Our after-market warranty company approved a new transmission after our fourth service visit! Yippeee! Now this 2011 Ford Escape should be easier to sell. My husband says we can't light it on fire and abandon it because I made the mistake of putting that idea in writing.
In theory, buying American cars feels like the right choice. I once bought a Ford Focus that I loved and my first car was a Ford Tempo (between just those two cars, I had five accidents and got three tickets) and we both respect the work ethics of Henry Ford, who chose to pay his workers a lot more than was typical so they could afford to buy the cars they were building. We're not huge fans of his jew-hating, though. I feel good about buying Starbucks coffee because the founder, who grew up in a household one paycheck away from financial ruin, which happened when his father was injured, makes benefits available to his employees and pays a decent wage.
I was sad that Nelson Mandela died (he was secretly in my 2013 death pool), but when it happened last week, I didn't want to watch hours of coverage poring over the details of his life, so I turned from the PBS newshour to Fox News because I figured they wouldn't be talking about Mandela, but that I might find out what happened that day in the world. I lasted thirty-five seconds. they weren't talking about Mandela, but there was no news. What a bunch of scumbags shilling lies and fear, dressing it up as news and misinforming people. Are they just paid really well? The "discussion" was centered around ridiculing minimum wage fast food workers striking for more money. At least those workers are making an HONEST dollar, which is more than I can say for that greasy band of pundits.
I couldn't figure out why they would be angry with the Hamburglar for demanding better treatment from his employer. Those employees are crapped on more than orderlies at nursing homes and with the service industry in no danger of being outsourced to India, seems to me that a strike and some publicity is a good way for those workers to lobby for higher wages. The minimum wage is pretty low and hasn't gone up since 2009, although the cost of EVERYTHING ELSE has gone up. One jerk said the minimum wage wasn't meant as a living wage for raising children. Umm, yeah and our social security safety net wasn't meant to support retirees for twenty years or millions of veterans who are permanently disabled and unable to work - but we all ante up in taxes for the good of the many, why wouldn't we ask our private sector to do the same? I can't speak for anyone trying to raise a family on $7.25 an hour and make excuses for them or explain away some situational poverty, but I have enough respect for those people, trying to make it work with the job they have and with enough awareness to know they're being abused and left to rot at the bottom, to trust that if they believe they are entitled to more money for feeding billions, then I believe it, too.
Like McDonalds is going to balk at being squeezed to treat its employees better and close up shop in America? Child, please, the best fattest customers are here and they need US more than we need them. In truth, most poverty isn't all that situational, it's generational. What if you don't have enough money to move out of your crummy neighborhood and the only job nearby that doesn't require a bus pass you can't afford is at McDonalds? Better to have a job than NOT have a job, right? I think the minimum wage hike is actually less important than instituting some anti-brainwashing and truth in reporting laws around crappy t.v. news shows. Gwen Eiffel is pretty awesome, but not sure if I trust anybody else.
No comments:
Post a Comment