This place is such a hoot, especially in summer. And that's with my favorite fanbois no longer around.
The funniest thing really is that anyone would defend Disney, or anyone else for that matter, for paying folks wages that don't allow them to live. That creates an underclass that makes us third world. ... Some folks think that's OK, I find it morally repugnant and anti-American at its core.
If WalMart is what WDW ... what the USA must become to make Wall Street happy than I say New Zealand is looking like a much nicer place to live. Wall Street was exposed as a giant lie, by the way, when first W and later Obama socialized large portions of it (remember if you're playing the home version that socialism is bad if it means extending unemployment or providing healthcare to all, but it's great if it means bailing out AIG, Chase, Citi, BoA, GM, etc... with OUR tax $$$)
Rest assured, the Founding Fathers never envisioned us as some bastion of bastardized capitalism where people who couldn't live on $7.50 an hour would be told to simply go find greener pastures. Where exactly would you tell them to go? Am I missing something about the job market?
When folks who made $80K a year in white collar jobs and have been out of work for YEARS ... and their options are 20 hours a week at Office Depot for $8.75 an hour or 15 hours a week at Starbucks for $9 if they're lucky, is there a real option? Suicide? A life of crime? Moving to Europe or Asia or Canada or someplace where the great American economic lie isn't shoved down their throat by ignorant masses who choose to parrot political rhetoric instead of simply opening their eyes.
The problem isn't dumping capitalism, not that we ever will. It's putting limits and safeguards into the system so that we don't have a three year and counting Great Recession (and really it's a depression as the term 'recession' was coined after the 1929 disaster and collapse of our economy to reflect more of a tide like image, tide goes in, tide goes out ... where a depression is a giant gaping hole that eats everything up), so that banks can't make up financial products that are fake, that have no business for exisiting (derivitives and credit default swaps and things that even people who work on The Street can't explain) and so that workers can make a fair wage.
No, someone operating Dumbo shouldn't be making $50k a year. But should that person have to live in their car ... or with six people in a one bedroom apartment? Should that person, if they have the desire and the skills, have the chance to move up in the company. Or should they just work for that same wage at age 27 ... at age 31? Where does it end?
Or should there be mandated wage increases. Someone does a great job making elephants soar for three years, they either get moved to a higher position or their pay gets raised substantially for putting in their time. ... Maybe now, they're making $11 an hour for operating a ride. It may sounds simple, but you are dealing with the safety of children daily, right? Don't you want someone who gives a damn before you put little Bree on that?
I've seen too many theater majors at WDW working registers at Columbia Harbor House, even after the CP and internships.
But I wonder ... why do people bristle at a living wage? Why is that so wrong? Why is that somehow anti-American? Intellectually, being that I don't believe titans of American industry post on this board, why do people seem to think the American Way is about subsidizing corporate profits through substandard wages that are kept artificially low by a corporate vicegrip on America (by the way, my homeowners insurance went up 83% this year, which I am required to carry by law, my health insurance went up 34% -- a basic necessity if one wants to keep living, my car insurance went up 26% ... I am sure you get the idea ... my wages? was that a standard 2% increase ... or did I have to take a 60% decrease just to stay in the work force?)
And ask yourself if your WDW experience would be more MAGICal if the CMs were all reasonably happy (or a vast majority).
How about we face some reality!
Anyone who thinks the status quo is at all rational, I'd wish they had to live on an entry level WDW wage (without bringing their current wealth) for five years ... then we can talk.
Have a MAGICal summer!
~BP, Mel Gibson, & Defenders of Da Man~
