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No doubt he was all tapped out

The Globe reports the owner of the Sunset Grill and a couple other Allston restaurants wasn't paying overtime like he should have been, at least according to those pesky feds.

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Apparently he wasn't doing payroll accounting period. Yikes!

So Sunset is now in the illustrious bracket as Upper Crust?

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This isn't Marc's first encounter with the law... it was 10 years ago ....

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-8640644.html

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...if we were to apply this to all the restaurants in town guilty of this (especially with their undocumented work staff) the restaurant industry in Boston would collapse. The entire business model is based on having a load of workers who can be outright stiffed their pay, worked ludicrous hours, stiffed overtime pay and/or minimum wage rates and paid under the table saving payroll taxes, FICA etc... And if they get hurt on the job, see ya later. If the employers had to pay real wages and taxes, they'd have a hard time meeting their other expenses, including their own salaries.

Landscaping contractors will typically get more attached to good workers and treat them slightly better, but a plongeur in one of the high-end restaurants around here is as disposable as the sponges he's using.

[Edit: I'm not saying Sunset is high end.]

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Lots of places pay their servers what they're legally required to pay them. In fact, the pittance that they're required to pay them (especially waitstaff, who make 1/3 of minimum wage) is so small that anyone caught cooking the books should be raked over the coals and publicly shamed. Like Marc Kadish here.

Also:

If the employers had to pay real wages and taxes, they'd have a hard time meeting their other expenses, including their own salaries.

This is the worst kind of apologia for scumbags. If they can't afford to pay their employees "real wages" (which, again, is two dollars and sixty-three cents an hour for waitstaff), they're too incompetent to be in business. If they try things like this asshole did, they deserve to be run out of town on a rail.

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You're missing the sarcasm - it's not apologia

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Thanks. I'm not apologizing for the business model, I'm calling it out. There are some restauranteurs in town who live quite well and are seen as the kind of folks who show up in photos in the Improper Bostonian and that sort of crap, who are not investing money back into their business but living like kings. But this can only be maintained by stiffing suppliers, workers, (at times) customers and anyone else in the name of cutting costs so they can maintain their profits. Some of them are now closing up some of their restaurants because they're over-extended.

Aside from that particular case I'm thinking of, there are also small restaurant owners, who aren't big wheels, but work hard at their business and STILL some of them try and screw over some little Salvadoran dishwasher a few hundred dollars of pay because they know there's a lot more where he came from. And he's not going to complain because "he's a friggin illegal!"

The issue is that it has become built into the business model of restaurants that there is an exploitable source of labor to rely on. Successful business owners are frequently cheap-ass sons of bitches, despite every politician queuing up to polish their bungholes as the sainted saviors of Da Amer-uh-can way er life. It ain't easy to get rich and be nice, and being a bastard is more often a plus than a negative (especially in general contractors - but we're talking restaurants here).

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This is why I laugh at conservatives who complain about illegal immigrants. You can't eat a meal out, you can't shop for groceries, you wouldn't even be eating if not for illegal immigrants. They're the slave labor that keeps us fed. Heck, forget the roof over your house or the lawn around it. I'm talking the most basic need. If not for illegal immigrants, paid poor wages under the table your life just wouldn't be the same. So, when you're complaining about welfare this and welfare that, remember when you went out to eat Saturday night? The place you went to was probably paying the kitchen staff lousy wages, so you are partly to blame for allowing this to continue. You can't have it both ways, you can't have business paying next to nothing and have welfare abolished. Now, when your roof springs a leak, and you're looking for the "most reasonable" price, take a guess what makes the price reasonable.

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I don't understand what you're saying. Do you mean if we had no undocumented workers we wouldn't have things like restaurants, roofs that don't leak, landscaping, etc....?

Because I remember a time when Americans worked those jobs. I'd rather pay the true cost of a service or meal knowing that the employees are getting paid honestly along with all the taxes and insurance that go along with it.

I'm sure I'm not alone. I just don't get what this has to do with conservatives vs liberals...

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You just wouldn't be able to use those services.

I'm amazed when I visit my parents in my hometown how many "middle class" people have landscapers doing yard work. There been a huge uptick in the service since I was a child, and no one hired landscapers to take care of their own yards back in the day. Visit places down south and west, and it's a 1000% increase on our increase.

The only thing that allows this is that it's much cheaper than it used to be. Prices are driven down by cheap supply of labor. Get rid of the supply, keep demand the same, and landscaping will be priced out of it's current class use once again.

Same with cheap food, cheap roofs, cheap whatever. Sure we can get rid of illegals, but it will move prices (and yes wages) higher, but at the expense of less demand at those prices.

And thats not an argument form or against, it's just the economic reality of a lot of thing people take for granted.

Personally I like wage laws that force minimum pays and standards, and create a strong middle class with lots of purchasing power. Consumer demand drives business demand which drives a robust economic engine.

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wanted to get as many people as possible hooked on 'entitlements' like welfare, public housing, etc. and hopefully turn them into 'progressive' voters for life, the 'conservatives' [neocon big business/Wall Street Republicans] wanted the cheap labor and millions of consumers for everything from bad mortgages to Walmart shoppers...this is why this country was allowed to be FLOODED with tens of millions of poorly educated, semi skilled and unskilled 'undocumented' [and legal] immigrants, especially over the past 30 years. And here we are in 2012.

When I was a little kid in the 70s people were having drummed into their heads that our population was too high and couples needed to have no more than one or two kids, or none at all. Now, we're told the native middle class U.S. population doesn't reproduce fast enough to pay for everyone's entitlements, so we must import millions and millions of poor, 3rd world people who have big families.

Now, I've got nothing personal against 99% of these 'poor' immigrants who've flooded into post-industrial America over the past 30 years, and agree most are great workers and decent folks, but that's beside the point. Never mind the fact most are also a huge drain on limited social services. The whole situation is FUBAR at this stage.

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Where are the 'report spam' buttons?

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you don't want to run out of air

IMAGE(http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_ZfS1RF1hXso/Si_EgeyMBAI/AAAAAAAAANw/p64LVW4hnQ8/s400/boy-in-the-bubble-01bor.jpg)

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First they mock and laugh. I think somebody hit a nerve.

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The brain is a bunch of nerves, is it not. Trying to decrypt that wargarble of fantasy and truthiness is worse then a brain freeze headache.

Better to just ridicule. It's working against Romney after all.

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I equally criticized 'conservatives'.

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I'm sorry the card says.... Moops!

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Obviously, I loved your ref.

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we could raise the eligibility ages for SS and medicare tomorrow for anyone under at least 45 (as at least this part of the workforce has plenty of time to take appropriate action to prepare for the consequences of that change). While we're at it, we can do away with the arbitrary cap on earnings that are subjected to SS tax.

The notion that we can continue without change entitlement systems that were designed when the average lifespan was something far less than what it is now and what it will be soon is absolutely imbecilic.

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isn't even an issue, do nothing and 50 years from now they'll be forced to lower payouts to 75% their current. That's not failure, and it's not getting nothing. People also seem t have a very hard time separating SS and disability insurance, from actual retirement. It's not a investment, it's a hedge against unforeseen consequences that leave you elderly with NO income.

The big elephant in the room is Medicare and Medicaid, which are real issues. But the ACA already seems to be bending the cost curves downwards, and further tweaks can fix that too.

Handing over money to Wallstreet is not a proper plan. Or have we already forgot about how well Wallstreet manages free cash?

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You own a business, you want to put as much money in your pocket as possible. Do you choose to pay your employees low wages? Do you choose to "hide" their very presence from the government? What is your worker to do, if they are desperate for work? They can take your job offer, or another similar offer, and probably take another lousy job with lousy wages too. How many sub-minimum hours must one work to be able to afford a place to live and to clothe and feed themselves? Is the welfare system a way to "hook" poor people into the system, or a way to save it from an aspect of our profits over people system? If you're convinced the "non-progressive" or conservative wing of government has a way to fix this problem, what, exactly is it? Is it to lower taxes on the business owner? Is that business owner, now, with a lower tax rate then going to turn around and pass the "extra" money on to his workers? Is he going to hire more workers? No, chances are, they'll pocket the tax break, keep the low paid worker doing the job of 2 people, and keep it all under the table.

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I love competing against his bars. He makes it so easy sometimes. Patron's. HAHAHAHAHAHA

Also, if we didn't have illegals picking our berries, then the cost of berries would go up. That's not a defense of paying people crap wages, that's a declaration of reality. If that's a problem for you, stop buying cigarettes and having babies, you idiots.

People sometimes remind me of my Irish roommate. "Wahh, I'm broke." Then stop buying 30 racks of High Life every weekend, (expletive.) I find that the money problems of most people are self-inflicted.

EDIT: Forgot my obligatory video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVnplh7gnlU

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...this is as insightful as a Jim Carey movie. It's a "declaration of reality"? What does that mean? Do we accept that reality so we don't have to pay so much for berries (and tomatoes, and lettuce, and cut lawns, and baby sitters, and elder care, and janitorial services, and....) or do we do what's right? (and not just because Marc Kadish is a douche.)

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In the real world, we have cheap berries and child care because a segment of the population will accept a ridiculous minimum wage to perform those tasks.

Now if we made a law that required illegals to be paid a minimum wage (which we should absolutely do), then there's no reason to risk having illegals around when you can force some of the 8% unemployed in this country to get off their asses and get some work done. If the cost of berries as a result is quadrupled, fine. Budget your money better if you want to eat some.

It's my understanding that Canada will not approve a work visa for an immigrant unless it can be proven that no Canadian can do the job that the immigrant seeks. We should have that here. Complicated IT project? Get the Indians over here. Picking berries? Looks like the laid off office worker is going to hunch over and get a tan. I'm not having them collect unemployment checks while somebody not born here crosses the border and takes the job.

And that's why this country is truly broken: It's too easy not to work. If I were on unemployment, I'd go out and go to the park and pick up garbage. I'd at least earn the money.

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80% of welfare goes to women with children, the elderly and the disabled; right? Most of that extra 20% are seasonal or temporarily laid off.

This imaginary image of the welfare queen living high and luxurious needs to die, because it's patently false. The tiny of numbers that are abusing the system do need to find it harder to do so, I agree, but let's not pretend that the exception is the rule. Let's also find way to reform it that don't cost us more money, like FL boneheaded drug testing where they found the cost to administrator the test was vastly greater then the people testing positive and kicked out. Testing contracts that were given away as political presents, mind you.

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I said "unemployment," not "welfare." The latter is a different conversation entirely.

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Now if we made a law that required illegals to be paid a minimum wage (which we should absolutely do)

Well, your wish is my command! There is a law that says ALL employees must be paid according to labor regulations -- meaning minimum wage and overtime pay. This applies to EVERYONE REGARDLESS OF IMMIGRATION STATUS. The whole point here is that employers, especially in the service sector, are violating labor laws left and right. These violations allow them to keep some of their labor costs down so they can either compete better with lower prices or pocket the cost savings.

What we have seen in those states that have implemented hardline anti-immigrant (and usually racist) policies is that immigrants leave the state, and those jobs left vacant do not fill up with unemployed "real Ameeruhcuns." The few that try usually end up saying no friggin way am I doing this hellish work for that crap salary.

It's never easy to be poor and out of work, but obviously it's easier here than in Central America (as an example), because we've decided as a society to put in a floor below which people do not drop.

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The entire restaurant staff in Boston was made up of Liberal Arts majors?

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Every time a large enough number of immigrants comes to America (by any means, legal or illegally) to work and live, this happens. They eventually get together, eventually complain about the horrible jobs they do for horrible pay, and there's a backlash. The whole "anti-illegal" immigrant argument is about 75% b.s. What the anti-illegal immigrant people want isn't to rid America of illegal immigrants. They want to silence illegal immigrants through the use of fear tactics. We're right back in the days of Grapes Of Wrath. The whole crackdown is a blatant scare tactic. Even the idiots of the nation know that no produce would be picked no food would be processed, and little work would be done.

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