CEO tells Daily Show ‘mentally retarded’ could work for $2: ‘You’re worth what you’re worth’

[kpete]

People don’t go hungry in a capitalist economy, Schiff claimed.

“It’s socialism that creates, you know, scarcity, that creates famine,” he said. “In a free market, there’s plenty of food for everybody – especially the poor.”


Schiff argued that eliminating the minimum wage law would allow more people entry to the workforce, and Bee asked him to identify someone whose work might be worth just $2 an hour.

“You know someone that might be? Maybe someone who is – what’s the politically correct word, you know, for mentally retarded,” Schiff said. “I believe in the principles this country was founded on.”

“I’m not going to say that we’re all created equal,” he said. “You’re worth what you’re worth.”

MORE:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/01/29/ceo-tells-daily-show-mentally-retarded-could-work-for-2-youre-worth-what-youre-worth/

[theHandpuppet]

1. Sometimes there simply are no words that would suffice

And this is one of those times I really wished I believed in karma.

[kelliekat44]

41. You don't have to believe in Karma for Karma to be real. And it's a bitch!!! I just want to know

when it happens.

[babylonsister]

2. There's that 'compassionate conservatism' at work.

[NuclearDem]

3. So that wasn't just John Hodges in a costume?

[think]

4. Schiff is reprehensible and disgusting. /nt

[hobbit709]

5. In that case he should work for free since he's worth nothing

[dickthegrouch]

23. DUzy Nomination /nt

[cinnabonbon]

30. You win the thread. nt

[El_Johns]

33. +1.

[demigoddess]

38. +1000

from the mother of a retarded daughter

[Initech]

46. [phone]

Fuck that guy.

[City Lights]

48. Ha!

[Solly Mack]

6. and there you have it. Damn

[DetlefK]

7. And this coming from a profession that has an out-of-control entitlement problem.

"You are worth what you're worth."

Bankers work hard, don't misunderstand me, but their wages aren't calculated from what they are worth but from what they "feel" they "should" get paid. It's blown way out of proportion.

Why are top-rating european bankers worth 1 million per year and top-rating US-bankers are worth 10 million per year?

[adirondacker]

25. You have to be a certain kind of crazy to demand that kind of salary. nt

[bullwinkle428]

8. Here are his comments on fast food workers:

“I don’t really eat there, but they don’t seem desperate and hungry to me. They’re young kids, they seem to be enjoying themselves mostly.”

I'm guessing he thinks that slaves were really happy because they sang songs all day, working in the fields picking cotton.

[NaturalHigh]

9. Where do they find douchebags like this?

[blogslut]

10. How he got his head so far up his ass, we'll never know.

[hobbit709]

11. And still manages to get his foot in his mouth at the same time.

[siligut]

17. I suspect bad parenting

Schiff was born in New Haven, Connecticut. His father is Irwin Schiff, a prominent figure in the U.S. tax protester movement, who is currently serving a 13-year sentence for tax evasion in Federal prison.[10][11] Peter Schiff attended Beverly Hills High School in California,[12] and graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 1987 with a BS in Accounting and Finance.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Schiff

[frylock]

47. someone should extract it and mount it on a pike

[jwirr]

12. What is he a ceo of?

[nil desperandum]

14. Euro Pacific Capital Investment

He helps people divest their holdings away from the dollar...great guy... really, just a wonderful humanitarian.

/sarc

[jwirr]

19. No wonder the article did not specify. He and others like him are just what is wrong with the US.

[nil desperandum]

13. Schiff

People like Schiff don't go hungry certainly. Of course they don't produce anything either they just siphon off profits by moving money for investors, he's a parasite of immense proportion.

I understand clearly the concerns about the minimum wage from the business side increased cost always has an effect on final pricing structure, but it's people like Schiff who operate funding sources to help people take their money out of US firms that are a bigger problem. These people are traitors to the nation they live in, they think funding manufacturing in foreign nations for US companies and free trade is great because they make money on both sides of the deal, they make money from the American companies and the foreign companies by linking the monies together....

Schiff is a rat bastard whose every word and ideal is suspect. If American money is so bad why does he stay here? Because little rich pricks like him are safe here making the US into a 3rd world nation that has no manufacturing base...if I were religious this is where I would mention that he will most likely rot in hell for his actions on this earth...since I'm not I can only hope he loses everything and ends up having to work for a Wal Mart in a town near his rich neighbors who can mock him like he mocks those less fortunate.

[hedda_foil]

15. "I'm not going to say that all men are created equal." Let's look at the bio of this psychopath.

Per Wikipedia:

Early life and education

Schiff was born in New Haven, Connecticut. His father is Irwin Schiff, a prominent figure in the U.S. tax protester movement, who is currently serving a 13-year sentence for tax evasion in Federal prison.[10][11] Peter Schiff attended Beverly Hills High School in California,[12] and graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 1987 with a BS in Accounting and Finance.

<snip>

In an August 2006 interview Schiff said: "The United States is like the Titanic and I am here with the lifeboat trying to get people to leave the ship... I see a real financial crisis coming for the United States."

<snip>

[JHB]

21. He may say “I believe in the principles this country was founded on”, but...

...he acts like the people (in Parliament and the East India Company) who the Boston Tea Party was against.

[Arugula Latte]

39. Oh, jeez, I guess I went to college with this asshole.

I'm glad Cal is a big school and I didn't know him.

[kwolf68]

16. To be sure

at some point this man will be recognized for his humanitarian work. He's my idol and hero and I will have my children read every word he says so they can make the world a better place.

[frwrfpos]

18. i cant type what i think should happen to this asshole

No comment.

[JHB]

20. Memo to "the rich": People don't necessarily hate "the rich". They hate self-serving...

...ideological dickishness like this. Particularly from people who don't actually build or create anything, but whose entire livelihood revolves around routing money in various directions (and -- as much as possible -- to themselves). It's all just numbers to them.

[moondust]

22. Vampire alert.

"I shall feast on the blood of your worthless labor while you squirm and grasp at crumbs."

[LittleBlue]

24. Welcome to TPP world- you're worth what you're worth

And most of us are worth whatever the comparable Chinese guy is making.

[quinnox]

26. the republican mindset - pay slave wages to people and get wealthy of them

this is a dream of theirs - no minimum wage, going back to the slave labor working conditions of the 19th century. Forced 16-18 hour work days and the workers get paid barely anything. They would love that.

[KamaAina]

27. Guess what? Some people with intellectual disabilities are working for less than that

I would not, of course, expect a troglodyte like Schiff to know that the phrase "mentally retarded" is obsolete and is considered by many to be an insult on the order of the N-word.

But yeah, pennies an hour. It's happening. And it's all perfectly legal, under something called Section 14(c) which allows employers like Goodwill to obtain subminimum wage certificates.

https://nfb.org/fair-wages

Written in 1938, Section 14(c) of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) discriminates against people with disabilities. The provision allows the Secretary of Labor to grant to employers Special Wage Certificates that permit them to pay workers with disabilities subminimum wages (wages that are less than the federal minimum wage) primarily in sheltered workshops (segregated work environments). This is based on the false assumption that disabled workers are less productive than nondisabled workers, which has been disproven by the successful employment models that have emerged in the last seventy-five years to assist people with significant disabilities in acquiring the job skills needed for competitive work. Section 14(c) sustains segregated subminimum-wage workshops that exploit disabled workers, paying some only pennies per hour for mundane, repetitive tasks.

Sounds like Schiff's wet dream.

[democratisphere]

28. We all know it costs LESS to feed and care for a person who is mentally retarded;........

therefore they would be perfect candidates for the $2.00/Hr. wage jobs. Is this GIANT-F-A for real? Another corporate psychopath whose sole purpose is to generate wealth with no regard for anyone or anything, most specially the economic consequences to their own country. Schiff is UNBELIEVABLE!

[appleannie1]

29. On behalf of my son, I take offense to that remark. Michael works harder than Schiff ever did.

And he is worth a heck of a lot more than 2 dollars an hour. He makes cement curbing and cement lawn ornaments during the week and cleans at the local Dairy Queen on weekends in the summer. And he would be a hell of a lot more respectful to Schiff than that poor excuse for a human has earned.

[ScreamingMeemie]

37. I am imagining that your son is priceless.

I don't know why the shitheels always get the microphones.

[Gothmog]

31. This guy is an idiot-he is wrong on the economics and his views on the disabled

This idiot is incredibly ignorant. Hikes in the minimum wage does not affect jobs. His views on the disabled are also really disgusting

[Johonny]

32. We are not created equal as clearly some lack total empathy for other human beings

this is a guy who can't even imagine the guy he's paying 2$ might being doing a job more valuable for society than his and might even actually be smarter than him.

[ck4829]

34. "I believe in the principles this country was founded on... I don't believe we're created equal."

What country are you talking about then, Casteland?

[PowerToThePeople]

35. He is a puke

His head will look good on a pike with all the others.

[kwolf68]

36. How close is this to slave labor

I suspect they are opening up a new 'labor market' of insanely cheap labor, because maybe they think mentally challenged people won't be 'aware enough' to know they are being screwed over. Not 'aware' enough to bargain for fair wages and safe working conditions, let alone 'aware' enough to organize. What next? Armed guards while the workers plug along?

This guy is a dinosaur and this thinking is malignant and repulsive, but I fear it is much of the fuel that powers the Republican clown car.

[mstinamotorcity2]

40. Sometimes no mater how you dress it up.

Or how much money you have, A RIP is still a RIP (Ridiculously Ignorant Person).

[Jesus Malverde]

42. subminimum wage

http://billmoyers.com/2013/11/12/for-goodwill%E2%80%99s-disabled-workers-spotlight-is-on-subminimum-wage/

Advocates for the rights of workers with disabilities are ramping up their campaign to change the federal law that allows disabled employees to be paid as little as 22 cents an hour. As part of a bid to raise awareness, they are shaming companies like Goodwill Industries Inc. for taking advantage of those low pay rates.

On October 31, petitions with some 170,000 signatures demanding policy changes at Goodwill were delivered to the company’s Rockville, Maryland, headquarters and to five regional offices in New York, California, Texas, Washington state and Rhode Island, says Ari Ne’eman of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network (ASAN). The signatures were collected through a Change.org online campaign in conjunction with the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) and ASAN.

ASAN and NFB want changes to the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) that allows select employers, including Goodwill, to pay people with disabilities at wage rates far below the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. The groups have documented cases of individual workers with disabilities at Goodwill receiving the minimum of 22 cents an hour, Ne’eman says, and ASAN believes that such pay levels are unfair and abusive.

Efforts in Washington, DC, to change the law are currently stalled, reports Ne’eman, and “we are unlikely to see any progress in this Congress,” which continues through the end of 2014. “There doesn’t seem to be any appetite on the part of the traditional supporters [of rights for the disabled] to go after FLSA at this time,” he says. “But we are intent on keeping up the pressure and making advances where we can.”

[lumberjack_jeff]

44. Sheltered workshops have outlived their usefulness. n/t

[lumberjack_jeff]

43. There is apparently no degree of cognitive deficit which precludes a person from CEO.

So the math is at best nonlinear.

I work every day with people who have developmental disabilities, and the all realize that they can throw a better christmas party when they each contribute $20 to the party instead of $5.

When each consumer has more money to spend, the economic ecosystem prospers. Hiring 10 people at $2 per hour generates less economic activity (set aside general wellbeing) than 2 at $10.10 per hour.

There might not be a need for a minimum wage if there was a maximum return on capital.

[underpants]

45. Same thing said on Fox News by someone else. Hmmmm

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024409056#post10

[dixiegrrrrl]

52. and by the Welfare Minister in Britain:

Welfare reform minister: some disabled people ‘not worth’ minimum wage

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025668570

It's a global talking point, not just USA.

[Wounded Bear]

49. What he really means:

"You're worth what I think you're worth."

[Tommy_Carcetti]

50. I don't understand what Schiff even contributes to society.

What product, what tangible good does he give the public?

The answer is nothing. He runs a hedge fund. He makes money on money. That's it.

Nothing I can go get from my local grocery store, or restaurant, or use for my house or for my car or anything.

Don't get me wrong. There are dozens of CEOs out there who say stuff and believe in stuff just as stupid as Schiff proclaims.

But in their defense, at least some of them provide an actual product that we can enjoy. If I want a mediocre pizza delivered to my front door, I can call my local Papa John's, John Schnatter's ramblings on health care notwithstanding.

Peter Schiff can't even claim that in his defense.

[Bennyboy]

51. Doesn't Goodwill pay less than that

to it's disabled employees thanks to a loophole? I remember reading that a year or so ago.....