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The solution to poverty
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18-05-2018 12:09amIt may seem obvious but the solution to poverty is work. In some situations like in third world countries with no minimum wage, it can make a lot of sense to be self employed in order to get full value from effort. Even here in Ireland, when recessions come and companies close, it is worth asking, what if the work force worked for free to keep the company going. Would that make sense?
And, on the topic of the minimum wage, is it a good idea to deliberately force the cost of labour higher? Does it make sense for a government in deficit to have a minimum wage law when it cannot even balance its own books? When one considers nothing can happen if nobody works, is it wise to want work to be pricey? And, if an economy is kept afloat thanks to the unsustainable monitory accommodation of a non Indigenous Central Bank, is it clever to use this easy money to prop up the cost of getting stuff done?
I mean, if in hindsight it was foolish to ramp up property prices with easy money in the naughties, why would it be wise to prop up labour cost with easy money now? Any obstacle to the accomplishment of work is a seriously bad idea I contend. Even working to attain self sufficiency while rejecting modern efficiencies like the internal combustion engine promotes wealth, the Amish communities in the USA can attest to this, especially during times of recession in the broader US economy.
Am I wrong?0
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The ESRI conducted a study which showed that modest increases in minimum wage did not adversely affect the numbers in minimum wage employment.
LinkThe 2016 increase in the national minimum wage (NMW) rate did not lead to greater unemployment among minimum wage workers, according to a new study published by the ESRI and the Low Pay Commission. While the research did find that there was a reduction in the average number of hours worked by minimum wage employees, the evidence suggests this was driven by an increase in part-time workers joining the labour market following the wage increase.
The study examines if the increased cost of wages led employers to reduce their number of employees or the number of hours worked, following the NMW increase from €8.65 to €9.15 per hour on 1 January 2016.
The research finds that the average number of hours fell by 0.7 hours per week. Among minimum wage workers on temporary contracts, there was a more pronounced reduction of 3.3 hours per week. Such falls are generally attributed to employers reducing the hours of existing employees because of higher labour costs. However, further analysis revealed a rise in part-time minimum wage employment, including a rise in the incidence of voluntary part-time work.0 -
Don't ask me to quote research but I remember haring an argument in relation to the US that the minimum wage can affect young people with little to no work experience trying to join the workforce ie if an employer is forced to pay a particular wage then he is inclined to hire someone with the most experience instead of taking a punt on someone with no experience albeit offering a lower wage.
A belief in gender identity involves a level of faith as there is nothing tangible to prove its existence which, as something divorced from the physical body, is similar to the idea of a soul. - Colette Colfer
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silverharp wrote: »Don't ask me to quote research but I remember haring an argument in relation to the US that the minimum wage can affect young people with little to no work experience trying to join the workforce ie if an employer is forced to pay a particular wage then he is inclined to hire someone with the most experience instead of taking a punt on someone with no experience albeit offering a lower wage.0
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Pat Mustard wrote: »The ESRI conducted a study which showed that modest increases in minimum wage did not adversely affect the numbers in minimum wage employment.
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Mind you, I have recently come to realize that high pay should also be effectively capped with punitively high tax above a certain limit in order to help de-heat the economy until Ireland becomes a low cost place to live and do business. The reasons for this and the reason for abolishing the minimum wage is not to tax the rich or be mean to the poor but to:
a) make sure business owners re-invest in their businesses rather than pay themselves too much.
b) reduce the cost of running government and businesses.
c) lower the tax burden.
d) deflate the economy so it will become competitive due to low costs.
e) make prices cheaper for everyone.
f) make it feasible to manufacture low value goods.
g) make work cheap so things will get done
Sorry if this strayed out of the Humanities zone but those are the reasons I believe work is the solution to poverty.0 -
realitykeeper wrote: »Even here in Ireland, when recessions come and companies close, it is worth asking, what if the work force worked for free to keep the company going. Would that make sense?
would you work for free? Would you give up your time for nothing to try to help somebody else earn money (ie owners /shareholders)?0 -
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Peregrinus wrote: », there are ways of addressing the issue that don't involve not having a minimum wage.
A curious double negative. I assume these ways involve regulations. I think the idea of regulations was a good one to start with but when regulations get out of hand they become a real problem with real consequences. A lot of businesses that used to exist in the west are now in China. We have regulations and the Chinese have jobs. As for our jobs, how many of them would exist without the multi trillion stimulus by the ECB, the ultra low interest rates or the tens of billions borrowed by the Irish government?
Monetary accommodation has limits.0 -
would you work for free? Would you give up your time for nothing to try to help somebody else earn money (ie owners /shareholders)?0
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I don't think it makes sense to start out by arguing that work is the solution to poverty, and then to end up suggesting that wages should be kept low, that policies tending to increase the wages of the low-paid are a bad thing, and that at times people should work for free. Such measures benefit shareholders at the expense of workers; why would we imagine this will reduce poverty?
Eliminating poverty involves two things:
First, increasing productivity in the economy. A large part (but not the whole) of this will involve increasing labour productivity, which in turn involves both increasing the labour force (i.e. reducing unemployment, improving labour force participation) and increasing the productivity of individual workers (e.g. by training, education, incentivisation, ensuring affordable childcare).
Secondly, reducing inequality in the economy. Increased wealth does not reduce poverty if a disproportionate share of it ends up in the hands of the very wealthy, or even in the hands of the not-poor. It will only lift people of out poverty to the extent that it goes towards people currently in poverty. There are a variety of ways in which this can happen - reducing unemployment, reducing taxation on the low-paid, greater transfers to the economically inactive (pensioners, the disabled), more social spending on services that benefit the low-paid/unpaid, etc, etc. Ideally you'd be relying on a combination of these things.
It's complex, because of course measures which may tend to reduce poverty in one way may increase it in others. Reducing tax on wages, for example, makes low-paid workers better-off, but it leaves less tax revenue to fund transfers to non-workers (the young, the old, the disabled) or to fund education and training which will raise labour productivity. So, on balance, does it increase poverty or reduce it? That may not be easy to say, and the answers people offer may tell you more about them and their ideological preconceptions (ether right or left) than it does about the policies.0 -
realitykeeper wrote: »Only if everyone else did likewise. In recession things stop because people stop working. But supposing people worked on regardless, the only thing that would be impacted would be your pay. Given time, your pay could resume but at a more sustainable level.
What you suggest has been experimented with in workers co-operatives, where the workforce owns, or part-owns, the business, and their remuneration is therefore partly composed of a share of profits. When times are good they do well; in leaner times they take a hit. But workers, particularly low-paid workers, are not well-positioned to bear the whole risk of recession. Few of them can survive for more than a couple of weeks with no income at all, so they do need to be entitled to at least a basic wage in all circumstances.
The fact is there will be relatively good and relatively bad times in the economic cycle, and a business's requirements for working capital will reflect this. Providing the working capital that the enterprise requires is not really the business of workers; it's the business of, well, capitalists. That, in fact, is why they are called capitalists.0 -
There is no solution to poverty.
If you somehow equally divided the worlds wealth equally between every person on the planet within a very short time you would still have people without a penny to their name and you would have others who have accumulated a massive amount of wealth.
Its just human nature.
However when it comes to national poverty. This is almost always down to government corruption which is blatantly obvious in certain countries around the world.0 -
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BrokenArrows wrote: »There is no solution to poverty.
If you somehow equally divided the worlds wealth equally between every person on the planet within a very short time you would still have people without a penny to their name and you would have others who have accumulated a massive amount of wealth.
Its just human nature.
However when it comes to national poverty. This is almost always down to government corruption which is blatantly obvious in certain countries around the world.
Government corruption certainly can be a significant contributor to national poverty, but the notion that almost all national poverty is caused by government corruption is just silly.
As to your first point, yeah, there's always going to be some degree of poverty, for a variety of reasons. But that doesn't mean that we can't adopt strategies or policies which will significantly reduce poverty.0 -
Peregrinus wrote: »
Eliminating poverty involves two things:
First, increasing productivity in the economy. A large part (but not the whole) of this will involve increasing labour productivity, which in turn involves both increasing the labour force (i.e. reducing unemployment, improving labour force participation) and increasing the productivity of individual workers (e.g. by training, education, incentivisation, ensuring affordable childcare).
Secondly, reducing inequality in the economy. Increased wealth does not reduce poverty if a disproportionate share of it ends up in the hands of the very wealthy, or even in the hands of the not-poor. It will only lift people of out poverty to the extent that it goes towards people currently in poverty. There are a variety of ways in which this can happen - reducing unemployment, reducing taxation on the low-paid, greater transfers to the economically inactive (pensioners, the disabled), more social spending on services that benefit the low-paid/unpaid, etc, etc. Ideally you'd be relying on a combination of these things.
It's complex, because of course measures which may tend to reduce poverty in one way may increase it in others. Reducing tax on wages, for example, makes low-paid workers better-off, but it leaves less tax revenue to fund transfers to non-workers (the young, the old, the disabled) or to fund education and training which will raise labour productivity. So, on balance, does it increase poverty or reduce it? That may not be easy to say, and the answers people offer may tell you more about them and their ideological preconceptions (ether right or left) than it does about the policies.
This was a bit painful. These ideas are very prevalent among policy makers and certain lobby groups in Ireland. The only thing you touched on (kinda) that I agree with is the need for greater emphasis on apprenticeships but not the way FÁS (or whatever they re-branded that failed organization as) do it, but a wide range of quality and standardized apprenticeships, like they have in Switzerland.0 -
Peregrinus wrote: »The fact is there will be relatively good and relatively bad times in the economic cycle, and a business's requirements for working capital will reflect this. Providing the working capital that the enterprise requires is not really the business of workers; it's the business of, well, capitalists. That, in fact, is why they are called capitalists.
In Venezuela, Maduro recently accused troublemakers of sabotage. I do not like or agree with Maduro but I am prepared to accept this possibility. You see, capitalists who are forced to live under Communism would want to bring that regime down. There were similar examples in Russia when the peasants lost their small holding and told to work on large collective state farmland.
Similarly, I suspect there are left wing citizen`s in Ireland who sabotage what they perceive as capitalism. The constant pay demands in return for mediocrity is the most obvious example.0 -
BrokenArrows wrote: »There is no solution to poverty.
If you somehow equally divided the worlds wealth equally between every person on the planet within a very short time you would still have people without a penny to their name0 -
Peregrinus wrote: »Government corruption certainly can be a significant contributor to national poverty, but the notion that almost all national poverty is caused by government corruption is just silly.0
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realitykeeper wrote: »... but supposing the poor worked and forgot about pensions and entitlements etc and just focused on working all the time as a way of living. That would put a big dent in their poverty.
Plus, of course, "work harder!" is not much help to people who are poor because they can't work - the young, the old, the sick, the disabled and those who care for them at home without pay. This is a pretty large contributor to poverty, and an anti-poverty strategy which ignores it is not going to work.0 -
Peregrinus wrote: »Depends on wage structures. If you get paid a poverty wage then working won't lift you out of poverty.
Plus, of course, "work harder!" is not much help to people who are poor because they can't work - the young, the old, the sick, the disabled and those who care for them at home without pay. This is a pretty large contributor to poverty, and an anti-poverty strategy which ignores it is not going to work.
You mention wage structures. What people often forget is they can benefit enormously if they work to provide for themselves in a very direct way. Selling your labour deprives you of full value (assuming a market is unmanipulated). Using a day off to work an 8 hour shift in the garden or cleaning the house can make a massive difference to your home. It will not bring in money but it demonstrates the benefits of what can be achieved by getting full benefit from your work as opposed to selling it for money.
Anyone with an average garden can over time make a big saving in their grocery bill by growing their own food. Granted food is cheap (if it was not people would be growing their own food) but it is a mistake to assume that will continue to be the situation. People who think a lot about what their boss or what the Jones` are getting need not worry about that when they accrue full benefit by working directly for themselves in this way (obviously on a part time basis).
In their day job, I think people should again focus on their work rather than their pay or what others are paid. If they feel unhappy they can always work somewhere else instead.
Most people are able to work and traditionally people looked after their own elderly relatives, disabled etc. The trick is getting people who can work to work for the sake of work. If work is done, good things follow and at the end of the day a wage will always be just a number that can either buy a lot or a little depending on how much work is being done in an economy.
This focus on money is a constant problem in Ireland. Whenever a lobby group want something the first words out of their mouths is "we need money". This shows a complete lack of imagination and initiative. Think of all the work people can do without money. Money is not needed for everything but without work, nothing gets done.0 -
But this thread, realitykeeper, which you started, is specifically about the solution to poverty, and there's an undeniable link between poverty and not having enough money. Encouraging people to grow their own vegetables and is all very well, but it's of limited value to someone who cannot afford to buy or rent a house with a garden large enough to grow a meaningful amount of food, or who hasn't had the foresight to inherit one. I completely agree that people's well-being will be enhanced by engaging in meaningful, beneficial work even that work is unpaid, but enhancing well-being is not the same thing as reducing poverty.0
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realitykeeper wrote: »Yes I saw this and similar ESRI studies and I consider them to be seriously flawed for the simple reason that high labour costs do not make sense.realitykeeper wrote: »... but supposing the poor worked and forgot about pensions and entitlements etc and just focused on working all the time as a way of living. That would put a big dent in their poverty.
Ignoring pensions now is a step towards poverty in future.
If people are capable of saving for pensions now, then they may not have to rely on the State in future. If they ignore pensions now, then it is far more likely that they will rely on the State in future.0 -
This entire thread is nonsense tbh. Tell me op how someone is expected to live in Dublin on minimum wage which you don't even agree with. Grow vegetables in their tiny 1 bedroom apartment with no garden? Move out of Dublin? Then who does the low skill low pay jobs that every else relies on. Forget about pensions then have the state pay it? Never able to own your own home as your small wages have been completely eaten up by rent and you can't get a mortgage with minimum wage. That's a great solution to poverty you have there.
I'm guessing you are fairly old and living in some sort of fantasy world where things in Ireland were the same as they were in the 50's. You're too busy worrying about the little man when it's the crooks at the top taking all the money and you think people should be happy getting payed peanuts to make billionaires richer.
The minimum wage if anything is too low and should be subsidised by the government especially in areas like Dublin. This would get more people into work and take some of the pressure off of the middle class employers. The alternative to that is lowering taxes for smaller incomes.
But the government don't give a crap about the middle class or people on minimum wage. Everything is now controlled by our corporate overlords who pay little to no tax.
Your motto seems to be work shall set you free. Where have I heard that before?0 -
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Peregrinus wrote: »Secondly, reducing inequality in the economy. Increased wealth does not reduce poverty if a disproportionate share of it ends up in the hands of the very wealthy, or even in the hands of the not-poor. It will only lift people of out poverty to the extent that it goes towards people currently in poverty. There are a variety of ways in which this can happen - reducing unemployment, reducing taxation on the low-paid, greater transfers to the economically inactive (pensioners, the disabled), more social spending on services that benefit the low-paid/unpaid, etc, etc. Ideally you'd be relying on a combination of these things.
What does "reducing inequality" mean and is it even a worthy goal? , if you closed down the IFSC and kicked the IT industry out of Ireland "inequality" would drop. Or if 100K high paid finance workers from Britain arrived here post Brexit or additional jobs created here inequality would rise but the first situation would objectively be bad and the second would objectively be good.
If you have an open vibrant economy people have more options to improve their circumstances where as you might end up with Venezuela which was the darling of the leftA belief in gender identity involves a level of faith as there is nothing tangible to prove its existence which, as something divorced from the physical body, is similar to the idea of a soul. - Colette Colfer
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Pat Mustard wrote: »We seem to be at odds here. I am talking about increases in minimum wage, which you regard as a high labour cost. You say that the report is flawed but it states that increases in minimum wage have not affected employment. If you want to say that the study is incorrect, you should prove it with figures rather than simply asserting that it is incorrect.
This does not make sense.
Ignoring pensions now is a step towards poverty in future.
If people are capable of saving for pensions now, then they may not have to rely on the State in future. If they ignore pensions now, then it is far more likely that they will rely on the State in future.
Obviously a high minimum wage will not make Ireland more competitive. Increased minimum wage has not affected overall employment but it has changed employment rates in the various sectors. If you want to manufacture a trinket, very often you cannot do it in Ireland anymore, it just does not pay.0 -
Removing money and borders and having one government is the only way to remove world poverty in my opinion.
It would also cut carbon emissions, consumerism and resource depletion. Food metals and other resources could be evenly distributed. Oceans wouldn’t be overfished (well bettermanaged anyway) or as covered in plastic. You are born a House is built and you don’t get marketed a new phone, stereo, tv, car, boat load of toys, food you won’t eat every year. People will say it won’t work because communism never works but communism can’t work beside a free market and market sanctions or when it’s set up by a dictator.
Any other arguments against this option can be answered but people won’t go along with it. If the money spent on tricking people into believing they need to spend 300 euro on rebranded earphones was spent on selling this idea the people would go along with it.
The conspiracy theorist would call it a new world order but the only people who should be against this is the one per cent with all the worlds wealth.
Obviously safe guards would have to be put in place but to think America, Russia and Uk wouldn’t need to be causing wars all over the place to ensure the oil keeps coming on the cheep.
Working weeks would be cut and divided better.
Artists could be artists instead of businesses.
There’s enough for everyone once you stop trying to compete with everyone.0 -
Conservatory wrote: »Removing money and borders and having one government is the only way to remove world poverty in my opinion.
It would also cut carbon emissions, consumerism and resource depletion. Food metals and other resources could be evenly distributed. Oceans wouldn’t be overfished (well bettermanaged anyway) or as covered in plastic. You are born a House is built and you don’t get marketed a new phone, stereo, tv, car, boat load of toys, food you won’t eat every year. People will say it won’t work because communism never works but communism can’t work beside a free market and market sanctions or when it’s set up by a dictator.
Any other arguments against this option can be answered but people won’t go along with it. If the money spent on tricking people into believing they need to spend 300 euro on rebranded earphones was spent on selling this idea the people would go along with it.
The conspiracy theorist would call it a new world order but the only people who should be against this is the one per cent with all the worlds wealth.
Obviously safe guards would have to be put in place but to think America, Russia and Uk wouldn’t need to be causing wars all over the place to ensure the oil keeps coming on the cheep.
Working weeks would be cut and divided better.
Artists could be artists instead of businesses.
There’s enough for everyone once you stop trying to compete with everyone.
So who rules this 1 government Utopia? Humans? Have you learned anything from history? How about a well known quote. Power tends to corrupt, absolute power corrupts, absolutely.
If anything the big power blocks need to be broken into smaller ones as the US, and soon China and Russia have too much sway in the world.0 -
So who rules this 1 government Utopia? Humans? Have you learned anything from history? How about a well known quote. Power tends to corrupt, absolute power corrupts, absolutely.
If anything the big power blocks need to be broken into smaller ones as the US, and soon China and Russia have too much sway in the world.
It’d be run by more than one person. Safeguards can be put in place.0 -
realitykeeper wrote: »Even here in Ireland, when recessions come and companies close, it is worth asking, what if the work force worked for free to keep the company going. Would that make sense?realitykeeper wrote: »A lot of businesses that used to exist in the west are now in China. We have regulations and the Chinese have jobs.realitykeeper wrote: »... but supposing the poor worked and forgot about pensions and entitlements etc and just focused on working all the time as a way of living. That would put a big dent in their poverty.
Ignoring pensions is like sawing off your legs to sell now, so that you can run in the marathon later.realitykeeper wrote: »Anyone with an average garden can over time make a big saving in their grocery bill by growing their own food.
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In a long term view, war reduces poverty, as less people exist after war. It also generates income that can be spent. Disease and famine also lessen people, but it also weakens the workforce, causing people not to work or spend.Conservatory wrote: »Removing money and borders and having one government is the only way to remove world poverty in my opinion.Conservatory wrote: »It’d be run by more than one person. Safeguards can be put in place.0 -
This entire thread is nonsense tbh. Tell me op how someone is expected to live in Dublin on minimum wage ...
I've never understood this argument, raised over and over and over again: "It costs me too much to live the lifestyle I live in the place I live, so I should be paid more money ..."
Why should someone who can't afford to live in Dublin continue to live (and work, or not) in Dublin when there are other perfectly good, economically sound options? You get a variation on this theme in so many other discussions - child-care, private education, healthcare, etc, etc. In almost all of these situations, the costs of [whatever] only arise because the person/people concerned choose not to do things some other way, e.g. stay-at-home parents, home-schooling, healthier lifestyles/habits ...You're too busy worrying about the little man when it's the crooks at the top taking all the money and you think people should be happy getting payed peanuts to make billionaires richer.0 -
Chinese cars do not have the same safety regulations, it's employees do not have the same rights. 2013 the average worker only got £270 per month.
When the west is hit by the next recession (which will be a big one), China is all set to reduce its production and increase its consumption by moving hundreds of millions into ghost cities which are ready and waiting for that event. In others words, China does not need the west to buy its goods.You mean if they worked 7 days a week without holidays until they died, to benefit the company shareholders but not themselves?Ignoring pensions is like sawing off your legs to sell now, so that you can run in the marathon later.A house with a garden costs more than an apartment without a garden. If they forever work, when would they have time to grow their own food? Studies have shown people need rest, and without rest, they're not as productive.In a long term view, war reduces poverty, as less people exist after war. It also generates income that can be spent. Disease and famine also lessen people, but it also weakens the workforce, causing people not to work or spend.The first thing they'd do is to build showers for the poor and less unfortunate. Like the way Hitler built showers for the jews. If you want to have food for everyone, you need less people.
If one person is doing well, generating jobs, would you not just give the job? I think that's how Hitler got in control.0 -
Conservatory wrote: »Removing money and borders and having one government is the only way to remove world poverty in my opinion...0
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CelticRambler wrote: »I've never understood this argument, raised over and over and over again: "It costs me too much to live the lifestyle I live in the place I live, so I should be paid more money ..."
Why should someone who can't afford to live in Dublin continue to live (and work, or not) in Dublin when there are other perfectly good, economically sound options? You get a variation on this theme in so many other discussions - child-care, private education, healthcare, etc, etc. In almost all of these situations, the costs of [whatever] only arise because the person/people concerned choose not to do things some other way, e.g. stay-at-home parents, home-schooling, healthier lifestyles/habits ...
Never mind the billionaires. When was the last time you met anyone who was prepared to pay only for clothes or consumer gadgets that were made by someone earning a European minimum wage? The "ordinary consumer" is the biggest exploiter of cheap third-world labour and the poverty that goes with it.
Why? Do I really need to answer that question? Who runs all the low pay service jobs if they all leave Dublin because they can't afford to live there?
They can barely afford to survive even with the cheap goods made in China and you expect them to buy home made products? Maybe you think all the low pay workforce will suddenly become entrepreneurs who make and sell their own products?
That's not going to happen either. Ireland is a small population backwater ****hole with no room for niche products because there is no market for it. Our VAT rates are a joke. Our tax system is a joke. The lower and middle class get bent over backwards while the rich get richer and pay feck all tax.
There is really very little opportunity here. Your only hope is up skilling and getting out of here or selling your soul to a big multi national but that still doesn't change the fact that we need people in the service industry and other low pay jobs who need affordable houses to live in.
DCC have a lot to answer for there with terrible city planning and a massive shortage of houses. But they love these boom/bust cycles because only 1 group benefits from it and that's the rich.Dublin is urban and a lot of the rest of the country is rural. How this in being perpetuated is another matter but Dubs can also choose between an apartment in Dublin or a house with land in another part of the country.
If you're working a minimum wage job you don't get to choose either of those and you advocate lowering or scrapping the minimum wage. Have you seen property prices lately? Basic 2 bed small apartments are costing over 300k even in rural areas. Things have changed a lot since you were young and you wonder why we have a generation of totally disillusioned kids.0
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