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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Who is whining? I wasn't whining. I said that I believe offering your nanny a living wage is an ethical requirement. You can disagree, but I'll still think you're a bad person. I have said nothing about anyone owing me anything. What I will say is, I believe we as human beings owe each other the courtesy of mutual support, and paying your nanny so poorly that she can't afford to get her car fixed when it's broken and lives paycheck to paycheck, is wrong. It's wrong to pay that little to someone who works at WalMart, or McDonalds, or anywhere else, too, but that's a conversation for the other forum. The fact that your nanny is so personally connected to your family is what makes this example, in particular, so very offensive. [/quote]

Because you have to have a roommate you aren't getting a living wage?(1)

This is the problem with your stupid argument.  NO ONE is paid based on their expenses.(2)  You are paid based on the market.(3)  It doesn't matter AT ALL that you don't like that.  You cannot change it.

Do you really think that everyone can go to their corporate boss and say, "Gee.  I really want cable.  You need to pay me more so I can afford cable."  Or, "I saw an apartment in a highly desirable neighborhood.  It costs $1000 more per month, so I need a $12,000 annual raise."(4)   That is such bullsh!t, and yet nannies use the "we have expenses to pay" argument all.the.time.  It doesn't do you any good to argue that.  You need to drop the entitled attitude yesterday and work hard at doing a better job.  Arguing that you somehow magically deserve the things that other people have worked hard to attain makes you an ASS.(5)

You can say that I am a bad person as much as you like.  It doesn't make it so.  Additionally, I don't care - because I am 100% correct.  Don't like the American way?  Move somewhere else, sweetie.(6)  And best of luck to you.  Maybe you should go be a migrant worker, so you can really get a taste of horrible pay and working conditions.(7)  Or join the army - as I have suggested before - if you want real hardship for bad pay.(8)  Sitting on your entitled ass for several hours a day complaining about your 2x minimum wage?(9)  Which is, by all accounts, more than a living wage?(10)  You can say you are not whining as much as you like, but everyone else can see it for what it is - entitled whining by a spoiled brat who hasn't had to do a hard day of work in her life.(11)  [/quote]

Oh my.

You do realize you're only making yourself look rude, ignorant, and frankly a little silly now, right? Let me respond piece by piece.

1) I don't have a roommate, and I can afford a comfortable lifestyle on my income. This is your first Straw Man Argument, too.

2) Except that, in this country, people [i]are[/i] paid based on their expenses - or at least, the intention is that they are, which is why we have a minimum wage at all. The government looks at how much it costs to live, or their version of that anyway, and sets a minimum wage because it believes that all people deserve to be able to live on what they earn at work. The fact that minimum wage has not kept up with the rising cost of living does not change the fact that our country [i]believes[/i] that everyone who is able and willing to work should be able to afford a safe home, clean food, and solid education for their families. So I'm sorry, but you're just wrong on this point.

3) You keep bringing up "the market" as thought I, or we, don't understand it, but you're not exactly saying where you think our misinterpretation or misunderstanding lies. When I last job hunted, before I began, I decided what I thought I was worth annually and within one week I had found a job that paid exactly that. So I've found the market to be very agreeable. To me. That is not the case for everyone - now, you believe this is because of "the market." Let's break that down. The market is driven by people - their choices, their values, their priorities, their resources, no? Ok. Then you talk about "low skill" jobs as though the people who work them are not as human as you, are not as deserving of a decent life - go back to school, you say, learn some skills, you say, if you want to be able to live happily. This perspective of yours on how the market works - and apparently, as evidenced by your continued arguing, how you believe it should continue to work - demands the continued existence of an underclass. This is a group of people who are so desperate that they are willing to work a job that doesn't support them or their families, simply because they have no other options. If your degree of privilege doesn't enable you to see that some people truly have had none of the access you've enjoyed - adequate food, adult-level literacy, access to a car, basic understanding of human health, an understanding of professional presentation, etc....- then I think we'll understand the root of your ignorance. But this is a despicable position, and the fact that you think about your nanny - or nannies in general, if not your own employee - this way disturbs me, [i]specifically[/i] because of the personal relationship you and your children have with her. I'm happy not to have encountered any employers like you in my career, but I know you are not alone in your beliefs. So anyway, I suppose the DEMAND I see in the market right now is for a populace so disenfranchised they are required to accept a wage that doesn't support them, and the SUPPLY I see is just such a group of people. The fact that you take advantage of that is what makes you a bad person. Let me explain it in a hypothetical: If all nanny employers woke up tomorrow and decided they were going to look at what kind of budget their nanny would have based on the wages they paid her, and then committed themselves to paying her enough that her budget seemed reasonable to them for her to live on - how they would want to be able to live, then "the market" would suddenly change. Instead, the DEMAND would be for the very best nannies - the hardest working, best educated, most mature, nannies - and the SUPPLY would be exactly that. Wouldn't that be better for everyone?

4) This logical fallacy is called a Straw Man.

5) You've also managed to squeeze in an assertion that nannies don't work hard. I suppose you'd say the same about those WalMart employees we talked about earlier, too, since presumably they all want "the things other people work so hard for" too? Perhaps you have seen the image on the web elsewhere which reads, "If wealth was the inevitable result of hard work and enterprise, every woman in Africa would be a millionaire." I'd ask you just to consider that, and then to think about your place in the world.

6) This is where you really start to look rude and silly.

7) This is where you really start to look ignorant. The whole point is that I don't have to struggle to survive the way migrant workers do - and the way many illegal nannies do. But there are workers who do have to take those jobs. And people take advantage of them. And that is wrong, and so I judge them to be bad people.

8) I'm a pacifist.

9) I have never complained about my job. I love my job.

10) "By all accounts"? I would love to see some studies that argue $14/hr is a living wage in DC - or NYC, Boston, SF, Atlanta, or Seattle. Please do share if you have such resources available to you.

11) You're back to rude and silly again.[/quote]

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