Cheesehead Revolution?

[waterpipe]

I worked for a major corporation, your hourly wage is gaged by the average wage earner within that locality. If you don't like unions then expect your area to be low income. That's Capitalism all tied up in a somber little package called competitive job wages. Now unions have their share of problems, and that is called people. Just like in every other venture when people are involved, and when there are problems, you get something that is clasified as human nature. So union, government, bankers, factory workers all alike you have human nature. These days defining locality has grown a bit. Now that includes the engineer working in India for 15.00 to 20.00 an hour. Today corporations want your salaries or hourly wages to be competitive with India or soon China. Some also like the Governor of Milwaukee might also wish human rights to be much more competitive and equal to China, that is called global economy.

[mustafabey]

I guess what concerns me these days is the uncertainty. I am retired living on social security and a small investment account. When I first retired, things were fine financially, then came the housing bubble bust and my investment account took a massive hit.So today, any threat of social security reductions(2 years of no COLA has hurt), any threat on the financial markets(Libya and oil now fueling speculation) Gas goes over 4 bucks a gallon and my dates with my girlfriend diminsh.seems we all have reasons to gripe, reasons to reinforce whatever political viewpoint we support. Our views(mine least wise) are fueled by a media that promotes fear of the uncertain,be it financial collapse,terrorism or governmental chaos. So i am new to politics, my first election that i voted in was 1996. Before that I was living in a very closed world of bars,party and drugs that successively got worse, but I was plastered so who cared. I read a lot of history and generations before me have had the same fears and paranoias in the past. But, all in all, the world is still a lot easier today that it was in the past. No plagues, hordes of barbarians to vex us,no forced labor,slavery or serfdom,more material possessions than ever in human history.The robber barons have always existed, and,it seems in the long run have always won. No governmental system has existed that hasn't decayed into a haves and have not situation. Revolutions come, but where do they lead? How many of these nations experiencing the "Arab spring" are going to wind with a stable democratic government that respects the needs of the people.

Waterpipe said:"Today corporations want your salaries or hourly wages to be competitive with India or soon China. Some also like the Governor of Milwaukee might also wish human rights to be much more competitive and equal to China, that is called global economy."

And that may be the jist of it. Globalisation is going to eventually level the playing field, at least for awhile. As cheaper labor and less concern for individual feeds profits,corporations are going to abandon the United States for more lucrative pastures. And human rights is part of this equation. things are changing so rapidly that new solutions need to be found. Roosevelt battled depression with tools that won't work today for a variety of reasons. There's no vision in government today, at least no vision for the people. The government seems not to care about creating jobs, stimulus money goes to the favorite special interest group. The billions of new dollars the Treasury Dept printed hasn't found its way to the hills of Virginia yet.
David Frum as conservative commentator on CNN wrote an opinion which has some truths in it. At least regarding the current unemployment situation.[url="http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/02/22/frum.jobless.youth/index.html?hpt=C2"]CNN David Frum[/url]
Everybody agrees the system is broken,but like a wounded animal, the vultures circle to pick at choice morsels when medical treatment might save the patient.

[TheScotsman]

[quote name='mustafabey' timestamp='1298471845' post='499029']
I guess what concerns me these days is the uncertainty. I am retired living on social security and a small investment account. When I first retired, things were fine financially, then came the housing bubble bust and my investment account took a massive hit.So today, any threat of social security reductions(2 years of no COLA has hurt), any threat on the financial markets(Libya and oil now fueling speculation) Gas goes over 4 bucks a gallon and my dates with my girlfriend diminsh.seems we all have reasons to gripe, reasons to reinforce whatever political viewpoint we support. Our views(mine least wise) are fueled by a media that promotes fear of the uncertain,be it financial collapse,terrorism or governmental chaos. So i am new to politics, my first election that i voted in was 1996. Before that I was living in a very closed world of bars,party and drugs that successively got worse, but I was plastered so who cared. I read a lot of history and generations before me have had the same fears and paranoias in the past. But, all in all, the world is still a lot easier today that it was in the past. No plagues, hordes of barbarians to vex us,no forced labor,slavery or serfdom,more material possessions than ever in human history.The robber barons have always existed, and,it seems in the long run have always won. No governmental system has existed that hasn't decayed into a haves and have not situation. Revolutions come, but where do they lead? How many of these nations experiencing the "Arab spring" are going to wind with a stable democratic government that respects the needs of the people.

Waterpipe said:"Today corporations want your salaries or hourly wages to be competitive with India or soon China. Some also like the Governor of Milwaukee might also wish human rights to be much more competitive and equal to China, that is called global economy."

And that may be the jist of it. Globalisation is going to eventually level the playing field, at least for awhile. As cheaper labor and less concern for individual feeds profits,corporations are going to abandon the United States for more lucrative pastures. And human rights is part of this equation. things are changing so rapidly that new solutions need to be found. Roosevelt battled depression with tools that won't work today for a variety of reasons. There's no vision in government today, at least no vision for the people. The government seems not to care about creating jobs, stimulus money goes to the favorite special interest group. The billions of new dollars the Treasury Dept printed hasn't found its way to the hills of Virginia yet.
David Frum as conservative commentator on CNN wrote an opinion which has some truths in it. At least regarding the current unemployment situation.[url="http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/02/22/frum.jobless.youth/index.html?hpt=C2"]CNN David Frum[/url]
Everybody agrees the system is broken,but like a wounded animal, the vultures circle to pick at choice morsels when medical treatment might save the patient.
[/quote]

Well, it really appears that the unions would be more than happy to throw everyone on Social Security under the bus if in return they could hand there already overpaid and over benefited workers yet one more small handful of your money. in the end, the only definite factor that we can count on is that the piggy bank is empty, the credit cards are past due, and we're at the point now where the Federal Reserve is monetizing our own debt. Simply put we have no money. Those clueless twits can fill the capital stomp their feet. Their little signs and chants all they want ... The bank account is empty. The balance is zero. The red ink is everywhere. In an attempt to hide this from the average numbskull walking the streets the government has taken to some rather, shall we say, unorthodox accounting methods. After all you're putting your faith in a group of people who are trying to tell you that there is almost no inflation, which by their standards is statistically accurate, since they don't include fuel and food. We have a government that brags about unemployment numbers dropping, but not bothering to tell you they're dropping his people are giving up. That's helpful.

You do make a really good point regarding globalization and a globalized economy, but what the idiots marching in the streets don't realize is that in that global economy the poorest most rundown backwoods destroyed neighborhood in the USA is popularized by people who are in the upper 10% of income worldwide. That makes them the rich in the world economy. So if it's economic justice you want, on a global scale it's time to give up that Social Security, man! because what you're getting in one month is 100 times with some poor resident. of the Congo is going to make. and therefore all going to be socialists now and start spreading the wealth, we may as well start with the parts of society there producing little. Now, don't go get all bent out of shape, I mean this more as a way to point out the lunacy of socio-economic justice in a globalized system.

I really think I'd have a much easier time siding with the protesters/strikers whatever you want to call them in this case if they weren't a bunch of teachers. In case you haven't guessed I have very little empathy towards the indoctrination mob that passes for teachers. Nationwide they're doing a lousy job, each and every one of them will have 1 million excuses why it's not the fault of the teachers/teachers unions when the USA has some of the most pathetic scores in the world among technologically advanced nations. But we do have some of the highest levels of self-esteem---a bunch of people who feel good about themselves and are too dumb to realize their dumb.

thank you teachers

America made a promise to workers through the 50s and 60s 70's on into the 780s that Social Security would take care of them. That obligation has to be fulfilled in a proper manner. From the 90s on, anyone under 50 that expected to get Social Security was and is a complete idiot. Musty, people in your generation work through the system and expect it to do what was promised to do. That's all we need to live up to as a nation. Now in the case of a bunch of teachers do want to go throw a temper tantrum because the majority of the people in the state voted to cut the budget, well, that's the breaks. Or, as our president said, elections have consequences and we won. If the teachers hate it so bad, why don't they go find a new job? hell, with all that competition in the marketplace the Ranni keeps talking about, there must be a whole boatload of other jobs that will pay them equally well, give them 100% of their benefits paid, allow them to work 20 years then retire with full pension-only to go get a new job and double dip after another 20 years. Give me a break. at this point, something has to give economically. Where would we you make cuts? If every little special-interest group, or union is going to stomp their feet and carry on like a bunch of babies over even the most minor changes, we are completely screwed.

Collective bargaining and unions don't insure that those with higher skills or more abilities make him pay commensurate with those skills. Collective bargaining does nothing but guarantee that the guy that shows up drunk half the time, late, with very little abilities gets to freeload and earn a wage that he does not deserve on the backs of those truly skilled and intelligent workers that are the ones really making the money for the company. Without unions and collective bargaining people get paid what they're worth because there is competition for those workers. Not the other way around. Unions do however guarantee a stagnant wages an area, a stagnant job market, and little advancement for the truly good workers just beginning. This isn't the 1920s, this country doesn't need the union dinosaur any longer. one of the best examples I can think of; there are a lot of cars manufactured in the United States, for some reason only those car companies loaded up with union workers needed my tax dollars to float their deadbeat asses. If unions are so good, why did other companies manufacturing cars in United States, such as Volkswagen, Diamler, Toyota, Subaru, Honda, BMW, Hyundai, Kia, Mazda, Mitsubishi, AM Gen. not show up and beg for a bunch of free tax money to keep afloat? simple, their nonunion, they don't have the inherently high manufacturing "union tax" and legacy costs associated with the union.

Yes, in a global economy it will get sorted out, unfortunately from the evidence we have at this point there is no doubt that the union worker in the United States is not going to come out on top. Even more, that union worker is going to drag United States down into the abyss out of his own greed.

They should all be canned. Declare it an illegal work walkout, fire them, put a probationary hold on their teaching certificate from the state. Since teachers go through a background check in order to work with children, I would like to see how theft by fraud, and conspiracy to commit fraud ( both of which they're doing the fake doctors notes) would allow them to continue to work with children. They need firing. oh, and in case I forgot the state should fire them.

[Rani]

Yeah, Scotsman, that teacher issue is a sticking point for me too, because really there are plenty out there who don't do a good enough job in my opinion, but I do stick with the statement that we expect too much of them. Any child whose parents want them to get a good eduction will have one. Not so for the kid whose parents just throw them into school while barely checking to see if they even did their homework.

I will say it is a complete misconception that bad union employees can't be fired. It's only one step more difficult that you firing anybody in any non-union shop. A termination hearing. That's it. If you can show they are not doing the job, they're gone. Hell, if you claim you can't afford the position anymore they're gone. The protections are no greater than for a private employee who uses the Department of Labor as his representation. Really, it's that easy. I worked for a City that fired people left and right and we were all union. No more recourse than any other worker in any private company. So it's really not the union that creates the stalemate about getting rid of bad workers. It's the employer who doesn't bother to write up the worker and then terminate them upon second violation.

'Rani

[mustafabey]

There are shitty teachers and great ones, always were, always will be. There used to be a saying,if you're not good at what you were educated in then teach. So you always get those kind, can't make it in the business world or are lazy. Then you have super dedicated ones who you carry with you all you life,ones who made a difference. I think whats happening is the whole education system has failed. There has been great effort to deal with social issues rather than education.Kids who don't learn well are labelled special ed and warehoused, promoted socially and no effort is made to find what the kid might be good at. Here in Virginia we have SOL's , state mandated guidelines on what a kid should learn, everyone is tested and schools ranked accordingly. So teachers teach kids to pass the test. My G/F is in special ed and brings home horror stories of laziness and incompetence. Her boss "has something" on the principal, so she gets away with things that would get people fired anywhere else. Now I don't know about other schools but it seems politics and favoritism run riot. Maybe it always has.
As for unions, my experience was with one small time restaurant union in New York. Now, the restaurant biz is not an above board legal business. Most dishwashers and porters are illegals. When we wanted to fire an employee for cause, the union responded that if we wanted to follow the letter of the law so would they, and threatened us about our illegal labor.But whats going on in Wisconsin is not about whether teachers are good or unions are bad,its about collective bargaining which keeps the worker's salaries competitive. Loss of collective bargaining, as Rani said, would destroy whats left of the American work force. Nobody cries for the liitle guy anymore,trying to keep his head above water. All the Whinese I hear spoken today is about the downtrodden rich and the evils inflicted on business by government. Obama, in his campaign used the phrase wealth redistribution and the right screamed commie all the way to the bank,yet today I heard that sales on preexisting houses has increased, due to a large amount of cash sales.So we over mortaged the poor, took them to foreclosure, then bought up the property cheap, if thats not wealth redistribution, then what is?The whole housing bubble was a criminal scam perpetrated by the banks,Wall st and the insurance companies who insured the mortgages. The only ones that lost were the poor saps that owned the property and unsuspecting millions of small investors and pension plans that unknowingly bought worthless investments. No body went to jail,in fact alot of them got great jobs in the Treasury Dept and are probably planning to pull off another ripoff. After all if they screw up, we bail them out. Nobodies bailing out the foreclosed home owner or the pensioner who lost his security.
Scotty, I hear what you say about us old farts that invested in the system back in the day, but I'm sorry, I don't trust these robbers to give anyone anything. If they can figure out how to take my social security, they're gonna do it. You,Rani and I are,all three of us, of Native American blood and we should know a thing or two about government promises. Governments didn't commit genocide here all alone. Railroads, real estate barons, mineral miners etc all profited my the demise of our people. There's no one left to rip off anymore besides the American middle class, and maybe we won't get to levels of Zimbabwe, but we sure are going to see more of the third world right here in the good ole US of A.
Oh yeah gas prices are going up. Libya doesn't supply us with very much crude,it supplies Europe, so why do our gas prices go up.?

[mustafabey]

Here's an interesting opinion on this topic from CNN

[url="http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/02/24/fantasia.union.wisconsin/index.html?hpt=C2"]Working class waterloo[/url]

[Rani]

By the way, I remembered something this morning back from my time as a public servant. I'm thinking that while I'm willing to consider that unions may have truly served their purpose in the private workplace, I'm not certain they shouldn't be strong in public employment. You actually have far fewer protections in public employment without the unions than you do in private industry. Did you know for example that employees do not have to be paid overtime in public service? They give you time into your "time off bank" but you don't get paid for it at the federally required overtime rate.

So what protections do these employees have if not their unions when our government offices, local through federal, can set their own rules and don't have to conform? Think about your own city hall, county supervisors, or state and federal governments. Knowing now that they can get around the Labor laws every private business must follow, would you be willing to work for them with no protections at all in place? I wouldn't.

'Rani