Squirrel's Ink

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/06/27/congress.wage/index.html

It is technically a cost of living increase due to that neat 27th Amendment. The 27th Amendment is neat not because it is effective (it's not - instead using the term "raise" Congress says its a "cost of living" increase and so circumvents the intention of the Amendment, which is that Congress should not be allowed to set its own salary) but because it was ratified after pending for more than 200 years.

If John McCain wins the Republican nomination in 2008, I might not know who to vote for.

1) I stink at philosophy

2)I was also going to write some thoughts on rioting in Muslim countries over pictures of the prophet, attempted in a logical way, however it might have to wait until later because it's an extremely complicated problem, since it deals with two cultures that hold different values as more important. I had my kids debate it in class today, if you can call two students giving their opinions a debate.


( Read more... )

Today in the mail I got "Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream" by Barbara Ehrenreich and started reading it, because I loved "Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America." The premise of "Nickel and Dimed" was that she went undercover and worked a series of minimum wage jobs in three different cities, attempting to survive on a mix of her wages and government help. Shockingly enough, she found that you can't do it. In "Bait and Switch" she essentially tries to go undercover in the corporate world and report on why white collar unemployment is on the rise. However, most of the book is taken up by the silliness that goes on in the job hunt (job coaching, personality tests, writing a resume and network, network, network!) I think that she would have been better off taking the interview strategy of reporting (as used in "The Working Poor"), which would have netted a far wider range of experience, rather than going undercover herself. First of all, she's forty and has never worked in the corporate world. Second of all, any companies that run a credit check are going to see that she is not who she says she is (she legally changed her name back to her maiden name in order to hide her identity as a journalist.) Thirdly, she set her sights too high for a starting position in a company - she's aiming for a $50,000 a year job when her resume clearly states that she is currently unemployed.

I'm seriously bored by this book so far. That doesn't happen often. Very disappointing. :(

Anyway. Anyone who's interested in this sort of stuff is better off with her other book, "Nickel and Dimed." Much more interesting. Especially the chapter where she works at Wal-Mart.

Speaking of Wal-Mart, go see the anti-Wal-Mart movie! I'm going to, once the thesis is done. ^_^

I'm reading a depressing book right now. It's called "The Working Poor." Can you see how it would be depressing? These people do work. They work a lot. But they don't have life skills, and they don't have medical insurance or enough money to buy a car that won't break down, so they start to get ahead, only to get hit with something big and suddenly there they are back on the edge again. A lot of them do make dumb choices, but everyone makes dumb choices. They just don't have the cushion of savings or family to bail them out when they're dumb.

I'm only half-way through, but it's got me thinking. The people the author describes are needy in so many ways. Government programs can only do so much, but some kind of emergency health insurance would bloody well help a lot. A raise in the minimum wage would help too, since it has not gone up since 1996. (A proposal to raise the minimum wage was defeated by something like five votes just a month ago. This bloody Republican Congress has got to go.)

They also need more life skills training, in simple things like calling in if you're sick, and they need more people willing to hire ex-welfare people.

Fun quote from the book (someone speaking to the author):
"You [employers] say she ought to get a job. How are you going to make that happen? If they say, 'We can't hire them' I say, 'So you want to perpetuate welfare?' 'Well, no.' 'Well take your choice. The only thing missing is a job, and you can provide that."

I'm also tossing about the merits of quotas, which is terribly un-capitalist of me. How shocking coming from a borderline socialist, neh? So on the one hand, import quotas protect our minimum wage jobs that the poor and recent immigrants (or illegal immigrants) rely on. It keeps our market wages up because in theory our manufacturers then have to make the goods here instead of setting up shop in China. On the other, quotas drive up the prices on the goods that the poor buy, meaning they have to work more to get what they need, etc. Correct me if I have this wrong, I'm remembering from my economics classes in college five (!!!) years ago. No, quotas aren't mentioned in the book. In my angst over the problems being described, I tried to think up solutions and few were forthcoming.

I also find the idea that illegal immigrants are taking our jobs. There's a whole section in here about illegal immigrants. I can't imagine too many citizens taking those kinds of jobs and living in those kinds of conditions.

I'm very frustrated. Everyone vote Democratic next year. Then at least we can block dumb Republican cuts into Medicare.