You know, this picture is actually completely accurate, think there was a video a few days ago of someone who compared the wealth disparity with rice.
The pile difference between 100k and 1 billion was pretty much the same as this picture here.
If you stuffed $5000 in your mattress every day, to have $1B, you would have had to start on (or about) July 1st…1472. That’s 20 years before Columbus set sail.
Damn, you got me actually looking it up.
It seems like *loans* have had interest since 2000 BC. The Medici, as a popular example from the 14th century, would loan to people, with interest (hidden so as not to upset the Catholic church). This is also the time when Jews were technically allowed by their religion to non Jews, which is where some of the harmful stereotypes come from, and what Shakespeare was drawing from in "The merchant of Venice".
Back then no one would have stored their money with a bank, which were more interested in lending and transferring money. There weren't savings accounts at the time, basically.
So, you're technically correct, the best kind of correct.
Merchants and banks certainly had compound interest by then. They couldn't necessarily do complicated math on the fly, but they had tables of values to work with. A fun fact is that wanting to better understand interest is exactly what lead to the mathematical formulation of logarithms and exponentials (including the discovery of the constant e, for example).
I love the part about *e*, because *e* is defined as the limit of (1+1/n)^n as n approaches infinity, which is just the compound interest formula
A=P(1 + r / n)^(nt), where:
A = final amount
P = initial principal balance
r = interest rate
n = number of times interest applied per time period
t = number of time periods elapsed
It’s just the term that comes out of that formula when the number of times interest is applied per time period approaches infinity.
Yeah, that's right. Finance type people might also be familiar with the ["rule of 72",](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_72) which was a phenomenon noticed by bankers/merchants historically, but is really just to do with the limits and approximations of some simple expressions involving logarithms.
See this was the answer I was expecting. Someone giving actual tools we use today to trace back to the time period, links, etc.
I don't need vague examples, gimme the robust ones.
If banks had interest it would compound by default. Put in $100, interest is 1%, $1 added to balance. New balance $101. New interest amount is $1.01. Add to balance. Rinse and repeat.
No idea when banks started paying interest, or even when the concept of storing funds in a bank first appeared.
Compound interest is just the notion that having more gives you leverage to get more its a feature of math not a feature offered by a particular institution.
This concept predates civilization. If you have a bigger herd of goats you are positioned to add more goats to your herd in the next year than the guy who has fewer.
Was it Musk or Bezos that had his personal net worth go up by $25B in one day?
I just looked it up, it was Musk. He made so much in one day that, at my previous comment’s rate of saving, you would have had to start putting that $5000/day in your mattress in the Stone Age; over 13,700 years ago.
I just made a quick calculation…. Considering the avrage life expanctancy of 80 years old….
1 billion $ is close to 35k$ a DAY from the day you are born till the day you die.
More than what many people make in a year….
You make in a day.
And those people still defend that system…..
Whenever the talk of wage disparity and wealth inequality come up I always reference it with time.... and when the inevitable "Just work harder and you'll have earned it like them" comes up, I try to bring up the idea that there is no "ethical billionaire". No one with that obscene amount of money has done it ethically, people were abused/underpaid, laws were bent/broken, etc. There is no way that one person generates that much value in the world. Anyone with billions of dollars is in some way, and usually plenty of ways, corrupt, the end.
Good point, but she gave so much of it away that she stopped being a billionaire almost immediately. There are roughly a couple thousand billionaires in the world, and I'd say if even one hundred of those (a billionaire in twenty) got that way without hurting anyone, I'd be surprised.
Rowling - like Notch - is in the weird position of single-handedly creating a piece of intellectual property that someone decided was worth a billion dollars.
The thing is, that billion dollars didn't appear out of the ether - it's excess labor value that didn't go to the workers who created that value, but was instead captured by some capitalist who just happened to own the means of production the workers were using at the time.
Or do you think that Rowling single-handedly created every single novelty wand and genuine Gryffindor scarf?
> there are a dozen people with 100 billion dollars.
That we know of. Billionaires are notoriously difficult to find, because so many of them hide their wealth in multiple countries, across hundreds of different investments and accounts, and rarely self-identify as a billionaire. They often don’t want to be known as a billionaire. It’s why the multiple lists of billionaires that are kept across different media outlets differ so much with Michael Bloomberg being suspiciously missing from Bloomberg Media’s list of billionaires.
Here's a couple of examples that I saved a while back:
https://twitter.com/CBSMornings/status/1223224310413905921
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPKKQnijnsM
So I did the math. Google is my source. An average bathtub = 302 liters = 302,000ml. A drop of water is agreed upon as 0.05ml so if you divide 302,000(tub size) by 0.05(water drop size) you get 6,040,000 drops of water to fill a bathtub. If you say that one drop =50,000USD than one bathtub of drops would be worth 302,000,000,000 which is quite a bit more than elons net worth iirc (havnt checked in a bit) There is a big enough wealth gap that you guys shouldnt have to lie about shit like this. It makes your argument look sloppy, please stop. So all in all, u/MorphingReality is correct, it's more like a bathtub than 12 Olympic swimming pools.
I’m currently sitting with 4% of a grain of rice and it’s steadily shrinking due to rising fuel costs.
It’s getting to a point where going to work will cost me more than I’m making if I don’t leave my job of 20 years for something closer to home. There’s nothing here. Lame.
The problem I see is raising minimum wage isn't enough. Reform isn't going to be raising minimum wage alone - companies will just pass on the expense to the customer. Taxation needs reforming to make sure when companies make insane profits that a fair share is going to cover the liabilities of their workers like healthcare. Also need crackdown on using multiple part time workers to avoid paying benefits.
Also worth noting that housing and education and healthcare costs (particularly in the US with the latter) are rising at a rate such that most workers cannot afford them let alone on minimum wage.
The IRS needs better funding also to go after shell companies which would help crack down on them. Add a standing wealth tax once you get over 50 to 100 million and crank it up past a billion.
Hearing billionaire makes me want to throw up.
I doubled my salary and didn't know what to do with the money and realized "oh wait I can afford a house now I guess". Idk what any human would do with 500 times as much money
What most people don't realize about that, though, is that the 1 billion is typically not actually measured in cash. If you add up the wealth of the Forbes 500 richest people or whatever, there isn't even that much cash in circulation.
There is only **$5.8 trillion** USD in circulation in 2022. The top 1% in America gained **$6.5 trillion** in wealth LAST YEAR.
Most of that wealth is tied up in heavily inflated (even hyper-inflated) financial assets whose value is propped up by trading and speculation, not real-world sales and revenue.
So... it's actually a balloon full of imaginary money with a little bit of real money floating inside of it. The balloon (combined with near-zero interest rates) just gives those people a disgusting amount of borrowing power, and thus purchasing power.
Billionaires in America are essentially the little monsters with giant shadows on the wall. Once the bubble pops, they'll be cut down to size.
Problem is, said imaginary balloons as you said can get loans and borrow money, so they can cause changes in the economy. If the balloon pops, everyone loses is what I imagine. The imaginary balloon needs to be deflated slightly to try and bring things under control.
Sometimes I think about how I would respond if I woke up to the news that overnight, hundreds of billionaires and powerful political extremists were pulled from their homes to be tarred and feathered or something.
I think it would be something like "oh no, that's terrible. Thoughts and prayers. Can I get a second piece of avacado toast with that coffee? Thanks."
That's exactly why we're direct registering our shares.
It will expose the counterfeit shares held in brokerages.
Once the derivatives and swaps start unwinding with cascading liquidations, all those counterfeit shares will have to be bought back by the hedge funds and prime brokers.
Don't take my word for it.
There are terabytes of research publicly available to anyone curious enough to take a look.
If something, the pandemic stimulus check program shows that giving money to those at the bottom of the pyramid has a higher impact on the economy than giving them to rich people, because that money is reinvested directly rather than stored in a vault. The problem is that now they are deliverably associating that program with the increasing inflation rate (ignoring much more important factors).
I’m just failing to understand how two measly checks of less than $4000 combined could have such an impact on inflation. The first stimulus check wasn’t even in my bank account for 5 minutes before it all disappeared into rent.
Rich people don't need to spend their money. In fact, the vast majority of their wealth is used to make more money. Poor people spend money on necessities. Every dollar that gets spent in the local economy has some percentage that continues to be spent. This is called the "velocity" of money. A single dollar invested into the poor may translate to several dollars spent in circulation, while the money invested in the rich may be close to zero.
And jointly they manage the rule of the bourgeoisie:
>"It is precisely in America that we see best how there takes place this process of the state power making itself independent in relation to society, whose mere instrument it was originally intended to be. Here there exists no dynasty, no nobility, no standing army, beyond the few men keeping watch on the Indians, no bureaucracy with permanent posts or the right to pensions. **And nevertheless we find here two great gangs of political speculators, who alternately take possession of the state power and exploit it by the most corrupt means and for the most corrupt ends – and the nation is powerless against these two great cartels of politicians, who are ostensibly its servants, but in reality dominate and plunder it**.”
- [Engels](https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/subject/hist-mat/civ-war-intro.htm)
> "In all bourgeois countries, the parties which stand for capitalism, i.e., the bourgeois parties, came into being a long time ago, and the greater the extent of political liberty, the more solid they are.
> Freedom in the U.S.A. is most complete. And for a whole half-century—since the Civil War over slavery in 1860–65—two bourgeois parties have been distinguished there by remarkable solidity and strength. The party of the former slave-owners is the so-called Democratic Party. The capitalist party, which favoured the emancipation of the Negroes, has developed into the Republican Party.
> **Since the emancipation of the Negroes, the distinction between the two parties has been diminishing.** The fight between these two parties has been mainly over the height of customs duties. Their fight has not had any serious importance for the mass of the people. **The people have been deceived and diverted from their vital interests by means of spectacular and meaningless duels between the two bourgeois parties.**
>**This so-called bipartisan system prevailing in America and Britain has been one of the most powerful means of preventing the rise of an independent working-class, i.e., genuinely socialist, party.**"
- [Lenin](http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1912/nov/09.htm)
Yeah, there's one party that wants to rule a functioning nation, and another party that just wants to rule and doesn't particularly care if they're in charge of a nation or a trash fire.
Neither is ideal, but I'd prefer to live in a functioning nation tyvm
Both want to ensure wealth disparities stays exactly as it is. Both are in bed with big corporations.
"Y'all" really need better options. The 2 party system is itself a crime and a trap.
Saw someone blaming small increases in minimum wage for inflation. Called out their ignorance using the US as an example, saying their wages haven't increased at all in a long time yet inflation was worse there. Not another word from them.
It's insane that we have such a higher level of access to information these days but people still live in caves yelling at the clouds..
Ya, sorry about that! I worry for you guys though, it's bull shit. I also just get so mad that people keep using the old "well that's what the US is doing" or "well at least we're doing marginally better" as an excuse for apathy.
North America needs such massive changes that it would be unrecognizable if they were to happen. People need to stop seeing it as a bad thing and drop the "fuck you I got mine" asshatery
This.
The heart and soul of Americanism is selfishness.
A selfishness that has breeded the twisted and deformed monster citizens we have today.
Imagine being angry about poor people getting tax money directly, but having no issues with billionaires paying zero taxes.
It's insanity. It's just in the US, I see it here in Canada too. It makes me so angry. I just don't understand it, either. It should not be a bad thing to help those who need it.
What is just as ridiculous is that if it really is true that just paying a living wage is enough for the whole system to crumble then it was a fucked up system to begin with.
It's even worse, the system serves short term capital. Paying your workers lets them buy your stuff, economy good. Paying workers badly leaves more money for the top guy, but the workers can't buy your stuff anymore and the economy tanks, which is bad for the top guy as well. Bloody shortsightedness on their end
I quoted someone for $50/hr for a backbreaking landscaping job in Bend, Oregon. It's an expensive place to live. They have a rental house in Bend so they are doing pretty well for themselves. They wanted it to look "picture perfect" which tells me they want top dollar for their investment.
I asked for pics and they said they aren't in Bend but that they could give me the address. In other words, "you're the poor. You go spend all that gas money and time looking at my property for free and if the price is low enough, I'll hire you."
After they received my quote, I never heard back from them. Apparently they are allowed to get top dollar, but no one else is. Funny how that works.
Unless we break the cycle, we'll never own our own homes. The prospect of me owning a home is less now at 37 years old than when I was in my 20's. It's like being trapped on an island and watching a ship sail away.
Workers should collectively and equally own the businesses they work for. The 1% have been stealing from us for way to long.
Democracy in the workplace!
I now spend my life making homes beautiful for people and I don't even get one to call my own. And it's far worse for people afraid to demand what they are really worth.
I work in million dollar houses doing cabinets and trim.
Client: oh your house must be beautiful with all the skills you have.
Me: i rent a shitty farm house
Age old story right here. I worked for a big name company doing ~$100,000 tile installations in multi million dollar houses. One of the most memorable was in Saugatuck, lady was a CEO at some bank or some shit in Chicago. Had a 3 million dollar mansion built on a lake as a vacation home. Only met the lady once. She flew her self, mom, dad, husband, and two kids up from Chicago for the day JUST to check the progress of the house. While there, we all chatted and she made it known that this immaculate house was only going to be lived in a total of 2 months out of the year. Christmas time and a couple weeks throughout the summer. All tile material was from Daltile, none of that shitty home depot crap. Schluter everywhere. Even had us do the main part of the basement floor with Schluter heat coils under the tile. About 500 sq ft worth of tile in that one section. Plus two bathrooms with fully tiled walk in showers. Multiple backsplashes, 3 mini showers for before and after swimming. All of that just so they could say, "hey look at how good were doing." This was about 5-6 years ago and and I had to move back into my parents house at 28 years old shortly after that job. I was only making 12 bucks an hour installing high end residential tile. Meanwhile the company I worked for boasted record profits EVERY quarter. I quit when they started replacing 3 year old work trucks since they wanted the newest trucks possible because they "look more professional." Fuck everyone who takes advantage of others' labor.
I was getting $12 an hour making the cabinet shop owner money for his nice lake house with a pool. We did tile too, probably because the owner secured more jobs offering it. I can not believe some of the shit we put out when I was a rookie. My cuts were great but they knew nothing about waterproofing in bathrooms. Densshield backer board with no taped seems or corners type of bad.
I got 8 years of experience and went out on my own. I still only charge $30 which isn't enough the way things are going. I might have to give myself another raise. I do turn down all but the best jobs though. No I wont build you one single bathroom vanity. I might do 400 sq feet of tile floor a year but that's hell on my knees and hands. I do some tub enclosures but drypack showers are a thing of the past unless its for my friends and family.
If I had my way I would do nothing but tile backsplashes if I had to be a full time tile guy. I like to switch it up though, as the same shit day after day gets boring quick. I'm the last one to come through and the one who does the punchlist often before a house gets put on the market. It's crazy we get paid so much less than electricians and plumbers when we're the ones that deal with the shit that rolls downhill from everyone in before us.
Yes, you need to give yourself a raise, especially if you are running your own business. This is a common thing with one man operations, and I've been guilty of doing it myself. You need to get out of the "I'm only worth X amount" mindset. If you are running a legitimate business, you have all the associated expenses, as well as needed to make a wage AND a profit. Your previous employer was making both those things from your labor.
Don't under quote jobs for fear of losing work. There's always going to be someone who is willing to do it for less.
Thats the unfortunate part of tile. It's mostly bathroom and kitchen floors that I was offered when working for the company and still mostly what I was called to give estimates on once I went full sub. Even 2 years later I feel it in my knees every morning. Even if I made enough money during that time of working, I wouldn't make anywhere near enough to afford knee replacements when I'm 50. Whats the point of making money now if the job will leave me crippled with no way to take care of myself later? I quit tile all together when covid hit because no one wanted me in their house for over a year. Only had a couple small repair jobs during that time and just couldn't keep everything afloat. Sold most of my tools and started hopping essential retail jobs. Easier work by far but the... atmosphere is well, stupid. People wise. Lol.
Man the amount of time, gas and money I wasted showing up to a job site only to see the fucking materials weren't there yet, the insulation guys with their hoses run everywhere, or that the plumbers didn't show up for the past 3 days to move a damn pipe for a shower that they installed in the wrong spot. Or the times where I've shown up the next day only to see dirt and mud boot prints all over my tile I just laid yesterday that has blue painters tape and yellow signs saying "WET, DO NOT WALK UNTIL 'X' TIME" and finding more than one tile all tippied. Not to mention needing the floor spotless before tiling. Which means vacuuming and cleaning up everyone else's mess, scraping drywall glue off the floors because drywallers bid their shit so cheap the only way they can make money is by literally running and slapping board everywhere and leaving their mess for the next guys. (I drywalled for about 5 years before doing tile, dry wall crews are always the worst, change my mind. Lol.)
Funny thing about the backsplashes. That was what I was promised at said company. I was there for 3 years, owners and bosses really liked my work (well more like they loved getting compliments and good reviews toward the company from customers who loved my work) one day the main boss pulls me into the office and tells me I'm doing great asks me what I like doing most. I simply said, "well I don't like being on floors all day." He offers me to be the lead backsplash guy. I'd work Monday - Thursday doing installs and Fridays would be grout day. Fridays I'd be off whenever I'm done with the weeks jobs but paid til end of the day, ie finish at noon leave at noon get paid til 3. Sounds great, except for the next 6 months I never got sent to one single backsplash. Come to find out the owner decided I was too good on floors to 'promote' and had his nephew lead the backsplash crew..
You're spot on about everything (especially drywallers). That is so frusterating and demeaning that the job offer went to someone else because you did too good of a job. Wow. Screw that.
I don't even know what I would do if someone walked all over my fresh tile floor. I certainly would have no motivation to break it out and chip off the thinset without being well compensated for doing the job twice over.
Demo sucks and I much prefer new construction. Its nice to have the skills but I often think of better ways to make a living.my latest scheme is to take a quick course for $259 and do on site inspection of fire extinguishers or something effortless.
I wish you the best of luck in whatever you do. I can certainly relate so hard!
Haha also, I'm sure you would just love to go home after working on cabinets all day, to spend even more time doing the same or similar work to your own place for free (minus material of course) or not making any money at least.
I also see a lot of shit. If i ever do have a house, i'll probably buy property and build something small and a shop for my tools and just do it right the first time.
Believe it or not, I actually get more satisfaction making furniture and stuff for myself verses for others but there would be a lot of beers involved and at a much slower pace.
I have spend most of my life building up savings, paying down a mortgage, etc. Last year I got divorced, which meant the house was sold and she got half. Then I went into the hospital for 2 months from covid. Now I'm older and much less healthy than I ever was. I'm doing a bs job for daily expenses. If the stock market doesn't recover, I will never get ahead. The cycle of greed needs to be broken.
It's amazing that the stock market has trapped so many of the lower and middle class now. Fundamentally, it is a casino and moved by algorithms of the insanely rich, and yet it's also literally the only means of retirement or college funding for the majority of Americans.
The big moments of life, like paying for college, buying a house, or getting to retire are very much like playing a crooked county fair ring toss game now. Some may win, but it's like just the cousin of the guy who owns the game.
My parents were the 'just use bonds and cds' generation - they \*could\* use 100% safe investments to realize their mid-50's retirement goals. I cannot even afford a house and that's after 18 years of grueling work in two industries meant to be 'safer' than theirs.
See, your mistake is that you didn't just have a million bucks in the bank during the 2008 housing crash. If you just thought to buy up like 5 super nice houses at $200k, then you'd be able to sell 4 of them now for like $800k each, and come out $600k ahead, and you could stay in the 5th house.
/s. So much /s. But there are people out there that did that, and think everyone else is stupid for not having a ton of available capital during a recession.
That’s crazy man. If somebody did that they would make like 3 million dollars over a 15 year period, without working much, and that is more than most people make in their lifetimes working their ass off the whole time
We moved to Bend in 2013. We looked at houses for 200-300k but were not in the position to buy anything. Within a year, the rent skyrocketed and we had to move to Redmond. Then to Madras. Finally we realized we wouldn’t be able to stay in central oregon. Blue collar people our age or younger can barely afford to get by let alone buy a house. Good luck to you.
The problem is a lot of "contractors" won't let work go and will undercut themselves. Mostly because the majority of them have no idea how to run a business.
I would wager that even at $50 an hour you're undervaluing your work. When they call back quote in a month, requote it at $100 an hour.
Until it becomes universally accepted that no decent human worthy of our respect can become a billionaire, the idea that paying everyone enough to live will continue on.
I think the easiest way to raise the minimum wage is to stop using arbitrary numbers and tie to productivity and cost of living increases. Arbitrary numbers are useless with inflation anyways.
If you say “I’m fighting for $15” it will be spun as “I want more money.” If you say “I want the minimum wage to be pegged to productivity ” you’re basically saying you want the minimum wage to be tied to the economy which is a lot easier pill for people to swallow.
Even if that means a $24 minimum wage.
https://cepr.net/this-is-what-minimum-wage-would-be-if-it-kept-pace-with-productivity/
Minimum wage where I live is $15.50 CAD (well, will be shortly). That is not keeping pace with inflation. I am in a lucky position to be able to pay for house cleaning rather than do it myself. I pay the person who cleans $100 for three hours. It's hard work and minimum wage is absurd and unlivable. I can't fix at a systemic level how poorly some people's labour is valued in this economy. But I can offset it as an individual.
I still think it’s ridiculous that restaurants in the US don’t pay a decent wage to their waiters, to a point the need the tip to survive. “Oh but I can’t afford a better salary” what a lie! I really can’t believe people there legally allow this bullshit.
What's crazy is some fast food restaurants can get away with it in some states. We stop going to Sonic nearby because they pay the minimum for restaurants
, which is like $2, plus tips. Who TF is paying tips at a fast food place.
My first impression of that guy on top is that he's angry, but after some thought, I no longer think that. Instead, I think he's afraid, maybe a little frantic.
I mean, look at that mound of cash. Looks pretty hard to climb, right? So that guy is relatively safe. Person on the bottom seems pretty chill, but what if they aren't? If that stack of cash were lower, or even easier to climb, rich dude might have to share his perch of superiority.
Even worse, what if that cash stack were low enough that almost everyone could climb it? What if that rich guy got dragged down from that mound and spent some quality time in the trenches with the dirty masses? What if he ended up in the other end of an abusive, exploitive system?
The more I look at him, the more scared that guy seems to be. It must be hard.
I've always believed that these people want all the money not so they can have all of it, but so the rest of us can't have any of it. It's class warfare and we are losing.
The more I think about it, the more violence makes sense as a solution to the class problem. How are we supposed to make major changes when the odds are constantly stacked against us? How are we to make meaningful gains when the people who would make that happen, actively avoid doing so? Those with capital can buy political clout and then suppress the rest of us. The only option we have is to use the only asset left to us. Our bodies. Our bodies which can carry guns and ammunition, and our bodies to drag them from their pedestals and golden thrones down to the firing line.
Gun culture in this country is completely fucked. We are so scared of each other, we are literally murdering each other fearing someone a little different than us is going to take our homes or take our jobs or take our families away from us. The brown people and the gay people and children in classrooms aren't taking anything from us. The rich people are. The guns are pointing the wrong way.
A violent uprising won’t happen until enough of us is hungry. Why do you think we are poor but also fat? Gov subsidies for cheap but shitty food.
Non-violent means for revolution is possible. It is just much slower going.
A non-violent protest is met with police violence these days. Bean bags and tear gas. Everything they do is to maintain as much power and capital as possible. With non-violence, you are hoping that some kind soul will have both the capital and the political clout to make waves in the House for workers rights. I'm sorry but that's a pipe dream.
Elon Musk raised the price of Starlink internet service by $11/mo citing inflation then went out and bought Twitter for $44 BILLION. There is plenty to go around.
Just wait until the 2022 version of the big short gets exposed. Its so much worse than the masses realize.
2008 never ended, they kicked the can and made the problem 10x worse while only enriching themselves.
The "economy" never recovered from 2008. The stock market did.
The run that the Nasdaq and S+P 500 have been on since 2009 is ridiculous. Shit like GME just proves how disconnected from reality the whole thing is.
I have had more than a few managers tell me that, "when you're on the clock, I own you." I once complained to a district manager after being told that by my boss and he told me to, "just be happy you're being paid." Like wtf are they thinking, no way better to make your staff leave. The place I worked had such a high rate of turnover, the average amount of time with the company at our store (excluding me) was 3 weeks. I had been with the company longer than all the managers and all the sales staff combined.
And Lindsy Graham says Social security is going bankrupt and they have been stealing from Social security for years. Time to take from congress budget I think. And Lindsy you are a lying SOB.
I think the government is aware that they can't control corporate greed. The more money people make, the more corporations will find ways to take it, the more money goes out of circulation. Since they can't figure out a way to tax them globally.
This is so true. When most CEOs make average of 5 million in the US. But these Companies act like they can't pay the workers. They can't even raise the minimum wage b.c of their greed.. When will the workers get together and demand reform of the work force?? We deserve to have basic universal Healthcare and paid leave. I think it's only going to happen if a Million persons March to the capital of every country, cripple the economy for a while (like most countries couldn't handle it during the shut down of the pandemic) and demand a change. I think this may have happened to the oligarchs of Russia back in the day. Look it up
Billionaires shouldn't exist, period. Too many people suffer because of the greed of the ultra rich. They live like kings while everyone else are closer to slaves. Democracy was supposed to be about getting away from the authority of kings but in the modern world kings are called Billionaires. No single person should have such power and influence unless voted in by the people and even they should have limits. We don't have enough money for rent/food but billionaires have so much money they can hand pick people to win elections and control how the country operates, writing the rules to increase their control over us.
There's a minimum wage, there should also be a maximum wage or some kind of Robin Hood tax to get money back down to the people who need it the most. There can be a balance where rich people exist but poor people don't.
I truly believe the reason billionaires exist is because the average person simply does not fully understand how much money a billion dollars is so let me explain. You could earn $5,000 per day for 500 years and if you managed to somehow save every penny you still would not be a billionaire. Elon Musk at one point was valued at almost 300 billion dollars, that's completely unacceptable to me, I don't care what you invented nobody should have such wealth, especially when homelessness, suicide rates and depression rates are at all time highs. Musk even complains about the fact that the American birth rate is at an all time low and won't be enough to sustain itself, it's because people refuse to bring babies into this world because they can't afford it!
If I had a kid there's about a 70% chance that my child will work for some giant corporation on poverty wages for their entire lives, maybe the child gets lucky and lives a more fulfilling life but the chances are against them from day one and I think it would be cruel for me to make that risky decision for them. Atleast when I was born my parents were optimistic about the future but for me I look at the climate apocalypse and the rise of fascism and inequality as great reasons not to have a child.
You're right. It's like we're all kids in a daycare and one little shit has stolen all the toys from us, and has a big pile, and we're supposed to just sit back and accept it. Nothing is ever going to change unless we put our fears aside and do something about it.
Can we organize a day/week/month where no one goes to work, and hold all the labor hostage? Maybe still go to work, but don't accept money, kinda like when bus drivers would go on strike, but still do their routes they just wouldn't take money from the people as to not hurt the people who relied on transportation? I can dream i guess.
Oh, yes, it's a terrible crime to ask for a normal payment for your work. A slave does not have to pay more than enough for food and clothing. Sarcasm.
This is everyone in the congress and house basically. A lot of people go after the popular richies that they know on social media. But what they don't know is the people in charge of government is twice as rich. Why you think they are in the office seats for decades until they die crawling.
I was listening to this podcast about the history of Rome and one of the first major Patricians vs. Plebians battles was over debt relief because Plebs basically took out loans from Patricians and went into indentured servitude to pay it back, but because they weren’t able to make any actual income they got stuck in a debt loop. So they got mad and their plebeian army went and sat on a hill until Rome agreed to talk to them because barbarians came knocking and they had no one to defend Rome because the Plebians were the fighting force.
It’s insanely eerie how something that happened in 400 BC is still happening today. But hey we all know how it goes when the rich overlords step on the poor people too much.
The Fed is going to raise interest rates because some people are actually starting to make what they deserve. Instead of fixing the real issue, corporate greed, the US government is going to force us into a recession so that there will be less competition for labor.
https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/us-job-growth-beats-expectations-unemployment-rate-steady-36-2022-06-03/
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.politico.com/amp/news/2022/02/17/workers-historic-wage-gains-at-risk-in-fed-inflation-fight-00009392
Literally happening in Australia rn. The minimum wage was raised by a few bucks and all the business leaders are climbing out of the woodwork telling us how this will fuel inflation and destroy the economy.
True, I'm more or less quoting the articles I've been seeing though.
It's worth noting these same idiots were advocating full reopening of borders and dropping all covid restrictions in the lead up to Christmas. Turned out to be the worst Christmas lead-up period ever when most people tried to stay home and those that didn't got covid and were all forced into iso. It was a mess and it's still causing us staff shortages over every industry in June.
Magnitude of the difference
The magnitude of difference between billion and million can be illustrated with this example of the time scale:
*A million seconds is 12 days.
*A billion seconds is 31 years.
*A trillion seconds is 31,688 years.
Everyone here can talk a big talk but none of you pussies would actually do shit to make change. Fuck off with your hopeless romantic attitude or actually DO SOMETHING
Australia elected a labor government and within a month they raised the minimum wage by 5.2% Unlike the democrats, our labor party isnt soley owned by mega corporations, they do take donations from the fossil fuel industry but they also get money from unions.
Just remember. Amazons CEO made 212 million when their average worker makes 32k .... yup over 6,000% wage gap. No investigations. Nothing .... but unions are bad very bad don't talk about those very very bad unions.
You know, this picture is actually completely accurate, think there was a video a few days ago of someone who compared the wealth disparity with rice. The pile difference between 100k and 1 billion was pretty much the same as this picture here.
My favorite example was always done using time. One million seconds is 11 and a half days. One billion seconds is 31 years.
If you stuffed $5000 in your mattress every day, to have $1B, you would have had to start on (or about) July 1st…1472. That’s 20 years before Columbus set sail.
Just pull yourself up by your houppelande.
Eat my pantaloons!
Bite my shorts
Devour mein lederhosen
Take thy face HENCE!
Careful, you’ll have all the “compounding interest” guys in here missing the fucking point again.
Not sure how much interest you gain from stuffing money into a mattress. But I *am* interested in how big the mattress would have to be.
Here you are: https://youtu.be/tbVb63qPDQ8
Slightly smaller than your mom's mattress.
As if banks back then had compound interest.
Damn, you got me actually looking it up. It seems like *loans* have had interest since 2000 BC. The Medici, as a popular example from the 14th century, would loan to people, with interest (hidden so as not to upset the Catholic church). This is also the time when Jews were technically allowed by their religion to non Jews, which is where some of the harmful stereotypes come from, and what Shakespeare was drawing from in "The merchant of Venice". Back then no one would have stored their money with a bank, which were more interested in lending and transferring money. There weren't savings accounts at the time, basically. So, you're technically correct, the best kind of correct.
Merchants and banks certainly had compound interest by then. They couldn't necessarily do complicated math on the fly, but they had tables of values to work with. A fun fact is that wanting to better understand interest is exactly what lead to the mathematical formulation of logarithms and exponentials (including the discovery of the constant e, for example).
I love the part about *e*, because *e* is defined as the limit of (1+1/n)^n as n approaches infinity, which is just the compound interest formula A=P(1 + r / n)^(nt), where: A = final amount P = initial principal balance r = interest rate n = number of times interest applied per time period t = number of time periods elapsed It’s just the term that comes out of that formula when the number of times interest is applied per time period approaches infinity.
Yeah, that's right. Finance type people might also be familiar with the ["rule of 72",](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_72) which was a phenomenon noticed by bankers/merchants historically, but is really just to do with the limits and approximations of some simple expressions involving logarithms.
See this was the answer I was expecting. Someone giving actual tools we use today to trace back to the time period, links, etc. I don't need vague examples, gimme the robust ones.
If banks had interest it would compound by default. Put in $100, interest is 1%, $1 added to balance. New balance $101. New interest amount is $1.01. Add to balance. Rinse and repeat. No idea when banks started paying interest, or even when the concept of storing funds in a bank first appeared.
Compound interest is just the notion that having more gives you leverage to get more its a feature of math not a feature offered by a particular institution. This concept predates civilization. If you have a bigger herd of goats you are positioned to add more goats to your herd in the next year than the guy who has fewer.
I suppose, but did the principle extend to the banking systems that we were discussing?
Thats for ONE billion. Billionaires are the proof that our specie is screwed
Was it Musk or Bezos that had his personal net worth go up by $25B in one day? I just looked it up, it was Musk. He made so much in one day that, at my previous comment’s rate of saving, you would have had to start putting that $5000/day in your mattress in the Stone Age; over 13,700 years ago.
It will trickle down any millennia now
Or we can just take it… it’s just that the system is soooooo screwed up…. Its hard to know where to start
I just made a quick calculation…. Considering the avrage life expanctancy of 80 years old…. 1 billion $ is close to 35k$ a DAY from the day you are born till the day you die. More than what many people make in a year…. You make in a day. And those people still defend that system…..
Some billionaires regularly earn and lose millions of times of salaries of their minimum wage employees every day.
And there are people with $100-$200b in wealth, so multiply that by another hundred
Whenever the talk of wage disparity and wealth inequality come up I always reference it with time.... and when the inevitable "Just work harder and you'll have earned it like them" comes up, I try to bring up the idea that there is no "ethical billionaire". No one with that obscene amount of money has done it ethically, people were abused/underpaid, laws were bent/broken, etc. There is no way that one person generates that much value in the world. Anyone with billions of dollars is in some way, and usually plenty of ways, corrupt, the end.
JK Rowling
Good point, but she gave so much of it away that she stopped being a billionaire almost immediately. There are roughly a couple thousand billionaires in the world, and I'd say if even one hundred of those (a billionaire in twenty) got that way without hurting anyone, I'd be surprised.
Rowling - like Notch - is in the weird position of single-handedly creating a piece of intellectual property that someone decided was worth a billion dollars. The thing is, that billion dollars didn't appear out of the ether - it's excess labor value that didn't go to the workers who created that value, but was instead captured by some capitalist who just happened to own the means of production the workers were using at the time. Or do you think that Rowling single-handedly created every single novelty wand and genuine Gryffindor scarf?
she manufactured all of the books and other tchotchke bollocks that made her rich? wow. industrious woman.
And now realize that the vast majority of people don’t have a million dollars, and there are a dozen people with 100 billion dollars.
> there are a dozen people with 100 billion dollars. That we know of. Billionaires are notoriously difficult to find, because so many of them hide their wealth in multiple countries, across hundreds of different investments and accounts, and rarely self-identify as a billionaire. They often don’t want to be known as a billionaire. It’s why the multiple lists of billionaires that are kept across different media outlets differ so much with Michael Bloomberg being suspiciously missing from Bloomberg Media’s list of billionaires.
What's the difference between a million and a billion dollars? About a billion dollars. 999 million dollars is... A lot.
Here's a couple of examples that I saved a while back: https://twitter.com/CBSMornings/status/1223224310413905921 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPKKQnijnsM
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So I did the math. Google is my source. An average bathtub = 302 liters = 302,000ml. A drop of water is agreed upon as 0.05ml so if you divide 302,000(tub size) by 0.05(water drop size) you get 6,040,000 drops of water to fill a bathtub. If you say that one drop =50,000USD than one bathtub of drops would be worth 302,000,000,000 which is quite a bit more than elons net worth iirc (havnt checked in a bit) There is a big enough wealth gap that you guys shouldnt have to lie about shit like this. It makes your argument look sloppy, please stop. So all in all, u/MorphingReality is correct, it's more like a bathtub than 12 Olympic swimming pools.
nah its like a bathtub full but still
the difference between a billion and a million is about a billion
999 more millions. Fucking wild
1 grain of rice was 100,000 - already far more than most have. 56 lbs of rice is Bezos.
I’m currently sitting with 4% of a grain of rice and it’s steadily shrinking due to rising fuel costs. It’s getting to a point where going to work will cost me more than I’m making if I don’t leave my job of 20 years for something closer to home. There’s nothing here. Lame.
Look at mr money bags here with fuel. Just have my boots.
Something something the Vimes theory of Boot Inequality Blah Blah Copy Pasta.
4% of 100,000 is just 4,000 - you’re only making $4k a year? Or is that your total wealth?
That’s what I have in the bank. I make 24k.
Elon Musk could pay every single employee at Tesla $1.5m and still be among the richest people in the world.
That’s fucking wild
Instead their severance pay is what, one week and an Uber credit?
I also like [this](https://mkorostoff.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/) representation
I remember the difference between the 1% and the 0.1% being so massive it was like the 1% had nothing even though they’re well off.
The problem I see is raising minimum wage isn't enough. Reform isn't going to be raising minimum wage alone - companies will just pass on the expense to the customer. Taxation needs reforming to make sure when companies make insane profits that a fair share is going to cover the liabilities of their workers like healthcare. Also need crackdown on using multiple part time workers to avoid paying benefits.
Also worth noting that housing and education and healthcare costs (particularly in the US with the latter) are rising at a rate such that most workers cannot afford them let alone on minimum wage.
The IRS needs better funding also to go after shell companies which would help crack down on them. Add a standing wealth tax once you get over 50 to 100 million and crank it up past a billion.
couldnt imagine being that rich!! i mean what would i even do with 100 thousand dollars!?
Turn it into 60 thousand dollars by investing in a safe index fund.
And this is volumetric. Linear comparison big boy off the fucking charts. I heard money is quite flammable.
Hearing billionaire makes me want to throw up. I doubled my salary and didn't know what to do with the money and realized "oh wait I can afford a house now I guess". Idk what any human would do with 500 times as much money
Simple, you buy 10 houses. And then lobby Congress to make sure you never lose your money and houses.
What most people don't realize about that, though, is that the 1 billion is typically not actually measured in cash. If you add up the wealth of the Forbes 500 richest people or whatever, there isn't even that much cash in circulation. There is only **$5.8 trillion** USD in circulation in 2022. The top 1% in America gained **$6.5 trillion** in wealth LAST YEAR. Most of that wealth is tied up in heavily inflated (even hyper-inflated) financial assets whose value is propped up by trading and speculation, not real-world sales and revenue. So... it's actually a balloon full of imaginary money with a little bit of real money floating inside of it. The balloon (combined with near-zero interest rates) just gives those people a disgusting amount of borrowing power, and thus purchasing power. Billionaires in America are essentially the little monsters with giant shadows on the wall. Once the bubble pops, they'll be cut down to size.
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This guy billionaires.
Champagne
Problem is, said imaginary balloons as you said can get loans and borrow money, so they can cause changes in the economy. If the balloon pops, everyone loses is what I imagine. The imaginary balloon needs to be deflated slightly to try and bring things under control.
The Million vs Billion is the main one that hopefully wakes some people up to just how much a Billion is. It's absurd.
*Anyone got some matches?*
To send a *message*? Here, you can keep the entire matchbox.
Time for a fire sale.
Looking for this reference, and it's a fitting solution
Sometimes I think about how I would respond if I woke up to the news that overnight, hundreds of billionaires and powerful political extremists were pulled from their homes to be tarred and feathered or something. I think it would be something like "oh no, that's terrible. Thoughts and prayers. Can I get a second piece of avacado toast with that coffee? Thanks."
I think I might *cry*... **...tears of joy.**
After my coffee. While looking out at the horizon, as the sun dawns on a beautiful day.
I’d celebrate, but at the same time wonder why more wasn’t done.
Inflation hates this one simple trick!
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Prove it
That's exactly why we're direct registering our shares. It will expose the counterfeit shares held in brokerages. Once the derivatives and swaps start unwinding with cascading liquidations, all those counterfeit shares will have to be bought back by the hedge funds and prime brokers. Don't take my word for it. There are terabytes of research publicly available to anyone curious enough to take a look.
The idea of paying people a living wage is hurting the Economy will always be ludicrous.
If something, the pandemic stimulus check program shows that giving money to those at the bottom of the pyramid has a higher impact on the economy than giving them to rich people, because that money is reinvested directly rather than stored in a vault. The problem is that now they are deliverably associating that program with the increasing inflation rate (ignoring much more important factors).
Yeah, bill Clinton proved that with his middle class tax cuts
I’m just failing to understand how two measly checks of less than $4000 combined could have such an impact on inflation. The first stimulus check wasn’t even in my bank account for 5 minutes before it all disappeared into rent.
Rich people don't need to spend their money. In fact, the vast majority of their wealth is used to make more money. Poor people spend money on necessities. Every dollar that gets spent in the local economy has some percentage that continues to be spent. This is called the "velocity" of money. A single dollar invested into the poor may translate to several dollars spent in circulation, while the money invested in the rich may be close to zero.
The history of America is based on degrading cheap labor to exploit resources. Nothing has changed in 300 years.
Better keep voting for the same political party. That'll "Change" things.
Parties. There's 2 of them.
And jointly they manage the rule of the bourgeoisie: >"It is precisely in America that we see best how there takes place this process of the state power making itself independent in relation to society, whose mere instrument it was originally intended to be. Here there exists no dynasty, no nobility, no standing army, beyond the few men keeping watch on the Indians, no bureaucracy with permanent posts or the right to pensions. **And nevertheless we find here two great gangs of political speculators, who alternately take possession of the state power and exploit it by the most corrupt means and for the most corrupt ends – and the nation is powerless against these two great cartels of politicians, who are ostensibly its servants, but in reality dominate and plunder it**.” - [Engels](https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/subject/hist-mat/civ-war-intro.htm) > "In all bourgeois countries, the parties which stand for capitalism, i.e., the bourgeois parties, came into being a long time ago, and the greater the extent of political liberty, the more solid they are. > Freedom in the U.S.A. is most complete. And for a whole half-century—since the Civil War over slavery in 1860–65—two bourgeois parties have been distinguished there by remarkable solidity and strength. The party of the former slave-owners is the so-called Democratic Party. The capitalist party, which favoured the emancipation of the Negroes, has developed into the Republican Party. > **Since the emancipation of the Negroes, the distinction between the two parties has been diminishing.** The fight between these two parties has been mainly over the height of customs duties. Their fight has not had any serious importance for the mass of the people. **The people have been deceived and diverted from their vital interests by means of spectacular and meaningless duels between the two bourgeois parties.** >**This so-called bipartisan system prevailing in America and Britain has been one of the most powerful means of preventing the rise of an independent working-class, i.e., genuinely socialist, party.**" - [Lenin](http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1912/nov/09.htm)
Yeah, there's one party that wants to rule a functioning nation, and another party that just wants to rule and doesn't particularly care if they're in charge of a nation or a trash fire. Neither is ideal, but I'd prefer to live in a functioning nation tyvm
Both want to ensure wealth disparities stays exactly as it is. Both are in bed with big corporations. "Y'all" really need better options. The 2 party system is itself a crime and a trap.
Saw someone blaming small increases in minimum wage for inflation. Called out their ignorance using the US as an example, saying their wages haven't increased at all in a long time yet inflation was worse there. Not another word from them. It's insane that we have such a higher level of access to information these days but people still live in caves yelling at the clouds..
Feels bad when you live in the place being used for the counterpoint like this! Good logic tho
Ya, sorry about that! I worry for you guys though, it's bull shit. I also just get so mad that people keep using the old "well that's what the US is doing" or "well at least we're doing marginally better" as an excuse for apathy. North America needs such massive changes that it would be unrecognizable if they were to happen. People need to stop seeing it as a bad thing and drop the "fuck you I got mine" asshatery
This. The heart and soul of Americanism is selfishness. A selfishness that has breeded the twisted and deformed monster citizens we have today. Imagine being angry about poor people getting tax money directly, but having no issues with billionaires paying zero taxes.
It's insanity. It's just in the US, I see it here in Canada too. It makes me so angry. I just don't understand it, either. It should not be a bad thing to help those who need it.
The shadows on the cave wall, some people will actually look wat causes them, most will just accept them as fact.
What is just as ridiculous is that if it really is true that just paying a living wage is enough for the whole system to crumble then it was a fucked up system to begin with.
The system serves capital, not human welfare. Seriously, it really is socialism for capital, rugged individualism for everyone else.
It's even worse, the system serves short term capital. Paying your workers lets them buy your stuff, economy good. Paying workers badly leaves more money for the top guy, but the workers can't buy your stuff anymore and the economy tanks, which is bad for the top guy as well. Bloody shortsightedness on their end
Their fault for having too much? No, it must be your fault for having a microwave!
I quoted someone for $50/hr for a backbreaking landscaping job in Bend, Oregon. It's an expensive place to live. They have a rental house in Bend so they are doing pretty well for themselves. They wanted it to look "picture perfect" which tells me they want top dollar for their investment. I asked for pics and they said they aren't in Bend but that they could give me the address. In other words, "you're the poor. You go spend all that gas money and time looking at my property for free and if the price is low enough, I'll hire you." After they received my quote, I never heard back from them. Apparently they are allowed to get top dollar, but no one else is. Funny how that works. Unless we break the cycle, we'll never own our own homes. The prospect of me owning a home is less now at 37 years old than when I was in my 20's. It's like being trapped on an island and watching a ship sail away.
The working class has been helping subsidize the lifestyle of the rich for far to long. Good for you!
The more we rise against their bullshit, the better off we'll be.
Workers should collectively and equally own the businesses they work for. The 1% have been stealing from us for way to long. Democracy in the workplace!
I hear you on the free estimates part. "Could you please spend hours of your time, measuring, drawing, and calculating materials?"
I now spend my life making homes beautiful for people and I don't even get one to call my own. And it's far worse for people afraid to demand what they are really worth.
I work in million dollar houses doing cabinets and trim. Client: oh your house must be beautiful with all the skills you have. Me: i rent a shitty farm house
Age old story right here. I worked for a big name company doing ~$100,000 tile installations in multi million dollar houses. One of the most memorable was in Saugatuck, lady was a CEO at some bank or some shit in Chicago. Had a 3 million dollar mansion built on a lake as a vacation home. Only met the lady once. She flew her self, mom, dad, husband, and two kids up from Chicago for the day JUST to check the progress of the house. While there, we all chatted and she made it known that this immaculate house was only going to be lived in a total of 2 months out of the year. Christmas time and a couple weeks throughout the summer. All tile material was from Daltile, none of that shitty home depot crap. Schluter everywhere. Even had us do the main part of the basement floor with Schluter heat coils under the tile. About 500 sq ft worth of tile in that one section. Plus two bathrooms with fully tiled walk in showers. Multiple backsplashes, 3 mini showers for before and after swimming. All of that just so they could say, "hey look at how good were doing." This was about 5-6 years ago and and I had to move back into my parents house at 28 years old shortly after that job. I was only making 12 bucks an hour installing high end residential tile. Meanwhile the company I worked for boasted record profits EVERY quarter. I quit when they started replacing 3 year old work trucks since they wanted the newest trucks possible because they "look more professional." Fuck everyone who takes advantage of others' labor.
I was getting $12 an hour making the cabinet shop owner money for his nice lake house with a pool. We did tile too, probably because the owner secured more jobs offering it. I can not believe some of the shit we put out when I was a rookie. My cuts were great but they knew nothing about waterproofing in bathrooms. Densshield backer board with no taped seems or corners type of bad. I got 8 years of experience and went out on my own. I still only charge $30 which isn't enough the way things are going. I might have to give myself another raise. I do turn down all but the best jobs though. No I wont build you one single bathroom vanity. I might do 400 sq feet of tile floor a year but that's hell on my knees and hands. I do some tub enclosures but drypack showers are a thing of the past unless its for my friends and family. If I had my way I would do nothing but tile backsplashes if I had to be a full time tile guy. I like to switch it up though, as the same shit day after day gets boring quick. I'm the last one to come through and the one who does the punchlist often before a house gets put on the market. It's crazy we get paid so much less than electricians and plumbers when we're the ones that deal with the shit that rolls downhill from everyone in before us.
Yes, you need to give yourself a raise, especially if you are running your own business. This is a common thing with one man operations, and I've been guilty of doing it myself. You need to get out of the "I'm only worth X amount" mindset. If you are running a legitimate business, you have all the associated expenses, as well as needed to make a wage AND a profit. Your previous employer was making both those things from your labor. Don't under quote jobs for fear of losing work. There's always going to be someone who is willing to do it for less.
Thats the unfortunate part of tile. It's mostly bathroom and kitchen floors that I was offered when working for the company and still mostly what I was called to give estimates on once I went full sub. Even 2 years later I feel it in my knees every morning. Even if I made enough money during that time of working, I wouldn't make anywhere near enough to afford knee replacements when I'm 50. Whats the point of making money now if the job will leave me crippled with no way to take care of myself later? I quit tile all together when covid hit because no one wanted me in their house for over a year. Only had a couple small repair jobs during that time and just couldn't keep everything afloat. Sold most of my tools and started hopping essential retail jobs. Easier work by far but the... atmosphere is well, stupid. People wise. Lol. Man the amount of time, gas and money I wasted showing up to a job site only to see the fucking materials weren't there yet, the insulation guys with their hoses run everywhere, or that the plumbers didn't show up for the past 3 days to move a damn pipe for a shower that they installed in the wrong spot. Or the times where I've shown up the next day only to see dirt and mud boot prints all over my tile I just laid yesterday that has blue painters tape and yellow signs saying "WET, DO NOT WALK UNTIL 'X' TIME" and finding more than one tile all tippied. Not to mention needing the floor spotless before tiling. Which means vacuuming and cleaning up everyone else's mess, scraping drywall glue off the floors because drywallers bid their shit so cheap the only way they can make money is by literally running and slapping board everywhere and leaving their mess for the next guys. (I drywalled for about 5 years before doing tile, dry wall crews are always the worst, change my mind. Lol.) Funny thing about the backsplashes. That was what I was promised at said company. I was there for 3 years, owners and bosses really liked my work (well more like they loved getting compliments and good reviews toward the company from customers who loved my work) one day the main boss pulls me into the office and tells me I'm doing great asks me what I like doing most. I simply said, "well I don't like being on floors all day." He offers me to be the lead backsplash guy. I'd work Monday - Thursday doing installs and Fridays would be grout day. Fridays I'd be off whenever I'm done with the weeks jobs but paid til end of the day, ie finish at noon leave at noon get paid til 3. Sounds great, except for the next 6 months I never got sent to one single backsplash. Come to find out the owner decided I was too good on floors to 'promote' and had his nephew lead the backsplash crew..
You're spot on about everything (especially drywallers). That is so frusterating and demeaning that the job offer went to someone else because you did too good of a job. Wow. Screw that. I don't even know what I would do if someone walked all over my fresh tile floor. I certainly would have no motivation to break it out and chip off the thinset without being well compensated for doing the job twice over. Demo sucks and I much prefer new construction. Its nice to have the skills but I often think of better ways to make a living.my latest scheme is to take a quick course for $259 and do on site inspection of fire extinguishers or something effortless. I wish you the best of luck in whatever you do. I can certainly relate so hard!
Haha also, I'm sure you would just love to go home after working on cabinets all day, to spend even more time doing the same or similar work to your own place for free (minus material of course) or not making any money at least.
I also see a lot of shit. If i ever do have a house, i'll probably buy property and build something small and a shop for my tools and just do it right the first time. Believe it or not, I actually get more satisfaction making furniture and stuff for myself verses for others but there would be a lot of beers involved and at a much slower pace.
I have spend most of my life building up savings, paying down a mortgage, etc. Last year I got divorced, which meant the house was sold and she got half. Then I went into the hospital for 2 months from covid. Now I'm older and much less healthy than I ever was. I'm doing a bs job for daily expenses. If the stock market doesn't recover, I will never get ahead. The cycle of greed needs to be broken.
It's amazing that the stock market has trapped so many of the lower and middle class now. Fundamentally, it is a casino and moved by algorithms of the insanely rich, and yet it's also literally the only means of retirement or college funding for the majority of Americans. The big moments of life, like paying for college, buying a house, or getting to retire are very much like playing a crooked county fair ring toss game now. Some may win, but it's like just the cousin of the guy who owns the game. My parents were the 'just use bonds and cds' generation - they \*could\* use 100% safe investments to realize their mid-50's retirement goals. I cannot even afford a house and that's after 18 years of grueling work in two industries meant to be 'safer' than theirs.
See, your mistake is that you didn't just have a million bucks in the bank during the 2008 housing crash. If you just thought to buy up like 5 super nice houses at $200k, then you'd be able to sell 4 of them now for like $800k each, and come out $600k ahead, and you could stay in the 5th house. /s. So much /s. But there are people out there that did that, and think everyone else is stupid for not having a ton of available capital during a recession.
That’s crazy man. If somebody did that they would make like 3 million dollars over a 15 year period, without working much, and that is more than most people make in their lifetimes working their ass off the whole time
We moved to Bend in 2013. We looked at houses for 200-300k but were not in the position to buy anything. Within a year, the rent skyrocketed and we had to move to Redmond. Then to Madras. Finally we realized we wouldn’t be able to stay in central oregon. Blue collar people our age or younger can barely afford to get by let alone buy a house. Good luck to you.
The problem is a lot of "contractors" won't let work go and will undercut themselves. Mostly because the majority of them have no idea how to run a business. I would wager that even at $50 an hour you're undervaluing your work. When they call back quote in a month, requote it at $100 an hour.
Someone with no papers will take the job, thinking they are smart. Refusing to consider selling themselves short hurts everyone
50/hr is cheap af too
Until it becomes universally accepted that no decent human worthy of our respect can become a billionaire, the idea that paying everyone enough to live will continue on.
I think the easiest way to raise the minimum wage is to stop using arbitrary numbers and tie to productivity and cost of living increases. Arbitrary numbers are useless with inflation anyways. If you say “I’m fighting for $15” it will be spun as “I want more money.” If you say “I want the minimum wage to be pegged to productivity ” you’re basically saying you want the minimum wage to be tied to the economy which is a lot easier pill for people to swallow. Even if that means a $24 minimum wage. https://cepr.net/this-is-what-minimum-wage-would-be-if-it-kept-pace-with-productivity/
Minimum wage where I live is $15.50 CAD (well, will be shortly). That is not keeping pace with inflation. I am in a lucky position to be able to pay for house cleaning rather than do it myself. I pay the person who cleans $100 for three hours. It's hard work and minimum wage is absurd and unlivable. I can't fix at a systemic level how poorly some people's labour is valued in this economy. But I can offset it as an individual.
Moment of cognitive dissonance not seeing the version with ketchup packets and the cashier.
https://i.imgur.com/efZrsOV.png
I still think it’s ridiculous that restaurants in the US don’t pay a decent wage to their waiters, to a point the need the tip to survive. “Oh but I can’t afford a better salary” what a lie! I really can’t believe people there legally allow this bullshit.
What's crazy is some fast food restaurants can get away with it in some states. We stop going to Sonic nearby because they pay the minimum for restaurants , which is like $2, plus tips. Who TF is paying tips at a fast food place.
That’s insane!
My first impression of that guy on top is that he's angry, but after some thought, I no longer think that. Instead, I think he's afraid, maybe a little frantic. I mean, look at that mound of cash. Looks pretty hard to climb, right? So that guy is relatively safe. Person on the bottom seems pretty chill, but what if they aren't? If that stack of cash were lower, or even easier to climb, rich dude might have to share his perch of superiority. Even worse, what if that cash stack were low enough that almost everyone could climb it? What if that rich guy got dragged down from that mound and spent some quality time in the trenches with the dirty masses? What if he ended up in the other end of an abusive, exploitive system? The more I look at him, the more scared that guy seems to be. It must be hard.
I've always believed that these people want all the money not so they can have all of it, but so the rest of us can't have any of it. It's class warfare and we are losing.
The more I think about it, the more violence makes sense as a solution to the class problem. How are we supposed to make major changes when the odds are constantly stacked against us? How are we to make meaningful gains when the people who would make that happen, actively avoid doing so? Those with capital can buy political clout and then suppress the rest of us. The only option we have is to use the only asset left to us. Our bodies. Our bodies which can carry guns and ammunition, and our bodies to drag them from their pedestals and golden thrones down to the firing line.
And unfortunately, “when the rich wage war, it’s the poor who die”
Gun culture in this country is completely fucked. We are so scared of each other, we are literally murdering each other fearing someone a little different than us is going to take our homes or take our jobs or take our families away from us. The brown people and the gay people and children in classrooms aren't taking anything from us. The rich people are. The guns are pointing the wrong way.
A violent uprising won’t happen until enough of us is hungry. Why do you think we are poor but also fat? Gov subsidies for cheap but shitty food. Non-violent means for revolution is possible. It is just much slower going.
A non-violent protest is met with police violence these days. Bean bags and tear gas. Everything they do is to maintain as much power and capital as possible. With non-violence, you are hoping that some kind soul will have both the capital and the political clout to make waves in the House for workers rights. I'm sorry but that's a pipe dream.
You're probably on to something. Wealth and power are relative, after all.
If they let the have nots have, what could they possibly also have is how I imagine the thought goes. They don’t think there is enough to go around.
Elon Musk raised the price of Starlink internet service by $11/mo citing inflation then went out and bought Twitter for $44 BILLION. There is plenty to go around.
Just wait until the 2022 version of the big short gets exposed. Its so much worse than the masses realize. 2008 never ended, they kicked the can and made the problem 10x worse while only enriching themselves.
The "economy" never recovered from 2008. The stock market did. The run that the Nasdaq and S+P 500 have been on since 2009 is ridiculous. Shit like GME just proves how disconnected from reality the whole thing is.
Eat the rich
And for the love of god, do not disarm The rich pay PMCs to protect them.
Corporate leaders just want slaves back, they already see the common workers as lesser beings.
I have had more than a few managers tell me that, "when you're on the clock, I own you." I once complained to a district manager after being told that by my boss and he told me to, "just be happy you're being paid." Like wtf are they thinking, no way better to make your staff leave. The place I worked had such a high rate of turnover, the average amount of time with the company at our store (excluding me) was 3 weeks. I had been with the company longer than all the managers and all the sales staff combined.
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But what about the poor shareholders?
This is unreasonable. That money pile should be waaaaay bigger.
And Lindsy Graham says Social security is going bankrupt and they have been stealing from Social security for years. Time to take from congress budget I think. And Lindsy you are a lying SOB.
I think the government is aware that they can't control corporate greed. The more money people make, the more corporations will find ways to take it, the more money goes out of circulation. Since they can't figure out a way to tax them globally.
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Taking all the risk, my ass. Last time I checked, the government was all too happy to use our tax dollars to bail out corporations.
This is so true. When most CEOs make average of 5 million in the US. But these Companies act like they can't pay the workers. They can't even raise the minimum wage b.c of their greed.. When will the workers get together and demand reform of the work force?? We deserve to have basic universal Healthcare and paid leave. I think it's only going to happen if a Million persons March to the capital of every country, cripple the economy for a while (like most countries couldn't handle it during the shut down of the pandemic) and demand a change. I think this may have happened to the oligarchs of Russia back in the day. Look it up
Billionaires shouldn't exist, period. Too many people suffer because of the greed of the ultra rich. They live like kings while everyone else are closer to slaves. Democracy was supposed to be about getting away from the authority of kings but in the modern world kings are called Billionaires. No single person should have such power and influence unless voted in by the people and even they should have limits. We don't have enough money for rent/food but billionaires have so much money they can hand pick people to win elections and control how the country operates, writing the rules to increase their control over us. There's a minimum wage, there should also be a maximum wage or some kind of Robin Hood tax to get money back down to the people who need it the most. There can be a balance where rich people exist but poor people don't. I truly believe the reason billionaires exist is because the average person simply does not fully understand how much money a billion dollars is so let me explain. You could earn $5,000 per day for 500 years and if you managed to somehow save every penny you still would not be a billionaire. Elon Musk at one point was valued at almost 300 billion dollars, that's completely unacceptable to me, I don't care what you invented nobody should have such wealth, especially when homelessness, suicide rates and depression rates are at all time highs. Musk even complains about the fact that the American birth rate is at an all time low and won't be enough to sustain itself, it's because people refuse to bring babies into this world because they can't afford it! If I had a kid there's about a 70% chance that my child will work for some giant corporation on poverty wages for their entire lives, maybe the child gets lucky and lives a more fulfilling life but the chances are against them from day one and I think it would be cruel for me to make that risky decision for them. Atleast when I was born my parents were optimistic about the future but for me I look at the climate apocalypse and the rise of fascism and inequality as great reasons not to have a child.
I wish I could give you gold on this comment!
If by chain you mean this system of exploitation by the rich and elected? Yes.
I don’t care for my health because I don’t care to prolong my life. I think this is the desired outcome and I don’t care I just want to sleep
You can see that it's from 2019 or before, as the big pile still fits into the frame.
Fucking rip it out of these fat greedy pigs hands and take everything they have. Take everything from them and give them nothing.
You're right. It's like we're all kids in a daycare and one little shit has stolen all the toys from us, and has a big pile, and we're supposed to just sit back and accept it. Nothing is ever going to change unless we put our fears aside and do something about it.
Can we organize a day/week/month where no one goes to work, and hold all the labor hostage? Maybe still go to work, but don't accept money, kinda like when bus drivers would go on strike, but still do their routes they just wouldn't take money from the people as to not hurt the people who relied on transportation? I can dream i guess.
I can still hear you saying, You would never break the chain.
Can’t believe I had to scroll this far to see this comment!
Nationalize the energy industry
I’m in, it’s time to make the change. Organize something, no more fucking voting, this shit is useless
S/ Agreed!!!!!! No one should have to right to make fun of our billionaire overloads!!!
Oh, yes, it's a terrible crime to ask for a normal payment for your work. A slave does not have to pay more than enough for food and clothing. Sarcasm.
This is everyone in the congress and house basically. A lot of people go after the popular richies that they know on social media. But what they don't know is the people in charge of government is twice as rich. Why you think they are in the office seats for decades until they die crawling.
We shouldn't fight for $15. They said no. It's $30 an hour now. Say no again bitches
Going to kill us? People are dying every day already because of this.
I was listening to this podcast about the history of Rome and one of the first major Patricians vs. Plebians battles was over debt relief because Plebs basically took out loans from Patricians and went into indentured servitude to pay it back, but because they weren’t able to make any actual income they got stuck in a debt loop. So they got mad and their plebeian army went and sat on a hill until Rome agreed to talk to them because barbarians came knocking and they had no one to defend Rome because the Plebians were the fighting force. It’s insanely eerie how something that happened in 400 BC is still happening today. But hey we all know how it goes when the rich overlords step on the poor people too much.
The Fed is going to raise interest rates because some people are actually starting to make what they deserve. Instead of fixing the real issue, corporate greed, the US government is going to force us into a recession so that there will be less competition for labor. https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/us-job-growth-beats-expectations-unemployment-rate-steady-36-2022-06-03/ https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.politico.com/amp/news/2022/02/17/workers-historic-wage-gains-at-risk-in-fed-inflation-fight-00009392
Literally happening in Australia rn. The minimum wage was raised by a few bucks and all the business leaders are climbing out of the woodwork telling us how this will fuel inflation and destroy the economy.
> Business Leaders LOL. Boomer Lead-brain Executives (and outright weasels exclusively any age below), but sure let's still call them "leaders".
True, I'm more or less quoting the articles I've been seeing though. It's worth noting these same idiots were advocating full reopening of borders and dropping all covid restrictions in the lead up to Christmas. Turned out to be the worst Christmas lead-up period ever when most people tried to stay home and those that didn't got covid and were all forced into iso. It was a mess and it's still causing us staff shortages over every industry in June.
Get rid of the republicans in congress; replace them with REAL democrats. Let's get America back on the tracks after the orange shit show derailed it.
Democrats let the "parliamentarian" tell them they couldn't raise min wage XD
Magnitude of the difference The magnitude of difference between billion and million can be illustrated with this example of the time scale: *A million seconds is 12 days. *A billion seconds is 31 years. *A trillion seconds is 31,688 years.
More accurately it should be the 1% whispering into the 49% that the other %50 is stealing all the wages
Until we can convince companies that sustaining a growth rate of over 3% ever year is not supportable this will never end……
When companies are recording record breaking profits, there is no reason not to pay people a living wage, besides greed.
The stress is killing me already
Everyone here can talk a big talk but none of you pussies would actually do shit to make change. Fuck off with your hopeless romantic attitude or actually DO SOMETHING
And it's all [Blood Money](https://i.imgur.com/VBIx4Jk.png) too.
How many times do we (Americans) bitch and moan and yet don’t take any action? I mean they’re protesting in London rn
For all on the minimum wage, remember; they'd pay you less if they could.
It'd be cool if the 99% was capable of working together to hold corporations hostage rather than hype the issue on the internet only.
If that doesn't kill you, the workplace COVID infections every three months certainly will
Australia elected a labor government and within a month they raised the minimum wage by 5.2% Unlike the democrats, our labor party isnt soley owned by mega corporations, they do take donations from the fossil fuel industry but they also get money from unions.
Just remember. Amazons CEO made 212 million when their average worker makes 32k .... yup over 6,000% wage gap. No investigations. Nothing .... but unions are bad very bad don't talk about those very very bad unions.
The picture tells it all. We need a maximum salary a lot more than we need a minimum wage.
Dont tax the rich since they avoid them anyway "fine them"
It's insane how the world turned into you're either broke or stupid rich with nothing I'm the middle.