Joe Mac
Well-Known Member
To be fair if a good chunk of the EU gets it way it will be, which is a very depressing thought.
Political Discussion
- Thread starter David A.
- Start date
To be fair if a good chunk of the EU gets it way it will be, which is a very depressing thought.
Chucktshoes
Well-Known Member
I’m kind of surprised to hear you say that. It sounds dangerously close to a pro Brexit line of thinking.
Joe Mac
Well-Known Member
I’m kind of surprised to hear you say that. It sounds dangerously close to a pro Brexit line of thinking.
I am hugely sceptical of elements that want to create a federal Europe, of the democratic deficit and elements of the administration of the euro zone but I am fully on board with the idea of the European project, trading relations and the fact that we haven’t had a world war in Europe of late!
Of course, it is because of something else. Our natural state is not one of suffering. It's self imposed, but we often have a hard time seeing that. As to why we continue on a course that only causes more suffering? I think it has a lot to do with us not wanting to be uncomfortable; again this is more akin to duhkha, which is why I pointed out the difference in the beginning--we humans aren't great with things being uncomfortable--and I think it drives us just as much as running away from "suffering" (which I think is all just on a spectrum of misery which we humans, again, create for ourselves). So I would say that the western definition of suffering is much too extreme if we want to talk about how it compels action. Instead, it's more this uncomfortableness, this annoyance, this boredom that we would have to stop doing something, or start doing something, that keeps us in the same ruts we are in.
Think of what you could have been paid had the wage had kept up with inflation through the 80's and into the 90's?
Chucktshoes
Well-Known Member
I’m just busting your balls. The opening was just too reason, I couldn’t resist.
That said, I’m glad you are skeptical and cautious of letting Germany win World War II 80 years on.
My first job started at $7 an hour when I was 16. State minimum wage was $6.75 at the time in Massachusetts.
I was in shell shock when I went to college in 2004 in New Hampshire and the minimum wage was $5.15 an hour. I couldn't find a part time job freshmen year that paid more than $5.50 an hour near my university. All work study jobs on campus paid minimum wage.
I was so frustrated with how on a good week at best I could make sub $200. No chance I could pay my way through school on that. It just covered my car payment, car insurance and other bills at the time.
Joe Mac
Well-Known Member
I’m just busting your balls. The opening was just too reason, I couldn’t resist.
That said, I’m glad you are skeptical and cautious of letting Germany win World War II 80 years on.
Hahaha! I know! But people still get surprised when they realise just how eurospectic I actually am whilst still thinking that it’s a project worth perusing.
One of the biggest issues I have with Brexit is that Britain back when it engaged used to be a really effective counterbalance to federalists and French/German hegemony. It was often wrong but it was also often right and it was a useful perspective. Since it stopped being interested the EU has got worse and it being gone will make the Union worse again.
Chucktshoes
Well-Known Member
That begs the question then, is there a point the federalists could push it to that would make you abandon the project? Is there a line in the sand of Ireland remaining Ireland that you are unwilling to cross?
jaycee
Well-Known Member
My first job was when I was 12 delivering newspapers and shaking-down old people for their 50 cents per week or whatever it was for delivery. My second job was working in a window manufacture at the beginning of the assembly line for minimum wage. I quit after a week because some asshole kept telling me how worthless I was. I got my 3rd job dish-washing for $3.25/hr the same day I quit the 2nd. Below minimum wage $1 at the time but under-the-table (i have stories about that place). I went to college after that 3rd job. Thankfully I had saved enough of my illegal wages to smoke myself stupid that first semester.
Edit: Who am I kidding? That money only lasted me 6 weeks.
Joe Mac
Well-Known Member
Theoretically there is. Its difficult to know what this is or where it lies until such a time as it occurs but it’s definitely there.
Chucktshoes
Well-Known Member
My first job paid well below the minimum wage. It was the US Air Force.
jaycee
Well-Known Member
Phew - "well below" definitely doesn't cover it
Chucktshoes
Well-Known Member
Well I have no direct dog in that fight, I do find that comforting. I would hate to see Europe progress from what I interpret as the equivalent of the articles of confederation to a more tightly enmeshed constitution.
Max Sterling
Well-Known Member
I imagine if McDonalds, Walmart, and the like housed, clothed, and fed their employee's this would be less of an issue.
Chucktshoes
Well-Known Member
Less than $250 on the first and the 15th of every month in 1996.
Chucktshoes
Well-Known Member
Only as long as I remained unmarried. Also, you can quit all those other jobs. You can’t just quit the military.
bfly
Well-Known Member
just last week, I asked my dad what his first real "starter" job was and what he made- it was when he was a teenager and got a gig playing at a fondue restaurant for 3 hours on Friday and Saturday nights. I asked what the pay was and he scoffed ("only" $45 a night plus a bit in tips and dinner), but quit scoffing when I said that meant he'd be making nearly $100/hour today as a 14 year old.
Dtknuckles
Well-Known Member
I’m guessing you enlisted because of the stability and got you out of somewhere you did not want to be. We’re their any other reasons?
I am really hating this trend of prisons being a source of cheap labor. First, fire fighting in CA for pennies an hour and now agriculture, meat, and dairy products being produced by prisoners that get paid around $4.50/day. This is equivalent to slave labor, and with ridiculous laws (like all drug laws because they are stupid) that make it easy to incarcerate black and brown people, this is modern slavery. There is no other word for it.
The Counter identified over $40 million in transactions between private food companies, prisons, and prison industries since 2017, including sales to major food industry players like Cargill and the Dairy Farmers of America. Across the country, at least 650 correctional institutions have some sort of food processing, landscaping, or farming operation, according to research by sociologist Joshua Sbicca and feminist geographer-political ecologist Carrie Chennault at Colorado State University.
In some states, food produced in prisons makes its way into restaurants and grocery stores through companies like Leprino, though in most places, food produced on prison grounds feeds the prison system and the public sector. Elsewhere, private food companies contract with state correctional industries to hire incarcerated workers, often for meager pay. In some ways, the small world of prison food production is a microcosm of the American food system, which has roots in slave labor and all too often functions as a race to the bottom: Fueled in part by cheap labor and low overhead, the drive toward production and profit leaves behind the people who plant the seeds and butcher the beef.
thecounter.org
The Counter identified over $40 million in transactions between private food companies, prisons, and prison industries since 2017, including sales to major food industry players like Cargill and the Dairy Farmers of America. Across the country, at least 650 correctional institutions have some sort of food processing, landscaping, or farming operation, according to research by sociologist Joshua Sbicca and feminist geographer-political ecologist Carrie Chennault at Colorado State University.
In some states, food produced in prisons makes its way into restaurants and grocery stores through companies like Leprino, though in most places, food produced on prison grounds feeds the prison system and the public sector. Elsewhere, private food companies contract with state correctional industries to hire incarcerated workers, often for meager pay. In some ways, the small world of prison food production is a microcosm of the American food system, which has roots in slave labor and all too often functions as a race to the bottom: Fueled in part by cheap labor and low overhead, the drive toward production and profit leaves behind the people who plant the seeds and butcher the beef.
How corporations buy—and sell—food made with prison labor
It's generally illegal to sell prison-made goods across state lines. But since the 1930s, the law has included an exemption for agriculture.
thecounter.org
Chucktshoes
Well-Known Member
I was 17 years old (my mom signed the enlistment paperwork) freshly graduated from high school, with no direction or path in life. The USAF provided me with a way to get direction, or at the very least a way to be productive until I found it. My dad had been career USAF and my family had had a long history of military service across all the branches. it was a good choice for me. I still think it’s a good choice for those similarly situated.