I guess your meaning of work is different from my meaning. When I define work, I am referring to production and the assist of production. Someone could work all day digging holes and then filling them back up again. It would still net nothing.


The biggest producers are the biggest companies which are owned and operated by the guys with the biggest wallets.

Since you are referring to 'pie'. Many people think that there is a set amount of wealth in the world (a pie). All the corporations take the wealth and the poor are just left with the crumbs. When actually the world produces pie. More pie produced=more pie to go around. This is why it is crucial to let the big producers have their freedom.

The more we hurt the producers, the more we hurt ourselves. Where unions fit in to all of this is that they are trying to get more pie then what there job would justify in a total free market system. Pie is used to produce more pie, any artificial adjustment throws everything off, since unions use the government's power to apply force. Force is immoral.

 

Ok, I did have an assumption that the 2080 hrs / yr are producing something.
If someone is getting paid to dig a hole and fill it back up, either they are military, state employee or they are doing some work ( fixing a water main, installing a new communications line, etc ). If they person is digging the hole and filling it back up for free ( aside from being totally oobatz ) they are not getting a paycheck, and not in the middle class ( or low class for that matter ).


This gets into the company vs individual. The topic OT continental drift was about groups or classes of individuals. The people that work at the big company that makes the widget, are the ones doing the work in the case of individuals. The company employs them to make it. In this case is the company ( itself ) doing the work, or the employees ?


This one I never understood, if this was the case we would all still be living in caves waiting for someone to invent fire. The ones that think this is the case, do not have any personal drive in them, and find it easier to blame "the man".

The hurt to the people ( companies or individuals at the small business level ) by imposing a tax ( they can afford it, they are 'rich' ) is the dumbest thing I ever heard.

I guess taxing the you know what out of them, until they go bankrupt is a great idea in some politicians' minds.

Does not matter how many times you show raising taxes at the higher levels, directly hurts tax receipts, people just do not get it ( there is always a reason why the tax rolls dropped, could not be from raising taxes ) .

 

I was in a union in high school when I worked at a local grocery store.

Nothing like making minimum wage, paying union dues, and having to start as a bagger and wait months to move to a different position.

But we got a break every 2 hours. I couldn't imagine trying to make a living doing that...

 

OK... a little honesty here. Lets get real. You support ones right to organize a business that a person owns. You have the right to tell the business owner what he must pay you? Are you serious? If I owned a business and the employee's tried to organize, I would shut the doors. The government damn well can tell it's employee's what wage the government is willing to pay them. If a person doesn't like the wage, they can find a job somewhere else. That is how the free market works. You sell your talent for the best deal you can find. There are plenty of federal and state laws to protect the worker. The more talented you are, the better wage you get. And government workers are not the same as private employees. It is a conflict of interest for politicians to negotiate wages with government workers. The government does not have a profit motive in negotiations, and the tax payer is not in the negotiations to have there say. And for you to call me a tea bagger is a insult that I won't tolerate. That is a derogatory term that should get you banned for using. Do you know what tea bagging is? Do you understand how disgusting that is? That is more insulting than calling a black person the N word. Do you understand that? As far as protests, the left wing liberals are the whiniest people on the planet. Code pink comes to mind. Did you know that the D.C. protest in support of wisconson government workers permit was obtained by the socialist party of America? Is that where you want to go?

 

I am a consultant and one of our customers is a regional trucking company.

The company hires exclusively non-union drivers.

One time, several drivers tried to organize and they protested their wages, walked out and put up a union protest in the parking lot. The owner of the company had HR write up their pink slips, and he signed them, folded them into an envelope, and walked them to the parking lot where they were protesting. The rally ended with a bunch of pissed off and unemployed truckers, he called their bluff.

They subsequently hired a handful of new, non-union drivers.

With the way the economy here has been, they would have no problem doing the same thing again, because they're getting way more applications than they can hire.

 

It sounds like you used to work at Jewel. I remember those days. I started at $4.45 an hour and paid $6.00 a week in union dues. It was a good chunk of my check since I only worked like 12-15 hours a week!!!

Of course the upside was they did provide health care which did help me. I wasn't covered as a child or teen because my mother worked as a private duty nurse. My dad was already deceased. She didn't have any coverage because of her work and it was too expensive to buy on her own if not impossible for her being diabetic.

Of course those jobs aren't meant to make a living off of but still there were people I am sure that had little other choice.

 

Look Chris I am not trying to offend you with the term teabagger...that is the name allotted to the Tea Party. I have hear Glen Beck/Rush use the term too. If you want to get me banned, go right ahead. You won't be the first and you won't be the last!

I don't buy into all of the crap that Walker and the rest of the GOP are trying to spew. They are getting what they want. They are getting the middle class to turn on its self and are laughing their butts off about it.

The unions are staunch haters of unions and feel if they can break that segment up more, they will destroy a Democrat base. This is about power. It has nothing to do with debts and budgets. That is the facade they want to make you think.

As far as protests...both sides are whiny. Why weren't the huge deficits important when Bush was president? He doubled the National Debt in 8 years from where it was when Clinton left office. We actually started running surpluses the last year of Clinton.

The debt is a combination of lots of things. We overspend on defense. We overspend on entitlements. We overspend on foreign aid. We overspend on paying for government employees and their leaders too.

Until these state and federal legislatures want to go cutting their own wages and benefits, they sure as hell don't have the right to go cutting into some state or federal employee that is making $40k a year.

Walker now releases his proposal to cut education funding more yet on top of the disbanding of the unions. That's smart. Education is an investment in our future. Maybe this plays into the GOP's hands though. Let's raise another generation of people too stupid and greedy to realize that if we turn out more stupid uneducated people that we will have to build bigger and more prisons to hold the idiots produced. All of this so the average person can save $300 a year in taxes. Penny smart dollar foolish!

 

No matter what...it isn't going to bring more jobs to people here in America. You can eliminate every environmental law, every labor law and all government restrictions and you still are not going to significantly increase work here in the US.

Who here is going to work for $2 a day given the cost of living here? People in China work for that. When China's wages get too high, manufacturers will move on to cheaper places. They'll set up factories in Africa or wherever there are poor populations. Cheap labor is the driver here. Maybe one day they will run out of havens of cheap labor but it isn't any time soon.

China has no interest at this point in increasing wages because they want our technology. One of their requirements to set up shop there is that the technology must be shared with the government.

The only way we are going to bring back jobs is through tariffs that offset the cost of labor in the land the item it is produced in to compare with our labor rates. Then and only then will companies start producing here.

We are the largest consumer of goods and easy credit for the past couple decades allowed us to spend much more than we took in. It is easy to be a consumer nation under those terms. It is a whole lot harder when people can't spend like crazy. Then you have to say...well we better let them create something so they can buy something.

Will prices go up? Yeah but so won't our employment levels and wages. Will it hit the shareholders of some companies? Yeah but if everyone is getting some pie then more people are happy and we are a more productive nation.

 

The GOP is polarizing the pubic against another section, just like the Democrats are doing, that is how they get votes as a basic concept. The part that gets me is it is getting angry these days.
My opinion is this is due to instant everything ( and I very well could be wrong ), when the telephone game has turned into IM, and social networking, and spreading mis-information at the speed of light.

Look at the claim that the governor of WI shut down the teachers web site, and the analogy to China. It was a problem with the hosting company's network having what looked to be a routing loop.
No, the issue with the hosting company is used as a China type maneuver.

I think you meant GOP above ??
There are 2 things here
1. The GOP does not want to "bust up the union"
1.1. This is part of the mis-information at the speed of light. They want to limit the collective bargaining on the benefits, or at least make it so they contribute more than 5% to the pension, where me and you are funding all of it ( to the max of 15% / the annual limit ).
They want the ability to pass health care cost increases on to the employee, just like me and you.
They want to make COLA a more dynamic thing ( RI is pegged at 3%, does not matter if they have the money ).
2. If they do "bust up" the union (as your opinion of what is happening), how does that change who this segment of the population going to vote for ?
If anything, this will make the group of voters more Dem, for "what they did to us". Your post makes it sound as if the union members cannot pick a candidate to vote for, if the union does not tell them the name of the person.

To be honest with this question, the income tax receipts were there to make things manageable, and the gap on CDRs were not an issue, they were small enough to be manageable. Now states like IL and CA pay slightly more than a country like Portugal for the CDR. Now the bonds are costing money.
Clinton, you only point to the end of the 2nd term, when the economy was moving along quick with .com stock incentives creating taxes like no tomorrow. Look to the end of Clinton's 1st terms and the time he cranked up the high end tax bracket. Tax receipts went down. If it took Clinton 7 years in a great economy and increased top end tax bracket tax rates to generate a surplus, he was spending a lot also.
States has the same thing, IL was rolling in money and just as dumb as us in the .com field, the light at the end of the tunnel could not be a train, no way... They spent like no tomorrow.

I have said this all along, both sides need to offer this as a solution, not run to a different state to make a mockery of the process.
Notice in WI the teachers never offer this as a place to augment funding into pensions ( politicians pay in 3% vs the teachers 5% ). Why would the union not point this out about the politicians in general, that's right the Dems that are hiding would hang them out to dry, the teachers know not to bite the hand that feeds you, so they are in the game just as much as the politicians. None of the want to tell the truth, just mis information about **** Germany.

More mis-information at the speed of light. You wonder why the polarization is getting nasty ?

 

SScully,

Did you hear the prank call on Walker by someone pretending to be Koch? Sure sounded like Walker was wanting to appease him by destroying the unions to me.

I agree that the 24 hour news cycle and the failure to verify any story hurts us a lot more than it helps. A lot of twisted and misinformation stirs things up.

Technology is a 2 way street. It helps us be more efficient and lead better lives but it also is going to be the US's downfall.

Clinton brought confidence to people. He was scummy but people had a trust for him still. He turned us from a crap economy that Bush Sr left us with. W came in and got hit with more probs than any president since Hoover/FDR and didn't handle it well. Obummer is so polarizing that even if he had a clue couldn't succeed.

 

That is just hilarious. I had co-workers asking why I had tears running down my face!

 

Collective bargaining in regards to public unions should be done away with no doubt about it. It has no place in our REPRESENTATIVE democracy. The public employee unions have been allowed to have this insidious circle jerk relationship with Democrats for way too long. Why should taxpayers be happy about unions that finance exclusively Democrat elections, and then stand by and watch while these same union financed politicians give the unions everything they want 100% of the time? How can it be called "collective bargaining", or "negotiation" when you're all just pleasing each other? Its not "negotiation", its a sexual favor exchange for Pete's sake. Its a bad JOKE on the taxpayers.

No, it's sick as Hell and should be done away with as soon as possible. GO SCOTT WALKER GO. GO CHRIS CHRISTIE GO.

 

No I have not, but with it being staged as a prank, I am already suspect of what happened.

The source of what is being called 'good journalism' has a web poll on the page ( at the moment ) asking the question :
"Are internet polls biased?"
The answers to select from :
# Yes, I am a pedophile.
# No, God created the earth in six days.
# Mostly, because Obama's a socialist.
# Rarely, because this is the best answer.

This is now considered a source of good journalism ??? Let's bring back Crank Yankers, and have them do the debates between candidates.

These good journalists are doing the state of WI a great service, trying to polarize the topic just a bit more. If they can't help, why not make things worse ?

I have asked all along, why don't the state unions suggest the same contribution levels to the benefits as the unionized state employees get ?
Why is it, the state unions like to place blame with one party, and the other side ( enjoying the same great benefits at a low contribution ) gets a pass ?

This is an opinion. The only confidence that I had in him, was he was going to play with interns when he should have been working.
The guy can talk ( hence all the women he has been with ), that I will agree with. When it comes to talking a good game to build confidence, no he was not that good.

The other mistake ( in my opinion ) was reconfirming Mr irrational exuberance. The guy violated everyone of his own rules after that appointment. He had no idea that the old methods he was used to, would not work in the boom & Bust market of the .com sector ( while the remainder of the economy moved on ). I can only guess Mr Confidence has no clue, and rather then change it, that was one thing he just left the same ( he was too busy chasing tail to be concerned if it was the right thing to do )

G.H. Bush was on the tail end of the clean up that Ronnie started, over the huge mess Carter left the country in.
Recall what a good mortgage was when prime scrapped against 20% ?

Some retirees are coming to grips that T-bills do not pay 15% anymore, and are having to figure out what to do for income ( I know 2 that are in this position as of 2010 ). Guess you think it should take less than 12 years to get prime from the high down to where it is today. I am waiting for the cycle to start again, this time it is going to be that much harder to dig out of it, and the new crop of voters coming in, for the most part, do not have a clue ( saw an interview on local elections on a train, reporter asked who the girl was voting for. The reply: I'm not voting, I'm only 18... )

Why is it the news headlines have been "union buster" when it is a case of they want the unionized employees to pay more into the funds that are getting ready to fall apart ?

Dems down state in IL are trying to have the ability to change the amount paid by the sate employees deemed "Unconstitutional". As in, we would low to help you mr middle class tax payers, but it would be unconstitutional to do so.
If WI is union busting, IL is union cementing, as in cementing the state's taxpayers into concrete shoes prior to going for a swim in the cal-sag channel.
Remember the "temporary" 66% tax increase does not address the pension short falls, which is going to go boom in 2018.
That means 5 years after that, no money left in it, empty. Now what ???

This is the root reason WI, NJ, IN and the others are doing this, they are using IL & CA as the poster child of what not to do.

 

The reason the union pensions are underfunded isn't because of the member's contributions. It was because of the crappy investments the states put the money in.

Case in point, the OH Governor worked for the brokerage that sold all of the crap securities that the state lost big bucks on and left the pensions penniless. Now he is governor and is trying to put the losses that HE sold Ohio on the backs of the public employees.

Remember after the S&L Crisis, Reagan had those crooks prosecuted (well except those with the last name Bush...but still) and lots of people did some serious time in the joint. No one is sitting in jail over this crap! Something wrong there?

You gripe about unions and the Democrats. How about big business and the Republicans. Big business is supposed to be treated like an individual and can contribute to political causes. I'm fine with that but they need to be treated like individuals all the way to paying Social Security tax too. We would balance that budget real quick!!!

As far as Bush cleaning up what Ronnie had cleaned up from Carter. Gosh...Bush screwed things up for 8 years and Obama was given 15 minutes to clean it up....Carter was in office for 4 years and they are given 12 years to clean things up. Sounds fair and balanced to me?

Reagan was a good speaker...Clinton was a good speaker...like it or not...the presidency is 98% presentation and 2% substance. Reagan spoke one thing and did another quite routinely. Still he brought a sense of American exceptionalism to us. Clinton could sell ice to an Eskimo and no matter what happened he made it seem ok.

 

Clinton brought confidence to people. He was scummy but people had a trust for him still. He turned us from a crap economy that Bush Sr left us with. W came in and got hit with more probs than any president since Hoover/FDR and didn't handle it well. Obummer is so polarizing that even if he had a clue couldn't succeed.

Bluejay...what is not true here?

Clinton was a good speaker and people felt confident in what he said.

Clinton is morally bankrupt! Any guy...especially the POTUS in today's media feeding frenzy to have so little respect for his spouse to cheat on her is scummy.

When Bush Sr. left office the economy was in the toilet.

It recovered dramatically under Clinton.

George W Bush faced many issues that no other POTUS could ever imagine in 8 years. Recession...9/11...Katrina...2 wars that are now a decade old...etc.

Obummer is incompetent and way over his head. Regardless, he had one group that loved him and another than hates him. He has managed to destroy his own base which makes him maligned by most now and probably couldn't get elected as dog catcher of Kenya!!!