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Not at all. This is a basic rot in the framework of the Capitalistic economy. When good work ethics, when improving skills, no longer pays, there is no reason to have or do either. When you have people that are actually driving previously healthy companies into the ground, and getting multi-million dollar bonuses for their efforts, what incentative is there for acountability on the factory floor?
This rot will destroy this nation if it is not stopped.
What is the "rot" that you cite? For decades, due to the state of the world, the USA was dominant economically. Even with the re-emerganence of some European powers and Japan.
Now comes Korea and China and India and they are providing better value. Why? They can produce more EFFICIENTLY than the USA can produce. You call this cheap labor. It is really efficiency. If you can buy one of two choices of absolutely equal quality but one is significantly less expensive, the less expensive one is a better value and therefore should be your choice.
For decades, the USA provided the better value. It no longer does this.
No big conspiracy. No big mystery. American products are often more expensive than the competition and often lower quality. Higher expense with lower quality equals bad value.
When there is bad value in an American car, what is the solution? Start a campaign talking about quality being job 1, and how it is UN-American to buy a foreign car.
When there is bad value in a Korean car, what is the solution? First, lower the price, then offer a 100,000 mile bumper to bumper warrenty that covers everything from an engine failing to a driver that runs out of gas.
The Americans say that there must be something wrong with the buyer and the Koreans say there must be something wrong with the car.
American know how has become American impudence. If American products were the best value products, they would outsell all others. They don't. They aren't.
At some point, no matter how beautiful the theory, the results must be examined.
The results have been examined. We pay our CEOs more than any other nation on earth. We pay them no matter what the results.
But we put the blame for the failure of the system on the fellow working on the factory floor, in spite of the fact that the level of wages in real money terms has been about level for the last 30 years.
The fellow assembling the car does not make the decision as to the quality of the car, that is done by the upper management.
The rot is exactly where I said it was. No accountability for the people making the decisions, no reward for those actually doing the work.
What is the "rot" that you cite? For decades, due to the state of the world, the USA was dominant economically. Even with the re-emerganence of some European powers and Japan.
Now comes Korea and China and India and they are providing better value. Why? They can produce more EFFICIENTLY than the USA can produce. You call this cheap labor. It is really efficiency. If you can buy one of two choices of absolutely equal quality but one is significantly less expensive, the less expensive one is a better value and therefore should be your choice.
For decades, the USA provided the better value. It no longer does this.
No big conspiracy. No big mystery. American products are often more expensive than the competition and often lower quality. Higher expense with lower quality equals bad value.
When there is bad value in an American car, what is the solution? Start a campaign talking about quality being job 1, and how it is UN-American to buy a foreign car.
When there is bad value in a Korean car, what is the solution? First, lower the price, then offer a 100,000 mile bumper to bumper warrenty that covers everything from an engine failing to a driver that runs out of gas.
The Americans say that there must be something wrong with the buyer and the Koreans say there must be something wrong with the car.
American know how has become American impudence. If American products were the best value products, they would outsell all others. They don't. They aren't.
At some point, no matter how beautiful the theory, the results must be examined.
The results have been examined. We pay our CEOs more than any other nation on earth. We pay them no matter what the results.
But we put the blame for the failure of the system on the fellow working on the factory floor, in spite of the fact that the level of wages in real money terms has been about level for the last 30 years.
The fellow assembling the car does not make the decision as to the quality of the car, that is done by the upper management.
The rot is exactly where I said it was. No accountability for the people making the decisions, no reward for those actually doing the work.
We Don't pay CEOs anything. privately held businesses pay their CEOs.
No money is taken from you to pay a CEO's salary.
And if you don't like that a CEO gets paid a high salary, you don't have to work for that company or buy that company's products or purchase stock in that company do you?
And the level is the same because the dollar has been devalued by more than 50%. the dudes in the penthouses aren't doing this cause it hurts them as much if not more so than you. that one belongs to government policy makers. And Obama is aiding and abetting dollar depreciation as much if not more than any president in history.
The results have been examined. We pay our CEOs more than any other nation on earth. We pay them no matter what the results.
But we put the blame for the failure of the system on the fellow working on the factory floor, in spite of the fact that the level of wages in real money terms has been about level for the last 30 years.
The fellow assembling the car does not make the decision as to the quality of the car, that is done by the upper management.
The rot is exactly where I said it was. No accountability for the people making the decisions, no reward for those actually doing the work.
We Don't pay CEOs anything. privately held businesses pay their CEOs.
No money is taken from you to pay a CEO's salary.
And if you don't like that a CEO gets paid a high salary, you don't have to work for that company or buy that company's products or purchase stock in that company do you?
Like hell the money is not taken from me and every other worker to pay the obscene salaries of the CEOs. Were not these leeches taking huge amounts for incompetance, my wages would be higher. And the stockholders would recieve a higher return.
Only an idiot would defend a system that has created the economic situation that we see today.
So the Hell what? Seems to me they should be educating themselves to move up the ladder, eh? WHY do some of you insist upon the Government forcing the rest of us to pay for their poor life choices?
Some of it isn't "poor life choices" some of it is luck, most of it is the background you came from.....
I have a friend who's been a maid for 30 years...she keeps getting pushed out of her jobs by immigrants and having to start over. She has a two year degree but no one will hire her for it because she has tourette's syndrome. I object to you thinking she doesn't deserve a living wage just because she has a neurological problem which makes people not want to be around her. She has a sister who worked for the same company for 30 years and just got laid off. At the age of 50, she is starting over and yes, she's even looking at minimum wage jobs....
Just because you've been lucky doesn't mean everyone has...and some of us have worked darn hard for what we have we don't deserve to lose it because the government made mistakes and allowed our jobs to go overseas and those that remained to be taken by immigrants and then decided to take OUR tax money and bail out the already wealthy banks, putting our children and grandchild in debt.
BTW, my brother in law has a doctorate and HE lost his job.....my nephew graduated from MIT and worked for Intel and now has gone back to school to become a lawyer because he knew his job was going to be gone.....
Because of few of you have been lucky, doesn't mean that everyone else is lazy.....or uneducated.
But, Sheila, we all have opportunities to make something of ourselves. None of us are forbidden from doing the best we can. I was going to be a CPA. I made the choice to join the Coast Guard, get married, have three kids and forgo the certification. I could have made a lot more money than I am today if I had chosen a different career path. I made my choices and for better or worse, I have to live with those choices.
I don't expect to make as much income as the guy who chose to put in the effort to pass his CPA exam because he put that effort in while I took a different path. Sometimes, I regret making some of the decisions I made and sometimes I think about going back to school and changing careers, but for now I have made my own decisions and I live with them.
The people who I work for seem to have life easy. I'd even say the son of the owner was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, but I do not fault him for that and I don't expect to make as much money he does even though I work harder than he does because... well, because, my parents didn't risk the capital that his did. That is just life.
I'll make due with what I have and live with it.
Some people, such as your friend who is a maid, have to work harder than others. I'm sorry, but that is just how life is. But, when they achieve their goals... they really do earn them and feel that they have accomplished something. I worked my way through a four year college. I took out some loans, but paid them back. I feel that when I graduated, that I had earned it myself. It was not handed to me.
Some people do need extra help, the disabled, for instance, but none of us deserve to have the government support us just because we don't want to put in the effort to succeed.
Immie
Some of it isn't "poor life choices" some of it is luck, most of it is the background you came from.....
I have a friend who's been a maid for 30 years...she keeps getting pushed out of her jobs by immigrants and having to start over. She has a two year degree but no one will hire her for it because she has tourette's syndrome. I object to you thinking she doesn't deserve a living wage just because she has a neurological problem which makes people not want to be around her. She has a sister who worked for the same company for 30 years and just got laid off. At the age of 50, she is starting over and yes, she's even looking at minimum wage jobs....
Just because you've been lucky doesn't mean everyone has...and some of us have worked darn hard for what we have we don't deserve to lose it because the government made mistakes and allowed our jobs to go overseas and those that remained to be taken by immigrants and then decided to take OUR tax money and bail out the already wealthy banks, putting our children and grandchild in debt.
BTW, my brother in law has a doctorate and HE lost his job.....my nephew graduated from MIT and worked for Intel and now has gone back to school to become a lawyer because he knew his job was going to be gone.....
Because of few of you have been lucky, doesn't mean that everyone else is lazy.....or uneducated.
But, Sheila, we all have opportunities to make something of ourselves. None of us are forbidden from doing the best we can. I was going to be a CPA. I made the choice to join the Coast Guard, get married, have three kids and forgo the certification. I could have made a lot more money than I am today if I had chosen a different career path. I made my choices and for better or worse, I have to live with those choices.
I don't expect to make as much income as the guy who chose to put in the effort to pass his CPA exam because he put that effort in while I took a different path. Sometimes, I regret making some of the decisions I made and sometimes I think about going back to school and changing careers, but for now I have made my own decisions and I live with them.
The people who I work for seem to have life easy. I'd even say the son of the owner was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, but I do not fault him for that and I don't expect to make as much money he does even though I work harder than he does because... well, because, my parents didn't risk the capital that his did. That is just life.
I'll make due with what I have and live with it.
Some people, such as your friend who is a maid, have to work harder than others. I'm sorry, but that is just how life is. But, when they achieve their goals... they really do earn them and feel that they have accomplished something. I worked my way through a four year college. I took out some loans, but paid them back. I feel that when I graduated, that I had earned it myself. It was not handed to me.
Some people do need extra help, the disabled, for instance, but none of us deserve to have the government support us just because we don't want to put in the effort to succeed.
Immie
Raising the minimum wage to a living wage isn't the government supporting them...it's actually taking away the government support of corporations like Walmart who have many of their workers on welfare. If you can't afford to pay your employee a living wage (ie enough for an apartment, transportation, health, utilities and clothes) then you shouldn't be operating a business in the first place.
In the richest country in the world there is no excuse for a working person to be homeless.
We do not solve the problems of how our economy is working -- or faltering -- by permitting the government to wilfully violate Constitutional restraints, tread on our individual liberties, spend our money, print money (or its electronic representation) in unGodly sums, indebting us and our posterity for lifetimes to come.
What we SHOULD do is permit the workings of a capitalist system to weed out the failures thereby creating economic opportunites in the predicatable CYLE of such things. Let it run its course.
We don't?
Where the heck have you been for the last nine months?
Immie
But, Sheila, we all have opportunities to make something of ourselves. None of us are forbidden from doing the best we can. I was going to be a CPA. I made the choice to join the Coast Guard, get married, have three kids and forgo the certification. I could have made a lot more money than I am today if I had chosen a different career path. I made my choices and for better or worse, I have to live with those choices.
I don't expect to make as much income as the guy who chose to put in the effort to pass his CPA exam because he put that effort in while I took a different path. Sometimes, I regret making some of the decisions I made and sometimes I think about going back to school and changing careers, but for now I have made my own decisions and I live with them.
The people who I work for seem to have life easy. I'd even say the son of the owner was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, but I do not fault him for that and I don't expect to make as much money he does even though I work harder than he does because... well, because, my parents didn't risk the capital that his did. That is just life.
I'll make due with what I have and live with it.
Some people, such as your friend who is a maid, have to work harder than others. I'm sorry, but that is just how life is. But, when they achieve their goals... they really do earn them and feel that they have accomplished something. I worked my way through a four year college. I took out some loans, but paid them back. I feel that when I graduated, that I had earned it myself. It was not handed to me.
Some people do need extra help, the disabled, for instance, but none of us deserve to have the government support us just because we don't want to put in the effort to succeed.
Immie
Raising the minimum wage to a living wage isn't the government supporting them...it's actually taking away the government support of corporations like Walmart who have many of their workers on welfare. If you can't afford to pay your employee a living wage (ie enough for an apartment, transportation, health, utilities and clothes) then you shouldn't be operating a business in the first place.
In the richest country in the world there is no excuse for a working person to be homeless.
Many business watchers were concerned when the legislation passed mandating a raise in the minimum wage. Their concern? They were afraid that the increase in the minimum wage would cause small business owners to stop hiring and just make do with the staff on hand.
These fears were dismissed as the rantings of the greedy who just did not want to share the wealth.
This last summer, teens seeking employment who could not find a job reached 25.5%. Interesting. The cost of hiring teens goes up and the rate of hiring teens goes down. The theory was that a raise in the minimum wage would not reduce hiring and it would increase the income of those that were hired despite the increased minimum.
No matter how beautiful the theory, at some point the results must be examined.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/05/business/economy/05teen.html?_r=1
Federal Minimum Wage Increase for 2009 plus 2010 State Minimum Wage Increase Rates from LaborLawCenter.com
The results have been examined. We pay our CEOs more than any other nation on earth. We pay them no matter what the results.
But we put the blame for the failure of the system on the fellow working on the factory floor, in spite of the fact that the level of wages in real money terms has been about level for the last 30 years.
The fellow assembling the car does not make the decision as to the quality of the car, that is done by the upper management.
The rot is exactly where I said it was. No accountability for the people making the decisions, no reward for those actually doing the work.
We Don't pay CEOs anything. privately held businesses pay their CEOs.
No money is taken from you to pay a CEO's salary.
And if you don't like that a CEO gets paid a high salary, you don't have to work for that company or buy that company's products or purchase stock in that company do you?
Like hell the money is not taken from me and every other worker to pay the obscene salaries of the CEOs. Were not these leeches taking huge amounts for incompetance, my wages would be higher. And the stockholders would recieve a higher return.
Only an idiot would defend a system that has created the economic situation that we see today.
wealth is not a zero sum game. Just because one person makes a billion does not mean that someone else or a collective of someone elses loses a billion.
Some of it isn't "poor life choices" some of it is luck, most of it is the background you came from.....
I have a friend who's been a maid for 30 years...she keeps getting pushed out of her jobs by immigrants and having to start over. She has a two year degree but no one will hire her for it because she has tourette's syndrome. I object to you thinking she doesn't deserve a living wage just because she has a neurological problem which makes people not want to be around her. She has a sister who worked for the same company for 30 years and just got laid off. At the age of 50, she is starting over and yes, she's even looking at minimum wage jobs....
Just because you've been lucky doesn't mean everyone has...and some of us have worked darn hard for what we have we don't deserve to lose it because the government made mistakes and allowed our jobs to go overseas and those that remained to be taken by immigrants and then decided to take OUR tax money and bail out the already wealthy banks, putting our children and grandchild in debt.
BTW, my brother in law has a doctorate and HE lost his job.....my nephew graduated from MIT and worked for Intel and now has gone back to school to become a lawyer because he knew his job was going to be gone.....
Because of few of you have been lucky, doesn't mean that everyone else is lazy.....or uneducated.
But, Sheila, we all have opportunities to make something of ourselves. None of us are forbidden from doing the best we can. I was going to be a CPA. I made the choice to join the Coast Guard, get married, have three kids and forgo the certification. I could have made a lot more money than I am today if I had chosen a different career path. I made my choices and for better or worse, I have to live with those choices.
I don't expect to make as much income as the guy who chose to put in the effort to pass his CPA exam because he put that effort in while I took a different path. Sometimes, I regret making some of the decisions I made and sometimes I think about going back to school and changing careers, but for now I have made my own decisions and I live with them.
The people who I work for seem to have life easy. I'd even say the son of the owner was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, but I do not fault him for that and I don't expect to make as much money he does even though I work harder than he does because... well, because, my parents didn't risk the capital that his did. That is just life.
I'll make due with what I have and live with it.
Some people, such as your friend who is a maid, have to work harder than others. I'm sorry, but that is just how life is. But, when they achieve their goals... they really do earn them and feel that they have accomplished something. I worked my way through a four year college. I took out some loans, but paid them back. I feel that when I graduated, that I had earned it myself. It was not handed to me.
Some people do need extra help, the disabled, for instance, but none of us deserve to have the government support us just because we don't want to put in the effort to succeed.
Immie
Raising the minimum wage to a living wage isn't the government supporting them...it's actually taking away the government support of corporations like Walmart who have many of their workers on welfare. If you can't afford to pay your employee a living wage (ie enough for an apartment, transportation, health, utilities and clothes) then you shouldn't be operating a business in the first place.
In the richest country in the world there is no excuse for a working person to be homeless.
But, Sheila, we all have opportunities to make something of ourselves. None of us are forbidden from doing the best we can. I was going to be a CPA. I made the choice to join the Coast Guard, get married, have three kids and forgo the certification. I could have made a lot more money than I am today if I had chosen a different career path. I made my choices and for better or worse, I have to live with those choices.
I don't expect to make as much income as the guy who chose to put in the effort to pass his CPA exam because he put that effort in while I took a different path. Sometimes, I regret making some of the decisions I made and sometimes I think about going back to school and changing careers, but for now I have made my own decisions and I live with them.
The people who I work for seem to have life easy. I'd even say the son of the owner was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, but I do not fault him for that and I don't expect to make as much money he does even though I work harder than he does because... well, because, my parents didn't risk the capital that his did. That is just life.
I'll make due with what I have and live with it.
Some people, such as your friend who is a maid, have to work harder than others. I'm sorry, but that is just how life is. But, when they achieve their goals... they really do earn them and feel that they have accomplished something. I worked my way through a four year college. I took out some loans, but paid them back. I feel that when I graduated, that I had earned it myself. It was not handed to me.
Some people do need extra help, the disabled, for instance, but none of us deserve to have the government support us just because we don't want to put in the effort to succeed.
Immie
Raising the minimum wage to a living wage isn't the government supporting them...it's actually taking away the government support of corporations like Walmart who have many of their workers on welfare. If you can't afford to pay your employee a living wage (ie enough for an apartment, transportation, health, utilities and clothes) then you shouldn't be operating a business in the first place.
In the richest country in the world there is no excuse for a working person to be homeless.
Anyone who is trying to support an apartment should not be working for minimum wage and should not be working for Walmart, McDonald's or the likes. They need to make the effort to get off their behinds and get a job that pays enough to support their needs.
Minimum wage as it is now, is not enough to support a family or even a single person living on their own and the government should not be deciding that any company HAS to pay more than a job is worth simply because someone can't live on the value of the job they are performing. If you can't live on a minimum wage then get off your butt and find a job you can afford to live on... or find a room mate. Simple as that.
THE GOVERNMENT SHOULD NOT BE FORCING COMPANIES TO PAY EXCESSIVE WAGES, PERIOD.
A kid in school living at home with little or no monthly expenses can afford to live on minimum wage. A person living in an apartment away from home and family support should not be trying to live on those wages.
Immie
Raising the minimum wage to a living wage isn't the government supporting them...it's actually taking away the government support of corporations like Walmart who have many of their workers on welfare. If you can't afford to pay your employee a living wage (ie enough for an apartment, transportation, health, utilities and clothes) then you shouldn't be operating a business in the first place.
In the richest country in the world there is no excuse for a working person to be homeless.
Anyone who is trying to support an apartment should not be working for minimum wage and should not be working for Walmart, McDonald's or the likes. They need to make the effort to get off their behinds and get a job that pays enough to support their needs.
Minimum wage as it is now, is not enough to support a family or even a single person living on their own and the government should not be deciding that any company HAS to pay more than a job is worth simply because someone can't live on the value of the job they are performing. If you can't live on a minimum wage then get off your butt and find a job you can afford to live on... or find a room mate. Simple as that.
THE GOVERNMENT SHOULD NOT BE FORCING COMPANIES TO PAY EXCESSIVE WAGES, PERIOD.
A kid in school living at home with little or no monthly expenses can afford to live on minimum wage. A person living in an apartment away from home and family support should not be trying to live on those wages.
Immie
Really, Immie..
You don't see the difference between a minimum wage job, always geared towards single kids not supporting a family, ie. fastfood or deliveries, and a job that in our history supported a family, ie. manufacturing or sales?
and where the heck are the changes to keep this from happening again? obama's been in office 9 months....congress needs to address this....the world is wondering why we have not....?
No accountability for the people making the decisions, no reward for those actually doing the work.
Raising the minimum wage to a living wage isn't the government supporting them...it's actually taking away the government support of corporations like Walmart who have many of their workers on welfare. If you can't afford to pay your employee a living wage (ie enough for an apartment, transportation, health, utilities and clothes) then you shouldn't be operating a business in the first place.
In the richest country in the world there is no excuse for a working person to be homeless.
I cant speak for Britain, but here in America we have been tolerating the inequality for quite a while. In America, the richest 1% hold more wealth than the bottom 90% combined and are making the largest share of national income since right before the stock market crash in 1928.
Obviously you have a reading comprehension problem...rectify that issue!!
The top 20% have nearly 90% of the nations wealth as of 2004. Your fucked up 1928 bullshit is a little dated so not only were you wrng before...you are STILL WRONG!!!
Wealth Distribution
*
Raising the minimum wage to a living wage isn't the government supporting them...it's actually taking away the government support of corporations like Walmart who have many of their workers on welfare. If you can't afford to pay your employee a living wage (ie enough for an apartment, transportation, health, utilities and clothes) then you shouldn't be operating a business in the first place.
In the richest country in the world there is no excuse for a working person to be homeless.
what does living in any country have to do with how much a private co. pays their employees?.....20 years ago when i was making 20 bucks an hour there were people making minimum wage which was probably 3/3.50 an hour.....the difference....the minimum wage earners were the kids just getting out of high school,first job people.....a guy on TV yesterday claims he has been a bagger at Vons for 17 years,and makes like 11.00 bucks an hour and cant feed his family.....and he is 37 years old.....minimum wage wages,are for your first job .....not something you stay at for 30 years....
wealth is not a zero sum game. Just because one person makes a billion does not mean that someone else or a collective of someone elses loses a billion.
Actually, that is exactly what it means. Wealth is a finite resource, like oil - there is only so much out there. And what is the point of going to school, getting a job and working your ass off if you can't even make enough to live on, for the cost of living going up 100 fold ever year? While not getting raises or bonuses, working a 60 hour work week when everyone else in your office is laid off (jobs went to India!), knowing your employer will fire your ass at any moment when he realizes some inexperienced "warm body" will do your work for $10 an hour?
Oh and lets not mention the off-shore tax shelters and shell companies nor the fact that most large corporations pay no taxes due to the past corporatist policies.
Oh, but I only make 43k a year and I don't deserve a tax break even though my rate of payment when all is said and done is 40%. You think a millionaire pays 40% of their income? Hell no, they don't. Not even close. Yes, they are stealing money from us.
