chipwhich Posted November 20, 2013 Share Posted November 20, 2013 I think you are mistaken, but you probably do have a point if ya want to eliminating purchasing processed foods with snap Agree. If that type of food is what you're using snap for, might eliminate it and make people learn to cook again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mad Mike Posted November 20, 2013 Share Posted November 20, 2013 I think you are mistaken, but you probably do have a point if ya want to eliminating purchasing processed foods with snap Panera CEO Will Spend This Week Living on a Food Stamp Budget - DailyFinance "As part of Hunger Action Month, I decided to take the SNAP Challenge," Shaichannounced on LinkedIn last week. "For one week, beginning Saturday, September 14, 2013, I will live on just $4.50 a day, the average daily benefit per person provided by the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP; formerly known as Food Stamps)." In a blog post Saturday, he described his adventures shopping on a tight budget at a Dorchester, Mass. grocery store."After just a few minutes walking the aisles of the store, the concern set in that I may not be able to sustain myself for the next seven days," he wrote. "Thirty one dollars and fifty cents, the weekly budget, didn't feel so insignificant until I actually started filling –- and editing –- what was ultimately a barren shopping cart." Shaich wound up going with a carb-heavy shopping cart that included cereal, pasta, lentils and chickpeas, as well as an assortment of vegetables. Had to look him up. I may have to put this guy on my list of heroes. Ron Shaich | Conscious Capitalism He is also a co-founder of No Labels, a political organization aimed at addressing the politics of problem solving. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chipwhich Posted November 20, 2013 Share Posted November 20, 2013 MadMike, correct me if I am wrong but the food stamp program or snap is meant to supplement people in need, not to feed the family without any pocket costs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chipwhich Posted November 20, 2013 Share Posted November 20, 2013 Had to look him up. I may have to put this guy on my list of heroes. Ron Shaich | Conscious Capitalism My daughter worked for a year at Panera. The ironic thing is they sell carb ladened food. It's not for the healthy. They do give their leftovers every night to local food banks. A loaf of bread for every pot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kindred Posted November 20, 2013 Share Posted November 20, 2013 At the end of the day wages in this country are not increasing due to external competing forces from globalization (translation: cheap labor in countries with little to no labor rights/protection). This has a multi-fold affect of keeping wage levels down, taking jobs out of this country, siphoning wealth out of this country (translation: weaker consumer base) and thus leading to lower spending/demand here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zoony Posted November 20, 2013 Share Posted November 20, 2013 Agree. If that type of food is what you're using snap for, might eliminate it and make people learn to cook again. No no no, that makes way too much sense Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry Posted November 20, 2013 Share Posted November 20, 2013 At the end of the day wages in this country are not increasing due to external competing forces from globalization (translation: cheap labor in countries with little to no labor rights/protection). I certainly agree that's a part of it. Granted, a big part of the reason for globalization is because the US (under orders from the multinational corporations), has rather imposed it on the world. But, yep, there certainly are times when I think that a bit of protectionism might be good for the country, and maybe the world. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The 12th Commandment Posted November 20, 2013 Share Posted November 20, 2013 How is single mom supposed to have time to cook after she gets through working at her two part time jobs at Walmart and McDonalds? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rictus58 Posted November 20, 2013 Share Posted November 20, 2013 It is sad that people all over America are in need all they need is to get off their lazy ass and work! Stupid Lazy jerks. ^that was sarcasm BTW Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Riggo-toni Posted November 20, 2013 Share Posted November 20, 2013 Even in the worst depths of our "great recession" there was still a vast shortage of skilled labor. The answer medium and long term does not lie in massive increases in welfare outlays and minimum wage hikes. Nor should one be so naive/ideologically devout to believe market forces on their own will ameliorate all socio-economic ills. The wage gap is going to continue to grow between the skilled and the unskilled. It is the inevitable consequence of the exponential advances in technology that began during the latter half of the 20th century. The genie is already out of the bottle. What our country needs to do is drop its ridiculous stigma against manual labor and train the unskilled portion of its workforce in marketable skills. Unfortunately, the federal gov't's record of training programs is absolutely dismal. More should be done at the state level, and/or the federal govt should look at subsidizing employers for taking on and training new workers for certain occupations/skills. For those who lament the loss of union power in this country...try living in a country like Italy where unions basically run everything. I wasn't a diehard economic conservative until I lived overseas. Just a couple if times of being left stranded at a station in the middle of nowhere because someone decided to call a random strike, or dealing with the worst service of your life because the most rude insolent SOB knows he can't be touched, and you might change your mind. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duckus Posted November 20, 2013 Share Posted November 20, 2013 Happy to say that this morning I became a proud member of Costco. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twa Posted November 20, 2013 Share Posted November 20, 2013 Happy to say that this morning I became a proud member of Costco. ya should be ya elitist a look at why Costco ect pays more http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-27/why-walmart-will-never-pay-like-costco.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mad Mike Posted November 20, 2013 Share Posted November 20, 2013 Even in the worst depths of our "great recession" there was still a vast shortage of skilled labor. The answer medium and long term does not lie in massive increases in welfare outlays and minimum wage hikes. Nor should one be so naive/ideologically devout to believe market forces on their own will ameliorate all socio-economic ills. The wage gap is going to continue to grow between the skilled and the unskilled. It is the inevitable consequence of the exponential advances in technology that began during the latter half of the 20th century. The genie is already out of the bottle. What our country needs to do is drop its ridiculous stigma against manual labor and train the unskilled portion of its workforce in marketable skills. Unfortunately, the federal gov't's record of training programs is absolutely dismal. More should be done at the state level, and/or the federal govt should look at subsidizing employers for taking on and training new workers for certain occupations/skills. For those who lament the loss of union power in this country...try living in a country like Italy where unions basically run everything. I wasn't a diehard economic conservative until I lived overseas. Just a couple if times of being left stranded at a station in the middle of nowhere because someone decided to call a random strike, or dealing with the worst service of your life because the most rude insolent SOB knows he can't be touched, and you might change your mind. Damn dude. you don't seem to get political often but when you do, you do deep. Well written too. I just want to add that the skilled labor shortage is not only in the US... The Surprising Global Shortage of Skilled Workers - Businessweek And according to some estimates the perceived gap is overblown. That is to say that those gaps have always existed. The False Theory of the Growing U.S. Jobs Mismatch - Businessweek As for labor unions. Too much of anything including oxygen can be a bad thing. Striping away the power of workers to negotiate better wages and working conditions might be great for the guy with the money and the train ticket, but on the other end some poor soul is working his ass off in the worst conditions imaginable for next to nothing so that train arrives on time. Give the unions too much power and you get workers who are too secure in their jobs to work harder and excel. Neither capitalism nor socialism have all the answers. The pure capitalist "utopia" of tea party fanatics would be every bit as devastating to a large portion of the population as pure socialism would be to the other. We don't need extremist views. we need balance and cooperation. We need this... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Springfield Posted November 20, 2013 Share Posted November 20, 2013 ya should be ya elitist a look at why Costco ect pays more http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-27/why-walmart-will-never-pay-like-costco.html All I get from that is Walmart sells products to poor people and Costco and Trader Joes sell to rich people so Walmart can't pay their employees more. Blah, blah, blah Costco has a better business model. Really what it comes down to Costco's streamlined approach to Walmart's scattered approach. Therefore Costco pays more because they run their business smarter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twa Posted November 20, 2013 Share Posted November 20, 2013 Costco is a bulk seller of higher end products....I won't get into what Walmart is lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duckus Posted November 20, 2013 Share Posted November 20, 2013 ya should be ya elitist a look at why Costco ect pays more http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-27/why-walmart-will-never-pay-like-costco.html Long article. Then at the end she admits she actually has no idea. This is not actually just a piece on how Wal-Mart can only pay low wages -- I don’t know how much more they could afford to pay before they started to lose customers Article is mostly filled with general arguments - which she admits above don't really have any numbers or facts to back it up. Walmart makes $15.7 BILLION in profits. One of the most profitable business in the entire world. Could they make $15.7 billion in profits per year AND pay their employees more? Maybe not. But maybe not everything has to be about profits. I know, socialism... But maybe they take a bit off the top to and give their employees a few more bucks. Hell, they might find they save some money - healthier employees, happier employees, and lower turnover. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tulane Skins Fan Posted November 20, 2013 Share Posted November 20, 2013 What's not to be happy about? They have a fancy title for making a cup of friggin coffee! They don't even have to know how to flip a burger or drop a basket of fries. Barista my ass......... So, you're just kind of a grumpy hateful person, huh? In the immortal words of bill maher- poor people in the us are fat. There won't be a revolution in our lifetime or any other. That's a Marxist pipedream "Communism!" makes its appearance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Springfield Posted November 20, 2013 Share Posted November 20, 2013 Costco is a bulk seller of higher end products....I won't get into what Walmart is lol Walmart has a high enough market share of the wholesale market that they can literally set the price of what they are buying within reason. They have a larger margin that Costco by quite a bit. Seems to me that the business model needs some tweaking. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kilmer17 Posted November 20, 2013 Share Posted November 20, 2013 Even in the worst depths of our "great recession" there was still a vast shortage of skilled labor. The answer medium and long term does not lie in massive increases in welfare outlays and minimum wage hikes. Nor should one be so naive/ideologically devout to believe market forces on their own will ameliorate all socio-economic ills. The wage gap is going to continue to grow between the skilled and the unskilled. It is the inevitable consequence of the exponential advances in technology that began during the latter half of the 20th century. The genie is already out of the bottle. What our country needs to do is drop its ridiculous stigma against manual labor and train the unskilled portion of its workforce in marketable skills. Unfortunately, the federal gov't's record of training programs is absolutely dismal. More should be done at the state level, and/or the federal govt should look at subsidizing employers for taking on and training new workers for certain occupations/skills. For those who lament the loss of union power in this country...try living in a country like Italy where unions basically run everything. I wasn't a diehard economic conservative until I lived overseas. Just a couple if times of being left stranded at a station in the middle of nowhere because someone decided to call a random strike, or dealing with the worst service of your life because the most rude insolent SOB knows he can't be touched, and you might change your mind. The fact that people on all sides of this debate are nodding aong and clapping this posts means that you nailed it. Bravo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TD_washingtonredskins Posted November 20, 2013 Share Posted November 20, 2013 Even in the worst depths of our "great recession" there was still a vast shortage of skilled labor. The answer medium and long term does not lie in massive increases in welfare outlays and minimum wage hikes. Nor should one be so naive/ideologically devout to believe market forces on their own will ameliorate all socio-economic ills. The wage gap is going to continue to grow between the skilled and the unskilled. It is the inevitable consequence of the exponential advances in technology that began during the latter half of the 20th century. The genie is already out of the bottle. What our country needs to do is drop its ridiculous stigma against manual labor and train the unskilled portion of its workforce in marketable skills. Unfortunately, the federal gov't's record of training programs is absolutely dismal. More should be done at the state level, and/or the federal govt should look at subsidizing employers for taking on and training new workers for certain occupations/skills. Are there places that manual laborers can go to learn some soft skills to supplement their trade? I wonder if a private company could "coach up" some of the unskilled workers to be valuable commodities for these types of jobs. I'm not sure where the incentive is for the private company (maybe finders fees in exchange for some sort of quality guarantee), but it seems that if someone poured more money into this level of employee, the entire system would benefit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry Posted November 20, 2013 Share Posted November 20, 2013 For those who lament the loss of union power in this country...try living in a country like Italy where unions basically run everything. I wasn't a diehard economic conservative until I lived overseas. Just a couple if times of being left stranded at a station in the middle of nowhere because someone decided to call a random strike, or dealing with the worst service of your life because the most rude insolent SOB knows he can't be touched, and you might change your mind. Oh, me, personally, I don;t have to go overseas to see examples of what can happen when unions get too much power. When I was a teen, we moved to Chicago. (Well, a suburb.) Probably the definition of a union town. Seemed that, some time before we moved there, the Butcher's union (a really powerful one. Among other things, because grocery stores pretty much make the store's entire profit from the meat and produce sections. Everything else in the store, they pretty much sell at cost.) had decided that they'd negotiated about the best pay they could get, and they were looking for what they will demand, this year. And they decided to get it written into the contract of every butcher that they only work 9-5, M-F. This resulted in the stores demanding that the butchers must stock the meat cabinet up to the maximum, before they went home. So that the store wouldn't run out of meat, after the butcher went home. (And, over the weekend.) Therefore, next contract renewal, the butcher's union demanded that the butchers must go home at 5:00, and the stores will stop selling meat at that time. When we moved there, every grocery store did the same thing. Shortly before 5:00, the butchers would unroll a big sheet of butcher's paper, or a similar barricade, over all the meat in the meat cabinet. If someone were to reach under the paper, and put some meat in their cart, then the cashier would refuse to sell it to you. No meat after 5:00, or on weekends. As the manager of a grocery store explained to me, the butchers would send their wives to other grocery stores, to try to buy meat after 5:00. Sob stories about how her husband's boss is coming over, and she has to have a steak for him. If she successfully buys meat after 5:00, then the store gets a shakedown letter from the union, informing them that the store is in breach of contract, and must cough up $100K to the union, or the butchers will strike. (And, under the terms of their contracts, all of the other union workers in the store will be required to go on strike, as well.) So, yeah, I'm certainly aware that it's certainly possible for unions to have too much power. And that, when they do, the result isn't good for society. OTOH, I'm also well aware that we're WAY past that point, now. ---------- Three Points 1. The most brilliant propaganda victory in American history has been American businesses convincing low-wage workers that unions are bad for them. A CEO, a Tea Partier, and a union guy are sitting at a table. On the table is a plate of a dozen cookies. The CEO takes 11 of the cookies, and turns to the Tea Partier. "Watch that union guy. He wants half your cookie". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mad Mike Posted November 20, 2013 Share Posted November 20, 2013 Are there places that manual laborers can go to learn some soft skills to supplement their trade? I wonder if a private company could "coach up" some of the unskilled workers to be valuable commodities for these types of jobs. I'm not sure where the incentive is for the private company (maybe finders fees in exchange for some sort of quality guarantee), but it seems that if someone poured more money into this level of employee, the entire system would benefit. Well there are companies that provide automotive, motorcycle and even marine mechanics courses. The pickings get a lot slimmer when you try to take the concept into training factory workers. Maybe theres an opening for some captain of industry to fill the void. It's probably a lot harder sell though. Kids grow up being fascinated by cars boats and motorcycles... not so much for manufacturing process technologies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twa Posted November 20, 2013 Share Posted November 20, 2013 A CEO, a Tea Partier, and a union guy are sitting at a table. On the table is a plate of a dozen cookies. The CEO takes 11 of the cookies, and turns to the Tea Partier. "Watch that union guy. He wants half your cookie". who's table,chairs,building and cookies are they? did the CEO provide the oven,ingredients,utilities,insurance ect that were used to make them? what you bring to the table matters Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lombardi's_kid_brother Posted November 20, 2013 Share Posted November 20, 2013 who's table,chairs,building and cookies are they? did the CEO provide the oven,ingredients,utilities,insurance ect that were used to make them? what you bring to the table matters This is the problem. Republicans actually believe that rich people are better people. And they have convinced their voters of this. It's basically prosperity gospel on a national political scale. I really don't know how you counter this ingrained desire to vote against your own interests. For those who lament the loss of union power in this country...try living in a country like Italy where unions basically run everything. I wasn't a diehard economic conservative until I lived overseas. Just a couple if times of being left stranded at a station in the middle of nowhere because someone decided to call a random strike, or dealing with the worst service of your life because the most rude insolent SOB knows he can't be touched, and you might change your mind. In fairness, Italy has been incompetently run since 400 AD or thereabouts. And I think there is a major difference between unions in the private sector and public sector. Europe's public sector unions are typically too powerful. There is also a pretty major cultural difference at play here. American unions in the last 100 years have always had a pretty cozy relationship with management (probably too cozy to be honest). American unions have never pushed for the outrageous concessions that Europeans get. At this point, the 40 hour workweek with a two week vacation is an American institution. Europeans practically view that as indentured servitude. Pushing union membership closer to 25 percent woulf not turn us into France or Greece. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twa Posted November 20, 2013 Share Posted November 20, 2013 This is the problem. Republicans actually believe that rich people are better people. And they have convinced their voters of this. It's basically prosperity gospel on a national political scale. I really don't know how you counter this ingrained desire to vote against your own interests. spoken like someone not bringing anything to the table but hot air and a appetite. How did you come up with BETTER? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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