Minimum wage: how much is too much?

[temporal1]

The whole immigration/illegal aliens/refugees thing is disgusting.
U.S. career politicians have been kicking the can down the road since the 1950’s, at least.

Shameless politics, both parties.
POOR performance.

Yes, it is. And not just human trafficking.

In the past few months I had watched a film on how the US government had their hands in the drug trade in the 80's. And how they specifically marketed cocaine to black communities. All around the time that the Reagan's were launching the war on drugs. I was pretty disgusted.

.. blood boiling ..
If .. there had been ANY description HONORABLE PUBLIC SERVANTS in Congress .. since the 1950’s ..
the U.S. would have a well-oiled machine in place to adequately or admirably address every one of these matters at ALL our national borders.

The corruption and incompetence and power of CAREER politicians to fix exactly NOTHING is epic.
They have NO shame. They stay in office for DECADES, nothing. EMPTY PLATITUDES for votes. SHAME.

An example of 21st Century life in the U.S.: Throwback to The Dark Ages? ..

“13 people moved from Lake City Mini Park Thursday”
https://komonews.com/news/local/13-peop ... k-thursday

[Ken]

An example of 21st Century life in the U.S.: Throwback to The Dark Ages? ..

Dark ages? Naw.... We don't need to go back nearly that far. This was one of Seattle's many "Hooverville" homeless encampments in the 1930s. What makes poverty look so much more 'messy' today, both in the US and the third world is all the plastics. 100 years ago there were no plastic bags or packaging so most garbage was either burned or decomposed. Now it just gets strewn around and never goes away. Even the poor now generate mountains of garbage which didn't used to be the case.

[temporal1]

My comparison with Europe’s Dark Ages was mostly about lack of sewers, sanitation, clean drinking water, and diseases forthcoming.
The fact that these present day areas are notoriously occupying some of the most expensive real estate in the world is disturbing.

My family used to camp. It was fun, healthy, and inexpensive.

The campgrounds had to offer adequate and strict hygiene/sanitation, or they were not allowed to operate, whether privately owned or state run. Evenso, in certain areas, there have been outbreaks of smallpox, i believe transmitted by rodents in campgrounds, tents and/or cabins.

In cities, business owners have to hose down their sidewalks and entryways to wash away human waste and drug paraphernalia in order to do business.

Filth is not ok. Disease is the natural result.

https://slate.com/technology/2015/10/pl ... -park.html

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5618008/

[steve-in-kville]

There are lots of things that are now considered essentials that did not even exist in the 60's, at least for many people. In 1960 (when I was 5) we had just gotten in-door plumbing, with a bath tub and the works. We had no telephone, except an old crank one that only rang at my grandparents' home, a quarter mile away. Just that year we became a 2 car family, and mom got her driver's license. No more grocery shopping in the evenings, because that was the only time Dad was home, to get us to town. We also (of course) had no air conditioning, in either the house of the car. First family car w/ AC was after I left home for college (1974) - the house didn't have it until a couple of decades later. And this is in Oklahoma.

Now most people consider having internet to be essential. And everyone has their own cell phone, too. A freezer. A clothes dryer. And maybe a 4-wheeler, a boat or ski-doo, or a snow mobile. Then there's exercise machines to make up for lack of physical work.

Your post made me smile a bit. My grandparents had all the luxuries long before we did at home.

[JimFoxvog]

If house prices go up $100,000 a year (which is what they did in the last year here), how can a family making $50,000 a year afford to ever buy a house?

Folks can move somewhere cheaper for occupations one can do remotely. The house across the street from us sold a couple months ago for $20,000.

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/505- ... 4158_zpid/

[mike]

Another thing to think about: maybe people these days just don't have enough to do. We have become conditioned to feel that the world owes us a living for working 40 hours a week, and we get all the evenings and weekends to relax and enjoy ourselves and spend our money. I get around Old Order Mennonites a lot, and I am always amazed at how they always seem to be working. In addition to working a main job or farm, they almost always have various side businesses or profitable hobbies, whether it's knife sharpening, a little orchard, making beehives, growing produce or flowers, fixing something, or making something or other.

Americans spend an awful lot of time consuming entertainment and information via television and the Internet and engaging in recreation such as hunting, fishing, traveling, camping, boating, and myriad other hobbies. I think that many other cultures and subcultures probably outdo us in a big way when it comes to how much work they accomplish.

[JimFoxvog]

**Truck drivers.
A few years ago, a young father with an adopted 10 year old told me he was worried about his son’s future work opportunities.
He stated, truck drivers were predicted to become OBSOLETE. (He, the father, was-is a senior computer programmer.)

Presently, truck drivers seem to have abundant employment and pay opportunities.

In a decade, self-driving trucks could become the norm. They might well be safer and better behaved. The current shortage of truck drivers could speed up this prediction. I think it mostly depends on the economy, which I think is unpredictable.

[steve-in-kville]

**Truck drivers.
A few years ago, a young father with an adopted 10 year old told me he was worried about his son’s future work opportunities.
He stated, truck drivers were predicted to become OBSOLETE. (He, the father, was-is a senior computer programmer.)

Presently, truck drivers seem to have abundant employment and pay opportunities.

In a decade, self-driving trucks could become the norm. They might well be safer and better behaved. The current shortage of truck drivers could speed up this prediction. I think it mostly depends on the economy, which I think is unpredictable.

They said that about the railroad over the past 50+ years. We see how that played out

[mike]

**Truck drivers.
A few years ago, a young father with an adopted 10 year old told me he was worried about his son’s future work opportunities.
He stated, truck drivers were predicted to become OBSOLETE. (He, the father, was-is a senior computer programmer.)

Presently, truck drivers seem to have abundant employment and pay opportunities.

In a decade, self-driving trucks could become the norm. They might well be safer and better behaved. The current shortage of truck drivers could speed up this prediction. I think it mostly depends on the economy, which I think is unpredictable.

Machines, robots, and automation still require people to manage them. They may replace some lesser-skilled labor, but high-skilled labor will increasingly be in hot demand. In my business, as we have implemented technology, it has probably saved some labor, or at least made the job of some positions much easier, but at the same time it has made certain other jobs with higher skill level invaluable. For example cashiers have a much easier job when you implement a POS system, but it makes them much more replaceable as a new person can be trained much more quickly because of ease of use for the end user. Not so the backroom staff which are trained to program the system. Those folks become much more valuable and much harder to replace because of the complexity of the system they must be trained to operate.

So truck drivers may be out of a job but if they are willing to learn and adapt there will still be good jobs available in the trucking industry. I actually find it really hard to imagine that self-driving trucks will ever become anything more than a small sector of the industry. There's no way a self-driving semi truck and trailer can turn itself around in my parking lot and back up in tight spaces to a spot where we unload them, in all traffic and weather conditions. There's just no way. Maybe it would work for transporting goods from one distribution center to another on major highways only, and even then it seems like a human driver would be needed for eventualities on the road, to dock and load/unload and switch trailers and many other things. But for many trucking situations such as last mile deliveries to small businesses there is literally no way to accomplish the job without a human at the wheel.

What on earth will happen when an unattended self driving semi truck gets disabled on the road a thousand miles away from its company or destination? Can you imagine the frustration for local authorities when these things happen, as they most certainly will.

[steve-in-kville]

There has been a push for the large railroads to go from a two person crew down to one for long haul routes. The powers-that-be shut down the idea because of one critical issue: safety. Even going through our area, they really need two sets of eyes in that train cab.