The working poor in Chicago are beginning to see the light
Hopefully they can get some traction.
I surely sympathize but a local plant was advertising for experienced welders with a vo-tec certification for $12 an hour, and this is Minnesota, not Kentucky. Of course it had the benefit of 4 day 40 hour work week. If they donât get any takers, the price on pressure washers might go up.
As far as folks losing in the market, again I sympathize but thatâs just part of the risk. Yeah I was down 50% but I did nothing except dump International quickly and after 5 years it came back. I told everyone else too, to just sit tight and donât take a loss right then. Even housing you just had to sit tight. If you are going to invest, you just donât put yourself in a position where you canât ride out a few years or more. Those that I know that sold in panic, lost big time. Those that sat tight with good quality came out OK. If you had to sell out you lost and if you had to sell your house then you lost. But you donât ever get yourself in a position where someone else forces your timing.
Its too bad and I wish everyone would make 10-20% every year with no problems but thatâs just the risk everyone takes. The other option is putting the money in your safe at home, in money market or the bank for 1%. If you want more, you take the risk. Then I know some people that just never did anything besides money market. They neither won or lost but should these people receive more for their money than the ones investing in 3M, GE, Exxon, and so on?
Welcome to the world of finance. Ya buy a house with defered 12% interest or a car at 18%, ya pay the price. Ya invest to get a 20% gain and it turns into a 50% paper loss, ya sit tight. Ya donât play poker if ya donât know how, but if ya donât play ya donât win either.
Watched PBS Frontline this week (23Ap2013) :
In 2008-09, I learned again that NO ONE is immune to risk and bad managers/advisors. There are inexpensive financial products and then there are expensive products. Where you are financially and your financial knowledge is your responsibility and yours alone.
We personally moved from low cost financial investments to a high fee/cost investments. Essentially we transferred the our risk to somebody else for a fee and guarantee earnings.
The United States began as a Plutocracy and will not change . The alternatives to our system are so miserable there is no good reason to change .
As I noted before, unemployment in Europe is running 50% higher than the US, and has for a number of years. So who is better?
The United States began as a Plutocracy and will not change . The alternatives to our system are so miserable there is no good reason to change .
Learn something about history and youâll note that this country WAS NOT always a Plutocracy. And I contend it NEVER started that way. Iâm not sure where you got your information from.
But it is becoming one. The haves and haves-not.
@texases High unempoyment is some European countries has nothing to do with their form of government. These countries, Greece, Spain, Italy and others have basiclly become lazy and as a result cannot compete. Itâs ludicrous to want to retire with full benefits at age 55. Germany, which pays very high wages and benfits has relatively low unemplyment. It has also RAISED the retirement age to 67!
Collectively, Americans and Japanese and Germans are the hardest working countries, in terms of hours per week and retirement age, in the OECD. They are also the most productive.
It is very easy for people to conclude that wealth and security are the reward for smart, hard working people. Especially those who have the wealth and security and donât want to share it.
Itâs hard to believe that with the 1% crowd controlling over 40% of our wealth, they would not also control congress. No one has made more then they during this stock market recovery while many of the rest of the nation sits in a recession. This happened back in 1927 with a similar imbalance and it took strong measures to get us out. Leaving this state in tack while we sit on our hands and placate the rich, just means more of the same.
Btw @DocnickâŠGermany can afford to raise he retirement age. Their citizens live longer and work at jobs of their choosing because of a national healthcare plan. Here, the working class is tied to jobs they donât like because of menial benefits and with a healthcare system and food industry that does more to shorten lives then prolong them. Many of the top 1% are found in both.
The Founding Fathers were wealthy men and I have no problem with that . Wealth has always had a disproportionate say in things and thatâs the way the world works unless youâre a communist and weâve all seen how well that works .
But thatâs not what a Plutocracy⊠Influence is one thingâŠTotal control is something completely different. This country was NEVER ruled by the rich. They had influenceâŠbut NEVER ruled. That is one thing they were completely against. But itâs something we are heading towardâŠwhich is completely different then what the founding fathers wanted.
@dagosa & @RodKnox I was responding to the comment on some European countries ( such as Greece, Portugal, Spain, Italy) having high unemployment. Those countries (semi-socialist) are not managing their affairs very well and the population as a whole want to take MORE out of the system than they are putting in, the downfall of most socialist countries. Uruguay has the most welfare, but the country is so poor that the goverment cannot afford to guarantee their citizens a decent existance. You have to create wealth before you can distribute it.
The main difference between Germany and the US is 1) universal free health care, 2) better social security (Otto von Bismarck pioneerd old age security in the 1800s!), 3) some form of guaranteed total annual income, 4) a better education and training system focused on job skills, 5) and much higher taxes on the rich and corporations. Those taxes pay for many of these benefits. Just the same, there are many very rich people in Germany and it has not stifled innovation.
The irony of our evolving plutocracy is that the loudest and proudest and most active supporters of legislation to enshrine the wealthy as divinely inspired geniuses are themselves just struggling wannabe wealthy fans of Jim Cramer and Rush Limbaugh who mistakenly think that their ship will come in any moment.
@genex
Wealth is relative. Back in the 1700âs . Wealth and influence were still marginally compromised by at leased appeasing the masses. The wealthy are much more independent from influence by you and me and their influence is much more far reaching.
Plutocracy today compares to the royal aristocracy of the British in the 18th century. There was no question of right and wrong then. The Monarch and his aristocracy decided what was right and wrong and the public be damned. Todayâs corporate policy mandates what happens and if you object you know where you can stuff it. Just look at the GOP kissing the feet of Chinese Communists at the behest of Wal-Mart and Sears. And the Tea Party âconservativesâ are silent on the subject. Imagine that. The sworn enemy of liberty and freedom, the party of Joe McCarthy, is now in bed with the Communists⊠And somehow the Republicans want me to fear a :socialistâ president. Give me a break.
@dagosa Iâd like to refer you to an interesting book on wealth in the past. Itâs âMerchant KIngs, When Companies Ruled the World 1600-1920â, by Stephen R bown. It traces the history of such companies and commercial tyrants as Peter Stuyvesant of the Dutch West India Company (New Amsterdam colony), The English as Dutch East India Companies, The British South Africa Company (Cecil Rhodes, DeBeers), The Hudson Bay Company, The Russian America Company of Alaska, etc.
These companies rules with an iron fist, had their own armies and navies, and controllded thlives of millions of pepole.
DeBeers still exists as diamond merchants and miners. The Hudson Bay Company is still operating as a department store in Canada, although it is owned by a Chicago-based investment firm. At the height of its power under George Simpson, it controlled most of Western and nearly all of Northern Canada, an area nearly equal to the lower 48 states. In its fur business, now sold, it treated natives and white trappers like slaves, a all their purchases had to be form their monopoly stores.
Another classic is âThe Robber Baronsâ, about US capitalism prior to the Sherman Anti-trust Act, covering Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, Gould, and other capitalists and their influence.
The wealthy are the only ones that can offer income to the proletariat. And while the workers are making them more money, they spend their time getting involved in activities and organizations that can make them even more money. Therefore, they end up with power over the workers. Always will.
First question: have you ever known a politician who got involved in it for other than his/her own personal benefit?
Second question: can you offer a better system? Forget a representative government, we already have one.
If we allow the working class to continue to decline the situation will eventually reach the point of revolt and some system, for better or worse, will occur.
Perhaps. But how will taking more money from those that are the job creaters slow the decline of the working class?