24 Replies to “Great Moments In Socialism”

  2. Another downside of high “minimum” wages: The higher the starting wage, the greater chance that it is no longer an entry-level position… the employee will be stuck at that wage and in that job for just about forever.
    I predict the next battle for the progressives will be mandated increases in wages, based solely upon time on the job. Like that’s going to work out really well.

  3. The cartoonist should be more specific. Change the word “people” to the more appropriate NDP, socialists, leftards or SJW’s.

  4. actually, I happened upon a magic boat once in my long diverse work history. paddled around in it for a while to take in life on Easy Street, pocketed the proceeds and then when I saw the ‘writing on the wall’ a.k.a. advances in technology which rendered the shoreline ‘house’ obsolete, quickly headed to shore to invest my easy earnings in a new career, ie the very new technologies I saw coming over the horizon.
    fun while it lasted, I encourage my acquaintances kids to get all the education they can because you just don’t know what will come in handy. the one thing you can take with you everywhere for the rest of your life is your education. ‘refresher’ courses are a must.

  5. No it’s just evil rich people hoarding cash, especially restaurant owners. They deserve to have the money taken away from them for which they’ve clearly earned no social license. No worries eventually we’ll have government restaurants because government, being compassionate is always more “efficient.”
    Minimum wage arguments are red herrings for social justice warriors to the minus 1, meaning their results are precisely opposite of their supposed intentions. 20 hours at $10/hr becomes 0 hours at $15/hr.
    The only tangible result, besides higher youth unemployment, is more drive through restaurants, but larger family type operations would get murdered.
    Take this example and apply it throughout the economy. Why, the eliminate jobs for the very few people who stay at lowest wage jobs and working kids still working at home. Of course they will save on carbon taxes.
    Thanks again to the 1/SJW’s. Your ignorance at bias at business is our undoing again. In case anyone hasn’t noticed already – their breadth of stupidity amazes me.

  6. I’ll say it again, … I am surprised that the city of Seattle hasn’t yet seized Starbucks and made it the official city government coffee shop … and then expanded UNION mandatory coffee breaks to 1:15 and required the purchase of both a blended coffee drink, and “healthy” berry scone.

  7. That’s what happened at the technical college I used to teach at.
    When I started, one was paid according to one’s qualifications and time on the job. A lot of my colleagues took the opportunity to get education degrees in order to move themselves higher in the grid.
    Towards the end of my time there, about a dozen years later, much of that was abolished. What we ended up with was a one-line grid from which one’s base pay was determined solely on accumulated time there, though there was a minor, but limited, differential if one had extra credentials. Many of those same colleagues quit going to university as there was no longer any financial advantage to add to one’s education.

  8. We wouldn’t need minimum wage laws if we put an end to our insane,unfettered mass immigration policies.

  11. Scandinavian and Western European countries are noted for having highly developed economies, efficient advanced technologies and also very generous social programs.
    That worked for a few generations because so few were unproductive and so many were productive. It was just part of the culture.
    Then mistaking utopianism for reality, politicians began to import large numbers of 3rd world migrants, who had neither the education, nor skills to compete in an advanced economy.
    There are no low wage jobs in much of Scandinavia. If you’re productivity isn’t high enough. They put you on social assistance rather than allow $10-$15 jobs to exist.
    Again that worked for a while because so few took advantage of that. Now mass Muslim migration is blowing that out of the water. They can’t afford any more and they actually can’t afford the number they have now.
    They have to cut back on the health care, housing and elderly care of their own citizens to provide for the mass of migrants.
    The Muslim youth will not work and provide for the pensions and care of the elderly Christian(post/Christian) infidels, but treat them as I.S.I.S. does.
    It will take two generations or more before most of the recent migrants could match native Scandinavian productivity. That is if they wanted to do that, which most of them don’t.
    Living off the infidel is the Islamic concept of jizya, being allowed by Muslims to live.
    Canada and the U.S. how have a growing percentage of the population who are not productive enough. The drain will destroy the economies and nation states if productivity no longer is part of the culture and civic responsibility.

  12. I used to be friends with someone during my freshman undergraduate year. We kept in touch for a while after that and then I found out he had become a radical leftist. He was an SJW before the term was even coined, which was back when “social justice” went by various names, such as “liberation theology”.
    He used to boast to me about how superior socialism was, using Europe in those days as an example. Back then, which was in the early 1980s, a 35-hour work week and generous vacation benefits were common–all courtesy of socialist governments in countries such as West Germany and Sweden. I remember how Europeans used to sneer at North America about how good they had it compared with us over here across the pond.
    Now we find that many of those same countries are willingly committing cultural suicide. Those two conditions couldn’t possibly be connected, could they? (sarcasm – off)

  13. During the Soviet era, restaurants in Moscow would close over the lunch hour to allow their staff time to eat. Can’t wait for the latte liberals to impose their ideology.

  14. Ha, I see a different problem and it’s the same one I come across at most every conservative news aggregater.
    The people that need to understand this the most will never even see it.
    Not to go off-topic, but Trump is the only vessel I have witnessed in recent years able to carry a message like this through to the media’s own flocks. He should talk more of these types of economic myths/realities, and challenge his opponents to give economically intelligent responses, as only Trump can bluster.
    How about Trump throwing some recent and accurate Seattle employment/min. wage stats on a giant-screen TV behind him and further calling out the media for continually perpetuating the left’s lies, for starters.

  15. I actually put it to ceci the Alberta finance minister at a red deer chamber of commerce meeting the theory of a rising tide and the impact of raising the minimum wage on all wages.
    He said he did not believe in the rising tide theory.

  16. B wrote: “A lot of my colleagues took the opportunity to get education degrees in order to move themselves higher in the grid.”
    Sorry B, but I see your colleagues as a big part of the problem. I know several elementary school teachers (now retired) who returned for a MEd. solely because it bumped them up the pay grid. They knew – and admitted – it brought no added value to their job of educating their Grade 2 charges, but it did provide them an additional $10K/yr, multiplied by every year on the job. Not to mention the much sweeter retirement pension it afforded for another 30 years after retiring at 55.
    It’s ‘crony education’, playing the system for purely one’s own benefit while knowingly doing so. Same thing holds true for social work. I know, because my ‘C’ average daughter was bright enough to take her M.Sw. for exactly that reason. I didn’t agree with it but hey, she won’t be coming to me for a down payment on a house.

  17. While I was teaching, I added 2 more degrees, but I did that because I wanted to, not because I was going to be paid more.
    The institution funded me the first time through a program it had for such things. One of the terms of that arrangement was that I return and stay for a year or else I would have to pay the difference.
    The second time was self-funded, which was another program the college had as well. Many of my colleagues did just that: pay into a managed fund for a few years and take a year or two off and draw on that money. During that time, some added to their education, some simply did whatever they pleased.
    I’m sure that certain administrators didn’t mind that I added a few more academic titles. I know in one instance, I was used as an example of how qualified the teaching staff at that place actually were.

  18. Back to you ‘B’.
    Still don’t see an argument for ‘value added’, just a justification that you ‘wanted to’ add additional degrees. I’d have to assume that you welcomed the additional monies, as well as the fact that your public institution funded your step up the ladder.
    As for the second example, I’d bet your colleagues received far more (taxpayer money) from that fund than what they paid into it. Taking “a year or two off” isn’t cheap, so how much of the $100 – $140K ($50K – $70K/yr) was their contribution.
    As for the “certain administrators” not minding the additional ‘qualifications’ as it enhanced the standing of their facility – well, that’s just you scratch my back while I scratch yours, all at taxpayer expense.
    Crony education at the expense of the kids.

  20. I want to set a few things straight.
    Many of my colleagues studied for their education degrees part-time and did so because, under the original pay grid we operated with, they would move further along the grid on the line that corresponded to their time of service. They paid for those degrees out of their own pockets.
    Sometimes, they paid into a fund for several years through a deduction from their paycheques. That money was invested and managed by the institution or some designated financial manager. At the end of a certain time period, they took an authorized leave of absence and did whatever they liked, sort of like a sabbatical, though not with the same conditions. Some colleagues went back to school, some went on vacations.
    In neither case was that done at the expense of the students.
    The institution also set aside money for things such as educational leaves. One had to apply for it and permission was granted from a high level in the administration. Again, the students didn’t pay for it.
    Having staff with an education like mine was considered good advertising, which was one reason certain administrators approved of my studying further.
    As for the extra money I got from my additional degrees, it was inconsequential to the point of being insulting, considering how much time, effort, and cash I invested in earning them. I lose more than that from my investments in a typical day.
    That’s hardly what I call crony education and it certainly wasn’t at the expense of the students.
    If you want stories about how money inside academe is mis-spent, and not always accidentally, I’ve got lots of them. It’s a good thing that educational institutions are funded by the government as the ones I was associated with couldn’t stay solvent if they tried.

  21. I don’t think $15 Cdn. an hour is unreasonable if the person is working and productive. What I find unreasonable is paying civil servants and other gov. employees more than what he or she could earn in the free market. Worst yet when they’ve been retired for 10 years and they still get free dental and other care! And worst than worst yet is the velvet lined pensions they’re given for life and with inflation causes!

  22. Again to ‘B’:
    So if I’m understanding you correctly, you taught in a ‘private, for profit’ institution? And the money paid into the ‘fund’ did not include contributions from the employer? All returns were from well invested products that returned the initial investment plus realized profits – nothing from the employer?
    What about the money for ‘educational leaves’, where did that come from if not the employer? If it was a public institution, it has to be from taxpayers or tuition, if private, then from tuition: ie, the student or their parents. Either way, it didn’t come out of the administration’s pocket.
    Perhaps your increase in income was ‘inconsequential’ at least by your standards, but your claim that you “lose more on your investments in a typical day” suggests you either made a lot of money in your career, thus allowing you to invest substantial amounts or that you come from very comfortable roots, resulting in you seeing increases due to your degrees as ‘inconsequential’.
    Regarding the teaching profession today, I was surprised when my wife mentioned that our grandson had a ‘professional development day’ on a Tuesday. Generally these fall on a Monday, allowing for a three day weekend (no compulsory attendance by teachers in BC). We joked with each other, saying the day had been changed due to the bad optics and widely held perception that PD days were being abused. As it turned out, both the Monday AND the Tuesday were devoted to PD – making us wonder just when teachers find time to actually educate our grandson.
    At the college/university level, they are overburdened with layers of bureaucracy and administration, resulting in much higher than necessary tuition. Let’s not forget too, how university administrations now want to introduce specialized yet compulsory courses, raising the ‘awareness’ of pet issues such as ‘aboriginal studies’. Students are paying for that too, like it or not.
    Education has devolved into yet another gov’t regulated scam where the ‘customers’ – students, parents, employers and society at large are dinged for ever increasing costs while receiving a sub-standard product.
    But teachers are altruistic martyrs, sacrificing so much for the sake of the children.

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