Stuff you just can't make up

Something that occurred to me was that if you simplistically compare countries by relevant currency units, then the UK must be markedly stronger than the US as the pound is worth more than the US dollar. We originally had pounds but on changing to digital put our new dollar at half a pound (1964?), so if we hadn't changed our unit would be worth more than yours. No logic in
your comparison.

Annachie wrote:Imaginos, the Australian Tresury department tries to keep the AUD at around 70 to 75 US cents because of the resource exports.

Have done so since the AUD was floated back in the mid 1980's.

Indeed, during the GFC it was OVER the US$1.00 mark.

Daryl wrote:You are either young, of limited life experience, or come from a wealthy background to not understand that.

You are wrong about every part of that ignorant assumption. Well, everybody has limited life experience, but mine is a pretty large limit.

My first job back in the 70’s was stacking boxes in a warehouse for $2.35 an hour. I rented one room, drove a $200 beater and went to night school. After about eight months, I got a better job working in a factory for $4.20 an hour. Over the decades I’ve gotten better jobs, been laid off a number of times, found other jobs, saved money, and today I have well over a million dollars in savings and investments. I could retire, but I continue to work part-time to make a little extra money and feel useful.

Dad was a high school teacher, Mom was a housewife. We did all right, but were not wealthy by any means. When I moved out, I was on my own.

Annachie wrote:Communism seems to work very well on the small scale.
Where it tends to fail is on the larger scale where the potential for corruption starts to climb exponentially.

As I said earlier, we are hard-wired by evolution to seek the greatest gain for the least effort. Communism can work, sort of, up to about the size of a tribe or clan. You can see how your efforts benefit the tribe. Go bigger, to the scale where your efforts mostly benefit strangers, and the motivation to make that effort is gone. At that point, people have to be forced to work.

Improving what works is better than trying to fix what has never worked.
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“Hey, we want you to scrap that 400-passenger airplane you’ve been flying for years that basically works but has some problems, and replace it with this radically different experimental aircraft that has never completed a successful test flight. Actually, 90% of the time it crashed and burned, but We Believe in our design because some of the six-inch models flew pretty good.”

Imaginos1892 wrote:

Annachie wrote:Communism seems to work very well on the small scale.
Where it tends to fail is on the larger scale where the potential for corruption starts to climb exponentially.

As I said earlier, we are hard-wired by evolution to seek the greatest gain for the least effort.

We are not "hard wired" by evolution. We're not insects who act solely on genetically coded instincts or something. We're conscious, sentient beings who can think and analzyze and make decisions about our conduct.

When people say we are "hard wired" not to give a crap about large groups of people what that really means is "it's easier to be selfish outside my small group of friends and family so that's what I'm going to do then blame it on evolution because that's easier than taking responsibility for my decision to be selfish... " Yes, large numbers of people make that general decision, but it's not because they are "hardwired" to it's just because they're kind of shitty lazy selfish people.

But.... yes.... the existence of a large number of shitty people is a reality that must be factored in when evaluating how models for society will work. So Communism won't scale up, at least until humanity grows up. Which is a long damn way off. Attempting to implement it on large scales under current conditions is a recipe for disaster. That said...

Improving what works is better than trying to fix what has never worked.

Exactly what modern day Socialists are doing.

See: The Nordic Model... that thing people like Sanders keep trying to clue people into the massive benefits of.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_model

[quote="Imaginos1892"]My first job back in the 70’s was stacking boxes in a warehouse for $2.35 an hour. I rented one room, drove a $200 beater and went to night school. After about eight months, I got a better job working in a factory for $4.20 an hour. Over the decades I’ve gotten better jobs, been laid off a number of times, found other jobs, saved money, and today I have well over a million dollars in savings and investments. I could retire, but I continue to work part-time to make a little extra money and feel useful.[quote]

Here's a fun experiment for you. Let's adjust the values you cite in here for inflation, and let's see what you can get for that today.

stacking boxes in a warehouse for $2.35 an hour -> In today's money, that's 15.26 Dollars. Now, "stacking boxes in a warehouse" as a first job, that sounds a lot like what you'd call an entry-level, minimum wage position to me, which in current money means the person working that job would earn.... 7.25 Dollars per hour, or less than half of what you made back then.

Meanwhile, that single room? Costs about 1000 Dollars today. How much in rent did you pay, proportionally to your income?

In other words, how likely is it for someone starting to work today to end up in a similar place to you in 40 years?

Daryl wrote:Something that occurred to me was that if you simplistically compare countries by relevant currency units, then the UK must be markedly stronger than the US as the pound is worth more than the US dollar.

GBP $1.32 at close of market today. Thing is, the pound used to be almost $3.00. Today's dollar is worth 26 cents, but today's pound is worth almost exactly two ounces. (Or, 0.12538 of a 1970's pound. I don't know how many shillings and pence that is.) The pound has devalued more than twice as fast as the dollar.

If the idiots-in-charge really do set the minimum wage to $15.00, the US dollar will drop to 14 cents or less.

The E wrote:stacking boxes in a warehouse for $2.35 an hour -> In today's money, that's 15.26 Dollars.

I don't know what orifice you pulled that number out of, but I just looked it up and got $10.04. That was US dollars, so use US inflation numbers.

The E wrote:How much in rent did you pay, proportionally to your income?

Almost 48% of after-tax income based on a 40-hour week every week. Of course, I didn't get paid holidays, so I got less. At least gas was 55 cents a gallon and eggs were 70 cents a dozen.

The E wrote:Meanwhile, that single room? Costs about 1000 Dollars today.

I see rooms for rent on Craigslist for $400 to $600 a month all the time.
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Governments can only print money; they can't make it worth anything. They can make it worth nothing.

Much of this discussion is around the edges. I believe that the core is about people in dead end jobs, and if it constitutes slavery.
Obviously it isn't full slavery as people can't be whipped, sold or killed. Minimum wage jobs can be a trap for some though. You started at the bottom and worked up, but some people just aren't able to do that. Could be physical disability, low IQ, constrained by circumstances to live in an area where there were no opportunities.
We have had the concept of a "Living wage", for about a century now, as being the minimum that an adult can survive on. So those who are trapped in lousy jobs can still have some dignity, and not have to beg for tips or food stamps. Seems to have worked for us, as our economy is strong. Naturally much smaller than the US, but in proportion to population it's doing well.
I gain a feeling that you don't respect longer term low level workers and believe they are lesser and lazy.

I was making $4,700 a year in a time when a 'living wage' that could support a family was over $10,000. I got about $75 a week after tax. Waaaaah.

Thing is, I wasn't worth $10,000 a year at that time. I was barely 18, just out of high school with no proven skills and zero experience. If the minimum wage had been, say, $6.50 nobody would have wanted to hire me. They'd want somebody worth paying $6.50 an hour.

There has to be a bottom to start at. You're not supposed to stay there.
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The government can't increase the value of unskilled labor, only raise the cost.

This illustrates the different country's mindsets well. To us it would be unconscionable for an employer to not pay someone enough to live on. If the job needs to be done employers pay the money. As I have said lots of people do stay in minimum jobs due to an inability to do anything else, so they should retain some dignity. If you can't afford it shut up shop.

In my last job before retiring I administered large aerospace support contracts (among much else), and did find it difficult to work with the US firms who got contracts. No problem with pay rates as they knew they had to offer competitive wages to get staff, but they tried to dodge working conditions all the time. Things like the unfair dismissal laws, long service leave, sick and recreation leave, award loadings for dirty or hazardous jobs, lots more. The US executives just didn't believe such were mandatory under law, and every new company had to learn the hard way.


My first full time job after leaving school, for a two year gap before going to uni, paid $25 a week, but I could pay rent and buy food with that in 1967.

Imaginos1892 wrote:I was making $4,700 a year in a time when a 'living wage' that could support a family was over $10,000. I got about $75 a week after tax. Waaaaah.

Thing is, I wasn't worth $10,000 a year at that time. I was barely 18, just out of high school with no proven skills and zero experience. If the minimum wage had been, say, $6.50 nobody would have wanted to hire me. They'd want somebody worth paying $6.50 an hour.

There has to be a bottom to start at. You're not supposed to stay there.
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The government can't increase the value of unskilled labor, only raise the cost.

Imaginos1892 wrote:I was making $4,700 a year in a time when a 'living wage' that could support a family was over $10,000. I got about $75 a week after tax. Waaaaah.

Thing is, I wasn't worth $10,000 a year at that time.

Let's just explore that concept shall we?

Did the job you were doing need to be done?

Daryl wrote:To us it would be unconscionable for an employer to not pay someone enough to live on.

I did make enough to live on. But not enough for many indulgences, or to support a bunch of dependents. It was my first job. I didn't expect to make my fortune on it.

Daryl wrote:If the job needs to be done employers pay the money.

And they won't hire a kid with no proven skills and no experience. They'll hire somebody who's worth what they're forced to pay. Especially if there are laws that make it all but impossible to fire an employee who can't or won't show up on time, every day, and do the job properly.

Daryl wrote:Things like the unfair dismissal laws

Which make firing anybody so difficult and expensive that employers won't take a chance on somebody without a proven record of successful employment. Employers don't just fire good workers for no reason. That would be stupid.

What's your unemployment like in Australia? Especially among the young, unskilled, and inexperienced?

Then there are the 'tenant protection laws' that allow deadbeats to just quit paying rent, and then drag the eviction out for six months or more. That means landlords have to take a much bigger risk on each tenant, making them much more stringent about who they can rent to. Anybody without a perfect rental record and a high credit rating is pretty much shit-out-of-luck. Landlords don't just evict good tenants for no reason, either.

All of those sorts of laws make it all but impossible to get that first job, or that first apartment. I'm sure they were enacted with good intentions, but we all know where those lead.

And, of course, your 'solution' to the problems caused by those laws would be…more laws! Which would cause their own problems, requiring more 'solutions'…

You do see where this is going, right?
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Do the 'progressives' really believe that your waiter should have 'income equality' with your doctor?