You have all heard the phrase, “time is money” right? Well, this metaphor is both a little correct and a little incorrect. It is correct because over time you work and therefore this makes it possible for you to make money, and therefore if you waste time you are wasting an opportunity to make money. However, it is incorrect because time is the one thing you can’t get back; no matter how much money you throw at it, you will never get time back. So let us remember that as we think about our jobs and how we all value our labor in accordance to time. We get paid per hour, per day, per week, per month and per year. People work hard, sometimes up to 40 hours a week maybe 50 getting overtime or double time. “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes,” said Benjamin Franklin; both of which happen to be related to time. Death is what happens to us when our time is up, and taxes are what we pay with our money, and if time equals money, than unfortunately, money equals time. The average American gets about 28% of their paycheck taken away from them in the form of federal taxes every week. If time equals money, and money equals time, if you work for a week and then 28% is taken out from your earnings, then you worked 28% of the time for money you will not get; in other words, you just worked for that period of time for free. When you work for a week and for 28% of the time for money you will never see, out of an average 40-hour workweek, it equates to you working 11.2 hours for free. That’s almost a day and a half out of your workweek that you are working without getting paid. Think of that before you go to work on Monday. If you work 9 to 5 every day, you can say to yourself, “I am not getting paid for working today and I won’t be getting paid until tomorrow AFTER lunch, yet I still have to work.” Doesn’t seem right, does it? If each week 28% of the time you are working for free, or better put, for every 40-hour workweek you have to suffer at your job for 11.2 hours without receiving a penny, and yet there are 52 weeks in a year, what is 28% out of 52 weeks? That is 14.5 weeks a year you are working for free, which is a little under 4 months. Now think about not getting a paycheck for 4 months. How would you survive? How would you eat? How would you pay your bills? Well guess what, you do it, year, after year. You bust your hump at work, and come home with sore backs and calloused feet. You put up with your boss’ loud voice and short temper, and you do it with nothing, not a cent to show for almost 4 months each year. 14.5 weeks every year you are working for absolutely nothing. Now think about this. If you get out of college and join the working civilization at 21 years of age, and work your whole life, then retire at 65, that is a total of 44 years you have been in the work force. And if every week for 44 years you had worked 28% of the time for free. You would have worked over 12.32 years for absolutely no money whatsoever. Can you work 40 hours a week for almost 13 years and not get a paycheck, not getting one cent? Well, your grandparents did it. Your parents did it. And you are doing it right now. So after working 12.32 years for free; giving free labor to not only your country’s economy, but also specifically the American government itself, yet, things still don’t seem to add up. Almost 13 years of free work to a government and they still can’t provide you with an economy they say they macromanage that has good health care, actual social security, secure jobs, a rise in the level of education for your children, or at least a secure value of the hard earned dollars that you are able bring home in your pockets. The federal government has failed to do all of these things and you are going to be working for 13 years out of your life for free to provide the funds to do these things that they said they were going to do. The government says the reason why these programs and social institutions they have created for us are not working is because we hadn’t put enough time, energy and most importantly money into them. However, if we were just to increase taxes and give them a little bit more, the programs would work and everything would be ok. Of course, all the while you suffer with late fees and overdraft charges from your bank, student loans, and car and mortgage payments. Now a taxman calling telling you haven’t paid your fair share. 12.32 years of your life is going to fund this system and they have the nerve to tell you that you haven’t put in enough. However, whenever you try to enroll in one of these public assistance programs, you can’t, or are not eligible, because you don’t make enough money for this one, or you make too much money for that one. Or this one is only for mothers, this one is one is for Veterans and this one is only for people from Yonkers, and you are none of those. Not to say those programs are bad, but what about the rest of the people? Are we just supposed to suck it up? Are we just left with being stuck between hell and a hard place? Every week you see the money forced out of your paycheck; so you have to eat a little less at lunch, and you are going to be a little late on you rent or your mortgage. Your cell phone gets shut off, because you had the money 2 days ago for either eating or paying on the bill, but you didn’t have enough for both, so you chose eating. All this happens and you just think, if only I was able to keep that 28% or at least some of it.” You know some of those tax dollars go to some good things, you want to give your fair share, but you are not asking for the 28% of somebody else’s paycheck; you only want some of that 28% from your own paycheck. You say, “hey, its mine. I earned it. I’m not asking for something I didn’t earn. If I had that money I’d be ok. I wouldn’t need any public assistance programs to stay a float. I would be able to save a little. I could get a better car. How safe are my brakes? I could move into a better house, or a better neighborhood. I could put a down payment on a place and start my own business like the one I’ve always wanted to. I can put my kid in a better school, or a better neighborhood. I could start to save for my retirement. I wouldnt have to work until I was 70.” They are going to take 12.32 years of paychecks away from you and they have the nerve to talk to you about fair share. Share of what? What have they given you in order to justify your 13 year sacrifice? Roads?
Posted on: Wed, 16 Apr 2014 00:21:25 +0000
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