Bill Maher Asks: "When did the American dream become this pathway to indentured servitude?"

[kpete]

Bill Maher’s New Rules Snippet On The Minimum Wage
When it comes to raising the minimum wage Conservatives always say it is a non-starter because it cuts into profits. … You might think that paying people enough to live is so self-evident that even crazy people could understand it. But you would be wrong. …

Michele Bachmann is not only against raising the minimum wage, she is against having one at all. She wants said “… if we took away the minimum wage … we could … virtually wipe out unemployment … because we would be able to offer jobs at whatever level.” …

And naturally Ted Cruz agrees. Ted Cruz thinks it’s a good thing that when his Cuban father came to America he was paid fifty cents an hour to work as a dishwasher. …

When did the American dream become this pathway to indentured servitude, this economic death spiral where workers get paid next to nothing, so they can only afford to buy next to nothing, so businesses are forced to sell cheaper and cheaper shit?

Consider the fact that most fast food workers whose average age by the way is 29 … are on some form of public assistance which is not surprising. When even working people can’t make enough to live they take money from the government.

This is the question the Right has to answer. Do you want smaller government with less handouts or do you want do you want a low minimum wage because you cannot have both. If Coronel Sanders isn’t going to pay the lady behind the counter enough to live on, then Uncle Sam has to. And I for one is getting a little tired of helping highly profitable companies pay their workers.


video & more:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/10/26/1250736/-Bill-Maher-Tired-Of-Helping-Companies-Pay-Workers-Hike-Minimum-Wage-VIDEO

[Smarmie Doofus]

1. Does Maher write his own stuff?

It's better than ( i.e more communicative, incisive and to the point) than almost anything anybody else has to say.

Including (especially including) the pols and talking-heads.

And... he's funny. If he's doing that alone, the guy is a friggin' genius.

[grahamhgreen]

4. He has writers, but he also writes.

[progressoid]

5. There are a bunch of writers on the show including Bill.

http://www.hbo.com/real-time-with-bill-maher/cast-and-crew

[SoCalDem]

34. Coronel? and I "is" ? Maher is not usually this sloppy

I think he signed off on it but did not proof it

A well stated point is undermined by stuff like this.

I certainly DO agree that middle class is turning into servitude, but decades of not paying attention to details created the mess.

There is a complacency that accompanies "middle-class-dom". It's the "we-have-arrived-and-now-we-can-relax" syndrome. For movements to prosper, there has to be a conveyor approach, where each one reaches back and pulls the next one on. We stopped doing that (as a society)

[johnlucas]

37. One of my first posts here was "There's no such thing as the Middle Class"

Last edited Sun Oct 27, 2013, 03:52 PM - Edit history (1)

Can't seem to find it anymore due to the change from the old Democratic Underground to the current one...
...But that I believe was my very first post here in 2008.

The words you speak influence the way you think.
In truth what is called "Middle Class" income is closer to the low ends of all incomes.
The true middle is probably a multimillionaire if you go by dollar amounts alone disregarding number of people who fall into those income categories.
A straight up Arithmetic Mean.

So knowing this reality let's say that we account for number of people who have a particular income as well as counting all incomes available.
A Mode Average.
Then you'll probably see a number closer to Poor when you see THIS kind of Middle.
Let's say a number under $20,000 as the Mode Average.
The Working Poor pretty much.

ESPECIALLY if you tie it to ratio of cost of living per region.
Regions vary in income so a more pricey income can skew data higher than it actually is.

That mythical Middle Class income either way looks fake & false.
But the myth is mighty & the culture that has come up around it is mighty as well.

In reality Middle Class people are just Poor people with the Illusions of Wealth.
I call it Poor First Class (sort of like the military with Private First Class).
They get a taste of the luxury the TRULY wealthy enjoy & think they're no longer poor.
Those who are honest with themselves & introspective realize this phony twilight & are in solidarity with poor people AKA the Underclass.
They know that they are one major medical emergency or natural disaster away from homelessness.
They're thankful for what they have but they know better than to get haughty & condescending toward those with lesser financial means.

The reason you're starting to see more progressive positions take root is because at last the illusion was breaking away.
Poor people have suffered endlessly throughout history in this country & every other.
But nobody really makes a big deal with the problems of the Poor.
When the robber barons started taking away the so-called "Middle Class" illusions of wealth only THEN did you see reporters out here making a big deal over the injustice.

That's the best thing that came out of the Great Recession. It finally woke enough of these complacent jabronies up.
They were starting to re-remember that they were the Poor all along & will be treated just like the Poor.
All that talk of "I'm a taxpayer!" "I work hard for my money!" & all those myopic points of view started falling by the wayside when they can't afford to go to the doctor, food is getting more expensive to buy, & gas is crunching budgets to extreme degrees.

I say it like this.
If YOU WORK FOR YOUR MONEY, then you are POOR.
If YOUR MONEY WORKS FOR YOU, then you are RICH.

It's that real.
The truly wealthy don't work to live. It's an arbitrary adventure for them if they actually do any work.
They spend time strategizing their existing resources to further expand their financial & social power.
Money is momentum-based & the more money you have, the more money you will have to make even more money.
You can seed a small portion of your money just like farmers plant their crops & watch that seed bloom into a dollar bill harvest.
From there you take a piece of that harvest to plant more seeds to get more harvests.

And once you get to a certain point of income & stored wealth, you EXCEED all possible price tags, so money just self-collects after a certain point.
You simply don't have anything to spend it on & it accumulates exponentially.
Price tags are the Bouncers keeping you out of the club, out of the VIP room.
Poor people are faced with price tags every day, Rich people don't even know price tags.
AND EVEN MORE since wealth is worshipped (since humans bow to power of any kind), the Rich get freebies just for showing up.
They make regular people pay $7 for an entry fee into the club, a rich celebrity gets in for free since the club owner knows everybody will want to see that celebrity & pay more entry fees to get in.

That's why taxes need to be high on the Rich because if they aren't nothing puts them in check & they abuse their power over society.
The Rich have passed their responsibilities of financing the country's infrastructure onto the so-called Middle Class.
There's more "Middle Class" incomes available to draw from after all.
Yet who do many "Middle Class" people demonize & blame for their problems?
You got it. The Poor.

Hell, those are the people they live around, right? Can't expect them to demonize somebody they hardly ever see.
And oddly enough they never come to the realization that if I'm around a bunch of Poor people that MAYBE just MAYBE I just might be The Poor myself.

It's a classic case of Divide & Conquer.
Give a portion of the Poor a slight taste of wealth & watch them enforce Elitist oppressions on the Poor they came from.
Same with Police & the Citizens. Give 'em a taste of power & watch them enforce the will of the Powers That Be onto the Citizens they came from.

Generally the Rich don't like to share but they know where to spend money as necessary to keep the bulk with themselves.

When politicians—including Democratic politicians—talk about Middle Class & Middle Class only, I get a little sick.
I know how phony this talk is.
John Lucas

[the_chinuk]

43. It looks like a transcription error, but it's an ironic one ...

After viewing the clip, I noticed that Bill actually did not say "I is", his spoken word was grammatically correct, and he prounounced "Colonel" correctly.

However, I find it funny that the spelling coronel is how the rank of Colonel is expressed in nations we mocked with the term 'banana republic' after having our Big Bidness go in and corrupt them.

[Baitball Blogger]

2. Powerful stuff.

I can only imagine the impact that Mark Twain had on his generation when only a limited number of the population could read. But with television we are lucky enough to have Maher, Stewart and Colbert, who can get the job done in a one half hour segment.

[Yavin4]

3. It's always been that way from the start of "America"

It's just that in the 20th century, labor finally punched through and got a decent share of the pie, and even that was mostly to detract the masses from looking favorably at Communism.

With Communism gone, it's back to the usual.

[LittleGirl]

6. I think Maher and his writers read DU

I've seen those words (more or less) written here over and over. We are at a hotel right now and we planned our whole evening around the show so we could watch. (We don't have cable or HBO). I loved that his panel was all liberals last night. It was a great hour.

[riverbendviewgal]

7. americans ARE indentured servants or slaves to the USA

Did you know that America is the only country besides Eritrea that double taxes its citizens? The USA uses citizen based taxes while the rest of the world uses resident based taxes. If you never worked a day in your life in the USA but you are an American person you must file US taxes until you die, even if you would not owe any money to the IRS. If I left Canada to live for a few few years in UK all I have to do is send a notice to the Canada government I am leaving to live elsewhere. I would not pay Canada taxes. UK would be paid taxes by me, when I return to Canada after a few years or decades I write I am back and begin to pay taxes again to Canada.

There is a new law now FATCA which the world countries' banks are being made under threat of extortion where these banks must report to the IRS of any American persons bank accounts. The USA is supposed to reciprocate with DATCA but guess what,
US banks are refusing. What is good for the goose is not good for the gander.

Up here in Canada we have a fair high minimum wage, health care not for profit for all and almost a million american persons very happy living here as Canadian citizens or permanent residents..Many were not aware they were American persons and had to file US taxes until FATA came about.

Be aware that personal banking information privacy is now going the way of the dodo bird. The only way one gets around this is if you have lots of money as in the millions.

soon the IRS will be looking into every Americans money transactions. I guess that is what many Americans want.

[LittleGirl]

16. Not really.

When I lived abroad in Europe, I had no income and therefore never filed taxes to the IRS. My spouse wasn't a US citizen so he didn't have to file in the US either. It wasn't until we moved to the states that we joint filed or taxes. He's a citizen now and when we leave the States, we will have to continue to file until we die or they change the laws. It really depends on your marital status but that was in '07-'09 and they have indeed changed the law since then.

We just left Vancouver yesterday and will be flying home in a couple of hours. We drove up to Whistler Thursday and it was probably one of the most scenic drives I've ever seen. Loved it.

[riverbendviewgal]

24. I don't understand your post

Sorry it it is not clear.
Do you live in Canada? the USA? or Europe?

[LittleGirl]

51. Yes, a little confusing, sorry

We were in Canada on vacation last week and Loved it. I wanted you to know that some Americans braved the border crossing and enjoyed seeing your country. It's not our first trip to Canada. We went to Toronto in '10 and loved it there too.

My husband is a EU citizen and we lived in Europe back then. Sorry for the confusing comment. I hope it's clearer now.

[JDPriestly]

40. You are almost correct. If you have a very low income, you don't even have to file.

The minimum income required to file or efile a tax return for Tax Year 2012 depends on your income, age, and filing status. The minimum income levels for the various filing statuses are listed in the table below. If you earned below the minimum income for your filing status, you may not be required to file a Federal Tax Return. However, there are reasons why you may still want to file.
Filing Status Age Minimum Income Requirement
Single Under 65 $9,750
65 or older $11,200
Head of Household Under 65 $12,500
65 or older $13,950
Married Filing Jointly Under 65 (both spouses) $19,500
65 or older (one spouse) $20,650
65 or older (both spouses) $21,800
Married Filing Separately Any age $3,800
Qualifying Widow(er) with Dependent Children Under 65 $15,700
65 or older $16,850

Learn more about selecting a filing status.

http://www.efile.com/tax/do-i-need-to-file-a-tax-return/

[LittleGirl]

52. yes, it's complicated

and I thank you for your comment making it a bit clearer. my first post was confusing.

[Aldo Leopold]

8. Good piece.

As usual, he hits the nail on the head.

[LiberalLoner]

9. They want most of us to die already. Starving preferred, as a starving person

Is lethargic and less of a threat.

They know exactly what they are doing. They want NO government aid and almost NO ONE making a living wage because they want most of us to die.

It is just more convenient and less costly for them to kill us via starvation rather than the gas chambers.

[Brigid]

10. "This is the question the right has to answer.

"Do you want smaller government with less handouts or do you want a lower minimum wage because you cannot have both."

And there you have it, worker-hating righties. Which is it going to be?

[CANDO]

27. The problem is....they do want both!

Which goes to why they are extremists.

[DirkGently]

11. One strength of this point is that it perfectly illustrates

… an UPWARD conduit for "redistributing wealth," the phrase that so enrages workaday conservatives in this country.

We funnel wealth upward constantly, through big government contracts, through tax laws with loopholes available only to the rich, with job and education opportunities available only to the wealthy and connected, and nary a peep from these people.

But give a kid a hot breakfast at a public school, and suddenly it's Big Government Reaching Into My Pocket.

These huge companies with their MBA-think philosophy of ever-decreasing costs always come back to their labor force as a way to push next quarter's profit graph a little higher. It's unsustainable, and as people are now pointing out more and more, it not only stifles the economy by depressing consumer spending on the part of underpaid workers, but increases the burden on the meager social safety nets we do have by creating more and more "working poor."

It's not question of whether we should "redistribute wealth." That's what an economy and a civilization does. That's how this works. The question is where we distribute it, for what purpose, and what we as a whole society get out of it.

This is Maher at his best -- making cogent points that should be obvious, but that we don't talk about.

[ctsnowman]

12. If you are like me and

had to cut off HBO for a while you can catch his older episodes here.
http://www.hbo.com/real-time-with-bill-maher#/real-time-with-bill-maher

Just a little PSA. Thanks for the post.

[arcane1]

26. Thanks for that link!!!

[WillyT]

13. K & R !!!

[woo me with science]

14. K&R

Last edited Sat Oct 26, 2013, 08:49 PM - Edit history (1)

[Marr]

15. I expect right-wingers would disagree with this part:

"If Colonel Sanders isn’t going to pay the lady behind the counter enough to live on, then Uncle Sam has to."

It's obviously true, but in their ideological bubble, I expect the answer is to just let that cashier die. Of course, people don't just sit passively and wait to starve to death-- which is the whole reason we have a social contract. It protects the comfortable far more than the afflicted.

[Enthusiast]

17. No.

Righties say, "Well, she should get a second job." Work more or die. Or, just die, our choice. USA! USA!

[Spitfire of ATJ]

20. They're answer is already being said out there. They claim she has an "entitlement mentality"...

They'll say, "Just how much of THEIR MONEY does she feel she is entitled to? If she wants higher wages she needs to get off her lazy ass and get a better job or get married to someone who will support her."

I've read the comments on sites covering the dismal fast food wages and the Right Wing Trolls delight in saying, "Shut up bitch and go make me a sandwich."

[blkmusclmachine]

18. Trickle Down, bay-bee. 1980. And still goin' strong in DC.

[NBachers]

30. Trickle up, no more trickle down

Here's my Occupy poster:

[pitchforx]

19. to paraphrase the late George Carlin-

if you still believe in the American Dream you must be sleeping..
Vonnegut's "Player Piano" was prophetic.....and so it goes

[DJ13]

21. K&R but

I wish they would stop using edited videos and show the whole segment.

[riderinthestorm]

22. Big K&R nt

[BrotherIvan]

23. I must be naive

Because all those companies that pay their workers nothing are really hurting: Walmart, McDonalds, &c. We are a consumer-based economy. If no one has any money, don't the companies suffer in the end? Or is it just so short-sighted and as long as the CEO gets his huge salary and bonus, everything is ok? One would think the shareholders wouldn't be so stupid. When everyone is destitute who will buy their crap?

I don't get it.

[laundry_queen]

38. Astute observation

Yes, most really are that short sighted. Even the shareholders are, or often the shareholders are not aware of what management is up to, and don't care so long as their returns are good. Most don't look past next quarter, or maybe next year. Many of today's MBAs haven't been taught big picture thinking, and are caught up in a numbers game. Add to that the issue that Walmart and McDonalds are the type of companies that actually do BETTER in shitty economic times and you have at least 2 corporations that have NO interest in increasing the consumer base - because when consumers have enough money, they DON'T eat at McDonalds or shop at Walmart. So why would they want to improve things for consumers? They don't.

[Spider Jerusalem]

25. Someone should introduce Ted Cruz to the concept of inflation.

His father came to the USA in 1957. Fifty cents in 1957 is equivalent to more than eight dollars in current money. Which is more than the current Federal minimum wage of $7.25.

[intheflow]

33. No kidding!

I was going to post the same thing but figured I should read the damn thread since someone was bound to point it out sooner than I could. Still, it took five hours to do it. Egads, DU is slipping.

[muriel_volestrangler]

49. BLS says 50 cents in 1957 is $4.16 now

http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm

Perhaps you gave the equivalent of a dollar?

[Warpy]

28. He's telling us something very important

Either the fast food and big box patrons have to pay a few pennies extra (and yes, it's pennies) so that workers have enough to live on, or those of us who aren't patrons will have to pay those pennies in extra taxes to support them so that a few billionaires can get fatter.

Either we pay up front or we pay at the back end and the latter also serves up an extra helping of humiliation for fast food workers who have to go begging from the government.

This system sucks. Those billionaires are rich enough to live like potentates for the rest of their lives without spending a dime of the principal. They're rich enough. It's time to raise the minimum wage to something that reflects the actual cost of staying alive.

[DeSwiss]

29. It was always thus, Bill.

- They've been stringing it out until they had full control. Doesn't look like it's going to happen now though. Unless we give up....

K&R

[navarth]

31. Bill's great. About 6 months behind Thom Hartmann, but better late than never. nt

[tecelote]

32. People are finally realizing that Welfare and Food Stamps are not hand outs to the poor,

they are really corporate entitlements allowing for record profits.

The poor do not benefit from Welfare and Food Stamps. They survive.

Corporations profit.

[DallasNE]

35. The Walton Family Is Worth Roughly $145 Billion

And pay their workers so little that they qualify for public assistance. Anybody see a problem with that picture. That is straight out of Scrooge McDuck land -- someone kids learned was evil.

[woo me with science]

36. kick

[Hubert Flottz]

39. I think it was about

1620 AD.

[Phlem]

42. K&R!

And the hits keep coming!

Great job kpete!





-p

[Prophet 451]

44. That's why Republicans oppose minimum wage AND social programs

Look, it's very simple. The corporate dream is to have a pool of labour so desperate that they will work for pennies until they drop and to whom the corporates owe nothing. So they oppose raising the minimum wage and also oppose anything that keeps poor people from starving.

[stillwaiting]

47. It's a lovely ideology isn't it?

Jesus would approve!

[Prophet 451]

48. They've actually invented a whole new religion

Reaganism - They might claim to be Christians but I've been lucky enough to know a couple of real Christians and the Republican ideology is a a mixture of OT judgementalism and Ayn Rand sociopathy.

[mnhtnbb]

45. These are the issues that Dem representatives should be pushing

every day, all day.

The Repubs should be forced to face these issues. Thank goodness
for people like Bill Maher, Bill Moyers, Jon Stewart, who manage
to occasionally raise the issues.

[Nanjing to Seoul]

46. Hey Bill. . .it happened January 21st, 1981. Look up what happened that day!

[Mass]

50. When did the American Dream exist for every American Citizen

It was always based on a lie and the exclusion (by different means) of women and minorities, and also for poor white people. Sure, if only a fraction of the population can access well paid jobs. It was created by turning workers against workers, people against people. Who are we kidding?

So, if we could stop bemoaning the loss of something that never existed for most Americans, we could actually make progress.

[B Calm]

53. So basically we are paying higher taxes because

Walmart, McDonald's, etc. refuse to pay their workers a living wage!