Ask people around Little Rock about Clinton.

 

Again I am not singing the praises of Clinton. I believe with few exceptions that most politicians are greedy bastards that are evil to the core!

My only point is that being a good speaker/good looks are the greatest tools a politician could ever have. It is like acting.

George Bush Sr. telling protesting Veterans to shut up sealed his fate along with it's the economy stupid!!!

W came off as good as Elmer Fudd behind the podium and most people perceived him to be an idiot. Although the movie W certainly reinforced that. Hollywood spin? Maybe.

I will tell you this right now...Bill Clinton could run against any (living) Democrat or Republican and win in a landslide today!

 

I just do not see how you can say a guy that speaks with a forked tongue out of the side of his mouth is a good speaker. Whenever he came on the news, I had to turn the sound off. He always made me think of a country bumpkin used car salesman that would slap you on the back as he picked your pocket.

My best golf buddy's son worked for him during his campaign, while he was in office and several years and then for his foundation later on. Maybe I heard too much.

 

It was not 1 bit underfunded in 2003 ? It was, let's not pretend that in 2003 a state like IL could have a pension that could be sustained.

Now you have the governor making investment decisions in OH for the state pensions ?
That must be the only state that does that, look at IL teachers pension system.
TRS board makes the decisions on who to hire at any given time.
IL has yet to enact the next temporary state income tax increase to try to stave off another 10 years of pension liabilities, did the IL governor make the same decisions ??
Take a look at how the unions ( all of them are the brotherhood against the man, right ) treat each other. UAW screwed the CA teachers union out of a huge bond, so they could have a seat at the table, yielding themselves 9% on a loan. Who did that ? I'll give you 1 guess, it was not the GOP and the daemon corporations....
Of course the UAW was willing to sell them another bond, if they wanted to try to go double or nothing....or is that 1.1 or nothing ?
Another example, right form the horses mouth in the thread on the WI / Grease comparison. The Union police officer hung the teacher out to dry. Why, the teachers have it easy, the teachers pay into the pension in RI at 9.5% and the others 8.75%, yea real easy.

The government union employees will not point out where additional funding for state pensions could come from. Why is this ?
I have yet to see 1 answer, and over 3 threads I must have asked at least 3 times in each.
I keep seeing how it is union busting ( and this started long before the prank ) from the GOP. How is it the Dems solution to the problem is to run and hide, and point at the bad guys ( corporation & the GOP ).
Teachers want the real middle class and low income groups on their side, point a finger at the benefits that the politicians get. The state unions will not do this, the dems would hang them out to dry, sign a bill that made their benefits cost what the private sector does.
If corporations are trying to take over the world with campaign contributions, Dems are buying votes by protecting government union employees., and the government unions scratch the back of the dems by not shining a light on where part of the state pension underfunding is coming from ( ALL politicians ).
That is not big business, that is politicians looking out for themselves, and the state unions giving pay back for getting a great deal on the back of the real middle class tax payers ( the ones that do not have a law about COLA in retirement and a bottomless pit of cash until the day they die )
There we go, you would not touch it, so I put out the only thing I can see, else why would teachers not take advantage of such a strong method to polarize their fight against the state politicians and the Gov ?
Do you spend money you do not have ? I would guess not, if this is correct why do you expect the states to do it ? If it is due to the union fighting the man, I think you need to undertake a large remodel project that is nothing but union contractors. Don't worry about how you are going to pay for it.
Unions are all one big happy brotherhood against the angry corporations trying to get them to work for 9.00 per day ( even though the real middle class is not working for that rate for some reason ), until... They will hang each other to get what they feel is entitled to them, even a the expense of another union.
My guess, if a teacher needs work on their house, they do not hire a union shop. Costs too much, go non union. Yep 1 big brotherhood.

1. Clinton did not hand GW Bush a 'great' economy, it was starting to fall apart at election time. Also, don't bring up the Bush stole the election, Gore got the popular vote. Clinton won his 2nd term the same way, he did not have the popular vote, just the votes that counted.
2. The current POTUS is pulling a Carter. House is on fire, pour gas on it, to see if that helps. The pave American beautiful program was a huge waste of money, but it sure put a lot of union people to work again ( and allowed them to reset the unemployment clock ). Strange, the tax payers are now holding the bag for a good size loan, that went to unions. Sounds like what is going on in IL & CA, and what WI, IN, and NJ are trying to stop.

Post it again, it is still an opinion. I am not saying you cannot believe this, but to make it a generalized fact is not the case. He might have made you trust him, but anyone I talked to did not trust him any father than they could toss him for the same reason Bluejay posted, the used car salesman talk.

GH Bush was in process of keeping things on track, and Clinton took over, and reduced the tax receipts, by raising taxes on a few select.
If it were not for the stupid money being made in his 2nd term, he would have left the office in wore shape than he got it.
He had nothing to do with the money that was being pumped into investments when he was in the 1st 2 years of his 1st term, that was "the GOP selling out the country" as always. Did I format that so you could see where it came from.
Oh wait that is right Al invented the Internet, so technically he did

 

They are also able to purchase a lot more in China for $2. It is not about what the actual paper is worth but what can be bought with it.

If you environment, labor, and government restrictions on business here. This place will be flooded with jobs.

Tariffs have done nothing but increase prices on goods. Tariffs are a joke.

 

Good call... it was a Jewel.

Alot of the people I worked with were employed there for the benefits. But, at least when I worked there, you couldn't get the health insurance unless you worked 35 hours a week. Because I barely worked 15 / week due to football and other extra curricular, I literally paid 25% of my paycheck in dues that did nothing for me.

The problem was that in order to be employed there, I couldn't opt out of the union.

 

Who are you crapping?

If I can make something in China for $2 a day and turn around and sell it to the US for the same price as if I paid $15 an hour for it to be made in the US I would be industrial strength stupid to make it in the US.

Tariffs make goods more expensive but they balance they playing field of labor. They are intended to discourage importing goods that otherwise can be otherwise made at home.

Do you think that GM can sell the exact same decked out Buick in China for $300 that they sell in the US for $35k. If so...then I am going over to China and importing me some cars to the US!!! I will be so rich then that I too can become a Republican!!!

It isn't that they can buy so much more for that $2 but rather they don't maintain near the living standard that we do. It costs a whole lot more to live in a 3000 sq foot brick home than it does to live in grass hut.

One day soon China will be priced out of the labor market too and they will move things to Africa to do the labor.

 

I worked there in the early 90's and there was no hour limit to claim the insurance...at least in the Chicago market. I do know the pay scale was different downstate IL because when I went to school in Central IL and still worked there my pay rate dropped a LOT!!!

I know the union contracts were pretty sweet for some of the old timers (those that started in the 80's)...they were making $25/hour to ring up groceries part-time but newer people got dumped on pretty bad making pennies compared to them.

I wasn't aware the hours rule changed...when I was there, we had a lot of people there just to get the insurance and could care less about the paycheck. I remember working the service desk and having people let their checks wait for weeks before I would catch them to make them take their money. We also gave them cash at the time via vouchers instead of checks. I am sure a lot changed since then!

 

i was employed there during 2003, 4, 5, and 6. I was in the south suburbs for the first 3 years and then the last year I was in a different union in Milwaukee (before all the WI jewels were shut down) but even with being a 3 year employee I had to get cut because I was a new member of the WI union. That pretty much forced me to find a different job.

 

SSCULLY,

Where do you get that Clinton didn't win the popular vote in 1996? He had 49.1% of the votes. Dole had 40.7% and Perot had 8.4%. Unless my math is wrong, 49.1% leads the pack there.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_...election,_1996

Bush did not win the popular vote. Gore did win the popular vote. There was all kinds of controversy in Florida where W's brother just happened to be governor at the time. There was a start and stop to a re-count. There was a Supreme Court that ruled right along party lines to determine the winner. Now that is fishy in my book.

While Clinton did not win a true majority of the votes, he still had the most electoral and the most total votes.

It just so happened that there was a third party that existed that had some support. Honestly had he not quit and come back along with nominating a guy that was WAY over the hill (honorable man...don't get me wrong) to be Vice President but still lost on stage with the other candidates in a debate...Perot could seriously have won that election.

As far as funding for their pensions...they are manning up with the money, accepting all of the concessions the Gov. asked for just they are not willing to budge on the proposition to disband the union for negotiating work conditions and benefits. How does them having this right affect the current budget. It is nothing more than a power play.

As far as the OH Governor John Kasich ....before he took the job, he worked for Lehman Brothers and sold the State of Ohio securities that are now worthless. How convenient to be the seller of crap then make the people screwed by no decision of their own liable....hmmmm?

Again with Clinton, you can only be responsible for what happens on your watch.

 

Sounds pretty typical for unions. Most of the time they protect the senior employees and sacrifice the newbies!

I'm in no way defending union practices or anything to that regard. I do however support the group's right to participate. Given the nature of them, my opinion is that the group as a whole should decide yes or no on them. If you allow people the right to opt in or out, there is no incentive to join and in fact the company/municipality could temporarily enrich the non-union people to bust the union then pull the rug out from under their feet.

Without a contract, most employees are employees at will and the company can change the terms at will short of bringing their pay below min wage and what not.

 

still wrong...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlkQRGZEycI

 

Sorry, I didn't get the whole thread read but I gotta say this. 95 percent of the union guy's I've worked with were overpaid, entitled, poor excuses for a third hand.

Mostly electricians on the east coast.

More than one instance we'd start work at 7. Wouldn't need the union guy's till 9, then they'd say it's their break time even though all they did from 7-9 was read the paper and eat snacks in their company truck while it was running the whole time.

 

This is what I was getting at, he got the votes that count. That we are in agreement on.

I know I have asked this once before in the other thread, where is it written that the additional contributions to pension and other benefits long term have been taken.
If the person that was interviewed ( in the clip in the other thread ) was in fact from the teachers' union, they were willing to talk about additional contributions. The WI rep that just wanted to compare WI to Egypt said they took the "cuts" prior to the bill being presented.
Sound like ( if either side is able to speak intelligently on the topic ) both of the teacher rank and file and the politician have no clue where the additional contributions / cuts are at.
I see a mix of words being used, do not know if the WI Rep was referring to cuts the teacher's union was willing to take meant a reduction in pay alone ( not what WI is trying to cure ) or if this is what the additional contributions to pension & benefits are being called.

Here is what I found on the topic, no mention about "disbanding the union" or union busting as you keep posting. That might be your opinion on the topic, but that is not the fact of what is going on.

He worked in politics from 1975 to 2000 in one form or another.
He worked at Lehman from 2001 to 2008 as a managing director, not a broker.
He might have used connections to get the office into the state, but once the account was opened, logic would say the state pension fund selected what to purchase, they have to OK it. You are implying that the pension board had no choice, in other words they were violating the charter. That is a pretty serious charge to make, got some proof of it ?
In other words ( as you say with Clinton below ) the board running the pension fund was responsible for what happened on their watch.

The gap from SEP-2008 to the elections in 2009, is a bit of a gap there.

I see a bunch of opinions on this, and you calling for jail time for it. Why is that ?

Not exactly.
Your post, you said GH Bush handed Clinton a pile of crap for the state of the economy, and infer that GW Bush was handed some gold nugget of a nation when he took over, and pile drove it into the ground.
With this in mind, the POTUS is responsible for what they do, which can have long reaching implications.
Just like Carter handed Ronnie a big smelly pile, Ronnie was then responsible for what happened on Carters watch, as was GH Bush. I still recall the passbook saving account paying 7%, and my new car loan was a great deal at 9.75%, back when GH Bush took over, the rate was still on the way down.

 

You make it sound that Clinton won it in the same controversial way that Bush did. Clinton's win didn't have the cloud of corruption nor did it have the "loser" getting the White House. Apples and oranges.