We're Lowering Your Wages

[Bern80]

We have free trade with China, India, Mexico, Canada, etc. They even want a free trade deal with Columbia.

And what have we seen? American wages going down.

So please explain the process how if we make trade even more free, eventually it will help/preserve the American middle class.

How/when will our wages go up because of a totally free market?

Another flawed premise. It is not the objective of a free market to raise wages (any more than it is to lower them).

The other flawed premise being the them we have been dealing with in this thread. Why should someone else make your wages go up? Why don't YOU make your wage go up? Retrain yourself, take a risk and start your own business, etc.

This blame others FIRST, having greater expectations of others than you do of yourself, is part of the problem now sealy, not some failure of the non-existant free market.

 

[sealybobo]

Another flawed premise. It is not the objective of a free market to raise wages (any more than it is to lower them).

Why don't YOU make your wage go up? Retrain yourself, take a risk and start your own business, etc.

This blame others FIRST, having greater expectations of others than you do of yourself, is part of the problem now sealy, not some failure of the non-existant free market.

If you don't believe that the CONS pushed for NAFTA because it would lower wages, then I don't know what else to tell you. Or let illegals flood in to delute the market. If you don't get that this happened, whatever dude.

Alan Greenspan saw one of his main jobs as being to maintain a high enough level of "worker insecurity" that employees won't demand pay raises and benefits increases, thus provoking "wage inflation."

I don't even know where to begin explaining how/why you are wrong, because it will just go in one ear and out the other. And it would take a book. I don't have the time and it won't make a dent in your brain so.

But one thing I would like to point out is that in today's current market, you have to have a security net to take a chance and start a new business. Most people who do take the chance know that if all else fails, they can just go live with a relative. Or their parents have enough money to give them the initial $200K you need to start a business. I know many business owners like this. No biggy if they don't make it. But they'll forget/ignore that security blanket they had and pretend like they did it all on their own. What if you failed? Most business' do fail. Most people have to try a couple times. Did you fail the first time? Then you were lucky. What if you did fail? What would you have done? Go live with a relative? Probably.

And Lord knows the banks aren't going to loan me or YOU $200K in this economy. Not if you don't have any collateral.

And I can't use my home as collateral. Or I can, but now it isn't worth shit.

The highest paid people in America are salespeople. Please tell me what I should retrain myself to do, if I choose to get out of sales. What is paying really well right now?

Your whole mentality is flawed. Thank god you guys didn't win the last election, otherwise your mentality would become mandated. The middle class would disappear. It already is. THank God we took control back.

And I bet you want the Big 3 to go bankrupt. You people are something else. You think you would survive such a Depression? Well most of us would not. I doubt you would either.

I just talked to two Republicans on my 10 oclock break. It seems they are finally waking up to how bad things are. 7 out of 10 are living paycheck to paycheck.

Good luck going out to find a new job in this economy. And if you find one, chances are it won't pay what you used to make. If you don't get that, then you don't understand simple supply and demand.

And it is corporations goal to pay as little as possible.

I can't wait to turn Walmart into a Union company.

 

[Bern80]

It's simple I gave you the answers in simple form. that was not acceptable to you. I will do it again with another word.


It is a civilized community.

Each person depends on the other for survival.

Business is no exception.

The ones who have businesses have certain obligations.

If the business is unwilling to realize that they do not belong in business.

It takes anothers labor to operate a business. These people are not slaves nor should they be treated as such.

I understand the answer quite clearly, you believe one of said oblgiations of business is to provide an individual a living wage. Got that clear, Clear as can be.

NOW, how do you reconcile that with the other statement you agreed to that the individual is responsible for providing for themselves. Do you understand that what you are saying is the extent of the individuals responsibility is basically simply find a job, ANY job?

I do agree with you on the premise that we all are dependant on each other to some extent or another. I need my company to pay me, and they need me to do work. I got that.

The issue is your proposal to me puts a dispraportionate responsibility on one of those parties. With your mandated living wage proposal, undeniably the bulk of the responsibility of providing for you falls on the business, while very little of the responsibility for providing for you would fall to you. Again basically all it would consist of is finding a minimum skill job and keeping it.

 

[RodISHI]

Another flawed premise. It is not the objective of a free market to raise wages (any more than it is to lower them).

The other flawed premise being the them we have been dealing with in this thread. Why should someone else make your wages go up? Why don't YOU make your wage go up? Retrain yourself, take a risk and start your own business, etc.

This blame others FIRST, having greater expectations of others than you do of yourself, is part of the problem now sealy, not some failure of the non-existant free market.

We do not have a free market! To even imply that we do is a lie.

Did that twice already Bern. Made millions. Retired. Took the money made out of retirement and started another business. I refused to sell out to corporate bullies and I got stomped for it.

There is no free market. The working class of America already bought into that lie. based on lies they gave away their savings to the banks/markets and now the banks/markets have stolen their savings.

Oh my what do we all do. We should go work for less than it cost to live so we can keep that false market going. We should put what efforts we have into spending what little we may be abl to borrow for re-education and keep those higher learning facilities going so they do not go bankruptcy also.

 

[Bern80]

If you don't believe that the CONS pushed for NAFTA because it would lower wages, then I don't know what else to tell you. Or let illegals flood in to delute the market. If you don't get that this happened, whatever dude.

Alan Greenspan saw one of his main jobs as being to maintain a high enough level of "worker insecurity" that employees won't demand pay raises and benefits increases, thus provoking "wage inflation."

I don't even know where to begin explaining how/why you are wrong, because it will just go in one ear and out the other. And it would take a book. I don't have the time and it won't make a dent in your brain so.

But one thing I would like to point out is that in today's current market, you have to have a security net to take a chance and start a new business. Most people who do take the chance know that if all else fails, they can just go live with a relative. Or their parents have enough money to give them the initial $200K you need to start a business. I know many business owners like this. No biggy if they don't make it. But they'll forget/ignore that security blanket they had and pretend like they did it all on their own. What if you failed? Most business' do fail. Most people have to try a couple times. Did you fail the first time? Then you were lucky. What if you did fail? What would you have done? Go live with a relative? Probably.

And Lord knows the banks aren't going to loan me or YOU $200K in this economy. Not if you don't have any collateral.

And I can't use my home as collateral. Or I can, but now it isn't worth shit.

The highest paid people in America are salespeople. Please tell me what I should retrain myself to do, if I choose to get out of sales. What is paying really well right now?

Your whole mentality is flawed. Thank god you guys didn't win the last election, otherwise your mentality would become mandated. The middle class would disappear. It already is. THank God we took control back.

And I bet you want the Big 3 to go bankrupt. You people are something else. You think you would survive such a Depression? Well most of us would not. I doubt you would either.

I just talked to two Republicans on my 10 oclock break. It seems they are finally waking up to how bad things are. 7 out of 10 are living paycheck to paycheck.

Good luck going out to find a new job in this economy. And if you find one, chances are it won't pay what you used to make. If you don't get that, then you don't understand simple supply and demand.

And it is corporations goal to pay as little as possible.

I can't wait to turn Walmart into a Union company.

You keep talking about policy and a simply don't know why. it has nothing to do with this debate whatsoever. All your NAFTA this, the cons that is irrelevant to me. I don't know maybe I am missing some big huge piece of the picture and i will have my light bulb moment.....or maybe you will.

What it comes to the goals I want to achieve however, I simply do not see the point in doing what you do by focusing all my attention on externalities and trying to figure out who I can blame for why I am not where I would like to be.

 

[sealybobo]

I understand the answer quite clearly, you believe one of said oblgiations of business is to provide an individual a living wage. Got that clear, Clear as can be.

.

No, it's the government's job to make sure companies are paying a living wage.

We know what companies will do if it is left up to them.

We can not expect or assume companies will pay more when the cost of living goes up. They won't. They must be forced, by our government.

My government is made up of we the people, for the people. Companies in America have to follow the rules that are set by our government.

When GW Bush is the President and the GOP controls the other 2 houses, there are very few rules, and we see a shrinking middle class and more people fall into poverty. And people like you defend this?

Millions of people didn't think this would affect them. They probably thought a lot like you. Then it hurt them, and they voted the GOP out in 2006. And then we threw the rest of the bums out in 2008. Hell, Kerry won in 2004 if Bush didn't steal Florida. Actually, Gore won too in 2000.

So you see how devious the rich can be when they want to get their way. This was a New World Order.

And you guys talk like the tax breaks and outsourcing can't be stopped. Of course they can be stopped. But now you'll say if we reverse anything Bush did, the economy will fall apart.

Fine, let the economy fall apart. It'll fix itself eventually, right?

We'll raise taxes on corporations and then give them tax breaks when they hire. That way they actually hire people.

Today they are letting people go every day. Maybe we should raise their taxes everytime they let someone go.

This is our country. The corporations are not human beings. People are more important than Corporations.

That's the way it is in America. If you don't like it, go do business in another country.

 

[Bern80]

We do not have a free market! To even imply that we do is a lie.

That isn't implied in that statment at all. I simply stated what the purpose of such a system is. It can't be taken in any way to be a statement that such a thing actually exists here.

Oh my what do we all do. We should go work for less than it cost to live so we can keep that false market going. We should put what efforts we have into spending what little we may be abl to borrow for re-education and keep those higher learning facilities going so they do not go bankruptcy also.

The vast majority of American you will see if you read some of the links I posted to editec in FACT don't work for less than a living wage.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

No, it's the government's job to make sure companies are paying a living wage.

What part of the Constitution is that in? Did a new amendment pass that I'm unaware of?

 

[Bern80]

No, it's the government's job to make sure companies are paying a living wage.

No it isn't. I don't think you can find any politician that would even agree to something so asanine.

We know what companies will do if it is left up to them.

No we don't, it's never been tried.

We can not expect or assume companies will pay more when the cost of living goes up. They won't. They must be forced, by our government.

Do you not believe the laws of supply and demand apply to the commodity of labor?

 

[RodISHI]

No, it's the government's job to make sure companies are paying a living wage.

We know what companies will do if it is left up to them.

We can not expect or assume companies will pay more when the cost of living goes up. They won't. They must be forced, by our government.

My government is made up of we the people, for the people. Companies in America have to follow the rules that are set by our government.

When GW Bush is the President and the GOP controls the other 2 houses, there are very few rules, and we see a shrinking middle class and more people fall into poverty. And people like you defend this?

Millions of people didn't think this would affect them. They probably thought a lot like you. Then it hurt them, and they voted the GOP out in 2006. And then we threw the rest of the bums out in 2008. Hell, Kerry won in 2004 if Bush didn't steal Florida. Actually, Gore won too in 2000.

So you see how devious the rich can be when they want to get their way. This was a New World Order.

And you guys talk like the tax breaks and outsourcing can't be stopped. Of course they can be stopped. But now you'll say if we reverse anything Bush did, the economy will fall apart.

Fine, let the economy fall apart. It'll fix itself eventually, right?

We'll raise taxes on corporations and then give them tax breaks when they hire. That way they actually hire people.

Today they are letting people go every day. Maybe we should raise their taxes everytime they let someone go.

This is our country. The corporations are not human beings. People are more important than Corporations.

That's the way it is in America. If you don't like it, go do business in another country.

Gotta love it. greedy corporations have been given precedence over the private person. That is the problem.

Kevin stated earlier. The answer is in the constitution. When corporations are given more rights to take advantage of the individual the whole class of individual citizens loose.

 

[sealybobo]

You keep talking about policy and a simply don't know why. it has nothing to do with this debate whatsoever. All your NAFTA this, the cons that is irrelevant to me. I don't know maybe I am missing some big huge piece of the picture and i will have my light bulb moment.....or maybe you will.

What it comes to the goals I want to achieve however, I simply do not see the point in doing what you do by focusing all my attention on externalities and trying to figure out who I can blame for why I am not where I would like to be.

Yea, you don't get what happened over the last 8 years.

Or 30 years if you want to count Reagan's era, because that's where it all started. You think I'm a conspiracy theorist when in fact, the middle class was conspired against. Breaking the unions, outsourcing, letting illegals come in for cheap wages. Unions/Labor SCREAMED that this shit was happening and it was going to hurt the middle class but you didn't think it would affect you and you wanted those cheap products so bad, that you let it happen.

Again, the middle class is not a normal thing. Do you get that? If we were run like England or any other country, we would not have a strong/big middle class. We'd have a few rich and the rest would be working poor. And the reason places like Germany, England & France have strong middle classes now is because of America. And their middle classes are disappearing too. It's a global thing. The rich are using poor countries to destroy the middle class.

Sorry, not making excuses, but there really is no where for me to go. I have a great job. But my wages aren't keeping up with inflation and people aren't buying. Chances are whatever new industry I go to, it too is being affected by this New World Order, which you deny exists.

Yea, you don't get that the GOP purposely made jobs scarce because when jobs are scarce, you can pay less.

Did you read the Greenspan thing? As the Wall Street Journal noted in 1997, Alan Greenspan sees one of his main jobs as being to maintain a high enough level of "worker insecurity" that employees won't demand pay raises and benefits increases, thus provoking "wage inflation." ("CEO inflation" is fine)

So basically, you deny all the facts and don't think the neo cons did all this on purpose for the last 8 years. That I get. And that's why I think God the rest of America woke up. You haven't been affected enough to wake up, but enough American's were. Thank the Lord.

You don't believe the Bank bailout was nothing more than a bank robbery? You don't think the mortgage lenders and banks knew the economy was going south and continued to loan people money for homes they knew would not be worth shit in a year? And they kept passing off the loans knowing they were junk, and ultimately the bankers knew they would be bailed out. This was pre meditated stuff.

Even the Big 3 loan/bailout is a bank robbery. The CEO's at the Big 3 couldn't possibly be as dumb as they appear.

And the gas going to $4 hr. That too was on purpose. They wanted to break the middle class.

Again, if the GOVERNMENT doesn't protect the middle class, it won't exist.

Here comes the REGULATIONS!!!

No more polluting so your company can make more profits. That's all the corporations care about. That's all they should care about..

And the government should never be owned by the Corporations, which was the case these last 8 years.

And you don't see it. I get that.

 

[sealybobo]

Gotta love it. greedy corporations have been given precedence over the private person. That is the problem.

Kevin stated earlier. The answer is in the constitution. When corporations are given more rights to take advantage of the individual the whole class of individual citizens loose.

I have been reading so much from our founding fathers where they warned us over and over about this happening. That's why they left England.

So for Bern to deny it is happening or call me a conspiracy theorist or for Bern to suggest the markets need to be freer????

 

[sealybobo]

No it isn't. I don't think you can find any politician that would even agree to something so asanine.



No we don't, it's never been tried.



Do you not believe the laws of supply and demand apply to the commodity of labor?

Bern, you have lost this argument. You can't find a politician that has ever voted for increasing the minimum wage?

Wrong on your first answer.

I do believe in supply and demand. That's why the GOP sent jobs overseas and let all the illegals come in and work under the table.

Wake up Bern.

 

[sealybobo]

No we don't, it's never been tried.

Bern, we did away with tariffs and Corporations went overseas to get the cheap labor, at the cost of American labor.

And then we gave them tax breaks for going overseas. Probably because Bush's buddies were the ones going overseas.

So yes we did see what happened when we let corporations do whatever they wanted.

Now we will tariff them if they are not producing inside the USA. Wait and see. Jobs will come back home. And wages will go up.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

I have been reading so much from our founding fathers where they warned us over and over about this happening. That's why they left England.

What in the world are you talking about? First off, the founding fathers never left England. The Puritans left England because of religious persecution, later generations left for better opportunities in the "New World." Only the Hamiltonians would argue that protectionism and regulations are good for the economy bobo. No one who abides by the Jeffersonian principles could ever believe that nonsense, and certainly not Thomas Jefferson himself.

 

[RodISHI]

I have been reading so much from our founding fathers where they warned us over and over about this happening. That's why they left England.

So for Bern to deny it is happening or call me a conspiracy theorist or for Bern to suggest the markets need to be freer????

Actually Kevin, Paulitics, & Bern have some redeeming points. The thing is we have a few greed mongers out there and way too many that are bought and paid for politicians, judges, lawyers etc... Those being people who have became as they are above the law.

That is what has crashed the economy along with sending factory jobs into other countries and refusing to take out what is illegal for what it truly is ILLEGAL.

Even too many of the little middleclass guys/gals have been lining their own pockets and not watching out for others.

Couple all of that with wars and the cost of oil and again people just getting to damn greedy you have the crash.

Put the bankers/marketers at the top of the list because these have been the ones buying the politicians, judges, lawyers and profitable or old name companies that they could model for corporate gains while stripping the poor and the middleclass. Better include the media in than lot to as many were warned and did little to get the information made public so matters would be looked into.

I do know the bank bailout was an utter sham. People are so in tune to just having a feel good society in this country it is a shame.

Our own government has known that banks were charging SBA and HUD funds on bank created paper and the government did nothing to put a stop to it. Instead it was covered up and the people that attempted to expose it have been buried alive. Some of us just have not died yet.

 

[Bern80]

Actually Kevin, Paulitics, & Bern have some redeeming points. The thing is we have a few greed mongers out there and way too many that are bought and paid for politicians, judges, lawyers etc... Those being people who have became as they are above the law.

That is what has crashed the economy along with sending factory jobs into other countries and refusing to take out what is illegal for what it truly is ILLEGAL.

Even too many of the little middleclass guys/gals have been lining their own pockets and not watching out for others.

Couple all of that with wars and the cost of oil and again people just getting to damn greedy you have the crash.

Put the bankers/marketers at the top of the list because these have been the ones buying the politicians, judges, lawyers and profitable or old name companies that they could model for corporate gains while stripping the poor and the middleclass. Better include the media in than lot to as many were warned and did little to get the information made public so matters would be looked into.

I do know the bank bailout was an utter sham. People are so in tune to just having a feel good society in this country it is a shame.

Our own government has known that banks were charging SBA and HUD funds on bank created paper and the government did nothing to put a stop to it. Instead it was covered up and the people that attempted to expose it have been buried alive. Some of us just have not died yet.

Amazingly I would say most of that is accurate. The only thing I would say differently, is that it not so much greed where the middle class is concerned as a shift in culture to where are all generally are more self absorbed.

I won't sit here and pretend there aren't greedy people out there who don't treat employees fairly. I don't see that going away no matter what kind of economic policy is in place. In some companies I'm sure businesses really do have their employees over a barrell so to speak. And there will always be some level of need to protect workers from employers like that.

The only problem I have with your position is that it seeks to correct things too far the other way. If we mandated a living wage on all businesses two undeniable things happen. Now it's labor that has the employer over a barrell. If it wrong to be a slave of your bosses every whim, isn't it also wrong for the boss to be your slave and being held responsible for your every need? Just as bosses should not get to reign over their employees such that they must do any and everything the boss asks or risk losing their jobs, business owners (who went into business to make money) should not be undually burdened with providing for his/her employees every need. If now your precept is that we are all in this together, then burden needs to be distributed evenly and the second thing that happens with a living wage mandate is that the burden is now disproportianately on the business to provide you with your needs. They are now responsible for a great deal for providing for you, while you are responsible for very little.

What there has to be is a balance as you seem to be getting at. Yes businesses need to treat employees with a certain level of respect in the form of pay and benefits. But some burden, seemingly more than you are willing give, falls on individuals as well. It is up to them to make themselves at least productive enough so that they are not an unfair burden on the rest of us.

 

[sealybobo]

What in the world are you talking about? First off, the founding fathers never left England. The Puritans left England because of religious persecution, later generations left for better opportunities in the "New World." Only the Hamiltonians would argue that protectionism and regulations are good for the economy bobo. No one who abides by the Jeffersonian principles could ever believe that nonsense, and certainly not Thomas Jefferson himself.

Our founding fathers are the people who came here, faught the English and got us our independence. Who do you consider Founding Fathers"?

And I've been reading things from guys like Thomas Jefferson. It turns out, conservatives today have it all wrong. They misquote things that our founding fathers said.

Trust me, they warned about corporations getting too powerful in our government. They didn't just leave England because of religion. If you believe that, then you are just wrong and you need to do a lot more studying.

And you guys try to point back to Jefferson's time when Democrats were called Republicans and you want to take credit for what the liberals back then did. Back then you would be called a Federalist.

At that time in the late 1790s, Adams was President and Jefferson was Vice President. Adams led the Federalist Party (which today could be said to have reincarnated as the Republican Party - thus the attempts by Republican historians to rehabilitate Adams' legacy and trash Jefferson), and Jefferson had just brought together two Anti-Federalist parties - the Democrats and the Republicans - into one party called The Democratic Republicans. (Today they're known as the Democratic Party, the longest-lasting political party in history. They dropped "Republican" from their name in the 1820-1830 era).

 

[sealybobo]

Actually Kevin, Paulitics, & Bern have some redeeming points. The thing is we have a few greed mongers out there and way too many that are bought and paid for politicians, judges, lawyers etc... Those being people who have became as they are above the law.

That is what has crashed the economy along with sending factory jobs into other countries and refusing to take out what is illegal for what it truly is ILLEGAL.

Even too many of the little middleclass guys/gals have been lining their own pockets and not watching out for others.

Couple all of that with wars and the cost of oil and again people just getting to damn greedy you have the crash.

Put the bankers/marketers at the top of the list because these have been the ones buying the politicians, judges, lawyers and profitable or old name companies that they could model for corporate gains while stripping the poor and the middleclass. Better include the media in than lot to as many were warned and did little to get the information made public so matters would be looked into.

I do know the bank bailout was an utter sham. People are so in tune to just having a feel good society in this country it is a shame.

Our own government has known that banks were charging SBA and HUD funds on bank created paper and the government did nothing to put a stop to it. Instead it was covered up and the people that attempted to expose it have been buried alive. Some of us just have not died yet.

Actually, Kevin, Paulitics, & Bern are part of the problem. They are the Bush defenders. If it weren't for Kevin, Paulitics, & Bern, Bush wouldn't have won a second term and we'd be in MUCH better shape today.

And don't look at John Kerry's physical features and shreik when I say that, because that's exactly what is wrong with the American voter.

Is Kerry a tool? Sure. But he is also a much much much better man than George W Bush.

This is class warfare, whether Kevin, Paulitics, & Bern know it or not.

Sure they make good points. How do you think they were able to win the 2000 & 2004 elections. Besides stealing Florida and Ohio that is.

But they were able to convince enough American's that it was even close.

So really, fuck Kevin, Paulitics, & Bern, because they would be arguing right now that the economy was strong if they thought they could get away with it.

How much worse would things have to get before they would admit we have a problem?

And what is their solution? Deregulate even more?

No, they make no sense to me. I get what they are saying, but in the context of "THE REAL WORLD", they don't know what the hell they are saying.

 

[sealybobo]

What in the world are you talking about? First off, the founding fathers never left England. The Puritans left England because of religious persecution, later generations left for better opportunities in the "New World." Only the Hamiltonians would argue that protectionism and regulations are good for the economy bobo. No one who abides by the Jeffersonian principles could ever believe that nonsense, and certainly not Thomas Jefferson himself.

Never left England huh?

The Founding Fathers of the United States are the political leaders who signed the Declaration of Independence or otherwise participated in the American Revolution as leaders of the Patriots, or who participated in drafting the United States Constitution eleven years later. During the American Revolutionary War, the Founders were opposed by the Loyalists who supported the British monarchy and opposed independence (though most Loyalists remained in the U.S. after 1783 and supported the new government).[2]