Just in case you do not know Robert Reich is a former Secretary of the Treasury.
Minimum Wage Over Time
Comparing the value of labor over time is apparently not that straight forward. I was wondering about minimum wage. When I graduated high school in 1970 
(gasp… yes) the minimum wage was $1.60. I dropped out of college after a year, and I went to work in a factory for somewhat more than the minimum wage. After a few months I had raises that put me up to $2.60 an hour which was nearly 60% higher than minimum wage. Even at that astronomical wage, even without a car to support, even with living in basically a slum apartment, I was having a hard time making ends meet. I had to be careful with every penny. I had a crisis back then that wiped out very quickly what little savings I had. I had absolutely no benefits. A medical emergency would have been a financial disaster.
Using data as calculated on the website, Measuring Worth , I came up with the following data:
Current data is only available till 2012. In 2012, the relative worth of $1.60 from 1970 is: Continue reading “Minimum Wage Over Time”
Henry Ford a Socialist?
From “Henry Ford’s Own Story” by Rose Wilder Lane
Ford settled every problem by his own simple rule,”Do what is fundamentally best for everybody. It will work out for our interests in the end.” And always he was pondering the big problem of putting back into active use the millions that were accumulating to his credit. Every year the price was lowered on his cars, following his original policy of making the automobile cheap. Still the sales increased by leaps and bounds, and his margin of profit on each car mounted into a greater total.
“The whole system is wrong”, he says. Continue reading “Henry Ford a Socialist?”
The Real Meaning of Black Friday
Wal-Mart heirs occupy slots 11, 14, 16 and 17 of the richest people on the Planet! Yet many of its employees are forced into public welfare programs due to low wages and their HR policies. If you work and are willing to work full-time should not have to get public assistance to make ends meet. That is the real Black Friday…a day of mourning for the American retail worker.
Where have all the IT jobs gone?
Where have all the IT jobs gone, long time passing?
Where have all the IT jobs gone, long time passing?
Where have all the IT jobs gone?
Our corporations have outsourced everyone.
Oh, when will we ever learn?
Oh, when will we ever learn?
Amtrak Could and Should Do Better
I think I understand why Amtrak is having business problems.
I would love to be able to take a train a lot of places I visit. First and foremost, there are not passenger trains to many places. If there is the travel time is much more than it would be by car and the real kicker is that the tickets are more expensive than driving. At least that has been my experience every time I have checked for an upcoming trip.
We recently returned from a wedding that was held in downtown Chicago. We took Amtrak from St. Louis to Union Station in Chicago there and back. The tickets for the two of us ran around $245. Gas for the trip would have ran from $100 to $150 depending on which vehicle we took and how much additional driving we did. However overnight parking in downtown Chicago would have cost us at least $60 per day. To the above figure add $120. Because we were splitting cabs with other attendees to the wedding, cabs probably ran another $20 or $25 while we were there. Double that if we had not split.
Our train was due to leave St. Louis Friday morning at 7:55 a.m. The Texas Eagle was behind schedule. Continue reading “Amtrak Could and Should Do Better”
Insurance Companies: Not Price Fixing, But Just As Bad
Name a product you must have if you own a home. If you said homeowner’s insurance give yourself a pat on the back. Even as a renter it is a wise idea to have renter’s insurance to protect losses from burglary, fire, etc.
Now name the one thing you should not do with these policies. If you said make a claim give yourself another pat on the back.
I live with my girlfriend who owns her house outright. She has been with the same insurance company for many, many years. I will not name names as I have come to learn these companies are vindictive. Just as an aside my girlfriend is financially stable, has been employed steadily for the last 25 years as a teacher, and has a good credit rating.
Several years ago due reasons beyond her control there a sewage backup that ruined practically everything on the first floor and the basement of her house. The company graciously took care of everything. Continue reading “Insurance Companies: Not Price Fixing, But Just As Bad”
The War on Drugs Has Unacceptable Costs
This outrages me. If I was a person of color I would be beyond outrage. Then you add onto the statistics the fact that we are spending more on incarceration than we are spending on higher education while we are importing skilled labor because supposedly we do not have the skill sets in the U.S.A.
We have our priorities wrong on so many fronts.
The graphic is from the ACLU website
TicketMaster… a cynical, jaded company
Manager Peabody Opera House
1400 Market St.
St. Louis, MO 63103
Dear Sir/Madam:
I found out Emmy Lou Harris is coming to the Peabody Opera House. Both my girlfriend and I were as excited as we are both huge, huge fans of hers.
I started looking into buying tickets and at first blush they did not seem too bad. Then I realized I would have to buy them from TicketMaster, who in my humble opinion is one of most jaded, cynical companies in America. I looked into buying them directly from the Peabody Opera House box office, and I discovered this was not an option. So I bit the bullet and went online to purchase tickets from this evil, evil company.
I chose two $37 seats. A $3 facility charge per ticket was added, and then a $9.20 convenience charge. My $37 ticket was now up to $49.2. Next they wanted to charge me to deliver the tickets to me, including an outrageous charge of $2.50 for me to print them myself????? But they were not done yet. As I was checking out they added a $4.25 order processing fee.
There were 2 or 3 points in the whole processed I was so angered by the process that I nearly just closed the browser, but I did want to make my girlfriend happy.
Part of the thrill of going to these events is the anticipation. After the ticket purchase process I have a bad taste in my mouth, and frankly feel violated. My anticipatory fever has evaporated.
There really should be another option for buying your tickets beyond TicketMaster. Failing that they should have a face value that includes all these additional charges so purchasers do not feel raped after the process.
Sincerely,
———————–
These folks seem to have a monopoly on ticket sales in just all the markets I am aware of. Why don’t we bust up monopolies like we used to. Oh I forgot, our politicians are bought and paid for by these folks