Minimum Wage
What's up with that crazy minimum wage, anyway? It's not like anybody could actually live on that, could they? Could you? What if you had to live on it some day? Plus, it's dragging our salaries downward.
Minimum Health Care
If 47 million people are working their rear ends off for bosses too cheap to buy them health care insurance, then why not pass a law making it illegal to not give it to them? No more deductions from your paycheck, either. Not in the paycheck party way of doing things!
Minimum Severance Pay
Severance pay is the money bosses get when they quit or get fired for doing an even crappier job than they usually do. It's time to give this great benefit to everyone else in the company, too. Not just the boss and his buddies, but all of us.
Minimum Pension Plan
Why privatize social security when it works fine just the way it is. Sure, it's not enough money to live on, but that's where a law requiring businesses to save money for when you are ready to retire for you is needed. And you keep it even if you quit or get fired, too.
Our favorite paycheck party proposal guarantees anyone who works 30 paid vacation days a year, plus holidays. Could save the travel industry in one fell swoop and reduce unemployment drastically. Not to mention reducing the tremendous amount of stress we all suffer from.
Mexicans have guaranteed vacations. The Europeans have 30 days a year - that's five weeks, people. The Japanese have tons of vacation guaranteed by law a year. Everybody in the world has a law that says if you work, you get so much vacation a year. But what about us, the Americans, the proud and patriotic citizens of the greatest country in the world? Nothing. Zip. Nada. Forget about it.
It's not that lots of people aren't grudgingly given a couple of weeks of vacation a year if they dare to keep it. Many of us who have decent jobs probably think it's a law that we get vacation days. There is no law, only custom, and a particularly stale and outdated custom, if you think about it. We need 30 days of vacation a year for everyone who gets a paycheck in this country who works a full work week, currently meaning 40 hours.
I can hear the bosses and their little buddies screaming already. There is nobody who can whine and moan like a boss faced with the prospect of treating the paycheck party halfway decently. What scares them the most is how many of us there are and how few of them there are. We can out-vote them without even trying, even if only half of us go to the polls and half of them votes for the bosses, hoping for some kind of recognition from the boss for their loyalty. The lowest kind, these boss buddies. They're so stupid they don't even realize it's supposed to be a secret ballot so your boss will never know which way you vote!
The funny thing about the minimum vacation law is that there isn't anyone in the paycheck party who will ever completely hate the idea when you mention it to them. Of all the ideas I've had to make the world a better place and improve the economy, this is the one that everyone gets immediately. Try it out on anyone who works for a living and you will get a smile right away. Five weeks of vacation a year plus holidays? Oh, only if! They might hate the whole idea of the paycheck party, but they'll love the idea of all that vacation no matter how much they like sucking up to any boss who happens by.
The most puzzling thing about this universally-beloved concept - 30 days of vacation a year for everyone who works guaranteed by law - is why no ambitious politician has ever seized upon the notion to get elected. It must be because the bosses have them so hypnotized by all the huge campaign contributions they fling at them that they can't even conceive of doing anything good for us. If it doesn't make a huge pile of money for the bosses with only the scraps and tiny pinches of taxes for the vast majority of us they can't even imagine any need for it.
We have to rid ourselves of the illusion that any politician, right or left wing, centrist or populist, smart or stupid, has any idea of serving the paycheck party in any way. But if any politician gets up on the national stage and dares to promise us our guaranteed five weeks of vacation a year, I'll hold my nose and vote for him.
If you are a diehard conservative who hates liberals click here.
If you are a bitter, angry liberal who hates conservatives click here.
If you make a lot of money but are kind of afraid that if you step out of line you might lose it all click here.
If you make a decent amount of money but are living from paycheck to paycheck and nervous about that click here.
If you don't make nearly enough money compared to what you ought to then click here.
If you are a minority or simply feel disenfranchised, click here.
But don't even click on any of the links above
if you think it's getting pretty obvious that no matter who you think you are, you are just a person who gets up and goes to work every day and is tired of being ignored by your own elected officials. I hope you are starting to get the idea that 'divide and conquer' is the simple and effective strategy that the politicians and bosses have been using for years to keep us confused about what they should be doing for us.
