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Workers in the UK have suffered the biggest fall in wages among the world's richest countries since the financial crisis, research has suggested.
Between 2007 and 2015 wages in the UK fell by 10.4%, a drop equalled only by Greece, the analysis by the TUC [Trades Union Congress] found.
Women's pay in particular needs to be boosted, the union body said. Women earn on average 19.2% less than men, according to the latest official data.
The Treasury said the TUC's analysis did not fully reflect living standards.
The UK is the joint biggest faller on pay in 29 countries of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) - a forum for wealthy countries who work together to promote financial growth and social wellbeing.
The UK, Greece and Portugal were the only three OECD countries that saw real wages fall, according to the research complied by the TUC.
Source: BBC News
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 28 2016, @10:35AM
These pesky businessman are always hiring the more expensive option for the same job just to reduce the benefits of their investors.
(Score: 2, Offtopic) by VLM on Thursday July 28 2016, @01:42PM
LOL no, the logical mistake is thinking all jobs are identical.
Some of the jobs men take require upper body strength and can be more dangerous than the average woman will tolerate, think logger or cab driver or roofer/construction dude. Other than models and pr0n which hire statistically no one, there are no "elite pay inherently women-only jobs". Maybe salesbabe or marketing boothbabe but thats almost a sub genre of models and pr0n. How many supermodel jobs are there compared to large forearmed drywall construction dude jobs?
Given that, naturally jobs like "must be willing to carry a chainsaw on shoulder into woods for 12 hours per day cutting down trees" is going to be limited to a small pool of almost entirely males, and the wage is going to be ridiculous for those wild and crazy guys, leading to OMG I have no idea why the average woman (working as a booth babe in marketing and might risk getting a papercut) is getting paid less than the average man (10% of whom have the physique of Arnie at his peak and works 12 hrs/day in the woods having trees chopped down next to where he's standing).
Note that risk taking isn't just physical. Well I'll sit at a desk for 80 hrs without exercise gonna die of a heart attack before 40 and today I feel like risking the entire company on XYZ, and remember people are only going to hear about the successful results... Does that sound high or low income, and does that sound male or female? Or, I was gonna learn that new language's web framework tonight but I was feeling good singing along to top 40 teenpop on the radio while I was in the minivan on the way to pick up the kids from school before the PTA meeting, so I went to the scrapbooking store and bought some nice pink die cuts for the baby shower page I'm working on instead of learning that new web framework. Now does that sound high or low income, and does that sound male or female? The quality of life is better for the chick, but the guy IS going to make compensatorially more money.
The market rewards men more than women, I got an idea, if men and women got married it would kinda average out and not matter a whole hell of a lot. From a household perspective it doesn't matter a whole hell of a lot who gets which fraction as long as the sum is fair. Why if I were designing a system to implement that madness, I'd make the on average poorer gender have an unnatural fixation on mate selection by economic metrics, hell I'd put aphrodisiacs in the ink used to print cash. And on the other side sure the poor gender got no money, but they got flesh, and I'd evolve them to look irresistibly hot, give them crazy body parts that have no physiological purpose other than being (other gender)-magnets hey I got no money but don't I look like a bucket of naughty fun. And if any of this stuff could be genetically encouraged, I bet that "marriage" thing would result in society having a strange attractor toward being married over the long run. Nahhhh interesting thought experience yo, like for a hard sci fi novel, but we're all Vulcans living in progressive-signalling-ville here so no go.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 28 2016, @04:24PM
I'm not sure I'm following your sarcasm correctly, but the issue with requiring women to be in a financial partnership with a man in order to have a reasonable standard of living is that they often end up coerced into staying in an unhealthy one because they can't afford to leave. This is not theoretical: I personally know two examples who finally managed to leave bad (luckily not physically abusive) relationships in the past few months. Domestic violence often goes along with control of finances.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by edIII on Thursday July 28 2016, @11:11PM
Yes, and this is no different than a worker being slaved to Walmart, as all corporations together conspire to create a cheap and desperate labor pool easily exploited by all corporate participants. It's a nasty cycle where the worker can never get ahead, achieve a living wage, climb out poverty, or change their living conditions.
"You don't want to spend 10 hours today cleaning out toilets at minimum wage, guaranteeing you'll be a ward of the state? Fine, then you're fired and let's see how long those generously high savings the average American has can last you right? Get back to work slave!"
I passed a DNC booth today on a walk and laughed my ass off at the "No WALMART employees for Congress!!" buttons they were trying to sell while pushing Hillary at me. How convenient the Democratic Party and Progressives forget that Hillary is a loving mascot and ex-executive of Walmart and was a personal friend of Mr. Walton. She's going to lead the worker to new jobs with living wages and benefits? That is completely counter-indicated by the Walmart executive manual though. Right after which union-busting consultant firms to hire in case of organizing workers.......
We're all trapped and exploited unless your one of the lucky animals that is more equal than others.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Friday July 29 2016, @01:32PM
Yes, and this is no different than a worker being slaved to Walmart
It's worth noting again that Walmart doesn't enslave people. Once again, we have this Orwellian notion of labeling freely engaged in labor as slavery and the fantasy of "living wages" that have little to do with actual living.
I'm tired of these neverending excuses to destroy our society. Companies like Walmart are far more important than a bunch of unemployed and underemployed workers. Sorry, that's how it is. These rants about the evils of Walmart are just a rhetorical segue to suggesting some colossally stupid course of action that creates even more poorly employed people, even less employers, and in general digs the hole deeper.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Friday July 29 2016, @02:41PM
Companies like Walmart treat their employees as poorly and cheaply as the law of the land will let them in order to maximise the amount of money taken from the customer that gets to the shareholders. Your society, via its elected representatives, has decided that this is how things shall be.
If society wanted, it could pass laws to compel employers to treat employees better. The sacred Market has no interest in doing so. We have done the experiment and we observe the result.
What's particularly vexing is that the general population don't see this in great enough numbers to bring about meaningful change. In fact the opposite seems to be happening. Things are getting worse. The rise of the likes of Farage and Trump and the Brexit vote demonstrate this. We're heading back to 19th Century social and economic policy, and xenophobia as well, to the claps and cheers of the very people who stand to lose the most.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday July 29 2016, @03:49PM
If society wanted, it could pass laws to compel employers to treat employees better. The sacred Market has no interest in doing so. We have done the experiment and we observe the result.
What would be the point? It'd make matters worse. You create enough "compelling" laws and people will be forced to work off the record in order to survive because there won't be enough employers to employ them. The problem here is not enough employers. You need to create an environment and infrastructure that encourage business growth and creation. In the resulting more competitive labor market, businesses will have to offer better deals than merely the legal minimum.
What's particularly vexing is that the general population don't see this in great enough numbers to bring about meaningful change. In fact the opposite seems to be happening. Things are getting worse. The rise of the likes of Farage and Trump and the Brexit vote demonstrate this. We're heading back to 19th Century social and economic policy, and xenophobia as well, to the claps and cheers of the very people who stand to lose the most.
Their delusion is just slightly different than yours.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Friday July 29 2016, @04:00PM
Like I said, we've done the laissez-faire capitalism experiment and it's only any good for the people already at the top.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday July 30 2016, @12:30AM
Like I said, we've done the laissez-faire capitalism experiment and it's only any good for the people already at the top.
An obvious counterexample is the late 19th century "Gilded Age" in the US (which was part of a long period of fairly laissez faire capitalism), which resulted among other things in a substantial improvement in the well being of the general public, the elevation of the US to superpower status, the creation of a world-class educational infrastructure, and immense labor power.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Sunday July 31 2016, @10:44AM
I just googled the Gilded Age. The first link was to the Wikipedia article. The second was to this site [uh.edu]:
Is this really what we should be aspiring to?
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday July 31 2016, @01:42PM
Is this really what we should be aspiring to?
I say yes. For all its flaws, that era created this one. And Mark Twain would have similar observations about our own time. I think in particular he would loathe the top-down nanny impulse that strips so much vitality out of our society.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Sunday July 31 2016, @04:19PM
And I say you don't make progress by going backwards. All eras have their problems.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday July 31 2016, @09:16PM
I just propose going with a system that worked better than what we have now. For all the flaws of the US's Gilded Age, they had a system that enabled enormous economic growth (including absorbing massive immigration from the rest of the world for over a century!), development of world-class education and science, and creation of a superpower state. They did so with a central federal government that spent about a factor of ten less money per GDP than the current US government.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Sunday July 31 2016, @10:14PM
They also needed a lot of manual labour, which is not needed nowadays because of mechanisation and automation. Seriously, fewer people should be working nowadays, and those that do should be working fewer hours, and on scientific progress. There is no need to let the old, sick and disabled starve or be worked to death.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 01 2016, @12:04AM
They also needed a lot of manual labour, which is not needed nowadays because of mechanisation and automation.
We still do. You don't get the world's high levels of employment if there wasn't a huge demand for manual labor. Also, there are other sorts of labor which are also in high demand.
Further, it's worth noting that there was a lot of mechanization and automation in the Gilded Age too. Yet despite that, they had a growing need for manual labor (and other sorts of labor).
What has changed is that the developed world discourages employment by making it more costly and more onerous for the employer. The developing world generally doesn't have that problem.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Monday August 01 2016, @08:46AM
We are on the verge of having a society where most jobs are done by robots. The profits need to be for the common good, not hoarded by those who are already wealthy.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2, Funny) by khallow on Monday August 01 2016, @01:03PM
We are on the verge of having a society where most jobs are done by robots.
Sure, we are. The same automation that makes robots more useful as workers also makes humans more useful as workers.
The profits need to be for the common good, not hoarded by those who are already wealthy.
Then the common good better do more common good in order to deserve those profits over the already wealthy.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Monday August 01 2016, @01:30PM
Who deserves what? Why do the mega-rich deserve to get ever richer, usually at everyone else's expense? You sound like a misanthrope. What have you got against ordinary people?
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 01 2016, @01:45PM
Who deserves what? Why do the mega-rich deserve to get ever richer, usually at everyone else's expense? You sound like a misanthrope. What have you got against ordinary people?
This crap where theft is spun as some "common good". If something is not important enough for you to spend your own money on, but rather some rich dude who didn't have a say in it, then it's not very important.
Second, a "megarich" person might employ hundreds of thousands of people. How many people does an ordinary person employ?
(Score: 2) by turgid on Monday August 01 2016, @02:13PM
Soon the mega-rich won't need to employ very many people at all. They will own the land, the buildings, the machines, the robots and the "intellectual property." Then what are we supposed to do? Eat each other? Build illegal shanty towns out of rubbish?
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday August 02 2016, @03:31PM
Soon the mega-rich won't need to employ very many people at all. They will own the land, the buildings, the machines, the robots and the "intellectual property." Then what are we supposed to do? Eat each other? Build illegal shanty towns out of rubbish?
That vision of the future has to happen first. I find it remarkable how the people who claim to be concerned about human labor becoming obsolete, try very hard to make that a reality. If human obsolescence is so bad, then don't do that. That brings me to what I've been saying for a while now. Let's encourage employment rather than discourage. And don't fantasize about the end times.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Monday August 01 2016, @02:41PM
It's going to be really funny when Trump gets in, and this rabid me-me-me attitude is allowed to run unhindered to its logical conclusion. All you American Libertarian types have firearms and you're going to find yourself so desperate for resources you're going to be liberating them from each other at gunpoint. It will be truly fascinating to watch and amusing too. Since you have no empathy for your fellow human beings don't expect us to feel sorry for you :-)
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday August 02 2016, @02:00AM
It's going to be really funny when Trump gets in, and this rabid me-me-me attitude is allowed to run unhindered to its logical conclusion. All you American Libertarian types have firearms and you're going to find yourself so desperate for resources you're going to be liberating them from each other at gunpoint.
' There are several things to note. First, Trump isn't libertarian. He's not our baby. Nor did libertarians nominate Clinton which is one of the best candidates Trump could run against. Second, all you've talked about for the past half dozen posts is how to steal wealth from the rich people. Funny, how the thieves accuse others of having a rabid "me-me-me" attitude.
Since you have no empathy for your fellow human beings don't expect us to feel sorry for you :-)
For another example of this projection, you gloat about suffering to others simply because they don't fully share your beliefs. Such "empathy" you show!
My take is we in the US tried your approach for the last half century and it doesn't work. We need to create more employment and wealth rather than phony dilemmas (like the alleged net job loss from automation which only seems to effect countries which are trying hard to put people out of work, your repeated calls for "survival" in a developed world where it's just not that hard to provide for yourself, or the ridiculous price inflation of things you deem needs).
(Score: 2) by turgid on Tuesday August 02 2016, @09:25AM
Trump has picked a Tea Party loony as his running mate. And no, you haven't tried anything I suggest in any way shape or form. America has always been right wing, "free" (rigged in favour of the rich) market, and creeping rightward all the time. You're heading for a huge fall. Trump is going to be interesting.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by turgid on Tuesday August 02 2016, @09:37AM
What's so noble about hoarding wealth acquired through luck or corruption, force, coercion, dishonesty and a rigged system?
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday August 02 2016, @03:46PM
What's so noble about hoarding wealth acquired through luck or corruption, force, coercion, dishonesty and a rigged system?
What's "hoarding"? I think this right here betrays your profound ignorance of modern business and economics. "Hoarding wealth" is here employing people, making investments, and generally making the world a better place.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Monday August 01 2016, @02:23PM
And please define what "more common good" the "common good" (us members of the Great Unwashed, the Useless Eaters) need to do to deserve to survive?
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday August 02 2016, @01:38AM
And please define what "more common good" the "common good" (us members of the Great Unwashed, the Useless Eaters) need to do to deserve to survive?
You don't. You already have more than enough to survive. And if you want more than that, well, there work, employing others, and investments that come to mind in a capitalist society as ways to contribute to the common good.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Tuesday August 02 2016, @09:30AM
You guys want to reduce us to being like wild animals: constantly hungry and desperate, in fear of predators, cold, sick, in pain etc. You think it makes your economy stronger. You see us as a resource to be exploited for your personal gain whatever the cost to us. You want a law of the jungle society.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 1, Disagree) by khallow on Tuesday August 02 2016, @03:44PM
You guys want to reduce us to being like wild animals: constantly hungry and desperate, in fear of predators, cold, sick, in pain etc. You think it makes your economy stronger. You see us as a resource to be exploited for your personal gain whatever the cost to us. You want a law of the jungle society.
Congrats, I haven't been that outrageously misrepresented in a while. I think it needs some Friedman on Trump action though. It's just not hot enough to wank to.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Tuesday August 02 2016, @09:34AM
Many millions of people don't have enough to survive, though. I'm one of the lucky ones.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday August 02 2016, @04:07PM
(Score: 2) by turgid on Wednesday August 03 2016, @07:10PM
Er, no. Think a bit harder. People are produced at a certain rate. People are also dying at another rate.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 3, Insightful) by edIII on Friday July 29 2016, @06:15PM
Yes, they most certainly do enslave people. Don't act like there isn't collusion between companies to create desperate hungry labor pools caused by paying them suppressed wages without benefits for so long. With corrupt laws taking away all abilities for organized labor to effectively strike, there is absolutely no way to fight back against the Wallmarts of this country. They prevent it through law, they prevent it through PR companies, they prevent through expensive anti-union consultation firms. Don't act like you don't know about the Pinkertons. Organized labor is not unfamiliar with murders and assassinations within its membership. Educate yourself on the history of labor before you speak of your putrid asshole.
"Living Wages" are not a fantasy you fuck, and they have EVERYTHING to do with actual living as you so ignorantly put it. Would you work for less then you NEED to survive? Why? Do you love your employer so much that you will sacrifice for them like a parent does for a child?
A LIVING WAGE is defined as:
So what are you proposing you evil fuck? We don't deserve normal standards of living from a full-time job, or for pay to be directly proportional to it when not worked a full day? That's what you say is a fantasy that I can't have. A NORMAL STANDARD OF LIVING. The Wage "Slaves" are you so vehemently and ignorantly deny exist, work for LESS THAN A NORMAL STANDARD OF LIVING.
Now, that's just fucking stupid. Yeah, we shouldn't play nanny for stupid people........ unless it is destroying society. If you think creating huge populations of people unable to afford a NORMAL STANDARD OF LIVING doesn't destroy society, then obviously you define society far different than I do. Your society includes a slave caste whereby their labor is exploited to create the HIGHER STANDARDS OF LIVING for a few. Do you enjoy spending so much on the prisons now required to house us all?
The financial definition of living wage is (generally):
a standard generally meaning that a person working forty hours a week, with no additional income, should be able to afford the basics for quality of life, such as, food, shelter, utilities, transport, health care, minimal recreation, one course a year to upgrade their education, and childcare. However, in many cases education, saving for retirement, and less commonly legal fees and insurance, or taking care of a sick or elderly family member are not included.
None of these are ransom-like demands from entitled and unreasonable workers.
FOOD - Yeah, you can go to fucking hell if you think a worker doesn't deserve good food for a good day's work. Yet, 1 in 5 children go hungry each day in great grand ol' America, the "Greatest Country on Earth".
SHELTER Umm, yes again, that big fat spike in hell is meant for *your* asshole. Go sit on it if you think we don't deserve basic shelter. Not asking for a fucking penthouse in New York, just something fucking basic. Like 700sqft at least and a private bathroom. People deserve the benefits of advanced technology, not being told for their efforts they need to sleep in their car. See San Fransisco for an example of true slave labor pools whereby a skilled job can still leave you homeless.
UTILITIES Yes, again, people fully deserve electrical and water hook-ups. Actually, this one is just fucking retarded because why would a landlord ever invest in a structure that didn't? Truth is, this isn't actually such a huge burden... once you get rid of the parasitic fuckers in corporations like PGE where they demand 400% profit increases over 2 years for their shareholders. At least with services we consider a utility, profit has to have a strict ceiling when Capitalism is fucking nowhere to be found. When PGE are the only assholes allowed to exist, well, then they need to be put on a fucking diet.
HEALTH CARE Again, why create yourself as an instant ward of the state by not demanding what you need for medical? Of course this one is superfucked because the greedy fucking assholes in our medical system demand that ~60c on the dollar goes to them, for no functional of meaningful additions to the patients care. That's according to many studies comparing medical systems around the world. We have less than shit afforded to the average person in my country, and that's a pathetic joke being the "Greatest Country On Earth". We deserve health care and its fucking moronic to not include it. Moreover, Cuba makes us look like ignorant, greedy, cruel, and callous people to one another when their medical system is lauded by the whole fucking world (WHO) as a medical system to be learned from. But, but, but they're pinko fucking commies!
TRANSPORT I can see this one too, but at the same time this means at least a minimum for public transit to me at the very least.
The things you would deny people are also the things fucking killing us in the forms of expensive social programs we already argue about bitterly. Your too fucking stupid to realize that all you need to do is pay people what they already fucking deserve. A LIVING WAGE is a human fucking right, not a fantasy you fucking butthead.
Ohh, they're not excuses. They're the reason why one day we may be pointing guns at each other trying to blow each others brains out; You the corporate apologist, and me the desperate citizen who hasn't seen good days in two decades. Keep it up. Your world is about to die by fire. Yeah, keep demanding we that don't have the right to press for NORMAL STANDARDS OF LIVING, or the rights to organize effectively.
Civil War is highly likely to be coming. Choose a side. I suggest you be on the one promulgating normal standards of living myself.....
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday July 30 2016, @12:56AM
My view is that one can easily fund this list (when one scales it back to a sensible level) on a minimum wage job (especially, if they live with family or friends who also work). And if that person is not utter shit as an employee, they can use the experience from that minimum wage job to move up to a much better paying job. And if your employer isn't paying enough for you to live in a hugely expensive urban area, then move to a cheaper area and get a new job - that'll drop all the costs on your list. It's not rocket surgery.
Civil War is highly likely to be coming. Choose a side. I suggest you be on the one promulgating normal standards of living myself.....
And of course, there's the typical fantasies of violence when you don't get your way. Not that getting your way would prevent violence. After all, employers won't be any more likely to employ. Standards of living won't become any more affordable or unemployed and underemployed people any more likely to afford those things you deem necessary, and society won't become all that much wealthier to afford your frivolous gimmicks.
My take is still that we need more employers even if that means giving more benefits to rich people you don't like and we don't need all this expensive crap you want. Only two items on your list are at all significant, shelter and health care. And we can reasonably scale each back to living in a cheap area and health care that gives us a healthy worker. You want more than that, then you should pay for it yourself with your money.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Monday August 01 2016, @08:49PM
Oh, go fuck yourself. The violence is coming because Panem et Circenses is broken and you missed the most fundamental part you sick twisted fuck:
A day's work deserves a living wage, which is for a NORMAL STANDARD OF LIVING. Hugely expensive urban area? How did it get that way you retarded fuck? So, just leave? I guess you think gentrification is just a fucking myth right? Do you not see that the situation you describe just keeps pushing people lower and lower? Do you just assume that workers with absolutely no savings anymore, just can afford all the costs to pick up and leave?
It's not going to be violence because we can't get our way, it will be violence because were no longer able to survive. You still sit there like an evil fuck thinking that all these soon-to-be-gutting-you-on-the-street people are simply suffering from an immature sense of entitlement. NOBODY WORKING OVER 40 HOURS A WEEK IS SUFFERING FROM ENTITLEMENT YOU FUCK.
Food is not significant? Are you fucking stupid? When commodity prices go up, people can't fucking afford food. THAT'S WHY 1 IN 5 CHILDREN GO HUNGRY EACH DAY.
I'm going to personally celebrate when civil war comes, because I know men like you will be gutted in the street. It's coming.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday August 02 2016, @02:18AM
A day's work deserves a living wage, which is for a NORMAL STANDARD OF LIVING. Hugely expensive urban area? How did it get that way you retarded fuck? So, just leave? I guess you think gentrification is just a fucking myth right? Do you not see that the situation you describe just keeps pushing people lower and lower? Do you just assume that workers with absolutely no savings anymore, just can afford all the costs to pick up and leave?
I don't care in the least about gentrification. You don't have a right to living in an expensive location. And no, I don't buy that moving elsewhere pushes people down. And yes, I believe workers with no savings can move quite easily.
It's not going to be violence because we can't get our way, it will be violence because were no longer able to survive. You still sit there like an evil fuck thinking that all these soon-to-be-gutting-you-on-the-street people are simply suffering from an immature sense of entitlement. NOBODY WORKING OVER 40 HOURS A WEEK IS SUFFERING FROM ENTITLEMENT YOU FUCK.
I have a solution here. Get the fuck out of the way and let employers gainfully employ people who need employment.
I'm going to personally celebrate when civil war comes, because I know men like you will be gutted in the street. It's coming.
And once again, we see the vicious fantasizing about violence.
Your ideas are stillborn. We'll never increase employment by making it much more costly and onerous to employ people. We'll never have the wealth for a basic income or other such social safety nets,if we chase away or fail to create the wealth that would fund those schemes. And of course, we have rampant corporatism because your ideas undermine the employment contract in a way that favor the enormous businesses and the rule of law so that the wealthy have an even more unfair playing field than ever (when laws can be overlooked for righteous excuses, so can they be overlooked for more venal reasons like bribery).
Surely, it's not too much to ask that you stop being part of the problem?
(Score: 2) by edIII on Tuesday August 02 2016, @09:23PM
You are the problem. Period.
God, you are so fucking stupid. You keep seeing it as a matter of "rights" and entitlement. Pull your head out of your ass. When rent prices go up by 40% how the fuck did that happen? You think property owners have the right to MAKE a location expensive overnight? That's what happened. The person you insult and degrade was working 40+ HOURS A WEEK. You have no ability to assail them or their character at all, and it only makes you look like a fucking asshole. So this person working for a living, that by definition, deserves a living wage, was doing just fine. Then commodity prices go up, rents go up, everything is going up. The utility company demands more money in rate increases, that were only supposed to pay for maintenance and repairs, but then instead made 400% more profit for shareholders. Repairs went undone and people died. Not hyperbole you stupid fuck, but actual facts of life in California.
So everything is going up, and that is perfectly fine with your black-hearted ass. It's Capitalism with a big ol' YUGE fucking 'C', and there is nothing wrong about it at all. It's in fact morally fucking superior. So all of those executives, shareholders, and property owners were doing nothing wrong at all raising the prices..... except creating locations that are now wholly unaffordable to the middle class at all, let alone the newly and rapidly developing "service" class.
Yet, when all these prices go up, stupid fucks like yourself call these workers "entitled", "privileged", "left leaning bleeding-heart liberals", and basically assassinate their character when they try to get raises . Executives and managers are raising prices... but not to raise up workers wages to afford costs of living increases. You damn well know that costs of living increases in wages not keeping up with inflation is a huge fucking issue in this country. It's systemic and torturous. Executives and managers don't give a fuck, cuz like I said before, the Walmarts collude to create desperate labor pools. You can't complain about your wage to much, or put up too much of a fight, because the labor pool is over supplied and the job market has dwindled. You may even be asked to train your own H1B visa replacement before you go.
All of the decisions that made these places more expensive, which is practically everywhere, were from stupid greedy fucks with your kind of heart.
Ohh, and you believe workers with no savings can move very easily? Now your just being deliberately stupid :) You damn well fucking know it costs money to move, which is why sometimes people have no choice but to abandon property to be seized by landlords. We're not talking about moving a mile or two away, which could require a truck rental anyways. Gentrification means people commuting two hours into San Fransisco to work their service job because a landlord raised their rent by $500 in two months. They can't find another job, so they need to move hours away. That means gas, and obtaining a truck.
So you're completely fucking full of shit about that.
Ohh, that's right. The stupid fucking myth handed to you as propaganda and talking points for the brainwashed and stupid. "Regulations are what hurt the industry, and if they just weren't there, jobs would come back".....
It wasn't regulations that made it more expensive, it was the successes of organized labor. Then after completely hijacking Congress and fucking over our trade policies, it became a simple matter to outsource fucking everything. You really think an unfettered marketplace is going to magically bring jobs back on shore? You think it will magically make corporations start paying living fucking wages again? You think they will become so reasonable that organized labor could never recruit? You're too fucking stupid to realize that for the past ~150 years that organized labor has been fighting because they didn't have living wages. It wasn't workers complaining they wanted a 3rd TV, a 2nd car, or that extra month of vacation. It was workers complaining that they were dying, that there were unsafe conditions, that they couldn't feed their families on what was offered. Look into the history and you will see these were never unreasonable requests by entitled people, but reasonable requests by hard working Americans that deserved what they were asking for.
You're a fucking moron. Those jobs won't come back unless we slap huge fucking tariffs on nearly everything coming into port. Then maybe over 10-20 years will see our local industries come back and be retrained to the point we used to be. For 150 years industry, shareholders, and the elites have pushed back against anything preventing their exploitation of the workers. Their monied influence in politics has assured their ability to hamper organized labor, and then bypass it directly by outsourcing everything to countries where their corrupt practices reign supreme.
I guess you conveniently ignore the plight of the foreign worker in U.S owned industries? Fuck them right, if they really had issues they could revolt in their own country?
It's not a fantasy, but a prediction. You won't support the unassailable moral position of getting living wages for a full day's work, and your simply to blinded by your complete lack of empathy to understand that it is what they deserve. When you destroy the middle class in this way, you are in fact destroying society, which was your original asinine complaint. I thought Trump sounded fucking stupid attacking Gold Star families, but you take the fucking cake by excluding food from living wages. I guess you disagreed with the study showing dramatically shortened telomeres in the DNA of poor urban people versus their richer suburban counterparts? Food is important you fuck, and anybody working 40+ hours a week at anything deserves to eat.
We're not British you evil fuck, we're Americans. What that does mean? When we all look around at each other and realize that there is just a poor slave class and the rich upper class, and that things are so bad you're at the bottom level of the Maslow scale, people will revert to desperate animals and the Wild West will return . You will see looting, rioting start to happen, and things will degrade in general. Social services will start breaking down, since evil fucksticks like you keep voting to gut them and underfund them anyways. That tragedy is only eclipsed by the fact a living wage would allow for most social programs to shrink to fractions of their sizes. Smaller government is a good thing, and living wages engender that.
It is you and your stupidity that is creating this new desperate class of slave workers, disenfranchised, and hopeless. Are you so stupid you can't see the inherent dangers of this?
All because you can't possibly accept the idea of a living wage to engender a healthy middle class. Not McMansions, but modest living that is being denied most people. It's really simple, but you can't see anything beyond entitled workers asking for something they don't deserve. Which is really tragic, because if working 40-80 hours a week doesn't deserve these things, then what does?
Are you saying there is a permanent class of people, the bulk of us, that just don't deserve these things at all? We're so stupid, and fucked off in school so much (even though a huge number of the poor now are very intelligent and educated), that we're not deserving of basic human dignity?
Be careful when you create a slave class underneath you to service you at your whim; Sometimes they revolt and kill their masters/oppressors. Keep thinking that is violent fantasy and not well founded fears about future events.
You dying would help solve the problem. That's actually true, I'm not trying to be mean. If people like you got out of the way, and could start surviving off a day's work again, we might get our country back.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday August 02 2016, @11:01PM
You're a fucking moron. Those jobs won't come back unless we slap huge fucking tariffs on nearly everything coming into port. Then maybe over 10-20 years will see our local industries come back and be retrained to the point we used to be. For 150 years industry, shareholders, and the elites have pushed back against anything preventing their exploitation of the workers. Their monied influence in politics has assured their ability to hamper organized labor, and then bypass it directly by outsourcing everything to countries where their corrupt practices reign supreme.
Then there is this bit of Trumpness "We'll build a wall and make China pay for it."
Be careful when you create a slave class underneath you to service you at your whim; Sometimes they revolt and kill their masters/oppressors. Keep thinking that is violent fantasy and not well founded fears about future events.
I create a slave class? When is your slave class ever going to be an employer when all they know how to do is suckle at the government teat? My policies would encourage create and growth of new employers and thus, create of new avenues for advancement. I think we need to understand who really is the slave-maker here.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Wednesday August 03 2016, @12:18AM
It's not love you stupid fuck, it's being able to live. Why the fuck would you work for an employer for less than what you need to survive? Ohh, yeah, that's right. Employment is voluntary, but if you deliberately manipulate the labor pool you have desperate hungry people willing to work for less because they have no other choice afforded to them. There are less jobs because of outsourcing to other countries, where there is no fucking way on Earth you can argue that it is fair and correct. We're not meant to compete with other desperate people in 3rd world hell holes. That's impossible, and your fucking solution (yes, yours), is that we move to these countries where the prices are cheaper.
What higher costs are we thrusting upon them? From the very beginning you stupid fuck those costs were about increasing safety, reducing pollution, offering a living wage. These are not unreasonable increases in costs at all, and you allow the corporations to leave this country to exploit others. So not only are we exploiting a foreign population for cheap labor, we're shooting ourselves in the foot over here eliminating these jobs that used to be the core of the middle class. Union factory jobs were what made this country as great as it was, and it wasn't until the late 70's and corrupt regulations that you saw everything being outsourced.
Yeah, nice how you completely ignore how there are workers and executives. They'll lay off workers who are too expensive, but somehow executives keep getting paid more and more. They're not worth it, and you fucking know it. What did we get from the geniuses again? Corrupt practices, they outsourced everything to foreign countries, performed massive amounts of malfeasance (Unaoil/Mosseck Fonseca).
You're being so fucking simplistic, it has to be deliberate ignorance.
There is your idiocy. Putting the tariffs up has nothing do with building a wall and having China pay for it. It means that we no longer allow those jobs to be performed in China at all. Eliminate all H1B work, and then slap tariffs on everything higher and higher, till surprise, surprise, the market reacts by bringing factories back to the U.S. That means union jobs come back, and that means our young people will start being trained again on how to do these kinds of work. You've heard of brain drain right you stupid fucker? Well, are we just going to forget how to make things? Sit back and be reliant on China, and who else becomes cheaper than China eventually?
Trade is supposed to be about us buying Italian meats, French cheeses and wines, etc. By it's very nature it is supposed to cost more than anything domestic, since you know, it's actually coming from fucking France and Italy. What we don't do though, is make farmers here throw away perfectly good food so that we can start importing more and more Spanish cherries to fuck up our local markets. Trade is not supposed to be about us having our local economies compete with foreign economies, and point in fact, that's what trade policies are supposed to handle. We get the benefits of trade without destroying our society.
Outsourcing jobs wholesale is just fucking stupid........ unless the whole point is to gentrify the entire fucking U.S to the point where we all moved to foreign countries to survive as expats, and you greedy fuckers turn the whole thing into Dubai.
There is your utter stupidity and bigotry revealed. None of us want to actually suckle at the government teat as you so offensively put it. Nobody working 40+ hours, and who is also on the government teat, is at fault in any way, shape, or form. YOU ARE AT FAULT, with the support of policies that allow Walmart to hire people as instant-wards-of-the-state. Why does Walmart get to higher somebody that instantly has to go on food stamps? Why does a major airline (UNITED IIRC), train their new pilots to *NOT* wear their uniforms when paying for groceries with food stamps?
That's what a living wage handles, but your too fucking stupid to see the whole picture. You literally lack the intelligence to hold these concepts in your mind I believe. The only thing you can see is letting businesses loose to enact the complete fucking myth of the trickle-down economy. Seriously, do think about Reagan while you masturbate?
We won't be on social programs if we could just get paid a living wage, and government could get smaller. There is nothing wrong with that at all. We have enough money with a living wage for:
- Food. The food stamp program can shrink down by at least half, probably more. How many people on food stamps are actually employed? How many of them have full hours in the aggregate over 2-3 jobs? You damn well fucking know that all you had to do was pay these people what is required to buy food. It's not fucking complicated, and once you remove the super luxury items, most people's food bills are fairly comparable.
- Shelter. Link this directly to the average property price, and nobody can ever be hurt by attempts for gentrification ever again. Limit how fast rents can raise through good public policy, and establish a minimum for the area. That's not fucking McMansions either, but just the basic, or average.
- Medical. Stop letting businesses get away with the 29 hours bullshit. Anybody over the age of 25 getting more than 1 hour has to have a health plan covered. Period. Either that, or repeal Obama Care entirely since that is what forces people to get insurance. Jobs for teenagers was never meant to be a market in which 50 years old competed with them. You shouldn't be allowed to be paid less than living wage UNLESS you can prove your subsidized by your parents or other incomes. So part time work with 16-24 years olds is preserved, but they can't fuck with the middle class anymore.
Those 3 things right there represent a huge chunk of the social programs, and a ton of people on the government teat as you put it. We don't have to be on the teat if you just fucking paid us.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 03 2016, @01:49AM
or repeal Obama Care entirely since that is what forces people to get insurance
First sensible thing you've said all day. There's plenty wrong with US health care. No one disputes this. But Obamacare was deceptive, unconstitutional, and destructive from the start. There hasn't been a year since its creation that it hasn't impaired our ability to provide for ourselves (that's despite it still not being fully implemented) or broken fundamental law.
Jobs for teenagers was never meant to be a market in which 50 years old competed with them.
Nonsense. One of the many benefits to working as a teenager is that you get to work with older people (you know, the people you "compete" with). You're not going to learn maturity hanging out at the local school prison.
Those 3 things right there represent a huge chunk of the social programs, and a ton of people on the government teat as you put it. We don't have to be on the teat if you just fucking paid us.
I guess you missed my observation where my plan does that and yours doesn't? I have to wonder at this point whose side you really are on? How many poor workers are you willing to kill for your goals?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 28 2016, @05:54PM
Hey, they foul up IT decisions that way also.