This is actually a way better and more efficient form of slavery. You need to feed, clothe, house, and medically treat slaves. WAY cheaper to pay minimum wage and tell them to fuck off.
You could pull yourself out of this misery by your own bootstraps. I sell those for only $20. It’s not a set though. And they rip easily, better buy some more.
You can work for it, I’ll give you one strap per week.
Trying? Abolished? Sigh. Words. Slavery never left. Put all the pretty paint you want on those bars. It’s the change of perspective that comes with wisdom. Use that power well.
They’ve lured us in with the promise of overtime to get us to work for them more, while keeping our wages artificially low so we have to work overtime.
You can’t keep slaves anymore, but you can own a company and pay your workers an amount that makes it hard for them to pay for basic necessities so they don’t have time for leisure, or organising unions, or finding other jobs. The workers are free to go, of course, but then they’ll fall into financial ruin and not have healthcare.
Nah, most will just say get a better job, you’re not working hard enough etc. Lots of people I speak to tend to frame it as a worker problem rather than a problem with the system. It’s also why lots of people seem to be anti strikes…
Well I did use a qualifier. I know. I was in McDonald’s one day getting a soda and they took forever. A young woman was griping that “it’s those kids! No one wants to work anymore!” I told her for those wages and what was expected, i don’t blame them. I got an angry glare.
Too many people seem to think that chattel slavery is the only thing that counts as slavery, and that even that doesn’t count if a slaver is less horrible to their slaves than other slavers are.
I wish one of the bigger industrial countries had the balls to curb the state-like influence of billionaires, by flat out capping the amount of wealth they get to wield. It’s not even that people should not be allowed to be “rich”. But “rich” should mean owning 1-50 millions or so. Not billions.
You should try visiting Scandinavian countries. While being ultra rich isn’t disallowed, it’s so heavily taxed that ultra rich end up providing more for the welfare than any other group.
Not true at all. Sweden has worse wealth equality than the US. Sure we have high income taxes, but basically no wealth or inheritance taxes. The only reason social democracy ever took off in Scandinavia was due to the fear of the nearby Soviet Union. The moment the Soviet Union collapsed all the countries of Scandinavia started dismantling the welfare and privatising.
If we’re not going to abolish money, it should really be entirely illegal for the highest paid person in a company to make more than, say, 15-20 times more than the lowest paid person.
Reliance on the state to make things right is the fatal flaw. The purpose of the state is not to make our life better, it is to protect the powerful from us.
You’re assuming I’m in favor of keeping our existing government intact. I don’t. It was shit from the start, and now it’s entirely unsalvageable.
Even if the government itself was salvageable, the US is far too ideologically divided into sides that cannot and should not be reconciled with each other.
This country cannot and will not hold itself together much longer, and the only potentially viable course of action is to mitigate the harm that is going to happen no matter what by breaking it up in as controlled and peaceful a manner as possible.
Rather than worrying about trying to tax 1 person heaps (they will dodge it anyway)
Why not put in place improved worker protection and pay laws.
Higher minimum wage - say equal to the bottom quartile median house price in the area, mandatory health care even for the lowest paid employees, absolutely no overtime.
They can dodge this by moving manufacturing overseas… But they already did this.
Yep, all of this “inflation” and “rising cost of housing” bullshit is essentially wealthy people turning the screws. They know regular people can barely make this work, and they love that.
I’m traveling in Europe right now and the prices everywhere are so reasonable it really pisses me off. Inflation my ass, I’m convinced it’s just American corps squeezing us for everything we got.
Very nice hotels for €100 in downtown areas that would cost easily $300/night in USA. Food in restaurants and cafes very reasonably priced, I got a couple coffees and pastries for like €8 and the coffee alone would be that much in the states let alone multiple pastries. €5 felafel. I can’t remember the last time I paid less than $15 for lunch.
Gas is super pricey but who cares when your cities are designed to be walkable and you have great public transport everywhere.
I get that I’m on the tourist route so this doesn’t represent true cost of living, but I understand rent is far cheaper in general, plus availability of healthcare and education leads me to believe COL in general is lower and some googling supports this.
I don’t know anything about their tax policies so I can’t comment on that either.
