It's not a strawman.

Jeff Bezos does what's best for him. You do what's best for you. And everyone else should do the same. I assure you, not many people are going to care for that paradigm.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

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Elections have consequences.

When you have a moment, pick a lane.

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Do you keep horeshit employees or dump them?

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CSFMB 2014 Nascar Pick 'em Champion

We don’t have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven’t taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much. — Ronald Reagan

There isnt much manufacturing left in Chicago, but Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Cincy, Detroit, Milwaukee, Minneapolis are all pretty strong for us right now.

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CSFMB 2014 Nascar Pick 'em Champion

We don’t have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven’t taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much. — Ronald Reagan

IDk but my thought was I would be able to look at many company's average pay, union status, number of labor complaints and other stuff. I am going out on a limb here and assume labor has more numbers than baseball reference.com.

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Elections have consequences.

When the topic is global warming, you support the 10 deniers over the 20,000 on the other side.

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Good people drink good beer - Hunter S. Thompson

<º)))><

Waiting for the time when I can finally say
That this has all been wonderful, but now I'm on my way

Ha. Now that a funny.

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Soccer 1,2,3
Spanish Honor Society 1,2,3,4
Forensics 1,2,3,4

"Smiles with Nostrils"

"...no Hmong, go find some blacks"

I don't hire horseshit employees.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

I don't either, but I have inherited bad employees after a reorganization & they didnt last long in my organization.
So you have never fired anyone?

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CSFMB 2014 Nascar Pick 'em Champion

We don’t have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven’t taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much. — Ronald Reagan

Yeah. I didn't like doing it though.

I was giving you a smart ass answer. But I do believe the best time to deal with problems is before you hire them. When you hire an assbag, that's on you as much as it's on the goof you hired. A friend of mine works with a C-level executive who has made four consecutive brutal hires for the same highly paid managerial position. At what point do his feet get held to the fire? I realize it's not quite as easy when you have 30,000 employees. The most I've ever had to deal with is just over 100 and I knew every one personally.

I'm not a very talented guy. The one "gift" I have is an innate ability to quickly size up people. It's served me very well. On those occasions when I've ignored my feelings about a person, I've always come to regret it.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

As I said in an earlier post, I believe Americans are indoctrinated into identifying with the employer. The employer has been romanticized as a brave, risk-taking, brilliant entrepreneur. Most people aspire to be owners of something. So the affinity for ownership is natural.

The truth is that nobody makes that fortune alone. If you go back to when many great American fortunes were made, they were created on the backs of workers (sometimes on the backs of slaves). Now we leap forward several generations and nobody is irate that the descendants of the guys who "made" those fortunes are playing golf or lying on a beach. No, they save their anger for the descendants (literal and/or figurative) of the guys who worked in his factory and who now have union jobs.

That billionaire likes nothing better than to take the money those lowly workers helped him make and to use it to automate those workers (and/or their descendants) out of jobs. And that's applauded as "progress" and "good business". So the workers band together and demand something beyond an hourly rate for dedicating their lives to this man and making his future generations wealthy and the middle class guy is inexplicably mad about that.

That's how we have jobs like "fireman" that still exist even though there is no longer coal to shovel. And workingmen who aren't lucky enough to have that job, which was negotiated by a union and now consists of pushing a few buttons, will actually rail against it as an "inefficiency" as if they are Smithers looking out for the interests of Mr. Burns.

Henry Ford was a cocksucker, but he knew that he could manufacture all the cars in the world and it wouldn't do him any good if there weren't workers out there making enough money to buy them.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

Here is the perfect example of where the free market fails. Many people care so much about a 30 cent savings on a 12 pack of soap that they are willing to basically say "I don't care how they do it, I need that extra $7 I get off on the end of my bill".

I mean, it's totally fair for pittmike to shop at the place that gives him the cheapest stuff though I'd have to guess that he's not living paycheck to paycheck. In a perfect world though, he'd realize that being among the group of people who put cents saved over the welfare of the workers has a negative effect on the workforce in general and puts the company in a position where they are required to cater to him or someone else will. The solution to that: government setting the rules so that pittmike's desire for low prices doesn't put a company in a position where they can pay wages below a living wage to placate him.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

We have already had the minimum wage thread. I am not sure what other government rules you would want. Like France? My soap isn't the big thing for me anyway I can survive. When you add all the stuff up a family of four or five consumes (especially with teens) it is not a small savings. As I said me protesting will change nothing. If/when it changes I guess I will deal with it then.

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Elections have consequences.

You brought up Wal-Mart!

Anyways, I want the government to force companies to pay enough that their employees aren't on welfare.
...and that is the point. You won't admit it, but you enjoy the fact that you can acquire cheaper goods because of how Wal-Mart treats employees. You say that nothing you can do as an individual will change that which is true. That is why it needs to be done by the government especially for places like Wal-Mart that have no way of outsourcing the work.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

*SNIFF*

I am not doing the walmart thing or minimum wage thing again. Just state something definitively for once over and above minimum wage which the government can do to change it.

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Elections have consequences.

I'll address this. It's because many Americans desire and admire success. Why the hell would people try to identify with the homeless guy on UIC's campus? The kids on the playground want to be MJ or LeBron. The people at Harvard Business School want to be Gates or Bezos. We want their fast cars, large houses, fancy vacations, and hot girlfriends. This country has always had the romantic attachment to the belief that you can be anything you want to be. Now we all know that it is not accurate. However, it is true that if you relentlessly pursue your God given talents, you have a good chance of being successful. "I find that the harder I work, the luckier I am."

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Hawaii (fuck) You

Now you did it. The downtrodden are not working hard.

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Elections have consequences.

Im not sure that describes everyone and are those good things to want?


Im not much of a materialist (partially by choice)

You're correct. If I generalize, some people will not fit the mold. I am making a broad statement on the material desires of America. I think I am safe in saying many folks pursue material things in this country.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

Well, minimum wage is big for obvious reasons.

I'd also fine Wal-Mart(and others) the full amount that their employees receive on government assistance.
I'd also start enforcing the many employment laws that they are already breaking.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Well good luck I hope it works.

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Elections have consequences.

I doubt it will. Too many people value savings over workers.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Rick, I thought of you when reading recent articles about raising the minimum wage vs. earned income tax credits and government transfers. The UK government has been proposing a fresh minimum wage increase. So the Economist has been running articles on the costs and benefits of minimum wage hikes vs boosting income top up schemes. It determined that the loss of employment (mainly through automation) makes it preferable for income top up schemes. They say that 70% of benefits of income top up flow to workers.

I think you make a valid argument about employers effectively being subsidized by government assistance. However, economists seem to think that the EITC is the best way to encourage low income people to take jobs over staying on welfare schemes.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

You say that like it's a good thing. Is it?

And they hate low income workers anyway. Many believe that welfare cheats are the reason for any and all economic problems in the U.S.

The problem with an EITC is that it still shifts the burden from companies to taxpayers and still rewards companies for employing people at a wage that they otherwise couldn't live on.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

But let's try to get deeper and go beyond the paradigm that all of us (obviously) were raised in. Why do we want those things? Why do we equate them with "success"? And as Bryan asks, is it a good thing that we do?

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

It's very similar to blaming welfare cheats (most of whom are figments of Ronald Regan's imagination) while cheering T. Boone Pickens for the tax breaks he negotiated as "good business". Like the real life example I stated earlier of the C-level guy who has made a bad hire for the same position four times over the last five years. I believe three of those fuckers are still on the payroll. But that C-level guy gets a pat on the head and a fat bonus. It's not his fault. And Hussra doesn't blame him because he has to pay more for two day delivery of his copy of Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung. He blames the guy who took a deep breath between taping up boxes and "stole" time from poor Jeff Bezos.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don