This was going to be the last 3 paragraphs but I made it the first three because Im pretty sure Im going to piss a lot of people off with the rest. So if the transition seems a bit weird, you'l know why. Here is a budget and reasoning for the budget. This is a midwest area
and I'm using it as an example and you can change it to suit your
higher costs because ours is lower. I've done the research. $500/mo
rent. If you want a job, you have to have an address. $35/mo cheap cell
phone. just like the address, the government only allows business to
hire people with a phone number and address. (government regulations
require an employee to have verifiable contact information) That should
scare the hell out of you. Electric as a monthly average here is
$175/mo. We are a family of 3 and our food cost is $500/mo. Insurance on
the car is $50 gasoling about the same where as a bus pass is $60/mo
but your at the mercy of the bus schedule. Apartment without
wash&Dry hook up in the apt so $3/load of laundry and about 12-15
loads we'll go with $45/mo. I'm going to skip savings, soaps, toilet
paper, clothing and all of the other expenses and lump them together
along with what ever your health insurance is going to cost you and for
the sake of even numbers say all of those things are a total of $45/mo
and we end up at $1400/mo. If taxes were as low as 25% total, you would
have to make almost $1900/mo. figureing 4.5 weeks @ 40 hrs/wk is 180
hrs/mo is about $11/hr to survive in a town where the cost of living is
very low. So if you look at the cost of just a studio in NYC, you can
see where $15/hr is a reasonable, and low, demand.
I realize your actual complaint. "I make less than $15/hr. What's
gonna happen to my wages?" They go up of course. But the only way to end
this loop is to stop allowing corporate CEOs to raid companies of all
they are worth, get paid multimillion dollar salaries and then leave
with a multimillion dollar golden parachute.
What can we do? Shrink government. reduce the number of regulations, stop illegal immigration,
end the Fed, stop letting congress pass laws that pad their bottom line,
stop huge corporations with our anti trust laws like we did with Ma
Bell, and stop letting big business use the tactic of losing money long
enough to put the small business out of business. The minimum wage will
take care of itself if we actually go back to a capitalist system. But
as long as we live in a corporatist society, I say make the minimum wage
$21/hr and put a freeze on price increases.
Just remember this, the minimum wage was instituted not as a beginner
wage for kids but a living wage for average Americans and it included
the end of child labor. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=15405 I
dont want to be the next China. I want my country back. When I was a
mere 12 years old, I made $10/hr on a construction site during that
summer. Construction workers, unless union, still start at $10/hr. Break
your chains of slavery and stop letting your corporate masters put
words in your mouth that protect them and allow them to continue.
Ok, I'll be fair. There is no one solution or one problem causing high unemployment, under employment and other issues surrounding Corporations.. And the number of government regulations stifle business more than the help the American workers. But to be equally fair, all of the costs, and I mean ALL of the costs, of doing business aren't applied to the business. They're applied to us in higher prices and lower wages. CEOs of companies are the biggest problem and running a close second are the major investors who sit on the board pushing for more and more and more profits.
So let's start with the minimum wage issue. FDR pushed for the minimum wage so hat there wouldn't be any really poor people working themselves to death and starving. It's why so many people hammer China. Their working conditions are appalling and are, simply put, government slave operations. And the American coproations are trying their level best to put us there. They teach you to parrot platitudes that they cant afford it or that it hurts small business when in actuality, they are the ones who hurt small business by operating at a loss to put a small business, out of business.
The regulations are actually a myth as well. Look at how well Microsoft does even though it puts out a substandard product and is never made to do a recall to fix it. Big business paying government to keep the wheels of business rolling when they should be allowing the business to fail for being so bad. No Im not totally against Microsoft. This computer has Windows 7. But dont you think that the people who had to suffer with Vista should have gotten to upgrade to Win7 as compensation? Or Windows 10 for free to those who have had to deal with the total garbage that is Window8 and 8.1? No one has ever said, "HEY! MS screwed us! We want our money back!* And no one ever will.
Why? Corporate lies. Like the lie that Minimum wage is where it should be. BIG lie there. If wages had kept up with all of the other living costs, it would be over $21/hr. That's right I said $21/hr. Education is another lie. I've had several types of training. On of those was when I worked in construction and was certified to hold a Stop/Slow sign. The class was nonexistent and the test was less than 2hrs. A McDonald's employee's job has more to it than knowing where to put cones, spacing and holding the sign while working a walkie talkie. And starting wage for a sign holder? $14/hr 10 years ago. So explain to me how that job is worth more than a burger flipper who has to deal with a grumpy, unsympathetic, unscrupulous and rude public who thinks they should get the service of a $100/plate restaraunt. I've done both and would never work McD's again. And not because of the pay.
Ok so now that I have you thinking about that, try this. Most jobs like McD's only give you 20-25 hrs a week. Not only that, they change your hours from day to day. I cannot find proof but I have a high enough IQ that I'm pretty sure that it is so that you cant get a second job, find out how crappy it is at McD's and quit. After all, it takes money to train people(another myth). And dealing with that other myth, Where does the additional cost come from for training? They aren't paying that person more. They aren't paying a specific trainer. It's usually part of the job description for a manager. And the 20-25 hrs a week has nothing to do with Granny not being able to work more than X hours or she loses Soc Sec or kids in school. It does have everything to do with not paying benefits. If there were no law that said the company has to provide medical for full time employees, people would be getting 40 and more per week.
That brings us to the myths about illegals. "Illegals are doing the jobs Americans wont do.* they need to add on to the end of that sentence and have it read, "llegals are doing the jobs Americans wont do for slave wages." While it is true there are several in the US that wont do certain jobs, If it paid a wage you could survive on, Americans would do it. And not only are Americans having to go on the public handouts, now the illegals are going to get it as well. So now taxes have to go up, government takes more control, puts out more usueless regulations and the continuing snow ball of "paid too low, have to have food stamps, food stamp use rising, more taxes needed, paying more taxes, pass it on to consumers and lower wages to stay aflot(which is another myth but I digress) cant afford to buy stuff priced to high but cant find a better job, etc" continues on.
An independent study was done for raising wages to $15 an hour for Wal-Mart employees. The study found that to increase minimum wage it would only require Wally world to increase prices 1-2 cents on everything. Think about that in REAL terms. to be effected in 1 year by $100 by shopping at Wal-Mart, you would have to purchase 5-10 THOUSAND items at the rate of a 1-2 cent increase. I shop at WalMart a lot and I dont get 1000 items in a year.
Corporations are the only monster. As I said earlier, government plays a roll as well. They increase regulations which causes the need for more people to police those regulations and more people to process the paperwork and still others to process fines, and so on and so on. Government grows because it's hungry to stay alive. Once a job is done, the department should be done. But it goes in search of reasons to exist so it gets congress to pass more regulation so that there is a reason for it to be there.
And this is where we have stepped out of Capitalism and into Corporatism. Of course small business can no longer survive. It's designed that way. Keep the money centralized so it can be controlled. The Fed, The Stock Market, and ever growing multinational corporate conglomerates are now able to dictate to you, what you can and cannot do. A quote from George Carlin, "Governments and corporations dont want well informed, well educated people capable of critical thinking. That's against their interests. They want obedient workers. People who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paper work, and just dumb enough to passively accept it." That's what Corporations are all about. Getting big enough to dictate this to you.
Capitalism, on the other hand, is a good thing. Instead of saying... this is what yu get, like it or lump it... they are , "Hello. Here is my business. Please tell us how we can improve your experience here." And when they dont get patronage, they improve teh product or the service. Unlike Corporations who go out and spend millions more on advertizing to generate name recognition to get you to buy something you dont want at a price you really dont want to pay because they told you they were the best and that you needed it to keep up with the Jones'
Did you even realize that your retirement was taken away? It increased the bottom line of the corporations. And where did it go? 401ks... that's right. Do you know why? Because your 401k is in the stock market. Why is it in the stock market? To increase revenue? Let me ask you this. In he last market *correction*, where did all the money go that was lost? did it go in your pocket? It doesn't just disappear. Where did it go? In their pockets of course. The stock market is no longer a gauge of how well a business does. It's a means of manipulation to get more of what you have less and less of.
Why do you think banks dont take responsibility for obvious identity fraud? You have to spend money to protect and ultimately fix your good name when a criminal steals and abuses your identity. Because it's yet another way to get more and more of what you have less and less of. The people that have money, and I mean filthy rich money like Oprah money, want more. They have enough to ensure the financial security of their family for generations to come. So why do they need more while the poor get less and less? They dont.
I left out the media and so much that this is going to seem fragmented and in some places, ridiculous. But there has to be and end point and a place to start discussion so there you go. If asked, I can provide other links.
As an edit and a forgotten topic. Dont think you can get the job as a CEO. They aren't giving up the job and when they do, they pass it to friends or family members of theirs or another high level administrator or board member. It's a good old boys club and you aren't in it.
