“Quote of the Day”

.

Scranton, PA, Defies Court Order; Reduces Police Officers, Firefighters’ Pay To Minimum Wage

Via: Think Progress

Ignoring a federal judge’s injunction, Scranton, Pennsylvania moved ahead with its plan to reduce the pay of city workers to the federal minimum wage starting Friday. Scranton Mayor Chris Doherty claims the city is broke and that the minimum wage payments are all it can possibly pay, the Scranton Times Tribune reports:

Amid Scranton’s ever-deepening financial crisis, Mayor Chris Doherty said his administration is going forward with a plan to unilaterally slash the pay of 398 workers to the federal minimum of $7.25 an hour with today’s payroll, insisting it is all the city can afford.

That will likely earn administration officials an appointment with Judge Michael Barrasse, who granted the city’s police, fire and public works unions a special injunction temporarily barring the administration from imposing the pay cuts after a brief hearing Thursday.

~

Many of those workers are police officers, firefighters, and other public safety workers, industries that have been slammed by contractions in state and local budgets since the Great Recession. Congressional Republicans repeatedly blocked efforts to extend aid to the states that would have helped shore up their budgets and keep these workers on payroll. In the case of Scranton, such aid may have helped the city actually pay its workers a living wage instead of a federal minimum that hasn’t been raised since 2006 and has less buying power than it had in 1968.

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/07/08/512572/scranton-minimum-wage-workers/

.

Wim Dussel – Image Gallery

Via: First Time User

- Sjouwerman in Istanbul, Turkey

- 1958

~~~

See more images, HERE:

http://firsttimeuser.tumblr.com/tagged/Wim-Dussel

.

“Quote of the Day”

Via: The Economic Times

“Retirement ages will have to move to 70, 80 years old,” Benmosche, who turned 68 last week, said during a weekend interview at his seaside villa in Dubrovnik, Croatia. (see photo)

 ”That would make pensions, medical services more affordable. They will keep people working longer and will take that burden off of the youth.”

“Of course the youth will never get an opportunity to work; but hey, tough shit.”, he didn’t add.

- Robert Benmosche, CEO, AIG

~~~

Read more, HERE:

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international-business/aig-chief-robert-benmosche-sees-retirement-age-at-80-after-euro-crisis/articleshow/13828151.cms

~~~

Yes, we know.

.

We Are the 99 Percent

We are the 99 Percent.

We are getting kicked out of our homes.

We are forced to choose between groceries and rent.

We are denied quality medical care. We are suffering from environmental pollution.

We are working long hours for little pay and no rights, if we’re working at all.

We are getting nothing while the other 1 percent is getting everything.

We are the 99 percent.

Brought to you by the people who occupy wall street.

Why will YOU occupy?

~~~

Please visit their website, and tell YOUR story.

http://wearethe99percent.tumblr.com/

.

We Are the 99 Percent

.

Get a Real Job

Via: Eater

Many thanks to Twitterer @FutureExBanker for sending in this receipt as evidence that “my jerk boss tips exactly 1%” because he “loathes the 99%.” (And here’s hoping that doing so doesn’t make him or her a current ex-banker.)

The jerk boss also thinks that Breanna, a server at True Food Kitchen in Newport Beach, California, maybe ought to “get a real job.”

Well, she might have to if assholes keep on leaving her $1.33 on $135 tickets. Condolences to Breanna the server.

http://eater.com/archives/2012/02/24/rich-jerk-tips-1-advises-server-to-get-a-real-job.php

***

UPDATE:

“Banker’s 1% Tip is a Hoax; Real Receipt Obtained”

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/trending-now/banker-1-tip-hoax-real-receipt-obtained-195827093.html

.

We Are the 99 Percent

We are the 99 Percent.

We are getting kicked out of our homes.

We are forced to choose between groceries and rent.

We are denied quality medical care. We are suffering from environmental pollution.

We are working long hours for little pay and no rights, if we’re working at all.

We are getting nothing while the other 1 percent is getting everything.

We are the 99 percent.

Brought to you by the people who occupy wall street.

Why will YOU occupy?

~~~

Please visit their website, and tell YOUR story.

http://wearethe99percent.tumblr.com/

.

“Quote of the Day”

“This is the height of unfairness.  It is wrong that in the United States of America, a teacher or a nurse or a construction worker who earns $50,000 should pay a higher tax rate than somebody pulling in $50 million.  It is wrong for Warren Buffett’s secretary to pay a higher tax rate than Warren Buffett.  And he agrees with me.  So do most Americans – Democrats, Independents, and Republicans.  And I know that many of our wealthiest citizens would agree to contribute a little more if it meant reducing the deficit and strengthening the economy that made their success possible.    

This isn’t about class warfare.  This is about the nation’s welfare.  It’s about making choices that benefit not just the people who’ve done fantastically well over the last few decades, but that benefits the middle class, and those fighting to get to the middle class, and the economy as a whole.”

President Obama – Osawatomie, Kansas

***

You can read the full text, HERE:

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2011/12/obamas-income-inequality-speech/45816/

.

(2 of 2) Newt®: ‘I Call On The President To Repudiate The Concept Of The 99 And The 1′

Via: Think Progress

2012 GOP presidential contender Newt Gingrich today, during an event in South Carolina, said that he repudiates the very idea behind the Occupy Wall Street movement — that the economy should work for everyone, not just the richest 1 percent — and called on President Obama to do the same:

“I repudiate, and I call on the President to repudiate, the concept of the 99 and the 1. It is un-American, it is divisive, it is historically false…You are not going to get job creation when you engage in class warfare because you have to attack the very people you hope will create jobs.”

~

Gingrich may be spooked by the power of the narrative of the 99 percent, and is thus resorting to the tired charge of “class warfare” to deride anyone who points out the extent of income inequality in the U.S.

But a recent NBC-Wall Street Journal poll found that “60 percent of respondents strongly agreed that America’s economic imbalance comes from policies that favor the rich over the rest of the country,” while 55 percent “said income inequality is a significant problem in the country.”

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/11/29/377802/gigrich-repudiate-occupy/

.