Politics

[LivingTheDream]

And just imagine how that might look if the U.S. had been and was assisting in the ways that some of our military folks on here have suggested, instead of seemingly favoring Putin.

This is probably a little unpopular but I think from a US perspective this is going exactly as planned. Russia is burning through equipment and men, a whole generation of Russian men will be wiped out. The families and loved ones left behind arent going to be supporting any new wars for a long time.

All of the hired mercenaries are getting sucked into battle and most likely killed. Those mercenaries arent going to places like Iran or other conflicts (some are there, but definitely a smaller pool of resources then before). Likewise Russia doesn't have the resources to assist Iran or even China if it decided to invade Taiwan.

From a US strategic perspective, the longer this goes on, the better. Which I feel is unfortunate for Ukraine and from a humanitarian perspective.

 

[Big_Easy]

then the company is also paying an additional 20 to 30% on that 2.30 increase in social security taxes (employer matching) and fringe benefits, so more like 3.00 dollars

No. The labor rate I quoted was all inclusive of salary, benefits, and employment taxes. So it’s still a 23% increase. And again, the 100% increase was just to show how little overall economy wide costs for goods and services go up if we double the wages of the bottom workers. Im not even advocating for a 100% increase.

so now the cheeseburger is now 13 dollars (remember you are basing this on percentages). The employee is actually losing ground based on real dollars.

Not to mention that labor costs associated in the McDonalds example include a lot of part time, or hourly workers that you are now pushing benefits for dont equate into the actual paycheck but do equal an added cost to the employer, so now the costs of the good go up but not actual wage growth.

What are you even talking about.

Plus taxes and social security are withheld from that new 2.30

Yeah, withholding more taxes was part of this exercise to begin with. To get lower wage workers to pay federal income taxes, while having more spending money for themselves.

so the employees gets 1.70 to 1.80 increase.

No, FICA taxes are 7.65%, so the employee gets a 100% - 7.65% = a 92.35% increase in their wages. Minus whatever their new income tax rate may be. Remember the example was a doubling in total labor costs.

Plus Obamacare has made health care cost premiums go up, and you can argue about this all you want, but as someone who has helped negotiate rates for a company, I can tell you they have gone up. So even more of a squeeze.

We’ve already discussed this, the increase in healthcare premiums 10 years after the ACA are the same as the increase in premiums 10 years prior to the ACA. It also has nothing to do with this example. As the stated labor rate was all inclusive of benefits.

So simple question how does a company operate if its costs go up but its prices don't? What was you said about making a rock bleed.

I never said that it’s prices wont go up.

 

[tinktink12]

 

[375 Ruger Fan]

 

[Killingtime]

If I’m not mistaken, wasn’t land ownership a requirement to vote in most States in the US when it was founded?

Ironically even black men who owned property were able to vote in area’s at the founding of the nation. John Adam’s also has some interesting writings on this topic that he wrote in 1776. He was quite worried that non contributors would want to vote lol.

 

[Rocked and Loaded]

CA passed Prop. 13 a while back that limits property tax increases. The Democrats have been trying to chip at it since then. The same proposition also prohibits tax increases unless a super majority votes on it in the CA legislature. Democrats have the super majority hence tax increases, but they need a ballot measure to eliminate the property tax limits and so far people are not voting for it.

As more illegals have kids that just rent I expect that to change in the future though.

We (as a state, I doubt either of us voted for it) were foolish enough to chip away the prop 13 protections for inherited properties and the permanent renter class were more than happy to do it. It was sold as a way to keep people from hoarding housing when in reality it just hurts the middle class trying to build generational wealth to hand to their children.

When my children inherit my house, they’ll just end up selling it to a rental company that can afford the stupid taxes so the net effect will be more housing hoarded, not by middle class families, but by mega corporations. It’s maddening.

 

[Big_Easy]

If the employees worked for pay only. If they didn’t also receive health care. If the employer wasn’t required to pay for employees that do not generate revenue IE: legal staff, safety professionals, HR, Finance, mechanics etc etc.

The stated labor rate would have included these items that you have mentioned.

So in your world, the employees eat up to 60-70% not 23%. and the guy putting it all on a line. Risking bankruptcy gets 5%.

No. The assumption was that the increase in costs WOULD at least partially (or in total) be passed onto the consumers. Not that the business would absorb them all out of their profits.

Let me help with your numbers. You were close for McDonald’s. But many pay much more of a percentage.
View attachment 783966

You seem to forget the entire premise of this exercise/plan. It was to increase the wages and thus the amount of money available for taxation by the gov so that the lower paid employees are then able to contribute to federal income taxes and aren’t “freeloading” on the system. Many of the industries/sectors you have listed above do not fall into that category, and are therefore not relevant to the discussion. Bank tellers, teachers, nurses, lawyers, doctors, engineers, investment bankers, are not making $13-$17 an hour. And are most likely already paying some level of federal income taxes.

That’s why I used McDonalds as an example. As a proxy for lowly paid fast food workers in general. We can use Walmart if you’d like for a proxy for lowly paid retail workers. Theres is 21%, but they don't break it out as much, so the lower paid labor only cost is a little lower than that. Per your retail example it’s most likely around 15%. Again, we are discussing the bottom 15-25% of earners. Not every employee across the entire economy.

Certainly wage compression for the 25-35% income brackets may be an issue, but again, my 100% wage increase was only to demonstrate how the total increase in cost of goods and services economy wide would have been minimal so as to debunk that reoccurring fallacy used on here.

 

[Killingtime]

I think the voting was initially rooted in the ideas from the Godfather of modern banking

Scottish economist John Law proposed a land bank to issue paper money backed by real estate. While historical land ownership tied directly into 18th-century voting rights and tax systems, Law’s specific focus was using property values to expand the money supply rather than altering political franchise. [1, 2, 3, 4]

John Law’s Banking Concepts

• • Paper Money: Argued money represents a value for trade, not just metal.
  • Land Bank Proposal: Presented a plan to the Scottish Parliament in 1705 to issue notes backed by land value.
  • Rejection & France: Scotland rejected his plan; he later implemented similar central banking and paper currency ideas through the Encyclopædia Britannica framework in 18th-century France. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

Land Ownership, Voting, and Taxation

• • Voting Qualification: Parliamentary voting rights in 18th-century Britain required owning a specific minimum value of freehold property (the 40-shilling freehold). [1]
  • Tax Basis: Public taxation heavily relied on land assessments (the land tax), making property ownership the primary fiscal anchor for the state. [1, 2]
  • Law’s View: Believed fixed land assets offered a stable collateral baseline to prevent currency depreciation compared to volatile silver or gold. [1]

Would you like to explore how John Law's Mississippi Bubble

I would add that there are many 18th century writers belief that property owner voting rights was also a way to make voting more accurate. They believed that if anyone could vote landowner could threaten his tenants annd tenant farmers, servants, and apprentices into voting his ways or a father/husband could control the vote of his wife and adult children that lived with him. Since all voting was done in public areas in British owned colonies.

https://www.colonialwilliamsburg.org/discover/civics/who-voted-in-early-america/

 

[Killingtime]

Isnt it in Starship Troopers that service (in the military) equals citizenship? I guess that would not work for any western democracy (since most of its inhabitants probably allready are citizens), but adjusting it so you have to pay taxes in order to vote should not be so problematic.

But I would assume making it so you could get more votes for paying more taxes would be a hard sell, since that would mean that you could basically buy votes while also violating the idea of One man, one vote. Perhaps one vote for each citizen that is paying taxes in combination with the citizen in question being over a certain age (for example 30 since it would seem to be when the brain is fully developed according to research) might be the way forward.

Wasnt it Churchill who said something like: ”If you are not a liberal at 20, you have no heart. If you are not a conservative at 40, you have no brain”. In Sweden the liberal party is part of the right so here its more like "If you are not left at 20, you have no heart". Left being the social democrats, the left and the greens here.

I like the fact that you know starship troopers!

 

[Big_Easy]

It’s not that big easy is wrong. Of course the national debt is out of control.

Thank you for conceding the point.

No one will touch entitlements a two year-old understands that

Our current $40 Trillion in debt was not caused by our entitlement programs. You know this.

but unfortunately, a two year-old does not understand that more taxes does not translate to bringing down national debt.

The 1990s and the Clinton administration would beg to differ.

More taxes translates to more spending.

No it doesn't.

show me where the last piece of money I gave you went. I’ll be damned if I’m giving you more.

There are numerous websites that post what tour tax dollars are being spent on. Just because many of you guys are too lazy to look up that information doesn't mean that it does not exist.

It’s not as simple as we don’t care about the national debt, but we also care about the bloated government under Democrats and Republicans alike.

I thought that was the whole point of DOGE. Didn't Elon and Trump cut out all the waste (sarcasm)?…I think this is the first time that I've seen someone on here blame republicans for bloated gov spending too. We’re making progress now.

 

[Big_Easy]

I like the fact that you know starship troopers!

You guys realize that the movie was supposed to be satire and a parody of a fascist and jingoist future, not something to idolize and emulate right?….right?

 

[Tundra Tiger]

This'd be funny if it wasn't so sad. How many times can we read the same two headlines? (Hormuz contested/air strikes resume/fragile peace threatened)

 

[Big_Easy]

@Big Easy, since you have such a command of all the figures and facts, how much does the Danish McDonalds pay in property tax? I don't have a clue, but I do know what a McDonalds in my home town in Louisiana pays. It's over a $100k per year. Gotta sell a lot of Big Macs, just to cover the property tax.

That figure is not relevant to the topic of the post.

 

[Altitude sickness]

If the employees worked for pay only. If they didn’t also receive health care. If the employer wasn’t required to pay for employees that do not generate revenue IE: legal staff, safety professionals, HR, Finance, mechanics etc etc.

The stated labor rate would have included these items that you have mentioned.

Let me use your example of a response.


Wrong !

 

[Altitude sickness]

Perhaps you and Hassan piker should start a company and show us how it’s done.

 

[Killingtime]

You guys realize that the movie was supposed to be satire and a parody of a fascist and jingoist future, not something to idolize and emulate right?….right?

Heinlein did not write the book as a satire or parody and it’s great. The movie was still great and I love it. Just like I like the movie idiocracy. I’m sure Mike judge didn’t intend for it to be a documentary yet when I look at the world lol it’s pretty close.

 

[Big_Easy]

The stated labor rate would have included these items that you have mentioned.

You are saying that a company wide labor cost would not include their own employee costs in areas such as HR, Safety, Finance, or Legal? Where would these cost be listed then?

 

[Big_Easy]

Perhaps you and Hassan piker should start a company and show us how it’s done.

No thanks, my wife and I already operate several side businesses in addition to our careers. Between those and our kids we don't have time for another. Plus, that Piker guy is a Marxist. So he wouldn't be much interested in my business ideas.

 

[Houston Bill]

I have zero problem with this. Rape grandmothers and kill infants and murder college kids dancing at a love festival just because they are there .. you should be hunted down like the rabid dog you are and exterminated…

Completely agree!!

 

[Brent in Az]

Homicides have dropped 17.2% in the first half of 2026.
Deporting the riff-raff seems to be helping.
Millions more to go.
It's more important than ever to keep a Republican in the Whitehouse next election or all that deportation will be in vain.