in most civilized states. there's quite a few states that treat teachers like scum and have done all they can to kill teacher's unions without actually banning them.
Oklahoma's most recent tactic is a proposed bill that would ban withholding unions dues from teachers......and teachers only.
ah, but remember while other countries think of jobs and the economy as tools that serve the people, in America we have it reversed: workers and citizens exist to drive the economy and make businesses and their executive richer.
Yup. The salary cutoff for overtime pay is to the middle class what the minimum wage is to hourly workers.
The cutoff used to represent a viable middle class wage. Now it's barely above poverty line. And more and more companies are trying to switch worker to salary to get around OT requirements, especially if the workers don't have a union to get OT locked into their CBA.
"A lot of countries work more hours"... "Doesn't even make the top 10"....
Because your link included countries that somehow, amazingly, have even less worker protections than the US, and aren't our peers on the world stage. Countries like Poland, Estonia, Greece, and Turkey. Congratulations on making an stupid point with an improper comparison..
Meanwhile, among comparable countries (which, and this might be a shock to you, is the first step in making a valid comparison), we're among the most worked precisely because of our lack of time off, while other countries require more time off, yet manage similar output.
It's like excusing American gun violence by pointing to the murder rate in Somalia or Honduras. And just as stupid.
Oh and you mocked unions again, even though they're the only reason for child labor laws, the 40hr work week, the weekend, holidays off, overtime pay, and a host of other worker rights. But again, your stupidity is nothing new. Leave it to a moron like you to act as though these are bad things.
you're conflating two different schools of thought in order to impugn the entire movement.
Line of reasoning A is: why do they have to be "for girls"? just make engineering toys. Line of reasoning B is: to overcome the initial resistance (social inertia) caused by stereotypes, some toys can exploit those stereotypes in order to get girls interested, and eventually eliminate them (the stereotypes).
then you think wrongly. when science states there is no God, it is speaking inappropriately as it cannot prove or disprove God. likewise when religion states that science is wrong or right ("God says 2+2=5, because God says so"), it is speaking inappropriately. only in the minds of the ignorant are science and religion incompatible. they seek to explain different things in a different manner.
No, not by definition. the large middle class as defined and experienced by the western world is an artificial construct separate from and many magnitudes larger than the middle classes that preceded it. And it is directly a RESULT of government intervention, indeed it is propped up by it, rather than existing in spite of it.
government gives a lot of money to a lot of people. of these, the poor receive the smallest share. the middle class receives a very healthy chunk however. the amount spent on the mortgage interest deduction (the single biggest giveway to the middle class, and one of the main legs supporting the middle class) is alone larger than what the poor receive.
the principle you're looking for is "keeping poor people poor and in their place". its about punishing the poor....for being poor it's about punishing parents and starving kids. there is also very much a racial element to this. and of course there's the fact that the predominant users of drugs aren't the poor to start with.
"States already do a good job of ensuring no one gets a 'free ride.' We don't need another one--especially one that stigmatizes" http://time.com/3117361/welfar...
America should be about 2nd chances. And 3rds. and 4ths. And 5ths. Indeed, that's the idea behind the mythological American Dream, that anyone can make it here. But people who support this punishment of the poor seem to believe that people should be expected to accomplish a home run on the first swing, and be punished if they fail to do so. They tell people to "work harder", "try harder", "pick themselves up", while simultaneously doing everything they can to impede their ability to do so.
So no. It's not about responsibility. And it's not even about principles. It's a lie to say that it is.
Independent contracting is also a way to farm out responsibility to someone else, and avoid it yourself.
Amazon is a perfect example. Working conditions in amazons warehouses are notoriously -AWFUL-, with numerous abuses and poor working conditions (improper climate control, no breaks, wage theft, impossible expectations, etc.)
But attempts to hold Amazon responsible for them are difficult because "technically" the warehouses are run by a 3rd party staffing company, and the workers actually are employees of that company, not of Amazon, even though Amazon owns the warehouse, owns the goods, and controls nearly every facet of their work.
And to make it even worse, most of those staffing companies are set up such that the actual workers are technically considered "temps", which exempts them from even more labor laws and protections.
it's just more evidence that the sharing economy is a scam, and moving to "independent contractors" is simply an attempt to do an end run around labor laws that haven't yet caught up to modern abuses.
I know the concept of having to live with and get along with others, especially over the use of a limited common resource, is a difficult one for you. but I'm sure eventually you can come to understand it if you try really hard. and increase your intellect a few dozen IQ points.
palm oil is another magic food product that's picked up in popularity. so lots of people are growing it.
problem is the method of production most frequently used is extremely destructive to the environment. its not that it cant be grown more "greenly"; it can. it just usually isn't right now, though public opinion is slowly changing that.
And civilization means having to curb some of those choices in the interest of having to live with and get along with your neighbors. When your decisions negatively impact the people around you a balancing act comes into play, balancing your freedom of choice with its impact on your neighbors. If you don't like that (and we know you don't from your history), if anarchy is what you want, I can name several places you can go. But then, you and others like you have espoused that we don't need the FDA, and companies should be free to poison consumers because it's "up to the consumers to beware", "the market will handle it", and other moronic statements, aka freedumb.
The FDA did not declare walnuts to be a drug. The FDA -did- send a warning letter to Diamond Foods warning them that they were overselling their product, and crossing a legal line in doing so.
The FDA warning stated Diamond Foods was effectively marketing its walnuts AS a drug due to the claims it was making in its marketing in its attempt to sell the walnuts. That is a far different thing from declaring all walnuts to be a drug. Companies frequently make claims about the benefits of their products, including food companies. But there is a limit to what is allowed, and Diamond Foods went beyond it.
Among their claims were that their walnuts could "inhibit tumor growth", "reduce incidence of breast cancer", that they could "treat major depression", and "reduce chance of stroke".
Diamond Foods was overselling their product by making several false or unsubstantiated medical claims, to the extent that they crossed into territory properly defined as "marketing a drug for medical treatment purposes".
And as a result Diamond Foods settled with the FDA and corrected its packaging and marketing.
The central valley is the very definition of an arid grassland, having a short rainy season, and getting most of its water from melting snowpack in the mountains, water that chiefly ran to ocean doing little irrigation beyond the floodplain until people intervened.
The soil is fertile because a) salmon, and b) the nutrients were never really consumed.
For millennia salmon have run up the twin rivers to spawn, then died, then washed back downstream in rivers that have varied their courses considerably over the years, and have extensive floodplains. Assuming they weren't caught and eaten first, which also helps spread the bio matter. The salmon gone entirely from the San Joaquin now, ever since it's gone dry for several miles half way to the ocean. The Sacramento still has a run, but its been critically endangered since the SWP began. Not to mention much of the wildlife that depended on and spread the nutrients around is also much reduced or gone entirely (such as the California grizzly).
Modern farming can reuse the nutrients many times, but it gradually being depleted, requiring more and more human intervention to reinvigorate the soil to grow things the arid grassland of the CV was never really meant to grow. The part you left out is that farmers have also migrated OUT of areas for millennia too as the soil conditions have worsened.
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in most civilized states.
there's quite a few states that treat teachers like scum and have done all they can to kill teacher's unions without actually banning them.
Oklahoma's most recent tactic is a proposed bill that would ban withholding unions dues from teachers......and teachers only.
ah, but remember while other countries think of jobs and the economy as tools that serve the people, in America we have it reversed: workers and citizens exist to drive the economy and make businesses and their executive richer.
Yup.
The salary cutoff for overtime pay is to the middle class what the minimum wage is to hourly workers.
The cutoff used to represent a viable middle class wage.
Now it's barely above poverty line.
And more and more companies are trying to switch worker to salary to get around OT requirements, especially if the workers don't have a union to get OT locked into their CBA.
"A lot of countries work more hours"...
"Doesn't even make the top 10"....
Because your link included countries that somehow, amazingly, have even less worker protections than the US, and aren't our peers on the world stage.
Countries like Poland, Estonia, Greece, and Turkey.
Congratulations on making an stupid point with an improper comparison..
Meanwhile, among comparable countries (which, and this might be a shock to you, is the first step in making a valid comparison), we're among the most worked precisely because of our lack of time off, while other countries require more time off, yet manage similar output.
It's like excusing American gun violence by pointing to the murder rate in Somalia or Honduras.
And just as stupid.
Oh and you mocked unions again, even though they're the only reason for child labor laws, the 40hr work week, the weekend, holidays off, overtime pay, and a host of other worker rights. But again, your stupidity is nothing new. Leave it to a moron like you to act as though these are bad things.
Ya!
Just like food safety...
car safety...
workplace safety...
hazardous waste...
You know what, the list is too big.
It's easier to just call you an idiot.
Idiot.
you're conflating two different schools of thought in order to impugn the entire movement.
Line of reasoning A is: why do they have to be "for girls"? just make engineering toys.
Line of reasoning B is: to overcome the initial resistance (social inertia) caused by stereotypes, some toys can exploit those stereotypes in order to get girls interested, and eventually eliminate them (the stereotypes).
Neither line of thought is wholly wrong.
then you think wrongly.
when science states there is no God, it is speaking inappropriately as it cannot prove or disprove God.
likewise when religion states that science is wrong or right ("God says 2+2=5, because God says so"), it is speaking inappropriately.
only in the minds of the ignorant are science and religion incompatible.
they seek to explain different things in a different manner.
No, not by definition.
the large middle class as defined and experienced by the western world is an artificial construct separate from and many magnitudes larger than the middle classes that preceded it. And it is directly a RESULT of government intervention, indeed it is propped up by it, rather than existing in spite of it.
government gives a lot of money to a lot of people. of these, the poor receive the smallest share. the middle class receives a very healthy chunk however. the amount spent on the mortgage interest deduction (the single biggest giveway to the middle class, and one of the main legs supporting the middle class) is alone larger than what the poor receive.
the principle you're looking for is "keeping poor people poor and in their place".
its about punishing the poor.... for being poor
it's about punishing parents and starving kids.
there is also very much a racial element to this.
and of course there's the fact that the predominant users of drugs aren't the poor to start with.
"States already do a good job of ensuring no one gets a 'free ride.' We don't need another one--especially one that stigmatizes"
http://time.com/3117361/welfar...
"The rush to humiliate the poor"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
"The Myth of Welfare and Drug Use"
http://www.thedailybeast.com/a...
http://www.slate.com/articles/...
America should be about 2nd chances. And 3rds. and 4ths. And 5ths. Indeed, that's the idea behind the mythological American Dream, that anyone can make it here. But people who support this punishment of the poor seem to believe that people should be expected to accomplish a home run on the first swing, and be punished if they fail to do so. They tell people to "work harder", "try harder", "pick themselves up", while simultaneously doing everything they can to impede their ability to do so.
So no. It's not about responsibility. And it's not even about principles. It's a lie to say that it is.
one woman's ignorance of the history of the program is your proof?
ladies and gentlemen, i present to you the result of no longer teaching basic civics in schools: morons like this.
that's what they said about expanding telephone service years ago in the same way.
it was wrong then.
it's wrong now.
Independent contracting is also a way to farm out responsibility to someone else, and avoid it yourself.
Amazon is a perfect example.
Working conditions in amazons warehouses are notoriously -AWFUL-, with numerous abuses and poor working conditions (improper climate control, no breaks, wage theft, impossible expectations, etc.)
But attempts to hold Amazon responsible for them are difficult because "technically" the warehouses are run by a 3rd party staffing company, and the workers actually are employees of that company, not of Amazon, even though Amazon owns the warehouse, owns the goods, and controls nearly every facet of their work.
And to make it even worse, most of those staffing companies are set up such that the actual workers are technically considered "temps", which exempts them from even more labor laws and protections.
it's just more evidence that the sharing economy is a scam, and moving to "independent contractors" is simply an attempt to do an end run around labor laws that haven't yet caught up to modern abuses.
I know the concept of having to live with and get along with others, especially over the use of a limited common resource, is a difficult one for you.
but I'm sure eventually you can come to understand it if you try really hard.
and increase your intellect a few dozen IQ points.
Amen.
nah, they just write it off on next years taxes, effectively getting taxpayers to pay it.
palm oil is another magic food product that's picked up in popularity.
so lots of people are growing it.
problem is the method of production most frequently used is extremely destructive to the environment.
its not that it cant be grown more "greenly"; it can. it just usually isn't right now, though public opinion is slowly changing that.
you're begging for a replacement that's once again as harmful or worse than the original item due to inadequate testing.
And civilization means having to curb some of those choices in the interest of having to live with and get along with your neighbors. When your decisions negatively impact the people around you a balancing act comes into play, balancing your freedom of choice with its impact on your neighbors. If you don't like that (and we know you don't from your history), if anarchy is what you want, I can name several places you can go. But then, you and others like you have espoused that we don't need the FDA, and companies should be free to poison consumers because it's "up to the consumers to beware", "the market will handle it", and other moronic statements, aka freedumb.
No, it is not true.
But once again you misstate the story.
The FDA did not declare walnuts to be a drug.
The FDA -did- send a warning letter to Diamond Foods warning them that they were overselling their product, and crossing a legal line in doing so.
The FDA warning stated Diamond Foods was effectively marketing its walnuts AS a drug due to the claims it was making in its marketing in its attempt to sell the walnuts. That is a far different thing from declaring all walnuts to be a drug. Companies frequently make claims about the benefits of their products, including food companies. But there is a limit to what is allowed, and Diamond Foods went beyond it.
Among their claims were that their walnuts could "inhibit tumor growth", "reduce incidence of breast cancer", that they could "treat major depression", and "reduce chance of stroke".
Diamond Foods was overselling their product by making several false or unsubstantiated medical claims, to the extent that they crossed into territory properly defined as "marketing a drug for medical treatment purposes".
And as a result Diamond Foods settled with the FDA and corrected its packaging and marketing.
Link to the actual warning letter: http://www.fda.gov/iceci/enfor...
Freedumb.
I see you still haven't bothered to learn the definition of "socialism".
sounds like the business should allocate more resources to support both customers equally for the services they paid for.
The central valley is the very definition of an arid grassland, having a short rainy season, and getting most of its water from melting snowpack in the mountains, water that chiefly ran to ocean doing little irrigation beyond the floodplain until people intervened.
The soil is fertile because a) salmon, and b) the nutrients were never really consumed.
For millennia salmon have run up the twin rivers to spawn, then died, then washed back downstream in rivers that have varied their courses considerably over the years, and have extensive floodplains. Assuming they weren't caught and eaten first, which also helps spread the bio matter. The salmon gone entirely from the San Joaquin now, ever since it's gone dry for several miles half way to the ocean. The Sacramento still has a run, but its been critically endangered since the SWP began. Not to mention much of the wildlife that depended on and spread the nutrients around is also much reduced or gone entirely (such as the California grizzly).
Modern farming can reuse the nutrients many times, but it gradually being depleted, requiring more and more human intervention to reinvigorate the soil to grow things the arid grassland of the CV was never really meant to grow. The part you left out is that farmers have also migrated OUT of areas for millennia too as the soil conditions have worsened.
The CV is over-farmed.