A fair playing field! I say we need to look at: Are we in America today having a way of life that is fair to all? Or is it one of privilege for the few? To day in the every day world...

Floyd Brown Loc: Milwaukee WI

I say we need to look at:
Are we in America today having a way of life that is fair to all?
Or is it one of privilege for the few?

To day in the every day world around us.
Those with the most keep getting more of the most.

I personally feel that I can live in that system.
I live some where in the middle.
For most of my life I have offed my services to others.
I set the value on what I offered.
Price was never set before hand.
I was presented with problems
I solved the problems as I felt best & send the bills I felt were fair for both.

For the most part there was only a few times the billing was questioned.
At those times I said pay we what you thing is fair.
When you find some one to replace me. Stop calling me.

Well when I was 78 & picky about what I would do they stopped calling me.
Thanks in a large part to money left to me & my family I have some assets.
Enough to make my economic life a bit sounder.

I only wish to see others be able to have a reasonable chance to be in the game & come out a bit ahead in the game as I have.
If only more Americans had a few dollars left over at the end of the day their lifes could be greatly improved.
I know that many people are their own worse enemies.

But as the number of poor people keep growing it is more than just a individual problem.
Then it is a fault in the system.
The system needs to be fixed.
If the private sector fails to that.

Then the public( Government) has to do it.
We are faced with a division.
Some want to keep their gains & do not want the government to cover for the problems that are created.

To me that is unfair to many.
If we truly wish to have a strong nation we need to solve that problem.
By making the playing field fairer.

Lonewolf

Good post you have a big heart one of the biggest things we should be discussing is not a minimum wage but a living wage.
When Americans can work 2 jobs and still need help its greed at the top that's doing it!

Floyd Brown wrote:

I say we need to look at: br Are we in America tod... (show quote)

woodguru

I see the time period that has shifted the most being somewhere through the 80's toward now, it has to do with middle income jobs and what happened as far as the line between working wages and executive wages.

Working wages have stayed stagnant for some time, while the management salaries over a certain line have gone up significantly. I had a neighbor in the 80's that the guy had a good $50k job as an engineer, his wife worked for an insurance company making $80k. Her job escalated into solid six figures and his never would have gone anywhere but maybe ten or twenty grand a year through 20 years. They decided her job had the income and future so he stayed home and raised the kids.

While companies escalated management salaries and CEO pay went through the roof, as in jobs that used to pay a couple of hundred thousand a year now pay millions and have monster stock and side bonuses based on company profit performance, the pay for their employees stayed very stagnant. I'm of the opinion that during a fifteen year period of stagnancy when corporations were saying the economy was hurting profits so they couldn't afford to escalate employee pay, yet their CEO's were being paid tens of millions and executive pay was going up hundreds to thousands of percent, that these companies should have been forced to balance in a bonus and pay increase that fell into perspective with what they could afford to pay CEO's and upper management. It's actually a system that allowed management to escalate profits at the expense of workers and take huge percentages of the profits themselves. Executive pay has gotten to where it is so out of perspective it's ridiculous. Profits would be better utilized going to investors as profit than management.

My point here is that it isn't minimum wage that needs to come up, there is a need and a place for minimum wage jobs, they aren't meant to raise families and be the income standard of the country. Middle income jobs have not gone up to where they get what they used to, while executive pay has gone stupid while taxes on it have become the lowest in the world. In England a millionaire pays 80% taxes on his income. And guess what, he lives like a millionaire because it's all relative there.

Floyd Brown Loc: Milwaukee WI

woodguru wrote:

I see the time period that has shifted the most being somewhere through the 80's toward now, it has to do with middle income jobs and what happened as far as the line between working wages and executive wages.

Working wages have stayed stagnant for some time, while the management salaries over a certain line have gone up significantly. I had a neighbor in the 80's that the guy had a good $50k job as an engineer, his wife worked for an insurance company making $80k. Her job escalated into solid six figures and his never would have gone anywhere but maybe ten or twenty grand a year through 20 years. They decided her job had the income and future so he stayed home and raised the kids.

While companies escalated management salaries and CEO pay went through the roof, as in jobs that used to pay a couple of hundred thousand a year now pay millions and have monster stock and side bonuses based on company profit performance, the pay for their employees stayed very stagnant. I'm of the opinion that during a fifteen year period of stagnancy when corporations were saying the economy was hurting profits so they couldn't afford to escalate employee pay, yet their CEO's were being paid tens of millions and executive pay was going up hundreds to thousands of percent, that these companies should have been forced to balance in a bonus and pay increase that fell into perspective with what they could afford to pay CEO's and upper management. It's actually a system that allowed management to escalate profits at the expense of workers and take huge percentages of the profits themselves. Executive pay has gotten to where it is so out of perspective it's ridiculous. Profits would be better utilized going to investors as profit than management.

My point here is that it isn't minimum wage that needs to come up, there is a need and a place for minimum wage jobs, they aren't meant to raise families and be the income standard of the country. Middle income jobs have not gone up to where they get what they used to, while executive pay has gone stupid while taxes on it have become the lowest in the world. In England a millionaire pays 80% taxes on his income. And guess what, he lives like a millionaire because it's all relative there.

I see the time period that has shifted the most be... (show quote)

We do see things the same way on this issue.