Posted on 05/26/2005 6:27:37 PM PDT by Clintonfatigued
My wife works at Target (cause her old place shut down. The starting salary was 7.50 so she should be getting a raise pretty soon. The good thing about her working at Target is that she gets to transfer to a different department.
I advocate working for ones daily bread.
Won't work? No bread.
I advocate "social Darwinism? and you advocate socialism without the Darwin qualifier.
When the judge tells the blue collar caddy who wants to gain the college scholarship but his grades are average 'Well the world needs ditch diggers too'.
True enough.
Some Walmart jobs are our era's version of ditch digging. The problem is not Walmart at all. The problem (if it exists and is not our skewed perception) many think we are creating more ditch digging jobs like Walmart and not good paying sustainable jobs like one would find in a factory or even in an office.
"I live in New York and have never lived without family or a roomate. Am I living below adequate living standards?"
"You bet."
You're missing my point I think. My point was that according to this guys "Living Wage", the wage-earner should be able to have his own apartment without having to share. I was explaining that I am not the least bit disadvantaged and I have always had a roomate. If I can do it, someone working at wal-mart can do it too. His idea of a living wage would be astronomic and leave 25% of the US unemployed.
"You freemarket guys make one fundamental error. You assume that economy/market exists on its own and is not a part of the larger social/political body."
Okay you keep spewing socialist tracts at me... but all I wanted was one simple question answered. It doesn't involve any heavy math, it's just a simple line of logic. Please just fill in the space:
Why is a $100 minimum wage not logical?
Answer: Because everybody who makes less then $100 would simply become unemployed and many of the businesses that use such employees would shut down.
Now stay with me here...
Why is a $17 minimum wage not logical?
Answer: (fill in this space)
"gotta hand around in the midwest where the unions and government over-regulation have forced out even the simplest manufacturing jobs that overpaid them when they could afford it."
Democrats and protectionists think that our economic policy should be run for the benefit of those people. Those who sit and wait to be told what to do, and expect a good wage to do it.
"Then those of us that choose to leave, move on or get a life are attacked for doing so. How dare we better ourselves. How dare we earn more."
Republican Free Marketers think that our economic policy should be run for the benefit of people like you. Those who take risks, work hard, and seek out opportunity. The go-getters if you will. Those are the people that create wealth and jobs. I'm proud to call myself a Republican Free Marketer.
Count me as one too..
Not here.
Well I am sure all Walmart employees can't live in a state with low end rents. I thought low cost housing was a thing of the past. Actually, half way decent apartments in my region go for over 700 per month, if you can find one available. That's just for rent!
But I moved here because housing prices were low.
Well you must live in one of the few areas left in the country with low affordable housing. Most everywhere now has gone through the roof. That's why I said, considering rent prices, car payments, food, utilities, gasoline, clothing, insurance, repairs, medical expenses, on other things, I don't know how anyone can make it on $1200 a month, and not live at home with their parents, or be on pension. I feel for them in this day and age, with prices that continue to jump.
The guy who bought Sear and owns K-Mart has very little interest in the retail sector. He will be using both companies to suck cash out of and then when he is done will look to sell off all the valuable real estate.
Neither company will last for the long term.
That's a really good question. How can you call yourself a conservative and not believe in a free market in which an employer and an employee negotiate a contract for salary and benefits without the government or anyone else sticking their nose in it? To me, this is so at the core of conservatism that I don't understand how you can believe otherwise and be anything other than a liberal.
And no, wage regulations aren't "in there". Not in there unless a person's so liberal they can "mind read" God, the same way liberals "mind read" the founding fathers and the constitution. And that was my point. If you feel you can read anything into anything, you come across as a liberal.
You look it up. I'm tired. It's in there somewhere, probably in several places. My religion is none of your business, but since you decided to get into my face about it, I attend a conservative catholic church on the weekends I can manage to drag myself there because my heart is no longer in it.
The unions strike back. They can't abide non-union businesses.
That's even better than the infamous "Twinkie Defense," it's the new "I-Work-The-Night-Shift-So-My-Biological-Clock-Is-Out-Of-Sync Defense." Nice.
4Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth.
James 5
Warning to Rich Oppressors
1Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming upon you. 2Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. 3Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. 4Look! The wages you failed to pay the workmen who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. 5You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter.[a] 6You have condemned and murdered innocent men, who were not opposing you.
The principle is the same.
It's not your problem about my religion. I am wearying of this world and fear for the future of my children and childrens' children.
Google is my friend and found the passage for me. Also found The problem of unjust conditions in Catholic organizations
I don't know if the link is fair or not; don't want to get into that part of it. They do say but don't give the bible reference:
"According to the Bible, the sin of depriving the worker of his just wages cries out to heaven just as loudly as the sin of murdering the innocent."
I had an ancestor in the 1600's who was fined for charging too much for his blacksmith services, and he probably had a monopoly in that particular area of Connecticut at the time. Those primitive, ignorant people who stole the land from the Indians had a social conscience.
<sarcasm>Wow, after all that turmoil it's a wonder you're still alive. Congratulations! </sarcasm>
Yes, it is, but not because of that. I was one of those workers you look down your noses at. My pay was about $8.60 tops and I had to support three children on it and an ex who refused to pay child support. It's not because of that either.
Through it all, I had help from above. I can't remember what my hourly pay was at that company, but was less than the $8.60 I finally got from working for the government. As a programmer I was in charge of payroll, mortgage loan, and other banking operations.
I got my masters in economics and knew these basic facts before Rush was ever on the radio.
This would spell the end to not only my job, but the jobs from management (of which I am not) right on down to assembler, lawn maintenance, or cafeteria worker.
I am one of those mid-$20/hour laborers whom you apparently look down your nose at. I didn't start off earning what I earn now. When I was 17, I fathered a daughter--something that could have locked me into a life of making below $8/hour, had I let it.
Instead, I joined the Navy partly because I believed in America and our defense; but mostly because I wanted to make sure I could put food in my daughter's mouth. Originally, I was ordered to pay $200/month for child support. After that and $100/month for GI Bill my checks were very small.
So you know what I did? I took advantage of every educational opportunity that came my way. I worked my regular Navy job which sometimes totalled nearly 80 hours in a week. And when I wasn't working I was either studying for my advancement in the Navy or studying for credit.
Five years after joining, I left the Navy. Struggling to find a job in electronics (what I had done in the military), I did odd jobs as a temp averaging $5.50/hour--when I could find work at all. Somehow, I still managed to pay my support payments, eat, and live. Yes, I had to move back in with my father for about a year. It wasn't the end of the world.
About a year after getting out of the Navy, I found a permanent job as a taper for a printing press manufacturer--a job for which I was highly overqualified. You see, my job was to mask off the parts of the assembled equipment so that they could be painted. When I wasn't taping, I worked with assemblers and made it a point to learn everything I could about the machine assembly process. After I had been a taper for about 6 months, the electrical assembler quit and I was given that job--no, I had earned that job. All of my hard work and studying was starting to pay off, yet even then I only earned about $8/hour.
About one and a half years later, I earned the job of Field Service Technician with that same company--which came with an annual salary of $30K. By the time I left that company I was up to $39K.
Today, and several companies later, I am earning above $55K from my primary employer. None of these companies have "given" me any of this, and none of these wages have been because I have any "inherent personal worth," or am a "human being who deserves it." It is all because I provide a service coupled with skills, knowledge, and training and I trade that service for money and other benefits.
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