Rick wrote:RossValoryRocks wrote:Rick wrote:What I read said banking industry.
I agree with you to an extent on the unions statement in that they cost companies money with the bureaucracy bullshit, but I do believe in a well run union that doesn't. I work in a union job, and we make no more and are benefited the same as our non-union counterparts. Union shops do, however, help their non-union counterparts attain that pay and benefit level. I do not, on any level, think employees of this country should be paid and benefited like our Chinese counterparts. I don't know how anyone would want that.
If a single worker has to hold 3 jobs to make ends meet, then there are 2 jobs that are not on the job market and unemployment goes up. I think it only works if each working man can make a decent living wage, and that can only work if there is some entity, like a labor union, to facilitate that. Otherwise, and I don't blame them, companies would pay much less in pay and benefits. But that doesn't pay the bills or send kids to college.
There are only so many college level jobs to be had, and the rest are labor, sales, and what have you. Around 41 percent of jobs in this country are jobs that don't require college. If there are roughly 150 million people in the American workforce, then 41 percent of that is roughly 61 or 62 million people. If, in the job market, there is 1 job for every 1 working person, ideally, and if 25 percent of those people had to take even 2 of those jobs, that puts between 7 and 8 million people out of work. And, when a college educated person is working a job that requires a college degree that pays peanuts and has to hold a second job, then it gets much worse.
I'm all for the 40 hour work week at a job that pays a decent living wage. You may call that socialism or whatever, but I call it building a country with citizens that have buying power. Because, without that, what happens to this country? A recessed economy and high unemployment.
That's the way I see it anyway, with my rose colored union glasses on.
Your numbers, while illustrative to a point, ignore the single biggest fact of the economy...when the economy is rolling more and more jobs are created, when the unemployment rate approaches 5% that is as about as full employment as you can realistically get, because of how the calculate that rate about that percentage is always not working, but still considered part of the work force. There are jobs out there, lots of jobs, just not up the level these idiots protesting feel is their "due".
The Federal Reserve IS the banking industry...they control it all...the single greatest mistake was having a central bank in this country...many of our founding fathers and early Presidents (Andrew Jackson for one) knew what a danger a central bank represented, Wilson, who SIGNED the damn Federal Reserve act said on his death bed it was one of the biggest mistakes he ever made.
I think everyone has a right to seek good, gainful employment, but to mandate wages based on the outcome (i.e. living wage) when many jobs that pay minimum wage are WORTH that wage and erode the profits of companies which ends up hurting our economy far more than if that person was paid less.
I should have specified career jobs and not car washers or taking tickets at a movie theater. Certainly there are those, and those are great for school or college kids, or senior citizens that just want something to do. I realize my thoughts are very idealistic, but a system like that seems like one that would work. We wouldn't have to rely on China or India or "Made In The USA" Guam to provide inexpensive, cheaply made products, because with the buying power this country would have, industry in this country should flourish.
Our wage basis is way too high...we cannot compete, even if every job uin the US was minimum wage, with workers who make a $1 a day...even with import tarrifs the cost of those good is cheaper than we can produce it here...which is why we have almost no manufacturing left in this country.