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You are looking in the wrong direction. The "working poor" will not benefit from your bread crumbs. Start by reducing the wealth of the top 40% and THEN it wi

You are looking in the wrong direction. The "working poor" will not benefit from your bread crumbs. Start by reducing the wealth of the top 40% and THEN it will trickle down naturally. Nobody will help the poor when they think the funds come from their pocket. Help the "working poor" by destroying the obscenely wealthy. And good luck with that, pilgrim. .

chii 4y ago
why do you need to destroy the wealthy to help the poor? the world isn't a zero sum game. Why not enable the poor to produce more wealth, by up-skilling and by making entrepreneurship easier and less risky? A poor person today is trapped in a job they cannot afford to leave for education/up-skilling. A poor person today cannot start a new business because they cannot afford the capital nor the risk. If instead of a higher minimum wage, you could have a program where a poor person could apply for funds to either up-skill via some sort of education program at an institution, or a loan for a new business, they would probably do much better than raising the minimum wage.
- bradlys 4y ago
  Why does everyone need to be an entrepreneur? Why can’t people be a janitor or working the front desk and have a reasonable standard of living?
  - deadbolt 4y ago
    Further, we'll still need janitors. No matter how many new companies these new entrepreneurs create, we still need people to keep the workplace tidy. Sure, we could all take part in cleaning, but I don't think that's what chii has in mind.
    - chii 4y ago
      but in this case, the value of janitorial services will increase, as there will be fewer and fewer people doing it. Thus, at some point, the balance would be reached where someone would choose janitorial work again. The point of the grandparent post was saying that there should be a blanket raise in minimum wages. I'm saying that there shouldn't be, but that more lucrative opportunities are created instead such as up-skilling into higher paying work, or entrepreneurship (which entails taking a risk, so the state assumes a small amount of that risk for the low income earner to do it). This naturally increases the competition, and then the true value of low-paid work will become apparent.
      - AstralStorm 4y ago
        Good idea that does not bear out in practice. Try competing as a one man shop against a Walmart or a franchise... You can sometimes eke out a living thanks to inefficiencies involved in the above, but usually it does not bear out. Usually it is due to covering an inefficiency somewhere else. Such inefficiencies are often transient. Example: in a certain place workers do not have access to food, opening an opportunity for catering. Suddenly a bigger investor comes in and opens a reasonably priced restaurant hiring 15 people and you're out a job, as are 30 other caterers for the area. All because the investor could afford a piece of real estate and look for higher skilled workers. Since your skill is in catering (deliveries) not primarily cooking or serving, you're done. Since the unemployment benefits are insufficient, you're also ending up having to sell property potentially ending up on the street. You cannot upskill really in a 40h/w job while also taking care of a family. You would have to be either taking a long paid sabbatical or a major cut in hours at least for the same pay.
- Rury 4y ago
  >the world isn't a zero sum game It technically is, but only so when limiting constraints are reached. Arguably we're still far from reaching limits on most everything (depending on context), but there is in fact limited amount of resources available to us.
  - nybble41 4y ago
    It technically isn't, as economic value is subjective and has no limiting constraints. We can't magically create more resources, but we can use the ones we have ever more efficiently.

chii 4y ago

why do you need to destroy the wealthy to help the poor? the world isn't a zero sum game. Why not enable the poor to produce more wealth, by up-skilling and by making entrepreneurship easier and less risky? A poor person today is trapped in a job they cannot afford to leave for education/up-skilling. A poor person today cannot start a new business because they cannot afford the capital nor the risk. If instead of a higher minimum wage, you could have a program where a poor person could apply for funds to either up-skill via some sort of education program at an institution, or a loan for a new business, they would probably do much better than raising the minimum wage.

bradlys 4y ago
Why does everyone need to be an entrepreneur? Why can’t people be a janitor or working the front desk and have a reasonable standard of living?
- deadbolt 4y ago
  Further, we'll still need janitors. No matter how many new companies these new entrepreneurs create, we still need people to keep the workplace tidy. Sure, we could all take part in cleaning, but I don't think that's what chii has in mind.
  - chii 4y ago
    but in this case, the value of janitorial services will increase, as there will be fewer and fewer people doing it. Thus, at some point, the balance would be reached where someone would choose janitorial work again. The point of the grandparent post was saying that there should be a blanket raise in minimum wages. I'm saying that there shouldn't be, but that more lucrative opportunities are created instead such as up-skilling into higher paying work, or entrepreneurship (which entails taking a risk, so the state assumes a small amount of that risk for the low income earner to do it). This naturally increases the competition, and then the true value of low-paid work will become apparent.
    - AstralStorm 4y ago
      Good idea that does not bear out in practice. Try competing as a one man shop against a Walmart or a franchise... You can sometimes eke out a living thanks to inefficiencies involved in the above, but usually it does not bear out. Usually it is due to covering an inefficiency somewhere else. Such inefficiencies are often transient. Example: in a certain place workers do not have access to food, opening an opportunity for catering. Suddenly a bigger investor comes in and opens a reasonably priced restaurant hiring 15 people and you're out a job, as are 30 other caterers for the area. All because the investor could afford a piece of real estate and look for higher skilled workers. Since your skill is in catering (deliveries) not primarily cooking or serving, you're done. Since the unemployment benefits are insufficient, you're also ending up having to sell property potentially ending up on the street. You cannot upskill really in a 40h/w job while also taking care of a family. You would have to be either taking a long paid sabbatical or a major cut in hours at least for the same pay.
Rury 4y ago
>the world isn't a zero sum game It technically is, but only so when limiting constraints are reached. Arguably we're still far from reaching limits on most everything (depending on context), but there is in fact limited amount of resources available to us.
- nybble41 4y ago
  It technically isn't, as economic value is subjective and has no limiting constraints. We can't magically create more resources, but we can use the ones we have ever more efficiently.