48.6% of Spaniards Aged 18-24 Would Take Any Job, Anywhere, for Low Wages; Ikea Spain Gets 100,000 Applicants for 400 Jobs; Walmart, McDonalds Comparison

48.6% of Spaniards Aged 18-24 Would Take Any Job, Anywhere, for Low Wages; Ikea Spain Gets 100,000 Applicants for 400 Jobs; Walmart, McDonalds Comparison

In contrast to McDonalds’ workers in the US demanding $ 15 an hour wages, Almost half of young Spaniards accept any job, anywhere, despite low salary

48.6% of Spaniards aged 18 to 24 said they would accept any job, anywhere and even with a low income. 84.9% felt very or fairly likely to have to work on what is available, 61.7% considered it equally likely to have to go abroad, and 79.2% said they need to study more. Despite this, an overwhelming majority (80%) are convinced that, at least in the near future, will have to be financially dependent on their family.

Future is Black

Young Spaniards recognize enjoy the benefits of the welfare state far more than their parents, except as regards stability and security. They are also convinced that their children will live much worse than them.

Frustrated Expectations

Only 20% of young people believe things will improve in the next two or three years, compared to 36% who think it will get worse. Moreover, nearly three in four young people (71%) considered likely to find little or no work in the coming year.

Ikea Spain Gets 100,000 Applicants for 400 Jobs

Also via translation from El Economista, please consider Ikea Spain Gets 100,000 Applicants for 400 Jobs

The Swedish multinational Ikea will have work to select staff for a store in Valencia because 100,000 people submitted applications to fill 400 jobs.

Ika received a total of 100,000 job applications through a web page offering. In the first 48 hours of processing, Ikea received 20,000 applications.

The store, which will open in summer, will have a staff of 400 employees and also generate about 80 indirect jobs to cover services such as security, transport and cleaning, among others.

Walmart, McDonalds Comparison

To be fair, there is a major difference between McDonalds’ employees and Spaniards seeking jobs.

The McDonalds’ employees demanding higher wages have jobs. Those seeking jobs, don’t.

However, every McDonalds’ employee knew their wage when they were hired. Like Spaniards willing to accept low wages, they took the jobs anyway.

1 Million McDonalds Applicants

I cannot find anything recent on McDonalds, but on April 28, 2011, Bloomberg reported “McDonald’s and its franchisees hired 62,000 people in the U.S. after receiving more than one million applications, the Oak Brook, Illinois-based company said today in an e-mailed statement. Previously, it said it planned to hire 50,000.“

Walmart 23,000 Applicants for 600 Jobs

On November 19, 2013 NBC Washington reported Walmart to Open First D.C. Stores Dec. 4

Walmart’s H Street and Georgia Avenue locations will open Dec. 4 at 8 a.m. Both the 103,000-square-foot Georgia Avenue store and the 74,000-square-foot H Street location will feature fresh produce, a deli, organic food items and a full-service pharmacy.

The stores will hire a combined 600 associates after combing through the more 23,000 applications its received from potential employees.

The arrival of Walmart has not been a smooth one. Both stores were on the verge of never opening after the retail giant threatened to pull its plans if Mayor Vincent Gray signed a living wage bill.

The Large Retailer Accountability Act, known colloquially as the “Walmart Bill,” would have required  the company — and other big-box retailers — to pay its employees a minimum of $ 12.50 an hour.

Gray vetoed the bill in September.

Minimum wage in the District currently stands at $ 8.25 an hour.

Reflections on Living Wages

Take a poll of those employees. I bet 100% of them are happier to have a job at $ 8.25 an hour vs. no job at some presumed “living wage” that they would not get because there were no jobs.

Of course, now that they have a job and should be happy, some union activist is going to try to convince them they shouldn’t be happy.

The Real Problem

Other than a couple of like-minded Austrian bloggers, no one has bothered to complain about the real problem: The Fed pumping money supply like mad, while holding interest rates low.

Five Results

1. Prices rising faster than wages


2. Grossly distorted income inequalities


3. Non-existent price signals


4. Interest rates that encourage hardware and software solutions to eliminate employees


5. Equity and bond market bubbles

I blasted the Fed regarding these issues early Friday.

For details and truly educational reading, please see Money as Communication: A Purposely “Non-Educational” Fallacious Video by the Atlanta Fed.

Mike “Mish” Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Mike “Mish” Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.

Mish’s Global Economic Trend Analysis

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‘Crack Smoking’ Toronto Mayor: ‘I’m Not Going Anywhere’

By Shepard Ambellas | November 13, 2013 | 11:47am EST

Things are heating up in Toronto as the city’s mayor said “no apology is necessary” after being verbally attacked by members of the Toronto City Council Tuesday.

TORONTO, CANADA – JULY 24: Toronto mayor Rob Ford watches the Toronto Blue Jays MLB game against the Los Angeles Dodgers on July 24, 2013 at Rogers Centre in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. (Photo by Tom Szczerbowski/Getty Images)

TORONTO (INTELLIHUB) — The erratically behaved Mayor Rob Ford says he’s “not going anywhere” as his colleges continue to press him to take a leave of absence after he admitted to smoking crack cocaine and threatened to kill an individual in a reported drunken rage earlier this year.

The mayor’s crack use surfaced back in May as Toronto police announced that they actually possessed video evidence of the mayor’s secret lifestyle. All the while the mayor has maintained that he does not have an addiction to the dangerous illicit drug, but admitted to smoking it in a drunken frenzy before.

However, as of now it looks as if it could prove to be a chore for the Toronto city council to remove the mayor. KOMO News out of Seattle reported, “the 44-member City Council is grasping for ways to shunt the larger-than-life leader aside and govern without him until next year’s municipal elections.

It is an unprecedented effort but in some ways, it may not be a stretch. Toronto’s mayor already has limited powers compared to the mayors of many large cities in the United States. He is just one voting member in the council and his power stems mostly from his ability, as the only councilor elected by citywide vote, to build consensus and set the agenda. That authority, many council members say, has evaporated in the crack scandal.

“We really just have to build a box around the mayor so we can get work done,” said councilor John Filion, who has introduced one of two motions in the council designed to isolate Ford.

The first motion, which goes to a vote Wednesday, would call on Ford to take a leave of absence, apologize to Toronto residents for misleading them and cooperate with police. If he refuses, the council would ask the province of Ontario to pass legislation to remove the mayor from office.”_[1]

To top it all off, mayor Rob Ford bobble-head dolls surfaced in the city proceedings on Tuesday, adding a new element to the mix. The Chris Farley impersonating mayor was said to have even autographed a few of the dolls for supporters.

“It won’t be the end of Ford Nation, they just put up a billboard in support of him last week,” said Nelson Wiseman, a political professor at the University of Toronto. “The movement and the anti-government sentiment it embodied that got him elected will stay alive … His base will remain strong whether or not he’s removed from office.”

After winning office in 2010, Ford took measures that pleased his suburban voter base, including abolishing an annual $ 60 vehicle registration tax, squeezing valuable concessions out of the union representing 6,000 city workers, and reducing costs by contracting out half of Toronto’s garbage collection. Ford claims to have saved taxpayers $ 1 billion dollars in the process, though councilors dismiss that claim as highly inflated since he has increased the cost of transit, among other public services, along with hiking property taxes.”_[1]

Some say this is an attempt to derail the good things the mayor has done for the city and believe that the mayor’s removal could lead the city into a new era of tyranny.

“Ford’s friend and occasional driver Alexander Lisi was also in court in a separate case on Tuesday. He is on trial for extortion and a number of drug charges. The judge set a judicial pretrial date for the drug charges for Jan. 14. 

It’s believed the extortion charge is related to Lisi’s efforts to obtain the purported crack video.

Ford, 44, has served as the mayor of Toronto for the past three years. He still has a year to go in his current mandate and has said he intends to seek re-election.”, reported CBC News._[2]

“The reason I drank or did drugs was not because of stress, but was out of sheer stupidity”, the mayor admitted Wednesday in a city council meeting.

Update 12:20pm EST: The Mayor stood up during a city council meeting Wednesday, calling out other council members as hypocrites saying, “You all are standing up here like you are holier than thou. The question is, have you ever smoked marijuana?” The mayor continued saying, “I know what the answer is”. as the floor maintained silence.

Sources:

[1] Toronto’s City Council seeks to isolate crack-smoking mayor – KOMONews.com

[2] Rob Ford facing ‘public flogging,’ says brother - CBC News

Writer Bio:

Shepard Ambellas founder, director and editor-in-chief of Intellihub.com, is a researcher, investigative journalist, radio talk show host, activist, and filmmaker. Follow him onTwitter.

For media inquires, interviews, questions or suggestions for this author, email: shepard@intellihub.com or telephone: (347) 759-6075.

Read more articles by this author here.

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‘Crack Smoking’ Toronto Mayor: ‘I’m Not Going Anywhere’