For example…?
Actually, not just once example please. We need a cite for “vast majority”.
Gordon69 buddy! Long time no see!
I have always valued the post you have made since you joined SDMB in 2005. Over those years, you have always posted material that was thoughtful, and incisive.
No wait.
You’ve only made 5 posts since 2005, and your very first one was Feb 27/2011 that called Obama “the Messiah”.
Never mind.
I’m not sure that there are any shops not set up that way. Perhaps those who work in closed shops can enlighten us. There may not be much of a difference between the mandatory representation dues and full union dues, but if I’m not mistaken that option exists in most if not all closed shops.
People in closed shops can either become union members or they can pay a representation fee. In open shops, you can either be a member, pay a representation fee, or not be a member at all and still get all the benefits.
I work in a closed shop and am a full member rather than paying a representation fee because I enjoy yanking the union’s chain and making noise. If I worked in an open shop, I would not be a member but would pay the representation fee because I am not a free rider (mooch).
That’s my understanding, too. But it’s really beside the point. It is not “taxpayer money”, it belongs to the employees just as private employees’ money belongs to them.
So, do you guys of the “union dissing” stripe, do you think Walker is acting on principles of economics? Do you think he sincerely believes this, or is he merely using this as an excuse to undercut the power of his political opposition?
I see it as a naked power grab, demonizing a poltical opponent to secure power. Perhaps you see it differently, and can tell us why you see it that way. Then perhaps you can explain why he didn’t run on this, rather than springing it after he had won? Do you think if he had made this union crushing his political platform, he would have won?
So, you’re going to confiscate all private industries the U.S. government does business with and force their employees to become government employees or find new jobs? Let me know how that works out for you.
Or, hey, *here’s *a thought–we could just stop letting companies and unions contribute to political candidates. But for some reason you keep rejecting that idea. Hrmmm…
Exactly. What government employees earn even on a country-wide state level is 100% irrelevant–federal employees doubly so. The concern here is absolutely, 100%, about what Wisconsin state public employees make in total compensation versus what they would be paid in the private sector. Because this is about the Wisconsin budget.
Oh, I notice that you don’t have a comeback to justify Walker’s lie about the $3+ billion deficit (which doesn’t actually exist).
You made them in this thread. For it to be relevant to this thread, it must be about Wisconsin government employees. Either you knew your claim wasn’t relevant and were hoping no one would notice, or you had no clue that it wasn’t applicable to this situation. So, we’re back to the same question: dishonest or stupid?
No, I’m using the term to belittle your argument. You’re claiming that money that public employees receive in compensation is taxpayer money, i.e., they’re not truly entitled to it, i.e., they shoudln’t be paid at all, and we should just determine what happens to the money. But that this all happens while they’re still employed by the government. Therefore, you’re advocating slavery: you work for me, but I dispose of all of the profits and refuse to compensate you.
No, it sounds exactly like literal truth. Note, I am not saying that all labor produces value. I am simply asserting that all value that a company has is created by its employees. If you have no employees, you have no goods or services to sell. Even if the only employee is the owner of the company, it is still that employee’s labor that is creating the value of the company.
Note that I am also **not **claiming that the employee is entitled to the full market value of the product of their labor. I am simply observing the simple fact that without its employees, the company has nothing to sell.
If you can figure out a way to have a company that generates profits while employing no one, selling no goods, and selling no services, I’d love to hear about it.
In fact, that is exactly what you are claiming, if you deny that a company’s employees are what creates its profits. Which you did.
You don’t have to take your business elsewhere–you can change the rules. Or you can move to another country whose rules you like better.
Well, at least you’re honest.
So–to be clear–you’re saying that if President Obama today announced that the Defense budget was being cut by 90%, you’d be absolutely okay with it because he was elected President?
They don’t want to destroy America. Just the parts of it that are “bad” and “wrong.” Unfortunately, their conception of the “right” America is founded on disinformation, lies, bigotry, and willful ignorance.
Union dues do not come from the taxpayers, they come from the union membership.
Everybody knows that removing the right of public employees to collectively bargain goes against the public interest.
What? I’m just the anti-superslug.
What did you think of the cartoon? Spot on, wasn’t it?:smack:
I’m gonna blow your mind here: It’s possible, nay, likely for people to respect some of the things a politician did or said while not liking every single thing they did or said. And vice-versa.
“They remind us that where free unions and collective bargaining are forbidden, freedom is lost. They remind us that freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. You and I must protect and preserve freedom here or it will not be passed on to our children and it would disappear everywhere in the world.” --Ronald Reagan
“Collective bargaining in the years since has played a major role in America’s economic miracle. Unions represent some of the freest institutions in this land. There are few finer examples of participatory democracy to be found anywhere. Too often, discussion about the labor movement concentrates on disputes, corruption, and strikes. But while these things are headlines, there are thousands of good agreements reached and put into practice every year without a hitch.” --Ronald Reagan
What the hell? You need to stop inventing ludicrous straw man arguments.
I reject that idea because I believe the people who are regulated by government have a right to represent their own interests. And also because I believe that free speech is most important when it comes to speech centered around politics and the people in political office. And also because special interest money always manages to find a way to the candidates anyway. After decades of various attempts at campaign finance reform, the last election cycle broke records for campaign funding.
So long as the government has the ability to compel millions of people to take action they otherwise wouldn’t take and has the ability to divert trillions of dollars of wealth, there will always be huge incentives to influence government. Trying to ‘clean up’ government while making it bigger and more powerful is like trying to win the ‘war on drugs’ while creating the ultimate weed.
Oh, actually it does. Your reading comprehension just sucks. The estimate for the 2011-2013 budget deficit in Wisconsin is between 3.6 and 3.9 billion dollars.
Oh, come on. If a local issue highlights a larger systemic problem, it’s perfectly acceptable to widen the discussion. You’re really grasping at straws here, and you’re doing so in a particularly nasty way. If you didn’t want to talk about federal policy, all you need to do is say, “Sorry, that’s a different debate.” Instead, you’ve got to stamp your feet like a child and scream “Stupid liar!”
Oh for God’s sake. It just gets worse and worse. Now you’ve put words in my mouth, and used those nonexistent words in defense of an idiotic comparison that would still be idiotic even if I said them. But I didn’t.
Here, let me type really slowly for you so you can follow along: Saying that unions are paid with taxpayer money is a fact, just as it’s a fact that government contractors are paid with taxpayer money, and the salaries of politicians are paid for with taxpayer money.
At no point did I say that this meant that they shouldn’t be paid at all. That’s the invention of your fevered-yet-strangely-underpowered brain.
The reason it’s important to acknowledge that they are paid with taxpayer money is because it illustrates the problem of incentives in government as opposed to private industry. In private industry, employees are paid what they are worth, because their companies exist in a competitive regime. Pay them too little, and you lose them to competitors. Pay them too much, and your products become non-competitive. Thus, the bargaining relationship between employer and employee is carried out under the umbrella of this simple fact.
I guess I have to add the disclaimer that this doesn’t always hold, and there are always exceptions, yada yada. But in the general case it is true - market forces drive the price of labor. Private unions can influence this to a certain degree, but ultimately cannot completely ignore it.
When government hires people and pays them with taxpayer money, these incentives break down until you get way out into the margins, such as what’s happening in Wisconsin. But until there’s a crisis, the incentive structure of government often means it’s easier for politicians to simply cave in to union demands and borrow money to pay for them (or to give them extra benefits and let the guy elected in 20 years deal with it) than it is to refuse and risk losing his campaign funding or risk strikes and political pressure from the union.
THAT’s the point about taxpayer money. You somehow managed to twist that into slavery. But that’s a problem to be dealt with between you and your therapist.
Oh, I see. So your whole point is that for a company to exist, a human must be involved? There might be a Nobel in it for you if you write that up.
Which means exactly nothing in terms of this debate. I’m fully aware that until the metal overlords show up people will be involved in the creation and consumption of goods. The problem I’m having is figuring out what the hell that has to do with anything if you’re not claiming that value itself is determined by how much labor went into a product.
This is shifting from being annoying to being vaguely amusing. The contortions you’re putting your own arguments through are a spectacle to behold.
Here’s a little education in the market - a company’s profits are determined by the selling price of its goods minus the cost of production. That’s it. Whether a diamond takes the force of 10,000 employees pressing a lump of coal down for ten years or is found lying on the sand, its value is the same. A great painting’s value is not determined by how many hours it took the painter to paint it. The same amount of labor going into a poorly designed product will result in less value than if it goes into a well-designed product. Furthermore, it’s entirely possible to spend tens of thousands of hours on a product and create no value whatsoever if no one wants to buy it.
A corporation magnifies the value of its employees. It does so through capital investment, the development of distribution channels, efficient management, brand recognition, and all sorts of other factors. Some of that investment may have been made long before the current employees were born.
I think you just contradicted yourself.
She is conceding that Gov. Walker’s actions are entirely appropriate.
Or else that it is too complicated a situation to expect her to make sense, or be consistent.
Regards,
Shodan
I am lost here. Do you support public unions? Because I can’t think of any other group that has to deal with government regulations more than those who work for the government.
And government does not have to compete with the labor market over the same pool of labor? They have to deal with same competitive pressures - raise taxes too much, the taxpayers leave - or more often these days, demand lower taxes or move their revenue to tax havens. And when the tax rate is too low, the roads suck, crime increases and more kids dropout - and your tax base declines since people do not living in areas with crappy roads, and where dropouts can break into cars without having to worry if a cop comes by, because now there is only one patrol car - with one officer. By the time backup arrives, the kid is four blocks away.
And businesses have shown they are so much better as using debt financing. The CEO retires with a golden parachute, and doesn’t give a fuck if the company goes bankrupt a year later because its cash flow can no longer handle the debt load he created.
I keep hearing about this fiscal responsibility everyone says the private sector is so damn good at, but I haven’t seen it in any company beyond mom and pops who were smart enough to never go public. As soon as the bankers get involved, the only fiscal responsibility they show is in how long it takes them to spend their bonus.
I just remembered. My favorite boss made his money in the markets as a commodity trader which he used to open a chain of restaurants. A chain he refused to take national since it meant letting those bankers in the door. After seeing how well Krispy Kreme and several other chains performed, I cannot blame him in the least. And I wish more traders actually used their wealth to create jobs rather than live the high life in Manhattan or Chicago. Sadly he is the exception to the rule of the trading floor: “I got mine, now fuck off”
Jesus Fucking Christ. Once the employee gets paid it ceases to be taxpayer money and is the employee’s to do with what he sees fit. If they want to pay union dues with it or stuff it down a strippers g string or snort it up their nose is none of your fucking business. Sometimes I can’t fucking believe how dense you and Shodan are.
Hey, Sluggo, just wondering over here if you might be able to put up a post of more than a sentence or two? Or, maybe, provide a bit of your own insight rather than just parroting talking points from Beck, Palin, or Limbaugh. You see, even though there are plenty of folks here that share your worldview, they, at least, have the ability to form their own arguments, complete with substance and nuance. Until I see otherwise, I’m going to assume that you’re unable to do so.
They’re conservatives. They are biologically programmed to be idiotic when it comes to unions.
They either don’t understand the distinction or they pretend they don’t in order to try and make a rather stupid point.
I’m sure Shodan and Sam are against workers in the public sector having or paying for abortions. Because, you know, then government money would pay for abortions.
They’re just angry and delusional. Don’t take what they say too seriously.
I’m really not all that concerned with you perception of me.