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I never will understand the propensity of the American worker to work against their own interests. Our only strength is in numbers and unity yet there are always those who will sacrifice everything for their own personal gain and somehow that has become admirable in a nation
You are talking a bit about the concept of solidarity, which is really only celebrated in US culture in the context of the military, as in "unit cohesion"...as in those old military buddy movies or sometimes in sci-fi, llike the tiger team working together to zap the asteroid or something like that.
Otherwise people are very individualist & competetive, looking out for themselves and their families...looking out for number one, to get ahead (or even just stay in place becuase the "other-guy" has the knife on him).
The union concept of sticking together for the common good, is sort of contrary to this individualistic/competetive cultural thing we got going here...
Amen. No 'middle class' person in any other country lives with the STUFF that the middle class in this country does.
People need to travel more.
Many middle class workers in modern industrialized nations live far better than the middle class here. For example, in Germany, aside from national healthcare we lack, new workers have six weeks vacation just like every other worker. They work far fewer hours and enjoy a better standard of living.
You don't need to travel more to find out how civilized countries are outpacing our collapsing labor market. Just check it out for yourself here:
There is more to life than the cold numbers of GDP and economic statistics – This Index allows you to compare well-being across countries, based on 11 topics the OECD has identified as essential, in the areas of material living conditions and quality of life.
Americans really do need to travel more. Then maybe they'd understand how they're being taken advantage of and why workers in modern industrialized nations look at us and just scratch their heads.
You are talking a bit about the concept of solidarity, which is really only celebrated in US culture in the context of the military, as in "unit cohesion"...as in those old military buddy movies or sometimes in sci-fi, llike the tiger team working together to zap the asteroid or something like that.
Otherwise people are very individualist & competetive, looking out for themselves and their families...looking out for number one, to get ahead (or even just stay in place becuase the "other-guy" has the knife on him).
The union concept of sticking together for the common good, is sort of contrary to this individualistic/competetive cultural thing we got going here...
The "individualistic/competetive cultural thing" we have going here is contrary to the common good. Except for the oligarchs. They're loving every minute of it -- throwing us a bone and watching us fight over it while they dine on filet Mignon and caviar.
The "individualistic/competetive cultural thing" we have going here is contrary to the common good. Except for the oligarchs. They're loving every minute of it -- throwing us a bone and watching us fight over it while they dine on filet Mignon and caviar.
Suckers.
I'm glad I don't work in a job like that. I go in do my work and leave. I don't need to spend anymore time than I have to working unless I want OT. If they don't want to pay me for OT than they can do it theirselves. Idc.
For example, in Germany, aside from national healthcare we lack, new workers have six weeks vacation just like every other worker. They work far fewer hours and enjoy a better standard of living.
This is true. We have friends and family in Germany, and even people without a college education can have a pretty good standard of living...including taking vacations to Florida!
...of course, point this out and you will be shut down by people saying the Germans gave us the Nazis and holocaust so they & their culture are no example for anyone, and that they're "socialist", and they pay too much tax, and if you like their set up so much move there.
GM is a perfect example. Workers being paid insane wages to sit in a room and play checkers. Workers being paid to be less productive. I place part of the blame on GM for signing off on such insane deals. Adjusted for inflation, Ford payed its non-union workers more in the early 1900s than today. In my area there is a large auto parts plant that is non-union, and has managed to stay in business for almost 25 years. Never had layoffs and have grown the sales force every year, including 2008 and 2009. I have several friends that went to work for the company after high school and are still employed making great wages with good benefits.
My work and pay is production based. I am compensated by what I produce. I am not paid by walking in the building and hitting a time clock like most. So in a sense you are correct, my production says all its needs to know about me. I take that as a compliment.
There you go again spreading apocryphal tales denigrating workers. Why do you hate working people?
I worked in an auto assembly plant. It was one of the toughest jobs I ever had. Eleven hour shifts with a car a minute coming down the assembly line and every time you found a way to save a few seconds completing the multiple jobs they assigned your station they'd add another one.
I never saw any room where workers sat around and played checkers and no one was paid for being less productive. That's just BS.
I did work for union employers where the contract stated that when you arrived on time for your shift the company actually had to pay you for being there and if management couldn't get their act together and have your work ready when you got there they still had to pay you instead of keeping you there for hours with nothing to do and no pay. Now, that added to efficiency in labor and management because labor didn't have to suffer because management was slacking off knowing there were no repercussions for their incompetence.
Ok. Not relevant however. In fact in my 20s I was a lot like you. I generally have lived on 1/2 to 2/3 of my net income.
So you agree with me that people can cut their spending, cut their lifestyles, and make more of themselves in the current economic environment? Good.
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There is a zero sum game involved in every transaction. There is a fixed surplus on a product. This fixed surplus is then divided between those who stake a claim against it. You bake a cake and then divide it up. You keep talking about one phase of the process. No one disputes that one will be looked upon more favorably for being a good worker. However that is not the only influence on your share.
The negotiating of this surplus exists in all transactions.
In this example we have the negotiation between consumer satisfaction and the drive for profit. In competitive markets the consumer will more often pay less than they would be willing to pay while in monopolistic circumstances approach points of indifference.
There is a zero sum game on each individual transaction, but please try and look at things at a macro level for a change. The net value of collective industries grows as value is created. Bringing new skills to the table allows companies to bake a bigger cake, to use your analogy.
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Print money. Discover Peruvian silver mines like in the past etc. etc. That is the only thing that can raise financial assets. You could invent the perpetual motion machine, and if only $1 exists in the money supply, you will not have 20% returns. The only reason why financial assets can rise is due to the national debt and bank credit expanding in value. Otherwise someone must take financial losses. I say financial loses because one could lose money while the real economy keeps plodding along adding technological advances which are impacted by finance in the short term.
This was a nice dodge of my question. Please show me your math to prove your ideas are viable.
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We could all go with TVs, computer , phones, cars, planes etc. We could remain in the stone age, saving and building up our debt instruments on the hopes and prayers that driving my neighbor into debt will drive him to inventiveness. That is what we have been doing. What is up for debt is whether this will result in better real economic gains. Slavery I believe was proven to be conducive to stagnation. So too is excessive luxury. We have been adding to the roles of both of these classes.
You seem to be thinking devoid of facts. The middle class have NOT been doing those things. The middle class has been spending more than ever before on material goods. The middle class has done the complete opposite of going without in order to save money.
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Its not relevant. If everyone else is taking out 30 year mortgages people who don't go into debt still pay through inflation. During the housing bubble banks added 27 trillion to the money supply. You don't even have to go into debt to pay. You, and I, having been paying for these mortgages through higher prices.
It is absolutely relevant! What a person does to grow their portfolio is the essence of the issue we are discussing right now. If the average person does not consider the net effect of a mortgage on their long term financial growth from all perspectives (from asset appreciation to tax liability), then their financial situation is no one's fault but their own.
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I am seriously disagreeing with your finance model that for some reason you think is inseparable from the real, physical economy. The same 27 trillion in money supply could have been a gold mine, Federal deficits or bank credit. Do you care if you are paid with money from equity financing of debt financing? I don't care because a buck is a buck, and how you got it is your problem. Now if banks had a business model that added capital rather than simpling bloating up ground rents then perhaps their money would be better. I see no evidence of it. Basically I guess you prefer banks to print the money and that the interest charge is justified. Banks who print money so someone can buy an empty lots or existing monopoly assets seems like nothing but inflationary skimming of the economy.. Negative equity means they failed to make sustainable loans which means the bulk of their loans were not allocated to be repayable through productivity.
I care greatly about the method of financing behind my portfolios. Debt financing is highly unstable given the political environment we have entered into. With the federal reserve holding over $1.4T in liable assets, debt financing is nothing short of crazy. Equity financing might not be the most efficient model, but given how the current political environment has created a situation where debt financing is incredibly risky, why would a person ever stray from equity until (at the very least) the FED starts to unwind?
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I don't know what you mean by within their means. If you mean the rental value of money at $500 billion a year then you are getting warmer. However that has idled our industrial capacity so I am not so sure we would not have the means. All I do know is that when money is created at a debt, one must pay principle plus interest.The outstanding growth of the money supply is new bank credit plus federal deficits. If banks don't make new loans and we have a balanced budget then only if the wealth and the banks recirculate the money just as quickly can this be averted. Problem is the business model of banks is debt and the rich have a low propensity to consume. If new loans are not made a liquidity trap is entered and someone will not have the means to make their payments, even if everyone does something right. Its musical chairs.
Within a person's means is very simple. If you make $30k per year, spend less than that. If you make $50k per year, spend less than that. Use your personal revenue streams (regardless of their levels) to grow those streams, no matter what needs to be sacrificed short term.
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Micro economic assessments. As I said, I pay in higher prices. The only difference between counterfeiting and banks loans is banks are expected to collect the principle on the loan or cover it with their own cash. What happened? Counterfeiting happened because the loans were not collected, nor did it come from the banks reserves. They got treasury bonds the government printed up for them. You paid in inflation during the housing bubble.
I completely disagree. When I bought my first house I was approved for more than double what I thought was a safe ceiling when I did my own calculations. Regardless of what a bank tells me I am approved for, I am always going to think about what I can actually afford devoid of what a bank tells me. The housing bubble was caused by individuals blindly trusting a bank instead of actually doing the math themselves. They have noone but themselves to blame.
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Don't blame banks for money printing, not collecting the loans they are legally obligated to cover while jacking up all consumer prices and then sealing in their gain with cash for trash?
You didn't answer my question.
If I walk into BestBuy and purchase a $5,000 TV on credit when I have no income and no savings, is my debt BestBuy's fault or my own?
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I think its better to quarantine Typhoid Mary than to depend upon every individual to exercise personal hygiene. The only way to secure it is at the finance layer.
You seem to be very keen on minimizing any responsibility an individual has over his or her own life. I disagree with that way of thinking.
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Originally Posted by bobd04
Please don't tell me how hard you worked. I worked an average of sixty hours per week, twenty hours of overtime on my full time job along with two part time jobs as well. Seven days a week for over ten years to take care of my financial responsibilities to my family and always among the top workers at every job I held. But I didn't let it go to my head like some people apparently do.
So why can't people still do this today? If a person is actually willing to work hard, opportunities still exist. People simply don't want to actually put in the effort needed.
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And it was heavy physical labor that you would likely have caved under in the first week at a UNION job that paid master freight rates with full benefits and a defined benefit pension.
physical labor and the difficulty of a job are two very different things. Just because a job involves heavy physical labor does not necessarily make it a difficult job.
I have no interest in taking a job holding manual labor. I am sure I could not do your job right now, but I am sure I could learn your job much faster than you could learn mine.
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Oh, and I don't even watch the evening news. I read and I talk to people without making a**umptions and considering myself superior, which some people apparently do too.
Your best laid plans may keep working out but if and or when life throws you a curve ball and they fall aft agley I'm sure many of your assumptions and your quite haughty air of superiority will follow.
I am asking you to actually look at facts, to look at numbers before making a decision. Nothing you have posted so far indicates that you do so. And I have been thrown curveballs, and it is no one's responsibility but my own to handle them. You know, taking responsibility for yourself and all that?
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You're obviously a legend in your own mind. But here's a word of advice: Don't forget to be nice to everyone you meet on the way up the ladder because they'll be the same people you meet on the way back down.
I am very nice to everyone I meet, and I have no intention of coming 'back down the ladder'. I work as hard as I have to in order to get where I want to go. In several occasions that involved very extended periods of 90+ hour weeks, which I did without complaining.
I am a very nice person, I am just not a soft person. I hope you understand the difference.
I never saw any room where workers sat around and played checkers and no one was paid for being less productive. That's just BS.
I would reccomend speaking with some GM plant workers that were unionized. I have an Uncle who just retired from GM of 30+ years and was part of the union. He didnt want to elaborate too much being a union member, but he mentioned that the factory was capable of doubling its production, but based on union bureaucracies, only a certain amount of production was allowed.
Ever talked to a union post office worker? They get paid for 10 hour shifts, work about half of those hours, and play cards the rest of the day because union requires them to stay on site regardless if work is complete. Talking about the waste, a Government union should be completely abolished.
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Why do you hate working people?
I don't. I just don't have any sympathy for those who look to do the minimum, then hate on the Guy humping it. Thats all. You understand right?
physical labor and the difficulty of a job are two very different things. Just because a job involves heavy physical labor does not necessarily make it a difficult job.
I have no interest in taking a job holding manual labor. I am sure I could not do your job right now, but I am sure I could learn your job much faster than you could learn mine.
I'm retired so there is no job to learn. I had many diverse jobs during my working years from musician to account executive. From computer tech back when computers took up an entire room to drafting electriacl drawings to full management responsibility for multimillion dollar retail location. From owning my own business to working for some of the largest corporations in the U.S. I excelled at all of my jobs because that's just who I am. I settled on being a tractor trailer driver because of my intense dislike of authority. Being on the road was the next best thing to being my own boss and in a union environment the long term security and benefits were better than the office politics, back stabbing and low wages.
Don't flatter yourself. You don't have enough time left on earth to learn half the jobs I've already retired from and admittedly no interest in attempting several of them.
This is true. We have friends and family in Germany, and even people without a college education can have a pretty good standard of living...including taking vacations to Florida!
...of course, point this out and you will be shut down by people saying the Germans gave us the Nazis and holocaust so they & their culture are no example for anyone, and that they're "socialist", and they pay too much tax, and if you like their set up so much move there.
Sprechen sie Deutsche? Me neither.
No, point this out and I (a person who has traveled and stayed in Germany for some time) will shut you down by saying I don't find the lifestyle of the average German to be anything but mediocre and depressing.
If that's what you're willing to trade for "time off," that is your business. That's not how I want to live my life.
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