McDonald's Has Tips for Their Poor (Very Poor) Employees!

Image from source, Think Progress

If you've ever been poor, you know how to stretch a dollar. You make big, cheap meals that have lots of left-overs. You eat a lot of Top Ramen. You switch to store brand everything, buy things out of the mark-down bin, shop at Big Lots or the dollar store. You get a part time job if you can, or squeeze in odd jobs for cash. If that's not enough, you might have a yard sale, or if you're really industrious, you might sell some things online. If you need money faster, maybe you opt for a pawn shop. And if you're truly desperate (and a little short on reasoning skills) you might go to a payday/title loan outfit.

I've been there. Once when I was first starting out as an adult, and once (a very long once) when I got into debt through a combination of bad decisions, bad luck and bad timing. Of course, you get advice from people, if you're willing to talk about your problems. All of the above and more. Some of it is useful, and a lot of it isn't.

But what if you were getting advice from the employer who pays you the crappy wages that perpetuate the reason you're poor? Well then (kind of like the Walmart help-a-needy-associate bins),  it can come off as insulting.

[Excerpt]

McDonald’s Advice To Underpaid Employees: Sell Your Christmas Presents For Cash
 
Tis the season for holiday spirit: Yule logs, egg nog, festive lights and exchanging gifts with loved ones. If you work for McDonald’s, though, be sure to save those receipts. McDonald’s McResource Line, a dedicated website run by the world’s largest fast-food chain to provide its 1.8 million employees with financial and health-related tips, offers a full page of advice for “Digging Out From Holiday Debt.” Among their helpful holiday tips: “Selling some of your unwanted possessions on eBay or Craigslist could bring in some quick cash. . .”

Read more at: Think Progress

Latest Debate Audience Cheer: Blame the Unemployed!

I know that Herman Cain's pronouncement that "if you're not rich, or you don't have a job, blame yourself" is popular amongst arch-conservatives. And I get it, with the rich ones. They have no foundation upon which to base their conclusion. They figure, "hey, I'm rich, I've got a job," and they think that it is all due to their hard work, smarts, and good ol' American know how!  But the fact of the matter is, a lot of jobs were sent overseas by some of those "job creators." The fact is, there are many more unemployed people than there are available jobs. The fact is, that everyone can't be rich. Economies don't work that way. And the wider the income disparity gets, the worse off rich people will be. Do they want an America, where they have to drive armored vehicles, hire bodyguards, and live under the threat of constant crime? Because that would be the end game.

But Herman Cain is all about the sound bite. And the current GOP/Tea Party crowd is anxious to lap it up. Like a crowd in the Roman Arena, they'll viscerally cheer whatever satisfies their id. When will the Tea Party--which is not for the most part made up of the 1%, or even the 10%--realize that the Republican party doesn't care about them, except for their vote, and maybe will throw a bone to their abortion/gays/guns/god agenda?

Herman Cain: It's Your Fault if You're Poor

Not his exact words, but that's what it boils down to. If you're not rich, or if you don't have a job, blame yourself. Which is a gross generalization if I've ever heard one.

Michele Bachmann: Cut Taxes for the Rich, More Taxes for the Poor!

The least crazy-looking shot
of Michele Bachmann I've seen.
From source, Think Progress.

I am under no delusion that Michele Bachmann has a snowball's chance of winning the Republican nomination. The increasingly meaningless tea party may love her to pieces, but the fact is, she is only well known because of her propensity to say batshit crazy things. That is how her name has become so recognizable.


But what she is saying now about tax rates for the rich and corporations, versus the taxes paid by the rest of us--while still nuts--is becoming very common on the right side of the aisle. My question: how much longer can a political party remain viable--electable--when their mantra remains cut taxes for business and the rich, but raise taxes on the middle class, and working poor?  How much longer can they depend upon a base that continues to vote against their best interests?


Their only hope seems to be that this very strange, and unproven economic theory has become almost a religion. They've got to hope that their evidence-free economic theory has been drummed in so solidly, that their voters just take it on faith.


[Excerpt]


Bachmann Calls For Huge Corporate Tax Cut Alongside Tax Increase For The Working Poor


In an interview published today by the Wall Street Journal, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) — who is toying with a presidential run herself — decided to one-up both Romney and Pawlenty, calling for a reduction in the corporate tax rate to 9 percent. Adding insult to injury, Bachmann wants to pair that huge tax cut with giant tax reductions for the rich, as well as a tax increase on the working poor. . .


Read more at: Think Progress

Revenge of the Town Hall Meetings

What a difference a couple of years make, huh? Remember all of those raucus "town hall" meetings during the health care reform debate? Well, debate isn't the right word. They were big and showy and bombastic. They were intended to disrupt and prevent discussion, not stimulate it. And they were--of course--largely the work of big-moneyed conservative backers using the already riled up (for various reasons, real and imaginary) people to do their dirty work. Lots of people like me wondered, how are these mostly working class or lower people being convinced to do the legwork for corporations and rich people? Won't they ever see the light?

Guess what? They're starting to. Finally.

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Nevada May Raise Cigarette Tax: The One Safe Tax Hike

Image from 120Cigarettes

"Sin" taxes are the only taxes politicians of right- or left-wing leanings feel reasonably safe raising. It's another area where Democrats have absorbed the mantra of their opposites: raising taxes is bad. All the time. Unless it's on smokers. Theoretically, they could raise taxes on lap dances, nudie magazines, porn DVDs. Sin taxes also extend to alcohol, but I'll bet they'll hold out on those. Alcohol is enjoyed across all levels of society. It's okay to stick it to smokers, who are more and more reviled and marginalized.

I quit smoking almost 90 days ago, after having been a light-to-moderate smoker for nearly 20 years. All that time, I really got irritated by anti-smoking nazis, the people who have regulated smoking out of almost all public areas. The one area they couldn't win in was casinos. A rather large loophole was cut out for casinos. It doesn't even really make any logical sense, but then the regulations are not about logical sense. In much the same way that anti-gay people sell their "protect marriage" agenda as protecting children, the anti-smoking people do the same. "Won't someone please think of the children?" The campaigns are often quite dishonest, and they almost always work. It used to really tick me off.

It still does on some level, but as a new non-smoker, I'm just as ticked off by standing downwind from a smoker. Or the smoker that throws his butts out the car window. Or drops them on the sidewalk and grinds them out. The new tax would have irritated me if I was still smoking. Now, I see it as an opportunity for others to quit. I also see it as a back-door tax of the poor. Yep, poor people smoke more on average. But can the state raise $350 million on a tax that may just squeeze out those poor people who can no longer put together enough money to buy them?  There has to be a point where the cost is just too high to justify for most people. I wonder if it would have made me quit, if I hadn't already.

[Excerpt]

Bill takes aim at smokers to help solve budget woes



Cigarette and cigar smokers and chewing tobacco users are the target of a bill introduced Friday in the Senate seeking a major boost in taxes. . .
 
Read more at: The Las Vegas Sun

Republicans of the Senate: F**k the Poor!

An oldie, but a goodie, and incredibly appropriate.

More Conservatives Coming Out Against Minimum Wage

If the election in November goes according to conventional wisdom, the GOP is poised to make tremendous gains, or even take over one or both houses of Congress.  I get that a President's party usually loses big in mid-term elections.  I get that when the economy is bad, the party in power is often in trouble.  The pendulum swings left, and then always swings right again.  But is America ready to have that sucker lassoed, hogtied, and lashed to a hitching post in the furthest reaches of Teabaggistan?

I hope not.  Because if it is, my faith in my fellow man--and their reasoning skills--is going to be lower than it already is.  Think about how this election season has gone so far. Who has been demonized--besides President Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid--by the GOP so far?  Gays, naturally. People who don't have health insurance. Immigrants. Black people. Muslims. Gays again. The unemployed. I'm sure I've left some out. And then there's the fact that many prominent candidates are advocating eliminating or privatizing Social Security, Medicare and the VA.  So, there's your old and sick and veterans.  As icing on the cake, now they're targeting the poor.  Who is left to vote for them?

[Excerpt]

More Candidates Come Out Against Minimum Wage

Connecticut GOP Senate nominee Linda McMahon may have been the first, but apparently, not the last Republican hopeful to question the need for a national minimum wage. . .

Read more at: OnTheHillBlog

Republicans' Message to the Unemployed

'Nuff said.

Keith Olbermann's Special Comment: GOP and the Poor

Good stuff as always from Countdown with Keith Olbermann.

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George W. Bush Shakes Haitians Hand, Wipes it on Bill Clinton

I'm not sure if George W. Bush was doing this to be funny. More likely he was trying to wipe off the poor or the black. Take your pick. Either way, classy.

Michael Steele: Americans Have No Fundamental Right to Health Care

Why is it that when I hear a Republican like Michael Steele say something like this. . .



I think of this. . .

Sarah Silverman: Sell the Vatican, Feed the World

I meant to post this video sooner, but when I checked (after it aired on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher), it wasn't yet available. Anyway, Sarah Silverman's political views are pretty close to mine, though I don't think anyone is her match for bravado and in-your-face confrontation. All with a terrific sense of humor and timing. Enjoy.

Rush Limbaugh Mocks the Recession

Photo from source, Think Progress

Rush Limbaugh has made a career of getting his listeners to vote against their best interests. There are, I'm sure, some financially well-off people in Limbaugh's audience, but it is surely not his bread and butter. After all, his salt-of-the-earth "base" is the "flyover" country, not the liberal elite havens of the coasts, right? So, Limbaugh has a tough game to play, making his audience believe he's one of them. Or that someday, somehow, they might be one of him, a rich guy.

There are little clues that he's playing them, of course. The big mansion. The expensive cigars. That douchey "solid gold microphone." And then, there's this. . .

[Excerpt]

Limbaugh Mocks Recession During Speech To Wealthy Right-Wing Donors

LIMBAUGH: But during all this growth I haven’t lost any audience. I’ve never had financially a down year. There’s supposedly a recession, but we’ve got - what is this May? Back in February we already had 102% of 2008 overbooked for 2009. [applause] So I always believed that if we’re going to have a recession, just don’t participate. [laughter]

Read more at: Think Progress