Euthanasia, or 'how to keep healthcare cheap'

[Carrikature]

I guess most libs I personally know have multiple degrees or phds, so their arguments tend to be very rational, informed, logical, and well-constructed. I guess your mileage may vary if you are dealing with randoms.

If only. Even if I granted that their arguments are this way (I don't), the starting points certainly aren't.

I don't know that any group has arguments that qualify as "rational, informed, logical, and well-constructed".

[Starlight]

Can't tell if you're joking, or if you actually think all liberals are poor pot smokers.

The liberal demographic here in NZ (i.e. the group that votes disproportionately for the most liberal and left of the 7 main political parties (Green)) is the educated urban younger middle-class. In one IT firm I worked in where everyone was earning well above the median wage and the age range of my team was 20s-40s, I was surprised to learn that all 10 members of the team had voted for the Green party. My Christian club at university had an election-watching party and 16 of 20 attendees had voted for the Green party. Likewise while doing my PhD, all the other half dozen or so PhD students in the office were extreme liberals.

I have only ever met one person in my life who I am pretty sure has smoked pot. Not much overlap between liberals and pot smokers in my experience. Obviously I believe drugs like pot should be legal because I believe in giving people the freedom to choose, but not because I or anyone I know has any particular desire to actually smoke pot.

[Starlight]

If only. Even if I granted that their arguments are this way (I don't), the starting points certainly aren't.

What starting points are you referring to?

I don't know that any group has arguments that qualify as "rational, informed, logical, and well-constructed".

I feel sorry for you.

[Starlight]

If a guy comes to me and complains that he's getting $10 an hour and I show him how he can double that in 24 months (by applying himself) how am I begrudging him a living wage? I'm willing to show the guy how to do it - by making himself a more qualified person - which is good for everyone in our society. Your plan is: smoke pot, be a dumb arse, and wait until the government gives you a pay raise.

I was laid off from a job that I hated back in the 90's - I opened the newspaper, noticed 3 pages of ads for technology jobs, took 3 classes and a short internship and in 3 years I was making 2X what I was making at the job where I was laid off. Today if you offered me $15 or $20 an hour for my time I'd tell you to take a hike. Anybody can do that - anybody - so please do that instead of sitting around waiting for a handout. I really think YOU could do that. Why is believing in you such a horrible thing?

I totally agree that tech jobs pay fairly well and there seem to be quite a lot of them, and that getting a tech qualification and then a tech job is probably the easiest track to financial success in modern society. Been there, done that myself - precisely because I've got an IT qualification and have worked in IT and have lots of friends in IT I don't tend to worry about jobs or money because I feel like I'm set for life in terms of always being able to get a good-paying job in whatever city in the world I want. Yes, it's an easy track to a good financial income.

BUT... you seem to be ignoring all issues of both scalability and IQ. Let's say you took the entire minimum wage population (and perhaps the entire unemployed population too?), and did precisely what you suggest: Put them through some short tech training and then try to place them in some sort of tech jobs. You're going to immediately run into a few problems.

1. The first is that, on the whole, tech jobs tends to require an average amount of intelligence or above. IQ is pretty close to "normally distributed", so depending on how you draw cut-offs, about 1/2 of people are around average, and around 1/4rd of people are significantly above average... and around 1/4rd of people are significantly below average. Guess which group tends to feature heavily among the minimum-wage and unemployment groups? Sure, you'll find plenty among them who have smarts enough for tech careers... but you'll find plenty that don't.

2. Yes, there are heaps of tech jobs. But if you seriously tried to train masses of people in tech and then put them into tech jobs, you'd quickly find they started to outnumber the available jobs by 10 to 1. There are a lot of jobs in tech, but there aren't infinitely many.

3. Who exactly is going to do the minimum wage jobs once you've funneled heaps of people out of them and into tech jobs. Did those minimum wage jobs not need doing in the first place? Or are you planning to import a ton of immigrants to do them?

4. Due to complicated economics, the way our Western economies are currently structured means there is always some unemployment. Around 3-5% unemployment is what economists label "full employment". Unemployment is a feature of the system, not a bug, and exists for systemic reasons. Trying to train everyone for tech jobs to get them employed, is not going to work as a permanent solution for unemployment because there won't be enough tech jobs for them all, and there'll still be around 3-5% of the population unemployed no matter how hard those individuals are trying because there aren't enough job openings for everyone, so you'll end up with situations where hundreds of people apply for every job opening.

Anyway, some stuff for you to think about.

[Meh Gerbil]

Anyway, some stuff for you to think about.

I think those are good comments.

[Sparko]

I guess most libs I personally know have multiple degrees or phds, so their arguments tend to be very rational, informed, logical, and well-constructed.

Really? Where are they? They sure are not on this site.

[tabibito]

Nobody is forcing people to take jobs that don't offer adequate compensation.
If you don't like your hourly wage increase your skill level and find a different job.

^--- what part of that is difficult for you? Oh, let me guess, the hard part is you have to do something instead of other people having to shell out money for your lack of effort.


If a guy comes to me and complains that he's getting $10 an hour and I show him how he can double that in 24 months (by applying himself) how am I begrudging him a living wage? I'm willing to show the guy how to do it - by making himself a more qualified person - which is good for everyone in our society. Your plan is: smoke pot, be a dumb • Edited by a Moderator •, and wait until the government gives you a pay raise.

I was laid off from a job that I hated back in the 90's - I opened the newspaper, noticed 3 pages of ads for technology jobs, took 3 classes and a short internship and in 3 years I was making 2X what I was making at the job where I was laid off. Today if you offered me $15 or $20 an hour for my time I'd tell you to take a hike. Anybody can do that - anybody - so please do that instead of sitting around waiting for a handout. I really think YOU could do that. Why is believing in you such a horrible thing?

I'm not some arm chair economist who just spouts the conservative line on this thing.
I've lived it.

Myyyyy my. So many assumptions about what I do and what I might or might not be engaged in. Just to correct the worst of them - I don't accept slavery as an acceptable practice. Nor do I accept that failing to pay a decent wage for services rendered as being anything more than whitewashed slavery. If it is good enough to take another's labour, it's good enough to pay a reasonable return - and I'm not averse to paying a little bit more for goods and services when decent wages are paid.
A fair day's pay for a fair day's work is the traditional view of what is proper for most Australians.
Companies don't employ the number of people they can afford: if they have enough work for 10 employees, they are inclined to employ 9. They'll get the greatest profit they can for the smallest outlay possible. That's "just good business sense". Of course, if employees adopt the same attitude, that's "just plain rapacious greed." And it doesn't matter which group engages in that practice, the effect on the economy is the same - it's a disaster.

[Meh Gerbil]

I don't accept slavery as an acceptable practice. Nor do I accept that failing to pay a decent wage for services rendered as being anything more than whitewashed slavery. If it is good enough to take another's labour, it's good enough to pay a reasonable return - and I'm not averse to paying a little bit more for goods and services when decent wages are paid.
A fair day's pay for a fair day's work is the traditional view of what is proper for most Australians.

I propose a $50 per hour minimum wage because everyone should be able to afford an Audi.
I consider that a decent wage - $400 per day before benefits is proper.

If you disagree with that you're a capitalistic pig.
Thanks for playing.

[tabibito]

There was an early 1900s ruling (here) that the minimum wage be set so as to enable a family to live in frugal comfort. That would be well short of the $50/hr sum that you facetiously proposed, but $15 seems reasonable ... It should have been clear enough from my prior post that I no more support overpayment than I do underpayment.
for
Employees work to provide themselves and their families with a decent standard of living, not to provide three storey, overseas holiday shacks for their employers.

[Meh Gerbil]

There was an early 1900s ruling (here) that the minimum wage be set so as to enable a family to live in frugal comfort. That would be well short of the $50/hr sum that you facetiously proposed, but $15 seems reasonable ... It should have been clear enough from my prior post that I no more support overpayment than I do underpayment.
for
Employees work to provide themselves and their families with a decent standard of living, not to provide three storey, overseas holiday shacks for their employers.

I don't understand how you can be so greedy.
I'll compromise at $40.00 per hour.

Can you meet me at $40.00 or don't you care about the working poor?

[Carrikature]

I don't understand how you can be so greedy.
I'll compromise at $40.00 per hour.

Can you meet me at $40.00 or don't you care about the working poor?

Obvious answer is to establish a metric for 'livable wage'. What you're doing is just claiming the whole thing is arbitrary. Which it might be, but it need not be.

[Meh Gerbil]

Obvious answer is to establish a metric for 'livable wage'. What you're doing is just claiming the whole thing is arbitrary. Which it might be, but it need not be.

I'm sorry that you're greedy and so very willing to allow rich fat cats to rape the working men and women of our country.
I'm unapologetically for the working poor in this country.

(Wow, I love taking the moral high ground and accusing everyone who doesn't unquestionably follow me up the slope as being bad people. I can see why liberals do this sort of thing. I'm getting a buzz here.)

[Meh Gerbil]

Obvious answer is to establish a metric for 'livable wage'. What you're doing is just claiming the whole thing is arbitrary. Which it might be, but it need not be.

You don't think some jobs are unworthy of a livable wage?
You would hold that a high school dropout should be able to make $31,200.00 per year with benefits by making French fries?

[JonathanL]

You don't think some jobs are unworthy of a livable wage?
You would hold that a high school dropout should be able to make $31,200.00 per year with benefits by making French fries?

Depends on how tasty the fries are.

[Meh Gerbil]

Depends on how tasty the fries are.

Around here the fries are the consistency of, and taste like, boiled shoe laces.
Sometimes I wait in the parking lot for the employees to be let out and then run over the fry boy in the parking lot.

I figure with high turn over we'll eventually get one in there worth $15 per hour.