re: Twilight Zone: 90% of Americans blame corporations for "increased" inequality

quote:

---

all the company he works for has to do is realize that labor is a commodity and there is a severe shortage of it....thus it is going to cost more. $27 an hour is not any kind of money...you can't buy a home and raise a family on $54K a year, especially when the job across town or across the country is paying $70 a year.

---

While I agree wholeheartedly, 54k a year is also nothing to thumb your nose at for an entry level position with O/T pay available and upward mobility. I'm just saying that people crying about not being able to find a job need to look at trades as a option.

quote:

---

While I agree wholeheartedly, 54k a year is also nothing to thumb your nose at for an entry level position with O/T pay available and upward mobility. I'm just saying that people crying about not being able to find a job need to look at trades as a option.

---

I would suggest that these aren't entry level positions but require some experience. On top of this what does working long hours (OT) have to do with attracting high quality candidates? This is one of the many mind sets that is keeping people from going into the trades....why would anyone want to work longer hours???


Who is looking for a job?? Unemployment is relatively low....and no matter what anyone might tell you learning a trade is not a 90 day process....it takes a full 5 years to become a journeyman wireman or pipefitter....five years of OJT and schooling a couple of nights a week....and then a person is only a journeyman in name....it takes another 5 years to become proficient at the trade.

The US Chamber, the business round table and the affiliated building trades have been preaching this for the 32 years that I have been associated with the trades....and in that same 32 years the wages in the trade have decreased 27%.....that chicken is going to come home to roost. There are projects all over the country that are going undone and being cancelled because for the last 40 years or so building tradesmen have been treated like migrant farm workers and most have encouraged their sons and daughters to avoid the trades at all costs....low wages, harsh working conditions, unsafe working conditions and seasonal, cyclical work all combine to make what is a tough at best way to earn a living almost untenable.


Now if a person were smart they would go into contracting and manage their labor like a modern day business who understands that people are as important as any other aspect of a business and they would find themselves with a line around the corner with people wanting to go to work. There are so many ways to attract tradesmen that would not only not cost anything BUT actually reduce costs in the long run....and very few contractors are willing to accept them because they come from the old school where there was plenty of skilled labor and not enough work. It is a sellers market in the building trades and is going to be for some time to come.....

quote:

---

They reelected Obama. Enough said.

---

this^

quote:

---

There was a time in this country that a kid could graduate high school and get a job at the local mill or factory.

---

Those were times when having multiple flat screen tv's, cable service, a cell phone, cell phone service, internet service, multiple pc's, tablets, and gaming systems wasn't considered necessary.

quote:

---

the same thing, by the way

---

oh really? tell me more counselor.


the rest of your reply makes no sense either. i said that without fictional persons, free enterprise as we know it would be stifled. i have no idea what points you're trying to make. maybe a strawman that non-leftists are "anti-government"? i'm sure it's something equally ridiculous if not.

Isn't economic inequality a good thing, especially if you are on the lower side of the scale?

When was the last time a poor person hired anyone? It seems to me that there needs to be economic stratification so that the lower income classes have someone to work for.

They generally don't create their own jobs.

quote:

---

Well that is something that has to be decided on an individual basis of course.
My engineer friend in Houston making $115K per year is perfectly within reason to pay the manual labor $20 per week to cut his grass.

My cousin Ted who is a lazy sack of shite who barely pays his bills shouldn't be paying someone to cut his grass so he can watch more tv and bitch about not making enough money.

---

Certainly it must be decided on a case-by-case basis, but the studies coming out recently show that for most people (i.e. people who are not lazy sacks of shite), even those who make $25,000 - $40,000 per year, the more efficient household economics is to pay someone else to do that crap. You more than make up what you lose if you are using your time reasonably efficiently (and most - though obviously not all - do).

How about we punish corporations very harshly. That way, they stop creating jobs and more people are unemployed.

Oh, wait...