I don’t follow, and I’m not sure I care to follow. A church is a business. A non-profit, perhaps, but a business nonetheless.
That’s not a fair (pun intended) characterization of what I wrote. You are suggesting that the wealthy don’t benefit more than the poor, which is certainly not true. Our system allows some people to become wealthy or extremely wealthy, and whether it is fair depends on one’s definition of “fair.” One could argue, though I’d rather not since we’re way off topic, that a more fair society would not allow such a huge wealth disparity between the richest and the poorest. One way to achieve that is to make the haves give up more of what they have. In other words, just because one wealthy individual is subsidizing 1,000 poor individuals doesn’t automatically make it “fair”. Perhaps he should be subsidizing only 10, or perhaps 100,000.
And in such a more fair society, all persons contribute equally. That wealth disparity is due to drastically differing skills and abilities that effects each individual’s contribution to the whole.
One way to achieve that is to make the haves give up more of what they have.
That’s also a good way to achieve those “haves” deciding it isnt worth sharing their knowledge and skills with the rest. Then everyone suffers even more.
In other words, just because one wealthy individual is subsidizing 1,000 poor individuals doesn’t automatically make it “fair”.
Of course not. It makes it inherently “unfair”. If you base the concept of “fair” on equality, then you need to consider all aspects of equality; wealth disparity is a result, not a symptom.
You are describing meritocracy. I prefer a better balance between meritocracy and egalitarianism. Just because someone’s skills and abilities are 1 in 100, shouldn’t mean that their contribution is worth 100x more than anyone else’s. It can still be worth more than the other 99, sufficiently more to have the “haves” decide that it is worth sharing their knowledge and skills with the rest, but not enough to make the rest suffer. I.e., Amazon, McDonalds and Walmart shareholders should not benefit from the suffering of minimum wage employees who still depend on the government (i.e. the rest of society) for food stamps or medicare.
On just this narrow point, I would comment that I think a low wage job, even if subsidized by partial government benefits, is far more constructive for both the self worth of the employed person and the society in general than many other options. Contrast perhaps to the more progressive approach of raising the minimum wage so they’re unemployed and letting them camp in tents until some of the decriminalized fentanyl does them in.
If emissions control are a responsible choice to force your population to make, why not birth control? Doing per capital comparisons takes population size for granted, when clearly that’s also a choice (and one that can be incentivized up or forcibly or disincentivized down).
Why do the Indians / Africans / etc keep having so many kids when they know we don’t have the carbon budget for them?
This is a BS argument. If I correctly recall the stories around the previous minimum wage increases, statistics showed that raising minimum wage does not lead to higher unemployment, in fact in some cases it has led to more jobs and lower unemployment.
While I agree that it’s more constructive to have a job than not to have a job, it’s even more constructive to have a job that allows the employee to meet all their basic needs without having to rely on additional government assistance.
China had made this choice before, though for different reasons. Though I believe better education automatically leads to lower birth rates, no population control enforcement required.
Oy! or for the non-chosen, Holee Cow! I’m almost at a loss as to where to begin. Do you thing that poor black men who can make thirty-three foot jump shots should be paid less than market demand in order to help pay for white men who won’t work because they’re “crippled” by drug addiction?
If that was too flummoxing, how’s this …
How many people are willing to put in the effort that Michael Jordan, Earvin Johnson, Larry Bird, Hakeem Olajuwon, Dennis Rodman, etc. dedicated to their profession? These guy were not “born” to be who they ended up being. They dedicated hours, days, months, and years to their goal. They earned their rewards. Do you think a pot smoking bum who craps on the sidewalk, yells the F-word at your wife and daughters as they walk by, should receive a hundred grand because MJ is getting 10 mil? Dude, WTH?
No it is not. What is a BS argument is claiming that a minimum wage job is forever. If that were true, your ilk would be showing daily videos of the poor immigrant (illegal or legal), female, or, best of all … a life who is
black
female
illegal
muslim
crippled
hard-working
immigrant mother
who gave up everything and has been working for Walmart, or better yet, Chick-fil-A for minimum wage for 2 years and has been killed or stabbed or shot or discriminated against in some other way.
ETA: instead of immigrant mother, it would be better to be an immigrant transgender or transgenderist/ista.
You jumped so far off the rail to land on your conclusion that I’m not even sure how to help you. My argument would be that before MJ could even be allowed to make 10 mil (your example), the janitors and fast food workers at all the stadiums where he plays should make enough in wages to cover all their basic needs so they wouldn’t have to rely on food stamps, for example.
And while I don’t know how it works with the NBA specifically, for other examples like Walmart and Amazon, the current system allows the team owner to pay more to his stars and himself, and pay less than it should cost to the stadium owner, who then pays less than he should to the army of ants who actually make everything happen.
Allowed? My argument would be is that MJ wasn’t “allowed”. He earned that money, irrelevant to any janitors, fast food workers, sanitation workers, road pavers, ditch diggers, cotton pickers, sugar cane hackers, etc
Uh … or … are you saying that Michael Jordan, or any other black person, should not be allowed to earn big bucks until everyone related to basketball venues, as defined by social justice-istas, earns the mythical “living wage”.
And why aren’t that “army of ants” (your term) making everything happen for themselves, or someone else?
ETA: Are you going to allow those janitors, fast food workers, sanitation workers, road pavers, ditch diggers, cotton pickers, sugar cane hackers that are no longer allowed to work at basketball venues to work for Yellow freight lines? Oops. Nevermind. A Michael Jordan led group may be buying them out of bankruptcy. I presume that an apparently wealthy black owner precludes them from employment. Apparently, an opportunity is a good thing to waste. :-[
I’ve seen it first hand, having a single mother employee who dictated to me how many hours she could work over a given period of time, so that she wouldn’t lose subsidies and benefits. It was about half what I would’ve chose to have her working, and she was willing to work more but “couldnt”. And yes, I dont recall the exact rate, but she was being paid dollars/hr more than minimum wage.
I didn’t mean MJ himself allowed or not allowed, I meant the team owners or whoever is in charge of figuring out how much they can afford to pay the players. The budget should ensure that the ants are paid fairly (meaning enough to meet basic needs without relying on govt assistance) before the higher ups are paid from what is left.
This is because of the gaps (there’s a more correct name for this, but I can’t recall it at the moment) that exist in govt assistance programs. I think you are well aware of these and we discussed them in other threads. For example, a year or two ago due to some COVID program a couple making < $1700/mo could qualify for something like $600/mo worth of SNAP (food stamps) assistance. If they earn an extra $1/mo or more, they lose the whole $600. A person would have to make A LOT more to overcome this. We’d have to remove these gaps and make all earnings and benefits gradual and with phaseouts, similar to how we deal with most income tax brackets, credits, and deductions.
So yes, at the low end with existing govt assistance it exists. Not so much at the high end. Someone earning $200K isn’t gonna say no to earning $300K even though they may have to give up like 45% of that next $100K. But they might say no if they had to give up 90%.
So, the team owners should pay their janitors, bathroom attendants, catering servers, peanut vendors, beer vendors, souvenir sales people, parking lot attendants, face painters, parking lot line painters, security personnel, groundskeepers, painters, etc. FIRST and then figure out how much they can pay Micheal Jordan?
In that case, please ponder what would happen when the team owners pay the above people and can only offer Mr. Jordan $9 mil (continuing the same imaginary numbers). When the star decides that he would prefer a higher offer, how can the team owners continue to pay the, what you refer to as “ants” a “fair” wage?
I find the term ants to be, at best derogatory, and at worst to be a terribly racist term. I am surprised at your use of it. Also, I don’t think real ants would relish it either. However, I appreciate that you almost defined “fairly”. At least that is a step in the right direction, and expect that you will firm up your definition within a decade.
Apparently, an opportunity is a good thing to waste. :-[
