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solium:
Exceptions should be made for small businesses,
Well, how generous of you. I'm glad you're only going to force some of us to comply with the way you see things. You're so benevolent.
but the facts are corporate profits have skyrocketed along with CEO salaries while living wages have been stagnant for 40 years. No one can live off of 20 thousand a year. The fact that poverty is considered a family of four making 25k a years is obscene.
So what? It doesn't matter whether that CEO makes a billion times more than each employee. Stop coveting other people's wealth. Stop begrudging what he or she has earned.
He or she has earned it. What have you done to bring in that much money?
Walmart family itself makes about 40 percent of the yearly wealth in this country alone. Billion dollar companies, like Walmart, Best Buy, Lowes, Home Depot, Pizza Hut, the gas companies can all afford to pay their employees a liveable wage and benefits and still make a profit.
Boy, you jsut blew by everything, so I have to repeat myself.
It's not the employer's job to make sure you can afford to live on one minimum wage job. That's why some folks take two jobs. That's why some folks take as many hours as they can get at minimum wage.
Living wage, that is entirely subjective. Does the woman who went to medical school for a decade with over $20,000 in debt, two kids, and a big house with a mortgage in a tourist city Florida have the same cost of living as a man who runs a small company, has no kids, rents his house, and lives in Georgia? No -- the cost of living varies on some many things, from state-to-state, and even from city to city.
It might be great to say, work two jobs but why should someone have to do that? What kind of quality of life do you want for people of your country? We are slowly becoming China.
It's called self reliance, it's called working hard to earn a living rather than just having it handed to you 'cause you don't feel you shoudl have to and are entitled to low hours and more pay. You are not entitled to chose how much more of somebody's money you want and you are not entitled to decide how much an employer needs to meet demand.
The quality of life is how you make it. Sure there are set backs, sure you can fall on your ass, but unlike China, you ca be what ever you want, you can get back up from your ass again and again and again. And should life truely hand you some mega crap, we have charities, aide like Food Stamps, and generousity of other people. It may not be entirely perfect and some folks may fall threw the cracks, but there is NO better system in the world. And there never has been prior.
On the one hand you have the two girls I over heard talking about how they're better than the jobs they have applied to and won't take so & so, so they're sitting on their buts playing with their phones; on the other hand you have guy who runs a small business out of his house and has to drive around providing his service and work every day, so he's got a nice big house in a quality neighborhood. Their quality of life is different. One tried, ther others think they are entitled to something better.
And the U.S. is not in any danger, yet, of becoming like China. And the quality of living there isn't because of long hours of work -- we have that here and people have great lives. It's for a few reasons, not hte least of which politics.
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Dyfrynt:
Justin, all that you say would be true IF all wages had risen equally since the '60s. It is a hard fact that management salaries have skyrocketed while employee salaries have stagnated for decades.
So what? That is class warfare. Stop coveting somebody else's wealth just 'cuase you think they make too much.
Wage raise is not tied to CEO salaries; it rises on totally different needs of the employer. This argument is probably one of the most inane I have seen.
Yes someone with minimal skills have no right to expect to be paid $50 an hour. And no one is SO speschal that they deserve billion dollar salaries either.
Stop coveting somebody else's wealth. It's not yout decision to decide what he or she is worth.
You guys are acting like we're overrun with billionaires. American is not. Only a small fraction of people in this country. By the way, it's over 400 right now, and in China -- it's rising, with over 300 right now. The number of lower skilled workers vastly overswamps that of billionaires and millionaires, yet somehow everybody here thinks the pay should be tied to the level of increase of a small few. There are about 311.5 million people in the U.S.; you want to whip out a calculator and do a % of calculation with 442 billionaires, be my guest.
We are in a country now where a tiny select few get to earn more money than they know what to do with so that the rest of us are unable to earn a livable wage. That is just wrong.
This is more class warfare. A small group of people (even when you throw in the number of millionaires) is sectioned off because they made and earned a lot of money (paid for, by the way, by people like you and I -- this money didn't come from the money fairy), lumped into a class and war is declared on them because people think they can't make it. They think the pie is a zero sum gain.
It's falsity that that all people with over a million got there from winning it or inheriting it. The overwhelming vast majority earned that money. They created a business or product that brought in that money.
But they were once poor. they once had nothing. James Cameron was living in his car when he wrote "The Terminator". He no has an eastimate worth of $900 million -- that's only a hundred million away from a billion. You don't own any of his movies or pay to see new ones do you?
Jim Carrey used to be homeless. Now he's worth and estimated $150 million dollars. That more money than he knows what to do with, right? You've not seen any Carrey movies or bought on DVD's recently? Say "Kick Ass 3".
Arnold Schwarzenegger was broke when he came to the U.S.; he got one acting job, they dubbed over his voice, and he didn't work in another film for eight years. His friends came together and furnished his apartment. Eastimated worth: $300 million.
(more examples; I didn't click on the page, so there might be repeates: http://www.businessinsider.com/formerly-homeless-people-who-became-famous-2012-6?op=1)
There is no finite amount of money. If you truely want it, you can make it. And it doesn't matter what so & so CEO of ACME Widgets makes, you'll still be able to make money. Every dollar he makes, doesn't take a dollar from what you make.
Oh and by the way, I do run my own small business, so I'm not speaking out of my ass here.....
Ah, yes you were. You were spouting generalizatiosn and opinions of what other employers can and shoudl pay and what they get paid in the upper levels.
So, you're next going to show us photocopies of your employees paychecks showing they make an hourly wage of $25.00, right? Nobody there should be making under that, right?
Let;'s see. Show by example. Don't want for Fedzilla to mandate it by law -- you don't have to be told you have to, you can be doing it right now!
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I don't want -- personally -- to work 50 hours a week at minimum wage, but I've done it. And it was crap, let me tell you.
But if other people have to do it or even work more hours that's okay? Because you did it?
But that was the way to earn it. And I learned the value of a dollar.
Right. So, because you had to work 50 hours a week in an economic system that's anything but equal, everyone that comes after you has to struggle just as much? And so what--you "know" the value of a dollar. Do you think others making minimum wage don't? Do you think that people who fight for a livable wage don't know the value of a dollar? Do you think people who work two full-time jobs earning getting minimum wage with no means to further their education or improve their lot in life don't know the value of a dollar?
I can honestly tell you, had that same job started me out at $25.00 an hour, I'd have learned jack friggin' squat about the value of a dollar, and I would have only left after slugging the boss (so, how ever long I would have held out).
Oh. So because you wouldn't know the value of a dollar if you had earned $25 an hour no one else will? I'm sure the worker who makes $25 an hour and has a stable roof over their head and three meals a day doesn't know the value of a dollar. 
I started out at minimum wage, 50 hours (give or take) a week, monthly car payments, high insurance rates since I'm a male, and paying rent to a family member (eventually). It was a bitch. But I did it. And so can other people. And, like I said, these are temporary jobs, a year or two later, not only should you have had a raise or two, you should have most likely moved on to another higher paying job; you shouldn't become settled and complacent so you can afford to live on just that one job. You should be pissed off and want to better yourself and situation. If you're still at that same job five years later and aren't cursing half the people's names and remebering angry costumers, you're an odd duck, let me tell ya that.
There are so many assupmtions in this paragraph it's not even worth breaking down. Clearly you seem to think that everyone in the country begins life on the same socioeconomic rung of the ladder and is privy to equal amounts of luck and circumstance. How nice it must be to view the world through such rose-colored glasses.
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So what? It doesn't matter whether that CEO makes a billion times more than each employee. Stop coveting other people's wealth. Stop begrudging what he or she has earned. He or she has earned it. What have you done to bring in that much money?
Please explain how wanting to earn a livable wage while working a 40-hour week is "coveting" someone else's wealth. How is wanting--at a minimum--the ability to not have to rely on government programs to get through life "begrudging" someone's wealth? And leading to your next point...how have the Walmart family "earned" their wealth? I know their father built the business. How have his children "earned" all that money? I'm sure much of it was inherited and the rest was just the luck of being born into the right family.
It's not the employer's job to make sure you can afford to live on one minimum wage job. That's why some folks take two jobs. That's why some folks take as many hours as they can get at minimum wage.
Living wage, that is entirely subjective. Does the woman who went to medical school for a decade with over $20,000 in debt, two kids, and a big house with a mortgage in a tourist city Florida have the same cost of living as a man who runs a small company, has no kids, rents his house, and lives in Georgia? No -- the cost of living varies on some many things, from state-to-state, and even from city to city.
I'm pretty certain defining "livable wage" is a doable task. Most people that I know would accept a "livable wage" as being any wage that--at a minimum--allows a worker to have shelter and three meals a day and does not require the worker to rely on government assistance to get by.
It's called self reliance, it's called working hard to earn a living rather than just having it handed to you 'cause you don't feel you shoudl have to and are to low hours and more pay. You are not entitled to chose how much more of somebody's money you want and you are not entitled to decide how much an employer needs to meet demand.
Again with the false dichotomies. How does demanding adequate pay--a livable wage--somehow mean that an individual isn't self-reliant? When CEO pay grossly out-grows the worker's wages and the workers ask for a wage that allows them to live with a modicum of diginity, how is that "entitlement"? I can conversely ask by what right does an employer or CEO have to exploit his worker-class and force them to get by off government programs?
The quality of life is how you make it. Sure there are set backs, sure you can fall on your ass, but unlike China, you ca be what ever you want, you can get back up from your ass again and again and again. And should life truely hand you some mega crap, we have charities, aide like Food Stamps, and generousity of other people. It may not be entirely perfect and some folks may fall threw the cracks, but there is NO better system in the world. And there never has been prior.
Again with the assumption that somehow everyone begins life on the same socioeconomic rung of the ladder with equal bouts of luck and privilege. What a lovely sentiment--"if your life really sucks and you're economically exploited, don't despair--food stamps!" Lovely.
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Essankay:
Funny how it's only ever "class warfare" when working people want a bigger piece of the pie.
Funny how the same old tired class warfare just gets repeated every decade and barely even reworded. Yet somehow during these decades, people still become rich. People still lift themselves out of poverty.
And apparently people are "confused" when they note that the 1%ers portion has increased many times over while real income for the middle and lower classes has been stagnant (or declined) for decades.
Folks, you are seeing a classic example of deja vu class warfare. None of this is new. You can find this almost cookie cutter like on Leftist websites. They litterally coach each other in language and phrases to use. That doesn't necessartily mean this user did it that way. But let's put him aside since there's no reason to come down on him, and instead address the points.
Anyway, notice again, 'cause it's necessary to pit one group of people against another, more class systems have been used. There is now a middle class and a lower class (that's pretty damn general; could you vague that up any more for us?).
American does not have a class system. Let other countries deal in that crap if they want.
Let's try to define what the "middle class" is. I know, that's kind of like pinning Jell-O to a wall, but let's try.
So in the first area, we'll start with finances. Obviously people who spew class warfare are trying to divide them by some amount of money (I don't know if they mean yearly, savings, or both, or maybe every single penny of worth). What is this amount? You see, somebody has to define it and when you do that, it's like asking ten different people what time it is -- you get ten different answers (though this analogy is becoming out of date as many people whip out cellphones, some of which set their times to one clock, which usually is the atomic clock).
So, what amount makes you in the "middle class"? Let's pick a random amount for the argument. Let's say you make $125,000 to $250,000 a year and that is the middle class bracket.
Okay, in order to get there somebody has to decide some amount defines "middle class". Who gets to decide that? You? I? No. Ultimately the I.R.S. decides the brackets. We have no say. But we couldn't, since so many people who promote this class, don't have any single amount that makes you a instantly in the middle class.
Okay, so let's say Joe Sixpack makes that amount yearly and is in the ficticious "middle class". It's just a number. How does this make him fit into this seperate class from ones underneath it? What if Joe the previous year made $124,000? He's the same person he was a year ago, he just now makes another thousand dollars a year. The only thing that changes is his tax bracket and amount/type of work performed. This ficticius class doesn't imbue Joe with higher intelligence, it may not even change his quality of living (who knows what Joe's cost of living is, what bills he may have to pay, what family he may be helping, how much he may be giving to charity).
So, what is the "middle class"? It's nothing mroe than an attack on the amount of money he made. Joe the next year may have his hours cut and not make $125,000. He may switch jobs and make less. He may become injured and cannot make that kind of money. Or he may retire early or at the retirement age. He's still the same person he was when he was in the "middle class", his financial and living situations have changed/are changing. Possibly he even moves up in the company or goes to another company where he's higher up, and now he's making over $500,000 a year. He may even have become CEO, invented a product that took off, even won the lottery, and now he's a millionaire. Joe is still Joe, he's just now the "Evil rich", the "1%", the "Corporate fatcat" and other garbage. He's made it, but the amount he's made has somehow made him evil. He's suddenly incapable of deciding on how to spend/invest/donate his own money and people want the government to vote to steal his money 'cause they think it's finite. Suddenly his private property is everybody's else business, suddenly it needs to be taken from him becasue somebody else feels he has too much. And magically, this freed up wealth will somehow make everybody capable of making $25.00 an hour. Never mind that the number of millionaires has decreased over the last few years and some have moved overseas. We got to punish these rich people. Why? 'cause they have too much. Why? So the people at THEIR company, can make $25.00 an hour (or what ever amount). Everybody else that doesn't work at "Walmart, Best Buy, Lowes, Home Depot, Pizza Hut" or some billion dollar company, don't get $25.00 an hour.
Ah! You know what we have to do? We have to now punish the millionaires, so their employees can make $20.00 an hour. Wait, what about those poor bastards at the smaller companies that don't make a million a year? Well, we got to punsih them, too, since they have more than the poorer and force them to pay $15.00 an hour.
It's only fair, right? Where do we stop? It's pretty easy to come up with different answer 'cause those who support class warfare always have their own idea, their own opinion and reasoning to back it up. Forcing somebody to use their money how you feel they should, is always easy to do 'cause as aforementioned: It's their money, not yours. But who's right? Well, everybody but YOU if you want to spend your money how to see fit -- you're wrong. They're right. Why? Because they say so. I know, it's infallible logic.
It's suddenly virtuous to covet somebody's wealth 'cause you think you have better intentions with it than those who earned it.
I've just added Penelope Pineapple. I can't help him. He's beyond that. His replies are a waste of life to read. So you all know I am intentionally skipping them.
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It's suddenly virtuous to covet somebody's wealth 'cause you think you have better intentions with it than those who earned it
Justin, The Soviets had their long-winded theorists who sliced-and-diced life according to their predjudices. You're the same old bag of gas.
When you're labeling working class people "covetous", you've really stepped through the looking glass. Enjoy!
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What burns me is the trend to cut hours just to the point that businesses won't have to contribute to the medical costs for its employees. Yes, I certainly understand that some of those businesses can't afford that (pity the poor CEOs of the corporations that own them!), but they're going to write it off as business expense anyway, so, in the long run, it won't cost them the full amount. There was a time when I worked for 44 months at the Los Angeles Times as a part time worker, and because they frequently needed it, we worked a lot of overtime, so I would often put in 50 to 60 hours a week. But in those 44 months I never received one paid day off for sick leave, one day of vacation, or even one paid holiday; indeed, we HATED holidays, because it meant, if we didn't work it, we would have a 20% pay cut for that week, so we usually worked it. Glad that was in another lifetime for me and that I'm now happily retired!
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I've just added Penelope Pineapple. I can't help him. He's beyond that. His replies are a waste of life to read. So you all know I am intentionally skipping them.
So much for being "always open, within reason, to have a conversation." I didn't think my points were too unreasonable...not that you're "wasting your life" reading this.
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What burns me is the trend to cut hours just to the point that businesses won't have to contribute to the medical costs for its employees. Yes, I certainly understand that some of those businesses can't afford that (pity the poor CEOs of the corporations that own them!), but they're going to write it off as business expense anyway, so, in the long run, it won't cost them the full amount. There was a time when I worked for 44 months at the Los Angeles Times as a part time worker, and because they frequently needed it, we worked a lot of overtime, so I would often put in 50 to 60 hours a week. But in those 44 months I never received one paid day off for sick leave, one day of vacation, or even one paid holiday; indeed, we HATED holidays, because it meant, if we didn't work it, we would have a 20% pay cut for that week, so we usually worked it. Glad that was in another lifetime for me and that I'm now happily retired!
Haven't they changed the laws on that practice now, though? I know in California, if you're hired as a part-time worker and you work full-time hours for more than a set period (like three weeks or several pay periods or something like that) you have to be given full-time benefits because otherwise the business is getting away with working people full-time without having to pay for their benefits. Maybe it's different for different industries, though?
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I hate to break it to you Justin Boggan, but putting Horatio Alger homilies onto the table can't alter the fact that Our Plutocratic Elites have pulled in ALL the income gains post-2008-recession.
I appreciate the fact that you're determined to dance around the class realities of modern civilization by claiming that "in America, there are no classes". In truth, class distinctions are slippery and usually inaccurate, and have been used to justify horrible crimes (i.e., The Soviet Union), but those facts can't be used to obfuscate the administrative malfeasance of the current set of economic elites.
These elites learned long ago that they could lessen their tax liabilities and regulatory obligations with populist rhetoric. Seems they want all the power, yet none of the responsibility. And don't give me your schtick about their ONLY responsibility being profit. If they insist on controlling most of the commerce, they'll inevitably have to pay most of the taxes as well.
Then again, Our Plutocratic Elites could take on the responsibility of broadening the tax base by disseminating their knowledge (notice I don't recommend forcing them to do so), thereby helping to establish more well-to-do taxpayers. Yet they seem to have no motive to do so. Explain that one to me, Justin. And please, no libertarian bromides. Think about this one.
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Double post.
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Ron, the issues is not whether somebody can or cannot afford it. The issues are that other people think they know better what that person should do with that money and than want force of law used to achieve that. Then it's out of their hands and into the government's.
It's the same thing those handful of idiot rich people you see on certain cable nes networks, where they want higher taxes. You point out in the I.R.S. book that you can pay more than you owe and that he or she doesn't have to wait and suddenly they become defensive. you see, they don't want to really do it, otherwise they could have done so years ago and even after finding out about being able to send in more than they owe. They want the government to compel you, they want to impose upon everybody their wealth redistribution ideals.
You can go to Youtube, for example and find somebody named Michele Fields , interviewing some of these idiot rich people, when they were on the Hill lobbying Congressmen (in 2001) to raise taxes. She of course asked them about it, pointed out they can send more in.
It kind of boils down to "WHA!!! I didn't get my way!!! WAH!!! I'm gonna make Uncle Sam force you!"
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At least, not with you.
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Posted: |
Sep 18, 2013 - 4:33 AM
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By: |
mastadge
(Member)
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I find it funny how Justin keeps shrieking "class warfare! class warfare!" only to then lecture us at length on how "American [sic] does not have a class system" because class is just a leftist keyword for legitimizing the coveting of your neighbor's wealth and the discontent with your own means. And we totally can't define "middle class" because the income brackets would have to be decided arbitrarily or by the g'ment or something (and income is the only criteria for class distinction, natch). We have extraordinary income inequality -- far too broad to group any segment of that spectrum as a "middle class"!
He also makes the claim that despite the lefties still engaging in this "class warfare," the fact the some people still manage to become rich is proof that their argument are nonsense. Because when just under .1% of the population manages to, for instance, become millionaires in a year (obviously completely by their own bootstraps: they definitely didn't benefit from any social privileges) while record numbers of people slip below the poverty level, we have proof that the system is fair, and everyone on the wrong side of the see-saw just isn't trying hard enough!
He also conveniently ignores the fact that while worker productivity has increased, worker wages have not increased commensurately. This is not a case of people grousing because others have earned more than them, not a case of lazy people whining about what others have rather than earning it themselves. This is a case of people who are working harder than ever, and producing more than ever, no longer being able to earn a living wage for their work while a very few others enjoy massive financial gains from that aggregate increase in productivity. That's not coveting someone else's wealth: that's being pissed that someone else is getting what you've earned while your own earnings have not kept pace with either inflation or with the value of your work.
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