As fast food workers in seven different cities continue to hold rallies and protests demanding a living wage, to no one's surprise, the pundits over at Fox used it as an excuse to participate on a couple of their favorite pastimes, bashing unions and the working poor.
It was a twofer for Neil Cavuto and his regular guest and fill-in, Charles Payne, who, when he's not attacking the working class, apparently spends his time hawking worthless stocks to anyone foolish enough to take his investment advice seriously.
PAYNE: Well, you know, these unions I guess and these sort of antics that are sort of the goal could ultimately be to do what they did to automobile companies and Detroit, which is ultimately to bankrupt them. But look, you know, we feel for you. You're on TV. You've got the kid. You talk about accountability. Everyone has accountability, even the person having two or three kids working on a minimum wage job.
And the idea that somehow all of your accountability can be hoisted onto the public, particularly corporate America and that somehow we're all in this together, you can't be a kid, walk off the street and then tell the management of any successful company, you owe me. Now you've got an opportunity to work there. You've got an opportunity to work your way up while you're with an organization.
CAVUTO: And if that becomes the floor, you use the Detroit analogy, that was pretty much the same sort of motif there right? That we want more, more, more and more and so finally they couldn't afford it.
PAYNE: Right, they got more and more and more and more. Promises were made and things were made and it was a wonderful thing, but when we hit a few speed bumps in the economy, as, you know, most of the country was able to regroup. Detroit, those automobile companies got gargantuan bailouts from America, save for Ford of course, but were not able to rebound.
The bottom line is anyone should have a right to fight for higher wages, but you know, when we start talking about minimum wage of $15 an hour, what we're trying to say is that mediocrity should be rewarded. What we're trying to do actually hurts people. In other words, don't get better. Don't go to college. Don't improve yourself. Go home, play video games and when you go to work, you know, have large families. There's no responsibility on you to do anything. We'll make sure that corporate America keeps paying you more than you really should earn in the free market. That's backwards. You're cursing the person whose making $15 an hour.
Yeah, up is down and vice versa in Fox land. Someone's rewarding Payne royally for his mediocrity with his wingnut welfare, but that's different. Who wants to bet that Payne has never done a day of physical labor in his life? I'd be shocked to find out that he has with that attitude of his.
h/t Media Matters
