Fast-food walkout U.S. workers strike in several cities to call attention to low wages.

reply to post by filledcup

Good luck with that.
There are plenty of people who will take the job at the going rate. Just like there always have been.
You don't see a lot of "help wanted" signs up at many fast food restaurants for long, do you?

Originally posted by Phage
reply to post by filledcup

 

Good luck with that.
There are plenty of people who will take the job at the going rate. Just like there always have been.
You don't see a lot of "help wanted" signs up at many fast food restaurants for long, do you?

it's not me that needs the luck. im alright. they need a pair of balls. they(the workers) have the power to turn the whole thing around. it's up to them.

once they learn to work the laws of supply and demand.. they can shaft mcd's right up the anal the same way mcd's has been shafting them. they can be calculated and cold.. refuse utterly anything that is substandard. leave the establishment bare of workers. forcing the company to provide competitive wages.

reply to post by Phage


there's something else they can use too and i have a feeling it's what's in the pipeline. anyone who isnt working gets welfare. so they can stay home and still be all right if they lose their jobs. u guys dont want to share.. then fine.. ull still take care of everyone who was underpaid and refused to work as a result of it through ur steadily rising taxes. meanwhile ur out working ur butts off, theyre home playing playstation and drinking beer.. and getting free healthcare too.

bet ur going to love that.

reply to post by filledcup

anyone who isnt working gets welfare.

In what state? It depends quite a lot on the circumstances.

ull still take care of everyone who was underpaid and refused to work as a result of it through ur steadily rising taxes.

Not everyone. But the good news is that you'll have your chance to help them out too with your tax money!

Originally posted by Phage
reply to post by filledcup

 

anyone who isnt working gets welfare.

In what state? It depends quite a lot on the circumstances.

ull still take care of everyone who was underpaid and refused to work as a result of it through ur steadily rising taxes.

Not everyone. But the good news is that you'll have your chance to help them out too with your tax money!

edit on 8/31/2013 by Phage because: (no reason given)

hehehehehehe

my tax money?

im not american.. nor do i live in america.

it's all yours bro. have at it.

reply to post by filledcup

Oh.
I get it now.
So. Are they walking out where you live? Or are they getting 15 bucks an hour?

Originally posted by Phage
reply to post by filledcup

 

Oh.
I get it now.
So. Are they walking out where you live?

edit on 8/31/2013 by Phage because: (no reason given)

yes they are.. the company i work for just lost half their specialized staff. and having alot of trouble finding suitable replacements. they're short staffed right now and the company is suffering, the managers are stressed and 26 yr olds have grey hair. i have none.

the uneducated poor are voting out the government that has run this country for decades and keeping them poor. the parties are divided by race.. but noone cares about that anymore. theyre no longer loyal to a party.. they have learned to be loyal to those who seek their interests and actually do something for them. our leaders are shamed by their ineptitude and selfishness and corruption.

we're on a path of looking out for one another. realizing the shaft we've been getting. same thing here.. prices raise steadily.. wages stay the same. most ppl are still working on wages from the year 2000. the price of everything has tripled since then. inflation went from 3% to 9% in just 2 years. we're not staying loyal to masters that profit off our suffering.

of course with the short staff the company tried to force the remaining workers to take up additional portfolios. entire portfolios. but each and every one refused unless they were compensated for the additional work. it's a real predicament i tell u.

ud think that with 3 workers gone the company wouldnt have a problem allocating the extra savings to current staff who will be doing double work. but theyre trying to exploit ppl to maximize profits. and noone's having it. every week a new sector is going on strike.

if capitalism is cold and calculating.. we can be cold and calculating too.

Originally posted by doobydoll

Originally posted by spartacus699
Why not at the end of the day just ask the manager if you can take the excess food home that normally gets thrown out. In most cases they'd let you. So you take it home and freeze it. That takes care of the food bill for the family. A huge savings. Just eat fast food non stop 24/7/365! Now that's what I call a postive lifestyle choice that will save you time, money, and have you eating good everyday!

I used to work at Dominos.

At the end of the shift there would sometimes be pizza's which had been sent back for one reason or another. There was nothing wrong with them, just missing an ingredient a customer ordered and things like that. But the store manager was instructed by the franchisee to throw them in the bin and no-one was to take any home.

So in the bin they went

That's where learning modern survival skills like dumpster diving comes in handy. You dive right in there and eat the sheat out of em dumpster

No one can deny that in the present economy, the top earners have managed to increase their wealth while the average person has watched their decrease. If all you want to do is focus on the McDonald's strike then this really won't work in comparing franchise owners to the parent corporation that is raking in the biggest bucks for managing they system.

Gorillaguy posted an incredible study that showed the behaviors and unfair rules in experiments showed what happens to people psyche as they play a game that is rigged in their benefit. He just posted a few paragraphs of that study, but I read all six pages, and as human behavior is one of my minors, and I have worked in the psych field, I was more than willing to read it all.

I am by far from a liberal repeater of stuff. In fact, I would say I am more like a Margaret Thatcher type of conservative. I do not believe in communism and just pay everyone the same thing and we will all be happier. Those systems do not work.

I believe the current system is on purpose and it is meant to create such anger and resentment that when it does all collapse the people will demand the change the controllers have been priming them for all along because of the disparity we have now. I looked up Piff's work on youtube, and think many probably did not read the entire article as I did, and maybe a video will help:

LOL... even a monkey can get it!

Phage
reply to post by filledcup

 

Did you read the article?

I agree. The cost of a burger would not go up. But it would make McDonald's come up with other ways to lower their costs. Fewer employees for example.

edit on 8/31/2013 by Phage because: (no reason given)

In Europe they replaced 7,000 cashiers with touch screen computers in 2011. How many owners would consider that move if American workers suddenly cost $15 an hour plus the increase in tax liabilities? People don't think about those kind of consequences.

reply to post by Phage


Both of you forgot things like property taxes, mortgage insurance, and home owner's insurance that are all commonly required to be paid as part of the monthly "mortgage" payment. So, add an extra 10% -15% to those monthly payments.

Originally posted by Phage
reply to post by Aazadan
What part of "not qualify" don't you get? With a mortgage payment that is 35% of your gross income you will not qualify for a mortgage.

Ok, so use a $6000 house rather than a $7000 house... which those listings still show were available, though not as numerous. Now we have a mortgage payment of $37.04 which comes to 29% of income. If you shift income up from $1500 to $1716 by using a 44 hour work week rather than 40 hour week as I previously mentioned (44 was the standard in 1950), and remove the 2 weeks of unpaid vacation you get the additional income. At $1716 one would only be paying 25.9% of income into their loan. That should qualify them.

What? You still have to pay the taxes.

I never said you didn't, but it saves money to pay for those taxes.

No. That's $1,728.12 unless you want that grocery list to last a whole year (you wouldn't be worth that $1.00 an hour for long). You're now $228.12 in the hole each year.

Good catch, I posted at 4:30 am and forgot to multiply the grocery bill for the year. So that's actually:
$525.36 rent (or $448.48 on the cheaper house)
$330 taxes
$450 college
$97.56 food

For a total of $1402.92 on an income of $1716. I'm not sure where you're getting $1728 from. Looks like that opened up some spending money too.

Lets just say this is wrong though and the home still isn't affordable. We're still talking about someone paying for college out of pocket, fully supporting themselves, and having some leftover money on the back of a minimum wage job. Minimum wage clearly has not kept up.

We're also using 1950 as the year as proof that all these things were possible. Companies still profited and even the lowest paid workers had a decent quality of life.

Single people could survive on minimum wage but they were making half of poverty level income. If you want to call that decent, ok.

To borrow a line from you earlier. That's some good poverty. Incidentally, our poverty line today has not kept up. Assuming you're accurate in saying $3000 in 1950 was the poverty line, that translates to $29,000 today rather than the $11,000 or so the government has it listed at.

Originally posted by MikeNice81
In Europe they replaced 7,000 cashiers with touch screen computers in 2011. How many owners would consider that move if American workers suddenly cost $15 an hour plus the increase in tax liabilities? People don't think about those kind of consequences.

China is replacing waiters, baristas, and so on with robots. It's only a matter of time until that technology comes to the US. They only cost about $1/hour to operate. Things are going to get really bad really fast when they do start showing up.

Originally posted by MikeNice81
reply to post by Phage

 

Both of you forgot things like property taxes, mortgage insurance, and home owner's insurance that are all commonly required to be paid as part of the monthly "mortgage" payment. So, add an extra 10% -15% to those monthly payments.

Property tax was for sure covered in the calculator (left at the default rate of 1.5%). The others may have been too, there were a couple extra fees tacked in that were left at default rates.

Originally posted by MikeNice81

Phage
reply to post by filledcup

 

Did you read the article?

I agree. The cost of a burger would not go up. But it would make McDonald's come up with other ways to lower their costs. Fewer employees for example.

edit on 8/31/2013 by Phage because: (no reason given)

In Europe they replaced 7,000 cashiers with touch screen computers in 2011. How many owners would consider that move if American workers suddenly cost $15 an hour plus the increase in tax liabilities? People don't think about those kind of consequences.

any chance u could post a source with that? i remember vaguely reading something similar where the customers complained that they missed the human interaction with the company through it's staff. the company was eventually forced to relent because the locals wouldnt support their business because of it's inhumane practices.

but Rod Serling dealt with this topic a long time ago in Season 5 Episode 33 of The Twilight Zone

The Brain Center at Whipple's


the moral of the story is this


you see, you might support the heartless idealogy now because ur top dog and it doesnt seem to affect you. but eventually even you will also be replaced. then and only then will you understand others' pain.

that's why im in IT. whether it all goes north, south, east or west.. theyre going to have to call me to fix those machines when theyre broken down. i dont even have a degree, i trained and taught myself at home and then began freelancing at 15. now i get paid more than a great deal of degree holders. some are sitting at home with their degree in their hands and no work because they lack experience.

Capitalism is the Beast i tell you. it is a monster just waiting to replace everyone with computation. but when all the businesses fill up with machines to replace the workers, they will also end up having to fill up with workers to repair and monitor the machines and theyll have to pay each techie quite handsomely. quite self-defeating dont you think?

We can thank God for the way he designed this world, so that there is always a window of escape to freedom no matter how u try to box things in. the loop must be closed, and that's the only way u create a cycle. the top must connect to the bottom. the left must connect to the right. the citizens are those who must guard the guards(government), there is noone else to fill that position. and the rich must give all their money to the poor, so that the poor would come and give it back for goods and services, then the rich give the money to the poor again and that is how the cycle of prosperity continues and develops growth. if the rich attempt to disconnect from the poor they will destroy themselves and the world with it.

reply to post by UnifiedSerenity


Hahahaha.

You guys are bashing your heads into a wall arguing with that generation. Once they finally die and we may have a chance to actually get some change in.

Its really sad but that generation is rigid, they think it is just like it was when they were raised and worked their way up the chain. To bad they don't realise that all the growth they experienced is overwith, the times are changing and so is the economy.

Out with the old and in with the new, get out of our way.

reply to post by Aazadan

If you shift income up from $1500 to $1716 by using a 44 hour work week rather than 40 hour week as I previously mentioned (44 was the standard in 1950), and remove the 2 weeks of unpaid vacation you get the additional income. At $1716 one would only be paying 25.9% of income into their loan.

And you still probably wouldn't qualify. But you have fun shifting the goalposts don't you? Yes if one works harder then can improve their position. That's a well established principle. But lets just pay them more so they don't have to work so hard. Ok?

For a total of $1402.92 on an income of $1716. I'm not sure where you're getting $1728 from.

$8.13/week. Your grocery list is light. Very light. You'd have a hard time sticking with that budget.

In 1955 a one person family with an average after tax income of $2,073 spent an average of $12.24 per week on food.
A family of two or more with an after tax income of less than $2,000 spent $13.51 per week on food.
www.ars.usda.gov...

reply to post by Phage

yeah, so ? not many attended college in the 50s.
most bought a house and car.
many had plentiful savings.
(house, left overs and a few went to college - what am i missing ?)

what you seem to be avoiding is the excessive amount of over-time, worked and paid during that same period.
not salaried employees like we have today but time and a half, double time and bonuses were earned weekly, monthly, quarterly and annually ... how much of that do the UNskilled workers of today see ?

you cannot claim the 'standard' was near the poverty line cause that simply isn't true.

by 1958, those at or below poverty had declined 47%.
(from link in previous post)

also, many ppl were tradesmen of one form or another, hence, very limited college attendees and many of the 'poor' who attended college did so on scholarships and grants (sometimes even provided by that same 'low-wage' employer) ... not, student loans.

and, many college attendees in the 50s had parents who supplemented their college fees also.
interesting that you don't take any of that into account.
btw, a $15/hr paycheck in the 1950s was management level offerings.

Originally posted by Aazadan
Property tax was for sure covered in the calculator (left at the default rate of 1.5%). The others may have been too, there were a couple extra fees tacked in that were left at default rates.

edit on 31-8-2013 by Aazadan because: (no reason given)

Rushing through at work and missed it. I wish my property tax was only 1.5%.

reply to post by Honor93

what am i missing ?

What you are missing is the point of that conversation. The claim is that someone working for minimum wage in 1955 could own a house, go to college, and have some extra.

you cannot claim the 'standard' was near the poverty line cause that simply isn't true.

I'm not claiming that. I'm saying that a minimum wage job put one below the poverty line in 1955.

by 1958, those at or below poverty had declined 47%.

The economy was booming, wasn't it? But that isn't really what that conversation is about.

btw, a $15/hr paycheck in the 1950s was management level offerings.

Really? That seems pretty high. Do you have a source for that?

reply to post by filledcup


I actually agree with a lot of what you said. It is sad that their greed will destroy them. Many of us will find ways to survive. I also hate that many people will suffer. The truth is I believe that we do need to see a return of profit sharing and stock options for employees.

On the flip we also need to see people more willing to learn a trade. I can't begin to tell you how many people I've met that refuse to do any form of trade work. They won't become mechanics, electricians, or anything else because they feel it is beneath them. That is in large part parent's fault for telling them such things.