there are lots of jobs that need doing,
companies have the money to hire people,
instead the execs are putting the money in their own pockets
One major gripe of the tea party and people sympathetic to their views is that %47 of the population are lazy parasites who don't want to work and are being supported by hard working people like tea party members.
explicitly the idea is-people don't want to work, they would rather get handouts
implicitly is the idea that these people could be working.
Have you ever been in a store that seemed to be run on a skeleton crew, can't find anyone to ask a question, long lines at the cash register? Not to mention the value of experienced, helpful, motivated staff, rather than minimum wage kids. Have you been put on hold, while a recording said "we are experiencing an unusually high level of call volume".
Bullshit.
If it were truthful, that recording would say:
"we are experiencing an unusually high level of executive compensation and consequently are not hiring enough people to run the business properly".
There are thousands of businesses across America that need more sales people, customer service reps, technical people, clerks, etc. but instead of hiring enough people to staff the counters and floors, the execs are choosing to pad their own pockets and raise their own pay, give themselves perks and bonuses, and run the companies on a skeleton crew.
"Downsizing" was the euphemism fat cat execs used to fire people, make the poor slobs left work two jobs for the price of one, and stick the money in their own pockets. What bullshit.
Think about it: if all the executives were sick for the day, the business would still go on. If the sales floor staff didn't show up, it's all over.
For every $1,000,000 some yacht owning private plane flying CEO chooses to enrich himself with, he could have hired 30 people at $33,000 per, and some of these greedy motherfuckers have pay and perks in the hundreds of millions of dollars, which would hire a lot of needed staff. Not that they should do it out of the goodness of their hearts, but because it's good business to be staffed at adequate levels (unless of course your yacht needs a new coat of paint).
So that's a lot of jobs that need to be done, aren't getting done, and could get done, but won't be done as long as the top execs can get away with it. My guess is that millions of jobs could be created immediately by redirecting business resources from executive pay to hiring needed workers.
As far as the %47 not wanting to work, that's simply not true. Maybe there is %10 of them that would slack off, but the rest want to work, they are looking for work, and they can't find work.
Let's go a little deeper.
If we look at the total number of hours of work in this country and ask how it is divided, we see that 120 hours of work can be 3 x 40hr jobs or 4 x 30hr jobs. In other words, there is more than enough work for everyone in the country, if the workweek were shorter. People could actually spend time with their families and have some time for themselves.
Could people make enough to live on? Now we get into the issues of how wages and prices get set, who sets them. The basic answer is that the owners have workers and renters by the balls and squeeze as hard as they can get away with. "I'm taking what they're giving cause i"m working for a living". If you're someone who believes the rich should have the right to charge whatever they can, perhaps you also believe that someone with a gun has the right to take whatever they want from you, because in a subtle way, you do have a gun to your head.
Also, let's not forget that the rich have owned and operated government for a long time, buying the senators and congressmen and laws that they want, so the whole system is rigged for them and against you.
I want to clarify one point. I do not hate the rich, i have no problem with some people having more than others, even much more. i don't begrudge it to them, i'm not jealous, i don't think they're bad people just because they've got a lot of bucks. I've met a lot of nice people who have money.
What i do have a BIG problem with is cheating, rigging the game, taking advantage of your position of power to pay people as little and charge them as much in rents and other costs as possible, so that you can engorge your already bloated asset sheet, while people go homeless and lack the simple basics of life.
i believe in the old fashioned value of an honest day's work for an honest day's wage. I do not believe that is happening today, not just in wages, but in every facet of economic life. How can a millionaire pay a lower percentage of their income in taxes than a factory worker. How can a landlord take depreciation allowance, while a house owner can't. Ad infinitum.
It's cheating, pure and simple, legal cheating because of legal bribes to government officials in the form of "campaign finance contributions", so that loopholes are added to obscure provisions of bills, often at the last minute, under the cover of darkness.
Let's ask the moral question: is it right to short the workers' salaries in order to distribute earnings to shareholders who have done absolutely no work? I'm all for distributing earnings and dividends once you've paid a decent wage to the people who actually do the work, but to screw the workers in order to give the money to a bunch of people sitting on their asses? It's wrong.
As far as taxes go, this article gives a few numbers
http://www.alternet.org/economy/ten-numbers-rich-would-fudged
"3. An amount equal to ONE-HALF the GDP is held untaxed overseas by rich Americans.
The Tax Justice Network estimated that between $21 and $32 trillion is hidden offshore, untaxed. With Americans making up 40% of the world's Ultra High Net Worth Individuals, that's $8 to $12 trillion in U.S. money stashed in far-off hiding places.
Based on a historical stock market return of 6%, up to $750 billion of income is lost to the U.S. every year, resulting in a tax loss of about $260 billion." from article cited above.
If you're working for an hourly wage they withhold your taxes, in full, in advance,
if you are wealthy enough, you hire a creative accountant, take advantage of a thousand loopholes, pay almost nothing, and laugh all the way to the bank.
Why is is that you pay sales tax on a hammer, but not on a stock market transaction?
Why do landlords get to take depreciation allowance on the rental house, but you living in your own house don't?
There are pages and pages of examples, but this is a digression, and if you're a tea party type you're probably so busy thinking i'm a socialist that you've lost the main point, which is
there are lots of jobs that need doing,
companies have the money to hire people,
instead the execs are putting the money in their own pockets
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