Hello lizbeth,
Never easy resetting your clock after a day on planes or airports. Practically one needs a vacation to recuperate from the vacation.
— I think you meant, If you want to maintain your standard of living, that’s what you have to do. My question is why?{/u]–Why does anyone–in the less than 3 years since the beginning of the end–[u]need to work so much simply to maintain a standard of living that’s somewhere above poverty level?
O- If you work two jobs and you are right at or just above the poverty level then you are doing something wrong. Some states, like South Caroplina will provide vocational training for free that will give you a chance to start working for Boeing, or BMW. Starting at 12+ an hour, in SC, I doubt that people will be forced into poverty. But again it takes an immigrant’s mentality of being prepared to move, to adjust as need be. If you live in Boston…maybe you should consider the south. And if you are not making it in the south then consider the far north. The idea is to survive until things improved and you will be better for it, because you will become a more marketable person by showing no gaps in job history and a steady, if not increasing, asking price. A friend of mine got our of the military, started at 11, took the same job but at a different location and improved to 15 and in a few months he is considering packing his belongins a third time to again take a similar job at a higher wage. This is Capitalism. Maybe more people ought to try it. Immigrants certainly are.
— You say you don’t want your taxes used for the safety nets social entitlement programs provide.
O- Because at some point, people on the “net” forget that it was not meant as a resting place and recalibrate themselves and expectations to include that safety net that is now just the “net”. Like medicine, people can develop a dependency which is not the purpose of said medicine or program. Worse, it might prevent people from having to make the hard choices that have to be made and which would have a more permanent effect.
— What about your taxes being used to ‘bail out’ financial corporations that are just ‘too big’ to go under (the bail out programs were started by the Bush administration) only to be told that the upper management of those corporations still continue to earn huge salaries, bonuses, and retention and retirement packages–especially when you learn how many corporations pay no corporate taxes at all?–or when execs get around paying higher personal income taxes by taking a bunch of their salary in stock, which is taxed at a lower rate (over a set amount of capital gain) than personal income tax?
O- Certain corporations, like Chrysler, have paid back what they got from the govt. Certain banks as well. Would we have been better off, you and me, if these banks and corporations had been allowed to fail, to declare bankarupcy? Two administrations, including the highly educated Obama, who is no friend of corporations, thought that it would be worse. I buy more than these administrations sought to prevent a greater crisis than the conspiracy theory that they were paid off or something.
Taxes are the way they are because they are used, and have been used for decades, as incentives for growth, in this case, investment, and it is fair because investment is risk. Do you have investments?
— What you say is true–in part–but there are a lot of other factors, starting with not being able to be hired into a ‘position’ if you list “unemployed” for a given amount of time on your resume.
O- I know that, which is one of the reasons I didn’t go into unemployment when I could have. I have one friend who went back to school full time and hopes that that will persuade employers when she comes back into the fray.
— Companies interpret that as ‘unemployable’ for whatever reason. Why do companies offer the same job at a lower rate?
O- Let me give you an example. You own a hanger where you do maintenance on aircraft at a certain rate, say, 60k. That pie includes manhours and parts, as well as rent and infrastructure. After taxes, whatever is left is yours. During this lockout by the NBA, you may have lost revenue due to less aircraft being flown. What was yours is now streched over longer periods. You could pound your loses onto the remaining customers you have and ask 65k instead of the 60, but that might drive them away, so you may have to cut elsewhere, for example manhours. Mechanic A has worked for you for 6-7 months, is paid 21/hr. But you have school graduates that can perform what he does and you can start them at 17/hr. Of course you hire at lower wages, you do not offer the job at a lower wage to the person who already has the job. What I saw, what usually happens is that they bring up disponibility, work-ethic or something else that they always knew but let pass, and now make it into issue number one. If Mechanic A becomes more industrius and shows up for more shifts, he might still be a burden to you as far as man hours, but you got a better workforce. But whereas mechanic A was flexible and adapted as needed, mechanic B, or C, or D might not be so accomodating. Maybe it is not even that. Maybe they were being paid 19/hr, but without a license, so now you use that as your reason, but of course that still saves you on manhours.
— We had dinner with our daughter and her friends with whom she stayed off and on for the 2 months she was in Germany. He and his wife are Army and, he said, the Army is now facing across-the-board cuts because of the demand to cut the defense budget. Many of the enlistees are in the Military in order to have jobs and to get the training they were told they could carry with them into civilian life. What’s going to happen to those who get ‘riffed’ if there are no civilian jobs available?
O- I was in the Navy for 20. I just recently left the service. All enlisted. I worked in Administration the last 3. During that time the Navy began reductions in all ranks, but again, and in accordance with my theory, what I saw was a culling of the weak and the inflexible. First off they started with a person’s evaluations. Those with reprimands in conduct, or bad scores in the PFT were not given permission to re-enlist. Those that were stellar were allowed to remain in rate and re-enlist as they wanted. Those that were avergae, in over-manned speacialties, were given the option to re-classify to a speacialty the Navy needed to man, or get out.
But I am not too worried about my brothers and sisters. They all have the 9-11 G.I. Bill for example, plus all the training they got, and not just on a vocation but in life, giving them a discipline that employers seek. Having a DD-214 is priceless as well as an active or former Security Clearance. On top of that they get a week to two weeks of training in how to successfully transition to civilian life. Trust me they will be fine.
— Given all these questions, how can simple answers suffice?
O- I agree that they can’t. But if the answer is “safety net” programs then we are in trouble. Socialism is a simple answers that, let’s just say, I don’t agree with. I don’t mind if the govt has these programs, but let’s not expand on them because this country cannot sustain even what it has in place. Raise taxes, yes, but not to hand out money, and hope that americans will be more military minded and do what it takes, work the farm, work the construction site, get their hands dirty. That is what I am not sure the 9% are willing or able to do, for various reasons.
— I’m simply trying to face facts as I understand them. We live in a world economy–at least a Western World economy. (But it is a world economy and has been ever since the US started off-shoring so much manufacturing. BTW, where has that corporate savings helped the US economy and, again, where’s the money? Don’t you pay just as much money now for a blouse made off-shore as you did before for a blouse made in the US?)
O- The corporate gains were re-invested I would suppose. That is capitalism. As for the blouse…I never buy in station because you pay way above the cost of creating that good. So I buy for summer when they roll out their winter stuff and buy for winter when they roll out their summer stuff. macy’s got good brands at expensive prices, but during these times you can buy great fashion 50-75% off. I certainly don’t agree with pricing, but I rather the market adjust price than the govt. I don’t need govt to do what I can do myself without having to pay more taxes to have a new govt department that would hope to control prices.
— If the OWS protesters target what they call Wall Street and corporate “greed,” it seems to me it’s because they see that “greed” as their simple answer to a situation that’s gone out of control–a situation that’s chaotic, at best, and a system that seems bent on destruction of the many for the good of the few.
O- Thank you. That is all I am saying. Remember WW2, the Holocaust. Many at first blamed one man, one insane man. Then it was a few men, the Party etc, etc. But closer to the truth is that the many and not the few, enabled that situation to take place. That complicates the answers possible of course, but it prepares us for real change. America had a love affair, they still do, with cars and cheap gas. How many SUV’s did you see in Germany? Compare that with how many scooters and bicycles you saw. Here there is still a stigma against buying small bikes, fuel efficient prius, or cars with less than 100 hp. Here in America people see their cars as an extension of themselves. People will park a Hummer next to a housing project. We have a war on drugs, but only illegal drugs. How about pharmaceuticals? The things that worry me is getting any dental work for me or my family, or any legal troubles. THESE are the ponzi schemes that I see.
— Is this really “honest Capitalism?”
O- The few do not benefit from the destruction of the many. If I lose my job permanently, what I consider economic “destruction” then I cannot produce money for the few to extract. Worse, if I already borrowed money for a house that I cannot pay because it is under water then we both lose. It behooves the bank to keep me in that house in some fashion because they can bring at least some revenue from me in the house and none with me outside of the house and no one else buying, but renting. capitalism is not class warfare and that is the message that the OWS protestors would like to send.