Jack Saturday

Monday, July 25, 2016

Anti Wage-Slavery Pro-Freedom Quotations Of The Week 1485-1487

It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?
Henry David Thoreau











Even the busy bees and ants of Aesopian fame dedicate only about 20 percent of the day to doing chores like gathering nectar or tidying up the nest. Otherwise, the insects stay still. "They seem to have run out of work to do," said Dr. Gene E. Robinson, an entomologist at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. "They really do look lazy."
Busy as a Bee? Then Who's Doing the Work? 
by Natalie Angier, NYT 30 July 1991






Interest rates are negative. Better than free borrowing is what that means. Why? Because the ultra rich have so much there’s nowhere good left to put it. Just to shove it in the bank. Hence, they’ll pay for the privilege of lending it. Supply and demand.

Leaders should be crying “hallelujah!”, taking this money, and giving it in great gobs to the young, the middle, the poor. Investing in all the public goods they’ve left in ruins, healthcare, education, transport, etc.

Why? Because average people are getting effectively poorer. Their lives are beginning to really collapse. And they’re turning now to strongmen and demagogues to rescue them.

Society is beginning to turn on itself because money is not flowing. It’s not doing anything just sitting there, right? That’s why the economy is stuck, stagnant, broken. It’s like a dammed river gone stagnant and murky.

They should be showering people with money. Nothing could be more obvious. But leaders across the world aren’t doing that. Not a single one.
umair haque
[emphasis JS]





Monday, July 18, 2016

Anti Wage-Slavery Pro-Freedom Quotations Of The Week 1482-1484


Robert Nilsson, a 25-year-old mechanic in Sweden's second city Gothenburg, may be the harbinger of a future where people work less and still enjoy a high standard of living.

He gets out of bed at the same time as everyone else, but instead of rushing to work, he takes it easy, goes for a jog, enjoys his breakfast, and doesn't arrive at his Toyota workshop until noon, only to punch out again at 6:00 pm. Toyota's Gothenburg branch introduced the six-hour day in 2002 to make its facilities more efficient by having two shifts, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, instead of a single, longer one.
Nilsson confirms that in his experience a six-hour day -- paid as much as eight -- is more efficient because it requires fewer breaks.
"Every time you have a break, it takes 10 to 15 minutes to get back to work, because you have to see where you were when you left off," he said.
That efficiency is reflected in the salary, as the Toyota workshop pays technicians like Nilsson 29,700 Swedish kronor (3,300 euro, $4,510) a month, well above the 25,100 kronor (2,790 euro, $3,810) national average for workers in the private sector.

"It was a huge success straight away," said Toyota service centre manager Elisabeth Jonsson.

"We saw the results, and everything was working for the staff, for the company, for the customers, so I don't think we ever had any discussion about putting an end to it."
[emphasis JS]


Working at walmart is one of the most unpleasant experiences of my life. I worked in the maintenance department;( which is a euphemism for custodial; which is a euphemism for janitorial.) With about eight or nine other guys. WAY too many. Because of that, most of the time you'll have about three people doing all the work, while the rest are sleeping in their cars or standing around talking. The manager's worked with my so called supervisor to schedule me so that I was ALWAYS running a machine while the rest didn't do JACK SHIT, rather than simply rotating it around, to keep it fair. Don't ask me why. It was like this for over a year. I didn't say anything because I figured they would at least appreciate me for being a team player. (lol, I know, right?) Finally, one day I got into a debate with a guy over who was the better working in maintenance and because I beat him the truth finally came out: He said they laughed at me behind my back, and took my "perseverance" for good ol fashion stupidity. I knew they'd always felt that way, but to have them tell it to me in my face was more than I could handle. I lost it. So I went to the supervisor and asked him for ONE DAY off the machines. Think about that. ONE FUCKING DAY. He was NEVER on the machines working. His pal was NEVER on the machine working. The others at least as two or three days off. When I ask him for one day, he immediately said no and that if I had a problem with it, then I should go to a manager. I went to her, and she gave me the run around. My supervisor literally LAUGHED when he heard her bullshitting me. So what I did, I got a print out of the schedule they were using that SHOWED how they were mistreating me, and I spoke with the head manager. I had a VERY long talk with him, and I have to admit, at one point I actually cried while talking about how managed and the co workers were doing me. He kept me off the machines, I made some enemies, but I solved the problem. Walmart can be a HORRIBLE place to work. Don't tolerant work place mistreatment at Walmart. At Walmart, your bosses and co workers look for signs of weakness. Once they spot 'em, they'll take advantage of you and make your life a living hell. Course I guess that's everywhere....
MrSihrus2
Comment on YouTube video
[emphasis JS]



It is cheaper to give homeless people a home than it is to leave them on the streets.
That’s not just the opinion of advocates working to end homelessness, nor is it the opinion of homeless people themselves. It is a fact that has been borne out by studies across the country, from Florida to Colorado and beyond.
The latest analysis to back up this fact comes out of Charlotte, where researchers from the University of North Carolina Charlotte examined a recently constructed apartment complex that was oriented towards homeless people.
Moore Place opened in 2012 with 85 units. Each resident is required to contribute 30 percent of his or her income, which includes any benefits like disability, veterans, or Social Security, toward rent. The rest of the housing costs, which total approximately $14,000 per person annually, are covered by a mix of local and federal government grants, as well as private donors.
In the first year alone, researchers found that Moore Place saved taxpayers $1.8 million. These savings comes from improvements in two primary areas: health care and incarceration.
Residents of Moore Place collectively visited the emergency room, an expensive but not uncommon way homeless people access health care, 447 fewer times in the year after getting housing, the study discovered. Similarly, they spent far less time running afoul of the law, with the number of arrests dropping 78 percent
BY SCOTT KEYES UPDATED: MARCH 24, 2014
[emphasis JS]






Tuesday, July 12, 2016

Anti Wage-Slavery Pro-Freedom Quotations Of The Week 1479-1481

Basic income is a universal income grant available to every citizen without means test or work requirement. Academic discussion of basic income and related policies has been growing in the fields of economics, philosophy, political science, sociology, and public policy over the last few decades — with dozens of journal articles published each year, and basic income constituting the subject of more than 30 books in the last 10 years. In addition, the political discussion of basic income has been expanding through social organizations, NGOs and other advocacy groups. Internationally, recent years have witnessed the endorsement of basic income by grassroots movements as well as government officials in developing countries such as Brazil or South-Africa.
Basic Income Studies



In his new book, Raising the Floor: How a Universal Basic Income Can Renew Our Economy and Rebuild the American Dream, Stern argues that technology is replacing jobs at an accelerating rate, and that this trend is permanent and threatens our society with massive job losses over the next few decades in both blue- and white-collar sectors of the economy. His premise is that this rate of change is historically without precedent and reflects an “inflection point”—a permanent paradigmatic shift in how work is and will be organized apart from anything to do with the business cycle. “We are heading off a cliff,” Stern says, and traditional liberal approaches can’t stop us.

The only solution that makes sense is a radical one; namely, a Universal Basic Income in which every person is given a fixed amount of money per year, a “floor” upon which individuals can build wealth by engaging in further work (there is no ceiling, only a floor) or which can be used as a security blanket for those who want the economic freedom to explore personal growth or leisure activity.
By Michael Bader, DMH / AlterNet July 1, 2016
[emphasis JS]





There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of his life getting his living.
Henry David Thoreau









Monday, July 04, 2016

Anti Wage-Slavery Pro-Freedom Quotations Of The Week 1476-1478

Would Ms. Macy’s readers accept it if their jobs were lost to robots and precision manufacturing systems? Trade redistributes jobs but automation directly redistributes gains upwards – the gains are fully captured by owners of capital. Would Ms. Macy write a book about “unfettered automation” and CEOs that profit from robots on the assembly line? I suspect not. Why? Because robots are not foreigners, they do not belong to a strange and foreign culture and they cannot be demonized as slave labor.
Ravi Aron 
Baltimore June 25, 2015
Comment



Globally, the richest 1% now own nearly half of all the world’s wealth. The poorest 50% of the world, by contrast—fully 3 billion people—own less than 1% of its wealth.


By Simon Reid-Henry / University of Chicago Press
November 30, 2015 





To have done anything just for money is to have been truly idle.

Henry David Thoreau