Higher standard of living for all Americans, well, not all Americans
You know how we’ve been having this discussion about hiking the minimum wage, right? Somehow the Left thinks that minimum wage earners are stuck in those jobs for their entire lives and there’s no opportunity for them to rise above their condition, so we should raise the minimum wage and foist that upon the private sector employers who fuel the economy.
Well, apparently, that same principle doesn’t apply to members of the military. According to the Army Times, the White House want a cost of living increase for the troops below the rate of inflation;
Late Friday, President Obama formally notified Congress that he wants to cap next year’s military basic pay raise at 1 percent, unless Congress comes up with an alternative mandate.
This is the second consecutive August that Obama has announced plans to offer service members a pay hike that would lag behind anticipated private-sector wage growth. The 2014 pay raise was 1 percent, as well. Those are the lowest basic pay raises since the dawn of the all-volunteer era in 1973.
The White House blamed ongoing budget constraints for the move, echoing arguments made by Pentagon budget planners throughout the spring in support of the move.
Can you imagine the hue and cry from the social justice people if the private sector told the government they couldn’t raise the minimum wage because of their own budget constraints, or what the IRS would tell you if you couldn’t pay your taxes because of your own budget constraints? But since this only impacts a relatively few Americans, and they’re probably baby killers anyway, it sails right over everyone’s collective head. One fewer presidential shopping trip would probably pay for a decent cost of living wage for all of the troops.
That’s how this administration thanks the troops. Meanwhile, the troops deploying to every shit hole in the world to make this administration look good – the only part of the government that’s making them good, by the way.
Thanks to Chief Tango for the link.
Category: Military issues
Back in the day, we had the usual midwatch conversation about compensation and what we were paid on an hourly basis.
While your basic E-6, over 10, 7+ years at sea, senior-in-rate qualified guy got paid pretty well, all things considered, if you paid them an hourly rate with time and a half over 40, it came out to barely minimum wage in port, and well under minimum wage at sea. This is in a job that took two years to train someone, and another year to qualify in the fleet.
So these clowns who were shown a fryolator and handed a paper hat somehow think they’re worth more? Yeah, no.
We will raise the minimum wage until everyone has an above average income! – your government at work
Let’s see… B. Hussein 0bama wants to raise the minimum wage while continuing to give the middle finger to the US Military. Hey wait, we Vets don’t vote demorat en masse, thus he values the minimum wage flunkies, welfare dropouts, and illegal aliens far more, am I right? I’ve seen pictures of automatic kiosks for ordering fast food as well as articles on robots that can cook burgers, and I’ve seen machines that cook fries in some franchises. Hey Kid, you want $15 an hour for frying burgers? meet your replacement!!
http://singularityhub.com/2014/08/10/burger-robot-poised-to-disrupt-fast-food-industry/
Here’s one that makes burritos:
http://www.neontommy.com/news/2014/01/burger-robots-and-burrito-vending-machines-shake-fast-food
Yeah, for less money than it would cost to pay them, the franchise owners can install machines like that, only need one technician for a number of franchises and maybe just one per franchise to clean and stock, that is, if these machines don’t clean themselves via say, a built-in steam cleaner! The machines also won’t call in sick, screw around or just quit on a whim!
Saw them in a McDonalds in France already. There were maybe three people working in the store, and everything else was automated. There was a touch screen kiosk to order from, and you could swipe a CC or insert cash, just like a vending machine. It would print out a receipt, and you just waited until your order number came up. Hardly any human interaction at all, and far less employees per store. I can guarantee it’s coming here.
I remember seeing a fry cooking machine in a McGunk back in the late 90’s. With this trend right now, I suspect we’ll be seeing a lot more as well as the cooking machines.
Like I said, “$15 an hour to fry burgers? HERE’S YOUR REPLACEMENT!” *beep!* *click* *Whirrrrrr*…
Oh, Lord, here I have to go again, debunking that idiotic story about the burger machine.
The thing is vaporware. They’ve been talking about it for close on two years, yet it’s never been put into a real restaurant. Speaking as a ServSafe-qualified cook, it’s a terrible idea; I won’t even go into all the food-quality pitfalls I can see from the design published.
Please stop citing it as a valid option for restaurant operators! The thing doesn’t exist in the real world.
Doesn’t mean something won’t eventually come out, but this isn’t it. Call me when you find one in the wild. 😉
The burrito box machine is just silly; it’s a glorified coffee dispenser. You pick a (pre-made) burrito and it’s heated inside the machine. Feh.
The kiosks replacing cashiers are a different matter. On the other hand, if you look at “real” restaurants, most of them got rid of cashiers a decade or two ago. These days your server takes your money instead.
That said, the skill set needed to work at McDonald’s is worth nowhere near $15/hour. Forget machines, they couldn’t afford to keep the place open at those rates.
At the risk of sounding like an activist, if we could get just 50% of all current and former military personnel to vote, we’d be a group that the politicians would actually be forced to listen to. Instead, we rely on lobbyists hired by a few service organizations and senior military management.
That ain’t working.
If the military were run the way civilian corporations are run, rank would be just a number in your file and you’d all get paid for overtime.
The military has all these freebies, remember? Free medical care, free dental, free eye exams, free housing unless you have a family and then you get BAQ. And you get sea duty pay, hazardous duty pay, flight pay. Then there’s the commissary and the Exchange, right? No sales tax, or something, right?
Come on, guys – you’re simply rolling in it. Aren’t you?
Why aren’t these same liberal champions of the “working poor” saying anything about the military who defends them? Why do they lend them a big hand and welcome home on holidays but not when it comes to when the rubber meets the road for a service guy, his family and pay and retirement. Another example of Obama being a coward. He kicks the teeth in on those who have to take it without word. His lapdogs in the Pentagon are well trained to heel and speak when told to so the military is an easy target and easy take for Obama.
Send those folks wanting more than $15 an hour to Africa to help and aid the folks there. See how many hands go up at that volunteer meeting.
The appalling ignorance consistently demonstrated by those on the libidiot side of the political spectrum regarding basic economics never ceases to amaze me.
Unfortunately, the same can be said about the majority of Americans, too.
Let’s look at a normal soldier who works for 10 hours a day with a five-day week. That’s 50 hours a week. Four weeks a month. I’m saying 10 hours because on one day of special duty every 30. We have 200 hours a month, with 40 of those hours being overtime. That comes out to 220 pay-hours. The average E-4 with three years in would be making $10.07/hour.
During a deployment, we’re looking at 12 hours a day with a seven-day week (this is a minimum number; I know it is usually higher). That’s 84 hours a week with 40 standard hours and 44 overtime hours, coming out to 106 pay-hours a week. Four weeks makes it 424 pay-hours. Your average E-4 with three years is now making $5.22/hr. If you add in imminent danger pay, it is raised to $5.75/hr.
Please tell me how a burger flipper should get $7.25/hour for a part-time job when we are paying our soldiers $1.50 less when they are in a position where they could be killed, maimed, and not able to hang up their “apron” at the end of the day.
Not to mention, if a minimum wage worker doesn’t like their job, they can just quit. We don’t have that option.
And here is where some asshole will interject that fast food is dangerous, too! There’s hot grease, slippery floors, and you know those places are subject to armed robbery! So it’s, like, just as dangerous as being in the Army, man!
Obviously everything I just quoted above is chickenshit. Yes, I said “quoted.” Because I actually heard this from some picket sign-toting fatass putz who insisted that McDonalds was every bit as hazardous as being a fireman, cop, Soldier, Sailor, Marine, Airman, or Alaskan crab fisherman. I considered multiple responses, including throat-punching, lecture (not really a debate if the opponent is functionally retarded), open-hand bitch slap, profanity-infused tirade, etc., but finally settled on, “Bitch, please,” while rolling my eyes and walking away. The fact that that lump of shit got paid anything at all for anything took away a lot of my faith in humanity.
One of the things that the MSM fails to mentions is that these minimum wage protests are being propped up by the SEIU, a union. The higher wages non-union must be paid the less un-palatable union workers become. Our president is simply paying back his union supporters and handing out favors for his union backers.
That sounds like B. Hussein 0bama doing business as usual. Those pukes get higher wages, then find out they’re unemployes because the franchise just went nearly fully automatic, then *WAAAAAHHHHHHH…* they’re the viiiictiiiims!
I’m one of those strange people that hates mustard. I detest it, I can stand the taste or smell of it.
So when I order fast food I order it how I want it. These highly trained food service people cant even make a cheeseburger right over half the time. They are mostly teenagers who just dont give a rats ass.
I love Chinese food, I call and place my order and its ready in ten minutes, no matter how much or how little its always ten minutes. I have never had them get an order wrong and they speak little to no English.
I asked a local kid if he wanted to cut the grass, his answer was 40 bucks. Now he wanted 40 dollars to do something I can do with a push mower in just under an hour. including weed eating.
So I asked what that included, he said cut the grass, weed eating and sweeping are extra.
These kids dont understand work, they think they are owed something. They think its normal to have a new 500 dollar phone every other month. They have no idea of reality and the politicians pander to them.
They truly are the future of the nation, and I weep at the thought. It is not just the kids that think this way. The adults are just as bad. They are like game farm raised Pheasants. Even after they are released to the wild, they stand around waiting for the evening feeding time.
A friend of mine was landscaping his new house and needed some help. He went to the local tavern to enlist some of the local men. They were always moaning about the lack of work in the area so he figured they would be happy to pick up ten bucks an hour for light labor. There were about a dozen men in the place when he made his offer. All but one of them finished their drinks and left him standing there. He figured he at least he had one man willing to help him. He was wrong.It turns out that the last man was deaf and had not heard the offer. Not one man was willing to work as long as he could collect his welfare or unemployment and spend his days in idleness. Work has become a foreign concept to many of our citizens.
That’s true. Many do not seek work because going on welfare pays better than minimum wage, such is life today in the United States of “GIMME, GIMME, GIMME!”.
Remember, this comes from the party whose senior congressional representative said they had to pass a law to find out what it says.
The entertaining part about the minimum wage hoopla is that only about 4.3% of all hourly workers earn the minimum wage and half of those wage earners are under 25 years of age. The reality of the push to move minimum wage to $15 an hour is to escalate the rest of the workers who are between $8-$15 currently….if it only benefitted the 4.3% there is no way the unions would be involved. There is a deeper goal here and it’s couched in bull shit terms of caring for the working poor. The military wage is nothing new, fuck the military anytime you don’t need them. After all even if they vote in a block they don’t amount to 1% of the public….maybe we will end the drug war and stop wasting time and energy on pretending America can be cured of its desire for dope through blunt force. We like to get high in America, we love our booze and a lot of us love drugs…the problem isn’t the sellers, it’s the buyers. Anytime you have a population that like dope in quantities so profitable that cartels can build submarines for one way trips to drop off dope it’s clear some cops aren’t going to win that war even with MRAPs and Combat Clothing….the drug war was pretty much lost the day it was declared, we’re just too stubborn to admit it. Those monies could fund military pay raises and treatment for dopers, all of which is less than funding cops and prisons. But we don’t want to hear that in America, we want to have a police force that’s all dressed up like the military with military toys tooling around our streets while our impotent president and company do nothing with the actual military that’s supposed to be protecting the nation. We’ve created a nation where the citizens are scrutinized as much a the criminals, while our international interests remain unresolved after 14 years of overseas stupidity. Follow the money, understand the policy. No one gives a fuck about the soldiers, and no one really cares about the… Read more »
Obama’s dinner: Surf and Turf … Maine Lobster and Filet Mignone.
Da Peeps dinner: Surf and Turf … Bologna and Tuna Fish (from a can).
I have MRE’s from the 90’s that still work and taste mighty OUTSTANDINGLYISH!
Even the Omelet with Ham?