So when will Bush start attacking child labor laws??

[skooooo]

Wouldn't that be a next logical step for him? After all, those kids should be pulling their weight more, especially if their parents are poor.

[Jade Fox]

1. He has no problem with child labor....

as long as its in other countries.

My guess is his first target would be the children of immigrants.

[jmowreader]

2. He won't and here's why

It would totally hose the unemployment numbers.

Say there are 100 million people currently legal to work and 100 million children between the ages of six and the current legal age. I chose six because your standard coal-shoveling ragamuffin in a Charles Dickens story is six, and since Bush's vision for America looks way too much like Dickens wrote it we'll use six as our baseline.

Let's use six as another figure--the unemployment rate. If the unemployment rate is six percent and Bush drops the legal age of employment to six, the unemployment rate immediately jumps to 53 percent.

Bush will then run into another problem: the kinds of jobs Dickensian ragamuffins held do not exist any more. There are no more coal-shovelers. Bowling alleys have automatic pinsetters. Newspapers use local-area networks instead of copyboys, and if you ask a printer who the "devil" is, he'll almost invariably reply "the cocksucker who wrote Microsoft Publisher." In other words, not only does he start out at 53 percent but he'll stay there.

Bush's next logical step is to abolish either the Department of Labor or the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The step after that will be to abolish the other one, for so long as there is an OSHA there is a Republican who cannot sleep at night.

[skooooo]

4. Nah...he could give them some other classification.

In fact he wouldn't have to count them as unemployed, just extra employed if they're working. They would improve the employment figures.

[Career Prole]

3. Exactly. Fair trade doesn't matter one whit to repukes.

They turn a blind eye to the abuses rampant in foreign manufacturing.
In yet another broken promise, they've never once pressed their trade "partners" to pay a liveable wage to their workers.
Instead they just tell us that to be "competitive" we must learn to expect less and judging by what's happened to organized labor, wages, and health-care in this country we are meekly acquiescing.

In days past one parent could stay home and be the caregiver in families with children. Over time it became more common for both parents to work until today it's become the norm. Hell, we needed the money...what else could we do? Gotta remain competitive, they said, or no one will have a job.
We're up against child labor overseas but do the repukes talk about sanctioning them? Nope, instead we're told to tighten our belts some more in the name of competitiveness.
When the belt gets too tight, do we strike? Do we even bitch? Not nearly enough of us to affect anything.
Instead we get another job. Part-time, no benefits of course...gotta compete.

Someday they'll suggest perhaps a tax break for "middle class" families who let their younger teens take on some of those part-time, no benefits jobs after school and we'll look at our home budgets and say "It's only until we catch up"...and before long that too will be the norm. Gotta remain competitive, you know?

I long for the day when we all come to our senses and say "We're not going to build it/paint it/write it/drive it/clean it/protect it/compute it/sell it/serve it/fly it/repair it until you by God give us our due."
Reckon we'll ever see it? :shrug: