To the progressives here

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Faldaguy
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Re: To the progressives here

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by moonshadow » Wed Nov 03, 2021 7:30 pm

....Tell me I'm wrong...
OK Moon, your wish granted: You are wrong! :P

Unfair, unjust and inequitable--is an unified equal opportunity criminal -- it hurts weather you are lower or middle income/class -- and just plain wrong and morally corrupt regardless of how many labeled "ends" it may come out. Nor do I think pointing more fingers at one party or the other is going to help fix the problem(s) though if I had to choose it might be the middle one.
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Re: To the progressives here

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moonshadow wrote: Thu Nov 04, 2021 1:30 amHowever there does seem to be a key difference between the two:
This is what they would have you believe, but careful observation points out the problem -- they're lying. Through their teeth. They're really mostly on the same team and in the pay of the same paymasters. Not all of 'em, mind, but at least 66% of 'em (a 2/3ds majority); the remainder are there as comic relief and to provide the illusion of diversity between the "parties".
The other party supports keeping the lower classes at home drawing a government dole while the middle classes pay to both sides.
There's no wealth left to be siphoned from the lower classes any longer -- only what little is left of the upper-middle class, which still has a little. When that is gone, the elites will close up their accounts, walk away, and what remains will pop like the bubble it is now.
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Re: To the progressives here

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Faldaguy wrote: Thu Nov 04, 2021 5:57 am Unfair, unjust and inequitable--is an unified equal opportunity criminal -- it hurts weather you are lower or middle income/class -- and just plain wrong and morally corrupt regardless of how many labeled "ends" it may come out.
Here's the way I see it, I myself, and many people in my orbit are working around the clock for weeks, sometimes months at a time with no day off, all the while prices continue to rise, shelves continue to go bare.

It's somewhat ironic that under conservative leadership I was able to wear skirts more often because I actually had a day off every so often... here lately, not so much.

My only crime? Not having under age children. Jenn and I made the decision when we were younger, we couldn't afford children back then, so we never had any. Now that we're older, we don't want any.

Now I feel like we are penalized for a life decision that I personally feel was a responsible one.

Tell me, why should I be expected to help feed and clothe children that I didn't bring into the world? I realize it's not the kids fault and I'm not saying I want to see them go without, but I dislike this paradigm where we as a society seem to reward adults who have children they can't afford all the while penalize those who choose to remain child free.

Also, as I've stated before, you're not talking to a former child of silver spoons and riches here... I was a child of poverty, raised in old run down trailers, often times not even having a bedroom other than using my grandmother's sofa for years at a time, having clothing given to me from charity, etc.

Mind you this was before the child tax credits, and for whatever reason dad never got food stamps for me. I know he worked long hours grinding sausage at the plant where he worked.

Anyway, the values I learned from this were many. Mainly I learned the virtue of earning an honest dollar, and to never expect a hand out.

Meanwhile I see children today (and yes I actually know a few specifically) that expect the world to cater their every need. They are spoiled rotten with no moral guidance, no appreciation for an honest days work. They are spoiled little brats that cuss their parents out, constantly bounce from one to another (their parents are divorced), cuss their teachers out (when they even bother to show up), and are just generally vile.

The only consequence they'll likely see in life is eventually they'll hit the big time and get themselves incarcerated, that is unless certain politicians decriminalize everything...

You see Falda, this political "let's feel sorry for the poor people" doesn't work on me because unlike many, I am a child of poverty, and many in my family are still in poverty, so I have the actually real world experience here. I've walked that walk, I know the truth of the matter. Nobody felt sorry for me growing up and I don't think I turned out too bad.
crfriend wrote: Thu Nov 04, 2021 10:22 am There's no wealth left to be siphoned from the lower classes any longer -- only what little is left of the upper-middle class, which still has a little
Oh I'm a part of that lower middle class (some may say upper poor class) and I can tell you that my money is still being siphoned.

So is my time... I hardly ever have time off of work anymore.
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Re: To the progressives here

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moonshadow wrote: Thu Nov 04, 2021 10:58 amMy only crime? Not having under age children. Jenn and I made the decision when we were younger, we couldn't afford children back then, so we never had any. Now that we're older, we don't want any.

Now I feel like we are penalized for a life decision that I personally feel was a responsible one.
Moon, precisely your only mistake is that you weren't born with a billion-dollar trust fund. And that was no fault of your own or anybody you know or ever will.
Tell me, why should I be expected to help feed and clothe children that I didn't bring into the world?
Because that's what healthy and good societies do. They help other members. Ours is completely broken because we have an elite layer that's actively predating everybody else financially and contributing precisely zero to the society that made it possible for them to exist. That's where it's broken.
Oh I'm a part of that lower middle class (some may say upper poor class) and I can tell you that my money is still being siphoned.

So is my time... I hardly ever have time off of work anymore.
Folks like you and I are the types that are squarely in the cross-hairs now for harvest. We're the last productive members of the society, and we hold the last vestiges of middle-class wealth that the elites are now going after because they've got everything else. I wonder what it'll look like when the elites start turning on each other -- because they will in time.

On the topic of time: As the old saw goes, "Time is money", and companies (and their owners) know it. I've been working 14-16 hour days for over a year and have spent the last three and one-half months pulling a third-shift swing at least once a week and sometimes more. My circadian rhythm is completely shot.

On the notion of the "Help wanted -- All positions" sign, it's probably worth noting that the positions being advertised for are entirely likely sub-minimum wage menial jobs that, thanks to skyrocketing inflation will not cover basic essentials where government (societal) assistance will. Welcome to the "Service Economy" -- and it's proved to be precisely the disaster that some of us saw coming in the 1980s.
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Re: To the progressives here

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moonshadow wrote: Thu Nov 04, 2021 10:58 am Here's the way I see it, I myself, and many people in my orbit are working around the clock for weeks, sometimes months at a time with no day off, all the while prices continue to rise, shelves continue to go bare.

It's somewhat ironic that under conservative leadership I was able to wear skirts more often because I actually had a day off every so often... here lately, not so much.
Why do you keep working around the clock? Why not more holidays?

I was reading a column in the Economist that started with the sentence that the Americans were looking jealously at the Europeans because July/August are the summer months and offices in Europe just shuts down. And it's true, you can't plan any meetings here in July/August (this year even September) with large groups of people because many will simply not be able to attend. I was kinda shocked. I recall from Australia that December/January were also pretty dead.

There's something to be said for work/life balance. Last year I look a total of 12 weeks leave (some unpaid). It was no problem, I just had to indicate it a few months ahead of time. No reading of work email after hours. I get paid for 38 hours, so I'm working 38 hours.

It's a running joke that the Americans only get two weeks leave. I hear people say that most work places give more, etc, etc, but all I see is Americans barely scraping by working all hours. Stressed workers are unproductive workers. Give people more time off and they become more productive.

Please tell me I'm wrong.

I'd suggest unions, since that how we fixed it here, but I think that will just raise the cry of "socialism!". But honestly, where's the fun in life if you're working all the time?
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Re: To the progressives here

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rode_kater wrote: Thu Nov 04, 2021 11:37 amPlease tell me I'm wrong.
Sadly, you're not wrong. I wish you were.
I'd suggest unions, since that how we fixed it here, but I think that will just raise the cry of "socialism!". But honestly, where's the fun in life if you're working all the time?
That was tried in the early part of the 20th Century -- and it did quite a bit of good. Unfortunately, there is no effective labour law here in the US (I wonder what the situation is in Russia). Union-busting is now commonplace (Thanks Ronnie!) and unions no longer have any effective place in the society. Where there are things on the books, they are ignored and not enforced. The net result is that what's left of the US workforce is hideously overworked, has less leisure time than at any point in the last hundred years, and the situation continues to get worse by the month.

For instance, I get three weeks of paid vacation, six holidays, and five "personal/sick" days -- and I'm a salaried professional. Most of that I lose because the way things are I'm an essential component and I know things and have skills that nobody else in the company has so I can't take time when I need it. They won't let me take it -- and since the company operates on a "use it or lose it" basis, I can't even get paid for it. That last part is likely illegal, but everybody looks the other way when it happens. It wasn't always that way; when I was working in the 1980s (and having a ball at it) I seldom took time off (because I was having too much fun) and was paid off for about 9 weeks of time I'd accrued. Nowadays you lose that.

Workplaces have also gone pretty toxic in recent years -- and this had been deteriorating over time, but the rate has cone exponential recently -- making work simply stressful and unpleasant. The long hours and unrelenting pace, in EMITEE environments (Everything More Important Than Everything Else) don't help either, and pretty much guarantees that nothing gets done in spite of being at full-throttle full-time. And then getting castigated for "lack of progress" at the daily Status Beating.
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Re: To the progressives here

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crfriend wrote: Thu Nov 04, 2021 11:58 am For instance, I get three weeks of paid vacation, six holidays, and five "personal/sick" days -- and I'm a salaried professional. Most of that I lose because the way things are I'm an essential component and I know things and have skills that nobody else in the company has so I can't take time when I need it. They won't let me take it -- and since the company operates on a "use it or lose it" basis, I can't even get paid for it. That last part is likely illegal, but everybody looks the other way when it happens. It wasn't always that way; when I was working in the 1980s (and having a ball at it) I seldom took time off (because I was having too much fun) and was paid off for about 9 weeks of time I'd accrued. Nowadays you lose that.
Wow, that's depressing. I'm so sorry.

Now, I'm no fan of the modern unions here. I think they spend too much time fighting last years wars instead of looking to the future of the labour market. My workplace for example has no union and falls outside of collective agreements. Instead we have a Works Council of employees to do the discussions with the employer. Things like "if the company prevents you taking time off, you must get it paid out" are statutory. Actually, saying no to a leave request is almost impossible unless there's a really good reason. "There's no-one to replace you" isn't good enough, they could have thought of that beforehand.

However, what you say indicates that last years war isn't actually over, and here the union do investigations into bad businesses and will actually take businesses to court for breaking the law. It's so much easier if an external entity does it, so the employees don't have to it and risk their employment.
crfriend wrote: Thu Nov 04, 2021 11:58 am Workplaces have also gone pretty toxic in recent years -- and this had been deteriorating over time, but the rate has cone exponential recently -- making work simply stressful and unpleasant. The long hours and unrelenting pace, in EMITEE environments (Everything More Important Than Everything Else) don't help either, and pretty much guarantees that nothing gets done in spite of being at full-throttle full-time. And then getting castigated for "lack of progress" at the daily Status Beating.
I see news articles about that people in America are leaving their jobs in droves. Maybe there's change on the way?
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Re: To the progressives here

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crfriend wrote: Thu Nov 04, 2021 11:22 am
Tell me, why should I be expected to help feed and clothe children that I didn't bring into the world?
Because that's what healthy and good societies do. They help other members. Ours is completely broken because we have an elite layer that's actively predating everybody else financially and contributing precisely zero to the society that made it possible for them to exist. That's where it's broken.
I realize my comment likely painted me as pretty cold hearted. I don't try to be... I'm tired.

But I look around me as I see people of all classes milking the system, the poor, the middle, and the elite. Often times I just feel like a chump.

If everyone just lays around and does nothing all day, milking whatever social program may exist to keep them fed and sheltered, then who will do the work required to keep modern life going? Who will stock the store shelves? Who will deliver the pizza? Who will truck the goods across the country? Who will u load those trucks? Who will prepare the food? While will pick the produce? Who will fix the machines when they break?

I think we're seeing the answer to that question play out... Nobody.

Well, there are still a few, those of us burning our candle on both ends, digging our own grave because certain people have decided they are too rich... or to poor to contribute.

I've got it better than most. I speak with people all the time working two or three months straight with no day off... 14-16 hours per day. One manager said he has job openings paying $17 per hour to put hot dogs in buns. 15 people may apply, one shows up and he or she might work 2 days and quit.

The other day I stopped to get some kerosene for my heater when the lady at the station who rung me up looked to be dead on her feet, when I asked about her condition she said she didn't feel well, (but didn't have covid) but hasn't had a day off on three weeks.

Another woman working at the hotel I was staying at while working in Kentucky had a sling on her arm, apparently she fell down the stairs that morning and broke it. She was scheduled for surgery the next day, when I asked her why she was working in such a condition, she stated "we don't have any help, I'm the only one.."

Carl, I'm not trying to sound mean or ugly... but we just can't carry the weight of the world much longer, the few people that are still working are about to snap. It is is a damned slap in the face when we have to sit here and read reports of how hard the unemployed have it, while they sit at home and cash those government checks and swipe that EBT card at the register.
rode_kater wrote: Thu Nov 04, 2021 11:37 am Give people more time off and they become more productive.

Please tell me I'm wrong.
:lol:

If only. The world through my eyes?

Give people more time off and I will cover it.

Serious question, what keeps Europe going during those summer months when everybody is off?
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Re: To the progressives here

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crfriend wrote: Thu Nov 04, 2021 11:58 am Most of that I lose because the way things are I'm an essential component and I know things and have skills that nobody else in the company has so I can't take time when I need it.
I'm in a similar situation, or about to be. I don't want to divulge too much information about my own situation, but suffice it to say, I'm battling serious burnout myself. And it's only slated to get worse next year.

What's really sad is I don't work half as much as some people I've talked to... like another man who told me yesterday he hasn't had a day off on 28 days and he's been working [retail] 14-16 hours per day.

So you see, I do have empathy and compassion... just not for people sitting at home collecting money whilst complaining about life while others work double shifts, seven days per week, getting cussed at, spit on, and harassed because something might be out of stock.

And despite all this...

...still no healthcare plan. Nobody is even talking about it... Whoopdie-do! Biden wants to lower the Medicare age to 60... grrreeat.... see ya in 20 years...
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Re: To the progressives here

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moonshadow wrote: Thu Nov 04, 2021 3:10 pm...still no healthcare plan. Nobody is even talking about it... Whoopdie-do! Biden wants to lower the Medicare age to 60... grrreeat.... see ya in 20 years...
I suspect that we will never see a proper health care system in the United States. There's just too much wealth remaining to be be siphoned off into the "insurance" companies (and ultimately to the super-rich).
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Re: To the progressives here

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crfriend wrote: Thu Nov 04, 2021 4:36 pm
moonshadow wrote: Thu Nov 04, 2021 3:10 pm...still no healthcare plan. Nobody is even talking about it... Whoopdie-do! Biden wants to lower the Medicare age to 60... grrreeat.... see ya in 20 years...
I suspect that we will never see a proper health care system in the United States. There's just too much wealth remaining to be be siphoned off into the "insurance" companies (and ultimately to the super-rich).
Not to mention the fact that pharmaceutical lobbyists line the pockets of legislators.
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Re: To the progressives here

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Wow, it seems like Utopia over here in comparison. This working year I will have had 6 weeks and 1 day paid holiday. Normal employment get Bank Holidays [0] but in retail apart from Easter Sunday and Christmas Day when all shops are shut, most BH are normal days and we get extra days to compensate. Normal working day is 7.5 to 8 hours over a 5 day week. OK in IT support I worked like Carl, sometimes 50-60 hour weeks, rota on call at all times. Yes, I was well paid but I ended up off work with stress and depression, gave me diabetes and ruined my hearing. Seems remarkably similar to the burnouts that you are describing. I now work between 16 and 26 hours per week, busy but little stress, left alone by managers and get to interact with a 99% great set of customers and staff. A company that gives small bonuses as recognition for difficult circumstances. Seems like you could do worse than to move aver here on the face of it. Yes, we have a lot of problems but the social system is pretty good, not perfect and it is abused. But then the abuse comes right from the top downwards so nothing new there. I can wander about in skirts unmolested and without verbal abuse. Life is good well could be better.

[0] 8 days - New Years Day, Good Friday, Easter Monday, May Day, Spring Bank Holiday, Summer Bank Holiday, Christmas Day, Boxing Day

Unions used to be a problem but Maggie Thatcher pretty much destroyed them. Been very quiet for decades.

My wife is laughing. We have installed a cattery whose roof edge ( head height ) is near to the rear corner of our house resulting in a narrow passing way. Consequently it is just right for me nutting said edge periodically. Well we were putting up a shed to be sited adjacent to the cattery and of course twice I nutted the roof corner, the second time hard, drawing blood. My wife was killing herself faughing. Me, just a bit of a headache. I'm going to nail a tennis ball to the roof so it's a bit softer next time.
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Re: To the progressives here

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by moonshadow » Thu Nov 04, 2021 7:38 am

crfriend wrote: ↑Thu Nov 04, 2021 5:22 am
Tell me, why should I be expected to help feed and clothe children that I didn't bring into the world?
Because that's what healthy and good societies do. They help other members. Ours is completely broken because we have an elite layer that's actively predating everybody else financially and contributing precisely zero to the society that made it possible for them to exist. That's where it's broken.
I realize my comment likely painted me as pretty cold hearted. I don't try to be... I'm tired.

But I look around me as I see people of all classes milking the system, the poor, the middle, and the elite. Often times I just feel like a chump.

If everyone just lays around and does nothing all day, milking whatever social program may exist to keep them fed and sheltered, then who will do the work required to keep modern life going? Who will stock the store shelves? Who will deliver the pizza? Who will truck the goods across the country? Who will u load those trucks? Who will prepare the food? While will pick the produce? Who will fix the machines when they break?

I think we're seeing the answer to that question play out... Nobody.

Well, there are still a few, those of us burning our candle on both ends, digging our own grave because certain people have decided they are too rich... or to poor to contribute.
Hey Moon;

I suspect quite a number of us here have had our time or brushes with less food, shelter, and 'skirts' than we would like -- a sad part of what often builds some "character" but not necessarily wealth.

Carl hit part of it on the head with: That's what healthy societies do. As some of our EU and down under folks are noting -- they have more elements in their societies that do support a social safety net -- in part because it is the humane thing to do, but also because it does build a stronger whole. The limited attempts to test guaranteed incomes have made it pretty clear that those investments are not wasted or supporting frivolous activity, but bring the bottom up to more productive levels benefiting all of us.

The US does not have a solid safety net, and certainly not one that is monitored for abuse or granted equally. BUT, right here I want to emphasis in the strongest possible terms -- that even if you could count every dime of abuse in the welfare, food stamps, and unemployment lines -- that would pale thousands of times over next to the abuse and robbery by the corporate elite. The revolving doors in DC; the tax evasion; the mega bailouts of crooked banks and the likes of AIG (a government bailout reaching 182 Billion plus); military contractors...I could go on for a long list --making the wee people tweaking child credits and food stamps but infinitesimal dots comparatively. Let's start pointing fingers where they really belong. (I'm not excusing we peons that don't disclose that extra $200.00 bucks we get under the table....but the system has us believing it is just us working mongrels that are so evil and making the system fail. It is not the working stiffs bringing this society down, it is the system and the oligarchs at the top.

You wonder why people are sitting home and jobs go begging? Some speculate ( a few rightly) that some people are exploiting un-employment bonuses to evade working--"lazy bums". Yes, a few do. Perhaps for good reasons -- why put up with the public abuse of anti-vaxxers and risk your life for their selfish butts? However, what is not getting the headlines, is that a lot of folk are starting to see through the system, the younger folk in particular are seeing there is no hope for them in the system the way it is rigged now -- so they are not going to support its continuation if they can help it. Sadly they too will probably be put so far under the system's boot that they have no choice but to become one more working stiff in an uncaring and abusive marketplace making a handful of people mega billionaires while the rest of us collapse of stress and worse.

Maybe, just maybe...this explains some of the anger out there; the crazy acts; the escape into drugs....? Yes, some of us resisted or were made of sterner stuff -- some like you made more nuanced decisions about being able to afford kids-- but many more got lost along the way -- that does not make them bad, it means the system failed them and their parents.

And, check your local public education -- is it driven by corporate needs for automatons -- or designed to truly teach people to think? Now, to bring this back to skirts: Our skirts on male bodies are a poignant, though small, push to move the masses from being automatons! Someday you can say you helped save the planet with your skirts!
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Re: To the progressives here

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Sinned wrote: Thu Nov 04, 2021 10:56 pm I'm going to nail a tennis ball to the roof so it's a bit softer next time.
Would be more fun to fit an old fashions rubber bulb horn so you could go "honk" every time you did it.....
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Re: To the progressives here

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Faldaguy wrote: Fri Nov 05, 2021 5:01 am However, what is not getting the headlines, is that a lot of folk are starting to see through the system, the younger folk in particular are seeing there is no hope for them in the system the way it is rigged now -- so they are not going to support its continuation if they can help it. Sadly they too will probably be put so far under the system's boot that they have no choice but to become one more working stiff in an uncaring and abusive marketplace making a handful of people mega billionaires while the rest of us collapse of stress and worse.
But how will spending the rest of their lives at home improve anything? Someone's got to do the jobs nobody wants to do, and if every job paid a hundred grand a year then let's be honest, what do you think would happen to the cost of everything?

There is no virtue in sitting at home living off of others. What type of message is this sending their children?
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