Seattle's CrossCut.com reports:
In a somewhat awkward moment during Monday’s City Council briefing, Council President Tim Burgess tried repeatedly to rein-in Socialist Kshama Sawant. The rookie council member was working her way through a hodgepodge of policy topics, from ridesharing to food stamp cuts to wage theft. Eventually, Burgess cut her off mid-sentence[...]
Early in the meeting, as council members discussed the now months-long effort to regulate rides haring, Sawant weighed in[...]
Burgess, with an eye on time, cut off the conversation, encouraging members to attend a Friday committee meeting on rides haring regulations. The council moved on to other business.
But, when given another chance to make remarks, Sawant again raised ridesharing.
“The idea that demand has skyrocketed for expensive convenience is not in line with the evidence from the recession,” she said. “In fact, demand, you know, has gone down and I know that there's a study that shows that, which I don't have access to right now, so I can't talk about it.”[...]
“So council member Sawant,” Burgess interrupted, “I think we've put that discussion off until Friday's committee meeting, so if you have any other updates—”
“I'm just getting to the next points,” she said.
"Please," Burgess said.
Sawant went on to discuss the Senate’s failure to extend unemployment benefits and the Farm Bill signed last week by President Barack Obama, which included food stamp cuts.
“Ultimately the lobby of the super-wealthy is going to outweigh us, and so we need to build mass movements,” she said. “I wanted to announce that Feb. 15, Saturday, will be a big day for $15now.org, the grassroots campaign that is underway and that I'm supporting.”
Sawant described some of the day’s planned events, which will include music, workshops, education and discussion about how to counter arguments designed to “demonize” minimum wage increases.
Burgess tried to interrupt. “Ok, thank you,” he said.
But Sawant carried on, saying that she wanted to see if representatives from the police department could brief the council on wage theft reporting.
Talk about fatal conceit. Sawant appears to think she has some magical non-market manner to measure and control demand for car services and she wants to get the police involved in "wage theft"! Get this lady a Fidel Castro cigar.
If she keeps that up she might be President someday.
ReplyDeleteShe speaks nonsense. I'll listen when she starts talking about The Fed, fiat currency, currency debasement and its negative impact on the lower classes. Until then she's just another clueless Leftist dupe of the wealthy elites used to destroy their competition... the middle-class.
ReplyDeleteOr send her back to India! That "middle-of-the-path" socialist democratic country is perfect for her lunacy.
ReplyDeleteAhahaha.
ReplyDeleteThis woman is great!
I'd love to hear this intellectual give us a coherent and universalizable definition of 'theft'.
ReplyDeleteShe can't. She thinks with her emotions not her head like any other idiot leftist.
DeleteWould that be a Fidel Castro cigar of Cuban manufacture, or one of the CIA's?
ReplyDeleteLet her rant. The more this dipshit talks, the fewer socialists there'll be. I mean, really. How much of this crap can they take?
ReplyDeleteShe is quite a dim bulb, isn't she?
ReplyDelete"...she wants to get the police involved in "wage theft"!"
ReplyDeleteY'all are missing it: The police are leaving work early and having their friends from the next shift clock them out hours later--thereby getting paid for time that they were already changed out of their costumes and sitting home watching Bill O'Reilly in their underwear. (Personally I would be happy if they got paid double wages if they would promise to stay home and watch TV all day).
I'm going to go to the local PD and press charges of theft against my employee for the imagionary wages they 'stole' from me.
ReplyDeleteIf she says it works, it works.
The "super wealthy" are mostly all Democrats. Why doesn't she create a business, run it the way that matches her political beliefs and employ people at way above market wages? Why is that someone elses responsibility and not hers? IMO, people like her harm the poor far more than helping them. And when will people that support collectivists wake up and realize that in a collective individuals are expendable for the benefit of the collective. You see this logic all the time in the Obama administration when they tell you this or that policy is helping more people than it hurts, as if that justifies those that are hurt by the policy. Why the hell is it acceptable to hurt people so others benefit? No one ever seems to question this? It is evil, but that is where collectivism always ends up.
ReplyDeleteSo you guys seriously don't know wage theft is a thing? I thought you guys were all about respecting contracts between employers and employees? Oh right, fucking over workers is always right by any means necessary, stupid signed contracts why should employers have to honor them when they can just neglect to pay workers at all (which is what wage theft is)? Oh and you seem to be equally confused about Kshama Sawant's relation to and position on the Democrats...but you know I am sure you think with your head, who cares about the real world when you can just imagine how things are and leave it at that?
ReplyDeleteUh, I know this may be news to you but laws already exist for theft. There are also laws that already exist for breech of contract as well. Why not get informed instead of posting knee jerk reactions to things you clearly do not understand. You are the person power hungry Sawant is targeting to carry water for her quest for power -- people that react and let her do the thinking. Not everything that sounds nice produces nice results. Sometimes you have to take hard positions on things. Sawant is like every other Socialists that promises people economic nirvana and in the end gives them through the unintended consequences of their policies, hardship and misery.
Delete"Wage theft" may or may not be a "thing". It is a catch all phrase, mostly used to conflate arbitrary government work rules with voluntary employment.
DeleteFor instance, there are numerous state and federal government regulations which require employers to do such things as pay more than a certain wage rate, calculate overtime in certain ways, force employees to take breaks at certain intervals, or in other ways limit the ability of employees and employers to make voluntary agreements. People on the left or in government like to deliberately confuse these types of arbitrary rules with the actual failure of an employer to pay contracted wages.
Of course, all such arbitrary government rules injure most employees, and at best benefit those employees who prefer a certain government rule at the expense of those who do not. Additionally, society as a whole is also necessarily injured due to the restriction of mutually beneficial agreements.
An employer is at most willing to pay the expected discounted market value of an employees marginal productivity. Thus any work rule that diminishes this value must necessarily reduce the employees wages. If the work rule is voluntary, this is fine. However, if the work rule is imposed by the government, it is not.
It is much more insane than you suggest. You'd don't call the police in to give a report on "work rules."
DeleteYeah, i'm going to take anything about wages seriously from a lunatic who loves government force to raise wages.
DeleteI'll start doing that right now.
As anonymous said, there ALREADY ARE laws against theft and breach of contract, so what you're talking about is likely to be some leftwing-twisting of the meaning of actual theft.
You know, like "wage slavery".
@ Jack Weil:
DeleteOf course you are right. I was being too polite. A violation of even a mutually agreed upon work rule would be contract violation and not a criminal act and would have nothing to do with the police. The whole idea, in addition to being nonsense, is insane as you pointed out.
1 Adam 12, 1 Adam 12, see the leftist twit by the Space Needle. Wage theft in progress.
ReplyDeleteShe and her husband left her native 3rd world sh*te hole country to escape the very socialism she now advocates..(actually i prefer that they call themselves 'socialists' instead of 'progressives' or 'liberals').
ReplyDeleteHer husband came here for a software job - they are economic migrants (pretty sure they aren't here for our welfare state else they'd have moved to EUCCP/Sweden/Norway).
"She and her husband left her native 3rd world sh*te hole country to escape the very socialism she now advocates.."
ReplyDeleteIsn't it amazing how these shit turd fucking socialists ALWAYS do that? They escape the hell hole of socialism then want to implement it here!! What the fuck is the matter with these fucking morons?! I'm beginning to think that people from socialists countries should be barred from immigrating here. They're just too destructive and stupid.
"I'm beginning to think that people from socialists countries should be barred from immigrating here. They're just too destructive and stupid."
DeleteYES. We can start with Mexico. Look at the polling data and the voting records, these people are never going to become libertarians in the majority. Their immigration is always a net loss to liberty and thus a net act of aggression towards the native population. Therefore immigration restriction is a legitimate act of self-defense.
She wants higher taxation.
ReplyDeleteShe is the real wage theif.
Perfect!
Delete