Inequality American Style

[KeithE]

[Dave Roberts]

Wow! I saw testimony to this last night as our church is hosting the local homeless shelter this week. I ate with a military veteran (US Army, 20 years), the guy who served us in Iraq and Afghanistan, who can neither find a job nor affordable housing. He lives in his 1993 model car, works in a fast food restaurant for all the hours they will give him, and sleeps in churches who house the homeless during the cold months. He eats where the churches provide lunches through the week. There is something indeed wrong with our system.

[KeithE]

Similar story to David’s.

For the last few months we have been serving food on Sunday nights to the Downtown Rescue Mission. One night it hit home with me when a guy in line said “You’re Keith Noren, aren’t you”. He looked familiar and I went to talk with him after the line finished. He said he used to work for a Defense contractor (S*****) here in Huntsville and remembered me from meetings we had been in. He described what I was talking about so I know he is genuine. He said he lost his job in 2003 and then his wife in 2004 (no kids) and was forced to sell his home and now lives on the street when once he made $98K/year. He seemed very lucent, maybe 45 yrs old, and looked a little rough (maybe alcohol??). He does work at Burger King part time but that is not enough to “get an apartment” which is his goal right now - he is sleeping in an abandoned Taco Bell at the moment . He is not in the program at the Downtown Rescue Mission, but he comes off the street to eat here on Sundays. We serve about 100 “inmates” and 200 “off-the-streets”.

This economy where the rich are grabbing more than ever is killing many otherwise viable workers.

[Sandy]

Noticing that the stock market reached record territory yesterday, and looking at everything else, makes it pretty clear that the commonly parrotted right wing radio talk show points now used as Republican party policy are not based on objective fact.

Corporate profits are at a record high, but the alleged "job creators" aren't creating jobs here. They are taking government subsidies and hiring workers in India, Indonesia, or the Philippines.

Corporate profits are at a record high, but they are not paying anywhere close to the kind of taxes that they should be paying to support the infrastructure, protection, and subsidy that they are receiving from the government. That expense has been passed along to the middle class.

The Republicans in the house will not agree to pull half a trillion dollars in government subsidy to companies that are in the top ten in total profit margin. Nor will they agree to end Bush-era tax abatements and breaks extended to banks and financiers who are, once again, paying multi-million dollar bonuses to a few insider executives.

The drop in the GNP that has been used to criticize the President is actually directly correlated to the cuts in the percentage of government spending as part of the GNP which have occurred during the Obama administration.

Domestic oil drilling and exploration is at its highest level in 30 years.

But I guess, when your party gets its primary information from flawed sources that don't care to investigate facts or speak the truth, you wind up having one of your senators, like Rand Paul, make himself look like a jacka** on the senate floor in a filibuster that will go down as one of the most bizzare and useless wastes of time in history, making a speech that justified calling an insane asylum and having him committed.

[TrudyU]

[Dave Roberts]

[Haruo]

ET?

[Haruo]

My impression is that Iraq (both times) and Afghanistan have created a huge number of new addiction/PTSD cases (not the same, but often intertwined issues) that the government is unwilling to deal with, and that Republicans in general (despite their generally stronger "support of the military") will be less willing to fund adequate responses to than the Democrats, and what help there is will be adversely affected beyond reason by the various budget shenanigans both parties have been engaging in of late.

[KeithE]

[KeithE]

[ET]

[Haruo]

In Washington state, the minimum wage is currently $9.19/hr. There may be a state where it's higher, but I don't know what it is. My impression is that, on the whole, we have a more vibrant economy and better support infrastructure for the destitute than most of the states (AL, LA, MS, TN, SC and American Samoa) that have no state minimum wage law.

I think the notion is absurd that "part-time workers" (who may be working two or three part-time jobs) have less need of a "living wage" than "full-time workers".

I'm a full-time worker (which means 32 hours a week, not 40; I generally get about 38 to 39) earning $10 an hour, "well (81¢) above" the state minimum wage. I'm 58 years old, 59 in a couple of weeks. (My pay rate now is $4.45/hr. less than it was 18 months ago.)

Just anecdotal stuff...

[Haruo]

But then I'm an outlier in almost every field I lie in.

[ET]

[ET]

[TrudyU]

Ed: Again when the Minimum wage goes up the cost of living soon follows, for ALL including the unemployed.

[KeithE]

[Haruo]

[KeithE]

[KeithE]