Sunday, March 29, 2009

End the War on Drugs? ('Pail Poll)

You came through again in last week's 'Pail Poll!

This survey asked whether you'd favor shortening the standard work week in the U.S. from 40 hours to 35 hours.

Understandably, this was a contentious issue, thanks to the fear that working shorter hours might make workers less money. In the comment section of last week's entry though, I hinted that there is an obvious solution for this. Surprisingly, none of you seemed to figure out what it is.

Can you figure out what it is? The comment section is open below...

Nonetheless, you voted 12 to 7 in favor of a shorter work week.

This week's 'Pail Poll asks about the failed War on Drugs. Almost daily now, we see more evidence that the drug war is a failure. The battles in Mexico are just the latest example.

The latest survey here asks whether you'd support ending the War on Drugs in its current form. By that, I mean the current line of drug war methods that has been carried out since the Reagan era or longer.

So vote and peep!

7 comments:

  1. What is the obvious solution? How does one cut hourly workers' hours by five without either reducing workers' weekly wages by 1/8th or increasing employers' labor costs?

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  2. Ever hear of increasing the minimum wage (which is too low to begin with)?

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  3. Explain how that solves anything. I can't tell what your objective is, to put more people out of work or put small businesses out of business?

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  4. If an employer can't afford to pay their employees a living wage, maybe they aren't very good at running a business. I know there are two sides to this issue but greed is blatantly the bigger problem.

    I will give you one example of how we can create jobs in this country and help people become healthier in the process: Bring back all of the small farms,.... little pink houses for you and me!

    Better food, American jobs, healthy living, better vegetable and animal food products. And let's face it, we don't NEED a new IPOD or the latest issue of redbook, We, as Americans overspend. If we spent less, we could work less. And, a lot of good ole American jobs could stay here, like if we had car companies that were actually smart enough to build energy efficient cars instead of hummers 4 or 5 years ago.

    But waht have we heard from our government the last 8 or 16 years? Spend America, Spend! And now the bubble has burst.

    Minimum wage wasn't raised for 10 years and as inflation crept up, employers did not pay sufficiently to cover the cost of living. This equals greed because these companies were seeing big profits.

    How about we stop inflation altogether so we never have to raise the minimum wage again? I would go for that.

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  5. It's only greed when it's someone else, right? If I want to work 5 more hours a week than you so I can buy a new Ipod, there is nothing wrong with that. Do you know what happens when Americans stop spending? Thousands of jobs a day are lost and the whole world goes into a recession.

    Workers should be paid based on what the work they do is worth, not on how much the worker needs to make a living. Anyone out of school who holds a job that pays at or near minimum wage for very long is usually undereducated and has no job skills or training. Unless they are severely disabled, there is rarely an excuse for that.

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  6. If they're out of school, how can they be undereducated? Unless of course they went to a shitty school (like the one where I started high school)?

    Ever think maybe shitty schools are the real problem?

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  7. There are many deficient schools, but I was referring mostly to dropouts.

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