Obama Praises Amazon At One of Its Controversial Warehouses 435
theodp writes "In his first term, President Obama was a big booster of indie bookstores. But on Tuesday, the President chose to deliver his speech on Jobs for the Middle Class at one of Amazon's controversial fulfillment centers in Chattanooga, TN. 'Amazon is a great example of what's possible,' said Obama, who also toured the 'amazing facility' where workers can make $10.50-$11.50 an hour as an employee of Integrity Staffing Group, 'may also be eligible for medical and dental benefits', and 'must be able to stand/walk for up to 10-12 hours' in temperatures that 'will occasionally exceed 90 degrees.' So, are '21st century migrant workers' the new middle class?"
"Be content to be slaves" (Score:3, Funny)
Wow - how did this one get approved at /. ??? (Score:5, Insightful)
Relentless war which the globalist elites are waging against any possible middle class opposition - CHECK.
Utter hypocrisy of moving employees off-book, into sub-contractor scams, where hours are guaranteed to be less than 30-per-week so as not to qualify for Obamacare - CHECK.
Big-$$$ campaign contributions and other goodies being laundered from Bezos through Gorelick and into the Chicago Machine - CHECK.
Hypocrisy of Martha's Vineyard vacationing politician, who otherwise would love him some indie bookstores, heading to the mother of all vertical bidnesses for a little facetime on the evening newz - CHECK.
What's next, an honest discussion of why Fuckerberg and Ballzmer and L-Word-ison really want all those H1B aliens?
Might be a good day to go long on some snowball contracts in Hell.
Re:Wow - how did this one get approved at /. ??? (Score:5, Insightful)
Err, this isn't something just with Amazon.
This is becoming a pretty widespread result of Obamacare...lots of places are reducing hours to keep from having to pay the new fees/taxes.
It isn't even doing it through subcontractors. I know of other businesses that are reducing hours to under 30. My Mom got caught up on this....and I know of others in the retail (national department stores) that are getting hit the same way.
Also, there's lots of small businesses that are hanging at the 49 employee number to avoid the Obamacare mandates.
Whether you agree with Obamacare in full, in part or not at all....I think most everyone can see that these two reactions in particular apparently weren't anticipated as side effects as widespread as they seem to be at this point.
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There were plenty of people who foresaw the consequences, they were just derided as obstructionists.
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There are lots of people who did a logical analysis in the library (Karl Marx was one), but it turned out that things worked out differently in real life.
Re:"Be content to be slaves" (Score:4, Insightful)
The claims of socialist look dumber by the day.
Obama is just more pro-corporate than Bush, Sr... just a tad less than Bush, Jr.
Re:"Be content to be slaves" (Score:5, Interesting)
I think it is simpler than that. He knows that Amazon is popular. He also knows most of the people that support him will not research anything he says and just take what he says at face value.
It's like the Travon thing. He mentions that Travon could have been him when he was younger. He makes these types of racial comments often. Most of the people that I know that support him honestly assume that he struggled and grew up in the deep south (instead of Hawaii) like them.
This appearance makes him look like he is pro-corporate and pro-middle class without actually doing anything but make a speech. And, judging by your post and people I know, he will fool most people.
Re:"Be content to be slaves" (Score:5, Insightful)
> Most of the people that I know that support him honestly assume that he struggled and grew up in the deep south (instead of Hawaii) like them.
What rock have you been hiding under? Blacks aren't restricted to the deep south. Neither are bigots that think they aren't bigots despite an eagerness to assume some goofy kid is a dangerous criminal.
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But, when said young man fits the description of those commiting crimes in that area (often pictured on camera footage on the news), is it being bigoted to be a little fearful when you see someone of that description approaching you just because there is a race difference?
I think it is more pattern observation, and you tend to be a bit reserved/alarmed/reactionary when you see someone t
Re:"Be content to be slaves" (Score:5, Insightful)
The claims of socialist look dumber by the day.
Obama is just more pro-corporate than Bush, Sr... just a tad less than Bush, Jr.
That's what the Democratic Party has become, "not quite as bad as the Republicans." The difference between the two is that when a Republican gives government money to a business it's to encourage growth; when a Democrat does it, it's for jobs. Neither end up happening.
There isn't a party out there that represents the working class.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:"Be content to be slaves" (Score:4, Insightful)
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-Obama, overlord of Earth.
Depressingly, "be content to be slaves" is a bipartisan effort.
Re:Hope and change the Obummer way! (Score:4, Insightful)
Wal-Mart Effect (Score:3, Informative)
The issue with Amazon is while they offer great service and the lowest prices, they are forcing not only other businesses to go under but also dictating the prices of goods in the market. Many companies have a Minimum Advertised Price (MAP) policy in order to keep an even playing field for their resellers. Amazon is so large, and buys so much, that do not obey to MAP policies - they do what they please. If the manufacturer doesn't like this, they can choose not sell to Amazon and subsequently lose sales
Re:Wal-Mart Effect (Score:5, Insightful)
MAP is nothing more than collusion.
I think they should be flatly illegal. In a totally free market no one would ever obey them.
You don't want a free market you want a market that is ruled the way you like.
The correct solution to amazon paying this little is just to raise the minimum wage for this job. If you don't want to do that, then you think this wage is fine.
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MAP is nothing more than collusion. I think they should be flatly illegal. In a totally free market no one would ever obey them.
You don't want a free market you want a market that is ruled the way you like.
The correct solution to amazon paying this little is just to raise the minimum wage for this job. If you don't want to do that, then you think this wage is fine.
MAP is not collusion, it is the currently best (and affirmatively deemed legal by courts) way to create a fair playing field for all the resellers of a particular product. I know most people feel MAP is a bad thing because as end users we all pay the same MAP price, just like trying to buy an Apple product - price is same everywhere. With this being said, when a company as large as Amazon or Wal-Mart does not abide by MAP, it is simply a race to the bottom with who has the lowest price. Because these lar
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I have no problem with paying the same price everywhere. I do have a problem with not being able to find the best price as quickly as possible.
Dumping is already illegal.
Mom and pop shops often were worse than walmart. I worked in some as a kid and they loved part time work, they loved to keep you on training pay(PA at the time allowed a short period of time of lower than minimum wage for training) for over the legal limit. They would go so far as to fire and rehire the same person over and over for that la
Misleading summary (Score:5, Insightful)
In his speech, Obama outlines the areas he believes the country needs to focus on "if we want to create good jobs that pay good wages in durable industries." Among these priorities, listed in order of mention, are: manufacturing and high-tech jobs, infrastructure jobs, and clean energy jobs
Re:Misleading summary (Score:5, Insightful)
The thing about indie bookstores is largely irrelevant. Choosing to give a speech about 'good jobs that pay good wages in durable industries' in a fulfillment sweatshop that will continue to use expendable temps only so long as robots can't economically handle irregularly shaped packages is... perhaps a bad sign...
Re:Misleading summary (Score:5, Interesting)
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You know what, you're right. We shouldn't be subsidizing any energy. Let's do away with oil, gas and coal subsidies, and reset the system from there. Once we establish how much energy actually costs, we can figure out what to invest in from there.
As for the summary and associated stories, I have no idea what the living wage is in Chattanooga, TN. But wow, this summary looked like someone with an ax to grind with the executive branch. Fair or not, I had to double-check to make sure I wasn't looking at t
Re:Misleading summary (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Misleading summary (Score:4, Informative)
No, its not. It may have the same effect as a subsidy, but its not a subsidy.
Oh and calling tax write-offs that oil companies take over employee benefits and such a "subsidy", when every other type of company can use those same write-offs is being disingenuous.
Re:Misleading summary (Score:4, Insightful)
No, its not. It may have the same effect as a subsidy, but its not a subsidy.
The Wikipedia article on Subsidy [wikipedia.org] paraphrases the Collins Dictionary of Economics:
Which explicitly says a tax break is an indirect subsidy.
Oh and calling tax write-offs that oil companies take over employee benefits and such a "subsidy", when every other type of company can use those same write-offs is being disingenuous.
That's a strawman argument, he clearly wrote "tax break to a specific industry or individual". Clearly if everyone other type of company can use the same write-off it's not for a specific industry or individual. Calling your opponent disingenuous for making an argument they clearly haven't made only makes you look foolish.
Re:Misleading summary (Score:5, Informative)
It may have the same effect as a subsidy
If it looks like a duck....
If the government agreed to send oil companies a check for $10 for every barrel of oil produced, we'd all agree that that's a subsidy, right?
If the government instead says, "We'll credit your tax bill $10 for every barrel of oil you produce, reducing the amount on the tax check you send us", it's THE SAME DAMNED THING.
Oh and calling tax write-offs that oil companies take over employee benefits and such a "subsidy", when every other type of company can use those same write-offs is being disingenuous.
No one is calling those tax write-offs available to all businesses subsidies. The subsidies are the tax write-offs available ONLY to oil production companies. One example is the ability to write off the "declining value" of oil wells.
So, if you're an oil company, you spend $20 billion looking for oil reserves, and deduct those expenses. Then, you find a reserve, worth say, $100 billion. Then, you spend $20 billion getting that oil out of the ground, and deduct those expenses, and then you sell the oil for $100 billion. This is all the normal way a business would run. For example, someone might spend $20 million researching a new product, $20 million making the products, and then sell the products for $100 million, making $60 million in profits they are taxed on.
But on top of the normal deductions for ACTUAL COSTS, the oil companies ALSO deduct the "declining value of the wells". You know, since the oil in the ground was worth $100 billion, as they pump the oil out of the ground and the "value" of the oil in the ground declines, THEY DEDUCT THE DECLINING VALUE OF THE WELLS TOO!
And that's a subsidy. It's a tax deduction no normal business gets.
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..a speech about middle class. that's the kicker, not a speech.
a commie style speech for the working class, sure, that's a good place. but there's a difference even if middle class usually does work.
doctors & lawyers, you're next... (Score:2)
You know, the people the Amazons and Walmarts of the world put out of business in the last two decades.
Re:doctors & lawyers, you're next... (Score:5, Interesting)
It's a useful baseline as the term middle class has been distorted to the point where it has no meaning whatsoever anymore.
If you are working for all of your money, you simply aren't middle class and weren't ever really. That's just a lie that people in power like to tell to keep the huddling masses from getting discontent.
If people realized they were really part of the underclass they might be more inclined to act out or just differently.
A lot of higher paid wage slaves have themselves convinced that they are something different than people that fill Amazon orders and that's not really the case.
Re:doctors & lawyers, you're next... (Score:5, Interesting)
This is a very good definition, but unfortunately (at least where I live), many people simply make the choice not to be middle class in favor of lifestyle.
Now, I'm in a reasonably well off "economic bubble" city, so take what I have to say with a grain of salt, but....
Many of the people I work around have 2400+ sq foot houses, 2 expensive (40K+) cars, re-modelled kitchens, multiple cell phone plans (at $80+ a pop), gadgets galore, all brand-name clothing, take 1-2 out of country vacations per year, and some even own vacation property.
Yet they live in debt.
They allow their money to actively work against them, which astonishes me.
Why are people constantly lined up a starbucks to pay $5+ for a cup of coffee? Are name-brand clothes so much better than Wal-Mart that they are worth 3-4x the price? Do they really need a data plan on your cell phone for $80 a month? etc. etc. etc.
As much as we like to blame: the president, the government, big banks, wall street, global economy, immigration policies, etc for the current financial situation, at least where I am, I see the biggest issue being: people themselves.
Koch Brothers (Score:4, Informative)
In my benighted Red 19th-century state, the Kochs are running TV ads refuting the 1% / 99% argument, reassuring the working poor that they indeed are well-off and middle class. Pay no mind to your paycheck-to-paycheck, one middling medical issue away from oblivion, dear serfs!
Exerable assholes highly deserving of dying in a fire.
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Among these priorities, listed in order of mention, are:
manufacturing
But Jeff Imelt and Terry McAuliffe are sending jobs to China instead, with Imelt looking to create new markets in South Africa using about $26 billion in taxpayer money that Obama promised last month. Obama talks a lot about manufacturing jobs in the US, but all of his policies, and "partnerships" with US corporations are encouraging manufacturing to move somewhere else.
and high-tech jobs
There's more of those, but they are primarily going to foreign contractors and H1-B visa holders. Companies are working hard to keep high-t
"Controversial?" (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm seriously failing to see what about these jobs makes them "controversial." The pay and working conditions seem to be completely in line with the type of work it entails. It's certainly better than minimum wage or a true "factory" job (in terms of safety).
Re:"Controversial?" (Score:5, Informative)
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They're temp workers without benefits, working 12 hour days, and get fired if they make any mistakes or say the wrong thing. Length of employment and available work is not guaranteed, but when there's work you're working overtime. Workers are searched off clock when entering the building, during break, and when they leave. You can't bring anything with you as the shipping center ships everything so how do they know if you're stealing it?
These are shitty, high stress jobs for people near the end of their
Re:What's your boggle, citizen? (Score:5, Insightful)
These are shitty, high stress jobs for people near the end of their ropes.
Ah, so these are the new middle class American jobs!
Re:What's your boggle, citizen? (Score:5, Interesting)
These are shitty, high stress jobs for people near the end of their ropes.
Ah, so these are the new middle class American jobs!
Exactly. This is the new reality. What we used to call "working class" is being re-defined as "middle class", and the new American Dream is "just getting by."
Re:What's your boggle, citizen? (Score:5, Informative)
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... given a full 40-hour work-week ...
Except that with a job like that, they're probably not only paying low wages but also employing the people part-time so the company need not pay benefits of any kind. So the person maybe is only working 25-30hrs per week, and then they have to go get a second job of the same kind. Nice, huh?
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You retrain that person for something more in demand. Of course, this requires your welfare system to not suck, and to include an educational component (Denmark has free university, and also has free continuing education to retrain unemployed workers).
The U.S. could do it better, if anything, since it has some economies of scale. The main advantage being small gives Denmark isn't efficiency, but social cohesion to allow it to set up such a system in the first place: people actually feel responsible for the
Do you know what a middle class job is? (Score:5, Insightful)
What are you talking about?
They're decent, honest jobs that pay a fair wage.
That's about as middle class as it gets.
Ummm, no. Physical working conditions are certainly great, but Amazon fulfillment warehouses are notoriously known for driving workers into a state of constant terror due to managerial abuse. A middle class job used to imply a sort of shielding from such things (not totally but certainly more than what you would see and still see at a minimum wage fast food joint.)
Middle class doesn't imply that anymore. And $10-$12 an hour is $24K. That is not below what is typically considered a low-end middle class salary. $24K was middle class twenty years ago. Not anymore. They are just above the limit that forces people to use social services.
I'm not saying these jobs are decent or honest (and thank God they are not Walmart salaries.) Any job with salaries above the poverty line is better than no job or poverty-line job, anytime, any day. And I'm not saying that for the type of job being performed, these are not fair wages. They are.
But let us not call them middle class wages. They are not. The rising cost of living, education and health care, and the continuous shift towards replacing full-time workers with part-time workers (or contractors) have pretty much made sure a $12/h job is not a middle class job anymore.
Re:What's your boggle, citizen? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is it fair? No. Life isn't fair.
That was my attitude until the last few years. After '08 financial crisis, read about the top 1%, the ecnomy improving yet hiring was stagnant, the board members of investment firms getting off scott free & blaming lower level execs for breaking the law, increadible mis-management and wheel sleeping morons at the SEC, the American prison population quadrupling over the last 10 years, the whole-sale gutting of the right of habeas corpus, and the complete lack of caring or understanding of the removal of the many fundamental constitutional rights here, I am of a mind that its beyond "not fair", but the game is rigged and not rigged for me or you. And you'd be a fool to think otherwise.
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It's certainly better than minimum wage
Color me unimpressed. Adjusted for inflation the 1968 minimum wage would be $10.50 [oregonstate.edu], and that doesn't even take into account that the US inflation adjusted GDP per capita has doubled since 1968 [stlouisfed.org]. Doesn't seem to me like that money is trickling down.
or a true "factory" job (in terms of safety)
The 19th century is over. Most factory jobs aren't all that dangerous.
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It's certainly better than minimum wage or a true "factory" job (in terms of safety).
The "factory" jobs you referr classically have paid $20-30/hr (and that was over the last decade). 12/hr may be a livable wage in TN but here in California they're paying fast food workers that much and they still need to live in communal tenements/multiple earner arraingements. Only migrants do these jobs. Seems like the war on the middle class is mostly successful out here.
"in line with the type of work it entails" (Score:2)
I worked in a warehouse in the summers when I was in college - grocery warehouse. That was... cripes, about twenty years ago. I made $9/hr, which was pretty good for the time. I wasn't trying to raise a family or anything on that, though; just help pay some tuition and books and stuff. Tuition was (much) lower then, the student loan rates were lower, etc.
Now, if the wages had kept pace with inflation, they'd be making over $14.50/hr [bls.gov]. So
Keep up the selfishness.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Welcome to the another manifestation of the culture of "I've got mine. Fuck you."
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Re:Keep up the selfishness.. (Score:5, Insightful)
"I've got mine. Fuck you."
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Amazon doesn't win on price, they win on selection.
This is why whining about sales taxes are also so bogus. The price tag isn't even the real selling point. The fact that I can actually get what I want is the driving factor. It doesn't matter if it's books, movies, or grocery items.
If Amazon doubled it's wages and propagated the costs, it likely wouldn't change anything.
The real problem is wage disparity between the people running the place and the ones on the bottom rung.
how long did you hold that to your chest? (Score:2)
The American Dream.
Fuck you if you can't make it.
As if that has not been the norm in other parts of the world since the beginning of time.
The reality is that the American Dream is not what it used to be, but it is certainly a much better alternative for a lot of folks in other countries. I'm not saying that we do not have a problem, but it is not one unique of this country, and it is far more fixable than what other countries are facing right now - think Greece, Spain, France or take your pick of any country in Latin America (where I'm from) or Africa.
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You know, the sad thing is since everyone's employers are fucking them over and making them part of this grand middle class which makes $10.50-$11.50/hour (or driving down wages through the use of H1Bs to try to move us there)... nobody has any money left to spend extra on buying things which support local businesses.
So at the end of the day if it comes down to stretching my dollars as far as I can ... well, fuck trying to make
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Oh, please. You have at least a computer, Internet access, and some kind of credit/debit card, and you're ordering entertainment that gets shipped to your door.
You're part of the problem.
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And you're a smug wanker.
I have a finite amount of money, and you can bet your ass I'm going to economize where I can.
The world is fucked up, and I can't single-handedly fix it.
Go occupy your mom's basement or something, there Zorro.
Unless you live in a commune where you grow your own organic produce, weave your own cloth, and power the computer you're sitting at with a bicycle ... you're probably just as full of shit as the rest of us.
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After all, there's "free shipping", right?
You ignore the fact that many of these centers also exist to move product from Warehouse A to Warehouse B. If you believe these places exist only because of "free shipping," you are poorly informed.
Re:Keep up the selfishness.. (Score:4, Interesting)
Careful you don't fall off that high horse.
I'm a frequent and long-term Amazon customer (their first year, I even got some swag from them for being an early adopter). I rarely buy something on Amazon because it's cheaper, and when price is the deciding factor, it's between Amazon and another online retailer, not between Amazon and a local retailer.
I'm picky about what I buy, and I do not miss at all the days of walking into a retail establishment with the goal of buying a specific (shoe, gadget, book, whatever), being told that they don't have it in stock, and then either having to settle for something less than I wanted, deal with being upsold by some sales rat, or wait for them to order it and deal with another trip to the location. I don't miss at all the days of the $5 trip on the subway to buy an $8 book, assuming there was something at the bookstore that appealed to me when I got there.
Governments that think that levying sales taxes on online companies will magically cure retailer woes are morons, because for the people that are buying the stuff, it's selection, convenience, and then price. Physical stores are always going to lose the first, quite often the second, and at best tie on the third. And I bet the guys stocking the local supermarket would be happier with a full-time with benefits job at an Amazon warehouse than where they are now.
Retailers are middle-men. Good ones offer services and experiences beyond the mere exchange of cash for goods, but they're still middle-men, and if the internet has taught us anything, it's that it eats middle-men. Record stores, game stores, drug stores, book stores...
Re:Keep up the selfishness.. (Score:4, Insightful)
In other words "Your brick and mortar was shit, fuck you".
Temperatures that 'will occasionally exceed 90 deg (Score:5, Funny)
well it is the Amazon duh
Re:Temperatures that 'will occasionally exceed 90 (Score:5, Funny)
As long as temperatures don't exceed 451 degrees, they should be fine
Middle Class (Score:5, Insightful)
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The Middle-Class is being redefined as people who can afford basic necessities like food, shelter, clothing and medicine.
The New American Dream.
Re:Middle Class (Score:5, Informative)
It's not so much a re-definition of "middle class", it's more a perpetuation of the very pervasive myth that most Americans are middle class, when in fact most are really working class.
First, an accurate definition of "middle class": At a minimum, middle class family is one that can accumulate wealth if they manage their finances reasonably well. That wealth may be in the form of pensions, retirement accounts, investments, home equity, vehicles owned free and clear, bank accounts, or just about anything else, but there has to be a clear upwards trajectory. For example, a middle class family is in a position to save a significant pile of cash that will allow them to send their child to college without their child taking out large loans. By contrast, a working class family is at best capable of paying their bills on time and putting food on the table.
The key facts are:
(1) The average American family has negative net worth, which means not only are they not accumulating wealth, they're losing wealth.
(2) The average American family has, over the last 15 years, cut spending dramatically on entertainment, travel, food, clothing, and almost all other discretionary categories. That means the "out-of-control spending" hypothesis is incorrect.
(3) Personal bankruptcies have been increasing steadily since 1995, and then skyrocketed since 2008. Most involved: extended unemployment, medical bills (even for insured patients), and adjustable rate mortgages bumping upwards.
(4) The average American family does not have the ability to pay their bills if they miss a single paycheck.
Also worth mentioning: If you're a typical /.er with a job in the IT sector, you very likely pull in about 3-5 times what the average American worker makes.
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Unfortunately, yes. THIS!
The truth is, the middle class is getting squeezed out, but the smartest way to achieve that goal without inciting revolt is to simply redefine what the term means.
We've always had and always will have the "poor". That's an unavoidable fact of human nature. There will always be a certain percentage of people who simply don't care to expend any effort to earn above the bare minimum, and others who simply can't do so, due to physical or mental limitations. Occasionally, you'll even
Woah, wait a minute... (Score:5, Insightful)
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And in this way if they do raise the minimum wage they can have all kinds of nifty headlines that show that the middle class has been bolstered to higher numbers than we've since the 70s.
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Since that's roughly 1/2 household median income, I'd say that pretty squarely qualifies as middle class in most of the country.
Squarely? More like barely.
Obama isn't a Democrat (Score:5, Interesting)
He's like all politicians, just a Corporatist who happens to have either a "D" or "R" after his name.
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Actual Democrats are an endangered species. Come to think of it, reasonable Republicans are pretty rare too. I like Ike, but these days he'd be considered a raving pinko.
No suit 'n tie - Blue Collar (Score:2)
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There is no Middle Class anymore. Since the Middle Class stopped wearing suits and settled for business casual, everybody became Blue Collar.
The idea of Middle Class has changed through history. Originally it was applied to factory owners, who came between the "landed gentry" and the plebeians.
I have changed the agreement. Pray I don't change (Score:3)
good high wage jobs (Score:3, Insightful)
Funny how hard it is to live on one of these 'good, high wage jobs'. Working in tech obviously I'm used to high compensation for my time, but I've done military, machining, making packaging for frozen dinners, etc etc. It's funny how the more physically demanding the job is the harder they want you to work to have to joy of keeping your job while at the same time paying you 1/4th what you make with a desk job. There is a skill difference in the work obviously but I don't think anyone should go home after a 40+ hr week with too little money to live. You can get by on 11 in the burbs but what if your job is in the city? Somehow Starbucks employees are just supposed to "get by". Getting by usually means 25+ year olds still living with their parents because their full time job isn't enough to be able to afford a place of their own.
Funny how Walmart offered suggestions on budgeting recently that excluded the cost of heating (don't remember if transportation was on there or not, but heck bus both ways to a 5 day a week job will probably run you $80 a month at least so you'd be working for your first day and a half of the month just to get to work).
who really works there (Score:2, Interesting)
$11.50 an hour... (Score:5, Insightful)
...is not middle fucking class.
No, it's not, and it's a shame. (Score:5, Insightful)
You are correct; $11.50 an hour is not middle-class. However, that no-benefit salary is usually enough to make you ineligible for things like Medicaid (even though you aren't buying jack-$hit in medical care on that paycheck) or a Public Defender if you are accused of a crime.
It's a tragedy that a productive member of society that is fulfilling his/her end of the "social contract" still cannot obtain the things we would expect every civilized nation to make sure it's citizens have access to.
I fail to find the controversy. (Score:2)
First of all, it's a warehouse job on the floor. If you are working out on the floor: It's going to be hot. It's going to be long hours of physical activity. Complaining about these things is like complaining that farm jobs involve touching dirt (oh no!) or that waitress positions are not glamorous positions.
Second, the warehouse jobs on the floor making 10-11.5 is quite high. I don't know about you but I don't expect it to make $100,000 a year especially for a temporary position. Management and staff
I do find it funny how physical labour is "bad" (Score:3)
I can see taking exception to the pay. It is valid to have the position that we should be more socialist, that people in lower skill jobs should make more. Not everyone will agree, of course, but it is a valid position to have and to argue. However this concept that there is something bad about having to stand and move all day for work, or that it won't be in a climate controlled office. Oh give me a break.
It is just part of this bias that Mike Rowe calls a "war on work" as though only jobs sitting at a des
How is this controversial? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't see anything controversial about the warehouse. It's hot (or cold) unskilled manual labor. It pays above minimum wage, but like most jobs with unskilled labor, pays no benefits. They do not do so because it would not provide them with any competitive advantage vs. other fulfillment companies.
Breaking the "race to the bottom" to make sure you won't starve to death and have access to things like basic medical care when you are a productive member of society (fulfilling your end of the "social contract") is arguably a useful thing for government to do.
Funny but the guy doesn't remember his own schtick (Score:5, Insightful)
In late August 2008, Then Senator Obama gave a little speech in a airline maintenance hanger in Kansas City. He complained about the Republicans and how much ground the middle class had lost, about healthcare. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xauuo1CvexE [youtube.com] Listening to it now it still echos of somebody who didn't have ideas then and certainly has no ideas now. What's ironic about his middle class speech there is that American Airlines closed down that maintenance facility in 2010.. http://www.dallasnews.com/business/headlines/20100924-American-Airlines-closes-former-TWA-base-878.ece [dallasnews.com]
Sounds like the same schtick over and over again.
Divide and Conquer (Score:4, Insightful)
What has happened is(for lack of a better term, and a nod to Queensryche's 1988 masterwork, "Operation Mindcrime") that the 1% that rule America discovered how to "divide and conquer", as if that tactic hasn't been used countless times through history with the same results. Since the 1980s(yea, you've heard this before) the 1% have successfully rolled back the social safety nets, which in the past were mainly affecting the poor. Now the middle class is sliding down into poverty.
This is no "market adjustment" or "realignment of labor forces". This is nothing less that a concerted and tightly executed plan to turn the US into a third world country, where the vast majority of the population is poor, marginalized and has little or no political or economic power, where a small elite controls all facets of society.
The lessons learned from the affects of Robber Baron Capitalism and The Great Depression have been utterly lost. Utterly Lost...
Disappointment (Score:3)
What a creep this guy has turned out to be (Score:3)
I feel like a dumbass for buying his bullshit during the elections (I didn't vote for him, but he seemed like a decent guy). I thought Cheney was a straight thinking, honest guy in 2000, too (didn't vote for that pair either).
There should be criminal penalties for lying politicians.
Re: (Score:3)
Competency is meaningless if you don't have good info to base your decision on.
An absolute must-read on the subject (Score:5, Informative)
I Was a Warehouse Wage Slave: My brief, backbreaking, rage-inducing, low-paying, dildo-packing time inside the online-shipping machine. [motherjones.com]
"... when you're late or sick you miss the opportunity to maximize your overtime pay. And working more than eight hours is mandatory. Stretching is also mandatory, since you will either be standing still at a conveyor line for most of your minimum 10-hour shift or walking on concrete or metal stairs."
"The gal conducting our training reminds us again that we cannot miss any days our first week. There are NO exceptions to this policy. She says to take Brian, for example, who's here with us in training today. Brian already went through this training, but then during his first week his lady had a baby, so he missed a day and he had to be fired."
It's 4 pages. Take the time to read it. It's depressing as fuck. I buy very little from Amazon anymore, and when I do, it's usually from individual sellers, not "Amazon" itself.
Be constructive (Score:4, Interesting)
How about instead of criticizing a company for creating all these jobs, innovating an entire new industry, producing incredible value for customers, and instead praise them for doing so?
Working for low wages sucks. I know plenty of people who do this. Often they are recent immigrants or children of recent immigrants. Both parents may need to work. Grandmother may need to live with them and do child care. Their kids might not have their own bedrooms.
But having wages of this level means they can have a (used) car, refrigerator, microwave, TV, running water and a flush toilet - things they may not have had if they were unable to come to the US. So they are happy about that. But life is still challenging, though they get by and have a life as enjoyable as anyone else (I know unhappy rich people and happy poor people).
Low wages are an important price signal. It says perhaps you should finish high school, or go to college like 66% of high school graduates, or go to a trade school, or become an entrepreneur and start your own business (I know a Central American immigrant who started as a maid, saved up money, and now owns a chain of restaurants). Or perhaps you should move to areas with higher wages, like the Bakken or Eagle Shale areas.
Don't be like Washington DC and destroy thousands of potential jobs [nwahomepage.com] by saying Walmart should pay higher wages than the minimum wage. Don't force people to be unemployed.
If you really want to help these people, first let them have jobs (i.e. at the market wage) rather than try to manipulate their wages and making them unemployed. Give them a chance to make some money now. Then they may figure out they need to save to get more skills, move, stay in place and learn how to move into management, etc.
Then ask yourself why our unionized socialized government monopoly schools might not be preparing everyone for high-skill, high-productivity jobs.
Re:America the beautiful (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
While the pay might be middling, Amazon warehouse jobs are full time jobs with benefits, including paid leave (and health care, if you have to see a doctor on your sick day).
Re:America the beautiful (Score:5, Informative)
Too bad they're not Amazon warehouse jobs, they're Integrity Staffing jobs.
crap job better than no job doesn't make it good (Score:5, Insightful)
Amazon is contracting these jobs out so they are distanced from the managerial abuses, lack of benefits, instability, and poor working conditions.
AND THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES HOLDS THIS UP AS A PARAGON TO BE EMULATED.
Re: (Score:3)
middling: moderate or average in size
thats minimum wage where i live. if you dont make 20 or more, you are no where near average.
Not sure what the minimum wage at the unnamed place you live at has to do with Chattanooga.
http://livingwage.mit.edu/places/4706514000 [mit.edu]
Re: (Score:3)
That mit site is ridiculous. Where can you get an apartment in Boston for $1000 that isn't an unfinished studio in a basement?
What they call a living wage is actually poverty level, or below...
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I sold dew worms to fishermen for a year to buy my first computer
And now you can't even buy a cup of coffee with what you'd get from doing that.
Everybody wants it all but doesn't want to work for it. Guess what? It doesn't work that way
You're right, the people who have it all don't work for it, they've already got it and now they spend their days on the golf course making the hard decisions of which division to amputate in order to make this quarter's numbers look good enough for a bonus.
Re: (Score:2)
You have to work hard.
If working hard was all it took their would be far fewer people complaining.
Re: (Score:2)
So what ? Not everybody in life travels the same road between point A and B. While I agree that you need to work hard, there's luck, chance and coincidence involved as well. Many people are also living in environments where they're talent and ability will get wasted.
Nobody is bitching and whining how they don't' have and others have. They're wining about the decline of middle class / shittier standard of living.
AFAIK, Middle class was never 26400 usd a year, walking/standing 11 hours a day on 30 degrees C.
Re: (Score:3)
This is the best analogy you've heard??
In the US there are 14 cans of beans. And 15 people. (unemployment rate of ~7.5%) 14 people each get a can of beans, they are allowed to eat only 70% of the can and have to give 30% to the government. The government spends their 30% making sure that their hill of beans is protected from outside forces, that their supply of beans is secure and stable, that the 15 people have access to medical coverage, clean water, sewage systems, etc. The 15th person has access to
Re:Obama hates America (Score:5, Insightful)
Plain and simple: Obama is turning America into a third world nation.
Don't give him too much credit - he has plenty of help.
My kingdom for a mod point. (Score:3)
The jobs described sound like most entry-level labor-class jobs - whether it's a framer, and landscaper, a farm worker, feed store employee, or any other manual job which requires very little training. Those never were middle class jobs, and neither is a warehouse job.
Wow, what drugs are you on? (Score:3)
First of all.... the conservative movement of the Reagan era is LONG gone. I think that's worth noting, because America was in a much different place in the 80's than it is today, but also because practically everyone running as a "Republican" today has values very far from what Reagan did.
If you simply want to do a quick "once over" of how the Obama and Reagan presidency differed, you only have to look at the economic picture. The U.S. was prospering under Reagan's administration. College tuition might hav