Holland, MI ?
Are you an American employee? If so, today?s column will likely offend you. If you?d rather not be offended, read no further. If you continue and then complain, I?m sorry, but that simply proves you?re, well, stupid. But then again, stupidity plays a large role in today?s topic.
Still reading? OK. You?ve had fair warning.
So you?re an American employee. Maybe you make car parts. Maybe you?re an engineer or designer. Maybe you?re an accountant, store clerk or tradesman. Whatever you do, you?re probably stupid or lazy. Yes, I wrote it, and I mean it. You are either stupid or lazy. Maybe both.
Now, I?m not referring to your work ethic or job performance. No, most of you are competent and devoted to your profession or vocation. I?m addressing the way you view economics and employment. I?m challenging your gumption to advocate for yourself and your fellow Americans. Here?s what I mean.
Remember the Reagan standard? Are you better off today than you were a decade ago? Two decades? Three? Unless you make more than $380,000 a year, the answer is no. In fact, your standard of living over the last quarter century has actually decreased while millionaires have added 30 percent to their net wealth. Why? Two reasons.
First, hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs went overseas while the politicians you elected did nothing to stop them. Yet you continue to elect leaders who offer nothing but tax cuts, as if that would stem the flow of disappearing jobs.
Did you demand your leaders address America?s trade imbalance or continuous outsourcing of jobs? Did you demand your leaders require foreign countries to buy a dollar?s worth of American goods for every dollar of goods they sell here?
No and no. You didn?t bother. You simply crossed your fingers and prayed, ?I hope my job?s not next.? You made concessions to your employer and hoped that would stem the exodus of jobs, or at least yours. How?d that work for you?
Second, you bought into the myth that unions are the cause of America?s demise. You didn?t bother to learn America became a world power when union membership was at its peak. You didn?t bother to learn America became the envy of the world while 1 of every 3 Americans was a union member.
So, how are things going for you? How do your benefits compare to a quarter century ago? Are you paying a higher or lower percentage of your income for health insurance? Does your company offer a pension plan, or do you now fund your own 401(k)?
Maybe you?re thinking, ?I?m not a union worker, so this doesn?t affect me.?
Stop being stupid. Union benefits provide a standard other companies have to match, or at least come close to. When those benefits are cut, yours are, too. Or do you think you operate in your own little employment vacuum?
To make matters worse, you?re again being played for a chump. The same puppets who did nothing while your standard of living decreased are now using the oldest gimmick in the book ? jealousy ? to continue their assault on American workers. Rather than protect Americans? jobs, they deflect your attention through jealousy.
?Cut the pay of government workers,? they cry. ?Increase their health premiums. Decrease their pensions. Break their unions. After all, you?ve suffered so they should suffer too.? And in your misery, you buy their argument while more jobs head oversees. Pretty stupid, eh?
If their antics weren?t so pathetic, if the consequences weren?t so dire, if they didn?t prey on your stupidity, and if you didn?t buy into their convoluted reasoning, this whole situation would be laughable. But of course it?s not.
I warned you I?d likely offend you, and I suspect I did. But once you overcome your anger, consider my analysis. Then, either wise up and do something about it, or resign yourself to a lower standard of living for the next decade.
Sometimes things just get fustrating in life. Here we are, taking on water, listing to port, we'll need a tug to dry port for this one pal, we're dead in the water.
I agree. I'm working a federal job and my last check take home was slightly in excess of $1,400 for the week. Does include 5 hours overtime but a person can live on that kind of money fairly comfortably. It really is a shame whats happening out there though. Too much complacency. It has to come to a head at some point though. Petitions are circulating and I think people will begin to get fired up at some point. But when? Good article Blucher. Thanks for sharing!
It's amazing that the more we push these failed policies the worse it gets for the average worker but yet we as a whole cannot make the connection. I don't agree with all of the above but I do agree we need to have a serious discussion about what rights a worker should have, why is it unfair for an employee to have a specialist on their side bargaining for them when the company has the same thing?
why is it unfair for an employee to have a speciaiast on their side bargaining for them when the company has the same thing?
I listened to an interview with a Wal-mart woman who is part of the current Supreme Court Case. She nailed it when asked why a class action instead of her suing by herself. She called Wal-mart "an 800 lb. gorilla with best lawyers money can buy".
I liked the article because it hits on one area repeated too often in others. case in point, when lawyers obtained permission to advertise the decent lawyers should have insisted it be an ad rather than the present soliciting liars to sue for money.
When personal injury lawyers began suing doctors for petty crap neither the physicians nor other attorneys cried foul. I'd love to hear how much of the "cost" of medicine is CYA over testing or medical insurance.
What the &%#!@* happened to honor?
Some of it looks more like soliciting a felony.
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I'll believe corporations are persons when Texas executes one.: LBJ's Ghost
The myth of supply-side economics can be refuted in a single sentence:
A million people making $30 an hour will buy far more cars, refrigerators, televisions, houses, living room sets, and food than one person making $30 million an hour.
Why on earth would a business owner create a job just because he or she got a tax break? Why would he or she just hire someone despite having nothing for that person to do? Jobs need a reason to exist, and that reason is demand; customers walking through that door with cash in hand wanting to buy what you're selling. Transfer the wealth of those customers up to the top 1% and businesses will suffer. It doesn't matter how many tax breaks you'll give them, if they don't have customers walking through that front door, they're going to go under.
Not only are we already giving the biggest corporations and billionaires the lowest tax rates in the industrialized world, not only are we giving them enough loopholes so companies like GE can actually pay ZERO taxes and billionaires like Warren Buffet can have a lower tax rate than their secretaries, we are actually PAYING them billions in corporate welfare on top of it!
And they still want more. More, more, more from the working poor of America. 'Yes, we took your nice factory job that allowed you to live a comfortable middle-class living and moved it over to China, but we made up for it with all those great Wal-Mart jobs, so we're, like, totally solid, right?' They want to raid the public coffers, now. Ask yourself, if these Emergency Financial Managers appointed by Fhrer, sorry, GOVERNOR Snyder were really put in place to save the budget, why did the Republicans on the state legislature REJECT a measure that would limit their salaries to $177,000 a year? How is you the tax payer being forced to pay an UNELECTED financial manager with the power to ABOLISH your local, democratically-elected government an UNLIMITED amount of money make any sense whatsoever? Can you say taxation without representation?
And why didn't Snyder say ANYTHING about cutting the budgets of schools and giving himself the power to unilaterally dismiss your vote for mayor or city council or school board in the name of 'fiscal emergency' when he was campaigning? Because he wouldn't have gotten elected, that's why. The 'I have utter contempt for the democratic process and will work to abolish it on the local level' platform isn't generally a popular one.
Notice that those who force-feed you the mantra that government can never do anything right, government can never work, government can never solve any problem whatsoever, are the same people who want to RUN THE GOVERNMENT! So of COURSE the government isn't going to function very well when it's run by the people whose deep-seated beliefs depend on it not functioning so.
The reason they're doing this is because there is one fact of our country that scares them and the rest of those in the power elite: one person, one vote. Donald Trump's vote counts no more and no less than the vote of a poor single mother from the ghetto. That scares them. It scares them because there are way more of us than there are of them. So they're lying to us. They're using their massive resources to fund a campaign of lies. 'Just give us a little more money and a little more time, and it will trickle down, we promise!' Yeah, it trickles down all right, in China. Instead of simply paying higher wages, they'll put that money in the bank and other financial schemes, and then you can just get a loan when you need to buy a car, or a refrigerator, or a new furnace when yours breaks down in the middle of winter. People used to have enough money to save, and being in debt was something embarrassing, shameful. Now, it's a damn necessity. Instead of dipping into your savings to buy a car, you have to get a loan. And in the end, you end up paying more. And if you ever, EVER screw up, even just a little bit, they'll plunge your credit rating into the bottomless pits of hell so fast you can't even think straight. Then, if, IF you can get a loan, your interest rates will be 20, no, 25, no, 30 percent! And you'll accept it, you have to accept it, because you need whatever it is you're going to buy. There's no getting around it.
Wake up. The super-wealthy are not your friends. They are not looking out for you. They are looking to exploit you. They want you to surrender the power of your vote to them. So they're tricking you into believing that unions are inherently evil and being a union worker means you are worth less than what you're getting paid. They're tricking you into believing that participating in your democracy is a waste of time. They hate and are out to destroy any institution where the public pools its resources in order to counter the power of the wealthy elite. They hate and are out to destroy any institution where officials at the top have limits on their power, where they are accountable to the public for what they do. They are doing this because they think being rich makes them better than you, and because they were able to acquire more currency than you, they are worth more as human beings and should be given special privileges for it.
The author of this article is right. You're buying it. But that doesn't make you stupid, or ignorant. You just don't have time to worry about it. You're busy, and things have been getting worse, and only one side has been giving you answers. The other side has been quiet and dumbfounded. The other side has stayed silent for the last few decades, providing no counter to the rhetoric and the lies. The other side has refused to use religious and racial hatred as a way to drum up support from its base. Just to be clear, I'm not talking about political parties. Their ideals and goals change over time. The Democrats of the early 1900s sound little different than the Republicans of today. Regardless of what party affiliation each side has taken over the years, one side has always championed progress, inclusion, and harmony, while the other side has taught that we should simply accept the evils of our world and do nothing to change them.
I liked this response better than the article itself.
I agree. I'm working a federal job and my last check take home was slightly in excess of $1,400 for the week. Does include 5 hours overtime but a person can live on that kind of money fairly comfortably. It really is a shame whats happening out there though. Too much complacency. It has to come to a head at some point though. Petitions are circulating and I think people will begin to get fired up at some point. But when? Good article Blucher. Thanks for sharing!
Wow my tax dollars hard at work again. I work 40 hours a week with 10 hours overtime a week and you take home way more than me. Guess I should be doing the "man's" work instead.
one person, one vote. Donald Trump's vote counts no more and no less than the vote of a poor single mother from the ghetto. That scares them. It scares them because there are way more of us than there are of them. So they're lying to us.
In theory this works but it seems to require the odd guiottine.
There's a saying, "In France the government fears the people, In the US the people fear the government."
It's true, cutting off a few heads does wonders for the attention span. Kent State, the Bonus riots, the Whiskey Rebellion and Pullman strikes were all about our government killing us. Perhaps we lack balance?
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I'll believe corporations are persons when Texas executes one.: LBJ's Ghost
Wow my tax dollars hard at work again. I work 40 hours a week with 10 hours overtime a week and you take home way more than me. Guess I should be doing the "man's" work instead.
Are you pro union or no? Everyone should fight for better wages not reduction of wages in my opinion.
better wages but from healthy companies. Many unions understood markets were changing and adjusted wages to keep jobs. When Detroit was getting rich off muscle cars and gas guzzlers the workers did well too.
Management & labor should not always be in adversarial relationships. Most people on any shop floor can tell you endless tales of management not being in touch with how the shop actually makes the product. In many cases they do this *despite management*.
That's simply stupidity. Let's find out how to make a better product both inexpensively but without sacrificing quality. In turn the shareholders will benefit today and for years to come.
For too long corporations reward failure with golden parachutes for the guy who just lost the company millions but the fired shop worker gets an escort to the door.
Fire the da**ed dead wood at both top and bottom but don't reward either of them!
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I'll believe corporations are persons when Texas executes one.: LBJ's Ghost
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