In These Times

Latest Comments view all 5

• • 18 Mar 07
  • 6:53 pm

  How about the demoralization that comes from job and wage uncertainty? How about exhaustion from working overtime without pay and working several jobs to eke out a living? How about the frustration of working for people who always want more from you but don’t want to give you anything? Wouldn’t those be factors in decreasing productivity? Carolyn Kay MakeThemAccountable.com

  Posted to Productivity: Is The Boom Over?

• • 19 Mar 07
  • 3:29 pm

  The Republican Congress and the Bush administration paved the way to allow businesses to make many positions that hadn't previously been considered management positions exempt from the wage and hour laws. Millions of people were affected, and no longer receive overtime pay. And that doesn't include the situations where management illegally forces people to work overtime without pay. Carolyn Kay MakeThemAccountable.com

  Posted to Productivity: Is The Boom Over?

• • 19 Mar 07
  • 7:26 pm

  People aren't raising hell because they need their jobs. They need their insurance. They don't want to lose vesting in their retirement plans. Laws have been relaxed, and so have regulations. Enforcement agencies have been starved. Companies have been advised by the agencies that are supposed to protect workers how to sidestep the laws the do exist. Republicans call it compassionate conservatism. Carolyn Kay MakeThemAccountable.com

  Posted to Productivity: Is The Boom Over?

• • 20 Mar 07
  • 11:28 am

  Yes, the market determines wages and salaries, Mike, but it's a rigged market. Big business pays Congress to depress wages by bringing in skilled labor through special visas, allowing offshoring without any penalty, and allowing millions of unskilled laborers to cross the border. Are you really as naive as you seem to be? Carolyn Kay MakeThemAccountable.com

  Posted to Productivity: Is The Boom Over?

• • 20 Mar 07
  • 1:35 pm

  Mike, I too was seduced by Ayn Rand when I was young. After I was knocked around a bit by life, however, I began to realize that there were no old people, no children, and not even any regular ordinary people in her books. Everyone was a superhero or a leech on society. Most of us are somewhere in between those two. I gave up on a philosophy that only deals with .00001% of the population. Carolyn Kay MakeThemAccountable.com

  Posted to Productivity: Is The Boom Over?