Posted on 02/08/2010 4:37:58 PM PST by SJackson
New York Times columnist Bob Herbert ended a recent column on our economic woes with these words: "It's time for serious people to step forward and help lead on these critically important issues. Time is short." I could not agree more.
There's no shortage of problems: global climate change, reliance on foreign oil, a Supreme Court out of control, democracy on life-support, a historic gap between the rich and the rest of us, over 17 million people have lost their jobs and can't find work. The economic impact is not the only concern. Think about the increase in drug, alcohol and spousal abuse. Try explaining to young people why their dream of college is gone. Walk with a family evicted from their home and urge them to cheer up and be sure to vote! Go to the cemetery to bury a 26-year-old soldier killed in a meaningless war. Comfort his widow and kids. Where's the leadership?
Up to 40 million of our citizens are without health insurance because Congress won't take care of health care but will support any war. There is anger all around.
A hospital in New York, St. Vincent's, may have to close, according to the New York Times. The hospital has "stopped admitting new patients to its outpatient HIV program, which officials said was the largest in the state with 4,800 patients, to its outpatient mental health program and to its community medicine program, which serves many older patients."
Where would those patients go? Will New York begin to look like Haiti? Where are the serious people? Who will demand an increase in taxes?
What are we doing to keep the doors open at hospitals in our urban centers? We rescued AIG; how about St. Vincent? Shouldn't we, serious people, be doing something? The N.Y. governor's office, trying to help St, Vincent, "has been meeting nonstop with all the stakeholders to find a solution." Stakeholders? Who are "stakeholders" in a health care context? I suppose the term includes doctors, nurses, administrators, X-ray techs, and insurance companies. But what about families with loved ones in the hospital or served by the outpatient programs? Are they stakeholders? Is the government a stakeholder? Not only have corporations taken over our medical and political systems, they have changed our language. Schoolchildren are "customers" and parents "consumers" (or vice versa?), so patients must be "stakeholders." Soon jails will be called "hospitality holding areas."
Bob Herbert asks serious people to step up to the plate. Where are the "serious people" -- the leaders? I frankly don't have an answer. I look not at the minority party in Congress and the Legislature -- I am searching for leaders among the Democrats, the majority party.
Bill Lueders in Isthmus pointed to the refusal of Democrats in the Wisconsin Legislature to increase the minimum wage. Imagine that. The minimum is now $7.25 per hour. If a person worked 2,080 hours in a year -- a full-time job -- at minimum wage, he would earn $15,080 a year. Can anyone live on $15,000 a year? Raise a kid?
Democrats are, apparently, unwilling to force universal health care down the Republican's throats in Congress and are unwilling to enact a progressive surtax to pay for the unwinnable wars in Iraq and Afghanistan -- or to cut the funding and bring the troops home. What is the difference between the two major parties on most of these issues? Not much.
Is it time to think about a new party? Meanwhile, what do we tell Herbert?
I started a conversation with a cashier at Wal Mart before the snow storm (You know, the big spending kind of trip.) about how long she’d been an employee. She told me the length of her service. I then asked if it’s true that Wal Mart only hires minimum wage workers.
Her response didn’t shock me. “They couldn’t get people in here that would work for minimum wage that would be worth a damn.”. I asked then what they hire people for. $9.50. I asked with her 10 years with the company if she made that or was it a starting wage.
No, she told me, I’m paid over $14 an hour with benefits.
I told the same story last year about Target employees that were started at $9.50 an hour and McDonald’s employees that were being hired at $9.25 an hour per in store advertisement.
So much for this minimum wage thing.
Hey Bob Herbert, get off the drugs.
On the other hand, every single teenager in our county is unemployed because the minimum wage (above $8.50, IIRC) is more than they are worth in today’s economic conditions.
Minimum wages merely draw a line amongst applicants who present you with the value they bring. When the line is drawn (say $8.50), anyone whose worth to the employer is below that line will not be hired.
So, the Minimum Wage primarily determines how many lower skilled workers will be unemployed.
Secondarily, the minimum wage drives some Union contracts, which are based on multipliers of the minimum wage. So you get great support for minimum wage increases by Unionistas who are never at risk of earning the minimum wage, but the result of which is to cause unemployment.
Nice.
Awe, come on Bob Herbert, help us out here. Come clean and say that you feel really stupid about voting Dem, instead of mincing words. We won’t laugh too hard at your stupidity.
Bob Herbert isn’t the author. Ed Garvey is.
Bob Herbert isn’t the author. Ed Garvey is.
Caught that just as I hit the send button!
All: In my last post, please replace “Bob Herbert” with “Ed Garvey”.
Thank you, I don’t know how I pasted Bob Herbert, should have looked. Hopefully the AM will correct it to Ed Garvey, who deserves the credit.
You usually say “time is short” in anticipation of some coming traumatic event. So what’s the event? Conservatives taking over Congress in Nov? Never happen. nobama’s gonna find a way, prolly a “National Security” issue to declare martial law and postpone the elections. Chaos and an unbelievable push back will result.
Now, THAT would be a traumatic event!
Tennessee has joined several other states in trying to pass a Health Care Freedom Act. NO COLAs for granny, retired Military or retired fed employees. BIG NEW fees for Tricare for Life retired over 65 Military's secondary health ins. (DOD bill already passed, delayed but goes into effect 2011)
New Dem mantra: Woof, woof eat dog food granny....ala let them eat cake.
I heard, somewhere, some union contracts are based on multiples of the minimum wage or minimum wage plus. Raising the minimum wage gives them an automatic pay raise.
The leftwing socialist claptrap this moron has advocated for years is the main reason for most of these problems. So of course, being a leftdolt, his solution is more, MUCH more, of the same.
Stupid, evil, or both?
The leftscum whine about the minimum wage all the time for one reason: Many union contracts have pay based on a multiplier of the minimum wage. They are just pimping for more money for the unions. It has NOTHING to do with the few people who make minimum wage.
“...unwinnable wars in Iraq and Afghanistan...”
Sez who?
IMHO
“Try explaining to young people why their dream of college is gone.”
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
If what I witnessed tonight is any indication their dream of grade school is gone! I watched “Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader” and was astounded to realize that the young man who was the contestant and the proud owner of not one but two Masters degrees was actually not prepared for the fifth grade! He absolutely could not have gained ENTRY into a public high school back during my youth. Some errors can be excused on the basis that the knowledge has been forgotten because it is not useful in daily life but this guy couldn’t even identify the subject of a sentence! He was blowing it right and left, the format of the show has been changed drastically to make it much easier to stay in without flunking out but he still walked away without a penny. The funny part is that he was acting very confident the whole time as if he thought he was really too smart for this simple line of questions. It was totally pathetic.
If this is what a post graduate degree is worth now we are in a world of hurt.
This fellow is a total left wing moon bat, but the part I like is at the end. He is dissatisfied with the RAT party and wonders if the solution is another party.
.
Folks like him should take a close look at the instructions for their 1040s
Chances are they are “rich” and just don’t know it....
Of course, they do tend to live at home, more or less for free...
No, "Time is short" is a classic element in the hustle. Any time someone wants you to spend your money in a hurry, you know you're dealing with a conman--as in "Hurry! This offer won't last!" Or, "The world can't wait!" Or, "We only have ten years left to save the planet!"
You get the drift. Same ol' from good old 'Diversity Bob' Herbert and his buttboy Garvey.
This guy is clueless, don’t care who he is. Stupidity like this is typical libtard thinking.
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