posted on October 30, 2002 04:47:25 PM new
Borillar...
The solution is INCREDIBILY simple and effective. Give money/cash/assistance DIRECTLY. Eliminate the "programs" and "agencies" that do nothing more than suck up the funding. In today's society, the programs and agencies suck up probably 70-80% of the money before it reaches the ones who need it. Why does a poor family need a taxpayer paid representative to come to their home and tell them the importance of eating healthy, when the family can not get the money to afford food???? Its not that they are not eating healthy, they are not eating at all.
But the first fallacy the Limbaugh Retards will scream is the will only produce lazy people living off the system for free. Contrary to popular belief, 99% want to work but do not have a job and can not get a job. The jobs do not exist. By all statistics ever produced in this country, people have always out numbered jobs. If money were given directly, and personal welfare fraud were to TRIPLE, the cost to the taxpayer would be about 1/3 as much.
If you want to see lazy people living off the system for free, they are called the social welfare System.
Consider this scenario of the welfare system....
Social Worker One has 10 clients. Through his/her tireless efforts she manages to get all of them into good jobs and off welfare. Results: the social worker loses his/her job because she has no more clients.
Social Worker Two has 10 clients. By jerking them around and being uncaring, they continue on the system through their life. In addition, each client has two children, who through the poverty and jerking around of their situation by the social worker, do not get a basic education and are unable to get a job. The social worker has to take these 20 extra clients into the system. Result: Social worker two has to hire 3 more social workers(with Him/Her as "Supervisor" ) to handle the increased load.
Which scenario do you think these people mainly practice?
Do you know what the Social Welfare "Program" of churning is.....
At the end of each quarter, the office is reviewed for it "effectiveness". In preparation for this "review" a certain percentage of clients are "accidently" dropped from the welfare roles. Only done at the end of a quarter so as not to lose funding, but the final tally show the office as effectively "moving" people off welfare. Those who were dropped have to reapply, but that take 30 days and wan't show up until next quarter when the next group is churned. But in those 30 days, the client usually loses their children, lose their utilities,are evicted and have starved to death or committed suicide.
The system isn't broken, it doesn't work!
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I live in my own little world, but it is Okay...They know me here.
[ edited by mlecher on Oct 30, 2002 04:52 PM ]
posted on October 30, 2002 06:10:33 PM new
That example is certainly symbolic of what problems there may be with lack of oversight. By plugging in some more realistic figures, let's say that each social worker has only 350 or so clients. That's up from the 200 or so that they had before the Republicans cut funding for more workers. Then add the incentive to get rid of as many people as you can. The easiest way to do that is to simply deny applicants who marginally qualify. The rest get moved onto work and the workload drops down to an "easy" 200 or so clients per worker. In reality, 200 cases are largely unmanageable and because of the workload and lack of proper funding, clients begin to commit fraud, which makes the entire system look bad. The solution: hire and train enough qualified people so that the workload allows for adequate oversight by the social worker.
Cutting funding because of malicious radio entertainment personalities twist the truth is doing wrong, plain and simple. The worst thing that we can do is to simply do nothing at all. Remember Newt Gingrich mimicking Scrooge in Dickens's "A Christmas Carol" when asked about the poor: "Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?" Bastard!
Certainly adding more jobs to the economy and getting the poor qualified to work them goes a long way towards solving the poverty problem in America. The vast majority, given a choice between living on a free monthly income of $700 per month or working a full-time job of 40 hours per week and bringing home $2,500 per month after taxes, very few are going to WANT to live so impoverished. Since this country imprisons more people for longer periods of time than any other country in the world, according to some international organizations, committing welfare fraud or selling illegal drugs or crime in general is not worth it like it used to be when they only got a slap on the wrist. Unfortunately, the causes of Crime are often the same ones as the causes of Poverty, and by snubbing helping to solve poverty we actually help to promote more crime. That mean that we are making ourselves pay more and more in taxation to pay to warehouse people who might otherwise have been productive, self-supporting, tax-paying citizens.
posted on October 30, 2002 07:38:26 PM new
A company closes its factory and moves all work to a prison after invited to farm some work out to prisoners, and tells the law abiding employees it wants to keep- you have to work with the prisoners and take a pay cut.
Goodyear radiator hose plant closing to move the jobs to Mexico. US employees made $18 an hour, Mexican workers make $12.77 per day.
Same thing with a bearing plant in Indiana.
Two vaccum cleaner factories closing in Ohio and moving to Mexico.
And the poor need job training ??
It is going to get much worse before it gets any better. I hope welfare benefits get much better because it may not be too long before we're all on welfare.
posted on October 31, 2002 05:59:26 AM new
And remember, it was our own Government(Bush Senior Administration continued through the Clinton Admin.) that extensively advertised and lobbied for American Industry to move to Mexico! Remember Perot holding up that Gov't paid for flyer:
"Where can I find Factory workers for 25 cents an hour?"
YES YOU CAN! YUCATAN!
Both sides are at fault...but mainly the American Populace, for being lazy, uncaring and uncompetetive. As long as it doesn't affect them directly YET, they do not care!
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I live in my own little world, but it is Okay...They know me here.
[ edited by mlecher on Oct 31, 2002 06:02 AM ]
posted on October 31, 2002 06:46:39 AM new
Wanted to agree while I could with mlecher [said jokingly]
American jobs were headed south [Mexico] back in 1972-75. My husband worked for a company that opened a manufacturing plant in TJ during that time frame.
Unions were great for getting workers better pay, but somewhere we outpriced ourselves, labor wise. All these years later we're feeling the result.
posted on October 31, 2002 09:51:36 AM new
I recall the eclection of 1988, where the Democrats in one debate pointed out that the Republicans had not only created legislation that paid employers to move out of the country, but also gave taxpayer dollars to those factory owners to hire and train the local population to come work for them! Last I heard, about a year ago, that hadn't changed. So, with NAFTA firmly shoved up our collective kazoos, factories are being PAID by US to relocate out of the country to Mexico and we're also PAYING THEM to hire and to train Mexican workers to take our places.
In the meantime, a new McDonald's opened up the street. They're looking for engligh-speaking workers . . .
posted on October 31, 2002 10:56:26 AM new
I don't think we can blame the corporations or unions. Non-union labor can not compete with wages in third world countries, and if US corps do not take advantage of cheap labor, their non-US competitors will.
We were told that US workers were moving into higher paying IT jobs that couldn't be done in these cheap wage countries due to the lack of skill of the workers.
However, even IT jobs are moving to India and elsewhere. So much for having that BS degree in Computer Science.
The government needs to set up barriers to imports. But we can't even control people crossing our borders, much less goods.
posted on October 31, 2002 11:31:59 AM new
Reamond - Sorry if I appeared to come across as 'blaming' unions. My statement was to imply that because of unions we, American workers, were given better wages and benefits which then seems to have created the issue of companies seeking lower wage earners outside the US. Don't know that that's any clearer but it has added to the problem, as I see it.
For me it's just hard to come to terms with what we can do to change the way things are going. What would work? Until the whole world is making the same wages, I sure don't see this issue changing. The US has long been changing from a manufacturing/industrial country to a more 'service' related one.
posted on October 31, 2002 01:29:03 PM new
Linda_K & Reamond
Sadly, it may have very little to do with the wages themselves. The big money is saved by corporations in other areas. Mainly Work Safety Regualtions, Workmen's Comp, and Pollution Standards. Also, health benefits and unions. In Mexico, saying "union" is grounds for termination. Getting injured on the job is grounds for termination. Getting sick because of working conditions is grounds for termination. Refusing to dump a company's toxic waste into the drinking water is grounds for termination.
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I live in my own little world, but it is Okay...They know me here.
[ edited by mlecher on Oct 31, 2002 01:30 PM ]
posted on October 31, 2002 03:39:15 PM new
It sounds like as if the corporations are enjoying themselves at the Mexican people's expense. It sounds just like how the corporations used to treat American workers in the latter part of the nineteenth century and the first part of the twentieth century. Could this be their plan for us?
If you'll recall, it was the formation of the unions, blood, and violence that got us the 8-hour work day, the 40 hour work week, employment compensation, safe working conditions and much, much more that we all enjoy NOW. That so many people who enjoy the benefits of that unionization, blood, and violence now sit back and sneer at them, rail at them, wage a war of words and votes against them, is one of the most incredibly asinine things that I've seen. That I have no respect for anyone who holds such attitudes, whether they never learned about history and are ignorant of their position that they take against the unions, or they are aware and are such hypocrites - my feelings should be echoed by all. Yes, unions have problems. Yes, unions are corrupt (as compared to??) Yes, many unions are weak and helpless. Yes, yes, YES! BUT! HOWEVER! If it were not for them, the corporations would take back all of the ground that unions people have paid for in money and blood and that we so carelessly enjoy. Is it a conspiracy theory to assume that corporations want to roll-back all of those federal worker laws that they'd been railing against and to put us back to work as slaves again? Really. I'm asking you - is it?
posted on November 1, 2002 10:24:32 AM new
"Goodyear radiator hose plant closing to move the jobs to Mexico. US employees made $18 an hour, Mexican workers make $12.77 per day.
Same thing with a bearing plant in Indiana.
Two vaccum cleaner factories closing in Ohio and moving to Mexico.
And the poor need job training ??"
That's the point I addressed earlier. The Liberals created the Minimum wage law, making thousands of very low skilled workers in America unemployable at minimum wage. So where do American companies search for those very low skilled workers, Mexico. If you simply want to get those jobs back, abolish the minimum wage law.
Do the poor need job training? Well, it worked after WWII in manufacturing, and before WWII in the steel industry. The unskilled have priced themselves out of the current economy in those jobs. Unfortunately since we are in the information age, those jobs go to the highly skilled and the answer for the unsilled workers essentially means no jobs available unless we abolish the mininimum wage laws, which is like the income tax, once it starts it's impossible to end.
So, too bad. Liberals acted on emotion rather than rationality and now we have a worse problem, because now they are too arrogant to admit they errored and correct it. But unfortunately that means we will become a socialist country and it will drag our entire economy down, see Histroy of England. Is it any surprise that we are suffering from an outgo of millionaires to countries like Switzerand? Clinton tried to make a law to keep those Millionaires here by taxing the money leaving our country. Anyone with vision can see America is Doomed. Who is ging to be left investing in America when most of the Millionaires are gone? The Japanese? Wrong? America will become a dominate exporter as the Baby Boom generation retires, those countries will be come dominate importers which means no one is left to invest in America. That means far fewer jobs even for the skilled.
posted on November 1, 2002 10:40:51 AM new
That's a very interesting (to me) analysis. Is the answer really to abolish the minimum wage? If by abolishing the minimum wage and allowing unskilled workers to do skilled labor jobs, will that be putting downward wage pressures on skilled labor, or would wages for skilled labor stay as they are?
posted on November 1, 2002 04:00:37 PM new
Will abolishing the minimum wage law force a downward pressure in wages? No because no industry has a monopoly on the entire labor pool. What happens to the $8 worker who is replaced by the $2 worker? Does he take that $2 job or does he look for another industry that pays him $8 or more? If every industry was dying it would cause a swell of unemployed and that would cause a downward pressure on wages (supply and demand). However, the service industry is growing while the manufacturing industry is dying, so people who lose their job in one moves to the next growth area. This happened when our country went from Farming to Manufacturing.
Did Farm machinery cause a downward pressure on overall wages? no, because the demand in another industry ate up the supply of workers causing rising wages.
posted on November 1, 2002 05:18:10 PM new
Interesting. Very good points. As an example, let's say that all of the supermarkets get rid of the unions and gets rid of the minmum wage. Technically, the jobs are smilar and can compete for labor andsales on opposites sides of the same street corner.
Now, if Albertson's decides to lower their wages from $8 an hour to $2 an hour, what do you predict would happen? Can you predict what would happen if that was in a good economy and would that be any different in a poor economy?
posted on November 1, 2002 05:51:00 PM new
Only workers can agree to get rid of the union, and they'be smart not to.
In your example, I don't think you'd see a decrease in wages for a service job. Who would work for $2? A person who could process one customer every 45 minutes? The buyers wouldn't ever come back. The store's need skilled workers, and they need to pay them a good wage.
But let's take the example further anyway, if unions got broken up and all the supermarket stores dropped their wages to $2.00. What would happen- competition, maybe from the internet (they already exist in some form). Customers would seek better service. The way around it, add more checkouts. Instead of four checkouts there'd be forty checkouts. Since supermarkets are in prime locations that would be costly adding more real estate.
I gather there'd be a higher error rate and illness rate. A $2 worker can handle the same task over and over, but what happen when the task varies like a cashier handles?
I just don't see a max shift to $2.00 workers happening. Our country is also becoming more educated (higher percentage of people getting college educations) and these people will demand better paying jobs.
posted on November 1, 2002 07:50:40 PM new
OK. With all things being equal, in a "good" economy, all jobs are in good supply and there is a high demand for employees. For example, Safeway offers the $2.00/per hour job - who would apply for that? Probanbly no one, as the employee can easily go elsewhere and get an $8.00/per hour doing the same job at Albertson's, who had to raise their wages to meet supply.
But how about when the economy is "bad"? The reverse situation is usually true - all other things being equal. There are few jobs - $2.00/hour or otherwise! And there are many applicants for one job. Why should Safeway offer $8.00/hour like Albertson's does (who isn't hiring, because everyone grabbed the $8/hour job when the economy began to slide) to a qualified applicant when they can offer $2.00 to a qualified applicant? What choice does the applicant have? Turn her/his nose up and "wait" for better times?
Clearly, the state of the local economy helps to determine supply and demand of empoyees.
So, when the economy is BAD and the existing job base is shrinking, would a minimum wage hurt or be a benefit for employees, do you think?
posted on November 2, 2002 09:20:08 AM new
When the economy is bad it wouldn't change. Here we are in a recession and wages are going up depite tens of thousands of professionals being laid off. In the '30s Depression there also was no sign of downward wage pressure. Think about it, why would an employer want to hire a $2 worker, so the company can have someone less efficient? They want to hire the worker who is the most productive and they need to pay enough to attract that type.
Also, unemployed workers received unemployed benefits so they won't be desperate for work. They also have their pride and sense of self worth. You're not going to see workers who made $30,000 yr go work for $2.00.
Helenjw, what is your theory of the merits of minimum wage. To get workers to a level of wages they can live on? Can you live on $10,000 a year and support 3 kids? Minimum wage hasn't even kept up with inflation, it should be $7.50 an hour. That's the only merit of minimum wage and it has done nothing but kept the unskilled out of a job.
posted on November 2, 2002 12:59:20 PM new
Thank you, Helen. But I actually am trying to keep an open mind here and I want to hear exactly how ridding ourselves of the minimum wage laws will benefit workers instead of only employers. There are still many questions in my mind, so I won't presume to make a conclusion until we've discussed this far enough to figure out all of the angles. Clearly, I do need convincing, but like I said, I am keeping an open mind to the possibility that my mind needs to be changed on this issue.
posted on November 2, 2002 01:11:34 PM new
quickdraw, I'm trying to follow your reasoning. Let me see if I grok this correctly. IF there is a reason why there are a surplus of qualified applicants, say 10 qualified applicants for one job, you say that because of the necessity for qualified help, the employer is forced to pay a living wage; or, what the going rate is to retain one of the 10. Otherwise, all 10 will go elsewhere looking for better paying jobs. Right?
OK. Now if that is the case, allow me this. Since you brought into ur theoretical situation real facts, allow me to do the same thing. Here's an example:
Albertson's, Safeway, and Foodmart all have a store in town. Because there is no minimum wage, they have to pay the prevailing wage, otherwise qualified applicants will apply at a competitor who is paying more. However, as what usually happens all too often, the Big-3 secrectly get together and lower the job wages down to $2.00 from $8.00. That way, no matter where the potential employee goes to in town, they won't find a better paying job in this industry. They do this because stocking shelves is not rocket science and certainly, some good poential employees will move away from town to try to find better pickings. What is left may be the dregs, but these people have no choice to simply pick up and move away from town and are stuck getting $2.00 an hour, no matter how qualified that they are.
So, quickdraw, when the playing field is not level anymore - and coroporations thrive because they do find many ways to make the playing field unlevel, would removing the minum wage laws hurt or help peole when this happens? I mean, is there a way to both get rid of the minim wage laws AND insure that all employers will play fairly? If you can tell me how that will be posssible, that will go a longs ways towards my changing my support for minimum wage laws.
posted on November 2, 2002 04:00:31 PM new
You make it sound like these stores will lower their wages to $2 right after the minimum wage is abolished. So that all their skilled workers quit and they can hire back the unskilled? Grocery Store chains do not operate like that, people work their way up to the top. Are they going to attract the kind of worker they want if their top wage is $2?
Why don't all the chains drop their wages right now to minimum wage? What's stopping them? I don't understand why you think they would act differently without the law. The minimum wage has nothing to do with skilled workers, it's set up so the underskilled workers make a minimum wage.
posted on November 2, 2002 10:05:05 PM new
>Why don't all the chains drop their wages right now to minimum wage? What's stopping them?
They are unionized and it is the unions that stop them.
While we could be talking about any industry, I picked the grrocery chains as they figure quite nicely into examples, so I hope that you don't mind continuing in that vein.
For instance, we have the big grocery chains here in Portland. All are unionized, except one. The one that is not unionized (WinCo) pays minimum wages for the same semi-skilled jobs being paid $8.00/hr to $10.00/hr at the other chains. They get away with it just fine and the quality of worker is pretty much the same at minimum wage ot unionized living wages.
If this one non-unionized grocery store chain no longer had to have a minimum wage, what would stop them from lowering the wages even further to $2.00/hr?
posted on November 2, 2002 11:22:38 PM new
What would keep a nonunion company from lowering wages? The possible threat that the workers could form a union. I had worked at at nonunion job, and they made it clear from the start they would do certain things to make working there worthwhile so unions wouldn't be needed. Guess what? They held that promise. When we asked where our pay raise is after the second year, we got our raise with back pay.
There's another new company that wanted to be union free so they offered unheard of benefits that were very tempting and more than made up for the lower wage.
Winco is an employee owned company, I'd assume that means they are involved with profit sharing.
posted on November 2, 2002 11:51:32 PM new
"Independent research has shown that companies that are employee-owned:
Have higher employee wages
Have more substantial employee benefits
Have higher productivity rates
Enjoy higher levels of employee retention"
In my city, Winco clerks make $8.00 vs $11 at the union jobs at the other chains. However, union workers pay union dues and don't receive profits. Winco workers also have a class action suit to get Winco to raise their pay.
posted on November 3, 2002 12:00:01 AM new
Quickdraw, I'd like to continue this conversation. However, you are not answering my qestion, except with other questions. That is unfair of you to me. Please go back and answer my questions before you bring up new points.
posted on November 3, 2002 12:03:41 AM new
Winco is a deceiver. They get their employees to purchase common stock, not voting stock. The employees have no more of a say or interest in running the company than anyone out on the street who also purchase some shares of common stock. Winco doesn't educate them on this fact and instead, tells them how much they actually are part-owners of the company (LOL!) in order to surpress their wages. I have no respect for them as a corporation.
In contrast, when I first got out of the Navy and I worked for Radio Shack for a time, we purchased Voting Stock and we actually did have a say-so in running the company, albeit you'd have to attand the stockholder's meetings and boardroom meetings in Texas. >chuckle< But at least they didn't lie to us.
posted on November 3, 2002 12:37:59 AM new
Winco employees don't purchase the stock, it is given to them. Radio Shack is a public company, Winco is a private company. Private companies usually don't allow voting, while public companies have to.
Raleys, Safeway and Albertsons have high prices to afford paying their workers more. Another huge difference is that Winco usually has 10 lanes open while these others have two. Raleys etc workers have to extend more customer service therefore earn that extra pay. They usually do the work of two jobs, bagging groceries. Far different from the task Winco workers do.
posted on November 3, 2002 07:00:01 AM new
With so many contradictory and dopey statements, I believe that we've been taken for a stroll through the fantasyland of trolldom. We must be careful to keep our fairytale eyes and ears open. LOL!
[said jokingly]
We must be careful to keep our fairytale eyes and ears open. LOL!