Forum Post: Wealth Redistribution - I got left out
Posted 13 years ago on Oct. 17, 2011, 8:57 a.m. EST by MikeyD
(581)
from Alameda, CA
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
2008 Banks are going broke - Bush steps in, loans em 350 billion dollars to make sure they don't go under
2009 GM goes broke - Obama steps in, hands out 350 billion dollars to them and others
2010 Government employees face layoffs - Obama steps in, hands out a nearly a trillion dollars without even the requirement of repayment that the first two hand outs had, government workers keep their jobs
Big business, protected through loans. State and Federal government workers, protected through gifts. For everyone else, here is an unemployment check that wont even cover rent.
The wealth redistribution seems to be well under way, I just need to be either a corporate executive or a government worker to get my share. As a self employed master cabinet maker, I don't even get the token unemployment check.
Current top organizational political contributons..
http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/
ActBlue
$55,745,059
AT&T Inc
$47,571,779
American Fedn of State, County & Municipal Employees
$46,167,658
National Assn of Realtors
$40,718,176
Service Employees International Union
$37,634,367
National Education Assn
$37,051,378
Goldman Sachs
$35,790,579
American Assn for Justice
$34,715,804
Intl Brotherhood of Electrical Workers
$34,292,471
Laborers Union
$31,876,950
Nope, dont do it, its a bummer, way too many good tradesmen out of work, hang in there bud!
The reason government workers can prosper in this horrible economy is that , unlike in private labor negotiations, management is not the one that foots the bill. The rest of us are and we get no say. I have never seen a state, city or federal labor contract be put up for voter ratification.
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Personally, I think the latest round of partisan politics proves that public unions are perfectly justified.
They are justified; but the effects of their contracts are so longstanding that those that are obligated to pay for them for decades to come should be given a voice through voter ratification by referendum. Unlike in the private sector; public sector unions negotiate with elected officials who make promises with other people’s money and who may be ”bought” by those same unions. For instance, in NYC a sanitation worker arrives at top salary of approximately $70,000 , not including overtime or differentials, after only 5 years on the job and is eligible to collect a state and city tax free pension of 50% of the average of his 3 highest earning years (including overtime) after only 20 years on the job. Many of these guys fully retire at 40 on an after tax pension which is more than they made while they worked. As the taxpayer is on the hook to cover these costs for the life of the worker, shouldn’t the taxpayer have had a say in the negotiations through a voter ratification of contracts and pensions?
You are the 1%... it doesn't even matter how much money you have, your rational is basically saying:
"I want to pay them less, so I can have more"
When does it stop? Why aren't you more concerned about getting your own bargaining power, than taking away theirs?
I'm not concerned with taking away anyone's bargaining power. I would just like to have my seat at the table through a referendum or voter ratification. The current system is akin to your neighbor bargaining with your roofer over how much YOU should pay, and you being bound by the outcome.
State and Federal government workers, protected through gifts.
is that to say the teachers and firemen are protected ?
And garbage men, and cops, and bus drivers. Yes. People who can threaten their employers with removal from office via their unions if they aren't given special treatment, like a trillion dollars taken out of the pockets of the other 99% of taxpayers.
If you really feel these people deserve special treatment for their job title, perhaps you should be defending CEOs and politicians. If construction workers, maintenance people, skilled tradesmen, artists, and truck drivers don't fit into your idea of the working class and the other 99%, you need to rename the movement to the privledged 6%.
hear in san diego we build coliseums to see man matched against man
last I heard
city workers weren't getting their retirement funding so go die in the street geezer
Glad to hear it. Suckers. California is broke, so all those sweet ass pensions are smoke and mirrors. None of you thieves will see that money.
if the US stops paying for defense contracts, South CA is doomed
Let it burn.
call the white house and ask obama to implement NESARA!! its is already law!!
Occupy call your neighbors, friends, families, and anyone you know who uses the big banks. Tell them to take their deposits out and put them in a local credit union or small bank Oct. 29th 2011.
That's the start date of the G8 meeting. The G20 meets Oct 23. We can try for that date if we act fast enough!!! (finance ministers and central bankers of the world’s twenty richest nations, called the G20 [eight richest called the G8])
If you want to get 6% interest on your savings up to $50,000 deposit the funds in Inter National Bank's savings account here: https://www.mangomoney.com/
When it asks for a referral code during the signup process use 6304504154
Nope, no one wants to work for Wal-mart but I managed to get my kids through college debt free (can't find jobs in their fields due to lack of experience) and now I watch as the government has forsaken the middle class. It is hopeless.
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Wishing I was a government worker with their benefits or an executive with one of the big corporations! Wal-mart with all their profits are cheating their employees! They started a Quit Tobacco program last year and got a huge list of all the tobacco users. This year tobacco users are facing incredible rate increases.
If employees with high BMI numbers were offered such a program and then the next year when a list was compiled, their insurance climbed like ours, there would be outrage across the country.
Can they legally do this program, get names, and then raise life, health, and critical care rates for those employees? Can those employees afford a lawyer? Can those employees find other jobs in this market? If they offer diet help, gym discounts, and programs for obese people, DO NOT SIGN UP! To keep my insurance which was $145 last year it will be $717 with an even higher deductible. Oh yeah, I have been to the Dr. once in three years and have used less than $100 in health care. Of course, I am struggling to quit but this is another corporation that under pays its employees and then does this.
Yes, I am sure that smokers probably do cost more to insure. I am positive that overweight employees cost even more. Also, positive that this would be out in the media, press, on signs, and everywhere if it was the overweight being targeted. There is no protections for us. Do I dare say that Wal-mart is ripe for a union. Union talk can be a job ender for a Wal-mart employee you know!
Sam is greatly missed. Last year they ended our profit sharing and this year, they are getting their salaries covered on the back of our benefits coverages. What does next year bring?
I'm here because I want to see benefits restored to the middle class private sector. We need to work together, government workers and private sector, to get some power back for the middle class. And that includes laws that don't block people when they try to get a union to help themselves. The laws are rigged now.
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Lets not forget the secret Fed loans of 14 trillion to foreign banks.
Why cant I see your comment... buggy
You realize that only $499B of the $787B package you're talking about was allocated the way you claim, right? More would've actually helped stimulate aggregate demand in a way that could have boosted the economy for all (more noticeably and perhaps in a self-sustaining way).
It's not about redistribution that changes wealth equality, just that stimulates the economy, and actually ends up back in the hand of the wealthy, in the end. Just sayin. It barely worked, and mostly because it was too long-term (over ten years) and too small.
As a compromise with Republicans, $288B of it went to tax cuts that had little chance of stimulating demand because a.) they showed up as less withholding instead of lump sum checks - people weren't even aware of it and so didn't spend more, and b.) equally benefited a portion of the population that had no need for stimulation - already has enough to purchase whatever they wanted.
http://useconomy.about.com/od/candidatesandtheeconomy/a/Obama_Stimulus.htm
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Stimulating demand should not be considered a handout, it grows the economy and actually increases revenue and puts money back in the hands of the people from whom it was "stolen." Repayment is silly. It's not a bailout to a corporation that's removing it from the economy. The only thing like that was the bank bailout. GM is also different because it was basically unemployment.
It did end up being allocated in a way that was less stimulative, and unfair in that a good portion of it (the tax cuts) went to people that did not need it (and was ineffective for those that did), and in that sense there was some voodoo economics built in to placate Republicans who think that's the only valid use of deficit spending.
The bigger point was that you're still a troll. Turning OWS into an anti-Obama fest to benefit Mitt Romney, even after your supposedly conciliatory non-partisan screed last night.
Don't call it a handout? 500 Billion dollars given to loyal campaign contributors which make up less than 15% of the workforce and less than 7% of the population should not be considered a handout?
Question: Where do I sign up to be part of that extreme minority? Do I just need to say I support Barack Obama? Is that it? Or do I actually need to work for a State or Federal government. Whatever it is, let me know. I give. A lump of stale bread is better than a juicy steak.
Look at the link. $500B to loyal campaign contributors? Damn you're all spin, all the time.
Look. If the government is going to hand out 500 billion dollars to a random section of the US population to create a stimulative effect on the economy, I want in on that lottery. Who wouldn't.
If you are really trying to tell me the SEIU is not a loyal campaign contributor to the Commitee to Elect Barack Obama, you need to have your head checked.
It's simply reality that the working class is going to support the politician whose policies support them (unless they're bamboozled into not, which has happened a lot in recent history). It's simply reality that the working class is more organized where it is organized by unions. You're making it a conspiracy when it's just political reality.
The idea that you think 8% of the population represents the working class is ridiculous. If thats the case, get Union workers to donate their wages to people who make half as much as them working in the private sector where people can't buy off and strong arm their employers.