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Interesting. Your Hudson Institute source completely contradicts your Jack Rasmus source as to how effective unions are at securing pension funding. Like, 180 degrees opposite.
I'm going to pretty much chalk up the other two sources as being just about as useful as posting Cato Institute sources, for obvious reasons.
Actually it was me taking the middle ground instead of being an extremist. They don't contradict each other at all they simply address different points.
Many union pensions are in trouble. It would be stupid to not admit that.
Many pensions and retirement programs across the board are in trouble -- it would be just as stupid to ignore this and say it's only an union problem.
Also to say, "Well unions always do bad evil things" is just as stupid as saying, "All corporations are evil monoliths that want to crush and control everything and will do anything they want in order to get their way including breaking the law" -- even with all the evidence that such is true.
However I can easily see that talking to you is much like talking to Fox News -- it doesn't matter what is said you'll hear what you want.
All I'm saying is that we're doing it wrong. I like how they do it in Germany. That's it.
All I'm saying is that we're doing it wrong. I like how they do it in Germany. That's it.
Well I can agree to that.
To me your posts looked a lot like dumping on unions and hand-waving anything that suggested otherwise, or anything that pointed out this isn't an union only or union specific problem. Perhaps that wasn't the intent though.
I was in a union recently and it was very... bizarre. We (the union) would come up with a position that would save money and present it and the company would nix it out of hand. In some cases it would have reduced the number of employees that were needed in the building, however we were okay with this because of a couple of reasons:
1. Turn over for the specific jobs was very high, reducing the number of people needed for it (and the amount of over all difficulty of the job) would mean there would be a higher chance of retention.
2. The cost savings could be put to more useful things (a better job training program for example).
3. We understood that without the company there wasn't a job, helping the company could help ourselves and lets face it, was a great PR move (look we aren't the company's enemies, see how we are trying to help it save money sort of thing).
The company turned down idea after idea that would not have cost anything to implement instead spending money on new machinery that didn't work and was a square peg for a round hole.
Every other job I've worked at has been non-union and to be sure I have plenty of complaints in general about how those worked too. One company simply changed vacation policy without any agreement from the workers and said, "Get over it or get a different job." After said workers had broken production records for the fifth straight year. The company asked for 105% efficiency and we consistently manage 118%~120% for those years and worked enough overtime for them to increase our take home from 33k to 50k. Along with destroying the vacation policy they also made it harder to get a day off (it went from 3 weekends worked to get 1 off to 20 days for 1 day off) and then blamed another company for the change (which turned out to be a lie).
PATCO: They did break the law. Of course, Taft-Hartley was bad law as well (loyalty tests? really?), but, what can you do?
They could have repealed it during Carter (Dem pres, Dem congress), Clinton (first two years, Dem pres, Dem congress) and Obama (ditto his first two years). But they didn't.
Well, I have to go to work in a bit, so briefly:
I find the first part odd from someone who sometimes refers to his political views as anarchist. And while I can understand the somewhat racist equation of Bakunin's "destroy in order to create" dictum with goblindom, personally, if I were to be an anarchist, it would be more along the lines of IWW- or Friends of Durutti-style syndicalism.
Second part: Why would the Democrats have repealed Taft-Hartley? First, I believe the bill passed with Democratic support (albeit over Truman's veto). Second, the Dems are just as much the party of big capital as the Repubs. The last thing either party wants is unions hot-cargoing struck goods and engaging in secondary strikes.
These are the tactics that built the labor movement in the thirties. The Dems were smart enough to realize that American capitalism was on very shaky grounds and passed a bunch of laws after a bunch of communist-led Teamsters, longshoremen and rubber workers all launched general strikes in 1934 (real ones, not like the faux one recently in Oakland in which the unions didn't even call for their members to not go to work), but as soon as the crisis was over and WWII was done (there were national "no-strike" pledges during the war), they defanged labor right quick.
Imho, the unions mostly neutered themselves when they accepted the NLRB as a neutral arbitrator of last recourse between labor and capital. Which was the Dems' goal all along.
More to be said, of course, but I've got to go shower now.
Oh, re: PATCO: The union-busting Reagan carried out was a plan that was drawn-up by the Carter administration.
The evidence is there, however. It HAS been done across a wide variety of industries- in fact I'm willing to say every industry in this country. Some do it to greater extents than others, however. I mean, I'm not conspiracy theorist, but where is your evidence to the contrary?Corporations back the Republicans! PROVE ME WRONG.
Well, of course corporations are making significant donations to the Republican Party. It's not all of them acting in one bloc with one set of interests, and it's not even all of them donating to the Republican Party. Corporations are a heterogenous set and have heterogenous interests.
I am fairly certain, however, that none of them intend to destroy the US public education system in order to import educated employees from another country, because that would be a retarded plan by Bond villain standards.
I don't recall saying that they were trying to destroy anything, friend, just that it's more economical for corporations to bring in people from outside of the country instead of hiring locally.
A 6th grade education is fine for most of their workers.And this is the point where you just sound silly. Not only is this not true, but there are many knock-on benefits from a generally higher level of education for these corporations, like universities, research, technology, inventions, richer consumers, stronger middle class, etc. in the US.
On top of this, lobbyists are, often as not, also consultants. They don't just lobby politicians, but they are also bright and knowledgeable enough and actually expected to say, "Hey, not only is no politician who wants to get reelected going to go for your Bond villain plan, but you may actually want to have a word with a sociologist or something before trying to put in effect. Just a tip."
Actually, a lot of the knowledge gained in 6-8 is the vital information- particularly in the areas of math and history- that we forget later on in life and rue doing so.
I know it flies in the face of what you think is common sense, but where it has been tried Tort reform does not lower the cost of insuring a person. Nor does it lower the costs of actually providing the healthcare. Yes, that does mean there are other problems. It also suggests that tort reform isn't a solution. That we shouldn't start with the thing that doesn't work and then look for other things. Maybe we should look at other countries who have lower costs and better outcomes?
With your logic, if a crab mallet won't knock down a brick wall, don't even bother trying a sledge hammer or a wrecking ball. That would never work.
Nor do you win huge sums of money in malpractice cases when the doctor wasn't perfect. You win huge sums when the doctor did something egregiously wrong. Are there exceptions? Sure. The system isn't perfect. Some get money that they shouldn't. Some don't get money that they should.
Doctors are singled out as a culprit and disproportionately attacked because their errors cause harm to actual people. Doctors do their very best to take care of us. They shouldn't be scared to death of making a mistake. Let's attack whatever the problem is that causes a hundred thousand malpractice deaths a year instead of villainizing doctors. Of course, we could just go without their services. I'm sure that would be much more preferable.
When you're looking for a lousy job to get off of unemployment and have a devastated credit rating, you can't get a job unless they're desperate to hire.
Is there an echo in here?
The problem is that your solution is laughable.
Not only will it not significantly affect health insurance costs at all, not only will it leave people who are genuinely wronged by doctor negligence or error without any recourse whatsoever (except a free coupon for a procedure to try and fix it, I guess), but it doesn't address why malpractice suits need to exist in the first place. If medical procedures are a business transaction, then medical providers are liable for the damage inflicted by their negligence, so that victims aren't stuck with the bills for someone else's negligence! If I'm put in a wheelchair for the rest of my life because of a hospital's negligence, then not only do I have the bills for whatever procedure to contain the damage from that error, but I also have the loss of income and various other expenses from being in a wheelchair for the rest of my life.
Maybe you should define exactly what you feel is negligence. I agree that if a doctor smokes crack right before a risky surgery and totally fraks someone up, they should pay dearly for it and hopefully never practice medicine again. I also understand how easy it could be for any human being to make a simple mistake during a complicated surgery. There's a huge difference between the two as the former has to be incredibly rare. There's no way that a hundred thousand people a year die because doctors are smoking crack. I'm guessing that 99% comes from the latter group.
Your tort reform lowers the cost of malpractice insurance at the cost of telling people who suffer from malpractice to suck it up. I'm assuming you're completely unaware that this is the case, because if you aren't, that'd be a stunning lack of human compassion.
Suck it up! Your vagina is not worth $3 million.
It's not as though private schools don't exist to experiment with these models. If they're so vastly superior ...
There you go again. I argue that people should have a choice on where their tax dollars go and you're hopping on the Jump to Conclusions mat.
... (they're not, Montessori education is massively influential in American education as it is, but whatever, no sense letting facts get in the way) ...
Facts ... huh? What are you blabbering ... oh, never mind.
... did your children not go to them because you couldn't afford them? Were you exactly $3000 short? [bs deleted] ... what about all the parents who are more than $3000 short? Screw them?
So screw me, then? Do you have any idea how hypocritical you're being? A poor person would get this $3000 and would probably even more state funded financial assistance (like they do now) that would likely cover the rest. So I pay $3000/year and likely have an option close enough to not add another $2500+ in gas and the poor get to go there for free. So you're screwing us both over. Good job. Glad you thought that one through.
People overstrain their resources (through misjudgement or accident), and lose access to necessities. The loss of access to necessities creates new strains. These new strains, plus the new misjudgements or accidents they can cause, make it harder or even impossible to pay for needs. It's not an inescapable death spiral, but it can be a death spiral.Frogboy wrote:
Can't you just tell me? It might be a while before I have time to not only volunteer at a homeless shelter but to interview everyone there.
I don't know how an adult can't know this.
Welfare covers most of these people and even provides home for them if it's working properly. What's the most common reason(s) why people become chronically homeless?
Okay, so you assume that I want to screw the people who are really in need when I say that people shouldn't be able to free-load off the system.What does "freeload" mean in this context?
Because to me, it means "get something for nothing." And yes. I think they should get something for nothing. That is what welfare is, free support because you cannot afford needs or necessities, so that you don't spiral into homelessness and oblivion. That is why those systems exist.
It means someone getting money from the system that they don't deserve. People who live off the state permanently when they don't need to.
Why do you think America rates so poorly on those international ratings? Do you think it's because families in wealthy areas are somehow getting shortchanged? Or because too many families living poor areas with schools that can't manage a decent graduation rate?
Why implement a system that makes life even better for the former, while making life worse for the latter?
You say that poor people are currently being screwed and are afraid that we'd somehow be screwing them even more. But you fail to see that we could be providing a more specialized education that's tailored to fit the needs any category of child. But let's just lump them all together into one inefficient group and teach them all the same exact way. And if you live in a really poor district where kids actually get killed at school, sorry, this is what's best for you and every other child that lives around here.
I don't recall saying that they were trying to destroy anything, friend, just that it's more economical for corporations to bring in people from outside of the country instead of hiring locally.For one, you weren't, but BigNorseWolf was, and you were stepping in to defend his argument that corporate greed was leading to that (insane) plan.
This is silly. Unless someone is going to offer some evidence that any corporation anywhere is intending to destroy public schools because they think importing workers is more efficient, it's not worth dignifying this conspiracy theory with a response any more.
Yeah I'm all for blaming corporations and greed in general for a lot of things but I don't think it's a purposeful attack by corporations on public education.
Truthfully public education trends cheaper than private and education as a whole would probably by rather difficult to turn a profit on, so I can't see a reason for a corporation to do attack public education. Especially since most jobs today require at least the ability to read and do some level of significant math.
Also trends on employee pay the world over stay pretty mixed. Yes in the USA it has been trending downward, but I would suggest this has more to do with the perceived need to always have growth and increased profit returns (and grow beyond expectations) than any direct attack on workers. It's simply 'corporation overlords' trying to 'reduce expenses' at every single turn without regard to what this means for those below them or their products.
While the rest of your post, and most other posts in this thread, have been utter crap, I have to single out this bunch of b**~!&%!.
It's nice to know that we can respectfully edify one another with spirited conversation about principles and beliefs. You know, without insults and personal, inflammatory remarks that don't actually address proffered arguments.
F@%$ing what? Oh this old yarn. Teachers ONLY work 9 months a year. Closer to 10, but who's counting. Also they routinely work 50+ hour weeks. And have a higher level of education that the average kid's parents, I'm betting. Why would you bemoan the fact that they make a solid middle-class salary? Seriously, what do you hope to accomplish by pointing out that, oh no, college educated professionals make slightly more than you can get working fast food?
I recommend reading and then thinking about someone's post before reaponding to it. I know it's not for everyone, but I think you should give it a shot.
Teachers working between nine and ten months would be, as they say, close enough for governemnt work. Hardly a distinction worthy of an f*bomb, and you getting blood pressure up over the easily understood point that average teacher salary in this country is median for educated careers, average teacher benefits are significantly higher, and average teacher workload is significantly lower. Let's say for a minute that teachers really do work 50 hour weeks. We used to have a quip for restaurant managers - if you're working 50-60 hours per week, why do your stores suck? Controllables out, stores dirty, service bad, training not getting done, quality mediocre, not profitable. What's getting done in all that time if the actual work is not getting done?
There are people working 50 hour weeks for less pay and much less or no benefits to make ends meet. As Coulter points out, there's not a Presidential Plumber of the Year or Turret Lathe Difference Maker of the Year. The auto mechanic industry doesn't routinely take 6-9 weeks off per year. And if they work 50 hours, they are clocked in and out. And if the plumbing/steel-cutting/engine re-assembling isn't done right or on time, they can be fired. If our kids are sagging in comparison to other countries the longer they are in school, what's getting done in all those 50-hour weeks? And can we punch them in and out so we can track their time management? Get them on an accountability program that ends in either stability or termination? Cut standard pay and benefits so that teachers who DO work long hours and who DO contribute to free-thinking, intelligent generations get paid more?
I don't bemoa what teachers make at all. I bemoan their bemoaning how little they make, which is not an honest argument. You've not seen me say 'teachersmake too much'. You've seen me say 'teachers aren't getting it done', 'teachers aren't making too little', and 'money doesn't solve the problem'.
Yes, let's take sex ed out of the schools so that religious nutbags can refuse to teach them about sex. Weren't you just talking about being born poor and single mothers and stuff? Yeah that happens when you don't have a rigorous sex ed program. Seriously what is the argument against having sex ed in school?
We are back to reading and thinking. You'll notice I said that it's the parents' job to teach sex education to kids, and not the government's. The current method uses up taxpayer resources to handle something the government doesn't need to address. I wonder, by definition, what is a religious nutbag? Is there some objecive quality that I'm not living up to? Does my love for roleplaying games and the fact that I do, in fact, teach my kids about sex, abstainence, pregnancy, contraception, etc, mark me as somehow different from the other religious nubags? Or is that just an ad hominem slur with no basis in reality, to defend a practice that isn't constitutionally sound, and which has no measurable standard of success, unless it's to increase pregnancy and tear up the traditional family? Since we don't have any money to run our government and our schools are failures, maybe we should be asking 'What is the argument for wasting time and money on sex education in schools?' Maybe if they had more homework....
Are you seriously intent on suggesting that incidences of teen pregnancy and single motherhood are lower now than before sex education was widely taught in schools? You can't be.
Honestly, the biggest obstacle to teachers are the parents. Not directly, but in that they DON'T actively participate and encourage intellectual and personal growth, that they DO impart all sorts of weird preconceived notions on their children that become hurdles to actual education. It doesn't really help that a household relies on two incomes nowadays for the same level of prosperity as opposed to 30-40 years ago.
Parents should be involved in education. You get more involvement when you a) stay away from social policies that inflate the cost of living and doing business, and b) don't excuse parents from parenting responsibilities by pushing your way into their roles. Give someone more food stamps than they need, and they will sell them illegally for cash instead of get a job and get off the program. Tell parents they can't stop their kids from having sex and don't have to have that uncomfortable conversation, and it is inescable that increasing numbers of parents will abdicate as expected. Every government seizure of personal responsibility increases both thresholds: that culture expects government to provide more, and that they feel expected to provide less.
PATCO: They did break the law. Of course, Taft-Hartley was bad law as well (loyalty tests? really?), but, what can you do? They could have repealed it during Carter (Dem pres, Dem congress), Clinton (first two years, Dem pres, Dem congress) and Obama (ditto his first two years). But they didn't.
When you start breaking strikes, especially from a federal goverment level, things get ugly quickly.
Quote:
Yes, let's take sex ed out of the schools so that religious nutbags can refuse to teach them about sex. Weren't you just talking about being born poor and single mothers and stuff? Yeah that happens when you don't have a rigorous sex ed program. Seriously what is the argument against having sex ed in school?
We are back to reading and thinking. You'll notice I said that it's the parents' job to teach sex education to kids, and not the government's. The current method uses up taxpayer resources to handle something the government doesn't need to address. I wonder, by definition, what is a religious nutbag? Is there some objecive quality that I'm not living up to? Does my love for roleplaying games and the fact that I do, in fact, teach my kids about sex, abstainence, pregnancy, contraception, etc, mark me as somehow different from the other religious nubags? Or is that just an ad hominem slur with no basis in reality, to defend a practice that isn't constitutionally sound, and which has no measurable standard of success, unless it's to increase pregnancy and tear up the traditional family? Since we don't have any money to run our government and our schools are failures, maybe we should be asking 'What is the argument for wasting time and money on sex education in schools?' Maybe if they had more homework....
Are you seriously intent on suggesting that incidences of teen pregnancy and single motherhood are lower now than before sex education was widely taught in schools? You can't be.
Considering this is part of the field I'm sorta kinda going into, I'll see if I can get any information on this. I'm willing to bet that the correlation between education level and number of children had out of wedlock or in general is solid, though.
I don't recall saying that they were trying to destroy anything, friend, just that it's more economical for corporations to bring in people from outside of the country instead of hiring locally.For one, you weren't, but BigNorseWolf was, and you were stepping in to defend his argument that corporate greed was leading to that (insane) plan.
This is silly. Unless someone is going to offer some evidence that any corporation anywhere is intending to destroy public schools because they think importing workers is more efficient, it's not worth dignifying this conspiracy theory with a response any more.
It's not a conspiracy theory when it's actually happening in considerable numbers.
Are you seriously intent on suggesting that incidences of teen pregnancy and single motherhood are lower now than before sex education was widely taught in schools? You can't be.
Much of your reply to AMiB isn't unsound, but this part -- I would ask you if you're seriously suggesting, implying, or otherwise finding a causal relationship between sex ed in public schools and teen pregnancy/single motherhood rates.
Cos that's certainly how this reads, which strikes me as no less ludicrous a claim.
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PATCO: They did break the law. Of course, Taft-Hartley was bad law as well (loyalty tests? really?), but, what can you do? They could have repealed it during Carter (Dem pres, Dem congress), Clinton (first two years, Dem pres, Dem congress) and Obama (ditto his first two years). But they didn't.When you start breaking strikes, especially from a federal goverment level, things get ugly quickly.
They were striking illegally, refused to consider the FAA's counter proposal (shorter work week, 10% increase in pay, other considerations, as opposed to a $10,000 a year increase across the board) and threatened to shut down an entire industry going through some tough times because of recent deregulation that allowed smaller carriers to compete (it allowed Southwest to start being more national instead of just servicing Texas, for one). This is when the lowest paid ATC was making $20k a year (about $48k now) and the highest paid were making $49k (over $100k now).
They weren't exactly hurting.
Federal employees should never be allowed to unionize, so all such strikes should always be broken.
I'm gonna pointout a few bad arguments, try once to set them right, and then leave this conversation. When you repeatedly ask folk to be respectful, and they increasingly have to use symbols to veil (meaning highlight) their profanity, they aren't listening. I'm trying to be better at abandoning conversation where the fight is the thing, and where people insist on turning one statement (poor people have kids they can't afford) into another (Steve must want to tell poor people how many kids they can have), there's no reason to hang around.
Corporations want smart people, but it's not their job to run public education, right? Controlling the cost of doing business isn't a crime, and it isn't immoral. Lobbying to prevent further mucking of the works isn't immoral, either. Bribery by corporations is not moral, and is not defensible, but then you couldn't bribe a government official if bureaucracy weren't so big someone would need and/or get away with a bribe. How did BP operate an unsafe drilling platform while accepting awards for safety? Bribe government officials and donate to their energy agenda. Want to eliminate corruption? Shrink bureaucracy. Want to eliminate lobbying and re-assign $billions to more productive use? Nix corporate taxation and simplify the tax code. Increase revenues, drop prices, build jobs and tax base, eliminate lobbying for tax consequences.
For everyone that has ever floated the horribly misunderstood argument about a millionaire paying less in taxes than his secretary: Paying a lower tax rate on your already-taxed capital gains (the actual example that Buffet used in this commonly repeated, rarely detailed little nugget of rhetoric) than your well-paid secretary (it only takes a reported income of $80k to be in the top 20% of earners) makes perfect sense. You got paid for assuming risk, employing people and guiding your company well, and then you took taxed personal money and reinvested it into a company whose profits are also taxed. The you pay a tax on the moeny that taxed money earns, even though as invested money might actually be worth a zero before those taxes are paid, and the taxes you pay on new profits might not have been possible without the reinvestment in the company you already own, that's already been taxed.
How did we create jobs, explode the internet, raise revenues and balance the budget with surplus? We reduced capital gains to 0 and cut spending. Reduce capial gaisn to 0 again and the amount the millionaire pays in taxes (and his income tax rate) will be higher than his secretary.
With respect to BNW, the socialist agenda you claim is old news is the very conversation we are having right now. Remember, we talked about money and govenrment in education, and my references were to seizing control of the culture and political aparatus through education. Appropot.
Minimum wage most hurts those who earn it. A restaurant employee makes minimum wage, which goes up. The restaurant was already straining reasonable labor costs and making a profit of 10% (a whopping HUGE number in any industry). Now it's making a profit of 8%. MW drives up the cost of produce and paper goods, so now inventory goes up. To cover increased costs and only lose a little bit of profit, the company raises it's prices. Now, people all over town are paying more to eat, which mitigates the increase in minimum wage. Less profitable (and therefore lower paying) restaurants (and other facilities) can't absorb the increased labor costs, so that employee who got the forced raise gets his hours cut. Prices go up, income stays the same or goes down. Happens all the time. I've managed businesses since minimum wage was $3.80. Has poverty been eliminated? Is minimum wage a family wage at over twice its previous value? Is it easier or harder for a small business to stay afloat today than in 1990? For a link that those who won't listen will fail to accept, check this out.
Also, BNW, I think you are more arguing for public education, and missing what was at least originally, my whole point: money is not the answer. I haven't advocated an end to public education. When you point out that most charter schools are government run schools, recall that my bringing up those schools is because they outperform with fewer funds, not because they aren't governemnt schools. The diffferent approach makes them better. As regards the arguemnt that they can unload useless kids, I think again it misses my point. You can't make someone learn something. You ahve to utilize teachers and methods that make learning attractive. Maybe if my oldest, or any of her friends, sucked it up at school, her charter would throw her back into the ocean. The point is actually that that won't ever happen. She learns, she learns several subjects, and she performs well where she didn't before. The change in school changed her performance and how she sees her education. If she gets bad grades, maybe the charter school unloads her to pad her stats. But then the reality is, her grades and scores IMPROVED when she joined the charter school. And for the rude people of the world, this is not anecdotal. She is by no means the only one.
I studied several pages and articles the last couple of days about the comparisons in test scores and demographics. I see that most pro-public education sites say the types of school perform about the same. I see that low-income and second-language students perform significantly better in charter schools, and that CREDO reports in 2005 that 17% of charter schools performed better than public counterparts, 37% performed not as well, and the rest on even ground. So, if 2/3 of charter schools are as good and 1/6 are better on less money, the answer must be that money is not the answer. I note finally that charter schools are at their worst in very blue cities, with the exception of New York, where they perform very admirably compared to counterparts.
Curious that the statistical evidence (charter schools are at least as good, a significant portion better, despite less funding) agrees with my own experience.
AMiB responded to the notion that liberal business owners don't work harder to fulfill their expressed tax burden with this strange response that 'conservatives don't either'. I note conservatives don't caterwale about it. That was my point. One group tears their clothes in anguish about how unfair the tax system is and then uses exactly the same tools (you know, or some extracurricular tools, if you're a DNC bundler or Secretary of the Treasury) to avoid those taxes. I grant your response: those of us who feel we are overtaxed to the nation's detriment don't like paying taxes to the nation's detriment. Bang. You got me.
In the example of LaGuardia, you could read the post, and then maybe check out the information in it. The airlines don't fine the government, and the government didn't shut the airport down. THe government fines the airlines, and the airlines nor passengers get nothing out of it. Medling where it doesn't belong. Let me get on the palne, and get POd when I have to wait too long for a rain delay, and let's see how the company handles it. Let ME fine the company if they suck at it. WHat did the governemnt do to deserve more money because Jet Blue couldn't get off the ground due to a blizzard?
Again, the demand for citations is where I request you think for yourself. 92nd percentile of combined international students. Did you think I was comparing American students to maybe offworld student? Interplanar students? What would the statistic be measuring against? Infants? Chimpanzees? As to the percentage of teaching staff in publc vs private schools, I cite Salisbury, 2005, New York Sun. Is your internet broke?
AMiB: You didn't really call ut your own mistake. I had posted twice already that you were abusing other folk in this discussion, and I wasn't the only one who noticed that you put words in other people's posts and then proceeded to attack statementes they never made. Then you confessed to doing it while reading one of my posts. You dind't offer a mea culpa. That involves saying your behavior was wrong, not saying "Just wanted to show you what can happen on the internet sometimes." The internet is not at fault. You are. You read with the intention of finding something to shoot at. ANd when you realized you were wrong, you were good enough to bring it up, but then you bumped your chst and said 'my bad'. I pointed out that the problem wasn't messageboard conversation or the internet. It's your approach. Looking for something of value in an argument, instead of treating it like high school debate (where's the card? I guess you'd tell poor people they can't have kids! equals nuke war!): that is class.
It's a tautology to say poor people have more kids than they can afford, because they can't afford any? Again, you choose to see and characterize as stupid an argument you don't read correctly. No one is advocating population control based on race or social strata (except, you know, the Margaret Sanger types). I said poor people are made poorer by habits that keep them poor. Credit card interest. Not prioritizing insurance. Having a smart phone that eats 10% of your monthly take-home. Having kids without the ability to manage financially. You choose to look at teh sentence backwards. No one is advocating policy. I am saying the rich get richer because they do rich people things. People are healthier than me because they eat healthier. People aren't healthy by stealing health from healthy people, who are then destined to be sick. Unhealthy people can become healthy by changing their lives. So it is with finances. A struggling stockboy at WalMart might spend a year barely paying the bills with a crappy phone and passable car, and might not get to play every X-box game that comes out. Then he might manage a shift or department. His GM (at least used to) get a bonus of 1% of the bottom line, making him a top 10% earner. He could get there in less than ten years. Right now, tons of stock boys are either working to be wealthier, or working to remain poor. The GM isn't taking anything away from either party.
And that's it. I've tried to be respectful without being passive. I came to share and not to browbeat. Respond as you like, but this conversation has seen its last of me. Have to work on Superstar stuff and still have to make $1000 this week.
There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary to public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute or common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back. Life-Line (1939)
Hey I got a question for you Ancient Sensei:
So if I do things that make me rich it doesn't matter what I did because I obviously did rich people things and therefore deserve to be rich? So if I come over to your town, kill anyone disagreeing with me (well having my paid people do it for me) tear down homes and build my business on it, pay people in corporate script and beat those that are unproductive it should be legal because it's what rich people do right?
Another Question: Where do you find the right to be rich? Cause I'm not finding it anywhere, especially not in any legal document.
Well Ancient Sensei said he was done and gone, and I'll take him at his word. No point shouting at the sky Abe and AMIB.
While the guy was shockingly out of touch, held views with appalling consequences, and refused to review new data that refuted his claims, at least he was...polite? Like that counts for anything on the intarwebz.
What, Citizen HD, no response? Not even a flippant putdown? I'm not even worth that?!?
This is b&#!&#~~! I'm cool, I'm funny, I know stuff--and I'm not even worth responding to?
Even Bitter Thorn and Comrade Curitn like me!
I spent a whole year on this stupid website waiting for you to get out of prison and now you won't even answer my calls?
[Weeps into security blanket]
Sorry, got caugth up with aMiB.
Union people are silly doodooheads!
Better?
;=)
Edit: changed aliases, since we're doing Kirthfinder characters ;-)
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PATCO: They did break the law. Of course, Taft-Hartley was bad law as well (loyalty tests? really?), but, what can you do?
They could have repealed it during Carter (Dem pres, Dem congress), Clinton (first two years, Dem pres, Dem congress) and Obama (ditto his first two years). But they didn't.
Well, I have to go to work in a bit, so briefly:
I find the first part odd from someone who sometimes refers to his political views as anarchist. And while I can understand the somewhat racist equation of Bakunin's "destroy in order to create" dictum with goblindom, personally, if I were to be an anarchist, it would be more along the lines of IWW- or Friends of Durutti-style syndicalism.
Second part: Why would the Democrats have repealed Taft-Hartley? First, I believe the bill passed with Democratic support (albeit over Truman's veto). Second, the Dems are just as much the party of big capital as the Repubs. The last thing either party wants is unions hot-cargoing struck goods and engaging in secondary strikes.
These are the tactics that built the labor movement in the thirties. The Dems were smart enough to realize that American capitalism was on very shaky grounds and passed a bunch of laws after a bunch of communist-led Teamsters, longshoremen and rubber workers all launched general strikes in 1934 (real ones, not like the faux one recently in Oakland in which the unions didn't even call for their members to not go to work), but as soon as the crisis was over and WWII was done (there were national "no-strike" pledges during the war), they defanged labor right quick.
Imho, the unions mostly neutered themselves when they accepted the NLRB as a neutral arbitrator of last recourse between labor and capital. Which was the Dems' goal all along.
More to be said, of course, but I've got to go shower now.
Oh, re: PATCO: The union-busting Reagan carried out was a plan that was drawn-up by the Carter administration.
Second part first: I just like pointing out that Dems aren't what liberals apparently think they are. They're just as bad as Republicans. Prop 8 didn't pass in Cali without a lot of traditionally Dem voters signing on, for instance.
As to the first part, I'm more of a Heinleinian "rational anarchist". It's a personal philosophy with me, not a political. I'm pretty much apolitical when it comes down to it. I really don't care what kind of government we have or what rules they pass, I'm doing my own thing. I've done some time because of that, but that's life.
And, yeah, I could write a few books on the "Carter Myth" people promote about that douche, but several people smarter than me (Chomsky for one) already exposed the dude as a POS.
OMG have my babies HD!
I mean that in the most hetero way possible.
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What did I do?
Evidently he's a big Nim Chimpsky fan?
I enjoyed your comments about Carter. Spot on.
Federal employees should never be allowed to unionize, so all such strikes should always be broken.
Absolutely not. The federal government is no different than any other level of government or large business. Sometimes bosses trying to save money cut corners and the workers pay for it, don’t pay workers, abuse their power, or harass their employees and the company ( the government) doesn’t care.
Corporations want smart people, but it's not their job to run public education, right? Controlling the cost of doing business isn't a crime, and it isn't immoral. Lobbying to prevent further mucking of the works isn't immoral, either. Bribery by corporations is not moral,
The crux of the matter here is the non existent line between bribery and lobbying.
and is not defensible, but then you couldn't bribe a government official if bureaucracy weren't so big someone would need and/or get away with a bribe.
ANY amount of government is worth bribing under the right circumstances. Smaller governments are just cheaper.
You got paid for assuming risk, employing people and guiding your company well, and then you took taxed personal money and reinvested it into a company whose profits are also taxed.
Except that now you risk other peoples money to start the business and get a government bailout no matter whether your company soars or crashes and burns.
This is why some company heads have salaries on paper that are 1 dollar a year and take all their pay in stock.These poor oppressed folks only get to buy ONE private island this year. We should start a charity fund...
How did we create jobs, explode the internet, raise revenues and balance the budget with surplus?
A combination of government research and private innovation.
We reduced capital gains to 0 and cut spending. Reduce capial gaisn to 0 again and the amount the millionaire pays in taxes (and his income tax rate) will be higher than his secretary.
I know I’ve gone over this with you before.
Income tax rate does NOT equal the amount the millionaire or anyone else pays in taxes. Many people pay no income tax but DO pay taxes.With respect to BNW, the socialist agenda you claim is old news is the very conversation we are having right now. Remember, we talked about money and govenrment in education, and my references were to seizing control of the culture and political aparatus through education. Appropot
Running a government is expensive. We got elected to do certain things. We need money to do it. The rich should be taxed at least at the same rate that the poor are.
Which part of that is a socialist agenda?Has poverty been eliminated? Is minimum wage a family wage at over twice its previous value? Is it easier or harder for a small business to stay afloat today than in 1990? For a link that those who won't listen will fail to accept, check this out.
It hasn’t been eliminated but it has been ameliorated.
Also, BNW, I think you are more arguing for public education, and missing what was at least originally, my whole point: money is not the answer. I haven't advocated an end to public education.
You just want the federal government out of it for some reason. I don’t see the fed as any more of a problem than any other level of government.
When you point out that most charter schools are government run schools, recall that my bringing up those schools is because they outperform with fewer funds, not because they aren't governemnt schools.
And note the counter to it: That they perform better by evaporative cooling of both the students and the teachers. If you have the same schools unable to throw students out and mandated to spend resources on special ed you would close a fair bit of the gap.
But then the reality is, her grades and scores IMPROVED when she joined the charter school. And for the rude people of the world, this is not anecdotal. She is by no means the only one.
I’m not saying that charter schools are bad. Quite the contrary. I think they’re a good idea and getting the kids who want to learn away from the kids taking up space is a great idea even if those kids need to move into another building.
What you seem to think the problem is though is the federal government. I think you’re overlooking a large number of factors: such as the requirement that the regular public schools teach EVERYONE. That’s like playing baseball with one team where everyone gets to play and another team where they only took die hard baseball fans and cut the clutz who kept getting concussions playing right field.It’s not that your stats are wrong it’s that the test is biased.
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I was going to make a Nim Chimpsky link in Fawtl when AZ started yelling at me (well, actually Gruumash.) about talking about Chomsky in there, but thought better of it.
Hee hee!
And after calling out HD for not returning my love (well, Cricket's love--I'm getting into character here, people!) I am going to have to go to bed without responding. Hypocrisy, thy name is Anklebiter!
If the USED were disbanded by the next president, schools wouldn't change one whit. They'd just get money (based on existing budget acts) from a different federal bureau.
Or they wouldn't get the money at all. If you're in a rich area the school can probably cope. If you're in an urban blight you're going from Mad max to Deadlands: Hell on earth.
The crux of the matter here is the non existent line between bribery and lobbying.Hiring people to promote the interests of a group to politicians isn't bribery. It becomes bribery when there's an understood quid pro quo to hire ex-politicians as lobbyists, though.
Well, there's lobbying and then there's unchecked campaign contributions, which I think is tantamount to bribery. It may never be explicit, though I have to imagine it often is.
The trouble is that some lobbies make campaign donations to politicians who already support their interests. Others make campaign donations to sway opinion of said politician in their favor. It's difficult to discern the former from the latter, which is unfortunate because there's absolutely zero wrong with the former, and without a reliable mind-reading apparatus, teasing the two groups apart is virtually impossible.
When doctors make mistakes, people die.
And if you want tho hold them as financially liable as we do today, that's fine. I was asked how to bring health care costs down. This is one step in doing so. Don't complain that health care is too expensive and that everybody can't afford it though especially if you aren't going to offer up anything in opposition other than insults.
Tort reform does not lower medical costs. Even if people stopped suing doctors, they'd still have the medical bills that they couldn't pay from medical malpractice, and someone would have to pay them, driving medical costs up. You're saying that if people who are injured by malpractice absorb the cost of that malpractice medical costs will go down. Not only is that monstrous, but it's worthless, because it doesn't even dent the overall cost of medical care.
Tort reform lowers the cost of medical malpractice which is not paid for by doctors, we pay for it. It's a proven fact. Texas pays 74% less now than before the reform went into effect. Malpractice can still cover people's injuries. No one needs to profit financially from it.
We're right back at you being a heartless monster.
Anyone who loses a loved one on an operating table and cares about making a profit is a monster. That is the absolute last thing that would enter my mind.
This is gibberish. Nobody is suggesting "simply throwing money at a problem". Nobody has ever suggested "simply throwing money at a problem". "Simply throwing money at a problem" is a dismissive strawman. Most of your ideas do not make "perfectly good sense", particularly to people who know more about the subjects you apparently know very little about, like health care and education.
For being A StrawMan in Black, you don't understand how a strawman work very well. See first you have to take something that someone else said out of context so that it's easily knocked over and then, well, you knock it over. I was just making the best guess from what little real information you've offered me.
So what's your solution to lower medical coverage?
Suck it up! It is. (Also, CITATION NEEDED...
Mcdonalds hot coffee litigation. Come on, everybody knows this one.
CITATION NEEDED. And if it's not clear, yes, I am saying you're either willfully blind or totally lying.
Yes, I'm lying. I really believe that people should be able to take advantage of the welfare system. You got me.
After catching up date on welfare reform (TANF), it appears that they have made some big steps to reducing dependency on the state. This appears adequate enough to reduce fraud down to a bare minimum. Thanks for your great assistance here. Your incoherent babbling was so much more informing than typing in the letters TANF and calling it a day.
Welfare covers most of these people and even provides home for them if it's working properly. What's the most common reason(s) why people become chronically homeless?
Because people are shamed into not applying or accepting it, because welfare isn't enough to keep the strains from overwhelming people's means, because welfare has a time limit or conditions that happen to not apply to that person, because people are mentally ill, because people are alcoholics or don't know how to manage money or...
Are there programs in place to provide therapy and rehabilitation to those who need it? Are there classes offered to people to teach them how to be more fiscally responsible? Is there anything else we can do to help people that we aren't currently doing?
Basically, because bad decisions or bad luck overwhelm the thin margin that welfare offers. Do you actually not know anyone who's ever been homeless? Like, actually seriously lived as a street person for a significant amount of time? Go volunteer in a soup kitchen or a homeless shelter for a day and come back and say that people don't deserve support to have a home and hot meals, you entitled.... aaaaugh.
I've known many people who didn't have homes. Sorry, I didn't have any friends that were totally on the street eating out of dumpsters because, well, if I did, they would have had a place to stay.
Once again, I've never said that people shouldn't have a place to stay or help getting back on their feet. If anything I want to help more than what or system currently provides. Of course, a more free market would likely go a long way in providing ample opportunities for people to make a decent living.
Entitled? Monster? Are you always such a douche?
So you're going to give poor students more money, yourself the same amount of money, and rich students the same amount of money. (Where's this extra money coming from, anyway? Why aren't we spending that extra money on schools right now?) That exact reform, applied to public schools, would solve the largest problem with public schools, it's just not happening right now because of systemic political problems. The problem is, it wouldn't happen in your situation either, because of the same systemic political problems, plus public schools would still be a dystopic dumping ground for students who weren't wanted in the private schools for whatever reason.
I know that the Montessori school that I looked into has some kind of assistance that can lower your tuition by up to 50%. I don't exactly know where this money comes from or if the school itself simply offers a reduction if you're financially strapped enough. The point is, if you're poor enough, there's help out there for schooling and I don't see why that would change.
The money you are talking about giving people is already being given to the public school system whether you send you child there or not. If a public school isn't of good enough quality to attract parents to send their children to, do we really want them teaching our children? Do they really deserve money for children that aren't even attending that school?
whatever reason. I don't even have to pick all of the holes in your hopelessly incoherent idea of how private schools (aren't going to) work. You know how much the American health insurance system sucks? (Before or after Obama, it doesn't matter.) You're proposing that American school system be turned into the current American health insurance system. F%## that with a rake.
I guess we shouldn't have any private industry in America then, huh? Let's have the government run and control everything and we'll be an utopian society. Why would even make this comparison? Why would public school resemble our health industry in any way?
And if you want tho hold them as financially liable as we do today, that's fine. I was asked how to bring health care costs down. This is one step in doing so. Don't complain that health care is too expensive and that everybody can't afford it though especially if you aren't going to offer up anything in opposition other than insults.
When doctors make mistakes, people die.
I would rather go with a single payer system. The health insurance industry as it now stands is simply a tick on the back of our health care system. Burning it off should save more money that what you are suggesting.
I would rather go with a single payer system. The health insurance industry as it now stands is simply a tick on the back of our health care system. Burning it off should save more money that what you are suggesting.And if you want tho hold them as financially liable as we do today, that's fine. I was asked how to bring health care costs down. This is one step in doing so. Don't complain that health care is too expensive and that everybody can't afford it though especially if you aren't going to offer up anything in opposition other than insults.
When doctors make mistakes, people die.
+1
Also, Frogboy, can you please cite where you heard that medical insurance costs are down 74% in Texas from before tort reform was put in place?
Nobody here (except maybe Anklebiter?) is suggesting that all commerce be government run...
Yes and no. I suggest that the working class overthrow the present government, form a revolutionary state...and THEN run all (actually not all, just most) commerce.
Vive le Galt!
AMiB, would you like a seat in my evil cabinet?
Minister of Insidious Reasonability perhaps?
Of course, the cabinet will cause you to kill people in your sleep.
Think it over.
Also, Frogboy, can you please cite where you heard that medical insurance costs are down 74% in Texas from before tort reform was put in place?
Not insurance costs, the cost of malpractice damages is down 74% in Texas. Insurance costs haven't been effected which suggests that there is another problem somewhere. Someone, likely the insurance companies, are keeping this extra money. They are saving 74% in claims. Maybe they are using it to supplement what they now see as loss in other states where they provide insurance and don't have tort reform. Many insurance companies are nationwide. Maybe it's the doctors that are keeping this extra money and not lowering the cost of their service to their patients and/or still charging the insurance companies the same high rate even though they are less liable now. This information I don't have.
Tort reform in Texas only puts caps on pain and suffering. It does not affect expenses or compensation in any way.
Wrongful death penalties exist because people are wage-earners. If I die because of someone else's negligence, my wife is pretty much forced to sue whoever's responsible or else she's looking at dire straits. She's not trying to make a profit.
I'm sorry but $80 to someone who chose to ignore the risks of smoking seems a bit over the top. This is the kind of thing that I am attacking, not what you're talking about.
CITATION NEEDED.
Here's a graph. I wish I could find the original articles that I found. Just so you know, both of them were arguing against tort reform because it didn't bring down the cost of insurance. They weren't biased in the opposite direction.
Despite the disappoint of tort reform in Texas not bringing down the cost of medical insurance, there are those who believe that it did improve medical coverage. I have changed my original stance that tort reform would be enough on it's own. Even if it has the desired effect nationwide, it does appear that there is more that needs to be done to bring costs down to the level that we probably want it at.
This is gonna be even more of a threadnaught if I quote your posts entire. If I quote the thesis of a paragraph, I'm replying to the entire paragraph. The entire paragraph about throwing money at a problem is a strawman. No plan is throwing money at a problem. Every plan is implementing some sort of strategy to solve a perceived problem. It may be a poor or useless or even counterproductive strategy, but nobody just spends money randomly and thinks it will solve a problem. Would you prefer I call it a glib, meaningless idiom? Empty rhetoric? Because those are true, too.
All I ask is that you provide meaning information instead of pointless insults. I'm willing to change my mind on issues, in fact, that the whole reason that I engage in open debate. I like to learn and want to come away with a better understanding of things. If you make a better argument that makes more sense to me, I will change my opinion.
No, everyone thinks they know this one. You didn't even bother to check Wikipedia, though. She asked for $20,000 for her medical bills and lost wages, because McDonalds was serving coffee so hot that it caused her third degree burns. (Go ahead and Google "third degree burns" if you have a strong stomach.) Long story short, McDonalds blew her off, she retained a lawyer, mediation failed, she sued, the jury awarded an additional $2.7m in punitive damages that she hadn't asked for. The judge reduced that amount, it went to appeal, they later settled privately.
This is a famous case. It is well documented. Do your research.
I'm well aware of this case. I agree that she should've been compensated. $3 million is overkill whether she asked for it or not. I'll give you this one, though. I didn't realize how ungodly hot the coffe was that McDonalds was serving at the time. She did spill it on herself but holy crap, a little more heat and it would've boiled out of the pot. The courts were likely making an example out of McDonalds for blatant stupidity. I have no problem with that in this case.
Yes and no. Undiagnosed or untreated mental health and addiction issues are epidemic in working class and below-poverty families and the homeless, but a combination of the stigma attached and, well, anti-drug prosecution pose a major obstacle to setting up effective programs to accomplish anything or get people to respond to them.
Of course there's more we can do to help people we aren't currently doing. We could guarantee everyone in the US food, shelter, and health care as a basic human right. Hell, pick one of the three and devote the same amount of effort to it that was devoted to public education in the 20th century. Nobody seems to be pushing for it, but you did ask.
See, this is kind of meaningful dialog that I would like to glean from you. I agree, we should seek these things. We will definitely need to lower the cost of medical care for this to be feasible though. Creating employment opportunities are obviously hugely paramount for cost reasons as well. Decriminalization of non-violent drug offenders while proving rehabilitation for those in need sounds like a good solution (one I've argued before). Any ideas for the mental health problem?
Yes. The money is the charge for living in a society where (nearly) everyone has a decent education, and you pay it whether you have kids or not. You pay for roads even if you don't drive on them. You pay for fire protection and police. It is a universal public service, one that everyone benefits from. If you let people opt out, you are letting them seek their own benefit to the detriment of the common whole. That is a prisoner's dilemma constructed such that betraying is a winning play if you're rich, and colluding is a winning play if you're poor. Again, monstrous consequences.
Best answer you've given me to date on this. Even though I don't agree that the consequences would be as bad as you fear (competition is always a good thing), I at least understand your position better. How would you, while keeping the public education system in place, change things to improve the overall education level of the country?
Nobody here (except maybe Anklebiter?) is suggesting that all commerce be government run, but few services with a mandate to serve everyone or everywhere have ever benefited from being privately run.
CITATION NEEDED ... just kidding! Fair enough. You've given me some more things to consider.
See how much more you can accomplish when your not just throwing insults at people? You've made some really good points on a lot of things here.
Also, Frogboy, can you please cite where you heard that medical insurance costs are down 74% in Texas from before tort reform was put in place?Not insurance costs, the cost of malpractice damages is down 74% in Texas. Insurance costs haven't been effected which suggests that there is another problem somewhere. Someone, likely the insurance companies, are keeping this extra money.
OR, and I know you won't accept this but here goes, malpractice insurance is actually a very small amount of the overall cost of healthcare. It's true!
A cursory google search turned up this. In case you're hesitant to click I'll quote some for you.
Q.But critics of the current system say that 10 to 15 percent of medical costs are due to medical malpractice.
A.That’s wildly exaggerated. According to the actuarial consulting firm Towers Perrin, medical malpractice tort costs were $30.4 billion in 2007, the last year for which data are available. We have a more than a $2 trillion health care system. That puts litigation costs and malpractice insurance at 1 to 1.5 percent of total medical costs. That’s a rounding error. Liability isn’t even the tail on the cost dog. It’s the hair on the end of the tail. [/url]
So, for the low low cost of ensuring that people legitimately wronged by doctors, corporations, or individuals (yes, tort reform laws are that sweeping) you can save about 1.5% on your total healthcare costs. What a bargain!
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competition is always a good thing
Depends on how narrow a definition of competition you want to have. Competition between roughly equal firms is always good for the consumer, rarely is it overtly good for the businesses who would of course want a monopoly.
Wal-Mart moving into a rural town, scraping bottom with its price and forcing all local businesses under, then jacking up prices to make up for lost earnings is free market capitalism at its most pure. Unless you can regulate prices on some level, this is what will ALWAYS HAPPEN. Free market does not lead to more competition, it leads to less competition by way of less competitors.
If you wanted to couple otherwise free-market capitalism with AGGRESSIVE anti-trust policy, then we might be able to find middle-ground. As it sits the less regulation and thus more "competition" we have, the bigger the big companies are going to get until there are only a few companies left. Is it dystopian paranoia? Perhaps, but it's also happening right in front of our eyes.
Insurance costs haven't been effected which suggests that there is another problem somewhere. Someone, likely the insurance companies, are keeping this extra money
Gasp. Shock. Surprise. You mean we gave the people at the top more money and it DIDN"T trickle down to the consumer?!?