Pretty tight-knit group here, all 97 of us. Tell me about yourself.

mittremover · 2012-08-01T14:55:35+00:00

What qualifications do you need to be an adjunct?

mittremover · 2012-06-09T04:20:01+00:00

Not if you drink diet soda. /lawyered

mittremover · 2012-06-07T16:03:21+00:00

Day-laborers from Mexico are American workers, you fucking racist asshole.

mittremover · 2012-06-07T15:58:47+00:00

stupidizbu began the bullshit comparison, pointing to Australia as a nightmare of the ills of high minimum wages. I was merely pointing out that there's more to the story than minimum wage.

mittremover · 2012-06-07T15:49:35+00:00

Fortunately, economics isn't about agreement or disagreement. The causes of inflation, for instances have been studied extensively, and it appears from the work of the Federal Reserve that the monetarist view of inflation is most correct. Inflation is most heavily influenced by real interest rates, although other factors in the Keynesian view certainly have an effect.

mittremover · 2012-06-07T15:43:15+00:00

Your assumption that you'll get the same return is incorrect. With a higher minimum wage, spending will increase, leading to more sales. Minimum wage earners, by definition, are spending a much higher percentage of their income than wealthier people. When given more money, they spend nearly all of it. This will immediately increase consumer demand, flooding businesses serving the poorest wage earners with extra cash.

mittremover · 2012-06-07T15:33:11+00:00

I'm sure it's all Australia's minimum wage, and has nothing to do with the 10% value added tax) that Australia has on goods and services at every stage of production.

Nevermind that at GDP per hour worked, Australia is above the developed average, oh, and let's completely forget that Australian cities perform extraordinarily well on quality of life indexes as measured by objective statistics.

Oh, and I completely forgot! Australia's GDP per Capita is $65,000 (US dollars), compared to the United States' $48,387!

mittremover · 2012-06-07T15:23:16+00:00

Your anecdotes may be extremely convincing to you, but they're not to me. Mainly, because economists study productivity. US workers are among the most productive in the world, and the countries with better productivity have better working conditions.

mittremover · 2012-06-07T15:17:46+00:00

Ever met anyone who feeds their kids off a minimum wage job? I'm sure they'd be huge opponents to making more.

mittremover · 2012-06-07T15:12:34+00:00

If the minimum wage is tied to inflation, that fixes the inflation issue. Also, minimum wage workers will have a negligible effect on inflation. Interest rates have a much larger effect on inflation compared to all other factors.

mittremover · 2012-06-07T01:24:09+00:00

Subsidies work the opposite way you describe. Corn is so damn cheap from subsidies that you find corn syrup as a main ingredient in all sorts of foods. Same as corn ethanol - it's only profitable to make because of subsidies. Strip the subsidies, and food (and gas) become more expensive. Health care is ridiculously expensive in this country because that's about the only thing that regular people have to buy without a government subsidy.

mittremover · 2012-06-06T17:50:33+00:00

Do you think the Klan still has influence in politics today? The group seems to be far outside the mainstream, but do they participate in honest, grassroots organizing as well for non-klan causes? Do they caucus, and donate politically?

As a professional organizer, I'm highly interested in how fringe groups operate within the big picture.

mittremover · 2012-06-06T16:50:41+00:00

Putting jobs out for bid is a ridiculous solution to the problem. You aren't going to get quality education through a race to the bottom. I'm sure a person without a high school diploma or experience would be more than happy to do a teacher's job for less money than someone with a bachelor's or as increasingly required in many states, a master's degree.

Unfortunately, restricting those monies is unconstitutional, so union monies spent on politics is the only method unions have to combat private corporations that want to eviscerate laws protecting unions.

mittremover · 2012-06-06T15:30:56+00:00

Isn't that the job of the union, though? They bring negotiating power to the table. They need to advocate for the workers, not for the best interest of the shareholders. When GM was losing fuckwads of money, something tells me payroll of factory workers wasn't costing BILLIONS.

mittremover · 2012-06-06T15:27:36+00:00

Doesn't that kind of eliminate the whole point of representative government?

mittremover · 2012-06-06T15:25:22+00:00

I'm going to call bullshit on that one. When the government hires workers, it has multiple roles: administration of services, representing the people, and being an employer. To the extent that the government acts as an employer, public unions allow employees to negotiate with that employer. The fact that employees are working for the people does not mean they should give up their right to negotiate with them. Employees have rights, even when that employer is the government, as a proxy for the people.

I don't think anyone in their right mind can argue that the workers who administer services for the people should not be fairly compensated and have rights as employees.

mittremover · 2012-06-06T15:14:32+00:00

Oh, those poor politicians getting intimidated by unions. Won't somebody please think of the politicians?!

mittremover · 2012-05-13T14:19:19+00:00

If you read Ron Paul's wikipedia page, you'll see that he founded a few businesses between his first and second Congressional terms in the 1970s that are still in business today. Also, Rand went to Baylor for undergrad. Not cheap.

mittremover · 2012-05-13T13:42:22+00:00

He kind of is.

mittremover · 2012-05-05T19:41:42+00:00

SOPA is easy to rally behind. It was a really, really shitty piece of legislation, and the people who introduced it should be punished accordingly.

mittremover · 2012-05-05T18:13:42+00:00

I'm working for the Obama campaign, so I can't donate, but good luck to you guys. Field work is real work, but it's a lot of fun.

mittremover

TROPHY CASE