2.09.2008

Let me be the first to welcome you to the leisure class

American as well as all western white and blue collar workers will soon realize that they will either have to decrease their wage demands to conform with "global standards" or chose jobs in the service sector. These global standard wages are now being set by worker in India and China...But, if American workers are willing to accept these "global standard wages" (adjusted for product transportation costs), no more than $3.00 per hour, perhaps they can get work here in the U.S....

So the middle class worker unwilling or unable to accept this wage level has been disappearing into the limbo of the "having chosen leisure over work" class. The (establishment) economists have so labeled those 35 percent of the labor force (about 70 million people) who are of working age but not working. Forty (40) million of these 70 million "loafers" are between age 50 and 62(surprise!), still too young to be receiving social security.

(Emphasis mine, quote from The Daily Scare)

Could those numbers be true? I have no idea. But I could tell you some damn gawdawful first-hand horror stories from where I work helping recently laid-off people brush up on computer skills they need for finding a new job.So I'm inclined to believe that even if the numbers are wrong the sense is true. You could have a lot of leisure to look forward to, bunky. Buy a really, really long good book.

(Or, you know, get a blog.)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh dear sweet fancy moses. This was a joke when Colbert said it. (Money quote: "The point is I am here to tell you that your sacrifice will be rewarded [With More Sacrifice] because if you keep sacrificing your benefits long enough and if your wages get low enough... we'll get those jobs back from China.")

Ted Compton said...

I like Colbert. I hope they don't outsource him.