Man I hate them.

Don't hate those sniveling greedy little b@st@rds (gotta be careful on DU). They have mistresses (or the equivalent in PC talk), kids at the finest schools that money can buy, fine houses around the world to maintain.

They are just the messengers of the corruption of this system. Now, I'm not sure how to address an email to the actual masters of the universe. I'm sure they're at the end of this list of on-shore/off-shore related, subordinated, family-owned, church-related, non-profit ENTERPRISES.

GOP=

absolutely agree

They don't care about us. They really don't.

IMPERIAL PRESIDENCY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

First - with reagan. Then bush 1. And CERTAINLY, bush 2. And you know jeb doesn't feel well-dressed - and won't - unless HE gets his little king's crown, too. He certainly doesn't want to be the pauper in THAT "royal court." I strongly suspect dubya felt the need to one-up his dad. Now, the unfortunate jebbie needs to double down on THAT "double-down," and go BOTH his dry-drunk war criminal brother AND his father one better.

And I DESPISE that term "double down" in the political context. I always wonder where that one came from, as it arose in the run-up to the so-called "surge" with our lovely philandering general petraeus. Remember hearing it all the time - how that fucking squatter in the White House wanted to "double down" in Iraq. Made him sound all macho and gutsy and everything, painting him as some sort of ballsy, hot 007-style high-roller in Vegas or Monte Carlo or some such thing. Always wondered who came up with that one, because all of a sudden that talking point flowered and sprouted all over the airwaves, every anchor, every Pentagon correspondent, every everywhere. I bet it came from frank luntz or the somewhere else in the bowels of the RNC.

I feel I'm missing something here. Wouldn't raising the threshold at which employers are required to pay overtime remove overtime benefits from lower-paid workers? I'm not trying to be argumentative here, I'm genuinely confused.

you don't pay them overtime. The proposal is to raise it to $52,000. In other words, if you have a salary position making up to $52,000 you would qualify for over time pay. It's easy to cheer "YAYYY MORE MONEY FOR THE WORKERRRRRR!!" However, I work a salary position and this will be very harmful. Not every business is a fortune 500. Just arbitrarily doubling a pay threshold is going to cause many people to lose their job, I may be one of them.

The work still needs to be done, yes? How would firing you solve the problem?

I could see them maybe having to hire another person to do the extra work...maybe part time, if they didn't want to pay you...?

You do realize they aren't saying the individual's pay is doubled..
Just the threshold for qualifying for that overtime pay, as opposed to being a salaried person working eighty hours a week for 23K because they are called "managers." I always thought that was wrong.

I live in an area where the cost of living is very low. A decent 3br house will rent for around $600. Here, 23,000 is a GOOD job and you can live well on it. Correspondingly, the "big" businesses here are small when compared nationally. The company I work for has a lot of salaried positions to divide managerial work because we operate 24/7/365. Some of these positions are sub-managerial like leads, if the overtime threshold is doubled they will eliminate those positions and divide the workload between the remaining managers and employees. There are many salary positions in many companies that you wouldnt consider "necessary" to the existence of the company. As in, the company wouldnt stop functioning without them. Those jobs exist because of convenience and a cost-vs-benefit relationship. If you have ever worked in a payroll department it would be clear that not all corporations are the size of exxon, and they are not all sitting on big piles of cash that they just keep for themselves.

If expenses are low where you live, then wages are, too. They can hire a few part time workers and maybe try to do a few things more efficiently.

It's never the end of the world...wages have been stagnating for decades now. It's time for a reset, and that's true if you live in northern Maine or Mississippi, or New York or Newark. This proposal will benefit thousands for every one person that might have a problem, likely owing to a stubborn employer who can't adjust his paradigm.

Right now, "managers" are paid shit wages and routinely stuck working the equivalent of two jobs for one paycheck. That's just wrong.

Remember that Papa John's owner who sqwawked about the ACA because it would raise the cost of his shitty, acidic pizza seven or fifteen cents? Well, the world didn't end for his crummy business, either...and his customers have less chance of catching something nasty because the employees are sick and can't afford to see the doctor.

And every legislation that improves the lives of people on low incomes comes accompanied with threats that it will cost jobs. It never does (no, those four restaurants in Seattle don't count - restaurants close all the time).

He's a great President. Great Administration. Amazing what he has accomplished for working people in spite of so many opponents and detractors.

and appreciate such universal gifts!

Aloha, lovemydog~

Always has. Always will.

Thank you EarlG.

labor bond fides of President Obama, anyone else notice that?

The warrior for the middle class is exactly that.

That's not to say I support the TPP.

But those who have spent seven years doing very little here other than trash President Obama, I'm pretty wary of getting with their program when they try and convince on a lot of other things.

Kick and Recommend.

It is congresses job to raise the federal minimum wage ($12) Then all the States have to at least match $12.

President Obama, wish we could have you in the WH for a 3rd term.

great idea to begin with but what I really don't understand is how it becomes enforcible without being a law.

Saw the video movie out of the local library called the ‘Sons of Liberty’. The interesting moment was a speech by Sam Adams that resonated with the words in objection to being ruled by King George.

Also a narration that explicitly says governments that breach the bounds in the original American Constitution to a direction which is contrary to the electorate will need to be abolished, or replaced.

Good reason to dump the GOP Congress.

Interesting, in that many could argue we are at that point in history. For many should not ignore the elite class that essentially taxed the American citizen in a huge major economic swindle similarly as that of a tyrant or king would declare in a public declaration.

Unfortunately President Obama as a key player still has time to redeem what many consider a critical marketing and political science economic crime in war lies, torture, and housing failure.

George Bush and Cheney lied in a criminal economic artistry paints a grand spectacle in political crime in a new age of terror and identity theft with George Bush personal painting pictures that makes the old world king George very much alike Bush himself, a tyrant.