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Pay Cuts for Congress? & “Big” Governments Republicans Mandating Marriage……
budget imagesRep. Ann Kirkpatrick (D-AZ) introduced a bill last week to slash pay for members of Congress 5% or $8,700 a year — and freeze their automatic cost-of-living increase. With Congress’ approval ratings “spiraling downward,” Kirkpatrick said, “Families across the country are getting by on lower wages…so why shouldn’t senators and representatives have to feel the same pinch?” The cut would be the first since the Great Depression. She said she’s already started handing over 5 percent of her pay every month. Hey, Congresswoman Kirkpatrick – how about instead of leading the entire country, including Congress, to ever-lower wages and bringing us all to Wal-Mart pay levels, how about instead increasing the minimum wage, change our trade and tax policies to bring jobs back to America, and break up the big vulture corporations that put out of business local companies and prevent entrepreneurs from even starting new companies? Stop promoting the Republican idea that we should all be paid less, and take us back to an era when worker pay increased along with corporate productivity.
Thom you are at it again. Too funny about your ideological support for minimum wages and "living wages", so I was surprised as to how you spun the latest.
Let's see people should get paid based on what Thom? Just because you want income to be high for all including our "elites" does not make it so. Why should the filthy "rich" in this case get more pay for obviously not performing their job? Do you think their approval rating means anything? If they were waiters, do you think they would get any tips? Of course you think they should get paid no matter how bad their "service" is? I am sure you tip the same for lousy service because you want them to have a so called living wage?
I know you think that productivity should dictate wage increases when the productivity goes up but are you then willing to concede that wages should in fact go down when productivity goes down??? Not likely as you want it both ways. You obviously have no understanding of labor markets.
This is obvious in the sense that on one hand you want more small business but unwilling to actually lower the barriers to their formation including but not limited to minimum wages. It is not large corporations {or as you call them: big vulture corporations} that fear rising minimum wages as they will just pass on costs. It is the small businesses that will have higher obstacles to formation of small businesses. Take a gander at a couple of points about minimum wages:
5 Things You Didn’t Know About the Minimum Wage
The Effect of Minimum Wage Increases on Retail and Small Business Employment | EPI Study
PS: 1. Hey Thom, I see your little minions are running around again censoring information contrary to your views. Very funny indeed and almost fascist in its applications. In case you missed them the first time, I will repeat them for your reading pleasure.,,
You could stop this Thom by first stop spamming all my email accounts. Sue is suppose to have a list that she so graciously decided to spread to the whole world. Yes personal information was spread around. Wonder if that is grounds for...
PS2: Uh, Craig. Are you a conservative or just playing one? As you have only shown yourself to be uncritical and to repeat other people’s words, I can only assume as much.
Which unjust and unnecessary war is he talking about? Probably the one started by Demos, no?
It’s time we turn that around and tell the conservatives – The nine most terrifying words in the English language are – I’m from the corporation and I’m here to help.Now that is just funny shit. I am really scared that a corporation is going to come into my house uninvited and help me out. Until then, I will be more concerned about the Police State as Antifascist was always concerned about also.
Keep up the spamming, maybe one day I will read the whole thing…
PS3:Thom would be better actually creating a valid argument.
Why not present the information mst??? I am talking short term effects. Thom wants short term productivity gains to automatically go to “labor” no matter the level of unemployment but when productivity goes down as new hires are added to the payrolls then I am sure that Thom will not consider that “fair”.
Thom just has no idea how labor markets work and likes to cherry pick data to confirm his own biases.
LOL, Not my hero. I have no heroes and find no reason to go looking for them in my life also. Maybe Thom is your hero and you need to defend him? No?
PS4: We can complain about the deals afterwards all we want. My point was that if approval ratings is a gage of productivity and their productivity is so low, why would we pay them so much???
How you going to force them to be better educated? Re-education camps? And yes, Thom is in the education business, although disinformation is more likely the outcome…
PS5: Here Thom. This is a subject right up your ideological alley.
Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis: Moorestown New Jersey Unions Highlight Union Arrogance
I just suspect that your attitude toward the politicians (more than likely middle class) and “living wages” would change drastically from your lead piece.
PS6: Hey Thom. Since you already spammed me on the latest blog post then why not post it here?
Compassion for CEOs?
The International Brotherhood of Electric Workers has filed a lawsuit against Bankster Goldman Sachs for overpaying its top executives. The lawsuit “seeks to stop Goldman from allocating roughly 47 percent of 2009 net revenue as compensation, saying such allocations ‘vastly overcompensate management and constitute corporate waste.’” Apparently the IBEW and their electrician workers don’t realize how hard it is to find employees willing and able to buy and sell stocks and only be paid a few million dollars a year for this brutally hard work. After all, these guys have to buy suits and ties. They have to pay for limousines and thousand-dollar-a-bottle champagne. Being a Goldman Sachs executive is tough work, guys – cut them some slack! Have some compassion!
–Thom Same dribble as always.
What do you do that is “brutally hard work”??? How much do you get on a book sold?
What do you have to buy??? A computer? Notepad and pen??? See how illogical your positions are with regards to your own standings?
Carry on…
PS7: We have another wiener!!!
Thom’s blog
Thomas Jefferson on Student Lending….
Six Democrats have sided with banks, against the Landmark Student Lending Reform. Who are they? Bill Nelson (Fl.), Tom Carper (Del.), Blanche Lincoln (Ark.), Jim Webb (Va.), Mark Warner (Va.) and Ben Nelson (Neb.). The student lending industry has launched an “aggressive lobbying campaign” of senators representing states where big lenders are based, scaremongering about job losses resulting from passing SAFRA. Now, it appears that their lobbying is paying off. We’re a long way away from when Thomas Jefferson started the University of Virginia with the notion that part of building a middle class (necessary to a democracy, he said) would require people with some education, and advocated a national program of free education up to and including university levels, the last state to fall from that ideal was when Governor Ronald Reagan ended free enrollment in the University of California system. My question – how do these people sleep at night or look themselves in the mirror?
-Thom
Isn’t it so bad that your favorite bank along with your fascist promoter on your forum is against such propsals:
A Whole New World - US Banker Article
Bank of North Dakota makes about 70 percent of the student loans in its home state, but if the Obama Administration has its way, the $3.5 billion-asset bank would be out of the origination business by this time next year.
http://rdrutherford.blogspot.com/2010/03/thom-hartmann-is-hypocrite-1003...
BREAKING NEWS!
"Washington State Republican Attorney General Rob McKenna has agreed to give up his taxpayer subsidized health insurance for the duration of his lawsuit, which seeks to torpedo a carefully-crafted attempt to get health insurance to thousands of Washington State residents.
"It would be hypocritical for me to accept health insurance that Washington State residents are forced to pay for," said McKenna in a written statement, "When I am trying to keep them from getting health insurance themselves."
Hey Thom, your NLP is quite blatant here as you somehow felt it important to add the adjective of “Mormon”. Well I suggest that if you want to add adjectives to people’s names then add “BLT believer” to Obama as in a counter argument: Barack Obama’s Black Liberation Theology
As far as “Faux news”, you certainly are one to throw rocks, right Thom?
Barack Obama’s Black Liberation Theology
PS: SueN, bored yet??? Why not discuss the issues and not the personalities????
Exactly, and Thom just lives in his dream world devoid of reality as his minions scurry around to protect him from the truth. Just on Thom’s there is a couple of lies pointed out and of course the usual suspects {rodeo clowns} had to pop out at: http://www.thomhartmann.com/board/./viewtopic.php?f=4&t=4000
“Wait you still think he’s religious?”
Who are you referring to? Thom?
godknows
If white supremacy isn't real...how do you explain Pamela Anderson? :)
"The republicans lost face on the health care vote, but they found it on the way to the bank." harry ashburn
Here’s another wrinkle for your flattened earth Ron; a major health care fact about Venezuela…
An endemic parasitic water borne illness hits many people each year but it is treatable and survivable. As a consequence, this South American river blindness has left 100s of thousands of people functionally blind. By nationalizing its oil industry Venezuela has been able to trade oil to Cuba for the prevention and treatment of this disease. Instead of obscene profits for oligarchs and oil companies thousands of people can see again after a corneal transplant.</blcokquote? Another cheerleader for Hugo???
When it becomes another Zimbabwe then remember this conversation...
godknows
@Ron The more Pelosi tries to “manage” the economy the more it will look like Zimbabwe or Venezuela.
Very clever to choose a country that hasn’t had a middle class in a hundred years. In Venezuela the split is 10% rich and 90% poor an oligarchy of European descent and a populace of Native/Slave descent. Hugo Chavez is the first non-white President of Venezuela. He allowed the oligarchy to blare anti-Chavista propaganda 24 – 7 through almost every TV station in Venezuela during and after the US backed coup attempt and yet there persists the myth that Chavez is a rabid totalitarian. Chavez get re-elected because he has brought sight to the blind … literally!
Unfortunately, he can not cure your eyesight. Again no definition of middle class. How many Europeans do you think there are in Zimbabwe now????
Not hardly on the blasting as he controls the major TV stations and has nationalized the country.
godknows
A big F'n deal?
In the 1970s and 1980s, there are a number treatises on the evolution of the idea of white supremacy . . . In European terms, the story goes like this:
When the “fair”-haired, “fair”-skinned Vikings took over Normandy, they killed the men folk, set up compounds and bred themselves a new generation. Their compounds became castles and their women folk remained largely locked up inside. The lack of exposure to the sun resulted in alabaster skin marked only by the blue veins running under their skins. The folk working in the fields . . . Grew darkened skin (not from sun exposure) from touching the dirt . . .
Fair was equated with ruling class and wealth and virgin purity and safety and yada-yada . . .
Dark was equated with dirty, poor, serfdom, labor and yada-yada . . .
This is yet another turn of recessivist Monarchists versus progressive/liberal Democrats that we have been fighting since the Founding Fathers began the Great American Experiment.
Senator Nelson's opposition to the HCR bill becase of the student loan cleanup actually made me chuckle - these Blue Dog Democrats are a real piece of work - real DINOs. The HCR portion of the bill is weak at best and it actually does mandate universal serfdom to for-profit insurance companies. However, as an education reform the reconciliation bill does remove the banksters from national student loan programs where they have been gouging students with exorbitant interest and fees 'helping' them starting their careers in 4 and 5 figure debt. And the HCR reconciliation package incudes billions for Pell Grants - nice.
Last night I had just reconciled myself to the HCR bill as a solid step forward in education when I found this declaration by Ben Nelson. It was so striking that we on the left can find validation by always disagreeing with these so-called key Democrats that it made me laugh.
Good for you!
Making decisions about what you value in the market…
godknows
I know you believe that American corporations are inflicted with short-termism, but if expected prices for doing business in the future is going up and they may be constrained in raising them then, then only fools will not raise them now. It is not the same as your furniture store analogy. If you raise uncertainty in the future then prices are bound to reflect in the current prices.
The more Pelosi tries to “manage” the economy the more it will look like Zimbabwe or Venezuela. How are the “middle class” in Zimbabwe doing, Thom????
Someone on MSNBC in the last 24 hours said that there were only 20 hours allowed for debate in the Senate.
When I first ran into it I fell for the Lynch letter hoax myself. It is a compelling and logical articulation of the power that divide and conquer tactics can exert over the powerless. It is the sort of document that one would be inclined to believe must exist somewhere given the bloody history of what the strong have done to their weaker fellow humanity throughout the centuries. But as the article I posted above points out, when you look closely at the actual "Lynch letter" document, it fails to stand up to the detailed examination as it is clearly a forgery dating to the early 1990s.
Ed
It seems to me that racism is far from dead in America, but its dying, and being in its death throes, its thrashing about violently.
Will it ever go away completely, probably not, but with luck eventually it will be nothing but an object of ridicule.
re: Gardner: the bad news is the woman is 55 years old. THAT is a crime!
With respect to your question what's going on with the racism rearing its ugly head, I believe as Gene Wilder said to Cleavon Little in Blazing Saddles after being subject to a racial epithet "...You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know... MORONS.
The video of the tea baggers should be part of every Democrat's campaign video this fall showing the true face of conservatism.
http://www.bvblackspin.com/2008/04/21/willie-lynch-black-urban-legends/
Warning - the so called "Lynch letter" is a fake. For one of many debunks see:
Quote:
When you take a good long look at it though, you'll find that the letter is clearly a fake. Here's why:
* The language of the letter is not 18th century, but rather a poor attempt by the author to use what he thought was classical English. In fact, words like "foolproof" and "refueling" were not even in use at the time.
* There has never been any mention of this letter before about 1993-1994. Neither Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, H. Rap Brown, Stokely Carmichael, Angela Davis, Bobby Seale, Assata Shakur, Marcus Garvey, W.E.B. DuBois, Booker T. Washington, Mary McCleod Bethune, nor any other known black luminary to have published anything before that time ever mentioned a "Willie Lynch" in their writings.
*Lynch refers to "our illustrious King James..." He says that in reference to the colony of Virginia still under the governance of the British crown. But the monarch on the throne at the time was Queen Anne. James died in 1625.
* Lynch is said to have come up from the West Indies, but the letter never states from which Island in the region he came from.
* His plantation is supposed to be in the West Indies, but historical records show that owners of plantations in the British colonies lived largely in England and simply had others manage them while they reaped the rewards. Live-in ownership of plantations was not prevalent until much later.
* Lynch says that his "boat sailed south on the James River." Anyone who lives in Virginia knows that the James River runs primarily east-west.
* And among many other things wrong with the letter, the most glaring is that there is no historical evidence of any plantation owner named Willie or William Lynch owning a plantation anywhere on any island in the Spanish, British, Portuguese, Dutch, French or German Caribbean.
Later on it turns out that a librarian at the University of Missouri-St. Louis posted a reference to the letter in 1993. Long story short, the people at the school discussing it with her were never able to establish any authenticity. So bottom line, the overwhelming likelihood (and by that I mean 99.9 percent) is that this is nothing but a hoax.
@Nels: I bet he's related to Archie DeBunker.
It is "breaking" like "breaking a horse" or a beast of burden.
@Quark
The Clinton State Department did little to demand the return of the rightfully elected President Zalaya of Honduras and was quick to affirm the elections sponsored by the coup regime, in defiance of the majority of South American nations.
We care little for the notion of democracy. We affirm the right of USAid to meddle in the elections of other nations. Just wait for the coming elections in Venezuela...check out:
The Anti-Venezuela Election Campaign
By Mark Weisbrot
Global Research, March 21, 2010
Guardian - 2010-03-18
http://globalresearch.ca/PrintArticle.php?articleId=18241
@harry, but the name should be used as much as possible ;-)
@harry, I know he has, I did so on this blog about a month or so ago in reaction to one of his crazy statements.