$15 Minimum wage

Thanks for your speedy and impassioned reply, Andhisnameis. Not entitling citizens with a minimum wage certainly can cause worker dissent in some circles. Certainly not in all working people's circles, such as the ones which I am associated with, in which case workers encourage hard work and reject entitlement. We need to weigh out impacts here though. Sure, we can pay off priveleged people with entitlments to stop them from acting out, but we would do much better to attack the root of the problem. China is a very special case. The people there are given low wages, but also have most of their economic liberties regulated by the ruling class. It is not the same in the Western World, in which we are provided abundant freedom and oppurtunity to make our fortune in billions of creative ways. We have benefitted from the level of oppurtunity we have in this slice of the Earth, and as long as we keep the majority ruling class out of the economic sphere, we can continue to maximize our economic oppurtunities to the utmost level. Minimum wage laws are counter to what has worked so well for us in the past. We should also be wary about giving in whenever someone doesn't like their circumstances. With all the energy these people put into lobbying their government to raise their wages, it is hard to convince many Americans that they are actually struggling to make ends meet. I am of this mindset too. It is easy to make a living in this world through hardwork, strength, and determination. If someone really feels oppressed, then I do encourage one to take what he has been denied, but when someone wants to use someone else to enforce their will over others, then we have a real problem. As for the advocacy for socialism, I disagree with the premise Andhisnameis implying. These nations have plenty of social spending policies, but all then nations listed also have the least amount of economic regulations in the world. For example, Switzerland, the top country Andhisnameis listed, doesn't even have a minimum wage in any conventional sense of the term. One of the other things that should be taken into account with welfare states, is that they are living on borrowed money, and are the most economically dependent, as well as the most likely to completely collapse during an economic recession. Resources dwindle overtime, which means we need to be increasing our self sufficiency and economic independence to match such rising challenges. About welfare, it isn't actually true that the government pays 1000$ in welfare. They actually pay MUCH more. That is irrelevant though. The main problem is that they are paying any money at all, when citizens are more than capable of acting as strong independent individuals, and using their skill and ingenuity to procure a living standard of wealth. Let's not forget either, that this money is often forced out of the hands of those who earned it through hard work to begin with.Something else that hits me the wrong way is how we define what a living wage actually is. Truth be told, Western peoples live in gross excess. What we consider a living wage here in America is complement in providing what would be considered luxuries in the third world. Material wealth is meaningless. Food, a bed, and a network of family and friends to provide love and support is all us humans really need in life, besides some dreams to strive for personally. To say someone with little material wealth is always going to be less happy than someone with much material wealth is an assumption that is more often than not, untrue. To conclude my final rebuttals, I would like to simply try and convince the judges and the people of America of one basic, unacknowledged fact... You can appeal that the majority ruling class have a right to rule over the minority slave class, but such a system is fascist in nature. We, the people of the minority, wish to live in a strong and empowered society free of entitlement and privelege. Must the majority ruling class step on our toes and use their paramilitary arm to force us into betraying our moral beliefs? I think not!