Capitalism does indeed work, until the system gets rigged to benefit the few at the expense of the many.
In that regard, it's no different than any other form of social structure.
What's surprising in Capitalism is that people voluntarily cede control to a few, that, at some point become corrupt and abuse the many for their own personal gain. Not much different than communism...
Relying on morality never works in the long term. Eventually, greed takes over.
Yup. We're now in the Gordon Gecko stage. The fat cat CEOs, the politicians bought off with lavish pensions and perks, the public employee unions protected from layoff while retiring early and rich, the $40/hr UAW floorsweepers protected by a two tier wage system, the poor living on the lam, the illegals getting free services, and the country borrowing ever more money to "stimulate" the economy while kicking the can down the road. It's not going to end well. We can watch Greece for hints of the future.
Sadly, the gullible at the bottom are being swayed by policies bought and paid for by the top - with some weird belief that they can get there too. Things just don't happen randomly. Seems right about the time the middle class peaked, work was done to work against it.
Every "ism" works until it becomes corrupted. Greed and lack of foresight are ideals universal in humanity.
The cradle to grave entitlement mentality is exactly what is destroying the Greek economy. We talked to my wife's adopted Greek son and things are a mess over there. His do nothing job went away. His wife's high up job was cut 35% and both their mother's pensions were cut 40%. Both Mom's gave up their apts and have moved in with the kids.
Watching an interview after one of the big riots. The reporter asked a guy why the Greeks were no longer smiling. He said "we used to smile all the time when we were living off of someone else's money."
No guarantees in life. That is why some people horde lots of money. Trying to prepare for any eventuality. Others spend it faster than they make it and expect someone else to take care of them when they no longer have any coming in. Like the whiners in the UAW that lost their OT and were only making $85k a year with two home mortgages, two car payments and a fancy boat.
However, we have much more of an industrial/corporate culture based on innovation, and better systems as a whole. Greece has problems far deeper than EU-created debt - it's not exactly a place known for 40 hours a week of work. I think that comparison might be a little reactionary.
We have more than 5 times as many people in the USA living on welfare, than the entire population of Greece. That just means the crash will be multiple times bigger. And no one will have the money to bail US out. Just as a reference the CalPers pension fund has more money in it than the GDP of Greece. And it is currently underfunded and will require the state to inject cash they do not have. PBGS forces private pensions to add cash when the fund goes below 80% of full funding. CalPers is at 70%
CalPERS is the largest public pension fund in the United States, with roughly $230 billion in assets. It manages retirement plans covering more than 1.6 million current and former employees of state and local agencies and their families. As a result of the subprime mortgage meltdown, CalPERS is also underfunded by tens of billions of dollars, or about 30%. State and local governments will have to fill that hole by making larger contributions to the fund, a burden that is projected to continue for the next 30 years.
The Automakers pension plans were underfunded. My understanding is the tax payers got them back on track????
It's kind of frustrating when you exercise personal responsibility for your own finances, but then your wonderful bought off elected leaders run our affairs pretty much like housing speculators -- with the same problems.
This synopsis is perhaps the best reason behind my belief against the bailouts, and against the UAW:
"In his essay 'Capitalists Who Fear Change,' author Jeffrey Tucker takes on 'wimps who don't want to improve.' From DMCA take-downs on 3D printing files to the constant refrain that every new form of music recording will 'kill music,' Mr. Tucker observes, 'Through our long history of improvement, every upgrade and every shift from old to new inspired panic. The biggest panic typically comes from the producers themselves who resent the way the market process destabilizes their business model.' He analyzes how the markets move the march of technology ever forward. He takes on patents, copyrights, tariffs, and protectionism of entrenched interests in general, with guarded optimism: 'The promise of the future is nothing short of spectacular — provided that those who lack the imagination to see the potential here don't get their way.'"
"From what I have seen of infrastructure in unincorporated Newton county, indeed $1200 is too much - if you are getting nothing, you should pay nothing. My mother lives in small town WA, pays about $1000/year, but gets sidewalks and lots of roads and buses etc."
I do expect to pay for the Sheriff's Dept and the school system, and the county employees (just as few of them as possible)...At $800 yearly (my new taxes) I think that may be reasonable...out in the county we don't have sidewalks but we do have mostly paved roads, altho those who live off gravel roads usually have even lower assessments and lower taxes...
GHOST DEVELOPMENTS: many here and Henry County to our southwest...back in the "boom" years, Newton & Henry were the fastest growing counties, and they got ahead of themselves...folks were moving in so fast that contractors just kept building houses and the county kept issuing permits...I don't remember who said it, "Anything that cannot go on forever will eventually stop" and it did, but so many contractors had built numerous homes in anticipation of selling them, and entire subdivisions were built, and it was like someone turned out the light and everything came to a halt virtually overnight, and we have the remains among us now...
Detroit: First, the riots of the 60s burned some of the city, and the exodus of the 70s and 80s to the suburbs, as Mayor Coleman Young played the race card to the hilt (he served as Mayor for 20 years) and it simply evolved into the urban cesspool we all know...race was a major factor...
Hmmm...from a career academic shielded from the real world who has apparently never had a real job, who apparently opposes aid and opposes tariffs to compensate for the aid given to others at the same time. Must be a nice place where Tucker lives. I bet he loves China, too.
How's that school system working out down there anyway? Seems like you get defective public schools and often even more defective for-profit charter schools. But it's cheap anyway.
One could almost offer tours of the abandoned subdivisions to people like me, who have a morbid interest in poor planning and burst bubbles (I've also considered spending a few days in Detroit to check out the new reality). I'd wager the developers bought off more than a few officials in that county and those around it, I'd also wager that buildings were not fully inspected upon completion. Capitalism, no?
We also have roughly 30 times the population of Greece. What's the per capita welfare rate? Without looking, I would easily wager theirs is higher, even with our corporate welfare/trickle down welfare recipients. The US isn't going to crash like Greece - some regions will end up in financial trouble as they are already, but the nation is far different from the PIGS.
Kinda like being a contestant on Jeopardy, but the guy next to you has a buzzer that is guaranteed to always buzz in ahead of you. Sure, he still has to know the answers, but he ALWAYS gets first shot at giving the answer.
Yet, folks wonder why so many investors are skeptical of Wall Street...
"How's that school system working out down there anyway? Seems like you get defective public schools and often even more defective for-profit charter schools. But it's cheap anyway."
We have some of the worst public schools but some of the best universities...it didn't help that the Atlanta School System was charged with many teachers helping students cheat to pass their tests...mostly in the urban districts...affirmative action is no help, either, esp when hiring teachers...
>Atlanta School System was charged with many teachers helping students cheat to pass their tests...
I'll raise you two treasurers. Just proves that charter schools are NOT a solution to any problems: they just add more graft and corruption. Notice the last administration of one is now a pastor of a church. Here the charters were just a way of backdooring religion into schools at [more] state expense.
Certainly can't blame UAW for doing this to schools.
Seems to me that US schools excelled back in the 50's and 60's because they were locally run and controlled, while not focused on political correctness. Then in the 70's the states started intruding more followed by the creation of the Federal Dept. of Education. Since all of this government intrusion the only thing that has spiralled upward is increased property taxes to cover all the additional reports and administrators government interference has created. Throw in the out of control, and seemingly geometric increase in lawyers and litigation - you get lousy peformance because the focus is off the individual student on to overhead areas. These indirect costs start choking efficiency and direct costs. Not really dissimilar to what is happening to the medical profession here at least to my eyes.
Seems to me that US schools excelled back in the 50's and 60's
Guess you didn't know any minority kids back in the day. When I was in high school, the government intruders were trying to kill off Jim Crow and bus the kids around. Didn't do much good though because the majority schools were pretty lousy too back in Mississippi in the 60s. SRA in elementary was good but I got stuck with New Math. Awful. Old books, lousy teachers, coaches sleeping through the "civics" classes they "taught".
The big push now is to let big corp run the schools via the net. The University of Phoenix model for high school.
As always, follow the money (like the Koch Bros). Not many union internet workers. Maybe the Communications and Computer Workers Industrial Union needs to absorb the NEA. May as well toss the UAW in there too, since there's so much computer tech in cars these days.
Good analysis, but don't forget the influx of the "not MY child" syndrome, where the parents get upset when their little Susie or Johnny doesn't get an award or they misbehave, yet the parents resist any type of punishment. Got a problem? Get an attorney and sue the school system.
An old friend of mine that was a retired principal back in the 90's hit the nail on the head... He said schools replaced principal's paddles with students carrying knives and handguns.
Hmmm...from a career academic shielded from the real world who has apparently never had a real job, who apparently opposes aid and opposes tariffs to compensate for the aid given to others at the same time. Must be a nice place where Tucker lives. I bet he loves China, too.
Sure, attack the messenger. But what about the message?
Or maybe he's afraid to say, as if naming one of the false nations would somehow reveal his identity
Another self-titled "capitalist" no doubt, supporting those who take advantage of an existing system to make their gold, and then run away like the traitors they are when it comes time to maintain said system. Probably loves GE and the facebook coward who should have a target on his back.
No, because with today's police state elected government, they already are spying on us everywhere and know all about us.
The problem with these UAW threads is that the UAW has been marginalized so much, there's not been a lot to say. Looks like they may just fade away....
Do you think that if GM and F start doing well, the UAW will try to rear its ugly head and demand more wages and benes?
I think the UAW will try. With GM still beholden to the Feds they may buckle to UAW demands. Ford will off shore more and Fiat will let Italy build the cars. The UAW needs to retire the over paid old timers so they do not stir up the lower paid newbies. I think at best the UAW will hold their own if they do not rock the boat. They are down to about 350k workers and no real expansion in sight. The vehicle market is in a bubble right now that could burst at any time. If I were to buy a Jeep Grand Cherokee Diesel it would help the UAW. I have to see when they get here. If it is built by a bunch of worthless pot smoking beer swilling idiots, I will buy the Mercedes.
Even back in the early 1970s, teachers could still hit you. If the teacher paddled me, I took my punishment and quietly sat down and prayed she didn't call my Mom. There was no such thing as "Not my little boy! He's a good kid" and suing the teacher and school district. If Mom heard I was paddled at school, she'd hit me as soon as I got home for acting up at school. Then she'd tell Dad when he got home from work and I'd get it with the belt. As a result, I was a well-behaved student.
You got the same kind of up bringing I did. My kids knew if they acted up it would be a swift stiff punishment. My SIL who retired early from the San Diego schools told horror stories about her kindergarten students. She was cussed at, spit on, hit, bit and screamed at. The principal said he could not punish these children. Parents would not and refused to believe their little angels would do such things. It was witnessed by my wife on the days she volunteered to help in class. Our schools need to reinstate corporal punishment and the teachers Union should back them up. Bleeding heart liberals have destroyed our schools with the help of the Teacher's Unions.
>Old books, lousy teachers, coaches sleeping through the "civics" classes they "taught".
There's that emphasis on athletics as the reason for schools' existence again. Get athletics out of high schools as their reason for existence and you'd improve things just like getting rid of the UAW when Obama saved GM and C would have improved things greatly.
>As always, follow the money
In this part of the country one big owner of "Charter Schools" is Whitehat. The owner got some bad publicity for the profit angle. I still don't have an answer from you state representative about how paying for a parallel system of schools at greater expense will "fix" education. It would be the same as starting a parallel state legislature and giving them 1/3 of the money the legislature normally spends and allowing the new legislature to show how much better they can do.
Frankly I see the similar problems to the stranglehold UAW had on the auto industry and that the high seniority UAW folks still have and the messes the states are making by allowing the 1%'ers of the money folks in the country to run the government. Wisc and Oh are both trying to court the big money at the top and allow them to set the parameters for taxing and giving them and their businesses benefits for being or locating in the state.
Looks the same as the UAW tired old guys problem to me.
I am pretty sure big brother isn't too concerned with people naming treacherous tax dodger paradises. Not to mention, those places aren't exactly bastions of liberty and justice themselves - it's freedom from responsibility, that's all.
The UAW is marginal indeed. What percentage of workers are in their ranks, or even autoworkers? They are fading. Gagrice can buy a new Audi or MB to avoid them - but that will just be supporting other well-paid union labor - but labor that is better managed in companies with better planning. The UAW will ask for more whenever it can, but the days are numbered for it to obtain those demands.
Someone who opposes both aid and compensating trade measures is indeed pining for a Chindian/Dickensian standard. Of course, he, never having had a real job, protected by the granite walls of academia, would be immune. Another do as I say not as I do "capitalist".
the UAW has been marginalized so much, there's not been a lot to say. Looks like they may just fade away....
Sure looks like they are well on their way. Most everyone around here is strong on unions. Most everyone around here is older than I am (and that's getting up there). All the kids (and I mean those now in their 40s and 50s too) left long ago for real jobs. And most of those kids got jobs in areas where unions weren't much of a factor and most now live in states where unions don't have a long history nor a big percentage of union membership.
If the UAW makes no progress with the auto industry down in Canton and the rest of the South, they may as well retreat to Detroit and try to shore up that last bastion as they fade into the twilight.
Not to mention the new "tier two" hires aren't going to be enamored with their elders getting all the good wages.
When there are large amounts of cash allocated on a per student day basis, you will find people wanting to get their hands on it. The history of Charter schools is not that old. It was conceived because Public Schools were not fulfilling their obligation to teach. The President of the American Federation of Teachers was involved. The highest rated High School in San Diego County is a Charter school. With a long list of kids wanting to get in. They pick by lottery each year. I was reading that 59% of charter schools have waiting lists. They are not all good. I also have a problem with the ones run by Muslims or any Church. That is against most charters set up by the 41 states that have charter schools. I would think Ohio public schools should be looking over their shoulder after what one school district did to that lady that was trying to get her kids into a better school. I think Louisiana is leading the way with vouchers. When the tax payers are laying out $25,000 to $30,000 per year to educate K-12 children, the results should be a lot better. It is first and foremost up to the parents to be involved in the child's education. That includes research picking the best school available, Public, Charter or Private. We are spending twice what Germany spends and getting a lousy result. Pretty pathetic when we are 27th in the world educating our children. Of course I go along with the Wisconsin Legislature. The Public employee Unions are a big part of the problems in our states. Not just schools. Every aspect of the State Government.
Not to mention the new "tier two" hires aren't going to be enamored with their elders getting all the good wages.
How the Union leaders could be so dumb as to agree to a contract like that is mind boggling. You cannot pay one person $30 per hour to put on lug nuts and the guy next to him $15 and expect the low paid guy to do a good job. They should have gone with a graduated scale to $20 and bring the top guys down over 5 years and the bottom guys up over 5 years. If the top guys don't like it, let them quit and work as a WalMart greeter. I can tell you a $20 per hour job around here without college is about non existent. Unless you are lucky enough to get in on the few stimulus jobs, that are phasing out the end of this month.
>The highest rated High School in San Diego County is a Charter school.
It's easy to be good when you can pick whom you let in and whom you keep.
>I would think Ohio public schools should be looking over their shoulder after what one school district did to that lady that was trying to get her kids into a better school.
Was this the lady who lied about her residence and the school district did as they were supposed to do? I recall Limbaugh loved that as another of his twisted stories.
>$25,000 to $30,000 per year to educate K-12
Don't know about California, but that's far above per student in Ohio.
>It was conceived because Public Schools were not fulfilling their obligation to teach.
Public schools are a reflection of the community and the politics around them. Limbaugh has spent years trying to define the public schools as wastelands. Our wasteland had many students going to diverse universities with great records and even better with great success once at the university. My son with AP classes had 25 quarter hours of work that was skippable at OSU. His roommate, from "the best magnet school in an Oklahoma city was having him help with his calculus occasionally. Just as Limbaugh loves black and white with UAW and unions, he loves to smear with the best of the Sharptons on the schools.
Here the "community schools" as they first were conceived were because the older folks didn't like paying taxes to educate someone else's kids (taxes were okay when it was their own kids being educated), didn't like the idea that the workers were being paid more than they used to be in 1950 and 1960, and wanted to keep religion in the school. But mostly it was the paying more taxes as costs go up with inflation year-to-year. The old geezers just didn't want to pay for the costs. They thought they'd start another system of schools with no rules and they would all take off with great success. But a funny thing happened on the way to the bank, a lot of the students going into them were the problem students (with problem parents) and their success didn't turn out to be able to be twisted statistically. Look up Whitehat. Look up Turkish Muslim school in Dayton and other cities in Ohio.
>I'm sure the $15 an hour guy is only paying half the UAW dues though, right?
That's something I hadn't thought about: does a new worker pay the same dollar amount as the high seniority guy? OR is the dues amount prorated?
This is especially back on topic with the Supreme Court's decision today about raising dues without notice or voice of the workers so they can spend the money on getting Obama reelected.
Has the UAW raised their dues to have more cash to secret to the POTUS?
It's easy to be good when you can pick whom you let in and whom you keep.
CA Charter Schools are not allowed to pick and choose students. They get just as many rotten apples as the regular schools. Some of them get more as they get booted out of one school parents will enroll them in another. Around here they do not even offer bus service to the closest Public HS, 13 miles from town. They will bus to one about 22 miles away or to the Charter school mentioned 26 miles away. Of course it costs $500 per year to use the bus.
Was this the lady who lied about her residence and the school district did as they were supposed to do?
Sorry that is a law that is just wrong. Any public school should allow any student to attend. PERIOD. If it is full that is one thing. That was not the case. It was a high class neighborhood trying to keep out the riff raff. Hopefully they will lose their Federal funding. People in San Diego haul their kids across town all the time to get into schools they perceive as better than the local ones. My daughter did that with my grandson. He got decent education at the high falutin' school, but developed a real nasty attitude that my son in law had to knock out of him. That was the 3rd grade if I remember. Public schools cost TOO MUCH. Time for big cuts.
The research by Adam Schaeffer of the Cato Institute’s Center for Education Freedom seemed shocking: The Los Angeles Unified School District spent $29,780 per student in fiscal year 2007-08. That’s way above the $10,000 as advertised by the school district, and as used in most studies.
The $29,780 per student figure means a class of 25 students would spend $744,500 a year.
Look up Whitehat. Look up Turkish Muslim school in Dayton and other cities in Ohio.
You are right, there are Charter schools that are not living up to what they should be. If $1 of my tax money is going into the pocket of a corporatist, I am going to be upset. Charter schools should only be getting what it costs to educate the children. Same as any other public school. They are not for profit. And while we are at it cut the salaries of all the over paid professors in our public Universities and can the SPORTS.
I know in my Teamster local we all paid the same dues both monthly and hourly. A telephone operator only making $22 paid the same as a technician making $38.
That court decision is not very meaningful IMO. Basically in CA you do not have to be a member of the Public employee union associated with your job. But you do have to pay dues. Most are deducted directly from your pay. The members were getting notified and the dues paying non members were not. So now they have to notify everyone before they extort money. That is what I got from the decision.
Don't you think that one of the problems with education today is too much focus on the low end while the smart, high potential kids are forgotten except for a few AP classes? I don't think teachers should strike, but I also think parents need to stop coddling their kids. Heck, helicopter parents are invading university campuses as well. How does this instill confidence, motivation and work ethic in a kid? Fact is, in most anything in life some are better at something while others are worse. If a kid doesn't have some proclivity toward math, they aren't likely to excel in Physics no matter what the school program and aproach is. As for the riff raff, no problem offering them opportunity, but if they end up holding back other students they need to be removed. 30 kids in a classroom doesn't really allow time for lots of individual teacher one on one with a student. I also think this no child left behind stuff will lead to teaching to multiple choice tests further reducing the chance for critical thinking and creativity, which is what guys like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs or Warren Buffet had in multiples.
I'm not sure I understood correctly what the point(s) of the decision was. A later news report sounded a little different than just the idea they can't arbitrarily add on extra dues with vote of the nonmember payees.
In Ohio the public union workers do not have to be members nor do they have to pay. Hardly coercive, abusive unions there, are they? Several times during my wife's 30.5 years the state teachers should have gone on strike based on things done by the state or the legislature. In more real unions, they would have gone on strike. A statewide strike would have let all those people who think they know how to do that job--it doesn't take a degree in edjucation to be a teacher--a chance to go in and take over. See how it works with the little turds and their bigger turd parents. My wife was really glad to be out of the stressful situations. She earned her pay in a good school district with turkeys for administrators, and a few buzzards in there too.
Of course I go along with the Wisconsin Legislature. The Public employee Unions are a big part of the problems in our states. Not just schools. Every aspect of the State Government.
It's easy to be good when you can pick whom you let in and whom you keep.
Isn't that a bit of a tired argument? I'm sure there is some truth to it, but what about other factors. Such as students applying where parents are involved. Do the charter schools also get to pick and choose the teachers? Perhaps they get the cream of the crop. And is the program freed from the big district bureaucracy? I'd imagine there are a multitude of factors making these schools perform better. Some of which could be applied to the other schools.
Was this the lady who lied about her residence and the school district did as they were supposed to do? I recall Limbaugh loved that as another of his twisted stories.
You have to ask why a lady lied. It's because some schools are better than others. Competition works. But the unions have stifled that through their wages scales, tenure, and seniority system.
No disagreement that Limbaugh is a useless airbag.
Public schools are a reflection of the community and the politics around them.
...and the politics within them. Like the unions, for instance.
She earned her pay in a good school district with turkeys for administrators, and a few buzzards in there too.
I have no doubt she did. The issue my ex-wife had with the public schools in Alaska and CA was Union protectionism of teachers that no longer cared about the students. She Taught in the worst school in Anchorage to help pay back her student loans. That was in the 1970s, so discipline was not a real issue. She taught mostly minority children with little parental involvement. Which means the teachers work harder to accomplish what they are paid to do. Some teachers just did not give a hoot. It was a job that they did no more than they had to. Sort of like some UAW workers that are protected by the Union. If you are going to put teachers on a pedestal, they need to earn that respect. Most have but the ones that haven't are giving the rest a bad name. You and I know that the biggest problem in school districts is administrative bloat.
high potential kids are forgotten except for a few AP classes?
Along that line, there is a trend to get doctors to diagnose various learning disorders, to get kids into the special classes. CA spends a HUGE amount on kids with with any kind of disability. I am sure that runs the average up.
I don't think teachers should strike
I think any strike by public employee Unions should be dealt with as a criminal matter. Reagan was 100% correct in firing that bunch of over paid spoiled ATCs. Comparing private Unions to public employee unions is ridiculous. Even George Meany felt it was insane allowing it to happen.
“It is impossible to bargain collectively with the government.”
That wasn’t Newt Gingrich, or Ron Paul, or Ronald Reagan talking. That was George Meany -- the former president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O -- in 1955. Government unions are unremarkable today, but the labor movement once thought the idea absurd.
This is from a Navistar article Steve posted in another thread. The transparency of the EPA under this administration is very clear. Do what it takes to protect UAW jobs. Navistar cannot meet EPA 2010 regs for emissions. So they keep letting them off the hook. It would look bad for another UAW company to go bankrupt just before the election.
Mack Trucks v EPA
challenging the whole interim "pay the fine" regimen. And in its latest action, the U.S. Court However, in a court case called Mack Trucks, Inc. v Environmental Protection Agency, competitors who made the big investments in SCR years ago and achieved 0.20 g/bhp-hr by 2010 are of Appeals, D.C. Circuit, struck down the EPA's interim rule.
The EPA told the court it created the penalty rule as an interim solution to give Navistar time to achieve compliance. Mack said this interim rule essentially authorizes an illegal transaction: the sale of a noncompliant engine. Navistar, meanwhile, told the court that Mack lacked the standing to challenge the EPA's rule in the first place.
We're not lawyers, so forgive us if we oversimplify the lengthy and eloquent arguments of all the attorneys who fought this battle. But the problem boils down to this: everyone else used SCR and DEF, and everyone else is compliant. Navistar used EGR and is still not compliant. The EPA created new rules to help Navistar. The court struck down those rules.
However, that doesn't automatically mean that Navistar will have to stop selling its noncompliant engines when its credits run out. The court said the EPA is free to turn its "interim" rule into a final rule, as long as it follows its own guidelines for providing notice and a comment period, and as long as it can show "good cause" for promoting a rule that benefits just one company and protects it from the consequences of picking the wrong horse.
Mack sued the EPA because Navistar has old and dirty engines. Mack makes engines that meet the rules and thinks exceptions shouldn't be made.
Mack is a UAW shop it appears. So is Cummins. Ditto Detroit Diesel. Can't really tell easily about Peterbilt, now Paccar. The UAW sued them a lot but there was a contract announcement back in '03.
Obviously the EPA is hammering Navistar in order to help their competitors, all UAW shops.
When the EPA was created by Nixon, it was about the air and water. Today it is about politics and empire building. Our government is rotten and corrupt from the top to the bottom. How can it be about the air if you are allowed to pollute by paying a fine? Does that fine clean any air?
I could see myself going to the grocery store in one of these. :shades:
>When the EPA was created by Nixon, it was about the air and water.
Just wait until the EPA has closed down most of the coal burning power plants and the cost of electricity goes up from where it is now and the supply goes down. There will be rolling brown/blackouts summer and winter.
Of course they'll burn the coal in China and pollute the earth's air from there more than they already do.
We have to play nice with our "most favored partner" who brings so much to the table.
About the Navistar mess, aren't Powerstroke engines also known to be troublesome? And I thought commercial vehicles operating away from emissions accountability would be a "business friendly" hallmark.
Comments
In that regard, it's no different than any other form of social structure.
What's surprising in Capitalism is that people voluntarily cede control to a few, that, at some point become corrupt and abuse the many for their own personal gain. Not much different than communism...
Relying on morality never works in the long term. Eventually, greed takes over.
Yup. We're now in the Gordon Gecko stage. The fat cat CEOs, the politicians bought off with lavish pensions and perks, the public employee unions protected from layoff while retiring early and rich, the $40/hr UAW floorsweepers protected by a two tier wage system, the poor living on the lam, the illegals getting free services, and the country borrowing ever more money to "stimulate" the economy while kicking the can down the road. It's not going to end well. We can watch Greece for hints of the future.
Sadly, the gullible at the bottom are being swayed by policies bought and paid for by the top - with some weird belief that they can get there too. Things just don't happen randomly. Seems right about the time the middle class peaked, work was done to work against it.
Every "ism" works until it becomes corrupted. Greed and lack of foresight are ideals universal in humanity.
The cradle to grave entitlement mentality is exactly what is destroying the Greek economy. We talked to my wife's adopted Greek son and things are a mess over there. His do nothing job went away. His wife's high up job was cut 35% and both their mother's pensions were cut 40%. Both Mom's gave up their apts and have moved in with the kids.
Watching an interview after one of the big riots. The reporter asked a guy why the Greeks were no longer smiling. He said "we used to smile all the time when we were living off of someone else's money."
No guarantees in life. That is why some people horde lots of money. Trying to prepare for any eventuality. Others spend it faster than they make it and expect someone else to take care of them when they no longer have any coming in. Like the whiners in the UAW that lost their OT and were only making $85k a year with two home mortgages, two car payments and a fancy boat.
Let's hope so, for our own sake.
CalPERS is the largest public pension fund in the United States, with roughly $230 billion in assets. It manages retirement plans covering more than 1.6 million current and former employees of state and local agencies and their families. As a result of the subprime mortgage meltdown, CalPERS is also underfunded by tens of billions of dollars, or about 30%. State and local governments will have to fill that hole by making larger contributions to the fund, a burden that is projected to continue for the next 30 years.
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/mar/20/opinion/la-ed-calpers-20110320
The Automakers pension plans were underfunded. My understanding is the tax payers got them back on track????
It's kind of frustrating when you exercise personal responsibility for your own finances, but then your wonderful
bought offelected leaders run our affairs pretty much like housing speculators -- with the same problems."In his essay 'Capitalists Who Fear Change,' author Jeffrey Tucker takes on 'wimps who don't want to improve.' From DMCA take-downs on 3D printing files to the constant refrain that every new form of music recording will 'kill music,' Mr. Tucker observes, 'Through our long history of improvement, every upgrade and every shift from old to new inspired panic. The biggest panic typically comes from the producers themselves who resent the way the market process destabilizes their business model.' He analyzes how the markets move the march of technology ever forward. He takes on patents, copyrights, tariffs, and protectionism of entrenched interests in general, with guarded optimism: 'The promise of the future is nothing short of spectacular — provided that those who lack the imagination to see the potential here don't get their way.'"
I do expect to pay for the Sheriff's Dept and the school system, and the county employees (just as few of them as possible)...At $800 yearly (my new taxes) I think that may be reasonable...out in the county we don't have sidewalks but we do have mostly paved roads, altho those who live off gravel roads usually have even lower assessments and lower taxes...
GHOST DEVELOPMENTS: many here and Henry County to our southwest...back in the "boom" years, Newton & Henry were the fastest growing counties, and they got ahead of themselves...folks were moving in so fast that contractors just kept building houses and the county kept issuing permits...I don't remember who said it, "Anything that cannot go on forever will eventually stop" and it did, but so many contractors had built numerous homes in anticipation of selling them, and entire subdivisions were built, and it was like someone turned out the light and everything came to a halt virtually overnight, and we have the remains among us now...
Detroit: First, the riots of the 60s burned some of the city, and the exodus of the 70s and 80s to the suburbs, as Mayor Coleman Young played the race card to the hilt (he served as Mayor for 20 years) and it simply evolved into the urban cesspool we all know...race was a major factor...
One could almost offer tours of the abandoned subdivisions to people like me, who have a morbid interest in poor planning and burst bubbles (I've also considered spending a few days in Detroit to check out the new reality). I'd wager the developers bought off more than a few officials in that county and those around it, I'd also wager that buildings were not fully inspected upon completion. Capitalism, no?
http://www.newsoftheweird.com/archive/nw120429.html
Kinda like being a contestant on Jeopardy, but the guy next to you has a buzzer that is guaranteed to always buzz in ahead of you. Sure, he still has to know the answers, but he ALWAYS gets first shot at giving the answer.
Yet, folks wonder why so many investors are skeptical of Wall Street...
We have some of the worst public schools but some of the best universities...it didn't help that the Atlanta School System was charged with many teachers helping students cheat to pass their tests...mostly in the urban districts...affirmative action is no help, either, esp when hiring teachers...
http://m.daytondailynews.com/dayton/pm_20553/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=lFqA1- - xcO
"Treasurers accused of mishandling $1.4 million."
>Atlanta School System was charged with many teachers helping students cheat to pass their tests...
I'll raise you two treasurers. Just proves that charter schools are NOT a solution to any problems: they just add more graft and corruption. Notice the last administration of one is now a pastor of a church. Here the charters were just a way of backdooring religion into schools at [more] state expense.
Certainly can't blame UAW for doing this to schools.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Guess you didn't know any minority kids back in the day. When I was in high school, the government intruders were trying to kill off Jim Crow and bus the kids around. Didn't do much good though because the majority schools were pretty lousy too back in Mississippi in the 60s. SRA in elementary was good but I got stuck with New Math. Awful. Old books, lousy teachers, coaches sleeping through the "civics" classes they "taught".
The big push now is to let big corp run the schools via the net. The University of Phoenix model for high school.
As always, follow the money (like the Koch Bros). Not many union internet workers. Maybe the Communications and Computer Workers Industrial Union needs to absorb the NEA. May as well toss the UAW in there too, since there's so much computer tech in cars these days.
An old friend of mine that was a retired principal back in the 90's hit the nail on the head... He said schools replaced principal's paddles with students carrying knives and handguns.
There's a lot of truth in that.
Sure, attack the messenger. But what about the message?
He probably embraces pseudo-nation tax havens too :shades:
...and then probably doesn't tell us which one he uses, even though it's public knowledge where they all are! :P
Another self-titled "capitalist" no doubt, supporting those who take advantage of an existing system to make their gold, and then run away like the traitors they are when it comes time to maintain said system. Probably loves GE and the facebook coward who should have a target on his back.
No, because with today's
police stateelected government, they already are spying on us everywhere and know all about us.The problem with these UAW threads is that the UAW has been marginalized so much, there's not been a lot to say. Looks like they may just fade away....
Do you think that if GM and F start doing well, the UAW will try to rear its ugly head and demand more wages and benes?
There's that emphasis on athletics as the reason for schools' existence again. Get athletics out of high schools as their reason for existence and you'd improve things just like getting rid of the UAW when Obama saved GM and C would have improved things greatly.
>As always, follow the money
In this part of the country one big owner of "Charter Schools" is Whitehat. The owner got some bad publicity for the profit angle. I still don't have an answer from you state representative about how paying for a parallel system of schools at greater expense will "fix" education. It would be the same as starting a parallel state legislature and giving them 1/3 of the money the legislature normally spends and allowing the new legislature to show how much better they can do.
Frankly I see the similar problems to the stranglehold UAW had on the auto industry and that the high seniority UAW folks still have and the messes the states are making by allowing the 1%'ers of the money folks in the country to run the government. Wisc and Oh are both trying to court the big money at the top and allow them to set the parameters for taxing and giving them and their businesses benefits for being or locating in the state.
Looks the same as the UAW tired old guys problem to me.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
The UAW is marginal indeed. What percentage of workers are in their ranks, or even autoworkers? They are fading. Gagrice can buy a new Audi or MB to avoid them - but that will just be supporting other well-paid union labor - but labor that is better managed in companies with better planning. The UAW will ask for more whenever it can, but the days are numbered for it to obtain those demands.
Sure looks like they are well on their way. Most everyone around here is strong on unions. Most everyone around here is older than I am (and that's getting up there). All the kids (and I mean those now in their 40s and 50s too) left long ago for real jobs. And most of those kids got jobs in areas where unions weren't much of a factor and most now live in states where unions don't have a long history nor a big percentage of union membership.
If the UAW makes no progress with the auto industry down in Canton and the rest of the South, they may as well retreat to Detroit and try to shore up that last bastion as they fade into the twilight.
Not to mention the new "tier two" hires aren't going to be enamored with their elders getting all the good wages.
How the Union leaders could be so dumb as to agree to a contract like that is mind boggling. You cannot pay one person $30 per hour to put on lug nuts and the guy next to him $15 and expect the low paid guy to do a good job. They should have gone with a graduated scale to $20 and bring the top guys down over 5 years and the bottom guys up over 5 years. If the top guys don't like it, let them quit and work as a WalMart greeter. I can tell you a $20 per hour job around here without college is about non existent. Unless you are lucky enough to get in on the few stimulus jobs, that are phasing out the end of this month.
It's easy to be good when you can pick whom you let in and whom you keep.
>I would think Ohio public schools should be looking over their shoulder after what one school district did to that lady that was trying to get her kids into a better school.
Was this the lady who lied about her residence and the school district did as they were supposed to do? I recall Limbaugh loved that as another of his twisted stories.
>$25,000 to $30,000 per year to educate K-12
Don't know about California, but that's far above per student in Ohio.
>It was conceived because Public Schools were not fulfilling their obligation to teach.
Public schools are a reflection of the community and the politics around them. Limbaugh has spent years trying to define the public schools as wastelands. Our wasteland had many students going to diverse universities with great records and even better with great success once at the university. My son with AP classes had 25 quarter hours of work that was skippable at OSU. His roommate, from "the best magnet school in an Oklahoma city was having him help with his calculus occasionally. Just as Limbaugh loves black and white with UAW and unions, he loves to smear with the best of the Sharptons on the schools.
Here the "community schools" as they first were conceived were because the older folks didn't like paying taxes to educate someone else's kids (taxes were okay when it was their own kids being educated), didn't like the idea that the workers were being paid more than they used to be in 1950 and 1960, and wanted to keep religion in the school. But mostly it was the paying more taxes as costs go up with inflation year-to-year. The old geezers just didn't want to pay for the costs. They thought they'd start another system of schools with no rules and they would all take off with great success. But a funny thing happened on the way to the bank, a lot of the students going into them were the problem students (with problem parents) and their success didn't turn out to be able to be twisted statistically. Look up Whitehat. Look up Turkish Muslim school in Dayton and other cities in Ohio.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
I'm sure the $15 an hour guy is only paying half the UAW dues though, right? :surprise:
That's something I hadn't thought about: does a new worker pay the same dollar amount as the high seniority guy? OR is the dues amount prorated?
This is especially back on topic with the Supreme Court's decision today about raising dues without notice or voice of the workers so they can spend the money on getting Obama reelected.
Has the UAW raised their dues to have more cash to secret to the POTUS?
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
CA Charter Schools are not allowed to pick and choose students. They get just as many rotten apples as the regular schools. Some of them get more as they get booted out of one school parents will enroll them in another. Around here they do not even offer bus service to the closest Public HS, 13 miles from town. They will bus to one about 22 miles away or to the Charter school mentioned 26 miles away. Of course it costs $500 per year to use the bus.
Was this the lady who lied about her residence and the school district did as they were supposed to do?
Sorry that is a law that is just wrong. Any public school should allow any student to attend. PERIOD. If it is full that is one thing. That was not the case. It was a high class neighborhood trying to keep out the riff raff. Hopefully they will lose their Federal funding. People in San Diego haul their kids across town all the time to get into schools they perceive as better than the local ones. My daughter did that with my grandson. He got decent education at the high falutin' school, but developed a real nasty attitude that my son in law had to knock out of him. That was the 3rd grade if I remember. Public schools cost TOO MUCH. Time for big cuts.
The research by Adam Schaeffer of the Cato Institute’s Center for Education Freedom seemed shocking: The Los Angeles Unified School District spent $29,780 per student in fiscal year 2007-08. That’s way above the $10,000 as advertised by the school district, and as used in most studies.
The $29,780 per student figure means a class of 25 students would spend $744,500 a year.
http://www.calwatchdog.com/2010/08/20/lausd-spends-30k-per-student/
Look up Whitehat. Look up Turkish Muslim school in Dayton and other cities in Ohio.
You are right, there are Charter schools that are not living up to what they should be. If $1 of my tax money is going into the pocket of a corporatist, I am going to be upset. Charter schools should only be getting what it costs to educate the children. Same as any other public school. They are not for profit. And while we are at it cut the salaries of all the over paid professors in our public Universities and can the SPORTS.
That court decision is not very meaningful IMO. Basically in CA you do not have to be a member of the Public employee union associated with your job. But you do have to pay dues. Most are deducted directly from your pay. The members were getting notified and the dues paying non members were not. So now they have to notify everyone before they extort money. That is what I got from the decision.
In Ohio the public union workers do not have to be members nor do they have to pay. Hardly coercive, abusive unions there, are they? Several times during my wife's 30.5 years the state teachers should have gone on strike based on things done by the state or the legislature. In more real unions, they would have gone on strike. A statewide strike would have let all those people who think they know how to do that job--it doesn't take a degree in edjucation to be a teacher--a chance to go in and take over. See how it works with the little turds and their bigger turd parents. My wife was really glad to be out of the stressful situations. She earned her pay in a good school district with turkeys for administrators, and a few buzzards in there too.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
+1
Isn't that a bit of a tired argument? I'm sure there is some truth to it, but what about other factors. Such as students applying where parents are involved. Do the charter schools also get to pick and choose the teachers? Perhaps they get the cream of the crop. And is the program freed from the big district bureaucracy? I'd imagine there are a multitude of factors making these schools perform better. Some of which could be applied to the other schools.
Was this the lady who lied about her residence and the school district did as they were supposed to do? I recall Limbaugh loved that as another of his twisted stories.
You have to ask why a lady lied. It's because some schools are better than others. Competition works. But the unions have stifled that through their wages scales, tenure, and seniority system.
No disagreement that Limbaugh is a useless airbag.
Public schools are a reflection of the community and the politics around them.
...and the politics within them. Like the unions, for instance.
I have no doubt she did. The issue my ex-wife had with the public schools in Alaska and CA was Union protectionism of teachers that no longer cared about the students. She Taught in the worst school in Anchorage to help pay back her student loans. That was in the 1970s, so discipline was not a real issue. She taught mostly minority children with little parental involvement. Which means the teachers work harder to accomplish what they are paid to do. Some teachers just did not give a hoot. It was a job that they did no more than they had to. Sort of like some UAW workers that are protected by the Union. If you are going to put teachers on a pedestal, they need to earn that respect. Most have but the ones that haven't are giving the rest a bad name. You and I know that the biggest problem in school districts is administrative bloat.
high potential kids are forgotten except for a few AP classes?
Along that line, there is a trend to get doctors to diagnose various learning disorders, to get kids into the special classes. CA spends a HUGE amount on kids with with any kind of disability. I am sure that runs the average up.
I don't think teachers should strike
I think any strike by public employee Unions should be dealt with as a criminal matter. Reagan was 100% correct in firing that bunch of over paid spoiled ATCs. Comparing private Unions to public employee unions is ridiculous. Even George Meany felt it was insane allowing it to happen.
“It is impossible to bargain collectively with the government.”
That wasn’t Newt Gingrich, or Ron Paul, or Ronald Reagan talking. That was George Meany -- the former president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O -- in 1955. Government unions are unremarkable today, but the labor movement once thought the idea absurd.
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/02/18/the-first-blow-against-public-em- ployees/fdr-warned-us-about-public-sector-unions
Mack Trucks v EPA
challenging the whole interim "pay the fine" regimen. And in its latest action, the U.S. Court However, in a court case called Mack Trucks, Inc. v Environmental Protection Agency, competitors who made the big investments in SCR years ago and achieved 0.20 g/bhp-hr by 2010 are of Appeals, D.C. Circuit, struck down the EPA's interim rule.
The EPA told the court it created the penalty rule as an interim solution to give Navistar time to achieve compliance. Mack said this interim rule essentially authorizes an illegal transaction: the sale of a noncompliant engine. Navistar, meanwhile, told the court that Mack lacked the standing to challenge the EPA's rule in the first place.
We're not lawyers, so forgive us if we oversimplify the lengthy and eloquent arguments of all the attorneys who fought this battle. But the problem boils down to this: everyone else used SCR and DEF, and everyone else is compliant. Navistar used EGR and is still not compliant. The EPA created new rules to help Navistar. The court struck down those rules.
However, that doesn't automatically mean that Navistar will have to stop selling its noncompliant engines when its credits run out. The court said the EPA is free to turn its "interim" rule into a final rule, as long as it follows its own guidelines for providing notice and a comment period, and as long as it can show "good cause" for promoting a rule that benefits just one company and protects it from the consequences of picking the wrong horse.
Mack is a UAW shop it appears. So is Cummins. Ditto Detroit Diesel. Can't really tell easily about Peterbilt, now Paccar. The UAW sued them a lot but there was a contract announcement back in '03.
Obviously the EPA is hammering Navistar in order to help their competitors, all UAW shops.
(Clean air may play a teensy-weensy factor).
When the EPA was created by Nixon, it was about the air and water. Today it is about politics and empire building. Our government is rotten and corrupt from the top to the bottom. How can it be about the air if you are allowed to pollute by paying a fine? Does that fine clean any air?
I could see myself going to the grocery store in one of these. :shades:
Just wait until the EPA has closed down most of the coal burning power plants and the cost of electricity goes up from where it is now and the supply goes down. There will be rolling brown/blackouts summer and winter.
Of course they'll burn the coal in China and pollute the earth's air from there more than they already do.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
About the Navistar mess, aren't Powerstroke engines also known to be troublesome? And I thought commercial vehicles operating away from emissions accountability would be a "business friendly" hallmark.