Service economy jobs at odds with cost of living in Orlando area

We can bring those back now. :)

(ever since my accidental Holiday World deletion debacle)

Oh, cool! Now I'm tempted to delete my last post so yours doesn't make sense.

Is it too late to start handing out high-fives, or have we gotten over that?

What? When has a CoasterBuzz meme ever gotten old? Hmm, let me rephrase. When has a CoasterBuzz meme ever not been run into the ground?

High five!

Your post has been magically restored.

It's unfair for us to be giving high fives when some people struggle everyday just to be able to give low threes.

Thanks Jeff, but I think Gonch already restored it. You just restored one I meant to delete...which I just deleted again. :)

High fives should be indexed to inflation for the common good.

Is it in my self interest to give a high five or is it the common good?

Now thats a dilemma. Maybe ask a prisoner? ;)

You're so passive aggressive, Andy.

Another tie in with Through the Wormhole. Just saw a preview for June 4th episode: Is poverty genetic.

http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2014/05/13/through-the-wormhole-se...el/264095/

Not sure about that but in many cases it appears to be hereditary.

Saw this today. Yes, it's a slanted piece, but that doesn't change the truth of the facts and quotes included.

Minimum Wage Policy Backfires in Seattle Suburb

Seems like employers are compensating in exactly the ways that were predicted in this thread.

It is slanted, but more importantly, it leaves out the fact that SeaTac sucks. You only go through there because you have to in order to get to the airport. :)

Here's an article I'd call less "reactionary"....of course, it's a local news source. Edit: the SAME local news source quoted by "UnitedLiberty.org" (really? nice name, LOL)....

http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2022905775_seatacprop1xml.html

Yeah, that article has a much better tone. But it basically says the same thing.

Here's another one:

Fast Food CEO: Minimum Wage Hikes Closing Locations

And the Congressional Budget Office even says that $10.10 would cost about a half million jobs in the next two years.

GoBucks89 said:

Another tie in with Through the Wormhole. Just saw a preview for June 4th episode: Is poverty genetic.

Just watched this episode.

1. Through The Wormhole is one of my favorite shows. I implore anyone who considers themself a thinker with a broad interest in a plethora of scientific/sociological topics to watch it.

2. This was one of my favorite episodes so far.

A quick rundown of the show. There were six main segments:

1. Nature vs Nuture - in a nutshell, the less you make, the less DNA and who you are born matters to the point of it having almost no effect on the poorest people. The opposite is true in the other direction with your genetics (nature) having almost ALL the effect on what you become at the highest income levels.

2. Diversity - controversial study from a couple of economists that claim diversity of the peoples of a nation affects wealth levels. Too little or too much diversity can negatively affect the overall wealth and a sweet spot of diversity exists.

3. Equality is Unstable - Equality doesn't last as it's an unstable concept. In pretty much every studied economy ever, there is a standard distribution of wealth that occurs. Interestingly, the pattern of wealth distribution follows a pattern that is seen in many instances in the study of thermodynamics.

4. Altruism/Community - Altruism is found at the molecular level. The idea of sacrificing for the greater good happens everywhere for the simplest life forms to the most complex societies.

5. The Concept of Fairness - A study of chimps shows they have a 'sense' of fairness and their societies show the same balance of selfishness with community as we see in human societies where the richest have to give just enough to those below them to maintain their status.

6. The Gap Between the Haves and Have Nots - the richest 85 people on Earth have the same amount of wealth as the poorest 3,500,000,000 people have. (that's 3.5 Billion) They touch on the Tragedy Of The Commons, the individual good vs the good of the group, how it's now a global issue and the power of shame as a tool to establish and modify behavior in a society.

Morgan Freeman closes with this summary to end the show (and, by all means, please read it in his voice):

"I am living proof that poverty is not genetic. I have lived on both sides of the divide between rich and poor. The forces that distribute wealth among us are complicated. They're a mixture of biology, psychology and mathematics playing out over lifetimes and across the sweep of human history. If we can understand those forces, I hope we can someday lessen the devestation of poverty and allow each of us to reach our full potential."

Really good stuff and I can't recommend it enough to anyone remotely interested in the subject.

He stops just short there of talking about what I see as a problem. It's not that I care that there is a small and wealthy class, it's more that people live in poverty. And I'm not talking about American can't-afford-an-iPhone poverty, I mean people in underdeveloped countries who are actually starving poverty. That seems like a problem we could solve.