Article from The Daily Wire by Ryan Saavedra.
Socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) repeatedly demonized successful business owners in an interview during a Martin Luther King Jr. Day event on Monday, literally arguing that business owners were lazy slave owners who profit off the backs of minorities who are “dying” because the business owners are successful.
Ocasio-Cortez made the extreme remarks when she was asked why successful business owners were “the enemy of health care.”
“Well, you didn’t make those widgets, did you?” Ocasio-Cortez began. “Because you employed thousands of people and paid them less than a living wage to make those widgets for you. You didn’t make those widgets.”
“You sat on a couch while thousands of people were paid modern day slave wages, and in some cases real slave, real modern-day slavery, uh, depending on where you are in terms of food production,” Ocasio-Cortez claimed. “You made that money off the backs of undocumented people. You made that money off the backs of black and brown people being paid under a living wage.”
AOC on why successful businessmen don’t deserve their wealth: “You didn’t make those widgets! You sat on a couch while thousands of people were paid modern day slave wages, and in some cases real modern-day slavery; you made that money off the backs of undocumented people …" pic.twitter.com/Y2w3nSfezo
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) January 20, 2020
Read the entire article at The Daily Wire.
Image Credit: nrkbeta [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)]
As the owner of five businesses, all of which I have started and the oldest of which I established over 30 years ago, I find her statement extremely offensive. My employees all have always been paid at least the minimum wage, most frequently more since the jobs in my firms actually take more than a junior high education to complete: they need some additional training and most helpfully, professional certifications. However, they get to go home at the end of their workdays. Frequently I work double the number of hours because running a business is hard and long work, even more so with five!
If there is anyone who is underpaid, it is the business owner because of how much time he puts in when the employees are at home on their couches sipping at their beers and “being lazy.” My oldest firm’s office hours are 10am to 8pm Monday through Saturday. However, most often, I am working from 8am to 12 midnight each of those six days and usually some additional time on Sunday. So, while the workers put in 40 hours a week, I frequently put in over 100 each and every week!
I don’t begrudge my employees their pay or the respect that they deserve for jobs done well. As a business owner, however, I expect that people such as AOC herself realize that the business owners are among the hardest-working folks in any business, if not the most hard-working. AOC and others who think like that mindless twit need to get their heads out of their backsides, learn about the real world, and think before speaking in the future.
My wife and I had a business in which our eleven employees were paid way over fifteen bucks an hour 40 years ago. We paid their health, accidental, and bonus. In my restaurant, my waiter made over two hundred bucks waiting on less than twenty people, just in tips. Plus his wages, over five bucks an hour, thirty eight years ago. He had been paid full time for three weeks to get experience and knowledge of foods. Plus he ate what the customers ate. Today the left is out of its gourd. They do not have enough brains to start anything. They count on the free stuff from the government. No business can afford to be started under those circumstances. And succeed. The taxes will destroy all ideas before they can be implemented. Just like in Europe. And the INVADERS will ruin all profits.
I’m with you. 38 years running my own business and I still work 60 to 70 hours a week on the business.
I’m not complaining, I enjoy working and helping people with our services.
Amen, John.
A lways O vertly C lueless talking about business/economics is akin to pigs discussing aerodynamics.
She is the worst of the worst. I hope someone is running against her at the next election!
where’s my comment ?