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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: NAG1 who wrote (392110)	12/18/2018 9:03:01 AM
From: koan	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 540839

I don't have a passion for her and I see her weaknesses. What I have is respect for her. She is only just 29 years old and yet is thinking better than most of the people in congress. I see her as a needed "gadfly" at this point and as she matures a powerful force for humanity. E.g. her "outing" the fact the interns and many staffers are working for nothing. That is crazy, this is the US congress. Why would we have people working there for nothing? And why did no one else bring this up before? And she is going to pay them. I'll bet they change the rules now and everyone will be paid for their work, as they should be. That will be a feather in her cap. Or, the fact the American Enterprise Institution and the Koch brothers were sponsoring "Democrats" orientation. That is nuts, so why was it happening? Probably had to do with money in politics we should fear. As well, she is right about the need for society to help people that need help. That is job 1 of a great society. And it starts with the "common" person, not the rich , which has been the rule for 50 years now because the Republicans have been catering to the rich, not the average person's need. And we should have affordable education, universal health care and be attacking global warming, we have just been warned again, is even worse than we thought. Last, the $15 minimum wage. People earning less than this are living in poverty. 40% of the nation now makes less than $20,000 a year. And the top 1% have more wealth than the bottom 50%, or something like that. It is worse than that I think. Income inequality is a cancer on a society as explained by Joe Stiglitz in his recent book. So what are the realities of a $15 minimum wage? First you are giving the poorest people in the nation a much better life. Two, you are having a huge impact on income inequality which is a cancer on our society and three; you are adding a significant stimulus to our society, and four, you will have less people who need social services like Walmart employees qualifying for food stamps, or welfare, and forcing the Walmart family who is obscenely rich, to pay a living wage, which they can well afford. It would act like a modern day union. In fact the argument against unions 100 years ago was similar i.e. unions would would put too many companies out of business and hurt the economy. Never happened, and they created our middle class and the huge financially secure middle class of the 50's. What are the negatives. Personally I don't think there will be much other than forcing some businesses who rely on slave wages, to be encumbered, but who often probably should not even exist, and compared to what you will gain, it will be insignificant. And it will force the corporations and rich, who have had a free ride for so long taking advantage of workers, like before there were unions, to pay a living wage. <<Your passion for her is admirable and maybe you will be right about her. But right now, for me, she is an unproven quantity.