Finally!
I personally don't like the tone of how the article is written myself. IMHO, it comes off a bit, "those dastardly feds are going to misunderstand your good intentions if you aren't careful, you poor, poor struggling businessman who only wanted to help that sorry unemployed person gain some valuable experience in their field!"
Yes, because a for-profit business who refuses to pay any sort of wage really does have a heart of gold. Even Ebenezer Scrooge paid Bob Cratchit something for the work he did. After all, we were treated to a scene where Bob went to the butcher's and used the meager wages he had to buy the sorriest goose to bring home to his family for Christmas dinner. Imagine this scene in 2010 where Bob Cratchit doesn't even have the moth-eaten 5 bob note to buy dinner with!
Hooray for cracking down on this mess! As bad as unemployment is at the moment, you can't tell me that a chunk of it comes from employers who are sponging off of free labor.
And this is where their arguments about entitlements fail miserably. They all say that they want people to get up off of it and find a paying job because people should take care of themselves. Yet, here they are, helping to create a system where they get free labor while the government and charitable organizations pick up the cost of that person's salary and health care.
It's not like that person working for free in that office can march on over to the unemployment office and tell them to stop their benefits because they are making a grand total of zero dollars working for Scum & Lord, P.C. It's not like this person can walk into a clinic for a minor cold instead of wasting space in an emergency room where they will be treated for free.
Yet, those people doing a lot of the bitching and moaning don't want to put their money where their mouths are. If you think that a person should be rewarded for getting up at 5am every morning and slogging through traffic to help you turn a profit as opposed to getting food stamps and welfare, then you should actually realize that utopia by paying that person a wage and providing them with health insurance. You can't expect people to work for free and then shake your finger at them for having the nerve to find a way to pay for groceries and utilities. People aren't robots that live on air. Unless they are planning on living in a shack in the woods like the unabomber and foraging for berries, then they will need money.
Maybe the labor department should first look to its own house.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.outsidethebeltway.com/raise-the-minimum-wage-be-my-unpaid-intern/
Economists/pigs refer to this as "the gift economy." Then again, these minions of Corporate America need to spin this slave labor.
ReplyDeleteA roommate of mine worked for both TLC/Discovery Channel and MTV Networks as an unpaid intern. Are you really telling me that both those giant networks can't afford to pay interns ANYTHING?
ReplyDeleteIsn't there some exemption for non-profits and government? IMO, there needs to be a crackdown on those as well. I do get that non-profits/governments aren't as flush with cash, there's something so exploitive about having people work for free. DC was rife with (and still is) unpaid internships. "Here! Work for free in a city with one of the country's highest costs of living! Hope Mom and Dad can help you out or that you don't mind working two night jobs to pay for your room in the group house in the hood!"
I always say that the biggest beneficiaries of law schools are NEVER the law graduates, but the law firms and other employers of law graduates.
ReplyDeleteAnother beneficiary of law schools is the faculty and the administration running the law schools.
In this capitalistic society, why would the law school industry in general make the law graduates the biggest beneficiaries, when the people running the law industry are law firms, employers of law graduates, and the faculty??
As a corollary, college education in the US mainly benefits corporate America, who are the employers of college graduates. Education in America produces workers for corporate America, not citizens for the society.
Appreciate youu blogging this
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