The working class revolution in America

originally posted by: onequestion
a reply to: Bilk22

Maybe you should pay closer attention to the conversation of the thread.

Just saying.

I understand what your OP was about. Legislating more money into peoples pockets from the profits of corporations isn't going to solve anything. I believe I covered that in earlier posts.

You also need to realize that the Constitution needs to be changed for that to occur. Now I know liberals (not claiming you're one) have no issue with wanting to change the Constitution to their liking and in any means they deem acceptable, but that would be the only way to do so unless Obama signs another EC.

OH and if you did miss my thoughts on the ramifications of paying unskilled labor more - it won't help much if any. They will just spend that on the goods and services they now buy but those G&S will cost more because the higher labor cost will have to be offset. See it's an endless cycle. Guy that works at McDs is probably one of their better customers. So pay him more to flip burgers. OK. But that burger is going to cost more next time. The burger flipper ends up in the same boat.

originally posted by: Bilk22

originally posted by: MrSpad
What really ticks people off and what could lead to real problems down the road is the same companies who claim they can not afford to pay workers more are making billions in profits every quater. So the question becomes how do you balance a companies drive for max profits while also paying workers a living wage. Perhaps a max profit law like is done with power companies and other monopolies. What is also kind of silly is those people would spend that money and drive the economy.

Say if you took a billion of McDonalds 5.5 billion yearly profits and put that into paying the labor force a living wage. That billion would be spent on food, rent, car, etc. and go back into the economy. As it is the billion end up with people who already have billions who just keep it with the rest. That makes zero economic sense.

You seem to have no real concept of how markets work. You have more money in your pockets as do your neighbors and me, from higher wages. Well guess what happens to prices of stuff we buy? Have a clue about that?

Yes thus why I talk about a limit to profits like with power companies. The offset in cost is to maintain the same or increase profit. Just as they increase prices strictly to increase profit without an additional cost. Companies could increase wages and still make large profits without an increase in prices if they had a limit on profit amounts. People would make a living wages, cost of items would not increase and the people with billions would keep adding to those billions just at slower rate.

These anti-American corporations need to step up and start supporting the work force that made them what they are today. It seems almost like an act of treason that they don't pay taxes and close their US factories for overseas labor. All along the government allows them and supports them with aid even to build these new factories overseas. Currently the American middleclass workforce is a lesson in humility. You will probably have to have two to three jobs to cover and support the lifestyle you had ten years ago. When you get those jobs, the interview processes now are ridiculous with hundreds of people vying for a few jobs. Asking access to social media accounts, full physicals, and even drug testing. Drug testing which continues throughout employment and full body pat downs leaving work . Also think of all the ways they try not to pay people or pay people less and takeaway job opportunities. Internships, temp agencies and the push for volunteerism at every level. The other day I heard a radio commercial where you had to pay to be a volunteer? What is happening to America?

originally posted by: MrSpad


Say if you took a billion of McDonalds 5.5 billion yearly profits and put that into paying the labor force a living wage. That billion would be spent on food, rent, car, etc. and go back into the economy. As it is the billion end up with people who already have billions who just keep it with the rest. That makes zero economic sense.

But then my double cheeseburger would cost 1.59 instead of 1.39.... Ugh . Communism lol

Barely any mention of the TPP. On a thread about working class?

I guess I'll look around for how the ATS community feels about Trans Pacific partnership..

originally posted by: MrSpad

originally posted by: Bilk22

originally posted by: MrSpad
What really ticks people off and what could lead to real problems down the road is the same companies who claim they can not afford to pay workers more are making billions in profits every quater. So the question becomes how do you balance a companies drive for max profits while also paying workers a living wage. Perhaps a max profit law like is done with power companies and other monopolies. What is also kind of silly is those people would spend that money and drive the economy.

Say if you took a billion of McDonalds 5.5 billion yearly profits and put that into paying the labor force a living wage. That billion would be spent on food, rent, car, etc. and go back into the economy. As it is the billion end up with people who already have billions who just keep it with the rest. That makes zero economic sense.

You seem to have no real concept of how markets work. You have more money in your pockets as do your neighbors and me, from higher wages. Well guess what happens to prices of stuff we buy? Have a clue about that?

Yes thus why I talk about a limit to profits like with power companies. The offset in cost is to maintain the same or increase profit. Just as they increase prices strictly to increase profit without an additional cost. Companies could increase wages and still make large profits without an increase in prices if they had a limit on profit amounts. People would make a living wages, cost of items would not increase and the people with billions would keep adding to those billions just at slower rate.

I don't think you made your point well enough for me to understand it.

Companies generally don't increase the costs of their goods and services without need to do so. Usually it's the costs associated with their production that drives the price - you know materials and labor, etc. They do set profit margins they feel they need to achieve to keep viable and have funds for R&D, expansion, etc.

So how does a government go about setting up price fixing with those in mind? And, how does a government go about determining what is an acceptable profit? Who makes that determination and what is it based upon? Also, as with anything else, the numbers are just that on a page. Depending upon where they're placed, the numbers can be different - meaning profits can be different depending upon where numbers are placed on a P&L.

Not that you are one, but I'd like to know when liberals became all about the government controlling our lives. I was born in the early 60s and remember liberals were all about getting the government out of our lives as much as possible. Now they seem to want every aspect of our lives legislated or decreed by Executive action - well unless of course that executive is a republican. Me? I don't want government more involved in our lives, be they republican or democrat.

What happens the day when machines take over all the human jobs? What then? We need a change in human consciousness toward a higher frequency of Love, compassion, cooperation, equity and positivity. No more revolutions, no more participation in all this negative bullsh$t, a real change, not just changing the scenery and costume... consciousness changed... Here's to the hundreth monkey!...

Try "The Prince Of Libanus!"...

I've said it before, and I'll say it again... Employee owned cooperatives. Not shareholders or mostly singular private interests. And it should be able to squeeze in and operate under the existing capitalism based economy.

I've only got about $3000 or so saved up. Not much to start a business with, and I doubt I have the time alone to pull off any kind of venture with that small amount. With the current economic situation, basically I would have to get together with at least 20 other people sharing a similar set of interests and willing to put up the same amount to get the real-estate, combined personal time, and resources to actually do something in a cohesive and productive manner. High risk, and likely only to just break-even for first few years if it works. However if ever profitable, everyone who put in their stake would get something worthwhile back out. In some ways it's similar to venture capitalism in starting it, but unlike that where you're only throwing money in as a shareholder to get a future return, you've got to check in and put in your hours. And all employees get their vote on most major decisions (short of those required by regulation which may require specialists, such as taxes & legal functions - as nobody wants to unintentionally vote themselves out of work with an audit or lawsuit), since there's no executive separation in the operating or management structure.

The trick is to make this work as a business model where everybody profits evenly. Also it has to be competitive in something which isn't low-bid or otherwise working in a race to the bottom. (Doing so defeats the entire point and you'll be scraping on minimum wage again. The teamwork has to be on something actually considered unique and profitable. The idea being much like self-employment, but with division of skills, etc. such that a person joining this doesn't have to be great at all skills needed for running a business.) I also think such co-ops may be self-limiting in scale, likely workable with just under 100 people before various interest groups within the organization diverge too much. Yet I could see this business model popping up like dandelions to support a local economy when that economy is neglected or even abused by globalized business models.

So starting something like this? How would it happen? Say there's some big compnany factory that does a layoff because of relocation and outsourcing. If enough of those former employees with all their acquired skills got together and purchased enough tooling to operate a mini-factory doing same or similar stuff, their labor would still be marketable. Maybe hire on a few people to manage the accounting and legal stuff, and perhaps a few people that are starting out in B2B sales. They may not be able to compete with that big company that dumped them, but they should have all the skills to do customized short run productions that the big company couldn't or isn't interested in doing. And it's very likely they could produce it at a quality that developing countries couldn't match.

In my case, I'm not interested in the manufacturing segment. (Was using that as an example.) With my education background, I'd love to be part of a CGI studio/renderfarm. (Even more fun for me if they use open-source to cut some aspects of overhead.) But nothing like that where I am that wants limited experience people, so I'm underemployed and not productive at all in that skillset. And I'm just not on top of everything I'd need to run such a thing solo. If there were a way to do teamwork from the very start in setting everything up, I would be more than willing to do my part as a pinch hitter and exercise my strengths instead of being fustrated and wasting time ineffectively with all the things I know I'm very weak at.

Of course I'm screwy like Louie to think that just might work, but that's my 2¢ being tossed in.

originally posted by: onequestion
We need to having a working class revolution in America. There are way to many jobs in this country that start at 9-10$ an hour which is no longer a living wage working full time in factory, warehousing, nursing, retail, and other service sector related industry's. The companys who own and invest into these corporations are making record profits while the middle class has been decimated. Students are being lied too, politicians are lieing about the real unemployment rate, masters and bachelor degree students are working at Target and Starbucks. We have now an entire generation with no purchasing power and one of the hardest markets ever in this country to start your own small business.

My solution to this is to start a working party similar to the Democrats Republicans and Tea Party. I would consider this a working class revolution where the goal of this part is to ensure that we no longer are taken advantage of in this employers market. To ensure that government programs are geared for entrepreneurship and enabling small business and to end unethical business practices now employed almost across the board with things like staffing agency's and other methods that have been employed to continue increasing profits for shareholders with total disregard for the workers.

I will get bombed big time over this but hey, it won't be the first time...Sarah Palin is the only politician out there who publicly claims we need to prevent corporations from moving to China and elsewhere taking our jobs with them...We need to get American jobs back and keep them here...

We have far too few jobs and far, far too many people since we are now importing millions of illegal Mexicans and mid-Easterners...We need more jobs and fewer people for the wages to go up...

Republicans as we know are for big business-big money...Democrats are for labor (as the lie goes)...Unions are for illegal immigrants...It's not going to get better...

Regardless of what many people think, the Tea Party is the closest thing to a group that supports the working people of the U.S. that we have...Although the Tea Party has a conservative lean to it, it is pro America, pro Constitution, anti New World Order and Globalism...If we want to get back some sort of sanity for this Country, the Tea Party is the only current option...

a reply to: SubTruth

You are right. Our over inflated, debt based economy is a sham that enslaved the masses. I think all revolutions can find their origins in the monetary policies of the pre revolution governments. However our country has a good foundation... replacing it with communism or a socialist dictatorship like in the bolshevik revolution is not the way to go.

originally posted by: pauljs75
In my case, I'm not interested in the manufacturing segment. (Was using that as an example.) With my education background, I'd love to be part of a CGI studio/renderfarm. (Even more fun for me if they use open-source to cut some aspects of overhead.) But nothing like that where I am that wants limited experience people, so I'm underemployed and not productive at all in that skillset. And I'm just not on top of everything I'd need to run such a thing solo. If there were a way to do teamwork from the very start in setting everything up, I would be more than willing to do my part as a pinch hitter and exercise my strengths instead of being fustrated and wasting time ineffectively with all the things I know I'm very weak at.

(In no way trying to bust your chops here, just quoting you because you make a point which needs to be countered.)

This is one of the largest problems I see in the US 2015. The traditional American Dream involved one thing: Making it BIG. A man could go from the outhouse to the penthouse in America 100 years ago. Obviously, people today want the abillity to do the same and they frequently say the American Dream is dead because they don't see the pathway by which they can do it anymore. The trouble is, those old self made men didn't walk into America saying "This is what my skillset is, now flock to me, America!" They took a look at the big picture, identified areas of demand and areas where improvements could be made AND those improvements would be in demand, and they tailored themselves to fit the needs of American consumers and businesses. Wayyyy too many young people today believe they should be able to chase ANYTHING that piques their personal interest in college, graduate and have LOCAL job offers flooding them because "Dammit, I'm really good at designing widgets and I have a passion for it." Nevermind the fact that that kid is in California, where no widgets are made, and refuses to leave his hometown while, way over in Florida, there are tons of widget design jobs and companies are desperate for employees.

Two decades ago, when I was graduating from high school, I had some choices to make. I wanted two things in life:
1. To be able to live in a smaller community out in the sticks where my rural lifestyle would be served.
2. To make a decent living in one of the engineering disciplines.
I chose Civil Engineering. I really wanted to go Chemical E or Mechanical E, but to make it big in those fields requires you to live somewhere near a major national lab or other metropolitan locations where the Dow Chemicals or Raytheon Dev. shops are. Civil Eng allowed me to chase a field closely related to my educational passions while also living pretty much where I wanted to live. Far too often, however, I see people who want to be able to live in the Rocky Mountains while practicing their passion of marine biology... see the disconnect?

a reply to: burdman30ott6

Are you trying to say that theres just 50-60 million people who are just too dumb or lazy to figure it out?

a reply to: onequestion

No, I'm saying that it is not realistic to graduate with a Bachelor's Degree in, say theater arts, and then wonder why you can't find a job that requires a theater arts degree in your hometown of Topeka, Kansas.

In the case of the member I was responding directly to, he/she says they have a CGI degree and a passion for CGI, but there is no demand for that field in their community. My point is, you have to make a clear choice
A. If you're determined to remain in a particular community and unwilling to move away, choose a field which that community DOES have a demand for.
B. If you're determined to follow a specific field path and chase a career dream, you better be willing to move to somewhere that DOES have a demand for that field.

Very, very few people can choose both A and B, at least in the liberal arts fields. Unless you're a teacher, medical professional, law enforcement, or possibly a Civil Engineer, you're going to have to accept the idea of moving to a place where your dream fits into the existing fabric of available jobs.

I'm not suggesting the folks who haven't figured this out are dumb or lazy, entitled or disconnected from reality would be better terms to describe a person who feels like a precise community owes them a job in the precise field they want to be in.

Cool thread.

I was thinking about this stuff recently. To me my time is far more precious to me than the pittance I'm given in exchange for it, but it's do or die and I've no choice.

The thing is...we have the power right now, we have all of the tools we need to organise ourselves.

I do believe the 1% fear the other 99, but I don't think it's violence they fear, I think it's mass non-compliance. People have shown that they do care to some extent, things tend to go viral quickly and that's the power of people and our ability to communicate and work together.

I wonder what would happen, for example, if I and everyone I work with collaborated and simply brought production to a standstill, stood united and demanded fairer treatment. I discussed this very concept with a friend not long ago, suprisingly it was he, not I that brought it up and it was something I never expected from him. He's not the type to normally discuss such issues but he's feeling the pinch and remembers a day when he was considered to have a useful trade and lived well - now people with that skill are no longer in such demand and he's noticed a huge change in his standard of livin over the years.

We spoke about it for a while, my immediate thoughts were that most employers are stubborn and would probably try to swiftly crush such a rebellion...but if it were to grow, mass...peaceful, non-complience for 24 hours and enough people took part, it was organised...it'd certainly make a point.

They can't fire everyone...can you imagine the service industry being brought to its knees for a day with the further potential of it happening again should things not change? It would be extremely difficult if not impossible to fire and replace an entire workforce, particularly more-so if the people are increasingly unwilling to play ball.

We already have the power...we waste it on sideshows - congregating in a public place wearing silly guy fawkes masks but we can't form a union and take charge of this situation, it's ridiculous.

I reckon people need to form their own unions, need to organise and set a list of reasonable objectives for fairer treatment...people can force a change peacefully - what are they going to do, sent the cops or the army in to force you to work at gunpoint?

A few days of making no profits...people unite and come together all the time, we protest and march and it's all very well but it's not really constructive. Maybe some group like anonymous might make some actual progress if they set such an objective...set a date, set a time...put it out there constantly and let it go viral.

Yeah, it's a romantic notion but I believe not outwith the realms of possibility in the modern world. I've thought about this a lot and think...yeeeeah, that'd be a proper movement and have a real impact.

But I'm probably way off...out of interest what do you guys think would happen if something like this actually happened on a global scale?

I'd just like to add, I find the suggestion that if the burger flipping dude were to be paid more, then the cost of burgers would rise as the extra revenue to pay the higher wages would need to come from profits so therefore the burger flipper is back to square one.

It isn't just about the guy at the bottom being paid too little but also the people at the top being paid too much...I understand the concept...there are more burger flippers than there are high paid excutives, but the difference between their annual income is often vast.

I think a cap on wages might be worth considering. I find it pretty disgusing to be honest that anyone needs several houses...houses with 50-or-so bedrooms and a collection of classic cars.

I've saw people have a go at folk who desire small things like smart phones and televisions...things that are being pushed on them by the very people who benefit from this whole set up.

Why can't the additional cost to pay the burger flipper come from the people who are paid often obscene wages and have more money than some of us could spend in several lifetimes?

If wanting a smartphone is unreasonable isn't owning a yacht also unreasonable?

Just a thought.


Just to add - I see it like this - the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts and in order for a machine to function properly every component is important. A transformer carries out a different function than a resistor or a capacitor but if either fails the machine will malfunction. So why should one component be more valued than any other?

I don't buy into the concept that unless certain jobs are lucrative that nobody will want to do them, people can and will want to do thim - if you've the choice of being a reasonably well paid executive position and a well paid job flipping burgers you'd most likely opt for the supposedly harder executive job...truth is I think people covet such positions because they expect it be easier or less tedious than burger flippin...on the other hand if someone has no job and is offered a decent living wage to flip burgers...they'll likely do it anyway and appreciate it a lot more.

I don't want to hear it.

I have my worker protection.

I am a Union Sheetmetal Worker.

But nobody likes the unions. It is our fault, the reason corporations are making record profits and paying slave wages.

Support the unions and wage inequalities are fewer and far between.

Do you think it is a coincidence that we have lower than ever union presence and lower standard of living pay?

Keep bashing union people, corporations have your best interests in mind.

Everybody wants to say unions are corrupt, well how os the honest corporate model working out for you? How isthatfederal mandatory minimum wage working out for you? How is that Obamacare heathcare package working out for you? How is your retirement package looking?

a reply to: burdman30ott6
Supposedly there's some demand in the Chicago area, but the bigger problem is "entry level" requires 5 years or more experience that is not being made available. (Or at least in any reasonable manner.) Whats being posted makes the "entry level" aspect a falsehood, so what would be expected for starting out doesn't appear to exist.

It's not like I don't know where more jobs are, in terms of availability. The problem is NY or LA has too high a cost of living, I would go in a second if it was affordable. Otherwise I'm sure I'd blow my budget just making the trip. Austin or Seattle also sounds great, but travel expenses and again cost of living even though somewhat more reasonable makes it a marginal thing unless I could be guaranteed a job in one of those locations was a sure thing.

Problem isn't a lack of willingness to travel, problem is it's too expensive unless I can be certain of a source of income. If I could interview online, and have a month to be where the job is, and knowing the pay is enough to cover things, I'd be right on it.

And I'm not looking for anything super well-paying at the typical "American Dream" level. Just a get your feet wet level of work that happens to cover the costs: a modest cozy little apartment, food, utilities, transportation (already have a car - just need upkeep, but if starting over a used one would be ok too), taxes, and being able to save just a little bit on top of that. Independent living without having to seek out government or other community assistance is all I require at this point.