There has been some discussion in the comments yesterday, and yet, as anal as a bunch of y’all are, I’m surprised none of you recognize the character. Jesus, you people will bust my chops if I get the caliber wrong on a type of revolver, but you didn’t see who this is?
A little bit of spoiler: No. She is not related to Omar or Maria. Sometimes I just draw characters with Orphan Annie eyes.
So, let’s see how many fires I can start in the comments here:
First off, there’s this article, penned by Nick Hanauer. Really a brilliant read, and I agree with it 100%.
Secondly, I have a bit of a dilemma. It’s a zombie duck.
I work out about 3-4 times a week, on my day job lunch break, by hiking 2 miles with 30 lbs in my hands, doing various arm positions. I walk a trail, around a lake, that’s rife with joggers, bicyclists, and tons of wildlife.
Three weeks ago, I saw, on my workout, a duck that very obviously had been hit by a car and barely lived. It was bleeding out of its eyes and mouth, the head and neck were coated in dried blood, one wing was very broken, and its tongue was hanging out the side of its bill. I would have put it out of its misery, but there were other joggers and bicyclists around, and I didn’t want to try to explain to the cops why I grabbed a duck and broke its neck. I figured it would die on its own anyway.
Last Friday, I saw the duck again.
Still bleeding out of one eye a little bit, still dragging the wing, still twitching and making ugly noises that were like zombie quacks. And now that the blood was gone, I could see that the DUCK IS MISSING A BIG FUCKING CHUNK OF ITS SKULL AND I CAN SEE ITS BRAIN. HOW IS THIS FUCKING THING NOT DEAD?
I went back yesterday and took pics and video of the duck. I’m loathe to post it here. The footage is pretty fucking gruesome. But I might post it in the comments.
Seriously. IT HAS A FUCKING HOLE IN ITS SKULL. THROUGH WHICH ONE CAN OBSERVE BRAIN TISSUE.
So the question here is: What do I do?
I can call animal control. They’ll probably kill it (on the taxpayer dime, hardy har, god damn it, I could end this thing’s life with one good tax-money-free stomp of my boot).
But one of my fellow outdoors people pointed out that this duck appears to be healing and thriving, even. As fucked up as it looks, if this duck was unable to eat or survive, its feathers would be falling out and it wouldn’t be moving. It IS moving, and its feathers are fine. The bird isn’t emaciated – hell, it’s actually a bit plump.
So do I report and it and let it die, or shut my yap and watch it heal, suffering the whole way? I don’t like watching animals suffer. I’m a hunter. A hurt animal, that cannot possibly heal right, should be put down. But this is the first time I’ve seen an animal so grievously wounded, that still looks like it might make it?
Maybe a wandering dog will solve the dilemma for me. Pfugh. I just don’t like being indecisive.
If it is healing and thriving then you should let it be. I mean, people with horrible diseases fight through them even if they are in gruesone pain and we don’t put them out of their misery.
No. In most countries we force them to do it (through various social and legal “incentives”) whether they like it or not. Very bad analogy.
Right, but this duck could just give up and stop eating and moving, it’s not like it’s hooked up to machines. Instead, it sounds very much determined to continue on, albeit with possible brain damage.
Another reason it’s a bad analogy is because ducks are not human.
I still advocate life. A survivor and fighter like that deserves the chance to pass on its genes.
Look for a wildlife rehabilitation group in your area. If it can’t fly, it will die, eventually. But they’d be able to assess if it can survive and help it do so if it’s possible. I don’t know where you are, but just google ‘wildlife rehab cityname’ and something will come up.
You’ve heard crap like this before, right? “My Daddy gave me my first .22 Crikett when I was three, I have lots of guns, including a licensed GE minigun, silencers for everything, and a variety of cannons, which I loan out for historical re-enactments. I hunt regularly, and my house is filled with taxidermy. I compete regularly with pistol, rifle, and shottie. I’ve even used my carry weapon, a gold plated Desert Eagle, to ventilate a hoodlum. But gun crime is out of control in this nation, and it’s time and past we started passing sane and reasonable gun laws to keep guns out of the hands of the untrained, unfit, and unbalanced….”
That’s what that “Pitchforks” article reads like to me. Hanauer could lead the way, by paying all his workers, down to the part-time highschool kids working summer jobs in Shipping, a minimum wage of, oh, say, a hundred bucks an hour. He could turn his properties into offices and storefronts for folks looking to start their own businesses. He could run soup kitchens serving filet mignon to the homeless.
He could give away all he has, and wander the Earth barefoot in a sackcloth robe, ministering to the needy.
But no, he just wants to pass laws controlling how YOU do business.
And he never once mentions the possibility of pitchforks, torches, and the hundreds of millions of guns in this country being turned against an increasingly tyrannical government, against folks who, rather than wanting to sell you stuff you want, insist on telling you how to live and do business. And who like to think the laws do not apply to them, because, hey, they’re with the Government, and they’re here to help, you ungrateful disobedient proles.
Hm.
I want you to take a breather and re-read the article. The whole thing.
I rarely object on grounds of fallacy arguments, but what you wrote has so many strawmen in it, the whole paragraph is one match from a burning-man style conflagration.
> But no, he just wants to pass laws controlling how YOU do business.
Again, if that’s all you took away from this article, I’m really not sure you read the whole thing.
He also bankrolls “Gun Buy Backs” in Seattle and surrounding municipalities, supports Washington Alliance for Gun Responsibility (WAGR) which is nothing more than another gun control advocacy group with deep ties to Bloomberg and his ilk, backs the 18 page “Universal Background Check” initiative that’s coming to Washington Ballots this year that is so poorly written, it would require you to pass an NICS background check just to borrow a hunting rifle from a buddy or even use a trainers firearm in a gun safety class, not to mention renting one at a range.
His actions speak much louder than the worthless words he spews.
It really sounds to me like he’s trying to get rid of the pitchforks before it’s too late for him and his type…
This is my “oh bloody of course I should have known” face.
So, I just read the whole article. I’m not going to address anything that 50s said. Instead, I’d like to point out two observations I’ve made about his statements.
He repeatedly talks about reducing Wal-Mart’s before-tax profit. I’d like to point out that his lucky break is with one of Wal-Mart’s biggest competitors.
Secondly, he makes the common mistake that the “welfare state” is an economic phenomenon. At this point in time, in the US and much of Europe, it is clearly a political phenomenon. There is no more straightforward way to buy votes than promise free stuff to a group of people. Improving wealth-inequity may reduce the effectiveness of this technique. But it would only do so very slowly, by reducing the desperation of some percentage of people. Those who pass laws, especially at the national level, are strongly incentivized to continue doling out perks in an attempt to buy votes. Less people in poverty, would just provide an excuse to move the lines or find a new way to make more people beholden to the state.
OK, I’ll grant that on the surface, he’s pleading with his “fellow zillionaires” to change the way they do business, to voluntarily increase minimum wage.
However, when I look to what he does with his money? “I sock my extra money away in savings, where it doesn’t do the country much good.” Hey, presto! There you go, Mr. Compassionate! If you don’t want to start paying your employees in gold bullion and stocks-not options but stocks–in your company, you could at least do what your good buddy Bloomberg does and bankroll political causes he believes in. Like, you know, Illegal Mayors Against Gun Owners, America Demands Oppressive Gun Laws, and the wildly popular “Please stop me before I have more than sixteen ounces of soda!” movement.
And I admit, he’s doing just that: “I decided I had to leave my insulated world of the super-rich and get involved in politics.”
Because, let’s face it folks, the super rich hardly ever bother themselves with politics, especially when politicians are proposing laws that might affect their businesses. Yes, brave man, there, ready to get down in the rough and tumble of creating a legal structure that will “secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity”.
Oh, except “Not directly, by running for office or becoming one of the big-money billionaires who back candidates in an election. Instead, I wanted to try to change the conversation with ideas.”
And not fresh new ideas, but the same old stale, moldy bread of income redistribution. The idea that has, sooner or later, wherever it’s been tried, resulted in grinding poverty, slavery, famine, and death camps for millions of peasants and proles. Sure, some of the old money crowd get uncomfortably close hair cuts and unreasonably tight neck ties, but the survivors do very well for themselves, especially those in the military arms trade.
Do you seriously think for one second that the laws he wants passed will significantly affect his wealth? Heck no. Instead, it will affect people like the owners of a certain gun shop we know and love.
And do you really, truly, remotely imagine in your most fevered dreams that Hanauer does not contribute massive amounts of money to his politician friends? Because, you know, I have this business plan to provide high speed internet to the poorest Americans using nothing more than tin cans and string, and I really need investors….
If I have, on re-reading, still managed to miss the place where he says that he, personally, is going to redistribute his own wealth, please let me know. But all I see is him telling folks whose only input in the political process is voting and carrying protest signs, to rally for laws that will affect pretty much everybody but him and his zillionaire friends.
Friends, by the way, who do not seek business advice from popular magazine articles by their zillionaire competitors. Friends who will, like Hanauer, continue to run their business affairs to earn the most profit they can manage.
About me: christian; republican with libertarian leanings; highly educated in both academia AND life’s hard knocks; child of a rancher; omnivore; Now that you have a clue about me, I wish to address the 50’s refugee and sparky directly with one simple comment: STFU!!!
Too many times I have watched people JUDGE others for all the WRONG reasons, only for it to end bitterly and badly for EVERYONE involved, and YOU ARE DOING IT RIGHT NOW! Don’t you ever learn anything from the media – fictional and non-fictional – that is all around you? For crying out loud, didn’t you ever read TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD?
The man is entitled to his opinions regarding all kinds of things, but just because you don’t agree with one thing doesn’t give you the right to negate all the OTHER things he says and does. He’s not describing a new social pipe-dream, he’s trying to point out that if we don’t heed the message, we will be facing an event that could easily become an EXTINCTION EVENT for mankind or at the very least, a 1,000 year possible purgatory. What am I talking about? Take every post-apocalyptic movie or story ever written, mash them all up into one reality, bake in the oven at 420 degrees of insanity, and serve with a side of everyone being selfish to the point of being stupid.
Did you ever watch a horror movie and yell at the character on the screen not to do something because of the stupidity of their decision? I did… and right now, you are acting like the character on the screen.
Do I agree with Mr. Grant on every aspect of his life? No, I don’t.
Do I agree with every aspect of Mr. Hanauer’s life? No, I do not.
Do I think that despite our differences of opinion that we can still find a means to make it all work out? I absolutely do.
Their intelligence and capabilities are NOT and WILL NOT be judged by you or I and our petty emotions, but rather by the test of time and the greater good it brings.
So sit down, close your mouths, open your ears and your minds.
Then, maybe, just maybe, if you’ll do all those things, then we could possibly have a chance at something as described in Isaiah 11:6.
I know I want my kids to have that chance.
doctorhjonesjr: “STFU”
No.
Now, if you want to change my mind about Hanauer’s article:
Find and quote the lines where he says how he, in his life and business, is doing the things he wants the rest of us to do.
Then, find and quote the lines where he makes specific public policy recommendations concerning how other people run their businesses that run counter to what I think he’s said.
Finally, find and quote the lines where he’s placed as much blame on Big Government for economic iniquity as on Big Business.
I’ve read through the article a couple-three times now, and I can’t find this stuff. I’d be happy to be shown I missed it.
Ugh. Tough one. I’d say put it out of it’s misery. It may be healing now, but it isn’t going to heal right and will end up suffering a lingering, painful demise. It’s skull is not going to grow back. I don’t envy you and wouldn’t blame you for just letting nature take its course there. Some predator will handle it and then you don’t have to risk frightening the joggers.
Yeah, I’m not helping am I?
Why is it all these rich people complain about wealth inequality, but you never hear about them donating their huge fortunes to actually do something about it? Or donating their huge fortunes to the government so they can do something about it? This guy, Warren Buffet, Stephen King…. I mean really, if you care that much about the poor/inequality, liquidate your f-ing assets and do something about it. It’s not like these guys are unable to create more wealth for themselves if they give it away.
Leave the duck alone. If nothing else, you’ll learn how real zombies live and survive so that you can better prepare yourself for the zombie apocalypse!
As for the article you linked, I don’t know if I can agree with it like you do. So Mr. Hanauer wants to increase the ‘middle class’ by increasing the minimum wage to $15. Ok, I can understand the point that if people have more money, they are more likely to buy stuff. That is certainly true. My concern is that it does nothing to fix the overall problem. It just moves the poverty line. One thing Mr. Hanauer completely neglects to mention is the cost of living. So businesses are supposed to freeze their prices if they are forced to pay more money for their employee’s wages? It may be true in Seattle and San Fran (for the moment) because people can leave the city and buy stuff in the surrounding area for cheaper, thus forcing businesses in both those cities to be competitive. However, increase the minimum wage in the surrounding areas and I’ll bet you that the city’s prices start to climb, as well.
The second gripe about the article is that it boils down to one thing that people in power/money always try to get: Control. Mr. Hanauer is not shy about wanting to force other people/businesses to conform to what he believes. Page 3, paragraph 4, last sentence “In order for us to have an economy that works for everyone, we should compel all retailers to pay living wages—not just ask politely.” I hear that all too often from Washington. We need to force everyone to comply to our ideals so we all can benefit! No. That’s how you get the people in pitchforks to come after you.
The third gripe is he never really hits at one of the major causes of discomfort in the country: Taxes. The economy is influenced by many things. If the middle class is the major tax base, and also the source of the economy as he suggests in his article, why doesn’t he talk about reducing taxes at all? Or, better yet, increasing taxes on the rich? Why? He’s a .01%er of his own admission. Why not try doing a flat income tax system? Or mention any of the states that have no income tax and how they’re doing? I find those to be very interesting omissions. He does mention that an increase in minimum wage will decrease those on Medicare. OK, in theory. However, we all know that the Democrats will push to increase the cutoff line for medicare to be above the new minimum wage line.
The fourth gripe is that he doesn’t talk about expanding manufacturing. We are a country of consumers. It is a house of cards. Seattle and San Fransisco may be a faster growing stack of cards, but it is still a stack of cards. What happens when the COLA (as mentioned earlier) outpaces the minimum wage that is tied to inflation? The house of cards falls. Increasing minimum wage alone does NOTHING to solve the economic problems of this country. It just delays the inevitable. Let’s talk about influencing companies to produce products in America (which raising the minimum wage only hurts) first before we talk about worker wages. We need technical and basic manufacturing jobs here. Why? Simple. Show me a company who buys more than it sells and I’ll show you a company that is going to go bankrupt. It applies to countries, too. Hell, we’re now close to, if not over, $20 trillion in debt. We are no different.
Oh, one last thing. If this is so great, how about we force Detroit to increase it’s minimum wage to $15/hr. I mean, that city is about to fall under. Seattle and San Fran are coastal cities on the Pacific ocean with a tourism department. I wonder how much of their economy is being affected by our dollar being weak and foreign (specifically Asian) tourists bolstering it? I honestly don’t know, but I doubt Detroit will get tourism like Seattle and SF. Let’s make them a study, as well. If it is so great an idea, it should save Detroit, right?
I’ma take a rare opportunity to disagree with my lovely wife on this one. Migratory waterfowl are federally protected. Don’t poke the bear by “putting it out of its misery” yourself. The Fed says, “all teh ducks are belonging to us,” so make the appropriate call for a publicly funded entity to take care of it. It would suck to perform euthanasia only to get smacked for offing a duck by an improper method, and without the proper paperwork.
Good point
Have her give Mick my description of a Burner: Cross a hippie and a survivalist. Cross a tree-hugger and a pyromaniac. Combine those two results, and you have a Burner.
Also, I’ve been known to freak out my co-workers by telling them that I’m going to spend a weekend shooting guns with hippies at a Pagan church camp.
Man, if only I’d known more gun-toting Pagans back when I was in Dallas…. Those I knew we’re a bit too much love&light, when I already was learning the world is not a happy place.
Most of them still are that way. There are many reasons that my wife, my friends, and I have distanced ourselves from the DFW area pagan community. A large part of it is we are way to close to center politically (abd the rest is that we hate unnecessary drama).
Most of the Pagans I hang out with around here (“around here” = northern VA and a bunch in south-central PA) are libertarian, not leftie.
Call the local pound and ask about a wildlife rehab group. If no joy, put it out of its misery. BTDT still shudder at the memory of leaving something to suffer when I should have done the right thing.
Demagogy alert:
Anyone who uses the term “trickle-down economics” is either pig-ignorant or out to manipulate said portion of the population. The laws of gravity and the speed of light are just suggestions compared to this immutable fact.
Yet ( speaking as an economist ) this is precisely how most economic activity works—and even liberal economists will grudgingly admit to it. Keynesian multipliers? Fractional banking? yep. “Trickle down”.
Too bad that demagogues stole the phrase and twisted it into a disparaging propaganda slogan. Sort of the way they did with “liberal”. 🙁
Sad but true. I’m afraid that “liberal, gay faggot” could never again be taken for a well rounded happy stick. At least when gay became a pejorative, the recipients embraced it, turned it around and made it something of a positive. Much like “Yankee Doodle.”
OMG! It’s Sparkledark!
…aaaand I just noticed that jlgrant pretty much said as much in the comments, including linking the same thing I did. Read first, post later, Vyk, so you don’t look like a noob…
Yes. And ANOTHER redhead.
Will the interview too end with “Hug me and my tits”? 😀
DOH!
How’d I miss that!? 😮
Situational awareness, J. Understand the conditions on the ground, and you’ll be in better shape.
Right now, the conditions on the ground dictate that if a jogger in the park sees a utili-kilt wearing, polyamorous, burner comic-con attendee chase down a duck in the park and stomp on it’s head, that dude is going to get sodomized by the court system for animal cruelty.
If, however, a guy paid by the local humane society shows up, chases that same duck around the park, and stomps on it’s head, no heed will be paid. It has something to do with uniforms and government paychecks – they can do things that you simply cannot do and stay out of trouble.
Is it right? Hell no. Does it make logical sense? Hell no. Is it the humane thing to do? Hell no.
But them’s the conditions on the ground. Situational awareness dictates that unless you want all of your personal proclivities printed in the local paper, and used to condemn you as some sort of duck-stomp fetish freakazoid, you’d better call the ASPCA and let them handle it.
As for the “Pitchfork’s” article, I do not disagree that inequality is wrong, or unfair, or any of the sort. Welth is not a zero sum game – one man having lots of wealth does not preclude another from making his own, and that’s the bggest thing that I think people do not understand. The .01% having wealth does not preclude the 99.99% from making their own wealth, it just serves as a convenient excuse.
I do agree that the situation is not tenable, because the popular opinion out there is that inequality is all of those things, and the people who think they’ve been treated unfairly by the system will demand “equality” at the end of a rope if something isn’t done.
It is a sad fact of life that any time a man makes good for himself through hard work, personal risk, and shrewd dealings, that people around him will envy him for it and accuse him of being greedy, when in actuality, they are just pissed that it wasn’t them. People at the top would do well to stop for a second that throw the envious, indolent lower class a bone before they start screaming for the lynch mobs to start.
I’m not rich. I’m comfortable, but not rich. I’ve never held it against a rich person one bit for having the wealth that they have. I don’t think they owe me anything, and I don’t think that their wealth is keeping me from making my own, but I’m situationally aware enough to realize that most people don’t think the way I do, and that is turning into a powder keg.
Not disagree. It shoudl read “I do not agree that inequality is…”
Sorry. Bad proof-reading.
Dude, forget the zombie duck already!
The real point here is that there is NO way this chick was the greeter. She obviously does not have antennae, for one. I see a story arc ahead where we have twins separated at birth, but living more like each other all the time while they remain unaware of their twinness. Finally they cross paths (and fates) until they reach a penultimate battle with chainsaws high on the suspension cables for the Golden Gate while Mick struggles to overcome his fear of heights and crawl up the wire to stop them. Suddenly a scream rings out, but dimming into the distance. One twin has survived, but which one? (hint: they’re both wearing hats and drawn poorly so you can’t tell which is which).
C’mon JG; give us some cinematic thrills! Your CG budget is….. oh yeah, the same price as drawing Ziggy panels.
But I still yearn for the moment every weekday when I can get my FTF fix…
I’d leave the duck alone. If it comes up to you, then do as you see fit. If it doesn’t, then it has another agenda in its weird little duck life. Apparently its trying, and trying hard.
If you really want to put it out of its misery, give it some Ativan or something first. Let it die feeling some kind of relief.
“Sparkledark”? heheh
1. I also agree with that article. And the problem is not one of laws, but society and culture. We have to many people who, when they reach the upper echelon, see no problem with raking in obscene amounts of money when compared with people lower in the company. And, the stock holders/owners pf these companies have no problem with this disparity.
2. Ask yourself what you would want done to if you were in that ducks situation (either be killed or live the rest of your life in pain and misery). Then, you will have the answer to what needs to be done.
Contact these nice people and explain the duck situation http://tx.audubon.org/ They will either handle it or refer you to the group best able to
Regarding the duck: if you see it pecking at something or someone and acting in a zombie-like fashion, take action immediately and make your apologies later. Deliver the carcass to the CDC and tell them to prepare for the worst variation of avian-flu to date.
However, like the others, I have seen an animal recover from worse. I’m not saying there isn’t room for debate on the “Quality of Life VS Quantity” theory, but nature is a VERY creative force and it can enable things in ways that we would never imagine. After all, isn’t that adaptability what the theory of evolution is all about?
Let your morbid, mad-genius, curiosity kick in: monitor the creature and keep records on it’s progress. Let’s see if it dies, heals, or becomes nature’s own little Frankenstein. With things like this, the fun can NEVER end!
In case there was any misunderstanding, please note that while I am being completely serious here, my tongue is planted firmly along the interior of my cheek.
The duck will survive, because it has to survive. As for “trickle-down economics” there is only one thing that trickles down and it ain’t money. So please stop pissing on my shoes and telling me it is raining. I have no problem with the rich but CEOs that cause their companies to fail should be fired like everyone else that fails. A CEO that causes a company to require a bail-out to avert mass-hysteria should go to jail. The CEO is now a thief and stupid one at that. There should be no failing upwards. Instead, I propose that the CEOs that caused the banking mess should go to federal pound you in the A$$ prison.
I agree, big time. A man who made himself rich off of the merits of the free market? Earned his money, should be his, is not denying anyone wealth that they “deserve.”
A man who made his money off of crony deals, government favoritism, bailout money, and pork? Did not earn his money, and DID deny other people that money that was rightfully theirs, in order to enrich himself personally.
I’ve never had anyone but a rich man give me a job, but I’ve also seen a lot of men get rich by nefarious deeds. That needs to stop.
I bow to your superior economic expertise. 😀
Profits trickle up by definition. People who own the company, never get paid before its employees.
Your article guy has a problem. He can’t see where he came from, from all the way up there. Yes, HIS businesses will be just fine if the minimum wage gets raised. For two reasons. Firstly, if he really cares all that much, his workers aren’t being PAID ‘just minimum wage’. Secondly, he’s not running a bare-bones mom and pop that’s just managing to squeak by with part-time help from that high-school kid who drops by a few days a week. He’s running the shops that will BUY OUT the mom and pop shop when it goes under.
Isn’t that considered part of “real capitalism”, though?
Businesses failing due to poor management OF THE BUSINESS is, of course, capitalism.
Businesses failing due to inability to pay an unskilled part-timer what he’s actually creating in value, because there’s a law against it? That doesn’t appear in any of the “supply and demand” texts I’ve read.
A surprising number of acknowledged cutthroat businessmen vote democrat against what would appear to be their best interests because it turns out they support stuff that raises entry costs. New licenses, zoning, fees, taxes, etc? They have lawyers for it. Mom and dad have to write it up themselves, when what they need to be doing is running the shop.
I hear this enough that I’d like to put on my psychic hat and fast forward to where I often discover it’s headed: someone says “well by that measure, there’s never been any real capitalism” and I used to agree until I realized that actually, we have one: the black market. It’s kinda the juggernaut of markets. You put stuff in the way, and it just breaks it and keeps going.
And it’s huge.
This BTW is why I shake my head at those estimates of the “real” unemployment rate which add in people who have quit looking for work, etc, and come up with a higher figure than the official measure. Because they don’t consider the other side of the coin: employment in the underground economy. All of the unemployed are not actually unemployed. Some are working, just not in jobs the government knows about or can track…
I’ll admit I don’t normally consider “paid under the table” to be legitimate black market. Grey at best, because most of their services don’t break any prohibitions, just their payment. I’m leaning towards adopting your view now, if I remember it, when I sober up.
hm, apparently I’ve had a typo in my email address for some time now. I wondered why I was getting ‘moderation’ messages.
LOL! That’s probably why Hanauer is sponsoring the UBC bill so strongly. Making sure there aren’t as many pitchforks to be thrust at him. XD
In all reality I actually agree with him. The 1% aren’t gonna buy 3,000% of the goods and services, trickle down economics relies on the charity of those in power (a regular pipe dream), and there’s no sense in a minimum wage that is not tied to inflation, or at least isn’t adjusted for inflation on a regular basis.
Well, you don’t want to put the workers in the Lamborghini plant out of work, either, and the guy who buys a lambo DOES put food on a lot of tables, considering how many hours of actual human design and labor go into one.
Profits trickle up, because in order to be in that position in private enterprise, you have to had paid all of the employees that helped you get there before you paid yourself. If there is no money left, then you haven’t made a profit and you cant take home anything. So the 1% had to have paid a lot of people (a lot of high wage people too like accountants, engineers, managers, planners,) before they even saw a dollar of profit from their company. That’s not something people who are paid by the hour ever have to worry about.
Ah, moral dilemmas….
http://youtu.be/HaeF1khifSQ
kill the duck as a mercy
Leave the duck the fuck alone. Foxes and racoons and coyotes and ants need to eat. Enjoy the zombie duck in the mean time.
Wow. That article. You agree with it? 100%? Um…
Well, I like your comic!
Unfortuantely there is no way to solve inequality because very few people actually get how it works, and why some people get paid 144x more than the lowest employee of a company, and why it has never happened before in the past.
Is it because he does 144x more work? Yes. In a manner of speaking.
Okay I know there are a lot of people who will say bullshit at that and that no one is worth more than 144x another person. But lets put it this way.
You have the head commander in the Canadian army, and you have the head commander in the US army.
You also have a private in the Canadian Army, and you have a private in the US army.
I don’t think anyone is going to argue that being the commander in the US army of 15x more personnel of the Canadian army is a much harder task and deserves to be paid a lot more than the commander of the Canadian army despite the fact they are the same rank.
BUT
Is being the private of the US army much more complicated than being a private of the Canadian army?
This is why your CEO is being paid 144x more than the lowest employee, because in the past we have never had companies as big as walmart with over 2 million employees spanning across multiple countries. The responsibilities at the very top have changed, but the lowest level employee still does the same level of work as he did 30 years ago, because being a cashier hasn’t become 5x larger and more complicated.
So why not raise wages for the lowest level employee?
Because you are going to raise wages from top to bottom, the lowest level employee to the highest ranking C-class.
Oh but it doesn’t make any sense when you say “Hey there is 144x more pay between the lowest and the highest, why can’t anything be spared in between to pay the lowest level more?”
Companies are naturally a pyramid like military command. You have workers<Supervisors<Managers<Executives and they all get paid higher proportional to those who they have under them.
If you say increased the wage from 10/hr to 15/hr what does that mean for the supervisor that's above him? His pay might be 20/hr, but everyone below him got a raise why doesn't it make any sense for him not to get a raise? So we give him a raise, but then what about the manager above him? And then above him? And then suddenly it's the CEO? Why would you take on the job of being a manager or a supervisor if the pay of the people directly below you are making similar amounts, and you have more opportunities to get fired from a high responsibility level, instead of a low responsibility level?
But hey, it's easier to blame that society is broken, and easier to tell people no one is worth 144x more than someone else than to actually explain company structure.
If you say increased the wage from 10/hr to 15/hr what does that mean for the supervisor that’s above him? His pay might be 20/hr, but everyone below him got a raise why doesn’t it make any sense for him not to get a raise? So we give him a raise, but then what about the manager above him?
You do realize that this argument has been trotted out every single time someone says “Hey, the guys at the bottom – you know, the ones who do all the shitty grunt work that nobody else will do – are getting shafted, maybe we should address this,” right?
“you know, the ones who do all the shitty grunt work that nobody else will do?”
Oh the jobs nobody else will do that behind them there are 10 16 year olds that have applied for that position? The only “shitty jobs nobody else will do” are REAL shitty jobs that LITERALLY nobody else will do and get paid really good money for it like an oil field worker or construction, because literally nobody else will do it, despite no education requirements.
Anyways you haven’t even made a point, is it true that if you raise the wages of the people at the bottom, the people higher than them have to be paid more, then the people above them have to be paid more? and then the people above them have to be paid more, all the way up?
It kinda is. Why go through a 4 year degree and become an electronics technician that earns $20 or even $30 an hour, if you can earn $15/hr BY LAW, and avoid 50k in college debt? Takes a long time for the college guy to get ahead in that environment… Unless the local McDonalds replaces you with a robo-service machine, and the local walmart buys a zamboni instead of paying you to mop the floor.
Bullshit. Prices go up regardless of minimum wage. It’s called inflation, and when wages remain stagnant (in my own case, I took a pay cut in October 2007, then again in December 2008, and I’ve seen not so much as a cost-of-living increase since then), in real terms, people are losing money in the form of purchasing power. Given an average 1.5% inflation rate in the past 5 years, I’m now earning 7.5% less than I was in December 2008 because of… say it with me, INFLATION.
Can you think of some causes of inflation? The first two that come to mind for me are government-imposed. QE, and minimum wage hikes.
And higher taxes.
Generally increasing wages is one of the biggies, though. Wages is a large component of producer cost.
The minimum wage is a price floor. If set above the market-clearing wage, it cannot do other than have the ( bad ) effect of any price set above the intersection of supply and demand. If set below the market-clearing wage, it really serves no purpose at all, except to waste resources expended in creating and maintaining it.
Wage and price controls are one of the few unequivocally Bad Things in economics, and most economists liberal and conservative recognize this. Politicians and the uneducated vox populi, not so much.
Ignoring the Ad Hominem and Straw Man fallacies here, I agree with Hanauer completely. However, he needs to make his rallying cry a bit more plainer. Saying that the companies that he currently owns and funds could start paying his employees at $15/hour, lead by example, would give him a much stronger case. Maybe he’s already done that and just hasn’t said so (which would be strange, but hey).
But his core argument is very sound. The more you pay a worker, the more money he has that doesn’t HAVE to go to rent, food and bare necessities (cue Disney music). As someone who is earning $11/hour full time as Security, while living with a disabled veteran who is bringing in her pension to deal with rent, we are BARELY scraping by. I’m living in the CA Bay Area, where cost of living is balls out the wall insane. If I was making $15/hour, I’d be able to keep up on my vehicle maintenance without relying upon my parents to pay for things like my brakes and tires or being able to save to get more certifications so I can get a better paying job within Security.
Also, morale is higher within a company if the workers are paid better. Look at Costco vs. Walmart, just how the employees act and talk. There’s a reason I refuse to shop at Walmart (business practices aside) and that’s because the employees look so downtrodden that just being there saps my spirit. Shopping at Costco feels a lot better, the employees are happier and I feel better about shopping there.
As soon as minimum wage goes up, costs go up. I live in New Zealand, our minimum goes up every year or so and it’s always eaten by rising costs as well (of course, sometimes the ‘rise’ is sub-inflation…). Depending on what you spend your money on (some businesses will adjust and gouge more than others), in real world terms of what you can get for your money, a minimum wage increase can end up in a net decrease.
At ‘minimum wage level’ they (the global economy we live in and all the major players in it) want you to be barely scraping by, because they want you to have to sign your life away if you want a chance at a better one (e.g. take out a loan to pay for better certs); because your debt is their credit and they earn interest on it. And if enough people can’t pay, and the system looks set to collapse, the governments bail them out with taxpayer money and everyone loses; except the banks.
Don’t believe the hype. The economy is insane and the world is held together by ignorance and faith.
snip the world is held together by ignorance and faith.
Nothing new there, then.
Bullshit. Prices go up regardless of minimum wage. It’s called inflation, and when wages remain stagnant (in my own case, I took a pay cut in October 2007, then again in December 2008, and I’ve seen not so much as a cost-of-living increase since then), in real terms, people are losing money in the form of purchasing power. Given an average 1.5% inflation rate in the past 5 years (in the US, I don’t know or care about Oz), I’m now earning 7.5% less than I was in December 2008 because of… say it with me, INFLATION.
What do you think CAUSES inflation?
22lr + silencer = Dead duck and limited questions.
I feel that it should be put down. The duck that is.
Make the duck a Facebook page, have him start sending tweets (quacks?) out, he’ll get all famous just like Mike the Headless Chicken did. Sheeple will trip over themselves to go take care of the duck.
http://www.miketheheadlesschicken.org/history
And maybe cause accidents and get some folks killed!
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/06/20/woman-faces-life-in-prison-for-stopping-car-to-help-ducks-causing-crash-that/
http://ftf-comics.com/?comic=hiring-process-8
Ok, I’m only skimming at the moment.
One, Hanauer supports the economic policies of Franklin D. Roosevelt. That strongly suggests that he’s an economic illiterate. FDR had no fucking clue what he was doing on the economic front, but it was by and large NOT HELPFUL. He started a program to destroy food and drive up food prices when people were starving. Unfortunately, that program is STILL running. Pretty much all of his economic policies were as wrongheaded, harmful, and (unfortunately) popular and persistent.
Second: Ford did not JUST raise the wages of his workers to $5/day. He increased their PRODUCTIVITY. If they hadn’t been worth $5/day, his third auto company would have gone under too.
Seattle has a $15/hr minimum wage? What does unemployment look like there for low-skilled and hard-to-employ people? Say, people of color who have just graduated (or dropped out) from failing high schools? Young single mothers? The emotionally and mentally ill? The differently abled?
I’ll tell you. Those people have either gone into illegal businesses, relocated, or gone on the dole. Illegal businesses are inherently far less safe to work for. And I’m not just talking about drug dealers getting shot; sex workers face violence on a constant basis, and always have, and very likely always will.
The only people who are making $15/hr are those who are producing $20/hr & up. Their bosses don’t just have to pay them, but also their unemployment insurance, half of their Social Security, half of their Medicare taxes, and a share of their Obamacare, the cost of OSHA, EEO, “Deadbeat Dad,” and at least dozens (hundreds? thousands? There are at least 10,000 regulations affecting the production and sale of a single Big Mac) of other niggling types of compliance, and all of those expenses are passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices. And the poorest of the poor are never able to get jobs or better lives.
Furthermore, those people who aren’t skilled enough to make $7.25/hr (or rather around $10, closer to the total cost of having them) are seeing their jobs get more & more automated. Anyone who remembers a time when people were paid to run soda fountains and pump gas has seen the effects of rising minimum wages in action.
I live in a tiny town, with under 1000 population. The McDonald’s is the only 24 hour business in town. It has a machine in the drive thru to pick cups and fill them with ice and soda, automatically. Why did the owners buy this computerized robot to fill drink orders at the drive thru? Because it’s cheaper than hiring some small town kid for his or her first job at $7.25/hr + taxes, training, insurance, & UI. I would be not in the least bit surprised to learn that said robot was developed by some fast food franchisee in Seattle, San Francisco, or some other city with a $15/hr minimum wage. The costs of developing and building such a robot were probably less for that hypothetical franchisee than maintaining however many $15/hr workers previously filled drinks at the drive-thru his or her store(s).
Now if Mr. Hanauer wants to offer each and every one of his employees $15/hr (or more!), that’s fine by me. He’ll attract better employees, and it’ll likely do his business plenty of good. Unusually generous compensation has contributed to the success of e.g. Starbucks. Heck, why be a piker? Why not $20/hr? $30/hr? $50/hr? What could it hurt?
HOWEVER. He has no right to force his more marginial competitors, particularly those who serve less affluent and more price-sensitive groups, to do the same. Or the actual shareholders of e.g. Wal-Mart, many of whom are middle-class 401(k) holders who count on Wal-Mart having an annual pre-tax profit of ~$25 billion a year in order to fund their retirement.
Who else pays? Well, everyone who owns Big Three stock, or plans to buy a Big Three car. Any time the minimum wage goes up, UAW wages also go up, because union contracts specify wages as “$X + minimum wage/hr”, not “$Y/hr.” An increase in the minimum wage means Big Three profits go down and Big Three prices go up. And, in all likelihood, the Big Three will also seek a reduction in workforce, and try to either get more productivity out of their current number of workers, or replace them with robots. Domo arigato!
And everyone who lives in a state, county, or municipality with unionized employees, for the exact same reason.
And anyone whose power plants are fueled by the efforts of the United Mine Workers, such as myself. For the exact same reason.
And, for that matter, all federal taxpayers, because of the Davis-Bacon Act.
Next up: The way to reduce the demand for handouts is to lower costs, both taxes AND regulation. The problem is, each and every regulation serves the purposes of some rent-seeking asshole, who benefits hugely and will lobby and campaign like a madman to keep it, while it does only a pinprick to everyone else, which means that no one of them is going to be worth fighting for anyone (except maybe the rent-seeking asshole’s direct competitors). But the pinpricks have added up and up and up and up and up over time, and by now, compliance with regulation costs us more than taxes do. But nobody wants to undo them. Not only do they buy votes, but they get passed the same way that gun control laws do, and repealed as or more rarely. And you can be sure that they always favor the big guy over the little guy, because it’s big guys who have an easier time hiring and coordinating lobbyists.