patrick.net

Crazy, a party to a negotiation got some concession that benefitted THEM irrespective of it's utterly rational "efficiency" to the machinery.

Kind of like when a CEO negotiates a corner office and redecorates it with millions of dollars of furnishings and paintings. Wow we just hate that kind of "waste" by those thugs too don't we?

Unions at the extreme do some crazy stuff. Therefore we should have zero unions.

But this would also suggest we should have zero politicians, zero lending/debt, zero military industrial complex , zero corporations, etc.., etc..,....

Why is it unions are viewed in black or white and yet in so many other areas, right wingers can actually handle shades of grey ?

shrekgrinch says

The CEO doesn't have the coercive force of government to force the owners to come to terms like they do in France...and amazingly, in Obama's America as Boeing is finding out.

What "coercive force" of government did this trade union apply? Please Google up something for me.

marcus says

Why is it unions are viewed in black or white and yet in so many other areas, right wingers can actually handle shades of grey ?

Unions try to have it both ways. There is no doubt that they offer training and fight for better wages and working conditions. They have leadership, structure and bureaucracy.

But a union and a corporation are similar
Corporation has shareholders
Unions have pensioners

Corporation has no bid contracts (think Iraq war)
Unions always have no bid contracts (most governmental contracts are no bid)

Corporations can merge and lay people off
Unions can merge and lay people off

Corporations can move work overseas
Unions....well unions have generally failed to unionize overseas and that's where they generally fail.

Corporations don't like competition
Unions don't like competition

If businesses can move but unions don't bother then naturally they will keep failing. For the most part unions don't compete with other unions

These days it is hard for unions and companies to try to keep anything secret..there's way too many cameras and the internet to leak things out.

PersainCAT says

And that seems corrupt becasue why should a job like that pay so much when a phd physicist working as a post doc at universities gets paid half that.

Everyone has an idea how someone ELSE shouldn't make good money. If you are a Republican and talking about Richie Rich they call it "class warfare". If you are Rand Paul talking about how doctors "deserve" to make good money and it's OK to accept Medicare, that's a different matter. If you are a Teabagger, then all Phd physicist should be making minimum wage with no benefits.

CEO seem to deliver the least tangible benefits for the most outrageous compensation. Let's take the example of the guy who took over Wells Fargo when it was tanking yet still got 10's of millions in payout. What a country!

But that CEO is a JOB CREATOR!

This is one of the best discussions I've heard on here of the union question. And I think Thunderlips did a good job of pointing out the problem with too much emphasis on free markets and on supply and demand.

I think it's important to understand that both sides have a good point.

Taken to it's logical conclusion, if you want totally free market capitalism globally, you will see American standard of living drop and asian, indian, developing world standard of living rise until they are at parity.

Maybe tarrifs and some protectionism is part of the the answer. I don't know. But even from a point of view of total self interest, consider the concept of human capital.

Where does human capital come from?

The fact is, that so far it seems middle to lower middle class people are the ones most likely to reproduce.

In the interest of developing human capital, we need even poor relatively uneducated folks to be able to provide good food, a stable environment, maybe a good location where they can get a good public education (let's not digress on that now - we all know the story with current public education. It's about location, location, location)

If they are willing to work hard, we need them to be able to provide a good situation for the growth of their children. This is human capital. This is tomorrow's America.

Education and its reform is an important issue. But guess what? If we get economics right - and turn around the trend toward people falling out of the middle class, and increasing poverty, the education issue will go the other way. The bad schools are in unstable areas where there is too much poverty.

I feel that right wingers should be able to embrace this. For hard work, even unskilled hard work there should be decent pay.

THEN - insisting people work rather than receive welfare becomes an easier argument to make. But as things are now, if people aren't going to make enough to live decently on what they make with their work,...we have a problem.

"We" don't have a problem.

Poor people have a problem.

The math says that conservatives can win with even 30% unemployment.

They only need 45% or so to stay in power and they get halfway there pandering to the fundies.

shrekgrinch says

You've been reading Ecotopia too much.

Right!

If kids are starving or something well TOUGH they should have planned better on how to polish the boots of a CEO for a few crusts of stale bread. The NATURAL ORDER is that the richest people are the smartest so they should get all the money and dole it out as the whim strikes them. We call this "survival of the fittest" and we worship it.

Bellingham Bob says

"We" don't have a problem.

Poor people have a problem.

But really it is our problem. If too many people are in prison, on welfare, or otherwise not being productive how can that be healthy for our future ? And what is the cost (including opportunity costs) ?

Is anyone really going to argue that by allowing wages to go down (while the cost of living stays where it is) we can get more of these people engaged in productive work ?

PersainCAT says

which is why we have charities, church givings, government aid to poor countries. Theres no denying humanity as a whole shouldn't give to the poor, the issue comes with unions who arent actually helping the poor. they are helping their organization of labor who are more then capable of(and in a place where they can) earning a live able wage.

I'm sorry this isn't the thread where we discuss RATIONALLY.

It's the thread where we screech TALKING POINTS and EXAGGERATE and GENERALIZE.

All union activity is engaged in by Mafiosi and deviants, for the purpose of gross corruption and result in NO GOOD WHATSOEVER.

All capitalism leads to the BEST POSSIBLE rainbows and unicorns outcome. Even your "churches" may actually be secretly socialist "progressive" entities that are suspect.

For reference see any post made by Shrek, that'll show you how it's done.

See how that works?

"The only thing in the middle of the road is a yellow line and flat animals".

PersainCAT says

the problem comes with defining DECENT pay, its a sliding scale that is LOCATION, and not STATE dependent.

No it's not really complex.

For any society, when you have LARGE wealth inequalities it is a destabilizing influence. The larger the gap becomes, the faster it grows as the ability of the top .1% to accrete is strengthened. The money and influence eventually makes it untenable. The illusion of mobility is shattered irrevocably and civil society starts to unravel.

So far the propaganda in the USA has obscured the facts:

Eventually it will become impossible to ignore despite the best PR "infotainment" money can buy.

When your CEO is making in an hour what you make in a year, you know you have arrived at a Banana Republic.

shrekgrinch says

That's what riot police and skull-cracking batons are for.

And there you have the best description of the endgame for our plutocracy.

marcus says

If too many people are in prison, on welfare, or otherwise not being productive how can that be healthy for our future ? And what is the cost (including opportunity costs) ?

Unemployment is 16%. Got too many people here as it is.

Can't throw 'em into wood chippers or scoop them up a la Soylent Green, but we can ignore them.

shrekgrinch says

That doesn't mean it is perfect...only that the alternatives are crappier than Capitalism.

So, any flaws in capitalism are just a "cost of greatness". Something we should brush under the rug and not speak of again. We certainly shouldn't DO anything about them. If anything, the flaws are probably the result of insufficient purity in following our capitalist dogma. So the solution to all minor nitpicks is be more sternly & puritanically capitalist.

Any flaws in anything else, are however glaring examples of their fundamental wrongness and why they should be torn down.

Yes, I do see how that works. Zealots always minimize the flaws in their own core beliefs & magnify them out of proportion in others. A CEO who spends millions on office redecoration and jets to Monaco for brunch, that's not wasteful at all. Whereas some schlub who got a $50K food inspection post is WASTE of the worst kind and proves we don't need the FDA.

thunderlips11 says

The Wealthy started a class war in the US in the 70s

http://reclaimdemocracy.org/corporate_accountability/powell_memo_lewis.html

PersainCAT says

that why this issue is complex u start geting into how do u define who should earn what where based on location and cost of living. do u define a person in new york city to earn $15 an hour but a guy in Newark to earn $10 as a minimum wage...that just encourages a 6 hour commute. Or do u SET a state minimum wage of $15 an hour so the in the the cascades is now overpaid.

get rid of the rent-seeking and we wouldn't need a minimum wage.

PersainCAT says

how do u manage that, if there no rent then the choice is government housing or a house....seems like a tough choice

it seems this way because we suck at government, and that we have government create public housing only for poor people.

As for "no rent", that would not be my aim. Just that the site value of rental property -- the ground rent -- should go to government rather than landlords.

If we did that then government could invest more in housing alternatives, like what they do in the nordic countries and Germany.

But that's ~socialism~ and thus a pipe dream here. Might as well be talking about sidewalks to the moon.

PersainCAT says

when your rent is 300 a month and u can walk everywhere 10k a year is more than enough money.

Really? What decade are you posting this comment from ?

PersainCAT says

He and 4 guys rent a 3 bedroom house. One guy lives in each bedroom and 2 split the basement.

Oh "living like a college student" rent. Sure, people can do that. They can also move back in with their parents. However that is not what people generally aspire to.

PersainCAT says

if u work solely as a walmart greeter you shouldn't be able to support a family of 4 no matter what the union demands.

Walmart is non-union. No Walmart greeter is going to be supporting a family of 4 without a lot of help. It's Libertopia!

PersainCAT says

which is part of why walmart is a successful business with a large amount of profits.

If a family of leeches drain their host of blood until they are in a coma, are they "successful"? Apparently.

I don't post for weeks sometimes. I'm just at home sick and patrick.net is one of my diversions. How long have you had this impression random internet strangers are stalking you?

The eponymous Walmart Greeter salary seems to run $13K-$15K. Even your college-kid frathouse rent of $300 represents an unsustainable fraction of that income. Not sure how they'd save anything for a rainy day unless they are dumpster diving for food. The first unexpected expense of any kind means wipeout.

PersainCAT says

When making 12k-13k a year i dont see how 300 a month is unsustainable.

I consider maximum rent/paycheck ratio is 28% which is right where you are. I'm assuming your takehome is actually 13,000 a year which is 1083/month. I've lived in that range myself but I didn't have healthcare, no family dependencies.

Also I think you're going to have about $200 a month withheld, so we're really talking $883/month. Maybe you get some back at the end of the year, but resolutions to save the tax return usually meet some end-of-year need like paying of Christmas credit card bills or whatnot.

Ever had a relative have a medical emergency that needs people to chip in? No? How much are you managing to save at the end of the year out of that? In my case it was zero. I enjoyed it but it DETRACTED from retirement planning and life wealth. This level is right about where the oligarchy would like you to live of course, minimum wage and just about nothing in the bank, and at the end of your working life toddle off to the "retirement center". Remember consumers, Tuesday is Soylent Green Day.

Certainly there are those that can make a dollar last longer...others go to extremes. Mike Boyle did an odd experiment of living without money.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/green-living-blog/2009/nov/02/cashless-man-responds

There is no doubt that unions fight for better pay and bennies for their members...they have to as that's the point. But I find it to be a bit odd when they ask for amounts that are WAY up there to the point where it is not sustainable.

Recently it was announced that GM will reopen it's Spring Hill TN plant. If it sounds familiar it is because it was where Saturn was launched. This time the starting wage will be not $28/hr but $15.
www.tennessean.com/article/20110925/BUSINESS/309250059/Displaced-GM-workers-ready-come-home?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|Business

Another example is Las Vegas where it was not unheard of 10 years ago to have hotel housekeeping staff making 50k a year. Since it is largely a serviced based economy it is dependent on labor.

On a side note
Some of the irony that exists in the economy today is that there are countless companies that did not thinking of trying to maintain their customers. I had a boss once that tried to tell us to sell to the point of getting them broke. The following week he announced orders were cancelled because we didn't qualify the customer! We all know banks lend more than they think that they need to. But since so much was dependent on suburbia that few thought about any ways to help make it sustainable.

PersainCAT says

The point is that it doesn't take a union worker making $35 an hour to work in a paper mill,

When I look up "paper mill union wages" I find stories like this one:

http://bangordailynews.com/2010/02/08/business/madawaska-union-accepts-85-pay-cut/

Where unions accept cuts and give up something to keep the enterprise going. Where's the story where executives surrender their bonus and stock options? Most have the WRONG SIDE labelled intransigent and entitled.

I'm sure CEO's would like it best if all workers could live your "17 to 25" lifestyle their entire lives. Some however actually get MARRIED at 19. Some do unfortunately get older than 25, then what? Fire 'em and hire only single young people. Yes let's just add that to the interview process, an age check and sterilization.