Is the cost of living that low in St croix? I do beach time in the philippines and the money goes pretty far there. Also i dont mind simple accomodatiuons ,its the scenery and the nature im there for.
Job creation from a 1%er
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housing less, property taxes a flat 377 per 100,000, no other taxes. general merchandise similar, no heating, minimal cooling. still part of US, no voting.
I can still do some rehab as I feel like it to keep busy or maybe do maintenance on some of the million dollar homes.
Hows the crime, in some of these places the law is few and far between. Isolated places can be risky.
this is the view form the property I am considering 1/2 acre beachfront
Looks pretty damn perfect to me. Congrats IP, I'll probably have to work well past 54 to make it myself......
this is the view form the property I am considering 1/2 acre beachfront
Under water in 10 years.
seems low have to look into that further, renting seems way high there. I am a builder by trade and if I build it the value for it finished far exceeds buying a finished home. also looking at a couple that are partially finished where the owner ran out of money.
that sounds like socialism to me. If we all make the same wages,,,,I am going to quit and join the unproductive people. Every other worker will too. Why bust my butt to give it to other people while they sit on their butts?
When the workers get tired of supporting the non-workers,,, and join them,,it is all over. It won't be long now!
Store up some food and get some wood cut before you can't buy any gas!
Socialism, yes, but not more socialism, and probably a lot less costly. It's just an alternate template for distribution.
Some measure of socialism is inescapable, for reasons of stability (keeping the unwashed masses from storming the estates of the wealthy, and let's not forget "to big to fail") and also to combat disease, limit crime, raise taxes, promote moral standards, create and maintain infrastructure and architectural standards, maintain an adequate and functional military etc., and in short draw all citizens together to achieve all the collective advantages a civilized culture is capable of.
Without a living wage, we are dead meat.
Who gets to define a living wage? And does this include cable and your own bedroom?
Does a living wage dictate lifestyle? Or maybe the lowest "acceptable" lifestyle?
I am not arguing, I am trying to provoke thought. If I yell out $40,000 - there will be a group that salivates and there will be a group that cringes.
I am still waiting for someone to entertain my first question. If $15 per hour min. wage is good - then $30 must be better?
Warm_in_NH
Minister of Fire
I've run that same thought pattern through my head, thinking along the same lines. However, new proposed federal minimum wage is $10 and change an hour. So if a person works at a job for a full 40 hours a week and a full 52 weeks a year, they're still only going to make about $21,000 a year. They're still going to get aid on a state and federal level, and if they have kids, they'll get even more, but now we just upped the wages too, so we end up paying more on both ends. I'm not a tax guru, maybe it all balances out, but I do know a few dead beats that play the system and it amazes me as much as it infuriates me to see what they get away with while I'm at work busting my hump to support their butts.
Collective bargaining by employers and employees with input from consumers and manufacturing seemed to work pretty well for a while but taking workers out of the loop has proven to be a big mistake. Short answer. Gotta go.
Or ambition to strive to improve. If we make it too comfortable to stay poor we will get a lot more of it. Its hard to push a $10 minimum wage on people when the govt is paying $20+ an hour in benefits in most states to do nothiing. I believe in PA its $24
Can we please stop with the 'poor people are just lazy' stereotype? There are lazy people everywhere. I just recently did an interview with the local food bank for a food security project that I'm working on - 90% of the people using my town's food bank are the working poor. 200 families, just in MY TOWN (of about 30 000), that survive on 2 lb. of pasta, 1 lb. of ground beef, 4L of frozen milk, and a load of chocolate bars and chips per week for a family of four because they get what they're given and that's what's being donated. Apparently they get really excited on the weeks that they get bagged salad in because it's a treat. Seriously they are excited for SALAD. They can't all be just lazy - who would voluntarily live like that?
There is a lot of research about poverty and why it leads to bad decision making, here is just one article: http://www.theatlantic.com/business...oor-people-seem-to-make-bad-decisions/281780/
And I live in Socialist Canadia-land. I can't imagine what it's like in the States.
There is a lot of research about poverty and why it leads to bad decision making, here is just one article: http://www.theatlantic.com/business...oor-people-seem-to-make-bad-decisions/281780/
And I live in Socialist Canadia-land. I can't imagine what it's like in the States.
Nah, if one pint of Ben and Jerrys is good, two pints can get you sick and fat.......
That's not really a logic argument, IMHO. I don't think min. wage needs to be "a living wage", but it does need to be enough so that life is not indentured servitude or quasi-slavery.
Keep in mind that today - even at min. wage - many employees exercise a awfully strict set of rules which the employee must follow.
My general theory - which holds true in many ways, is that the less you make, the harder you work. If you make vast sums, you are in a nice eatery with a "lunch meeting", or on the golf course for a business meeting. If you make nothing, someone (or cameras) are watching your every second and measuring your output of burgers....
My niece moved to panama and now runs her own (and also others) web sites trying to get folks to move there.
Panama is the opposite of socialist. In fact, the natives are largely poor and suppressed and people from all over the world ($$$) have taken over for centuries...due to the location. Not much crime. Cheap. Beaches. Close by.....her blog (geared toward younger would-be ex-pats)....
http://www.permanentlypanama.com/
(don't blame me for her partying ways! She was raised in Florida!).
Panama is the opposite of socialist. In fact, the natives are largely poor and suppressed and people from all over the world ($$$) have taken over for centuries...due to the location. Not much crime. Cheap. Beaches. Close by.....her blog (geared toward younger would-be ex-pats)....
http://www.permanentlypanama.com/
(don't blame me for her partying ways! She was raised in Florida!).
Wait - I thought I read earlier in this thread that the 5% (hey, I'm not 1%, so I gotta try for 5), get to make their own rules???
Everything that would happen at $30 will happen at $15, just to a lesser degree. It may be more palatable because it isn't so dramatic but it will have the same effect.
Why not figure our poverty line, then figure our min wage to be above that and pin both to inflation. That way we don't have to rehash min wage every couple of years. We loose a whole sector of welfare - the working poor. That allows us to use and monitor the welfare system much better (far less users). And a whole host of other positive things that come with it. (Like reduce the funding to welfare)
It will be painful at first but it will only take a couple of years to adjust to.
Why not figure our poverty line, then figure our min wage to be above that and pin both to inflation. That way we don't have to rehash min wage every couple of years. We loose a whole sector of welfare - the working poor. That allows us to use and monitor the welfare system much better (far less users). And a whole host of other positive things that come with it. (Like reduce the funding to welfare)
It will be painful at first but it will only take a couple of years to adjust to.
I agree it should be indexed to something - but it's not and we can watch while the next battle goes on. Although a majority of Americans think it should be raised, they are not the "right" Americans, meaning they are not the big corps, think tanks, etc.....just folks like maybe you and I.
Most of us are not going to vote...or not vote - based on a promise to raise some other poor suckers wages...
http://www.gallup.com/poll/160913/back-raising-minimum-wage.aspx
"Most Democrats and independents, and half of Republicans, favor increase to $9"
Most of us are not going to vote...or not vote - based on a promise to raise some other poor suckers wages...
http://www.gallup.com/poll/160913/back-raising-minimum-wage.aspx
"Most Democrats and independents, and half of Republicans, favor increase to $9"
ok, held out as long as I could.
here's the way I see it;
1. a "living wage" is simply that , making enough money to subsist on in today's economy. now if it can be done on 15 bucks an hour (and it can I know plenty of folks who are able to do it with less and not take subsidies) ive managed to do so in the past at considerably less. ive worked at 6 bucks an hour and managed to get it done (though it was 20 years ago) of course I wasn't driving a new car or carrying a smartphone or playing golf every weekend at the club, but I managed to get us by until I started making more money.
now, part of the problem we see today is the change in worker demographics. we are no longer as heavy with manufacturing jobs as we were a generation ago (mostly due to offshoring a crapload of industries we used to do predominantly here , textiles for instance) component factories such as the ones which make blowers and such for our stoves, now they are in mexico or china along with electronics , appliances and the list goes on. now, whats left? service related jobs, retail, food industry, and such (not saying there are NO professional or factory type jobs , just that they are scarcer and the population is higher) these jobs are generally "lower skillset" jobs mostly in years past filled by retirees who want a part time job to have some additional income or the younger subset (high school kids and such) they weren't ever intended to be a career occupation. nowadays these jobs are increasingly held by folks who are trying to use them as such due to the lesser percentage of higher paying manufacturing jobs out there for a larger workforce. so the question becomes this "should the companies which set their business models years ago around having less expensive labor using the subsets I mentioned before have to change their model to supply a "living wage" simply because the living wage job market has dried up?" just asking the question.
2. do we as a nation really "need" cable tv with "the hoppa" dvr, cellphones, hundred dollar sneakers, k cup coffee makers (I have one and love it) great big houses, more than one car, tv in every room, x boxes and all the other crap we seem to not be able to live without?
here's the deal, both sides of this argument have merit, on one hand the argument of raising the minimum wage makes a bit of sense as the cost of living has risen, heck look at what it costs just to get to work thanks to high gas prices (not everyone can take da bus) food costs have risen quite a bit also. problem is when the minimum wage rises the cost of living shortly after rises as well , so its a short term gain followed by the same situation in a couple years. its a sugar pill though probably a necessary one. what is truly needed though is a return to domestic manufacturing. I would applaud in a way POTUS's "technology centers" idea, but I do not think this is going to help that much as the training will be done here and the trained will then go elsewhere to use the training as that's where the higher end jobs will be for the most part. work on the supply side in a way that favors domestic manufacturing use taxes and tariffs in a way that promotes domestic production. the biggest problem we have with produced goods imported from abroad is we cannot match the price point with domestic products as our wages (though apparently not high enough) are much higher than they are in the countries which are underselling our stuff. not to mention the added costs of increased regulation which will never ever make it cheaper to make anything at all.
if we want to increase the standard of living we have to bring back the durable goods industries in a way that they can compete in price point with foreign made products. obviously we cant do this by paying wages such as they are in these places (as they are way lower), so its up to the government to level the playing field in other ways, through tariffs and reduced regulation within reason to ease the costs of manufacturing so we can compete.
ohh and BTW, I also think that the richest should pay higher taxes so don't label me a neocon just yet.
here's the way I see it;
1. a "living wage" is simply that , making enough money to subsist on in today's economy. now if it can be done on 15 bucks an hour (and it can I know plenty of folks who are able to do it with less and not take subsidies) ive managed to do so in the past at considerably less. ive worked at 6 bucks an hour and managed to get it done (though it was 20 years ago) of course I wasn't driving a new car or carrying a smartphone or playing golf every weekend at the club, but I managed to get us by until I started making more money.
now, part of the problem we see today is the change in worker demographics. we are no longer as heavy with manufacturing jobs as we were a generation ago (mostly due to offshoring a crapload of industries we used to do predominantly here , textiles for instance) component factories such as the ones which make blowers and such for our stoves, now they are in mexico or china along with electronics , appliances and the list goes on. now, whats left? service related jobs, retail, food industry, and such (not saying there are NO professional or factory type jobs , just that they are scarcer and the population is higher) these jobs are generally "lower skillset" jobs mostly in years past filled by retirees who want a part time job to have some additional income or the younger subset (high school kids and such) they weren't ever intended to be a career occupation. nowadays these jobs are increasingly held by folks who are trying to use them as such due to the lesser percentage of higher paying manufacturing jobs out there for a larger workforce. so the question becomes this "should the companies which set their business models years ago around having less expensive labor using the subsets I mentioned before have to change their model to supply a "living wage" simply because the living wage job market has dried up?" just asking the question.
2. do we as a nation really "need" cable tv with "the hoppa" dvr, cellphones, hundred dollar sneakers, k cup coffee makers (I have one and love it) great big houses, more than one car, tv in every room, x boxes and all the other crap we seem to not be able to live without?
here's the deal, both sides of this argument have merit, on one hand the argument of raising the minimum wage makes a bit of sense as the cost of living has risen, heck look at what it costs just to get to work thanks to high gas prices (not everyone can take da bus) food costs have risen quite a bit also. problem is when the minimum wage rises the cost of living shortly after rises as well , so its a short term gain followed by the same situation in a couple years. its a sugar pill though probably a necessary one. what is truly needed though is a return to domestic manufacturing. I would applaud in a way POTUS's "technology centers" idea, but I do not think this is going to help that much as the training will be done here and the trained will then go elsewhere to use the training as that's where the higher end jobs will be for the most part. work on the supply side in a way that favors domestic manufacturing use taxes and tariffs in a way that promotes domestic production. the biggest problem we have with produced goods imported from abroad is we cannot match the price point with domestic products as our wages (though apparently not high enough) are much higher than they are in the countries which are underselling our stuff. not to mention the added costs of increased regulation which will never ever make it cheaper to make anything at all.
if we want to increase the standard of living we have to bring back the durable goods industries in a way that they can compete in price point with foreign made products. obviously we cant do this by paying wages such as they are in these places (as they are way lower), so its up to the government to level the playing field in other ways, through tariffs and reduced regulation within reason to ease the costs of manufacturing so we can compete.
ohh and BTW, I also think that the richest should pay higher taxes so don't label me a neocon just yet.
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