Death of America's empire:45 million on food stamps,60 million no sick leave,59 million no medical

[Democrats Ramshield]

(Cross-posted by author from the Daily Kos.) Death of America's empire:45 million on food stamps,60 million no sick leave,59 million no medical

by Democrats Ramshield



As an American expat who lives in the European Union, shortly after my arrival here I started to realize that I'd be freed from the propaganda exercise of the American plutocrat owned media.

So it is that at least for the ephemeral duration of this short diary originally published at the Daily Kos, that I invite you to come along with me and to see exactly what it is that the for profit American corporatists media owned and operated by the plutocracy never want you to see.

For openers what this diary will show you is that America is the only major industrialized nation in the world that as a human right does not provide a universal medical access plan for all residents (59 million Americans are without medical insurance), and that America is the only major industrialized nation in the world that doesn't provide job protected paid maternity leave by right of law in support of true working class family values. Unlike every country in the European Union, America does not provide paid sick leave to 60 million working class Americans. Let's put that in perspective, that is a population the size of France. Americans receive fewer annual leave days by half of any country in the European Union, and unlike every country in the European Union, American employers are not required by law to provide any annual leave.

The chart below which the Telegraph is referring to shows America ranking last in terms of unemployment benefits.


(Cross-posted by author from the Daily Kos. To read my whole article, please click on this link. Thanks.)

[Hydra]

1. I went to work sick today

No sick days offered where I could find work after my previous employer found need to outsource to a bunch of fools (whom I ironically still have to deal with).

Voting with my feet seems like a better idea every day. Too bad I can't afford to.

[Skittles]

3. don't get me started on those "fools"

alright, too late - WTF - it is SOOOOO fucking humiliating having to deal with offshore fucking NITWITS - seeing good, qualified people walked out and seeing these crap replacements :puke:

[Hydra]

6. This wasn't even offshore, if you can believe it

Overstock offered my former company to take over our department and send them a check every month.

I went to work for one of the service providers I worked with in my previous position. I now take orders from the overstock people, and they spent 6 months floundering, not bringing us anywhere near the business my previous team had. All predictable, all what I had warned the previous company president.

Deaf ears. Free money talks.

[indepat]

2. All the blooming to full fruition of the RW's longstanding vision of

America: welfare only for the uber-wealthy and large corporations while the others scramble for cake or cake crumbs. :patriot:

[Zax2me]

5. I don't think the welfare OP cited is for wealthy

The 40-60 million cited are from wealthy.

[nashville_brook]

4. expect more of this with new free trade agreements.

[truedelphi]

8. And from the man, who when he was campaigning to be

President, insisted he would end NAFTA.

Instead, he hired Rahm Emanuel, the man responsible for NAFTA's legal language, to be his Chief of Staff!

[sad sally]

9. Here's what the President's FT man says - again with the "jobs Americans don't want"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tim-robertson/the-obama-jobs-plan-offsh_b_933038.html?du

US Trade Representative Ron Kirk was in San Francisco Wednesday promoting pending Free Trade Agreements with South Korea, Colombia, and Panama, a key aspect of the president's "jobs plan." I managed to catch up to him in the spacious lobby of a downtown high tech firm and he was nice enough to engage in a brief interview with no advance notice. My disagreement with many of his trade goals was clear from my opening question, yet he stuck around long enough for a few follow-ups, a full five minutes until his staff pulled him away. In that time, he managed to spit out just about every pro-free trade boilerplate talking point ever spoken, but displayed an alarming disregard for some of the consequences to American workers if the FTAs were to pass.

Kirk doesn't believe that many middle-class manufacturing jobs will be a part of America's future. Like many free trade proponents, he views the loss of these jobs as inevitable, and he opined that Americans don't want them anyway, despite the 16% of Americans looking for full-time work right now. With unemployment what it is, and ever-widening income inequality, some of Kirk's remarks were shocking. If Kirk is truly representing the Obama jobs plan, we're in for a long, ugly ride.

-snip

ME: Ok, I support the president's export goals, but when it is coupled with such a profound increase in imports as well, that job creation isn't going to happen, 9% of Americans right now ... unemployed, a lot of reasons right now to protect those "low-paying" that many people don't have.
KIRK: Your premise doesn't make , your premise doesn't match. The fact that we're importing goods and we're exporting does not necessarily equate to a job, that's not a one-to-one match, it depends on what you're importing, again if you're importing goods that you either don't make in America or don't want to make in America, you're gonna be importing those anyway. So one, I'm just asking you to go back and re-examine your underlying premise, because I think that's a faulty one and that's an easy track for people to go into, but I would just say for me...The idea that American workers don't want to make these products when there's 9% unemployment seems to be a faulty premise to me.

KIRK: Well, listen, you can go back and I'll let you go examine that.

Since Kirk doesn't believe Americans want jobs making things, please drop him a line if you'd be happy to take a job building cars or electronic equipment, a job that would pay a good wage and likely provide benefits. And to refute his notion that increasing exports necessarily leads to more jobs, I'll turn to Paul Krugman, who recently won a Nobel Prize for his work on trade economics. The whole piece, "Trade Does Not Equal Jobs," is worth a read.

[Quantess]

10. Thanks for that.

[dana_b]

7. I shoudn't read these OPs

they just depress me.