| See Hill, this is where they have screwed over your thinking. Why should Wal-Mart make record profits and the guy who only "puts in his time" make a below living wage? That's the damn problem in this country, everyone should be making a living wage, for whatever job they do. What you guys fail to think about (it seems) is that when everyone is making that living wage, we all do better. Because those folks spend more. As I've asked before, how many bars of soap, pairs of jeans, carpet cleanings, computers, lattes, can the upper 5 percent actually buy?? It's the rest of us that keep this economy running, and it's us who needs to make that living wage. Not just for our own good, but that of the country, and the bloody top 5 percent. We've got all upside damn down. ~beks |
Beks... the top 5% of wealth holders hire a guy to buy soap, jeans and lattes for them. Plus they hire folks to press suits, gut grass and clean pools. Most of the 5% hires executive staff to boss around the plain ole staff at the mansion. Those staffers are part of the 85% of us who still buy a lot of soap, jeans and lattes, gas, pay sales tax etc.
Your other post..$26 an hour aint crap if all the houses in your town start at $200k.Wages are just a number. How much money you keep is the real issue. Can you save or grow your money .... if you make $26 and it costs $24 to live you are not much better than you were when you made $8 and spent$7 to live.
Walmart... yep I agree the work of the devil...but the wages are what they are for what you do. Explain to me how inflating wages at Wal mart makes things better? Double the bottom skill set wages and prices just go up to match...no one gains a thing.
I say look at the past...Wal mart sucks jobs out of the country and kills small business. We did not have this problem pre WW2 and it was not so bad until things really started changing in the 70's.
Let's all make about $8 an hour.... but lets change society . Back in the day your local gas station was family owned. They could fix your car... and the grocery store on the corner sold food. The gas station guy took the risks... and he hired a couple of guys at what...$1.60 to work 40 hours a week. One of my other uncles was a meat cutter. He worked for Piggly Wiggley in Memphis a few years...saved a couple of bucks and bought a corner groceries just after WW2. He worked every day for 45 years there... and was a millionaire at the end of it all. He had a hired man named Mr.Ed who worked for him nearly 30 years. Ed owned a house, sent his kids to school and traded cars every few years .... for less than $2 bucks and hour.
My uncle was one of those guys... ran that station for nearly 45 years. His help came and went.. but a couple of guys worked for him for over 20 years each. Those 2 guys owned houses, sent kids to college, drove cars, mowed their own lawns etc. My uncle rolled profit back into the business, could borrow a bit more money and did the same... and after 20 years or so he had gathered a little wealth for the risks he took.
The doctor did a little better... he had a nicer house, but the bank would loan him a little more money because the doc needed to put his office in one of the rooms. But the doc would see you for $2 and would take credit because he knew you were good for it.
A guy could feed his family working the sales floor at Sears or Penny's... the clerk at the feed mill stayed for 30 years. The little factory used 10 folks to make a product. If you caught on with the rail road or light and gas company ...you had it made...those guys worked every day rain or shine.
There was so much money in the country and it went pocket to pocket. Places that had bigger factories formed unions to help improve working conditions like hours, safety, shifts lay-off by seniority, fair assignment of tasks and fair discharge policies. Money was always the easy part to negotiate...still is.
Even in the mill towns the local money went hand to hand.
Then we went global. Killed towns and jobs when we didnt run the efficient new highway by em. People moved to where the work is... driving up housing costs. The growing towns had to raise taxes to school water and process the sewage and trash of the new arrivals. The little factory improved so I used 5 people to do the work of ten. A nice $8000 house that took 10 carpenters and helpers to build with hammers and handsaws ended up costing $25,000 and electric tools cut the crew down to 3 men.
That was OK for a while ...the laid off builders took a job at the skil saw plant... till it moved "overseas" in the 70's
Full employment means lots of little jobs. Beks..if you traveled back to 1910, even 1949 in most little towns you would be thinking "3rd world country"... I say our "improvements" will actually make us a 3rd world country.
Hill
