profits and wages. To say that wages above $10.50 would make profits evaporate is disingenuous. CEOs earn almost 400 times the amount the average workers do. They can't convince me that they can't pay $15/hour and not still have money in their pocket.

I got hammered the other day for suggesting that $15 is a worthwhile goal five years down the road, just not right now. For one thing, the big chains like McD's would be in a better position to pay it than mom 'n' pops.

And yet the wage gap just keeps getting worse and worse. More and more people are living in poverty. No, nickles and dimes are no longer good enough. We need a living wage.

Even Obama's proposal of 9.00 is more than we've seen in a while. You're right, though: it's still not enough. What we need is a firm timetable: 9.00 now, 10.50 in two years, 12.00 in three, 15.00 in five.

politicians(yes I realize that is an oxymoron) who will fight for a living wage now.

The amount of cost shifting from McJobs to anti-poverty programs supported by the taxpayers (who are increasingly wage earners themselves) is absolutely scandalous.
Good Gawd - what does it cost us to keep an eye on everybody that's on public releif, that could make it if they were paid a living wage? How much better could the caseworkers do, if a big bunch of their clients get a raise in their circumstances.
I hear New Zeland does this, I hear it works pretty good.......

How many McD's employees are on Medicaid? Or SNAP (food stamps)?

There's a whold universe of good people out there toiling for shit money - trashmen, tire busters, cashiers, landscapers, clerks and aides. Mitt Rommney called us "takers". It's more like "The Taken".

I heard on the radio about some research done at KU about the minimal price hikes that would occur if the workers got a raise. I was stunned. We are arguing over this? I do estate sales and it stuns me. They get pissed, over a quarter!

With more money maybe they eat a little better and get a bad tooth looked at by a dentist.

I'm a Luddite. In my utopia few people owns cars, people work thirty hours a week with a single six week vacation every year, multiple shorter vacations, and year long vacations every decade or so. Most people in my utopia are artists of some sort, artists with "day jobs." Some people are artists in their work too, but most people define themselves by their art, not by their day job. When someone says "I'm a painter" they mean like Bob Ross, not like someone who paints houses, though painting houses may be their art too.

In my utopia the "Economic Productivity" as we now measure it is universally seen as a bad thing.

A functional society provides everyone good food, shelters everyone in a safe comfortable place, educates everyone, provides adequate medical care and justice for all. The USA is not a functional society.

They'd spend this money in the community.

Instead the fruits of their labor are siphoned off as corporate profits for wealthy people to play with on Wall Street and other international casinos.

customer: How much for a large coffee
me: three dollars
customer: THREE DOLLARS?
me: It's specialty coffee roasted here in Long Beach
customer: ridiculous [walks out]

I pay my top baristas $15/hr, and serve extremely craft coffee... people complain about the price nearly every day. Meanwhile, I haven't had a paycheck in over seven months... all the money goes into the coffee and employees. The coffee shop is in a very affluent area. Most people across America will NOT pay for better quality product or service. Sad fact but true.

A lot of the wanna-be-rich crowd are terrible chiselers. Your prices are not that much higher than Dunkie's on the East Coast.

especially as many of the wanna be rich want to beat up on anyone else.

People talk a big game about supporting US workers, right until it comes time to actually do it and spend a few dollars extra.