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Comments
-Rocky
Agree 100%. Professional and College Sports are a big part of our downward spiral. They give valuable slots to morons in college to have a winning sports team. If Private Universities want to play their silly sports go for it. State run Universities should not be wasting tax payer dollars on such idiocy. It is an Opiate for the ignorant masses. San Diego has been screwed over badly by both Pro Football and Baseball. Wasting $100s of millions to keep the teams here. I say screw em, let them leave. They do NOT bring money into the cities or universities. That is a huge lie by the 1%ers, which the sheep believe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Current_Population_Survey#1994_CPS_Revisions
-Rocky
Maybe not in your little World. It was in the rest of the USA. And next door in Minnesota, Farmers were going bankrupt due to horrible Interest and inflation. The official inflation rate in 1979-80 was 13%. Home loans were 15% and higher. Auto Loans higher than that. It was very bad. Crops not worth the cost of combining. I was paying $1.60 gallon for heating oil & diesel for the tractors. That would be the same as $5.33 today. Whether you believe it or not things were worse in 1979-83.
Actually, in the real big conferences like PAC 12, Big 10, SEC, etc. the football programs are profit centers like the law and MBA programs. They use the proceeds to help meet gov quota's on less popular sports that need to be met. If you've been to a game at schools like Michigan, Penn State, Texas, Georgia, et. al you'll see close to 100K fans, sometimes more and that also throws a lot of money into the college town economy like restaurants, gas stations, even hotels. The taxes on that more than offset the costs for police and the like. A lot of the money for these big university stadiums comes from corporate sponsors.
The political parties like to blame each other. In reality, while Nixonomics and Jimmy Carter micromanagement instead of big picture leadership share some of the blame, the Federal Reserve is the big culprit for that fiasco. Much like the housing and banking bubble a couple of years ago. I think that if Carter had let the military take care of Iran after the hostage incident happened, there would have been a lot less trouble in the Mideast today. Neither Nixon or Carter were very good presidents.
I've also found that those who don't want to work hard, or aren't team players, or who have lousy attitudes often get nowhere, no matter what their other skills. Those types should be fired on the spot. People don't like having a Dour Dave or a Cynical Sally around the office, although when managers aren't doing their jobs (or when unionized) it happens, and then everybody's job suffers because nobody will deal with the problem child.
That's pretty funny! :P
Anyway, he got fed up with the insubordination and fired her...she applied for unemployment, and was turned down because she was fired for cause, not laid off...end of story, no unemployment granted...that is the way it should be...amazing how the world has been trained that a "magic check" will arrive if you lost your job and got fired...
Try doing that in Michigan...it took 2 years of grievance hearings to dump a drunk UAW worker, and while all this crap was going on, they were still on the line making cars with their (ahem) "skills"...that is how the union destroys...in the 1930s and 40s, unions were a good thing...that was 70 years ago...now they protect the incompetent and the worthless at the expense of quality and workmanship, and have been doing that at least 3 decades that I am aware of, probably longer...
When they wrote the employment law in GA, the legislators realized this: if an employee can quit without any notice, and leave the employer high and dry, then employers ought to be able to do the same thing, so they can fire at will for almost any reason (except race, creed, color, etc)...now THAT is what I call equality...3 cheers for the GA legislature on that one...
While it is true Unions will try to keep workers on the job they know should be canned. The other side is incompetent supervisors that do not document infractions. Lateness, absents w/o permission, stealing etc. They just let it continue until they get tired of it. Then try to get someone fired for one infraction. Every lateness and absence should be documented and the worker called in with the shop steward and put in the file. Then after a couple years the Union is satisfied and give their blessing. Did they fire the first batch of UAW workers caught smokin' dope and drinking at lunch time?
Bailed-Out UAW Workers (Again) Caught Drinking, Getting High
The UAW and Chrysler are once again embarrassed as Chrysler workers were caught on camera for the second time in 10 months smoking pot and drinking beer before heading back to work.
This time a Fox News affiliate in Detroit filmed the workers partying in front of a UAW hall prior to returning to finish their shift. Americans should be outraged that the billions of dollars of taxpayer money that was spent to bail out Chrysler and General Motors has partially gone to protect the jobs of those in the politically powerful UAW who would reward the favor by brazenly getting high and drunk in public.
http://nlpc.org/stories/2011/07/14/chrysler-workers-misconduct-insult-taxpaying-- americans
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/driveon/post/2011/07/chrysler-uaw-worker- s-caught-doping-drinking----again/1#.T2lHN9nLtv4
Something some of us in my office have asked, as one team has a turnover rate literally 5x higher than the 3 others. It's a huge waste of resources and a distraction. Thankfully, I am not on that team...if I was, I probably would have walked some time ago, terrible "leader" there who is impossible to fire. Private sector work isn't entirely different than some garbagey union policies.
-Rocky
A lot of UAW members including my father went to the best university in the world:
Spartans Will
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNie76fsmNM
Sparty Conducts the MSU Fight Song
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOFZcCJZAe0
Can't wait for Thursday's NCAA Basketball Game MSU vs. Louisville :shades:
-Rocky
-Rocky
They are the MAIN REASON I despise Public Employee Unions to this day. They should be banned by an amendment. FDR was VERY clear on public employees going on strike. He would have been just as tough as Reagan.
Bull! If your employer puts the safety of others you have a right to stop work until it gets resolved! That was the position those workers were put in working 16 hour shifts (mandatory) and 6-7 days a week.
-Rocky
-Rocky
You drank the Koolaid pushed by PATCO. If they were so over worked then, what is the excuse the last couple years where ATC are caught sleeping.
For at least the fifth time since early March, an air traffic controller fell asleep on the job today in Miami, prompting negotiations between the government and the controllers' union to change the way controllers are scheduled to work.
I have worked many 16 hour+ shifts trying to get phone service restored. It is harder than an ATC job. And I did not feel I was unsafe. Many times out side at 30 to 40 below Zero. The Patco guys were whiners and should have been tried for treason when they went against a presidential order.
It was purely political after Carter lost the election to Reagan. The Unions said we are going to cut this guy up and get rid of him. Public employee unions are one of the worst things in America. They are destroying CA, and will destroy the country. Thank goodness for governors like Walker and Christie that will stand up to their Thug mentality.
http://abcnews.go.com/Travel/incident-sleeping-air-traffic-controller-prompts-sc- hedule-actions/story?id=13392288#.T2lbMtnLtv4
Agreed. The managers and execs have problem children, too. They are human, just like us.
Same exact situation as before! Mandatory OT for ATC....Instead of hiring more they just pay OT to save money! Again it is mandatory! Our federal agents hauling Nukes were in the same boat! You think they work 40 hours and go home! That is not the case! Your libertarian brothers want to save money and over working federal employees is common!
I have worked many 16 hour+ shifts trying to get phone service restored. It is harder than an ATC job. And I did not feel I was unsafe. Many times out side at 30 to 40 below Zero. The Patco guys were whiners and should have been tried for treason when they went against a presidential order.
Did you work mandatory 16 hour shifts 3 days in a row? I have! You are so exhausted your brain shuts down! How do you know your job is harder than a ATC controller? You did that line of work in a former life or is this one of those instances because it's a gov-ment job it is automatically easy and stress free?
Reagan should of been impeached over the PATCO strike!
It was purely political after Carter lost the election to Reagan. The Unions said we are going to cut this guy up and get rid of him. Public employee unions are one of the worst things in America. They are destroying CA, and will destroy the country. Thank goodness for governors like Walker and Christie that will stand up to their Thug mentality.
Thank-god Walker and his dictatorship will be gone! Hopefully our people wake up in my state and send our dictator packing with Walker!
-Rocky
Well, in many places, they don't have to sell the local populace - just a handful of state or local legislators.
When the two downtown stadiums in Baltimore were being pushed in the late 1980's (the first stadium was completed in 1992), most people weren't in favor of public financing for the project. The funding measure was passed by the state legislature, was petitioned to referendum, but the referendum was ruled void by the courts because the state constitution says funding measures (like state budgets) can't be referendumed to a popular vote.
The Reagan years were boom years in Detroit, thanks to Reagan and Volcker...in the first few years, we were reeling from the inept Carter...1981-1983 were rough, altho 83 better than 81, Reagan's first year...
Gas was high at the time, at least compared to what we were used to...by 1984 things were picking up...I think Reagan de-regulated oil and it started to come down, quite dramatically, to about $8-10 barrel by 1986...Detroit was booming...as you might guess, if you remember the headlines, it was Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana in the dumps due to the low price of oil...plus Houston was full of all those empty buildings that were built solely due to the tax code that supposedly allowed 4 to 1 writeoffs for real estate, certain kinds of tax shelters IIRC...the buildings were built but no one to occupy them (sound familiar?)...
Back then, there was an inverse relationship between Detroit and the Oil Patch...if oil was up, Texas boomed but Detroit was in the doldrums...when gas dropped, people bought cars like mad, but Texas was dead...
Many articles back then about pawn shops in Houston with many, many Rolex watches (THE snob watch at the time) because the rich oilmen (and women) had no money anymore and simply pawned their watches for whatever they could get...
LMAO, I have worked 21 days straight, 12-16 hours per day. Yes I was tired. And I slept well for the time I was not working. I can also recall working 36 hours straight to get a 1200 pair cable spliced. And it was cold in that tent with temps well below zero. And it was not against our Union Contract. The 30,000 workers that built the Alaska Pipeline worked a 9 week on one week off Schedule. Minimum 12 hour days. Many 16-20 hours. The camps were so full back during that period they had what was called hot swap on the beds. When you got up for your 12 hour shift the house keepers went in the changed the sheets and another person went to bed.
That went on from 1971-1977 when the line was finished. There were iron workers that worked the whole time. Some never left for their one week R&R. I knew a guy that stayed for 2 years straight. Working every day driving heavy equipment as an Operating Engineer out of local 302. I just talked to another friend that worked many of those long shifts out of OE302. He just got back to AK from the home he is building in HI. He retired at 52 year of age with the maximum $7500 per month pension. When he retired he was making less than that. He worked over a year straight more than one time in his 30 years up there.
So I don't want to hear the whiners in Patco were over worked. They deserved more punishment than being fired for their disruption of the Nation's transportation. A bunch of selfish losers supported by a left wing radical Union.
Just one more example. The Forklift whiner at Delco that filed for bankruptcy when they cut his over time. Seems like he was working 16 hour days when they cut out the OT. And he had run up debts that required that kind of work hours to survive. So why was it OK for a forklift operator to work 6 days a week 16 hours a day under a UAW contract?
One last thing. When we signed our Teamster contract in 1981 all hours over 12 were at double time. When the price of oil crashed in mid 1980s we got our pay cut and we lost that double time after 12 hours. So they were more than happy to work us 16 or more hours in a day. When the customers phones were out of service you worked and didn't WHINE.
Don't forget Alaska. Oil went from $32 per barrel down to $9 and it just about killed the state's budget. At the time 85% of the state's revenue came from tax on oil. The only thing that saved the state was the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill. That brought a couple $billion into the state for cleanup and 1000s of good paying jobs. Oil is boom or bust.
Despite winning on the field this year, Rutgers football and its broader athletic program are among the biggest money losers in the nation, a Star-Ledger analysis shows, and the situation may be getting worse. The shortfall last year forced the university to divert millions of dollars from student fees, tuition and state tax dollars to cover the $64.2 million it spent to run its 24-sport athletic program, records reveal.
This year, roughly 59 percent of the fans bought a ticket, down from 76 percent in 2009. And despite a liberal use of complimentary tickets, the team still played in front of thousands of empty seats this year, even though it went into its final home game with a chance to win its first Big East title.
The largest operating deficit last year among major college programs in the country was $36.7 million, according to an annual report on collegiate sports revenues and expenses by the NCAA, which does not reveal the names of institutions.
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/12/despite_success_on_the_field_b.html
A novel idea that journalists would actually dig for truth!!!
Ohio State just announced that they are not going to pay for cars for assistant coaches. Instead they'll be paid for out of "donations" from alumni or something like that.
The schools are using the US citizens' fascination with sports as a fantasy for their own ego: the fat 30-year old couch potato envisions himself as a sports capable figure identifying with the college/professional sports star when they can't even sprint 30 meters.
Same for high schools. Ohio wants to cut costs but doesn't want to make choices about the over emphasized sports in high schools and then colleges.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
(huff-puff! sweat!) I'd like some eggs...
(huff-puff! sweat!) ...and some bacon...
(huff-puff! sweat!) ...some sausage...
(huff-puff! sweat!) ...some scrapple...
(huff-puff! sweat!) ...and a Diet Coke!
Did you hear about the multi-million dollar bill for overtime for police officers to stand around and watch the Occupy San Diego group? I was working in downtown SD last summer/fall, and I can tell you the Police presence was overkill, unnecessary, and a waste of taxpayer dollars.
Most of the officers were just standing around watching and listening. Sometimes, there were over 30 officers right there in the Civic Plaza, along with 20 police cars and 20 police motorcycles parked nearby (thought I guess they don't have to feed the meters :mad: )
-Rocky
-Rocky
-Rocky
I don't remember what year it was, but didn't Chrysler pay back its govt loan years early because cars were selling so well???...K-cars if I recall...
Ford came out with the Taurus, a great seller...don't remember what GM had that stood out...I had bought a 1983 Grand Marquis, so I was part of the auto-buying boom, in my small way...
If you looked at my S.O.'s company right now, you'd think the economy was booming. But they're a food broker (they represent manufacturers and sell food to grocery stores) - when the economy's lousy, more manufacturers outsource their sales force, and more people eat at home with food from the grocery. So, they've had a couple of great years of hiring, promotions, bonuses. Does that mean the economy is great? Of course not. But if you looked at their experience in isolation, you'd have to say it was. Don't bother asking anyone else, or checking overall data.
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Yeah, it was 1983 that Chrysler paid back those loans. I forget what the original timeframe was, but they were way ahead of schedule.
On a whole, 1980-83 were pretty bad years for the domestic auto industry. 1980 saw a big downturn from 1979, while '81-82 saw even more contraction. 1983 was sort of a split year though. Early on, sales were sluggish, but later in the year they started to pick up.
By 1985, GM had 7 of the top 10 selling cars. They were, in no particular order: Celebrity, Cavalier, Caprice/Impala (counted as one unit), Cutlass Ciera, Cutlass Supreme, Delta 88, and Century. The other three entries were the Escort, Tempo, and Sentra.
kirstie: I was commenting on the overall economy and attitudes in Detroit at the time...1981-1983 all you heard and read about was layoffs and plant closings...by 1984-1985 (time approximate) folks were being called back, plants were re-opening, new cars coming out that sold (Taurus, K-car) and Detroit was on the upswing...
Remember, UAW members, by their nature, are of the herd mentality, they cannot think on their own...so, even when unemployment in Detroit was 15%, they were still selling cars and folks were still employed to make them...auto production did not go to zero, but it obviously dropped...but all you need is one plant to close and the UAW thinks the world has shut down...I can only assume that is because the floorsweeper making $35/hour wonders why he really isn't worth 20% of that...but, you know the union mentality, so I don't need to say anymore...
Did you do an internship under Rumpole of the Bailey? I hate sedans especially 4 door. My wife likes them. So we compromised and bought a 4 door SUV.
!981-83 was the rebuilding and lowering of Carter Inflation that caused the depression. When the oil price went down everything else boomed, especially car sales. I would imagine the turn down in Detroit was due to the Japanese building better cars for less money during the time frame. So it was bust for me in the oil patch and gangbusters through most of the 1980s for everyone else.
Even in great times, some people are laid off. Even in bad times, some people flourish.
MODERATOR /ADMINISTRATOR
Find me at kirstie_h@edmunds.com - or send a private message by clicking on my name.
2015 Kia Soul, 2021 Subaru Forester (kirstie_h), 2024 GMC Sierra 1500 (mr. kirstie_h)
Review your vehicle