Can anyone tell me what wage someone has to earn so they’re no longer “exploited”?
Can you give me a simple numerical per hour value?
Thank you.
They must earn the full fruits of their labour.
So, we’ll say someone works in a factory making shoes: every hour they make two pairs of shoes, each pair being worth £10, and the raw materials for the shoes having been worth £2. They have turned £2 into £10, an £8 mark up, twice (twice because they made two pairs) therefore their labour for that hour has been worth £16. That is the value of their labour. That, therefore, should be their wage.
But oh, what of the factory owner? How do they make money? Aren’t they being exploited now? How do we square this tricky dichotomy between he who owns the factory and he who works in the factory? Hm. Guess we better make it the same person, eh?
I hope this has answered what I can only assume is a genuine and legitimate question, and absolutely not an attempt to bait an argument out of Marxists.
Lol someone actually gave a serious response.
via proletarianinstinct
That the wealthy are “job creators,” and therefore have interests that must be defended by the public at large, is a talking-point that, however facile, is so popular it slips effortlessly from the lips of conservatives every day.
It can be deployed for any purpose – not only in calling for more tax breaks for the rich, but also when opposing public interest regulation, consumer litigation and worker protections. Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minnesota, even used it to deflect attention from the “gay rehabilitation” services her clinic allegedly offers. When asked about it by ABC News, Bachmann merely acknowledged, “we do have a business that deals with job creation.” When pressed, she stuck with it: “As I said, again, we’re very proud of our business and we’re proud of all job creators in the United States.”
It’s also complete nonsense; the opposite of the truth. Sure, the wealthy create a few jobs – people who offer exclusive services or sell them high-end goods. But the overwhelming majority of jobs in this country are “created” by ordinary Americans when they spend their paychecks.
Consumer demand accounts for around 70 percent of our economic output. And with so much wealth having been redistributed upward through a 40-year class-war from above, American consumers are too tapped out to spend as they once did. This remains the core issue in this sluggish, largely jobless recovery. The wealthy, in their voracious appetite for a bigger piece of the national pie, are the real job-killers in this economic climate.
Don’t take my word for it. The Wall Street Journal reported this week that “the main reason U.S. companies are reluctant to step up hiring is scant demand, rather than uncertainty over government policies, according to a majority of economists” the paper surveyed. That jibes with what business owners themselves are saying. Last week, the National Federation of Independent Businesses released a survey of small businessmen and women that found widespread “pessimism about future business conditions and expected real sales gains.”
via knowledgeappliedispower
Why Iceland Should Be in the News, But Is Not 
3-fifths-human-5-fifths-awesome:
An Italian radio program’s story about Iceland’s on-going revolution is a stunning example of how little our media tells us about the rest of the world. Americans may remember that at the start of the 2008 financial crisis, Iceland literally went bankrupt. The reasons were mentioned only in passing, and since then, this little-known member of the European Union fell back into oblivion.
As one European country after another fails or risks failing, imperiling the Euro, with repercussions for the entire world, the last thing the powers that be want is for Iceland to become an example. Here’s why:
Five years of a pure neo-liberal regime had made Iceland, (population 320 thousand, no army), one of the richest countries in the world. In 2003 all the country’s banks were privatized, and in an effort to attract foreign investors, they offered on-line banking whose minimal costs allowed them to offer relatively high rates of return. The accounts, called IceSave, attracted many English and Dutch small investors. But as investments grew, so did the banks’ foreign debt. In 2003 Iceland’s debt was equal to 200 times its GNP, but in 2007, it was 900 percent. The 2008 world financial crisis was the coup de grace. The three main Icelandic banks, Landbanki, Kapthing and Glitnir, went belly up and were nationalized, while the Kroner lost 85% of its value with respect to the Euro. At the end of the year Iceland declared bankruptcy…
What happened next was extraordinary. The belief that citizens had to pay for the mistakes of a financial monopoly, that an entire nation must be taxed to pay off private debts was shattered, transforming the relationship between citizens and their political institutions and eventually driving Iceland’s leaders to the side of their constituents. The Head of State, Olafur Ragnar Grimsson, refused to ratify the law that would have made Iceland’s citizens responsible for its bankers’ debts, and accepted calls for a referendum.
Of course the international community only increased the pressure on Iceland. Great Britain and Holland threatened dire reprisals that would isolate the country…
In the March 2010 referendum, 93% voted against repayment of the debt. The IMF immediately froze its loan. But the revolution (though not televised in the United States), would not be intimidated. With the support of a furious citizenry, the government launched civil and penal investigations into those responsible for the financial crisis. Interpol put out an international arrest warrant for the ex-president of Kaupthing, Sigurdur Einarsson, as the other bankers implicated in the crash fled the country.
But Icelanders didn’t stop there: they decided to draft a new constitution that would free the country from the exaggerated power of international finance and virtual money.
To write the new constitution, the people of Iceland elected twenty-five citizens from among 522 adults not belonging to any political party but recommended by at least thirty citizens. This document was not the work of a handful of politicians, but was written on the internet.
Refusing to bow to foreign interests, that small country stated loud and clear that the people are sovereign.
That’s why it is not in the news anymore.
This is amazing, and not the only incident of gross under-reporting by global media outlets, on the tidal wave of popular protests sweeping the world - notably with the recent almost non-mention of protests in Spain not too long ago.
Amazing. Truly amazing.
This not being in the news isn’t an accident…do they really want exhausted people, in Western countries, who feel as though they’re working themselves to death with nothing to show for it, while those who caused the crisis continue to line their pockets with money to know that “hey, it’s possible to make those fucks pay for what they did? It’s possible to level the playing field if you all get angry at the same fucking time?”
No.
They don’t want us to know that.
So, there’s a reason it’s not in the news, unfortunately.
(Source: fuzzyfroot)
via baronblack
Read China's lips
China may soon be fed up with US fiscal intransigence and show it by halting the purchase of the dollar.
Senior Chinese officials are appalled at how the United States allows politics to trump financial stability
The Chinese have long admired the economic dynamism of the US. But they have lost confidence in America’s government and its dysfunctional economic stewardship. That message came through loud and clear in my recent travels to Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing, and Hong Kong.
Coming so shortly on the heels of the subprime crisis, the debate over the debt ceiling and the budget deficit is the last straw. Senior Chinese officials are appalled at how the United States allows politics to trump financial stability. One high-ranking policymaker noted in mid-July: “This is truly shocking … we understand politics, but your government’s continued recklessness is astonishing.”
China is no innocent bystander in America’s race to the abyss. In the aftermath of the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s, China amassed some $3.2 trillion in foreign-exchange reserves in order to insulate its system from external shocks. Fully two-thirds of that total - around $2 trillion - is invested in dollar-based assets, largely US Treasuries and agency securities (ie, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac). As a result, China surpassed Japan in late 2008 as the largest foreign holder of US financial assets.
Not only did China feel secure in placing such a large bet on the once relatively riskless components of the world’s reserve currency, but its exchange-rate policy left it little choice. In order to maintain a tight relationship between the renminbi and the dollar, China had to recycle a disproportionate share of its foreign-exchange reserves into dollar-based assets.
Those days are over. China recognises that it no longer makes sense to stay with its current growth strategy - one that relies heavily on a combination of exports and a massive buffer of dollar-denominated foreign-exchange reserves. Three key developments led the Chinese leadership to this conclusion:
First, the crisis and Great Recession of 2008-2009 were a wake-up call. While Chinese export industries remain highly competitive, there are understandable doubts about the post-crisis state of foreign demand for Chinese products. From the US to Europe to Japan - crisis-battered developed economies that collectively account for more than 40 per cent of Chinese exports - end-market demand is likely to grow at a slower pace in the years ahead than it did during China’s export boom of the past 30 years. Long the most powerful driver of Chinese growth, there is now a considerable downside to an export-led impetus.
Read More: aljazeera.net
via verbalresistance
Bill Maher (via thelifetimenetwork)
Keeps getting better every time I read it…
(via skyghe)
I don’t really like Bill Maher but this made me lol
via naomicamp
