Posts by Saintbertholdt

36

A JW experience

by Saintbertholdt in

this is a quick experience i have recently had and i have two questions at the end.. a couple of weeks ago, the dogs were barking at the gate on saturday morning and wouldn't you know it, it was some witnesses.

there was a father with his lovely wife and their young daughter.

the father did all the talking as mother and daughter just dutifully smiled and watched.

Saintbertholdt

Hi jookbeard,

So would you then say that counter arguments to their preaching have just become so much more sophisticated?

36

A JW experience

by Saintbertholdt in

this is a quick experience i have recently had and i have two questions at the end.. a couple of weeks ago, the dogs were barking at the gate on saturday morning and wouldn't you know it, it was some witnesses.

there was a father with his lovely wife and their young daughter.

the father did all the talking as mother and daughter just dutifully smiled and watched.

Saintbertholdt

Hi there all,

This is a quick experience I have recently had and I have two questions at the end.

A couple of weeks ago, the dogs were barking at the gate on Saturday morning and wouldn't you know it, it was some witnesses. There was a father with his lovely wife and their young daughter. The father did all the talking as mother and daughter just dutifully smiled and watched. So in the back of my mind I'm thinking, well on JWN I know what they would be advising: Royal commission! I decided against it because it was Saturday morning and I was busy with gardening and I didn't want to lay it on them too thick. They looked as if they were enjoying the fresh air and dad was going to show the family how to do a textbook presentation.

Firstly I asked whether they were Jehovah's Witnesses, which they acknowledged immediately because I was being my friendliest self and so there was no reason to skirt around the fact. We started talking about this and that and then the sales pitch started. Dad gave me the old "Would you agree that world conditions are becoming worse" routine. I just answered the question as I would answer anyone who made that assertion. I replied that today in the modern world we enjoy things like motor vehicles instead of horses and carts, we have modern medicines like antibiotics which were unavailable a hundred years ago and that non existence made infections and sepsis high mortality diseases. I also mentioned easier access to food over the past century and didn't even expand on the topics very much. I wasn't pushing my point of view and was still being friendly while trimming some bushes.

I was wondering whether he would counter with bad world economic conditions or something else, but instead he looked visibly perturbed. He then went on to a scripture and offered a couple of magazines, which I accepted. He did not ask for a donation and we parted ways amicably. I even waved goodbye.

Now my questions are these: Was it just this man, or have witnesses today become derailed very quickly with the most basic arguments? (I found the ease with which I could make him hesitate was too uncanny.) Whats going on here? Its actually been on my mind quite a bit.

23

Your Favorite Poetry

by compound complex in

jw
friends

thank you, dear friends, for expressing your thoughts today on the importance of the arts in your lives.

many years ago, a number of threads were devoted to poetry, literature, even english grammar.

rather than resurrect an old thread -- usually with zero results -- i would like to introduce a new post, asking you to add some of your favorite verse.

Saintbertholdt

How calmly does the olive branch
Observe the sky begin to blanch
Without a cry, without a prayer
With no betrayal of despair

Some time while light obscures the tree
The zenith of its life will be
Gone past forever
And from thence
A second history will commence

A chronicle no longer gold
A bargaining with mist and mold
And finally the broken stem
The plummeting to earth, and then

And still the ripe fruit and the branch
Observe the sky begin to blanch
Without a cry, without a prayer
With no betrayal of despair

Oh courage! Could you not as well
Select a second place to dwell
Not only in that golden tree
But in the frightened heart of me

10

Evolution is a Fact #14 - Joey Goes to Oz

by cofty in

australia is home to 223 species of marsupial.. lacking a womb our mammalian cousins give birth to their young at a very early stage of development and then nurse them to maturity.

female marsupials also have 3 vaginas but that is another thread.. the earliest fossils of marsupials are not to be found in australia however but in north america 80 million years ago.

their journey can be followed south all the way to the tip of south america 40 million years ago and then they suddenly turn up in australia 30 million years ago.. so where were joey's ancestors during the missing 10 million years and how did they manage to get to australia?.

Saintbertholdt

Vagina.... hehehehehe

66

What Should the Minimum Wage Be (USA)?

by Village Idiot in

during the gop debates donald trump said that american’s “wages [are] too high” and later said “that having a low minimum wage is not a bad thing for this country” (7:25)..

do you agree and if so why?.

my two cents on this issue; do the math.

Saintbertholdt

Equating it with a loaded phrase like "social engineering" is an attempt to thwart the necessity of having enough money to sustain you. I've been talking about basic rent and food.

So if you think that I'm using loaded language with Social Engineering, I'll abandon it.I do think it has merit though: LoveUniHateExams pointed to the United Kingdoms situation. If you look at the politics and economics of the UK in the 1970s and 80s it is a good example of social engineering by the left and the right, with its advantages and its foibles.

Ok let me put it another way: What is the real minimum wage? Zero. Irrespective of minimum wage laws. If you're not working you're earning the real minimum wage, which is nothing. Which is worse: Living out of your car or living out of a cardboard box?

That could be used to rationalize no minimum wage the result of which being that the unemployed may be employed while living out of his car (if any).

True. Its my concern as well. I have to point out though that our concern is actually not borne out by the facts.

From the text again: "Europe’s unemployment rates shot up when such government-mandated benefits to be paid for by employers grew sharply during the 1980s and 1990s. In Germany, such benefits accounted for half of the average labor cost per hour. By comparison, such benefits accounted for less than one-fourth the average labor costs per hour in Japan and the United States. Average hourly compensation of manufacturing employees in the European Union countries in general is higher than in the United States or Japan. So is unemployment."

So what does one want then? Low unemployment or a better quality of life for those employed?

It seems that you cannot have both, unless I am mistaken.

66

What Should the Minimum Wage Be (USA)?

by Village Idiot in

during the gop debates donald trump said that american’s “wages [are] too high” and later said “that having a low minimum wage is not a bad thing for this country” (7:25)..

do you agree and if so why?.

my two cents on this issue; do the math.

Saintbertholdt

Which is considered to be a Socialistic way of doing things.

Sure. But isn't minimum wage doing the same thing?

Let me quote from a well known Economic text (Basic Economics - Sowell): "A belated recognition of the connection between minimum wage laws and unemployment by government officials has caused some countries to allow their real minimum wage levels to be eroded by inflation, avoiding the political risks of trying to repeal these laws explicitly, when so many voters think of such laws as being beneficial to workers. These laws are in fact beneficial to those workers who continue to be employed—those who are on the inside looking out, but at the expense of the unemployed who are on the outside looking in."

The economist view is that the minimum wage is generally a bad thing, but I've not bought into the notion entirely, but as our discussion is progressing I am starting to see some merit in the abandoning of a minimum wage (except to prevent extreme exploitation).

I come back to the following thought: Isn't using minimum wage to ensure a specific lifestyle a form of social engineering? Is social engineering a good idea?

66

What Should the Minimum Wage Be (USA)?

by Village Idiot in

during the gop debates donald trump said that american’s “wages [are] too high” and later said “that having a low minimum wage is not a bad thing for this country” (7:25)..

do you agree and if so why?.

my two cents on this issue; do the math.

Saintbertholdt

There is a country that has no minimum wage no welfare system and no medical programs where peoples money is being taxed to pay for it all. It called Somalia.

Just for interest, five countries with no enforced minimum wage, instead relying on collective bargaining:

Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Norway and Switzerland

4

Evolution is a Fact #13 - Morris Minor Bonnets

by cofty in

every brit of a certain age can recognise a morris minor by the iconic shape of its bonnet.

what most don't realise is that when alec issigonis designed the car in 1948 he had a last minute change of mind.

he realised it looked too narrow.

Saintbertholdt

When I use the odd cotton ear bud (I understand one shouldn't?) and I dig too deep in my ear, I start coughing.

I understand I'm tickling my Vagus nerve. Weird.

66

What Should the Minimum Wage Be (USA)?

by Village Idiot in

during the gop debates donald trump said that american’s “wages [are] too high” and later said “that having a low minimum wage is not a bad thing for this country” (7:25)..

do you agree and if so why?.

my two cents on this issue; do the math.

Saintbertholdt

As for your pencil analogy you have left out the cost of employing the producer which takes us right back to the issue.

If you mean by producer, it encompasses the tool manufacturers, the architects, engineers, technicians, miners, lumber jacks, supervisors, accountants and ALL the labor involved, and not just the factory floor worker though.

Floods are a natural force that's why cities are designed with drainage and flood control channels.

See: Dutch Watersnoodramp 1953 - And they're some pretty darn good engineers when it comes to dykes.

66

What Should the Minimum Wage Be (USA)?

by Village Idiot in

during the gop debates donald trump said that american’s “wages [are] too high” and later said “that having a low minimum wage is not a bad thing for this country” (7:25)..

do you agree and if so why?.

my two cents on this issue; do the math.

Saintbertholdt

And how would such a mystical force do any correcting?

You seem to think the market is not a natural force. Let me explain:

Pick up a normal everyday item like a pencil. It consists of parts like a wooden casing, some paint, carbon on the inside, a rubber eraser on its back end, a metal holder for the eraser.

You buy this item for a negligible amount.

Now here's the trick: How much would it cost you to make one from total scratch on your own?

One dollar? Ten dollars? A hundred dollars?

It would actually cost millions of dollars.

Here's another trick: No one knows the manufacturing process of that pencil from end to end in its entirety.

From the wood being cut, to it being treated, the chemical composition of the paint, the processes involved in the manufacture of the base materials. That simple item encompasses the ingenuity and force of our entire civilization.

Think about it for a while: The market is a natural force, like the ocean, like hurricanes or any other great natural phenomena you can think of.

When humans intervene in the market through legislation like a minimum wage, one better know what one is doing because one could end up with unintended consequences. I'm not saying that it cannot be done, the Dutch have been keeping the Atlantic ocean at bay for a very long time, but what I am saying is that when you choose to impose limits on the market you better have thought this through thoroughly.