Liberalism Is Not Good for America (Economics)

Round 2 is strictly arguments though, not rebuttals. Contention 1: "Minimum wage jobs . .. not happening today. " I've cut this to not waste charactersWhat my opponent fails to realize is that the amount of income that is generated by an individual is equal to the amount of income they generate for the owner of the business. All wages are set by the market, in accordance with productivity, efficiency, skill, experience, loyalty, etc. If I were to hire an individual who does very poor work and is very inefficient, while paying them an income that they were not deserving of, I would quickly go out of business. If I were to do this while leading a large corporation, I would be removed from whatever position I am by the Board of Directors as well as the stockholders, and then quickly sued for lowering the productivity of their stocks. My opponent also brings family into the mix, which is oddly irrelevant. It is highly substantiated that a family should not be created by two partners that live on a minimum wage, and using morality as a means of achieving plausibility is unreasonable and frankly makes absolutely no sense. Contention 2:"Raising the minimum wage. .. the way we work. " I've cut this to not waste characters. To analyze the point of slavery - forced labor without pay and voluntary labor with low pay are two very separate things. My opponent is using a historically ignorant argument to portray his own in a sense of emotion, which strays away from the most rational side of the debate. As for history itself, these African Americans were not by any means wandering around the country. When slavery was abolished, many of the freed slaves went back to their plantations to work voluntarily, as they were not forced to do this. However, these individuals had very little property, so in exchange for housing, clothing, and food, they gave their labor. They quickly became indebted, and this was all done because of a lack of political freedom, which is taken away by the government. Contention 3:"Poverty: It is actually proven that increasing the minimum wage would lift many out of poverty according to the department of labor the reason for poverty is not because people don't work its because children are born into poverty and lack education opportunities. And wow look the ideology that supports more affordable education is liberalism. "The ideology that supports government funded education is liberalism; the ideology that supports affordable education is Libertarianism, which is an offshoot of classical liberalism. Classical liberalism is very different from the statist Socialist liberals we have currently that play off of racial hatred of more successful people for political gain. It is undoubtedly that minimum wage being raised would lift a FEW out of poverty, while cutting back jobs, which would then place many back into poverty. My opponent fails to realize the economic vs political aspect of the minimum wage. Every debate coming from the left-wing side on economics is based around emotion and moral values, while the realistic arguments should be based around facts, statistics, data, and rational analysis, rather than some fallacious emotional aspect. The whole idea of the minimum wage itself is to guarantee a set income to individuals who cannot earn something of that caliber with their current skill set, which frankly is deplorable. To even suggest that someone should be paid more than they are worth makes absolutely no sense at all. Actually, a liberal news source from New York seems to disagree with my opponents claim that people would be brought out of poverty - "But raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour is not the way to get wages up in this country. In fact, it would cause perhaps as many as a million people to lose their jobs. " [1]Contention 4:"If you look at the graph the liberal states are generally the states that have a high tax rate BUT have also higher income while the states that were conservative had huge tax rates compared to their low wages. "My opponent fails to realize the simplest part of economics, which is purchasing power and cost of goods. This is inexcusable ignorance on the part of my opponent. Wealth varies in accordance with cost. If an individual makes a net income of $100,000 annually, but the cost of even the simplest product is $5, then that man or woman is not very wealthy. If an individual makes $10,000,000 annually, and the cost of a luxury car is $50,000, then that man is quite wealthy. Contention 5:"I don't understand why taxes are immoral. Taxes are money you pay to the government but under conservatives you will never see that money ever again. But with liberals you can see your investment aka free college and health care. "This is one of the most idiotic statements to be uttered in a conversation. Firstly, taxes are an initiation of force. They are not voluntary, and they are not based on choice. When force is initiated for any gain other than self - defense, that becomes an immoral act, and is grounds for scrutiny. Second, you do not need to define for me what taxes are. Thirdly, you have shown me absolutely no proof that tax money, on a ratio basis, was used more inefficiently by conservatives than by liberals. In fact, it is in the conservatives who want less taxes, which equates to less money the government can inefficiently misuse. Lastly, free college and free health care are not investments. An investment is voluntary, and money being exerted from one individual by force is theft and embezzlement, which is immoral and unlawful. There is a myriad of economic flaws that you have presented, that I will not go into detail for, due to character restrictions. The idea of free college and health care being a productive investment is unsubstantiated and completely false. Contention 6:"While the middle class already pays their fair share the rich do not. "I have literally shown you a graph that presents the statistics on the rich paying more in taxes than any other member of the United States. To ignore facts that are distasteful to you and then just present your own is intellectual dishonesty. The rich paying their fair share is a complete political myth. They already pay their fair share by creating jobs and bringing technology to the United States, rather than living off of government subsidies and leeching off of welfare. Contention 7:"Government regulation of business is to stop the idea of monopolies. If there is just one monopoly then consumers have no choice. I really don't understand how this is a bad idea. Thanks to the government we have price ceilings where a price cannot exceed a certain point. If we didn't have this gas may be 12 dollars a gallon if all the oil industries got together. So thanks to the government we save money. "I will create a scenario for my opponent, as I find that will be best suited for explaining why the above assertion is completely unfounded and frankly, stupid. Let's say that I am the owner of "Greedy Bastard Cancer Association", and I create a pill that can do away with cancer, with its cost of production being set at $5,000. Then, I decide to corner the market and price gouge for $50,000, which is a 1000% profit rate. Keep in mind that the average profit rate in any free market is around 3-4%, maybe 5% if you are really lucky, but other than that, your competitors will kill you. A 1000% profit rate is too much, and no corporation will ever do something of this caliber, because they will make no money. My opponent also fails to understand the ideas of Fiduciary Responsibility and Good Will, which are two somewhat complex business economics ideas. Fiduciary Responsibility means that the CEO of any company (doesn't have to be CEO, just someone powerful) has to abide by the rules that the Board of Directors and shareholders set, meaning that if any opportunity arises, regardless of their personal goals, they have to capitalize on this. That means, if you are some ultra-Socialist, lover of all, and happen to be a CEO of a major corporation, which is already highly unlikely, you will have to do as you are expected by the Board of Directors and the shareholders, or else they will fire you and then sue you for minimizing the productivity of their shares. Good Will, on the other hand, is moral responsibility. Good Will means that a company that appeals to the public, and donates, or holds fundraisers, will always be favored over the companies that are hateful. This is why you do not see a lot of loudmouthed CEOs. as they risk their profits being marginalized if they were to anger the public. To continue with my scenario, let's say that the media decides to find some poor people who happen to have cancer, and then they depict these individuals who cannot get treatment because this company, "Greedy Bastard Cancer Association" decides to price gouge. As a result of this, they will lose a great amount of good will, which will drop their profit margin by a great amount. This is why you see most corporations having payment programs to help people. Even if there is no compassion involved, and it's purely for economic gain, showing good will towards others will be rewarding for the company, so they will never raise the cost of these necessities by such a high amount, unless they are able to by government subsidies and protection (these are not conservative principles; stimulus spending is a liberal principle). I am running out of characters, so I shall carry over my rebuttal for my next round. Sources: [1]. http://nypost.com...[2]http://www.huffingtonpost.com...[3]http://www.cnbc.com...[4]http://www.pewresearch.org...;