The USA is the richest third world country on the planet.
First world = capitalism
Second world = communism
Third world = all the rest
Yes, but a lot of people see it as wealthy somewhat wealthy and poor
It is pretty funny as someone from a (supposed) “third world shithole” hearing these guys hurling these insults at the US while my country is trying the best to improve our lives and get out of the US stranglehold.
Also funny is seeing Europe slowly realize that they are “vassal states” of the US.
Maybe one day they will be really aware that most of their wealth came from exploiting the so called “third world” but, sadly, I think these guys will need to fall from the horses before realizing it.
Europe got its wealth from the Global South. Colonial exploitation bankrolled the industrial revolution and Enlightenment era. A certain threshold of wealth and urbanization is needed for that progress to occur and “poor” countries paid for it with their bodies and blood.
That wealth (75% of global gold reserves) was transferred to the US during WW2 as they were in a geographic position to not face any significant infrastructure loss while raking in money selling arms to their allies.
If you’re asking for introspection from either faction mentioned here, dont hold your breath. Its hard enough to find here, let alone in a direct discussion with ordinary people out in the street. People struggle with the idea of being born in the West amounting to being born on third base (and I say this as someone born there) so we’re a long way from any kind of deeper understanding, humility or gratitude.
What? You think the coal miners from the 19th century were exploiting anyone?
This is at the state, not individual, level. The coal miners certainly thought they were better off than people living in the Global South (and more worthy of individual rights). They also enjoyed infrastructure developments paid for by their state’s exploitation.
So yes, they did have a form of privilege, on a global scale.
A lot of people are completely wrong
The US are 50 3rd world countries stacked in a trench coat, pretending to be the world’s greatest country.
Actually, the term 3rd world is outdated and referred to countries that couldn’t decide whether to align themselves with the US or Russia - oh wait
And the trench coat was manufactuered in China.
No no no, it’s a 250 year old moldy trench coat
It’s not a trench coat, it’s a french coat!
48, and also New York and California who are happy to pretend to be.
Most of the Midwest is solid too.
Most of the Midwest is solid shit you are correct
Solid shit is not a nice place to live on.
Its only solid in the winter actually.
Yeah but you guys have your own kind of mustard, and tomato sauce, and the epstein ballroom, and those ridiculous big cars. It’s surely the greatest country in the world.
The Yank Tank… I get incredibly angry when I see them in Spain, only good at pollution and murdering kids… Only a cunt would drive something like that
We should never tire of shaming people for being like this.
Took me so long to figure out what a yank tank is. Perfect descriptor though!
Don’t you send me down a mustard rabbit hole at 2:30 in the morning you sonofabitch
Mustard rabbit is delicious ! I don’t know about the hole though
The hole is the best part, I imagine
It’s surely the greatest country in the world.
And they also have a clown who tells them all the time that it’s the greatest country in the world.
And don’t clowns tell the truth?
Except the US, those are tiny island countries too.
Nauru is literally an island of shit.
Not to apologize for shitty US labor regulations, but in some places these rules aren’t enforced rigorously if at all, so this data shouldn’t be taken at face value. For example I doubt Saudi or Qatari slaves are getting days off.
Excuse me sir, the correct term is “contractors”!
Does this put your standard US citizen on the same level as Saudi or Qatari slave?
I’ve never heard of white Americans having their passports stolen as a job requirement
I’ve never heard it happen to quataries either
right, because they’re the ones stealing the passports. same as the white ICE agents
Americans are ripped off the streets and sent to foreign prisons with no judges involved.
Passports, birth certificates, DL … none of them matters with the ICE facial recognition app.
They skip the “take your passport” part entirely.
They have something similar though - health insurance tied to employer.
Yes.
That’s insane, have you seen pictures of what Dubai looks like? There is no way American labour could meet anywhere near that standard of quality
Abeed and Kaffir have entered the chat.
Not even slightly surprised to see the US on that list… America hates it’s workers.
100% correct. Why do cashiers need to stand?
you better go find a business owner and beg forgiveness
Do it with a Luigi costume.
Don’t worry, some of our governments are working really hard to be like the USA.
If it’s any consolation, there’s also no law that mandates that we get breaks either!
Like, at all. No lunch. No 15 minutes. Now, most companies DO “offer” breaks. But they don’t have to. Except in a couple states (Less than 10, last I checked.)
Combine that with “at-will” employment without contracts, that means in most of the USA you could be asked to work for 36 hours straight with no breaks and be fired for looking tired.
There’s no federal law that mandates breaks, but I think there’s one that kicks in if an employer offers any breaks at all, mandating certain minimum requirements about paid/unpaid breaks
While possibly true, in reality an employer doing this struggles to keep reliable and quality staff. They would likely calculate that hiring and training expenses, poor output, and other issues are a higher cost than the cost of offering 15 minute breaks and some amount of benefits.
At least that’s how it should work.
Race to the bottom, bare minimum it is then
Unfortunately for labor, absent of regulation, that’s how it’s been since the beginning of time. B2B dealings are similar… Add value in excess of cost or be replaced.
in reality an employer doing this struggles to keep reliable and quality staff.
The same could be said about PTO, but…
How it should work if companies cared about anything beyond the next quarterly report.
After my former employer’s economic forecast did an abrupt sharp downturn, I went from being a highly desirable employee to extremely undesirable in the space of less than a week. Add to that a performance limiting on-the-job injury and being the highest paid person in my department.
Guess who was terminated the day before their stock and annual bonus was to be awarded.
AI don’t want no break
That’s what prison labor is for. All those issues vanish. And it’s by design.
That’s more true in the more skilled the job is.
In entry level jobs where people are desperate, it gets a lot less favorable for the employee.
Really it’s the same argument as a minimum wage
it still shifts the power into the hands of the employer, like providing basic acceptable working conditions becomes a perk, when it’s just something that should be universal and normalized.
It hasn’t been like that for most of human history, and the standard of working conditions that I am guessing you’re thinking of is not even experienced by most humans alive today.
I think ideal working conditions should be society’s aspiration and would hopefully pay for itself through superior output. But if businesses can compete unfairly this may not be true. For that reason we should break up companies that get so large as to control entire markets and force them to compete again.
Sadly
What is the normal break/lunch time provided? 15m sounds like torture. You would have to swallow your food and can’t even digest it before you are back working
I get a 15 minute break at 9:00 and 30 minutes lunch (unpaid) at 12:00. Work starts at 6:30 and ends at 15:00. Mon - Fri
Georgia, USA factory worker
Until September we had been 6:30 - 17:00, Mon - Thu, with 10 minutes break at 10:00, 30 minutes lunch (unpaid) at 12:00, and 10 minutes break at 14:00.
Fuck corporate meddling and I hope they really enjoy the crash in production. This is the 3rd time they have tried to force us into a 5 day schedule in the 8 years I’ve been employed there, both other times reverting back to 4 10s within a few months due to lost output.
No the 15min are separate.
Lunch is usually 30min-1hr (unpaid)
Then one or two 15min breaks (paid)
At least in retail that was my experience.
‘Wow, really? Cause you never think of those other three as having their shit together’
Greatest Country in the World! /s
The sad part is, that it could be.
Land of the “free”…
…and the home of the whopper.
Americans are fine with it.
If not, they’d do something about it.
Instead they whine online about immigrants.
Yeah, that’s all I see here on Lemmy. Every American whining about immigrants.
Not on Lemmy no, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that the alt right has infiltrated most online spaces.
“Slaves were fine with being slaves, otherwise they’d do something about it” ass take
Slaves who are armed to the teeth and hugely outnumber their owners? Who have spent a couple centuries culturally and historically defining themselves as courageous defenders of freedom? Yeah.
How can this be? According to MAGA (and also Bernie Sanders BTW) the USA is the greatest country in the world.
/s obvsly
Are we at least the greatest at sucking major ass?
But they’re so free! Haven’t you heard how free they are?! FREE!
Free from any human decency that is.
That’s what you get when your government and representatives are all owned by corporates, and works exclusively for the benefit of those corporates. Lobbying works only for corporates, and not the people, and should be illegal. People should stop voting for those who fail to deliver in their FIRST term. No second terms for failures!
But American people are undereducated, low information, partisan and a very high proportion vote in a racist way, where rather than vote for their own best interests, they vote for their neighbors worst interests. Thus, they get what they deserve, but unfortunately the worst of us, the divisive politicians profit.We need to remove money from politics, make lobbying illegal and subject to capital punishment, and politicians found to be selling out our trust, liable to capital punishment also. They are worse than traitors in a war, so the punishment MUST be severe. Politicians should also be personally liable when they fail to keep their election promises, and LYING to the public needs to be punished harshly too. ALL politicians should be audited before, during and after their terms. Finally, there need to be term and age limits. Rich 80-90 year olds, are NOT representative of the people, and do NOT have the same concerns as the rest of us.
Yep, this has been my own argument for many years. I believe that if you ban lobbying alone, the rest will cascade.
Everyone is missing the point here. These are state laws. Kit federal laws. Including breaks.
Yeah, fucking 15 minutes if you’re lucky. 30 if you live in a good state.
