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"The Pitchforks are coming for us Plutocrats"

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by Alma, Jul 4, 2014.

  1. Neutral Corner

    Neutral Corner Well-Known Member

    If he's working 7 days, 65 hours a week, when is he supposed to be able to go to college or to technical school "to better himself"? He's busting ass to provide for his family, which is admirable, but if he gets hurt or falls sick he's going to sink like a rock.

    Many of the jobs that have been lost have been of the middle class manufacturing variety. There are lots of low end service jobs, but they don't allow much chance to climb the ladder pay wise. I live in Alabama, and the lege passed very restrictive immigration laws. Many of the local Hispanics went elsewhere out of fear of the government, and places like Tyson Foods and the local agriculture industry were hurt by a lack of labor.

    Yes, there *are* places immigration hurts - I have a friend with a small roofing business, and he has to bid jobs against "companies" that are basically several guys with a truck who pay immigrant wages and don't carry the normally required insurance umbrella, but they bid jobs cheap. Sometimes that's enough to cost my friend jobs and hurt his wallet. Things like that are a real issue.

    Still and all, America is stronger both economically and in a civic sense when there is a strong middle class. I don't know that the country was ever stronger and more stable financially than in the Fifties and Sixties, when the WW2 vets who had cashed in on the GI bill provided a huge engine of growth in the middle class. At that time, corporations still felt that their companies owed something to the nation as a whole, "Buy American" still meant something, and good management of a company was not strictly limited to providing the very maximum return to the stockholders. Long term planning and R & D suffers in an environment where the single most important thing to upper management is meeting the quarterly expectations of Wall Street.
     
  2. YankeeFan

    YankeeFan Well-Known Member

    You can't/don't learn skills at work? You can't set yourself up for a promotion by doing well at your current job?

    Can't you meet people who will be impressed by your work ethic and attitude that will offer you another, better paying job?
     
  3. 93Devil

    93Devil Well-Known Member

    Did you?

    Were you an entry level employee and worked your way up to owning a coffee repair company? Did that happen at any of your previous careers?
     
  4. Inky_Wretch

    Inky_Wretch Well-Known Member

    Not well.

    He's country as fuck and, I think, likely partially mentally ill. Imagine Carl from Sling Blade, but speaking better. He's 48 years old and looks 60. He can't stand up straight, he's perpetually stooped over from years of manual labor.

    His vice is fishing. Doesn't smoke, doesn't drink. But he'll go sit on the riverbank below the dam and catch catfish on the mornings he only works at his part-time gig. Partly because he enjoys it, partly for the food they provide.
     
  5. Baron Scicluna

    Baron Scicluna Well-Known Member

    Your grocery store may not be offering the right products for your area, especially if you're the only ones in the store.

    Or, as YF might put it, your grocery store is Single-A ball and should they continue to do what the other stores are doing, or should someone tell them that it's time to hang them up?
     
  6. Baron Scicluna

    Baron Scicluna Well-Known Member

    Walmart also is one of the wealthiest companies. Where are the shareholders going to go?
     
  7. Baron Scicluna

    Baron Scicluna Well-Known Member

    Your actually counting on that company to 1. Have a system of promotion in place; and 2. Have a desire to actually promote people.
     
  8. YankeeFan

    YankeeFan Well-Known Member

    Yes. Of course.

    At 18 I turned a volunteer job coaching little league into a sales/management job with the commissioner of the league in his private business.

    As a 20-year-old college dropout, I took a $13,500 a year job as a runner on the floor of the commodities exchange, and was promoted twice in the first year, and received multiple job offers to work at other companies. I eventually launched my own business.

    I took a volunteer job at City Hall and turned it into a $75,000 a year job with full benefits in less than a year.

    I also took a $15 an hour job to fix espresso machines, and gained the knowledge and industry contacts necessary to launch my own business.
     
  9. 93Devil

    93Devil Well-Known Member

    Yet, you did not stick with these jobs.

    Somehow you had the freedom to keep walking away from jobs.
     
  10. BTExpress

    BTExpress Well-Known Member

    Good lord.

    We're discussing whether the owners of a company can afford to pay their employees more. Many cannot. That's a bleeping fact.

    We're not discussing whether the owners of a company are using the best strategies to survive and compete. Frankly, neither you nor I has any idea whether they are and are in no position to question it in the absence of such knowledge.

    Stick to the subject at hand.
     
  11. YankeeFan

    YankeeFan Well-Known Member

    Sometimes I left for better jobs. Sometimes I was asked to leave.

    I never just walked away from a job with nothing lined up.
     
  12. Iron_chet

    Iron_chet Well-Known Member

    @YF. No dog in this fight but thise types of entry level jobs you got, even the volunteer position, did you get them through straight cold application or did you have some connections to get them.

    I don't mean to minimize the positions but it has been my experience that those types of entry level gigs go to people who have some connections.
     
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