Anji wrote:

NardDogNation wrote:

nixluva wrote:

arkrud wrote:I do not believe that academics, especially liberal once now **** about real life.
I based my opinion on what I see and experience.
Just speak with the people who are leaving on minimal wage and ask them if increase form $7.5 to $10 will help them even a bit and if they are afraid this will get them fired.
You will be surprised how scared they are of this "exiting" possibility.
How about reducing the government apparatus by making it more efficient?
How about reducing the outrageous salaries for school boards officials, various bureaucrats on all levels and simple get read of most of them?
How about pressing the College industry to stop raising the education cost for people who willing to learn?
How about restoring the technical schools system which is completely destroyed?
How about raining down on outrages cost of medical services, supplies, drugs, and procedures?
I cannot see any proposals from reps or dems to solve this issues.
They just concerned about their political battle with each other with no connection with reality.
The good thing this counrty moving along regardless of what government does or does not which is the coolest thing I found about US...

You are too caught up on the $10.10 Minimum wage but really there is a movement to make it $15, which gets back to a living wage concept. The point is that we need to raise salaries period. Corporate profits have never been higher and yet salaries have practically flatlined for decades. Creating a living wage that is indexed against inflation is the right thing to do. This way we get rid of some of the corporate welfare the taxpayer is supporting right now cuz businesses aren't paying their workers, but pocketing huge profits.

You're approach to understanding what the real problems are and how to solve them is very limited and narrow minded. So rather than accept facts based on legitimate evidence you'd rather keep your head buried in the sand and just believe what you want to believe. SMDH Do yourself a favor and actually read the Republican and Democratic platforms and see what the real differences are. They are polar opposites.

All the things you've listed are the very things that Progressives are actively working to try and change if not for being blocked by Conservatives who are only protecting big business. You seem not to understand that there is a contingent of people who are actually doing the things you say you want but you are supporting people who are actively working against those efforts. I'm not just talking about this i'm actually paying attention to what is being done right now to change these problems. You seem to be unaware of the fact that there are people doing work in the areas you list.

What I would suggest is that you do more research on just what the Progressive Movement is actively doing. You are speaking about Progressive ideas but seem not to realize it. You need to learn more about what Democrats/Progressives are trying to do.

Not to deter from the points you're making (which are good ones) but the reality is that the minimum wage would be $22/hr if wages kept up with productivity since the 70s. That may sound far fetch'd considering our current circumstances but take a look at some of the other industrialized nations in the world. Australia's minimum wage, for instance, is $17/hr and contrary to conservative nonsense, the sky isn't falling down. Their unemployment rate is also lower than our own at 5.6%, so there goes the argument of "jobs being lost from a raise of the minimum wage".

More important than that is the fact that if you raise the minimum wage, you effectively increase the average cost of labor, which benefits all employees especially those in the middle class. So unless you're in the 1%, this is a fight that we ALL have an interest in.

What about the cost of living in Australia??? Does that only affect the top 1%???
http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_countries_result.jsp?country1=United+States&country2=Australiahttp://

Also of note:

The Australian Bureau of Statistics Unemployment estimates are obtained by mostly telephone interviews. Households selected for the ABS Survey are interviewed each month for eight months, with one-eighth of the sample being replaced each month. The first interview is conducted face-to-face. Subsequent interviews are then conducted by telephone.

The ABS classifies a person as unemployed if, when surveyed, they have been actively looking for work in the four weeks up to the end of the reference week and if they were available for work in the reference week.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics Unemployment estimates are also seasonally adjusted.

http://www.roymorgan.com/morganpoll/unemployment/unemployment-methodology

and

National minimum wages for apprentices, juniors & trainees

Special national minimum wages have also been set for trainees, apprentices and juniors who are not covered by any other award or agreement. These apply from the first pay period on or after 1 July 2012.
For junior employees, the minimum rates are:
Under 16 years of age $5.87
At 16 years of age $7.55
At 17 years of age $9.22
At 18 years of age $10.90
At 19 years of age $13.17
At 20 years of age $15.59.
For apprentices, the rates are:
Year 1 of apprenticeship $10.22
Year 2 of apprenticeship $12.08
Year 3 of apprenticeship $14.87
Year 4 of apprenticeship $17.65.
What about other groups we might expect would be ruined by high minimum wages - those with disabilities that affect their job performance? They're exempt too. If you've a disability and you're assessed as being 70% as productive as other employees, you get 70% of the minimum wage. And if you work in a sheltered workshop, there's another system that applies other lower minimum wages.

http://offsettingbehaviour.blogspot.com/2013/02/its-complicated-oz-minimum-wage-edition.html

Lol, but the dismissal of science and Gasp! Academia, are wholly the tools of one party...the one I don't tow the line for.

If you want to be some kind of champion for science, I'd recommend you start by using scholarly articles. The numbeo website you cited exclusively operates on "user data", which can easily be fabricated or skewed. More importantly, you'd have to wonder whether the sample pool of participants is actually reflective of the experiences of the representative populations for the respective countries. After all, cost of living is not uniform throughout either country. And even if by some stretch these figures are accurate, it isn't conclusive in determining whether the higher cost of living and salary in Australia is a worse tradeoff than the lower cost of living and lower salary in the U.S.

What we do know is this: the GDP per capita of Australia is about $68,000 and in the United States its only about $55,000. We can't absolutely confirm or standardize for the cost of living for the two countries BUT whatever the results may be, it clearly has not put a damper on the Australian's parade. According to a study conducted by the United Nations in 2013, Australian citizens are the 10th happiest in the world compared to our 17th ranking ( http://unsdsn.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/WorldHappinessReport2013_online.pdf ). Considering the variables involved in the study (e.g. "social support", "freedom to make life choices", and "unemployment"), I highly doubt that the cost of living is as inhibitive as you are trying to suggest.

P.S., how is their determination for unemployment any different than our own?

meloshouldgo wrote:Someone in the Ukraine air traffic control had to have guided this civilian airline to alter course by a long way to fly over restricted air space. That didn't just happen by coincidence. There are reports stating the few units capable of launching SAMs that the separatists possess is not capable of the range required to down a civil airliner since they typically fly at much higher altitudes. But it's really hard to know what to believe.

The Russians shot down Gary Francis Powers in 1956 at 70,000 ft. If they could do that then, their technology should easily be able to take down an airliner at 36,000 ft., today. The Russians anti-aircraft platforms are notorious for being mobile, which allows them to be deployed quickly and in a number of unyielding environments. I'm not suggesting that this isn't a false flag operation because our government and her allies have done some shady **** over the years including to down a commercial airliner in the 50's to have an excuse to take out Castro. But the circumstances of this particular event does not seem all that unusual to me.

As for Numero, they are user based but easily verified as they do not offer opinions they offer prices. Which is why many "scholarly articles" will cite numero. If you doubt the the numbers you can cross check and see if in fact a Mcdonalds Menu is the price they quote it at, nothing subjective about that.

And to the last point, what in any way does GDPPP or the happiness index conclusively decide about minimum wages??? It should to be tough to talk about the scholarliness of a data pool then back up a tange argument with the science of happiness....which is a concept that is about 4 or 5 years old.

Also the tier system of their minimum wage and the fact that real employment figures for a country an 8th of the size as this one being around 9 or 10 percent is also a part of the the trade of. Whether they are proud or happy with it was never an argument I was making. I was Arguing about dumping on talking points that pick "facts" when partially pick "facts" yourself, in their sense of Republicrats versus Demohicans talking points.

NardDogNation wrote:
If you want to be some kind of champion for science, I'd recommend you start by using scholarly articles. The numbeo website you cited exclusively operates on "user data", which can easily be fabricated or skewed. More importantly, you'd have to wonder whether the sample pool of participants is actually reflective of the experiences of the representative populations for the respective countries. After all, cost of living is not uniform throughout either country. And even if by some stretch these figures are accurate, it isn't conclusive in determining whether the higher cost of living and salary in Australia is a worse tradeoff than the lower cost of living and lower salary in the U.S.

What we do know is this: the GDP per capita of Australia is about $68,000 and in the United States its only about $55,000. We can't absolutely confirm or standardize for the cost of living for the two countries BUT whatever the results may be, it clearly has not put a damper on the Australian's parade. According to a study conducted by the United Nations in 2013, Australian citizens are the 10th happiest in the world compared to our 17th ranking ( http://unsdsn.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/WorldHappinessReport2013_online.pdf ). Considering the variables involved in the study (e.g. "social support", "freedom to make life choices", and "unemployment"), I highly doubt that the cost of living is as inhibitive as you are trying to suggest.

P.S., how is their determination for unemployment any different than our own?

Anji wrote:"If you want to be some kind of champion for science"
I guess that's good advice if I was trying to do what you claim. I'm just pointing out that the tactics of propaganda and telling white lies is what party politics and tolling lines is all about. Why else would the downsides of Australia's minimum wage not be a part of your talking points???

As for Numero, they are user based but easily verified as they do not offer opinions they offer prices. Which is why many "scholarly articles" will cite numero. If you doubt the the numbers you can cross check and see if in fact a Mcdonalds Menu is the price they quote it at, nothing subjective about that.

And to the last point, what in any way does GDPPP or the happiness index conclusively decide about minimum wages??? It should to be tough to talk about the scholarliness of a data pool then back up a tange argument with the science of happiness....which is a concept that is about 4 or 5 years old.

Also the tier system of their minimum wage and the fact that real employment figures for a country an 8th of the size as this one being around 9 or 10 percent is also a part of the the trade of. Whether they are proud or happy with it was never an argument I was making. I was Arguing about dumping on talking points that pick "facts" when partially pick "facts" yourself, in their sense of Republicrats versus Demohicans talking points.

NardDogNation wrote:
If you want to be some kind of champion for science, I'd recommend you start by using scholarly articles. The numbeo website you cited exclusively operates on "user data", which can easily be fabricated or skewed. More importantly, you'd have to wonder whether the sample pool of participants is actually reflective of the experiences of the representative populations for the respective countries. After all, cost of living is not uniform throughout either country. And even if by some stretch these figures are accurate, it isn't conclusive in determining whether the higher cost of living and salary in Australia is a worse tradeoff than the lower cost of living and lower salary in the U.S.

What we do know is this: the GDP per capita of Australia is about $68,000 and in the United States its only about $55,000. We can't absolutely confirm or standardize for the cost of living for the two countries BUT whatever the results may be, it clearly has not put a damper on the Australian's parade. According to a study conducted by the United Nations in 2013, Australian citizens are the 10th happiest in the world compared to our 17th ranking ( http://unsdsn.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/WorldHappinessReport2013_online.pdf ). Considering the variables involved in the study (e.g. "social support", "freedom to make life choices", and "unemployment"), I highly doubt that the cost of living is as inhibitive as you are trying to suggest.

P.S., how is their determination for unemployment any different than our own?

Both sides of the political spectrum use rhetoric to get their points across but there is no parity between their arguments. The Republican Party is little more than than a hate group that panders to religious zealots as a means of furthering an American oligarchy. They have no real plan to address contemporary issues other than blaming ethnic, religious and cultural minorities to deflect attention away from that fact. Democrats at least have policy they have crafted backed by rationale.

As for numero, it is rife with errors. None of its sample sizes are remotely reflective of the respective populations in these respective countries. Case and point, it establishes a population ratio of 3.9:1 between New York and Adelaide, Australia when in fact it is 7:1 (8.4 million to 1.2 million). They establish a 3.3:1 population ratio between New York and Atlanta, when it's actually 1.5:1 (8.4 million to 5.5 million); USA to New York at 59:1 (310 million to 8.4 million) they set at 18:1 (8697:40). With egregious disparities like that, there is no way those figures are actually reflective of costs between both the USA and Australia. As a New Yorker, a red flag should've went up for you immediately. Those prices are not reflective of someone living in Manhatten.

As for GDP per capita, I think it is a fair tool for assessing income inequality or a lack thereof. From it and the happiness index (which the U.N. thought credible enough to publish), we can presume that the quality of life in Australia is better than it currently is here for those not in the 1%....which was the argument we were having before you chimed in. They are much more reliable tools to draw those conclusions than some pseudoscience site like numero. I recommend that the next time you find your "partially pick(ed) facts", you use something credible.