Political Memes

This is how long the fight for 15 has been going on. We will finally get 15 when minimum wage should be 46 dollars

It's like that cartoon of the guy with a whole pile of cookies telling the guy with one cookie "Look out! That immigrant wants to steal your cookie!" You can substitute any other demographic for the immigrant - socialist, burger-flipper, victim of medical extortion - and it still works.

Sure, I want a cookie too. I look out the window of my ground floor (first floor for the US) apartment at my neighbour watching a beautiful sunset through the wide glass front or his fancy first floor living room (second floor for the US) that seems to be about the size of my whole apartment, and I want that too. I see another guy move his Mercedes from the driveway so he can drive his BMW today instead, and I want a nice car too. I hear a colleague cursing the bureaucratic bullshit of having to do the property taxes for both his own parents and his in-laws on top of his own, and I can't help but feel a sting of envy at his luxury problems. I want property too. I want a nice cookie too.

But the critical word in all these examples here is too. My neighbour can have his apartment with the beautiful view, the other guy can have his cars (climate consciousness notwithstanding, we have bigger sinners to worry about), my colleague's parents and in-laws can have their houses too, and it's a wonderful thing that they have the support of someone helping them as they age and struggle with these things who also has experience from his own property. I don't want to take these things away. Hell, even when I see my landlady's constant vacation pictures that I know my rent is sponsoring, I don't begrudge her that vacation (though I do resent having to pay rent). They can all keep their cookies.

But if a corporate CEO gets a multi-million annual salary and another multi-million bonus while I got a "generous" thousand for an internship, he can well spare a cookie or a thousand. And even he pales next to private investors earning - whether through dividends or through their stock value increasing - just as much without even carrying any degree of responsibility. At least the CEO still does some work, even if it doesn't justify his salary.

To be clear, I still don't give a shit about the small-time middle-class pension fund investor. They participate in a fucked up system and I wish their pension would be funded differently, but if their investment pays my wages, I'll be content. Let them have their cookie. Hell, I'd even be content to let them have a second cookie, if that was the price for me and everyone else getting at least one.

I can cope with some level of inequality as a concession to the unfair and imperfect nature of humanity. It would still be better than having to pick up the crumbs off the table while watching as the big guy shovels another tray of cookies I baked onto his pile.

For anyone worried about their cookie: Let's work together. Let's topple the cookie-hoarders and distribute their cookies. Let's get you another cookie. And if I have a cookie of my own, you don't need to worry so much about me wanting to take yours. We all win.

Except the hoarders, but fuck them.

Sounds like even a minor general strike would get concessions pretty quick

So voting? Too bad we never get to actually vote on these things. All handled by geriatrics that don't give a fuck about the current generations.

Imo there is an issue if you do nothing but increase minimum wage. You also need to limit price inflation and make sure the companies don't just return the increased cost to the consumer. Then you'll have gained nothing. Example. Burger grill pays their workers 10$/hr - burger costs 4$. Now you force the burger grill to pay workers 15$/hr, a 50% increase and they go, alright, burgers now cost 6$. Most places do this and the worker, even though they now earn 50% more, can't actually buy more because cost of living has increased equally. We need regulations on how companies operate their profit or actually get back to a point where competition would punish pricing like that. But somehow with only a handful owning everything that is kinda fucked.

Thats by design.

They took 10+ years to finally implement the 15 dollar minimum wage, explicitly so it would still be too low to live on by the time it was in, so they can turn around and go and lambast people for being "greedy" after getting what they wanted...while willfully obviating and distracting from the shit like rent and home prices that are getting furthe and further out of the average americans reach.

"The economy" is just money in motion. Like how electric charges moving create light, moving money carries and creates value in the exchange. When rich people soak up money from millions of people, they destroy all that value and the economy stagnates. When millions of people are given money and then spend it in millions of ways, the global economy improves.

We optimize our economy around stagnate money sitting in septic pools, when we should be trying to build an ocean of money that never stops flowing.

They never took econ 101 and don't understand that elasticity is a thing. They think that literally all costs are passed to consumers.

Because banning people you don't agree with from running for Congress is fascist, even if it's for what you believe is the right reasons. Everyone has a right to vote for who represents them, even if they're garbage.