$900 Ambulance

Now- interestingly enough- paramedics might spend a whole day or more getting paid but not actually responding to a call. $15 is $600 per person a week. A 2 person crew will cost $1200 a week and at $900 a ride, 2 rides a week is $1800- add gas, the amortized cost of the ambulance, very expensive insurance, maintenance etc... we can see that a a busy crew could make a lot of profit but an idle crew could cost a lot.

The two examples are apples and oranges

The thing about emergencies is we don’t know when they’ll be do we? So it behooves ya to have more paramedics at any given time than we actually need just in case something comes up right? Which means at any given time if things aren’t martial law crazy- you’ll have idle crews, you’ll have non billable calls, etc. with law suits often awarding millions of dollars- you might also need a significant budget surplus so that one accident or careless employee doesn’t put you out of business no?

Interestingly also- a fast food worker may only sell $10 combo meals- but how many do they sell in an hour? So a single fast food worker could actually make more money for a company in a single hour than a paramedic. There’s less overhead in fast food, less liability as well. Larger profit margins. So then should the paramedic make $15 an hour and the fast food worker make $40? In that case- the next time you need an ambulance life might suck if people decide it’s easier and more lucrative to work in fast food no?

I suppose we could legally mandate “profit sharing” where all employees are “partners,” but that’s not ideal either all things considered. Firstly. “Partner” is entitled to profit but is also open to financial liability. If what one earns is based directly on profit this means that when business is slow- people don’t get paid. It also means that people are incentivized personally to do whatever they can to maximize profit even at the expense of quality. We also run in to the same problem where industries where profits are high would see a disproportionate influx of labor. What profit is there in teaching for example?

one thing you didnt mention is the fact that basically no EMS runs more than one paramedic on a truck at a time. the best truck is going to be 1 paramedic, 1 intermediate, and 1 basic. Nowadays there arent nearly as many paramedics available as there were just a few years ago and the EMS ive got family working in runs some trucks without a paramedic at all just 2 intermediates and a basic or just 2 intermediates by themselves.

Thank you. I actually aren’t aware that it had become so standard in the industry to run so short. I knew they’d phased out paramedics on crew where “able” for costs but not this. Wow. And that just means those on duty have it all that much harder and the standard of care is compromised. Unlike airlines or retailers a consumer doesn’t get a choice in paramedic coverage. You get whoever is closest or die- and when you need a paramedic you aren’t in a good place for comparison shopping. You cant just “vote with your wallet” if you dislike the way it is. This is where the illusion of a “self regulating market” falls apart. Capitalism is a wonderful system with a clear purpose- the purpose is to motivate. Drive innovation and excellence. When we pervert it to “make as much money as possible anyway possible” that is where we feed the communists their propaganda. We must always remember the WHY of capitalism and guide it to that ends when people seek to subvert it.

another thing you have to remember about it is that if a truck with a paramedic cant get to you in time during certain situations, there are things that an intermediate isnt legally allowed to do. A paramedic is required by law for it and its up to the dispatchers to send a truck with the relevant skill levels with the current set up. The EMS i spoke of before that ive got family in, they put out a thing that said basically "so far there is no noticeable negative effects to the policy change" in regards to the not having a paramedic on every truck which in translate terms basically just means so far no one can legally prove that someone has died from not having a paramedic on every truck so far.

Just to start off- I didn’t downvote you. I think you raise some valid talking points- but I also think you miss the mark a few places. Walmart has 2 million 300 thousand employees- not including contractors. Their CEO makes 24 million a year. For every 2.3 million dollars he takes in pay cuts- Walmart can give everyone else $1 a year in raises. So if he decided to work for even $100k a year.... they could give everyone in the company enough money to buy a whole extra large pizza every year! Horrah. All their troubles are solved.

But.... being the ceo of a major fortune company- making decisions that effect the lives of millions of workers and their continued job security.... you probably don’t want to offer a salary that a good used car sales person or a 25 year old who learned programming can make without a college degree do you? Risking your top executive talent being poached as district managers for Lane Bryant or In n out burger because the pay is better and there’s less hours and stress seems like a risky business move to ensure your employees enough money for one Uber LX ride.

They could cut profits- but share holders tend to balk. Share holders who are by and large not monocle wearing barons but average folk trying to get by. Public companies- that’s who they make profit for. The people who invest in them so they can start up, stay open, expand. Who largely are doing it so someday they can retire or so they can pay their own bills and earn enough to live off.

Don’t get me wrong- the system is bias to people who already have money. The more you have the easier it is to make more- to the point where a multimillionaire content to live on “only” a hundred or so thousand dollars a year could live off interest on their money and never lose a dime. The deck IS stacked- but we stacked it. The truth of the system is that most people don’t want to “end oppression” or any of that- we just want to not be at the bottom of the ladder. We want to be the ones living well not being lived off of.

Prove me wrong- when the housing crisis and the panic over the “disappearing middle class” begun- people were losing properties left and right- often because they’d bought more than one and found themselves over extended. But.... take away home ownership and threaten a person with surviving but without the “perks” and it’s a panic- when so many in the world have less than even the homeless in the developed world.

And there’s the rub- the middle class didn’t disappear. It became an option for the first time to many millions of people around the world. Homes got computers and phones and electricity and running water and cars that had never dreamed of such things. For the “small loss” that didn’t threaten the survival of Americans- just the “American dream” people got necessities those same Americans take for granted and count as nothing if they don’t have the “icing on top.”

We are building a wall to keep our people who would risk death just to be able to clean our toilets for sub minimum wage- and don’t seem to be as bothered as many around the globe that America has a “for profit” health system because well... having one that works at all or they can access at all is an upgrade to them. People are up in arms worries about what they would lose to give these people even crumbs from their table.

“Those aren’t Americans though. That’s not a fair comparison!” Isn’t it though? Do you REALLY think you live in the same America as a billionaire? Do you REALLY think that when they are considering their choices and going about their lives and making their guest lists that YOU or people like you are people they consider “one of us?” Do you really think for a moment if they had to choose between their pal “Satch” or “Kip” or whatever and you- wether that’s who gets fired or even who lives or dies- that you are heavy in their mind? To them you may as well be from another country. You’re their gardener, their nanny, the faceless person at the mall cleaning up vomit. You may as well not speak English and they’d only notice if it inconvenienced them.

So yeah- the system is biased. The elites are content to pit poor against poor and let us all fight to keep ourselves down. Not everyone can be rich or even comfortable and “winners” in the selfish sense are the people who make sure if not everyone can get what they want that at least THEY get what THEY want. Shit floats to the top.

I don’t see anything wrong with “living wage” but.... well, the constant “more more more” money jingle is frankly ignorant of every facet of reality. They’re rich because they have more money. No matter what “more” is they will make sure they have “more” than you because that’s how they got their. If you have $10 and they have $100 you can pass a law saying you get $100 but then they’ll make sure they end up with $1,000. Who’s that help?

“Living wage” just means making sure people can live on what they earn. Ok. So then why the he’ll don’t we make sure that people can get the things they need to live? A place to live, a job, a way to get there, the ability to have a family and quality time with them, food, medical care? If the problem is that people at the top siphon money from those at the bottom- how does just giving the people at the bottom more money for them to siphon do anything but make the people at the top have bigger bank account figures?

If you let a market “self regulate” in a system where people can be and are incentivized by greed- it will naturally default to those willing and able to do whatever it takes to succeed. Consumers don’t buy on ethics do ethics don’t make money. If you want the system to follow ethical guidelines you have to regulate those in to the system- and continue to adjust as people learn to “game” the system. That’s what “successful” people do. They analyze a system- learn what input and output do what- learn what the system wants to see- and make that happen. They learn the rules and use them to their advantage even if the letter of the rule doesn’t follow the spirit.

That means the “clever” will naturally subvert any system to suit them. They will be successful and people wanting to succeed will need an edge so will do the same- until that is the accepted normal way things are done, and then people look for the next edge. They innovate their manipulation of the rules not the actually industries and technology. Throwing money blindly into a joke doesn’t work because the system we have is created on the ways that people use their money as is. Rules set the system or else the system sets itself. It will naturally seek a rest state and this is that state. This is the system WE built by our unchecked actions. We don’t need more of this. We need rules.

I think you're missing the point a little bit, guest. Costs and inflation in this country have so vastly outstripped wages that this generation and the next will make less real dollars than their parents and grandparents. We have become so used to the idea of low pay that we now start defending the owners and billionaires as mythical "job creators" with benevolent goals instead of as people looking to make more money by any means necessary.

Don’t get me wrong, I think any CEO that makes more than a million dollars year and employs people at a wage that requires public assistance should cut back just a little.
And keep in mind, I’ve been in business a long time, Marketing even. So I’m not ignorant to the need to pay top talent that you can’t replace. But there are plenty of successful models that support employees throughout the organization.
And I also understand that you can’t just raise min-wage a say poof! society’s troubles are resolved!
There’s not a simple answer. Because you’re right about top talents and none of them are going to take a pay cut, but that’s part of the problem.
Also that person that’s asking for $15/hour ($30K/year), can’t afford to use an ambulance if they need it, because their millionaire CEO can’t take a .04% pay cut to offer him health insurance. And when you consider that even insurance partially paid by the company is close to 30% of that income, it’s unreachable.

Oh no. Don’t get me wrong. I think that pay reflects talent and ability. I don’t think any human on earth, even the most talented and brilliant of all humanity- can rightfully claim that their efforts are equal to thousands or more times what an “average” persons are. So I’m certainly not saying that we couldn’t tone down what we pay people at the top- I am saying that as per my math above- Walmart would need to have 100 employees who make $24 million dollars a year and give them all 90% pay cuts just to give every employee $1,000 a year. In other words- simply toning down what executives and the like make doesn’t actually have such a solid impact on employees salaries.

I’m also not arguing that wages haven’t kept up with inflation. They haven’t. The haven’t even kept up with the growth of their industries. It’s abysmal. The fallacy that “rich people create jobs” is just that- and more so while there is SOME truth to it- what good is it to anyone to create jobs for people if they can’t live on those jobs? That’s like saying “rich people provide water in the desert..” but that water isn’t potable. You can somewhat “survive” on it- but that’s hardly something to relish when they fill pools and fountains with potable water at the same time you drink sewage is it?

My point is that raising wages doesn’t work alone. If you raise the lowest wages to “livable” you don’t create a new system where everyone is middle class. You still have the old system except now you’ve made people who used to be doing just ok living on minimum wage. You reduce the “gaps” between all the lower income strata without making any real impact on the gaps between the lowest income strata and the highest. You just create a bigger divide between “haves” and “have nots” while making more people “have nots.”

If you give EVERYONE raises to keep up with inflation- the poorest people make more money but so does everyone else. Their earnings remain the same relative difference to each other as they were before. Their buying power increases in the short term but the market will just readjust and we return to where we started after a brief period of instability.

It’s simple to see looking at housing. An example House is $200,000. It goes to market. Everyone makes enough to afford that. It gets 10 bids of $200k. Anyone who REALLY wants THAT house will up the bid to $220. If the area is desirable enough and you get someone like a 20 year old google new hire making $250 a year- they’ll bid it up to $300,400k. Then all their colleagues will do that to the other homes nearby and suddenly in a blue collar $30-60k a year neighborhood, people can make half a million dollars selling the home they bought for $100-200k. Then when that neighborhood is too pricey- the surrounding areas within “commute” distance start going up.

Where I live and work, people buy houses 2+ hours away from work because they are 1/2-1/4 the price for larger, newer homes. People live out of state and fly to work because what they make here makes them barely middle class- but in another state they are filthy rich. It’s insane.

So as you aptly put it- the problem isn’t that people don’t make enough money. The problem is there is such an insane disparity between the amount people are paid and the amount goods cost. But we know that thanks to things like outsourcing- many companies claim NET profit margins of over 200% on their products or services. There’s little or no regulation preventing these types of behaviors but while they are good for industry- this conversation illustrates they are bad for society. Bad for the people of our nation. Yet the government safeguards commerce and industry when it’s supposed to be protecting society and citizens.

Corporations are supposed to work for us. Corporations are supposed to supply the goods and services we want, operate to suit our will. Instead we work for corporations. Corporations make what they want to sell and then convince or coerce or subvert us to want it. They make us adjust to suit their will. That is a HUGE problem. The government cowtows to them and the people who regulate these industries have vested financial interest in them- are often prominent owners or otherwise vested in them.

It’s insane. Absolutely insane, and more insane we allow it. The shit we’ve seen over the last decade even- and we have allowed, accepted- it’s absolutely insane. But..... when talking about something as complex as economics and human habits- expanding that to a global scale and the impact of that or the possibilities for companies to leave the market etc.... “throw money at poor people” is a foolish solution. It’s lazy and it doesn’t require we strain ourselves too hard. It’s a very spoiled solution- “problem? Throw money at it...” but...

The way things are RIGHT NOW is the way things become when you do that. PEOPLE CHOSE THIS through our behaviors. It’s no coincidence that we began to see a widening gap in income disparity and these huge leaps in cost in the same period we started having “tech booms” where suddenly what would have been a low wage worker was making 2-4x the national average salary or more- AND a string of deregulation occurred? Not coincidence.

Tl:dr- if you have a marble sorting machine that splits up marbles between buckets- and it’s broken- it doesn’t matter how many marbles you throw into it. The fucking this is broken. You’ll end up with the same skew in distribution more or less- but just more marbles to count.