‘It’s Time to Start Protesting’

To The Editor:
I would like to commend the Wall Street protesters, most of whom are young people in college, and all others who have now lent their voice to this movement, for there insight into our bleak future, and their understanding that this country is broken. Back in 1985 I worked for a trucking company. My hourly wage was $13.77 an hour, time and a half after eight hours. The company put us up in a hotel, and we got a per-diem for food while on the road. and the company paid for our health insurance. I hauled everything from soup to nuts for a certain fast food chain. The loads went out of a warehouse in south Jersey and covered an area from the Carolinas to Maine; two days out and one-day local work, twice a week to about 15 or 20 restaurants each trip. It was very hard work loading, unloading and driving at least 15 hours a day and sometimes more. Good money for a high school grad with five kids.
I’m retired now but decided to go back to work. I applied for a driving job at a trucking company in South Jersey a few weeks ago. They offered me $14 an hour with no benefits and they were serious.
Today’s CEOs, hedge fund managers and bankers make millions if not hundreds of millions while working people can barely get by, and their wages are about the same or much less when you compare the cost of things today to 20 or 30 years ago. Washington, D.C. is in the bankers’ pockets and they will try to keep the status quo with free trade laws and anti-labor rulings, and tax breaks for the rich.
There’s so much money in politics that an honest man doesn’t stand a chance after all; money is speech, just ask the Supreme Court. You have to be a lawyer before you become a judge so that might explain that ruling. In a nutshell, the rich are getting richer, the corporations ship our jobs overseas, and the unions go along for the money… they’re just another business. Banks and insurance companies use taxpayer money to gamble with. They’ve corrupted the courts, the Congress and the office of the president.
I think it’s time to start the protesting with the kids screaming off with their heads and rightfully so.
CHARLES KING
Villas