Owning a business sucks.   What do you think he's doing?  Sitting on a sofa all day being fed grapes by scantily clad women?

My father owned his own business.  The stress is incredible.

I'd rather make less money and have a tiny fraction of the stress.

Oh boy, who said owning a business was easy? You're making the same mistake he is.

Everyone has a role in society. Business is needed and if that is what someone wants in life, go for it.

My problem with him is his attitude and what he thinks will work in owning a business. Not the fact he owns one.

FACT, there will always be in a three class system more workers than owners or even shareholders and CEOs. It is the jadedness in thinking I despise, not the free market. It is the abuse because of that jadedness that has lead to the market crash.

"Every man for themselves" is his attitude.

If all we are going to do in life is worry about ourselves, then we don't need a three class system for that. Lets just always equate money being the most important thing in life and only let people like Beyond vote.

There IS a class war and his mindset won at the expense of the rest of us. And now that the rest of us are saying we are not going to take it any more his mindset bitches.

Now, again, there are people who own businesses(all be it not enough) and there are rich people who do care. Stephen Cobert and John Stewart are millionaires I am quite sure. Even Buffet says that the tax code is unfairly stacked against the lower two classes.

So don't confuse issues here. Pointing out pay gap and lack of investment in the states is my issue. Money constantly flying out of the country because those who do that have no sense of loyalty to the societies they make money off of. The creation of nothing but low wage jobs and the default to cutting labor FIRST is hurting us.

Business is not bad by itself. But it is when all it does is care about itself. How one makes money and HOW it affects society counts as much if not more than simply the right to own a business.

Beyond's attitude sucks, Owning a business doesn't by itself suck. My prior owners had a conscious and many business people do. But not enough on a collective scale to prevent what has happened.

I am not, nore will ever suggest getting rid of privately owned business. I am suggesting a collective attitude change at the top. If it does not change then even the top will collapse because of it's own jadedness of "every man for themselves".

Beyond, like far to many business owners, not all, but far too many, live in a utopia bubble and ignore the reality around them. No different to me than when arguing with a theist about their utopia claims.

lol, well I am sitting on the couch and I've got a bitch wearing only a collar sitting with me. Haven't taught my dog how to feed me grapes yet. Not sure I want to. It would be sweet if I could get her to grab a beer from the fridge though.

Well, if I am Warren Buffet I'd be happy to give up half of what I make. And on top of that I'd also with what I had left over use on raising the salaries of those at the bottom and invest in their heath care and pay them enough to be able to support themselves on one job.

I do believe even in our history the tax rate that created the middle class at one time was as high as 90%. Keeping in mind after the deductions they were only paying 50%.

I think if we get back to higher rates, investing in the worker, better pay, lower cost of living ratio, cheap or free higher education, which is what created our boom after WW2, we can get back to a less dependent society, which is what you say you want. And in theory that is noble, but the way everything is rigged now, it wont happen.

What wont work is what big money in our politics has set up. Unless that monopoly is broken, we will at best be facing another bubble in the future that will be dumped on us again.

I have a job starting next week.  $12 / hour, 18 hours a week, six month contract.  Plus the $500 from relatives, plus food stamps (which will be reduced once the job starts).  And I was making $60,000 a year less than 3 years ago.

So you tell me how someone who is currently bringing home $4,000,000 a year (I realize that isn't you) can not make it on $2,000,000?  Will the poor person have to give up a vacation home or yacht?  Poor baby.  I'm trying to stretch what is in my cupboard to last until food stamps show up next week and the electric company wants money sooner than that.

I don't have a problem with people making a good living.  6 figure incomes don't set my teeth on edge.  7 or 8 figures - yeah, they could live on a lot less.  The small business owner who is making $20,000 - 500,000 is working their ass off, but the CEO of a large corporation is not.  I have worked for large, global corporations (see last job) and I am reasonably certain all goes much smoother if the CEO doesn't attempt to "work".

People are not angry at the small business owners of this country, they are really fried with large corporations that have boards composed of the CEOs of other corporations - and they all vote for mega salaries and mega bonuses and mega stock options and mega platinum parachutes for each other.  Turn and turn about.

Congress doesn't want to increase taxes for the 1% because 50% of congress are milliionaires - at least.  They want pay raises and no new taxes.  Phhhttttt.  What would satisfy me is a tax rate in line with having two wars going on - though it doesn't have to be as high as the rates during WWII.  Say, 35% for the top bracket.  And we could add another bracket - say, over $500,000 that the higher rate applies to.  And taxes on stock market exchanges.  And some increase in capital gains tax.  Yeah, I know a lot of retirees have capital gains and they are not uber wealthy, but we could make capital gains progressive and that would catch the Donalds of this world and not mess with mom or grandma.

But no one who can do anything about it listens to me, so why should you care what I think.

None of my friends can afford health insurance.  So a coop is beyond our means as well.

Ask the ex small business owners in Ephrata, WA how easy it was to compete when Walmart moved into to town.  The local hardware stores, gift shops, grocery stores (even the Safeway) and health clinics all closed soon after Wally opened its doors.  When they were all out, the prices at Walmart took a big jump.  Surprise, surprise.

Your problem is you like dogs when everyone knows that truly civilized people like cats.

I don't have time to respond for real, but the key measure of "Fair" and "Livable" is sustainability, which is the only metric which makes sense for a SOCIETY.

And Brian37 is spot-on -- what you and the others are advocating is a race to the bottom.  The only thing that's keeping the current house of cards afloat is outsourcing to India and China as fast as companies can.  They don't buy a damned thing -- they are pure labor-export economies.  As the middle and working classes continue to be destroyed, the ability to employ even the Chinese and Indians will be destroyed right along with it.

Maybe from YOUR perspective.  I'm not sure what you do for a living and I really don't care.  I'm leaning towards supervisor or contractor, but who the hell knows.  

These "entities" are gradually squeezing out what's left of the golden goose they implemented about ninety years ago; that's why people are pissed off.  There was never any prosperity and opportunity in America to begin with; just smart people keeping the financial institution on it's toes from raping this country faster and more efficiently, but now that things have seemingly come to a head, it's now up to us to use our heads and try to erase the damage these corporate scumbags have done. 

You have job security while A LOT of others don't and the reason for this is technology.  The more advanced our knowledge of how to downgrade the human populace in various fields of labor, the more unemployment will rise.  The elite know this VERY well.  You're lucky enough that you are in a position to where things SEEM to be looking up, but once the debt ceiling crashes, their pyramid topples and money will become the biggest burden of all time, that's when you'll be fucked no matter how well you think you're doing.  Mark my words.

You're not a stupid person, Beyond, but wake the fuck up; the monetary system is broken, your train of thought of archaic and this "livable wage" crap is nothing more than a futile discussion on how things WON'T get better without some sort of massive social upheaval.  

"We know what you are, now we are negotiating price."

Rich - anyone who has way more money than any small third world country would need to support everyone who lives there for a year.

Wealthy - anyone who can walk out and buy whatever they want - house, car, etc - for cash.

The two definitions likely overlap.  I'm sure someone will look it up in a dictionary for you at some point.

Not trying to be snarky...but I have seen the word 'Rich' used as a pejorative to put down ANYBODY with wealth....kind of like the way people will use the 'N' word to describe black people.  It is like the 'Rich' is the new minority to hate. 

Yeah, I've heard them, too.  I don't worry about it - those who bitch will find something else to bitch about in a while.  We are all of us stereotyped in one way or another. 

I think what makes most people angry is the obvious disparity in income and the lack of compassion.  It is all your fault for being poor.  For not being a Bill Gates, Mark Zukerberg, Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Walt Disney, Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford ......... For not coming up with the million dollar idea, marketing / publishing / inventing / manufacturing / programming / providing the service.  "Turn your hobby into millions!"

The problem with that is we hear about the winners.  The people who make it.  We don't hear about the millions of people who make the attempt but for one reason or another - often just luck - don't make it and/or lose the rest of their savings on it with no return.  It's a common statistical fallacy - seeing the hits, but not the misses.  If it were published every day - Joe Blow's construction company closed - Jane Doe's hobby business crashed - the list would be a lot longer than the people who make enough money to live on. 

So, try, you say.  You can't win the lottery if you don't buy a ticket.  I have better chances of winning the lottery.  I honestly don't have an idea - every one I have thought of that I could do is being done.  Sometimes by more than one company.  There is no "fault" here, no lack of trying, no "ghetto mentality".  And to assume that there is, is insulting.

When the economy is trashed, the country is at war, people doing what they can but it is never enough, and someone who has plenty of money - they were born into a trust fund, they get over the top compensation while their employees are on food stamps - is unwilling to contribute a little more to the pot....... I'm supposed to think this is fine and wonderful?  When the person has so damn much money they couldn't spend it all if they tried?

In my post to BS, I stated what I thought would be fair.  I still think it is fair.  I am not for taking someone's hard earned money away.  I do not want to increase taxes on people who are making a decent wage / profit.  But if you could feed that third world country for a year, you are rich and it won't hurt you to help at home a little more.

And I think it makes more sense to have a centralized - usually governmental - place to get help when you need it.  Many states now have it set up so you contact one office and you get what you need and qualify for.  Much more efficient than attempting to contact hundreds of charities and figuring out whether or not this one is going to help or is only helping one eyed black Jewish male comedians this month.

I agree that is another very good reason for losing it.  Unions are not horrible - they can be not good just like every other organization put together by humans - including business and corporations.  They are the only way the employee has of negotiating with their employer and not getting fired for their efforts.

There are a couple of things about loyalty. 

1 - Make things cheaply so people will have to purchase replacements more often.  We were given a Norge refrigerator.  It was from the 60s.  We finally got rid of it about 4 years ago - it was still working but was really broke up inside.  We had moved it, laid it on its side.  Not a problem.  Newer refrigerators that would be not good.  Our electric bill dropped almost $10 a month when it was gone.  Norge is now out of business - has been for years.  Can you guess why?

2 - someone sued a corporation they had stock in because the corporation was not maximizing profits and therefore his dividends.  Now as I understand, Congress made a law.  Corporations must maximize profit.  And so we get short term - very short term - like once a quarter - planning.  Not conducive to loyalty to customers or anything else but money.

The only place you will find loyalty is with the small businesses.  Where the owner knows their customers, feels some loyalty to them, and wants to carry the best for people who may be personal friends as well as customers.

I'm sure there are more good and valid reasons for being angry with the "rich" and other bastards, but I didn't want to write a book.

I'd say $15 an hour coupled with a forced direct tie-in to inflation (wages go up with inflation, at the same rate) would be a livable, fair minimum wage.

Someone who makes a billion shouldn't have to pay more per $ in taxes, yet neither should they be permitted to keep it for themselves. They didn't make it, the people did. Most likely all they did was finance it, which anyone could do with enough money. And which money was also made by the people.
They should be entitled to a payout, certainly. But the majority of those profits should be reinvested instead of locked in a rich assholes bank. Noone on the planet has a credible argument for someone taking home a billion dollars, enough to feed a billion people for anywhere between a day and indefinitely.

Why should anyone be given a raise that has not earned a raise?  What have they done to improve production or produce more sales, or be more efficient beyond expectations?  That is when they deserve a raise.  Otherwise, they are paid what the market will bear.  If you start forcing wage laws then you force many businesses to go out of business.  The opportunity cost goes too high. 

Yes...and any time the government tries to interfere, the more it costs to run a company, the fewer companies want to come in or current ones expand and thus it retards job growth. 

"Fair share" is simply buzz word justification to have the government come in and effectively stick a gun in your face and extort, rob, steal YOUR money under color of law and call it "Taxation" or the new modern term...."Revenue Enhancement". 

That is why people are free to work else where.  Also, if the bosses are shitty, why whine...fuck with them personally....I have when I worked a job and before i got into business for myself.  Besides, what if that is all people really want to earn? 

Ahhh....tell me your kidding right?  Have you ever tried to go into something as timeless as farming?  Try going over 2200....YES...2200 pages of regulations and some of them from different agencies that conflict.  That  is just for a SMALL FARM.  Ever try to open a mechanic shop to work on cars?  Try looking at more than 2000 pages there.  "No government regulations" MY ASS. 

Now you're really joking.  Look at the definitions of "Job Growth" and "Unemployment"....you might find a slightly different definition....

APPLAUSE FOR YOU!!!!!

I have a similar story.  I graduated from college back in the dark ages...1989.  The economy sucked then.  My first job was in sales and had a base salary (training wage later to go to strait commission) of just $12,000.  The guy was an ok guy but his business was not doing good.  I left there, went to work in sales selling institutional janitorial cleaning supplies and chemicals to contract and institutional accounts.  That boss was an idiot and ran off good sales people and consequently he lost his ass and sold out and became the manager and they fired his ass.  I later worked as a manufacturers rep organization selling outdoor sporting goods over a large 4 state region.  I enjoyed that and the boss was wonderful to work for as he never said a cross word to me or gave me short shrift on anything and we are even friends to this day many years later.  The only problem was that for anyone to make any money in that industry you either had to be a direct rep (one who owned the agency) or a manufacturer.  I worked selling large capital equipment and the bosses only way of teaching you anything was yelling at you like a marine corp drill instructor.  I left there and got into business for myself and have never looked back.  That was 11 years ago.  That is not everything I have done, merely a thumbnail sketch of what I have done.  You don't HAVE to work for someplace shitty, you can go elsewhere. 

Psst...try reading my previous post.

I dare you to go and tell a farmer his farm is not a business.

Ahh....show me where I said "big corporations" grow jobs.....try learning to read.....

People are free to work elsewhere the same way that poor people are free to sleep in a nice warm bed.  Which is to say, there's nothing which insures that people =can= work elsewhere.

I'm pushing 50.  I worked on software that makes the Internet run in a reasonable manner.  I have a C.V. that is so impressive, there are people who just plain don't believe it's real, but I have enough government documents proving it's real that I have been known to attach them to my resume to make sure people get that it's a real C.V.

Do you want to know how hard it is for a 50 year old, female, highly experienced software engineer to get a job in software engineering?  Let me put it another way -- I don't know =anyone= who is over 40, well-experienced in the software engineering field, who has been laid off =and= gone back to find another job in their previous field.  NONE.  I know very few =women= who manage to stay in software development within software engineering, many of them being pushed into non-development positions.  I was in a department with 120 or so other engineers during a reduction in force.  Of the 10 people who were transferred out to other areas, 9 were women, and the other was a gay man with a similarly impressive background.  Of the remaining 110 engineers, let's just say that the percentage of the group that were women or queers went down by a LOT.  As in, I think there were 3 or 4 women left, and no openly gay or lesbian engineers.

He's not at all kidding.

Most government regulations can be summed up as "If it seems illegal, it probably is."

My company makes stuff -- software and electronic hardware, with some "non-electronic" hardware as well.  I avoid all manner of regulations by doing "RoHS Compliant" manufacturing.  Other parts of what I make are fabricated by others using my designs, and they have to deal with the regulations.  My purchasing costs are still well-below what I'd be paying if I bought off-the-shelf, so I must be doing something right.  I have fewer than whatever the limit of employees is before the employment related regulations kick in.  Many of those regulations can be avoided by outsourcing HR and payroll duties to any number of 3rd parties.  Because small businesses can't afford full-time payroll and HR staffs, this is a win-win anyway.

I'm not sure what he's referring to, but most of what the "Job Creators" are all for is finding ways to maintain high unemployment as a means of driving wages down.  That's been the trend for about 15 years now, ever since companies discovered "Off-Shoring" in earnest.

Not trying to be snarky here....but seriously....have you ever considered going into your own business?  You have the ability and credentials to go the self employment route.  I know of MANY contract engineers in other fields who do that and do quite well.  I know one who is an engineer, though not in your field, but he employs other engineers.  He is a mining engineer.  Also, if you can get into medical software, perhaps as a consultant or trouble shooter, you can make some big bucks.  My sister works for a medical software company and she has use contractors all the time.  No kidding. 

As for the lower wages you are referring to.  There is a way to protect American workers...do what has been done all through the history of the USA, use tarrifs on foreign goods to be equal with that of American goods, not higher, not to punish them, but to match price wise what we use here.  That alone used to pay for our military. 

Not necessarily.  You can start out by leasing it by the month.  If you get a client or two, that will get you going. 

You're dead wrong -- when I started my company I was told that not only did I have =zero= credit, I wouldn't have any credit for the first few years.

I tried the SBA route, but even though SBA loans are supposed to be a last resort for small businesses, they require some amount of credit, which many small business owners don't and won't have.

The are major structural obstacles to even =starting= a real company.  Other obstacles are more "cultural" where large companies know that small companies are desperate for clients and they use that to negotiate pricing that results in insufficient cash flow to actually grow.  The result can be higher volumes, but the margins can be forced to be razor thin, driving many new businesses OUT of business the first time there is an unexpected expense.

My first company was bankrupted by such a client -- I explained that I might not be able to get him the results he wanted, and I told him that I was going to try my best, but that if I failed, he needed to pay my hourly rate anyway.  The alternative would have been hiring someone far more expensive and not trying to save many thousands of dollars.  When I finally gave up, I gave him an invoice, which he refused to pay.  I threw in the towel and wound up doing other work for someone else.

Why is Union any different than a corporation that tries to create a monopoly in order to set prices?

Except of course when you go shopping. The mantra was driven by consumers like yourself.

But the corporations can go to Mexico or some other such place desperate for any kind of work at any kind of wage without Unions. The corporation can install automation equipment to eliminate high wage union jobs. So unions are pointless they kill their own jobs.

So isn't the real enemy too much competition in the world driven by overpopulation?

A union is a bunch of people, acting together, for their own interests.  As a group, a union presents a more equal "bargaining force" than any one individual employee.  That's all.  It's just Freedom of Association.  A basic Human Right

Actually ... not.  I recognized from the time I was a teenager that if you shop for =value= and not for =price= that everything tends to work out better in the long run.  "Value based" purchases tend to reduce total cost of ownership, while "cost based" purchases tend to reduce =current= costs with the possibility of far greater long term ("total cost&quot expenses.

Or put another way -- the most recent piece of Not Cheap Chinese Crap electronic gear that broke was a cassette deck I bought in 1989.  Did I pay a pretty penny for it 22 years ago?  Yup.  Did it last until well past the point where most people were even bothering with cassette tapes?  Yup.  Could I likely have it repaired so it would last another 10 or 20 years?  Yup -- except that I pretty much don't use cassette tapes anymore.

"Automation kills jobs" is a myth -- someone has to build the machines that makes the stuff.  Someone has to service the machines.  Someone has to operate or supervise the machines.  Automation increases the level of education needed, but "life" has already done that.  We don't seem to have fallen completely apart as a civilization because machines are doing what people once did, or what people could never do.

Not at all -- if you look at India and China, the economic issues caused by out-sourcing are caused by companies that are sending jobs to places which don't have "consumers".  The solution is simple -- get India and China to modernize their own countries.  Consume internally.  Build their own infrastructure for themselves.  With something like 2.5 billion people, there are plenty of business opportunities INTERNALLY, and plenty of social good that could come about by doing so.  The vast majority of people in both India and China don't have clean, running drinking water.  Many don't have electricity, access to health care, clean air, clean water, or clean much of anything else.

What they are doing is UNSUSTAINABLE, and is only being done to maximize corporate profits for Western businesses.  If they'd focus on their own people, their standard of living would rise and Western jobs would cease being farmed out to the lowest bidder, which is typically either slave labor or close to it.

But of course workers don't have a right of non-association with a Union. When will that become a 'basic human right'? Is there a magic sky daddy creating these 'rights'? Is intimidation people who cross picket lines with violence part the 'basic human right'?

How does buying union add value? All it does is add cost. Unions protect the jobs of crappy workers making it difficult to fire them.  Your buy union theory doesn't hold water. Detroit was putting out crappy cars from union plants while Japan succeeded with technology and innovation without Unions. That's how we lost the auto industry.

It kills Union jobs.

And the problem is now our schools don't produce workers that can design, build, program and maintain these machines. Thanks the teachers' unions, we can't fire the teachers and schools responsible for this mess.

Because these countries are even more overpopulated with poor people. There are a great place to look for low wage workers. So overpopulation is the enemy, not coorporations. Outsourcing is just a symptom of the real problem of an overpopulated planet.

How? The USA is broke. The left all want to tax the shit out the rich so they won't have any money to invest.

If you're a poor guy in India with a bunch of mouths to feed, what can you do except buy the cheapest food you can find and whatever outsourced job you can take, you only consume what you need to survive. China is finally on the road to real solution with a one child policy. The only hope to end all the economic despair in the world is for other coutries to start mandatory family planning.

Governments don't have magic wands. They only have men with guns to force people to do or not do something. What specifically should they do they are not doing now?