[h4nnib4l]

Cheribasa, on 16 February 2013 - 09:04 AM, said:

Well, I went to a weeding about a month ago, and the Pastor said "Commonwealth of Pennsylvania" So, I don't know, but I'm pretty sure PA is a Commonwealth.

Why the hell was there a pastor there while you were cleaning up weeds?

So let me get this straight: you think that one of the 13 original colonies somehow didn't become part of the nation that formed after the American Revolution? That Pennsylvania joined for the war, but then decided that the whole "nation" thing wasn't for them? Does this mean that the American flag is a sham? That the four entities that we've been calling states who use "commonwealth" in their title aren't really a part of the US? So should their stars be removed, or are we secretly referring to four OTHER states that we don't know about? Or maybe you should have paid attention in school.

Quote

Evidence Ronald Reagan is a robot? He doesn't know what or how important family bonds are...

Nah, evidence he's an actor.

This post has been edited by h4nnib4l: 18 February 2013 - 08:08 AM

[WolfCoder]

"Commonwealth of Pennsylvania" is actually its official designation. Whatever that means.

This post has been edited by WolfCoder: 18 February 2013 - 09:32 AM

[supersloth]

albuquerque recently raised the minimum wage and this guy refuses to pay it http://www.kob.com/a.../s2935132.shtml

he's not even avoiding the 'real' minimum wage, just the bullshit wage they pay waiters. seriously, if you can't afford 3.83 an hour, just close up shop already.

they won't be getting any of my business.

[modi123_1]

Oh FFS.

Quote

1. What is a commonwealth vs. state? Is Virginia a state or a commonwealth?
How many commonwealth states do we have in the U.S.?

There is no difference between a commonwealth and a state in the U.S. To Locke, Hobbes, and other 17th-century writers the term "commonwealth" meant an organized political community -- what we today call a "state." Officially Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Virginia, and Massachusetts are all commonwealths. When Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Virginia, and Massachusetts became part of the United States, they merely took the old form of state in their title.

Today, commonwealth also means a political unit having local autonomy but voluntarily united with the U.S. These are Puerto Rico and the Northern Mariana Islands.

http://bensguide.gpo...pport/faqs.html

Spoiler

[jon.kiparsky]

h4nnib4l, on 18 February 2013 - 10:06 AM, said:

Quote

Evidence Ronald Reagan is a robot? He doesn't know what or how important family bonds are...

Nah, evidence he's an actor.

Or evidence of the onset of Alzheimer's disease.

[Python_4_President]

I still think it would be better if the minimum wage was 10/hr, the maximum 20/hr, and so called "salaries" were banned.


It should be a felony to pay someone more than 20/hr for anything.
Also a felony to pay someone less than 10/hr for anything.


I do not think we should have a cap on yearly earnings, though, as some people may find it acceptable to work 3/4 of the hours in a year, whereas others may only work 1/4 of the hours in a year.

Of course, this applies to the public and private sectors.

[modi123_1]

Python_4_President, on 18 February 2013 - 11:53 AM, said:

I still think it would be better if the minimum wage was 10/hr, the maximum 20/hr, and so called "salaries" were banned.


It should be a felony to pay someone more than 20/hr for anything.
Also a felony to pay someone less than 10/hr for anything.


I do not think we should have a cap on yearly earnings, though, as some people may find it acceptable to work 3/4 of the hours in a year, whereas others may only work 1/4 of the hours in a year.

Of course, this applies to the public and private sectors.

So.... any particular justification on this min and max, or is this just one of your "let's say crazy stuff and have people digress over it"?

[Python_4_President]

If you eliminate financial incentives to obtain some particular position, then you'll have more people who hold positions they actually care about.

This obviously equates to better products and services.

[jon.kiparsky]

Python_4_President, on 18 February 2013 - 01:22 PM, said:

If you eliminate financial incentives to obtain some particular position, then you'll have more people who hold positions they actually care about.

This obviously equates to better products and services.

I think that's brilliant! And we don't need to stop there: you could actually punish people for doing work, instead of just not paying them. Like maybe floggings every Friday morning - that way you'd really know that the only people doing the job would be the ones who really wanted to - think of the wonderful products and services you'd get! (Except on Friday afternoons, of course)

@modi - do you have to ask?

This post has been edited by jon.kiparsky: 18 February 2013 - 11:27 AM

[xclite]

F for effort.

[farrell2k]

Python_4_President, on 18 February 2013 - 06:22 PM, said:

If you eliminate financial incentives to obtain some particular position, then you'll have more people who hold positions they actually care about.

This obviously equates to better products and services.

It worked for The United Federation of Planets!

[Koyume]

farrell2k, on 18 February 2013 - 05:18 PM, said:

Python_4_President, on 18 February 2013 - 06:22 PM, said:

If you eliminate financial incentives to obtain some particular position, then you'll have more people who hold positions they actually care about.

This obviously equates to better products and services.

It worked for The United Federation of Planets! />

To bad they blew up. (Thought I make my first post a funny one. )

[supersloth]

so this was the second post then?

[Koyume]

supersloth, on 19 February 2013 - 03:48 PM, said:

so this was the second post then?

Probably.

But as far as the minimum wage goes, it does need to go up. I remember someone saying about 10/hr. I would agree with that one more than 9/hr, but it's going to even be a huge undertaking to even get 9/hr.

[jon.kiparsky]

Pretty interesting column from Paul Krugman in the Times on Sunday - doing that whole "fact-based economics" thing that he does, he points out that the connection between raising the minimum wage and loss of low-wage jobs has never been substantiated despite the fact that it's the one of the most often-run experiments in economics today.

I'm posting it in a spoiler because I know some folks have trouble with the Times' paywall.

Spoiler

The New York Times

February 17, 2013
Raise That Wage
By PAUL KRUGMAN

President Obama laid out a number of good ideas in his State of the Union address. Unfortunately, almost all of them would require spending money — and given Republican control of the House of Representatives, it’s hard to imagine that happening.

One major proposal, however, wouldn’t involve budget outlays: the president’s call for a rise in the minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $9, with subsequent increases in line with inflation. The question we need to ask is: Would this be good policy? And the answer, perhaps surprisingly, is a clear yes.

Why “surprisingly”? Well, Economics 101 tells us to be very cautious about attempts to legislate market outcomes. Every textbook — mine included — lays out the unintended consequences that flow from policies like rent controls or agricultural price supports. And even most liberal economists would, I suspect, agree that setting a minimum wage of, say, $20 an hour would create a lot of problems.

But that’s not what’s on the table. And there are strong reasons to believe that the kind of minimum wage increase the president is proposing would have overwhelmingly positive effects.

First of all, the current level of the minimum wage is very low by any reasonable standard. For about four decades, increases in the minimum wage have consistently fallen behind inflation, so that in real terms the minimum wage is substantially lower than it was in the 1960s. Meanwhile, worker productivity has doubled. Isn’t it time for a raise?

Now, you might argue that even if the current minimum wage seems low, raising it would cost jobs. But there’s evidence on that question — lots and lots of evidence, because the minimum wage is one of the most studied issues in all of economics. U.S. experience, it turns out, offers many “natural experiments” here, in which one state raises its minimum wage while others do not. And while there are dissenters, as there always are, the great preponderance of the evidence from these natural experiments points to little if any negative effect of minimum wage increases on employment.

Why is this true? That’s a subject of continuing research, but one theme in all the explanations is that workers aren’t bushels of wheat or even Manhattan apartments; they’re human beings, and the human relationships involved in hiring and firing are inevitably more complex than markets for mere commodities. And one byproduct of this human complexity seems to be that modest increases in wages for the least-paid don’t necessarily reduce the number of jobs.

What this means, in turn, is that the main effect of a rise in minimum wages is a rise in the incomes of hard-working but low-paid Americans — which is, of course, what we’re trying to accomplish.

Finally, it’s important to understand how the minimum wage interacts with other policies aimed at helping lower-paid workers, in particular the earned-income tax credit, which helps low-income families who help themselves. The tax credit — which has traditionally had bipartisan support, although that may be ending — is also good policy. But it has a well-known defect: Some of its benefits end up flowing not to workers but to employers, in the form of lower wages. And guess what? An increase in the minimum wage helps correct this defect. It turns out that the tax credit and the minimum wage aren’t competing policies, they’re complementary policies that work best in tandem.

So Mr. Obama’s wage proposal is good economics. It’s also good politics: a wage increase is supported by an overwhelming majority of voters, including a strong majority of self-identified Republican women (but not men). Yet G.O.P. leaders in Congress are opposed to any rise. Why? They say that they’re concerned about the people who might lose their jobs, never mind the evidence that this won’t actually happen. But this isn’t credible.

For today’s Republican leaders clearly feel disdain for low-wage workers. Bear in mind that such workers, even if they work full time, by and large don’t pay income taxes (although they pay plenty in payroll and sales taxes), while they may receive benefits like Medicaid and food stamps. And you know what this makes them, in the eyes of the G.O.P.: “takers,” members of the contemptible 47 percent who, as Mitt Romney said to nods of approval, won’t take responsibility for their own lives.

Eric Cantor, the House majority leader, offered a perfect illustration of this disdain last Labor Day: He chose to commemorate a holiday dedicated to workers by sending out a message that said nothing at all about workers, but praised the efforts of business owners instead.

The good news is that not many Americans share that disdain; just about everyone except Republican men believes that the lowest-paid workers deserve a raise. And they’re right. We should raise the minimum wage, now.

Yes, I know people who don't like him will complain that he's a liberal, but so was Adam Smith. Deal with it.