Cold weather is a huge deterrent to our movement. That those who wish to demand their right to freely express themselves in this supposedly great country of ours should be denied their right to even the comfort of living in a tent barely a step away from being exposed from the raw elements of winter is unconscionable. Why are we being denied this? Is it not bureaucratic oppression wielding it's mighty sword and just another weapon in it's arsenal of weapons to keep us right where they want us submitting to pointless controlling laws that keep the real voices from being heard?
I just went down to donate plasma and guess what? A social security card and driver's licence were not enough. I was denied because I need a letter from a utility company or some other sort of documentation that I am resident of the area. Why? Am I not a human and a legal resident of the United States of America? Or is the real reason because if you are homeless in this country it's actually assumed that your blood is not good enough? Isn't that the real reason? We actually have laws and ordinances that support the idea that if you don't have enough money for a permanent residence you are some how defective and your blood should not be used. This my friend is the WAR ON POVERTY not in the sense that we want to wipe out poverty but we want to continue to discriminate and keep them down not only by not providing a living wage for them but by emotional and psychological warfare.
We need huge tents at the occupation with heaters inside to us to keep us warm otherwise we will be so busy and occupied with our mere survival that our other activities will fall by the way side. Is this not what has been happening all along to our entire society? I have heard the message over and over again that those who can't come camp with us to make the takeover complete are just too BUSY with their own survival. This has been the underlying cause of why we have let things get as bad as we have in this country, people are so concerned with making enough money to keep their homes, electricity, cable, phone, food, add 100 other concerns here that nobody has had the time to even THINK about what needs to be changed much less take an active role in making that happen.
What most don't even know is that this has been the plan of the 1% all along. They planned to saddle you with these concerns so that you would not be able to stop the systematic placing of controls on the masses.
Well, our mission is to wake you up. Our presence is a reminder to stir and awaken the tremendous power within after your long and brilliant indoctrination into accepting whatever comes your way as either someone else's problem or something that you couldn't possibly fight against. Every able body should be camping, we should all be quitting our jobs, all of us refusing to pay our electric bills, our phone bills, our medical bills, our rent, closing your bank account if you are lucky enough to have enough money to still warrant one, refusing to shop at the big corporate stores. We are more than them, we always have been. The only thing we are lacking is the mass courage to really make a go of it.
Those of us in the movement invite you to join us. We will help you uncover the courage which was put to sleep through mass media and 1000 other forms of your intentional dumbing down by the 1% and it's allies the U.S. Government in all it's different disguises and forms.
What more can I say? If you value life at all and not just your life but the lives of the countless suffering not just in our country but all over the world you will join us. Take a moment of silence to find that place inside of you, the only place they have no access to brainwash and destroy, and wake up to the real terrorism that is being waged against you every minute of your day.
I'll know when you find it because when you do, I'll see you at the Occupation.
Showing posts with label corporations. Show all posts
Showing posts with label corporations. Show all posts
Monday, October 17, 2011
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Corporation Explained To Children
Today children we are going to study how a corporation works and we are going to pretend you own one, it is your lemonade stand. So let's say you have a lemonade stand where you sell lemonade for $1 a glass. You then hire a few people to work the stand so you don't have to and you pay them 5 cents an hour. If you sell 100 glasses of lemonade a day, and your workers (you have two) get paid 5 cents an hour and work 10 hours each, what is your profit if it costs you 2 cents to make one glass of lemonade?
Equation
100 X 1 = 100
100 X .2 = 2
.5 X 10 = .50 X 2 = 1
100 - 3 = 97
Now does that seem fair to you?
No, it's not fair but it would be fun to get all the money and I can buy whatever I want with it including a new 3-D Dsi and as many games as I want. Let's open a lemonade stand, right now, today.
Okay, so it's great to be the corporation but what if instead of the corporation, you are one of their workers. How would you feel then?
I'd say screw that and go open my own lemonade stand. I'd work for myself and make a ton of money just like they do.
Great idea, but there's just one problem, you have to buy your lemons from the corporation. They own all the lemon trees.
So what? I'll just buy the lemons from them then.
Okay, they will sell them to you for $1 a lemon and it takes one lemon to make one glass of lemonade.
Man, that's a rip off. How about I grow my own lemon trees first so I don't get ripped off?
You could if you had a lemon tree seed but they own the seeds too. They will sell you a seed for $100,000 but there's no guarantee it will grow. If it does grow, you have to pay them 50 cents for every lemon you grew from the seed they sold you. That's the deal.
Man, I'd have to be rich to afford that.
Exactly.
Wait, why don't I buy a lemon for a dollar and use the seeds from that to grow my trees.
Another great idea, except that the seeds have been genetically engineered to commit suicide so they can't grow.
Wow, that's horrible.
Okay, so what if I save up and agree to buy the lemons from them at 1 dollar a piece and I sell my lemonade for $2 instead of $1.
You could do that but why would someone buy lemonade from you for $2 when they can get it from the corporation for $1?
This sucks, well how about I just sell it for a little more like $1.25 and I deliver the lemonade to your house.
Great idea, lets do the math. You sell 100 glasses of lemonade, it costs you $1 to make each glass, and you deliver so you have to pay for gas which costs you roughly 20 cents per delivery, not counting your time, of course.
equation
1.25 X 1 = 125
100 X 1 = 100
100 X .20 = 20
125 - 120 = 5
Now lets say you worked 12 hours to sell 100 lemonades which made you a profit of 5 dollars. How much did you make an hour?
equation
5 divided by 12 = . 44
That's less than what I would have made if I worked for the corporation and only worked 10 hours. Not good.
Not good, but at least you work for yourself and no one can tell you what to do. You are your own boss.
That's true. I don't like being bossed around.
One more thing.
What's that?
All of a sudden the people who own the gas decide to double their prices. They are a corporation too.
What?!!!
Yep, it's true, they have decided they aren't nearly rich enough so they raise the price of gas to double of what it was when you started your business. Can you still make money?
Let me see. 125 - 140
Nope, now I'm losing money. It would cost me to sell lemonade. That's not fair. I'm not doing that. That would be stupid.
Yes, it would so what would you have to do?
I guess I would have to charge more or it wouldn't be worth it.
Yes, you would but here's the deal. A lot of your customers who like lemonade also have businesses where they use gas to run them.
So they are raising their prices too?
Yes, and some of them have decided they will have to give up their lemonade drinking habits for more important things like food.
Bummer. I'd have work harder and longer to get new business, wouldn't I?
One more thing.
Now what?
The guy with the lemons has decided he's not rich enough either, even though he has more money than he could ever spend in his lifetime, and wants to raise the price of his lemons.
I give up. I'm screwed.
It gets worse.
How could it get worse?
Since the corporation has so much money it's friends are in high places such as the government and it has decided it wants a law made that says you can't sell lemonade out of your home because it isn't safe and it might not be clean. If you still want to do it you will have to pay to have your home inspected regularly.
Are their lemonade stands inspected?
Yes, but they don't have to worry about it because they just pay off the inspectors so however they are making their lemonade they always pass.
Figures.
There is so much more but that's enough bad news for one day.
Equation
100 X 1 = 100
100 X .2 = 2
.5 X 10 = .50 X 2 = 1
100 - 3 = 97
Now does that seem fair to you?
No, it's not fair but it would be fun to get all the money and I can buy whatever I want with it including a new 3-D Dsi and as many games as I want. Let's open a lemonade stand, right now, today.
Okay, so it's great to be the corporation but what if instead of the corporation, you are one of their workers. How would you feel then?
I'd say screw that and go open my own lemonade stand. I'd work for myself and make a ton of money just like they do.
Great idea, but there's just one problem, you have to buy your lemons from the corporation. They own all the lemon trees.
So what? I'll just buy the lemons from them then.
Okay, they will sell them to you for $1 a lemon and it takes one lemon to make one glass of lemonade.
Man, that's a rip off. How about I grow my own lemon trees first so I don't get ripped off?
You could if you had a lemon tree seed but they own the seeds too. They will sell you a seed for $100,000 but there's no guarantee it will grow. If it does grow, you have to pay them 50 cents for every lemon you grew from the seed they sold you. That's the deal.
Man, I'd have to be rich to afford that.
Exactly.
Wait, why don't I buy a lemon for a dollar and use the seeds from that to grow my trees.
Another great idea, except that the seeds have been genetically engineered to commit suicide so they can't grow.
Wow, that's horrible.
Okay, so what if I save up and agree to buy the lemons from them at 1 dollar a piece and I sell my lemonade for $2 instead of $1.
You could do that but why would someone buy lemonade from you for $2 when they can get it from the corporation for $1?
This sucks, well how about I just sell it for a little more like $1.25 and I deliver the lemonade to your house.
Great idea, lets do the math. You sell 100 glasses of lemonade, it costs you $1 to make each glass, and you deliver so you have to pay for gas which costs you roughly 20 cents per delivery, not counting your time, of course.
equation
1.25 X 1 = 125
100 X 1 = 100
100 X .20 = 20
125 - 120 = 5
Now lets say you worked 12 hours to sell 100 lemonades which made you a profit of 5 dollars. How much did you make an hour?
equation
5 divided by 12 = . 44
That's less than what I would have made if I worked for the corporation and only worked 10 hours. Not good.
Not good, but at least you work for yourself and no one can tell you what to do. You are your own boss.
That's true. I don't like being bossed around.
One more thing.
What's that?
All of a sudden the people who own the gas decide to double their prices. They are a corporation too.
What?!!!
Yep, it's true, they have decided they aren't nearly rich enough so they raise the price of gas to double of what it was when you started your business. Can you still make money?
Let me see. 125 - 140
Nope, now I'm losing money. It would cost me to sell lemonade. That's not fair. I'm not doing that. That would be stupid.
Yes, it would so what would you have to do?
I guess I would have to charge more or it wouldn't be worth it.
Yes, you would but here's the deal. A lot of your customers who like lemonade also have businesses where they use gas to run them.
So they are raising their prices too?
Yes, and some of them have decided they will have to give up their lemonade drinking habits for more important things like food.
Bummer. I'd have work harder and longer to get new business, wouldn't I?
One more thing.
Now what?
The guy with the lemons has decided he's not rich enough either, even though he has more money than he could ever spend in his lifetime, and wants to raise the price of his lemons.
I give up. I'm screwed.
It gets worse.
How could it get worse?
Since the corporation has so much money it's friends are in high places such as the government and it has decided it wants a law made that says you can't sell lemonade out of your home because it isn't safe and it might not be clean. If you still want to do it you will have to pay to have your home inspected regularly.
Are their lemonade stands inspected?
Yes, but they don't have to worry about it because they just pay off the inspectors so however they are making their lemonade they always pass.
Figures.
There is so much more but that's enough bad news for one day.
Sunday, October 2, 2011
Reality Check
Back in the day, about 9 years ago when I was working at the casino and able to support myself, I was being taxed on $26 an hour. Whether or not I made that amount made no difference. Thanks to the IRS it was determined in a few days that if two dealers could average that during the three days that they were observed then it must be so. Of course, this in no way takes into account the fact that not only are some months better than others, some days, some shifts are better than others and in some cases who liked you and who didn't.
The company itself only paid dealers on average around $6 an hour out of their pocket did not provide "free" healthcare either, an employee had to buy it. For my own family I was paying $800 a month for it and this did not even include a dental plan, well they said they had one but what do you know it was like a sort of discount, hey guess what, lucky you, we are going to take 10% off that dental bill.
Needless to say, what ended up happening was that the paychecks were now non-existent because they were not big enough to cover the taxes we now owed on money that we were supposedly earning. Pre-tax money for the less than generous health insurance now came directly out of my less than bulging pockets.
Now let's do the math with the $20 an hour I'm supposedly ALWAYS making. (and not, dealers do have bad runs but for arguments sake lets go with that. Remember my hourly wage is now non-existent.)
$20 X 40 = $800
$800 X 4 = $3200
Take off $800 for health insurance $2400
Take off $1100 rent for a 2 bedroom (in CA) not-luxury apt. $1300
Take off $100 for electric $1200
Take off $200 for gas (gas had soared to $4.00 a gallon) $1000
Take off $150 for cable and cell phone $850
Take off $400 for car payment and insurance $450
What's left? $450 but wait a minute, my little children and I still need to eat. We need to buy shoes, clothing, an a few toys. Still manageable? Maybe, maybe not. I remember going to the dentist one month with a tooth ache and receiving minimal treatment and it costing me $300, yes that's after my generous discount disguised as dental insurance. I haven't been back to a dentist now for over 9 years.
(Note here that in three years of working for this company my hourly wage was increased by less than one dollar a day.)
But wait, and here is the kicker, now lets say you find out you are married to man who is a cheat and liar. You are the only one working and you now have two children. Easy enough, exit husband from picture, you say, but wait, who will watch your children while you are bringing home the rent money and how will you pay them?
You are now officially UPSIDE DOWN and do the only sensible thing you can think of. You move home and ask your family for help. Unfortunately, not all families are created equal and yours now lives in a place where there are no casinos hence no way for you to earn anything more than your average laborer.
So starts the steady decline of your economic status.
Let us not forget that this particular casino is now very successful. They rake in millions of dollars a year and still only pay their employees a meager hourly wage after all why should they when they are getting tips. Raises in hourly wages consist of a few cents per hour per year. Tips go up and down depending on the volume of customers and of course, with a declining economy the customers are either less generous or don't come at all. Nowadays they only hire part-time. Everyone works 32 hours a week and get no health care. Those who are full-time pay for it.
This is how Las Vegas was built and generally the same model that corporations use to make billions.
Another company I recently worked for...part-time of course...didn't actually have to pay their employees anything or provide any benefits whatsoever! This company is also a major corporation and provide cable, phone, and internet service. First of all, lets just say that even though I was desperate for money (at that time and now) I still have integrity and I could not in good conscious make my living by taking advantage of what was by and large the elderly population. That's right, for most of the people we were calling to "upgrade" their service had been receiving their service for tens of years. Now you might think that as faithful and loyal customers they might be receiving a decent and fair rate for their services, NOT SO, these people were paying a rate not double or even triple but four times what a new customer would pay and for much less. Most of them did not even have more than 20 channels or a digital box, much less internet or phone.
The entire trick here was that our job was to talk these vulnerable people living on a fixed income to upgrade their services. ("Don't mention the extra service fees and start up costs until the end", we were told.) At any rate, regardless of how unethical this company (hint: very big, well known) was, the low down was that if I wanted to make enough money to even half way support my family I would have to sell over a specific amount money of which I would then receive a very meager commission. If my commission money turned out to be less than $7 an hour, the company would pay the difference to that amount but I wouldn't last long I was told. As it was, I found out that I was not made to rip off innocent elderly people to make the rich richer. Ridiculous, this company actually pays their call center employees NOTHING!
The company itself only paid dealers on average around $6 an hour out of their pocket did not provide "free" healthcare either, an employee had to buy it. For my own family I was paying $800 a month for it and this did not even include a dental plan, well they said they had one but what do you know it was like a sort of discount, hey guess what, lucky you, we are going to take 10% off that dental bill.
Needless to say, what ended up happening was that the paychecks were now non-existent because they were not big enough to cover the taxes we now owed on money that we were supposedly earning. Pre-tax money for the less than generous health insurance now came directly out of my less than bulging pockets.
Now let's do the math with the $20 an hour I'm supposedly ALWAYS making. (and not, dealers do have bad runs but for arguments sake lets go with that. Remember my hourly wage is now non-existent.)
$20 X 40 = $800
$800 X 4 = $3200
Take off $800 for health insurance $2400
Take off $1100 rent for a 2 bedroom (in CA) not-luxury apt. $1300
Take off $100 for electric $1200
Take off $200 for gas (gas had soared to $4.00 a gallon) $1000
Take off $150 for cable and cell phone $850
Take off $400 for car payment and insurance $450
What's left? $450 but wait a minute, my little children and I still need to eat. We need to buy shoes, clothing, an a few toys. Still manageable? Maybe, maybe not. I remember going to the dentist one month with a tooth ache and receiving minimal treatment and it costing me $300, yes that's after my generous discount disguised as dental insurance. I haven't been back to a dentist now for over 9 years.
(Note here that in three years of working for this company my hourly wage was increased by less than one dollar a day.)
But wait, and here is the kicker, now lets say you find out you are married to man who is a cheat and liar. You are the only one working and you now have two children. Easy enough, exit husband from picture, you say, but wait, who will watch your children while you are bringing home the rent money and how will you pay them?
You are now officially UPSIDE DOWN and do the only sensible thing you can think of. You move home and ask your family for help. Unfortunately, not all families are created equal and yours now lives in a place where there are no casinos hence no way for you to earn anything more than your average laborer.
So starts the steady decline of your economic status.
Let us not forget that this particular casino is now very successful. They rake in millions of dollars a year and still only pay their employees a meager hourly wage after all why should they when they are getting tips. Raises in hourly wages consist of a few cents per hour per year. Tips go up and down depending on the volume of customers and of course, with a declining economy the customers are either less generous or don't come at all. Nowadays they only hire part-time. Everyone works 32 hours a week and get no health care. Those who are full-time pay for it.
This is how Las Vegas was built and generally the same model that corporations use to make billions.
Another company I recently worked for...part-time of course...didn't actually have to pay their employees anything or provide any benefits whatsoever! This company is also a major corporation and provide cable, phone, and internet service. First of all, lets just say that even though I was desperate for money (at that time and now) I still have integrity and I could not in good conscious make my living by taking advantage of what was by and large the elderly population. That's right, for most of the people we were calling to "upgrade" their service had been receiving their service for tens of years. Now you might think that as faithful and loyal customers they might be receiving a decent and fair rate for their services, NOT SO, these people were paying a rate not double or even triple but four times what a new customer would pay and for much less. Most of them did not even have more than 20 channels or a digital box, much less internet or phone.
The entire trick here was that our job was to talk these vulnerable people living on a fixed income to upgrade their services. ("Don't mention the extra service fees and start up costs until the end", we were told.) At any rate, regardless of how unethical this company (hint: very big, well known) was, the low down was that if I wanted to make enough money to even half way support my family I would have to sell over a specific amount money of which I would then receive a very meager commission. If my commission money turned out to be less than $7 an hour, the company would pay the difference to that amount but I wouldn't last long I was told. As it was, I found out that I was not made to rip off innocent elderly people to make the rich richer. Ridiculous, this company actually pays their call center employees NOTHING!
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