After being critcised by Bernie, Trump now thinks wages are "too low"

After Sanders criticism, Donald Trump flip-flops: US wages 'are too low'

Republican frontrunner appears to change mind about wage levels
Trump and Sanders now in agreement on wages, Wall Street




Donald Trump, billionaire Republican presidential frontrunner, has changed his mind about wages: Americans aren’t earning enough. He’s also not keen on Wall Street. The shift has Trump on a collision course with Democrat Bernie Sanders – while oddly agreeing with many of his points.

Wages in the country are too low, good jobs are too few, and people have lost faith in our leaders. We need smart and strong leadership now!” Trump tweeted on Monday.

The opinion appeared to reverse what the Republican frontrunner said in November during the fourth Republican debate. Asked if he was sympathetic to the protesters demanding a $15-an-hour minimum wage, Trump said: “I can’t be.”

Taxes too high, wages too high, we’re not going to be able to compete against the world. I hate to say it, but we have to leave [the minimum wage] the way it is,” Trump said at the time. “People have to go out, they have to work really hard and have to get into that upper stratum. But we cannot do this if we are going to compete with the rest of the world. We just can’t do it.”

Sanders, a senator from Vermont and self-described socialist, used those comments to criticize Trump while appearing on CBS Face the Nation on Sunday.

“This is a guy who does not want to raise minimum wage,” he said of Trump. “In fact, he has said that wages in America are too high.”

Trump lashed back at Sanders, tweeting: “[Bernie Sanders]–who blew his campaign when he gave Hillary a pass on her e-mail crime, said that I feel wages in America are too high. Lie!”

In the days after the fourth Republican debate, Trump attempted to clarify that he was not speaking of wages in general, just about the US federal minimum wage which has remained at $7.25 since July 2009.

Pundits and prominent Democrats like President Obama, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton and Sanders have all noted that one of the main reasons that Trump’s campaign has gained traction with so many Americans is because of the struggling middle class.

“Many of Trump’s supporters are working-class people and they’re angry. They’re angry because they’re working longer hours for lower wages. They’re angry because their jobs have left this country and gone to China or other low-wage countries. They’re angry because they can’t afford to send their kids to college so they can’t retire with dignity,” Sanders said on Sunday.

In his Monday morning tweets, Trump touched on these topics – noting that wages had barely grown in the past few years.

The middle-class has worked so hard, are not getting the kind of jobs that they have long dreamed of – and no effective raise in years. BAD,” Trump tweeted. “Many of the great jobs that the people of our country want are long gone, shipped to other countries. We now are part time, sad! I WILL FIX!”


According to the US Department of Labor, US wages had grown by just 2.3% over the past 12 months. The wage growth would have to reach 3.5% to 4% for lowest-paid Americans to feel that impact of the recovering economy. The Department of Labor has referred to the US wages as the “unfinished business of this recovery” and Janet Yellen, chair of the Federal Reserve, said the Fed expects wages to grow in 2016.

The frustration and anger felt by Trump’s supporters makes them into potential Sanders supporters, according to the Vermont senator. Trump disagrees.

“Strange, but I see wacko Bernie Sanders allies coming over to me because I’m lowering taxes, while he will double & triple them, a disaster!” he tweeted on Monday.

An analysis of Trump’s tax proposal revealed that the most generous tax cuts would be received by the rich, since the poor Americans that Trump spoke of already do not pay income taxes.

Trump’s recent comments on wages come as he has also stepped up his disparagement of Wall Street – characterizing hedge funds as “getting away with murder”. His comments have drawn puzzlement from bankers familiar with the financing of the presidential candidate’s business empire.

One described his amusement at Trump’s comments, telling the Financial Times: “He’s almost one of us, at least in the business sense ... He is totally comfortable around Wall Street and bankers.”

Trump’s effort to characterize himself as without obligation to the financial sector despite his long record of loans and debt restructuring during episodic turbulence in his business career, including the bankruptcy of Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts in 2004, is likely to raise eyebrows.

In that instance, Trump specifically thanked Morgan Stanley for helping to arrange $500m in debt refinancing. In other brushes with bankruptcy, Trump convinced Chase Manhattan to restructure $900m in Taj Mahal casino debt in 1991; sold Citigroup 49% of New York’s Plaza Hotel the following year; and sued Deutsche Bank in 2008 over a $640m construction loan for Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago.

Trump’s campaign sought to qualify the candidate’s criticism of Wall Street, saying he was focused on the large political donations and tax loopholes often exploited by hedge funds and private equity managers.

“Mr Trump is self-funding his campaign and is not beholden to these big money donors of Wall Street or any other group,” a spokeswoman said. “The only special interest Mr Trump is beholden to is the American people.”

Billionaire investor Wilbur Ross told the Financial Times that Trump’s extensive dealings with Wall Street has not yielded any “novel points of view” on the subject on the relationship of politics and money, except that he’d indicated he might appoint hedge-funder and activist investor Carl Icahn as Treasury secretary. “I would guess that Donald is not condemning the whole breed,” Ross added.
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/28/donald-trump-bernie-sanders-minimum-wage


On his behalf, Trump never actually said "Wages are too high". He said high taxes and high wages would not make america win again. He also said he wouldn't raise the minimum wage

Less than 2 months later he says that wages are too low

Now, Mr Trump, how do you plan to deal with these low wages without raising the minimum wage ?
And what about the middle class workers ? Are they working hard enough or should the go out and work even harder ?


The truth is this guy has 0 credibility, he does not have any political compass other than telling what he thinks would make him gain popularity and would make his poll numbers go up.
 
Your grasp of what Trump is saying is rather simpleminded. He advocates higher wages through better jobs not government mandated wage scales.
 

xfire

New Twitter/X @cxffreeman
Your grasp of what Trump is saying is rather simpleminded. He advocates higher wages through better jobs not government mandated wage scales.

Is there's a formula for determining where wages should be in any given job? I don't know but if there is what would it look like compared to current wages and would the private sector voluntarily follow it? Sticky question, I would have to learn a whole lot more before I really embraced a position.
 
Is there's a formula for determining where wages should be in any given job? I don't know but if there is what would it look like compared to current wages and would the private sector voluntarily follow it? Sticky question, I would have to learn a whole lot more before I really embraced a position.

Trump is rather ambiguous and not specific. That said, I believe he thinks that bringing jobs back and creating more increases wages. My point was that no way in hell does he believe that Sanders' remedy is the path that he would take.
 
Trump wants to create better jobs for Americans. Fine. But even if he creates such jobs, there will still be a need fro low-wages jobs and the wages fro those who would take those job will still be too low.
 
Republicans tell Americans that corporations are altruistic, and that if the USA abolished its minimum wage and destroyed workers unions, corporations would magically just start paying people more money than they do now. If you subscribe to republican theology (ie, are a mouth breathing knuckle dragger without even the most basic understanding of economics), you accept this as fact and go back to beating your wife or whatever it is republicans do.
But if you have any kind of ability to reason you smell the bullshit and realize that abolishing minimum wage would send the US even further down the toilet. The correlation between stagnating wages, lower union participation, and the decline in the US as the world's last superpower is well documented.
 

xfire

New Twitter/X @cxffreeman
As long as profit > people anyone that would believe or propagate the idea that any corporation would benevolently increase their wages is either foolish or profiting from it.
 
Trump panders to his audience. If he's talking to a white collar business owner, manager crowd then wages they have to pay are too high. If the crowd is blue collar working stiff then of course wages they receive are too low.
 
Republicans tell Americans that corporations are altruistic, and that if the USA abolished its minimum wage and destroyed workers unions, corporations would magically just start paying people more money than they do now. If you subscribe to republican theology (ie, are a mouth breathing knuckle dragger without even the most basic understanding of economics), you accept this as fact and go back to beating your wife or whatever it is republicans do.
But if you have any kind of ability to reason you smell the bullshit and realize that abolishing minimum wage would send the US even further down the toilet. The correlation between stagnating wages, lower union participation, and the decline in the US as the world's last superpower is well documented.

lol @ mambo number 5.

Seek psychological help for your "Republican" fixation

Seriously.
 
lol @ mambo number 5.

Seek psychological help for your "Republican" fixation

Seriously.

Not until America wakes up and realizes that republicans are the problem. They stand in the way of everything that makes truly developed nations successful.
 
Not until America wakes up and realizes that republicans are the problem. They stand in the way of everything that makes truly developed nations successful.

Both parties suck but the GOP is in such disarray and full of so many far far right loonies thinking they are directed by the word of 'god' it's an easy decision to try and keep them from any portion of authority.
 

Rey C.

Racing is life... anything else is just waiting.
Is there's a formula for determining where wages should be in any given job? I don't know but if there is what would it look like compared to current wages and would the private sector voluntarily follow it? Sticky question, I would have to learn a whole lot more before I really embraced a position.

At least when looking at male vs. female wages, California is now attempting to cobble together some sort of formula for "similar" (though not the same) jobs. That has more to do with paying people based on their gender and not based on job performance or negotiating skills. But apart from supply vs. demand for skill sets, I don't know of any formula for specific jobs. In manufacturing, companies do calculate "DCL" (direct cost of labor), but I don't think that really applies in this case... not fully anyway.


Trump is rather ambiguous and not specific.

I agree. His fluid stands give him a lot of wiggle room.


Republicans tell Americans that corporations are altruistic, and that if the USA abolished its minimum wage and destroyed workers unions, corporations would magically just start paying people more money than they do now.

This seems to be more partisan hyperbole, simply the flip side of the same coin that Rush Limbaugh uses when speaking about Democrats. Neat parlor trick: claiming that the other side has said things that it has not said, in order to demonize.


As long as profit > people anyone that would believe or propagate the idea that any corporation would benevolently increase their wages is either foolish or profiting from it.

True. It's naive to think that corporations would voluntarily increase operating costs, whether it's labor or asking an insurance company to charge them higher Workers Compensation premiums.


Trump panders to his audience. If he's talking to a white collar business owner, manager crowd then wages they have to pay are too high. If the crowd is blue collar working stiff then of course wages they receive are too low.

True and true. IMO, he's an excellent carnival barker. When Hillary feigned that faux southern soul sister accent awhile back, she was attempting to do the same thing. It's amazing that people are generally too dumb to realize that they are being played.


Not until America wakes up and realizes that republicans are the problem.

IMO, they're only a part of the problem. As a matter of fact, I'd split 50% between the two major parties and put the other 50% on the talking sheep that make up the citizenry.
 
I'd split 50% between the two major parties and put the other 50% on the talking sheep that make up the citizenry.

People who say shit like this are either willfully ignorant, or legitimately don't have a clue what's been going on for the past 8 years. Unbridled cynicism is not a substitute for being informed.

Republicans publicly stated that they would oppose the president of the USA on every stance he takes. They've repeatedly fought to preserve the citizens united decision that has been a major factor in turning the US government into the privately owned laughing stock that it is today. They've made taking healthcare and welfare away from the poor and women their priority, while handing billions of taxpayer dollars to their rich benefactors. And they've continued to sit on their hands and gum up the works, giving the country its most impotent congresses in history, all while blaming it on the president. They celebrate ignorance and crucify any member who dares to work with democrats to benefit the citizens. The party can no longer be considered conservative, they are extremist fundamentalists. In fact, many long serving, true conservatives have left the republican party for that reason.
You can bitch about the way the democrats have tried to govern, but the fact is that they have tried to govern, and in Obama's early days they passed a long list of legislation that did a lot of good for ordinary Americans, until republicans started winning in midterms and put a stop to it.

Don't just sit there and say both parties are equally to blame because you're either too lazy or too stupid to know enough to have a real opinion. At least the rabid right take a stand. In saying "I just blame everybody" you're really saying "I don't know anything, but I want to have an opinion!"
 
I'm independent, don't like either party, and try to be as objective as possible. The way it's going I'm probably not going to vote. I won't vote for any republican and won't vote for Clinton. If Sanders somehow won the nomination I would probably vote for him, but that's starting to look unlikely. (and for the record I don't think he's infallible or everything he's said was 100% right either, but he's mostly right and the only one that might give a damn about people) With that said thinking that both political parties are equally bad is nothing more than blind thinking, especially when it comes to economic matters.

The democrats are a crappy party with a bunch of bad politicians that don't really care that much about the common people anymore above Wall Street, and are full of career politicians. The republicans are all that taken an order or magnitude worse in today's politics, especially since they have championed all the regressive policies that have ruined us economically for the past five decades. I have yet to see that trickle down stuff. I suppose it all evaporated on the way down.

The democrats are a crappy party with standard crappy politicians. The republicans are full of nothing but totally bat-shit-cray people, that absolutely don't give a damn about you and want to manipulate just about everything you do if your not rich, powerful, or your acts somehow don't coincide to the religion they support, and by the way only their religion "counts". They support a system of rationalized selfishness that they care about more than the well being of people or even life itself. I'm often stuck wondering who are the ones that are actually delusional enough to believe what they spout, and which ones are lying to try and make themselves look good to the public. At least the democrats have to pretend to pander to a more wide range of people that might include you, and sometimes actually pay attention to what the majority of people want (not to mention what the majority of scientist say). True the democrats are just plain terrible, and only remotely look good because the republicans have become so unthinkably abysmal they are better because of comparison, but don't fool yourself into thinking they are equally bad. Then you have Trump. A man who somehow actually makes standard republicans look good in comparison because of borderline insanity and neurosis, lack of connection to the real world, and his enormous stupidity. I would point out his outright lies, but I get the sense that his supporters just don't care anymore, if they ever did, even if they readily admit he does so either overtly or secretly to themselves. He might be historically good at telling dumb people what they want to hear.

I don't know how so many people can support economic systems that fly in the face of logic, and don't even pass a sniff test, especially after they have not only failed to make the common people's lives better for decades now but have actively screwed them over to a huge degree.

While there might be unusual cases where some individuals in an election might be better than the person they are running against, I can think of only three ways anybody reasonably rational would support the republicans in general anymore as bad as they have now gotten.

1. They are rich and powerful, and not just rich and powerful, but very selfishly so whether they publicly say so or not. They got theirs (by means though what almost all people have gotten rich and powerful through history, by luck in some for or another) and want to maintain and gather as much money, influence, and power for themselves as possible to the expense of everybody else or at least everybody but a small segment of people. They want to do that no matter how much it hurts or is unfair to other people. Cruel, yes. Selfish, yes. Crappy human beings, yes. At least as long as their honest to themselves and everybody else, and especially if they don't pretend to be good people, to care about others, or engage in self back patting at least there is still sanity to their thinking and actions no matter how awful they are.

2. People that are borderline religious extremest or fanatics or at least hardcore "evangelical". They want everybody else forced to follow their dogma. Maybe, if everybody else is lucky they just want to do what they want with their religious beliefs unhindered no matter how unfair it is to everybody else, or how it hurts our societies institutions. They want a thinly veneered over semi-theocracy if not worse. This happens no matter if what other people that don't believe as they do do directly hurts anybody else or even at all. We also aren't talking about religion or spirituality in general, it's all hardcore Christian dogma (as that is the only one that apparently counts). The only exceptions to that are if that dogma and teaching come into conflict with point #1 above, then those aspects don't count either. Sacrifice is allowed to go out the window and the attainment of material possessions takes precedence, whether it hurts others or not. Selfish, yes. Disturbingly iconoclastic, yes. Hypocritical yes, but at least their some sanity to it however bad it is. I also say this as somebody that considers themselves pretty religious.

3. They are single issue voters to a very extreme degree (that generally doesn't involve religion which more point #2) with things like gun control, affirmative action, immigration or some other similar issue. They are so stuck on it that they will go with whoever supports their issue...NO...MATTER...WHAT, even if they acknowledge most other things about the person they support are absolute crap, and it will hurt them and probably everybody else greatly. Foolish, often yes. Bad measuring of cost to benefit, probably. Lack of foresight, yes, but if one is honest and has objectively thought through that the issue is that important to them at least there is a bit of sanity to it.

Believing in some form of darwinistic or cowboy capitalism in de facto religious terms and thinking it's a system that's going to magically make things better or fair for the majority of people (despite decades of reality showing it does the opposite) instead of carefully thinking about what would help the greatest number of people the fairest, and would give everybody as much influence as possible...not rational or sane. Neither is believing a system designed around maximizing everybody individual greed as it's basic means of function is going to create benefit for most or not funnel resources and power into the hands of the few.

Going with tradition or conservativism mostly for it's own sake despite it hurting you, others, and disenfranchising people or treating them unfairly under the law...not rational or sane.

Healthy normal distrust of government is good and is one thing. With the nature of humanity is sadly necessary. Somebody having a near pathological distrust of government and it's functions though, but yet thinking businesses, maybe the only things in history worse and more untrustworthy than governments, are great and should be unrestricted and more free to do as they want...not rational or sane.

Having a short term gain of tax reduction or monetary gain to you personally at the expense of hurting yourself in the future, and hurting everybody else which will hurt you even more when one wants to maximize the benefit to oneself and somebody should know better...not rational or sane.
 

Rey C.

Racing is life... anything else is just waiting.

Eight years? Son, where have you been? In recent times, it was the Democrat and the Republican parties, combined, that put the lock on splitting political power between (just) themselves at election time, beginning in 1984 and then again in 1996. As we speak, there are conservative Super PACs and there are liberal Super PACs. Both of the major parties exist for one reason, and for only one reason: to gain or maintain as much power as possible. And while I have never been a member of either political party, I have voted for candidates from both parties from time to time. But I don't vote for or against parties (straight ticket). I either vote for people who have ideas that I mostly agree with... or I vote for the one who has the best chance of knocking off the one that I mostly disagree with. That's how Obama got my vote in 2012... but I was wrong.

As I've already said, I voted for Obama twice. The first one, I'm content with. The second one, I'd like to have back. Has the GOP been the "party of NO!"? Yes. So I do, and have blamed them for their obstructionism. But has Obama and the Democrat party put forth fiscal policy proposals which would have helped to grow this stagnant economy? Few and far between. Extending the tax credits for business equipment and investment would have been something that even his worst hater in the GOP couldn't have beaten him on. Growing small business is how you kick start the American economy. But, Obama (IMO) has spent too much of his time on proposals to satisfy his base. Both the Executive branch and the Legislative branch have been woefully negligent in putting forth economic proposals that would have been slam dunks.

Speaking of healthcare (to choose just one of your hyperbolic claims), while I find it admirable that more lower income Americans can now have access to health insurance, it's a pity that in order to do that, the average American working family (that does not qualify for ObamaCare subsidies or Medicaid) will have premiums and deductibles in coming years that will make going to the doctor even more unaffordable that it was before. Had the Cadillac tax kicked in, companies were set to deal with that by simply cancelling certain benefits, such as HSA and FSA contributions. Depending on the company, that would have been another $1000-$4000 per year that a working family would need to shell out... in addition to higher premiums (HSA can't be used to pay premiums). The Democrats dreamed that one up. And even though I didn't agree with the GOP's stance on healthcare reform, what the Democrats gave us was a beast which will grow more teeth with each passing year. It's a sloppy, badly written piece of legislation. And while Obama and the Dems may have had their hearts in the right place, their heads were up their asses when they put pen to paper.

I do not follow either partisan herd. You don't like that? Too bad. So sad. You'll either get over it or you won't. A damn is not given either way. If, for whatever reason, you truly need to look at things in a simplistic, bifurcated fashion, that's your problem. The parties are always looking for another sheep to tow the line, so I'm sure that at least one of them will appreciate your blind support.


Kid, try thinking for yourself. Stop following the crowd. The change may do you good. :hatsoff:
 

xfire

New Twitter/X @cxffreeman
Speaking of healthcare (to choose just one of your hyperbolic claims), while I find it admirable that more lower income Americans can now have access to health insurance, it's a pity that in order to do that, the average American working family (that does not qualify for ObamaCare subsidies or Medicaid) will have premiums and deductibles in coming years that will make going to the doctor even more unaffordable that it was before. Had the Cadillac tax kicked in, companies were set to deal with that by simply cancelling certain benefits, such as HSA and FSA contributions. Depending on the company, that would have been another $1000-$4000 per year that a working family would need to shell out... in addition to higher premiums (HSA can't be used to pay premiums). The Democrats dreamed that one up. And even though I didn't agree with the GOP's stance on healthcare reform, what the Democrats gave us was a beast which will grow more teeth with each passing year. It's a sloppy, badly written piece of legislation. And while Obama and the Dems may have had their hearts in the right place, their heads were up their asses when they put pen to paper.

Obamacare repeal is going to be one of the first issues on the new congresses agenda. At this point I'm hoping they successfully kill the law.
 

Rey C.

Racing is life... anything else is just waiting.
Obamacare repeal is going to be one of the first issues on the new congresses agenda. At this point I'm hoping they successfully kill the law.

See, isn't it strange that we were both in favor of healthcare reform, but we've both been disappointed by what we got? Even a good (overall) idea can do a lot of damage if it's wrapped in a badly written law.


Are you also saddled with one of these high deductible policies? From what my HR department tells us and what my doctor believes, they're the wave of the future. Those of us who have them are basically self-insured now - until we are faced with a catastrophic emergency or satisfy the deductible because of chronic illness. The only people who are happy with these turds are the insurance companies (who now have more customers under the mandate), some hospitals and some doctors (not all hospitals or doctors accept Medicaid or some Obamacare policies... outside of the ER) and employers (who have used this law to shift more of the cost burden of health care to the employees from their own balance sheets).

Next year (2015), nearly a third of large employers will offer only high-deductible plans — up from 22 percent in 2014 and 10 percent in 2010, according to a study by the National Business Group on Health, which included 136 large companies that collectively employ 7.5 million workers. And 81 percent of those large employers will have added one of these plans to their lineup of choices, up from 53 percent in 2010.

With high-deductible health plans, consumers pay for all their medical services — at the insurer’s negotiated rate — until they meet their deductible.

So, very little is being done (by either party) to promote economic growth or clean up the tax code, but plenty is being done to choke the American middle class into submission. Labor participation and wages continue to be stagnant. The far left seems to believe that increasing the minimum wage is THE answer to stagnant wages (a whopping 1% +/- of the labor force makes minimum wage). And the far right is still stuck on the age old "just cut taxes" argument.

So yeah, in my view, unless and until we get more intelligent and sane people who can work together to find common, middle ground, of course we're screwed. And as I look out and see a party with bad ideas facing off against a party with no ideas (I'm generalizing here), why would I not blame them both, along with the sheeple who blindly support either one??? The only debate that I see is with my assignment of contribution of blame. So instead of 25 to the Dems, 25 to the Repubs and 50 to the sheeple, make it 33 across the board... or mix & match some other way.

Can you imagine what would happen if a significant portion of the straight-ticket voters stepped away from their herd of choice? Wow, talk about some trembling and scared party bosses.

Possible? :dunno:

 
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