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"The founding fathers HATED the corporations and the banksters."
I was wondering how long it would take a minimum wage debate to spiral down to a mention of the founding fathers.
That is an ironic comparison considering that our founding fathers were all slave owners that paid their workers how much? Oh that’s right, slaves didn’t get paid. Usually they didn’t even earn their own freedom.
I guess based on these facts, our founding fathers would probably all agree that we shouldn’t have any minimum wage. I guess they were all Republicans, just like Lincoln. Wait… Lincoln freed the slaves, so I guess in a way the Republicans paved the way to the first minimum wage.
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Can anyone explain why we are having this conversation? The solution is very simple.
If you dont like what your being paid. Find another job.
Better yet, Start your own business and then you can determine what you would like to pay yourself.
The victim mentality, that someone else is responsible for my well being is ridiculous. This is America. You have opportunity to better your life and make your own way.
Yes Opportunity even in Puna.
Nice directional turn, your first impression does resemble a new transplant to these parts. Welcome neighbor and may I ask you what you see in Puna to give you this simple solution?. A living wage in these parts now is about 45,000 to 50,000, cost of food and Helco (electric) make opening up a restaurant nearly impossible unless you serve alchohol or except EBT. Oh wait I am stand corrected, might do well if you buy into the franchises like Burger king, or subway but I am not sure the cost up front for franchise names. Anyway this area has some very sad and hard economic choices right now, and unless we can bring in better paying jobs or bisnesses it's not going to get any better for the folks from here. Let me just take a guess here but your not another prescription filling psychiatrist?. But hey this is the place most will learn to be LAZY or go CRAZY and yes the pay in Pahoa is somewhere around 300,000 a year to push and pass pills. Believe it or not this was really a great place to raise a family just 20 years ago. You know KIDS, house, land, oceans, and opportunities to buy at $2,000 an acre in good neighbor hoods was hard to pass on. Any way welcome to my homeland anything that was once mine is now yours. We will take your simple solution to heart, take another look out our windows for opportunities, and then resume our positions in the current systems. (BY CHOICE RIGHT?.) P.S sorry for the assumptions and for all I know, you may have been a classmate of mine back in the 2ND grade at Pahoa Elem, If so though you couldn't be white. And by those white first remarks I read from you, you are probably from back east.
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When you start your own business the market determines what you get paid, not you. You can demand what ever you want but you will only get what the market is willing to pay.
This is America, you are allowed to organize so you have the opportunity to better your life and make your own way.
You also have the right to petition the Government for the redress of grievances.
Yes democracy even in Puna!
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Gypsy, Please take a look out the window. Sometimes the path to the future is by looking at the past. Perhaps it was a bit directional in the fact that people do not have to live with the lot they think they have been given. Self defeating statements of taking our position in our current system is unacceptable.
Look at the resources Puna has to offer. How can these resources be used to create wealth? What can be manufactured or made to sell to the mainland to bring more money here? Reverse the flow, instead of shipping things to Hawaii, what can be done to keep the dollars here with local families and the local economy. The way I see it almost all the money in the economy is being robbed by mainland corporations.
A strong economy naturally boosts the minimum wage on its own.
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quote:
Originally posted by kander
Look at the resources Puna has to offer. How can these resources be used to create wealth? What can be manufactured or made to sell to the mainland to bring more money here? Reverse the flow, instead of shipping things to Hawaii, what can be done to keep the dollars here with local families and the local economy. The way I see it almost all the money in the economy is being robbed by mainland corporations.
Coffee's one of the few things that could help turn around the economy here. That and tourism.
Raising wages wouldn't necessarily ruin the economy or put all of the small businesses out of business. They'd all have to raise the wages to the minimum and then raise their prices in order to pay for it. Everyone who's wage went up could definitely afford the increased prices and probably be able to purchase more. Those who's wages didn't go up would have their purchasing power reduces as would those on fixed incomes. Any local manufacturers or other exporters that paid minimum wage would be less competitive on the world market, so that sector of the economy would suffer, but I think we have to face it, that sector of the economy has already been outsourced to China, India, Thailand and other places with much poorer rights for workers.
Me ka ha`aha`a,
Mike
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Well, since no one else mentioned it, I will. In the Netherlands they are trying a pilot program where they pay the homeless in beer, and put them to work picking up rubbish. For real. They start with 2 cans of beer in the morning, and then if they do a good job, they get 2 cans at the end of the day and a small bit of cash. It has reduced all kinds of problems The homeless are busy and feeling more pride, and the streets are clean! I personally love this idea.
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Gypsy69 your a tad bit racist aren't you?
No need to respond, your past comments suffice. No, Rob, that is not a personal attack, just a simple observation.
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Sure, "exotic" Coffee from Hawaii certainly has a nice ring to it. So does Exotic Honey from Hawaii. Organic Hawaiian Sea salt made the old fashioned way. Rare Hawaiian Albizia furniture (or wood products).
Just a few ideas off the top of my head. Its not necessarily what you have but how you market it.
best yet, Thanks UnknownJulie. that is a step in the right direction. If those things are the homeless priorities and helps them get through the day without knocking over some elderly lady for $5.00. OUR state should feel more pride by making sure their homeless people were taken care of. That their streets and parks were feces free for the next kieki. We are probably 5 years behind Cal, and another 5 behind the Netherlands. P.S. A lot of our homeless here do work part-or-fulltime $7.25 hr jobs, also they need assistance and even all that does not put roofs over their head. They sleep in cars in kona and along the coast, yet they are our union carpenter apprentices, painters, gardners, bar tenders, ect. ect. All hard work for tourism. Spoke to a gentleman at beach 69's said he'd lived in his car now for 2 in a half years and was more or less use to it now. SAD.
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