Wages..

And my position is if you sit on yer azz waiting for politicians and union chiefs to better yer life yer gonna be in a world of hurt. Only you can make yer life better.

If you want to increase yer income relative to inflation you need to get
edificated sos you can git a better job. Since half the people in this
country are doing something close to flipping burgers you can't increase
yer productivity much and striking isn't gonna get you much cause there
is still plenty of competition at that level for yer job.

But not everyone has the intelligence and the opportunity to get the education we did. Nor do they have the ability to rise from flipping burgers to managing the franchise. Or from driving the truck to sitting in the executive suite.

The most perfect political community is one in which the middle class is in control, and outnumbers both of the other classes.

chipper_shredder:
Worker wages.
...
Then at the end a small blurb on wages..flat..so flat
For literally, 15 years...and all the bright & knowledgeable
Suits just could not figure out why, they were all just totally
Scratching their collective heads as to why wages are flat (?)

Without a bargaining power, the workers are powerless

We can't even invest in our own domestic infrastructure.

Workers now seem to be more 'contracted' to work than hired on with a company. A relatively good remuneration may be provided but it has zero benefits and no worker rights. Yer on yer own. (YOYO!)

Full time hours are very difficult to come by. Workers stitch together several part-time situations.

the 'legit' guys hate me but ive no idea how to operate the way they do and ive got to do something

not like its taught anywhere in a way guys like me could learn...

It's not a rocket science.
AFAIK we live in a capitalist market driven country.
Impact of the following two factors is rather predictable:
1. Globalization and offshoring. Many jobs with high wages are being transferred to China and India. MacJobs with low wages are created instead.
2. Legal and illegal immigration increases a pool of workers competing for these jobs.

Then we need to apply a law of supply and demand.

As a result we receive flat or decreasing income and standard of life of majority of Americans.

“We want a system in which the worker shall get what he produces and the capitalist shall produce what he gets.”

Byran:
Some counterpoints to consider:
1. When companies save money by offshoring labor, they are able to lower the cost of goods. Thanks to Walmart we all have "higher wages" because our money has more purchasing power.
2. Immigration increases the demand for goods and services, thereby creating jobs. Do you really think we can increase wages by simply having a smaller population?

Byran:
But don't worry, if you're right and globalization and immigration are really the reason for lower wages, then we need only weather the storm a little longer. Once wages drop enough, immigrants will stop moving here for work and all those offshore jobs will start rushing back.

all Walmart does is bring products manufactured by children and women locked into factories that don't have bathrooms back onto our shelves

Some serious economists and business types are starting to argue for a basic universal income to off-set the concentration of capital as labor gets more and more devalued.

What would those women and children be doing for a living if not that?

I always find it ironic to hear the proponents of globalism decry "all of us" for having "blood on our hands."

So, please explain the fix, you know, how you're going to make not just the USA but the whole planet a global utopia.

What would those women and children be doing for a living if not that?

So, please explain the fix, you know, how you're going to make not just the USA but the whole planet a global utopia.

I know in some cases, "outsourced" engineers are brought into the US on special visas to replace expensive home-grown workers. Bust your ass at CalPoly for that engineering degree and high student loans then get replaced by Sanjit from Deli working at a fraction of your wages. This is a real deal.

The political economy is much harder to understand, and predict, than rocket science.

It's better economy for a country as a whole with higher wages. It's a shortsighted policy to keep wages down and let only a few be very wealthy.

Ghost:
The two fundamental principles of the H1-B visa process are that the hiring company must prove that no qualified US citizen is available for the job, and that the wage they are paying is in line with wages for similar jobs in the area where the foreigner will be employed. If the company fails to prove both of those things, US CBP won't issue the visa.

I'm sure that, somewhere, sometime, some company managed to get Sanjit in at a lower wage than they'd pay Joe, or when Joe was actually available, but the idea that millions of cheapo foreigners are arriving en masse to steal your jobs is simply not based in reality.

Capitalism is human nature

(Capitalism) is a very recent development in human history.

agriculture is a very recent development in human history...

No, it is not. It is a very recent development in human history.

Dec 26, 2017 - 11:05pm PT
(Capitalism) is a very recent development in human history.

That's because until recent times there were no manufactured goods and almost the entire population was employed in agriculture working land they didn't own and with laws preventing them from ever acquiring land.

False, but irrelevant. What capitalism IS has been around forever.

But the real question is: What would you replace it with?

@Ghost: I KNOW as in a pretty close personal friend worked in management for a major energy company, and she was VERY specific about what they were doing. Yeah, I know. It happens, whether you like it or not.

So when you say "kill capitalism" all you really mean is that you want free medical care and better public transportation like they have in Europe?

If you want to get rid of illegal workers, go after the companies that hire them. You can't blame Pedro or Sanjit for wanting a job that will allow him to have a decent life.

Have you seen Forbe's Magazine's list of the 10 best cities to live in? None of them are the the capitalist paradise of the USA. Most are Euro social democracies.

Have you seen US News and World Report's article on the countries with the highest quality of life? You guessed it, Euro social democracies top the list. At 18 the capitalist paradise does manage to outrank Portugal.

Of course those magazines are just chock-a-block with raving Marxists.

Capitalism does not work.

The Democrats think it can. The Republicans know that it can't, that's why they are now out to pillage the system for all they can before the house of cards collapse.

By all means ban shopping!

Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.

Capital is concentrated into the hands of the very few through theft.

If the military - industrial complex that supports domestic American industry through spending billions of tax dollars locally, was outsourced to allied foreign nations spending their own domestic tax money accordingly, would there be a trade war involving tariffs and countervailing duties to protect US domestic self interest in pursuit of a common international defense ?

Madbolter. As I don't appreciate the concept of minimum wages, we do not have it, you answer that question yourself.

Every country has its own ways how the economy is constructed, and who better to suggest a solution but the citizens?

What I don't get though, is why some don't see one's own society as "us". Instead of going for a better place for everyone, including oneself, one heads for the opposite.

you ruin everything you touch

HINTs for "POP QUIZ" one:


Western...


Actor was VERY famous "Leading man"...

It must be nice to live in one of those places, a part of NATO living in peace because of not having to pay the USA for the costs of defending them. That's just one of the many expensive ways in which these little utopias don't pay their own freight. And let's wait about another decade, so that we can witness first-hand the implosion of the EU due to their inability to pay for the freebies that are seen as "rights."

Someone said that - I'd love to know what percentage the masses would not deem "too high" for the owners to take from their own businesses.

Small businesses make up:
99.7 percent of U.S. employer firms,
64 percent of net new private-sector jobs,
49.2 percent of private-sector employment,
42.9 percent of private-sector payroll,
46 percent of private-sector output,
43 percent of high-tech employment,
98 percent of firms exporting goods, and
33 percent of exporting value.

So, are you disparaging your neighbor running the successful UPS store franchise down the street who happens to be successful when you are bashing "the 1%"? Probably. Most people and most businesses aren't Amazon or Apple, or their executives.

And, if their boards and shareholders are happy to pay successful CEOs the salaries they command, well, then vote with your feet and quit investing in such companies, while lobbying those boards for reform. Good luck with that.

I guess it depends on what you mean by "theft." Is Jay-Z stealing from his fans? What about Michael Jordan? His net worth: 1.39 Billion. That's a lot of capital. From whom did he steal? Or is that small change? Which, I get, isn't that much compared to really big players. I'm not really disagreeing with you. I'd just like a little clarification as to what you're thinking about when you say this. Overall, I'm a big fan of capitalism, and I think Madbolter is totally correct about lifting people out of poverty, but it (capitalism) does need some controls. The question, as always, is how much?

Yes, labor produces money that can then be invested, if one so chooses. But by your own line of thinking, if labor produces capital, and capital through concentration is theft, then labor itself produces theft.

Topacio Reynoso was so precocious her mother sometimes joked she was an extraterrestrial....

At 14, she devoted herself to opposing construction of a large silver mine planned for a town nearby....

Topacio’s father, Alex, knew that speaking out could put the family in peril. Latin America is the most dangerous region in the world for environmental activists, with at least 120 killed last year alone, according to the nonprofit Global Witness.

But Topacio convinced him that it wasn’t a choice to oppose the mine, that it was an obligation: His father had left him land that was uncontaminated; it was up to him to pass on clean land to his kids...

He threw himself alongside his daughter into the fight.

These days, when he touches the bullet scars on his body or gazes at the memorial to Topacio that the family has erected on the porch, he wonders whether his decision was right.

Someone is already DEAD when the actor says the line...

Whatever your idealism holds isn't what is actually happening.

As I've noted above, the vast majority of companies are not taking advantage of their employees. Instead, these companies are operating on razor-thin margins, and there simply isn't the mythical "fat" there to, say, double employee wages.

What do you define as a "razor-thin margin?"

There is no room for idealism in the equation.

A bulk of that 'wealth' has been gathered by borrowing from the future.

The "capitalist" hires labor who has chosen not to start their own businesses, for whatever reason. No one coerces thee employee to work for him - the employee has a choice to start his own business or work for any of the millions of companies in this country.

capitalism is founded, first and foremost, on exploitation and that this exploitation is fundamental.

capitalism, whatever we may grant to it as an ‘engine of wealth creation’, is an essentially irrational economic system geared not towards the maximization of material wealth in general (as is often implied), but merely towards the maximization of wealth in so far as it can be appropriated as private profit.

https://www.globalresearch.ca/capitalism-straight-up/5624307

https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2015/home.htm

Lots of hand-wringing about 3.3% of all jobs, particularly when these are jobs that nobody is supposed to "end up" in trying to support a family. But, as is typical on the Taco Stand, there's no sense of proportion

The illegal drug trade is true capitalism.

Tha average IQ in the USA is below 100.

And, it is also a huge mistake to tell them they can live the American dream.

The government should provide the bottom two-fifths access to education and employment training.

Capitalism is the worst of economic systems, bar none other that have been tried. Capitalism's legacy will be massive environmental destruction on a major scale.

Yer thinking is old, and will be judged by the grand kids you hope will one-day fund yer retirement through paying your expectations for housing and stock, all while you ask them to wipe yer butt when you are too frail in your hoped-for dignified decline. You will die having probably consumed and generated waste for the planet to manage, in quantities far exceeding the positives you have contributed. The Capitalist system you enjoy has enabled that.

If the world pulls out of the petrodollar agreement, the US will collapse

California will survive on its own, without the ballast of the rest, which will have hard times ahead.

Yeah, I wish it would secede right away and "shed the ballast" of the rest of us. LOL

But please do it SOON, so that your trillion in debt, unfunded liabilities, pensions, and failed liberal policies won't be ballast on the rest of us. PLEASE have your own upcoming "hard times" all by yourselves.

But please do it SOON, so that your trillion in debt, unfunded liabilities, pensions, and failed liberal policies won't be ballast on the rest of us. PLEASE have your own upcoming "hard times" all by yourselves.

California has a longstanding debt of about $1.3T, but this is mainly in the form of bonds and contractual debt, with clear plans of payoff.

Of course, since we'll own all the food, and all the innovation, with a few bumps in prices, we'll have out debt paid off by you.

I'm so ashamed, please kill me.

I would like to read you a quote from a man who witnessed the events of 1934. It’s a different perspective, but from someone who was just as much a participant as Harry Bridges or anyone else. The quote is from William H. Crocker, a prominent San Francisco banker during the time of the General Strike. He was a leader and strategist for the employers.

In fact, Crocker is one of the men whose interests the police were protecting when they gunned down Howard Sperry and Nicholas Bordoise. The words below are the words of the enemy, Brothers and Sisters, as they were spoken in the midst of the General Strike:

“This strike is the best thing that ever happened to San Francisco. It’s costing us money, certainly. We have lost millions on the waterfront in the last few months. But it’s a good investment, a marvelous investment. It’s solving the labor problem for years to come.

Mark my words. When this nonsense is out of the way and the men have been driven back to their jobs, we won’t have to worry about them anymore. They’ll have learned their lesson. Not only do I believe we’ll never have another general strike, but I don’t think we’ll have a strike of any kind in San Francisco during this generation. Labor is licked.”

Getting sick of the over priced and corrupt practices of the ILWU and their monopoly of ports is far from a war on unions

The calculus is that every person with a middle class wage who can be replaced with a minimum level wage just means more of the pie for the 1%.

The 1% are there because of compounding of assets in the markets

The differences in labor costs are small money in comparison.

Well, we're also offshoring our pollution costs which is no small cost either, but if the differences in labor costs were truly small money then the bulk of our consumer products wouldn't be made offshore.

Market forces don't mean sh!t when they're manipulated or nullified

So what is the mathematical outcome when eventually, no one can afford to shop at Walmart ?

More than half of foremen and managers earn more than $200,000 each year. A few bosses make more than $300,000. All get free healthcare.

😊 So it was indeed irritating. To the point you decided to skip that post totally? And me writing it purely for you, don't you appreciate that? Maybe you just don't like mellow happy?

Anyway, both economies needs the fuel of consumers.

Of course, in America the idea of rewarding hard work is unknown. Only Wall Street hustlers deserve to make big bucks.

...and union reps. Of course.

You spent a day watching dock workers work? How cute.

Now union EXECUTIVES.....

California Teachers association president was making $229,000 per year in 2009. But that number has gone up from what Ive heard....

The typical CEO at the biggest U.S. companies got an 8.5% raise last year, raking in $11.5 million in salary, stock and other compensation last year, according to a study by executive data firm Equilar for The Associated Press. That’s the biggest raise in three years.

scumbags celebrating the sabotage of their economy

we'd rather finance the money pit called the Pentagon than spend it on education.

California Teachers association president was making $229,000 per year in 2009

And a PLM (product line manager) at Google, Amazon or HP makes $495K per annum plus perks.

Certainly society should be training people for the changes to come, but again, we'd rather finance the money pit called the Pentagon than spend it on education.

Just a little reality check.

There is generally no tax payers' representative at the negotiating table.

Anyone who does real work deserves real pay.