let them eat cake
Jul. 30th, 2004 11:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
winterbadgerWASHINGTON (Reuters) - A campaign worker for President Bush (news - web sites) said on Thursday American workers unhappy with low-quality jobs should find new ones -- or pop a Prozac to make themselves feel better.
"Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?" said Susan Sheybani, an assistant to Bush campaign spokesman Terry Holt.
more at
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=615&ncid=696&e=4&u=/nm/20040729/pl_nm/campaign_jobs_dc
"Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?" said Susan Sheybani, an assistant to Bush campaign spokesman Terry Holt.
more at
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=615&ncid=696&e=4&u=/nm/20040729/pl_nm/campaign_jobs_dc
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no subject
Date: 2004-07-30 04:01 pm (UTC)Would she really like an answer to that question? Grrrrr.
no subject
Date: 2004-07-30 05:50 pm (UTC)Why should it be a national crisis if they are unhappy with their jobs?
no subject
Date: 2004-07-30 06:24 pm (UTC)It was an incredibly insensitive and thoughtless remark, from someone who has, I can only assume, never tried to wrestle with economic adversity. It's also mind-bendingly ironic, because the ditz seems not to realize that the whole reason people are unhappy with demanding, low-wage jobs is that those are the only ones they can get; saying "Oh, why don't they just get other ones, then?" is like responding to someone whose hand has been cut off by saying, "Oh, that's OK, it'll grow back." Not only callous, but without a clear understanding of reality.
And the Prozac remark really tops it off. First of all, it's a pretty sick reaction on any level; "Serious problem with your life? Just take a drug--it'll get better." That bespeaks a shallow and deeply flawed outlook on life, to me. It has it's own intrinsic irony, too. I mean, isn't that what all the people wanted to do who we're throwing into jail for taking cocaine and heroin? Induce a little palliative narcosis to temporarily relieve their fear, anxierty, and frustration, so they could wake up with a hangover, less money, and still no solution to their problem? Aren't we (fruitlessly) spending millions of dollars every year to stop behavior like that? And, lastly, it just fails a simple rationality test. If someone has a poor, low-wage job, is it very likely that they can just pop off to the store and buy tranqs every time they feel blue?
no subject
Date: 2004-07-30 06:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-30 07:17 pm (UTC)Could you describe for me what the opportunities to attain better skills are that exist for a single mother of three in Detroit who has only a high-school education?
Could you tell me what the better job prospects are for a coalminer in rural West Virginia?
Would you point me to the private-sector programs that are going to retrain a 50-year-old steel worker in Pennsylvania who's just been laid off?
Can you describe for me how the guys I see in the morning at the 7-11 waiting for a building contractor to come pick them up for a day's work at $9 an hour, who speak little or no English are going to acquire the capital and training to start their own building comapny?
Glib, I know
Date: 2004-07-30 07:46 pm (UTC)I know so little of Mr. Coalminer's situation...but let me assume that he doesn't live in a vacuum, either. He can quit his job. His wife can struggle to work for their upkeep while he tries to get skills for another job. Maybe he can apply for a job at the local DMV. Then he can stamp papers, straighten papers, make things difficult for poor people who only want to get their drivers' licenses.
Mr. Steel Worker... I don't know of any private sector programs that could help him the way you say... I know so little of his specific situation... I am quite ashamed. You win. But what will Sen--er, President Kerry do for him?
I am pretty unfamiliar with all of the situations you have listed, except for this last one: the non-English speaking workers. I see them everywhere. The kids at my church sometimes go around and give them donuts and coffee. I am sure that if they came to my church we might try to help them somehow. True, we would use this opportunity to ingratiate our religion with them. But we might also give them a place to live, offer them some work maybe; meet their family, offer babysitting. Most of the people at my church are rich people glutted on the fruits of their labor, but they have consciences.
I'm sorry for the subjectivity of my answers, but that's all I have to say for now.
Re: Glib, I know
Date: 2004-08-01 08:24 pm (UTC)The coalminer's wife was already working to put food on the table (he was paying the rent). The DMV doesn't have a lot of turnover, nor do many of the other non-coal-mining jobs in their little town. Most people prefer working places where there's less chance of getting lung cancer.
Kerry's talked about jobs retraining programs Mr. Steelworker could use.
The libertarian myth of going it alone and pulling yourself up by the fingernails usually overlooks the support systems that are necessary for all but incredibly *exceptional* individuals to better themselves.
no subject
Date: 2004-07-30 06:18 pm (UTC)The Bush campaign flunky is both utterly lacking in compassion and utterly lacking in brain cells. Not unlike her candidate, George W. Bush, interestingly enough.
Opinions of an ignoramus
Date: 2004-07-30 06:51 pm (UTC)CEOs have skills the workers don't, and they are entrepreneurs. That they should make a good deal more, I am fine with. If workers don't like their pay, they should get better skills and better jobs. Or start their own businesses, where they can pay everybody fairly. (<<<naive!)
<i>the ongoing attempt by the present administration to do away with overtime pay</i>
Can you give me some links? I am, as you will have noticed by now, pretty uninformed. Here is your opportunity to convert me.
Re: Opinions of an ignoramus
Date: 2004-07-30 07:11 pm (UTC)Yeah, I'm afarid from my point of view that is pretty naive. How is the recent immigrant from Nicaragua (or the umpteenth-generation white or African American who grew up in poverty) going to get the money to start their own business? or to learn more skills? Government *needs* to help out with things like that (loans through SBA, job-retraining programs). A company that's already decided to move jobs to another country because they can get cheaper labour there (often because the standard of living is much lower because workers are not allowed to organize) is hardly going to set up an expensive program to retrain the workers it's just ditched and is leaving behind.
CEOs are sometimes people who work incredibly hard, very, long hours, and devote their lives to creating their business. On the other hand, CEOs are sometimes people with little or no demonstrable skills, who have inherited control of a company or large sums of money, work few hours, and make huge salaries for doing very little. And a lot of CEOs are somewhere in between, doing a lot of intellectually demanding work, but going to an office 9-5 four or five days a week, doing nothing exceptional that any of the managers deep down their corporation's hierarchy could do, but they happen to have formed the right connections and gamed the politics of their business so as to end up on top. Is it really right or fair that someone like that makes millions of dollars and sme of his employess work 60 hours a week and take home less than $15K a year (keeping in mind that the poverty level for a family of four is now approximately $18K a year)?
Opinions of an ignoramus, cont'd
Date: 2004-07-30 07:28 pm (UTC)The answer is, time. He should start out like my mother did, when we moved from Romania, working making sandwiches. Hardly a smidgeon of English knowledge to her name. A Chemistry degree that didn't help her at all. They ought to work to keep afloat; make connections, teach themselves, study at night. She's now a systems administrator of a library. I generalize a lot -- but it's doable.
The umpteenth generation of poor whites or blacks -- they know English already. They've lived in this country a while, and know the ropes already. I think all it takes is a genuine desire to do it, and continual striving.
Workers are allowed to organize in this country, but things like unions, or the raising of the minimum wage, cause inflation, or cause people to lose jobs anyway. I simplify, but you get the idea.
Who will decide which CEO is good and which is bad? The all-powerful government? Then what else will the government be able to decide? Basically we will be giving them a carte blanche. It will at first be for the purposes of getting what we want, but later?
Re: Opinions of an ignoramus, cont'd
Date: 2004-07-30 07:46 pm (UTC)It is, but it's incredibly hard, and it simply isn't possible for everyone. Why not make it just a little easier?
I think all it takes is a genuine desire to do it, and continual striving.
I beg to differ. I think it also takes a lot of luck. And it sounds as if you mother had a tremendous step on most poor immigrants to the US; her chemistry degree may not have been a ticket to a lab job or a university position, but simply haveing had a primary, secondary, and college education puts her ahead of massive numbers of people. I salute her for her hard work, but I have to ask myself how many people would have been able to take that same amount of work and turn it into anythign mroe than subsistence.
And even if that were the case, if "all" you had to do was work your finger to the bone, struggle hard all your life, fight for every scrap, just to get by, is that the kind of country we want to have? Believe me, those CEOs your so fond of didn't have to go through that. Most of them started out with the deck stacked in their favour--stable and prosperous home life, high-quality education, good college, MBA, white collar job... Nice if it's all handed to you on a platter.
Workers are allowed to organize in this country,
In some places, yes. In other places, effectively not. And, fasciantingly, it's the businesses where workers are unable to roganize where wages are lowest, benefits are lowest, and profits are highest. Funny, that.
but things like unions, or the raising of the minimum wage, cause inflation, or cause people to lose jobs anyway. I simplify, but you get the idea.
You oversimply, and I disagree. Those thigns do not necessarily either produce inflation or cause people to lose jobs. But not having them does, certainly, ensure poverty and dead-end employment.
Re: Opinions of an ignoramus, cont'd
Date: 2004-07-30 07:51 pm (UTC)At what cost? The cost of our freedom? Must I and mine be taxed to help some people I know nothing about? Why can't I, as an individual, choose to help whomever I please?
Whine whine whine selfish selfish selfish :D
Re: Opinions of an ignoramus, cont'd
Date: 2004-07-30 08:22 pm (UTC)You can, but the historical record shows that private charitable giving is simply not enough to allieviate malnutrition and lack of proper housing, let alone provide the help people need to work their way out of poverty. Look at America in the 1930s and 1950s.
Or maybe that's just not a problem. Maybe some people would be happier if we returned to the 19th and early 20th century, where child labour (noting your earlier post), overcrowding, and starvation were common. Heck, if all that's good, let's throw in unhealthy working conditions, sexual discrimination, racism, a ban on negiotiating fair labour standards... let's just roll back all of the progressive advances since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Those kids pulling carts in mines were getting paid, right? Why did they complain so much? And workers saying that factory doors ought not to be locked in case of fire--we know that's just an excuse for them to try to steal materials or slip off when they're supposed to be working. If a few dozen get burned to death, well, it will just make the other ones work harder, right?
Whine whine whine selfish selfish selfish :D
Smiley or not, yes, that's my impression of libertarians. "Why should *I* have to help someone else, just because they don't have a job/can't pay for healthcare/are starving/ They're only poor because they don't want to work!"
In the end, I just don't know how to respond to that, other than with outright horror.
Re: Opinions of an ignoramus, cont'd
Date: 2004-07-30 09:46 pm (UTC)In the end, I just don't know how to respond to that, other than with outright horror.
Agreed!
hyperbole
Date: 2004-07-30 10:33 pm (UTC)Why are you resorting to hyperbole? I think at this point in history such a regression would be impossible, thank God. The point is: government should protect your rights, women's rights, minority rights. But that's about all it should do.
Re: hyperbole
Date: 2004-07-30 10:59 pm (UTC)Re: Opinions of an ignoramus
Date: 2004-08-01 07:58 pm (UTC)Theory and practice don't always give the same results, plus which, many of those better-run companies are in other countries now (cultural differences), but I'm not sure that federal mandates will help.
Re: Opinions of an ignoramus
Date: 2004-08-01 09:50 pm (UTC)That's a nice theory, but I'm not sure that it carries much water in reality, especially if most corporations are already paying CEOs multimillion-dollar salaries.
Plus, I don't think it's much consolation to the employees who get paid minimum wage, or less.
Which is where the discussion came from originally; not a suggestion that corporations should somehow be prevented from paying CEOs millions of dollars but that it might be reasonable to raise the minimum wage a little bit, so that it might be a bit easier for workers with the lowest kinds of jobs to survive, and also tighten up a few of the loopholes that allow companies to get away with not paying employees at least that much. Our budding Andrew Ford (or C.M. Burns?) here needed convincing that workers who want better pay aren't simply malingering, hence the comparison of workers' and CEOs' salaries. While I doubt that CEOs' contributuions to their corporations justify the imbalance in comparative wages, it simply defies rationality to contend that those contributions continue to grow while employees' contributions are decreasing. This isn't the market at work; it's unrestrained greed.
Re: Opinions of an ignoramus
Date: 2004-08-01 08:09 pm (UTC)"on April 21, 2004, the Administration and DOL announced final rules that still alter the types of workers eligible for overtime pay and will eliminate overtime protections for six million American workers. Workers effected include, among others, registered nurses, team leaders, computer employees, and nursery school workers." -- http://democrats.senate.gov/dpc/dpc-doc.cfm?doc_name=fs-108-2-196
http://edworkforce.house.gov/democrats/releases/rel1904.html
http://www.factcheck.org/article.aspx?docID=151