Tag: wages

Well, isn’t this interesting

In California, one out of every ten workers is here illegally. Most of them have lived here for years and live with an American citizen.

Yesterday’s protests seeking an actual living wage for fast food workers resulted in arrests — and remember, if you eat lunch at these places you need to be served by an adult rather than a kid who will someday get a “real job”.

Meanwhile, normal citizens are pressured by low wages, competition from workers here illegally, and are further oppressed by a criminal “justice” system that is pretty much out of control.

The “powers that be” better tread lightly.

In Closing: Driving “American” might mean buying a “Japanese” car; I bet when they say “diversity” they aren’t really including the ~1 in 5 American women for whom “petite” pants drag the ground; Nudies and the NSA.

News

Even though the stats say people read this little site regularly, the fact is not many people comment. One of the few people who I’d call a “regular commenter” was Cynthia.

It is with great sadness that I must report that Cynthia passed away this morning. She leaves behind a long-term boyfriend, assorted distant relatives, a grandson, and one daughter. That would be me.

In Closing: rubble bucket challenge; an interesting and relevant graph; on inequality and impounded cars; cop cams; one less one less problem; Karl calls ’em as he sees ’em; shhh, ancient oligarch secret; and thanks to bankruptcy “reform,” there is no hope of this getting better until the previous item miraculously vanishes; I still wonder why insurance companies haven’t put their considerable clout behind this; and won’t somebody please think of the children (unless of course they are brown).

 

 

Joe Average and the Economy

The bad news is that hourly wages have declined. Look at the first chart, and you’ll notice that’s even true for the top quintile! In other words, ThinkProgress is soft-selling the fact that most of us — on average — are making less per hour in favor of pointing out that those at the very bottom have it worst.

So then, how can CNN turn around and tell us that wages are up? Two things. First, they mean that median income is up, which can be explained away by more people working and people working longer hours. Second, even they admit that “the gains are not spread evenly“.

So the Very Intelligent People are wringing their hands over the fact that none of us seem to have much savings, and don’t we know we will retire one day, the fact is that for many average people, these savings tips are a cruel joke. Ha, put aside 10-13% for retirement, and reduce your debt (heh), and “Don’t make emotional purchases”? Emotional purchases like what, replacing the dead transmission in the car so you can get to work? Maybe if we just teach the middle and lower class how to manage their money better somehow they can magically make all their bills less.

When one in seven people are at the food bank, they don’t have anything to put aside at the regular bank for a rainy day; it’s already pouring.

In Closing: support staff; No Fly; bulldozer improvements; grittier than Melissa Gilbert’s portrayal; and no, this will not do what it advertises. There is no such thing as a master list of sexual predators; there is only a list of people who have convictions for certain crimes involving genitals. Ways to be put on this list include having a significant other who is underage (even if they lie about it), peeing in the wrong location, or happening to be naked in one’s own home. Schools that use this system will wonder why parents aren’t lining up and spending $20 for a background check and the honor of being allowed to chaperone a field trip or shelve library books.

Music Monday: Michael’s Crafts Customer 4 Evah

Ok, so the Supreme Court came out with an extremely narrow ruling regarding whether closely held private corporations can refuse to provide contraceptive coverage for employees. So yeah, even if I were a crafty type of person — which [Deity] knows I’m not — I won’t be going into that hobby store with the rhyming name. Except maybe to loudly announce “Oh wait! This is that place where the employees aren’t allowed to have birth control!”* and walk out.

 

 

* Ok yeah, an exaggeration I know.

In Closing: Wow; truth; veggies; workers; Oz; sneeze; military; and infrastructure.

Another Month, Another Jobs Report

Good news everyone!

Employment is at an all time high. There’s 217,000 more jobs than last month, and we finally have more people working than at the start of the Great Recession.

Ok, now for why that isn’t really very good news at all. Good jobs went away only to be replaced by crappy ones with low wages and low/no benefits. This is double true if you happen to be a man. And the number of people who are not in the labor market but now want a job is up 292,000 this month (for the math impaired, 292,000 is greater than 217,000). And we still have businessmen arguing with a straight face that it would be bad for business to pay sick workers to stay home 3 days a year rather than have them come to work and share their illness with coworkers and customers.

No wonder the majority of Americans think that the “American Dream” is out of reach.

In Closing: Got a whole heaping helping of random NSA, Snowden, privacy, secrecy, spying, terrorism, and related links; people hate the cable company, love cute kittens, film at 11; a couple of gun links; turns out the stoner was actually drunk, but that doesn’t make for a good pot-is-bad story; breakin the law; careful what you post on Facebook; eggs; for a movement that calls itself “men’s rights“, they spend a lot of time worrying about women (yeah, pretty sad that’s Cracked pointing it out too); young adult literature; and social media.

Yet More Things I Learned This Semester

Yes, the semester is almost over and that means it’s time to share a few choice thoughts.

In General:

  • There are people who are willing to wait for a spot 100 feet closer to the building, even in nice weather. In the meantime, I’ve parked in the next lot over, locked my car, walked to the building, and made it to the 3rd floor while That Guy is still waiting for an ever-so-slightly closer parking spot.
  • You’d be surprised how many people don’t show up to class regularly and still expect to do well in that class.
  • Sorry, I already knew that time management is important.
  • Cleaning staff never notice graffiti on the back of a bathroom stall door.

In Spanish:

  • Spanish has two verbs that translate “to be.” Use one to ask “What kind of person is Juan” and the other to ask “How is Juan”. Use one to ask “Where is Maria” and the other to ask “Where is Maria from”. Use the wrong one, and you may well say “Teresa is boring” instead of “Teresa is bored.” Teresa would be understandably upset.
  • It’s alarmingly easy to mix up the verbs “to go” and “to see“.
  • You can do a lot with cognates. The one thing you can’t do is be sure you understand the correct thing.

In Microbiology:

  • Not only can viruses infect bacteria, they can accidentally take bacterial genetic material to the next bacterium when they leave.
  • The entire family of Penicillin related drugs works by pulling out the “molecular nails” that bacteria use to build cell walls. Resistant bacteria have an enzyme that breaks up the “nail-puller.” Viruses don’t have cell walls, and that’s why these drugs don’t effect them.
  • Look, you’re never ever going to wash every single germ off your hands. What’s more, you wouldn’t want to. The germs that normally live there help keep “opportunists” — that’s bad-guy germs — from setting up shop. So for pity sake, stop using that damned anti-bacterial soap.

In Anatomy:

  • If you are trying to remember a whole bunch of acronyms (say, hormone names), you are better off memorizing the long version. Otherwise the “alphabet soup” will drive you mad. Besides, often the long version tells you what the darn thing does!
  • How much carbon dioxide you have in your body determines a lot more things than the amount of oxygen. It effects your respiration rate, the pH of your blood, and more.
  • The first thing your body does with any carbohydrate you eat is turn it into a simple sugar. So, should a diabetic be eating a lot of pasta?

There you go. Now let’s have some In Closing: GOP is upset that their Nevada organization doesn’t want to keep fighting a lost battle; on debt; it does at least put a roof over head; I wish I could refute this; even Mitt “Rmoney” thinks that the minimum wage is too low!; death penalty follow up; Subway CEO tosses owner operators under the bus; the ACLU on NSA reform and letting cops hack your computer.

A Simple Request

I was looking at my calendar, and happened to notice that it’s 2014.

Can we please, for the love of all that is good, stop speculating about the 2016 Presidential Elections?

Seriously. It’s over two years until that particular election day, and two other First-Tuesday-After-The-First-Monday-Of-November election days between now and then. A lot can happen between here and there: scandals with -gate appended to them; game-changing political decisions; world events could impact American politicians; personal issues up to and including death could shorten the list of potential candidates; Kanye West could decide he’d make a better President than all those old white guys and the Godfather’s Pizza dude — that would liven up the debates that will seem interminable two years from now.

Enough already.

In Closing: let’s start off with all the NSA, NSA, Snowden, privacy, and NSA links you can manage; DRM is part of the security problem; just a reminder that if the products the weight loss industry worked, eventually they wouldn’t have any more customers; on minimum wage and working for a living, sort of; wisdom (h/t); um, yes; sure looks nicer than a traditional solar panel!; free things to do in Vegas; addiction; Biblical scholarship; and Quantum Physics for Babies.

The NSA Scandal is a Gift that keeps on Giving

So, let’s get started. No particular order here.

The NSA is apparently tracking a lot of information about where people are based on their cell phones. I’m not sure whether this makes it better or worse, but this appears to be a big deal overseas, where Bad Guys might want to follow American spies “case officers.”

More and more people of note are publicly saying that “surveillance” of personal data is wrong, and that would include what the NSA’s been up to. In fact, 8 major American tech companies have asked the Feds to please stop already. Couldn’t have anything to do with the fact that they stand to lose money. Security experts have already said they can no longer trust Intel’s crypto technology, and that means companies that actually need secure data have to migrate off systems that use it — potentially migrate off Intel hardware altogether.

I think the Feds honestly want to catch some terrorists. Even though the job is tough. Even though so far, they’ve had to manufacture terrorists in order to actually catch one. Of course maybe if they stopped playing World Of Warcraft it would be easier.

Despite all this controversy, it looks like the Government wants to do as much as possible to make it look like they are making changes, while in fact changing as little as possible.

Merry Freaking Christmas.

In Closing: Some thoughts on the minimum wage and the wages of workers in general (and lookie here, education turns out not to be a magic bullet); Duhpartment of Research says keeping your body healthy might keep your mind healthy; food lies; shadow inventory is a crock; funny how you have to have money for taxes to matter; the stimulus did work, but not like you can tell; good analogy; about time.

But the CEO might not be able to afford a second Bentley!

You’re going to have a hard time convincing me that raising wages a few dollars an hour is going to result in massive inflation in an environment where every fast food joint I can think of is highly profitable and introducing new low-price options on a regular basis. On the other hand, I can see where raising wages a few dollars an hour might relieve strain on the safety net and result in increased spending in general, which will in turn raise GDP without the government having to perform voodoo rituals on the actual economic data or gasp spend money.

That is all.

In Closing: There’s always more room for NSA, spying, privacy, and general stupidity links (go on and sign that ACLU petition like I did this morning); I hope nobody thinks this is good for the flying public; if only the anti-vax morons were the ones reaping the folly of their actions instead of their children and communities; kill it; interesting notion; not buying it; stupid breeder tricks; right on, Dave; and pet tigers turn out to be a bad idea.