The government released the top 10 occupations in this country, and every single one is a “service” job. As production has been shipped overseas, and everything we buy is made in another country in Asia, the only jobs left are service and financialization jobs. Seems they don’t pay to well, unless you’re a criminals bankster on Wall Street.
Our economy is clearly dying, as most people can barely afford to survive by working. Those at the top continue to siphon off the cash. Clearly, a mistake has been made. A service economy and creating debt (financialization) don’t work.
It’s interesting to note: as the chart below shows, you’d have to earn $57,000 a year pre-tax to equal the cash and benefits of being on welfare. I suppose that explains why 100,000,000 people are on welfare, and ten states have more people on welfare than have jobs. How long can this go on?
9 Of The Top 10 Occupations In America Pay An Average Wage Of Less Than $35,000 A Year
By Michael Snyder, on April 2nd, 2014
According to stunning new numbers just released by the federal government, nine of the top ten most commonly held jobs in the United States pay an average wage of less than $35,000 a year. When you break that down, that means that most of these workers are making less than $3,000 a month before taxes. And once you consider how we are being taxed into oblivion, things become even more frightening. Can you pay a mortgage and support a family on just a couple grand a month? Of course not. In the old days, a single income would enable a family to live a very comfortable middle class lifestyle in most cases. But now those days are long gone. I
n 2014, both parents are expected to work, and in many cases both of them have to get multiple jobs just in order to break even at the end of the month. The decline in the quality of our jobs is a huge reason for the implosion of the middle class in this country. You can’t have a middle class without middle class jobs, and we have witnessed a multi-decade decline in middle class jobs in the United States. As long as this trend continues, the middle class is going to continue to shrink.
The following is a list of the most commonly held jobs in America according to the federal government. As you can see, 9 of the top 10 most commonly held occupations pay an average wage of less than $35,000 a year…
Retail salespersons, 4.48 million workers earning $25,370
Cashiers 3.34 million workers earning $20,420
Food prep and serving staff, 3.02 million workers earning $18,880
General office clerk, 2.83 million working earning $29,990
Registered nurses, 2.66 million workers earning $68,910
Waiters and waitresses, 2.40 million workers earning $20,880
Customer service representatives, 2.39 million workers earning $33,370
Laborers, and freight and material movers, 2.28 million workers earning $26,690
Secretaries and admins (not legal or medical), 2.16 million workers earning $34,000
Janitors and cleaners (not maids), 2.10 million workers earning, $25,140
Overall, an astounding 59 percent of all American workers bring home less than $35,000 a year in wages.
So if you are going to make more than $35,000 this year, you are solidly in the upper half.
But that doesn’t mean that you will always be there.
More Americans are falling out of the middle class with each passing day.
Just consider the case of a 47-year-old woman named Kristina Feldotte. Together with her husband, they used to make about $80,000 a year. But since she lost her job three years ago, their combined income has fallen to about $36,000 a year…
Three years ago, Kristina Feldotte, 47, and her husband earned a combined $80,000. She considered herself solidly middle class. The couple and their four children regularly vacationed at a lake near their home in Saginaw, Michigan.
But in August 2012, Feldotte was laid off from her job as a special education teacher. She’s since managed to find only part-time teaching work. Though her husband still works as a truck salesman, their income has sunk by more than half to $36,000.
“Now we’re on the upper end of lower class,” Feldotte said.
There is a common assumption out there that if you “have a job” that you must be doing “okay”.
But that is not even close to the truth.
The reality of the matter is that you can even have two or three jobs and still be living in poverty. In fact, you can even be working for the government or the military and still need food stamps…
Since the start of the Recession, the dollar amount of food stamps used at military commissaries, special stores that can be used by active-duty, retired, and some veterans of the armed forces has quadrupled, hitting $103 million last year. Food banks around the country have also reported a rise in the number of military families they serve, numbers that swelled during the Recession and haven’t, or have barely, abated.
There are so many people that are really hurting out there.
Today, someone wrote to me about one of my recent articles about food price increases and told me about how produce prices were going through the roof in that particular area. This individual wondered how ordinary families were going to be able to survive in this environment.
That is a very good question.
I don’t know how they are going to survive.
In some cases, the suffering that is going on behind closed doors is far greater than any of us would ever imagine.
But if you live in wealthy enclaves on the east or west coasts, all of this may sound truly bizarre to you. Where you live, you may look around and not see any poverty at all. That is because America has become increasingly segregated by wealth. Some are even calling this the “skyboxification of America”…
The richest Americans—the much-talked about 1 percent—are a cloistered class. As the Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz scathingly put it, they “have the best houses, the best educations, the best doctors, and the best lifestyles, but there is one thing that money doesn’t seem to have bought: an understanding that their fate is bound up with how the other 99 percent live.” The Harvard political philosopher Michael Sandel has similarly lamented the “skyboxification” of American life, in which “people of affluence and people of modest means lead increasingly separate lives.”
The substantial and growing gap between the rich and everyone else is increasingly inscribed on our geography. There have always been affluent neighborhoods, gated enclaves, and fabled bastions of wealth like Greenwich, Connecticut; Grosse Pointe, Michigan; Potomac, Maryland; and Beverly Hills, California. But America’s bankers, lawyers, and doctors didn’t always live so far apart from teachers, accountants, and small business owners, who themselves weren’t always so segregated from the poorest, most struggling Americans.
Nobody should talk about an “economic recovery” until the middle class starts growing again.
Even as the stock market has soared to unprecedented heights over the past year, the decline of middle class America has continued unabated.
And most Americans know deep inside that something is deeply broken. For example, a recent CNBC All-America Economic Survey found that over 80 percent of all Americans consider the economy to be “fair” or “poor”.
Yes, for the moment things are going quite well for the top 10 percent of the nation, but that won’t last long either. None of the problems that caused the last great financial crisis have been fixed. In fact, they have gotten even worse. We are steamrolling toward another great financial crisis and our leaders are absolutely clueless.
When the next crisis strikes, the economic suffering in this nation is going to get even worse.
As bad as things are now, they are not even worth comparing to what is coming.
So I hope that you are getting prepared. Time is running out.
Don’t have kids.
Amazing Graphic Shows Chicago’s Middle Class Disappear Before Your Eyes
April 3, 2014 11:12 AM
this is no side-show.
It shows the demise of the foundation of an American city.
Watch as the grey squares, which illustrate the middle class that dominated the most of the city’s neighborhoods in 1970s, quickly vanish over 40 years.
The poor, represented by the orange and red colors, explode across the map.
And watch what happens in the green areas representing the upper middle class and wealthy. Not surprisingly, it spreads from downtown to the north side, but not with the same ferocity as the reds and oranges.
Especially in 2000, the greens-the color of money–grow much darker. It seems the rich simply got richer. In later years, the wealthy pushed the poor out of the near West Side. It appears that area bypassed the middle.
The data comes from the U.S. Census.
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Late last year I attended a conference dealing with the problems in feed manufacturing. One of the more interesting segments dealt with trying to attract quality employees. You see, there just happens to be a lot of jobs in my sector, both white and blue collar.
The white ones fill up at the expected rate, but its next to impossible to find decent employees for the blue collar jobs. We recently had two slots open up on our production floor.
We called 6 people for the first round of interviews. Four showed up. Two of them wore slacks and a button up (acceptable), the third wore ripped out shorts and a backwards baseball cap. The fourth answered his phone in the middle of the interview. It wasn’t an important phonecall, and he didn’t ask permission or what have you.
*rings* “Yeah man sup? Naw I’m not busy, just down ‘ere in an interview. Yea prolly better call later. See ya”
Mind blowing. These weren’t Millenials either, all four that bothered to show up were Xers with kids back home.
The government is paying people not to work, and so they aren’t. We can’t fill TWO FUCKING OPEN SLOTS! Fuck, I’d like to fill four slots actually, and fire two of the halfwits we’ve had here for the last 6 months, but as bad as they are, we couldn’t even replace them if we wanted to.
Its getting so bad we are looking at stepping up our automation years before we had planned on it. Employees are typically cheaper, but if you have to stop and retrain every two weeks you don’t get a lot done.
The prez flew to Michigan yesterday, spoke to the drones at UofM. Some of the brain dead drones stood in line for 10 hours or more waiting for the head idiot to talk to them about raising the minimum wage.
“Ah kids, this is uh the best you can look uh forward to, so ah, sorry you uh, now have $80k in uh new student loan debt, it’s uh republicans fault, so uh, remember that in uh November, thank you and uh, God bless the United States of ah, America, I’ve got to go, my ah tee time in Hawaii is um later today.”
Then the sandwich eater went to the most expensive deli in Ann Arbor, picked out a “killer” $16 ruben and said,
I chose Zingerman’s Delicatessen for lunch because the company not only has great sandwiches but because they pay workers above minimum wage.
Really? Maybe that’s why they charge $16 for a fucking ruben?
A maroon elected by more maroons.
@card: if we just double everyone’s salary, we will ALL be RICH!!!! Didn’t you learn anything in basic key-knee-zian economics?
@Persnickety – Thats cited as the reason why we don’t get quality workers for the lower end jobs.
We start people out at $12.50 an hour, and they never get laid off, never get less than 40hr/week and can always pick up extra hours if they need to. We have decent insurance, good dental, and they are guaranteed vacation and sick days each year. Its a hell of a lot better than other jobs in this area.
If they prove themselves capable they can reach as high as $16/hr, and in short order. The exceptional can hit more than $20/hr in just 4-5 years time. Keep in mind, this is with zero prior experience, and not even a diploma/GED requirement.
But we still get told that people would be more motivated if we paid more. Bullshit. The work is hot and hard in the summer, cold and harder in the winter. People are unmotivated lazy pieces of shit who are looking for a meal ticket, not a job. Fucking nanny state, it has destroyed America’s legendary productivity in just a few short decades.
I ran a post awhile ago that a 28 y.o. slob on welfare who wouldn’t accept a job paying $80,000 a year because it would mean having to get off welfare and all the free shit and actually work for a living. When 100 million people are getting the equivalent of $57,000 a year, why the fuck would they take a job making $12.50 an hour? They already get free food, free healthcare, free housing, free phones, free meds. You’d have to be stupid to get a job.
“We are steamrolling toward another great financial crisis and our leaders are absolutely clueless.”
IMHO they’re not clueless at all, it’s part of their feudalistic plan. We wind up with rich and poor with no in between.
How in the hell can anyone make 57.000 a year on welfare?*Are they getting paid in cash or does it include other things like food stamps?I have never been on welfare or any other government program so I really don’t know how you come up with 57000 grand.pls explain
bb…..
I have a neighbor who is an accountant for the IRS, he told me the average take home for a FSA member in Michigan is $48-55k a year, some make more than $60k, this is all tax free and he agrees, why work. The total of this free money is not even tracked by any government agency, for years his department has petitioned to at least 1099 these free shitters, not to tax them but to get an accurate number of how much free shit each free shitter is getting so the working taxpayer understands how much he is being fucked over.
One thing I notice about you is if a person makes a claim you do not believe, you want that person to prove to you the statement is true.
Why don’t you prove the statement is incorrect?
bb
The village idiot, too lazy to google. See the chart at the end of this article dumbass.
In addition to the destruction from onerous taxation, regulation, welfare, and off-shoring of jobs, we have the Fed deliberately debasing the dollar.
When what we earn is worth roughly 2% of what it was 100 years ago when the Fed opened its doors, it shouldn’t be a big mystery as to why the middle class is but a shell of its former self.
End the god damn Fed. Return to sound money. Without this fix, a legitimate recovery is wishful thinking.
It’s Not Just The Stock Market That’s Rigged: The Entire Status Quo Is Rigged
Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog
“….The stock market is only the tip of the iceberg of what’s being rigged. For a taste of what’s rigged, ask yourself this question: if Mr. Elite Insider perpetrates a scam, and Mr. John Q. Citizen breaks similar laws, is there any difference between the treatment each receives?
Let’s go even deeper and ask: why is looting legal, even though it is obviously crooked? Why is high-frequency trading legal? Why is it legal for the Fed to offer money at 0% to its buddies but not to Mr. John Q. Citizen?
Why is it legal to issue student loans to future debt-serfs that is unlike all other debt in that it cannot be discharged in bankruptcy?
Since the legal looting continues unabated regardless of what party or toady is in office, then what actual difference is there between the Demopublicans and Republicrats?
It’s not just the stock market that’s rigged–the entire Status Quo is rigged. There are two sets of laws and two sets of opportunities: one for those holding the concentrated wealth and power, and the other for the rest of us debt-serfs.
If the system isn’t rigged, then why are insolvent banks and bankers protected from the creative destruction of capitalism that befalls John Q. Citizen when his risky bets go bad? Why do we as a nation keep insisting the Emperor’s new clothes are splendid when he is in fact parading around buck-naked?
One has to wonder why we are dodging this truth about what we’ve become: a nation that turns a blind eye to skimmers, scammers and legal looting. Perhaps, in Joseph Conrad’s phrase, we hope to escape the grim shadow of self-knowledge.
Here is the passage from Chapter 7 of Lord Jim:
I gave no sign of dissent. I had no intention, for the sake of barren truth, to rob him of the smallest particle of any saving grace that would come in his way. I didn’t know how much of it he believed himself. I didn’t know what he was playing up to–if he was playing up to anything at all–and I suspect he did not know either; for it is my belief no man ever understands quite his own artful dodges to escape from the grim shadow of self-knowledge.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-04-03/its-not-just-stock-market-thats-rigged-entire-status-quo-rigged
[img]http://thepeoplescube.com/peoples_resource/image/29919[/img]
Tea Party Tours
In typical rich racist fashion, the TEA Party neanderthals have announced the TEA Party Tours. Their promotional ad reads: ” Take your children on an educational tour of Liberal Cities across America. See first hand the effects of the Regressive Socialist Policies that have made these cities what they are today, wastelands suitable for use as movie sets for classics like Mad Max and escape from New York. The tour starts in Detroit where we will get close up to laid off City Union Workers who have also lost their pensions and have resorted to eating their old contracts. In Camden, NJ we will talk to the members of the now defunct Camden Police force. The tour will include the wastelands of long time Democrat stronghold New Orleans as well as the wonderfully community organized gang war zones of Cinncinnatti, OH, Oakland, CA, and the still thriving capitol of American Regressivism, Chicago, IL. (recipient of the most of all redistributed properties)”
Comrades, defend the rightousness of our regressive crusades and shine the light of truth on this disinformation. Great Leader has freed the citizens of these bastions of Socialist Enlightenment from the rigors of fruitless and exploitive labor. Gifted with Obamafood, Obamaphones, Obamacare and cardboard boxes of many colors for shelter, these citizens need no longer struggle under the capitalist yoke to maintain the enslavement of the American Dream.
[img]http://thepeoplescube.com/peoples_resource/image/thumb/29921[/img]
What a surprise. Service workers get poorly paid and are lazy and incompetent. I am stunned, stunned I tell you.
I have been saying on this site for some years now that it is not the rich that are killing off the middle class, but it is the hordes of Chinese, Indians, etc., willing to do what the middleclass used to do, but for far less. They are also harder-working and better skilled.
Well, much to my surprise, almost every study being undertaken is saying just that – poor, hard working Asians are taking the middle class jobs. There are a couple of studies that say it is poor education which is the root cause, but they are the exception not the rule.
Half the folks in the US have IQs below 100. They are not fit, generally, more anything but service work. A lot of them are incapable of even that.
The idea that not very smart, poorly educated folks can have family incomes of $80k per year or whatever is absurd. The global economy will not allow it.
If you are not a high achiever, you will continue to get screwed. End of fucking story. All the bleating in the world will not create high paying jobs for dumb, lazy, poorly educated people.
I read just yesterday that the debate re nature vs nurture re school performance is now settled. Nature won – you are born smart, or not.
But get this – the scientists said the answer to that is to throw money at the stupid. Can you imagine that? Instead of focusing on the group that is capable, their answer – no surprise, really – is to throw money at the folks that at best will only be modest performers. W e need to throw money at the ones with the potential to excel, not the ones with the potential to be average.
Thanks, AWD.
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U of M out of state tuition/board 52k/yr. Includes as many Joos and Bolsheviks you can associate with, most of the time one in the same .You sure as fuck better make more than minimum wage. Go Blue my ass!
AWD – the collapse of the middle class was inevitable. No policy or political party on earth could have maintained the US middle class as it was. The idiots have simply brought the collapse on faster and it will be much deeper than it needed to be.
Llpoh is right, as always. As more and more people slip into the “service economy” and incomes slide, the golden consumer will be gone (after their credit cards are maxed out). The kids with student loans will be a lost generation, unable to consume. So who is going to support our consumer economy?
How long can this country continue to support 100 million people on welfare getting the equivalent of $57,000 a year (btw, bb, ZH has ran article after article about this figure) that don’t even work? China, India, Korea, Japan, and all the rest of the countries doing well in this world don’t have welfare; people have to work for a living. But the debtor nations, the welfare states of Europe and the USSA sure do. It’s hard to believe we support people that don’t even work for a living. It’s not going to last. The Fed can keep printing money and buying the IOU’s (treasuries) to support our welfare and socialist state. The end result is the collapse of our economy. Then where the 100 million on welfare be? A coming catastrophe, and Obama and the liberal progressives pushed us over the edge.
I heard an funny quote yesterday:
“Our high schools used to produce tigers, now they produce peacocks”
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AWD – my observation is that countries that have not embraced multiculturalism and have a population united by common beliefs, goals, attitudes, etc., seem to be able to navigate the economic waters the best, even being able to manage a lot of social welfare – for instance Norther European countries. They have welfare, but it seems not to be abused. It is there if needed, but the culture of work seems generally to abide.
In the US, UK, etc., where there is multiculturalism at work, there is no common culture, and there is huge, unsustainable abuse of the welfare systems. Not to mention, the single culture populations invariably seem to have smarter folks overall.
Multiculturalism was a huge, huge, huge, perhaps terminal, mistake.
AWD – my observation is that countries that have not embraced multiculturalism and have a population united by common beliefs, goals, attitudes, etc., seem to be able to navigate the economic waters the best, even being able to manage a lot of social welfare – for instance Norther European countries. They have welfare, but it seems not to be abused. It is there if needed, but the culture of work seems generally to abide.
In the US, UK, etc., where there is multiculturalism at work, there is no common culture, and there is huge, unsustainable abuse of the welfare systems. Not to mention, the single culture populations invariably seem to have smarter folks overall.
Multiculturalism was a huge, huge, huge, perhaps terminal, mistake.
Geez, not sure how that happened. Maybe the computer recognized it was so good it needed to be said twice.
@TPC, have you tried recruiting at local restaurants and retail stores for your no experience jobs?
Or the local oil change places, quick service?
Running ads is the HR approved (so totally out of touch with reality) method of finding employees.
You don’t want people that aren’t working (funny how this was exactly the same as when welfare didn’t pay so well and their was a 2.9% unemployment rate), you want people that are already proving they have drive, motivation, customer service skills, attention to detail, a pleasant personality and whom show up for work!
Throw together a one page recruiting “poster,” list your company, the openings, sell the mother-hell out of the benefits (like steady scheduling, no weekends – if true, opportunity for advancement, etc, keep in mind what would seem fabulous to a swing-shift, part-time, beat to shit retail/food worker) and keep them on you at all times (or set up a one-page webpage and hand out business cards, cheaper, but easier for your prospects to ignore), hand them out when you see an employee going above and beyond at all the places you already frequent. Try to talk your wife into doing it too. I’ve worked in stores, restaurants, bars, offices and factories. I can tell you that there is little difference between working a line in a restaurant and working a line in a factory. Even data entry has skills that are applicable to the industrial company.
How about talking HR into coming up with hiring bonuses for employees that recommend people that end up getting hired and staying longer? I’ve worked in places (and I’ve set up programs) for this. Small $$ at hiring (like $25), then a bigger bonus at 90 days (or 6 months, whichever is better for your company). Make it clear that BAD hires will reflect badly on the employee. “Only recommend those people that you would open your wallet and pay yourself to work for you.” Most HR won’t be open to this, their policies and procedures state that running ads and using HotJobs is the only way to screen “quality” applicants, but is worth a shot.
The truth is that the world has changed. We no longer live in a place where children grow up believing one day they will have to get a job they hate, trudge off daily to pay their bills, or they did not eat, have tv, or nice things.
Now, the “poor” that are subsidized by the gubment are better off than those that work. They have more money, nicer things, better shots at higher education, more pills, you name it. 90 out of 100 Americans actually believe that “fairness” is more important than skills and personal ethics. Doomed we are.
Was watching the protests surrounding moving minimum wage to $15 an hour. If the fast food restaurants were smart, they would totally revamp their entire employee plans and figure out a way to hire older applicants with steady hours and higher pay. Cut the socialists off at the knees.
Of course it will also mean that our kids won’t be getting jobs until their 40s. Ask any socialist and they’ll tell you how great that has been working for Italy, Spain, Greece and France.
So it goes, good luck TPC
Pirate Jo says:
“Don’t have kids.”
Firstly, I am not in the least offended by that advice.
Next, I wish to say we were all indoctrinated in the 70’s to have less kids: who would want to bring kids into such a fucked up world? was the oft repeated line in movies and on teevee.
Now, we do not have enough kids to see us into our old age.
Finally, kids are a gigantic burden, it’s true but since bible times it was understood that one had kids to insure their old age care.
In our brave new world the only hope we have is that strangers will take care of us.
Point C: after the lovin gets old, kids fill the gap. I had neighbors who had no kids, they never smiled much.
My Mormon buddy said the purpose of having kids is to give the spirits in the air an opportunity at life. Whatever. I don’t recall the movie but the Japanese guy philosophizing said that life is an interruption of non-being. Stucky might like that view.
The vast majority of the people choosing not to have kids, or limiting the number they have to two or less, are the smarter people, and the ones more capable of planning ahead and making (individually) good decisions.
Contra, most of the people having 3+ kids are opposite in all those characteristics, with the exception of very small and generally fundamentalist portions of the Mormon and Catholic populations. I’d bet that over 75% of women with 3+ children are below average in IQ, planning skills and general responsibility, and a roughly similar if not greater percentage of the fathers of their kids are the same.
So guess what the future looks like – fat, lazy, and stupid! AWD will be in paradise!
Oh, by the way, “Democracy” is already a raging failure in this territory, and it’s only going to get worse from here on. If you want a future for humanity, our “Democracy” is not going to take you there.
I guess I ask the wrong questions.How much of.the 57000 is cash ?
LIpoh and AWD why you two kissing each others ASSES today?LIpoh said all your numbers were bullshit.That’s why I ask.
Card , you are right I am to lazy after working 10 to 12 hours a day besides what else have you got to do?
Joe ,how many abortions have you had?Do you bake liberal guilt cookies for little children?
El ,glad we are buddies.
To everyone one else ,GOD BLESS and be SAFE.
@bb, I can’t speak for all 50 states worth of recipients (and the benes do vary wildly by state), but I can speak to my sister’s experience.
At one time she had 3 kids under the age of 18. Her ex worked and maintained health insurance on the kids (standard plan, with co-pays and deductibles), he did not pay child support due to their divorce agreement (they split custody – literally – and she worked at the time).
So, she received free rent on a 3 bedroom townhome, for those that work and were paid above minimum wage, the rent was $850 a month ($975 now, five years later). If you worked and were low-income, you paid 25% of GROSS for your rent. Total for non-worker: $10,200
She was receiving about $115 a month in food stamps for her and each of the kids, $5,520
She, and her kids older than 16, received a phone and 100 minutes a month in calls. Comparable value of $35-50 a month if paying for the minutes yourself, not counting the phones that is $1260
She also received a utilities allowance that was about $100 a month, it didn’t cover the utilities completely, but close: $1200
In addition, had she returned to school, she would have been given clothing allowance, car allowance and childcare allowances (for her teens).
PLUS, she and ALL 3 kids were put on Medicare, so they had ZERO co-pays, ZERO med costs, ZERO anything. They all used it. I costed it out a few years back. For my company to provide a policy like this it would cost upwards of $20k per year per family. So, I’ll be conservative and put the value at $15k.
Add it up BB, after she quit working, and as long as her kids were under 18, she was making much about $33k a year. And that would be NET of taxes. Which means that by the time you pay for the cost of working, she was making more than a family of 4 that is grossing $57,000.
Out of that $57k you have to take social security, federal tax, state tax, city tax, health insurance, co-pays, rent, deductibles, car insurance, car payments, appropriate clothing/equipment for work, gas, child care, etc.., etc.
In this post century-change, only fools work. Not to worry though, every piece of legislation coming out of Washington and our state capitals are having their desired effect of wiping out another strata of small business and their jobs.
Soon this conversation will be moot as there won’t be any jobs to be had at any price.
Welcome to socialism, truly is great until you run outta other people’s money. Look to Italy and France to see how long it can last and how insane the people become about human responsibility.
Us Westerners have one helluva reckoning coming our way.
bb says:
“LIpoh and AWD why you two kissing each others ASSES today?”
Our HR said there are 5 kinds of people that go to a party, those that go in and participate, those that hang by the wall, those that don’t go in at all, and a couple more I don’t recall.
Reminds me of a joke my buddy told me: said one ball to the other, have you noticed, every time we go visiting, we never go in?
Pirate Jo is a barren old wench. I’m having as many kids as I possibly can, cause even if there are too many people, there aren’t nearly enough like me. Children are a blessing and when taught, soak up the principles of sustainable living like a sponge.
N.b. Pirate Jo and the rest of the lezzies should most definitely not have children. huzzah!
I would really love to see how they get to $45-55K a year in “free shit”. They must have a hell of lot of kids.
The food stamp benefit: $189 per month for a single person.
http://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/how-much-could-i-receive
Funny. Nothing mentioned of the trade policies of the US and the fact our government has allowed, and encouraged the shipment of jobs overseas to China and the third world.
The destruction of America is planned and deliberate. When you encourage greed on a grand scale, that is what you get. The health of the stock market is inversely proportioned to the health of America.
People, like electricity, follow the path of least resistance. I do not blame anyone for not working, if it benefits them more to do so. We all do what serves our best interests in the end.
In the end, what has killed America, is the invasion of the non-white. In classic doublespeak;
Diversity is strength
I see this bullshit slogan on those inspirational posters that companies love to hang on the walls. What a load of shit. Diversity is what killed America. Diversity kills.
Our trade policies, coupled with our open boarders, have made America what it is today. Sometimes, I think back to the world I grew up in, back in the 60s and 70s and I am dumbfounded at how much it has changed. For the worse.
“open boarders” as in illegals? I think you meant open borders, but obviously open borders lead to open boarders…
El Muchacho says:
“Pirate Jo is a barren old wench.”
Don’t think so, she and her BF prefer not to have kids.
Is El Muchacho an attempt to parody my moniker? That is horribly patronizing, like calling a black dude ‘boy’. Try – vato, guey, they sound better.
My wife and I have two grown up kids. Hardly like me at all. Nope, that’s the part that illegals do not anticipate, their kids will grow up to be Americanos, with no respect for he old ways.
El Muchacho is the name of my boat actually. Ten years ago I had a crew of Mexicans that worked for me, all illegal, and all honest hard workers. They called me Muchacho, I thought because I was 20 years younger than all of them. I miss those days of lengua tacos and chicharones.
El Coyote, if “we do not have enough kids to see us into our old age,” it is because there are too many old people. How are these kids going to see us into our old age if they don’t have jobs anyway? Many of them are part of the FSA. It would be better to have half the number of kids where all of them had jobs.
Also, you’re damn right I’m barren. I figured out what causes kids and had it fixed ten years ago. Best $1,000 I ever spent.
The Olduvai Gorge will be very difficult for the fatties, but my offspring are hardened and resourceful, so I’m going to keep on procreating to ensure the continuation of the species. Also, lonely old people are so sad.
“The Olduvai Gorge will be very difficult for the fatties”
To the extent that obesity is genetic, a tendency that’s bad in our time of plenty may be very beneficial in a time of scarcity. Those fat people today may have the genes that survive in a time of 1000 cal/day if you’re lucky food supplies.
In any event, AWD is sure to be pissed off…
The irony. Thinking it’s MORE procreation that will ensure the continuation of the species. Check back in when the population hits ten billion, and we’ll see how that’s working out for everyone. Let’s put it this way – I don’t think having company in your old age will be a problem.
The thing I see that I believe is significant is that smart Millenials in this country who aren’t part of the FSA are REALLY deciding not to reproduce (and who can blame them).
It’s a difficult and personal choice to have a child, for responsible people. I understand that. But if none of the best people reproduce, what does that do? Just keeps dumbing down the herd even more.
@TE – Thanks for the advice, I don’t think we need to start recruiting specific groups, but I’ll definitely see about hiring bonuses. Right now its an honor system, where your reputation is on the line. Maybe adding on another perk would help people dredge their memories.
As for me, I don’t suggest anyone because I don’t know anyone that I’d be willing to stake my name on. The few that I do now, have jobs that are decent paying and aren’t looking for something else.
PS: We don’t run adds or use hiring/placement services, we are almost 100% referral based for higher level jobs, and the entry level ones are about 50/50 referrals and walk-ins. We are in an industrial park, so people will drive down the road stopping at all of us and putting in their application.
The number that bother to dress appropriately (remember, slacks and a button up is all we expect for lower positions) is truly disheartening.
“But if none of the best people reproduce, what does that do? Just keeps dumbing down the herd even more.”
I couldn’t agree more. But see, the time to ask this question was 30-40 years ago, when the problem could still be corrected. It is way, WAY too late now.
Oh there is still time to correct the problem – but the available solutions are not palatable to voters. The majority of whom are the problem themselves.
Goldman Sachs CEO Blankfein 2013 pay jumps 50%
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE:GS) CEO Lloyd Blankfein pay jumped in 2013 to $19.9 million in total compensation, from $13.3 million in 2012, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission methodology, in a filing on Friday. As part of the compensation, Blankfein received $11.3 million in stock awards. The firm’s president and COO Gary Cohn was paid $18 million last year, versus approximately $12.5 million the year before. Shares for Goldman Sachs was up 15% in the last 12 months but has been down 7% year-to-date.
Persnickety, I think we are saying the same thing. “The majority of voters are part of the problem themselves.” See, I think it’s when that majority line was crossed that it became too late to fix the problem.
Eventually, as the Onion put it, “by the year 2100 there will be five smart people on Earth, swallowed whole by more than 12 billion mouth-breathers incapable of understanding the binary exponentiation that swamped the Earth with their like.”
I can’t imagine what would be worse – being responsible for adding one of the mouth-breathers to the world, or being responsible for adding one of the five remaining smart people, who would curse me until the end of their days.
Hey Joe ,you never answered my questions .You lazy or it’s non of my business or you just to guilt ridden.Pick one *
I don’t really believe in silver bullet solutions to social issues, but I really think allowing the food prices to fluctuate would greatly alleviate much of the growth issues. Cheap food from overproducing countries like the US flood foreign markets and allow people to support many more children than they might otherwise have.
Honestly, I think its one of the easier things to fix.
1) Allow the “free market” to determine food prices.
2) Reduce the FSA spending dramatically.
3) Subsidize the shit out of birth control and other contraceptives. Preferably sink a lot of money into a male birth control pill.
Of course my solutions would lead to civil war, since stupid lazy people would start starving to death, but hey you can’t win ’em all.
Persnickety
You got me. Gotta be on your “A game” with grammar. I’m defiantly not @ 4 am with a hangover.
My apologies.
However, you got the point, regardless.
FUCK DIVERSITY
“I can’t imagine what would be worse – being responsible for adding one of the mouth-breathers to the world, or being responsible for adding one of the five remaining smart people, who would curse me until the end of their days.”
In that case, why are you still living? Even as bad as things have gotten, you will likely prefer living and will try to stay alive no matter what. Your offspring (had you not purposefully mangled your ovaries) would also prefer to keep living as well. Nihilists are even more depressing than lonely old people.
huzzah?