Except artificial scarcity means "supply" is often sat at the start line rotting away (or becoming obsolete), waiting for those making all the money while they manipulate the markets to increase their own profit..
Anytime people start talking about supply and demand, I can’t help but think of the lines from The Grapes of Wrath:
The works of the roots of the vines, of the trees, must be destroyed to keep up the price, and this is the saddest, bitterest thing of all. Carloads of oranges dumped on the ground. The people came for miles to take the fruit, but this could not be. How would they buy oranges at twenty cents a dozen if they could drive out and pick them up? And men with hoses squirt kerosene on the oranges, and they are angry at the crime, angry at the people who have come to take the fruit. A million people hungry, needing the fruit- and kerosene sprayed over the golden mountains…
There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill in the certificate- died of malnutrition- because the food must rot, must be forced to rot. The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back; they come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges, but the kerosene is sprayed. And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quick-lime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.
Amazing how in eight decades and some change, that sentiment has not budged an inch. The only real difference is, in addition to the food wasted and the dumpsters locked to keep out the homeless, they’re dumping shit like Funko Pops in the millions. All this plastic tat that’s literally killing the planet, that nobody in their right mind would want in a million years if the sickness of capitalism didn’t tell them it was precious.
At the time this phrase was first referenced, around 1540-ish, a penny would’ve been worth around $3.50 USD. Goddamn Loch Ness monster, always wanting my thoughts.
Depending on the state you should still be paid overtime. The only exceptions are the really high paid executives and ceos. Mostly because they already get crazy bonuses for doing nothing.
Hell no. I’ve been salaried and I’ve been hourly. I am more than willing to put in a few 50-55 or so hour weeks a year in exchange for being able to come in late or leave early for appointments without trouble, working about 35 hours a week every other week at most, being able to work from home more or less whenever I need to, never getting flagged for not clocking in/out at the right time… the list goes on and on. My salary is for 40 hour weeks, and I hold to that when I need to. But the reality of my job is that when there’s a crisis I need to be there. I’ll take that for all the advantages any day.
What? Where do you work that you get paid for 40 hours while working and clocked in for 32 and also get to be clocked in while you’re not there? I have a fantastic boss and do not let myself get pushed around.
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