stickers

[gfretwell]

Unions lost their clout in the global economy. UAW is a great example. In the heydays of the 80s a high school graduate could make $65,000 a year with overtime in a job a robot (or a trained monkey) could do. One of my inlaws was doing exactly that at Chrysler. Now they make $16 an hour in Kokomo and feel lucky they don't have to move to Tennessee or Mexico to get it. Looking at the loss of the whole plant, UAW renegotiated their contract. Delco, the other big plant in town, is pretty much gone. That moved to Mexico.

[gfretwell]

You do point out a problem. In a global economy, foreigners will work cheaper than even our old minimum wage. Technology lets them do it seamlessly It was pointed out ion the IBM retiree group. IBM India is IBM's largest employer. We don't sell squat there. They are writing code for IBM for about $100 a week. Microsoft is doing the same thing.

"Office work" is becoming an endangered profession. So much for using that liberal arts degree. The guy in India making $100 a week probably has a better degree than you.

I am not sure exactly where those "good jobs" will come from if you are not in a trade. A plumber or electrician makes "programmer" money these days.

[Marilyn Manson]

Not everyone who is in financial trouble and working a minimum wage job fits that description. Put the broad brush down. Downsizing, outsourcing, illnesses, family issues, etc. can all put a perfectly capable worker - with a family - in dire straits.

Why does waiting until you are financially stable to get married make financial sense? Singles pay higher taxes, often pay higher rent (2 apartments vs 1), 2 cars when 1 may suffice, insurance costs, food costs, etc. Being married can

*save* you money. No one said you have to have kids just because you are married.

Even after almost 40 years I still kid my SIL that she owes me $1600. I wanted to get married in December but my SIL didn't have any vacation left and couldn't come into town until January. That 3 week delay cost me $1600 in taxes.

[Ralph Mowery]

The value is only relative as to how much one needs or wants the services.

Right now the garbage collector is a low skill job that needs to be done. Just think if no one wanted to collect the garbage. Here is another example of what is going on around my location. They are forced to raise the school bus driver pay about 2 or 3 dollars an hour because of not enough bus drivers.

A ball player or singer may make millions a year. They do not really provide a service that is needed but entertainment that is wanted. We could do without them but could hardly do without the bus driver or garbage collector.

In one way I sound like one for a social form of government. Which I am not. While there is nothing wrong in my opinion of a social form of government, it simply will not not work because people as a whole tend to be lazy.

[Ralph Mowery]

Yes, sometimes bad things just hapen. LIke the company I worked for. At one time over 3000 people were there. Great company to work for and good pay and benefits. Started up about 1965 and went out of business about 5 years ago. Being in the textile industry over the years it went down hill and out of business. At the end there were about 300 people there. Many of them maybe 5 years from retirement. So here are a lot of people that have been used to very good wages for the area , over 55 and out of work. Most had no skills outside of what it took to run the jobs at that plant. I was sort of lucky, retired about 5 years before it went out of business.

[Ralph Mowery]

In part I think the government has let us down. Tariffs are suspose to be in place to help protect the workers. Here we make $ 20 an hour and have all kinds of OSHA and enviromental rules. Some countries make $ 20 a day or less and have almost no rules. Hard to compeat with that.

[Ed Pawlowski]

UAW is a perfect example of going too far. go back to the pre-union days it was tough work and Ford even had people in the rest rooms to be sure you really did have to take a shit to get a break. Unions went too far and the auto companies just went along and added the cost to the cars. Payback finally did come though.

Seems to be cycles where the unions demanded excess but now you can't take a break and have tp piss in a bottle. Not to mention how Joe Sixpack things it is fine for a ball player to make many millions but he is struggling to pay the rent. We have some screwed up priorities. Oh, and we give tax breaks to billionaires.

[Ralph Mowery]

It always interisted me that people makeing a few thousand a year would pay a high price to just watch those making millions a year. Same with the ones going to the movies and people singing.

[gfretwell]

I watched a bunch of construction people get through the 2008 crash and there were no checks from the government. When work became available they were right back at it. In the mean time folks found other work. My mason was mowing lawns. What I saw that struck me tonight is I put out a bunch of big motors tonight. I know they will be there when the trash man comes. In 2009, they would be on someone's bench being parted out for scrap. No pain, no gain. These people got lazy and it is going to be hard to get them back to work.

You know, I never found a woman who said "Lets just get married so we pay less taxes".

I suppose you could have had them close the deal 3 weeks early and still have the ceremony when you had it. They are 2 different things.

I seem to buy all my kids cars. They would laugh if I bitched about $1600.

[gfretwell]

We are seeing some of that now. People were making $1000 a week sitting home. Every once in a while they got a couple grand more. It can give you unrealistic expectations. There are plenty of people who will throw garbage cans for more than a cop or a teacher make. They just need to want to reenter the work force.

[gfretwell]

From Smoot Hawley to Trump, we found out tariffs don't work. They just end up being a tax on the consumer.

[gfretwell]

If piss in a bottle is drug test, you need to blame every president since Nixon although Carter did try to back off a little. The unions are just following the federal rules

[Jim Joyce]

We can't all go into IT but it has worked out pretty well for me. Starting salary is in the 60-80K territory, mid-career takes you to

110-140K, and seasoned (where I'm at now) is about 180-200K. Not everyone wants to work indoors in air-conditioned comfort, though.

[Jim Joyce]

Some day? I was under the impression that the value of our currency fluctuated on the world market all day, every day.

[Jim Joyce]

You just described my first marriage. We saved a ton of money by getting married. Not having kids also helped at the time.

[Jim Joyce]

Jeff Bezos was worth $18 billion, he claimed a $4,000 tax credit intended for families earning less than $100,000, ProPublica reports Jun 9, 2021, 2:32 PM

In 2011, Jeff Bezos, the billionaire CEO of Amazon, paid nothing in federal income taxes. That same year, when his net worth was valued at around $18 billion, he filed for and received a $4,000 tax credit for his children, ProPublica reported.

[gfretwell]

I am not talking about the normal ebb and flow. I mean "Can you pay me in Pesos instead"?

[micky]

BTW, inflation is world-wide, but don't let facts stop you.

[angelica...]

Perhaps the singles could move in together and pay the rent on one apartment and share the costs of one car. Not much help on taxes, but these hypothetical singles probably don't make all that much money.

Cindy Hamilton

[angelica...]

Not a drug test. Amazon drivers have such stringent productivity requirements that they piss in a bottle rather than stop at a gas station.

OTOH, my husband made a couple of overland business trips where he kept an old Gatorade bottle for that purpose. Voluntarily. IIRC his father didn't like stopping every 10 minutes while on vacation to let one of his five sons pee, so they had to piss in a bottle between Dad's comfort breaks.

Cindy Hamilton