Fintail, you and I know this but people like brightness would rather work us Joe-Six Packs like china men if it meant making another buck on his bottom line. Once we break down he wants to discard us like a piece of paper and hire somebody new. As he has said many times over a employer owes you nothing but your earned hourly wage. Everything else is on you.
no weekends, no holidays, no health coverage, no benefits, atrocious work weeks, etc.
Well welcome to working for brightness. I can just see him standing over me holding a bull whip cursing you liberal, socialist, commie, I'll give you the UAW *Whack* with is whip
If we are into throwing phrases like "full of B.S." at each other, I'd say you are regurgitating Marxist B.S.
What you have written up regarding labor union and "greedy capitalists" was exactly what I was taught in political classes in the first 9 years of my education in China. It was taught with a straight face in elementary school, but by the time of middle school, even the communist teachers had a hard time keeping a straight face reciting that nonsense, as it was becoming increasingly obvious in daily life that government managed equality meant equality in poverty except for a priviledged few, where as even elemental experiement in capitalism brought abundance and prosperity for (almost) all.
The anti-capitalist "Two-class" nonsense fails in the face of a simple question: what is the "greedy capitalist" supposed to do with the money he accummulates? He has to spend that money in order to wield his power in a free market. Whenever he wields his supposed power, he can't help but creating jobs in the process and disburse hims money. If it costs very little money for him to order labor around, then it should cost equally little amount of money for someone else to order labor around. Any incremental offering would atract the labor away from the "greediest capitalist." The "greediest capitalist" can only avoid running the risk of losing his workers to someone else paying just a little more if the "greediest capitalist" gets the government to pass a law that bans competition. That's in effect what regulations accomplish.
We as a nation are becoming two classes precisely because of labor union and other government interventions. It's much harder to go from rags to riches through one's own entreprenouership than it was a century ago because taxes are much higher and regulations are much more cumbersome. Labor union creates two classes on the very day a shop becomes a closed shop: one small class of privileged members who are paid more than a free market would bear, and a much larger class of workers being shut out of the market place both because they can not hope to replace the union workers through lawful competition and due to the slow-down of the industry growth rate. Consumers as a class suffer more still as quality of products plummet whlie price skyrocket.
Ummm, Rocky, that already happened after 1929. A social system began during the FDR period, and expanded up LBJ. There will be those with more of less money, depending on their skills and of course good fortune if from a rich family. Yes, the middle class is sometimes a hardest place to be. With taxes supporting the poor coming in most part from the rich, with the middle class bearing the rest, the poor may not have too much room to complain in that respect. I am concerned that too much manufacturing has left the USA. It may indeed be that making a good wage - finding a easy good wage, is and will continue to be harder to have. Of course what is considered poorer to poverty level nowadays is quite different than it once was. What I made in wages in the 1980s would be considered a very low level of income today, yet I got by quite well. I realized that I could not afford a new Cadillac or BMW, I could buy other new autos. I did not start each day with Starbuck's coffee, yet I had a good breakfast each morning. I feel blessed to have lived all my life in America. When you see what true poverty is in this world I do believe those working at the bottom of todays' pay scale in relationship to other countries are still better off. You mention socialism or communism -- think of Cuba as an example. -Loren
When was tha last time you saw a company (other than Ford, whose namesake CEO CHOSE to forgo compensation) offer a $1 salary to an exec? The fact of the matter is that their compensation is determined by a board filled with their peers, many of whom have a conflict of interest, as the CFO of company X may determine the salary for the CEO of co. Y, while the CFO of co. Y sits on the board that hired the CFO of co X! We as taxpayers would be up in arms if our legislators tried to run our goverments like that. Newspapers and electronic media would be jammed full of reports of ethics violations, yet in the private sector, this is accepted as the norm, because it is "private business". Who determines our pay? Peers, no. Higher up management, yes.
In 1972, my father, who is a barber, purchased a house for us to live in. Purchase price: $27,500. He charged $3.00 for a simple haircut. That house is currently worth $350,000, or roughly 12.7 times the purchase price. I asked him why he doesn't charge $38.00 for a haircut (he charges $9, but could reasonably get $15), he laughed, saying he would be out of business. How is that for a loss in standard of living? You can't go to China or Korea for a haircut, yet you cant afford a house on that wage here! Maybe $5 million is fair compensation for a CEO. But, because this is a global economy, their are far too many aspects of our economy at home that are out of line with actual costs. In China, foreign car companies have to align themselves with local car companies to do business there. Is that not a form of protectionism? I applaud the foreign automakers for building their cars here, and paying a decent wage. But, let's face it, their wage wouldn't be anywhere near as good if not for the THREAT that they may unionize. At $23/hr, as opposed to GM's $25/hr, would you buck Toyota and threaten to unionize, even w/o all the other "legacy" beenfits? Now, how about if your salary was $12.50/hr, a lot more to think about, because their is a lot less to lose.
Your first 9-years of chinese education really sent your mind in a spiral about unions. Did you know brightness their are people jailed in china for trying to start a union. I think that should tell you something about your education at least was filled with warped teachings.
No unions = no weekends, no holidays, no health coverage, no benefits, atrocious work weeks,
(Let's try a non-confrontational exchange of opinions this time, shall we?)
What the unions help estalish is a law that says only the first 40 working hours in a week can be paid at regular rate; after that, hourly wage workers have to be paid at least 1.5x standard wage rate; same goes for holidays. Saying that without that law (by extension without union) there would be no weekends or holidays, then there wouldn't be weekends or holidays for salaried workers. By the same token, if passing a law is what makes it happen, then the French 35-hr week law should have been a tremendous success, which it is not.
What really happened, was simply that a high level of productivity and high evel of living standards brought along by 100+ years of capitalistic industrial revolution had by the early 20th century made working more than 40 hours a week unnecessary and undesirable.
Healthcare and Benefits Promises, we shall see how much of that promise can come true for the majority of workers when that come due. Not sure why Healthcare and Benefits are more desirable than giving workers more money to buy such items by themselves, except from the monopolists' caculation as a way to stymie would-be competition. What we do know for sure is that Healthcare cost has skyrocketed as a consequence. If you meant healthcare and benefits of employment such as retirement, well they both existed long before the union: healthcare workers existed since time immemorial; people saved for retirement for just about as long.
Fintail, you and I know this but people like brightness would rather work us Joe-Six Packs like china men if it meant making another buck on his bottom line.
And what's to prevent you from leaving such an employer if you ever run into one?
Once we break down he wants to discard us like a piece of paper and hire somebody new. As he has said many times over a employer owes you nothing but your earned hourly wage. Everything else is on you.
Wait a second, didn't you yourself prefer being paid in higher cash wage instead of "benefits"?
Well welcome to working for brightness. I can just see him standing over me holding a bull whip cursing you liberal, socialist, commie, I'll give you the UAW *Whack* with is whip
Rocky, I don't know what world you live in. I can promise you however, when the government becomes the only employer in town, you are guaranteed to be living under a whip. What's to prevent a private employer from wielding a whip as you say? Very simple: you can pack up and leave.
How do you document your statement? Have you studied their system? Collected data on theirs compared to US?
>science and math are concerned, Chinese education system is actually significantly ahead of today's American education system all the way through high school;
Are you recommending a nationwide curriculum? Are you ready to "enforce it" without the usual backing down and whining?
>Calculus, at least pre-calculus, used to be a required course in most school districts back in the post-Sputnik 1950's and 60's in the US. Today, a lot of American college graduates get their BA's without ever facing caculus. China more or less copied the British and Soviet math and science curricula from the 50's and 60's,
Communist Party the world over started as a Union Movement. Unions fight turf battles against each other all the time. That's what happens when the prize is legal monopoly instead of a pluralistic market economy. Spin all you want, Rock, but I'm far more steeped in pluralistic democracy than you are and appreciate it far more than you can imagine because I have witnessed first hand what the opposite is like . . . what it's like when all the nonsense that you dream about turn into dystopia in real life.
I do agree if employers paid more in wages the employees could buy their own insurance and fun their own retirement however its going to take more than $20-25 bucks an hour to do so.
Another reason why healthcare is so high outside of the greed by insurance/pharmaceuticals/doctors is the 25 million illegal alien population along with millions more on work visa's that have no insurance and have to pass those bills on to everyone else that has insurance or is finacially able to pay.
Unions might have have a tenuous grasp on relevance today, but if not for the efforts of organized labor in the past, we would indeed not have some benefits we take for granted today. 40 hour regulations wouldn't have been necessary had technology made excessive workweeks "unnecessary and undesirable", and such regulations wouldn't exist without such efforts...and again I'll mention weekends and holidays.
Back to your regularly scheduled fantasyland ranting...
I was only generalizing you with the CEO mentality often found in this country. I like I said agree with your Lump sum in wages to cover health and retirement benefits but it would have to be a substantial amount to cover the costs of doing this type of a plan. It would work for me because my union could get the wages needed to cover it. Joe-six pack needs the security of having those benefits in place before he signs the dotted line because he's without a contract.
I love how employers have this attitude of if you don't like it you can always leave. Well that's easy if you are rich but somebody that has settled into a community and has real bills to pay that option isn't easy at all.
I'm pretty sure I wrote in the same post that you quoted that, no, I do not support nationwide curriculum at all. I did not elaborate the reason why in that post, but since you asked, I will put forth a few points now:
(1) Nationwide curriculum would result in a exam-based system very much like many Asian countries have. What inevitably happens is the stratefication of a society along educational "template of merit." It may not have much to do with schlastic aplitude at all, but the financial resources of parents to provide or hire tuturing. In essence a disguised hereditory system. That's what happened in some parts of the world for centuries. It's definitely not conducive to democracy.
(2) Students coming through 12 years of national standardized tests may not prove good material at post-secondary level as standardization across different fields become impossible at college, grad and post-grad levels
(3) The political fight over the curriculum would be endless, and inevitably reflect political leaning of the day in the humanities subjects.
(4) Any centralized educational curriculum can not reflect changes in economic life nearly as quickly a smaller organizations can.
brightness, I've never once have advocated for communism. As Fintail, as spoken about several times in the past their is a huge difference between the two. Socialism, the people have the right to free elections and often in communism the people get their leader chosen for them. Unions aren't allowed in cummunist country's but often have a strong foot hold in socialist country's. I admit I wouldn't mind having the United States convert to socialism since they seem to be more in-line to protect the good of the state which means domestic business and workers of the country from cheap 3rd world labor like that found in China.
Whether the promise of healthcare and benefits (for life, in my case) come to fruition remains to be seen. What I believe happens to pension funds is that when there is a downturn in a business cycle for a company, they tend to push payroll from "payroll" to "pension". This is fine if the economy is doing good in general, as many funds earn money through stocks and bonds. Our pension fund was self sufficient until about 4 years ago, when my company had to add some money for the first time in years. Last year, I read a report that it was 109% funded. Now that the stock market has done better, and not as many people are retiring as we are investing alot of money in our infrastructure, I'm sure it is better. I think many people would rather have half a loaf guaranteed (theoretically) than try for the whole loaf themselves.
(I just think all the trimmings such as "fantasyland ranting" is quite unnecessary, but it could just be me :-)
40hr regulations wouldn't have passed if most employees still worked for more than 40hrs a week. Just like minimum wage laws; they get passed because politicians get to do some grand standing on laws that affect very small per centage of people. In fact, even as the law stands, there is nothing preventing employers hiring someone to work more than 40 hrs if more pay is offered; in fact, overtime is one of the things that some union members crave. Kinda hypocritical if you think about it: the limit was set because theoretically it's not safe to work longer hours, yet workers want to work more hours. Go figure.
I think many people would rather have half a loaf guaranteed (theoretically) than try for the whole loaf themselves
Aren't we talking about questionable "guarantee" here? Shouldn't it be a choice between entrusting the loaf to someone who might have very strong incentive to raid it vs. to oneself?? I means serious, isn't pension fund raiding one of the biggest scams going?
Unionization only works when the employer has no other alternative for labor. If the workforce refuses to work for the wage or working conditions offered, production stops.
Well, boys and girls that train left the station 50 years ago with the implementation of low-cost international transportation. The world economy is here. Tariffs won't work. By the way, how come no one ever complains about the cost of international car shipping that the overseas companies have as a disadvantage?
Now the protections for the worker have been passed into law in the United States, and the unions are irrelevant.
Sorry kids, but that's the way it is. The only hope for American car companies is to make a better product than the competition - and convince Americans to buy it.
Oh wait = Hey Rockylee maybe they can hire Toyota's advertising geniuses and then they won't have to make a better car?
I'd very much appreciate if you do not generalize me with any of your negative images of "CEO" just as I do not generalize you into some lazy union slacker who sits in front of the TV and live off American consumer largesse.
I pay my workers nearly double what people of their age typically make, and I do everything to keep them onboard. Yes, indeed, they have very good job prospect if they choose to leave me. Some have in the past left due to family relocating to a different city; they usually get jobs within weeks. I gave them very excellent recommendations.
I 100% agree with your post pal. Boy you seem pretty smart about the life of Joe Six-Pack
think many people would rather have half a loaf guaranteed (theoretically) than try for the whole loaf themselves.
It's easier for a big company to put all the money in a pot and make a huge return that it is as individuals to take our 401K money and pray the funds selected for us by our employers will pay-off enough so we can retire. I work with some people that think by the time they retire they will have nearly $4-million in their 401K's. Most that started with me have either as much as I do or less which after 4 1/2 years is over $60K. I don't see how another 20 or 25 years of investing is going to give us $4 million. I tell them we'd be damn lucky to pull over a $1 million in returns and I even still think that is wishful thinking and what will $1 million be worth in 20-25 years in real cost terms. :surprise:
Oh wait = Hey Rockylee maybe they can hire Toyota's advertising geniuses and then they won't have to make a better car?
I've never once have said the big 3 doesn't have to make a better car. However some of you believe all the hyperbole coming from the biased media when they've already have admitted to doing service campaigns to cover up their little white lies for 8 years. If the big 3 would of pulled off such a campaign the big 3 CEO's would of been hung long before Saddam Hussein by our media. :mad:
I agree. Even 401k's (ask former Enron employees). That's why I said "theoretically". Don't get me wrong, there are many of us in unions who are cynical enough to believe that if there is a "Strike", that upper management will keep us out long enough to "pay for" what we ask for (I work for Verizon, the 2nd largest phone co., so when we strike, phone lines still work and they still make money), and then "settle". While that may make the whole process seem unnecessary and foolish, it is still in the back of our minds that if we don't "demand" it, we lose it.
I'm not knocking you at all about what you pay your employees because you probably are a small business and have to make sacrifices in pay to stay afloat. However you brag about how well you pay your employees and in NH it's not very great when you consider they have to buy health insurance and fund their own retirements on $20-25 bucks an hour.
Unionization only works when the employer has no other alternative for labor
I agree. No American company can compete with $.65/hr. HOWEVER, all exporting jobs out of the country does is lower our standard of living, while raising theirs: One more job for "them" is one less job for "us".
And somehow some people believe that raises the standard of living for all in this country ? :surprise: :confuse:
We could use a few protectionist laws in this country to not only protect american jobs but also to protect american employers from big out-sourcing firms that will use the cheap 3rd world labor as leverage to run the american out of business with his products or service. :sick:
Do you know what happened to their 401K plans? Were they diversified? I know nothing of Enron. Were they all bookkeepers? Did they ever produce an energy? -Loren
Unions exist in every single communist country, past, present and future. A rival union would be suppressed by an exist union just as in any monopolistic turf war. Try set up a rival union in Detroit in the 1930's, 1960's, or today! You wouldn't fair much better. Formal union splits are relatively peaceful nowadays in the US largely because the capitalistic pluralistic society we have surrounding the unions.
Fintail can speak for himself, and it wouldn't be fair for me to criticize him based on what you have summarized on what he said. Based on what you have said about communism, it's quite obvious that you do not know much about communism. Communist revolution is supposed to be led by Labor Unions representing the Proteriat in Marxist ideology. The line you are drawing between socialism and communism is entirely aritficial, just like American communists used to draw between themselves and Stanlinism. It's all born of inexperience in real life. When the government controls everything from cradle to grave, it doesn't matter who you vote. People will vote for Commrade Stalin when they know doing otherwise might see their own pension cut off, their kids might be sent to a lesser school, might have to wait longer line at the doctors, they may be sent to a job in Siberia, and then the heat to their house might be cut off, etc.etc. That's why none of these things should be in the hand of the government to begin with.
You are really wearing rose-colored glasses when you talk about socialist countries. Norway and Switzerland are not all that socialist at all; neither can afford to because both live off international trade. Germany, that government actually actively recruit 3rd world labor like from Turkey to work in their country.
I agree wholeheartedly . What makes this problem even worse is, when you look at China and India, there are 10 people there for every 1 here. So, in simple math all they have to do is graduate 1/10th the the percentage that we graduate from college to match our college graduate workforce. To me, college degrees only exaserbate the problem of outsourcing. OUR graduates, leaving college with 5 or 6 digit debts from college, now have outsourcing hanging over their heads. I don't mean to diminish the education of us Joe Six Packers, but if we want a better life for our children, and college is the answer, than our corporate leaders had DAMN WELL better have some guarantees for them. What's next, a Masters degree will only get you flipping burgers at Wendy's (the Phd gets you store manager).
I'm not a expert on the Enron bankruptcy but to the best of my knowledge off the top of my head they were required to own a certain large percentage of their 401K in company stock. This is where the employees of Enron were left high and dry Loren. :mad:
Many of these employees are still forced to work because now they cannot afford to retire. I do think the federal government should of stepped in to help these poor folks out and gave the guys cooking the books the electric chair.
As you've seen other company's such as Delphi were caught also cooking the books and stake holders in Delphi lost millions. I just haven't heard of the media going out and interviewing folks that have been victims of these poor business ethics. I like I've said before have reported that UAW lawyers have found billions of dollars of Delphi revenue untouched in asian and European banks but cannot be touch because Delphi, only filed bankruptcy on its North American operations leaving those other monies to be gathered up and distributed accordingly once the north american ops emerges from bankruptcy :mad:
So every employer is supposed to be a mutual fund manager too? And small business is not supposed to exist because they can not run a mutual fund at the same time? That just makes no sense. Like I said, "benefits" is a device invented to keep out would-be competition. That ultimately hurts the employees because there are now less people bidding for their labor.
OK, let's take as an example a retired person on a fixed income. If he was use to paying $12 -$20 for a shirt made abroad, then all of a sudden was forced to pay say $22 to $30 for the same shirt, he may indeed say his or her standard of living was better before the tariff. Now, if a shirt has so much better quality made here in the USA as compared to elsewhere, it could very well be that a premium price will be paid for the shirt. Like I said before, the boss ultimately is the customer. The customer could fire the CEO of GM tomorrow by refusing to buy the product. And people pay more for a German made car because it is the Ultimate Driving Machine for them. If say Hyundai or Chery some day build the same quality of car, all bets are off for the premium price for a Bimmer. The boss (consumer) could say no, I will buy the other brand. My PT was made in Mexico and seems to have no real problems with assembly at all. That said, I understand that say the CTS, which is Union made here in the States is very good for assembly quality, so yes, I will consider one in the future.
As for outsourcing jobs, I would say those companies doing so should get less breaks from the government - less contracts to do business with the US government. -Loren
Like I said before in a debate with Fintail, the labor union is not about improving the lot of the poor, but about dividing the loot in a monopoly, a monopoly mostly at the expense of the consumers.
Unions exist in every single communist country, past, present and future.
I just told you in china, their are people who tried to form a union that were jailed. I signed a petition on the UAW website several months ago for their release. You must be misinformed on this topic brightness.
A rival union would be suppressed by an exist union just as in any monopolistic turf war. Try set up a rival union in Detroit in the 1930's, 1960's, or today! You wouldn't fair much better. Formal union splits are relatively peaceful nowadays in the US largely because the capitalistic pluralistic society we have surrounding the unions.
Fintail can speak for himself, and it wouldn't be fair for me to criticize him based on what you have summarized on what he said. Based on what you have said about communism, it's quite obvious that you do not know much about communism. Communist revolution is supposed to be led by Labor Unions representing the Proteriat in Marxist ideology. The line you are drawing between socialism and communism is entirely aritficial, just like American communists used to draw between themselves and Stanlinism. It's all born of inexperience in real life. When the government controls everything from cradle to grave, it doesn't matter who you vote. People will vote for Commrade Stalin when they know doing otherwise might see their own pension cut off, their kids might be sent to a lesser school, might have to wait longer line at the doctors, they may be sent to a job in Siberia, and then the heat to their house might be cut off, etc.etc. That's why none of these things should be in the hand of the government to begin with.
You are really wearing rose-colored glasses when you talk about socialist countries. Norway and Switzerland are not all that socialist at all; neither can afford to because both live off international trade. Germany, that government actually actively recruit 3rd world labor like from Turkey to work in their country.
brightness, are you sure you don't have your beer goggles on tonight. Holy cow dude !!!.....
Rocky
P.S. It might not of been fintail, but somebody else that was here in the past that talked about the benefits of socialism. Sorry fintail, if it wasn't you.
brightness, you aren't a dumb guy and this should be common sense. It's easier to get a larger return with a large pot of money than it is with sticking a few hundred bucks every month into a pot over a selected number of years and praying that you can ride the market up and down and come out with enough money when you are ready to retire and hope the market is at one of its peak cycles so one can convert their stocks and bonds into a stable fund so they can retire.
I was under the impression none of the employees had pensions but rather 401K's where the employees especially management were required to own a certain percentage of company stock ????? like i said i don't claim to be an expert on that whole disaster.
just told you in china, their are people who tried to form a union that were jailed. I signed a petition on the UAW website several months ago for their release. You must be misinformed on this topic brightness.
You are very misinformed. Walmart China was unionized recently because unionization is mandatory there. No Walmart anywhere else in the world is unionized. My grandparents were union members in China for decades before they died, not because they loved unions but because it was required by law. Some other union members went and cleared out the house of the grandparents on the other side of the family, who were not unions. hahaha. You are thoroughly mistaken if you think communist countries do not have unions. They have unions. They are big on unions. They just don't want any foreign-based unions that might be infiltrated by the CIA, being typical paranoid themselves. Well, can't really blame them on that one because we did actually use AFL-CIO overseas affiliations in France and Italy during the Cold War.
As for outsourcing jobs, I would say those companies doing so should get less breaks from the government - less contracts to do business with the US government.
Loren, they still get tax-breaks part a loop hole in our system for off-shoring business. They also have won no-bid contracts from our government. Haliburton, is just one company that comes to mind.
Comments
no weekends, no holidays, no health coverage, no benefits, atrocious work weeks, etc.
Well welcome to working for brightness.
Rocky
Rocky
If we are into throwing phrases like "full of B.S." at each other, I'd say you are regurgitating Marxist B.S.
What you have written up regarding labor union and "greedy capitalists" was exactly what I was taught in political classes in the first 9 years of my education in China. It was taught with a straight face in elementary school, but by the time of middle school, even the communist teachers had a hard time keeping a straight face reciting that nonsense, as it was becoming increasingly obvious in daily life that government managed equality meant equality in poverty except for a priviledged few, where as even elemental experiement in capitalism brought abundance and prosperity for (almost) all.
The anti-capitalist "Two-class" nonsense fails in the face of a simple question: what is the "greedy capitalist" supposed to do with the money he accummulates? He has to spend that money in order to wield his power in a free market. Whenever he wields his supposed power, he can't help but creating jobs in the process and disburse hims money. If it costs very little money for him to order labor around, then it should cost equally little amount of money for someone else to order labor around. Any incremental offering would atract the labor away from the "greediest capitalist." The "greediest capitalist" can only avoid running the risk of losing his workers to someone else paying just a little more if the "greediest capitalist" gets the government to pass a law that bans competition. That's in effect what regulations accomplish.
We as a nation are becoming two classes precisely because of labor union and other government interventions. It's much harder to go from rags to riches through one's own entreprenouership than it was a century ago because taxes are much higher and regulations are much more cumbersome. Labor union creates two classes on the very day a shop becomes a closed shop: one small class of privileged members who are paid more than a free market would bear, and a much larger class of workers being shut out of the market place both because they can not hope to replace the union workers through lawful competition and due to the slow-down of the industry growth rate. Consumers as a class suffer more still as quality of products plummet whlie price skyrocket.
-Loren
In 1972, my father, who is a barber, purchased a house for us to live in. Purchase price: $27,500. He charged $3.00 for a simple haircut. That house is currently worth $350,000, or roughly 12.7 times the purchase price. I asked him why he doesn't charge $38.00 for a haircut (he charges $9, but could reasonably get $15), he laughed, saying he would be out of business. How is that for a loss in standard of living? You can't go to China or Korea for a haircut, yet you cant afford a house on that wage here! Maybe $5 million is fair compensation for a CEO. But, because this is a global economy, their are far too many aspects of our economy at home that are out of line with actual costs. In China, foreign car companies have to align themselves with local car companies to do business there. Is that not a form of protectionism? I applaud the foreign automakers for building their cars here, and paying a decent wage. But, let's face it, their wage wouldn't be anywhere near as good if not for the THREAT that they may unionize. At $23/hr, as opposed to GM's $25/hr, would you buck Toyota and threaten to unionize, even w/o all the other "legacy" beenfits? Now, how about if your salary was $12.50/hr, a lot more to think about, because their is a lot less to lose.
Rocky
Rocky
Have a nice evening!
-Loren
Communism is China, Vietnam, and soon to be Russia again.
Dictatorships is Cuba, Iran, North Korea.....
Rocky
(Let's try a non-confrontational exchange of opinions this time, shall we?)
What the unions help estalish is a law that says only the first 40 working hours in a week can be paid at regular rate; after that, hourly wage workers have to be paid at least 1.5x standard wage rate; same goes for holidays. Saying that without that law (by extension without union) there would be no weekends or holidays, then there wouldn't be weekends or holidays for salaried workers. By the same token, if passing a law is what makes it happen, then the French 35-hr week law should have been a tremendous success, which it is not.
What really happened, was simply that a high level of productivity and high evel of living standards brought along by 100+ years of capitalistic industrial revolution had by the early 20th century made working more than 40 hours a week unnecessary and undesirable.
Healthcare and Benefits Promises, we shall see how much of that promise can come true for the majority of workers when that come due. Not sure why Healthcare and Benefits are more desirable than giving workers more money to buy such items by themselves, except from the monopolists' caculation as a way to stymie would-be competition. What we do know for sure is that Healthcare cost has skyrocketed as a consequence. If you meant healthcare and benefits of employment such as retirement, well they both existed long before the union: healthcare workers existed since time immemorial; people saved for retirement for just about as long.
gone to dinner, back later - Loren
And what's to prevent you from leaving such an employer if you ever run into one?
Once we break down he wants to discard us like a piece of paper and hire somebody new. As he has said many times over a employer owes you nothing but your earned hourly wage. Everything else is on you.
Wait a second, didn't you yourself prefer being paid in higher cash wage instead of "benefits"?
Well welcome to working for brightness. I can just see him standing over me holding a bull whip cursing you liberal, socialist, commie, I'll give you the UAW *Whack* with is whip
Rocky, I don't know what world you live in. I can promise you however, when the government becomes the only employer in town, you are guaranteed to be living under a whip. What's to prevent a private employer from wielding a whip as you say? Very simple: you can pack up and leave.
>science and math are concerned, Chinese education system is actually significantly ahead of today's American education system all the way through high school;
Are you recommending a nationwide curriculum? Are you ready to "enforce it" without the usual backing down and whining?
>Calculus, at least pre-calculus, used to be a required course in most school districts back in the post-Sputnik 1950's and 60's in the US. Today, a lot of American college graduates get their BA's without ever facing caculus. China more or less copied the British and Soviet math and science curricula from the 50's and 60's,
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Communist Party the world over started as a Union Movement. Unions fight turf battles against each other all the time. That's what happens when the prize is legal monopoly instead of a pluralistic market economy. Spin all you want, Rock, but I'm far more steeped in pluralistic democracy than you are and appreciate it far more than you can imagine because I have witnessed first hand what the opposite is like . . . what it's like when all the nonsense that you dream about turn into dystopia in real life.
Another reason why healthcare is so high outside of the greed by insurance/pharmaceuticals/doctors is the 25 million illegal alien population along with millions more on work visa's that have no insurance and have to pass those bills on to everyone else that has insurance or is finacially able to pay.
Rocky
Unions might have have a tenuous grasp on relevance today, but if not for the efforts of organized labor in the past, we would indeed not have some benefits we take for granted today. 40 hour regulations wouldn't have been necessary had technology made excessive workweeks "unnecessary and undesirable", and such regulations wouldn't exist without such efforts...and again I'll mention weekends and holidays.
Back to your regularly scheduled fantasyland ranting...
I love how employers have this attitude of if you don't like it you can always leave. Well that's easy if you are rich but somebody that has settled into a community and has real bills to pay that option isn't easy at all.
Rocky
(1) Nationwide curriculum would result in a exam-based system very much like many Asian countries have. What inevitably happens is the stratefication of a society along educational "template of merit." It may not have much to do with schlastic aplitude at all, but the financial resources of parents to provide or hire tuturing. In essence a disguised hereditory system. That's what happened in some parts of the world for centuries. It's definitely not conducive to democracy.
(2) Students coming through 12 years of national standardized tests may not prove good material at post-secondary level as standardization across different fields become impossible at college, grad and post-grad levels
(3) The political fight over the curriculum would be endless, and inevitably reflect political leaning of the day in the humanities subjects.
(4) Any centralized educational curriculum can not reflect changes in economic life nearly as quickly a smaller organizations can.
Rocky
40hr regulations wouldn't have passed if most employees still worked for more than 40hrs a week. Just like minimum wage laws; they get passed because politicians get to do some grand standing on laws that affect very small per centage of people. In fact, even as the law stands, there is nothing preventing employers hiring someone to work more than 40 hrs if more pay is offered; in fact, overtime is one of the things that some union members crave. Kinda hypocritical if you think about it: the limit was set because theoretically it's not safe to work longer hours, yet workers want to work more hours. Go figure.
Aren't we talking about questionable "guarantee" here? Shouldn't it be a choice between entrusting the loaf to someone who might have very strong incentive to raid it vs. to oneself?? I means serious, isn't pension fund raiding one of the biggest scams going?
Well, boys and girls that train left the station 50 years ago with the implementation of low-cost international transportation. The world economy is here. Tariffs won't work. By the way, how come no one ever complains about the cost of international car shipping that the overseas companies have as a disadvantage?
Now the protections for the worker have been passed into law in the United States, and the unions are irrelevant.
Sorry kids, but that's the way it is. The only hope for American car companies is to make a better product than the competition - and convince Americans to buy it.
Oh wait = Hey Rockylee maybe they can hire Toyota's advertising geniuses and then they won't have to make a better car?
I pay my workers nearly double what people of their age typically make, and I do everything to keep them onboard. Yes, indeed, they have very good job prospect if they choose to leave me. Some have in the past left due to family relocating to a different city; they usually get jobs within weeks. I gave them very excellent recommendations.
I 100% agree with your post pal. Boy you seem pretty smart about the life of Joe Six-Pack
think many people would rather have half a loaf guaranteed (theoretically) than try for the whole loaf themselves.
It's easier for a big company to put all the money in a pot and make a huge return that it is as individuals to take our 401K money and pray the funds selected for us by our employers will pay-off enough so we can retire. I work with some people that think by the time they retire they will have nearly $4-million in their 401K's.
Most that started with me have either as much as I do or less which after 4 1/2 years is over $60K. I don't see how another 20 or 25 years of investing is going to give us $4 million. I tell them we'd be damn lucky to pull over a $1 million in returns and I even still think that is wishful thinking and what will $1 million be worth in 20-25 years in real cost terms. :surprise:
Rocky
Rocky
I've never once have said the big 3 doesn't have to make a better car. However some of you believe all the hyperbole coming from the biased media when they've already have admitted to doing service campaigns to cover up their little white lies for 8 years. If the big 3 would of pulled off such a campaign the big 3 CEO's would of been hung long before Saddam Hussein by our media. :mad:
Rocky
Rocky
Rocky
I agree. No American company can compete with $.65/hr. HOWEVER, all exporting jobs out of the country does is lower our standard of living, while raising theirs: One more job for "them" is one less job for "us".
We could use a few protectionist laws in this country to not only protect american jobs but also to protect american employers from big out-sourcing firms that will use the cheap 3rd world labor as leverage to run the american out of business with his products or service. :sick:
Rocky
-Loren
Unions exist in every single communist country, past, present and future. A rival union would be suppressed by an exist union just as in any monopolistic turf war. Try set up a rival union in Detroit in the 1930's, 1960's, or today! You wouldn't fair much better. Formal union splits are relatively peaceful nowadays in the US largely because the capitalistic pluralistic society we have surrounding the unions.
Fintail can speak for himself, and it wouldn't be fair for me to criticize him based on what you have summarized on what he said. Based on what you have said about communism, it's quite obvious that you do not know much about communism. Communist revolution is supposed to be led by Labor Unions representing the Proteriat in Marxist ideology. The line you are drawing between socialism and communism is entirely aritficial, just like American communists used to draw between themselves and Stanlinism. It's all born of inexperience in real life. When the government controls everything from cradle to grave, it doesn't matter who you vote. People will vote for Commrade Stalin when they know doing otherwise might see their own pension cut off, their kids might be sent to a lesser school, might have to wait longer line at the doctors, they may be sent to a job in Siberia, and then the heat to their house might be cut off, etc.etc. That's why none of these things should be in the hand of the government to begin with.
You are really wearing rose-colored glasses when you talk about socialist countries. Norway and Switzerland are not all that socialist at all; neither can afford to because both live off international trade. Germany, that government actually actively recruit 3rd world labor like from Turkey to work in their country.
Many of these employees are still forced to work because now they cannot afford to retire. I do think the federal government should of stepped in to help these poor folks out and gave the guys cooking the books the electric chair.
As you've seen other company's such as Delphi were caught also cooking the books and stake holders in Delphi lost millions. I just haven't heard of the media going out and interviewing folks that have been victims of these poor business ethics. I like I've said before have reported that UAW lawyers have found billions of dollars of Delphi revenue untouched in asian and European banks but cannot be touch because Delphi, only filed bankruptcy on its North American operations leaving those other monies to be gathered up and distributed accordingly once the north american ops emerges from bankruptcy :mad:
Rocky
The ones with diversified 401k's are fine. The ones with company pensions are screwed.
As for outsourcing jobs, I would say those companies doing so should get less breaks from the government - less contracts to do business with the US government.
-Loren
Unions exist in every single communist country, past, present and future.
I just told you in china, their are people who tried to form a union that were jailed. I signed a petition on the UAW website several months ago for their release. You must be misinformed on this topic brightness.
A rival union would be suppressed by an exist union just as in any monopolistic turf war. Try set up a rival union in Detroit in the 1930's, 1960's, or today! You wouldn't fair much better. Formal union splits are relatively peaceful nowadays in the US largely because the capitalistic pluralistic society we have surrounding the unions.
Fintail can speak for himself, and it wouldn't be fair for me to criticize him based on what you have summarized on what he said. Based on what you have said about communism, it's quite obvious that you do not know much about communism. Communist revolution is supposed to be led by Labor Unions representing the Proteriat in Marxist ideology. The line you are drawing between socialism and communism is entirely aritficial, just like American communists used to draw between themselves and Stanlinism. It's all born of inexperience in real life. When the government controls everything from cradle to grave, it doesn't matter who you vote. People will vote for Commrade Stalin when they know doing otherwise might see their own pension cut off, their kids might be sent to a lesser school, might have to wait longer line at the doctors, they may be sent to a job in Siberia, and then the heat to their house might be cut off, etc.etc. That's why none of these things should be in the hand of the government to begin with.
You are really wearing rose-colored glasses when you talk about socialist countries. Norway and Switzerland are not all that socialist at all; neither can afford to because both live off international trade. Germany, that government actually actively recruit 3rd world labor like from Turkey to work in their country.
brightness, are you sure you don't have your beer goggles on tonight. Holy cow dude !!!.....
Rocky
P.S. It might not of been fintail, but somebody else that was here in the past that talked about the benefits of socialism. Sorry fintail, if it wasn't you.
For what it's worth, I can probably get away with $10/hr if I really want to maximize profit.
Rocky
Rocky
Rocky
Rocky
You are very misinformed. Walmart China was unionized recently because unionization is mandatory there. No Walmart anywhere else in the world is unionized. My grandparents were union members in China for decades before they died, not because they loved unions but because it was required by law. Some other union members went and cleared out the house of the grandparents on the other side of the family, who were not unions. hahaha. You are thoroughly mistaken if you think communist countries do not have unions. They have unions. They are big on unions. They just don't want any foreign-based unions that might be infiltrated by the CIA, being typical paranoid themselves. Well, can't really blame them on that one because we did actually use AFL-CIO overseas affiliations in France and Italy during the Cold War.
Loren, they still get tax-breaks part a loop hole in our system for off-shoring business. They also have won no-bid contracts from our government. Haliburton, is just one company that comes to mind.
Rocky