Comments on: After A Layoff, Detroit Family Struggles

CBS Evening News: In Hard-Hit Detroit, Are Children Getting Left Behind?

[curse914]

Isn't it strange that in my parents' generation only one parent generally needed to be the breadwinner? AND they had full health insurance for their families through their employer. AND they were able to have a decent pension through their employer.

AND CEOs made a lot less then, relative to the average worker.

AND companies felt a certain loyalty to their workers (which no longer exists).

Care to tell me how all THAT all happened?

How much can you put on the "little guy's" shoulders before he collapses?

Posted by democracy1 at 9:05 AM : Apr 26, 2009

Wages have not matched inflation since the late 1960's (era of the single wage earner).

We had a manufacturing base then. An economy based entirely on services is another grand lie. As productivity quadrupled, wages stagnated and manufacturing was outsourced to nations with no worker or product safety regulations. This was not for the betterment for all, but a select few that own the means to capital and are intent on increasing their share of wealth and control.

If anyone thinks that pure capitalism actually promotes competition, they are naive. The name of the game is to corner the market and make the assent to compete so steep as to be impossible to take a peace of the pie. A mom and pop outfit can not compete with a WalMart that can outsource production to countries that higher workers for pennies a day. This is why we have 3 major poultry processing plants that all poultry in our nation is sent to. Regulations have been put in place for the benefit of these processors that make it cost prohibitive to process local poultry; it is an absurd arrangement between the government and these peaces of paper (corporations) that makes entry into the market intentionally impossible.

[vietnamwar]

vote fo Obama ,ask for Obama come and bail out... heh heh heh

[democracy1]

There are many of us who DO live within our means: without buying on credit, paying our reasonable-interest fixed-rates mortgages on time every month, going without the latest electronic toys, growing some of our own food, not buying top label clothes, etc.

We may be highly educated and work as hard as we can (sometimes over 65 hrs/wk), often with 3-6 hours a day simply commuting (which is also very expensive).

Yet, over the past 30 years, we've seen the average worker's pay falling in comparison to the GDP (while their productivity rose dramatically) and CEO compensation soaring. Companies lay off the "little guy" while keeping CEOs who are often overpaid even while incompetently tanking their companies.

We have also seen the burden of the cost of health care increasingly transferred to the worker from the employer over the same time period. And since it's considered part of your "compensation package", essentially your "compensation" has gone down.

Isn't it strange that in my parents' generation only one parent generally needed to be the breadwinner? AND they had full health insurance for their families through their employer. AND they were able to have a decent pension through their employer.

AND CEOs made a lot less then, relative to the average worker.

AND companies felt a certain loyalty to their workers (which no longer exists).

Care to tell me how all THAT all happened?

How much can you put on the "little guy's" shoulders before he collapses?

[curse914]

Posted by weedapeapl at 7:12 AM : Apr 26, 2009

Clinton's "prosperity" was a technology bubble. Bush's "prosperity" was financial instruments bubble and it all was a 30 Reagan Revolution bubble. You want to make this partisan, fine, blame the concept of Deregulation which led to these successive bubbles.

These bubble are the death throws of a perpetual growth economic system collapsing. It is not only perpetual growth, but it is exponential. Because we can not produce enough consumers at an exponential rate to generate wealth for the privileged few, the system was tweaked to simulate growth (a bubble). Since much of the wealth that was "created" since Reagan has been erased, is was a magnificent deception, but the party is over.

[curse914]

Have any of you considered and economic system with little to no growth?

As much a the folks on the right cry about illegals in France or Spain, officials in their governments import workers because they do not have the tax base to support their standard of living.

Industrialized nations naturally reduce population as their populations becomes more educated, reproduction is understood to be a choice. But the choice to not reproduce is a non-starter when tied to an economic system that requires perpetual economic and by extension population growth.

As nations become more "successful" they require more wage slaves to support the standard of living for a select few. On a global scale we have the top 1.4 billion consuming 76 percent of all extracted resources from this planet at any given time. 5.3 billion are extracting resources and making them into products for those privileged 1.4 billion. There is no way that any more of our current planet population can consume at the level of those lucky 1.4. So the majority of the planet are enslaved by Globalization's promise to "lift all boats". It is a monumental farce perpetuated by those who want to maintain a system that will eventually collapsed under its own weight.

[weedapeapl]

FREE TRADE IS SLAVERY

Slavery was abolished by the Constitution.

So why do we still have free trade?

[weedapeapl]

When did the Clinton prosperity end?

Everybody knows it ended about this time of year eight years ago. And everybody knows Bush got the blame.

Everybody said "Boosh took office, and our prosperity disappeared overnight."

Well, NOW IT'S OBAMA'S TURN!

Obama's three months are up.

OBAMA IS TO BLAME NOW FOR THE WAY THINGS ARE NOW.

Nobody said "Give Bush more time." So nobody should be saying "Give Obama more time."

He's had as much time as Bush had. The time for blaming Bush is over.

OBAMA IS THE WORST PRESIDENT IN 100 YEARS.

Hey, maybe the workers in Detroit wouldn't be suffering so much if Obama wasn't THE FOURTH PRESIDENT IN A ROW to support free trade, which is letting slave labor nations rob U.S. workers of their jobs.

Anybody who forces you to compete with slave labor is INTENTIONALLY TURNING YOU INTO A SLAVE.

[remuses13]

110000$ salary and a 1000$ mortgage..they supposed to have some savings and the father can get a job in transportation .. or this job is not for an engineer?...I don't feel sorry for people who worked in automotive industry they get overpaid and look what happened with this industry because their incompetence....US engineers at Toyota, who design the cars and factories, are paid a little less than at the Big 3 now Small 3:) and they are doing a great job

[jwind1]

Gosh that's tough. But the Walstreeters and Bushit Billionaires are doing OK, and that's what's important--those are the people who count.

Isn't that right, Repigs?
Posted by johnb8888 at 5:40 AM : Apr 26, 2009

yep...we love watching libs suffer for not applying themselves in life.....these are a few of our favorite things

[Atheism_Wins]

Ospenda: Pay up, taxpayer! All you fools who didn't protest on April 15? Shut up and pay up!

American marginal tax rates:

Above $ 7,200 35%
above $ 8,950 45%
above $12,850 37%
above $16,950 42%

For those in the 35% bracket:

Loss of Earned Income Tax Credit 7.7%
Payroll tax 15.3%
State and Local Income taxes, let's say 5%
Property taxes, Sales taxes, gas taxes, car fees, etc get us up to about 35%

At $ 8,950, add in Federal Income tax of 10%
At $12,850 your Earned Income Tax Credit stops phasing out
At $16,950 you're in the Federal 15% Income tax bracket