Forum Post: Why go to work everyday? -if you're just gonna be poor anyway?
Posted 12 years ago on Oct. 24, 2012, 4:51 p.m. EST by Postman0917
(-46)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
The wisdom of Charles Bukowski:
I don't think it hurts, sometimes, to remember where you came from. You know the places where I came from. Even the people who try to write about that or make films about it, they don't get it right. They call it "9 to 5." It's never 9 to 5, there's no free lunch break at those places, in fact, at many of them in order to keep your job you don't take lunch. Then there's OVERTIME and the books never seem to get the overtime right and if you complain about that, there's another sucker to take your place.
You know my old saying, "Slavery was never abolished, it was only extended to include all the colors."
And what hurts is the steadily diminishing humanity of those fighting to hold jobs they don't want but fear the alternative worse. People simply empty out. They are bodies with fearful and obedient minds. The color leaves the eye. The voice becomes ugly. And the body. The hair. The fingernails. The shoes. Everything does.
As a young man I could not believe that people could give their lives over to those conditions. As an old man, I still can't believe it. What do they do it for? Sex? TV? An automobile on monthly payments? Or children? Children who are just going to do the same things that they did?
Early on, when I was quite young and going from job to job I was foolish enough to sometimes speak to my fellow workers: "Hey, the boss can come in here at any moment and lay all of us off, just like that, don't you realize that?"
They would just look at me. I was posing something that they didn't want to enter their minds.
Now in industry, there are vast layoffs (steel mills dead, technical changes in other factors of the work place). They are layed off by the hundreds of thousands and their faces are stunned:
"I put in 35 years..."
"It ain't right..."
"I don't know what to do..."
They never pay the slaves enough so they can get free, just enough so they can stay alive and come back to work. I could see all this. Why couldn't they? I figured the park bench was just as good or being a barfly was just as good. Why not get there first before they put me there? Why wait?
http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/10/people-simply-empty-out.html
"Slavery was never abolished, it was only extended to include all the colors."
Hmmm... sounds like an issue that Karl Marx had.
If I didn't work, I would drive all of you people off the edge. I think you guys know this is true.
I happen to be very good at what I do.For some reason, I still believe that if I work hard enough and am receptive to learning anything new that I can be successful. Even so, my work can stand on it's own. I rather like that feeling.
When I am working, I don't think about how much I am making unless it's right after some kind of bullshit comes down. You know, that bullshit that you have to sit back and say....I just got fucked and I didn't even get kissed. Then it takes a few days.
Easy to take this out of context. He's talking about materialism not trying to hold a job. He paid his dues and tried to hold various jobs at times. He finally achieved sucess at about age 50 by becoming a writer and he didn't need more than $100 a month to live on. He made some decent money after that but by that time he was too old to be seduced by celebrity and ho's. You can read all the Bukowski you want, I did and do, but it won't sink in all the way till you hit 50.
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So I can afford rent and food and clothes and internet and alcohol and video games, and everything else I enjoy.
A perfect example of the average American mentality. You’re willing to rent yourself out everyday so you can stay drunk and play video games.
Brilliant
Why go to work? -So you can pay the rent, make monthly payments on a car, purchase car insurance and pay for overpriced gas! -Why? -So you can go to work! -Why? -So you can pay the rent, make monthly payments on a car, purchase car insurance and pay for overpriced gas! -Why? -So you can go to work! -Why? (...)
LOL
right, and every time I go out to grocery, I get hit up by bum or nonprofit, for for some money, or they will call me at home, with their paid staff, and ask for money for good causes. Hard to say no to.
(Not meaning to disparage bums, for I am but 2 paychecks from that status) sorry if this is rude, to 3rd world countries, but we're becoming more like them.
And we can dream, that we can be like 1 percent some day, but we can't becuase, only they pay a 13 percent tax rate, except for those that pay nothing.
right. so we can hopefully work more, get a little better car, get a little bigger house, work more, pay more for utilities and taxes, work more, pay more, refinance house, pay off car, borrow to get by when unforseen expense pops up.
but it worked out ok for generations before us.
Thats a lot of work for little net worth. that ultimately, the bank owns a large chunk, and is why the 1 percent are afraid we''ll wake up and ask for social security, medicaid, medicare. pension. They want us to work on and on and on.
but it worked out ok for generations before us. but it doesn't for us, because new things keep getting invented and improved, that we must have.
so we buy them and they last a while and more stuff is invented, that costs more and is more expensive to maintain, cable, internet, phones, computers, and we buy them to keep up, and make sure our kids will have a chance to compete with everyone else.
And then we find out our pension is worth less, and our home is worth less than we owe, and we haven't had a raise in 30 years. But hey, we can enjoy much more stuff and data than our parents could imagine.
But, our cars need gas, and we don;'t have enough, so we must make war, and drill, and drill baby, so we can hope to have energy independence, but the world will melt, and our neighbors will be drowned, perhaps.
But yipee USA we have democracy, and superiiorty, we can go where we want, and drone where we want, and no one will ask about it, because, everyone says that is how it is to survive.
Good point. The Dollar Cost of Living has TRIPLED over the past 40-50 years, while wages (for most workers) have remained relatively stagnant. In other words, the working poor are now 3 times as poor as they were in the 1960's.
"Last week Illinois Democratic Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. introduced the Catching Up to 1968 Act of 2012. It draws its name from the idea that the federal minimum wage would be $10.55 an hour now if it had kept up with inflation over the past 40 years."
I strongly feel the need to Toss Up A RED FLAG here on this: What kind of strange "math" are they doing to get this lame, extremely low-balling figure of $10.55 an hour??
The Dollar Cost of Living Has TRIPLED over the past 40 years while wages for the bottom 85% of American workers have remained stagnant.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHblGVzm2ak&feature=relmfu
How could they have the audacity to claim that adding just a few dollars to the federal minimum wage could possibly make up for 40 years worth of Inflation? -and Stagnant Wages? -that have TRIPLED the Dollar Cost of Living? Something Is Not Right Here:
$7.25 x 3 = $21.75
i agree, and you are very precise with your math. that is why the 1 percent is so happy, that people don't care to do math or think of possibility or logic, because that requires too much skill and effort, and may be nerdy,
Even here, in this state WA with the highest minimum wage, it is $9.00 and a few cents an hour. But, people will travel here risking life and limb to get a chance for such a job, because they make 95 percent less, where they are from, such as my daughters boyfriend, who makes $80 a week, to support a family, and that is when there is work, and crops to pick.
60 percent of jobs that are lost are good-paying ones but only 20 percent of new jobs are good jobs.
but no one question the job creators the 1 percent. we don't want a war of classes here.
i liked how the candidates (Stein and Anderson) spoke at debate last night, how it now takes post- HS ed, to have a shot for a good job, and that Higher Ed, should therefore be free, like the GI Bill, it would improve the national economy.
Yea your math seems wrong. Minimum wage is just the minimum employers are forced to pay. Every state and even certain parts of states have different cost of living so you can't use 1 number as a basis for all 50 states. Montana has a different cost of living than NYC.
So that $10.55 will go a lot further and be JUST sufficient in certain parts of the country, and other parts it just won't cut it.
So really what we need is federally mandated adjusted state based minimum wage based on the current cost of living in that area. That is how the government/military/corporations compute the amount of $$$ they will give for housing allowances, travel expenses etc.
But overall yes, Minimum wage needs to be raised to at least $10/hr
"Dollar Cost of Living"? What does that mean? I find no match of that phrase on google. Inflation has caused the value of a dollar in 1968 to be worth about 15 cents in 2008.
He is correct that wages for the lower 90% have been stagnant for the last 40 years.
http://stateofworkingamerica.org/who-gains/#/?start=1968&end=2008
Here is the minimum wage rates in actual dollars in dark blue and inflation adjusted dollars in light blue. Increasing the minimum wage to about $10 an hour would match what it was in 68.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:History_of_US_federal_minimum_wage_increases.svg
"Using data by the U.S. BLS, the average productivity per American worker has increased 400% since 1950. One way to look at that is that it should only take one-quarter the work hours, or 11 hours per week, to afford the same standard of living as a worker in 1950 (or our standard of living should be 4 times higher). Is that the case? Obviously not. Someone is profiting, it’s just not the average American worker." http://20somethingfinance.com/american-hours-worked-productivity-vacation/
There is an info link on The Punk Patriot's video that backs it up. If the value of a dollar in 1968 was worth only 15 cents in 2008 and the wages for the lower 90% have been stagnant for the past 40 years...there is no way that $10 an hour would match what minimum wage was in 68. I think The Punk Patriot went back as far as 1960 to show how stagnant wages combined with skyrocketing inflation, etc. has caused us to work twice as hard (2 people working full time instead of one) for only a third of the purchasing power. We're getting screwed so much, we should all be able to press charges for gang-rape and live the rest of our lives on disability lol
The minimum wage in 68 was just $1.60 an hour. About $10 an hour now is a close approximation.
Try this inflation calculator.
http://146.142.4.24/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=1.60&year1=1968&year2=2012
Strange "math" if you ask me. $10 an hour ain't shit. Did you look at the info on this site? -"the average productivity per American worker has increased 400% since 1950. One way to look at that is that it should only take one-quarter the work hours, or 11 hours per week, to afford the same standard of living as a worker in 1950"
http://20somethingfinance.com/american-hours-worked-productivity-vacation/
Well you can't just figure that %400 increase to good ol' American elbow grease. You are not factoring advances in technology: computers, machining, robots, tools etc.
With technological advances, one person can easily do the job of several in certain industries now.
If you're only making $7.25 an hour, making an extra $3 means an extra $6000 a year. A 41% raise.
For Walmart just giving every one of their 1.5 million employees a $1 an hour raise will cost over $3 billion dollars.
But if you're only making $10 an hour you're still working like a slave everyday of your life just to live in poverty. No One should be expected to work 40 + hours every week, 8-12 hours every day just to barely get by. Not in this modern day and age. We deserve better than that. Our time is worth more than that.Our hard work is worth more than that. We are not tools to be used up and exploited, We Are People! "I'm A HUMAN BEING God-Damnit! MY LIFE Has Value!" CEO of Walmart Makes in One Hour What the Average Employee Makes In a Year http://www.alternet.org/story/151351/ceo_of_walmart_makes_in_one_hour_what_the_average_employee_makes_in_a_year%3A_how_skyrocketing_inequality_is_hurting_america
I have much better things to do with My Time here on This Earth, than spending every day of my life, being overworked and underpaid, making ridiculously rich people ridiculously richer.
We Are The 99%!
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Well I have to say, I never had a problem working for a company nor was ever concerned about a threat of being laid off.
Maybe its because I learned early on that in order to remain employed I had to have various skills that would keep me employed.
In addition to that being union it was very difficult especially when you are working for fellow workers who only take care of their own when lay off time comes.
So, when I did get laid off I looked for work elsewhere and improved my skills along the way.
I guess you can call it having a goal and I guess thats what kept me employed all those years.
So you’re like the house-slave? -who got better treatment than all the other slaves? “Ain’t nuthin wrong with Massuh“ (?) “He’s really a good man…” (?) “once you’se gets to know him.” (?)
LOL
No, I am not a house slave - I am a person who wants things and as a result I worked for them - and over a period of time I have become independent because of doing it.
Now, I have also started up my own business and worked for myself - not for someone else and made money doing it.
Do you pay your slaves minimum wage? lol
You didn't read what I posted - I said I started my own business and worked for myself - I didn't need employees because I worked for myself to make money and acquire my own wealth.
So...as long as you're doing great, that means everything should be great for the rest of us? What are "we" complaining about, right? As long as Shayneh owns her own business, everything is right with the world? :-)
After reading your posts I'm just happy that you seem to be doing worse than most of us. Everything is right with the world
As far as refusing to spend my entire life as an exploited slave, I'm doing better than most, I'm doing Great. Thanks for your "concern" :-)
No I am not saying that because I am doing great everyone else should be doing great
What I am saying is learn to be smart when it comes to being employed or starting your own business.
You see - having a negative attitude about being able to succede will surely lead to failure - I don't accept failure - I live by the motto - less then your best is failure.
But what if I don’t agree with what your concept of being “successful” is? What if I don’t want to spend my entire life selling people shit they don’t really need? What if I think this entire money-worshipping materialistic-culture sucks?
You may own your own business and think you “work for yourself“, but all of that money and wealth? -that you have acquired? -came from the hard work of slaves. And that’s your idea of “success”? :-)
You don't have to do anything you don't want to do. Move somewhere else. Stop eating or living indoors. No one has to agree with YOUR concept of "successful" any more than you have to agree with Shayneh's. "Slaves"?? Apparently you don't know the definition of that either, but you happily throw the title around everyone's necks like pearls. I can call you a toaster but that doesn't really make you one does it?
"Stop eating and living indoors." ? lol My God! lol
“America touts itself as the land of the free, but the number one freedom that you and I have is the freedom to enter into a subservient role in the workplace. Once you exercise this freedom you've lost all control over what you do, what is produced, and how it is produced. And in the end, the product doesn't belong to you. The only way you can avoid bosses and jobs is if you don't care about making a living. Which leads to the second freedom: the freedom to starve.” -Morello RATM
Excuse me big chief Junaluska, but my grandmother was half Cherokee, so you can shove that teepee right back up your rear end hon.
If this is how you treat descendants of your own tribe, who needs enemies? You can keep the teepee up yours, thanks. And spare me the “hon” :-)
Seriously, do you not see this economic slavery for what it is?
I treat you that way because you are making wild accusations about the OTHER parts of my heritage that I don't appreciate.
This "economic slavery" put a roof over my head, cars in my driveway, food on the table for myself and my family and clothes on our backs. It gave me opportunities to educate myself, or not, to determine what I want to do with my life, or not, and gave me access to innumerable gifts and blessings that I APPRECIATE and express gratitude for. It even allows me to "talk" to people all over the world that I'd never have met if it were not for countless entrepreneurs and investors that OWED ME NOTHING.
You can read, write, and obviously have had access to education, electricity and the internet-not to mention all of the other things required to bring you to adulthood. You're doing pretty damn good for a "SLAVE" if you ask me.
0 points by BetsyRoss (-238) 0 minutes ago
What does the (-238) mean?
Can someone explain? I'm new here to this site.
It means Betsy likes to argue with dembots.
LOL!!
I don't necessarily like it, but the truth deserves to be spoken whether it's enjoyable or not.
Is it the number of how many twinkle or stinkles we get?
See?
I think so, not sure. If my twinkles get too high I just say something stupid.
"Move somewhere else." said BetsyRoss to the Cherokee descendant.
" if we want to make a better world we are going to have to work"
That's what Columbus and the invaders said to the Native Americans when they landed here, Work you savages! Build us a fort and bring us ALL of the gold! Stop being so lazy! You need to be WORKING for us! -and doing WHAT WE SAY everyday to "make your living"! But that didn't go over so well with the Native Americans. The white-man had invaded their land. In fact, one of the main reasons why those-evil-mother-fuckers sailed all-the-way-to-Africa to capture and enslave the African people was because most Native Americans refused to do the white man's work! -they refused to be slaves! This was "their home" so they knew the area well and were able to easily escape and learned very quickly to stay as far away from those evil-slave-driving mother-fuckers as they possibly could.
Of course, in the long run, we all know that story didn't "work" out so well, as the invaders took over every square inch of the land, Most Native Americans died from diseases they had never been exposed to before, Most of the rest of the population were systematically slaughtered and then those who were left were forced onto reservations -in the fuckin desert! -where there was no way of supporting themselves and living off the abundant land anymore as they had been accustomed to (where Everything Was Plentiful And Everyone Only Took What They Needed) as they had lived for generations upon generations and thousands and thousands of years prior to being invaded and slaughtered almost to the point of extinction. To the desert you go! -where crops do not grow -where there is no water to drink -no fish to catch -no game to hunt -where living independent and free was no longer an option or even possible -where they would be totally and helplessly dependant and at the absent-mercy of their oppressors, who gave not-one-shit and not-one-fuck about them, At ALL! (hauntingly similar to the situation we find ourselves in today) And yes, many of them decided to commit Mass Suicide rather than suffer the indignity and the inhumanity of this fate.
"Move somewhere else." ??? Fuck You LOL
Well, you may look at selling people things selling them "shit" they don't really need.
A person can buy "shit" as you say from wally world or Apple or any of the other chines made products at any othe big box store
What I provide is a meaningful service to people who need what I have to sell them.
What I offer they can't get from wally world because what I provide in return for payment is labour and skills.
Shayneh, understand I'm not criticizing or trying to judge you specifically just to give you a hard time, I'm dissenting against the entire capitalist (master/slave relationship) system and the injustice and unnecessary suffering of our entire way of life. Because not only is it inhumane and wrong...it is unsustainable and headed towards a total collapse.
So what's the alternative? Countries that have tried socialism didn't succede - so what needs to be done is we need to change the thinking of the people in government so that they will be for the people.
Bailing out Wall Street instead of mainstreet was not the right thing to do. The government could have handed out thousands of dollars to individuals in this country and as a result we would have a flourishing economy.
But instead the mindset is to bail out the banks because the banks are the ones who provide "loans" to people - Why doesn't the government just set up a direct loan program so the people could borrow from the government like it's doing with student loans?
We need change but we also need someone in office that knows how to build the economy and will do it in favor of the working class instead of the billionaires -
Paradise or Oblivion
http://www.thevenusproject.com/
This documentary details the root causes of the systemic value disorders and detrimental symptoms caused by our current established system. This video presentation advocates a new socio-economic system, which is updated to present-day knowledge, featuring the life-long work of Social Engineer, Futurist, Inventor and Industrial Designer Jacque Fresco, which he calls a Resource-Based Economy.
The film details the need to outgrow the dated and inefficient methods of politics, law, business, or any other "establishment" notions of human affairs, and use the methods of science, combined with high technology, to provide for the needs of all the world's people. It is not based on the opinions of the political and financial elite or on illusionary so-called democracies, but on maintaining a dynamic equilibrium with the planet that could ultimately provide abundance for all people.
Paradise or Oblivion, by The Venus Project, introduces the viewer to a more appropriate value system that would be required to enable this caring and holistic approach to benefit human civilization. This alternative surpasses the need for a monetary-based, controlled, and scarcity-oriented environment, which we find ourselves in today.
The Zeitgeist Film Series Gateway
http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/
American workers have been screwed more and more for a long time. The last 30 years some of the worst.
Are you suggesting every one just quit? Do you have any other suggestions.? And how do you propose we all pay for food & shelter.?
I'm only telling you the truth, that most everyone in America (and the entire world) is either a master or a slave, the exploiters and the exploited. What do "you" suggest we do about it? :-)
replace pro 1% conservatives w/ pro 99% progressives & protest for change that benefits the 99%
If that didn’t sound like a campaign for Obama and democrats then I could agree and keep from laughing lol
I didn't mention Democrats or Pres Obama.
You got a problem with progressive solutions, & protesting?
Or is it that you are a conservative?
You didn't mention Democrats or Pres Obama...but I noticed the post thread you created, quoting Obama's campaign speech, making him look like Jesus Christ himself, so I just assumed you to be pro-Obama :-)
I have nothing against real progressive solutions, (and I'm certainly ALL for protesting! I was exposing The Wealth Gap and our corrupt 2party system a year before #OWS happened) I just know that Obama and most Democrats are a bunch of fakes. And Hell No I'm not a conservative, in any way whatsoever. In fact, that's why I'm totally against Obama, because to me he is not much more than a conservative Republican in democrat clothing.
So then you agree with my suggestion? or do your personal feelings about me prevent you from honestly assessing the very simple course of action I laid out.
My personal feelings about your suspiciously-status-quo-supporting behavior prevent me from automatically agreeing with the deceptively oversimplified course of action you laid out. Yeah, that pretty much sums it up :-)
You want to wallow? Just rant? no need to fight for change?
I read your new system non monetary comment below. It's a great documentary. How do you propose we get there?
You want to keep interrogating me like I'm supposed to have ALL of the answers to everything? lol or what?
I'm glad you like the documentary. The challenge is not really how do we get there. We just do it. The question is: how many of us would actually want to get there? I think most of us are still addicted to this corrupt system. And if I misjudged you about your Oboma-mania, I apologize :-)
I want the non monetary world your doc suggests. But like you most people would not give it a second thought. In fact MOST people reject the concept out of hand. Imagining society without money when we have been brainwashed with this consumeristic keeping up with the jones culture is impossible.
We WILL get there but we gotta do something until then. We can't bury our heads and rant man.
Answer me this: In your own opinion…Is Obama a progressive?
Nope. Why are you avoiding the question?
VQkag2, I also want to see a Resource Based Economy, based on sustainability, abundance and Human decency. But yeah, like I said, most people are still way too addicted to this corrupt system, that’s why I RANT so much about it. What is your problem with ranting? A good rant helps to educate and raise awareness, and it’s basically the same concept as protesting. I’ve been taking advantage of the only outlet I have and doing what I can to help wake people up. I was ranting about the Wealth Gap and the Top 1% a year before the Movement happened, before the first “99%” sign went up in the streets. I was #OWS before #OWS even existed. And I don’t know what you plan on doing, but most people are still asleep and the movement has been basically totally ignored and buried by the mainstream media, so I think I’ll keep ranting and raving until the day I die, if that’s what it takes. I hope it doesn’t bother you too much :-)
I'm not bothered. I agree we must educate. Ranting can be useful, can also hurt a cause.
You are correct about the type of resource based non monetary society we should strive for. I do not know how we get there. I think we need to change consumerist ideology, the 'keeping up with the joneses' mentality, we must stop measuring each other by the size or our homes, bank accounts, cars. And we have to start with our kids. I watch as companies are now advertizing to toddlers!
Thats where our efforts would be most valuable.
Rant on. But realize there are other ways to educate and we ought to be brining people together on this, not pushing away those who disagree.
Peace, Good luck.
MikeMcKeel, that’s what I suspected, thanks for the heads up! Do you know this for certain? I’ve been wasting my breath on people like that for the past 2years on other sites, that’s why I finally decided to come here, thinking I would finally be among my own people to help try to form a think tank and organize something, etc. I should have known it would be swamped with status-quo-republicrat-zombies until their “election” is finally over with lol
btw, I've already answered your question that you just claimed I avoided. So why are you re-asking it? :-)
VQkag2 is paid by the democrats to post here and in other forums as well. He'll be gone after the election.
Yeah whatever. Everything sucks. We'll never improve anything.
I'm gonna find a corner to crawl into and cry.
LOL
Don't waste your logic lol around here none of that will reach open minds. Self reliance is not preached around here! It seems more like what they think theydeserve, yet very few (if any) will start their own business and take the risk not to mention pay like thu want others to.
Well one can always try to educate - don't you think? There are quite a few on this site who know very little about business and what it takes to own/operate one.
Yet they try to dictate how businesses should be managed - tax wise.
So I don't mind providing a little insight into how successful people think - it may rub off.
Very few is an over statement, I wish you luck trying.
"I'm A HUMAN BEING God-Damnit! MY LIFE Has Value!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2t9fVcBpd3U&feature=related
Yea sorry, youtube videos as your argument totally discredit anything you may have to say to me. I like my life and my job. I am no ones "slave"
You may be an exception, but most poor people do not like being exploited slaves, most poor people do not like their jobs and the only reason why most poor people go to work everyday at those jobs they do not like is because they feel their only other option is to starve to death and to die. Be a slave or die. That's what American "freedom" for poor people is all about :-)
Some people get hit with hardships beyond their control, and that is awful and I definitely feel for them. But even working a job that doesn't pay well is better than not working. I was miserable when I was unemployed because I was bored and antsy all the time. Nothing significant to fill my day. So when I finally got a crappy job that paid like crap, I was at least happy to have somewhere to be everyday and be useful to something....even if it is corporate greed etc.
He's right. Give up. Don't even try. You can't win.
Rage Against The Machine - Guerrilla Radio http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0kJLW2EwMg&feature=related
“America touts itself as the land of the free, but the number one freedom that you and I have is the freedom to enter into a subservient role in the workplace. Once you exercise this freedom you've lost all control over what you do, what is produced, and how it is produced. And in the end, the product doesn't belong to you. The only way you can avoid bosses and jobs is if you don't care about making a living. Which leads to the second freedom: the freedom to starve.” -Morello RATM
So leave the country. No one will care.