Joseph B

I don't know if you guys have seen this video or not, but's it's pretty funny and sadly, true.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsZpWej8pF4

18psi

iTrader: (76)

lol here we go.
I have yet to see a political thread end well

Full_Tilt_Boogie

iTrader: (1)

*facepalm*

Animus21

A pretty disgusting amount of jobs have been wiped from the playing field, and have been gone and dead for a long time, all in the name of profit. Often times, customer service suffers on the business side, but usually companies who can streamline by removing jobs have no competition in the marketplace. Walk into any store analogous to a Publix, Kroger, Target, Home Depot, Lowes, whatever, and a slew of checkout stations go unused. Maybe there are two attendants working them, with a long line of pissed off customers wondering where the hell they can get some damn service and recognition for the value of their time.

Once upon a time, the American grocery store was THE place to get a job if you were a little retarded or slightly crippled. Now you can forgo acknowledging their existence entirely if you dont mind bagging your own ****. so where do these poor guys get money now? probably the Gub'ment.

The robot checkout is a soulless bitch, and I refuse to interact with them for the sheer fact that their space could be occupied by someone who exchanges customer service with me for time used to earn money which probably buys them groceries too.

Further, Georgia Natural Gas just installed some newfangled satellite transmitting scanner to monitor my gas usage without having to use a meter man. According to the guy who installed mine, the call center to report an issue with overcharging is in the process of being replaced with an indian one. So I guess those guys are cut from the team too. Sorta running out of options if you are dumb as hell or too socially uncooth to wear a tie and carry a briefcase, and maybe even if you arent.

Like Comcast? Die in a fire. I dont know who they have working for them, but those people are certainly not being paid enough to care, and are from questionable places.

I could bitch about this forever, but my point is that the large corporate entities Cheap-*** business model is providing plenty of pain for the worker and the consumer. Ultimately, It is the fault of the consumer for supporting these big easy outlets and letting the mom and pop stores die. As these large providers eliminate competitors and garner financial power, they gain benefits from having their backs scratched by lawmakers after a brief financial coitus.
I would say that as voters and consumers, we deserve exactly what we are getting for backing the wrong ponies, but considering how the two political halves are really a mortons fork, And Libertarians are so varied in their stances that its like trying to unify a bunch of fucked up teenage waifs. there is really nothing left to do but watch things burn.


I have been drinking. lots.

18psi

iTrader: (76)

And yet it makes sense. Clear as day. Bra-vo

Joseph B

Great post. I totally agree with you regarding corporatism and believe this is one reason why the IRS Code needs to be reformed or eliminated in order to eliminate the favoritism for corporations that contribute to political campaigns. I love how politicians bitch that the lack of regulation and free markets are responsible for the woes of our economy, when in all actuality, we haven't had a free market in approximately a century.

However, I don't believe that it's the responsibility of a business to do anything besides maximize the wealth of shareholders. If you were to open a business tomorrow, it would most likely be to earn a living or a return on your investment, not operate a charitable or community organization. Many mom and pops failed because they were operating in one-horse towns and raped and pillaged their customers for years. It's no wonder customers preferences changed as competition increased and product selection grew and the mom and pops had to shutter their doors.

Also, you can thank the government for eliminating opportunities for individuals that may be mentally challenged. If the value of their labor is less than the minimum wage, they will not be employed, no matter how badly they want to.

Animus21

Yeah, I agree with you. Im not advocating socialism in place of capitalism, but at the same time, I see a huge problem emerging for consumers and workers as these groups get larger and have less competition to contend with.

I wouldnt want to strip the corporation of its right to operate to its best interests, but the consumers are eventually going to have to stop chewing their cud, lift their heads, and hold these places to some moral standard as part of their criteria in figuring out who to give money too. Otherwise, they will get run the **** over. That will never happen though. People are just too damn cheap, and arent as prone to outrage as I would like. It kinda falls on us as eaters and ******** to pick our food and toilet paper.

But, like I said, i dont know how we could fix the government by voting right now. The koolaid has probably already been drunk by everyone on this corporatism jazz.

its all totally fuckt. Im going to bed.

JasonC SBB

JasonC SBB

And to add to the thesis of the OP, the Keynesians who run the economy believe:

- gov't deficits are good
- because "deficits don't matter"
- and we owe it to ourselves
- and believe that printing money is the cure for an ailing economy which was caused by manipulated easy credit to begin with
- because they can't accept the fact that an entrepreneur will be much more careful investing his own money, than gov't bureaucrats are who spend other people' money
- and can't accept that money spent by the gov't crowds out investment by the private sector
- and that during a recession prices want to drop to a new sustainable level but they can't have that because inflation and manipulated low interest rates is how the banking cartel makes money

Joseph B

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcNOjq5C_Tk

BenR

iTrader: (2)

Wow, maybe you should all move your businesses to NM. His first idea would cost $25 and about 30 minutes in line.

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

WAIT?!

are you suggesting that the problem with the job market today is that it's cheaper to tell your customer to check themselves out than to be forced to pay at least $7.25 an hour for an employee to do it for them?

Maybe if the was no minimum wage job grocery stores would be more willing to hire a checkout clerk at $5 an hour, and you might be happy to work at that.

But alas, no human can survive on less than $7.25 an hour, so the better solution is they force you to be jobless. Don't blame the business here, this is direct fault of the gov't policies.

"Let’s consider an example. Suppose an 18-year-old man is looking for a job. He comes from a very poor family, dresses very badly, and speaks poor English. He has no work experience.

Everywhere he goes looking for a job, he is met with the same answer: No. No matter how many businesses he visits, he simply cannot get a job.
Finally, he walks into a business and says, “I’m willing to work for a dollar an hour. I’ll do whatever you want me to.” For his part, the employer finds that offer extremely attractive. He has menial tasks to be performed and it is worth it to him to pay $1 an hour to get them done.

Thus, both sides – the employer and the worker – have arrived at a meeting of the minds. Each is willing to give up something he values less for something he values more. Their decisions are based on their subjective valuation of the elements being exchanged – labor and money."


Furthermore, mom and pop stores are typically more expensive and do not provide many jobs. But, why do you care if they get swallowed up? I make special trips to walmart to specifically get cheaper products, walmart is significantly less expensive to shop at than my grocery store. That's a benefit to both me, the massive amount of employees they hire, and the company itself to make a profit. But it does come back to min. wage again:

"Suppose that Congress enacted a minimum wage of $1,000 an hour. Wouldn’t that be a great thing for workers? No, because it’s easy to see that lots of people would be laid off. The reason? Subjective value. All those workers whose labor is valued by employers at less than $1,000 an hour would be terminated."

Value is subjective, not objective. Employers have their own personal, subjective valuations and so do workers. So as long as employers place a subjective value on the labor of unemployed people that is lower than the Government established minimum, those people are going to be out of work.

Animus21

I warned you that I had been drinking, madam.