The true cost of Low Wages. Who is really to blame.

a reply to: WanderingNomadd

It is an metaphoricall example not a direct comparison. Dont stop others trying to get better rights because yours might have been worse beforehand. Don't go PC on me and your basically saying as we are not slaves we should just deal with our current problems.

It is an example of the most disrespectful, self-centered, egotistical attitude I have ever encountered. And now that I call you out on it, you want to backtrack and misdirected by calling me 'PC.'

This is no longer a debate... you have turned it into a childish game. Enjoy... I do not wish to play in your sandbox.

TheRedneck

a reply to: TheRedneck

You did'nt call me out on anything you went PC over an example that compared principles not literal hardships.

self-centered

I am self centered? Your attitude is to let the poor go without so as to mantain the status quo for yourself, a status quo that is actually, stastically, getting worse. As you said "Better on the dirt" in other words dont worry about those beneath it. All while maintaining a false defense that opportunities are rampant when it is not the case.

The gap between aspiration and reality could hardly be wider. Today, the United States has less equality of opportunity than almost any other advanced industrial country. Study after study has exposed the myth that America is a land of opportunity. This is especially tragic: While Americans may differ on the desirability of equality of outcomes, there is near-universal consensus that inequality of opportunity is indefensible. The Pew Research Center has found that some 90 percent of Americans believe that the government should do everything it can to ensure equality of opportunity. Perhaps a hundred years ago, America might have rightly claimed to have been the land of opportunity, or at least a land where there was more opportunity than elsewhere. But not for at least a quarter of a century. Horatio Alger-style rags-to-riches stories were not a deliberate hoax, but given how they’ve lulled us into a sense of complacency, they might as well have been. It’s not that social mobility is impossible, but that the upwardly mobile American is becoming a statistical oddity. According to research from the Brookings Institution, only 58 percent of Americans born into the bottom fifth of income earners move out of that category, and just 6 percent born into the bottom fifth move into the top. Economic mobility in the United States is lower than in most of Europe and lower than in all of Scandinavia.

I will allow Samuel Adams to finish this for me and we can agree to disagree if you will resort to insulting me under false pretences.

“If you love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”

― Samuel Adams

originally posted by: TheRedneck
No. It's not. Period.

Economics 101, Freshman course, 2nd week of class.

The problem with economics 101 is that it leaves out all the details, it gives you a very high level overview.

If the economy weren't zero sum, at this very instant you could gain $1000 without anyone else losing $1000. The pie expands over time because of an increase in the money supply, but if you were to freeze time and look at everyones share of that pie it would be a finite object. Fast forward a day and the pie will be a different yet still finite size.

Any finite system is zero sum.

So, let me get this straight... you say that CPI has out distanced minimum wage, then that CPI isn't increasing more than minimum wage. Which is it?

CPI affects how often a wage increase is needed because it determines COL adjustments, base interest rates, and so on. Your position that the minimum wage leads to CPI increases is incorrect. It's the opposite. However, my position is also that since 1980 CPI has been completely separated from reality. Reagan "corrected" inflation by changing the CPI calculations from tracking an increase in the cost of goods year after year to tracking the increase in household spending year after year. Basically what this means is
1978: You buy three turkey sandwiches for $2 each or $6 total.
1979: Inflation has kicked in, now you can only buy two sandwiches at $3 each for $6 total.

Inflation is said to be 50% because the cost in goods went up 50%.

1980: You buy three sandwiches for $2 each for $6 total
1981: You buy two for $3 each for $6 total

In both years you spent $6 so inflation is said to be 0%.

This reduction in CPI's increase has resulted in COL adjustments being lower than they should be. This has resulted in minimum wage increases slowing, and from there just about every other wage also being affected. However, the inflation is still in the economy, we just don't take note of it in the official numbers.

a reply to: TheRedneck

Ok some very basic questions.

Is the wealth gap growing?

Can it do so indefnitely?

If it cannot, at what point may we call it a problem?

When we can finally call it a problem, at what point should we fight back?

At this point you've decided we should fight can we even still fight back?

If the answer is anything but, yes, then why'd we wait so long?

You mentioned them winning, well this is a game of life and death, they've use every dirty trick in the book to make sure we can't beat them, and they've long since stacked the deck against us. They keep pushing us down further and further. Everyday we keep growing as more and more jobs are paying poverty wages. Everyday the gap keeps growing, and every day they stack the deck more and more making so fewer and fewer people can rise out of poverty. Everyday we grow in number, everyday the crawl out gets harder and harder as they add more and requirements, it keeps going on and on.

Your solution, ignore all the others, do for you, keep stepping all over each other and jumping through more and more hoops for less than the people before us that didn't even have those requirements knowing full well they'll never let you make a difference to help stop the growing wage gap. But that's ok, you've managed to eek out a little more than the person before, well, no wait sorry you're now in massive debt to get those degrees so really your still where you started, and just when it started to look good, your back at poverty wages and now need to jump through a new hoop. But hey maybe if you keep trying you get somewhere semi decent. Or who knows get lucky and win the job lotto and get noticed by someone important and get paid half way decent. Alright I think I... wait a minute, what did any of this do to solve anything for the state of our falling economy? How does this help the next generation who will have even more hoops to jump through for less? I'm lost as to how this did anything to help anyone or fix the ever growing problem.

Yeah ok pal, if your solution is to just take it on the chin and accept that they control the world and do the best I can for me by their rules and to hell with everyone else and the future of humanity then I want no part of your solution.

I don't want to die fighting, few people do, but if no non violent solutions are presented eventually we'll have no options left. That's not us wanting chaos, that's us being backed into a corner and being forced to fight for our lives. The ones wanting chaos are the people that have the power to fix this scenario but refuse to do so, instead taking more and more profit from our hard labor while giving less and less back.

People are simple, it takes a whole hell of a lot to get them to rebel as a whole. Clothe them, feed them, give them a roof over their head, and warm bed to sleep in and some form of entertainment and a reasonable amount time with friends and family, and they will be nearly zero chance any form of rebellion will occur. This is easily afforded without seriously hurting the lifestyles of the upper class. It's not asking for much.

Give people a living #ing wage and we'll be no threat. That's all anyone is asking for, it's really not a lot. If things are getting so bad people are honestly seriously considering a rebellion the people in power want it to happen because people don't need that much.

If the rebellion happens it won't be our fault. We're not the ones taking more and giving less. We just want to make a living doing a good weeks labor. If that's too much to ask, then well I should be saying nothing at all, cause I have not a single nice thing to say to you.

I really don't understand why Conservatives fight this idea so much. They always complain about the importance of the family unit and raising kids correctly. They also love the idea of the nuclear family with little Suzi Homemaker barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen all day cooking and cleaning and waiting for Hubby to bring his butt home for some family time.

Well, if they ever actually wanted to see those days return then you can't have people making such little money that both parents have to work full time just to support themselves. The fact is most people today could never make it if only one of them worked. Especially not with kids.

It's just easier to keep blaming the poor and working poor while at the same time not offering any solutions other than "Work More. Work Harder. Work Faster ya lazy bums!!!!" But when that too doesn't work it must be that the poor are just choosing to live that way or are somehow broken people.

Blaming people with no money and no power to effect any kind of change rather than blaming those who do have money and power and currently also have control over everything. Doesn't make much sense. It's like a parent beating their kids because they themselves raised rotten children.

a reply to: mOjOm

Actually it makes perfect sense if they're bullies and cowards. The people in power can kick their asses and make them one of us if they so much as look at them wrong. While the people in power like kicking us around and keeping us powerless. If the people in charge don't like us, maybe if they kick us too the people in power will pat them on the head and give them a prime steak now and then. If not that's ok as long as it means they don't throw them out in the rain where we are, that way they get to feel better about their position because at least they aren't us.

Useless, lazy, no good eaters, the lot of us. Disgusting really.

Actually makes me wonder if those are the real traits they look for in promoting people. People who will kiss their boots and # on everyone lower than them, just for accepting a tinier piece of the cut. It would certainly explain a lot of the line leaders and supervisors I've seen. Though there are exceptions so I'm not sure. There is variety, but the bullies are pretty overwhelming.

Create a class of people between us and them that are two afraid of them to fight back, and more than willing to put us down to keep their positions. Makes sense. I think I now know how to be successful, become a psychopathic bully and sell out every moral fiber I cherish, then go kiss some boots and step on some peons.

a reply to: Puppylove

I posted this on another thread. I think I should of posted it on its own to be honest quite a good watch as a standalone, but it got lost in my thread.

a reply to: dawnstar


"Your hometown" is what I was talking about. My hometown is where I live and work right now, next year it may be differant, or it may not be.

I have seen this a lot "My daddy and his daddy and... has lived here for evey I ca't move." My answer is fine your choose, but don't complain about not having work.

The US was founded on people willing to move to where the work was. That is how people got here to begin with, that is how the west was populated. Sure there was, and is, risk involved in making moves like this. Each family has to make the chose of wheter to do this or not, BUT it is an option. Sometime you have to be willing to let go of the sinking boat to grab the rope.

a reply to: atrollstalker

So, who got several of my peers retirement funds in 2008? Some lost half and a couple of years away from retiring. Still having to work to try to regain. My husband and I did not lose any retirement funds because ours was through the trades union and not in 401s. Thank you for your post, most enlightening. Businesses don't really make money from customers, they circulate it in the stock market and holders. Damn right, raise their taxes.

The low wage is manufactured, i.e. controlled slavery. Slavery was never abolished as it was modernised under the false cover of economics. When the salaries are low people turn to finance and crime which gives the government control.
a reply to: WanderingNomadd

I dont have anything to add since everyone covered all the angles. I enjoyed your thread and gave a star and flag yesterday. Nice discussion. I think what people forget also that if someone becomes disabled early in life, sometimes they are restricted to low wages. I'm friends with a guy who had an immune system response right after graduation. He had to learn how to walk again since his immune system attacked his middle ear and was comatose for 3 days waking up with destroyed hearing, imbalance problems, constant tinnitus and had to re-learn how to walk and balance again. He lost his hearing on his right eventually and to this day still has damaged hearing on his left. Took about 2 years to get back into society and then had to test try jobs due to his hearing disability. Never collected disability and tried to get back into the workforce. His income fluctuated constantly that made it impossible for him to go to college and had to turn down multiple jobs because of his hearing.

He was lucky because his family took him in. His case is unique, since he hallucinates sound because the brain is trying to interpret things around him after losing his hearing on the right side. In conversation I was told that because he looks fit/young and healthy he gets stereotyped as not having a disability because he looks normal. Face to face you would never notice it but his attention span is not as quick due to his hearing being distorted. He can't hear walkie talkies or intercom pages. Only sound, not words, so his boss would pass him up for promotion and blamed it on his lack of attention but in reality it was his hearing issue and the mind game that he visually looks fine. He's 29 now and never flipped a burger in his life. It's not always about bad choices in life like partying, not saving money and skipping education. Sometimes things happen unexpectedly and getting a lower paying job should not be a death sentence.

a reply to: Puppylove

Wow, nicely said. Look to Texas, they are talking succession, maybe for different reasons, but terrible things can happen if we don't listen.

a reply to: RetsuUnohana

What you describe is basically a no win situation, I'm in it too. If you don't take disability, you'll only get low tier jobs and never advance. If you disclose your problems you'll either never advance or not be hired (this is illegal, but happens all the time). If you do take disability, it's going to show up in a background check and you won't be hired.

You can always try self employment, but no bank will ever give you a loan to start a business.

a reply to: Aazadan

Reagan "corrected" inflation by changing the CPI calculations from tracking an increase in the cost of goods year after year to tracking the increase in household spending year after year.

The joyous partying that went on in the first years of the Reagan Revolution, which gave us "voo doo" economics, has given us "little people" a massive hangover from which we still suffer today.

It's all just a big scam designed to take the money of the many and put it in the pockets of the few, and if you look carefully you can see it everywhere.

In simple terms the costs are public, the profits are private.

For example, the Olympics - nothing to do with sport, it's all about money and the way it works is the host nation (which never make money from hosting it) get to foot the bill, via the taxpayer, and the profits go into private hands (if you don't believe me about how serious the Olympic Committee is about protecting it's money just go and register a domain name with the word "olympics" in it and you'll have a pile of threatening legal documents through your door within a month).

Same for many other big sporting events like the World Cup (soccer).

Wars - e.g. Iraq - the public foots the bill for all of the munitions and other costs (and lives), the private companies get all of the rebuilding work and other lucrative deals, and of course the oil to pay for it. Probably skip their taxes too.

Corporations pay their staff as little as they can so the government (i.e. taxpayer) has to make up the difference, giving them cheap labour partly funded by the rest of us, but their profits go to the shareholders - Walmart probably get a nice little side kick out of that, since people on food stamps will need to stretch that money so will probably go to stores like Walmart.

Anything that is publicly funded by the taxpayer is riddled with fiddles where that money is taken and by employing eye wateringly expensive 3rd parties it migrates to private hands.

in the UK one of the favourite ways to waste our money by government and healthcare seems to be by spending £millions in "management consultants" - e.g.: www.careappointments.co.uk...

Corporations don't need to pay better wages if the public are forced to pay their workers for them.

In the UK they've even come upwith a scheme to force people on welfare to go and work for them for free.

Big scam to milk the public dry. I recommend a subscription to Private Eye if you want to see the scale of it all, I can't read it any more I can feel my blood pressure rising as I read it.

originally posted by: Aazadan

originally posted by: Edumakated
I don't disagree which is why I am against importing low skilled immigrants. However, one of the political parties prefers to call these immigrants Dreamers at the expense of the lower skilled American worker.

America and Capitalism are both built on competition. If you can't compete, then go into another field. Those who are fine with the lower wage will continue to work that job.

Or go to another country that looks out for it's citizens rather than being cutthroat.

That said, I would be happier with higher wages. I find it ridiculous to deny a minimum increase though while demanding your competitors aren't allowed into the market.

Another field isn't happening anymore. Have you seen companies like Walmart entering food section since then. Eventually one company will own all trades. This is beginning to happen since MIC. I won't be surprise the market crash and the entire military system takes over from there.

originally posted by: makemap
Another field isn't happening anymore. Have you seen companies like Walmart entering food section since then. Eventually one company will own all trades. This is beginning to happen since MIC. I won't be surprise the market crash and the entire military system takes over from there.

The US military is the biggest welfare system in the US. Everything from troops that are doing an unneeded job, to contractors that bill the military to do unneeded jobs.

It employs so many people and brings them a paycheck that we simply can't cut defense spending. That said, I think China got it right with their military. They use soldiers and especially military engineers to build infrastructure during peacetime. This makes a large portion of their military budget neutral (if they weren't paying the troops, they would be paying someone else to build it) and gives it a peacetime role.

Personally, I think this is the solution to our infrastructure problem in the US. Our military is fantastic at building things, lets direct them to rebuild our bridges, power plants, roads, and dam's.

As far as Walmart goes, it's a problem. I live in a small town, I'm well aware of the fact that they have a virtual monopoly. Except where I live it's not just a monopoly on goods but also a monopoly on jobs. They employ so much of our town that they can strong arm the city government into not allowing competitors under the threat of creating unemployment.