The "53% Guy" is some otherwise-nameless young fellow who put up a picture of himself holding up a sign that said, "I am a former Marine. I work two jobs. I don’t have health insurance. I worked 60-70 hours a week for 8 years to pay my way through college. I haven’t had 4 consecutive days off in over 4 years. But I don’t blame Wall Street. Suck it up you whiners. I am the 53%. God bless the USA!"
In the open letter, the author finally stated what I had been trying to verbalize for a while:
Do you really want the bar set this high? Do you really want to live in a society where just getting by requires a person to hold down two jobs and work 60 to 70 hours a week? Is that your idea of the American Dream?Precisely.
Look kid, I don’t want you to “get by” working two jobs and 60 to 70 hours a week. If you’re willing to put in that kind of effort, I want you to get rich. I want you to have a comprehensive healthcare plan. I want you vacationing in the Bahamas every couple of years, with your beautiful wife and healthy, happy kids. I want you rewarded for your hard work, and I want your exceptional effort to reap exceptional rewards. I want you to accumulate wealth and invest it in Wall Street. And I want you to make more money from those investments.
I understand that a prosperous America needs people with money to invest, and I’ve got no problem with that. All other things being equal, I want all the rich people to keep being rich. And clever financiers who find ways to get more money into the hands of promising entrepreneurs should be rewarded for their contributions as well.
I think Wall Street has an important job to do, I just don’t think they’ve been doing it. And I resent their sense of entitlement – their sense that they are special and deserve to be rewarded extravagantly even when they screw everything up.
The American middle class lifestyle is slowly being eroded away in order that our corporations become more profitable, more able to compete on the global stage. Look at my so-called "job" as a medical transcriptionist: I used to earn $40 an hour doing that work as recently as 5 years ago. Now, it pays less than half that. Why? For my company, it is because Indians can do my work more cheaply. Hospitals know this, and demand lower prices and force my company to slash wages, cut operating costs, and outsource work. In other areas of industry, skilled jobs and salaried positions are being replaced by semi-skilled or non-skilled hourly workers. (Do you see an MD doctor when you for a health checkup these days, or a physician assistant... or a nurse practicioner?) Other companies are streamlining production and improving efficiencies of workers without raising pay... or even paying them less (again, as with my company and its' "voice recognition" software).
Another quote from the "Open Letter":
Here’s how a liberal looks at it: a long time ago workers in this country realized that industrialization wasn’t making their lives better, but worse. The captains of industry were making a ton of money and living a merry life far away from the dirty, dangerous factories they owned, and far away from the even dirtier and more dangerous mines that fed raw materials to those factories.We're going through something similar again: A new era of "improvements" in production whose benefits do not trickle down to the working class. It's generally unfair that this rising tide of technological know-how and improved production and management methods is decreasing prosperity, not increasing it.
The workers quickly decided that this arrangement didn’t work for them. If they were going to work as cogs in machines designed to build wealth for the Rockefellers, Vanderbilts and Carnegies, they wanted a cut. They wanted a share of the wealth that they were helping create. And that didn’t mean just more money; it meant a better quality of life. It meant reasonable hours and better working conditions.
And the question needs to be asked: Why make Wall Street the target of our anger? Did they cause this situation? Well, yes. They did. Another excellent thought regarding the anger directed at banks comes from a Washington Post opinion piece by Harold Meyerson:
Whence this fall — if not from grace (a state that few of us, and even fewer bankers, attain), then from the occasional decent opinion of humankind? At its root is the simple fact that the Wall Street banks over the past quarter-century have done none of the things that a financial sector should do. They have not helped preserve the thriving economy that America once enjoyed. They have not funded our boldest new companies. (That’s fallen to venture capitalists.) They haven’t provided the financing to maintain our infrastructure, nor ponied up the capital for manufacturing to modernize and grow here (as opposed to in China). Instead, they’ve grown fat on the credit they extended when Americans’ incomes stopped rising. They’ve grown plump on proprietary trading and by selling bad deals to suckers. (Citigroup, like Goldman before it, just agreed to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to settle charges that it defrauded investors.)Again: Precisely. Remember back in the day when brokers and bankers invested in actual industries? Remember that other famous line from The Graduate? "One word: Plastics." Investors back then were all about emerging technologies and growing industries. Now everyone is involved in derivatives and futures and silly computer-generated everyone-wins investments that have no basis in the nuts-and-bolts reality of the business world. Now the only thing that attracts investors is proven and continued profit. Speculative investment in new areas has vanished. It's all just a game now among millionaires and billionaires — and politicians and CEOs — and the American middle class are disposable playing pieces.
The original J.P. Morgan was hardly a beloved figure. But in the course of attending to his business, he helped form the American economy. He consolidated railroads, cobbled together the companies that became U.S. Steel and General Electric. In pursuit of profit, he helped build the country. By no stretch of the imagination is that what today’s Wall Street is about. The country isn’t being built; no one’s been building it for the past 30 years. Wall Street’s interests are elsewhere, in realizing huge profits and bonuses for arbitrage and paper-swapping that has brought little but debt and ruin to the larger economy.
And it was with that thought that I realized how to explain where we are at as a country: The return of the industrial era, where 99% of the American population is nothing more than a factor of production that can be squeezed and manipulated and used with as little care and consideration as the law will allow.
To quote one more time from the above-mentioned Open Letter, the fellow writes, "[T]he commitment we’ve made to the working class since the 1940s is something that we should both support and be willing to fight for, whether we are liberal or conservative. We should both be willing to fight for the American Dream. And we should agree that anybody trying to steal that dream from us is to be resisted, not defended."
13 comments:
Sorry to inform you but your 99% just move into the 1% category, with all the trouble it brings, http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/they_want_lice_of_the_occu_pie_9xKCxcI4aectFYkafMb8UJ#ixzz1bcFSH0dM
No surprise. Every Tea Party has a Sarah Palin... even the liberal ones.
But if you're silly enough to think that a bunch of kids arguing over $2,000 for thermal underwear or drums for their street group qualifies them for inclusion in the "1%", no wonder you're so confused and easily misguided about the state of things in this country.
no, but having over 500k in a bank (gasp) does qualified them as 1%ers
Again Tomm, you are so easily misled by big numbers that you don't easily grasp. $500,000 divided among, say, 5000 people living on the streets of downtown Manhattan works out to $100 each, which I can tell you from several years' experience, will get you about a week's worth of lunches at the deli cafeteria on Exchange Place.
But, as you have just explained so clearly: in your weird version of America Tomm, $100 makes you a freeloading millionaire... while a million dollars makes you an oppressed and misunderstood liberal scapegoat.
You've been hopelessly confused Tomm to the point where you probably no longer even make sense to yourself when you really stop and think about it (which is why you obviously never do). You're funny.
And Tomm, to show you how poorly you grasp "real money", even if it was just one person with all that $500,000 in wealth, that person would not be remotely close to the "1%" richest American.
You may be poor yourself and be so far from "rich" that you mistakenly think that $500,000 is actually a lot of money... but I assure you that in order to make it into the richest 1% of America, you need to have a net worth of at least 10 times that amount.
Oh just had another thought Tomm: Perhaps you are thinking that because the Occupy Wall Street organization has over $500,000 in gross income (which would just about make it to the top 1% of American income distribution), that qualifies everybody in the Occupy Wall Street movement to be among the richest 1% in Americans.
So, by your reasoning, my cousin's muffler shop qualifies all of the guys repairing mufflers and stuff in the garage to be among the richest 1% of Americans.
I love your thinking Tomm. In fact, since I work for a company that takes in more than $500K in income, hey... even I am in the richest 1% of Americans.
Thanks Tomm... if nothing else, you made me feel much better about my shitty low-paying transcription job. God Bless America!
FYI IAW census figures indicate that 250k and above puts in the top 98.5 percentile group which is close enough for me, and you ARE in the top 1% of the world, which should make feel even better!
So in other words, you're sticking with your assertion that, despite all the mocking exempli gratia logic about muffler repair men I've given, you're going to stick by your assertion that the OWS Protesters are now in the "1%" because their organization has collected $500,000 in donations?
Boy, thanks for being so silly. With archery butts like you to target for derision, who needs straw men?
Of course, I will give you some small credit for completely missing — and dragging everyone else completely off — the original point of this post... entertaining as your diversion was.
ok you want to get back to your original point? at the end of your post you wrote this "Now the only thing that attracts investors is proven and continued profit" so tell me what was the thing that attracted you to your new oil field investment? was it the profit or the fact you could help exxon make more profit?
second point--- maybe the reason you are no longer being paid 40 dollars an hour by your company is that you're not worth 40 dollars an hour, especially if someone else will do the same job for less, companies are not social programs, the only reason they exists is to make a profit, once they are no longer profitable they go out of business, the biggest cost in manufacturing is labor, when I started working for my employer they told me up front what my wage would be and what my duties would be, it was what it was, and as long as I produce to their satisfaction and they remain profitable they will continue to employ me and as long as they keep paying me an amount I think is fair I will keep working there, when I want more money I became more valuable to them by increasing my productivity, I am under no illusions I know once I stop being profitable to them by not making enough quality cans they will have no reason to employ me.
The government even does this, I am retire from the navy I started at the bottom but as my knowledge grew and I took on more responsibilities they paid me more, and in exchange for my service of twenty years I now enjoy a monthly pension free medical commissary privileges.
What you and your buddy from Kos's Kiddie Korner, fail to realize is you can only push Wall street so far they will only put up with so much, but in the end they will be profitable (or cease to exist), if not here they will go somewhere else (those who can)ie Hallibuton, why do you think the iphone ipad and your nook are not made in the usa? because it wouldn't be profitable, no one would be able to afford them.
Your second point is, to put it simply, the entire problem:
"My company pays me what I am worth, and if my company and I disagree on my value, I can always leave."
I think you would agree that is the gist of your argument.
Unfortunately, you've made a mistake in your assertion. Let me phrase it for you the way you should be saying it:
"My INDUSTRY pays me what I am worth, and if my INDUSTRY and I disagree on my value, I can always leave."
See the difference in how you are looking at things versus how they really are?
Second point: You said, "as long as I produce to their satisfaction, and they remain profitable, they will continue to employ me..." So when your production level increases, you would expect a raise? Or if you are asked to work more hours, you would expect a raise? Or if you are asked to take on added responsibilities, you would expect a raise? Or, do you not have that right to bargain? Have you given up that right for the sake of keeping your job? Are there really other employment opportunities out there where you can go and get "your real value" (as you see it), or are you going to get the same treatment no matter where you go in your chosen industry?
In America, most people are being asked to do all of those things without raises. Wages are currently stagnant... or in many cases, falling. I used to think like you do: That profitability is the bottom line, and that worker exploitation is a satisfactory solution to business viability. Fair enough for short-term thinking.
However, when it gets to the point that a corporation is more profitable than it has ever been, yet it continues to cut salaries and benefits, to squeeze more and more "free work" out of its labor force, and at the same time the average standard of living in America is falling because of it, I have to start reassessing my position on that.
Like I said, it is the exact same scenario that played out during the first American industrial revolution: The output of labor rose and rose and rose, but there was no corresponding rise in the standard of living of the working class. Same thing today. You can sniff disdainfully at the situation if you want, but the OWS is obviously the new rise of a socialist labor movement that has a massive nationwide supply of disgruntled workers, and you can bet that when those disgruntled workers start recognizing which side their bread is buttered on, they are going to jump in droves on the liberal bandwagon and vote in their own best interests.
So when your production level increases, you would expect a raise?--not necessarily, since to increase our production it just a matter of speeding up the machines, (which are 20% over recommended speeds now) and requires no extra work on my part.
Or if you are asked to work more hours, you would expect a raise? when I am ask to work more hours I am paid at a higher rate it is called overtime which pays time and 1/2 unless it is a holiday then it is triple
Or if you are asked to take on added responsibilities, you would expect a raise? yes every time I take on added responsibilities I get a pay increase, for example if I take on duties as team supervisor (my next step) the pay raise would be $6.50 an hour more which comes out to a 90 dollars a day raise (before taxes)
do you not have that right to bargain? Have you given up that right for the sake of keeping your job? Why would I need to bargain, since everything was explain to me before I accepted the job, like I said I am free to leave if I feel I am no longer being paid enough, the job pays what it pays. They pay just what it would cost to replace me, they pay me for my services nothing more, and I accept that.
Are there really other employment opportunities out there where you can go and get "your real value" (as you see it), or are you going to get the same treatment no matter where you go in your chosen industry? Yes I did a search on monster job site and got over 1000+ hits on job title production tech, but also qualified for production mechanic, electrician and maybe I could wing my way into a manager position, so I have options, but as I told my wife this is my last job, quit or fired I will retired to my beach in Jassan (aplaya)
as for your elections prediction, we'll see, I have always said the people get the government they deserve.
Well lucky for you to be in an industry that has not yet figured out a way to ship your job to India, or hand it over almost entirely to a computer. It's hardly a surprise that a vast swath of the American working population is not in the same boat. (Hey: Even lawyers are being replaced by computers and doctors are being outsourced to India.)
But here is another question: If I was a recent graduate of "production tech" school (as you described your work) with no experience and only education, would you say my long-term career prospects are better than yours, the same, or worse? Yes... it is easy to get the job interview when you bring 25 years of experience to the job, but those kids down on Occupy Wall Street are all fresh out of college and cannot find work because America currently is not hiring at all... and especially kids with no experience (but huge college bills to pay).
The bottom line Tomm is that you have a very narrow view of what life is like out there for "working folk", and think that your situation applies broadly to Americans in general. It does not... and it applies less and less as time goes on. Read the "Reply to the 53% Guy" again... and try to see where your blind spot is regarding what he is saying. (Hint: It is at the boundary where your life ends and other lives begin.) Also, see my post on the "Republican-To-English Translation Aid" and look at your understanding for the word "poverty" and then go look up in a real dictionary how normal people understand the word "poverty", and make note of the difference.
The American middle class is sliding backwards and it could be avoided (or at least ameliorated) not with government assistance (which helps), but with a fundamental shift in corporate behavior and responsibility to their employees and the country in which they are based. That is what the OWS people are all about.
But let's keep it simple Tomm, because I know that you look at the world around you that way: Do you think America is as good a place to live as when you first went out in the world? Is there as much optimism? Potential? Of course there is not. And whose fault is that? Is the average American lazier or less intelligent now than 40 years ago? Is the average American today less deserving of achieving the standard "American Dream" than you were?
As for retiring to Jasaan... good luck with that. Here is hoping that (a) the value of the dollar does not collapse -- it seems to be holding, (b) the level of your retirement income does not collapse -- which it may, and (c) Filipino society does not collapse -- which is likely with food prices skyrocketing and OFW work drying up.
And now that I've left Jasaan and heard from my wife about all the gossip and shit-slinging and back-biting that goes on there... and the massive level at which it goes on there... and been scared to death as my wife reported live over Skype about armed criminals from up in the hills riding the streets at night staking out and robbing rich people's houses... and the police who don't care... I am amazed at just how much you cannot see regarding Jasaan unless you are actually standing a long way away from it. Shit: The first thing I'm doing with any money I make from PeGreSol is to get my wife's family the hell out of that place and into a house in a proper guarded gated community in CDO.
(Oh... and don't forget that if you ever have a medical emergency in Aplaya, you are long way away from the nearest doctor, defibrillator, or any type of medical facility that can handle something more serious than a small cut... and no ambulance to help get you there.)
By the way Tom: You said, "for example if I take on duties as team supervisor (my next step) the pay raise would be $6.50 an hour more which comes out to a 90 dollars a day raise (before taxes)".
By my math, $90 a day divided by $6.50 an hour puts you working at around 14 hours a day.
How's that busting your ass harder than ever before working out for you? Making enough money to retire in style? Or is that 14-hour-a-day wage-slave job barely enough, when 8 hours a day used to be more than sufficient?
Sounds like you might be a bit confused about your own professional worth Tomm, or you are just blowing smoke up my ass about your own job situation. Based on your statement, "this is my last job, quit or fired I will retired to my beach in Jassan", I think I know why I've been farting smoke since this conversation began. Those aren't words spoken by somebody satisfied with their professional situation.
By my math, $90 a day divided by $6.50 an hour puts you working at around 14 hours a day----you forget after 8hrs everything is time and 1/2 so my math is right. and we work 12 hrs day on a three on, four off, four on three off schedule so in essence I only work 15 days a month, hardly busting ass.
Those aren't words spoken by somebody satisfied with their professional situation.----true, but then again this isn't a profession it's a job,
If I was a recent graduate of "production tech" school (as you described your work) with no experience and only education, would you say my long-term career prospects are better than yours, the same, or worse?----Probably, since we do have PTs with no schooling, besides the normal testing, there is also a "bench" test, ten tasks that represent jobs normally done, you need to passed, but if you past it no problem, lots of OJT, and most of our managers are fresh out of college, early 30s a couple even came up from the floor.
Well lucky for you to be in an industry that has not yet figured out a way to ship your job to India, or hand it over almost entirely to a computer. --yes the shipping costs would be huge, and when profits are only pennies per hundred cans location is a big factor, as for computers, you will always need some person to change inks and turn wrenches.
Also, see my post on the "Republican-To-English Translation Aid" and look at your understanding for the word "poverty" and then go look up in a real dictionary how normal people understand the word "poverty",-----don't think I don't know poverty, Americans don't know poverty, if you think what passes for poverty here in the US is the same as what is poverty in other countries then it is you who don't know poverty
Do you think America is as good a place to live as when you first went out in the world? Is there as much optimism? Potential?---- As good as Greece, Italy, China, Iraq, Iran Cuba or even North Korea, would you have gotten a chance to invest in PeGreSol in ANY of those countries? YES we are better and has the potential to be even better. Did the Ipad get invented in Canada? What was the last great medical breakthrough from Canada? When the PM of Canada needed a heart operation did he stay in Canada and have or came to the US? Nearly 14 million immigrants came to the United States from 2000 to 2010. These people still think we have
potential, I believe the best days of the US are still to come, what is happening today is just a bump in the road. I know this seem simple to you but the best things are really simple.
As for retiring to Jasaan... good luck with that. Here is hoping that (a) the value of the dollar does not collapse -- it seems to be holding, (b) the level of your retirement income does not collapse -- which it may,---yes YOU better hope for that, because if my retirement income collapses it would mean the US economy would had collapse, and I would rather be broke in PI than here in US.
The first thing I'm doing with any money I make from PeGreSol is to get my wife's family the hell out of that place and into a house in a proper guarded gated community in CDO. ----If you were a thug looking to robbed people where would you go, a gated community in CDO? Beside there are armed criminals riding the streets at night staking out and robbing rich people's houses here in the US and everywhere you go.
(Oh... and don't forget that if you ever have a medical emergency in Aplaya, you are long way away from the nearest doctor, defibrillator, or any type of medical facility that can handle something more serious than a small cut... and no ambulance to help get you there.)----there are places like that here, so what? Life is full of chances and risks, Steve Jobs had the best medical help around and it didn't do him any good, when its it you time to go it is your time, be where you want to be, live the life you want, have no regrets, I don't have ANY.
The rest I won't bother with... but a couple of points from someone who has been there for almost a decade:
I would rather be broke in PI than here in US.
No... you wouldn't. I've known broke expats before... one of them was 35 years old and he died because he was broke and couldn't even afford the couple of dollars for a course of antibiotics until it was too late. Another one died in a hospital because he couldn't pay for the proper care he would have gotten in the U.S. as a minimum standard of free treatment. Broke expats in The Philippines don't live for long.
If you were a thug looking to robbed people where would you go, a gated community in CDO?
Having lived in a gated community without incident in CDO, and having had my house robbed 4 times in the first 2 months of living in Jasaan... and having 2 guys with shotguns sitting on a motorcycle outside my house in the densely populated middle of Upper Jasaan while a third looked through the front windows (while my wife cowered inside, frantically dialing the police department and getting no answer)... before moving on to rob the house 3 doors down... I think I know better than you do where the thugs go.
Enjoy your time as the new Kano in Jasaan on your compartively lightly-populated stretch of beach in Aplaya. Within 5 minutes of moving in, everybody will know who you are, where you live, and have a mental list of every piece of furniture and electronics you've carried into your house... and the first people to come pay you a visit will not be arriving with gifts, or arriving when you are awake. (And, unlike here in America, where the cops might actually show up — or even answer the phone — when your "everywhere-you-go" armed thugs from Natubo are outside your house looking in the window... I can tell you that based on actual experience and not your silly gut feelings... in Jasaan you will just have to hope for the best.)
Oh, and don't forget: By the time you move to Jasaan several years after my time there, when the economic and social situation has worsened considerably, those Natubo boys interested in the things you have in your house will likely be a whole lot more numerous and a whole lot more desperate... which is why I'm getting my wife's family the hell out of there ASAP.
p.s. I'm not "investing" in PeGreSol. I was brought on as a partner by my friend Mike, because he wants me to handle all the documentation, marketing materials, graphic arts, web sites, and other written material associated with the company. Additionally, PeGreSol is based in Thailand, not the United States, which is a bit of a smackdown to your statement that I would not have had an opportunity to "invest" in such a company outside of the United States.
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