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Surely you jest! Child labor, sweatshops, disregard for worker's safety all contributed to labor laws. Minimum wage laws are also a good thing.
The fact is child labor laws are only possible if the market has created conditions that allow children to not work and still eat. The same with all other labor laws they can only be imposed after the market has created enough wealth to make them possible. Labor laws are the result of increased wealth. Liberals put the cart before the horse.
I know without a shadow of a doubt that things cost relatively way more in the 50s, 60s and 70s. Not every single thing but most consumer goods. Clothing, foorwear, some foods, electronics etc. Todays consumers are spoiled rotten by low low prices. I think I saw my first yeard sale sometime in the 80s. Today there is one on every corner Sat. and Sun. People clear out all the junk and then go and load up on new junk over and over again. It just makes no sence to me at all but I'm a minimilist. I don't like having things I don't use on a regular basis.
This is not true. Best Buy, for one, pays health benefits at 30 hours, and has several non-management full-time employees at each store. I've got a close friend who has worked at four BBs, and this is true of every one of them. They also start new workers at 10-12 an hour depending on the COL of the area. I'm not saying that they are a great place to work on an entry-level basis, but they are much better than WalMart.
I have a friend whose son worked at Best Buy when he was in college. He started out PT. One summer he had more time available, so asked for more hours. He was often scheduled at 39 hours per week so he would not qualify for benefits.
Quote:
Originally Posted by whogo
The fact is child labor laws are only possible if the market has created conditions that allow children to not work and still eat. The same with all other labor laws they can only be imposed after the market has created enough wealth to make them possible. Labor laws are the result of increased wealth. Liberals put the cart before the horse.
We have been out of the Dark Ages for about 600 years now.
Last time I stepped foot in a Wal Mart was last summer when I had to have an ink cartridge, business submittals were due first thing in the morning, and they were the only thing open. Other than that it's been years.
What little Christmas shopping I do is completed BEFORE thanksgiving.
Christmas is a religious holiday centered around the birth of Christ and for some reason I can't see Jesus waiting for the stores to open black Friday morning. This is the anti-thesis to everything about Christmas. It is really amazing, we have a country with an ever growing number of atheists yet the holiday is all about anti-Christmas and buying stuff.
As for the WalMart workers and those like them they have only themselves to blame. They have themselves to blame because they shop at WalMart collectively purchasing billions of dollars in Chinese communist made garbage. All the low tech manufacturing jobs went to China because the idiocracy in America said we didn't need jobs like this. We didn't need low tech $15/hr jobs with benefits because we are all going to be computer programmers. We were all going to become professionals!
Who ever dreamed up this garbage in the 80's and 90's ought to be dragged into the street and shot.
There's a piece written by Robert Reich, Clinton's former Secretary of Labor, about how people should not support WalMart blah, blah. What a freaking idiot, where the hell was he when Clinton signed NAFTA and awarded China "Most Favored Nation" status assuring every last "low tech" job would end up being sent overseas? Robert Reich had his head stuck up Clinton's backside?
We need those low tech jobs because not everyone in America can be a professional computer programmer, lawyer or doctor.
Here is how it works.
Where I live there are dozens of closed fabric mills around that used to employ tens of thousands of people. Contrary to what you might think these were not terrible jobs. One of the last closed in 2005 and the average pay for someone with 10 years experence was $14/hr but they did offer full fringe benefits that included 100% company paid health care with pharmacy, dental and eyeglasses for the family. 40 hours was not the normal either, the average work week was 48 hours and they got 8 hours overtime. How they worked was 12 hour shifts and a worker would work 4 shifts then have three consecturive days off.
$14 for 48 hours equals $728.00 for the week which was always with benefits.
Many of these jobs were around Douglas, Georgia and using this wage comparison calculator a comparable salary to $728.00 in Douglas is equivalent to $1,219.00 in San Jose, CA. You aren't going to live high on the hog in Douglas for that but a family can live very comfortably especially if both husand and wife worked at the mill which many did. All you needed was a willingness to work, didn't even need a high school education.
I don't care what you call it but that's better than WalMart. What happened to us as a country that we started to distain such jobs?
What happened is clear, WalMart started selling Chinese made crap (thanks Clinton!) at prices the mills around here could not compete with. Next thing you know ALL the mills around close and workers that used to work in the mills go where to look for whatever jobs are available? You got it, WalMart which now enjoys 100 applications for each job available and now why don't you regale us with your brain power and tells us what happens to wages then.
It's simple, if the mills were still open WalMart would be forced to pay more for workers... that is how the capitalist system works. Keeping foreign goods, cheap Chinese made garbage, out of the country is what our government should be working on doing and instead the traitorous Clinton people sped up the process. Thanks, Congress!
I don't purchase much for Christmas but when I do I make sure it is "Made in America". Not a Christmas decoration or single gift under my tree that has a "Made in Communist Red China" sign on it. I wonder how much "Made in China" crap a union organizer has under his tree this year?
So, my dear poor downtrodden WalMart wage slave, you shopped at Walmart, you spend money buying worthless Chinese garbage so you made your bed so go lay in it.
Yep, it made me ill to see all the closed mills in N.C. as well as the closed furniture plants, what a complete shame!
We've turned ourselves into nothing but a service economy where many people started thinking that factory work is below them. Well, now that it's mostly gone overseas it seems jobs like Wal-Mart and hotel/restaurant work is about all that's left. So the question I've got is "is that really better than those factory jobs"?
The other thing that's happened is people got hooked on "low price,sale,BOGO,low price, oh, low price" and the resulting low quality.
We as a country need to ask, no, DEMAND changes from our leaders. Not "redistribution of wealth" but redistribution of manufacturing back home or we're eventually done.
I talked to servers all over the USA and some were getting $2 an hour with no benefits.
In Alberta the MacDonalds were offering $20 an hour and still could not fill their staffing requirements. Besides experencing it first hand I watched a special on it on the CBC. One McDees owner was cleaning tables, flipping burgers and just filling in where ever because he could not get people to work for him. Places like Subway HAVE to bring in foreign "Guest Workers" or they are just out of business. That is one of the biggest benefits of "Full employment".
But you're forgetting the tipping thing that was explained above so are not telling the "whole" story. As for Canadian workers w/full benefits don't Canadians get their healthcare free anyway? Compare apples to apples.
To hell with Walmart and their landfill junk from China that is nothing but garbage. Why would you work and spend your hard earned money on stuff that you don't need and if you do it is of such low quality that you are NOT getting your money's worth...screw the big box store...If I want a screw to fix something- I go to my local hardware store- the guy gives me what I need and I am home in five minutes...Walmart are users of the herd...they are NOT your friends.
Yep...
Junk like....
IPads
IPods
HP Notebooks
Big Screen TVs
Stereo systems
Flash drives
so...feel free to pay twice the price for the same Chinese crap at a different store if it makes you feel good.
Sure you can, it's called job abandonment if they walk off the job or a multitude of other infractions. Wal-Mart could even force them to quit by cutting hours to almost nil,on the graveyard shift only on the weekends. Don't like it? See ya!
These fools had better understand that A.The union DOESN'T CARE about them, they just see $$$ from membership. B.Remember Hostess and what the union did for 18,000 people++++.
China is not destroying America. America is the nation not manufacturing nearly as many products within the country as it used to. The race for cheaper labor is what has America down this path. Chinese workers just accepted the jobs that came along. I don't blame China. I blame the corporations for sending jobs away. I blame "us" for letting it get that way.
I have a blender in my house. It was purchased sometime in the early 1970s. It still works to this day. It was manufactured in the USA. What happened between then and now? We wanted to have someone else manufacture products for much cheaper. And some products are just as expensive.
And many,many things are now made with planned obsolescence so you have to buy more often. Make something that lasts and lasts and eventually you run out of buyers.
But you're forgetting the tipping thing that was explained above so are not telling the "whole" story. As for Canadian workers w/full benefits don't Canadians get their healthcare free anyway? Compare apples to apples.
There ain't such a thing as a free lunch. Someone pays for our healthcare and it's mostly employers that pay. The funds come from taxes. Employers pay more than employees.
There ain't such a thing as a free lunch. Someone pays for our healthcare and it's mostly employers that pay. The funds come from taxes. Employers pay more than employees.
My Japanese employer pays for most of my healthcare insurance.
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