Everyone wants it for free...

From Daily Kos

Dairy industry warns of shortages and rising prices if it doesn't get cheap guest workers
from Daily Kos by rss@dailykos.com (Laura Clawson)

The current H-2A agricultural guest worker program just doesn't work for dairy farmers-and they're hoping immigration reform will change that. If it doesn't, they warn, we could see dairy shortages and rising prices. There is this one flaw in the argument, though:

    "They can never adequately explain why they can't raise wages," said Eric Ruark, research director for the Federation for American Immigration Reform in Washington. "If there's a labor shortage, you raise wages. That's classic supply-and- demand. Maximizing profits for the producer should not be the main goal of our food system."

Low paid workers - Republicans love them

The more we know, the more we can do to improve things.

From Crooks and Liars

Seven of the ten lowest paying jobs in America are restaurant jobs, and the two absolute lowest paying jobs in America are restaurant: dishwashers and fast food preps and cooks are the two absolute lowest paying jobs in America. These workers earn poverty wages because the minimum wage for tipped workers at the federal level has been frozen for 22 years at $2.13 an hour, and it's the reason that food servers use food stamps at double the rate of the rest of the U.S. workforce, and have a poverty rate of three times the rest of the U.S. workforce.

    We got to this place because of the power of the National Restaurant Association; we call it the other NRA. They've been named the tenth most powerful lobbying group in Congress and back in 1996 when Herman Cain was the head of the National Restaurant Association, he struck a deal with Congress saying that, "We will not oppose the overall minimum wage continuing to rise as long as the minimum wage for tipped workers stays frozen forever," and so it has for the last 22 years.

Do the economy the RIGHT way

Our priorities are screwed up

And our economy won't improve until we restore some balance.

Correcting the flaws in America.

Economy WITHOUT income redistribution

Now this is interesting...

I find the study noted below to be both interesting and conflicting. As a long time union member, I support the right of workers to get what is coming to them - but perhaps over-inflated fees for doctors needs to be studied a bit more. You can read more on this HERE.

The study, being published Thursday in the journal Health Affairs, found that the incomes of primary care doctors and orthopedic surgeons were substantially higher in the United States than in other countries. Moreover, it said, the difference results mainly from higher fees, not from higher costs of the doctors' medical practice, a larger number or volume of services or higher medical school tuition.

Such higher fees are driving the higher spending on doctors' services, the study concluded.

Think the U.S. is declining?

The last 10 years of wage gains are lower than during the Great Depression.

Loss of unions begets loss of income

Compensation for public workers in WI

An important article to read on the Republican plan for America

Quoted below - Joshua Holland, editor and senior writer at AlterNet - posted on Crooks and Liars...

The right's anti-tax crusade has been so successful that in 2010 the federal government collected a smaller share of our economic output in taxes than it had in 60 years. That's created a large deficit, which is now being used to justify cuts to popular social programs.

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Earlier this month, House Republicans laid out a perverse plan to lower working Americans' wages, supposedly in a bid to get employers to hire more of them (PDF). One would be hard-pressed to find a better example of the "race to the bottom."

Pay too high?

A Fark headline...


While we were busy debating whether or not 50k was too much to pay a teacher, CEO pay rose to an average of 9.6 million per year. So there's that

Debunking the myth of the over-compensated public emplyee

The data analysis in this paper, however, indicate that public employees, both state and local government, are not overpaid. Comparisons controlling for education, experience, hours of work, organizational size, gender, race, ethnicity and disability, reveal no significant overpayment but a slight under-compensation of public employees when compared to private employee compensation costs on a per hour basis. On average, full-time state and local employees are under-compensated by 3.7%, in comparison to otherwise similar private-sector workers.

Read more here...

Republicans loved them some Ronald Reagan - here's why

The Republicans brainwash you...

Republicans want you to believe that public sector workers earn so much more than workers in the private sector, but do they ever examine the facts? Nah.

20 Lies (and counting) as told by Gov. Walker of Wisonsin

Russ' Filtered News examines some of the lies told by Wisconsin's Governor Walker and provides links to resource materials authenticating the claims.  One of my favorites...

Walker: Public employees are more richly compensated than their public sector counterparts.

The truth: According to the Economic Policy Institute, wages and salaries of state and local employees are lower than those for private sector employees with comparable earnings determinants such as education and work experience. State workers typically are under-compensated by 8.2% in Wisconsin.

An Interesting Statistic (News) (Commentary)

Since we don't see what's going on over in Europe, we aren't very aware. Most Americans (self included) do not take enough time to follow how things are faring in the other well-developed nations of the world. Conservatives like to take time out to make fun of the French and the universal health care offered overseas, but for the most part, we really don't know how they are doing financially.

The following little bit came from Time Magazine, 1/21/2008, and I think it says a lot about what is happening to the US under the Bush administration. So many of our resources are going into fighting a stupid war and into rewarding citizens who are already rich that we're losing ground for the average Joe.

(Time) The United Kingodm's gross domestic product figures for 2007 reveal that the average Brit made $46,380 - that's $500 per year MORE than the average US citizen made. This is the first time since the 19th century (that's the 1800's, folks) that the average person in Britain will make more than someone in the US.

Bush's policies are hurting us badly. Maybe it's time to rething all of our trade agreements that allow US businesses to move their manufacturing to other nations, then reimport the production to the US at no cost and without trade protections. Let's bring some American jobs back home.