I guess that every employer is telling every employee the same thing. We have to keep our costs down. Your wages are part of the cost. minimizing waste, selling more to that one customer, being the best is what it is going to take to remain in business.
That is the buzz word at about every business. You wonder with the stock market at record levels why is everyone trying so hard? If the Fed stopped pumping a hundred billion into the economy every month see what happens. It seems that no matter what they tell people the economy is in a very fragile and volatile position.
Forward looking companies know that. They are looking to establish and retain a reliable and loyal customer base. Because when the facade collapses you are going to have less customers to rely upon. The recession that started in 2008 gave the companies a great template. Do more with less. Have less workers and get as much or more done than you have in the past with more workers.
Now with the "recovery" underway. Consumers are used to almost $4 a gallon gas. High prices on food and other consumables and services are the norm. There is a whole generation that knows nothing else. So as time goes on people get more particular about things. What they buy and what kind of service they expect. They become Epicureans to a certain degree. If you want their dollar you are going to have to give them at least what they expect. Otherwise they will go somewhere else until they find what pleases them at this point in time. My money will spend anywhere attitude. Which for the most part they are right. It is their money. So companies have to go the extra yard to get and retain customers.
With a economy that is mostly depending on retail and service most people are underemployed. Or at least feel that they are. We may be doing the best we can. Maybe the job you have is the best you can do. Are we doing the best we can at the best we can? A general college education (one that is not specific) really means nothing. Past mistakes in choices and actions have nothing to do with the here and now. So to keep yourself from going crazy do not feel bad about what you are doing. Figure your college time as an experience and a learning process. Consider a a luxury that a lot of folks couldn't enjoy. Use what you learned in everyday life.
The strange thing is that companies have a lot of cash on hand. In a previous post I mentioned that Proctor and Gamble is going to drop about one hundred products. Is that tucking in a bit or what? I do not see how that is not going to cost a lot of jobs. I am sure they are cutting out a lot of redundancy and dead weight products.
But there does seem to be some wiggle room for companies. They may start one person in the same job for one wage and another at a different rate. What is fair about that. Maybe one is more qualified than the other. That is justification. What is the other criteria involved? Who you know? Who you are? How you look? Is there a template that companies follow? You do not see too many "ugly" people in advertisements or news channels do you? That is part of the facade. We all want to be beautiful and successful. In reality everyone came be beautiful. Everyone can be ugly. Most people have about the same intelligence.
I just read on MSN news about some college degrees to avoid. It also gave several positions that these people have with those degrees. Most are not even closely related to the degree possessed by the degree holder. Mostly service and retail. Jobs that used to be filled with high school graduates. When they learned something in high school. Without being dangled to going to college. I admit when I went to high school my entire goal was to just get out. Go to college and move to the land of milk and honey. There are so many institutions now of higher education. Most came after the Education Act of 1964. These institutions provide employment to many people of all walks of life. From the professors to the janitors. This system is an large part of our economy.
Here we are in the second decade of the 21st century. So you go to college. Get a degree that thousands of people have. Get a job that used to be filled by someone with a high school education. Only with a lot of student loan debt. And get stuck in a low paying job. Or multiple low paying part time jobs. On PBS radio they stated that there are twice as many people working part time jobs now then seven years ago. In the poor economy of the early eighties I worked several part time jobs. Factories did not want to hire me because I had a "college" education. Other positions were not available because I did not have experience. So you face reality and just go out and get a job.
I keep going back to the European template. There are always people in big positions. But the majority are working low end jobs many times multiple low end jobs to get by. And I would guess that most rent their housing instead of owning. In reality many people feel that they own their home. But most have a mortgage. So they are buying their home. Not owning it anyway unless they have it paid for and a deed in hand. So why buy a home anyway? Just like buying anything else on credit. It is that warm and fuzzy feeling of owning something, just thinking you do.
At the rate we are going who is going to afford the big houses built over the last twenty years. Maybe that is what happened to the old Victorian mansions from the late nineteenth century. There is going to be a lot of people needing a place to live but cannot afford homes. Especially big homes. So the price will have to go down. The others will have to be divided into multiple living spaces like the old Victorian mansions were. Or simply torn down to make way for low income housing. A majority will barely be able to pay rent, let alone taxes, insurance and a house payment. That is why there are a lot of companies and individuals buying up property right and left. Knowing a big renting market is emerging.
But who is the ones making the big bucks. Someone is. I do not know who. With a inexpensive home starting at $100,000 and an inexpensive automobile starting at $20,000. Who that is making $20,000 a year can purchase one? A $15 minimum wage would make $31,200 a year. Just about 60% of the $53,000 "average". That minimum would raise some prices. But should not that much. That should actually stimulate the economy. That would be around a 30% income increase for those making around $25,000. That would take a lot of people out of the poverty bracket. So the government could cut subsidies. If you are going to make the money you can't get food stamps. All of the cost of living has went up except the minimum wage. This will move us more to capitalism instead of socialism. It could be a good move. I did not think so in the beginning. But what is going on now isn't working either. So a poor person who works full time would make $30,000 a year. One ramification would be the demise of full time workers. Which many companies are moving towards anyway. Part time workers are not getting benefits. Another ramification would be that certain people that have qualified for government benefits may exceed the threshold and no longer be able to get them or other tax benefits towards their income taxes. Even though you at the bottom level you still make more than you need. The people making $8 and hour now would be on par with people making $10 an hour now. Creating a new bottom bracket with all making the same. The big squeeze would go on the people on a fixed income and those in the "middle class" living to the max on their income. Taking another chunk out of the middle class. Erasing the American Dream that pretty much came about after World War 2. Everyone isn't going to own a house and car. Everyone isn't going to get the "big" job. Everyone isn't going to go to college. Taking a current German model is the advent of trade schools. Can't be a bad idea as Germany is one of the strongest economies. Often bailing out the other European countries.
If you look at the Europeans most have socialized medicine. A higher minimum wage should result in more taxes collected. Less people collecting benefits from the government. Also less full time employed people. So if we go to a true socialized medicine environment the bigger thing of being a full time employee is less important. At this point in time the major benefactors of Obama Care are the ones on Medicade. Not people buying insurance on a "spot" market.
So there are a lot of sides to the coin. You cannot make $15 an hour and still get benefits. Unless of course you only work a few hours a week. The people that are collecting Social Security benefits would have to have at least a 20% increase to handle any fluxes in consumer prices. The folks on Medicare have been forced to spend a lot of their own money to pay the difference between what Medicare pays and what they have to pay. So many of them are spending upwards to a thousand dollars a month to get a hassle medical care. So this throws the ball back on the physician. Pay them like $100,000 a year without the fear of malpractice. They save $500,000 a year in insurance. I guess that the culprit here is insurance. With socialized medicine then may have to drives Fords and Chevrolets (but still afford to live in the large houses). They should make more money due to their skills and education. An education that is specific and useful to society. The medicine man or woman has always had a high place in societies due to their skills.
The availability of easy credit has always made our economy cook. That is what led to the Great Depression starting in 1929. The severity of economic up and downs has been softened due to regulations. Even as bad as the downturn was in 2008 it could have certainly been worse. In the early 1990s there was an economic downturn. A lot of the troops in Desert Storm were National Guardsmen. Only to return and not have a job to return to. Creating a slump. I was lucky enough to have a job with a company that had a strong foundation.
In the mid 1990s things started picking up due to the tech. Which eventually became the tech bubble. Everyone jumped into the stock market. Day trading. We all had the stock market on our pagers. Cell phones became available to a lot more people. Construction picked up again. New businesses emerged. We were cooking again. Sub prime loans became available. Golf courses and casinos were being built. The promised land again. Then came 9/11/2001. Proof of how fragile things are. Everything came to an economic standstill again. In the car business we did not see a customer for weeks. All of a sudden fairly easy 0% financing started. Again easy credit saving the day. The thought of not having ownership or equity was out the door. Things were moving again. Only to lead to the 2008 demise.
As people we tend to figure things out. Whether perception or reality. As vast majority of perception creates reality. It is what it is. The liberal use of benefits of the government has kept crime down for the most part. Imagine if millions of people were actually starving. That would create a desperate situation making it not even safe to be anywhere. As the 1980s band Culture Clubs stated, " when people become desperate they learn to survive". As a whole most everybody is doing OK.
The strange thing is that companies have a lot of cash on hand. In a previous post I mentioned that Proctor and Gamble is going to drop about one hundred products. Is that tucking in a bit or what? I do not see how that is not going to cost a lot of jobs. I am sure they are cutting out a lot of redundancy and dead weight products.
But there does seem to be some wiggle room for companies. They may start one person in the same job for one wage and another at a different rate. What is fair about that. Maybe one is more qualified than the other. That is justification. What is the other criteria involved? Who you know? Who you are? How you look? Is there a template that companies follow? You do not see too many "ugly" people in advertisements or news channels do you? That is part of the facade. We all want to be beautiful and successful. In reality everyone came be beautiful. Everyone can be ugly. Most people have about the same intelligence.
I just read on MSN news about some college degrees to avoid. It also gave several positions that these people have with those degrees. Most are not even closely related to the degree possessed by the degree holder. Mostly service and retail. Jobs that used to be filled with high school graduates. When they learned something in high school. Without being dangled to going to college. I admit when I went to high school my entire goal was to just get out. Go to college and move to the land of milk and honey. There are so many institutions now of higher education. Most came after the Education Act of 1964. These institutions provide employment to many people of all walks of life. From the professors to the janitors. This system is an large part of our economy.
Here we are in the second decade of the 21st century. So you go to college. Get a degree that thousands of people have. Get a job that used to be filled by someone with a high school education. Only with a lot of student loan debt. And get stuck in a low paying job. Or multiple low paying part time jobs. On PBS radio they stated that there are twice as many people working part time jobs now then seven years ago. In the poor economy of the early eighties I worked several part time jobs. Factories did not want to hire me because I had a "college" education. Other positions were not available because I did not have experience. So you face reality and just go out and get a job.
I keep going back to the European template. There are always people in big positions. But the majority are working low end jobs many times multiple low end jobs to get by. And I would guess that most rent their housing instead of owning. In reality many people feel that they own their home. But most have a mortgage. So they are buying their home. Not owning it anyway unless they have it paid for and a deed in hand. So why buy a home anyway? Just like buying anything else on credit. It is that warm and fuzzy feeling of owning something, just thinking you do.
At the rate we are going who is going to afford the big houses built over the last twenty years. Maybe that is what happened to the old Victorian mansions from the late nineteenth century. There is going to be a lot of people needing a place to live but cannot afford homes. Especially big homes. So the price will have to go down. The others will have to be divided into multiple living spaces like the old Victorian mansions were. Or simply torn down to make way for low income housing. A majority will barely be able to pay rent, let alone taxes, insurance and a house payment. That is why there are a lot of companies and individuals buying up property right and left. Knowing a big renting market is emerging.
But who is the ones making the big bucks. Someone is. I do not know who. With a inexpensive home starting at $100,000 and an inexpensive automobile starting at $20,000. Who that is making $20,000 a year can purchase one? A $15 minimum wage would make $31,200 a year. Just about 60% of the $53,000 "average". That minimum would raise some prices. But should not that much. That should actually stimulate the economy. That would be around a 30% income increase for those making around $25,000. That would take a lot of people out of the poverty bracket. So the government could cut subsidies. If you are going to make the money you can't get food stamps. All of the cost of living has went up except the minimum wage. This will move us more to capitalism instead of socialism. It could be a good move. I did not think so in the beginning. But what is going on now isn't working either. So a poor person who works full time would make $30,000 a year. One ramification would be the demise of full time workers. Which many companies are moving towards anyway. Part time workers are not getting benefits. Another ramification would be that certain people that have qualified for government benefits may exceed the threshold and no longer be able to get them or other tax benefits towards their income taxes. Even though you at the bottom level you still make more than you need. The people making $8 and hour now would be on par with people making $10 an hour now. Creating a new bottom bracket with all making the same. The big squeeze would go on the people on a fixed income and those in the "middle class" living to the max on their income. Taking another chunk out of the middle class. Erasing the American Dream that pretty much came about after World War 2. Everyone isn't going to own a house and car. Everyone isn't going to get the "big" job. Everyone isn't going to go to college. Taking a current German model is the advent of trade schools. Can't be a bad idea as Germany is one of the strongest economies. Often bailing out the other European countries.
If you look at the Europeans most have socialized medicine. A higher minimum wage should result in more taxes collected. Less people collecting benefits from the government. Also less full time employed people. So if we go to a true socialized medicine environment the bigger thing of being a full time employee is less important. At this point in time the major benefactors of Obama Care are the ones on Medicade. Not people buying insurance on a "spot" market.
So there are a lot of sides to the coin. You cannot make $15 an hour and still get benefits. Unless of course you only work a few hours a week. The people that are collecting Social Security benefits would have to have at least a 20% increase to handle any fluxes in consumer prices. The folks on Medicare have been forced to spend a lot of their own money to pay the difference between what Medicare pays and what they have to pay. So many of them are spending upwards to a thousand dollars a month to get a hassle medical care. So this throws the ball back on the physician. Pay them like $100,000 a year without the fear of malpractice. They save $500,000 a year in insurance. I guess that the culprit here is insurance. With socialized medicine then may have to drives Fords and Chevrolets (but still afford to live in the large houses). They should make more money due to their skills and education. An education that is specific and useful to society. The medicine man or woman has always had a high place in societies due to their skills.
The availability of easy credit has always made our economy cook. That is what led to the Great Depression starting in 1929. The severity of economic up and downs has been softened due to regulations. Even as bad as the downturn was in 2008 it could have certainly been worse. In the early 1990s there was an economic downturn. A lot of the troops in Desert Storm were National Guardsmen. Only to return and not have a job to return to. Creating a slump. I was lucky enough to have a job with a company that had a strong foundation.
In the mid 1990s things started picking up due to the tech. Which eventually became the tech bubble. Everyone jumped into the stock market. Day trading. We all had the stock market on our pagers. Cell phones became available to a lot more people. Construction picked up again. New businesses emerged. We were cooking again. Sub prime loans became available. Golf courses and casinos were being built. The promised land again. Then came 9/11/2001. Proof of how fragile things are. Everything came to an economic standstill again. In the car business we did not see a customer for weeks. All of a sudden fairly easy 0% financing started. Again easy credit saving the day. The thought of not having ownership or equity was out the door. Things were moving again. Only to lead to the 2008 demise.
As people we tend to figure things out. Whether perception or reality. As vast majority of perception creates reality. It is what it is. The liberal use of benefits of the government has kept crime down for the most part. Imagine if millions of people were actually starving. That would create a desperate situation making it not even safe to be anywhere. As the 1980s band Culture Clubs stated, " when people become desperate they learn to survive". As a whole most everybody is doing OK.
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