This is News!?!

The New York Times today proclaims: "Throughout the country, businesses grappling with declining fortunes are cutting hours for those on their payrolls. Self-employed people are suffering a drop in demand for their services, like music lessons, catering and management consulting. "

The article continues..."At the end of last month, more than 4.9 million people were working part time, either because they could not find full time jobs or because their companies had cut hours in the face of slack business, according to a Labor Departmeny survey. That represented an increase of 400,000 since November." Peter S. Goodman NY Times


...and last week's St.Petersburg Times in Florida said this: "Income inequality is on the rise in Florida, and likely to grow wider as the economy falters."-- Scott Barancik April 8.

This is news?

We, the wage slaves in retail establishments across the USA have known this for awhile...check out Starbuck's workers struggles at http://www.iww.org/ And WalMart's battles with its workers has been national news for a long time.

As the IWW says, it's time to abolish this unjust wage system that sets a minimum wage that nobody can survive on, and that ties hourly workers' wages to the number of hours worked--making them slaves to the time clock.

Check out my post on 1-13-08 re: Recession?

Yesterday I spotted a young shopper in a well known retail chain wearing a t-shirt I admired. It was dark grey and featured a photograph of President Bush in a circle with a slash through the center. The caption under it read: "You're Fired!"

Meanwhile the workers in this store--especially the workers over age 50--(hmm?) have been getting their hours slashed since January '08. Some are and have been scheduled for as few as one or two days a week. How the $@*# are people supposed to pay their bills when their incomes get involuntarily cut in half--or less? Let them eat food stamps! (Food stamps don't pay the rent.)

The short answer is: The bosses don't care. The corporate bosses don't care. The bosses on WallStreet don't care. The party bosses in Washingtoon (as one of my favorite bloggers http://clapso.wordpress.com calls our nation's capitol) don't care, the pie in the sky preachers don't care. So it's time to fire 'em all. Fire them today, fire them next week, fire them in November. Storm the presidential palace as the Haitians did recently. They fired their prime minister.

And speaking of palaces, the current resident of the Vatican could sell some of that company's treasures and feed a lot of hungry people. How committed are these followers of Jesus to feeding the poor, healing the sick? Show us the money!

Mud pies is what they eat in Haiti. Yeah you heard right. Mud mixed with oil and sugar. And I thought spaghetti and ketchup was bad enough...

New York Times, April 18. "In Haiti, where three-quarters of the population earns less than $2 a day and one in five children is chronically malnourished the one business booming amid all the gloom is the selling of patties made of mud, oil and sugar, typically consumed only by the most destitute." by Marc Lacey.

I've known a lot of Haitian people. Hard working, devoted to family. They stick together. We could learn a thing or two from them. In the fish processing plant where I worked with mostly Haitian co workers on the night shift, a line leader slapped a Haitian worker. Within minutes of the incident, all Haitians in the plant were assembled, and they were angry. The next day, police were called to the plant-- not by company bosses, but by the Haitian worker's country men and women. The line leader was eventually fired. She had "friends" in high places, but it didn't matter. With the outrage stirred up by her behavior there was no alternative. To keep the peace, she had to go.

There are a lot of so called "leaders" who have to go. They're abusing the people, exploiting the workers. They're not worthy to lead.


Outrage is a good thing, properly channeled. It means you're awake. As someone's bumper sticker said: If You're Not Outraged, You're Not paying Attention."

Just in case the five readers of this blog think this post is about poverty in other countries...chew on this:

"47 million people make less than $10.50 an hour, six and a half, seven, eight dollars an hour before deductions; 45 million people without health care, 18,000 of whom die every year, according to the National Academy of Sciences, because they can't afford health care; 13 million children who go to bed hungry every night; 45 million people in dire poverty; 58,000 people who die from workplace connected diseases and trauma every year, according to OSHA; 65,000 people who can't breathe, and die because of air pollution."

The foregoing statistics were provided by Ralph Nader in a March 24, 2008 Newsweek article as his motivation for running for president.

"I have a very deep well of empathy," Mr. Nader said, citing the above.

Could this be why the major news networks won't let him debate?