"People who own private jets earn $9mil/yr and spend $147,000 on watches"

[Bozita]

Bernie Ward, reading from a Yahoo news story.

[Bozita]

1. "Worker productivity is up 16%. Their pay is up 1% -- Who's got the rest?"

[davekriss]

36. Time for change

Revolutionary change!

For every dollar the boss has and didn't work for, one of us worked for a dollar and didn't get it.
-- Big Bill Haywood

[Erika]

2. and pay their gardeners and maids at least 7$ an hour

and tell them how grateful they should be for that wage. Then they send them to the food stamp program, etc. Hopefully, the working class will wake up one day and realize we are paying the labor costs and benefits to employees of the rich through our taxes and yell like hell.

[LibDemAlways]

5. I used to be friendly with a woman whose in laws were

loaded. They employed a succession of women who did all the cooking, shopping, cleaning, and errands for them. They paid next to nothing and made "the help" work on Christmas. When a maid developed some health issues, they got annoyed, but saw to it that she was treated at the county facility. It would never have dawned on them to provide or help with insurance. One poor woman suffered mightily with a toothache for a long time because she couldn't afford to see a dentist.

Meantime, these people lived in splendor in a huge house, owned a separate palatial beach house, drove expensive cars, had the best of medical care, and treated themselves to lavish vacations. And they bitched and moaned mightily about not being able to find "good" help.

That such a caste system exists in this country is shameful. That these exploited people have no recourse other than to quit is a goddamn crime.

[Erika]

7. W's America

There is NO compassion left in the GOP elitists. None whatsoever. They have total contempt of the working class. W shows it every day as he advances employers rights and hits employees rights big time.

[bananas]

20. It really is a caste system.

Your post just made that very clear to me.

[bananas]

19. well how else do you get rich

except by screwing over people?

[BlueEyedSon]

39. There are 3 ways to amass a fortune: Inherit it, marry it or steal it.

[hfojvt]

3. earn?

Is that the correct verb?

[Bozita]

4. It's the polite verb.

[bananas]

22. Most of it is "un-earned income"

so no, it isn't "earned", although they like to pretend it is.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

6. Gee whiz

Ya mean they're not investing all that lucre in capital projects to create well-paying manufacturing and high-tech jobs here in the U.S. like the trickle-downers keep promising? Say it ain't so! :sarcasm:

But hey, just think of all the guest workers/outsourced Americans they'll need at 7 bucks an hour to staff those spas. :grr:

[TomInTib]

8. That is just crap. Fuck stupid Bernie Ward

My mother has a G6 and hasn't spent that much on watches in decades.

Fuck Bernie Ward.

Transportation is what it is.

Fuck that stupid, unlearned bullshit.

[mark414]

11. eat the rich

to feed the poor

don't get upset because someone questions entitlement

[TomInTib]

14. Yeah, well I get pretty fucking tired...

of all of this anti-anyone-who-has-ever-accomplished-anything bent here.

We have farmed/ranched our way thru life for almost 400 years in this place we call Texas.

No entitlements, just hard work and sacrifice.

[mark414]

16. you poor thing

it must be so hard for you

[TomInTib]

21. It's pretty tough, I will admit..

Ranch life was so hard, I just decided to leave it all behind.

Ran off to Tiburon, California, with my sweetheart.

It's a hard life, indeed.

[leftofthedial]

30. "rich" almost never equals "earned"

and certainly does not mean "accomplished" in Murka. If your family is an exception, kudos to you. I hope your taxes are raised significantly.

The current state of the class war the wealthy elite are waging against workers ensures that entitlement for the wealthy will be a huge multi-generational turd in civilization's punchbowl.

[rman]

37. Stealing from the poor is not an accomplishment

Which isn't to say that everyone who owns a airplane is stealing from the poor. In fact it doesn't mean everyone who owns a airplane is as filthy rich as those who do steal from the poor are.
I mean, there's rich and then there's rich.

[bananas]

23. Well I want to fuck your mother

I have no pride, I'll be a "kept man" if I can live like a king.
:) :) :)

[TomInTib]

26. Hey,' bananas', you are surely better than that...

if you were here and now, I would certainly send you to where ever you are going to go.

You certainly owe my Mother and me an apology.

You may have no pride, but we do, certainly.

I have often backed your shit, let's take care of one another.

My dear Mother is a woman of privilege who has earned every bit of it. You have no idea,

Do you raise hell about Gates or Buffet (who I sat at the next table on Saturday at Sorvino's)?

It is all relative.

Good God, man, I cannot believe you typed that.

Tom

[bananas]

28. I apologize

I am drunk off my ass.
I can't believe I typed it either, drunk as I am.
I have never been so crass.
There is some weird energy going down,
full moon or something,
Will Pitt remarked on it the other day.
It's no excuse, I apologize again,
you are one of the most enlightened posters on DU.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x2047354
WilliamPitt (1000+ posts)
"Anyone else here astonished by the vitriol aimed at Irwin's death?"
"Is everyone drunk? Did people get into the moonshine or the rotgut?"
...

[TomInTib]

35. I will bet that I was worse off

Not only whacked on two+ bottles of Sauvignon Blanc, but a couple of glasses (glasses, not shots) of Chinaco Anejo.

Thank you for your apology.

Are you in California?

[bananas]

42. That is a lot,

All I had was one bottle of chardonnay (two-buck chuck).
I'm at the north end of San Diego county.

[w4rma]

38. Have you ever thought that maybe you are the statistical outlier?

Have you ever thought?

[EstimatedProphet]

41. !

My mother has a G6 and hasn't spent that much on watches in decades

And you don't get why it is people here would resent someone spending $150K on a WATCH?

Have you ever tried to live on minimum wage? Or no money at all? And you bring up the fact that your mother once spent that kind of money on a WATCH?!?

[MisterP]

9. and here it is!

http://biz.yahoo.com/special/luxury083106_article1.html

[TomInTib]

10. I spent over $200K on travel last year...

should I take my leave from DU?

Just asking.

[lvx35]

13. Not if you give accordingly to charity, or making the world a better place

somehow.

[Hardrada]

15. We won't put your head on a pike just yet.

[TomInTib]

17. Thankee..

just a poor travelin' fool..

[Bozita]

18. I'd rather hear of your travels.

Please.

200k's a lot of money even when flying by wallet.

[TomInTib]

24. Oh, heck, Bozita...

I could fill you in..

But you would think me highly unexciting...

But I had me some high old times..

[Bozita]

25. not asking about adventures -- curious about $200k for travel

[TomInTib]

27. Well, without the adventures...

it just happened.

You try to go out and spend $200K on travels sans adventures.

And report back.

Tom

on edit: someone has had too much to drink. And that 'someone' may very well be me.

[bananas]

29. Me too.

"Two-buck chuck": Trader Joe's $2/bottle very fine wine

[lvx35]

12. Dude. I'm now converting to communism.

Anybody who can spend that kind of money on watches...

[leftchick]

31. check out this graph!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/5303590.stm#graph




<snip>

Even for those with jobs, the fruits of economic growth have been more unequally distributed within the labour market.

The incomes of the top 20% have grown much faster than earnings of those at the middle or bottom of the income distribution. The income of the top 1% and top 0.1% have grown particularly rapidly.

From 1992 to 2005, the pay of chief executive officers of major companies rose by 186%.

The equivalent figure for median hourly wages was 7.2%, leaving the ratio of CEOs' pay to that of the average worker at 262.

In the 1960s, the comparable figure was 24.

[JNelson6563]

32. Wait, there's more

http://www.gregpalast.com/todays-pig-is-tomorrows-bacon-a-labor-day-recipe#more-1484

Some years from now, in an economic refugee relocation “Enterprise Zone,” your kids will ask you, “What did you do in the Class War, Daddy?”

The trick of class war is not to let the victims know they’re under attack. That’s how, little by little, the owners of the planet take away what little we have.

This week, Dupont, the chemical giant, slashed employee pension benefits by two-thirds. Furthermore, new Dupont workers won’t get a guaranteed pension at all — and no health care after retirement. It’s part of Dupont’s new “Die Young” program, I hear. Dupont is not in financial straits. Rather, the slash attack on its workers’ pensions was aimed at adding a crucial three cents a share to company earnings, from $3.11 per share to $3.14.

So Happy Labor Day.

And this week, the government made it official: For the first time since the Labor Department began measuring how the American pie is sliced, those in the top fifth of the wealth scale are now gobbling up over half (50.4%) of our nation’s annual income.

So Happy Labor Day.

More at link, including the two charts below:

[Skidmore]

33. And one of those watches can support 5 families at poverty

level...only problem is it doesn't create that many jobs. Trickle, trickle, trickle.

[alarimer]

34. Eat the rich

people who live off the hard work of others disgust me.

[AspenRose]

40. aargh

we paid $170K for a 2 bedroom, one bath 1000 sq foot house.

That watch is almost as much as my (way too small) house.

(Someone's wearing a house on their wrist! I think I just threw up a little.)

But hey, it could be worse....I could be homeless...