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The private sector has proven throughout history to create tremendous wealth, prosperity, and a higher standard of living for all. Even the poorest in the United States today are "rich" by global standards--they have cars, flat screen TV, medical care, and all the food they can eat--indeed, obesity is a problem among the poor.
And if you don't have a job to pay for the insurance, gas, payments, residence, etc. then that's all moot. And FTR, there are unemployed who are far from obese.
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Originally Posted by blisterpeanuts
If unions were popular, we'd be just like Britain or France--a mediocre economy with limited opportunities and very high costs for goods and services. Germany is only as prosperous as it is because the Germans are so damn smart and hard working. Also, keep in mind that their unions are different from ours; they call them "work councils" and they prefer to cooperate with management rather than fight.
I'm neutral here. Unions can create barriers to productivity. However, there are some bad apples of companies and corporations out there that will do the absolute minimum they can by law to get away with it. Unions would protect workers rights in those cases.
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Originally Posted by blisterpeanuts
It's taken me many years to learn how to live frugally. My grandparents lived through the Depression which makes today's economic troubles look like a joke. 25% of people were out of work, and no welfare or unemployment insurance or social security. You literally worked or starved, thus forcing hundreds of thousands of people to live on next to nothing and be willing to uproot their lives and move to where they could make $1/day picking fruit.
We kind of have our own economic depression of our own.
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Originally Posted by blisterpeanuts
Sometimes I think if we eliminated all these safety net programs like unemployment insurance, we'd have full employment, because no one would dare quit their jobs. It's a tradeoff, like anything else, but we've lost some of that edge because of it.
Quit their jobs!? The people I've met with in person who are out of work are those that said they were laid off, or are graduating or graduated somewhat recently and are looking for work. Then there are stories posted on the internet who say more of the same thing. None of these people quit their jobs! I'm sure, there may be some that did quit for whatever reason (sometimes a legit one, other times, not so), but that's hardly the definitive picture of the current crop of unemployed.
On a similar note, I'm amused how employers won't hire unemployed because they're concern is they'll find jump ship when a better one comes up. One person put it best... "I can't even find one job, why are you worried that I'm going to switch to another one?". Employers should be more concerned about those already employed, as that's exactly what they're doing... they're leaving their current company for them. Does an employer honestly think that such proactive people are going to stay put if the next better thing comes along?
The private sector has proven throughout history to create tremendous wealth, prosperity, and a higher standard of living for all. Even the poorest in the United States today are "rich" by global standards--they have cars, flat screen TV, medical care, and all the food they can eat--indeed, obesity is a problem among the poor.
Do you know any poor people?
My goodness. If being poor is so glamorous then quit your job, sell your house and vehicles, and collect welfare.
I still have yet to see any non-anecdotal evidence of "professional slackers".
Let me cite an example from my own family's history.
My grandfather was a farmer; he was also one of the "Overseers of the Poor" in the township in which I grew up.
Around the time of the First World War, my Grand-Dad recognized that the coming of the auto and better rods would allow him to sell milk in some of the nearby "coal patch" towns; so he expanded the herd. More milk meant more manure; the dirtiest part of the job fell to his sons.
So Grand-Dad, like a lot of local farmers and small businessmen, used the Poor District as a component of his labor supply. When local labor was available, (which was not guaranteed) his four sons did other chores while a couple of neer-do-wells manned the shovels and grumbled. The business expanded and contracted with local conditions, but as every farmer knows, there is no on/off switch on "Ol' Bessie" if you feel in need of a weekend off.
The arrangement worked well until the development of Unemployment Compensation in the mid-Thirties. At that point, the lowest stratum of the labor force determined that an Unemployment check was preferable to mucking out dairy barns The four sons filled in for a while, but found better options as the industrial economy picked up. Grand-Dad continued to grow "cash crops", but sold the herd to a larger operator who was better able to deal with market pressures,
Painful pressures and decisions emerge every day on the ragged "bottom edge" of the economy, and they are usually addressed and resolved by the sort of people whom the high-brow "progressives" who seek to dominate this form like to trash as "Teabaggers", "conservitards" or whatever. And if your radical environmentalist, consumerist and animal-rights cousins are eager to disabuse "factory farming", preservatives, "junk/fast food". or the increasing concentration of the economy in general, they should recognize that their own intentions are a root case of much of the issue,
Let me cite an example from my own family's history.
My grandfather was a farmer; he was also one of the "Overseers of the Poor" in the township in which I grew up.
Around the time of the First World War, my Grand-Dad recognized that the coming of the auto and better rods would allow him to sell milk in some of the nearby "coal patch" towns; so he expanded the herd. More milk meant more manure; the dirtiest part of the job fell to his sons.
So Grand-Dad, like a lot of local farmers and small businessmen, used the Poor District as a component of his labor supply. When local labor was available, (which was not guaranteed) his four sons did other chores while a couple of neer-do-wells manned the shovels and grumbled. The business expanded and contracted with local conditions, but as every farmer knows, there is no on/off switch on "Ol' Bessie" if you feel in need of a weekend off.
The arrangement worked well until the development of Unemployment Compensation in the mid-Thirties. At that point, the lowest stratum of the labor force determined that an Unemployment check was preferable to mucking out dairy barns The four sons filled in for a while, but found better options as the industrial economy picked up. Grand-Dad continued to grow "cash crops", but sold the herd to a larger operator who was better able to deal with market pressures,
Painful pressures and decisions emerge every day on the ragged "bottom edge" of the economy, and they are usually addressed and resolved by the sort of people whom the high-brow "progressives" who seek to dominate this form like to trash as "Teabaggers", "conservitards" or whatever. And if your radical environmentalist, consumerist and animal-rights cousins are eager to disabuse "factory farming", preservatives, "junk/fast food". or the increasing concentration of the economy in general, they should recognize that their own intentions are a root case of much of the issue,
Another anecdote: my grandfather, a shoe jobber in NYC 50 years ago, butted heads with the powerful unions and ultimately was forced to close down his business. A proud, hard working man who was driven out of business by these clowns. In my opinion, the unions in that region have gone to such an extreme in their domineering that they are little different from crime syndicates (including violence and other illegal activities to get their way).
And yet--there exist legions of liberals who to this day will defend unionism with a religious fervor akin to that of the Muslim jihadists. I know quite a few of them. One of them sits in the White House.
Similarly, they have latched onto this notion of a high minimum wage (subsidized by the rest of us) to relieve marginal workers of even the slightest pretense of having to struggle to uplift themselves. Now everyone will make a minimum of $30K, yippee!
Of course, an extra million or two will be thrown out of work, but the liberals don't see this as their fault; they simply deflect the blame to "big business" and so forth, as in: Big businesses caused the problem by moving all the jobs to Asia where they could exploit the workers for $1/day, blah blah blah. Needless to say, these same people enthusiastically purchase the products made by those same exploited workers--iPhones, TVs, toys, furniture. It's a have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too situation.
I don't pretend to have all the answers, but I do know that you can't keep voting the people more funds and benefits and support when the piggy bank is empty. Sooner or later you have to pay the piper. I'm afraid we've already reached the point of no return where half the population is so dependent on a subsidized lifestyle that the situation can never be reversed; they will fight to keep their freebies, and the politicians exploit the situation to get reelected, despite the massive damage it's causing. We're going downhill fast. Those who can't see it mock us and belittle our ideas, and when the bills finally come due, they will shoot the messenger. Human nature--never really changes.
The arrangement worked well until the development of Unemployment Compensation in the mid-Thirties. At that point, the lowest stratum of the labor force determined that an Unemployment check was preferable to mucking out dairy barns The four sons filled in for a while, but found better options as the industrial economy picked up. Grand-Dad continued to grow "cash crops", but sold the herd to a larger operator who was better able to deal with market pressures,
So your grandfather's business was dependent on what amounts to slave labor to survive, and when that wasn't feasible he had to sell off the business.
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Originally Posted by blisterpeanuts
And yet--there exist legions of liberals who to this day will defend unionism with a religious fervor akin to that of the Muslim jihadists. I know quite a few of them. One of them sits in the White House.
I think it would be a stretch to call Obama a defender of unionism. Me, even less so. I would much prefer that we had such stringent labor laws that unions were rendered unnecessary; they're a kludgy free-market solution to a problem better solved by government. But until we have a liberal revolution, unions are the best solution we have for protecting workers.
So your grandfather's business was dependent on what amounts to slave labor to survive, and when that wasn't feasible he had to sell off the business.
I think it would be a stretch to call Obama a defender of unionism. Me, even less so. I would much prefer that we had such stringent labor laws that unions were rendered unnecessary; they're a kludgy free-market solution to a problem better solved by government. But until we have a liberal revolution, unions are the best solution we have for protecting workers.
Uh, not quite! Obama's the best friend the unions have had in years. In 2008, the UAW threatened yet another a strike against GM, which had lost $40 billion and was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. Candidate Obama sent the union a letter stating "I stand with the union." The union donated over $4 million to the Democrats, including Obama's campaign, and endorsed him for president.
Once in office, Obama reciprocated by pushing through a generous bail-out package for GM and Chrysler which handed the UAW 25% ownership of GM, an incredible act of generosity toward a group which has screwed its employer with crippling strikes that helped put them into bankruptcy in the first place. Romney's proposal, denigrated and mocked by the lawyer/socialist/unionist dominated Democratic Party, was to allow GM to go through bankruptcy as per standard practice and emerge a leaner, solvent organization unburdened by old union contracts. That's what they should have done. Instead, we the taxpayers lost about $23 billion on a bogus, overly generous bail-out that created Government Motors.
Also, Obama has packed the NLRB with labor activists who are totally partisan and biased, rather than neutral judges or economists who might arbitrate fairly in labor disputes. One of the NLRB's more charming acts was to threaten Boeing with fines for opening a non-union 787 plant in South Carolina, a blatant interference in a private company's right to build a factory where it feels like.
I've followed the Obama-Democrat-union relationship with interest, since it's quite telling. The bottom line is that the unions are 100% Democratic, totally partisan and anti-business. The leadership is the worst, but the rank and file do tend to go along with the leadership.
As to the other point that the government should "solve" the labor market with stringent laws, that's anathema to a free society and merely drags us down to 3rd world status, as has occurred in Spain and Greece. Overly generous government mandates have to be paid by someone.
In a true free market, with a well educated populace and plenty of competition among employers, the benefits and pay will be there and shouldn't have to be backed up by the government.
In a controlled, regulated market, where 90% of the school teachers are unionists who vote Democratic, you have a prevailing attitude that Big Brother needs to be our nanny who keeps our diapers changed and our baby bottle full of warm, sweet mommy milk. Be careful what you ask for; we're only a step or two away from a Soviet Union-style economy with crappy make-work jobs and poverty for all.
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The people I've met with in person who are out of work are those that said they were laid off, or are graduating or graduated somewhat recently and are looking for work. Then there are stories posted on the internet who say more of the same thing. None of these people quit their jobs! I'm sure, there may be some that did quit for whatever reason (sometimes a legit one, other times, not so), but that's hardly the definitive picture of the current crop of unemployed.
