I remember years ago I had started out in a min wage job. I had worked there for several years gotten the associated raises. Then I made key holder and got associated raises. I was making about a 1.50 more than when I started. I was pretty happy about that then along comes congress and they boost min wage by 1.15. Suddenly with my experience and responsibilities I was making 45 cents more than a new hire.

For all those proposing a boost in min wage remember it hurts the worker just above the threshold a lot more than anyone else. I mean why did I work hard stay at the same job gain skills and responsibility when I could have just done the minimum and the government would have given me almost the same raise for nothing.

Now years later and I am making 3x the minimum wage and someone comes along and says that education and skill will now only be worth 2x minimum wage? Once again why should I work hard and educate myself to get ahead if the government will just mandate the increases?

JPW,

I apologize yeah the idiot who ended up having to mooch rides is not in my circle of friends anymore. Maybe he grew up in the last 5 years or so maybe not but I haven't seen him so I wouldn't know.

The cop is still a friend of mine though and yeah he gives me the courtesy of not ticketing me for a car that is not registered. Of course he rarely pulls someone over for registration anyway unless they are acting dodgy to start with.

you better believe I would want "dear old mom" to be incarcerated.

#10 | Posted by danni

I am detecting some mom issues here danni. I am not your psychologist but you might want to suggest to them that you explore that area at your next appointment.

Yeah a guy who has been shot at a couple times yet has never had to discharge any weapon even nonlethal ones and works his ass off is a "real winner" JPW.

One of my buds is a cop and this is not just a SoFl thing it's all over. Cops don't give each other or friends tickets.

Only exception is we were hanging out one day and he was in his cruiser well another bud did a peel out in the parking lot ran the stop sign at the exit and laid on it. Usualy my friend would have let it go but seeing as he was in his cruiser and all the people at the strip mall started looking at him when it happened he had no choice but to hit the blues and bust him.

I am not sure who was more pissed at whom, the cop who had to bust his friend was pissed that he put him in that position, but the friend was pissed the cop busted him. I was just laughing my ass off, well till I had to give the idiot rides everywhere after they suspended his license.

Pan I can't believe you are trying to compare a Hedge Fund manager to an industrialist. Hank would be ashamed of you. The hedge fund managers are the parasites your hero Rand describes. They do not add to the economy if they all left for some secret retreat they would all die and we wouldn't miss them.

Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerburg, Larry Ellison these are the Francisco D'anconia and Hank Rearden's of our age.

It's not about wealth it's about productivity. Those that create it vs. those that live off others. A hedge fund manager lives off the creations of others the software developer lives off his own creations.

Zed Rand was a bitch and her philosophy was easily misused by the greed is good crowd however up to a point it is not a bad philosophy.

Adamm is correct. Paul supporters tend to be very active and know the system so they do a good job of getting delegate positions. If a state has pledged delegates that doesn't help but in states with unpledged delegates Paul supporters could get the majority of the spots and basically give the whole state to Paul despite only taking 36% of the caucus.

What is it with old people and a total lack of sense of humor Ray?

I mean my god your living off my SS money you will die before it runs out and I will be left living in the chaos that follows and you can't even laugh? Good grief it's the young who should be bitter not you geezers.

When government robs Peter to pay Paul, it wins favor from Paul.

#10 | Posted by Ray

Ray I am shocked to see you attempt this shameless and baseless smear on Ron Paul. I just called my buddy Peter and he swears that Ron Paul had nothing to do with the recent robbery.

I understand that you will not vote for Paul but to stoop to smears is unconscionable.

Oh crap I went and filled my scripts yesterday and paid OMG Cash! I am going down to the cops right now to report myself!

Silly me I thought that little line on my money "This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private" meant it was ok. Clearly I was mistaken and I need to burn all cash on hand and only use fully traceable credit cards from now on. Of course those don't have a disclaimer that they are legal tender but what the heck.

Aww see and all this time I thought it was something Virgin Mobile was doing on their own. It makes sense for a cell company to do it get rid of old phones score some public service points and they are only doing 250 min a month. However for the gov. to be doing it doesn't make a lot of sense, unless it cost less than doing free 911 to poor people on landlines. Somehow I doubt it does.

Patron,

I do not argue that we do not have a nanny state. In fact I am the first to jump on the band wagon. However if you don't want government control of your life don't take government money. If you have a job your employer has a ridiculous level of control over your life. Maybe not down to what you can buy but some companies have health policies in place and other forms of control. If you are taking government money then the same level of control is understood. The fact that it is government money just means you will have even a higher level of control dictated by people you don't even know. If you want to get away from that get a job or take hand outs from churches they usually don't have restrictions when they give you money. Well other than they want you to pray with them before you walk out with the check.

Miss,

Seriously OMG not making them buy generic!!! The horror. Please don't tell my kids that, they don't much have a problem with generic and probably would think high end brands taste funny.

Patron no there is a difference. Limiting what you do with your money is wrong but limiting what other people do with your money is ok.

Assuming you could afford it if you gave a guy on the street 100 bucks how would you feel if he went out and scored enough crack to keep him high for 3 days with it vs. how you would feel if he got a shower fed his family and started looking for work. Food stamps is your money if you don't want to limit what people do with it then fine go give a guy a 100 bucks and walk away without worrying, but most people do want limits on what others can do with their money.

I mean both. Hurting the poor is a republican past time.

Naw don't waste your money on organic oranges the skin is non-permeable so the part you eat doesn't pick up the pesticides.

:)

You do have a point but I think anything that cuts social welfare down will always be applauded by republicans no matter who suggests it.

Sorry danforth but I gotta go with the R's on this one. If someone else is buying your food you don't get to tell them what to buy you.

If my MIL tells me to pick up a bag of organic apples for the kids when I go to the grocery store I wouldn't even dream of telling her, "no you give me the 2.99 and I'm going to buy a box of little debbies with it".

I think if you can decide one way or the other you are Bi not gay or straight.

There is no way a straight person will decide to be gay or a gay person decide to be straight.

Andrea and Prag good points on the recording quality.

Not sure if it is an issue or not but I always kind of figured that availability had something to do with it as well.

AKA I want to "own" a copy of Nirvana's Pennyroyal Tea (deliberately picking a less played title here) back in the 80's (yes i know Pennyroyal Tea didn't come out till the 90's shut up I'm making a point here) I would have had to listen to the radio for days to hear it have a tape queued up and ready to hit record the moment it came on. Now I go to any number of pirate sites search Nirvana Pennyroyal Tea and 82 seconds later I have it.

Don't hate us 'cause we're happy
Don't hate us 'cause you're miserable
Don't hate us if we make you smile
Or if we go the extra mile
To make someone feel better on a really shitty day
And if you're hearing what I'm saying then
I want to hear you say, "I'm gay!" (I'm gay!)
Say, "I'm gay!" (I'm gay!)

-Bowling for Soup

Mustang,

Good luck with that. If you think you are in the 1% that can afford it you have been lied to. Don't sweat it I'm not either. We can get along fine and I am sure the massa will let us have some new tar paper for the roof any day now, till then the leaking roof is a shower in every room, a feature not a bug, that's what massa said.

BTW Heinlein did serve in the Navy.

We are. I just got my W-2, and I paid a reasonably hefty fee indeed.

If you got a W2 you can't afford citizenship but maybe those taxes can go to reduce the amount you will owe.

NG3 you talking the movie or the book? The movie was weak sauce compared to the book. Oh and the book address the fact that things like peace corp. could count towards service.

Prolix we already are a two tier system. Stripping citizenship from one of the tier's seems to just acknowledge what already exists. Heck just make it for sale. If you can't pay you are not a citizen. I was watching COPS last night (yeah i know) but the one thing I saw was everyone was poor. Not once did the flashing blue lights go after a guy in a business suit.

Maybe let the poor be citizens for service I mean the 1% want their services so they could sponsor the help either taxes for military, police, firemen. Then for the others they could just pay citizenship fees and not have to pay wages. Maybe they could keep a few houses on the back 40 for the help to live in since they won't make any money till the fees are paid. Of course you could have a store behind the main house and only allow your help to shop there deducting what they spend from the total they owe, hmm probably should charge them rent on their houses too, yep I can see it now.

voters are going to have to do some work on their own

We are so fucked.

BTW I do not argue that reform of the system is needed = BTW I do not argue that reform of the system is not needed

dang it 3 in a row now I am a spammer I'll stop now.

BTW #222 is for you eddie since you seem to think poor means rich. Tell you what try living on the poverty line for a couple months then come back and tell us how good the poor have it.

BTW I do not argue that reform of the system is needed. Note the guy above is right on the poverty line so he doesn't get all the perks yet he is the one working. The perks go to those even poorer than him and that is why a working family of 5 will live worse off than a welfare mom of 4.

Which is my whole beef with the system and I think is more of what Romney was trying to get at. For the most part I agree with his statement (not sure I believe it but that is different). The poor are doing ok thanks to the safety net, yes there are holes in it that could be fixed but as a general statement it is true. The rich are doing famously so we don't have to worry about them. It is the middle class which needs help. That example, if he made 1 dollar more would be middle class yet I don't think that many would argue he has much of the American dream going for him.

Lets see Poverty Line for family of 5 (my family) 27010 a year

Lets break that down to 2250.83 a month since most poor people do not have the luxury of an annual budget.

So now we have the target lets work on what that gets our family of 5

101.28 goes to SS taxes

800.00 goes to rent - now we have 5 people in 2 bedrooms so not much room but better than our grandparents one room houses

800.00 goes to food. It seems like a lot but remember this is 5 people for a month so we are only talking 1.78 per person per meal. This ain't gourmet.

150.00 for power yeah it shouldn't be that high but 800 bucks rent doesn't get you a high efficiency AC or good insulation.

100.00 for TV Phone Internet we are of course assuming you can get a bundle deal where you are. For those who say internet is not a necessity, well screw you in today's America just the money saved by not driving to pay your bills, pays for your internet. Also note TV is a luxury but phone bills 10 years ago were frequently more than the combined total for the 3 now In fact if you don't go with a triple play package you are probably paying more for just phone than a package pays for all three. Let the poor have their MTV.

120.00 for gas. This is a pretty low estimate it assumes a car with 25MPG (I don't know a single poor person with a car that new) and only 30 miles total driving a day.

50.00 for water just pulling this out my rear we spend closer to 100 but we have a teenage daughter and I love a long hot shower.

75.00 for gas, (this is an average based on my equal pay amount)

So for a grand total we get 2196.28 that leaves us with 54.55 a month for medical/dental/new shoes for the kids, new brakes for the car, vehicle tax on the car, clothes etc.

You say oh that's not so bad you got a roof over your head and food in your belly and heck even the luxury of tv and internet.

Of course those are the calculations from average. If you live somewhere slightly more than the average those numbers go out the window and you are screwed. Remember this average budget leaves you with 654.60 a year flex money so any one of the line items increasing minimally will well and truly screw you. Good luck with that sense of security.

Oh and you will note I used current SS tax of 4.5% not the 6.5%. That gave our budget the boost to have any extra money. Before that the extra was about 120 a year. I guess you are ok till the end of the month after that it goes back to 6.5 sorry folks.