If this is true, we are in trouble...

[Ray From Cleveland]

[
That doesn't justify him taking value from the laborer.

He is not "taking" anything. He is providing a means for the laborer to sell time in exchange for cash that he will use to survive.

He offers value and hope, you offer misery and envy.

He is the hero, you most certainly are not.

He is profiting off of the labor. He is putting in his pocket money that rightly belongs to the laborer.

No, it only belongs to the laborer if the laborer is running his own business. Since the laborer agreed to work for X amount of dollars, that's his take of the profit.

 

[Correll]

Trump is exacerbating the problem.

Trump is attacking the core causes of the problem, Trade and Immigration.

He needs to attack obesity that's rampant in his and costing us trillions of dollars.

Something like that would be more for the First Lady.

 

[Preacher]

These statistics are claimed to be true:
1. 50% of American wage earners earn less than $30k.
2. 63% of Americans can’t afford a $1,000 emergency.
3. 80% of American workers live pay check to pay check.
4. Since 1973 American productivity has increased by 77%, yet hourly pay has grown by 12%. If the minimum wage was tracked to productivity, it would be over $20 an hour today.
5. 41% of American workers earn less than $12 per hour, with most without employer provided HC.
6. Since 2008 the federal government and the Fed created $26 trillion out of nothing. Was any of this enormous sum spent on infrastructure, public education, universal HC, bail out 5.1 million people who lost their homes?

Not a pretty picture for the poor and middle class. Hopefully things are improving or we are headed for big trouble.

Its true for my family. Me and the wife are in college but I am skeptical its going to do anything for me other than leave me with a shit ton of debt I have no intention of paying back.

I was under the impression that student loan debt is unforgivable.

Right now it is....my credit is already shot so I don't care what it does to my credit...my first goal will be to afford a life for my family...IF I have the money to pay on some student loans I will if not then hell with them....

 

[Tehon]

He is profiting off of the labor. He is putting in his pocket money that rightly belongs to the laborer.

Utter stupidity.

Without him, the money would not exist and the laborer would have nothing in his pocket.

The stupidity is that people believe that this is the only viable way to structure society.

 

[Tehon]

These statistics are claimed to be true:
1. 50% of American wage earners earn less than $30k.
2. 63% of Americans can’t afford a $1,000 emergency.
3. 80% of American workers live pay check to pay check.
4. Since 1973 American productivity has increased by 77%, yet hourly pay has grown by 12%. If the minimum wage was tracked to productivity, it would be over $20 an hour today.
5. 41% of American workers earn less than $12 per hour, with most without employer provided HC.
6. Since 2008 the federal government and the Fed created $26 trillion out of nothing. Was any of this enormous sum spent on infrastructure, public education, universal HC, bail out 5.1 million people who lost their homes?

Not a pretty picture for the poor and middle class. Hopefully things are improving or we are headed for big trouble.

Its true for my family. Me and the wife are in college but I am skeptical its going to do anything for me other than leave me with a shit ton of debt I have no intention of paying back.

I was under the impression that student loan debt is unforgivable.

Right now it is....my credit is already shot so I don't care what it does to my credit...my first goal will be to afford a life for my family...IF I have the money to pay on some student loans I will if not then hell with them....

Good luck with that. It is a fucked up society that puts such pressure on our youth just to enter the workforce.

 

[SobieskiSavedEurope]

If you own your own company, then you made money off of your laborer. You charged more for his services than you payed him. How am I the piece of shit for merely pointing it out?

So you think that if he had not employed these people and secured the contracts that allowed ALL of them to be paid, that the laborers would still have accumulated wealth?

Leftism is a manifestation of ignorance of basic economics. Marxism is the absurd denial of economic reality in favor of childish and dangerous fantasy.

I'd love to "SEE PROOF" that Capitalism is better than Communism for ANYTHING????????

Communism caused economic decay, and so does Capitalism.

About 15 - 20 years into America's "Free Market Capitalist Modern era" we already saw a decline of "Real Wages" and a mass outsourcing of jobs, and a massive increase in monopolies which drive down competition, and thus drive up prices.
Then there's more, and more frigging Illegals every year.

If anything Capitalism is proving to be the most inferior system ever devised.

We weren't a Capitalist economy under FDR, and we saw the #1 growth period under FDR.

We weren't a Capitalist economy under Teddy Roosevelt, and we saw the demise of many monopolies by T. Roosevelt by trust-busting, particularly Standard Oil.

The truth is Capitalism started for the USA in 1886 slowly, and didn't rear it's ugly head until right after WW2.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

In a nutshell, the plan is to abolish the ability of some to acquire vast amounts of wealth off of the labor of others.

But you don't mind if the masses leach sustenance off of the intellect and ambition of others. Face it, you promote the oppression of the most able at the hands of the least willing.

It is the minority group that is oppressing the masses. It is the minority group that is leaching off the labor of others. That is what you promote.

Pay the worker the full value of what he creates.

If you pay the worker full value of what he creates, how does a company stay open?

 

[Tehon]

In a nutshell, the plan is to abolish the ability of some to acquire vast amounts of wealth off of the labor of others.

But you don't mind if the masses leach sustenance off of the intellect and ambition of others. Face it, you promote the oppression of the most able at the hands of the least willing.

It is the minority group that is oppressing the masses. It is the minority group that is leaching off the labor of others. That is what you promote.

Pay the worker the full value of what he creates.

If you pay the worker full value of what he creates, how does a company stay open?

They simply takes less profit.

 

[OnePercenter]

We really need a common-sense Blue Collar party in the U.S.A, based on Pro-Unions, No Illegals, Pro-Manufacturing, No Outsourcing, Pro-Middle class tax cuts, Anti-Tax cuts for the wealthy, Pro-Life, anti-Refugee, Supports the Troops, not the War.

Yada, yada, yada.

Basically we got two disgusting American parties, one which caters to the whims of rich Jews, and the other which caters to the whims of poor Illegal Immigrants.

This is frigging trash, no common-sense, common-sense has become frightfully un-common in this country.

Democrats in the early 70's didn't allow the Japan to product dump in the US which was the beginning of the end for automobile and steel manufacturers. Nixon did.

Democrats didn't repeal the HMO Act which is the main cause of our "most expensive in the world" healthcare. Reagan did.

Democrats didn't not police the banking industry which was the cause of the biggest financial meltdown in the world. Bush did.

Democrats today are NOT pushing for a cut in Social Security and Medicare. Republicans are.

Notice you're not touching the Illegals, or Abortion fiasco, eh?

A lot of working class guys I know might be pro-Union, but they're anti-Illegals, and anti-Abortion.

Notice you're not touching the Illegals, or Abortion fiasco, eh?

I'm touching on factors that ACTUALLY effect/affect the poor with credit.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

Life is way more expensive. My parents got their house, which is 2x the size of mine for 25% of the cost. The cable bill back then was like $50. Now I pay $250. There was no cell phone bill. Now I pay $350. Car prices and gas prices have skyrocketed. College tuition and food costs are way up. Middle class gets squeezed. Wealthy don’t care and the poor get enough Govt support to continuously game the system.

Monopolies need to be broken apart, like Republican Teddy Roosevelt had done.

In the case of College, and the Healthcare industry, we should have "Price Controls"

These have become fairly vital, and the jerks have jacked up prices left, and right.

Healthcare has had perhaps a bit of an excuse, that excuse is people live longer, and technology has become more expensive for treatments.

But, Colleges have hardly changed, and they have jacked up prices huge, huge, amounts even when you adjust for income to college, they were clearly much cheaper back in the day.

The problem is colleges are doing nothing different than any other business. It's supply and demand. The more demand, the more expensive the supply.

The problem is Baby-Boomers f*cked up America, and keep coming up with more of the "Same Solutions" that "Caused the issues"

My generation is more educated, the productivity is up, the cost of getting educated is more, cost of healthcare is up, and yet we're making less money in comparison to your generation had.

If it's broken, you DO FIX IT, you don't break it more, and more.

Everyone SHOULD want better for their kids, just some are either too dumb, or too apathetic to do better for their kids.

So how do you "fix" the problem of high college costs, place a government limit on what they can charge?

What caused the problem is that manual labor has less value than it did before mostly because of automation. Because of that, kids can't get out of school and make a good enough living to buy a house and support a family. The only way to do that is to have a higher education.

The alternative to that is trade school. You won't make as much as somebody with a college degree and you may have to work with your hands, but you also don't have the college bills either.

 

[Tehon]

If anything Capitalism is proving to be the most inferior system ever devised.

I'm a Marxist and even I think that is absurd.

 

[sparky]

I'd love to "SEE PROOF" that Capitalism is better than Communism for ANYTHING????????

Apples / Oranges

Communism caused economic decay, and so does Capitalism

Any socio-economic system can fail, or flourish

WHY would be more a debatable Q

~S~

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

Trump's short term exaggerations of the economy masks the long term effects his policies will have. The same phenomenon was seen with Reagan. It will be worse after Trump.

Exactly what is your "better" Communist plan. guy? Do you even have one? If so, lay it out. If not, STFU, pinko.

In a nutshell, the plan is to abolish the ability of some to acquire vast amounts of wealth off of the labor of others.

Then what you are talking about is Fascism. You want government to have such power as to tell any company in the US how they will pay people.

Sorry, we don't do that in a free capitalist country.

That is not fascism. It only happens when society wakes up to the reality that the capitalist system is failing to meet our basic needs. It's called democracy.

Democracy is not government forcing industry to pay their workers what they desire. The system where industry is allowed to be privately owned but under harsh government regulations is one of the definition of fascism.

 

[OnePercenter]

These statistics are claimed to be true:
1. 50% of American wage earners earn less than $30k.
2. 63% of Americans can’t afford a $1,000 emergency.
3. 80% of American workers live pay check to pay check.
4. Since 1973 American productivity has increased by 77%, yet hourly pay has grown by 12%. If the minimum wage was tracked to productivity, it would be over $20 an hour today.
5. 41% of American workers earn less than $12 per hour, with most without employer provided HC.
6. Since 2008 the federal government and the Fed created $26 trillion out of nothing. Was any of this enormous sum spent on infrastructure, public education, universal HC, bail out 5.1 million people who lost their homes?

Not a pretty picture for the poor and middle class. Hopefully things are improving or we are headed for big trouble.

Its true for my family. Me and the wife are in college but I am skeptical its going to do anything for me other than leave me with a shit ton of debt I have no intention of paying back.

Whether or not you have an intent of paying it back, even with a degree you probably won't be able to afford to pay it back.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

I don't think so. It will happen at some point, but not right now.

You work for a living, don't you? Why should someone else be permitted to profit off of your labor? It is your labor, is it not?

Why? Because I labor for them.

They made the investment, they provide a place to work, they take care of all the government and taxes, they process my pay through a payroll company, they pay for the insurance, they pay for my unemployment and workman's compensation insurance, they bought the equipment I use.

Me? I just punch in and work.

As long as you are okay with it.

There must be a disconnect in the minds of people who resent government profiting off one's labor and acquiesce to a private individual doing the same thing.

When you work for somebody, you make a verbal contract. I will provide X services for you, and in exchange you pay X amount of dollars to me. It's just like getting your muffler fixed or your lawn cut. If I was not happy with our contract, I'm free to seek better ones or open up a company of my own. Then I could reap the profits of the company. But again, that's my choice. I'm not forced to work for anybody.

Yeah, I know how it works. You're still giving someone else a portion of the value that you created no matter how you want to justify it.

Yes you are. It's called "business."

 

[SobieskiSavedEurope]

The U.S.A is JUST LIKE Orwell's 1984 when it comes to "Politics"

In Orwell's 1984, they say 2 + 2 = 5.
They drilled it into their heads enough, and that became the truth.

That is the reality of America on politics.

You are told that Capitalism built America, or we were always a Capitalist nation, that's not true.
The U.S.A was hardly Capitalist between 1886 - 1945, and NOT Capitalist before 1886, and VERY Capitalist just after WW2.

You are told that Democrats are Liberal Leftists, and Republicans are Right-Wingers.
Not true either.

The terms Left-Right come from the French Revolution.

The Leftists were Capitalists for more Liberalism, and rights, and the Right-Wingers were the Monarchist Authoritarian Right for the traditional Authoritarian controls over society.

Furthermore, Right-Wingers supporting Capitalism, and Freedom, while complaining about "Social Liberalism" makes no sense.

Truth is, the real Right-Wing IS AUTHORITARIAN, they micro-manage social Conservative values.

Then there's a ton of Republicans who think high Taxes = Socialism to pay for programs.

North Korea is Socialism in it's pure form, and they actually have low taxes, in fact nearly no taxes.

 

[OnePercenter]

These statistics are claimed to be true:
1. 50% of American wage earners earn less than $30k.
2. 63% of Americans can’t afford a $1,000 emergency.
3. 80% of American workers live pay check to pay check.
4. Since 1973 American productivity has increased by 77%, yet hourly pay has grown by 12%. If the minimum wage was tracked to productivity, it would be over $20 an hour today.
5. 41% of American workers earn less than $12 per hour, with most without employer provided HC.
6. Since 2008 the federal government and the Fed created $26 trillion out of nothing. Was any of this enormous sum spent on infrastructure, public education, universal HC, bail out 5.1 million people who lost their homes?

Not a pretty picture for the poor and middle class. Hopefully things are improving or we are headed for big trouble.

Of course it's true, and of course we're in trouble.

"Every man for himself" doesn't work in capitalist system, and the reason should be clear: There will always be people who are naturally better suited to create wealth and prosper than others. Therefore, without a strong safety net and a supported middle class, many will fall through the holes.

The "you're on your own" folks are digging their own grave here. They refuse to see that, as wealth disparities continue to increase, so will the anger. At some point, the people on the bottom will revolt at the polls and we will swing in the other direction.

As another poster has said here, it's social insurance against revolution. That's too complicated, I guess.
.

And when we swing the other way eventually wealth is going to run out because its all been taken and those wealthy people will have left the country.

Why would the wealthy leave the country when their dream (Republican manifesto) of peasants comes true.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

That's because we need over 30,000 new drivers industry can't find. That's why all these Fn foreigners are driving T/T.

Guy at work, his dad is an instructor under school orders not to fail Somali driver trainees. Seems like really bad idea to me.

Oh and don't I know it. I get the jitters when I have to pass a container, flatbed or moving truck. These people just don't know how to drive.

At our company we advance our straight truck drivers to Class A. That way we don't have to hire somebody that doesn't know our company or customers. I know what these guys had to go through to upgrade their license. What I can't figure out is how all these foreigners got their license when they are such bad drivers. I mean, they can't back in a trailer if they had 500 feet in front of them.

At least once a year while waiting for a dock, some foreigner comes running up to me begging to back in his trailer because he doesn't know how. HTF did he get a license?????

Had that experience bout month ago. Companies here have taken to placing boulders around their entrance drive to keep drivers on the drive and off the landscaping. Guy ran right over...was banging into other trailers trying to back in...took him an hour.

Lol, or when there is a tight lot to back in from, these assholes will back in so crooked you can't get to the open dock next to them. Then you have to wait for them to pull out.

I think the best one I seen this year was a guy who was picking up a trailer next to where I was getting unloaded. After he backed in, I noticed he didn't tug the trailer to make sure the 5th wheel was closed. Okay......none of my business.....I'm not going to tell anybody how to do their job. After he hooked up and did some paperwork, he started to go and he wasn't latched, He ripped both air lines out of the tractor. He was within an inch from dropping the damn thing. I pretended like I didn't see a thing.

I remember after 9/11 drivers were given a card by DHS with phone number to call under the see something say something policy, now it seems they are playing
Russian roulette with hiring all these drivers from terrorist nations. I could have told them where most of the illegals worked on my route but I knew they didnt want to know that...and probably knew but didnt care

And some are very overt about where they are from. They jump out of the tractor with sandals and a turban. If you're behind them at the shipping window, you see they can't even communicate.

A couple months ago I was at one of our regular customers. After countless times repeating herself, she finally asked me for a favor by taking the driver outside and show him what dock to back into and to drop the trailer (they make you drop the trailer for live unloads). It was a little out of my way but she's a sweet kid so I agreed.

HTF do these people read road signs?

 

[SobieskiSavedEurope]

Life is way more expensive. My parents got their house, which is 2x the size of mine for 25% of the cost. The cable bill back then was like $50. Now I pay $250. There was no cell phone bill. Now I pay $350. Car prices and gas prices have skyrocketed. College tuition and food costs are way up. Middle class gets squeezed. Wealthy don’t care and the poor get enough Govt support to continuously game the system.

Monopolies need to be broken apart, like Republican Teddy Roosevelt had done.

In the case of College, and the Healthcare industry, we should have "Price Controls"

These have become fairly vital, and the jerks have jacked up prices left, and right.

Healthcare has had perhaps a bit of an excuse, that excuse is people live longer, and technology has become more expensive for treatments.

But, Colleges have hardly changed, and they have jacked up prices huge, huge, amounts even when you adjust for income to college, they were clearly much cheaper back in the day.

The problem is colleges are doing nothing different than any other business. It's supply and demand. The more demand, the more expensive the supply.

The problem is Baby-Boomers f*cked up America, and keep coming up with more of the "Same Solutions" that "Caused the issues"

My generation is more educated, the productivity is up, the cost of getting educated is more, cost of healthcare is up, and yet we're making less money in comparison to your generation had.

If it's broken, you DO FIX IT, you don't break it more, and more.

Everyone SHOULD want better for their kids, just some are either too dumb, or too apathetic to do better for their kids.

So how do you "fix" the problem of high college costs, place a government limit on what they can charge?

What caused the problem is that manual labor has less value than it did before mostly because of automation. Because of that, kids can't get out of school and make a good enough living to buy a house and support a family. The only way to do that is to have a higher education.

The alternative to that is trade school. You won't make as much as somebody with a college degree and you may have to work with your hands, but you also don't have the college bills either.

Automation increases productivity, and thus more production, and therefor WEALTH created.

That wealth was never seen, because of Illegals, because of outsourcing, because of monopolies laying people off, and raising prices.

This is CRAPitalist America, and it's even worse than Soviet Russia.

At least in Soviet Russia they didn't funnel all the jobs into foreigners hands who despise them.

I don't see how we're not going to "NATURALLY" collapse in the near future, if we don't end up killing each other in the streets first, and therefor "ARTIFICIALLY" collapse.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

Life is way more expensive. My parents got their house, which is 2x the size of mine for 25% of the cost. The cable bill back then was like $50. Now I pay $250. There was no cell phone bill. Now I pay $350. Car prices and gas prices have skyrocketed. College tuition and food costs are way up. Middle class gets squeezed. Wealthy don’t care and the poor get enough Govt support to continuously game the system.

Monopolies need to be broken apart, like Republican Teddy Roosevelt had done.

In the case of College, and the Healthcare industry, we should have "Price Controls"

These have become fairly vital, and the jerks have jacked up prices left, and right.

Healthcare has had perhaps a bit of an excuse, that excuse is people live longer, and technology has become more expensive for treatments.

But, Colleges have hardly changed, and they have jacked up prices huge, huge, amounts even when you adjust for income to college, they were clearly much cheaper back in the day.

The problem is colleges are doing nothing different than any other business. It's supply and demand. The more demand, the more expensive the supply.

I agree but should not state schools be more affordable than they are now?

What do you mean by state schools?

Like Arizona State. Not private schools like Yale.

It's the market that's charging market prices. Several months ago I did some research on it, and it turns out that private colleges are making over 20% profit. Imagine if they allowed us to buy stock in those places. I could retire early.