> >
> >
> >
> > ________________________________
> > From: Buck
> > To: [email protected]
> > Sent: Saturday, November 24, 2012 4:42 AM
> > Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Black Thursday
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > --- In mailto:FairfieldLife%40yahoogroups.com, "raunchydog" <raunchydog@>
> > wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> "A half century ago America's largest private-sector employer was
> >> General Motors, whose full-time workers earned an average hourly wage of
> >> around $50, in today's dollars, including health and pension benefits.
> >>
> >> Today, America's largest employer is Walmart, whose average employee
> >> earns $8.81 an hour. A third of Walmart's employees work less than 28
> >> hours per week and don't qualify for benefits.
> >>
I am in downtown Detroit, Michigan right now at a Thanksgiving retreat with
Ammachi. Half of the Fairfield meditating community and many of the old TM
meditating movement are here too on retreat with Ammachi this week. It is like
TM old-home-coming. Is very nice. She is a powerful spiritual antenna
radiating the Unified Field in effect with a lot of people receiving and
reflecting that too here. She is very lit, helpful and generous that way.
It is noteworthy to contemplate Detroit as an example of the new economy.
Fifteen years ago they had a middle-class work force. In that fifteen years
they lost a million people from the area. Neighborhoods are empty. Last year
they lost 70,000 people alone. The downtown also is sobering to think about.
An incredible amount of commercial tall-building real estate empty downtown.
What would it take to re-occupy all that empty space with $8.81 an hour people
living? I do think the TM movement could afford to be magnanimous and offer TM
to people given the new reality of general employment now in the economy at a
scale that reflects common incomes and not just hold out for the 1 percent. TM
out in the world is not known for that but the TM-Raja could think about
surprising people and actually be magnanimous, for a change. The science seems
to indicate that it would be helpful.
-Buck in Detroit
> > I should like to see our David Lynch Foundation work with the TM-Raja
> > towards developing a subsidy to enable retail workers to learn meditation.
> > If these workers are only working 29 hours a week they certainly have the
> > time to help everything by meditating. Scale the price of meditating to
> > the 29 hour a week worker earning $8.81 an hour. That would be helpful.
> > Magnanimous even.
> > -Buck, the Apostle
> >
> >> There are many reasons for the difference â" including globalization
> >> and technological changes that have shrunk employment in American
> >> manufacturing while enlarging it in sectors involving personal services,
> >> such as retail.
> >>
> >> But one reason, closely related to this seismic shift, is the decline
> >> of labor unions in the United States. In the 1950s, over a third of
> >> private-sector workers belonged to a union. Today fewer than 7 percent do.
> >> As a result, the typical American worker no longer has the bargaining
> >> clout to get a sizeable share of corporate profits.
> >>
> >> Despite decades of failed unionization attempts, Walmart workers are
> >> planning to strike or conduct some other form of protest outside at least
> >> 1,000 locations across the United States this Friday â" so-called "Black
> >> Friday," the biggest shopping day in America when the Christmas holiday
> >> buying season begins.
> >>
> >> At the very least, the action gives Walmart employees a chance to air
> >> their grievances in public â" not only lousy wages (as low at $8 an hour)
> >> but also unsafe and unsanitary working conditions, excessive hours, and
> >> sexual harassment. The result is bad publicity for the company exactly
> >> when it wants the public to think of it as Santa Claus.
> >>
> >> Consumer spending is 70 percent of economic activity, but consumers
> >> are also workers. And as income and wealth continue to concentrate at the
> >> top, and the median wage continues to drop â" it's now 8 percent lower
> >> than it was in 2000 â" a growing portion of the American workforce lacks
> >> the purchasing power to get the economy back to speed. Without a vibrant
> >> and growing middle class, Walmart itself won't have the customers it needs.
> >>
> >> Most new jobs in America are in personal services like retail, with
> >> low pay and bad hours. According to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics,
> >> the average full-time retail worker earns between $18,000 and $21,000 per
> >> year.
> >>
> >> But if retail workers got a raise, would consumers have to pay higher
> >> prices to make up for it? A new study by the think tank Demos reports that
> >> raising the salary of all full-time workers at large retailers to $25,000
> >> per year would lift more than 700,000 people out of poverty, at a cost of
> >> only a 1 percent price increase for customers.
> >>
> >> And, in the end, retailers would benefit. According to the study, the
> >> cost of the wage increases to major retailers would be $20.8 billion â"
> >> about one percent of the sector's $2.17 trillion in total annual sales.
> >> But the study also estimates the increased purchasing power of lower-wage
> >> workers as a result of the pay raises would generate $4 billion to $5
> >> billion in additional retail sales."
> >>
> >> http://www.salon.com/2012/11/21/dont_shop_at_wal_mart_on_friday/
> >>
> >>> ________________________________
> >>> From: Bhairitu <noozguru@>
> >>> To: mailto:FairfieldLife%40yahoogroups.com
> >>> Sent: Thursday, November 22, 2012 11:45 AM
> >>> Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Black Thursday
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Ã
> >>>
> >>> This is also probably a generational clash. I know a lot of younger
> >>> people who might have gone to a movie or played a video game would
> >>> probably like to make the extra dough on Black Thursday and Friday.
> >>> Many find family gatherings "old fashion" and have not much interest in
> >>> them. I even recall in high school that after turkey dinner at my
> >>> cousins we (the younger set) would go out to a movie.
> >>>
> >>> But hey, this is Kapitalist Amerika where kapitalism is celebrated by
> >>> the masses though most of them couldn't give you a proper definition of
> >>> it. :-D
> >>>
> >>> On 11/21/2012 03:59 PM, Mike Dixon wrote:
> >>>> And if they(shoppers) do that, they(retailers) won't open on
> >>>> Thanksgiving next year. Market forces at work.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> ________________________________
> >>>> From: awoelflebater <mailto:no_reply%40yahoogroups.com>
> >>>> To: mailto:FairfieldLife%40yahoogroups.com
> >>>> Sent: Wednesday, November 21, 2012 1:55 PM
> >>>> Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Black Thursday
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> --- In mailto:FairfieldLife%40yahoogroups.com, "raunchydog"
> >>>> <raunchydog@> wrote:
> >>>>> This year, Black Friday has become BLACK THURSDAY. Employees will work
> >>>>> 12-14 hour shifts, beginning at 4 or 6 pm on THANKSGIVING DAY. Workers
> >>>>> have been told that "there will be consequences" which means getting
> >>>>> fired. Workers need their jobs. The message needs to come FROM THE
> >>>>> PUBLIC that the big box retailers have chosen an irrational and
> >>>>> offensive way to do business. Tell the people who run those stores that
> >>>>> you will not shop on Thursday. Tell them that disrespecting a national
> >>>>> holiday for families to be together bothers you. 1-800-WALMART,
> >>>>> 800-440-0680 is the number for Target.
> >>>> The whole thing is patently ridiculous. Can people not stop shopping for
> >>>> 24 hours?! Everyone should just stay home and eat on Thanksgiving. Maybe
> >>>> even spend a little time with family. How's that for a concept?
> >>>>> [https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-lL87ygk3F94/UK0O33nU-cI/AAAAAAAABos/\
> >>>>> mbmM4hVwhF8/s512/WalMart.jpg]
> >>>>>
> >>>>
> >
> >
>
