I dislike that the we undervalue these tasks. It is demeaning to the labor and people involved.
And again, this is just the free market tautology. There is no such thing as being “disproportionately paid”. You are paid what you are paid; and that by definition creates the market. You can’t determine if someone is under or over paid. If someone is willing to employee them and pay them, they are being paid “proportionately”. And if you aren’t running the company, it is as low as they can get away with. However, yeah, other than control of the floor with a min wage, I don’t really have an alternative at the moment. I’m open to suggestions.
I do like that some areas have decided to try out large step changes in min wage. We get to see what happens. If it works out, great, people will follow suite. If not, great, now we know in practice.
Catholic adoptive services aren’t being forced to take Federal money. The Sisters of the Poor aren’t being forced to hand out condoms. No one is being forced to marry a gay couple.
And I’m sure you are well aware of why we needed Federal civil rights laws and protections in the first place. Because business owners in communities and cities were actively discriminating and rather than being punished for it in the free market, they were rewarded for it by the majority of their communities.
So if we’re going to start telling people they don’t have to obey a law because they have a religious objection, whose religious beliefs get them out of which laws then?
Does the US government via the judicial courts get into the business of deciding which religion is valid and which isn’t? Or how sincere a belief is held by a person or organization? Do you want a court in charge of that? I don’t.
As for citing Evangelicalism, it is because it is generally Evangelicals who are in the news for these events and they do believe that LGBT folks are going to hell. Which I don’t understand why someone wouldn’t avail themselves of the opportunity to talk to a group of people that business owner thinks are going to be tortured forever.
Thanks for replying, Jason. The first sentence indicates, to me, that you believe that freedom of religious practice ends when one steps outside of one’s home or a church building. If you do believe this (and I hope you don’t), it is deeply troubling to me, as a person who cares about religious liberty.
I don’t believe that all immigrants who come to the United States must assimilate to all current Western norms. I don’t assimilate to all of those norms by a long shot! 🙂 I do believe that immigrants to this country, Muslim or non-Muslim, should not be legally allowed to live in ways that actually physically threaten other Americans and/or the safety and security of this country as a whole. For examples, see Sweden, Germany, and other European countries which are now experiencing serious problems with bands of Muslim immigrant men raping the women of those countries– the thinking behind the behavior, apparently, being that women are simply the property of men and that, therefore, men should be legally allowed to rape women at will.
Now, If a Muslim immigrant, or any other immigrant, does not hold such views (or other views which, if lived out, result in actual physical harm to Americans), I would happily say, welcome to the U.S.A.! I have a close Muslim friend who lives right across the hall from me, in this apartment building, and she would say the exact same thing. She moved from her Muslim country of birth to the U.S., because she knew that, as a woman with a physical disability, she would have a much better chance at a safe, secure, happy life in this country. However, I am also quite sure that if she were a wedding planner, she would not want to be legally forced into baking a wedding cake for a gay or lesbian couple.
My conviction that non-assimilated men of *any religion* who want to rape women, as a part of living what *they* apparently believe to be consistent with their faith, should not be allowed into this country– that conviction is quite a long way from my conviction that Christian, or Jewish, or Muslim, wedding planners should not be legally forced to participate in the legal unions of gays and lesbians.
As a Christian, and as an American, I believe that people have a basic right to housing, as long as they are not threatening the safety of their neighbors. Does a gay or lesbian couple have a “basic right” to a wedding cake from a Christian, or Jewish, or Muslim wedding planner? If so, then how far does this thinking go?
Should Muslim delicatessens be legally obliged to sell bacon, because I love bacon and I don’t want to go to another deli where the owner can offer it, unlike a Muslim, in good conscience?
Huh? A delicatessen doesn’t have to offer bacon. If it does though, it can’t refuse it to certain people because they don’t like their morals. In the same way, a Christian run bakery doesn’t have to make wedding cakes.
The question was not about Christian bakeries. It was about Christian, or Jewish, or Muslim, wedding planners.
By your logic could a shop refuse service to black people because the owner’s religion tells him that blacks are inferior or sub-human? This is not some hypothetical potentiality, it’s the very kind of situation that these laws were written to eliminate.
Well then your analogy is poor. it was poor anyway, but now it’s really poor.
Jason, that could be done, if someone truly held those religious beliefs. I would strongly oppose such a practice with every fiber of my being, but yes, if freedom of religion exists in this country, then it could be done.
Is your view, then, is a gay or lesbian couple perfectly within their legal rights to go to a Christian, or Jewish, or Muslim wedding planner, and simply say, “Plan my wedding, or I will sue”? If this is your view, then your view of religious freedom is that it ends the moment one steps outside of one’s home or church building.
Then you believe that Christian, or Jewish, or Muslim wedding planners should be legally forced to plan gay or lesbian weddings?
So the Christian landlord who objects to renting an apartment to a gay couple is wrong, but the Christian baker who doesn’t want to provide a cake is in the right? Interesting, if inconsistent.
Should Muslim delicatessens be legally obliged to sell bacon, because I love bacon and I don’t want to go to another deli where the owner can offer it, unlike a Muslim, in good conscience?
No, but if a Halal deli said, “I will not sell to Catholics” or a Muslim owner of a shop was selling bacon already and said, “Not for you, I don’t like Catholics.” I’d be on your side.
No, it has limits, like every other right.
Can’t shout fire in a theater. Can’t buy a tank or a stealth bomber.
And when you leave your home and go file a fictitious business name, get an ad announcing it in the paper, rent a storefront, and start selling products and services to the public, you accept a limitation that says you must offer your goods and services to everyone in the public.
I believe that any company that offers services to the public should not be able to discriminate against customers based on race, gender, sexual preference. If their religion forbids them from planning a wedding for a gay couple, then pick a different profession.
I never said, at all, that a Christian baker should not sell food to gay or lesbian couples as customers. I was referring to Christian, or Jewish, or Muslim *wedding planners* being legally forced to bake cakes for, and/or in other ways, *participate in*, the legal unions of gays and lesbians.
Then, in your view, at least as it seems from what you’re writing, Christians, and Jews, and Muslims, who believe what their faiths have historically taught about marriage, should, apparently, simply not be wedding planners, if they want to live by their beliefs and not be subject to legal prosecution in this country.
Freedom of religion only extends so far. I’m sure you’d agree with this. If Muslim believes his religion commands him to wage jihad on infidels, then he clearly can’t practice his or her religion, at least in America because it conflicts with rights that are believed to be more important. Freedom from discrimination based on race, gender, sexual orientation, etc. are valued by most (myself included) to be more important than “freedom of religion” in the way that you are using it. After all, using “freedom of religion” in the way that you’re using it is kind of silly. You’re free to believe whatever you want. You’re just not free to open a business to the public and discriminate against certain people. That doesn’t have much to do with freedom of religion to me. You can practice your religion all day long. You just can’t be a wedding planner if you have a problem with gay weddings. I don’t think “freedom of practicing wedding planning” is really a thing though.
As surely as a Jehovah’s Witness who is serious about their faith shouldn’t be a surgeon. Or they could follow the model of the early church and rejoice in their persecution for righteousness’ sake.
Ok. It will be the second option that you offered above, then, for me. I’ll take what you, yourself, just described as “persecution.”
In that light, though, it is interesting that when American Christians actually *do* as you are suggesting, and live out their faith, publicly, and are persecuted for it, you and Jason and Christian say that we are being ridiculous, and that there *is no persecution* of Christians in the U.S.A., and that we should just be thrilled to live here.
I can’t help but think that Jesus (along with every martyr in church history including the Christians being beheaded and/or crucified in Syria by ISIS today) would laugh at the idea that a Christian in America (where “In God We Trust” is on the money and “under God” is in the pledge of allegiance and where the birth of their God is a national holiday) who has the freedom to choose any profession and chooses wedding planner and is then required by anti-discrimination laws to plan a wedding for gays is considered religious persecution.
I was being sarcastic when I used that term. I think it’s ridiculous because you’re (and that’s the collective you, not you individually) are being asked to treat everyone equally because you run a business.
Or as someone once said, “For what credit is there if, when you sin and are harshly treated, you endure it with patience?”
And in my sincerely held religious beliefs, if you (again, the collective hypothetical you) refuse because you think someone is a sinner, that, to me, is equivalent of a Pharisee refusing to do business with a tax collector.
But the low skill workers are producing fruit.
And they are also being paid.
They are doing labor, sometimes quite demanding physically and emotionally. The problem is that the labor can be done by a lot of people. But eff the idea that the labor isn’t legit just because a lot of people can do it. Cutting the grass, digging ditches, doing laundry, having a baby, these are all tasks that many people are capable of doing, but that doesn’t discount the labor involved in doing them.
Sure. And they are being compensated for this work in proportion to the value it is worth to the market. No one is discounting it. We just aren’t over paying for the services. I’m not giving someone $1,000 for mowing my grass just because its possible. That’s not fair pay. Its charity. Charity and earned wages are two different things. Market equilibriums aren’t demeaning. They just are what they are.
And again, this is just the free market tautology. There is no such thing as being “disproportionately paid”. You are paid what you are paid; and that by definition creates the market. You can’t determine if someone is under or over paid.
You just posted a link from the catechism arguing just the opposite. Economics isn’t arbitrary Lane. If someone is selling milk from their farm and charging $25 per gallon that is asking an unfair price. There is simply too much milk to justify that price and they will go out of business for their greed. Its not “unfair” or “degrading” that there are that millions of cows making millions of gallons of milk. If there are minimum wages why not minimum prices? Let’s be fair to everyone. No competition in production. Everyone must pay at least $15 for any and every good. Whether a pencil or a backpack. A burger or a steak. No less than $15. Its demeaning to the people who make pencils that their stuff is so cheap. No such thing as overpaying anyways you just pay what you pay. Right?
If someone is willing to employee them and pay them, they are being paid “proportionately”. And if you aren’t running the company, it is as low as they can get away with. However, yeah, other than control of the floor with a min wage, I don’t really have an alternative at the moment. I’m open to suggestions.
“as low as they can get away with” is determined by the free market, comprised of free agents, where both sides have to be considered! This is no back alley deal by the top 1℅. The free market is all of us. Entrepreneurs and cashiers. Corporations and accountants. Its a free equilibrium without coercion from any party. Until the government gets involved and makes it a mess.
I do like that some areas have decided to try out large step changes in min wage. We get to see what happens. If it works out, great, people will follow suite. If not, great, now we know in practice.
We have already seen what happens. The minimum wage retards economic growth and contributes to the youth living with mommy and daddy until they are 26 years old.
Christian, somehow, I think that the Christians being martyred around the world today might actually see the *beginnings* of persecution in the admonitions of progressives that Christians should not enter certain professions unless they want to be sued and bullied out of those jobs by their government.
The fact is, in the 200-plus years of this country, until the last ten years or so, religious people *could* choose virtually any profession that they wanted, and live in accordance with their beliefs, privately and publicly, and not worry about being persecuted by their government. That is no longer the case.
If Christian, or Jewish, or Muslim, wedding planners are going to be legally forced to either plan gay or lesbian weddings, or be threatened and fined out of existence by the government, that *is* persecution. It doesn’t matter anymore that “In God We Trust” is on our coins.
Exactly. If someone doesn’t have the freedom to have their religion affect every phase of their life, that isn’t freedom. Christian and Chris think Christians should accept the persecution. Sure, I guess. But we are talking about America, where I as a citizen get to have input into the government. So a religious person is perfectly within their civil right to give input to the civil government. Further, America claims to provide freedom of religion. If they want to deny people that freedom, or limit to point that the freedom is meaningless to how one can legally lead one’s life, fine – just stop claiming that it provides that freedom.
A Christian is not being “bullied” for being a Christian. Nor are they being bullied for being a certain profession. They’re just not allowed to discriminate if they offer services to the public. To me, and I’m guessing to a majority of society, anti-discrimination laws trump whatever you think your conscience is telling you to do. If that’s persecution to you, then I can’t help but just think you’re being silly and I’m totally fine with persecuting you myself for that.
Lane, from what I can tell, Christian and Jason and Chris don’t believe that persecution of Christians actually *exists* in America, despite all of the increasing evidence that it does exist. Maybe they won’t believe it exists here until we actually *are* being beheaded by radical Muslims. Then, it will be persecution of Christians and everyone who is not a radical Muslim! The teaching authority of the Catholic Church seems to believe that the religious liberty of Christians *is* being threatened in America. I’m waiting for DXP to call Pope Francis out on his silly support of the Little Sisters of the Poor in not wanting to be legally forced to provide contraception for their employees! 🙂
For my part, I don’t think that much of what is labeled as persecution is actually persecution. Losing a prior-bestowed special benefit is not persecution. Losing your head is.
One minute you’re a Christian wedding planner who’s not allowed to discriminate against people and the next we’re all laughing while a Muslim chops your head off!
In fact, the very notion that it’s “persecution” when the government GIVES you free money but then attaches strings to that money is hilarious.
Jason and Christian, I like listening to diverse points of view, and I love humor, but I’m going to be brutally honest here and say, not just on this issue but on many, that it seems to me, increasingly, DXP is becoming a progressive version of Rush Limbaugh (who I don’t enjoy and don’t listen to)– a progressive show which just mocks and misrepresents traditional Christians, conservatives, and thinkers in general who depart from your left-progressive views. I guess it doesn’t matter to you though, because the show has been moving in this direction for a while, and most listeners seem to enjoy it. I like to be intellectually challenged to think about, and consider (and even re-consider), what I believe, and I love to laugh, but I’m not a masochist. You’ve lost me as a listener and a sponsor.
Ok. Best to you!
Best to you guys too!
While I hesitate to call these cases persecution, they do represent where freedom of religion is being curtailed.
Sorry to see you leave.
All “freedoms” have their limits. And again, you’re free to believe and preach whatever you want. You just can’t discriminate. Some freedoms trump other freedoms.
I have, or should have the freedom to not participate in certain things I find objectionable, especially due to religious reasons in a country that protects that freedom. I shouldn’t have to decide between shutting down my business and participating in the part of the economy where my talents lie, and my religion.
Should a Catholic event planner be forced to plan a black mass? No, not in a country that protects my freedom to exercise my freedom. I’m not discriminating atheists, but my participation in an event counter to my deeply held religious beliefs.
OMG, I can’t do this anymore. You do have the freedom to not participate in things you find objectionable. When you start a public business, however, you sign away some of your freedoms, like the freedom to treat customers differently based on race, gender, sexual orientation. If you put yourself in that situation, that’s your choice, but you don’t have to. Them’s the rules of our society, and for good reason.
Call it persecution. Call it whatever you want. It’s the way it is and I support it.
You can have the last word. I have better things to do.
Participating in society does NOT mean one signs away protected freedom, otherwise there is no point to the freedom.
God bless!
Its an Interesting argument Christopher. Well put.
I’m sorry to go, in some very real ways, but DXP has just reached the point, more and more lately, where I feel as if I am coming here, listening, and hearing much of what I, and so many other Catholics, Protestants, and/or conservatives, believe, misrepresented and ridiculed, and I’m enduring it just to stick around for the increasingly fewer laughs. It’s not worth it anymore. Not for me.
A “prior-bestowed special benefit” like simply being able to choose a profession, and then practice it, without being legally forced to commit sin, according to the teachings of one’s faith? That has only become a “prior-bestowed special benefit” in the America of the last few years. That doesn’t seem to matter though. Onwards and upwards!
Can we at least all agree that we do believe that religious rights have limits and simply disagree over where to draw the line on those limits?
I trust everyone here would find it objectionable if you were in a car wreck and your trauma surgeon said, “Well, you need 3 units of blood, but I’m a Jehovah’s witness and I find that to be an abomination, so good luck…” or “I’m an ultra-orthodox Jew, and I can’t be near a woman, so I can’t treat your wife or daughter…”?
“Can we at least all agree that we do believe that religious rights have limits and simply disagree over where to draw the line on those limits?”
Sure. If my religious belief requires me to physically harm another – stone them, rape them, assault them – that should obviously be limited.
Most of the cases haven’t dealt with life or death. But even here, I wouldn’t use the government to force a JW or UOJ to violate their conscience. Just like I wouldn’t force a Catholic hospital, doctor, or nurse to preform or participate in abortions against their will.
When the military needs have a draft, they have recognized conscientious objectors. They still serve their country, but with accommodations made for their deeply held beliefs.
A JW medical facility wouldn’t provide very many medical services, I would assume. However, I wouldn’t prevent them from existing just because there are limits on their services. I would let them perform the services they are able to perform.
Again the constitution protects the free exercise of religion. And religion, especially when it is deeply held, affects your decisions in every part of your life. Protecting rights is not easy. Some people’s speech sucks for example. But that is why it is such an awesome thing to be able to proclaim we are the home of the free, because it is hard to be.
If my religious belief requires me to physically harm another…
Emotional or psychological harm is totally cool though. 😉
You have no choice in being drafted. That’s why there are provisions. You have the choice to be a wedding planner or not.
Freedom of Speech, like Freedom of Religion, is also protected by the Constitution. Yet there are limits. Words that incite a fight, for example, are exempted. Speech that recklessly inflicts severe emotional damage is not protected. Also, commercial “speech” (i.e. ads for a company) have even less protection.
Why would those exemptions not apply to the “free exercise of religion?”
“Emotional or psychological harm is totally cool though.”
No one is suggesting that yelling and flinging insults at a customer’s request be protected. A simple “no, sorry we don’t provide service for that event.” How much emotional or psychological harm that causes? I have no idea. I assume it is based on expectations. If everyone knows that a Catholic doctor doesn’t perform abortions, no one should be surprised and emotionally hurt.
In the case of a baker who has been in business for decades – maybe even multiple generations in a family owned store – the legal requirement is very new. So you think they should choose to abandon their family business or their religious beliefs – at the same time being concerned about emotional or psychological harm? Interesting. Doesn’t sound like freedom to me.
Again, I’m not suggesting it is okay to discriminate against a person. But against being forced to participate in certain types of events and ideas. I would not expect an LGBT person to be turned away for being an LGBT person. But forcing a person to participate in an event against their conscience is different. I’m sure there is disagreement here, but I think the distinction is valid.
As Christian noted, there is the element of choice, but even in serving in a supporting role, they are indirectly involved in helping the military be more successful at inflicting violence and death on others.
If we were going that route, the analogous situation would be, “Okay, you don’t have to bake the cake, but you do have to sublet the work yourself out to someone who will.” And I doubt Evangelical or Catholic Christians would be okay with that any more than I think they would be okay with having the government pay for contraception for their employees.
At some point, we have to find the balance between the rights of the individual and the general welfare. It’s messy, some people won’t be happy, and it may cause wounds that take a while to heal, but for me, I’d rather live in a nation where laws aren’t optional from person to person and where segregation and discrimination are things of the past. YMMV.
But that will be the end result. Case in point:
http://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/2016/04/02/mississippi-rv-park-owner-evicts-interracial-couple/82469086/
I suppose because I’m really not seeing how selling a cake makes your complicit in something you think is sin. You’re not marrying the couple. You’re not enabling their marriage, the law already did that. You’re not approving of the marriage, you’re selling them a product.
Okay, hypothetical then, let’s say there was a grandfather clause. If you’ve been in business more than five years, you’re exempt. Would you be okay with all new businesses being required not to discriminate?
While I don’t necessarily disagree that we should have a national minimum wage that is a living wage, your explanation for how this would be accomplished and who should bear the burden is pretty flawed. On the show, Jason offered the example of highly paid McDowell’s executives not taking as much money to offset the increased costs of paying the store employees a living wage. There are two very specific problems with this idea.
1. Store workers are not employees of the big McDowell’s corporation. McDowell’s and pretty much every other fast food restaurant and chain of small retail services shops are franchises. McDowell’s provides the concept and a dude like you or me licenses the concept, leases some real estate, hires employees, and opens a store. That dude, if he is really, really good, might be running his restaurant at a 15% profit margin, and labor is about tied with food and paper as the largest cost of the business. So this small business owner, if he’s really, really good, needs When minimum wage goes up, that dude, not corporate McDowell’s folks has to figure out how to keep the store open, and his only choice is to raise prices. 2. Even if you could somehow decrease the salaries of McDowell’s corporate folks and pass those decreases through the franchise relationship to the individual stores to offset the cost of higher employee salaries, there simply aren’t enough highly paid executives to make a dent in increased labor cost of a significant increase in the minimum wage. According to one source, last year 750,000 people worked at McDowell’s franchises in the U.S. If each of them work an average of 20 hours per week (which I think would be very low) for 50 weeks a year, that is 750 million worker hours per year. If we assume an average minimum wage of $8/hour (federal is $7.25 and but a few states are higher), a national minimum wage of $15/hour amounts to a $7/hour increase. Apply that increase to the $750 million worker hours per year results in an increase to labor costs of $5.25 billion dollars (this is not the total labor cost, just the increase from the $7/hour wage increase). And how much does big Corporate McDowell’s pay its executives in total? Something way less than $2.4 billion (which is the publicly reported number that includes executive salaries, marketing (ever seen a McDowell’s commercial), regular folk salaries, real estate costs, taxes and a few other things. I would guess that the total amount of executive “fat cat” compensation at McDowell’s is less than $250 million. If we force those folks to work for free, that leaves you ONLY $5 billion short to pay for a $7/hour minimum wage increase across the McDowell’s franchises.
At the end of the day, I agree that the federal minimum wage should increase dramatically, and what the hell, $15/hour seems as good a number as any. But the idea that it can be done without price increases born by the consuming public, whether at the expense of highly paid executives or otherwise, is crazy. We as a society can and should decide that we’re going to do more for our workers, but we’re all going to have to bear the cost of doing so.
Also, all of the stats about folks’ taxes not going up under Bernie’s tax plans seem somewhat legit for the employees, but are a total farce for the self-employed or small business owners like our dude running the McDowell’s store. That dude with a 15% margin on his whole store is going to feel a pinch if Bernie’s tax plan gets implemented (with the additional 5% percent or so employer paid payroll tax) even if the minimum wage stays the same. Couple that with an increased wage and the accompanying increase in employer paid payroll taxes, and that dude who has likely worked very hard to build a business to support a family but is by no means rolling in money is absolutely shitting himself at the idea of trying to raise prices enough or fire enough people to stay open and not go bankrupt.
I agree that raising the minimum wage can’t just be accomplished with cutting the salaries of CEOs. Not even close. It’s the principle that their pay has gone up 300x while the minimum wage worker has hardly seen any increase that is a problem, at least for me.
Raising the minimum wage would require every higher-up along the way (including franchise owners and other company officers) to reduce some of their discretionary income as well as probably raising prices minimally. If I ate at McDonald’s, I wouldn’t mind paying $.10 more for a burger if it was helping people be able to meet their basic necessities.
As far as Bernie’s plans, his intention is to grow the middle class, not burden it. I’m sure that will be taken into account for business owners who are “middle class.”
If yall have a few minutes, please read this piece and let me know what you think. http://goodmenproject.com/ethics-values/my-dear-friends-realities-and-myths-after-scotus-ruling-jrmk/
I liked this line: “The problem with being privileged your whole life is that [after] you have had that privilege for so long, equality starts to look like oppression.”
I also liked this: “Fifty years from now evangelicals will claim they helped bring marriage equality to pass.” Ha ha ha.
“I suppose because I’m really not seeing how selling a cake makes your complicit in something you think is sin.
Honestly, if I owned a bakery this wouldn’t bother me too much. As long as I didn’t have to put a message or decorate the cake in a way that was offensive to me. That’s why I bring up other situations that would violate my personal conscience such as being forced support a black mass – which I find incredibly unconscionable from Catholic standpoint. However, I’m defending someone else’s right to follower their conscience.
A Christian photographer would be much more involved in the service than the baker.
I don’t know what a black mass is but it sounds like a different issue. It’s not like someone who bakes birthday cakes is being forced to bake a wedding cake. The wedding planner does weddings. Therefore they can’t refuse to do a person’s wedding based on sexual orientation. If you do black masses, you can’t refuse to do a black mass for someone because of their skin color. If you don’t do black masses or don’t do weddings, no one is talking about forcing you to do them. Whatever you do, you just can’t discriminate on your clientele based on sexual orientation (or skin color or gender, etc).
BTW, before writing my comment, I spoke with one of my partners that does franchise work to confirm my rudimentary understanding of how the setup works. We didn’t talk too much about the minimum wage issue, but I’m convinced that if we locked him in a room with Jason I would take the under on whether his head would explode an hour into the conversation.
The objecting religious wedding planner might have a narrower definition of wedding than the public, such as one man and one woman. They wouldn’t be discriminating on skin color or sexual orientation (a gay man might be marrying a woman), but just on the type of service. As it is going now, we are probably half a generation away from polygamy becoming legal – maybe even the currently unthinkable incestuous marriage after that. I assume they would be forced to participate in these types as well.
A black mass is an intentional mockery of the Catholic mass. It attempts to invert everything, including desecrating a stolen consecrated host. Here is an example in the news: http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2014/08/21/oklahoma-archbishop-drops-lawsuit-against-devil-worshiper/
Hey, the men of faith in the OT loved polygamy. I love these slippery slope arguments, as you know. I get it though. We probably should have not let black men marry white women too because look where we are now!
The wedding planner can have a narrower definition. Maybe they only plan destination weddings. Maybe only weddings in churches. Maybe only weddings on beaches! Those are all narrower definitions. They just can’t base their definition off of skin color, gender, or sexual preference if they want to have a public business.
Polygamy is not the ideal in the OT. Always seems to cause problems.
To be fair, my slippery slope argument starts with contraception, not interracial marriage. I’m unaware of the Catholic Church ever restricting inter-racial marriage, maybe inter-faith marriage. And even then, for Catholic sacramental marriage both the man and woman must be baptized Christians.
As for your second paragraph, I read that as agreement with me. =)
I think I know who DXP should interview next!
Incest too, if you believe in a literal Adam, Eve, and the Flood story.
Many religious people would have liked to restrict interracial marriage back in the day.
I’m glad we agree that a wedding planner cannot discriminate based on skin color, gender, or sexual preference! Finally!
Unlike the baker, they would have to actually attend the event, but they still only provide a service and are not really enabling the wedding. The only person who actually enables a wedding, in my mind, is the officiant, and the law is clear that clergy operating as clergy can define what ceremonies are in line with their religious believes, which is why Catholic priests can decline to perform interfaith marriages or marriages involving one or both parties who are divorced.
Tying it back in to another topic, you know in 100 years or so, our grandkids will be arguing about whether or not robot-human marriages are an abomination and whether or not a baker can refuse to make a cake for them. 🙂
With the internet and with wireless connections and broadcast mediums, it would seem that the entirety of an AI connected to the internet or a transmitter would exist both within a body and outside of it simultaneously. Even if it’s host body and all of the equipment that could house it on Earth were destroyed, If it used radio or some other method to transmit itself it could survive dormant indefinitely in its own sort of Limbo afterlife until the end of the universe or until someone with sufficient technical knowledge could resurrect it in another solar system or galaxy.
Kenneth, how do you feel about this? (And if you could just wait to answer until my popcorn is done, I’d appreciate it.)
http://ncronline.org/news/vatican/landmark-vatican-conference-rejects-just-war-theory-asks-encyclical-nonviolence
Without having read it, this is my reaction:
Ha ha!
@boywonder23k:disqus What do you think of this video. It is a discussion on the Catholic case against Libertarianism by Msgr. Stuart Swetland. It was recently posted by Bryan Cross on FB. I would be interested in your reaction to it; where, if any, do you disagree? Particularly his point 6 starting at 12:05, where he talks about the value of work is more than just the economic output, such as the subjective value to the worker themselves. You referred to this as charity, but even so, maybe that should be part of society and economy anyway.
I currently reject liberalism in the social dimension (as supported by the Left), maybe it should also be rejected in its economic form as well (as generally supported by the Right).
Here is Bryan Cross’s comment that went along with the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bmtyz5fQlh4&feature=youtu.be
On a side note, Mcdonald’s CEO just got a 368% raise.
http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20160415/BLOGS09/160419870/mcdonalds-ceo-easterbrooks-pay-rises-368-percent?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=SocialFlow
I just don’t see how anyone can live off of a measly 7 million dollars a year.
There are always catholics who want to over turn Church teaching. To be honest, I’m not really well studied on this topic and so can’t really engage in a good discussion. I know the church has a long standing teaching on this, and I know pussy liberals don’t like it, but other than that I’ve got nothing.
Hey Lane,
I wrote a response to you on our other thread but it was lost in cyber space. So that’s the end of that lol I’m listening to the video now.
Hey lane,
I wrote a response to you on the other thread, and I only just noticed that it was discarded into cyber wasteland. (If only I had access to this mysterious void where all lost comments go). I don’t want to rewrite it, so maybe we can pick it up another time 🙂
First, I am not a libertarian. I’m a free market small government conservative. The pragmatic arguments of Friedman and Hayek are more influential on my thinking than the political principles and philosophy of classical liberals. In other words, I think the way I do because I think its best for society, and not because of some philosophical argument. Further, I AGREE that there is much subjective value in work/employment. I didn’t call that charity. I said paying people more than their job and skills call for charity. And it is. I think that its wonderful to encourage employers to be charitable in their pay, but I don’t think its DOES GOOD to force them to do so. Even though it might make you feel good and be well intentioned.
So far as the video goes, I disagree profoundly that we need a global economic regulator. I also disagree that government should handle externalities through regulations. The government should provide a nice framework for the free market. Not micromanage its every aspect. More often than not, the government BECOMES the externality hindering the common good. I agree, or could agree, with almost everything else.
Strong rejection on the call for more government. Strong agreement community as a natural institution. Everything else a Luke warm “meh”.
But im never overly mpressed when some one bases their entire argument on modern catholic scholarship and V2 gobbily goop. 🙂
On second thought, I do have some things I would like to say.
1. Anyone who says that there is no such as a just war is being dishonest with themselves. If you agree that two men have an obligation to help out a woman getting raped in a back alley, you should agree that a powerful nation like the US has an obligation to help stop Israel from getting nuked off the face of the earth. Or N Korea. Or any nation at all.
2. Who are all these countries going to war just because of the Church teaching?!? No nation on earth gives a shit what the RCC thinks anymore. The idea that if only this doctrine would be reversed, we would have leas wars, is completely ridiculous. No one cares. No one.
It sounded like you weren’t a libertarian. Thanks for the discussion. I guess I’ve decided to sit on the fence on this sort of stuff lately.
“But im never overly mpressed when some one bases their entire argument on modern catholic scholarship and V2 gobbily goop. :)”
I guess some of it is V2 and JP2. But a lot is from Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum novarum, that condemned aspects of both capitalism and socialism, written in 1891 (pre-V2 obviously).
Some reading to nudge you off the fence
http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-road-from-libertarianism.html?m=1
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/379954/catholics-against-capitalism-kevin-d-williamson
http://www.crisismagazine.com/2008/economics-as-science-a-catholic-defense-of-the-free-market
Christian,
If India or Bangladesh raised their minimum wage to $15 per hour would that eliminate their poverty? If human will is all it take to eliminate poverty it would seem that these countries aren’t lacking capital and markets, but rather, need more vigils and protests. Which seems ridiculous on its face.
” wtf people are poor? Well let’s just pass some laws and make them prosperous”. Stupid.
Are you also for a minimum price of goods? Say, $10 per purchase? Lane says there is no such thing as a just wage that depends upon skill and demand. It just is whatever it is. Can we apply the same to purchasing power? Should we have a “maximum price” for goods too? So that poor people can also have a Yacht? Explain the difference
@everyone,
Did y’all know Kobe was a practicing Catholic? Really interesting little piece here….
http://remnantnewspaper.com/web/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=2455:kobe-bryant-practicing-catholic
Fr. Harrison complaining that Pope Francis isn’t defending Church doctrine to his satisfaction….. Sounding a lot like me after the fact. Is he reading this thread??
https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/priest-pope-francis-pastoral-revolution-goes-against-2000-years-of-traditio
I had heard that, and that he also speaks italian and spanish. Pretty cool. Also not shocked that you read the Remnant. =)
Thanks! I will take a look at them later. BTW, big fan of Edward Feser.
On the trans bathroom issue, I also love the assumption people make that somehow the extremely high social, economic, physical, etc. cost of transitioning would be totally worth it just to have the opportunity to creep on people in the bathroom. I’m going to turn my whole life upside down just for a shot at peeking your lady bits. Right.
Yeah he is a beast. Slowly gaining more and more lime light too. Soon it will be the WLC effect where a whole cottage industry pops up doling out his same arguments lol
Yeah, I had no idea and I’ve been a fan since I was a kid!
I roll my eyes at most of the remnants freak out writing. But Chris Ferrara is like the Bryan Cross of the rad trad world. Catch yourself in an argument and…. Well, good luck.
I think Kobe is as Catholic as a Kennedy tho.
The difference is that we’re not saying that people can’t be rich and buy yachts and that poor people should have the ability to purchase a yacht if they want. I’m not sure how you think the two correlate. I think that anyone who works full time should be able to afford basic necessities with their wages (food, clothing, and a roof over their head). I don’t think someone in Bangladesh needs $15/hr to afford those things, but I think it’s a pretty good starting place here in the States. We’re not talking about making poor people prosperous. $15/hr does not make anyone in this country prosperous. We’re talking about people being able to live off of full time hours.
Yeah. It’s a made-up hypothetical that has little basis in reality.