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(20,453 posts)Much needed and certainly we have a good model in this country for doing this previously
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/fdr-creates-the-wpa
Glassunion
(10,201 posts)Where's the money to be made by the MIC, big pharma, the gun industry and Walmart?
That trillion could be way better spent blowing the shit out of a country half way around the world.
cyberswede
(26,117 posts)Let's do it!
Doctor_J
(36,392 posts)TBF
(32,017 posts)we can tax appropriately and put folks to work ... or we can get ready for the revolution that will inevitable result from overwhelming income inequality.
Initech
(100,043 posts)randys1
(16,286 posts)Dustlawyer
(10,494 posts)Cha
(296,881 posts)Dems to get out and vote in the Midterms.
djean111
(14,255 posts)contracts over a certain amount MUST be offered world-wide, and that we cannot specify American materials or American workers. This might already be in place, but the trade agreements leave no stone unturned.
As far as saying well, foreign workers will at least spend money here - when I worked with H-1b visa contractors in IT, they lived 4 or 5 guys to an apartment, splitting the rent, they split the cost of one rental car and the utilities, never went out to lunch, and quite a few sent most of their money home, and got an allowance. So I have to laugh a bit at the assertion that at least foreign workers will spend a lot of money into our economy.
We would need a president like Bernie, and a non-Centrist or corporate-beholden Congress to override things like this.
B Calm
(28,762 posts)eligibility would be another!
Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)in the new Bagger Congress?
And how the mass media will applaud the job creators of the GOP and vilify and hate on Obama as he vetoes this massive job creation bill of the oil barons....even as they ignore the crumbling infrastructure begging to be fixed with 10 year Treasuries at 2%....
PDJane
(10,103 posts)After it spills, explodes, pollutes the water......sure.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)They'd take it to the Supreme Court building which was BUILT by FDR's WPA.
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)Absurd I know. I guess all those people in the military are working for the Kochs. They wish.
99Forever
(14,524 posts)But, if memory serves me correctly, we didn't get a jobs program when Democrats controlled both houses of Congress and the Presidency. What chance does it have of happening within the next two years?
I LOVE Senator Bernie, but I'm not holding my breath.
daleanime
(17,796 posts)99Forever
(14,524 posts)What the hell is it with people reading bull shit into other people's comments that aren't even close to being there?
daleanime
(17,796 posts)That's not intended to be dismissive?
And what is this with people actually reading your posts and responding? You would think their were trying to understand your opinion or something.
99Forever
(14,524 posts)You didn't respond to what I said, you made up what you thought I "intended" and snarked me about that.
At least be honest about it. FFS. Or is that too much to ask?
daleanime
(17,796 posts)which is what these posts are, it can not be seen as any thing but dismissive for some one to join the talk just to say...it's not realistic.
I don't know how that can be called 'snark', but I do like the call for honesty. I honesty want to know where that anger is coming from.
PS-thank you for google work out.
99Forever
(14,524 posts)I said I was realistic. Why do you insist making things up and ascribing them to me?
daleanime
(17,796 posts)FFS indeed.
99Forever
(14,524 posts)Online "mood analysis" via word usage?
If someone actually makes me angry, you seriously think that I would hesitate to tell them so? Neither you nor anyone else "on the net" has that sort of power over me. So, keep on pretending to know what or how I'm "feeling," if you must, that's irrelevant to what's real.
daleanime
(17,796 posts)as you make me out to be. Since I use words like that when I'm ticked off, it seems like a given that some one else using it may feel the same.
If I'm wrong about that, and you're not saying that I am, you have my best apologies.
pipi_k
(21,020 posts)which is what these posts are, it can not be seen as any thing but dismissive for some one to join the talk just to say...it's not realistic.
Is that what passes for "conversation" these days?
"Don't bother responding unless you agree with me and everyone else"
??????
You know what would make for some interesting conversation?
ASKING someone with a different opinion some questions and then actually giving the person a chance to make a point that can be discussed instead of having a thread full of people all saying basically the same damned thing.
daleanime
(17,796 posts)How do questions equal "Don't brother responding unless you agree with me and everybody else"? Questions by definition are request for information, yes? Feel free to disagree, but if you do so please tell us why.
Which since you have it in quotations must be from some one else, could you tell me who?
X_Digger
(18,585 posts)My father is in construction, and has a hell of a time finding competent labor.
He pays well for SW Virginia, ($11-$13 per hour to start, based on experience) and he goes through a few guys a month.
Some come to work stoned or drunk, some can never be at work on time, some work a few days, figure out it's hard work and quit, some can't be taught (or refuse to learn).. Maybe one in ten actually work out. He loses money on the nine that don't.
B Calm
(28,762 posts)X_Digger
(18,585 posts)What makes you think that 'infrastructure reconstruction' wouldn't provide similarly priced jobs?
WPA provided jobs that were actually paid *below* the market value of their labor, and still duration was limited. Those were the conditions placed on passage of the act to begin with.
B Calm
(28,762 posts)X_Digger
(18,585 posts)No? Didn't think so.
Hint: The average in residential construction starts out at about $9. Commercial? Maybe $10.
Check the want ads for Wytheville, Bristol, or Abingdon, Va.
Heck, check this table- http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_va.htm#49-0000
Carpenter's Helper- mean is $12.54, statewide.
*sigh* Why I even bother, sometimes I wonder.
B Calm
(28,762 posts)X_Digger
(18,585 posts)Free clue- unskilled labor is unskilled. Nationwide, the mean is $13.20.
You actually get paid more for knowing how to do shit, mmkay? (Not sure what industry you "work" in, if any, but that's generally how these things go.) As you "learn" these things called "skills".. you earn more money.
Maybe you become a framer, or a roofer, or a mason, or an electrician. Then you get more money, ya? See how this works?
Or you can sit on your ass and stay unskilled labor the rest of your life, and whine that it's totally unfair that this other guy makes more money than you do.
What a fucking joke.
B Calm
(28,762 posts)X_Digger
(18,585 posts)He's self-employed, and makes about $45k on a good year. Most years, he clears about $35k.
$26k per year in SW Va is close to or above the mean for the area, so it's a liveable wage there.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_locations_by_per_capita_income
Abingdon? $22,486.
Bristol? $17,311
Wytheville? $20,223
Go ahead, tell me that paying *unskilled* labor *above* the mean is not a 'livable wage'.
*drops mic*
B Calm
(28,762 posts)But employers never lie or cheat on taxes, so you may be telling the truth.
X_Digger
(18,585 posts)Construction in SW Va is a feast or famine industry.
I still remember finding used cars to buy in the fall that we could rebuild over the winter, so that we could sell them to make ends meet. Nobody gets their windows replaced when it's 30 degrees outside.
B Calm
(28,762 posts)should live in squalor because they didn't better themselves.
X_Digger
(18,585 posts)$11-$13/hr is by no means 'squalor' in SW Va. That is more than twice the federal poverty level for an individual-
http://familiesusa.org/product/federal-poverty-guidelines
Or are you just trying (unsuccessfully) to be disingenuous? Weak sauce, if so.
B Calm
(28,762 posts)X_Digger
(18,585 posts)Go ahead, tell me how more than the median income in an area, that's 250% of the federal poverty level.. is 'squalor'.
Please, proceed.
B Calm
(28,762 posts)you'll convince someone!
X_Digger
(18,585 posts)Have a cookie..
B Calm
(28,762 posts)99Forever
(14,524 posts)And he can't figure out why he doesn't get and keep competent, reliable help?
Doesn't sound like the sharpest tool in the shed to me.
X_Digger
(18,585 posts)Check the link I just pasted above.
Lol.
99Forever
(14,524 posts)And it still answers the question as to why he can't get and keep quality craftsmen. Crap wages like that won't even keep marginal construction workers coming to work. The proof is of that is, his own experience trying to do so. People making decent wages and benefits, under decent working conditions, with decent supervisors, show up for work and do a great job.
I've been employed by those that expect a maximum effort for a minimum wage mentality, guess what I did when the first opportunity to go elsewhere happened? Employers that take good care of their people, don't have problems getting and keeping quality help. Those that exploit their people? They are forever griping about "the lazy bums that don't show up."
X_Digger
(18,585 posts)You think that the guy in the OP's picture pushing hot asphalt with a rake pays $50k annually? Bwahaha. The guy running the asphalt machine probably makes about $35k per year, if he's lucky.
75% of my dad's crew / contractors started out as unskilled labor. Guess who trained them to be roofers, electricians, plumbers, drywall guys, framers, and masons? That's right, my dad. I can name at least three different companies that have been started by someone my dad took under his wing.
He pays *more* than others around him for unskilled labor, and *still* ends up losing money on them. They aren't "quality craftsmen"-- at least not yet. He'd turn them into that, if they'd bother to show up sober and on time.
jen63
(813 posts)or federal jobs, prevailing wages apply. They pay quite a bit higher than privately contracted jobs. Hard work, granted, but at least they are paid an above average wage.
X_Digger
(18,585 posts)One summer in college, I got on with a crew that was installing guard rails on a state highway in Tennessee. (State contract, with federal highway funds.) If I recall, it was either $8 or $9 per hour (this would have been.. umm.. 1993? 1994?).
Assuming that http://www.calculator.net/inflation-calculator.html is correct, that would be ~$13.30 in today's dollars.
jen63
(813 posts)Prevailing wages means that sub contractors are required to add health and welfare hourly and retirement hourly. Brings the base salary up quite a bit. What those workers choose to do with the extra is up to them.
daleanime
(17,796 posts)99th_Monkey
(19,326 posts)If we did this we might not have enough money to fight endless wars in the Middle East.
MadDAsHell
(2,067 posts)before the Minnesota bridge incident in 2007 and "crumbling infrastructure" became a buzz phrase. I guess it makes a nice bumper sticker slogan but it cost human lives to get it.
Not to mention I'm guessing this would have been a lot cheaper to do before things were actually collapsing.
Ramses
(721 posts)NewDeal_Dem
(1,049 posts)the unemployed because the economy's sooooo good.
lol.
Gothmog
(144,945 posts)DrDan
(20,411 posts)Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)Revenue. To do this we need revenue. Or, we need to redirect military spending to domestic projects.
aikoaiko
(34,163 posts)He is a senator and he can demonstrate leadership by writing a bill and whipping up the votes.
If its not possible, then why bother, Bernie?
RiverLover
(7,830 posts)along with the TPP.
http://www.mintpressnews.com/obama-ready-defy-base-order-advance-trans-pacific-partnership/199643/
Rex
(65,616 posts)Much better to spend that trillion on the MIC or Wall Street doncha know!
spanone
(135,795 posts)worse fucking interstate highway in the country...I-65 south of indianapolis....just drove it
B Calm
(28,762 posts)WillyT
(72,631 posts)AtomicKitten
(46,585 posts)Democrats should emulate Bernie (and Elizabeth ) and NOT the GOP.
Cha
(296,881 posts)more Dems didn't get out and vote in the Midterms.
leeroysphitz
(10,462 posts)And we can't have that.