You are a slave to the capitalist system and there is not a damn thing you can do about it...

[kentuck]

And they know it. There will be no raises this year and there will be no matching contributions to your 401K. If you don't like it, you know where the door is. That is the message that I heard today, in more sugar-coated terms. I wonder if anyone else is hearing something similar?

Forty-five million dollars in profits, above the plan, and no one deserves one penny more in their wages. But many employees are tied to their employer-based healthcare system and there is nothing they can do. Many are over 50 with serious health issues. That is the new capitalism.

BOHICA! Bend over, here it comes again!

[Xipe Totec]

1. Pessimist!

There is always something you can do.

Don't ask

For I won't tell.


THINK.

[1]

2. you are a "slave?" really? that is your definition of a slave? amazing...

[baldguy]

3. "One that is completely subservient to a dominating influence."

So, yeah...

[1]

6. * hand to forehead* *heavy sigh* "oh my, i am completely subservient..."

my god this reads like a cheap novel.

you are not a slave. you are not completely subservient to a dominating influence.

the sooner you get that the more free you will be...

[Alexander]

4. You're a real bright one, aren't you?

:eyes:

[1]

7. i'm no fucking slave, pal...

[EFerrari]

14. Iirc, the first talking scene in Gone with the Wind

is a field hand arguing with another field hand.

"Quittin' time!"

"I SAY when it's quittin time. . . . Quittin' time!"

[Alexander]

41. Keep telling yourself that if it makes you feel better.

Ignorance really is bliss, I suppose.

[truedelphi]

5. Listen why do you not work hard all your life, try and do everything

Right and then still lose it all to a medical bankrupcy.

At least slaves were called that. We are living in a fucking oligrachy in which we the people only matter every four years.

We are considered a free people because there are elections every four years, but in the One Big Money Party Tent, there is not much difference in what you get.

We chose between Clinton and Obama, and yet got more former Clinton appointed people in place than if we had elected Hillary herself. And our economic policy is set by the likes of Geithner (Kissinger-influenced) and Bernanke (Goldman Sachs trained and owned.) Boy was that ever a magnificent change.

And we have to stay on a tight leash, becuz the Powers that be will love sticking us with 4 years of Palin if we don't applaud Obama by offering him our next round of votes.

[kentuck]

10. No one will really notice until...

people are lying shriveled and starved on the grates of the cities. Homeless and hungry, wandering aimlessly in front of them each day but invisible. When people are warming themselves over the barrels, under the bridges, cursing the system, perhaps then they will notice? No. It will take even more to open their eyes.

[1]

13. again, * hand to forehead* *heavy sigh *...

[Harry Monroe]

24. You're gonna give yourself a big headache if you keep doing that!!

[1]

28. i am a "slave" to melodrama and hyperbole. *hand to forehead* *heavy sigh*

[Harry Monroe]

37. Told you to stop slappin' your forehead!! You need any Tylenol?

[EFerrari]

20. No one will notice until that happens to someone in their own family. n/t

[1]

12. i am not on a tight leash. never have been. i am not free because we have elections every 4 years.

i am free because i choose to be.

be free. or see yourself as a slave. whatever. you have some say in the matter.

[truedelphi]

26. You have free choice until you reach a certain age.

Do you really think that if someone has it pulled out from under them when they are in their sixties, or even late fifties, that what - they can start all over again?

[1]

35. you assume the best one can do is take a job and "hope" it never gets pulled out from under them...

is that the limits of your ambition?

my female friends tell me this all the time. they are NOT going to depend upon a man to take care of them. they can do fine on their own.

i like that spirit.

so, are you telling me you have to depend on a JOB to take care of you?

hummm...

maybe you should hang out with my lady friends...

[truedelphi]

38. It's not a "job" being pulled out from someone that is the problem

It is putting energy into being employable, into successfully learning skills, and also the fact that the way this nation exists right now, a serious illness takes all your resources away.

Give me my resources, which represented decades saved for a rainy day, back to me and I will quit belly aching about a mere job.

[1]

40. hey, bud. i'm sorry that you have a serious illness. that sucks...

best of luck to you. god bless.

but for the vast majority of people in the world who will never suffer a serious illness, that is not the case.

people are not slaves. people can *choose* to be slaves.

or not...

[Touchdown]

31. Don't you have motivational tapes or a self help book to sell?

Go away with your Tony Robbins/The Secret bullshit. reality does not conform to your "positive thinking".

[tavalon]

42. I had to start seeing it that way

I punch a time card so that I can comfortably live with my family. I wish work weren't so abusive but it's endemic to Nursing and I just can't be bothered to care anymore. It's not my life, it's just a paycheck.

[JanMichael]

8. We said people were "under" Communism.

We are UNDER Capitalism. It is over us we are not in control of it.

EDIT: What I mean by "under" is that those that oppose racism, want healthcare, wish that work wasn't calculated the way it is now, wish that the 30% to 40% of the population that was shit on daily wasn't, can't change it. We are UNDER it.

[babylonsister]

9. That depends on who you work for obviously. There are a lot of

people around who are middle class, make their wages, contribute to their 401K, and are content.

[kentuck]

15. Yet, there are now about 17 million unemployed...

So, I know I am not alone.

[babylonsister]

18. I never said you were.

I'm also unemployed and need a job, in the middle of a divorce, from a man who is doing just fine financially. Go figure.

[kentuck]

23. Sorry babylonsister...

I had a bad day today, starting out with an excruciating MRI at 7:30 this morning, and then biting my tongue as employees cheered that they still had a job, no matter if they got a raise, or a paycut, or whatever. It was just damn discouraging.

[babylonsister]

25. Did the MRI hurt, or the hour?

People who have jobs happy they have them regardless of whether they lose money or make a bit more? Even that sounds kind of sad. I remember when a raise was a given.

I'm new at being unmarried and have been unemployed by choice for years, so I suspect the reality will hit me soon.

Hang in there, kentuck. :hug:

[kentuck]

27. It was painful but I made it through it...

I can hardly walk at the moment. It was like water torture..

[babylonsister]

34. What is an MRI? Isn't that the tube you go through that checks your

insides? Magnetic resonance? imaging? Did you hurt before the test?

I'm very sorry it was so bad for you. I know a relative almost aborted because of claustrophobia, but not pain, unless I have the wrong test.

[baldguy]

39. There's no such thing as "the middle class".

That's a fantasy concocted to give people the illusion that they can be "successful".

There are really just the rich and the poor. And you're not rich!

http://www.lcurve.org/



We are on the 50 yard line of a football field, representing the median U.S. family income. The income of the "Median Family" is about $40,000.
The frame is 1 meter square.




We have zoomed out by a factor of 10. Meet the "Median Family," the family at the 50th percentile, the 50-yard line on our football field.




The US population is represented along the length of the football field, arranged in order of income.

Median US family income (the family at the 50 yard line) is ~$40,000 (a stack of $100 bills 1.6 inches high.)

--The family on the 95 yard line earns about $100,000 per year, a stack of $100 bills about 4 inches high.

--At the 99 yard line the income is about $300,000, a stack of $100 bills about a foot high.

--The curve reaches $1 million (a 40 inch high stack of $100 bills) one foot from the goal line.

--From there it keeps going up...it goes up 50 km (~30 miles) on this scale!




We have zoomed out by a factor of 10, so this frame is 1 kilometer square. A square representing the previous frame is visible. The tree is a Giant Sequoia. A stack of $100 bills 1 kilometer high would be a billion dollars. This country has about 400 billionaires.




We have zoomed out another factor of 10. Squares representing the previous two frames are visible. The mountain in the background is Mt. Everest. Our pile of $100 bills is approaching the $10 billion mark.




Our frame is now 100 kilometers square. The exact height of the top of the curve varies from year to year, but the total amount of money in the vertical spike continues to grow steadily. Bill Gates "wealth" was at one point estimated to be over $100 billion. The red line represents his greatest "increase" in net worth in a year. At 50 kilometers, the pile of $100 bills extends beyond the stratosphere, more than 5 times the height of Mt. Everest. $1 million is the same proportion of this income as $1 to a person earning $50,000 per year.

[DBoon]

11. Workers of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains!

or as a great American agrarian radical said, "Raise less corn and more hell".

[kentuck]

16. empty words..

I doubt they will ever be applicable again?

[DBoon]

29. people died for those words

and those words gave us the 8-hour day, workplace safety laws, protections for union organizing, minimum wage laws and ultimately a prosperous working class that lasted for decades

[kentuck]

30. I know that...

But it doesn't mean much to anyone anymore. Maybe they'll make a movie about it? :shrug:

[Brickbat]

36. This right here is why I unrecced your thread.

If you want to sit around and mope, go right ahead. Some of us are fighting to keep and make gains on what others paid in blood to win for us.

[Johonny]

17. got that speech already.

Although we still got the 401K money. The problem with us is the cost of the health insurance pretty much ate our whole raise. So as the company tries to put it, we got a raise.

[kentuck]

19. Two days ago...

They announced they were laying off 225 long-term employees. They were profitable but not profitable enough...

Sorry, I just had a bad day today. :-(

[Synnical]

21. Um, I work for a small company (less than 50 employees)

And we're starting to give raises again and will probably begin matching 401(k) contributions again the first of next year.

Just sayin'.

-Cindy in Fort Lauderdale

[patrice]

22. Some of us ARE working on something a little different.

If it survives, it will become MORE different as it matures.

[kentuck]

32. Goodnight all....

enough negativism from this end. Sorry...

[DU GrovelBot]

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[Laelth]

43. True. Very true.

So why do so many here keep cheer-leading? Does Obama have a plan to fix this, or is he helping the very people who are exploiting us?

:shrug:

:dem:

-Laelth