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Privateer
Joined: 31 Aug 2005
Location: Easy Street.
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 Posted: Sun Jun 26, 2011 11:40 pm Post subject: American wage slavery |
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I'm sure we've all heard the stories about long working hours, high unemployment, lack of vacation, and ever-rising productivity in the American workplace, but when you see the stats all at once it brings home just how grim the situation really is:
http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/06/speedup-americans-working-harder-charts
It's striking just how much of a gap there is between America and other developed countries - hell, even poor countries - in these regards.
It's also striking just how much the top 0.1%, or whatever it is, is making out like bandits while the rest of the population gets screwed up, down, backwards and sideways. I never used to believe this was true, but it really does seem as if wealth at the top creates poverty at the bottom - and, nowadays, in the middle too. There isn't any going back to the level of poverty of the 30s (although you wonder when more people than ever are on food stamps and food stamp entitlements are about to be cut), but then the hand of the state and of the employer reach so much further into our private lives these days.
Collective bargaining, i.e. unions, seems to be the only way to put the brakes on this relentless corporate squeeze. |
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Zackback
Joined: 05 Nov 2010
Location: Kyungbuk
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| Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2011 1:36 am Post subject: |
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Just goes to show that we don't need a few changes here and there with how things operate.....
We need to tear down the whole #%*#@^*!!@@ establishment! |
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Sticks
Joined: 13 Mar 2011
Location: Seoul, Korea
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| Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2011 3:13 am Post subject: |
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America has been and still is going down the shitter. Get out while you can.
Go move to Australia.  $16.40/hour minimum wage on casual and jobs are flippin easy to get if you know where to look. Of course the cost of living is astronomical... |
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visitorq
Joined: 11 Jan 2008
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| Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2011 4:20 am Post subject: Re: American wage slavery |
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| Privateer wrote: |
I'm sure we've all heard the stories about long working hours, high unemployment, lack of vacation, and ever-rising productivity in the American workplace, but when you see the stats all at once it brings home just how grim the situation really is:
http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/06/speedup-americans-working-harder-charts
It's striking just how much of a gap there is between America and other developed countries - hell, even poor countries - in these regards.
It's also striking just how much the top 0.1%, or whatever it is, is making out like bandits while the rest of the population gets screwed up, down, backwards and sideways. I never used to believe this was true, but it really does seem as if wealth at the top creates poverty at the bottom - and, nowadays, in the middle too. There isn't any going back to the level of poverty of the 30s (although you wonder when more people than ever are on food stamps and food stamp entitlements are about to be cut), but then the hand of the state and of the employer reach so much further into our private lives these days.
Collective bargaining, i.e. unions, seems to be the only way to put the brakes on this relentless corporate squeeze. |
What people need to get through their heads is that the US is not run "by the people, for the people", it's run by literal mafia. The Fed, the private banks, the major fortune 500 corporations, and their cronies in government are all crooks. They can buy off our politicians for a few million and make trillions. They dominate society through the debt based monetary system - they can give themselves trillions of dollars of OUR money (at zero interest), lend it back to our corrupt government, and force us to pay interest on the very money we gave them, while they use it to buy up the whole world. It's actually, literally a form of slavery, just in a different form. |
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Sticks
Joined: 13 Mar 2011
Location: Seoul, Korea
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| Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2011 4:37 am Post subject: |
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| Anyone played Deus Ex? |
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recessiontime
Joined: 21 Jun 2010
Location: Got avatar privileges nyahahaha
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| Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2011 8:25 am Post subject: |
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| Sticks wrote: |
America has been and still is going down the shitter. Get out while you can.
Go move to Australia. $16.40/hour minimum wage on casual and jobs are flippin easy to get if you know where to look. Of course the cost of living is astronomical... |
way ahead of ya |
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Sergio Stefanuto
Joined: 14 May 2009
Location: UK
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| Posted: Tue Jun 28, 2011 9:25 pm Post subject: |
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Stop complaining and get on your bikes.
I'd much sooner earn $50,000 in 2011 than $50,000 in 1980, even though it's worth a lot less. People on very modest incomes in 2011, such as $50,000, can afford to purchase not only the latest technology (which is, naturally, vastly superior to that of 30 years ago) but can also readily afford luxuries which were then considered the stuff of affluence but are now taken for granted. A low-paid individual, in order to purchase a refridgerator 30-40 years ago, would have to have worked for over two weeks; He would now have to work for just three days. Supposing it true that the wealth generated by increases in productivity has all gone to the top, the rest of us have, nevertheless, received an invisible payrise. In the US, the poor get richer and the rich get richer faster. Indeed, in a country where 1-in-3 people are obese, it is insulting to the peoples of the world who in live in absolute (as opposed to merely relative) poverty to refer to them as poor at all. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2011 12:40 am Post subject: |
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| Sergio Stefanuto wrote: |
Stop complaining and get on your bikes.
I'd much sooner earn $50,000 in 2011 than $50,000 in 1980, even though it's worth a lot less. People on very modest incomes in 2011, such as $50,000, can afford to purchase not only the latest technology (which is, naturally, vastly superior to that of 30 years ago) but can also readily afford luxuries which were then considered the stuff of affluence but are now taken for granted. A low-paid individual, in order to purchase a refridgerator 30-40 years ago, would have to have worked for over two weeks; He would now have to work for just three days. Supposing it true that the wealth generated by increases in productivity has all gone to the top, the rest of us have, nevertheless, received an invisible payrise. In the US, the poor get richer and the rich get richer faster. Indeed, in a country where 1-in-3 people are obese, it is insulting to the peoples of the world who in live in absolute (as opposed to merely relative) poverty to refer to them as poor at all. |
You're cherry-picking.
Real wages since 2006
Inflation by sector
Also, if you think biking is a viable option for American commuters, you're thinking very much in a European mindset. |
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johnnyenglishteacher2
Joined: 03 Dec 2010
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visitorq
Joined: 11 Jan 2008
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| Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2011 1:26 am Post subject: |
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| Sergio Stefanuto wrote: |
Stop complaining and get on your bikes.
I'd much sooner earn $50,000 in 2011 than $50,000 in 1980, even though it's worth a lot less. People on very modest incomes in 2011, such as $50,000, can afford to purchase not only the latest technology (which is, naturally, vastly superior to that of 30 years ago) but can also readily afford luxuries which were then considered the stuff of affluence but are now taken for granted. A low-paid individual, in order to purchase a refridgerator 30-40 years ago, would have to have worked for over two weeks; He would now have to work for just three days. Supposing it true that the wealth generated by increases in productivity has all gone to the top, the rest of us have, nevertheless, received an invisible payrise. In the US, the poor get richer and the rich get richer faster. Indeed, in a country where 1-in-3 people are obese, it is insulting to the peoples of the world who in live in absolute (as opposed to merely relative) poverty to refer to them as poor at all. |
The point is that yes, technological improvements and new inventions make our lives better and increase our standard of living. At the same time the debt-based monetary system steals our wealth. Be able to buy a new i-phone or other gadgets (which become cheaper to produce as technology improves) does make up for the fact that we should actually be living much better. Yet despite the incredible amount of wealth we produce, we are having an our purchasing power stolen from us by the big fat mafia known as government (as well as the private banking sector which controls everything behind the scenes) to such a degree that we are basically bankrupt. It is a giant scam.
Basically we the public are treated as milk-cows on a giant tax farm. The elite don't want a free market where competition can flourish and threaten their government backed monopolies. Instead they want us all to work for them as wage slaves and make them money, while the same government that coercively keeps the whole system running at the end of a gun barrel skims taxes off us like a farmer shearing wool off of sheep, and uses our money against us. |
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Sergio Stefanuto
Joined: 14 May 2009
Location: UK
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| Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2011 3:16 am Post subject: |
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| Kuros wrote: |
| You're cherry-picking. |
I was being philosophical - the relentless and largely benign march of progress.
Your stats strongly suggest the US is in the midst of a stagflationary depression. But look on the bright side - social democracy is dissipating as we speak. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2011 12:17 pm Post subject: |
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| Sergio Stefanuto wrote: |
| Kuros wrote: |
| You're cherry-picking. |
I was being philosophical - the relentless and largely benign march of progress.
Your stats strongly suggest the US is in the midst of a stagflationary depression. But look on the bright side - social democracy is dissipating as we speak. |
Yes, well it really bothers me that consumer goods and appliances are getting cheaper, but health care and education are getting far more expensive. This is backwards. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2011 1:44 pm Post subject: |
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| There was a time when Southern slave holders believed and openly said that their slaves were better off than Northern 'wage slaves'. I sometimes wonder if some of these reactionaries that want to return to the 19th Century don't still believe that. |
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sirius black
Joined: 04 Jun 2010
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| Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2011 3:37 pm Post subject: Re: American wage slavery |
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| visitorq wrote: |
What people need to get through their heads is that the US is not run "by the people, for the people", it's run by literal mafia. The Fed, the private banks, the major fortune 500 corporations, and their cronies in government are all crooks. They can buy off our politicians for a few million and make trillions. They dominate society through the debt based monetary system - they can give themselves trillions of dollars of OUR money (at zero interest), lend it back to our corrupt government, and force us to pay interest on the very money we gave them, while they use it to buy up the whole world. It's actually, literally a form of slavery, just in a different form. |
Not much to disagree with. However, at the end of the day we are still a republic and collectively we got the government we deserve because too many of us are either apathetic, scared, too beaten down mentally to fight something so much bigger than ourselves or easily fooled.
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty. -- Thomas Jefferson
Who fears whom? |
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Privateer
Joined: 31 Aug 2005
Location: Easy Street.
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| Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2011 6:39 am Post subject: |
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| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
| There was a time when Southern slave holders believed and openly said that their slaves were better off than Northern 'wage slaves'. I sometimes wonder if some of these reactionaries that want to return to the 19th Century don't still believe that. |
I don't know who you mean by 'these reactionaries' but I would say let's have no slavery of any kind. |
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