xthetenth

Don, I think you're off the mark with conflating reflexive loathing of corporations and minimum wage advocacy. Sure I hate corporations, but that's as much an implementation thing as anything. Market economics are a pretty decent way of levelling out supply and demand in cases where buyers and sellers have similar power. Some times it's the right tool for the job, and that's great. Sometimes it isn't and when it isn't it's tantamount to letting the fox watch the henhouse. If they're placed in an environment where it's profitable to create a ton of tragedies of the commons, they'll do it, just look at China's environment. Because of that, just letting the corporations have free rein to chip away to the least money they can pay at the bottom end of the scale is preposterously immoral based on the suffering it would cause.
 
I really like the mincome idea because first off it's straight out honest. Second, it isn't a byzantine horror show that's going to grow a cancerous bureaucracy to enforce eleventeen thousand rules. Sure it's just handing people money, but from there it's all on the person to do what they can with it, and it's a hell of a lot better than the security theater we put people through now. At the bottom of the class structure labor negotiations are totally messed up, the employer has a huge pool to draw from, while if the worker can't get a job, they're in trouble and hoping welfare can cover the gap. It's a really distorted market, and people having some security to actually try and make more of themselves than they were would be a good thing. I really need to look up the data from the Canadian town that tried it, it was really interesting.
 
Incidentally, the people claiming the increases will be matched exactly by inflation, that's wrong. Doubling the minimum wage isn't a matter of suddenly everyone's income doubles, which is roughly what it would take to match the minimum wage increase with inflation. Inexpensive things would get somewhat more expensive (not twice as much because they're not all labor costs), but suddenly their main customers have a hell of a lot more money. Their dollars wouldn't go quite as far as before but they'd certainly have more purchasing power.
 
 
Of course it is. It's utterly preposterous.
 
 
 
Light everyone responsible for the documentation on fire. Also light whoever coded the bit that misattributed this quote on fire.

Don, I think you're off the mark with conflating reflexive loathing of corporations and minimum wage advocacy. Sure I hate corporations, but that's as much an implementation thing as anything. Market economics are a pretty decent way of levelling out supply and demand in cases where buyers and sellers have similar power. Some times it's the right tool for the job, and that's great. Sometimes it isn't and when it isn't it's tantamount to letting the fox watch the henhouse. If they're placed in an environment where it's profitable to create a ton of tragedies of the commons, they'll do it, just look at China's environment. Because of that, just letting the corporations have free rein to chip away to the least money they can pay at the bottom end of the scale is preposterously immoral based on the suffering it would cause.
 
I really like the mincome idea because first off it's straight out honest. Second, it isn't a byzantine horror show that's going to grow a cancerous bureaucracy to enforce eleventeen thousand rules. Sure it's just handing people money, but from there it's all on the person to do what they can with it, and it's a hell of a lot better than the security theater we put people through now. At the bottom of the class structure labor negotiations are totally messed up, the employer has a huge pool to draw from, while if the worker can't get a job, they're in trouble and hoping welfare can cover the gap. It's a really distorted market, and people having some security to actually try and make more of themselves than they were would be a good thing. I really need to look up the data from the Canadian town that tried it, it was really interesting.
 
Incidentally, the people claiming the increases will be matched exactly by inflation, that's wrong. Doubling the minimum wage isn't a matter of suddenly everyone's income doubles, which is roughly what it would take to match the minimum wage increase with inflation. Inexpensive things would get somewhat more expensive (not twice as much because they're not all labor costs), but suddenly their main customers have a hell of a lot more money. Their dollars wouldn't go quite as far as before but they'd certainly have more purchasing power.
 
 
Of course it is. It's utterly preposterous.
 
 
 
Light everyone responsible for the documentation on fire. Also light whoever coded the bit that misattributed this quote on fire.

That sounds like an excellent plan. 
 
 
Tax the corporations, problem solved.

If their employees (I don't know why you put it in quotes, is McDonalds transferring to unpaid interns now?) are 20 year olds cleaning toilets, should they earn more money then? What goes age have to do with this?
Raising the minimum wage will have obvious problems? I'm no American historian, but I am almost positive that the US didn't collapse into economic ruin when the minimum wage went up from zero dollars an hour.

It's pretty hard to "pull yourself up by your boot straps" when someone keeps stealing your boots. 

Right, you convinced me, let's have McDonalds continue to rake in massive profits while its employees apply for food stamps. It's their fault they're not successful, after all.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean when you talk about "successful" and "unsuccessful" people.  There are plenty of people in this country who earn a lot of money (successful) who are essentially leaches, and plenty of people doing boring yet essential tasks without earning much money (unsuccessful.) Hell, US Army enlisted men don't make much money, obviously they are failures.  Better that we admire all those wonderful, successful bankers who earned lots of money creating the housing bubble!   Using earning power to define "success" is a really limited and frankly dangerous way to determine an individuals contribution to a society.  
 
Everyone should have a living wage.  First off, because it's fair.  If people do an honest days work, they should be rewarded for it.  I don't care if they are a highly trained doctor of a garbage man.  Both jobs need to be done and therefore should be valued (I'm not arguing that they should get the same compensation, i am just saying the garbage man should get a fair wage.)  Also, the more fairly income is distributed, the more stable a society will be. And, if everyone has a bit of disposable income, the economy will be better because there will be more spending.  Think of it as "trickle up" economics.  As to how this should be achieved and what the minimum wage should be set at, this is probably best determined based on local conditions.  I am not an economist.  I am very distrustful of them.  As far as I can tell, economics is a psuedo-science used to make rich people feel good about themselves.  I rank them only a little better than clergy.  

Hey, that's allegedly the principles of your government were formed on, it's not my fault that they picked shitty principles.
 

What, do you want everyone to work STEM jobs? Not everyone can. Are they supposed to starve in the streets now? Or is it more humane to just execute them at the end of high school?
Edit: ooh, I know, abortions for non-STEMmies like in Gattaca.

Nobody has to make minimum wage long-term. This is the reality we're living in, right now. I know that they're not meant to be this way, but that's just how it turned out. 
 
Why raise it to $150? That's not the argument. The argument is that it has to be a living wage. If you live in some kind of super-rich area with hilariously high rent prices *coughSanFrancough* then yeah, you probably can't live in fifteen bucks either and it will have to be higher. 
 
The government is supposed to represent the will of the people and fight for their prosperity. Yours doesn't, that's your problem. I'm saying what should be done, not what, realistically, will be done. 

The government, at least in theory, wants its people to prosper. The free market doesn't give a shit, as long as the workers that quit or die can be replaced. If you follow this logic, why have any regulations at all? If the workers aren't satisfied with the lack of safety mechanisms at work, they should just quit! Why should the government and not the free market determine what is safe and what is not?
 
Also yeah, minimum wage jobs shouldn't be long term. But they are. Unless you can somehow legislate full time jobs with a living wage, that's what's going to be available. The government can wring its hands and say "well the world isn't perfect so there's nothing we can do" or they can act to benefit their citizens. Like, you know, they're supposed to.

What does "deserve" mean? The unfeeling free market determines the price of labour. If the market determined that they make minimum wage, well then, they make minimum wage. You think they should make more, but the people paying them clearly don't. Removing the minimum isn't going to make them pay more, it will make them pay less.
 
I still don't see how someone making $20/hr will be worth less if other people start making $15/hr. Will they be unable to feel superior to the plebs that used to make half as much as they did? 

Have you ever worked for minimum wage? You're scheduled for up to an hour less per week than what counts as full-time, if they can help it you're scheduled an hour less per shift than necessary for you to get a lunch break. You can, in theory, get another "full time" job and work more hours there, but good luck getting the schedules to sync up. 
 
What they're "actually worth" is as little as humanly possible. We got through this in the industrial era. That number is forced by the government so people can actually live on this money and not end up unable to make ends meet in a job that, as Crashbot says, used to be a thing that you did on the side for beer money but is now the primary source of income for some people.

I think you mean white.
 

 
Yes I still think launching standoff munitions at Mach 3+ from 70,000 feet gives some super cool capabilities, why do you ask?

Nationalize the business and send the owners to Alaska.

Role and weapon fit wise, not specifics of operation and basing, I think it is likely to be a long range platform for a disturbingly large missile load.

I think the more amusing scenario would have been the US not participating in forming the treaty, Iran getting even more favorable terms with Russians and Chinese arms manufacturers, and getting pretty much 90% of the trade it needed while the US misses out on developing a nonvolatile relationship with Iran. The deal is better than basically every other achievable outcome.

Yeah, I guess the super duper long range escort idea fits, although considering the Twin Mustang it seems that's a niche that they really wanted filled.
 
Now for a few British things:
 

 
Westland Lysander. The joke went that to novices there were two types of planes: planes and Lysanders. Rare for things in this thread, it was actually a very successful liason aircraft with great visibility, low speed performance and short field performance.
 

 
Westland Welkin. Designed to intercept high altitude and high speed reconnaissance flights, they took a Whirlwind, which was a high performance heavy fighter that had been plagued with development troubles and gave it a huge wing. Very good altitude performance, but not enough threat to be worthwhile.
 

 
Miles M.39B Libellula. Designed to be a fast bomber. Apparently kind of worked, strangely enough. Seems that the progress of other designs passed it by, not really sure.
 

 
Miles M.35 Libellula. I think they used all their inventiveness on the planform and had to reuse the name or something. Intended as a naval fighter which could fit onto elevators without wing folding and would have excellent visibility onto the carrier while landing. Was built without official authority which doomed the project, which was rejected.

XSB2D Destroyer with groovy top and bottom turrets, but the Navy quickly changed its mind. It wound up becoming the XBTD-2 with mixed propulsion. This was a reasonably popular thing for a bit, adding a jet instead of a rear gunner to provide rear protection by speed.
 

 
XTB2D Skypirate. Designed for the larger later carriers. Fit an R-4360 with counter rotating propellers. Could carry four torpedoes or an equivalent bomb load. Don't let the single engine fool you, the thing could carry as much as four TBFs (and they considered stuffing a jet in the back). It was about the same empty weight and had a longer wingspan than a B-25 Mitchell.
 

 
Grumman XTB2F. Yes that's a proposed carrier torpedo bomber. I'm sure you can see the biggest problem with that idea. But what I'm pretty sure you didn't notice the significance of is yes, that is a 75mm gun, and it would be accompanied by six .50 cals. And that's a radar in the wing because why not at that point. They also had a much more sensible idea for a torpedo bomber, the XTSF-1, which was a F7F modified with a TBF torpedo bay and an air to surface radar in the nose.
 

 
YP-37, an early attempt to fit a turbosupercharged inline in the Hawk airframe. Basically an abortive attempt at what the P-40 was, but with bad visibility and stability.
 

 
The SNC-1, originally the CW-22. A two seat fighter. They took the CW-21, a super lightweight fighter that got good performance at the expense of durability even when compared to the Zero, and added a rear gunner. It rather quickly became a training plane instead because that's not an awful idea.
 

 
The XP-62, the last hurrah of Curtiss-Wright fighter design. Originally promising with a R-3350 providing a ton of power going into a counterrotating prop. Got passed by because Curtiss-Wright was failing as a company with a ton of similar projects cannibalizing each other. Overall a mess.
 
NOT PICTURED: There were attempts to to add a turbosupercharger and intercooler to the P-39. One try was in a belly pod. Top speed dropped 40 mph. The next try was in a saddleback right over the cockpit. Top speed dropped by 45 mph.
 

 
This otherwise unoffensive looking sort is the XP-47H. Yep. It's a thunderbolt, testing the XIV-2220-1 16 cylinder inverted V engine. It didn't work very well. Meanwhile cleaning up and lightening the thing with a radial produced the J, which using a mass-produced engine and propeller cleared 500 mph.
 
 

 
Bell YFM-1 Airacuda. Yep, that's two gunner aimed and fired 37mm guns. To quote wiki: it was an innovative design incorporating many features never before seen in a military aircraft, as well as several never seen again. I wonder why. It'd probably be effective against bombers if it weren't for the minor problem of not being able to catch them. It relied on an independent auxiliary power unit to power both engine fuel pumps as well as all aircraft electrical systems (this is one of those features!) It functionally had three separate engines without any one the plane was a write-off.
 

 
XP-67 Moonbat. In addition to looking frankly super cool, it was supposed to be armed with 37mm cannon as a bomber destroyer. Six 37mm cannon in fact. Unfortunately actually making the thing work right was a bit much for the design staff and it had a severe tendency to overheat to the point of fire. By the time it worked, it didn't perform.
 

 
XP-71. The very definition of big American bomber killers. 82.3 foot span, 39,950 pound weight intended (two B-25s!) with two R-4360-13s with turbos and a pair of eight blade, 13.5 foot diameter contra-rotating props. Intended to climb to 25,000 feet in 12.5 minutes, make 428 mph up there and be able to get to 40,000 feet with a 3,000 mile range. The thing was supposed to be armed with two 37mm cannon and a 75mm cannon. There were only two problems. First, it wasn't really working, it was complex as could be and things were progressing slowly. Second, there weren't any bombers to hunt. Which is a shame, because I desperately wish the B-36 of fighters had been a thing.
 

 
Northrop XP-56. Cool looking plane, all-magnesium, all-welded. Unfortunately it didn't actually work and more importantly couldn't be made to work.
 

 
XF5F. Normally the nose goes in front of the wing, but Grumman does what it wants. The test performance was allegedly excellent, with it pulling away from an XF4U so fast the pilot thought the Corsair had engine trouble. Unfortunately it was a twin engine design and the Wildcat was deemed more practical, and the XF5F was going to need more design time and changes that would add weight.
 

 
Oh come on Vought. Really? This is the XF5U. Basically the idea was that there are good reasons why a wing with super long chord suck, mainly the induced drag at the very long wingtips, but if you cancel them out with the prop wash it'd totally allow for better maneuverability, roll rate and strength. It was promising but development took too long, with vibration problems in particular. They did need to break it up with a wrecking ball, so the strength was a thing that happened.
 
No points if you guessed that I have a handsome book on US WWII "fighter" (and light strike plane) development.

The Euros mostly wrote off the lessons of the ACW as being a bunch of amateurs playing at war.
 
The best though is what the US' glorious longest running ally did.
 
I'll let wiki cover what went down in Morocco because I hurt my hand and typing sucks.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morocco%E2%80%93United_States_relations#American_Civil_War

If anybody can penetrate a shame threshold, it's nerds in the privacy of their own basement.

Oh god.
 
You need a drink.

Well clearly we should stop focusing on logistics in order to focus on developing clear narrative arcs for our junior officers. As shown by the X-Wing series, units' strategic impact undergoes an unbounded increase as they approach the platonic ideal of an RPG party.

College sports: where the nation celebrates southerners making money from black men who don't get paid (This is incredibly glib, I know).

If we're gonna play that game, fine.
 
 
Yes, and there totally won't be regulations on near supersonic submarines because
 
 
 
If we wanted travel of that speed that badly, we'd already have it. Need + tool = solution. If there's a tool that could be a solution, and there is no use, then there wasn't a great enough need, now was there?

Or we could just build XB-70 airliner derivatives like tool using hominids.