Housing and crabs

It always strikes me how ridiculous the opponents of populist ideas sound, this sort of ties in to a post a made a while back about how anti-vaxxers don't seem to put any damn effort at all into their arguments, but I now extend it to all who disagree with me! Okay not really, just those who disagree on specific topics. Today I observed and got involved a little in a Facebook comment thread about housing and the minimum wage, they were discussing this article, and the first argument was some doofus claiming it was "misleading" and that a full time, minimum wage job can indeed pay for an apartment, leaving out the fact that there will be little to no money left over for anything else.

This person was committed to the idea that the article was wrong, but provided no actual facts or sources to back him up, so then proceeded to say that people should just move to a cheaper place, because uprooting a household, moving to a new area, and hoping you find a job there is totally a thing for the millions of people at or below the poverty line.
He then suggested that people should get roommates, which is a least a practical solution for some, however what about families? Or couples? Should they be forced to share their living space because the housing market is bonkers and there are no laws preventing companies from paying below subsistence level wages? Hell shouldn't even a single person who is working full time be able to have a chance at living independently?

Later on the dude devolved into shitting on the idea of a fifteen dollar minimum wage, admittedly that could have been someone else, but honestly I can't be bothered to check and it doesn't really matter for the purposes of this discussion. It was clear pretty early on that this guy was one of the many against raising the wage, but just as with anti-vaxxers people like this seem to have a hard time making any arguments that hold up to any line of questioning that involves actual, you know, facts.

It is a fact that the fifteen dollar minimum wage has been on the books in a few cities now for a year or so, it is a fact that businesses in those places have been hiring more, and more have been opening.

It is a fact that if you don't think someone deserves to make enough money to pay rent and to eat, all during the same month, then you are a bad person and should feel bad.

It is a fact that if you are a business owner and are worried about going out of business because you might have to increase how much you pay your employees, then you are a bad business owner and your business deserves to fail, you are telling your employees that the only reason you don't pay them less, is because the law specifically prevents you from doing so, that they are not worth your money, and if you don't think your employees, you know the ones who are in large part the face of your business, are worth paying, then there is a major flaw in your business model.

That flaw is you, you are the flaw, because you are a cheap bastard and should be first up against the wall when the revolution comes. (No I neither believe nor want the revolution to come in that fashion, it is just a useful phrase, calm down)

The thing is, you can argue against the minimum wage increase if you like, you can even do it in a way that a braindead sloth can't disprove with a couple seconds of work. Argue it from a different angle, suggest that the problem is the increasingly high cost of living, especially the real estate portion, and that if federal programs an subsidies can go to work reducing that, increasing the minimum wage would not be necessary, hell you could even argue that increasing the wage would not actually be a long term fix, and that other actions are needed, you'd still be wrong, but you'd at least be less wrong, and even partially right.

But that is the problem, these people have this "Fuck You Got Mine" attitude about this shit, and don't even think of the problem as a problem, people are poor? Well it must their own damn fault somehow! Screw those guys!

Say what you want about Libertarians, and I do, at least they acknowledge a problem with the status quo, their solution is less regulation and somehow the market will just adapt, using magic I guess, but these FYGM people are just assholes shitting on the poor.

And the stupid thing is, most of them are a mistake away from joining us here at the bottom of the pile, hell some of them are here with us, but that doesn't even slow them down with the rhetoric, they are the only noble poor, and they'll be out of it in a little while, with some hard work and the unemployment they have earned over the years, maybe a few food stamps, some disability. But they are unique in that they don't need a handout, not like those other poors abusing the system, no they are here just until they get back in the game. They do the work of the powers-that-be in maintaining our grotesque little system without those powers having to lift a finger.

Fuck them and fuck you if that is what you believe, you are more harmful than any number of made up"welfare queens".