Even more, when I say I don’t like drunk hockey fans because I live in an area where hockey riots happen, people tell me I’m making unfair judgments about groups of people.
So there’s this job, right? A job which I’m really, really interested in, but can’t interview for because I’m not going to be in the US by the time that it’s ready. Which is frustrating. Really quite frustrating. More positive is that the person who reviewed my application suggested that if the timing’s right, in the future, there are more jobs that I could be suited for.
Which means I really, really want to get on with the nursing registration process in the US. Specifically in WA. However, I’m still waiting for a certificate. Well, two certificates. I know they’re in process – I’ve got an e-mail that says so. But I’ve not heard anything for a month…
…and so I find myself poking at the website for the registration process and going ‘eh, I can’t do anything’. And that leads to me feeling a bit down…and buying music.
I mean, I’ve bought other things, because the internet has enabled a direct route from my bank account to e-bay for ‘stuff’. For example, new filters for the hoover, a battery for the doorbell (which requires an archaic 4.5 volt battery, the last one I got from maplin was not of the best quality…). I also bought what I call ‘dungarees’ that Kathryn calls coveralls. Not proper working ones, and I didn’t get them from e-bay, but this tedious waiting around has me frustrated.
Which is more annoying because today’s been pretty productive. I weeded the front garden, trimmed two of the bushes out there, (liquid) sanded the front door (I need to do some filling, and then later some sanding, which I might do tomorrow)… but all in all it was quite productive. I even slipped out and grabbed a nice lunch.
But what I want to be doing is making progress on something else entirely, and I really shouldn’t be buying anything because it’s a super-expensive thing that we want to do. But my willpower is down and it’s too easy.
[Image: Text reads: If the minimum wage was really “never meant to be a living wage” then why did FDR, the president who signed into law in 1938 say: “No business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country…by living wages, I mean more than the bare subsistence level – I mean the wages of a decent living.” – Frankly D. Roosevelt. Share this if you agree that there’s no justification for a minimum wage below a living wage! In support of an $11 minimum wage.]
Minimum wage should be linked to the poverty level.
This is basic economic fact.
A business that claims it can’t afford to pay a living wage to its workers is admitting that by definition it fails to meet its basic operating expenses. That major multinational corporations can be “successful” while failing to meet a basic operating expense is only possible because We The People pick up their greedy/lazy slack through taxes and charity.
And yet somehow it’s everybody else who’s a moocher and a looter…
And this corrosive greed is a big part of what’s slowly poisoning the U.S. economy. Money being hoarded at the top and put in “safe” investments and bank accounts is money that does nothing for no one. It’s just an elaborate means of keeping score. Money put into the hands of the workers does what money is meant to do: it circulates. It gets spent. The same dollar will go through dozens of sets of hands, touching dozens of lives, feeding dozens of people and sparking profits for dozens of businesses. The same dollar, in the hands of the rich, will generally do… nothing. It won’t create jobs. It won’t fund innovations. It won’t start businesses.
Less than 1% of corporate revenues become wages for workers. Less than 3% of the wealthy are actually entrepreneurs (people who risk their money on business ventures that create jobs).
But 100% of the working class spends their money. That money creates jobs. That money fuels innovations. That money becomes profits. That money keeps the economy ticking.
We have been lied to about who are the parasites and who are the drivers of the economy. We have largely accepted a view of money as a means of keeping score and the economy as something that must have winners and losers, rather than money being a proxy for barter and an economy being a way to divide the labor of society and distribute the load of living
#poverty #classism
“A business that claims it can’t afford to pay a living wage to its workers is admitting that by definition it fails to meet its basic operating expenses.”
yet ceo’s are getting away with huge salaries and bonuses and even government writeoffs.
