What’s your basis for this economic success under Trump? The stock market? Here are some of the facts for you to think over

53% - Taxpayers who will pay more in taxes by 2027, due to the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

The tax cut was financed by issuing debt, which went up by about $2.9 trillion while Trump was in office.

The unemployment rate inherited in 2017 was 4.5 percent, the downward unemployment rate trend started in 2010. Trump taking credit for this is laughable.

His claims about bringing back manufacturing jobs were woefully below what he promised to deliver, because he is a con man that is only interested in hyping himself up and people adoring him blindly.

"You are a very poor communicator"

Gotcha - back to insults. I think any third party reading this could get a good gist of where I stand (agreeing with my stance or not) from what I have said. I'm not going to tolerate insults when I am attempting to have a gentleman's conversation, though. That's too immature.

I will give you one freebie before I am done (this is the 3rd insult directed at me now without merit) - societal mobility is directly related to ambition. If you are not sociatelly mobile, you can be if you try just a little bit harder. My fiiancee's father actually worked 3 jobs ranging from intern in a electricians union (ultimately the same company he was able to make a career with) to pumping gas. That was after he owned an auto repair shop and had to close unexpectedly due to the owner selling the building with no notice. Everyone sees hardship. He has 3 cars and 2 homes now. All on a High School Education.

You will never be able to decide when the effort you have put in is enough - your break comes when fate decides - you will need to put in that effort, 100%, the entire time until that time comes (and then continue putting in that same 100% permanently once your break comes) or it will never come.

I, too, made minimum wage once as an adult (with 1 kid before my 2nd was born). It can be changed - you have to want it bad enough.

Have a nice evening

This post was edited by CyrusTheGreat on Jun 6 2021 08:48pm

Wow you are a massive snowflake lol

Try reading for comprehension. The fact that mobility is possible does not mean the current state of affairs is optimal

This post was edited by Thor123422 on Jun 6 2021 07:09pm

Working in service was way worse than any professional job I've had.

Ahh - even though it was laced with a (unimpactful) insult, this is something we can start with:

Optimal is relative based on the lens it's viewed through.

There are people who believe Optimal is straight communism where those who work for a living need to fund the other's willful lack of employment to play COD all day with a cost of living check every month. Please confirm if that's your stance.

And regarding "snowflake" - honestly, the only ones of those I've ever met were Bernie voters who are still (irrationally) angry he didn't win.

It's a contest and life goes on.

This post was edited by CyrusTheGreat on Jun 6 2021 07:36pm

I doubt my idea of optimal is your idea of communism.

So on the extreme end, we wouldn't say that no mobility is good. Like, people should be able to improve their lot in life if they try and work hard and develop their talents, right?

On the other extreme, we can't afford to give everybody everything they want at every moment.

You'd agree with both of these?

You've yet to explain your ideal of optimal (I have - self merit), so honestly, I am unable to respond to that until I have facts to review. If you're willing, I'd be glad to give an honest opinion, but as of now since you've divulged very little regarding your beliefs, but are very critical of mine, I'd only be able to make assumptions.

I don't think anyone would agree to no mobility. Seems silly to think one who goes to college for 8 years to be a doctor provides the same societal value as one who makes the drive-thru window a career by choice. I did make an analogy to this regarding a top-notch cardiac surgeon and incentive.

To the other end - what people want is irrelevant in this conversation. What we can't afford is to pay people more than the value they provide. For instance (and you're welcome not to believe me), I am an office developer at my job that has written over 50,000 lines of code and 20 different seperate full-fledged applications, not macros. However, there is another person who I currently try to "pick the brain of" as much as I can because we get along well and he puts my coding skills to shame (even though he has admitted, in writing, that for my experience level, I am doing great).

Should I be paid as much as him even though he contributes 10x what I do as a "young padawan"?

This post was edited by CyrusTheGreat on Jun 6 2021 07:46pm

Something you should understand, and this is something that isn't really contested in economics in any form, is that your pay is not commensurate to the value you bring to the table. Many jobs that massive value and are paid very little when all things are taken into account, such as nurses caring for the elderly. Similarly, many people make a lot of money by doing nothing but owning. If I inherited a million dollars tomorrow, I could easily make $70k a year by dumping it into SPY and letting it sit there even though I'm not actually doing anything of value. So to your question of "should I be paid X", is that there is no "should" when you're talking about productivity.

Okay so, we've established that some mobility is good. We can probably also agree that there are situations in which there is some mobility, but it's still not a very good system. For instance, the "best slaves" were often elevated to slaver assistants by the masters. They would get treated a bit better and be responsible for keeping the other slaves in line. This is definitely "mobility" afforded to slaves, but it's far from a good system. Agreed?

I understand financial stability very well. It’s why I don’t need to be rich to be very, very comfortable.

Your pay is completely commensurate on what you bring to the table. Higher skill = higher salary demand that gets taken seriously. I don’t think I follow you on that point but you’re definitely welcome to elaborate and we can go front there.

If you think the stock market and investments are the answer to easy wealth, then why are you not involving yourself in them? I’ve done my homework and I know for sure it’s a bad bet because it’s only you who is gonna lose money, not the hedge funds who really pull the strings.

You’re using a very radical analogy for something that hasn’t existed in over 150 year to make your point. That’s a shaky framework. If you’re looking for me to denounce slavery, I thought I did, but I will say clearly - slavery was wrong. No justification, no but, no explanation.

Agreeing to work for a company at will (meaning leave anytime you want no questions can be asked) is not slavery.