We Can Work It Out - Politics & Philosophy | Page 87 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

Wasn’t it Wigwam who made the ‘liberal cities’ comment, not BeatOfTheBrass? Will go and check the previous page to see. 

Also, just checked wikipedia and at least the top 5 states in terms of median household income are all Democratic controlled right now, and 4 out of the bottom 5 (the exception being New Mexico) have Republican control of the legislature. The ones in the middle tend to be more mixed, with more split legislatures. 

Also, we should consider that urban areas generally tend to prefer liberal parties, whereas conservative ones generally do better in rural areas, so it’s not entirely fair to compare their record on cities. 

Beatlebug said

QuarryMan said

Also, we should consider that urban areas generally tend to prefer liberal parties, whereas conservative ones generally do better in rural areas, so it’s not entirely fair to compare their record on cities.   

Nor is it fair to compare their records on states, then, by that logic; some states are more rural than others. I believe the statistic I heard was, in fact, referring to cities specifically.

Precisely, I think this whole line of argument is only valid in very particular cases because it’s so dependent on context. I mentioned it in the first place because of Wigwam’s point about San Francisco. We could compare Republican cities versus Democratic ones, and the same for rural areas, but because of the fact that most cities are Democratic and most rural areas are Republican, it’s not exactly grounds for a fair comparison in either case. 

Democratic candidate Andrew Yang is proposing UBI (Universal Basic Income) where everyone gets $1,000 a month, which should be enough to get you a cheap apartment.

If you add a minimum wage salary to that it would get you $1,290*, which should get you a low end apartment in most parts of the United States and if it can’t, you can spend some of that money to take a Greyhound bus to a town where you can. The only time there would be a problem if you have multiple children (which you shouldn’t do if you’re not financially capable of doing so) or if you’re spouse leaves you (which means you’ll be getting alimony if you gain custody of your children).

This is the best it’s going to get. Even getting that $1,000/month to pay every single American is going to be difficult and will require some heavy corporate taxation so any higher would require some unreasonable amount of taxation, destroying the benefits of the project.

*Assuming 40 hours at the federal minimum wage of $7.25, most states have it higher.

Dark Overlord said
Democratic candidate Andrew Yang is proposing UBI (Universal Basic Income) where everyone gets $1,000 a month, which should be enough to get you a cheap apartment.

  

Until your landlord decides to raise the rent by $1000. 

If you add a minimum wage salary to that it would get you $1,290*, which should get you a low end apartment in most parts of the United States.

With a monthly income of $1,290 all spent on the low end apartment you would be left with nothing to spend on food, bills, clothes, commuting costs etc… Basically everything else required to live.

Wigwam said

However, many, many, many of the people living rough on the streets and defecating there are hooked on opioids. That’s seemingly the unpalatable reality. 

And yet more proof that present drug policy (criminalisation and harsh policing) simply doesn’t work. If we want to solve this we should a) take strong steps to stop people becoming homeless in the first place and b) adopt a policy like that of Switzerland where addicts can access free treatment centres to house them until they can escape their addiction, and then give them support in finding employment so they can *Ewan McGregor voice* choose life once more. 

If we were to take the other route and raise the minimum wage, you have a pretty good chance of either being laid off or having your hours cut because your local mom and pop store can’t afford to pay you $15/hr. 

I see your point, but you’ve also got to consider the growth that an increased minimum wage could provide, as it gives ordinary people more expendable income to spend on consumer products and the like, meaning that all businesses would likely see growth to make up for the loss in funds from paying the workers more.

Besides, you wouldn’t necessarily have to raise the minimum wage all the way to $15 – according to democrats.edworkforce.house.gov , an increase to $12, elimination of the tipped minimum wage and the linking of minimum wage to median wage would lift 4.5 million out of poverty, and give 35 million voters a raise. If those workers are living paycheque to paycheque and barely scraping by, then they are unable to properly participate in a healthy economy because most of their income is going to more or less static housing, and not to consumer industries. 

At least with UBI, you don’t have to worry about that because most landlords can afford to keep rent prices the same.

But why would landlords want to keep rent prices the same when they could raise them without bankrupting their tenants? If UBI was to be introduced, I think there would have to be some legislation introduced to reign in landlords. 

Legalization and regulation is the best option IMO. These treatment centers are nice but until you can legally go into a drug store and buy safely manufactured drugs, the war on drugs will continue. I think Donald Trump said it best when he said “We’re losing badly the war on drugs, you have to legalize drugs to win that war. You have to take the profit away from these drug czars.”

Oh, I definitely support legalisation and regulation too, but on their own that wouldn’t deal with the issue of people being addicted to it. In my opinion, most drugs (including alcohol) are fine as long as they are done in moderation and don’t consume your whole life, so the aim should be to get addicts into this position in the least harmful and most effective ways, which seems to be a combination of legalising/regulating the softer stuff, and doing the decriminalisation/treatment centre thing for the harder ones. 

This video explains it quite well. 

50yearslate said
DO, you keep saying $600 is enough to find an apartment “in most places.” So far I haven’t seen any evidence this is true. Can you show us numbers?

Maybe not $600 but here’s quite a few areas where you can find an apartment for under $1K:

If on your own, you’ll have a budget of ~$300 for food and supplies. If you have a roommate, then you’ll have a budget of ~$1,600. You can subtract ~$300 per child, so if you have 2 children and your SO works as well, you’ll have a budget of ~$1,000.

Ron Nasty said
On the raising of the minimum wage, it is always argued by business prior to its introduction or a raise in its level, that it will be unaffordable by businesses and lead to job losses. Not a single study into the effects of a minimum wage on an economy after it has been put in place or raised has actually found it leading to job losses on any appreciable scale.  

Not necessarily a study but Bernie Sanders recently tried (and failed) to cut his staff’s hours so he could pay them $15/hr instead of the $13/hr they were getting. If one of the most genuine and sincere American politicians would do something like this, it’s undeniable that your average businessman would do the same.

That’s not to say that the federal minimum wage is livable but $15 is too much at this point. Personally, i’d raise it to $10 which combined with UBI should make for a livable wage without pissing off businesses too much. In theory, we could also raise the minimum wage for chain businesses to $20 and make it difficult for an employer to fire their employees and or cut their hours but while it would certainly be beneficial to the consumer, the free market would be destroyed.