Comments by "L.W. Paradis" (@l.w.paradis2108) on "Why Can’t Conservative Pundits Stop Defending Corporate Elites?: Briahna Joy Gray" video.

Freedom was being able to earn in-state tuition OR trade school tuition by working for the minimum wage over the summer, then afford a studio apartment in any city -- New York, San Francisco, Denver, Dallas. And the car and gas to get there. That was freedom. That was how Americans used to live.
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In 1970, working all summer for the minimum wage covered an entire year of in-state tuition and fees, or trade school. Minimum wage paid the rent on a studio in any coastal city, nevermind Denver or Chicago. That was freedom. No one had college debt they couldn't pay off waiting tables.
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Freedom was being able to earn in-state tuition OR trade school tuition by working for the minimum wage over the summer, then afford a studio apartment in any city -- New York, San Francisco, Denver, Dallas. That was freedom. That was how Americans used to live.
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I bought my first new car in my 40s. So?
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@dadongp8154 Minimum wage DID keep people housed and clothed and fed. Public transport got them to work. Minimum wage summer jobs paid trade school or in state college tuition. Explain to me how you start out without that. Oh, that's right. A trust fund.
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@patricksmith4118 You mean, you bought brand new cars, from a dealer, as a kid? Didn't you have anyone to tell you how to pick used? (P. S. Chicago in the house.)
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@steve_m2473 The kids who worked their way through school 40 years ago and the ones today who don't are different people. The play-date kids are infantile forever. Economic policies have broad consequences for real life. Be careful how you define "efficiency." It really means benefits for a few and hardship for all others. IOW, all economics is political economics.
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@steve_m2473 It was implicit in your reply to Josh Bobst, and in free market arguments in general. So, let's drop all of the labels, no problem. Were people who could pay for school and get a small apartment anywhere in the country by working 35 to 50 hours per week at minimum wage a freer people? (Did they enjoy more "liberty?")
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@steve_m2473 Do you understand that $3.10 per hour could cover all that? That was the purchasing power of a dollar. Multiply 3.10 × 35 × 10 and you get . . . a year of in-state tuition and fees or trade school in 1980. Were people "enslaved?"
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@steve_m2473 No one denies that. (BTW, I have a flip phone.) If you contend that the freedom to earn your own tuition, rather than taking on massive debt OR having to join the military and then benefit from the GI Bill, is enslaving others, you're going to have to explain that. Since school became something you must take on massive debt to complete, more and more people have gotten Business degrees, hardly the path of liberation for the shoe and smart phone makers. The Business majors will be fighting to get jobs managing those people. They won't be thinking about enslavement. Huh. Who took a larger view, tell me again?
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Tax opponents ignore the marginal value of a dollar. It is huge at $24k, essentially nothing at $24m. Dollars are not rigid yardsticks.
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Freedom was being able to earn in-state tuition OR trade school tuition by working for the minimum wage over the summer, then afford a studio apartment in any city -- New York, San Francisco, Denver, Dallas. That was freedom.
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Reagan gave is the income tax Social Security benefits.
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Even Forbes and Fortune write about how many corporations spend WAY more on lobbying than taxes.
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When salaries were not ridiculous, no.
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@theredscourge Freedom means the ability to decide upon your own destiny. What good is money hoarding when the generations after you, including your children, are at risk of not having their basic needs met?
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@theredscourge And if the company you work for goes bankrupt and you're 45 years old, it's freedom for you, too, when a night class at a university costs $100 per credit hour or the equivalent at trade school, and unemployment benefits aren't affected by your efforts at retooling. At 25, a person needs to count on working 45 years; at 45, the better part of three decades. People who thought they had saved enough for early retirement found out differently in 2001, 2008-2009, 2020, or, if they lacked good health insurance and got a dreaded diagnosis without warning (and despite excellent health habits) at age 58. I don't understand short memories.
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These lifetime-earnings salaries "earned" in THREE MONTHS are bogus. No one is "working harder or smarter" for that. A measly $10 million is over $1,140 an hour, 24/7/365. Do the math.
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Nonsense. You ignore the marginal value of a dollar. It is huge at $24k, essentially nothing at $24m. Dollars are not rigid yardsticks.
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