Is there really a war on the poor?

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Money is worth precisely what it buys.

And yes, the people who start business firms require the labor of others for which they were willing and in fact do pay.

The wages paid to workers are wages they have accepted and have come from the people who hired them.

Money buys labor. That is a simple economic fact.

Now ask yourself this: how many new jobs have been created by poor folks? As compared to the number of new jobs created by not so poor folks.

ruveyn

Money is worth precisely what it buys.

And yes, the people who start business firms require the labor of others for which they were willing and in fact do pay.

The wages paid to workers are wages they have accepted and have come from the people who hired them.

Money buys labor. That is a simple economic fact.

Now ask yourself this: how many new jobs have been created by poor folks? As compared to the number of new jobs created by not so poor folks.

ruveyn

All of which are jobs made possible by the investments of their Betters.

ruveyn

Betters? What the hell? But on the contrary. It is not the rich that make it possible. It is vice versa. The rich would be nowhere if it not for all the people they took advantage off, either actively or indirectly as part of systemic oppression.

You're presenting people with a false choice, and incorrectly arguing that you'll be paid based on your productivity and work ethic. Maybe in a perfect world. But in a neo-liberal capitalist society? Nope.
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Why the American Worker Is Miserable

... When you spend enough time scrolling the business pages....two things become immediately apparent: It's a grim scene outside corner offices and Silicon Valley, and those toiling under that pall are getting increasingly frustrated by the experience.

...folks like Musk who are out there creating PayPal and electric automobiles hold up a mirror to the rest of us as a reminder of what we haven't and, in many cases, won't achieve....

The economic tumult of the last half decade or so has riddled many in the United States....with insecurities we just aren't accustomed to....only 38.5% of Americans felt fulfilled by their jobs, while only 52% said they were totally committed to their work. Only 19.5% put in extra hours because they enjoy their work and 72% are motivated solely by their paycheck.

...U.S. workers reported earning 14 vacation days, but used only 10 and left twice as many vacation days on the table in 2013 as they did in 2012. Not only does that vacation day allotment trail the 30 earned by workers in France, Spain and Denmark, but the days U.S. workers actually take off exceeds only the eight taken by workers in Thailand and seven by laborers in Japan and South Korea. Meanwhile, a Harris survey indicates that more than 91% of U.S. workers do work-related tasks on their personal time, with 37% devoting more than 10 off-the-clock hours to work each week.

This isn't just a workforce morale issue or a nationwide case of burnout, it's near malaise that should concern both those afflicted and the companies they work for. U.S. workers absolutely hate their jobs. Roughly 52% of all full-time workers in the U.S. are not involved in their work and put only as much into it as they're forced to. Of those, 18% are "actively disengaged" and so bitter about their work that they're actively trying to sabotage the workplace and make life miserable for everyone else.

So why don't they just quit in grand fashion and do something a bit more rewarding? Because the housing bubble's burst and the recession made them afraid to do so, and their employers know it. Yet another survey by Gallup finds that since the economic crisis peaked in 2009, there's been no better time to exploit the U.S. workforce for longer hours and less pay.

A full 43% of U.S. workers are afraid they're going to have their benefits cut, down just slightly from 46% in 2009. Another 31% see a pay cut in their future, which is nearly the same as the 32% from four years earlier. Meanwhile, 29% are worried that they'll be laid off, which is a smaller percentage than the 32% in 2009, but still greater than the 26% who feared getting the fired in 2010.

Frankly, workers' finances haven't recovered well enough for them to leap from their current drudgery without taking a long look ahead. As MainStreet's Ellen Chang discovered, 29% of U.S. workers surveyed by Cigna said they would exhaust their resources in a month or less if they left their job for any reason.

Besides, have you seen the job market lately? It's not exactly a dream factory, or any factory for that matter. The nation added 208,000 jobs in October, according to the Labor Department, but nearly a quarter of those jobs came in the leisure and hospitality sector. There are three unemployed U.S. workers for every job opening, compared to 1.5 in 2007, and 45% of the nation's unemployed are between age 18 and 34. The U.S. economy would have to add another 4.1 million jobs before young adults get back to prerecession employment levels.

The No. 1 job in the country belongs to the retail salespeople wearing the colorful smocks of Wal-Mart, Target, Home Depot, Lowe's and other big-box stores. Nationwide, 4.3 million retail salespeople are making an average of $25,000, or well below the annual mean wage of $45,790. America has more retail workers than Kentucky has citizens and a larger big-box work force than the populations of Wyoming, Vermont, Washington, D.C., North Dakota, Alaska and South Dakota combined.

The result is a workforce that's been laid off and downsized multiple times, is overeducated or underpaid for the jobs it found afterward and is only in its current position because the bosses keep signing the paychecks. Meanwhile, companies are left with either a transient workforce with no allusions of loyalty to its employer or, on the other end of the spectrum, a growing number of groveling serfs that the folks at headquarters can bend to their will....

Oh, why did my ancestors ever leave Europe? Well, okay, they did miss out on some awfully gruesome wars. But the quality of life of an average European has definitely surpassed ours.

...The enormous benefits given to the very wealthy, the privileges for the very wealthy here, are way beyond those of other comparable societies and are part of the ongoing class war. Take a look at CEO salaries. CEOs are no more productive or brilliant here than they are in Europe, but the pay, bonuses, and enormous power they get here are out of sight. They’re probably a drain on the economy, and they become even more powerful when they are able to gain control of policy decisions.

That’s why we have a sequester over the deficit and not over jobs, which is what really matters to the population. But it doesn’t matter to the banks, so the heck with it. It also illustrates the consider- able shredding of the whole system of democracy. So, by now, they rank people by income level or wages roughly the same: The bottom 70 percent or so are virtually disenfranchised; they have almost no influence on policy, and as you move up the scale you get more influence. At the very top, you basically run the show....

The economy adds a decent number of jobs every month but there are big questions about the quality of some of those jobs. Many people getting hired these days do not have anything resembling a regular schedule and work fragmented and unpredictable hours.

Nice article by Bill Moyers

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mike- ... -democracy

Why are record numbers of Americans on food stamps? Because record numbers of Americans are in poverty. Why are people falling through the cracks? Because there are cracks to fall through. It is simply astonishing that in this rich nation more than 21 million Americans are still in need of full-time work, many of them running out of jobless benefits, while our financial class pockets record profits, spends lavishly on campaigns to secure a political order that serves its own interests, and demands that our political class push for further austerity. Meanwhile, roughly 46 million Americans live at or below the poverty line and, with the exception of Romania, no developed country has a higher percent of kids in poverty than we do. Yet a study by scholars at Northwestern University and Vanderbilt finds little support among the wealthiest Americans for policy reforms to reduce income inequality.

God help the affluent if the rest of us ever smarten up, and quit thinking that we're also just billionaires in waiting.