I guess the part I left out was the fact that all the managers had master degrees in hotel and restaurant management. To them, 40K a year is not acceptable. They only took that low paying job for the hopes that one day they will end up with the higher paying job.

The point was that even of you are not one of the people who gets to make the big bucks, you still make more due to capitalism then you do with a more socialistic setup (pay everyone the same), because the drive to generate more income raises the total income.

A smaller piece of a bigger pie is better then everyone getting the same size piece of a smaller pie.

That's the failing with Socialistic system. The pie will always be smaller.

oh wait, I got it.

In my world, I believe that you should get paid what you are worth. The thing that irks most socialists is that capitalism goes to the extreme and begins to exploit the workers for the sake of profit. Hence we see sweatshops and the like; they pay someone 10 cents a day to sew some pants, then they make something like 10000% profit when they sell those same pants for 100 dollars at Macy's or whatever.

Now if those sweatshop workers had better working conditions and were getting paid what they were worth (now when I mean that, i don't insist that they make 10 dollars an hour or whatever; but simply enough in their currency to that they can provide for their basic needs; even if its just 10 dollars a day.) then I don't think anyone, even socialists, would have a problem.

On the other end, we can see instances where it swings the other way and the workers pretty much cripple the economic system. GM and Ford are prime examples of this. I wholeheartedly believe that the contracts the Unions forced on the Automakers crippled GM and Ford to the point where both are hanging by a thread. Because of the contracts, both companies are forced to pay ridiculously high wages and pensions to workers who have been there a long time.

This should be the OP... He says what I meant to say so much better.

Immigration, which so many liberals are fans of, places downward wage pressure on low skilled jobs. All it serves to do is keep wages low.

Oh well F them. What I hate most is people who think they deserve more than they're worth. I hate people who have a sense of entitlement. The second they graduate college = they deserve some sort of higher wage.  I'd start two guys at the same spot and whoever does better will get the manager position. If they think they deserve a managerial position based on some piece of paper, then I'll show them the door and have them look elsewhere.

I think you are oversimplifying the socialistic system of paying everyone the same, because I don't think that is the way its supposed to be. That or maybe I'm not that socialist to begin with. 

I think you misunderstand me. They didn't think they were worth more, they just were the kind of people who wanted more out of life then 40K could buy them. The reason they spent 4-6 years in collage, is so if you did place them next to the guy who didn't have the paper, they would out perform, as they have a stronger understanding of the environment (unless the time in school was waisted).

They were all there for the 140K a year job, and were doing whatever they needed to be in the position to get it when a GM quit or got promoted to Regional Manager.

I don't like a lot of aspects socialism, I am more capitalistic (is that a word?). But I think that the extreme capitalism is horrible for 99% of the population. Taking aspects from socialism that work and using them in capitalist economies allows capitalism to work much better in some cases.

One thing you have to learn in your life is,  if somebody talks about politics, society or economy and tells you that something is "plain and simple", then this person is

a) lying to you

b) doesn't understand anything at all

c) has never even heard about academical debate and reasoning (sorry about my english, if this is not understandable)

d) the person, who created in good economy times a record US-budget-deficit

about that living in a communist country:

A friend of mine studied in Cuba (no worries he is not a communist, he graduated in cambridge after that in physics and he just went there, because believe it or not, the physics faculty in Havanna is one of the best in the world). His physics professor still lives in Cuba, is allowed to travel and doesn't leave, despite all problems, the country for good, because he's thankful that he had the chance to educate himself and isn't interested in money at all. If that's the point, you can live quite happily in a communist country, but sure thing that's just by far not what most of people would like.

What about all the republican tratra about, don't ask what the country can do for you, ask yourself what you can do for the country?

halogamer1989 said:

<Ban Public Schools
<Ban Public Housing
<Ban Public Health Care

<Let the private sector handle it, and pay for it with tax credits

It's like saying: let's cut off about at least 20% of your US-population from everything except food. You want to create illiterate people and people who die of minor diseases and if not ridicilous prices, because private sectors want to maximize profits. I still have to admit, that all the private thing whit sponsoring of schools etc. might work in a small town, but the world isn't a small town, and a large percentage of the people on earth don't live in a small town (if not the majority). That's funwise exactly the point, why the world was laughing hard about the Bush-administration (the laughing kind of wasn't funny in the end, with this crisis as a result of bad politics).

lol, I coulnd not have come up with a more perfect description of Halogamer if I tried.

Capitalism is greedy. If I could work my will every idiot who goes around with 'capitalism is good', 'yay for capitalism', capitalists are good', would be cooked in their own juices and buried with stakes of holly through their hearts.