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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsPosters On DU Need To Understand A Good Job WILL BE Under $10 An Hour If GOP Gets Its Way
If the GOP supported by billionaires and big business gets its way $10 an hour will be a GOOD job. Hell I worked for DOL when Reagan said we would have a service economy. I believed in 1981 that we would be where we are today. And I have seen nothing to stop the erosion of wages and benefits. I have also believed and said that 80% of the labor force would be low wage and the 80% stat on poverty is no surprise to me.
I look at stats a lot different than the average person because of 24 years at DOL. The stats are distorted and have been for 33 years. Now a GOP rep wants to scrap all government stats and wants legislation to do away with them.
Anti unionism, paranoia over socialist, anti regulation and fear of government has all played into putting us where we are. Many Americans are so damned stupid because they believe they are individual labor negotiators in the labor market. They believe they can be an independent seller of their skills and how good they are will determine their value. And so many Americans now believe that they will have numerous higher paying careers. It is all a godamned lie and the employers now have workers by their private parts.
Vote GOP and even $7.25 an hour will be a good job in time. That is what globalization is all about and the GOP actually started it and intimidated or convinced certain democrats that a free market and open free trade would raise all boats.
The American worker is about to be beheaded economically. So if people stay anti union and anti regulation what I am telling you will happen. And in fact we are already on our way to that business nirvana. And as far as needing consumers, they the corporations don't need us here they have 6 billion other people they plan to sell to. So forget good jobs being created here. And you can blame Obama all you want but low wages are a GOP corporation plan.
gollygee
(22,336 posts)they want to do away with the minimum wage entirely. It wouldn't be crazy for jobs to be $2 or $3, to compete with other workers around the globe.
geckosfeet
(9,644 posts)freshwest
(53,661 posts)And that's what those who sneer at unions are voting for but they always think it'll happen to 'the other guy' or whoever they have been taught is undeserving. By the same GOP pundits who will find fault with them later. They appear to be unable to learn that it's either one for all or all for one and they have no proof they'll be that one.
liberal_at_heart
(12,081 posts)to minimum wage and start fighting for living wages.
winter is coming
(11,785 posts)reformist2
(9,841 posts)leftstreet
(36,106 posts)TheMastersNemesis
(10,602 posts)The poverty level numbers are artificially low and always have been. They were still too low when I retired in 1998 from DOL. And they have not changed that much related to the cost of living.
The business community, US Chamber Of Commerce, GOP et al want to have no minimum wage and let the "market" determine the floor level. If they could pass the abolishment of the Fair Labor And Standards Act they would. That would eliminate virtually all labor regulation in the country.
It would also allow companies to declare ALL their employees contract laborers.
leftstreet
(36,106 posts)TheMastersNemesis
(10,602 posts)In fact they think $7.25 an hour is too much.
leftstreet
(36,106 posts)You say the GOP must be stopped or wages will be less than $10 an hour
Obama says he supports a $9 an hour wage
dO tEH mATh
dsc
(52,155 posts)the last time I checked minimum wage (which is what Obama is suggesting to raise to $9) wasn't considered a GOOD wage.
leftstreet
(36,106 posts)The OP miscalculated. There are many reasons to vote against the GOP, but citing wage proposals is a bit off the mark
adirondacker
(2,921 posts)leftstreet
(36,106 posts)JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)no higher than $10. He's not saying they would set the MINIMUM wage at $10.
leftstreet
(36,106 posts)That's incredibly stupid
Not as stupid as Obama throwing out $9 an hr - especially since the minimum wage is higher than that in one state and close by many others
TheMastersNemesis
(10,602 posts)be in a "service economy" over time. In 1981 when Reagan said we were going to a "service economy" I believed that we would have a low wage economy. Back then "service economy wages were much lower. It was a guess on my part that $10 an hour would look like a good wage the way they were selling what they were doing.
To the best of my knowledge the GOP has never offered a number. They are against even $7.25.
dsc
(52,155 posts)frankly some jobs are not meant to be full time career type jobs. I do think any job should be paying a living wage but to equate the statutory minimum wage with a good wage is downright silly.
dsc
(52,155 posts)should make significantly more than a person with no education and no experience. The former should be making a good wage, as in well above minimum, and the latter shouldn't be making as good a wage. To me a good wage would be say 50k or so for a 2000 hour year in a low cost place and more like 100k for that in a high cost place. No, I don't think the minimum wage should be 50k. sorry but I guess I am a bastard that way.
This mindset is archaic and classist
A fast food worker doesn't have to take into consideration what a degreed engineer makes before s/he can demand a livable wage for his/her labor. Period.
dsc
(52,155 posts)but no, they don't deserve 50k for flipping burgers.
lpbk2713
(42,753 posts)Eight years of the corrupt and evil BushCo Regime got us where we are today. They owned all three branches of the federal government and instead of making this a better country they pillaged and plundered and filled their pockets while stacking the deck more in their favor. We are still suffering under their legacy. We should do everything within our power to avoid giving them a second chance to finish the job they started.
hobbit709
(41,694 posts)KoKo
(84,711 posts)Look at the way Average Americans are treated these days and do a Search of TPP and think of NAFTA ON STEROIDS...and then through in WTO/GATT and figure out WHICH PARTY is the CULPRIT in Driving Down our Wages...to make us More Competitive.
TheMastersNemesis
(10,602 posts)I voted for Obama hoping that he would not be a free trader. My suspicion was that Hillary would support and advance what Bill Clinton did with NAFTA. He ran against it then forced the Dems to support a GOP plan. That tainted the Democrats.
KoKo
(84,711 posts)we got what we got...as if we'd never voted. So, I do understand what you say.
I feel like I bought the wrong thing...off the shelf...and even the "other thing" might have been worse.
What were we to do? And that's sort of left me with a "I've been had" philosophy these days.
duffyduff
(3,251 posts)and not a real Democrat. The warning signs were there all along if anybody had paid close attention to him.
reformist2
(9,841 posts)Just 30 minutes surfing around that website should have any uppity professional quaking in his or her boots. And looking into how to form a professional union, stat.
brewens
(13,574 posts)was going to be a good career. DECA: Distributive Education Clubs of America. That was a high school elective course that offered work-study credits. Still is I guess. Of course they weren't telling us it was going to be beat down to the point where they are actually earning less per hour than I was after school as a junior.
I only got in there because my grocery store boss told me he'd schedule me early in the afternoon to work freight with the full-time guys. That meant fewer closing shifts!
I got in trouble one time when we were brainstorming fund raising activities. Our adviser/teacher commented one idea would "sell like hotcakes". So I say, "why don't we just sell hotcakes then?" He really never liked me and booted me out for the day! Then to make matters worse. By the next semester someone had actually masterminded the plan of us putting on a cowboy breakfast for a local rodeo weekend. Our adviser had forgotten my smartassed idea by then so I reminded him. "See. What did I tell you? The hotcakes are selling!" This time he yelled at me but had to admit it was funny. We got along okay for the rest of the year.
LWolf
(46,179 posts)Why "posters on DU," and not anyone else?
KoKo
(84,711 posts)"Progressive Websites" Out there! And it will be seen as an OBAMA ATTACK!
"Progressive Webs Sites Out THERE.... if you can count them over five fingers.
And that's the sad thing after 8 Years of Clinton and 4 1/2 of Obama ....this is our pitiful results of TAKING BACK THE MEDIA....
TheMastersNemesis
(10,602 posts)I never really understood why Clinton ran as a "new Democrat". In retrospect he "had" to run as a new Democrat because he could not win as a regular or FDR Democrat. The Democrats allowed Reagan and the GOP to dirty the word "liberal" and "unions". Even when Clinton won Democrats had to run on a more right wing agenda because being pro labor or pro union was unconsciously connected to "communism" or "socialism". And that was just plain un American. Never mind that voting for the GOP back then was like hanging yourself slowly. Workers did not recognize their malfeasance.
It is worse today. Even Jesus could not run as a pro worker Democrat and win votes in the new fundy churches. Even he would be labeled a liberal socialist who favored sharing wealth. The GOP has twisted so many words that we now have a surreal world. The words people act positive to are meaningless in and of themselves. And they are verbal traps that move voters to make false choices that actually undermine their own well being.
Clinton tainted the Dems and put them on the defensive over NAFTA. Voters look at the Dems as the ones who pushed free trade. But the real truth is that NAFTA would have never passed except Clinton forces enough reluctant Dems to pass it with the GOP and it WAS A GOP idea in the first place. But Dems got the blame.
They have never recovered from that and it cornered them into favoring agreements they never would have. They are kind of stuck supporting some corporate agenda just to compete for money because the unions are now so weak. The "moderate" Democratic caucus is actually an moderate GOP caucus of 30 years ago. And a corrupt and bought off media has been able to push the politics to the right because it is now owned by the rich.
Unless enough voters wake up from their delusions we will see more of the same. The media is the problem because no other message can get out. When 90% of the media is now RW you have a real problem.
Reagan and the new compromised media sold workers on the need to end the "social contract". Workers allowed themselves to be "useless eaters" in the new labor dynamic where traditional employer employee relationships are now gone. Workers are just low wage slaves and chattel to make wealth for the owner class and capitalists. Otherwise they are worthless.
KoKo
(84,711 posts)duffyduff
(3,251 posts)"Globalism" is bipartisan, and it is completely and totally evil.
TheMastersNemesis
(10,602 posts)The same thing that is going on here is going on in Europe. The same austerity the GOP is pushing here and the dominance of the banks is happening in Europe. The threat of mass privatization of the commons has an international flavor. Just look at the Greeks, Spaniards, Portuguese etc. Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Holland and other more socialist countries are now the targets of Koch and associates.
Their fingerprints are all over the landscape with activity by their stoolies. Our media is hiding so much it is not even funny. If you remember the GOP has made a lot of speeches attacking European socialism and European labor practices. And their rhetoric is more than coincidence. Europeans have been very successful with their economies in the past. The Bush damage was exported there as well. Our banks and corporations sold them a lot of bad paper on purpose to take them down. The 2008 downturn was an economic terrorist attack. It really was deliberate.
Globalism reach and evil was an economic coup by the rich elite. The same forces are working overtime to consolidate their power and they are open about it because they believe they cannot be stopped.