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I am sure there are some that are envious, but I think most people that would lean towards socialism just want a fair shake. When there are too few companies to sell your labor too that is by definition no longer capitalism as there is no longer robust competition only mega corps. When you have 1 or 2 companies that dominate a local market and employ a significant number of people, when they choose to do lay offs it is devastating and upsets alot of families and lives, these people dont forget this. Our system may force them to sell off their house, uproot their families and move but they are not going to be happy about it and alot of them wont keep voting to enable that kind of behavior.
The entire post was well written, but I want to bring it back to the root thesis.
A town with 1 or 2 big companies is dependent upon them for their well being. When those close, the town ties.
That's an obvious pain. It's a pain I understand. However, socialism puts every town into the same basked. Instead of 1 or 2 megacompanies in one town. It's one company in every town. The government. And the government isn't even good at running a company...at least not long term.
When the Federal Government first appeared, it needed money. It gave itself a monopoly with the United States Postal Service. Those stamps and a couple of excise taxes were all that was necessary to keep the government funded. Yet today USPS is hemorrhaging money even as rivals FedEx, DHL and UPS are world class standards. There's a couple of reasons for this. No other country wants packages delivered by another country's workers, so international expansion is all but out. There's restrictions on parcel delivery, so that's hurt the company. But the reality is that nobody in the Federal Government cares. You don't hear this being debated endlessly on Capitol Hill. Rather, they simply let it go. Now eventually, they've started to shutter locations anyway, mostly in the smallest towns that would have the fewest jobs already. The once good wages and pensions offered by USPS are gone for new hires as well. Attachment to the Federal Government, while allowing it to struggle on blindly a bit longer, is not saving it.
You may not like an executive making a call to reduce a workforce, but imagine it being in the hands of your local town alderman/mayor/governor. Even if you have a good local steward, and your town invents the next best thing, who can you sell it too? Nobody has private property. The companies that could benefit are owned by the government, which if they get more efficient, then they have more people to go get a job doing something else. Too much work.
Finally, while I do like the idea of giving everyone a fair shake, socialism is not a fair shake. Taking something from someone else without paying for it is not fair. It is theft. For centuries, this country has long been the answer to monarchs, out of control religions, authoritative regimes, conquered citizens of other places who just want a fair shake. They want the opportunity to build something up for themselves and know that they will peacefully allowed to enjoy the fruits of their labor.
That's America. The guaranteed opportunity. It's only by guaranteeing and opportunity and not a benefit that we have become the richest and most powerful nation in the world. Also, that means that there's going to be instability, and at points that can hurt, but there's always more opportunity. I was pretty young when I moved back to a small town and there was a really good job there. I was an accountant, I moved in and started working there. In 1 monthly close I realized I couldn't stay there. The books were twice baked potatoes, the excuse was they were the town employer. I had just moved from out of town for this losing proposition and there were no other jobs remotely close to backfill. I had to leave again.
Eventually the place closed, only instead of it dying off slowly and giving lots of notice, it crashed pretty fast, leaving a lot of people in a lurch. I have no doubt the bean-counters did it, but they did it after realizing the head had siphoned off things for years...and had done so with the local banker's blessing. That crony capitalism is bad. It hurt that town badly. Realize, that is exactly what socialism is. It's crony capitalism. All evils are covered up while it rots inside until it spectacularly crashes. Real capitalism is the ebb and flow.
If you want a fair shake, you're in the right country. Please don't ruin it by voting socialist.
We are certainly all aware of the results that can occur when there is a single major employer in an area and they shut down operations. The WARN Act requires a 60 day notice for a plant closing for more than 50 employees. That only slightly softens the impact. Even a longer notice would not do much.
A few years ago I was fascinated to spend a day visiting the remains of Anaconda, MT. When the mines shut down the town died. There were no jobs and the vast majority of inhabitants moved on and abandoned their houses. The banks, and stores and other businesses also had to close and abandon their buildings.
I am curious about the "robust govt controls" you think would prevent this. What happens when a business is no longer profitable? Or the mines play out? Or the business cannot compete? It is very common for businesses, even large businesses, to fail. Many of the businesses that fail are not large and are no where near being a monopoly, but some are. What was the government going to do when Kodak failed? Their products became obsolete and there was not enough demand to support the company.
I agree with you, when a company completely goes bankrupt there is nothing you can do, everyone understands the situation and everyone in the area is leaving. I am refering to cases like the Boeing lay offs in Washington where Boeing was no where near bankruptcy they just wanted to lay a bunch of people off to increase share holder pay outs, the doors did not close and not everyone got laid off. Same for what oil and gas companies have been doing, they are still laying off and are making record profits.
I think the WARN act is weak and companies need to be legally required to open their books to determine if the mass lay offs are warrented. Are they really going out of buisness if they dont do this, what is their total corporate portfolio look like, are they laying off here so they can funnel the savings to another operation that does not bennifit the USA, etc.
The entire post was well written, but I want to bring it back to the root thesis.
A town with 1 or 2 big companies is dependent upon them for their well being. When those close, the town ties.
That's an obvious pain. It's a pain I understand. However, socialism puts every town into the same basked. Instead of 1 or 2 megacompanies in one town. It's one company in every town. The government. And the government isn't even good at running a company...at least not long term.
When the Federal Government first appeared, it needed money. It gave itself a monopoly with the United States Postal Service. Those stamps and a couple of excise taxes were all that was necessary to keep the government funded. Yet today USPS is hemorrhaging money even as rivals FedEx, DHL and UPS are world class standards. There's a couple of reasons for this. No other country wants packages delivered by another country's workers, so international expansion is all but out. There's restrictions on parcel delivery, so that's hurt the company. But the reality is that nobody in the Federal Government cares. You don't hear this being debated endlessly on Capitol Hill. Rather, they simply let it go. Now eventually, they've started to shutter locations anyway, mostly in the smallest towns that would have the fewest jobs already. The once good wages and pensions offered by USPS are gone for new hires as well. Attachment to the Federal Government, while allowing it to struggle on blindly a bit longer, is not saving it.
You may not like an executive making a call to reduce a workforce, but imagine it being in the hands of your local town alderman/mayor/governor. Even if you have a good local steward, and your town invents the next best thing, who can you sell it too? Nobody has private property. The companies that could benefit are owned by the government, which if they get more efficient, then they have more people to go get a job doing something else. Too much work.
Finally, while I do like the idea of giving everyone a fair shake, socialism is not a fair shake. Taking something from someone else without paying for it is not fair. It is theft. For centuries, this country has long been the answer to monarchs, out of control religions, authoritative regimes, conquered citizens of other places who just want a fair shake. They want the opportunity to build something up for themselves and know that they will peacefully allowed to enjoy the fruits of their labor.
That's America. The guaranteed opportunity. It's only by guaranteeing and opportunity and not a benefit that we have become the richest and most powerful nation in the world. Also, that means that there's going to be instability, and at points that can hurt, but there's always more opportunity. I was pretty young when I moved back to a small town and there was a really good job there. I was an accountant, I moved in and started working there. In 1 monthly close I realized I couldn't stay there. The books were twice baked potatoes, the excuse was they were the town employer. I had just moved from out of town for this losing proposition and there were no other jobs remotely close to backfill. I had to leave again.
Eventually the place closed, only instead of it dying off slowly and giving lots of notice, it crashed pretty fast, leaving a lot of people in a lurch. I have no doubt the bean-counters did it, but they did it after realizing the head had siphoned off things for years...and had done so with the local banker's blessing. That crony capitalism is bad. It hurt that town badly. Realize, that is exactly what socialism is. It's crony capitalism. All evils are covered up while it rots inside until it spectacularly crashes. Real capitalism is the ebb and flow.
If you want a fair shake, you're in the right country. Please don't ruin it by voting socialist.
I would say what is happening now in Alaska is for sure crony capitalism, perhaps even in North Dakota. Oil companies rely on oil leases and are in bed with govt. Back in the 1980's when oil prices truely crashed (like less than $10 a barrel crashed) everyone understood what was going on, people left the keys to the house on the table and walked away.
But now things are different, oil is what 70+ a barrel and yet more lay offs to come with miserly hiring. Stagnat flow and the govt does nothing. Would you allow a company to keep leases (in the case of Alaska) or to build a pipeline (in the case of North Dakota) if they were working against the people despite high cash flow.
Right now in Alaska I think it becoming apparent to the lay person that everyone is getting screwed and we will likely see a massive increase in state oil taxes in order to support unemployment rolls etc that are brought on by the companies. As a state we should be saying, hire people back or get taxed.
Cities that have robust government agencies seem to be doing VERY well, a notable and one of my favorate agencies is the DOE, they have national labs sprinkled around the USA and they do really cool work. No one complains of the DOE being "bloat"
You realize that unemployment is at all time lows, job openings at all time highs, and the economy is absolutely on fire. Right? All these layoffs you're talking about are specific to certain locations, companies, departments, projects, etc. They just happen to be what you are seeing. Overall, the economy and capitalism is exceptionally successful.
Thats what I keep hearing, I pulled up the DLS maps for my field of work and I am starting to look in the dark green areas of the MSA maps. I am writing up my first resume/cover letter for an out of state job with the DOE so we will see how it goes, they have a lot of openings. I keep hearing about how employers dont like hiring people from outside of the area due to the complications with relocating etc but we will see.
You realize that unemployment is at all time lows, job openings at all time highs, and the economy is absolutely on fire. Right? All these layoffs you're talking about are specific to certain locations, companies, departments, projects, etc. They just happen to be what you are seeing. Overall, the economy and capitalism is exceptionally successful.
Unemployment is at all time low, but wages remain stagnant and many of those jobs are low wage jobs. The economy is great for some, especially those with money to invest, but the people I know who were struggling to pay bills with low wage jobs and ever-riding costs of living 2 years ago are still at the same place.
Unemployment is at all time low, but wages remain stagnant and many of those jobs are low wage jobs. The economy is great for some, especially those with money to invest, but the people I know who were struggling to pay bills with low wage jobs and ever-riding costs of living 2 years ago are still at the same place.
This is what I was worried about, that all this jobs hype was low end jobs not degreed professional high wage jobs (engineers, doctors, etc) or skilled trade jobs (air craft mechanics, technicians, fabricators, etc). But I dont really have much choice so I am going to start applying to professional jobs out of state and see what happens. Since these are federal jobs I am hoping that I can file FOIA requests to see how many people are applying and how many are meeting at least the minimum quals (if 300 are applying but only 4 are qualified thats very different from 50 applying and 40 being qualified).
The remaining 1/3 are not born with the skill sets and aptitudes that you ascribe to everyone. No amount of training or "pull yourself up by the bootstraps" effort will help them to succeed. Where are the jobs for them in this brave new world?
Let natural selection run its course. If you are too stupid to contribute to our changing world, then you should be removed from the gene pool.
Instead, we redistribute wealth from those who are financially responsible and want to be financially secure before having children and transfer it to those who lack intelligence, job skills, and money management skills.
Let natural selection run its course. If you are too stupid to contribute to our changing world, then you should be removed from the gene pool.
Instead, we redistribute wealth from those who are financially responsible and want to be financially secure before having children and transfer it to those who lack intelligence, job skills, and money management skills.
This could be a slippery slope because being able to make alot of money does not always correlate with actually producing value. There are some millionares who got that way from some really stupid things that did not really better society. If I had to bet there are a lot of millionaire charlatans.
Making millions does not mean you added value it just means you are good at maneuvering and extracting value, hyping stuff up (this one is huge), without actually doing anything note worthy themselves. So this is kind of a dangerous proposition.
For instance the entire insurance industry which is just gambling.
Bennie babies
etc.
[quote=pittsflyer;51901511]This is what I was worried about, that all this jobs hype was low end jobs not degreed professional high wage jobs (engineers, doctors, etc) or skilled trade jobs (air craft mechanics, technicians, fabricators, etc).....quote]
The opposite is true. Several years ago overall unemployment was running 6-8%, but unemployment for professional level jobs had dropped to 3%. It is only recently that overall unemployment has shown the same level of decrease.
For instance the entire insurance industry which is just gambling.
.....
Nonsense. You know nothing about the insurance industry. Insurers are extremely cautious. They look at all sort of factors including historical occurrences before decided on costs and even whether they will offer insurance. Many insurers limit the number of policies in geographical locations so they do not have excess risk in case of an event. Insurers cannot predict the future but they definitely do not gamble. Have you ever heard of a major insurer going out of business because of some sort of natural disaster? That is already figured into the amount they have charged.
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