He’s toast. Cancel the campaign.
My aspiration for the country and I believe we can achieve it, is 4 percent growth as far as the eye can see. Which means we have to be a lot more productive, workforce participation has to rise from its all-time modern lows. It means that people need to work longer hours and, through their productivity, gain more income for their families. That’s the only way we’re going to get out of this rut that we’re in.
Rich guy tells the working class that our problem is that they aren’t working hard enough? What next, end the 40 hour work week, make everyone work on Saturdays (but not Sundays — that’s sacred!), and bring back workhouses and sweatshops? What a winner.
Our modern economy, where half the population works themselves to death while the other half starves themselves to death.
4% growth? He’s beyound deluded….
But it’s the only thing that would save us from Soshulizm!
Toast? I’m not sure about that. It seems to be a pretty common belief that everyone, especially those damn kids, are lazy bums who don’t work hard enough. Of course “you” are always excepted. Your boss will never think you’re anything but the hardest working, most valuable employee ever.
Since the GOP needs (some) blue-collar people to vote for them, and many of those blue-collar people already work as much as they can, I can see this statement will bring problems.
Normally, such problems could be solved by gerrymandering districts, but if many of the core demographies lose faith, the Republicans will fail every time there is a bbig voter turnout.
What’s even worse (other than all the downward moralizing) is the prescription is precisely backwards.
Our current economic system is designed to incentivize work (and the incentive is not dying) because for the vast majority of human existence, we’ve needed more capital, and more labor than has been available.
Over the last few decades, however, probably due to automation, and due to the fact that globalization has meant that the available labor workforce has increased by more than 10 times, we have too little work, and too many people to do it.
What we need to do is reverse incentives. Take some of that wealth that has been redistributed from the poor to the rich since the 80s, and use it to incentivize people to not work. Basically, the US needs to institute a guaranteed income for all. Hand over $20k-$30k (probably adjusted for Cost of living expenses) to everyone every year in hard cash.
Yeah, here’s the way it works:
“Hey, Jeb needs us to be more productive so we’re going to a 50 Hour work week.”
“Great! What’s my raise going to be.”
“Oh, there’s not going to be any raise, in these tough times we all need to sacrifice. Well it’s 4:00 so I’m off to golf, Oh, and I won’t be in tomorrow because it’s friday. S0, call me at 7 when you leave so that I can make sure you got everything done.”
Sound about right?
@4 – This statement will NOT bring problems.
The intended audience will look at themselves, and see that they are working 2 jobs a day, and can still barely make ends meet, and will figure out that Jeb! is obviously referring to those lazy others (read as African Americans and undocumented immigrants). “If only ‘those people’ worked harder, then I would be better because my hard earned tax dollars wouldnt be going to feed their kids”.
This statement isn’t the end of Jeb! by any means.
He of course has no knowledge of the discrepancy between productivity and earnings, which has been growing for the past 45 years. More work/increased productivity has not in that time correlated with increased earnings (for the workers, anyway), why should it start now?
Oh yeah, Jeb. I should totally put in more hours. It is all because I am just lazy and not wanting to work hard! I get it now! I imagine if I just ask my boss, or just show up an extra two or three days a week without permission, I will suddenly magically transform a part time job into a full time job! And here I was, looking desperately for a second part time job, or a different job that would make me full time, when all I needed to do was just Work More Hours! The answer was so obvious! How could I have been so blind!?
Dead on. In the Antebellum South, poor whites still supported slavery, because at least they were ‘above’ someone else, even if they could never own said people as slaves.
The irony is that is very, very, very rare to get rich while working for someone else, especially now that wages have stagnated since the late 70s. (Wages have been rising in emerging economies only [video])
Also, after about 8 hours, productivity goes down and mistakes go up.
“Work longer” is a really, really bad idea.
Also, if hard work makes you rich, how come African women are still poor?
So if I’m currently working 60-90 hours a week, I should increase that? (By the way, I only get paid for 40, and will only get paid for 40 no matter how long I work, because I am exempt, so increasing my work hours will not increase my wealth. And my productivity is already as high as it can get without burning me out so completely that I end up dead).
Not “more people working,” because screw those unemployed guys, AMIRITE? Lazy douchebags don’t deserve jobs! Instead, hardworking people deserve MORE hard work!
… I hope that didn’t need a sarcasm tag. The amount of affluenza emanating from this guy is staggering.
I am from the deep south and the former Confederate States are chock full poor working class white people that will only vote for Jeb because he is white. I grew up in the Jim Crow separate but “equal” era in a poor working class bible thumping, Sunday school and church attending family. My large extended family has voted Republican since before the Civil Rights Act was passed and most continue to do so strictly along racial lines. The Republicans have worked them like Professor Harold Hill worked the rubes of River City in the Music Man. They have never caught on. Until the demographics of the south change the Republican candidate can almost always count on winning most of the the deep southern states.
Florida and Virginia are beginning to turn blue but North Carolina may have reversed this trend by disenfranchising African Americans’ voters. We shall see in 2016.
You may ask, “how did you escape?” Very well, even if you didn’t ask, I’ll tell you. They fucked up and let me get a good education after I learned to read. In their eyes I am a dangerous hell bound atheistic radical. I proudly own it and hope never to return home. Thomas Wolfe was right.
Regards,
Toast? In the party revelling in His Trumpness? Surely you jest. None of this will mean a hill of beans to most Republican voters come the general election. They’ll pull the “R” lever like they always have.Lucky for us they aren’t the majority any more.
Let’s be honest, he’s appealing to retirees here.
Jeb’s campaign office says he was talking about people being able to go from part-time work to full-time employment. If so, that does make slightly more sense. It still does not address the fact that the rich get richer while wages for most workers are stagnant.
Someone tried to justify the claim by saying that the ACA are “forcing” businesses to cut back employee hours so they don’t have to give them health insurance so the employees should work more hours.
Magical thinking and nonsense.
1. Where are those jobs so that people can work longer hours at? People aren’t employed because they want to, but because there aren’t enough jobs to go around.
2. What has been increasing is economic inequality since 1970. While productivity has been going up, the money has been going to the 1%.
Jeb Bush is just as stupid and vicious as his idiot brother.
Do we really need a rerun of the Bush Catastrophe. Which killed two of my friends, dead in Iraq. It also killed my and millions of other 401(K) plans. Which amazingly enough were resurrected by…Obama. The stock markets have been setting record highs for years.
Jeb Bush’s economic plan all fits together. He is against the federal minimum wage. He wants to change the retirement age so that senior citizens retire later in life.
In the USA, the workers already average 47 hours per week. Link.
Work force participation has dropped mostly because of retirements. A population bulge from earlier is now at retirement age. “Work force participation” is consistently misunderstood by Republican candidates.
If the unimaginable happens, and Jeb Bush or one of the other GOP toads get elected, I’m going to flee the USA. Really. It would be Lovecraftian with the disadvantage of being real.
Mentally that is. As a Boomer picking up everythng and a few cats and emigrating isn’t too practical.
I tossed the TV during the Reagan administration. I’ll just lose interest in the next Bush, Huckabee, or Rand Paul Disaster and wars and spend more time with the cats and occasionally raise a glass of white wine to the former USA.
Sunday? Scott Walker just proved the GOP doesn’t believe that anymore, by getting rid of the one day of vacation in seven.
Joan Walsh’s take on Jeb Bush’s desire for you to work longer and harder:
4% growth is terrifying in itself. That’s a doubling every 18 years. That’s not sustainable.
What next, end the 40 hour work week, make everyone work on Saturdays (but not Sundays — that’s sacred!), and bring back workhouses and sweatshops?
All of those things would come back as soon as we get rid of the government regulations that prevent them — and deregulation has been a basic part of the Republitarian agenda at least since the New Deal. So the answer to your question is, yes, all of those things could well be next, if we let those assholes back into the White House.
My aspiration for the country and I believe we can achieve it, is 4 percent growth as far as the eye can see.
Pure fucking fantasy. These people are no less detached from reality than Donald Trump. He may be the loudest, but he’s not an outlier.
People have been working longer hours and one person is expected to do the work that two or three people used to do for many years now.
I remember that when I was in high school, each department had a department secretary to take care of paperwork and phone calls for the teachers in that department. By the time I left teaching, each teacher was bombarded with paperwork, extra duties, meetings and phone calls to the point where actual teaching, grading and lesson plans were difficult to accomplish, even with taking home much of the work.
I recently had a major surgery, but rather than my husband being able to take FMLA to be home with me for a few weeks, he was guilted into returning to work very quickly. Apparently, there is no one else in his office who is capable of taking over what he does for a few weeks. Instead, I had to remain alone for hours every day after major surgery so that he could do that work.
It seems to me that rather than having fewer people working longer hours to perform more work, it would be much more productive for both the private and public sectors to hire and train a few more people.
Um, PZ? Did you botch the blockquote there? I think that third paragraph is you, not Bush.
Now he claims his words were taken out of context. Y’know, the usual excuse when one of these fools says something really stupid and it comes right back to slap him upside the head. Now he claims he meant that he wants to give people involuntarily working part-time jobs more opportunities for full-time ones. If that’s what he meant, that’s what he should have said in the first place. He’d make a hell of a diplomat, don’t you think?
On another website, someone commented that the Schwinn bicycle company had come out with a new model that only runs in reverse, and named it the Jeb. After all, every time the fool makes a statement, he has to spend a lot of time reversing himself. Just another elitist, ignorant, jackass politician. Another Bush.
#25 Raging Bee – You’re right, but not just the White House. They need to be voted out of Congress, state legislatures, locals offices, everywhere. Every election is important.
No argument there, dhall. I was posting in haste and disgust.
read that as “you” (plural). As in not including Jeb personally.
yeah, tell that to WalMart & more, who claim “productivity” requires them to only hire people half-time, to save the corp from having to spend their profits on that “benefits” stuff, such as Life Ins, Pensions, vacations, etc. Tell WalMart (etc.) companies to only hire fulltime (w/benefits) and stop penny pinching people into poverty.
only a single way? only if all the lazies get off their butts and off to work can “we” get to the aspirated 4%growth that will fulfill all Jeb’s dream?
…
Jeb, yes, you are toast, so to speak. In this “librul’s” mind, you were never even a loaf of bread to be sliced for toast. Next time you see your brudder W, thank him for making you a victim of this here ad hominem mindset, and sourcing many of your skeeetchy attitudes.
At the bottom rung of our economy, not only is work part-time, but you have to be available on-call, and will be fired if you can’t come when the boss calls. You are not paid unless you actually work. This effectively eliminated the “work more” option. I can think of some legislative solutions that Jeb is unlikely to like.
back in “the old days” I felt it only made sense to “turn on, tune in and drop out” and did for a while but was drawn back in with thinking there might be some way that reason might prevail and it might come out OK. I can see from the selection of posts today that I was mistaken. I will not post this on every thread I could though because it does summarize how this all makes me feel.
utterly appalled is not quiet adequate.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShC_OQtimMA
uncle frogy
Jeb’s idea that if workers are more productive, they will be paid more … that idea is wrong. Facts prove him wrong.
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2015/07/09/3678679/jeb-bush-workers-productivity-hours/
Slightly OT: how many of you here know that “Jeb” Bush’s first name is not “Jebediah”?
“Jeb” is acronym formed by his first three names: John Elliot Bush.
Oh, and that means his full legal name is “John Elliot Bush Bush”.
And how would that name sell in Alabama, Mississippi, et al.?
The plutocratic contempt for the plebes simply drips off that whole famly.
All that Republicans seem to know is how to trickle us down into ruts but not a clue as how to get out! The only way to stay out of the rut is to get someone that knows how to steer clear of ruts in the first place! That’s why I’m backing Bernie Sanders!
The scariest thing about Bush isn’t his lack of substance, it’s the power and money that the Bush family has at it’s disposal. All those “Skull & Bones” connections to the banking and financial world gives Jeb a big advantage. Jeb must be defeated in the primary or things will get dodgy given all that Republican money combined with their lack of morals.
It’s a variation on the classic class warfare:
The server comes along and puts a plate of a dozen cookies on the table.
The rich guy grabs 11, turns to the middle-class guy, and says, “That poor guy’s trying to take your cookie.”
4% isn’t that great. According to this AP story in the Star Tribune (Minnesota), 2014 incomes in the US grew 3.3% for 99% of us. They grew 10% for the 1%. Maybe Jeb’s right…those rich cats might just die if they don’t make at least 4%.
I wish this meant Jeb! was toast, but sadly I’m afraid it’ll take much, much more. His last name may ultimately undo him in the end, but it’s his biggest asset at this stage. It seems every Republican candidate has their own billionaire or two, but he’s likely got a dozen already, thanks to his family’s connections. Besides, this is the time to flub, screw up, say the stupid shit; a full year before the convention, with Donald Trump getting the best, the greatest, allest of the attention and with the first (several) debate(s) set to be a clown car of a debacle. The Jesus-freakiest (Huckabilly or Santorum) will win Iowa. Jeb! will get New Hampshire. Whoever appeals to all the butthurt and pissed off racists the most will win S. Carolina. (Trump? Cruz?) I can see Rand Paul winning Nevada. I’ll be surprised if there’s less than 6 Republicans going into Super Tuesday.
And Jeb! will be one of ’em.
I wish this meant Jeb! was toast, but sadly I’m afraid it’ll take much, much more. His last name may ultimately undo him in the end, but it’s his biggest asset at this stage. It seems every Republican candidate has their own billionaire or two, but he’s likely got a dozen already, thanks to his family’s connections. Besides, this is the time to flub, screw up, say the stupid shit; a full year before the convention, with Donald Trump getting the best, the greatest, allest of the attention and with the first (several) debate(s) set to be a clown car of a debacle. The Jesus-freakiest (Huckabilly or Santorum) will win Iowa. Jeb! will get New Hampshire. Whoever appeals to all the butthurt and pissed off racists the most will win S. Carolina. (Trump? Cruz?) I can see Rand Paul winning Nevada. I’ll be surprised if there’s less than 6 Republicans going into Super Tuesday.
And Jeb! will be one of ’em.
(If this ends up as a duplicate post, my apologies. I hit post, and no comment, no “awaiting moderation”, nothing. So, trying it one more time.)
Surely if you want to increase employment rates there are severa basic steps to do so:
1) Increase the minimum wage. Everyone this affects will be already at poverty levels. All the extra money they earn will go straight back into the economy, also fuelling the service industry (more free cash to spend on haircuts, clothes, dinners out, holidays, home improvement). If fewer people take on multiple jobs that means more jobs for everybody.
2) Increase taxes on the rich: all that unused capital is just lying around not being used. It should be fed back into the system.
3) Increase mandatory paid holidays and maternity leave: this will allow more people to enter the workforce as well as increase the productivity of those already working.
4) Increase public spending on science and new technologies – creating new industries will give employment to many more workers.
5) Increase public spending on infrastructure – fixing roads, bridges and improving water and electricity works will lead to savings in the long run due to increased efficiency, while creating many new jobs.
Oh, also mandatory paid overtime: if employers can get away with paying three people for the work of four, they’re not only treating their employees badly, but also not providing as many jobs as they could.
@ =8)-DX
Which Bernie Sanders shirt did you get? I got the blue one.
;)
@Ragutis #43
Sorry, I am supportive of Bernie Sanders, but not that invested in US politics to buy t-shirts to supporting your politicians =). We already have some of those policies in my country and they work. Now if only our politicians didn’t think they had the right to a 15-25% cut of our tax pot…
PZ, you gumbied yourself too!
Bernie had something to say about it: