not so golden arches
 

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/low-wage-...n-mcdonalds-hq

I can't help but think McDonalds is having sales issues due to all the bad publicity regarding worker pay and other practices.

Guess no job is better than working for under $15 especially when a machine can do the job better. Although what a bonanza for skilled workers who will develop, manufacture and service the machines. Amazing how the government f'k's up virtually everything and anything it gets involved in when it pertains to private business but at least there's somewhat of a happy ending to this move, for everyone but minimum wage earners. :$:

http://conservativetribune.com/la-ra...ge/#more-78965

Except of course that none of the states who have raised the minimum wage so far have seen their economies come crashing down and it's unlikely LA will, either.

http://www.thenation.com/article/181...age-kill-jobs#

As this article points out, the answer to "does raising minimum wage kill jobs" is pretty clearly, "no." It actually has little effect on job growth. Doesn't hurt, doesn't help. But low-wage workers with more money in their pockets is a good thing, as they'll have more money to put back into the economy as consumers.

risk...a question i asked elsewhere that i'll put to you-and whoever else wants to answer that i can actually see their response...

how come it used to be you held a job in the u.s., you could survive. now, that's no longer the case. we've had these 'lower rung' jobs for decades, it used to be enough. now, it's not--and somehow that's the workers fault?
what has changed that what once meant being above poverty no longer does--and how did we decide that it's the employees fault, rather than the employers?
i would LOVE to know how that sea change occurred.

i already know the answer, it really is a rhetorical question.
the amount of payroll is the same, but more now goes the very top.
we have more than ever before graduating from college-the best educated populace in the history of the u.s. but wages are stagnant, or worse.
we have made change after change to our tax policies, to supposedly get the job creators to make more jobs...yet, that doesn't happen.

my son came home and said 'but, if walmart paid more, they'd sell more'. nope.
like i told him, it used to be the employer paid a living wage, and reaped the benefits by selling to their workers. but now, we, the taxpayer make up the difference between the **** wage those companies pay and what it takes to survive.
so, if walmart and the rest boosted their pay, it would take their employees off the dole...but wouldn't mean one more red cent to those businesses, because the peoples' overall income would remain the same.
and the banks and stores like walmart sure make money off those ebt cards, don't they?
the banks and corporations pay for the regulations, or lack thereof...and they pay to keep the min. wage from going up, and they laugh all the way to the vault.

and then when i bring up the bizarro world--i'm crazy? only in 'murica

We have 7.4 million less manufacturing jobs than we did in 1979. Contrary to the philosophy of the Dell's of the world, Everybody can't be a captain of industry, rise from the ashes, and change the world.

Sometimes, folks just need a job that puts a roof over their head, offers them rudimentary healthcare, and at the very least affords them the mirage of hope- that when it's all said and done, they raised a family, put their kids through school in the hopes that their kids might have a better way, and didn't need to worry about dying in the streets in the process.

Those jobs are gone - unless you want to move to Bangalore, India, China, Bangladesh, etc...

I grew up in DC, not far from Baltimore, in fact spent a great deal of time there, back then. I remember Bethlehem Steel, General Motors (all the Chevy Astro vans were assembled there), GAF, all the cannery's along the harbor, along with a million other places that offered a decent (not great, but livable) wage and benefits (that wouldn't bankrupt you if you ever dared to use them) if you were willing to work for them. And the majority of folks did.

That's all gone. Walmart, McD's, etc - these jobs are their replacement - like it or not. The sad fact of the matter is that there is a majority of the population that is either not mentally, physically, financially adept enough to excel in the current climate (similarly to the way they were back then) - the difference - Back then, they could work an assembly line, operate plant machinery, etc... Now they are Cashiers and Greeters - if they can even get those jobs.

At the end of the day, the more they earn, the more they pay in taxes and the less of a burden overall the lower class is on the system. That is a positive for all of us (unless you're the corporation).

Didn't know we used to be neighbors!

It's a ton of factors, and frankly, we can't discount that after WW2, we were the only major nation that hadn't had the sh*t bombed out of it, so a lot of our enormous economic growth post WW2 has to be attributed to the fact that we had an incredibly big advantage on everyone else because we still had infrastructure. Also having the majority of the population old enough to have lived through the Great Depression helped, as it was considered uncouth to display extravagant wealth, and so that helped keep executive salaries, while not low, at least not what they are today.

http://www.businessinsider.com/fortu...ker-pay-2014-6

Compare 1983 to now.

But, as Danzig said, the major thing is inequality, because the economy has grown (though not at the crazy rate it did post WW2) and yet worker salaries peaked in the early 1970s. The wealthy suck up most of the economic growth and "trickle down" is exactly what GHW Bush said it was before he drank the Reagan Kool Aid- voodoo economics.

And somehow, returns to shareholders became more important than lives of average people. I think of Hershey, moving a portion of their production to Mexico in order to keep share price high- why? If the company is not losing money, why isn't keeping a city running important and valuable enough on its own? Three thousand people here, including 900 in Hershey, lost their jobs as a result- all for a ten percent cut in production costs, in order to return money to... shareholders.

Cutting taxes on the wealthy just makes them hoard more money- they don't put it into the economy. Raising minimum wage puts more money into the economy because your average working class person has to spend everything they make on rent, food, gas, etc. That's good for the economy as a whole.

I don't think it'll affect employment rates, but it will do good things for the local economies, which is where the working class spend their money.

Well said just 2 points. Moving to India, China or whatever won't get you a job as those countries will not issue you papers to work there as they protect their citizens.

Secondly being highly educated means virtually nothing unless you are at the top tier within an organization as we are moving towards entire businesses operations being contracted out and managed by the handful at the top tier. Question is how does one get to that top tier out of college if no jobs are their for them to show their skills and move up the ranks. Sorry for the gloom and doom as it doesn't reflect my circumstances but unlike some around here I care about the future generations and not just keeping the ball in the air long enough until I check out.

In my world we also now have more than 10 million illegals who contrary to public and congress's opinions are now more or less legal thanks to executive action taken by Barak Obama. You know the same guy who campaigned he wouldn't use executive action.

Only he took it a bit further not only ignoring the public and congress but also the courts.

But in the world outside of Dell's all is well as long as the Little Sisters of the Poor are forced to provide birth control and abortions, the religious florist and pizza maker are forced to partake in gay weddings and Bruce Jenner is now a woman despite still having a Y chromosome.:wf

I know you hate Obama for just being however

http://www.businessinsider.com/reaga...orders-2014-11

and i know that jobs have changed or moved....but that doesn't explain why the wage that used to mean above poverty no longer does. this needs to be fixed.
why are we subsidizing businesses so as to allow them to do all that they do?
why do we hear complaints about people welfare, but not corporate welfare that's twice the spending? why are we sending hundreds of thousands of dollars to millionaires?

Apples to Oranges as it wasn't decided unilaterally by either and involved congress thus making court decisions/opinions moot.

If you want to bash Reagan I'd suggest the NAFTA agreement he signed that benefitted Mexico, Canada AND U.S. corporations that moved jobs to Mexico far more than it did for the U.S.

BTW I don't hate Obama just as I don't hate Danzig, just think they're consistently wrong and many times way wrong.

I suppose for similar reasons we don't hear about Or the fact why we don't hear about the top 1% paying 37% of personal income taxes or the top 20% paying 80% of the personal income taxes.

I suspect the average person would not complain about paying income tax if they were among the top 1% of earners....oh me, I have to pay such a high rate of taxes that it's gonna take me forever to make my next billion! Really Dell, those poor rick cats!:rolleyes:

yes. poor little rich people, we really should stop picking on them....

i remember when they said romney paid what...11-12% tax? i paid 25% effective rate.
yeah, that makes sense.
people clamor for a flat tax (probably because they haven't thought about it much or looked at what it meant) but those same people gripe at me when i say why should i pay a higher percentage? they invariably say 'but he paid a larger dollar amount'. yes, and ......? if a flat tax says romney should pay 25%, why do i get grief when i mention i pay that, and he pays half that?
ah, inconsistencies, gotta love them. i actually had that conversation most recently at the wellness center. ah, um, uh, you're just jealous of rich people is no explanation for why this is.
why this is, is that people who have money pay to get rules set to keep their money. i can't do that.

and just think, if the wages were corrected for everyone, how much more money would flow from all the non-rich who game the system...

:wf

He paid an effective rate of 14.1% because the vast majority of income made is investment income on money he has already been taxed on. He also was able to take a significant deduction for money he donated to charity ($4 million) or 29% of total income. So when you add taxes paid and money donated, it comes to a combined effective rate of 43.2% or 18.29% more than you paid.

BTW a person with an effective tax rate of 25% on a yearly income of $50K w/o any deductions including the personal exemption would pay $12,500 and would have to file over 155 years or three lifetimes of taxes to equal what Romney paid in a single year.

Hope that makes everyone crying 'unfair' feel a little bit better going into this Memorial Day weekend.

You realize these people you have such a raging boner for have made their money by breaking down businesses and cutting jobs and shipping jobs out of the country. The money lost from our economy in the way of purchasing power is in the trillions. The ball is being kept in the air by artificially low interest rates. Not much the fed can do if we hit another bad patch. Keep rooting for the scum that put us in this position cause this is America and you can be one of them. The fact that you are not one of them after 50 years notwithstanding.

it's the same mentality that had dirt poor southerners fighting a war for their rich neighbors to be able to keep slaves...while the plantation owners sat on their verandahs watching their world crumble.

POS horribly ran company.

Yea it had nothing to do with State Rights v. Federal Rights.

Most of those poor southern dirt farmers loved D.C. telling them how to live.:wf

If by "States' Rights" you mean the State's belief it in the right to legalize the ownership of another human being, then sure, it was about States' Rights. Check out what Texas had to say in their declaration:

"We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of the various States, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that the African race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable."

And check out what the Vice President of the Confederacy had to say. He, I would assume, had a clear idea of what the war was about:

"The new Constitution has put at rest forever all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institutions—African slavery as it exists among us—the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution […] The general opinion of the men of that day [Revolutionary Period] was, that, somehow or other, in the order of Providence, the institution [slavery] would be evanescent and pass away […] Our new Government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition."

You sound like my father-in-law. Not only does he spout this "It was about States' Rights because few Southern whites owned slaves!" stuff, during our last visit he also earnestly explained to me how slaves "didn't have it all that bad."

The Civil War was no different from any other war throughout history, as Phil Ochs lamented, "its always the old who lead us to war, always the young who fall". The rich and powerful lead the rest of us by the nose, convincing us that sacrifice is necessary...as long as the young and poor do the sacrificing. How can Washington dare tell folks how to live when rich folks are already doing that?! The poor white person faces a life of working in unsafe conditions for low wages designed to stifle any advancement but the blame isn't placed on the rich landowners/business owners etc. but, in the case of the south (and today, throughout the land) on blacks (or illegals)...poor whites are force-fed this lie and it ultimately consumes their perception...and perception becomes reality. The rich control the world...but history shows that their rule cannot last forever, either their excess will rot the fabric of life (see the Roman empire) or one of the many movements started by disgruntled folks will finally take hold and change will come swiftly and probably violently.

I'm not saying slavery had nothing to do with it and unlike your father-in-law would never say or think African Americans had it better back then when they were for all practical purposes treated similar to modern day Pakistani/Iranian/Afghan etc. etc. wives and daughters.

No human will ever have it better being owned as opposed to being free.

But the numerous tariffs imposed by Washington a few decades before the war on things like cotton, meant solely to benefit the industrial north to the detriment of the south certainly played a part leading to the conflict as the tariffs all but ended the ability for the south to export to Britain, etc. and instead forced selling solely to the north at artificially low prices.

the whole thing about states rights being the cause celebre' is bs. i've read a ton of history from a variety of sources about that whole war, and the various causes.
it was NOT about states rights. if they were so damned worried about state soveriegnty, why did they try so hard to alter californias decision to be a free state in their constitution??
oh, i know...because the south wanted to expand slavery. they'd already started making arrangements to hire their slaves out in the mines.
then there was texas, that was going to be divided into five states, in order to have five slaves states, instead of just the one. more senators you see.
the south as a slave holding entity was determined to keep their slavery, as well as their bloc of power.
matter of fact, they even starting broaching the subject of the southern states changing the u.s. constitution to give them permanent control of the house. no joke, that happened!
the house is based on population..so of course the north was outpacing them on seats; so they had to at least maintain an even keel in the senate. the only way to do that is to keep an even number of states slave and free, hence the trouble with california.

so, if they were fans of states doing their thing....why were they giving cali such a fit? and kansas?

and regarding the csa constitution...it was quite similar to our counstitution...but it very explicitly stated that slavery would remain, and even made it illegal to ever mention changing that! of course, these were the same politicians who made it a rule that slavery was not to be brought up in the House, a rule John Quincy Adams took great delight in breaking.

Those tariffs had been cut back drastically by the 1850s and the South had a huge hand in the shaping of the very reduced 1857 tariff law, which was then followed by an economic panic. Slavery was the #1 reason for the South's decision to secede. Certainly, other issues contributed (including Lincoln's election), but the central cause was about whether the nation would continue to allow a portion of that nation to create wealth on the backs of enslaved human beings.

Trivia- one of my ancestors, Abraham Op den Graef, was a signatory on the first public petition against slavery in the colonies, in 1680 (in Pennsylvania).

That is very cool. My ancestors didn't get here till the late 1880's on my mom's side and the late 1910's on my dad's side.

yeah, they seceded over tariffs... :rolleyes:
calhoun even tried nullification over that business. but the south didn't care if the tariffs made sense, they just cared about THEM, not the country as a whole. boy, that sounds familiar.

i'd suggest anyone unsure or trying to make secession and war about anything other than the slavery issue to read 'the great compromise', and also' fall of the house of dixie'.
and james mcphersons books on the subject, 'battle cry of freedom', and 'civil war and reconstruction'.

had their been no slavery, there'd have been no war. but the souths economy had been built and sustained solely thru owning human beings. they never went beyond that into more modern practices of farming and agriculture. and the economy in the south was also impacted because most immigration occurred north and west, because there was no opportunity for most folks in the south, as they had to compete with slavery.
also, the south didn't want to just expand westward, demanding to have slave states not just in cali (or, they let's split it), but they wanted to expand into nevada, new mexico...
and south. into mexico, south america, cuba. they paid money for filibusterers to try to take over cuba...crazy stuff!

the oxford american history series is really good, that first mcpherson book is part of it.