Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I don't see massive soup lines and droves of people begging on the streets. Sorry, but you folks are just falling for the negative media mess. Heck even real estate is coming back. Things are great. People that compare our tiny hiccup to the depression, haven't a clue. Do a little research on the real bad times. Soup lines everywhere, people just trying to find something to eat and a little heat. Please, there is no comparison. What is shocking is how privileged we seem to feel. It takes some work to make it, not sitting on your butt. Some have to work a couple of jobs for a while or whatever. Sure there is way too much greed on top and the billionaires are just greedy folks with their egos, but there is money out there to be made. Read about the depression. Maybe that will make you feel like we are on top of the world.
You're taking the whole conversation out of context. Noone said there wasn't jobs. Back in the 60's most families had ONE person working ONE job...now, see the difference?
You're taking the whole conversation out of context. Noone said there wasn't jobs. Back in the 60's most families had ONE person working ONE job...now, see the difference?
You are talking about the US adjustment to cheap labor costs overseas. We have to work for less to keep our country as a Military Industrial Complex. The adjustment was going to happen no matter what due to how cheap other countries like China will work for. We might be able to do things differently, but with our wild military spending, we are all going to be working with two incomes, longer hours with no overtime and so-on. It is the cost of living in fear as they want us to do. I don't think there will be a change in my lifetime, so I just figure it is what it is. Just make the best of it, but as soon as Kennedy created the military machine, the writing was on the wall. We were warned by President Eisenhower and sure enough it started as soon as he left. If we took a portion of that massive military budget and put it into infrastructure we would be doing much better. Well, the pentagon wouldn't be, but they are the fear mongers.
I don't see massive soup lines and droves of people begging on the streets. Sorry, but you folks are just falling for the negative media mess. Heck even real estate is coming back. Things are great. People that compare our tiny hiccup to the depression, haven't a clue. Do a little research on the real bad times. Soup lines everywhere, people just trying to find something to eat and a little heat. Please, there is no comparison. What is shocking is how privileged we seem to feel. It takes some work to make it, not sitting on your butt. Some have to work a couple of jobs for a while or whatever. Sure there is way too much greed on top and the billionaires are just greedy folks with their egos, but there is money out there to be made. Read about the depression. Maybe that will make you feel like we are on top of the world.
Look I am not comparing this to the Great Depression. That was someone else. What I'm talking about is incomes for most people have not increased even as much as the inflation. So in real terms, incomes are lower than 40 years ago.
I love how you toss out "Some have to work a couple of jobs for a while or whatever." Must be nice for that to be someone else's problem right?
Personally I am well aware of how good I have it compared to so much of the world and even so much of this country. To pretend that everyone is doing that well is pretty tone deaf. That puts you in with the rest of the millionaires. Out of touch. Talk about privileged....
Hilarious that there has to be soup lines for things to be bad. No, we don't have soup lines anymore. We have food stamp enrollment increases (with cutbacks, 'natch) and food pantries struggling everywhere with increased demand. We have schools all over the place where the vast majority of kids are getting free food. I have kids in my life who don't get fed outside of school, and who I pay out of pocket to feed them extra, and their eyes light up when they're given APPLES. Imagine that there are kids in the richest, most powerful country in the world whose day is made when they're given a damn apple. We have the underground economy where people barter for things. The heck is the point of such baseless comparisons, like it has to be Great Depression level to be bad? Great Depression wasn't bad compared to the struggles of parts of Africa, people who suffered during the GD have no right to complain. Such "logic."
It's been extensively proven that wealth is being concentrated by the few, that the recovery of Wall Street is not translating to the jobs that would have been created in the past, that the corporations are just sitting on boatloads of money (outside of the dividends they're paying out, sometimes under pressure) and getting individuals to do the jobs of three people, while shipping all jobs they can overseas. Jobs that people used to be able to get out of high school now require a needless degree and multiple years of experience, even if the job pays $10-12 an hour (especially around here), and you're lucky to get a raise. And that's the least of it, in terms of long-term effects. Public companies and their shareholders only think in the short term, and in a consumer economy, that is going to come back to bite them. People have forgotten the lessons that Henry Ford learned going on 100 years ago. You need to pay people healthy wages for them to be able to afford what you sell.
The greatest trick that the sellers of warped capitalism have ever played was convincing the working class that they were middle to upper middle class, and they turned them against each other and against the poor. It was incredibly masterful, and absolutely amazing to see so many continue to buy it, even as incomes fall and work-life balance is obliterated. The billionaires have been able to convince the regular people to race to the bottom. It's truly wild.
You're preaching to somebody who was complaining about the electricity that Sheetz uses. Take it with a grain of salt. Some people have no clue of reality.
The greatest trick that the sellers of warped capitalism have ever played was convincing the working class that they were middle to upper middle class, and they turned them against each other and against the poor. It was incredibly masterful, and absolutely amazing to see so many continue to buy it, even as incomes fall and work-life balance is obliterated. The billionaires have been able to convince the regular people to race to the bottom. It's truly wild.
I really, really wish I could give you more rep.
If the global working class ever figures this out en masse, about 90% of the world's problems could be solved in a few years.
Back to the original topic, I give Sheetz credit for at least treating the workers like something similar to human beings, unlike the walmarts of the world who seem to resent not being able to just utilize slave labor like the good 'ole days.
Wages are negotiable. Around 7 or 8 years ago when I was only making around 32 grand a year I managed save enough money to open a Roth IRA at Vanguard, while making a car payment and student loan payment I took 10% off the top of my income and put it into that Roth IRA each year since then. Today it's worth around 14 times the amount I originally saved to open the Roth. Point being, the system's not perfect and there are other ways to make money, join the party
This. Not that I am as young as SCR and I wouldn't consider him my peer due to where we each are in our lives, but I am certainly not anywhere near old folk. A less than 10 year age difference doesn't make me old folk, nor does it make me out of touch.
SCR is a special snowflake in this situation... he is educated and has viable skills, but has made some choices that affect his situation. Those choices are certainly his right to make for whatever reasons he deems just, but he needs to acknowledge that he is indeed in a special snowflake sort of situation. His doom and gloom about "his peers" is exaggerated and unsupported. Again, I ask if SCR's peers are doing so poorly, who exactly is buying up all of the East End?
I must agree with you. I know many young college graduates in their 20's and 30's and they all seem to be doing pretty well. They have professional level jobs with benefits and that's true for young people in Boston, DC, CA, NC, and PA. I have no idea why SCR has chosen to deliver meals, for more than a few months. Many people (myself included) did a job like that for a few months after college before their 'real job' came through or before attending graduate school. Delivering pizzas is not expected to be a career job with benefits just as few people would see a job at McDonald's as a career. These are transitional jobs not a profession. Why would any college graduate chose a job that doesn't require even a high school diploma and expect to have benefits?
You're taking the whole conversation out of context. Noone said there wasn't jobs. Back in the 60's most families had ONE person working ONE job...now, see the difference?
And 15% of the people still had an outhouse and the rest had one bathroom per house and one phone, that they shared on a 'party line'. Our standard of living has increased since then!
Can we please not psychoanalyze me for just one thread in an off-topic fashion? Please? Pretty please? I have a very sour taste in my mouth for the corporate world after the way I was treated while working for PNC, which is supposedly an "awesome" employer according to many of you while expecting its employees to work through unpaid lunch breaks; telling us to curry favor with "good clients" (defined as the wealthy) while ignoring the needs of the "bad clients" (poor people) instead of trying to curry favor with both in case those "bad clients" ever struck it rich; not providing you with paid sick leave; providing you with vacation time that was "use or lose" while often NOT letting you take it due to staffing shortages anyways; paying egregiously low hourly wages; not paying bonuses in a timely or accurate manner to *********; expecting unrealistic quotas; mediocre benefits when factoring in the stress level of the job; etc. I also saw firsthand the waste of tax dollars occurring at the Federal level while working in Northern Virginia, which soured me on the public sector as well.
I'm now managing a small business in the East End. I don't "just deliver pizzas", and it frustrates me that many of you put yourselves "above me" by implying I'm worthless. I recruit new business for us, assist in marketing, hire/fire/discipline personnel, work in the office, and, yes, I often do run out and deliver when we're busy (as if that's such a bad thing?). I take pride in my job, despite the lack of benefits. I earn a decent living. I feel like I'm treated with respect here, which is more than I can say for either PNC or my Federal employer, where my boss flat-out told me on Day One that she was busy and "didn't want and didn't have time for a new hire so good luck..." How are you supposed to thrive or succeed in a place like that?
Condemn away. I'll never live in Shadyside. That's fine. As long as I can someday afford Troy Hill or Carrick I'll be content. Not all of us want a custom-built McMansion in South Fayette. Years of battling depression stemming from issues not appropriate for forum discussion have impaired my cognitive abilities, and I've accepted that I'll always be working within professional mediocrity, at best. My goal is to eventually start my own business venture (in my 30s) that will afford me a nice retirement. It beats selling my soul to a corporate entity like PNC where I visibly saw people back-stabbing one another to get ahead and openly kissing arse of rude "good clients" to try to woo money out of them.
I stand by my comments that the working-class stiffs of today receive lower real wages and less benefits than the working-class stiffs of prior generations. Feel free to debate that point---not whether or not I'm a loser, please.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
