
  2. WELCOME Grumblers

"Modest economic recovery 'in a pause'"

Discussion in 'Picture Framing Business Issues' started by Framar, Aug 1, 2010.

  1. Puppiesonacid

    Puppiesonacid SGF, Supreme Grumble Framer

    you have to remember that 7.35 in NY is not the same as 7.35 in mississippi or LA. so its a good thing they did that... so i agree that the state should be allowed to set its own based on that.
  2. JRB

    JRB PFG, Picture Framing God

    Minimum wage laws are put in place as a way to guarantee that government will receive more withholding taxes. Increasing minimum wage increases the tax government collects.

  3. Bob Doyle

    Bob Doyle SPFG, Supreme Picture Framing God

    So no matter what a company pays it's employees the company has to pay witholding taxes as if the employee was paid at the federal minimum wage level?

    I can almost beleive that as I know that my excise tax is collected on the original price of the car, not the sticker price :)
  4. Paul N

    Paul N In Corner

    And so do so those billion dollar bonuses for CEOs. The only reason they get them is because the guvment gets more taxes!!

    Diabolical scheme!!
  5. Jim Miller

    Jim Miller SPFG, Supreme Picture Framing God

    Bob, do you really think minimum wage laws have anything to do with limiting the income of CEOs? Your desire to limit CEO compensation is admirable, but you're barking up the wrong tree.

    I can't imagine why you would want to kill a disparity of wages. That's what gives low-wage earners the incentive to improve and progress. If everyone were paid the same, nobody would have a reason to progress. We're talking about fundamental human nature here.

    Anyway, minimum wage laws have never equalized pay scales. The disparity is calculated, purposeful, and it will always exist.
  6. Jeff Rodier

    Jeff Rodier SPFG, Supreme Picture Framing God

    Just like Unions. You make more because you existed for another year and not because you excelled.
  7. Bob Doyle

    Bob Doyle SPFG, Supreme Picture Framing God

    Jim, you're trying to cloud what I was saying. You knew what I meant it just didn't fit your narrative.

    You made the claim that raising minimum was detrimental to the whole economy, that giving the lowest paid worker an extra $40 a week would drive prices and wages through the roof. But you don't seem to think that dumping 100's of 1,000,000's of dollars into one person's pocket has any effect at all detrimentally to the rest of us.

    I think it does. If the CEO wants a pay of that scale then the company should pay the rest of the employees at a level better than what they'd get in a feudal serfdom.
    The disparity has never been so extreme, but yes it has existed, and a case can be made that it should. You should make money off your business, and you pay a premium to hire high quality employees and CEO's to keep the business profitable. In my own shop I would hope I was making more than the people I had working for me.

    But if I am paying someone $10 an hour do I really need to be paid $4000 per hour? If I were to settle for $500 an hour I could still pay my lowly framer $50 and then hire many more framers to increase production. And if production increased enough, and profits increased enough then as an overpaid CEO I could expect a bonus that would make up for much of the money I "lost" by reducing my earnings in the first place.

    Getting rid of the disparity would motivate the CEO to increase profit, which in turn would motivate the employees to increase production and get a share of the pie.

    I worked once in a profit sharing job. The place I worked in was trying to keep a union out, so they wanted to tie us workers in with the profitability of the business directly. It quickly cut down of "shrinkage" as people stopped stealing from themselves. People were more motivated to see product move off the shelves as it meant a few extra pennies a month in our pay. It worked. It worked a heck of a lot better than seeing the "Big Boss" pull up in front with his driver.
  8. Jim Miller

    Jim Miller SPFG, Supreme Picture Framing God

    Yes, Bob, raising the minimum wage is purely inflationary, which does no good for the economy.

    Through the roof? That is an exaggeration, and I said nothing about specific wage amounts. My point stands: Raising wages artificially, by government fiat, is a direct cause of inflation.

    More to the point, it does no good for those at the bottom of the wage scales. Their gain is insignificant and, even at that, very temporary. Also, it is a well-established fact that raising the minimum wage actually causes some of the lowest-paid workers to lose their jobs. The real purpose of any mandatory wage increase is political; it increases tax revenues based on employee compensation. Helping poor workers is nothing more than a happyface facade; lipstick on the pig, so to speak.

    A discussion of CEO compensation would be a fair topic, but it has no place in a discussion of minimum wage laws; there is no correlation between minimum wage laws and CEO income.

    If you believe state and federal governments should control all wages, which seems to be your implication, then tell us how that would improve our economy.
  9. Paul N

    Paul N In Corner

    Typical Republican disconnect from reality.

    Give a minimum wager a .10 cent increase and the whole economy collapses!!

    But when the taxpayers foot the bill for a single CEO's 500 million dollar bonus and they wouldn't even give it further thought (as if it is any different from TARP they allegedly hate).
  10. Bob Doyle

    Bob Doyle SPFG, Supreme Picture Framing God

    It establishes a baseline of pay for all workers, the least amount a worker can be paid. It does not say to increase the pay for everyone....
    ALL wages, NO! Again twisting what I say to suit your narrative.

    The federal government establishes what it thinks is a poverty level. (In our country and in others) They then publish numbers of Americans (and people in other countries) living below the poverty line. Establishing what is the lowest amount a worker can be paid is not establishing a pay scale for every single job in the country. It is an attempt to decrease the number of Americans that are living hand to mouth and below the poverty line.

    If $20,000 is poverty level and if a full time worker works 2080 hours a year (40*52) then $10 is poverty level wages. So earning $5.35 means the person will never be motivated to work harder as at that level they don't see 5 extra hours at work as being a huge increase in their "status" as they will still be way below the poverty line.

    I sell fair Trade, I like the concept of a fair local living wage paid to the people that make the items I sell. Works in the 3rd world. Could work here, if the lowest paid worker was paid a wage they could live on, feed their family on, and didn't have to debate between feeding their family and being away from their family by working longer hours.

    And the company would have more to pay the employees if they weren't so top heavy paying the CEO, CFO, COO, CIO's. Same argument with schools. The superintendents, special ed directors et al get paid far more than the teachers and ed staff. Yet here we hear complaints lodged against the teachers being over paid, not the administrative staff.
  11. JWB9999999

    JWB9999999 SGF, Supreme Grumble Framer

    Typical liberal disconnect from reality. In what reality are either of those statements true? None that I've seen.

    All that's been said is that min wage laws only give a temporary boost to the lowest tier workers, which then leads to inflation, which then devalues money, and effectively leaves said workers right back where they started. Min wage laws are not a way out of poverty, their effects are only an illusion.

    That doesn't mean they can't be useful to eliminate instances of "slave labor" (paying $0 for work to be done); the mininum wage does do that. But after that point, it doesn't matter if you set the min wage at $2/hr or $200/hr, as the rest of the economy will simply adjust the value of money through inflation such that this person's wage is still the same relative to everyone else's wages.

    And please name one CEO of a private company that taxpayers have paid a $500 million bonus to through TARP. You can't. This is just some liberal garbage you made up to forget that democrats are the ones who support giving money to those who haven't earned it "just because", while republicans think that people should earn what they get.

    As for pay discrepancies between min wage workers and CEOs, I have never heard one arguement as to why this is a bad thing. You say it's bad, over and over, and getting worse. Why? What is inherintly bad about it?

    I think someone missed an economics lesson called supply and demand.

    One day I was walking by a river bed. I leaned over and picked up 2 rocks.
    One rock was granite. I thought of all the ways this small rock could be used, such as filling underneath a roadway or to level out the ground where a building could be built. Very useful indeed, but as I looked out over the river, I could see millions of other granite rocks just like mine. Mine was a pretty rock, and unique in itself, but I also knew that the rock I had could be replaced by any one of those other rocks, and things would work just as well. The building or road would be just as stable. So I knew that the value of my rock to society as a whole was very small.
    Then I looked at the other rock I had picked up. It turns out that this rock was a gold nugget. Besides the fact that it is regarded by many as being beautiful and rare, it's also extremely useful. It can power integrated circuits, it can collect solar energy for a satellite, and many other uses. Unlike the first rock, I couldn't see any other rocks like this one. Nor could any of those other rocks in the river do the things that this gold nugget could do. Oh sure, there are other gold nuggets out there, but they are few and far between. And that's why I knew that society would pay a lot for this nugget.

    Supply and demand.

    This is why frame shop owners aren't paid minimum wage, because they have a skill that cannot be easily replicated by the average person. Nor can the average person successfully lead a Fortune 500 company. The people that do deserve to be compensated for it.

    It is not for YOU, individually, to judge what is "fair". Society judges what is fair, through the money we give to the company, that is then paid to its employees. This is the great liberal fallacy, that "they" think they know better than the rest of us. You do not. This is why democrats favor legislation and regulation, to tell everyone else what to do, because "they" know what's best for us. What arrogance.
  12. Pat Murphey

    Pat Murphey SPFG, Supreme Picture Framing God

    I couldn't have said it better, JWB999999.

    Some of these folks ought to read Wilson's own words in this book to understand the Progressive/Liberal movement. And, then tell us how proud they are.

  13. Bob Doyle

    Bob Doyle SPFG, Supreme Picture Framing God

    Who said it was bad? We're saying the level of disparity is what is bad today. It has never been so wide and that should be looked into. You hate my "extremist" point of view politically, but the extreme-ness of the disparity you are OK with. Why? Because it benefits the proletariat class over the plebeian class? :)

    Pay the bosses more, that's not the issue, but pay them hundreds of times more than the lowly hourly worker? That's not right. It's not my opinion of fairness so much as my contention that it smacks of a land baron - serf relationship. Land baron tenant farmer relationship. Our forebears came here to get away from that disparity in England, Ireland etc. We have reinstated it here.
  14. Paul N

    Paul N In Corner

    Got any proof to support this beloved Republican theory??

    Yes, minimum wage should stay minimum in a Republican controlled world. Who else would mow thier lwans or flip their burgers?? The illegals??

    Amazing intelligent thinking!!

    And while you're living in your own Republican economic cocoon, did you ever pause for a second and wonder how other countries have higher min. wage without their economies going bankrupt? Does Sweden look bankrupt to you?? Or Norway? Or Denmark?

    Or are you using Bangladesh in your financial spreadsheet to support your ideas??

    Since you are a financial genius (on the same level seen by other Republican grumblers here) do you know that bonuses are business expenses? And are not even subject to a taxation percentage like a full salary??

    Go ahead look it up.

    And as to your accusation of me feeding you garbage about TARP and bonuses, AIG alone should make you (and Murphey) blush and stay quiet for a while ....:p.

  15. Paul N

    Paul N In Corner

    Do you really want a list of books detailing how bankrupt the Republican ideology has become???
  16. Bob Doyle

    Bob Doyle SPFG, Supreme Picture Framing God

    Paul, the economy is "trickle down" and wages are "trickle up" :) So if you give all the money in the world o one ceo (it's always a guy isn't it :p) then he'll spend it and let his workers live off his largess. But if you tell him to actually pay his employees then that means his dollar is now worth less, so he won't spend it and the employees are worse off because he isn't spending.

    But when I worked in a non union shop and he CEO and board gave profit sharing to us peons we worked harder for the company, shrinkage (employee theft) went down and we didn't vote for the Union. Of course 6 months later after the Union vote the profit sharing went away, and shrinkage increased.

    But the bosses got their bigger car and extra drivers.

    Pay the workers and the business will prosper.
  17. Warren Tucker

    Warren Tucker MGF, Master Grumble Framer

    Bob, do you realize that your position would bar anyone from working who wasn't making a living wage? Surely you must see that there are any number of people who want to work but not to the extent of earning a "living wage"? What about people who want to work part time? If you think everyone who works should receive a "living wage", say $20k or $10 an hour, then, logically someone working half time should receive $20 an hour. The vast majority of people working for less than $8 an hour don't have to support themselves much less a family. They're mostly teen agers just starting in the work force, supplementing their collage funds, or retires supplementing their retirement. I know of a lot of fairly well off wives working for low wages for the opportunity to get out of the house, for discounts; what money they make is secondary. Also, minimum wages pretty much drive marginal workers from the labor force; they simply aren't worth it. But what if they want to become worth it by improving their job skills? The people hurt by high mandated wages are the marginal workers who are denied a chance to prove their worth in the job market. A student living at home is probably willing to work for less than the current living wage also but is cut out of the job market because of it.

    If you like long term unemployment in the neighborhood of 11%, then you probably have no problem with artificially high wage rates because that's what they will produce. Remember, in a vibrant economy (one unencumbered by government distortions of which the minimum wage is one), there usually is a job for almost everybody, producing unemployment of around 4.5%. In an economy that the current government is producing, 11% unemployment is the norm. We can only grow government jobs so far before we run out of other people's money. A depressed over regulated private sector can't help. Where in the world did the notion that everybody is entitled to a fair outcome come from? Simply because someone is engaged in an uneconomic enterprise doesn't imply that he is entitled to someone else's money, a living wage, or the like.
  18. Pat Murphey

    Pat Murphey SPFG, Supreme Picture Framing God

    Afraid to read it [Wilson]?
  19. Bob Doyle

    Bob Doyle SPFG, Supreme Picture Framing God

    Warren, you're taking it to the extreme. Every city has a different "living wage" standard. It is set by local standards of living. It isn't $20K a year, that wouldn't work everywhere.

    What one can live on in a small town in Maine or Georgia is much different that what it costs to live in Cambridge MA or LA CA. That has to be taken into account. And if someone doesn't want to work full time then they shouldn't be "rewarded" for "slacking off". That's socialism, and not what I am promoting, you know that.

    Have you been in a 7-11? Cumberland Farms? Dairy mart? All the workers behind the counter are not teenagers. The "all minimum wage earners are teenagers" is a myth.

    The craftspeople that I buy from that are making a living wage are not all making the same amount of money. If someone works longer hours (OK more hours not longer :) ) then they get more money. Working less and getting paid more is a disincentive to working. I am not advocating socialism or "the end of working" just that if you work you should be able to eat.

    BTW do you really think that you, personally, could live at the level you are accustomed to living if you were paid $7.25 an hour? Or $15,080 a year? I used $20K as an example because the math was easy :)
  20. Bob Doyle

    Bob Doyle SPFG, Supreme Picture Framing God

    "Socialist" Massachusetts pays it's people $8 an hour. Unless you are a waiter then it's $2.63 or a farm picker then the lowest is $1.60.

    Interesting list on this Wiki page.
  21. JFeig

    JFeig SGF, Supreme Grumble Framer

  22. Framing Queen

    Framing Queen CGF II, Certified Grumble Framer Level 2

    It's so hilarious to read of people in our industry, where the average sale would be an entire weeks pay for someone on minimum wage, talk about eliminating it, or using the tired republican mantra of "market forces."

    FL has a mandated minimum wage higher than the Federal government base line. This in a state controlled by republicans. Why? Because otherwise half the state would qualify for food stamps, medicaid and other aid. The minimum wage actually reduces reliance on social service mechanisms which in turn reduces the tax burden.

    Of course, there are plenty of people willing to see us regress to 1930 - pre minimum wage, pre social security and the like. Ah, yes, THOSE were the good old days, eh?

  23. Paul N

    Paul N In Corner


    But as I said, as long as the Filibuster Party says VERY low minimum wages are good, the rest here have no choice but to repeat it.

    SO, how many CEOs framed at any of your shops today???
  24. Pat Murphey

    Pat Murphey SPFG, Supreme Picture Framing God

    The Dems say that? It was Tom Daschle's Democrats that started the "60 votes for every bill" game. :p

    Is General Counsel to a large Corpration spending $15,000 so far close enough to a CEO?
  25. cvm

    cvm PFG, Picture Framing God

    No, what's hilarious is people on this board thinking that the US economy is rolling along just fine because their microscopic business is up a few percentage points over '09.

  26. JWB9999999

    JWB9999999 SGF, Supreme Grumble Framer

    I've lived in many European countries for many years. I've also lived in countries poorer than Bangledesh. I suggest you try living in these places for a while (if you haven't) and seeing how things are first hand. Sweden is certainly no workers paradise, and in Europe, it's one of the countries most often mentioned as the place the natives want to "get out of" because of its overbearing bureaucracy and high taxes. That's not to say that Swedes aren't proud of Sweden; they are.

    As for the rest of Europe.. Portugal, bankrupt. Spain, bankrupt. Greece, bankrupt. Ireland, getting there fast. UK, France, Germany, having to take drastic measures to avoid the same.

    However, you miss the point (on purpose?). Higher min wages will not bankrupt the economy. Only you have said that it will, not the rest of us. The economy will simply adjust itself such that the same relative wages are paid for any particular job.

    That's why I said that it doesn't matter if you set min wage at $2/hr or $200/hr. In the end, once prices adjust throughout the economy, it will still take you the same number of hours working to have enough money to buy X item or Y service. And prices will adjust quickly (meaning a higher rate of inflation).

    The people that really get hurt by these rate changes will be the elderly or people living on government benefits, as interest rates will lag on the investments of the former, and government mandated increases passed by Congress will lag for the later.

    The rest of us who are working will simply adjust. Take the 3 min wages increases of the last couple of years. What happened? I had to raise the wages of all of my employees. None were making min wage, but their expenses grew in the places they shopped, so they needed more money from their jobs to maintain the same lifestyle. So I had to pay them more, even though they were not directly affected by the min wage hike. The pool of money in my business is finite, and the only place that the additional money could come from is our customers, so our prices increased accordingly.

    My employees are no better off because of the hike. They still make about the same amount over min wage that they made before it was hiked. And in all fairness, they probably were hurt by the min wage hike, as I "lagged" in increasing their pay. I didn't do it on the same day the min wage hikes took place. I did it months later. But their expenses went up immediately from the first day the hike took place.
  27. Puppiesonacid

    Puppiesonacid SGF, Supreme Grumble Framer


    Quit trying to fix everything. the economy will fix its self given time. the strong will survive. not the government bailed out... though seems GM is pulling out quite nicely somehow. is the government letting them hold prices down or something? :) maybe they will just survive long enough for the next bail out to save them again. who knows.

    everything adjusts to everything eventually. the rich will stay rich the poor will stay poor... if true liberals like warren buffet, and bill gates gave a little bit more to their LOW employees everyone would be happier right? and they wouldnt' be near as rich, but everyone would be happy??? lead by example, not by being #1 richest person #2 richest person, and saying eveyrone else needs to give.
  28. Jeff Rodier

    Jeff Rodier SPFG, Supreme Picture Framing God

    While GM touts that they paid the gov't loan back they do not talk about the fact that the gov't had to purchase 61% of GM's stock for $50 BILLION to keep them in existance.

  29. Puppiesonacid

    Puppiesonacid SGF, Supreme Grumble Framer

    ah. so Guvment moters still does exsist... yes i know its spelled wrong...
  30. DVieau2

    DVieau2 PFG, Picture Framing God

    Mr. 9's

    I think your torturing the minumim wage issue.

    If your staff is feeling poorer it might have something to do with the deflation of their home and investments. Add in raising energy costs and usurious interest rates on their credit cards. Don't forget the increase in the cost of health care.

    I think you have to stretch pretty far to link all that that up with the minimum wage.

  31. JRB

    JRB PFG, Picture Framing God

    On the evening news tonight, they said well over twenty five MILLION Americans are unemployed now, today. 25 million people who are not working. 17 million working directly for government. Then the military and the postal service, I don't know how many millions that comes to. Then the thousands of companies and research institutions that are little more than government agencies disguised as private businesses.

    I'm starting to understand why we are in a depression, there isn't anyone making anything to sell to other countries. We're a giant Ponzi scheme.

  32. JWB9999999

    JWB9999999 SGF, Supreme Grumble Framer

    I read a very interesting science fiction book back in the 10th grade by Jame P. Hogan called "Voyage to Yesteryear". The book presents a utopian society that is purely socialist and shows how well it works. But the most interesting things for me was how the society distilled the true meaning of "money" into what it really is: the worth of someone's time. This was quite a revelation for me at the time! And now, even for us, here in reality, that is what money represents.

    If loaf of bread costs $2, and minimum wage is $2, all we are really saying is that a loaf of bread is worth 1 hour of the lowest paid workers' time. If we raise the min wage to $20, very shortly the price of a loaf of bread will rise to approximately $20. It MUST rise, or all bread manfacturers will soon be out of business. And likewise all other parts of the economy will also adjust their pricing upwards to reflect the new min wage.

    No amount of regulation short of fixed pricing by the government (a command economy, like the ex-USSR) will change this dynamic (though government taxes can have a large dampening effect).

    As for our local situation, home prices here haven't really changed much, and none of my employees have any real investments to speak of. These issues affect my customers more than my employees. What affects my employees much more are the price of groceries, fast food, utilities, gasoline, etc. All of these depend on min wage employees to perform different duties within their supply chains. And hence, they all go up in price when min wage goes up.
  33. Puppiesonacid

    Puppiesonacid SGF, Supreme Grumble Framer

    heck ive watched bread climb to 3 dollars a loaf last year around this time. I bought the same kind of bread for 3 years in a row, so i knew it went up almost 50 cents a loaf over that 2 years at the same store. it was when the stock market hit around 14k when it was that high. now because of the recession its dropped back to where it was 2 years ago at about 2.50 a loaf.

    just wondering if the stock market has more to do with prices and supply and demand then minimum wage. the min wage keeps going up never down... so...

    And i guess its all that printed money keeping the government going because if eveyrone is working for the government.. there is no one to pay for them to be there. except us lowly frame shops and chinese restraunts and dry cleaners and tax advisors that are left in my area that aren't a chain store.
  34. JWB9999999

    JWB9999999 SGF, Supreme Grumble Framer

    Aye, there are LOTS of influences on prices, not just minimum wage. Government interference (regulations, taxes) can make them go up or down. Changes in technology (more efficient production or distribution). Wars (can decrease supply of goods). Printing more money (inflation). Public fears (runs on supplies). The competitive environment (being forced to sell at the same price as competitors, regardless of your cost). Many other things too.

    In your case, I would bet that fuel costs had a good deal of influence as well on the cost of that loaf of bread, but many other things could as well.

    Look at how much matboard has increased in cost over the last few years. Glass too. I'm positive that a lot of my matboard price increases are due to higher fuel costs, as they seemed to go up right along with it. Yet my glass cost increases mostly preceeded the increase in fuel prices, so they do not seem to be as driven by that.

    And I use the word "seem". Just like a lot of different things go into a framing package, not just some moulding and a piece of glass, it's usually too simplistic to point to 1 single thing and say "that's the cause" when it comes to pricing fluctuations.
  35. Jeff Rodier

    Jeff Rodier SPFG, Supreme Picture Framing God

    The US has the second highest corporate tax rate in the world. Only Japan is higher and we all know how that has worked out for them.
  36. Bob Doyle

    Bob Doyle SPFG, Supreme Picture Framing God

    We all know the Japanese economy tanked, before ours did. Can't say that you can blame it on taxes, solely. Although it does make for nice sounding talking points to condense a complex issue with multiple inputs, like a national economy and boil it down to one factor like a cigarette tax.

    How about the correlation of "ooh, looky, the sale of bubble gum decreased and the economy picked up, We should ban bubble gum."
  37. Paul N

    Paul N In Corner

    OK John, a serious question: Which country you think is better than here?

    I mean, if you were to choose a country that meets your standards and has none of the Ponzi scheme economy you monetized, which country would that be??
  38. Jeff Rodier

    Jeff Rodier SPFG, Supreme Picture Framing God

    Tax increases were part of their solution and here they are 15 years later with not any improvement at all. You guys sure like the term talking point though. I guess if there is no good argument then the solution is to say that is just a talking point.
  39. Paul N

    Paul N In Corner

    Correction for John

    In my post above: "Monetized" should be "mentioned".

    Darn automatic Spell Checker....:p
  40. Pat Murphey

    Pat Murphey SPFG, Supreme Picture Framing God

    A wonderful Freudian slip, Paul. "Monetized" debt is one of the consequences of the current Administrations runaway spending. :p
  41. Bob Doyle

    Bob Doyle SPFG, Supreme Picture Framing God

    A talking point is a sound bite that is easy to repeat. Repeat it enough and you can get anyone to believe it. To me your "facts" started their lives as talking point, repeated bits of fiction. But that is OK as to you that is all my "facts" are.
  42. Jeff Rodier

    Jeff Rodier SPFG, Supreme Picture Framing God

    So what you are saying is that your term talking point is a talking point since you use it to try to discredit facts.
  43. Bob Doyle

    Bob Doyle SPFG, Supreme Picture Framing God

    I'm saying that to me your facts are not facts, but talking points that are masquerading as facts because enough people said them long enough to give them credibility.

    You have linked taxes to a slow recovery and have ignored every other possible thing that might be hampering recovery. Fuel costs, production, employee health and motivation, sun spots on Alpha Centauri, the cosmic alignment of the planets and stars are all being ignored in favor of painting a cause you are against as the root of all evil.

    No major legal or military decision was made without first checking the entrails of a slaughtered lamb or reading tea leaves. Now we laugh at that and rely on pundits and economic trends. I doubt that they are any more reliable that checking the stars and planetary alignment.

    You have your oracle of Delphi that you like, I have mine.
  44. Jeff Rodier

    Jeff Rodier SPFG, Supreme Picture Framing God

    While I prefer historical data you resort to tea leaves and fortune tellers Bob.
  45. Bob Doyle

    Bob Doyle SPFG, Supreme Picture Framing God

    :) thanks for not twisting my words or sentiment to match your narrative....
  46. JWB9999999

    JWB9999999 SGF, Supreme Grumble Framer

    Wouldn't the predictions of the Oracle of Delphi count as historical data?
  47. autographlover

    autographlover True Grumbler

    Regardless of your political beliefs, we "need" a government that will not tax small business to the point we cant afford to grow, or at the least stay in business. These politicians are hypocrites. If they want to give to this and that cause, then let them dig into their own fat cat pockets!

    I live in the DC area and do work for a number of government figures. I can tell you they live in better homes than we do, and have better lifestyles and it isn't because they are generous with their money. They became rich by sucking in the money we pay in taxes!!
  48. Puppiesonacid

    Puppiesonacid SGF, Supreme Grumble Framer

    no no. you got it all wrong. its from being paid off for their votes by companies. if thats considered a tax, then you are right. tax payers only pay them 150k a year or so for doing their job. :)
  49. Bill Henry-

    Bill Henry- SPFG, Supreme Picture Framing God

    Ordinarily, but she predicted the success of Betamax and the Edsel, so I wouldn’t take them too seriously. :p
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