Well since that was a key component of how conservatives balanced the budget and produced surplus perhaps you are aiming your comme ts at the wrong group.
If you're able to get such a prison going, more power to you. But in today's prison, I bet more than 20K per year is spent on prisoners. Of course that is just a guess.
The employee does not determine the value of their labor because the employee's only role is to perform the tasks assigned to them by management to the best of their ability. It's the management that's responsible for ensuring the tasks generate the revenue necessary to fund the costs of labor. The cost of labor is, at a minimum, the annual mandatory living expenditures of the employee. People need to stop blaming the employee for the fact that the enterprise isn't generating the necessary revenue to fund adequate compensation for labor. That's the responsibility of the owner/manager. Any person that's qualified to actually run a business is capable of creating a business plan that provide a living wage as the starting wage for all employees. We've heard of problems for some businesses in Seattle that have been unable to accommodate the progressive increases in the Seattle minimum wage (even though the impact of the minimum wage increase can't accurately be measured until five years after it reaches the $15/hr rate). Guess what. The reason they're having a problem is because they're crappy business owners. Other businesses initiated the $15 minimum wage immediately because the owners/managers were very competent and knew how to create/change a business plan to accommodate changes in expenditures. Highly qualified business owners/managers don't have any problem accommodating the higher living wage requirements as long as the requirement is spread across all enterprises. They're no competitive advantage or disadvantage to a uniform increase in the minimum wage.
This thread isn't about societies parasites. It's about working households where the compensation is inadequate to fund the household expenditures that creates the necessity for government welfare assistance. The "bait and switch" approach where some go from addressing hardworking households to parasites in society seems to be just another way of avoiding the problem. So ignore the parasites and address the Americans that are very hard working but, because employers are not required to compensate them based upon the 'value' of the labor they provide, they can't afford to fund even the basic and mandatory expenditures of their household. If you choose to just say, "Screw hard working Americans" then feel free to say that. No one's stopping you. If you believe that hard working Americans should be earning a living then you can say that too. But get off of the "parasite" line of reasoning because we're not addressing parasites on this thread.
That's the owner/manager's job to do. It's the owner/manager that assigns the tasks for the employee to perform and it's the tasks that generate the revenue. Don't blame the employee if the owner/manager doesn't know how to convert labor into revenue.
It's the owner/manager's job to make sure they are not paying more than the value of the labor. It is not the job of the owner/manager to assure some arbitrary standard of living to person working the job.
Not everyone has the same expenditures. Do you pay the 16 year old living in his parents house less than a single mother of 4 based only on her family? How about 2 married, working adults. Does 1 get to claim the other for higher wages or do you have to report your spouses employment status and wages to your employer?
. No, It's not opinion it's the balance sheet that every enterprise must use to meet a fundamental tenet of capitalism. "The price for a product/service cannot be below the cost to provide the product/service because if it is then capitalism ultimately fails." We actually find that many of the "household" expenditures are in the identical categories that the enterprise must account for a part of their "costs" to operate the business. Facilities (rental/purchase), energy, transportation, capital investments, contracted services, consumable goods, insurance, technology, etc. are all common expenditures of the enterprise and the household. The enterprise lists every single thing that is spends money on and each one of those is a "cost of operations" that must be funded based upon their pricing of the goods/services they provide. The enterprise isn't limited to just the bare essential mandatory expenditures of course but it's assumed that the enterprise that's spending more than the minimum of an essential or non-essential operating expense has a logical business reason where it will increase revenue based upon the expenditure. For the individual household we're only addressing the minimum-mandatory expenditures and not allowing them additional "judgement" that would justify higher expenditures. Because it's a "one-size fits all" living wage we can't allow individualization of the wage to accommodate different households. It must, by pragmatic necessity, be a living wage based upon firm financial criteria and demographic information. None of this is merely "opinion" but instead it's backed up with financial analysis for individual households, that replaces itemized bookkeeping for the enterprise, that establishes the value of the goods/services they provide in a capitalistic economy. This is what makes "capitalism" work and right now for tens of millions of American households capitalism is broken. The most evident sign that capitalism is broken is the fact that, by necessity, we're having to spend hundreds of billions of dollars annually as a subsidy to working households in the United States. If Capitalism wasn't broken then this subsidy (welfare) wouldn't be required.
Why is starvation not an option in these discussions? ie, why is it society's responsibility to reward profoundly piss poor personal planning with "living wages" and transfer payments? If you eff up your life to such a degree that you're unemployable or can't rise above entry level employment, that should be on you.
You realize this would violate due process, and alienate us from all civilized nations in the UN who do care about human rights abuses.
It's an option, you just won't find any political support for it in civilized nations. That's the fact you're operating with.
Their participation is voluntary, so no. How does providing basic food water shelter and clothing equate to a human rights abuse?
A hot environment so no air conditioning, ADA compliance must be included, they need medical care, healthy food, access to communications so they are not cut off from society and again its not voluntary your saying regardless of disability, infirmity or age children to old people you can go be cut off from society and treated worse than prison inmates or go off to die somewhere. How would you get this even past a Conservative Federal Court most judges would consider this likely inhumane and modifications to make it acceptable would cost more than giving out welfare. I know as a disabled man deemed by the government as to unfit to support myself and unlikely to get a job against younger and fitter people I would sue for violation of the ADA and of my fundamental rights to free association and freedom to travel and wouldn't likely be alone.
You can always refuse state/federal benefits. You choose to accept them. Voluntary. Why do you think you can accept handouts and then demand terms?
I don't know why people struggle with the concept that jobs pay what the job is worth and the value of the employee, NOT what the employee needs to live on in their particular circumstance. In FACT if you ask a prospective employee do they have children and how many they can sue you. You can't even ask if they are married anymore I do not believe.
I'm a citizen, I vote, am government declared unfit to work and have basic rights as any other citizen this includes the laws that protect us including the ADA and our commitment in the UN Charter duly ratified to the principles of the fundamental freedoms including Freedom from Want and cutting citizens off from society on the grounds of economics is a violation of that. I'm not a criminal, I would work if I could find a job to meet my income and health care needs even if given by the government. As for the handouts I get the welfare support its far less than the scheme your suggesting my medical needs won't go away and without a power wheelchair I would be trapped in my house which I pay for out of my SSI, a used one works fine and can be replaced every two years of serious use. How are you going to get this dumb scheme past Congress, the Courts and the many civil rights groups who your going to be challenging its a stupid idea and a stupid way to treat those in need. I know I supported something like it but it was for the fit not willing to work and even I would give some small stipend of cash and keep them in a community, with job training or the ability to get work assigned by the government. People like me ,disabled, would get better housing, a larger sum of money and needed support to stay in society and treated with dignity. And everyone could use it or save money and move to private housing etc. It would be a benefit young people out of High School could use to start leaving home and save money while going to school or working and the elderly could opt into it to save money and have a community of sensible people around them. At most they would give either half their paycheck and get a small dorm room for themselves or if disabled get the same plus say $75 a week (with a sensible COLA) but the housing, food, Medicaid and medical needs all met including utilities with basic internet and tv in a clean safe ADA compliant housing block. Bums who don't want to work it would be a bunk, locker with a lock, food, simple clothing, access to a rec room, medical care job training and $15 a week cash OR if they work they would have to hand over half and save something so working even 20 hours a week would be preferable to the Dole [half that would be well over the $15 hand out and say they must save 15% accessible after one year its still better and they would earn a private little dorm room with privacy and benefits I noted earlier. In the long run my system would be a security net for those in need and drug addicts and such could be barred from this unless they get into government provided treatment.
Freedom from want? I want a G650 and a villa in the Keys. Where do I file this human rights violation with the UN?
Doesn't change the fact that you choose to accept handouts. If you do not like the conditions attached to them, do not accept said handouts.
What I'm saying now is what I've always said, Shiva -- you earn what you are worth in a free-market economy! That might be a buck an hour, it might be $50,000 an hour (or more). You earn what you are worth in the human labor marketplace, Shiva -- everything else is manipulative, socialist BULLSHIT, straight out of Fairyland, and it always causes much more economic wreckage over the long run than it's worth.... Hint: if you are worth little or nothing in the workforce -- guess what? You are going to make little or nothing in earnings! And that is not (NOT) the fault or responsibility of taxpayers in the United States! Each of us chooses what we do in a free society, Shiva. If you on the Left don't like that, then, please, MIGRATE TO NORTH KOREA! Please, will just one (ONE) of you hyperliberal Democrats show me where artificially mandating a "minimum wage" is described as an enumerated function of any of the three branches of the Federal Government in our Constitution of the United States of America. Please, SHOW ME! . "How 'bout it, liberal American slackers! You want MY job? LET'S TRADE!"
