In Sunday’s New York Times op-ed section, Steven Greenhouse shared an article on low wages paid to entry level and low skill employees. ‘Puter chose the term “article” rather than “opinion” in the preceding sentence because ‘Puter could not tell whether any portion of the piece comprised Mr. Greenhouse’s opinion.
Mr. Greenhouse’s article cites the following items and issues:
· Low wage employees are angry because they receive no raises, or miniscule raises, and corporate chief executives’ pay rose 16% last year, averaging $15.1 million.
· Fast food workers staged walkouts demanding higher pay and/or a higher national minimum wage so they do not have to live on welfare and food stamps.
· Low wage workers believe corporations placed a ceiling on their wages in order that shareholders may benefit from corporations’ record profits.
· Technology, a weak labor market and decline in unionism have harmed low wage workers’ ability to demand higher wages.
· The lowest 20% of wage earners saw a 5% decline in earnings between 2006 and 2012. Those below the 50th percentile saw a 3.4% decline over the same time period. The top 10% saw a 3.0% increase.
· A Macy’s clerk thinks it’s unfair that she has only receive $1.35 per hour raise over the last six years, even though that’s a 16.875% increase in wages over six years, or an additional $2,700.00 per year. Macy’s says it pays its employees a competitive wage.
· Corporations are hiring temporary and part-time workers rather than full time workers to cut costs.
· Caterpillar has enacted a two-tiered wage system, freezing pay for higher grossing workers and paying less tenured workers less, stating it pays its employees a competitive wage. Caterpillar notes it has a duty to shareholders to turn an ever-increasing profit.
· Companies only pay employees what they must in order to fill the jobs. Low wage jobs are going to be around forever.
· Increased demand for workers, caused by a hypothetical economic turnaround which is always just around the corner for Obama, will cause workers’ wages to rise.
· Low wage worker strikes are directionless affairs, claiming to be in support of, among other things: putting low wage jobs on the national agenda; increasing the national minimum wage; using low wage jobs as an excuse to punish non-union employers.
· An economist thinks that forcing employers to pay employees more will cause employees to spend more, thereby increasing demand for corporate products, permitting more wage increases.
‘Puter offers the following response.
Mr. Greenhouse could’ve written his entire article in the following two sentences:
The economic law of supply and demand sucks if you’re part of the massive supply (low skilled workers) for which there’s insufficient demand (jobs for low skill workers). So, by all means, blame fickle fate, not your lack of foresight and planning.
Ain’t truth a bitch?
Always right, unless he isn’t, the infallible Ghettoputer F. X. Gormogons claims to be an in-law of the Volgi, although no one really believes this.
’Puter carefully follows economic and financial trends, legal affairs, and serves as the Gormogons’ financial and legal advisor. He successfully defended us against a lawsuit from a liquor distributor worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid deliveries of bootleg shandies.
The Geep has an IQ so high it is untestable and attempts to measure it have resulted in dangerously unstable results as well as injuries to researchers. Coincidentally, he publishes intelligence tests as a side gig.
His sarcasm is so highly developed it borders on the psychic, and he is often able to insult a person even before meeting them. ’Puter enjoys hunting small game with 000 slugs and punt guns, correcting homilies in real time at Mass, and undermining unions. ’Puter likes to wear a hockey mask and carry an axe into public campgrounds, where he bursts into people’s tents and screams. As you might expect, he has been shot several times but remains completely undeterred.
He assures us that his obsessive fawning over news stories involving women teachers sleeping with young students is not Freudian in any way, although he admits something similar once happened to him. Uniquely, ’Puter is unable to speak, read, or write Russian, but he is able to sing it fluently.
Geep joined the order in the mid-1980s. He arrived at the Castle door with dozens of steamer trunks and an inarticulate hissing creature of astonishingly low intelligence he calls “Sleestak.” Ghettoputer appears to make his wishes known to Sleestak, although no one is sure whether this is the result of complex sign language, expert body posture reading, or simply beating Sleestak with a rubber mallet.
‘Puter suggests the Czar suck it.
