Re: Bait and Switch by Barbara Ehrenreich



On Mon, 26 Jun 2006, Kamal R. Prasad wrote:


Straydog wrote:

(see quoted material below)

I seem to recall seeing/reading these questions somewhere (else) but can't
put my finger on it. From all I hear about and read, the laid off white
collar worker is going to be in progressively deeper trouble in the
future and particularly if they are over 40 and even more so if they are
over 50. Its going to be harder to "transition" to anything and the
"requirements" for an interview and job offer will get more restrictive
(just an extrapolation of the present trends). The cry of "we can't find
people" from employers will not include the footnote that defines lockout
characteristics or what to do about it. Around my neighborhood, the people

if anyway the concerned person is unemployed, why can't he accept min
wage for the rest of his life

In a lot of cases, that is exactly what happens. I know many.

and keep out the illegal/

The illegals are hired for even less money, and they take it.

work permit
holder?

These guys are legal, what can I do? Nothing but complain.

Is there something that entitles one to a decent wage or a
periodic raise?

If you like _your_ shitty society where 25% of all the people (the Dalits) are just kicked into the sewer along with the other ***, then you can say what you just said.

Being that _our_ society actually tries to spread the wealth just a little bit, spread the political power just a little bit, I can understand why people would not give up the little bit that they have. Of course, in the Indian mindset such as yours, I guess your line of thinking is that people farther down the pecking order should just roll over and die when bad things happen.

Employers just look for manpower that provides more
value for money -and if you are unemployed coz you are ambitious -that
is something for which you shouldn't be blaming others. [I am talking
of jobs in your own country, where exchange rate doesn't matter].

I'm glad we have a generally much higher standard of living than you have in your country, and I don't care if you don't care about your Dalits but I think even their situation needs to improve. I believe in human rights, you don't.

that are hireable are Russians, East Europeans, Ukranians (and I don't
know what kind of visas they are on) and they are heavily into the resort
restaurants. I even ran into my first Russian the other day at a cash
register at Lowes!!! A very young brunette damsel. Freindly, helpful, etc.
But, there were subtle things about her body language that my wife and I

like what?

I'm not going to say.

notice and then we ask "Hey, where are you from?" and maybe ask a few more
questions, including whether they want to stay or go back (most want to
stay, some are enrolled in community colleges here, and majoring in
_business_), and _they_ are going to be the ones that employers want (and
for all the reasons we should all already know [cheaper, kissassing, hard
working, speak and understand english very very well, put up with abuse,
etc <and no Bart Simpson crap, or body pierceing, or X-Y generation crap>]). Here, the Hispanics are in the
chicken processing plants doing work for $7/hour that should be paid
$11-12/hour). The hospitals? A lot of them are recruiting Philipinos to
become nurses. And, I presume you read the snot I just posted about how
the hospitals are trying to drive down nurse wages. There is also some

That confirms the hypothesis that americans are expensive (read greedy
pigs) to hire by any standard and regardless of whether your govt
abandons the strong dollar policy or not.

People need to be treated as civilized. Rich people can just buy "civilized."

kind of national database on IT worker salaries that the big companies
access somehow on salary/wages for these H1Bs that they prefer to hire and
in jobs besides It jobs. Rob Sanchez, at www.zazona.com has a lot of
information on this, too, if you want to see how lots of US employers
prefer foreigners for lots of reasons (lock in visas, cheaper to pay,
etc.). And, its hard to fight that if you are a local/domestic!!!


In the end, its the demand-supply curve that dictates wages and not
one's bill of rights.

But we do actually have a Bill of Rights.

You might be able to close all types of visas to
enter your country -

If I had the power, I would.

but if manpower is present in their own country of
origin, how can you blame them for providing greater value to
employers?

I'm not responsible for the rest of the world, but the way 3rd worl lives is very pityful. Why is it that you _accept_ rich people and without any understanding that a very large fraction of their wealth is obtained by trickery, fraud, crime, and exploitation? How come you just _accept_ that and _accept_ that it causes poverty and suffering everywhere?

regards
-kamal


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