Who are the "oinkers" according to Dennis Marks (AKA dmarks)? Also, what are these "unearned gifts" he refers to quite frequently?
Oinkers, it turns out, are people who toil for low pay and, because they often struggle to get by, request a pay raise by advocating for an increase in the minimum wage.
What follows is an example of Dennis calling out these "oinkers" (in the context of a discussion about robots replacing human labor).
| Dennis Marks: Maybe not your highly skilled, valuable job. But that is what would surely happen if those lazy and greedy "oinkers" who demand to be paid double what the job is worth at McDonalds get their way. There's a robot smiling somewhere every time one of these boars or sows pickets a McDonalds. (5/1/2015 AT 4:23am). |
"Oinkers" are minimum wage workers who want a pay increase. But this Dennisized word's noun form also has a verb form.
| Dennis Marks: It's like the McDonald's workers doing work worth about $8 an hour and oinking for a handout of $15 an hour without doing a single thing to earn this amount. Other than oink for more money. (1/6/2015 AT 3:58pm). |
So asking for a raise, or, rather, protesting for an increase in the minimum wage is, according to Dennis, "oinking".
So what about "unearned gifts"?
| Dennis Marks: Given the attitudes of those like WD, who expect struggling small business owners to hand out at least $10,000 of unearned gifts to employees (per employee) per year, it is obvious that they don't respect other's property and feel entitled to it. An attitude of pure, and purely destructive, greed. (4/25/2015 AT 8:26pm). |
"Unearned gifts" refers to an increase in the minimum wage that employees do not deserve (again, according to Dennis). (note that in the comment above Dennis references me with the phrase "those like WD").
So... here is my issue with Dennis' slandering of low pay workers who protest for an increase in the minimum wage... Why should employers not pay the full cost of labor? Why, when businesses must pay the full cost of whatever raw materials it takes to run their business, do some think that (when it comes to labor) the taxpayers should be subsidizing the price?
Which is what is taking place when the minimum wage does not reflect the worker's cost of living (at least when they're working a 40 hour week). The subsidies come into play when the worker, being unable to live on the too-low minimum wage, is forced to ask for help from the government (in the form of food stamps or other public assistance).
| ...many full-time workers qualify for food stamps or other government assistance. If the minimum wage were raised to a "living wage" we, the taxpayers, would not have to subsidize these corporations with government handouts. Yes, if wages were raised prices would go up to cover the employers' added costs. But isn't that really a reflection of the capitalistic system? (Minimum Wage Vs. Corporate Welfare by Jim Kinninger, RGJ.com 12/11/2013). |
Dennis, with his references to "oinkers", "oinking", "unearned gifts" and "unearned handouts" is making an argument in FAVOR of corporate welfare. IMO it is business owners who advocate (or lobby) for not increasing the minimum wage (or getting rid of it) who are the REAL "oinkers". And these business owners are the ones who are greedy in asking for unearned gifts (or handouts) from the taxpayers.
Dennis' pro-corporate-welfare arguments sicken me. But all these comments are from the blog of one Willis Hart, a Libertarian blogger who cottons to the meme that says we all need to bow down and worship the "job creators" (AKA the oligarchs).
Personally, I say NO to the audaciousness of greedy businesses that demand taxpayers subsidize their labor costs.
| Here's a stark number for understanding how low-wage employers are relying on the kindness of taxpayers: $153 billion. That's the annual bill that state and federal governments are footing for working families making poverty-level wages at big corporations such as Walmart (WMT) and McDonald's (MCD), according to a new study from the University of CA Berkeley Labor Center. Because these workers are paid so little, they are increasingly turning to government aid programs such as food stamps to keep them from dire poverty, the study found. (How low-wage employers cost taxpayers $153B a year by Aimee Picchi. CBS Money Watch, 4/13/2015). |
Shame on Dennis for being an oinker oinking for unearned taxpayer handouts on behalf of greedy business owners who don't want to pay the full price of the labor they utilize to generate their profits.
(Note: I previously covered this topic on my other blog in a post titled "Conservatives Pro-Mooching When Tax Payer Handouts Go To Business Community", SWTD #222).
