Can a person live on the minimum wage?

Warrigal said:
So does infanticide but we aim to do better over time. At least I hope so.
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But Warri, doesn't it make you wonder why we never have 'done better' after all these thousands of generations? Why we keep repeating the same historical cycles era after era? Why we still do have infanticides, and greed and all the other little lunacies like wars and sport? Why all civilizations seemed to eventually lapse into a form of feudalism as the last default resort?

Ever wonder if you are looking at the problem from the wrong angle? Instead of seeing the 'bloke with all the bananas' as the aberration, ever wonder if he is actually the human alpha norm? The bloke that lured us out of the trees and invented work?

Wasn't it him that built society and civilization itself simply due to the fact that it wasn't much use being the strongest and leading and protecting the pack unless he got more out of it than all the rapidly rotting bananas?
Wasn't it was him who thought up the idea, or used the idea of some toady, of making others do things for him to enhance his life by bartering their time and energy for bananas?. Him that 'employed' the lesser banana gatherers to grow or gather some other fruit for him to improve his menu? Paid them bananas to build him a shelter with a view so he could move out of the stinky smokey cave and inspired others to see if they couldn't wrangle themselves better digs by also indulging in the banana commerce?

Him that invented politics and henchmen to impose some rule of order on his growing society to protect his own interests by protecting his 'workforce'/tribe from other alphas? It may sound as though the alpha/warlord/magnate is doing it all because he's just a bad bastard but without those bastards we'd still be gathering bananas and sharing them nicely among the few of us who hadn't been eaten by predators yet.

We are still primates. All higher primates have a 'feudal' system going for their mutual 'tribal' survival. Alphas are the norm. Even those gentle vegan Gorillas have a Silverback who imposes order on the group and offers protection. It is the natural order of things.

Ever wonder if the purely philosophical notion of everyone playing nicely is the aberration? The idea is purely in the imagination, it bears little connection to the realities of how nature and mental evolution has formed us.

Ever wonder why we really have wars? From the little pondering I've done it seems to me that most of them are coming from 'ideas' of imposing the will of one tribe on another. Whether it's religious will, or avarice for better lands, or for a source of more 'workers' it always come down to a couple of alphas with opposing ideas. They always, always, have masses of willing followers to fight the battle for them. Why do they follow?
Because it's the way we're built. We follow whoever we see as the alpha best suited to our own personal needs.
Why did the Scorpion sting the Frog? It's the nature of the beast.

Don't kid yourself that we've progressed all that far from the trees. We might have progressed from bananas to Ferraris but we'll still get road rage over the same incomprehensibly trivial kind of slight to their ego that Chimps fight over. We still have among us relatively highly educated people who smother babies, and bash heads in with a rock in a fit of rage, just like Chimps do. We still have all the levels of psyches and psychos that Chimps do in our groups, tribes, and Nations.

I think we should be organizing our civilization around our natures instead of constantly trying to impose those virtuous and higher minded ideals of the few upon the majority who are still operating as nature moulded them. We are always having rebellions against those who are better at gathering bananas than us, why is that? What's so special about bananas that keeps us repeating the cycle? It's something very deep inside that all the bright ideas of enlightened philosophy have never succeeded in beating. Maybe, especially now that there are so many of us, we need less enlightenment which seems to be just confusing us with notions of our all being equally useful to society. The more rights we get the more deluded we become that than we deserve them and can handle them responsibly.

Some, perhaps even most, can, but there will always be evil bastards, psychos, baby smotherers, 'feral' football players and all the other losers among us. So what are you going to do about them? Cull them? Who will decide on that? Oh. Some alpha with a fair bit of power would need to be around to do that wouldn't they? Tch. Can't have that, screams of fascism would ensue, so guess we'll just have to forgive and offer understanding to psychos and misfits who make civilization less than blissful won't we? It's harder than you think to buck nature. Leopards=spots etc. Despite all the wishful thinking and philosophies we are not, nor will ever be, ALL alphas! Most need someone to lead and protect them. It was ever thus.

I'm not proposing that we go deliberately 'feudal', just pointing out why I think we always seem to do so. Eventually.

Whoever said the best form of government is a benevolent dictator was dead right. What we should perhaps be doing is making it worthwhile for the odd alpha who would qualify to take on the job. Instead of respecting their talents, we drag down and vilify those who have the knack of accumulating bananas and exercising an aura of power. That doesn't make them share more bananas with us, that just makes them gather more henchmen around them to impose harder and far less benevolent rule on us to hold on to their bananas. ... and so it goes, round 'n round 'n round. Why would a good strong alpha type prefer to be in what we accept these days as politics when he can have a better life outside of it without the burden of protecting us?

We keep electing politicians who pretend to be 'enlightened' instead of those who have a sense of the realities of what is needed to run a smoother civilization. As long as we remain so scared of 'authority' that we elect only weak people then we will have weak government and fragmented society.

Personally I won't be around long enough to care much, but it's interesting to watch people making the same mistakes over and over and then howling about it being someone else's fault. Just sayin'.
 
No, Di, I don't wonder about all of that at all.

What I wonder about is why you always reduce human societies to such simple terms. Where in your world view do poets, explorers, scientists and philosophers fit in? Why shouldn't humans strive after justice and compassion for their neighbours rather than just for themselves? Where do we women fit in in this world of uber mensch?
 
See that's what I mean about being focused on and fiddling with the trimmings when the basic structure is operating on a different level.

The machinery of civilization will chug away whether it's polished shiny or the paint's peeling off it. Just repainting it in fancy terms won't stop it rusting or change it's overall basic design. Wishing a water pump would improve itself to start producing wine won't make it do so. And slapping a fancier label on it won't do a thing except disappoint the label slapper.

Poets, 'the yarts', philosophers, scientists all eat. Who feeds them the bananas?

They didn't call the 'dark ages' that for nuthin' you know. That was when nobody in particular had enough bananas to support the luxury of patronage for poets, yartists philosophers and scientists. They only thrive in good times.
 
Oh, just noticed that 'where do women fit..' They fit wherever they can elbow enough room for themselves. We've been around a long time, "we will survive".
We don't have to rule things to run things if you take my meaning.
Do you have an inferiority complex or sumthin'?
 
Diwundrin said:
Oh, just noticed that 'where do women fit..' They fit wherever they can elbow enough room for themselves. We've been around a long time, "we will survive".
We don't have to rule things to run things if you take my meaning.
Do you have an inferiority complex or sumthin'?
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Au contraire. I refuse to bend the knee or the neck to any man with delusions of grandeur.
I will co-operate with others for the common good any time though.

Our conversations remind me of an article I read recently where it was posited that political differences stem from differing moral views for which a person's idea of the ideal parenting style serves as a metaphor.

Here's a sample of the logic

In his book: Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think, (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2002), George Lakoff, linguist and cognitive scientist, tells us how very different are conservatives from progressives, and how the major differences in their mindset affects their approach to politics. Because he studied US politics, he uses the term ‘liberal’ to describe ‘progressives’ (in the US, Democrats; in this country Labor and perhaps the Greens), and ‘conservative’ to describe conservatives (in the US, Republicans or their extreme variant, The Tea Party; in this country the Liberal National Party, the Coalition). Most of the quotes in this piece are from this book. I quote him extensively; my words could not do a better job than his.

His underlying thesis rests on a central metaphor: ‘Nation as Family’. He elaborates on this as follows:
The Nation is a Family.
The Government is a Parent.
The Citizens are the Children.​

We know that the metaphor is not wholly applicable, but many people find it a comfortable one with which they can identify readily. They can accept that family dynamics and economics might be seen as applicable to the nation’s dynamics and economics, even though there are many fundamental differences. Our politicians often use this metaphor, making reference to the family budget to argue that the nation, like a family, must ‘live within its means’.

Building on the Nation as Family metaphor, Lakoff identifies two types of family based upon two distinct styles of parenting, which he assigns to conservatives and progressives respectively. When applied to the Nation as Family metaphor, they result in vastly different behaviours.

The two parenting styles are:
The Strict Father model, and
The Nurturant Parent model.​

At the center of the conservative worldview is a Strict Father model; the liberal (progressive) worldview centres on a very different ideal for family life, the Nurturant Parent model, which encompasses both parents.

Lakoff asserts that the Strict Father model is a metaphorical version of an economic idea. He explains:

It is based on a folk version of Adam Smith’s economics: If each person seeks to maximize his own wealth, then, by an invisible hand, the wealth of all will be maximized. Applying the common metaphor that Well-Being Is Wealth to this folk version of free-market economics, we get: If each person tries to maximize his own well-being (or self-interest), the well-being of all will be maximized. Thus, seeking one’s own self-interest is actually a positive, moral act, one that contributes to the well-being of all.

Lakoff goes on to cite some words and phrases used over and over in conservative discourse, words that reflect the Strict Father model:

Character, virtue, discipline, tough it out, get tough, tough love, strong, self-reliance, individual responsibility, backbone, standards, authority, heritage, competition, earn, hard work, enterprise, property rights, reward, freedom, intrusion, interference, meddling, punishment, human nature, traditional, common sense, dependency, self-indulgent, elite, quotas, breakdown, corrupt, decay, rot, degenerate, deviant, lifestyle.

How many times have you heard Coalition members use these words, particularly those who have responsibility for the economy: Tony Abbott, Joe Hockey and Mathias Cormann? Countless times!

Lakoff continues:

Liberals [progressives], in their speeches and writings, choose different topics, different words, and different modes of inference than conservatives. Liberals talk about: social forces, social responsibility, free expression, human rights, equal rights, concern, care, help, health, safety, nutrition, basic human dignity, oppression, diversity, deprivation, alienation, big corporations, corporate welfare, ecology, ecosystem, biodiversity, pollution, and so on. Conservatives tend not to dwell on these topics, or to use these words as part of their normal political discourse.

How often have you heard Labor members and Greens using these words? Over and again!

Lakoff summarises:

The conservative/liberal [progressive] division is ultimately a division between strictness and nurturance as ideals at all levels—from the family to morality to religion and, ultimately, to politics. It is a division at the center of our democracy and our public lives, and yet there is no overt discussion of it in public discourse
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There is a lot more to this argument which you can read here: http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/post/2013/12/08/The-myth-of-political-sameness.aspx .

I find myself firmly in the nurturant parent camp and not just for my own family but for the nation as a whole and I relate strongly to the above liberal/progressive issues. I'm assuming, from our conversations, that the conservative issues listed above are very close to your personal issues. Whether they stem from the strict father model as your ideal metaphor is a moot point.

However, I am convinced that we, you and I, will never see eye to eye on economic models because our personal positions are rooted in very different places - not in the head but deeper down in the heart. Not in the intellect but in our moral centres. That is not to say that one position is superior to the other but that they are very different and that much else stems from the difference.
 
Well to start with Warri, and as you'd only expect, I cry bullsh*t on that drivelling lefty article.

Firstly, if the biased terminology to describe the different types didn't tip you off then I'm not surprised that you fall for all that humanitarian crap.


Leftists are 'Progressives'??? Really? ... just where did they progress us too? Every time they've been in power we got deeper into debt and the only thing they grew were the welfare queues. All they ever produced in the last few decades were grandiose ideas that never bore fruit.
Is gutting the Nation's coffers to endow society's losers with imagined self esteem seen as 'progressive'? Not by me, sorry.

Up until the 70s the Labor Party stood as a bastion for the working classes. They did get things done and built. They were progressive. I voted for them then.

But they were white-anted by the Union thugs and extortionists who were essentially running the country through their political wing. Any of the old style Labor politicians with a shred of principles, honesty, dignity and a true dedication to their original tenets of worker representation drifted away.

All the Labor Party is today is a bunch of self serving carpetbagger ex Unionists who espouse splinter groups and welfare addicts as their voting bloc because their policies haven't left enough downtrodden workers to make up their numbers. The unskilled workers jobs are leaving OZ with their ex employers due to decades of demonizing business owners to win votes from the 'gimme mine' voters.

The Left of politics no longer represents the workers, they represent the bludgers and losers. The workers don't fare nearly so well when it comes to handouts as do the trendy splinter causes and doloes. How is that ethical in your eyes?? Do you consider that workers are less entitled to representation than losers? Because that's how I see the 'Progressive' Left of politics now.

He, and you, have to be kidding at simplifying it to Mum and Dad issues.
Can you honestly tell me that this PC 'nurturist' parenting and politically PC fad has produced better balanced, ethically superior, less downright narcissistic citizens who are better behaved in public and business life than our generation was?? Have you seen an optometrist lately?

No, I didn't have a strict father, I had a profligate one who died owing even me money because he never did quite comprehend the meaning of budget. No he wasn't 'socially aware', he didn't give a stuff about anyone but himself except for the minimum compulsory amount of tosses he had to give to his family to keep Mum from clearing out and leaving him with no housekeeper.

He was a rabid lefty Labor supporter and Unionist to his bone marrow. But only verbally, he didn't 'do' picket lines, just voting Labor like a robot was considered enough contribution to the cause for him.
Mum was strict about keeping order, but never political, nor did she care much about anything at all beyond her own little world.

So no 'strict' parenting or the drumming in of Conservative values brought me to the reasoned decision, midway through life, that a certain amount of conservatism just plain makes more sense than airy fairy philosophies of Utopia gained, according to Labor pollies, through a carin' sharin' attitude which was becoming ever less apparent in Unionists in particular and the population in general. Union leaders, and Labor politicians were by then a dog eat dog lot and more power hungry than any mangy manager I'd ever encountered.

If that was to be the face of enlightened Labor thinking I no longer felt it was for me. It was no longer representing my interests as a worker at all. I became a lite rite conservative despite my upbringing, not because of it!

If anything it's been more evident to me that Labor voters are more likely to vote according to family tradition and influence than Conservative ones.

So the author of that article carries about as much weight with his opinion as my ramblings do... zero!
It's just his opinion. You only like it because it mirrors yours, not that it teaches anything useful.
We're all prone to do that so no hard feelings.

I know that the Libs/Conservatives are a money and power grasping mob too, I'm not stupid, totally, I just prefer that they are at least up front about it. They don't pretend to be representing the people they are ripping off.
I'd prefer to be robbed by a bandit wearing a balaclava than by a lying con man. Maybe that's just a strange quirk but I resent being played for a gullible fool a lot more than being just plain robbed.
I'd also prefer someone from a party formed from people who know how to make a buck to looking after my tax contributions. You don't hire a banner carrying protestor to manage your finances, you hire an accountant.

I also believe that people are worth no more than they produce or contribute. And no, I don't believe that we are all equally entitled to diddly squat.
The most we need have the right to expect from Government is the fair allocation of revenue stemming from fairly imposed taxes and that we not to be allowed to starve through no fault of our own, and even Conservative Governments do that much for their population.

Equal opportunity is laudable... equal expectations are not.

If Labor was so dedicated to the workers then why did they tax them harder than they did the magnates with whom their Unionist puppeteers had done deals to hire their workers exclusively so they'd reap more dues from them?

Thanks to the growing ratio on welfare the workers are no longer the poor, they are the middle class, or PCly 'middle income earners' now. They are the ones taxed highest to carry the rest.
Who is the 'socially aware' left and it's 'progressive' Labor Party representing again?? They, and I appear to have forgotten. Fortunately the workers they betrayed didn't forget and tossed them out on their backsides.

If you come back with those recent poll figures showing Labor would win just 13 weeks after they were turfed then perhaps it merely proves that more people are more clueless than even I suspected. Every single issue they now object to was the fallout of the Government they threw out, not of the one they voted in.

aaaaghhhhh!
 
Moss said:
Wouldn't it be great to see the divide between those that have; and those that have very little, norrowed quite a bit? Surfdom was banished centuries ago; why are we still trying to create a Peasant Culture for future societies? The poor will revolt sooner or later.
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Bring on the revolution.:)
 
I've just found a link that compares the price of a Big Mac to the minimum wage of that particular country. From this the time a worker on min wage must toil to buy a Big Mac provides a comparison of the countries.

Surprise - The Lucky Country (that's OZ) comes out on top. We only have to work for 18 minutes to afford a BM but in the home of Maccas you Americans must toil for 25 minutes for your burger. In India it take about 6 hours work to earn a BM.

Read it and weep : http://www.businessinsider.com.au/unveiling-the-big-mac-minimum-wage-index-2013-8
 
Warrigal said:
I've just found a link that compares the price of a Big Mac to the minimum wage of that particular country. From this the time a worker on min wage must toil to buy a Big Mac provides a comparison of the countries.

Surprise - The Lucky Country (that's OZ) comes out on top. We only have to work for 18 minutes to afford a BM but in the home of Maccas you Americans must toil for 25 minutes for your burger. In India it take about 6 hours work to earn a BM.

Read it and weep : http://www.businessinsider.com.au/unveiling-the-big-mac-minimum-wage-index-2013-8
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Amazing....and I've never had one. but it was a very interesting comparison. I don't eat chain junk food, other than an occasional Wendy's when I'm on the road and little else offered. But I am a junk food queen with authentic Italian Subs (from almost anywhere other than Subway which is mostly bread and little inside,) Mom & Pop's hand formed burgers, fries, chopped pork BBQ/southern style, fried chicken wings, tuna salad sandwiches, BLT's....the list is almost endless..just not McDonalds. :)
 
Limited trading potential in those Phil, they'd need to be kept as frozen assets. boomtish.

Good news for solving that education issue that is making employee worth so complex. Everyone will get a diploma for something and the Government will then cover the costs of retraining them for more suitable jobs as circumstances change.

The retraining course will consist or one hour of intense focus on delivering the line "do you want fries with that?"

It's so simple I can't believe no one ever thought of it earlier.
 
Diwundrin said:
Limited trading potential in those Phil, they'd need to be kept as frozen assets. boomtish.
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Ohhhh. :cower:

Good news for solving that education issue that is making employee worth so complex. Everyone will get a diploma for something and the Government will then cover the costs of retraining them for more suitable jobs as circumstances change.

The retraining course will consist or one hour of intense focus on delivering the line "do you want fries with that?"

It's so simple I can't believe no one ever thought of it earlier.
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Hey, don't be so dismissive of Starchy Tuberous Extrusion Technicians - theirs is a noble calling! It takes MANY years to develop the skills and analytical abilities needed to lift the little basket when the bell goes "ding" ...
 

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