Obama funding plan for health insurance losses is a bailout

May 30, 2014 0:34:33 GMT pjohns1873 said:

Why should the government be empowered to determine what degree of compensation is "fair"?

Whereas I seriously doubt that very many beneficiaries of government-aid programs are wallowing in a "luxurious lifestyle," I would not be at all surprised if many have  prioritized incorrectly, and have therefore purchased rather numerous middle-class amenities (such as cell phones, iPads, or other non-necessities).   

The question presented is applicable to all actions of the government.

Government should be "empowered" to intervene in the affairs of the People when there is a compelling argument to support the interventionism. In such cases were a compelling argument exists the interventionism should be to the least extent pragmatically possible to fulfill the necessity established by the compelling agrument.

For example we have protected "Freedom of Speech" but based upon the "compelling argument" that yelling fire in a crowded theater would create panic resulting in injury and possible death the government was "empowered" to intervene and prohibit people from yelling fire in a crowded theater. There was a compelling argument and the interventionism was to the least extent possible to address the necessity established by the compelling argument.

Is there a compelling argument related to compensation by employers? I argue that such an argument does exist and that argument justifies "empowering" the government to intervene but that government should limit the intervention to the least extent pragmatically possible to fulfill the necessity established by the compelling argument. So what exactly is the compelling argument?

When undercompensation for labor by the employer results in imposing a financial obligation upon society there is a necessity for government to intervene and address the problem to eleviate the financial burden being imposed on society by the employer. In a much simplier statement we can simply state that society should not be subsidizing private enterprise by providing financial assistance for the necessary expenditures of their employees.

The labor of the person should always provide for their survival in nature. This argument goes all the way back to the arguments presented by John Locke in 1690. Under compensation where a person cannot survive based upon the compensation in today's industrialized world is a fundamental violation of the Inalienable (natural) Rights of the Person.

We can debate if what I've provided is a "compelling argument" but I believe that it is easily established as being true and, in fact, our government is already intervening based upon the argument by providing welfare assistance for food, shelter, and health care. My argument is that the "welfare" goes beyond the "least possible intervention" required to address the necessities established by the compelling argument and doesn't even address the actual problem (i.e. undercompensation for labor) and instead merely addresses the symptom of the problem by a very intrusive means (taxation and spending).

If we address the problem (under-compensation) then we eliminate the "welfare" (taxation and spending) that merely mitigates the effects of the under-compensation. Addressing the "compensation" is to address the problem directly and it is the least intrusive interventionism possible by government to address a necessity for interventionism established by compelling argument.  

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We cannot determine what every specific item is necessary for a specific person's survival. I could make a compelling argument that a "smart phone" is a necessity in order to secure and retain employment these days for example. I know that it would be extremely difficult for me to survive in today's ecomony without a computer. To determine a level (income amount) necessary for basic necessities is "macro-management" while establishing what individual purchases necessary is "micro-management" and I'd oppose addressing the issue from a "micro-management" position in our policies or opinions.    

May 30, 2014 17:05:11 GMT pjohns1873 said:

Well, when I retired in 2005, I did not have a "smart phone," but a 1990s-style flip phone (which is still what I possess). At the time, I spent about $10 per year--yes, per year--for prepaid minutes.  (I just did not use it very much.)  Now, I typically pay $20 per year for airtime. 

Should every American of working age, in your opinion be entitled to a job, just in order to be able to purchase "food, shelter, and health care"? In other words, should the federal government act as the employer of last resort for all who are unable to find gainful employment in the private sector, in your view?

I still have and use by prepaid "flip phone" that's mostly for road trips on my motorcycle but I've always had a home phone as well. I've also had computers going back literally to the 1970's and was an early user of the Internet.Today many young people have Tablets or Smart phoners but no home phone or computer because it's less expensive.

I believe that every person should be entitled to equality of economic opportunity which includes equality of employment opportunity. I'm also opposed to the Federal Reserve policies of ensuring that enough unemployment exists to drive down compensation to the point that ensures that tens of millions don't receive enough compesation to provide for "food, shelter and health care" in the United States. A fact that many don't understand is that the US government is the destroyer of jobs in America because of it's economic interventionist policies. The policies are based upon "Crony Capitalism" which is a job destroying economic policy.  Think about it. The US domestic economic policies (including the tax codes) focus on benefiting corporations over sole proprietorships and owners  over workers. It stacks the deck against the workers of America.   

The US government is an "employer" but that should only be based upon the necessity to perform government functions and not as a socialistic employment system.

May 31, 2014 17:12:46 GMT pjohns1873 said:

We agree, then, that the federal government should not attempt a New Deal-type program (I am thinking of the WPA).

We also agree that if the Fed is artificially keeping unemployment at a certain "optimum" level (?), that is not good.  (I am not quite certain how it might be able to accomplish this, however--despite my rather severe distrust of the Fed.)   

Yes, we agree on both but we should also agree on a couple of other points.

1) The financial burden of providing for the health care needs of Americans does not disappear regardless of government action or inaction. Nothing is "free" and never has been.

2) The "working poor" significantly outnumber the "non-working poor" in America and yet "Social-Conservatives" advocate "lower compensation for employment" that creates more working poor making the problem of "poverty" worse creating a greater necessity to mitigate the effects of poverty through "welfare assistance" (public and/or private). Poverty imposes a financial burden upon a moral society and based upon that we must mitigate it's effects with assistance to the poor.

Jun 2, 2014 17:11:12 GMT pjohns1873 said:

What "Social-Conservatives" have suggested "lower compensation for employment"? (The mere fact that one does not embrace the idea of higher compensation does not necessarily mean that one favors lower compensation.) 

How many "social-conservatives" oppose increases in the minimum wage to compensate for inflation? Inflation reduces the purchasing power and without corresponding increases in the minimum wage the real wages of the employee decline.

In fact many "social-conservatives" oppose the minimum wage completely and would eliminate it if possible. That would result in a drop in wages as employers would pay even less than they do today.

This really is an issue that can be problematic. On the one hand we oppose a mandated minimum wage but when employee compensation is below what a person requires then we have to mitigate that with financial assistance. We end up with:

Low Compensation = Welfare Necessity

Adequate Compensation = No Welfare Necessity

From a "libertarian" perspective I oppose "government mandates" and prefer "personal responsibility" but what do we do when people aren't responsible? As I've noted a "responsible" employer would provide a compensation package so that their employees don't need welfare or charity to survive. An employee shouldn't have to work all day and then sit on the corner after work with a cardboard sign saying "Need Help For Food - God Bless" but that's really what's happening when they have to seek welfare assistance for their family.

So what do we do when people are irresponsible?

Jun 4, 2014 1:15:20 GMT pjohns1873 said:

Your final sentence, above--"So what do we do when people are irresponsible?"--begs the question by assuming that we agree that it is irresponsible for an employer to pay wages according to market value, rather than according to his (or her) employees' financial needs.  And I quite disagree. 

Your definition of favoring "lower compensation" is certainly, well, creative:  It turns out that these "lower" wages are not really lower, in any absolute sense, but merely attenuated by the ravages of inflation. 

By the way, many of us on the right would not necessarily oppose a modest increase in the minimum wage--if there is to be a minimum wage-- but an astronomical increase (say, to $15 an hour, as Washington state recently enacted; you should be aware, as you reside there) is quite another matter.  It is very likely to result in less expansion (employers just sittting on their cash), and the hiring of fewer employees (with those already employed expected to do more work than they previously did).  And this is to say nothing of potential price increases.   

In addressing "irresponsibility" I draw a line when that irresponsibility results in imposing a (financial) obligation on others. When the founders of American put forward the proposition of "liberty" they also established that with this "Freedom" also came "Reponsibility" and that the two are inseparable. You cannot have one without the other.

In 1935 the Congress found, based upon factual information, that about 1/2 of the people did not accumulate the assets necessary to provide income when they became too old to work. They were personally irresponsible and because, as a moral society, we couldn't allow them to starve as beggers in the streets, Congress did intervene and created Social Security. My problem with Social Security isn't that the government intevened but instead of addressing the problem (i.e. a lack of accumulation of assets to provide income at retirement) it addressed the symptom of the problem (providing income at retirement). Because Congress didn't address the problem it re-emerged in the 1960's where about 1/2 of retirees didn't have the assets necessary to provide the income to pay for private health insurance so Congress again ignored the problem and addressed the symptom of no medical insurance with Medicare.

Congress was correct to intervene to address the irresponsibility of the person but failed to address the problem itself and instead addressed the symptoms of the problem. That problem still remains today.

Today I address the "irresponsibility" of employers that don't provide enough compensation to their employees which results in a financial obligation of others to provide for the employee. We cannot let the workers go hungry, have their utilities cut off, or go without health care because we're a moral society.

Conservatives and most libertarians state that the "employment contract" is a voluntary agreement but forget that in today's society "employment is mandatory" for survival. Because "employment is mandatory" the "employment contract is not voluntary" anymore. For some higher up in the "economic pyamid" (that I referred to earlier) they do have some flexibility because they can accept employment lower down on the pyramid but for those at the bottom they don't have that option. The are forced to accept employment at whatever is being offered even if they can't afford to actually live on the compensation.

The fact that "employment is mandatory" in society today introduces "coercion" in the employment contract and coersion violates the "Law of Contract" and that is a fact that "conservatives" and "libertarians" tend to ignore. Coercion in the contract violates the principles of Capitalism that is dependent upon valid contracts based upon mutually beneficial voluntary contracts.

What we end up with are some employers that are "irresponsible" because their compensation packages for their employees are established by coercion and don't provide for the necessary expenditures that a moral society must assume financial responsibility for.

It is the requirement for society to fund the necessities of the employees that establishes the fact that the employers are irresponsible.  

So we did address individual responsibility in the 1930's when it came to the "workers" but I state that we failed to do it correctly because we addressed the symptom (income) as opposed to the problem (lack of personal wealth accumulation). We're doing exactly the same thing today.

We created "wefare assistance for working Americans" (e.g. SNAP and Obamacare) as opposed to addressing the problem of "employers" unwittingly being irresponsibly by using coercion in the employment contract that allows under-compensation for labor.

BTW The $15/hr minimum wage only applies to Seattle and it will result in one fact becoming evident. There will low paying enterprises like McDonalds in Seattle that will still be successful demonstating that all McDonalds can afford to pay a $15/hr minimum wage and be financially successful. If a McDonalds in Seattle can pay $15/hr then a McDonalds in Dallas TX can pay $15/hr because they're based upon the identical business model.  

Jun 4, 2014 17:37:45 GMT pjohns1873 said:

Your view that a contractual agreement in today's America amounts to "coercion" of those near the bottom of the "economic pyramid" implies that these people are forever consigned--against their will--to this place in the pecking order. And why should this be?

I would agree that most McDonald's outlets in Seattle are likely to turn a profit, even with the wage increase to $15 an hour.  But there is a price to be paid for this.  For one thing, a Happy Meal--or just about anything else on the menu--is likely to cost a bit more.  Anda total of fewer employeeswille likely be asked to do a set amount of work, as some positions may simply not be replaced, resulting in attrition--and more work (and more stress), therefore, for the remaining employees.     

One problem is that the economic pyramid it out of balance with medium paying jobs disappearing. Between 1979-2007 we lost about 26% of all middle income jobs in the US with 1/2 of those middle income jobs being lost just since 2008. A significant problem with this is that those that lost their middle income jobs were more likely to move down the economic ladder than up it creating downward pressure against those trying to move up that ladder. In short someone trying to get ahead is fighting against the flow of the economic river. A person today can bust their ass gaining job knowledge and skills but because of the downward pressure they end up earning less as opposed to more.

In the following article it refers to our economy being a "barbell economy" with low income jobs and high income jobs with fewer in-between jobs being available so that people can move from lower to higher incomes.

finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/here-s-where-all-those-middle-class-jobs-went-113102720.html

We can see the evidence of this with the huge increase in income of the top 1% rising by about 35% since 2009 while the number of people falling into poverty increased about four-times based upon SNAP statistics alone. The significant loss of middle income jobs since 2008 has created more poverty in America as incomes have dropped significantly for these households. A point I've made in the past as I've personally witnessed some in my profession lose as much as 70% of their income since 2008 with incomes dropping from $100,000/yr to less than $30,000/yr. On the average though I'd estimate the loss of income to be about 50% which almost unbelieveable but true. Of course with their loss of income they're not in poverty (yet) but they've also cut spending dramatically which is killing job growth. They also drove slightly less qualified workers into poverty as they forced them out of the few jobs remaining. 

Some would just write this off saying, "That's the way it is" but I see it as a problem with capitalism in practice. My greatest concern is that our government is contributing to the problem, and perhaps even the major force behind the problem, because of it's favoritism for corporations and investors over small enterprise and workers. That obviously isn't all of the problem but we need to understand that a problem does exist with our "capitalistic model" that needs to be address. Capitalism is the best economic model but that by no means implies it's perfect.

Let's assume something first. Let's assume that we can eliminate the crony/corporate capitalism (that my tax proposals attempt to address) it still wouldn't completely fix the problem. If the coercive nature of capitalism in an industrialized economy related to the employment contract is left unchecked we're still going to see the financial burden on society increasing because the number or households earning less than what it costs them to survive is increasing. Something needs to be done to counteract the fact that the employer doesn't have to hire (they only hire to increase profits so it isn't mandatory) but the employee has to work.

We basically have a choice. Either the government intervenes or it doesn't.

If government doesn't intervene to address the problem with "capitalism" itself then the poverty will increase creating a greater financial burden on society that must be mitigated voluntarily through charities that only meet  small percentage of the need plus ever increasing tax & spend goverment welfare programs. Addressing the financial burder does not address the problem but merely mitigates it's effects.

From my libertarian political ideology I believe that the government must intervene directly in "capitalism" to eliminate the financial burden created on society if it doesn't intervene. Direct intervention can end the problem but that intervention needs to be to the least possible extent necessary to fix the problem.

It's very much like my addressing Social Security that, as a welfare program, mitigates the problem of poverty in old age. It doesn't prevent it from happening but instead merely addressed funding the financial burden created on society because half of the people don't invest enough when working to provide income when they're too lod to work. To my the government did have a compelling reason to intervene but instead of addressing the "problem" it merely mitigated it's effects and now it's costing us about $1.2 trillion annually in Social Security/Medicare benefits. That is $1.2 trillion annually in wealth redistribution. So my proposal was to force people to invest by privatization. It's still government interventionism but it eliminates wealth redistribution by instead building personal and generational wealth.

BTW Have you ever noticed that when government intervened to mitigate the problem of people not having enough income to retire on it held the employers responsible for 50% of the problem by imposing the "payroll" tax on the employer. It's really "forced" compensation for the labor of the employee.

Long winded again but you don't ask easy questions. LOL           

Bottom line is that I can see a problem exists and instead of  government simply mitigating the effects of the problem with "welfare" assistance I'd argue that lesser inteventionism that directly addresses the problem is preferrable.

Final Note: Seattle McDonalds franchise having a leaner more efficient staff I don't have a problem with that and McDonalds pricing is established by Corporate and not by the franchise from what I understand. I've eaten at McDonalds in WA, OR, CA, AZ, TX, and other states and I've never noticed a difference in pricing. Have you? If there is a difference it's insignificant making it really irrelevant.