Quote:
Originally Posted by Nebe
No. They go on welfare and you and I pay for the food stamps and other subsidies.
Meanwhile the profits soar and shareholders smile
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device
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Well . . . It was the other way until Obama changed it back to the pre-other way. That is, Clinton, after being pushed into it by the Republican Congress, had changed welfare so that to qualify for it, after a base minimum time, the recipient had to get a job, part-time or minimum to low wage, in order to continue getting welfare checks. That was the famous Clinton welfare reform (at least he got the credit for it) which actually worked. The welfare recipients actually did find jobs which supplemented their welfare checks and gave a positive role model to their children rather than encouraging the previous model of generations bred on welfare and then continuing to practice that model passing it on to the next generation.
Of course, Obama considered that too harsh, so got rid of it and made it more comfortable once again to revert to old ways where they didn't have to find work, and expanded the food stamp program. BTW, in another thread, you seemed to support the food stamp thing and criticized Republicans for wanting to cut back on the amount of food stamps.
Curious how you tie in soaring profits with welfare, food stamps, and other government subsidies. Profits have soared in the past without the expansive government transfers we have today. The notion that profits are a result of or contribute to welfare subsidies is peculiar. Is there some magic number of people getting government subsidies which create soaring profits? Would the profits not soar if there were too few welfare recipients, or too many. Have the politicians and big money folks figured out just the right number, or accidently fallen into it? Maybe big business will have to tell Obama when to cut off the cash flow if too many get on welfare. If not, if the more the merrier, then let the number grow. Fire everybody and put them all on welfare. Profits would be stupendously gigantic . . .
. . . talk about income inequality . . .
I think big industry, such as the automotive, get profit by selling product. Generally speaking, they don't sell many new cars to those on minimum wage or welfare. There are exceptions, of course . . . there are, strangely, some fairly well off folks on welfare.
Are you suggesting that companies should hire more workers than they actually need in order to have soaring profits? Or to pay them more than competitive wages and benefits in order to have soaring profits? Isn't that one of the main reasons the Big Three American auto companies got into an unsustainable fiscal predicament, and two of them were bailed out on our dime.
Or are you saying that soaring profits are a sign of things not being right? That profits should not be allowed to soar? That product prices should be lowered, or employee wages should be raised, or both, to a level where profits are more moderate, more seemly? It seems to me that striving for moderate profits in a competitive market would lead to failure. Unless, of course, there was an agreement forced on all companies to not strive for more than a comfortable mediocrity. Collective bargaining was supposed to accomplish that, but, somehow, that didn't work out too well for GM And Chrysler.
I understand about "living wage" and "slave wages." I am a retired UAW member. I was in that union both in the private and public sector. I understand union rhetoric very well. But I wondered why anyone actually believed any of it. It always amazed me how people badly wanted to get those great union jobs, but how every three years they precipitously became oppressed victims. I remember the exciting days of Walter Reuther negotiating with GM representatives and "winning great contracts" and the shaking hands across the table while grinning into the camera. But, within two years, just in time for the next yearly round of negotiations, the deal wasn't great anymore. It stunk. GM was greedy. What was a great living wage two years ago became almost slave wages. Then I went to work in the Detroit Municipal system. Detroit was a great city then--before the workers got unionized. We were paid a little less at the low to mid levels than those in the auto companies. But we had a bit better benefits and far better job security. It provided a comfortable, "moderate," life style, But to make a long story short, the big national unions were voted in, and the same three year pattern I experienced at GM was copied by municipal employees. And, eventually, the great city became not great at all.
But the truth is that in my adult work experience I was always paid a "living wage." As was most everyone else I've known. And "income inequality" has existed in all my memory. I can't recall it diminishing my appreciation for and enjoyment of life in the USA. So, now that the income gap is, supposedly, even greater, that is supposed to be destroying the "middle class." We will now be ground into wage slavery.
So, when we don't recognize the huge role "benevolent" government has played in bringing us to this middle class destruction, and we perceive that it is the rapacious one percenters who are responsible, we have to assume that they have the vast majority of material wealth in their possession, therefor not available or stolen from the rest of us. Even though that is obviously not true. The 99 percent consume far more food and energy, own more cars and houses and clothes . . . etc. But the one percent own 40% of the financial wealth. Umm . . . what are they going to do with it? Buy all our food and cars and homes and clothes off our backs. It seems to me that depriving the rest of us of our material comforts, or the means to acquire them, makes absolutely no rational sense. In fact, quite the opposite, investing in the production and sale of those things to us rather than buying them or stealing them from us would be the rationale use of their financial wealth. The destruction of the so-called "middle class" would seem to be the farthest goal the top 1% would have in mind. If their wealth depends and grows by selling to us, why would they want to impoverish us?
I guess you might as well go ahead and believe the Marxist rhetoric if that gives you a sense of understanding of how things work, and what causes what, and what the cure is . . . vote for Bernie Sanders.