Dashed Hopes for Increase in Federal Minimum Wage May Be Just the Start of Hard Times

by Nomad

On 29 November, some 40 people were arrested at a protest outside a McDonald’s restaurant in Detroit. They had gathered to demand wage increases. With picket signs and a loudspeaker, hundreds of workers demanded a minimum wage increase to $15 an hour. Said one protesting worker:

“They are a multi-billion dollar company and they can afford to help us support our families. I cannot support my family on $8.50.”

On that day, there were similar demonstrations in hundreds of US cities, including the commercial hubs of New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles.
The protests were put together as part of the "Fight for $15," a US-based international movement seeking a minimum wage of $15-per hour for low-paid workers.

Given the outcome of the last election, few expect these nationwide protests to have any impact.

Efforts to raise the federal minimum wage may, in fact, come to a crashing halt the very moment President Trump is inaugurated. 

During the campaign, he made the off-hand remark that wages were too high. He said:

"Taxes too high, wages too high. We're not going to be able to compete against the world. I hate to say it, but we have to leave it the way it is. People have to go out, they have to work really hard and they have to get into that upper stratum. But we cannot do this if we are going to compete with the rest of the world. We just can't do it."

It was a truly insulting thing for a man of Trump's wealth to say.

Sandi Toksvig's Big Idea: A Political Party for Women's Equality

by Nomad

Writer, actor, and comedian Sandi Toksvig has a brilliant idea. As she explains in this lively TED lecture, her idea is a simple one but one which could change the world. 

Why not form a Women's Equality Party? 

We want to be the only political party in the world whose main aim was to no longer need to exist... We wanted to be the only political party with no particular political leaning. We wanted people from the left, from the right, from the middle, every age group. Because the whole point was to work with a simple agenda: let's get equality in every aspect of our lives, and when we're finished, let's go home and get the other chores done.

Data from World Economic Forum found that women will finally get equal pay in ...2186! Under the current system, she reckons, women are not going to get equal pay in my grandchildren's grandchildren's lifetimes.
Think of the shame of that.

Musical Sanity Break: Scala & Kolacny Brothers - Use Somebody

by Nomad

Originally this was a Kings of Leon song which sounds very different than this version. This rendition is sung by Scala & Kolacny Brothers, a Belgian women's choir.
Hope it brings you a little calm on this Sunday night.