Graduated Minimum Wage?

Agreed, but frankly the American system both in Gov't and in private sector business RARELY think in the long term.


Politicians are thinking about what they need to say/do/vote for or against in order to have a platform to get re-elected (every 2,4,6 years whatever type of politician they are)


And private sector is worried about quarterly profits for stockholders lest they be sued.

So in my view there needs to be a few new positions or some kinda group legal or not that takes the long term view of the math of budgeting and policy making, explains it well to the common voter, and can have some pull in Washington, without worrying about either condition of re-election, or profit. (sort of the concept of a Philosopher King, but operating simultaneously in a Democracy)

 

Monkir

Agreed – but systems can and do change and I think that reform is well overdue.

For me a problem is that speculative profit has taken over from genuine investment, companies shares are bought and sold, for short-term profit often by people and concerns that don’t actually know that those companies do or produce. This is because the investment (speculative) arms of banks have the ascendance because they produce short-term high risk profit that as you say looks good on quarterly statements. I’d split the banks with one part being about short term higher risk speculation and the other being about long term investment.

In Germany banks “have large interests in the commercial sector. As such, many corporate boards offer seats to high-ranking German banking officials, whose banks are often investors in the corporation. As a result, they seek to promote long-term investment in the overall health of the companies they are working with” (Wiki)

In many places there are such ‘independent’ bodies in the UK we have committees that look into long term national and regional development and these often here get cross party support.

The problem as I see it is that often such development (as in the past) has needed public money to pay for some or all of it and the neo-liberal/free market thinking that has dominated in many places for the last few years. In the UK it hasn’t complete dominance and so we still get that cross party support. I fear that in the US neo-liberalist thinking is much more dominate and has little opposition.

But as has been shown on these forums such free market thinking doesn’t stand up well to scrutiny, and I can only hope that more people get to realize this.

 

Massachusetts just raised the minimum wage to $11 an hour. Passed easily.

 

:2thumbsup:
Massachusetts is awesome in so many ways...I'm really tempted to move there.

 

I would never move to Mass. But I fully support them in exercising their State rights. That's the beauty of sovereign states

 

LOL Mass is not a "sovereign state". In fact no states are sovereign, the constitution being the supreme law of the land, and the judicial branch of government bound to uphold those laws.

Though with a right-wing controlled judicial, they will probably lean toward a more neo-confederate interpretation when it comes to states governors wanting to claim sovereignty so they can change voter rights laws in the effort to suppress the Black and Hispanic vote. :biker: