annabelle

Tragic indeed. However, the industries that employ child laborers, soccer ball factories and the like, while distasteful keep those same children out of the sex trade. Following the law of unintended consequences, that is exactly where the children who were factory laborers in Pakistan went when their factories were cleared of child workers. Seeking to perfect our world, a world full of imperfect beings, is a fool's errand.

My suggestion would be to run for public office and right all these wrongs. There are a tremendous number of squatters in the UK. Along with the Travellers, they present the same menace to public health and safety as our homeless. My point is, it is safe to say the that America is not the Great Satan when it comes to social outreach or lack thereof. It is not my look out to take care of these people and I resent being made to do so through excessive taxation. All that said, I always tip my server at least 20%. PSmith is correct: waiting tables can be very lucrative. I always had cash and was the only one of my friends who had a savings account, a car, was going to community college and paid my rent on time when I was an 18 year old waitress. Of course, I was also the only one who didn't spend all of my money on booze, weed and clothes.

I begrudge no one their wages who is performing the duties of their job adequately. That does not meant that I believe in equality of outcome versus equality of opportunity. What would be the empetus to work hard, to study hard, to excel if outcomes will always be the same? Human nature is terribly predictable in that sort of an environment. Most people, with a guarantee of X amount of dollars on payday, regardless of performance, are going to do the bare minimum. Not only that, the cream of the operation will move on anytime the grass looks greener since there is really no danger of starting in the cellar paywise at one's new job. As for your last statement "We should be willing to pay a little more for the stuff and services we buy . . ." Count me out. It makes me sad that you would tell others how they "should" spend their pay. It's wrong and sounds like our president lecturing us that "At some point, you've made enough money". Who is he or anyone else, for that matter, to make that determination? Our social safety net has become a social hammock. (I addressed this phenomenon in another post, so I won't respeak it.) With our new tax structure we are working for Uncle Sam until August before we start earning for ourselves. It's unsustainable and our middle class is vanishing because of it.

There is no Bumbleduck Oklahoma. That's in Florida. A minimum wage is NOT a living wage and was never meant to be one. I said these many pages ago: minimum wage is an entry level wage paid for unskilled labor. A living wage requires one to actually learn a trade. Raising the minimum wage contracts the job market and squeezes out unskilled workers, many of whom are teenagers looking for after school and summer employment. Certainly having fewer workers will simply payroll. It will also affect service and customer satisfaction.

Comparing lawyers to waiters is hardly an apples to apples comparison.

I'm pleased to see that janeer says it is being used for skin grafts and the like. A most useful application.

I don't know that I like this. It seems rather a slap in the face to actually learning how to cook, bake and grill food for oneself and one's family. 3-D printing is going to involve a substantial monetary investment and much the same as the aforementioned sous vide set-ups requires dedicated space. While not as time consuming as sous vide, it certainly isn't something you could trust your teen around while you are out of the house. Overzealous button punching generally equals a call to the repair shop.

"Foodgasm." Which, I suppose is the logical endpoint to the whole "food porn" nonsense. Yuck.

Michaela, I knew a woman who had a terrible reaction to acai berries drinks. Her limbs became swollen and blotchy. Her face swelled up like a puffer-fish and she could barely open her eyes. Obviously, she was have some sort of allergic reaction and went to the hospital when she began to wheeze. It took her the better part of a week to feel like herself. Thank gods this didn't happen to you! A little vomiting, while unpleasant, is much preferable.

Working under the table is the way of the world for many people, not just those who work in restaurants. Anyone who is paid in cash, e.g.; the guy who cuts your lawn or cleans your pool, the housekeeper who tidies up two times a week, the babysitter, roofers, delivery persons (flowers, landscape items), the guy who dug in your inlawn sprinkler system, and waitstaff and sometimes dishwashers. Many times these people actually come out money ahead. They are eligible for many programs for the poor; Medicaid, SNAP, EBT, reduced payment on utilities, free cell-phones, et cetera. And, the big one, at tax time they are eligible for the EITC. The Earned Income Tax Credit. Since they have no receipts, they cannot prove they earned much at all. Our tax code has turned many of our citizens (and aliens) into scoff-laws. I can speak to my own experience of having earned money off the books as a 15 year old selling cut flowers from a kiosk. Waiting tables for $1.63 plus tips, with a uniform and a free meal, in a warm restaurant was leaps and bounds from standing out on a street corner in the weather surrounded by flowers.

I don't like gin. I like Scotch. That's all.

Thanks, Scoop.

Beefeater Gin? If that's the best they can do, I'd pour 7-up in it and call it good.

Well, some have, surely. All the way up to Econ 300 something here.

Scoop, I looked up the NRA and their website doesn't contain any financial information disclosures. At least the financials are not in the usual places. Further, they have only half a million members. Who is their "angel", assuming they have one, that is providing these massive funds you are claiming they have? If you have this information, I would appreciate it if you would share it with us.

(my bold) Scoop, do you have a citation for this statement? Aren't you lumping all restaurant owners in with Union bosses?

Scoop, we live in a representative Republic, not a democracy. I will grant you that our representatives don't care about much other than getting re-elected. However, I don't believe they are any different than elected officials in any other country with free and fair election based leadership or in our case, the lack thereof. Apathy, whether it be toward one's wages or the increasingly intrusive regulation in our daily lives, is by far the biggest problem facing our people today. Only one third of the populace that is eligible to vote bothers to do so. If one can't be bothered to vote for the persons who make law, it is not surprising that these same people may be mighty ill-informed about taxes and wages or much else beyond what they are doing this coming weekend.

Heh. I waited on those messy kids when I was a high school senior in 1976. You know, back in the Bronze Age. Not only were the children sloppy, they were smart-alecks. I was raised by very stern Germans and this was just not done. Messy wasn't limited strictly to kids, of course (in case I inadvertently insult someone with a free-range child). There were several brothers who were in their late 20s - early 30s who routinely used an entire bottle of ketchup each time they dined with us. Waiting tables and working retail builds character. ; )

Gorgeous! My sourdough was always full of fail.

Julia Child's "From Julia Child's Kitchen" has a number of bread recipes that experiment with rising times and discuss how kneading, shaping and slowing or speeding up the rise effects the taste and texture of the breads. She has a section on making puff pastry and croissants, too. I draw the line at puff pastry. It is fantastic when homemade, but I don't have the patience for it anymore. Baking on the Weber? I say give it a whirl!

I was speaking generally, Michaela. I didn't mean to make you feel singled out. Sorry about that. I didn't like it when I got those tracts when I was in college, either. It was doubly infuriating since the same people who handed out the tracts also ordered lots of messy fountain desserts for their equally messy children.

I believe that's true, Michaela. I baked a sponge cake yesterday in a shiny tinned springform pan and it had a lovely golden bloom that was uniform on all sides. When I have baked this sponge cake in a non-stick, dark finished pan, it has a much darker crust on the pansides and needs to be trimmed before serving. Rotuts, what kind of breads are you planning to bake? Some crusty breads may be baked in a cast iron Dutch oven. If you have one of those, you're good to go!

It has been many years since I waited tables, so caveat emptor: taxes were paid on 8% of the gross sales of the waiter, regardless of tip. Many of us here have commented that we tip 20%. I will submit that the actual number that a server may receive averages closer to 15%, which added up over the course of many weeks will result in a deficit to what others may perceive the server is taking home. 5% is quite a difference. Persons who are from other countries and even other states, may not be aware that the different states have different tax structures. For instance, in my state there is a tax on food that is sold at the grocery store. In other states that is not the case. There are also different costs figured into the overhead of the restaurant itself; state, city, county and sometimes federal taxes for operating licenses, signage, wholesale versus retail food costs, et cetera. This is perhaps reflective of why a meal sold in Manhattan at a Midtown bistro costs many times more than the same meal that is sold at a bistro in wine country in California. All that said, some tourists not only blanch at the thought of paying so much money for a meal, but are doubly feeling "screwed" about tipping out to their server. Really, the target of their umbrage should not be the waitstaff, it should be our burdensome tax structure that makes the operation of a stand alone business so daunting that a plate of pasta may cost $30 and up. The servers are not to be blamed for choosing to work at such a place (jobs are hard to come by these days) nor are the owners who are trying to keep their doors open and the lights on. Running an eating establishment has always been a crap-shoot at best, and as I said before, most servers do not wait tables in order to become independently wealthy and they understand that their tips depend on their goodwill toward the patrons of the restaurant. These patrons deserve a pleasant stay at the establishment, however, that doesn't give one carte blanche to act like a right jerk. Jerk or not, the server must remain pleasant to the patron or risk losing his job. Dealing with a hungry public, especially one with increasingly poor manners, is a test by fire and the servers who last deserve every dime they make.

This has been covered in this thread a few pages back. It is the servers themselves who are NOT advocating for higher wages because they make most of their wages in cash tips. Serving table in the US is a transient job for most. It is something people do between jobs, as a second job or while going to school. Certainly it isn't a path to riches unless one is a thief. If we are going to stumble off into the weeds of VATs and the "merits" of the NHS, I believe we have gone far afield of the intent of this thread and straight on into social engineering.

They had better be the Gold Standard since they cost a Denver Mint. My pans (and I have tons of them) are nothing special, but they don't stick and some of them were my grandmother's. They have sentimental value for me.