Wealth Distribution in the USA

So you're saying Donald Trump works a million times harder than me?

And yet that is what is happening at my work. The company keeps trying to bring in lower paid help and give them the lions share of the hours. I asked to be trained as a manager, and then saw at least two of the new hires get trained ahead of me.For those who think that checkers are overpaid at $17.00 an hour...note that when I got out of High School in 1978 I was making $4.00 an hour in 1980...which if extrapolated through an inflation index calculator would amout to roughly the same purchasing power and value as $17.00 now is.In essence, real wages have been dropping. This is not a good thing when a 53 year old only makes what he made out of High School and only through the graces of a labor union. My market value in non union sectors is more like $13.00 an hour max.

Again, that is simply another attempt to palm the pea, misdirect attention.There is a big difference between "earn more" and "get paid more".

Im palming no peas. Its all a matter of perspective.Everybody wants to get paid more. The value that one earns is all subjective, however.

The public wants as low of price as possible with good service. They(the public) like to have clerks serve them who are knowledgeable,m friendly, and efficient. (or ones that can operate self checkout and stay out of the way while they rush through on their cellphones)

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The Corporate bigwigs see labor as a two dimensional bottom line expense. They believe in the republican conservative concept of proportional fairness...people get paid according to their value. The problem is, employees should be able to apply the same standard to corporate salaries, in my opinion. It does not take five guys in white shirts to tour one store. Get rid of four of them!

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The union employee believes in proportional fairness. Society determines honest, open, and impartial rules to determine who gets what and what value should be attached to certain jobs. The problem is, we live in a society with massive inequality...the rich have many opportunities to rig the game in their favor. Liberals in general wish to level the playing field...Conservatives are ambivalent, claiming that unions "extort" and that Romney was right with his "47%" comment that praised "Horace Greeley" virtues of workers that suck it up, succeed despite hardships, and that wage value is or should be earned through merit. Of course yopu know where I stand and why.

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I maintain that the rich will never give up anything and that the poor need union extortion to even get anything close to a livable wage and benefits.

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After all, we must compete with the children of the wealthy.

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Do I believe that social programs and unionism are rewarding mediocrity? Not at all...I consider myself more intelligent than most union leaders and most corporate bigwigs combined.

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Look at this:
http://newswires-americas.com/...ivate-equity-for-bankruptcy

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Perfect example of corporate managers deciding what needs to be cut and what needs to be saved. (They saved their own salaries!!)

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Edited by Phat, : add

Again, reread what you just posted and your preceding post; they are full of nonsense and out right contradictions.You seem to be using the same standards as the very people you are bitching about. You seem to think that you are worth more than other people who do the same work and that YOU should decide your own worth and value.So far I haven't seen anyone say anything negative about collective bargaining so why do you even bring that up?

It seems to me that the developments of our culture that have benefitted our civilisation throughout the centuries have all been based on fairness. Our laws are made to prevent an individual, or group of individuals, taking unfair advantage of another. We pay for a police force to prevent it amongst ourselves and a armed force to prevent it from outside.We create fair trade rules, consumer rights and contract law; we invent and enforce democracy so that we each get a chance to elect our government and we create laws around human rights that prevent government itself from abusing us.But so far, we haven't found a way to protect society from the rabid unfairnesses of trade, finance and employment when it comes up against personal greed.We've made some attempts, with trade unions, minimum wages and employment law but the top earners and multinational corporations are now essentially unregulated. Paying tax for them is mostly a matter of choice.Needs more work

Its just my anger over the inequity of wealth between the top percentiles and the working class. I am in favor of unionism. That's all I really wanted to say. Oh and one other thing---there are rumors that Safeway may close in Denver, eventually. They tried so hard to preserve profits that they lost sales in doing so...which also angers me. I am no fan of corporate tactics versus bargaining units.

When it comes to Safeway closing in Denver, the problem is not just bargaining units or corporate policies but also the US middle class.

How is the middle class the problem? Having decent jobs preserves the middle class. No one can raise a family on $10.00 or less an hour...unless you are suggesting that the middle class should get used to diminished expectations. If that is the issue, we all need to unite!!!Granted we also need to work harder and get educated.But note this article: The awful truth: education won't stop the west getting poorerYes I know you will say that we did it to ourselves, but looking back at mistakes made in the past help no one.Its beginning to look like I will need more than the union to keep me afloat.Edited by Phat, : No reason given.Edited by Phat, : No reason given.

Part of the problem.If Safeway closes in Colorado it will be because it is not profitable to continue operations. But who controls that? The shoppers do, the middle class. It's not the super rich that shop at Safeway, is it?And yup, you have the world you folk created. Tough. Get used to it.

It is raw capitalism that is exclusive and leads to fewer and fewer rich people who are more and more rich. This is because as you become wealthy it becomes easier to earn more money. It should be much easier to earn your first 100k and much harder to earn your second million.As with all natural systems there needs to be a rule of diminishing returns.This idea that too many taxes will stunt the ambition of the super wealthy is a red herring even if it were true. It is the stymied ambitions and abilities of the millions of subsistence wage earners that you should worry about. You shouldn't be encouraging the wealthy to be more wealthy but rather encouraging the poor to be rich.Would you say that taxing $1k from a guy who earned $10k is the same as taxing $100k from a guy who earned a million? Are those equal burdens? Why put the burden on those who are least able to bear it?

I hadn't, but I'm willing to give it a try. If you can find 1000 conservatives who share this view, and each of whom will donate 10% of his income to me, then I in return will spend the money on doing rich-person things. You will have the satisfaction of having increased the number of rich folks to the tune of 1, and I will have the satisfaction of knowing that according to the all-wise pundits of conservatism I shall be bringing immeasurable joy to all around me and indescribable benefits to the economy.

Nice try, but you should take this topic seriously.True wealth is earned, not "acquired." Crony capitalism is a plague that should be eliminated, while any honestly earned money should be honored.

I was. It is seriously orthodox conservative doctrine that rich people somehow make everyone wealthy through the magic of "trickle-down". Well, if everyone who voted Republican in the last election joined a scheme such as I proposed in my previous post, then they could produce 60,000 more rich people, thus magically making everyone richer, including themselves. One wonders why they don't. Are true wealth and false wealth both the same shade of green and equally accepted by retailers? Well said, comrade. When do we start expropriating the expropriators?

More bullshit.Do you think paupers make anyone better off? Are socialists trying to expropriate money from paupers? How many paupers start businesses and hire people? Paupers are a drain on society, not an asset. Those with money can create jobs and spread money around. Those who work for their money and create wealth are an asset, not a class to be demonized.You destroy that class of people and you think anyone will be better off? What a joke! Different issue entirely. Socialists have been trying to expropriate every loose dime that they can, but what happens when they run out of people to loot?Socialists should realize that they need a lot more wealthy people to support their nefarious schemes, not fewer. When everyone is reduced to pauperism who will the socialists have left to loot? Their whole sorry scheme will collapse around their ears.But still they and their sycophants continue to decry those who have earned their money by hard and honest work. What a joke!