Protests and media silence

[Mali]

Pics or it didn't happen.

[Imoutgoodbye]

Pics or it didn't happen.

I just spit water all over the place! Bastard!

[Pali]

No pics, sorry, but honestly it wasn't even that long of a beard... I let it grow without trim for about four months, so it got to be about three inches (maybe a bit longer, as it curls slightly - didn't exactly measure it either way, just estimating), but I didn't have it shaped in any fashion - an old friend saw me and said I looked like Paul Bunyan, and it was gone within the week after that. Haven't let it get more than about two centimeters in a LONG time... though I've also not shaved clean in 6 years now. Not a single person in the city I live in has seen me beardless.

[f0xx]

Except that in the current economy' date=' Twin, plenty of those people actually ARE there for long... Or they end up in low-paying jobs that they are vastly overqualified for and are nowhere near worth the investments they've already made in their education or other aspects of their lives (let us remember that people are not worker ants - we need more than just a job to do ).[/quote']

I was trying to ignore this conversation for a while but then decided to read a bit of it and noticed what you guys are talking about.

I didn't want to enter it because you are talking about things specific to your own country, and I feel that I don't have enough knowledge to comment on the subject, BUT....

From what I see I feel that americans as a whole and most europeans (greeks for example) have become very spoiled and high-fed.

I would love to see how the people who complain that it's hard to find worthy job would live in a country where the minimum wage is 140 euros (a bit more than $1 per hour) and the average is 300. Only then, Pali, you will understand the TRUE meaning of the phrase "not worthy". Only then you will learn what financial discipline actually means. And only then you will learn to appreciate what you have now.

[Pali]

All I'm going to say in response, Foxx, is that I consider myself far more a humanist than I do an American in my views on how the world should be... and I remind myself that I deal with what I have dubbed "first-world problems" on a daily basis.

Though... your math does not seem to add up to me. The euro is currently stronger than the dollar, at a 1-1.35 conversion rate. Are you referring to a different euro, or different types of pay scales, like a job that in the USA would pay $20 an hour but in Europe the same job pays 5 euros an hour or the like? This is honest confusion on my part, not a challenge to what you're saying.

[f0xx]

Are you referring to a different euro' date=' or different types of pay scales, like a job that in the USA would pay $20 an hour but in Europe the same job pays 5 euros an hour or the like?[/quote']

I am not speaking about Europe in general, but more like eastern parts of it, i.e. Serbia, Albania, Lithuania, Romania my own country including.

I will do the maths -

140 euro minimal monthly wage = 189 dollars.

Working a 5 day, 8 hour week, means 40 working hours per week.

4 weeks * 40 hours = ~160 working hours per month.

So, if you are on minimal wage, you get 190 dollars and work 160 hours per month which makes a bit more than $1 per hour.

If you are on average salary, i.e. ~300 euros ($400), you will be making $2.5 per hour.

I am curious to know though, what you (as an average american) consider a job (and a payment) not worthy, because for me, a job that is less than 300 euro ($400) is not worthy. I have some feeling though, that for most americans and europeans, their level of "not worthy" is much higher than mine for example, because:

1) they are spoiled

2) they just seek an excuse to not work

I am simply comparing the attitudes of people and that some consider a job with a monthly salary of 350-400 euros a blessing and others considering it as not worthy, simply because their state gives them more than that when they are unemployed anyway.

[Demiterracotta]

Foxx, I can't speak for most people. However. To give you an Idea of what it takes to SURVIVE in the area I live in. (An extremely poor county in a state that isn't exactly rich to begin with.)

Sans transportation (which means working in town, and LOL good luck)

Rent for a one bedroom apartment: 350

Average power bill for one bedroom apartment: 30

Average heating bill for one bedroom apartment: 60 (winter is six months here, so yeah)

Food from the LOCAL grocery store (Note, Ramen and Hot Dogs): 45-50

City Utilities (Have to pay them, water, sewer, garbage, etc): 70

That's the bare minimum you need to live in this town, which means nothing ever goes wrong. And I would imagine cost of living in my area is cheaper than most. There is a town about 40 miles away that charges just 70 for the water and it's metered.

Adding a car (which in this town would be considered a basic necessity before retirement) or a hospital bill, or anything else would drastically enlarge that figure.

A job that is worth my time would have to pay me 700 dollars a month and be within walking distance. Impossible? No, but there are two employers within 4 miles, and they both hire one person a year.

[J.Twendrist]

I think the middle class withering away is a sign of serious trouble. I think a lot of that could be solved by forcing the business sector to bring all the jobs home. I mean we saved lots and lots and lots of money and got really really rich by outsourcing the jobs. Slowly it actually started effecting people and started making them mad, but it was too late. It was already a waaaay cheaper business model than being all American. Now we're paying the cost. Our products and services have gotten cheaper and cheaper as companies have cut cost to make them so for the American public. But the cost has got to be paid somewhere, everything in this world costs and now it's come due for how long we've had it easy.

For a bit of backround I work in a call center, my company Frontier is a rural land line telephone company that bought a large piece of verizon's landline network. About a thousand of the type of job I have, 11+ an hr, full benifits, no commission cap, spiffs, etc are back in America because Frontier brought them back. I also worked min. wage jobs for along time, and held two at times, and it blows, let me tell ya. I think a good thing would be companies actually being responsible and thinking, hey.. we make a lot of money in America.. maybe we should spend a little bit more money to keep the balance in check

[inscribed]

Are we resurrecting this thread again?

I hate to tell ya man, but that post is a little misguided. How exactly do you plan to "force" companies to bring jobs back stateside? The whole reason companies are forced to turn to other countries for labor and goods is because the government has simply made it too costly to do business here. If you want jobs to return stateside, you have to make it cost effective for them to do so. Cut corporate taxes, remove minimum wage, remove ridiculous EPA regulations, etc. The reason your company has so many jobs stateside is because its cost effective for them to do so, not because they are "being responsible". Moving jobs overseas is not a simple matter of calling up India and saying "hey come work for us". It involves a lot of resources that smaller companies simply don't have, and would be cost inefficient for them to do so, while a larger company with more resources may see an investment in an overseas call center as a good long term investment.

[Mali]

remove ridiculous EPA regulations

Care to name the ones you are referencing?

[inscribed]

Honestly, all of them. Believe it or not, just because an agency is named the Environmental Protection Agency, that doesn't mean the agency actually protects the environment.

The Clean Air Act, for instance, lets the EPA regulate just about every industry in the US and can set any restrictions they want without justification. The automobile industry is the prime example, as the EPA arbitrarily decided to force all manufacturers to have an unrealistic average MPG of 34.1 by 2016, something that is no where near being economically feasible with modern technology. Engineers have little voice in government though; instead we have individuals with barely a high school understanding of simple physics deciding engineering matters.

The Clean Water Act lets the EPA effectively deem any chunk of land as protected (without justification) and can enact extremely harsh penalties on both individual and corporation a like, and allows absolutely no legal recourse to fight the penalties. That bypasses a very basic right to due process, and the courts for the most part have defended the EPA, although this might change once the Supreme Court finally hears the case after nearly two decades. You have to love a government agency that uses the excuse that "due process just gets in the way".

There are countless examples of EPA harming business while providing no benefit to justify the tax dollars that fund it. Google it.

[J.Twendrist]

The day our businesses learn that cutting corners for cost causes more problems down the line is the day we don't have to keep them in check. Checks and balances extend EVERYWHERE or we all suffer. The 3 branches check and balance each other. The gov, cost, and benifit check business. Votes and purchasing check gov. and business.

Point being is sometimes the government does need to step in and tell business that they're being dicks. Sometimes the people need to tell the government that they're full of ****. One law mandating that business who sell more than 75% of their goods/services here must hire here or suffer a tax increase to cover the unemployment checks being sent out across the country.

I don't want the government giving us as people any more than they absolutely have to. But on the flip side we gotta feed the hungry and shelter the homeless on our streets. In the twenty first century we should be better than letting children starve I agree, but on that note we can't have uncle same paying for someones car, mortgage, health insurance, etc. The one who provides for you, owns you. That's why people have jobs. And to have jobs our companies have to stop outsourcing. There is a fundamental flaw in our thinking that if it is legal to make money in a way, then it is good to make money in that way.

Now I'm all for free market, but these companies make a **** ton of money off of Americans buying their stuff. It is fair that they keep that money in the system. Yeah I'm saying either force them to hire American or tax the **** out of their goods. They want to make money here, they shouldn't do it at the cost of Americans being out of work. The Federal Government cannot employ everyone.

*edit* or have a staggered system... however much is being bought here, percentage wise the employment needs to be here. Ie: 60% purchasing here, 60% of jobs here, etc.

[inscribed]

Businesses do not HAVE to operate in the US, pure and simple. If its cheaper to operate in Canada or offshore or overseas, then that's where they will operate. The smaller businesses that cannot afford to change location of operation will continue to die off, as they are now. There is absolutely nothing the government can do to force them stay stateside, and trying to enforce ridiculous taxes or penalize businesses for being too successful or expect them to have to "feed the hungry and shelter the homeless" is going to have the exact opposite effect. Again, there is absolutely nothing, zero, nada, zilch that the government can do to force companies to operate here while raising taxes and enacting random penalties, and expect the company to remain profitable. They will either leave to other countries or die off, as has been the case for the last decade.

Imagine businesses are small woodland animals. If you want a lot little animals to come into your yard, you have to encourage them (lower taxes), provide food (incentives), and try to ensure their safety (a regulatory-safe environment). You don't charge at them running and screaming while throwing rocks (raising taxes and throwing around penalties and otherwise treating them as an enemy).

All of those homeless and hungry people you are worried about, are there because of government trying to control the economy, having it backfire, and then citizens expecting even more control will somehow reverse the effect.

Also, yes, it is absolutely always good to make money in legal ways, no exception. Those business owners and executives and other "1%'ers" are the ones providing jobs for everyone else and investing in new businesses and growing the economy. If you want to know why unemployment is so high and economic growth is so low, its because continued government regulation has chased all of those people away or otherwise made it unwise for them to invest stateside and provide jobs.

Read up on the failures of Keynesian economic policy. Every single historical example of that policy in practice (of which there is no shortage) has led to economic failure, yet still today we call upon government to enact more and more regulations, and citizens scratch their heads and wonder what the problem is. A simple look to history will give you your answer.

[J.Twendrist]

lol word man. History will tell you when a society's middle class dies away so does said society. It crumbles and fails, government, business, and individual. If you over hunt, the prey dies away. If you over plan the soil dies. If you whittle at something enough it withers. That's the nature of everything. There are plenty of bs regulations no doubt. But there are some that do a lot of good. And let me tell you, theres plenty of money to be made in oil, and many other dying decadent industries that are now a cancer to our future.

There is plenty of money to be made giving credit cards and loans to people who shouldn't have them or can't afford them, and what happened? The current problems we have at hand. Want to know why people are out of work, why the middle class is dying? It is because outsourcing is now actually a serious problem. Walmart got strong but the rest of us got weak and reliant on their prices, and their jobs. Who pays your bills owns you. Practices that built walmart and every other cut cost at all costs company gave us cheap prices, and in few number thats great. But not across the board. Not when its walmart, target, kmart, + every other one to boot. When that drives our economy it means there are a bunch of peons and a few uppers. And like I said, history, Aristotle, and many other examples will tell you when the middle class fails so does the society.

And before minimum wage laws it was perfectly legal and ok to work someone to death for however many hours without breaks with little to no pay. Legal at that point in time. Legality is only relevant to the time. If we know we can and should do better than the better solution needs to be taken. It'll sting in the short but be stronger in the long.

There are very likely better approaches than what I've brought to the table but to leave it only in the hands of business, only in the hands of the government, or only in the hands of the masses which are not much better than cattle at decision making will lead to failure. We are seeing the symptoms of the over all greater disease right now in the news.

[J.Twendrist]

Also I'm all for people needing to work. Our society is full of jerk offs looking for a handout on my taxes and it pisses me off. Hand up not a hand out is the approach I say for that. Used to be to get money you'd have to dig a hole or something. Now you just get it and that is bs.

I do agree with most of what you're saying, but sometimes a hard hand has to be taken and a rope used instead of a bait. Thats why the need for checks and balances. That's all I'm saying.

[Mali]

(a regulatory-safe environment)

I thought you were against regulation. I'm shocked.

[inscribed]

I thought you were against regulation. I'm shocked.

Regulatory-safe environment as in an environment safe from over regulation.