It's a shame - Sam Walton himself was a good American. Even though he was a billionaire, he wore overalls and drove a F-150. It's his heirs that have positioned Walmart the way it operates now.

 

Agreed..

 

As a consumer, I don't normally buy aerospace products.

 

You fly don't you???
If it ain't Boeing I ain't going.

Next time you fly ask any flightcrew member what they would rather fly on.

 

i realize how hard it is--hard is an understatement

in response to your last paragraph--i find your inclusion of the millions people in the blame a positive...ie, perhaps wal-mart is providing the foreign (chinese)-made goods at the lower prices that people want to buy, recognizing that the majority of americans will buy based on price rather than country of origin, as evident by the historical success of the store...

as most people realize, years ago, a high percentage of the goods sold by wal-mart were once of the american-made variety, when other retailers offered similar goods made in foreign nations...wal-mart slowly abandoned their made-in-usa campaign and began to offer foreign-made items, consequently (or coincidentally) gaining market share

an oversimplification for sure, but something you point out that is often overlooked or ignored--the idea that the majority of the american consumer base chose lower prices rather than american-made goods, and continue to do so vs the idea that wal-mart forced the hands of those opening their wallets (if and when wal-mart is the only choice is another wrinkle, though best considered with an understanding of the how and why of the phenomena, the enablers of such, and the preceding understanding of a free-market economy and the idea of entitlement to compete vs entitlement to succeed)

whether and how this choice leads to the destruction of the middle class and eventual collapse of the u.s. economy as we know it is conjecture of a socio-political economic persuasion with global implications that is a fair bit more complex than has been logically described, let alone solved, anwhere in the portions of this thread i have read, my observations and opinion included

casual debate often lacks even the most fundamental knowledge of the myriad issues outside of the obvious assumptions, let alone offers any suitable forum for true problem-solving, which is in the better interest of everyone than trivial debate over minutia

that being said, i realize no one asked me and few care anyway, so carry on

 

I'm retired Navy reserve aircrew with over 5000 hours in the Lockheed P-3 Orion. To me an airplane is an airplane, I don't care where it's built or who built it, it's the maintenance that counts and I don't care whether the mechanics are union or not, all I care is they do their jobs right, and perhaps more importantly, the airline allows them to do their job right.

Boeing, Lockheed, Douglas, Airbus, Bombardier, Grumman, whatever - if they built crappy (unsafe) airplanes they wouldn't stay in business.

 

Well we for one are not a union friendly state.
In this town there is not a single union job left.

Yet according to guiness, we have the most factories per capita in the world
We also have the most churches per capita
and have been declared the aluminum boat capitol of the world.
The average wage may only be $18 per hour but we are also 7th lowest state in the US for the lowest cost of living. So our dollar goes alot further than the others in the 43 other states....



We aslo have the third cheapest health care
the lowest priced housing (including taxes)
10th lowest groceries
6th lowest trasportation
and 12th lowest utilities.

That is down from 15 years ago when we had about 25% unions and cost of living was ALOT more. We advanced by lowering our wages slightly. We now get more for less money and offer the same products to the rest of teh US and teh world for less, so we are taking your money and bringing it here for us to use in our community.... thanks!

I dont know why thats such a hard concept for people to grasp... Higher wages, more handouts, all adds up to lowering your buying and selling power. You dont gain a dime.......
If you read your history books it's happened in every civilization and has been the root cause of the fall of most.

 

If someone has time and would care to do some research and find out if any of those states in the top ten lowest cost of living are union friendly...
I'd be interested in knowing that.

I'd bet dollars to dougnuts non of them are, but I could be wrong...

 

Cost of living, etc. was one reason I moved down here. I'm on fixed income. I couldn't afford to keep living in the Chicago area.

 

Well your posts seem to relate to 3 things in this order. Pro-Union, buy American and F' Walmart.

Hey, you guys are one of our best customers and our prime competition. I work for EADS and no we don't send any work overseas to get work from you guys. I sell quite a bit of American made product to Boeing's other than commercial aviation divisions. Oh wait we make the ATEC systems for ground support.

You want to talk about foreign unions and imply they're great, try this on for size. As you know our A380 competing aircraft for the 787 is late, just like Boeing's. EADS in France tried to get the delivery back on track by asking the Union members to go from a 30 hour workweek to a 35 hour workweek with paid overtime. The union's response was a strike, yes an immediate strike!!!!

They were outraged because "Big Business" was trying to ruin their lifestyle. More power to the unions, they were instrumental in handing orders over to the competition, Boeing. Imagine that.

Another point in case where unions were self destructive is the Long Beach Navy shipyards in the early '80s. The company opened it's books for everyone to see that they could not afford to meet their demands. The union went on strike and the shipyards closed their doors forever. Guess who went looking for work the next day?

What I see as quite funny, we agree on most things wrong with this country but a few points, unions being the focus. You can have Walmart but like I tried to point out is that for the less fortunate than you and I, Walmart is a godsend for low wage earners.

Bottom line, I spend $200.00 for a pair of shoes made in America, I frequent the shops I know that carries the most "Made in USA" products. I buy from local farmers, organized or not, picked here by mexicans maybe but I tend to stay away from imported. I shy away from most imports unless needed or there is not an alternative for a wanted item.

Walmart is not the problem, imagine paying more for handouts because Walmart doesn't exist. I don't like handouts but your and my elected officials seem to think it's OK.

Good luck with your job and I hope your union really stands by your best interest.

 

In the unions defense, I have no doubts that they have good intentions.They just don't realize the repercussions of what they are asking for. To use a worn out phrase, they often fail to see the big picture.

Again there is no doubt unions have helped implement laws and paved the way for OSHA and the National Labor Relations Board. Now that we have those in place a union is as useful as type writer ribbon. It was once standard in any office by the pallet load, now not so much.....

 

First I am from New Hampshire and I can guarantee you New Hampshire does NOT employ that largest percentage of illegal’s, it would be best to look out west…

I still get the feeling Swank07 does not understand the basic concept about Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart is HUGE NOT because of people selling out in America but rather that is what the vast majority of American’s want. The vast majority of Americans act like any normal union member in that they want the most amount of money for doing something and then only want to spend the least amount possible.

That is not myth or just something I am throwing out. I have seen it, I have seen union people who make big money look like their living on welfare. They don’t have lots of nice things many drive foreign vehicles because they don’t trust American made even though they, and it appears many union people here, believe there is only three brands that are considered American made, Ford, Chevy and Dodge.

Many Americans, union people included, have an illusion that Toyota is a foreign made vehicle, at least their trucks but fail to understand it is an AMERICAN made vehicle just as much as an F150 is.

Both Toyota and Ford contain “foreign” parts thus making neither a “true” American built vehicle.

YES, unions have driven jobs overseas and/or across the boarder. As I stated before, unless it absolutely has to be made in America, the vast majority of union jobs will be gone in the next 15 – 20 years because either the companies that have them will move their operations overseas or across the boarder or they will simply close down because they will not be able to compete…

Unions in their time did indeed help to get us where we are today, the 8 hour day, 40 hours a week however I can guarantee you that if all unions were gone tomorrow the 8 hour day, 40 hour week would remain. Unions were brought about in a time where they were really needed. Today they are not needed because the work force, that’s us employees, set the standards now and not big business.

Manufacturing jobs, like those done where I work, or assembly type jobs like at Ford are third world type jobs, that’s the type of person it takes to do it. You do not have to be educated to perform assembly work, it does not take an education to assemble electric motors and it does not take an education to assemble an F150, it only takes someone who can breathe…

In other words an assembly type job is not worth more then $8 to $10 an hour since anybody out of high school or a high school drop out could do it. So when you pay these types of people $20 plus you prematurely inflate the “fair cost” of a product. Since your doing that those spending the extra money over what they should have to will turn to the Wal-Marts for better prices due to a assembly union person raping the rest of us from a “fair cost”…

Don’t blame people who shop at Wal-Mart and don’t call them sell outs when they have been driving there due in part to someone making well more then what they are really worth, an assembly union person…

 

Hey 01,
I hear ya, my son is blinded by his union job at EB in Groton,CT. He had an offer for 2 years in Japan at twice the wage doing the same thing but from the DoD side with moving expenses, per diem and housing. He couldn't leave the union because loss of his seniority. Somehow I/we are the brainwashed ones.

Glad to see you're back on the boards. A little subdued from the old days LOL.

Did you ever get your daughter a cat? C'mon you know she wants one.

sorry there's no pizza icon.

Later

 

My truck has a Mazda transmission - now tell me where that comes from........

 

I gurantee you they would too. Thats why the National Labor Relations Board is available to any tax paying citizen. It's the union that we all belong to just for paying our taxes....... Our state also has Department of Labor and Industrial Relations on the state level. (as far as I know all states have something similar) So is another union legal Citizens automatically belong to that also insures fair treatment of each and every worker and enforces labor laws. Trust me I've seen first hand an investigation, it's not pretty and NO bussiness wants to be investigated. They want to make sure that thier employees are happy.