NP Wednesday June 26, 2019

[Pharaoh RutinTutin 1,586]

https://egscomics.com/egsnp/pizza-02

Kitty, be fair.

Not all Pizza is greasy.

Only the good stuff.

Edited June 26, 2019 by Pharaoh RutinTutin
Oops

[hkmaly 490]

... ok, so far good.

Also, it's totally not communism. This is shining example of capitalism. I don't think anyone in communism would care about how much are people buying - if it's like true communism and not the one they are currently testing in China, which is basically capitalism without free speech or fair elections.

[Scotty 1,061]

My cookies are on Tensaided invoking XKCD #1357.

[Stature 96]

The story arc is Pizza??

(Granted, I knew that Monday but I had no time)

Also, what would replace pizza? This is not a cake v. pie thing, innit?

[Scotty 1,061]

1 hour ago, Stature said:

Also, what would replace pizza? This is not a cake v. pie thing, innit?

It would be too easy, in fact it'd be a pizza cake.

[mlooney 3,417]

37 minutes ago, Scotty said:

It would be too easy, in fact it'd be a pizza cake.

/me makes a note in The List.

[ChronosCat 155]

*sigh* And we're back to the same over-used starburst background in panel one. Yay.

...Anyway...

Tensaided makes a good pizza-place manager. Maybe he should take up that job if the video store ever folds?

Incidentally, I have decided to call the world of this story the "Pizza-verse".

[ijuin 572]

21 hours ago, hkmaly said:

... ok, so far good.

Also, it's totally not communism. This is shining example of capitalism. I don't think anyone in communism would care about how much are people buying - if it's like true communism and not the one they are currently testing in China, which is basically capitalism without free speech or fair elections.

Sadly the word “Communism” has been turned into a catch-all synonym for “Un-American”.

[hkmaly 490]

1 hour ago, ijuin said:

Sadly the word “Communism” has been turned into a catch-all synonym for “Un-American”.

So, something like when citizen of Rome said something is barbaric?

[Pharaoh RutinTutin 1,586]

5 hours ago, ijuin said:

the word “Communism” has been turned into a catch-all synonym for “Un-American”.

 

4 hours ago, hkmaly said:

something like when citizen of Rome said something is barbaric?

A remarkably succinct summation of what the word has become.  The typical American no longer has any interest in the underlying Social, Economic, or Political Philosophy of Communism.

[Scotty 1,061]

28 minutes ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

 

A remarkably succinct summation of what the word has become.  The typical American no longer has any interest in the underlying Social, Economic, or Political Philosophy of Communism.

It's because of those bigshot million/billionaires who act like 2 years olds whenever someone mentions that they should share the wealth.

[Don Edwards 548]

4 hours ago, Scotty said:

It's because of those bigshot million/billionaires who act like 2 years olds whenever someone mentions that they should share the wealth.

Well, those bigshot xillionaires mostly fall into two categories:

* Those who got rich because they CREATED the wealth and shared it, but kept a small percentage for themselves.

* Those who got rich because they TOOK the wealth and maybe shared just enough of it that they could claim that as the motive for the taking (and, typically, in the process gained some control over the people they shared with).

The "make the rich share their wealth" movement seems to primarily be led by the second group and aimed at the first.

[hkmaly 490]

10 hours ago, Scotty said:

11 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

A remarkably succinct summation of what the word has become.  The typical American no longer has any interest in the underlying Social, Economic, or Political Philosophy of Communism.

It's because of those bigshot million/billionaires who act like 2 years olds whenever someone mentions that they should share the wealth.

I wasn't aware 2 years old are doing any interviews.

... wait, you mean there is better way to share the wealth than to hire someone qualified and pay him what's his work is worth?

5 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

Well, those bigshot xillionaires mostly fall into two categories:

* Those who got rich because they CREATED the wealth and shared it, but kept a small percentage for themselves.

* Those who got rich because they TOOK the wealth and maybe shared just enough of it that they could claim that as the motive for the taking (and, typically, in the process gained some control over the people they shared with).

The "make the rich share their wealth" movement seems to primarily be led by the second group and aimed at the first.

Note that it's important to differentiate between people who create wealth and people who create money. The people who are creating money are rarely creating any wealth or do anything useful, no matter if they work in government or in banks.

[Scotty 1,061]

Just now, hkmaly said:

... wait, you mean there is better way to share the wealth than to hire someone qualified and pay him what's his work is worth?

For one example, a US business that makes millions in profits should at least hire local even at minimum wage rather than outsourcing to Asia where they can pay much less in wages.

Another would be that people seem to think that minimum wages are the problem with poverty and the lower class keeps demanding better minimum wages, but every time they hike up min wage, businesses raise their products and service prices to maintain profit margins, at the same time unionized workers start demanding higher wages so that they stay ahead of min wage workers and not feel like their getting short changed. That also causes businesses to raise prices to maintain profits and then everyone's back where they started with the lower class barely scraping by and upper class still swimming in money.

[hkmaly 490]

4 hours ago, Scotty said:

5 hours ago, hkmaly said:

... wait, you mean there is better way to share the wealth than to hire someone qualified and pay him what's his work is worth?

For one example, a US business that makes millions in profits should at least hire local even at minimum wage rather than outsourcing to Asia where they can pay much less in wages.

So you think sharing wealth with people in Asia is bad idea? They even need it more.

4 hours ago, Scotty said:

Another would be that people seem to think that minimum wages are the problem with poverty and the lower class keeps demanding better minimum wages, but every time they hike up min wage, businesses raise their products and service prices to maintain profit margins, at the same time unionized workers start demanding higher wages so that they stay ahead of min wage workers and not feel like their getting short changed. That also causes businesses to raise prices to maintain profits and then everyone's back where they started with the lower class barely scraping by and upper class still swimming in money.

Yes, that's called inflation. The real value the minimum wage workers get is related to their productivity. If their productivity don't change, wanting more is just changing the number on the banknote.

The idea that upper class is not allowed to swim in money is really communism.

The idea of capitalism is that the lower class can't be barely scraping by, because you need it rich enough to buy your products.

So far, it seems to work, as the lower class which "barely scraps by" tend to have cars, televisions, washing machines, freezers, smartphones and lot of other things which didn't even exists hundred years ago.

Of course, lower class not liking upper class swimming in money is important part of system, sort of feedback mechanism helping to balance it correctly. It's just that the correct balance STILL has upper class swimming in money, just not scuba-diving in them.

If something is worrying in current world, it's not how much money minimum wage workers have. It's how much (or rather how little) money the middle class have. Especially people like teachers, doctors (I mean physicians), researchers and inventors. Too many political decisions end up hurting the middle class most, because the upper class is rich enough to find way around it and the lower class don't have anything you can take from them without causing obvious problems.

[ijuin 572]

7 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Note that it's important to differentiate between people who create wealth and people who create money. The people who are creating money are rarely creating any wealth or do anything useful, no matter if they work in government or in banks.

Money is not wealth. Money is permission to buy wealth.

[ChronosCat 155]

12 hours ago, hkmaly said:

The idea of capitalism is that the lower class can't be barely scraping by, because you need it rich enough to buy your products.

So far, it seems to work, as the lower class which "barely scraps by" tend to have cars, televisions, washing machines, freezers, smartphones and lot of other things which didn't even exists hundred years ago.

Maybe it's better in Europe, but in the US there are plenty of people who are homeless, or don't have enough food to eat or enough money for proper medical care. I'd say the system is failing them.

Also, while televisions might be luxuries, the way things are set up these days many of the things you mentioned actually are necessary for anyone hoping to live a stable life. If you want a job you need a way for people to get in touch with you (thus a phone, though not necessarily a smartphone), and clean clothes (thus either a washing machine or access to a laundromat). And unless you live in walking distance of both your job and a place to shop for food and other essentials, you need either public transportation which can get you there (which outside of cities probably won't be an option, and even in cities is not always good enough) or a car.

12 hours ago, hkmaly said:

If something is worrying in current world, it's not how much money minimum wage workers have. It's how much (or rather how little) money the middle class have. Especially people like teachers, doctors (I mean physicians), researchers and inventors. Too many political decisions end up hurting the middle class most, because the upper class is rich enough to find way around it and the lower class don't have anything you can take from them without causing obvious problems.

Another worry is that the middle class seems to be shrinking (and not because more people are becoming rich!).

Just to be clear, I'm not arguing communism is the answer, I'm just saying that without proper safeguards capitalism can produce some pretty nasty results too, and (at least in the US) the current safeguards aren't enough.

[Don Edwards 548]

Unfortunately, in the US many of the current safeguards appear to be stuff that sounded good at first glance and never got a second glance before being implemented - and the secondary effects serve to hold people down.

[hkmaly 490]

5 hours ago, ChronosCat said:

18 hours ago, hkmaly said:

The idea of capitalism is that the lower class can't be barely scraping by, because you need it rich enough to buy your products.

So far, it seems to work, as the lower class which "barely scraps by" tend to have cars, televisions, washing machines, freezers, smartphones and lot of other things which didn't even exists hundred years ago.

Maybe it's better in Europe, but in the US there are plenty of people who are homeless, or don't have enough food to eat or enough money for proper medical care. I'd say the system is failing them.

You mean there are people in US who DO HAVE JOB and still are homeless or don't have enough food? Ok, that does seem like failure.

(US medical system sucking is nothing new for me.)

(PS: And yes, here I meant in developed countries like US and Europe.)

5 hours ago, ChronosCat said:

Also, while televisions might be luxuries, the way things are set up these days many of the things you mentioned actually are necessary for anyone hoping to live a stable life. If you want a job you need a way for people to get in touch with you (thus a phone, though not necessarily a smartphone), and clean clothes (thus either a washing machine or access to a laundromat). And unless you live in walking distance of both your job and a place to shop for food and other essentials, you need either public transportation which can get you there (which outside of cities probably won't be an option, and even in cities is not always good enough) or a car.

Them not being luxuries doesn't invalidate the point that lower class having them is definitely progress and result of capitalism working.

How common you think those are in North Korea?

5 hours ago, ChronosCat said:

Another worry is that the middle class seems to be shrinking (and not because more people are becoming rich!).

Yes, this too.

5 hours ago, ChronosCat said:

Just to be clear, I'm not arguing communism is the answer, I'm just saying that without proper safeguards capitalism can produce some pretty nasty results too, and (at least in the US) the current safeguards aren't enough.

3 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

Unfortunately, in the US many of the current safeguards appear to be stuff that sounded good at first glance and never got a second glance before being implemented - and the secondary effects serve to hold people down.

That's true. However, that problem is not directly related to rich people swimming in money. Like, true, it might result in some of those rich people becoming little less rich, but it shouldn't be goal.

Setting the safeguards correctly is already hard even without being distracted.

In EU, for example, lot of those safeguards got out of control and are TOO restrictive.

 

[ChronosCat 155]

1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

You mean there are people in US who DO HAVE JOB and still are homeless or don't have enough food? Ok, that does seem like failure.

From what I've heard, people with a job but not able to afford enough food is fairly common. I don't think being homeless with a job is so common, but then I imagine being homeless would make it hard to get or keep a job.

1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

Them not being luxuries doesn't invalidate the point that lower class having them is definitely progress and result of capitalism working.

Is having things that we now need really progress over neither having nor needing them? (Well, I suppose I'd rather use a washing machine than wash clothes by hand, and I enjoy being able to travel great distances in short amounts of time... I'm just saying we can't judge progress solely on how much stuff people have.)

Anyway, my earlier point was that just because people have what at first glance appear to be luxuries doesn't necessarily mean they aren't really just barely scraping by. (I don't know if you were saying otherwise, but it looked to me like you were implying it.)

[hkmaly 490]

33 minutes ago, ChronosCat said:

3 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Them not being luxuries doesn't invalidate the point that lower class having them is definitely progress and result of capitalism working.

Is having things that we now need really progress over neither having nor needing them? (Well, I suppose I'd rather use a washing machine than wash clothes by hand, and I enjoy being able to travel great distances in short amounts of time... I'm just saying we can't judge progress solely on how much stuff people have.)

Not the things themselves, but the abilities they bring. As you said, using washing machine instead of washing clothes by hand, traveling, and there is VERY long list of stuff smartphone allows you to do ... and I don't mean playing Candy Crush Saga, FarmVille 2 or other popular games.

34 minutes ago, ChronosCat said:

Anyway, my earlier point was that just because people have what at first glance appear to be luxuries doesn't necessarily mean they aren't really just barely scraping by. (I don't know if you were saying otherwise, but it looked to me like you were implying it.)

Well, "scraping by" is relative. On one hand, we have the member of lower class in US, who, while having all mentioned not-really-luxuries, can only afford it by being hungry - eating unhealthy but cheap food less often than he would like. It seems fair to describe his condition as "scraping by".

On the other hand, we have person in different part of world, possibly not even that far away, who doesn't have any of that stuff and eats mostly garbage (I mean literally - stuff found in trashcans). And that person may consider themselves lucky because they actually saw other people dying of hunger. Maybe they even feel they have enough to give out some of what they have.

The point being that there can be lot of progress even if "barely scrapping by" can be used to describe both "before" and "after" situations.

[ijuin 572]

1 hour ago, ChronosCat said:

From what I've heard, people with a job but not able to afford enough food is fairly common. I don't think being homeless with a job is so common, but then I imagine being homeless would make it hard to get or keep a job.

I live in an area where the median rent for a 3-bedroom home per month equals two hundred times the minimum hourly wage (i.e. about 1.5 times the total pre-tax income of any minimum wage worker). Any housing that isn't cram-an-entire-family-into-one-bedroom that is within two whole COUNTIES of the main job sites around here costs more than a two-income minimum wage family could pay. Going by the rule-of-thumb of housing costing 30% of one's income, a household here needs to have U$104 thousand per year income in order to NOT need housing assistance. This is what happens when five million jobs are all in one place and nobody wants to build more housing.

4 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Well, "scraping by" is relative. On one hand, we have the member of lower class in US, who, while having all mentioned not-really-luxuries, can only afford it by being hungry - eating unhealthy but cheap food less often than he would like. It seems fair to describe his condition as "scraping by".

On the other hand, we have person in different part of world, possibly not even that far away, who doesn't have any of that stuff and eats mostly garbage (I mean literally - stuff found in trashcans). And that person may consider themselves lucky because they actually saw other people dying of hunger. Maybe they even feel they have enough to give out some of what they have.

My concept of poverty is that it begins when you have to start robbing Peter to pay Paul--e.g. having to skip meals in order to make the rent payment, or having to not wash your clothes in order to afford a meal. Extreme poverty is when you can't pay Paul even by robbing Peter--e.g. you can't get food even if you skip the rent payment and risk eviction.

[hkmaly 490]

12 minutes ago, ijuin said:

1 hour ago, ChronosCat said:

From what I've heard, people with a job but not able to afford enough food is fairly common. I don't think being homeless with a job is so common, but then I imagine being homeless would make it hard to get or keep a job.

I live in an area where the median rent for a 3-bedroom home per month equals two hundred times the minimum hourly wage (i.e. about 1.5 times the total pre-tax income of any minimum wage worker). Any housing that isn't cram-an-entire-family-into-one-bedroom that is within two whole COUNTIES of the main job sites around here costs more than a two-income minimum wage family could pay. Going by the rule-of-thumb of housing costing 30% of one's income, a household here needs to have U$104 thousand per year income in order to NOT need housing assistance. This is what happens when five million jobs are all in one place and nobody wants to build more housing.

Nobody WANTS? Seriously? That is DEFINITIVELY failure of capitalism. I mean, there can be other explanation, like simply lack of space to build on, but in capitalism, there would definitely be companies who, hearing that, would immediately start checking if they could build there.

12 minutes ago, ijuin said:

My concept of poverty is that it begins when you have to start robbing Peter to pay Paul--e.g. having to skip meals in order to make the rent payment, or having to not wash your clothes in order to afford a meal. Extreme poverty is when you can't pay Paul even by robbing Peter--e.g. you can't get food even if you skip the rent payment and risk eviction.

... so that's why there is so much criminality in low-income - oh wait it's just phrase. First time I'm seeing it.

It may be usable general rule, however there are people skipping meal to buy new iPhone, so you would still need to determine what is luxury.

(Note that new iPhone is DEFINITELY luxury. Smartphone in general may not be, but you can definitely manage with android or older iPhone, either being cheaper than new iPhone.)

[ijuin 572]

3 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Nobody WANTS? Seriously? That is DEFINITIVELY failure of capitalism. I mean, there can be other explanation, like simply lack of space to build on, but in capitalism, there would definitely be companies who, hearing that, would immediately start checking if they could build there.

Unfortunately it is not a matter of the construction companies not wanting to build housing--it's a matter of the city councils--and the NIMBY residents lobbying them--not wanting to allow new construction. For example, people living in single-family residences are refusing to allow apartment buildings to be built in their neighborhood. There have been several bills proposed in the California state legislature to force communities to permit construction, but they have failed to pass so far.