Taking Leave may mean the End of your Job - Solutions?

 

 

“It’s like a bachelor party for your career! Or having someone buy you dinner and then assume that means he’s owed sexual intercourse! Anyway, apparently telling people to take a vacation before they come to work for you is becoming a thing now.

Writing this week in Slate, Will Oremus reports on this phenomenon, telling the tale of Jason Freedman, the CEO of a San Francisco-based commercial real estate search engine company called 42 floors. Freedman offers what he calls paid “pre-cations” to new hires, explaining, “It’s like, ‘Yeah, have a great time! And when you get back here, work your ass off.’” The point is, that sounds terrible.

As Oremus points out, we are already a vastly overworked nation. We put in considerably more hours than we did a generation ago — and most of us are doing it while facing what the New York Times last year called “flatlined” wages. A new study released last month revealed that Americans take only about half the vacation time they’re entitled to, missing out on the equivalent of “over 500 million” days off a year. Why? Because they’re afraid of repercussions, an anxiety reinforced by what MarketWatch notes is “company culture and lack of encouragement from management to take time off.” People are reluctant to take vacations for fear they’ll be revealed as expendable.” See more at http://www.salon.com/2014/10/01/the_pre_vacation_is_a_trap/

Well now, what a problem we have here. In the article above you can see how taking paid leave is something that most people simply cannot do, because it could mean the end of their job. Getting a job is a big problem in this world and when you do have a job you will do anything to keep it, because you need the money to survive in this world.

This gives employers power over the employees. There are many people looking for jobs, so if you are deemed replaceable you will simply be replaced. So if it means you have works your ass off every day and not take any leave then there is nothing you can do about it unless you risk getting fired. This leads to bad work situations and over worked, overstressed employees. This will only get worse unless something changes.

A solution that will end this fear and anxiety of losing a job if you take your leave which you are in fact entitled to would be the Living Income Guaranteed. This will give power to the employees and create a dignified work environment. With the minimum wage being double the Living income people will have enough money to live. This will stop the abuse of employees, because they could simply leave and find a better place to work so the employer will need to treat his employees with care to keep them working there.

Workers will feel supported and cared for by their employers, which will result in individuals that no longer feel pressured and enforced to only be a profit-making machine, but will feel happy and content to realize that their work is being truly remunerated and that their time and contribution to the corporation is being valued as the life-time investment it actually is. A well remunerated individual will create a happier and fulfilled society that is no longer afraid of not having sufficient money to feed their family, it will be the beginning of a new era of quality work that dignifies the lives of human beings that genuinely desire to improve their lifestyles.

Cant always get what you want - but if you try you'll get what you need...

 

There is a song that goes "You can't always get what you want, but if you try real hard you'll get what you need". Nope, not true.

With 3 Billion in poverty and billions more struggling to make a living even if you try really hard you can't even get what you need. You need food, a home and water at least to be alive yet many do not have these basic human rights. So the sentence is misleading.

Poverty doesn't  exist because people are lazy - there simply are not enough jobs available to make a decent living. People work hard - even to death just to able to feed themselves or their family. There are horrific jobs people are forced into just to make money. It always comes down to money or rather the lack thereof.

There is definitely enough food, in fact there is enough food being produced today globally to feed 12 billion people. That is a lot of food,  then why are more than 1 billion starving with a  food surplus enough for an additional 5 billion people? Well, the people do not have money to buy the food and so the food gets thrown away.

What about water? Companies like coca-cola that mass produce "diabetes-in-a-can" and other drinks require large amount of water and to get the water they claim lakes and rivers and what-not fencing it of and making it illegal for anybody else to get to that water. You have countries where people live right next to a water treatment plant, but cannot drink the water because they cannot pay for it. So they suffer.

Having a Living Income  would end all of this suffering. If people had money to buy the things they need like food and water and housing you would have no starving, no thirsty or homeless people. And that is one of the   principles of the Living Income Guaranteed proposal -  to make sure everybody has their basic human rights and actually  get what they need.   

Basic Income Guaranteed is BIG enough for Animals - Animal Rights

A Solution for Animal rights

There are Charities that focus on caring for animals. They also take animals out of abusive situations like for example in the news the other day there were horses found starving on a farm and some found dead so they took them out of that situation to take of them. This is cool that they were able to assist those horses. There are many such situations out there and many animals suffer. 

Unfortunately the reason Charities exist is not cool. The reason why charities exist is because there is a problem with this world and system we live in. People cannot afford food and so charities are there to feed them. People cannot afford to take care of animals and so th

ere are charities to take care of the animals. There is a pattern here – charities are band aids, the cleanup crew. It is like having a bucket that is overflowing with water and all you do is mop up the water – you keep mopping up the water, but the water keeps on coming – instead of getting to the root of the problem which is closing the tap to stop the water.

You will find countless animals that are neglected in poor countries/areas which makes sense, because how are you going to feed a dog when you can’t even feed yourself? The problem with animal rights is that human rights do not exist. Food and water should be a human right – effective housing should be a human right, but it is not. People basic needs are not met and the animals suffer along with the humans. 

That is why Basic Income Guaranteed would benefit not only the humans, but the animals as well. There are people who would really like and have a passion to work with animals, but they can’t support themselves. If they had their basic needs met then they would go for it, go work with animals. Human rights and animal rights are linked. Then you will see an increase in people that work with animals. 

So, if you support animals and would like to end their suffering and help them then the Basic Income Guaranteed is the solution for this.  

Sneaky, Very Sneaky: Brand shrinking

 

 

This is something I did not even notice for a while. Cadbury's chocolate have effectively reduced their 200g slabs down to 180g and the 100g slabs to 90g while keeping prices the same and not telling anybody about it. They say they do this to keep away from hiking the price – basically for the good of the consumers. Unfortunately, reducing the amount of grams that is bought while keeping the price the same is still making it cost more. And now the prices have gone up anyway.

It is not just the chocolate - Colgate toothpaste was reduced from 100ml to 75ml. All Gold tomato sauce shrank from 750ml to 700ml and some cold drinks cans shrank from 340ml to 330ml. Very sneaky, because the product is now more expensive so the companies get more money.

And people do not notice – I did not notice. One day I went into the shop and say a special on 90g Cadbury slabs and asked myself “was it not 100g before?”. It makes me wonder what other products we usually buy have decreased the weight sold. Interesting.

Prices are going up and packages are shrinking – This is happening all over the world . When I was a kid I liked buying chips, but they had almost no chips in them. Only a quarter of the packet had chips in it and the rest was air. It was like paying for air. Today I was feeding the cats and noticed less food came out than I remembered. I am not a 100% sure of this, because I never really looked at the weight of the cans.

At the moment there is not really anything we can do about this – sure you can stop buying the product in protest, but it would not make a difference. Even if everybody stopped buying from one company – that would hurt the company yes, but result in people losing their jobs and there aren’t a lot of those around lately. Without a job you have no income and with no income you cannot afford the house or even food. We all are trapped with the fear of money. And with no money to spend it is less money for the economy and so the economy suffers.

Investigate the Basic Income Guarantee – this would end poverty and inject more money into the economy which would result in a stable economic system.