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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsAmerican Workers Make Too Much Money
The US Chamber of Commerce, big business and the GOP think that Americans make too much money and have too many benefits. If you add up the rhetoric and watch the action that fact should be obvious. To the GOP $8 - $10 an hour is a middle class wage with plenty of money to raise a family and save for retirement. And the job does not have to be full time.
Every time you hear rhetoric about being globally competitive it is code for wage parity with the third world. Of course there are places in the third world where $50 a year is more than adequate. Even many Democrats use the same globalization meme. You simply cannot compete on a global level and pay American wages, even if it is $8 an hour. The math does not add up. And if the jobs do come back $12 an hour will be called "rich".
What is really going on with this election and candidates like Romney is that they plan to spend their time in their castles (i.e. private compounds and gated country club communities). All they want is all the power and all the money while they draw up the "drawbridges" over their modern moat while leaving the rest of the country to fend for itself.
And you wonder what is bothering OWS. The GOP even views the poor white trash who vote for them as expendable. I do not care if you are not truly poor and vote GOP. The billionaires and millionaires who fund the GOP believe even wealthier people are poor white trash. These same people are clueless about how they vote even for their own demise.
Even if you worked for free GOP types find that too expensive. They would rather you pay them for the privilege of working.
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onethatcares
(16,172 posts)on top of that the ptbs have convinced too many that those that have pensions and healthcare don't deserve them and rather than demand them for themselves, they demand those that have should give them up.
It's the wierdest fucking thing I've ever witnessed, next to * being appointed in 2000, that is.
shcrane71
(1,721 posts)Workers with no marketable skills work long work weeks at 2-3 low-paying jobs in order to make ends meat. Professional workers work long work weeks at salaried positions where they're tethered to their computers 24/7, or they risk losing their jobs -- I mean careers.
Trajan
(19,089 posts)It was the middle classes that helped make corporations rich .... Most of these businesses would NOT have even existed without working people, making a decent wage, making purchases exceeding their most basic needs, buying homes and durable goods to fill them. Many would have never even started without knowing the extra income was available in the marketplace to buy their goods and services ....
I personally don't have a problem with the rich being rich, per se .... If you work hard for something. and you gain well from that effort, you deserve it ..... The problem I have with 'income disparity' is not that the rich at the top are getting richer, but that the workers at the bottom and middle are NOT being paid for the value and wealth THEY contribute to the overall bottom line ...
CEO's arent getting paid too much - Workers are being paid too little ...
The wages paid working families in the lower and middle classes are the 'stimulus' that keeps the economy humming for everyone ...
Unfortunately, the rich have gotten so greedy they are willing to cut themselves off at the knees in order to minimize worker pay, and it is a detriment to the overall economy, and to their own bottom line, when they do so ....
Chinese workers making slave wages will not be buying enough American goods to make the rich any wealthier ... Indeed; it will cause most businesses to fail ...