Updates
POSTED BY: Wishimay
UPDATED: Friday, October 28, 2016 04:10
VIEWED: 19214
PAGE 1 of 1
Well, it's been a few weeks since I stepped back from FFF.
First off, I apologize to JSF for the misunderstanding on that thread a month ago. I'm pretty good at intent most days, but some are better than others....
Two. No, not THAT Two 
Hubby finally lost his job coal minin'. We at least got a couple weeks severance. More than we ever got before.
There isn't ANYTHING out here that pays comparable so... F U OBAMA.
And on the "renewable energy" front I see the second biggest solar company has run from Vegas after TWO WEEKS of business. So that'll be here... thirty years from now???
But he starts a new job Monday. Like I said, you can get by here if you mind your P's and Q's. Not by depending on unemployment, which we didn't get...AGAIN.
And with the horrible financial year we had, too. But, we're still movin' along, somehow.
Those 2 visits to the E.R. earlier this year?? We just got another bill...
We're up to $3000 !!! dollars. And his previous job is refusing to pay for a docs visit from an injury he got at work, too. 
And the homeschooling?? Right out the window. At least she seems to be doing ok. Thought I was going to get a job, but I ended being more help fielding calls and printing resumes. At least she wasn't here to see all the fretting and worry.
I see India is still Dark Age'n it. I stand by my original assessment.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/indian-sisters-rape-punishment_55e
09fece4b0b7a96338d781?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000592&ref=yfp
Sad thing is, I've seen dozens of these types of articles....
Now, who do we think will win the election? And don't give me who YOU want to win....Give me who you think will actually take the cake. I know it's early yet... I'm just curious.
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I've got no clue.
On 9/11 I thought - yanno, we'll get past this. We need to take lessons from it about how not to conduct ourselves in the world, but in the grand scheme of things this is a blip.
Little did I realize that a tide of government and deep government would use it as a whip to drive anger, invade Afghanistan - and then Iraq, because Iraq was so clearly involved (ahem) - bankrupt the government, spy en masse on Americans - AND THE VAST MAJORITY OF USers WOULD FERVENTLY, EVEN RABIDLY, SUPPORT ALL OF THAT.
So, what do I know?
SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.
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President Trump...............has a rather unique ring to it, doesn't it?
He'll win by a landslide, according to everyone. Yep, I'm going with Trump. He said he'll be the greatest jobs president in the history of the country. He'll build the Great Trump Wall to keep those pesky intruders out. He's promised to repeal Obamacare, a crowd favorite and he's going to kick out 11.4 million illegals and make our country great again.
He hasn't said exactly how he'll do all this, but I'm going with him because he said so. Lucky me, he'll be the greatest president ever, even better than Bush or Reagan combined. Woo Hoo!!!
Trump 2016
Paid for by "All The Hispanics in the World Love Trump, 2016"
SGG
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Wow, a lot has been happening in the past few weeks, hasn't it? It's always scary when a job is lost. I'm glad that your hubby found a new one.
Quote:
Two. No, not THAT Two
Hubby finally lost his job coal minin'. We at least got a couple weeks severance. More than we ever got before. There isn't ANYTHING out here that pays comparable so... F U OBAMA.
Um... I don't follow coal, but what happened that made coal unprofitable? As far as I know there are no new regulations in place that are going to have an impact any time soon. Even the first implementation date for carbon reduction is in 2022, that's too far in the future to have an effect on coal NOW. (As a regulator, I've never seen industry do anything proactively.) I would have thought the very low price of oil would have been the problem because it's putting pressure on the price of ALL fuels, including natural gas.
So, what am I missing?
Quote:Most solar cell mfrs are doing quite well and are expected to do well in the near future. http://www.statista.com/statistics/245212/projected-revenue-of-the-sol
And on the "renewable energy" front I see the second biggest solar company has run from Vegas after TWO WEEKS of business. So that'll be here... thirty years from now???
ar-panel-manufacturing-industry/ I looked into this and it seems the death-knell to this company was the death of its CEO in a plane crash.
Quote:Is your state governor a Republican?
But he starts a new job Monday. Like I said, you can get by here if you mind your P's and Q's. Not by depending on unemployment, which we didn't get...AGAIN.
Quote:Oh man! That sucks!
And with the horrible financial year we had, too. But, we're still movin' along, somehow. Those 2 visits to the E.R. earlier this year?? We just got another bill...
We're up to $3000 !!! dollars. And his previous job is refusing to pay for a docs visit from an injury he got at work, too.
Quote:Maybe homeschooling in the future? Or are you looking for a job?
And the homeschooling?? Right out the window. At least she seems to be doing ok. Thought I was going to get a job, but I ended being more help fielding calls and printing resumes. At least she wasn't here to see all the fretting and worry.
Quote:MOST nations are Dark-Aging it. Look at the USA death penalty!
I see India is still Dark Age'n it. I stand by my original assessment.
Quote:I have no idea. But maybe Trump. Even long-term Dems that I know are bailing on Hillary. I think people are just spinning the wheel, because NOBODY has made a positive improvement in their lives lately.
Now, who do we think will win the election? And don't give me who YOU want to win....Give me who you think will actually take the cake. I know it's early yet... I'm just curious.
--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.
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Even long-term Dems that I know are bailing on Hillary.
It's her personality. In the abstract she fills the bill, so she started out with generic acceptance. But the more she puts herself out there, the less people like her. I think people vote for personality more than policy. I do want to caveat that I think if she were a he, he would not be judged as negatively. There's still a double standard.
Though in her case, her policies suck, too. She's as much a corporatist as Obama or Bush/ Cheney.
SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Um... I don't follow coal, but what happened that made coal unprofitable? As far as I know there are no new regulations in place that are going to have an impact any time soon.
So, what am I missing?
Even long-term Dems that I know are bailing on Hillary. I think people are just spinning the wheel, because NOBODY has made a positive improvement in their lives lately.
Combination of things... Natural gas has gotten cheaper, many coal-fired plants are getting old, and if the regulations on emissions actually go into place, it will be too expensive to produce due to fines, so they are getting out NOW rather than build up stocks they can't sell.
We live in the Illinois Basin, which Peabody is one of the last companies still turning a profit and actually functioning. Because of the geography here, they dig medium-sulfur coal, whereas many others have high-sulfur coal. Medium sulfur is easier to use and sell. Hubbs tried getting on at one that is still hiring, but they offer NO INSURANCE. Basically using a temp agency to run off of. It's a great job if you're an 18 yr old kid, and can use mom and dads insurance. Ironically, the coal they are selling is primarily going to India.
He misses it. I even miss it. Since the thyroid problem, he has developed an allergy to his own sweat. At the mines he took a long hot shower every day, and it wasn't a problem, now it is. More than that, it made him feel like a man, and he had respect there. Now he's startin' all over again. Ain't so easy at 40.
I would like to get a job. Having wrecked three cars in eight years(and a tornado), every time we get the money together something happens. It's been OK for the last eight, because I always had something to do on the house, but I'm fresh out of projects... My dads old truck is not reliable enough to get me to a job (we just use it to haul trash, but it is broke more often than not), and I don't want to have to depend on me working (as I get sick frequently) to pay for the vehicle, so I guess I will continue to wait.
I've only seen a handful of people supporting Hillary, but I think even they know a lost cause. I've seen lots of support for Bernie Sanders, but not enough to beat Trump. I find it odd that people who consider themselves ethical are supporting him, esp. in light of his horrible moral code. But then, last night I was explaining to the kiddo who Donald Trump is... and I got it...
Donald Trump is the last great celebrity relic of the EIGHTIES. Gas and food was cheap, laws were easy to undermine or ignore altogether, and people pretended to get along. At least, that's what some people cherry-pick to remember, anyway. I mean, Dynasty, and Yuppies with mobile phones (yeah, my mom had one of those giant battery pack ones the size of a small TV, too) and home computers, VCRs and Cassette tapes. It was an age of new and exciting things that the mainstream could actually afford. Gives ya warm fuzzies, don't it?
Yeah, as nauseating as it is to think it, he's going to win. Provided he doesn't say something horrible about old white men and the 47% that are on welfare, of course. And he does suffer horribly from hoof-n-mouth disease...
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I guess it's the overall (world) economic slowdown. We're still feeling the effects of 2008, as hard as that is to grasp. But when the USA mortgages collapsed, all of that debt-based spending collapsed too, which meant that China ("factory to the world") lost a large market, which meant that it stopped producing so much "stuff", which meant that the demand for raw materials (commodities) collapsed too ... aluminum, iron ore, copper, coal, soy, beef ...
Now I know China tried to increase internal demand by encouraging lending, but all that did was create a housing bubble, a commodity bubble, and a stock bubble in quick succession, all of which seemed to have collapsed. So basically we seem to be heading into what is known as a "trade war" (altho at the moment being waged as a "currency war")...
Ah, the ultimate failure of capitalism: it destroys the markets that it depends on! The existential search for capitalists is never about cheap labor or cheap materials, it's all about finding new markets.
----
I never paid much attention to Trump, but your explanation sounds as good as any! I think whatever support Hillary has is the same desire to get back to "the good old days" of Bill, but that connection seems to be getting more and more tenuous. Like KIKI says, people just don't LIKE her very much!
Hang in there, WISH.
--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.
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Hey Wish -
I know that you were replying to Signy, but I wanted to say I appreciate your post. Thanks. I truly hope things go better.
BTW, that whole thing about using temp workers - in the energy business I think it started in the refineries in a big way about 15 years ago. And literally just yesterday I struck up a conversation (in the local family restaurant where I get iced tea) with an energy geologist who owns a consulting firm. He was telling me that even the vital 'think' work, like identifying oil fields and setting up and overseeing the site, is now contracted out to consultants.
I used to think that there were certain types of jobs that could never be exported and that were safe in terms of finding steady employment. Those would be jobs that need to be done hands-on HERE, like healthcare and eldercare or fastfood work (service work). Or it could involve working with resources and products affixed here, like construction, farmwork, mining, logging etc.
But capitalism has found a way! You can import cheap foreign labor to do the work, like nurses and programmers. Or let them import themselves illegally like farmworkers, or hardhats or food processors. Or you can offload your workforce to temp agencies, or you can make your workforce individual contractors, or you can pay piecework for e-jobs like editing. Or, for the cheapest labor force of all, you can shut down your business entirely.
YAY for capitalist ingenuity! (I hope that that's obvious sarcasm.)
SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.
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Capitalism. *snort*
I mean, I get that you two think somehow you are fighting a winnable battle here, but it's soo far outside the realm of possibility I just blow you off. Like everybody else does. Haven't you noticed the lack of arguing on the subject? SMH.
Maybe you should start a door-to-door program, like Jehovahs Witnesses. Heck, there's about ten million of those, and they did it in only 100 years. Maybe if you start now, and go door-to-door for the rest of your lives...you might get a million together. What's our population again?
320 million??
Good luck.
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Capitalism. *snort* I mean, I get that you two think somehow you are fighting a winnable battle here ...
No. But if it's the root cause, what's to be gained by pretending it's not - and that something else is? I thought you believed in uncomfortable truths. Apparently you prefer comfortable fairy tales.
OK. . . So. ... ... THANKS! Obamacare for ruining your life! Because the corporations had nothing to do with it.
Now, let's discuss how Obamacare, and only Obamacare, is at the core of all that went wrong.
How about it?
ETA: - OK. That was snippy and took discussion backwards, not forwards. I apologize. How about this. Tell me how corporations are an irrelevant cause of the sinking American standard of living, and decreasing American hope for the future, including yours. OR, if not that, why they are not worth discussing.
SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.
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Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
I thought you believed in uncomfortable truths.
ETA: - OK. That was snippy and took discussion backwards, not forwards. I apologize. How about this. Tell me how corporations are an irrelevant cause of the sinking American standard of living, and decreasing American hope for the future, including yours. OR, if not that, why they are not worth discussing.
I believe in fighting battles I can WIN too.
Probably not the best week to even have this discussion. The place that hubby took the job is a place we said we would never work for. They screwed us outta four years of vacation days a decade ago just in the ridiculous manner they hired people. So yeah, we sold out big this week.
What else would you like us to DO about that, Hmm? Gotta eat. Gotta heat. Don't see a whole lotta people offering either. High minded ideals don't mean much to a hungry or cold kid.
Edited to add: And thanks for bringing up insurance. Don't have any. Even with adjustments, it's still another $400 we can't give out, Just have ta wait till it kicks in again in three months.... Oh...well.....
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What would I have YOU do, personally, as individuals? Whatever you can.
But, people used to be smarter. They unionized. They understood that individually they'd be crushed, but together they had power. Together they fought for better conditions. It's how the 40-hour workweek, worker safety, and other improvements were won. If there's a drive to unionize temp or contract workers, that's an important fight to join, or perhaps start.
SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.
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Forgive me Wish, I don't mean to make fun of your situation, that's not who I am.
I look at it this way. I'm not up to date on the coal mining situation, but overall, workers are generally at the mercy of the powers that be and, in this case, the bosses in charge of the coal mining industry. Like any major industry or corporation they buy low and sell high for profit. So a situation is created whereby those in charge can produce, with some certainty, a form of cheap labor to ensure the bottom line - profit. More rather than less.
So, like the Koch brothers, they hire lobbyists to pitch those in government, local, state and federal; assurances that if they vote for certain measures favorable to their industry, they assure to contribute to their cause -
namely re-election. That's a simple approach, but for the purposes of this little note it'll have to do. It's more complicated than that. My guess, and a big one at that, is that most folks on both sides of the aisle - Dems and Repubs - are conservative in nature with varying degrees of enthusiasm. I say all this because I firmly believe that the corporate mentality is that of "profit at all costs" and believe me, there's serious money to be made. I'm talking billions, perhaps trillions.
Perfect example - Repubs pushing for Deregulation in the Banking Industry.
Result: Banks made trillions in derivatives (that private insurance among the huge corporate banks that nearly caused the economic collapse back in 2008. For which we, the people, paid through the nose to bail them out. In other words, the old double dip. They hit us going and coming).
Remember 'Too Big To Fail,' guess who thought of that one. Well, does it matter? Here we are, 7 years later, and the rich are richer and salaries remain stagnant. That wasn't voted on by you and me. That was decided on by hmmmmmmm, let me see...........well, definitely not the illegal immigrants that came here escaping near economic collapse back in their country.
The hiring of an undocumented worker is not decided upon by the average voter, but by Big Business, the same ones that decide what to pay their workers, and deposit millions in overseas accounts so as not to pay their share of taxes. And who has to pay for that I wonder? This is not left wing rhetoric, but what lies beneath the surface and what they won't tell you in any media, mainstream or Fox.
It's tough, I've been through the wars. I was unemployed for over a year and down to my last 20 bucks in the bank, when I landed the job where I work currently. I am, what they term as 'underemployed.' I make far less than when I was working in my field as a paralegal. But I continue to strive towards a better future, despite my age, I haven't given in. It's not easy, no matter your background, place of birth or economic station (unless you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth).
I do wish you well, good health and good luck!
SGG
Quote:
Originally posted by Wishimay:
Well, it's been a few weeks since I stepped back from FFF.
First off, I apologize to JSF for the misunderstanding on that thread a month ago. I'm pretty good at intent most days, but some are better than others....
Two. No, not THAT Two
Hubby finally lost his job coal minin'. We at least got a couple weeks severance. More than we ever got before.
There isn't ANYTHING out here that pays comparable so... F U OBAMA.
And on the "renewable energy" front I see the second biggest solar company has run from Vegas after TWO WEEKS of business. So that'll be here... thirty years from now???
But he starts a new job Monday. Like I said, you can get by here if you mind your P's and Q's. Not by depending on unemployment, which we didn't get...AGAIN.
And with the horrible financial year we had, too. But, we're still movin' along, somehow.
Those 2 visits to the E.R. earlier this year?? We just got another bill...
We're up t
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two often you use the emoticon for eyeroll
Quote:
Originally posted by Wishimay:
Two. No, not THAT Two
Hubby finally lost his job coal minin'. We at least got a couple weeks severance. More than we ever got before.
There isn't ANYTHING out here that pays comparable so... F U OBAMA.
Quote:http://fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=59974&mid=10018
Originally posted by Wishimay:
You REALLY think everyone works or should work the way you operate don't you?
60#1001860
http://xkcd.com/1570/
http://moodybeatlegirl.deviantart.com/art/Big-Damn-Heroes-557325248
The Joss Whedon script for "Serenity," where Wash lives, is
Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Two often is it altogether fitting and necessary 
Better?
How about 
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Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
It's how the 40-hour workweek, worker safety, and other improvements were won. If there's a drive to unionize temp or contract workers, that's an important fight to join, or perhaps start.
Unions *snort*
Lemme tell you about UNIONS.
Years ago hubbs was working at an alarm installer place that was in the Communications union (transmitting signals).
There were the sales guys and the installers. Sales actually made a living wage, installers had a take home around $27k. This was a full time job, which had unpaid weekend duties like taking the truck in for van maintenance. He drove more than most truckers, driving as far away as 5-6 hours, crawling through crawl spaces, perching on roofs, in the heat, in the snow.
At one point there came a decision to restructure how everyone got paid (per hourly, or per job) and the union rep went with THE SALES GUYS...KNOWING it would cut installers pay down to nothing and forcing them to double their hours, while increasing what sales made for basically SITTING ON THEIR ASSES.
Conclusion? UNION REP WAS PAID OFF.
There's how yer damn unions work in this country. And this is just ONE example. It's almost TRADITION for coal mining union reps to get paid off by the mines to blow smoke at the workers.
People representing people doesn't work, because.... GREED.
Taking the money is ALWAYS easier than doing the work.
All having an ethical code means in this country is you are at the bottom of the heap getting crapped on by the rest of the garbage. Look at Trump, running for Prez. 'Nuff said.
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Quote:What would Mal do if he was in the situation your husband was in? Once Mal discovered how much lower his next paycheck was compared to the previous one, what would Mal do to that union rep? Kill him is my guess. There would be a new union rep and a new deal with the company.
Originally posted by Wishimay:
Conclusion? UNION REP WAS PAID OFF.
. . .
Look at Trump, running for Prez. 'Nuff said.
What would Trump do? If Trump was working as a burglar alarm installer, would he wait until his next paycheck to compare with his previous one? No! Trump would know the exact details of the deal and have made a calculation of which choice is better. Trump would have sued the union rep is my guess. Or Trump explained to Mal what was happening and Mal decides to kill the rep thus saving Trump from hiring a lawyer. This is why Trump is rich.
The third way is the American way: bitch about a conspiracy, take however little is given, and eventually quit.
Mal and Trump know Americans are chumps.
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The difference being that Trump has the cash to lose fighting for a crap job and we do not. Nor the time or energy. Any day NOT spent with a lawyer is a good day...
Hubbs gave his two weeks notice right then, and did not wait. The point isn't the crap job at all, the point was that unions don't work anymore.
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"Conclusion? UNION REP WAS PAID OFF."
I've been through two union decertifications and one massive internal mutiny where the existing board and the attorney were dumped and new ones put in place. Also, I was a union rep and a contract negotiator for 16 years, so I like to think I have some union experience.
My early union experience was fairly uneventful. I ran for and won as rep and negotiator when it looked like the original long-term union was going to be decertified. One year after the new union was voted in, it was decertified and another union took its place, but the union board was reelected intact. At the time the employer was still being pretty reasonable about most things including contract negotiations. For those things we felt were unreasonable we depended on the advice of our lawyer.
But in the last 5 years when I was a negotiator, negotiations were getting tougher and tougher. Management would leak rumors that if we waited to enter negotiations at the specified time we'd lose benefits if not wages, and so it would behoove us to go into early negotiations and extend the existing contract; would refuse to bargain over some items; did not promote board members who were qualified; and other such tactics. In that situation, the negotiating team of which I was a member, negotiated the last contract where we got a raise (until this recent contract). And I like to think the presentation where I took apart the agency's budget had something to do with it.
But a lot of us got tired after that, and most of us didn't run again.
An essentially new board was voted in and after a while it became apparent that either they were majorly incompetent or in management's pocket. For example, all the usual rumors about wage and benefit retrenchment that we used to ignore (with concern; it was never an easy decision), the new union board would amplify and broadcast in order to stampede the members into doing what management wanted. And also, after 2008 management used the ongoing economic crisis to screw the workers. Negotiations became brutal, involving multiple reductions in benefits for workers. There was a gap of 8 years where we got no raises and benefits cutbacks. And employees faced harsher scrutiny over trivial things, and more severe punishment.
It took a few years for people to build up steam over the bad contract/ no contract/ bad working condition situation, but they did and voted out the old board after 4 years and ALSO contracted with a different lawyer.
And the new law firm made all the difference in the world.
In retrospect, the lawyer who was advising us when I was a board member was either incompetent or in bed with management.
The new law group took the employer to PERB (Public Employees Relations Board) over unilaterally changing the terms of the contract and over multiple infractions during negotiations and was able to win concessions as a result. They are also far more capable and aggressive about representing individual employees who've been targeted by management.
Having a good lawyer makes all the difference.
BTW, in your husband's history - a contract has to be voted on by the members to be valid. If sales had a numerical advantage such that installers could never have a say in the contract, installers could have joined a different union.
Not pointing fingers here. But the way it seems to work out, unions are like government. It's up to the people who are being represented to make sure their representatives are working in their interest. And once that stops happening they have the right to get someone else.
SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Wishimay:
Hubby finally lost his job coal minin'....
And with the horrible financial year we had, too.... We just got another bill...And the homeschooling?? Right out the window.
I hav a job for you AND it helps with the homeskooling! How perfect iz that?!
The only possible drawback for you iz that you hav to betray The Queen. I need sumwun to go back in time and stab her in the chest befor she commissionz the Oxford English Dictionary. (I dont exactly know the history, so you'll need to do a little reserch first)
Seriously, you coud conseevably get rich.
----------------------------
DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early
http://www.nooalf.com
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Well, considering I think Monarchies are a relic from the dark ages and people are ridiculously stupid for having people around who think god gave them the right to rule...that probably wouldn't be tooooo hard.
Seriously, when you read how much the "Royal Family" is worth....
When the Queen dies, it needs to be over, just for the sake of rational thought.
Make those people get JOBS, like the rest of the shmucks. Then FILM IT.
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Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
Having a good lawyer makes all the difference.
Good...Lawyer...?
Somehow, I do not think that means what you think it means...
Like I said...crap job. Best to find somethin' else, but no one likes to get screwed anyhow. He stayed at that job for two years tooo long, but you can't believe how people like to see that on a resume. May have even gotten him this job. Doing Maintenance, BTW.
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Good...Lawyer...?
They exist!
But if he's got a ft job, that's less of a disaster than if not.
SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.
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I think the entire job thing iz overdue for a major overhaul.
The relation between the work you do and the pay you get iz totally out uv wak. It seemz the less your work iz worth to society, the more you get. Many jobz are actually detrimental!
----------------------------
DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early
http://www.nooalf.com
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Ahhhhhh, capitalism and the ever fabulous trickle down..............and I mean trickle.
SGG
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Sadly, tis' true!
SGG
Quote:
Originally posted by Wishimay:
The difference being that Trump has the cash to lose fighting for a crap job and we do not. Nor the time or energy. Any day NOT spent with a lawyer is a good day...
Hubbs gave his two weeks notice right then, and did not wait. The point isn't the crap job at all, the point was that unions don't work anymore.
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It's funny how that works. Resume with a crappy job, You're Hired!
Out of work for more than 3 months, "Sorry, can't use ya!"
Was working for a major hospital in a supervisory role, generally as an assistant to the manager; in charge of 19 people. Then slowly took over responsibility of another supervisor (which came about naturally, in other words no power play on my part). I went to ask for a raise.
Was given the old Run Around by the Administration and my Dept Head. After 5 years of solid performance, I was treated like crap. I left for another lousy job (little did I know at the time). No union, no nothing. Just a poor sucker thinking that hard work would eventually pay off.
Making America Great Again..............it's not just Trump trying to sell us a bill of goods. That American Dream bull, is just that. That died long ago. It started in the late 70s, early 80s. And now it's come to this. There's Super Rich, Rich, then it goes to scraping by, and finally poor..........the Middle Class is much like the Land of Oz.
SGG
Quote:
Originally posted by Wishimay:Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
Having a good lawyer makes all the difference.
Good...Lawyer...?
Somehow, I do not think that means what you think it means...
Like I said...crap job. Best to find somethin' else, but no one likes to get screwed anyhow. He stayed at that job for two years to long, but you can't believe how people like to see that on a resume. May have even gotten him this job. Doing Maintenance, BTW.
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Quote:
Originally posted by SHINYGOODGUY:After 5 years of solid performance, I was treated like crap. I left for another lousy job (little did I know at the time). No union, no nothing. Just a poor sucker thinking that hard work would eventually pay off.
I wuz in hi skool wen I figured out that working wuz for chumps. Too bad I didnt figure out that I shoud pak up & go to Wall Street.
----------------------------
DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early
http://www.nooalf.com
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Quote:Here is a short-short story about American business's poor behavior toward white collar workers writing software. It's foreign workers, but business can do similar to citizens and make them micro-serfs at Microsoft:
Originally posted by SHINYGOODGUY:
Making America Great Again..............it's not just Trump trying to sell us a bill of goods. That American Dream bull, is just that. That died long ago. It started in the late 70s, early 80s. And now it's come to this. There's Super Rich, Rich, then it goes to scraping by, and finally poor..........the Middle Class is much like the Land of Oz.
James Bach and Robert Werner’s How to Secure Your H-1B Visa is written for both employers and the workers they hire. They are told that firms must “promise to pay any H-1B employee a competitive salary,” which in theory means what’s being offered “to others with similar experience and qualifications.” At least, this is what the law says. But then there are figures compiled by Zoe Lofgren, who represents much of Silicon Valley in Congress, showing that H-1B workers average 57 percent of the salaries paid to Americans with comparable credentials.
Norman Matloff, a computer scientist at the University of California’s Davis campus, provides some answers. The foreigners granted visas, he found, are typically single or unattached men, usually in their late twenties, who contract for six-year stints, knowing they will work long hours and live in cramped spaces. Being tied to their sponsoring firm, Matloff adds, they “dare not switch to another employer” and are thus “essentially immobile.” For their part, Bach and Warner warn, “it may be risky for you to give notice to your current employer.” Indeed, the perils include deportation if you can’t quickly find another guarantor.
Matloff also found that employers “tailor job requirements so that only the desired foreign applicants qualify” and they “have an arsenal of legal means to reject all US workers who apply.” Despite Microsoft’s talk of “best minds,” the majority of H-1B workers are, in Matloff words, “ordinary people doing ordinary work.” On a Government Accountability Office scale, only 17 percent were graded “fully competent” in their specialty. Typically, they produce the lines of code needed to keep so much of our digitized world functioning. Of course, coding can be challenging and creative. But behind each innovative designer, there’s a need for dozens of routine coders whose main job is to get every symbol, letter, and integer precisely right.
Most businesses prefer having an oversupply of workers, in part to keep those on board fearful lest they be replaced. And if less money goes to the rank-and-file, that often means that more money is available for the executive floors. In Matloff’s view, the dramatic warnings about scarcities of skills are actually “all about an industry wanting to lower wages.” To this extent, he argues, wider income spreads between executives and other employees are integral to corporate visions for the years ahead. But unlike in earlier eras, a STEM proletariat will be digitally literate, thanks to the coding classes Microsoft would make universal (and which are increasingly available from other firms and from high-tech education companies providing classes for recent high school graduates as well as older workers; among them are “boot camps” that charge as much as $12,000 for eight or nine intense weeks). What they’ll do as they reach, say, thirty-five years old is not the concern of an economy based on revolving cubicles, marginal salaries, and importing acquiescent labor. In the summer of 2014, Microsoft laid off 18,000 of its employees.
www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2015/jul/09/frenzy-about-high-tech-t
alent/
Earlier this year, Disney laid off several hundred American technical workers, to be replaced by H-1B arrivals from India. Key to the shift, as Disney phrased it, would be “knowledge transfer.” Thus those slated for dismissal were told that if they wished a severance check, they had
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Quote:
Originally posted by SHINYGOODGUY:
Just a poor sucker thinking that hard work would eventually pay off.
Making America Great Again..............it's not just Trump trying to sell us a bill of goods. That American Dream bull, is just that. That died long ago. It started in the late 70s, early 80s. And now it's come to this. There's Super Rich, Rich, then it goes to scraping by, and finally poor..........the Middle Class is much like the Land of Oz.
On this, we agree. Had this conversation a couple days ago.
You either have kids and have nothing, or don't have kids and have stuff or travel cheap. Working harder than your co-workers means NOTHING to employers these days because everyone is expendable and can be tossed out the second the ledger hits red. My uncles had decent money at one time got hit hard in the market TWICE, and are still working at 65 and 72...
We don't even know anyone who has real money. My neighbor across the street always says they sold a house in Arizona for $500, 000 but that was years ago... That's as close as it gets to "rich" around here.
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2nd, thats the inspiration for Office Space wich came out in 1999.
You reminded me uv this song, Wishy:
----------------------------
DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early
http://www.nooalf.com
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I could see that being re-worked and put into a FF episode...
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Ye! It fits rite in there!
----------------------------
DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early
http://www.nooalf.com
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Quote:
Originally posted by Wishimay:Quote:
Originally posted by SHINYGOODGUY:
Just a poor sucker thinking that hard work would eventually pay off.
Making America Great Again..............it's not just Trump trying to sell us a bill of goods. That American Dream bull, is just that. That died long ago. It started in the late 70s, early 80s. And now it's come to this. There's Super Rich, Rich, then it goes to scraping by, and finally poor..........the Middle Class is much like the Land of Oz.
On this, we agree. Had this conversation a couple days ago.
You either have kids and have nothing, or don't have kids and have stuff or travel cheap. Working harder than your co-workers means NOTHING to employers these days because everyone is expendable and can be tossed out the second the ledger hits red. My uncles had decent money at one time got hit hard in the market TWICE, and are still working at 65 and 72...
We don't even know anyone who has real money. My neighbor across the street always says they sold a house in Arizona for $500, 000 but that was years ago... That's as close as it gets to "rich" around here.
There's the much lesser known 3rd option.....
No kids, single guy with a house....
The silly thing is, as unemployed as I currently am, I'm not really struggling any more than I was when I had a shitty 30 hour a week minimum-wage job.
Whether working or not working, I haven't been able to buy anything nice for myself in going on 4 years. Sure... I wouldn't even be able to have this house at the wages I've been making if I didn't buy it outright, but you would think that would give you some freedom, wouldn't you?
It's actually a pretty horrible place to be, to be honest.....
I could work 30-40 hours a week, part time, no insurance/benefits and make 8 bucks an hour. In doing so, I get nearly $200/mo. food stamps, I get nearly $500/yr. energy assitance, I get on the Healthy Indiana Plan for about $8/mo, I get a $300 property tax credit on state taxes.
Or, I could work Full Time at $12/hr. Food Stamps are gone ($2300/yr). Energy Assistance is gone ($500/yr). Property Tax Credit gone ($300/yr).
Unless I can make $15 an hour with good benefits, what is my incentive to ever work more than part time minimum wage, stuck where I'm at?
All of those benefits I get, not including insurance, are tax free. Add 12% to them to cover state taxes and Social Security/Medicaid and now that's an extra $3,472 I need to make Gross to break even.
Full time is 2080 hours a year. That's an extra $1.66 an hour I need to make JUST TO BREAK EVEN with the NOTHING I have now. So even if I'm making $4 more an hour, even before taxes, I'm losing nearly half of that to lost benefits.
And that's not even including health insurance costs. Instead of paying $8 bucks a month for the Healthy Indiana Plan, now I have to pay over $120/month for the lowest level of the company health plan for myself. That's about $0.80 an hour more that I don't get to see when I finally cash my check.
I'm teetering right on the precipice of Bull and Shit.
Whether I make 8 bucks an hour or 12 bucks an hour, the end result for me is the same. Life sucks, I can't afford to have any fun, I rue the day when my car stops working.....
I don't understand why I get taxed so hard for being single without any kids. Women I used to work with used to make more than twice as much at my old job than I did because they'd get $12,000 checks after taxes. They would get more "back" in taxes than I made all year working.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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Why are you bitching about people who are a .01 millimeter up the scale from you? Why not bitch about the taxes and benefits of the people who are in stratosphere?
SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.
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Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
I don't understand why I get taxed so hard for being single without any kids. Women I used to work with used to make more than twice as much at my old job than I did because they'd get $12,000 checks after taxes. They would get more "back" in taxes than I made all year working.
Supporting a kid is tough these days, hon. They intentionally don't put up prices at my kids school at lunch... She came home on the first day of Jr High school and spent $6. We pack lunch now. But, GROCERIES!
They take pictures twice a year here, $40 minimum
Book and tech fees were $125
New shoes, bag, clothes... We re-used a lot since she's at a growth plateau for a while. She's 12 yrs old and 5'7, btw. Size 10 shoes... We've gone through twenty sizes of clothes in twelve years. She can go through a book a DAY on a kindle if I let her, and I would like to. Between her and her dad, we keep Amazon in business I think...
And Kiki, it's like I said, he probably doesn't even KNOW anyone with money. Hard to focus on a people you can't SEE. It's not like they mix with us "low-brows"...
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And Kiki, it's like I said, he probably doesn't even KNOW anyone with money. Hard to focus on a people you can't SEE. It's not like they mix with us "low-brows"...
There is that ...
SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.
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Quote:
On this, we agree. Had this conversation a couple days ago.
You either have kids and have nothing, or don't have kids and have stuff or travel cheap. Working harder than your co-workers means NOTHING to employers these days because everyone is expendable and can be tossed out the second the ledger hits red. My uncles had decent money at one time got hit hard in the market TWICE, and are still working at 65 and 72...
We don't even know anyone who has real money. My neighbor across the street always says they sold a house in Arizona for $500, 000 but that was years ago... That's as close as it gets to "rich" around here.
------------
There's the much lesser known 3rd option.....
No kids, single guy with a house....
The silly thing is, as unemployed as I currently am, I'm not really struggling any more than I was when I had a shitty 30 hour a week minimum-wage job.
Whether working or not working, I haven't been able to buy anything nice for myself in going on 4 years. Sure... I wouldn't even be able to have this house at the wages I've been making if I didn't buy it outright, but you would think that would give you some freedom, wouldn't you?
It's actually a pretty horrible place to be, to be honest.....
I could work 30-40 hours a week, part time, no insurance/benefits and make 8 bucks an hour. In doing so, I get nearly $200/mo. food stamps, I get nearly $500/yr. energy assitance, I get on the Healthy Indiana Plan for about $8/mo, I get a $300 property tax credit on state taxes.
Or, I could work Full Time at $12/hr. Food Stamps are gone ($2300/yr). Energy Assistance is gone ($500/yr). Property Tax Credit gone ($300/yr).
Unless I can make $15 an hour with good benefits, what is my incentive to ever work more than part time minimum wage, stuck where I'm at?
All of those benefits I get, not including insurance, are tax free. Add 12% to them to cover state taxes and Social Security/Medicaid and now that's an extra $3,472 I need to make Gross to break even.
Full time is 2080 hours a year. That's an extra $1.66 an hour I need to make JUST TO BREAK EVEN with the NOTHING I have now. So even if I'm making $4 more an hour, even before taxes, I'm losing nearly half of that to lost benefits.
And that's not even including health insurance costs. Instead of paying $8 bucks a month for the Healthy Indiana Plan, now I have to pay over $120/month for the lowest level of the company health plan for myself. That's about $0.80 an hour more that I don't get to see when I finally cash my check.
I'm teetering right on the precipice of Bull and Shit.
Whether I make 8 bucks an hour or 12 bucks an hour, the end result for me is the same. Life sucks, I can't afford to have any fun, I rue the day when my car stops working.....
I don't understand why I get taxed so hard for being single without any kids. Women I used to work with used to make more than twice as much at my old job than I did because they'd get $12,000 checks after taxes. They would get more "back" in taxes than I made all year working.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
And now you understand what government handouts are for. They're to make up for the cruelties of BUSINESS, so that BUSINESS can continue to destroy jobs and depress wages without engendering a total revolt.
Oh, and what KIKI and WISH said.
If you want to find the problem you have to look UP. Not "just above your head" UP, But FAR FAR UP.
That woman with kids, she's not a decision-maker in society, and neither are you. And neither am I. NOBODY is free, except the 0.01%. Join the club of the wage slaves.
--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
And now you understand what government handouts are for. They're to make up for the cruelties of BUSINESS, so that BUSINESS can continue to destroy jobs and depress wages without engendering a total revolt.
What I still don't understand, is with all the atrocities you have seen all around the world, why do you two expect any better out of people? You'd have to chemically eradicate ego to get the 1% to operate any differently, and I'm not sure that that would be advantageous to begin with.
Hello, G-23 Paxalon Hydrochlorate, anyone??
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Quote:
What I still don't understand, is with all the atrocities you have seen all around the world, why do you two expect any better out of people? You'd have to chemically eradicate ego to get the 1% to operate any differently, and I'm not sure that that would be advantageous to begin with.
No, the 99.99% have to stop following the 0.01% to their collective and mutual self-destruction.
However, I'm seeing that the 99.99% pretty much deserve what they get.
But thanks for responding to that thought.
--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.
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Originally posted by SHINYGOODGUY:
Making America Great Again..............it's not just Trump trying to sell us a bill of goods. That American Dream bull, is just that. That died long ago. It started in the late 70s, early 80s. And now it's come to this. There's Super Rich, Rich, then it goes to scraping by, and finally poor..........the Middle Class is much like the Land of Oz.
Originally posted by second:
Here is a short-short story about American business's poor behavior toward white collar workers writing software. It's foreign workers, but business can do similar to citizens and make them micro-serfs at Microsoft:
James Bach and Robert Werner’s How to Secure Your H-1B Visa is written for both employers and the workers they hire. They are told that firms must “promise to pay any H-1B employee a competitive salary,” which in theory means what’s being offered “to others with similar experience and qualifications.” At least, this is what the law says. But then there are figures compiled by Zoe Lofgren, who represents much of Silicon Valley in Congress, showing that H-1B workers average 57 percent of the salaries paid to Americans with comparable credentials.
Norman Matloff, a computer scientist at the University of California’s Davis campus, provides some answers. The foreigners granted visas, he found, are typically single or unattached men, usually in their late twenties, who contract for six-year stints, knowing they will work long hours and live in cramped spaces. Being tied to their sponsoring firm, Matloff adds, they “dare not switch to another employer” and are thus “essentially immobile.” For their part, Bach and Warner warn, “it may be risky for you to give notice to your current employer.” Indeed, the perils include deportation if you can’t quickly find another guarantor.
Matloff also found that employers “tailor job requirements so that only the desired foreign applicants qualify” and they “have an arsenal of legal means to reject all US workers who apply.” Despite Microsoft’s talk of “best minds,” the majority of H-1B workers are, in Matloff words, “ordinary people doing ordinary work.” On a Government Accountability Office scale, only 17 percent were graded “fully competent” in their specialty. Typically, they produce the lines of code needed to keep so much of our digitized world functioning. Of course, coding can be challenging and creative. But behind each innovative designer, there’s a need for dozens of routine coders whose main job is to get every symbol, letter, and integer precisely right.
Most businesses prefer having an oversupply of workers, in part to keep those on board fearful lest they be replaced. And if less money goes to the rank-and-file, that often means that more money is available for the executive floors. In Matloff’s view, the dramatic warnings about scarcities of skills are actually “all about an industry wanting to lower wages.” To this extent, he argues, wider income spreads between executives and other employees are integral to corporate visions for the years ahead. But unlike in earlier eras, a STEM proletariat will be digitally literate, thanks to the coding classes Microsoft would make universal (and which are increasingly available from other firms and from high-tech education companies providing classes for recent high school graduates as well as older workers; among them are “boot camps” that charge as much as $12,000 for eight or nine intense weeks). What they’ll do as they reach, say, thirty-five years old is not the concern of an economy based on revolving cubicles, marginal salaries, and importing acquiescent labor. In the summer of 2014, Microsoft laid off 18,000 of its employees.
www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2015/jul/09/frenzy-about-high-tech-t
alent/
Earlier this year, Disney laid off several hundred American technical workers, to be replaced by H-1B arrivals from India. Key to the shift, as Disney phrased it, would be “knowled
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This is very much like an agency that I know which hires programmers from India thru a subcontractor, and pays them shit. I see them waiting to take the bus (they can't afford a car) and I'm sure all four of them share an apartment. There are well-qualified American programmers and chemical engineers and technicians who can't find jobs AT A DECENT WAGE because of foreign competition, imported legally right here into the good ol' US of A!. Not too surprisingly, if you look at who lobbies heavily for the H1B program, it's Microsoft and other tech firms. And since we're an oligarchy, the rich usually get what they want, and we get the shaft.
But this is well-known. It's part of the capitalist game to eliminate as many jobs as possible through automation, and reduce the wages to less-than starvation if at all possible (!) through competition. 'Cause there's always more "excess" people to choose from.
So much for the "job creators".
And part of that involves enforcing "free trade" agreements like NAFTA/CAFTA and TPP/TTIP (Obama's latest pro-corporate masterpiece) and also using the military to make other places so fucking miserable that people will do ANYTHING to get elsewhere.
'Muricans ... (sigh) ... So very... very... very.. fucking stupid. You'd think sheer self-interest would cause people to do differently.
--------------
I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.
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Quote:I think that ordinary people, who are not upper middle class, don't have the resources to win justice.
Originally posted by 1kiki:
Thanks for all the info. But now I need a few drinks because I'm pissed off all over again.
. . . Most people don't think that there's anything wrong with the way things are. Or if they do, they can't identify who's doing it. Or won't ORGANIZE or JOIN with other people in unions or politically active groups.
Here is a story from yesterday about how the richest and largest tech companies colluded to cheat $6,484 from each of 64,000 very well paid, upper middle class white collar employees. It only takes four years and 36,215 billable attorney hours and 3.2 million pages of legal documents to bring the super-rich to justice:
www.zdnet.com/article/apple-google-intel-adobe-reach-415m-lawsuit-sett
lement/
Apple, Google, Intel, Adobe reach $415m lawsuit settlement
The class-action lawsuit filed between four of Silicon Valley's biggest names, and current and former employees has been put to bed, after a US District Judge gave approval for the technology giants to reach a $415 million settlement.
On Wednesday, US District Judge, Lucy Koh approved a settlement between Apple, Google, Intel, and Adobe, and over 64,000 current and former staff of the tech giants.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the four-year class-action case is over, with Koh agreeing for the four conglomerates pay $415 million to settle the case.
In 2011, Apple, Google, Intel, and Adobe were accused of conspiring in a secret anti-poaching "gentlemen's agreement", whereby the four companies -- and others -- secretly agreed not to steal each others' staff.
The alleged illegal head-hunting pacts, apparently put in place by top executives at the companies, agreed hiring employees collectively rather than bargaining with individuals would not only eliminate competition for staff, but result in financial gains for each firm.
In August, the four companies attempted to settle the class-action lawsuit, but Koh rejected their $325 million offer, ruling it was "too low".
Koh allegedly rejected the offered settlement amount on the basis that it was comparatively lower to the $20 million settlement she previously presided over involving Intuit, Lucasfilm, and Pixar.
At the time, Koh believed a fairer figure would have been $380 million, noting the "compelling evidence" against the companies. That evidence included an email exchange between late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs and Eric Schmidt, who was at the time both on Apple's board and Google's CEO. Schmidt confirmed in an email that Google had a "policy of no recruiting from Apple".
There is a documentary out today called Steve Jobs. The accounting of his life story, as it unfolds in the film, is grounded in the brutal realities of corporate skulduggery. I’m a big fan of Balzac’s maxim that “behind every great fortune is a great crime,” and if nothing in Jobs’s history qualifies as a great crime, there is certainly a long trail of extreme misdeeds. http://www.metacritic.com/movie/steve-jobs-man-in-the-machine
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Second
I don't think as a country we've really tried the ballot box as a remedy. People seem content to say - well, I voted once but s/he wasn't what I expected. So, see? It's useless.
Voting needs to be a large, steady push. You vote out the people who don't serve your interests and you KEEP ON voting out the people who don't serve your interests with every ballot. It will work somewhat at every cycle, and the more cycles you do this, the better things become.
I know what Frem would say - because he has said this before - and you'll get small concessions and it'll work until you seriously challenge tptb. And then they'll get out the army, or lock out Congress or impose martial law or find another way to suspend the constitution. But yanno - we're light years away from testing the limits of how much actual power we voters can impose through our own democracy.
Though given the state of the general US electorate...
http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2015/01/nearly_1_in_5_still_dont_
believe_obama_is_a_us_citizen_poll_says.html
Nearly 1 in 5 Americans don't believe Obama is a U.S. citizen, FDU poll says
Over 2 out of 5 believe U.S. forces found an active weapons of mass destruction program in Iraq
... we could end up being run according to the whims of fucking idiots. Because nearly 1 in 5 think Obama isn't a citizen? And over 2 in 5 think there were WMDs in Iraq? Those numbers should be zero (excepting the certifiably insane who've lost ALL contact with reality).
SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.
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Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
Why are you bitching about people who are a .01 millimeter up the scale from you? Why not bitch about the taxes and benefits of the people who are in stratosphere?
You're kidding me, right?????
.01 millimeters?
I made just over 10k a year, busting my balls, coming in whenever they needed me, and otherwise being used because I was being promised a raise that they would never give....
Before taxes, I made about 11.5k
After taxes, closer to 10k.
Meanwhile, some of the females I worked with, who did 1/8th the work I did not only got paid every single cent per hour I was being paid, but rather than getting the $35 check I got in May, they got over $12,000, which was more than I made all year on top of their salary.....
.01 millimeter up the scale would grant them about $50 bucks taxes back, max....
I don't mean to hate, but they essentially made nearly $25,000 last year doing the same job that I did, when it only made me barely $11,000.....
Not to mention, and no fault of their own, but I was being promised a promotion that would never come to fruition, so I was being used big time on top of that knowledge.
EIC is the "hidden" Welfare that nobody talks about.
The best I can hope for in EIC credits as a single man is about $400 a year if i hit the "sweet spot". Most any woman with kids I've worked for can more than double their pay with it if they're not an idiot or have a family member to do their taxes.
Why do I need a bunch of kids?
Even if I did, I'd be fucked anyways and the system wouldn't work because I have 2 balls.
Good for my theoretical kids that I'm not raising them, huh?
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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Quote:More democracy won't work as well as you hope. That isn't because voting is hopeless, but is because voters' minds are a tiny bit deranged. There is a BBC show about why that happened: The Trap, What Happened to Our Dreams of Freedom 2007
Originally posted by 1kiki:
Second
I don't think as a country we've really tried the ballot box as a remedy. People seem content to say - well, I voted once but s/he wasn't what I expected. So, see? It's useless.
Voting needs to be a large, steady push. You vote out the people who don't serve your interests and you KEEP ON voting out the people who don't serve your interests with every ballot. It will work somewhat at every cycle, and the more cycles you do this, the better things become.
Watch two minutes of it. Maybe something in those first minutes will enthrall you. http://www.disclose.tv/action/viewvideo/145347/The_Trap_Fuck_You_Buddy
_BBC/
It is in 3 parts. Google will find all for you. And all free.
http://www.disclose.tv/action/viewvideo/145348/The_Trap_The_Lonely_Rob
ot_23_BBC/
http://www.disclose.tv/action/viewvideo/145351/The_Trap_3_We_Will_Forc
e_You_To_Be_Free_BBC/
'The Communists said they would make a new man. They have succeeded - and he is lazy.' This was my (West German) Godfather's verdict on East Germany's Communist experiment. The unexpected conclusion of Adam Curtis' new three-part BBC series is that liberal democracies have similarly diminished our humanity, not by deliberately setting out as the Communists did to make a perfect society, but simply by organising around an impoverished notion of freedom.
Several critics have suggested that The Trap is peddling a conspiracy theory. This is a lazy misinterpretation, but it arises from a certain arbitrariness in Curtis' account, an overemphasis on particular individuals and their particular ideas. To be fair to Curtis, though, his emphasis on ideas and political actors is a valuable corrective not just to vulgar materialism, but to a more general fatalism that dominates contemporary politics, the sense that things just happen and there's nothing we can do about it. The very suggestion that a different way of thinking about freedom might suggest an alternative politics is liberating.
Underplayed by Curtis except in his brief discussion of 'positive liberty', is the gradual failure or defeat of political movements and ideologies that gave meaning to the subjective aspirations of individuals, and connected them with something greater.
You can see the appeal of the American dream, even as you sense its emptiness. The idea was to rescue people from tyranny, and then sit back and watch the world enjoy democracy. Waterskiing and what not. But it's not enough, and unless you can engage people's passions and aspirations for something more, you can't even get there. Real freedom still beckons, for Britain, the US and beyond. The Trap is a timely reminder that we can only get there by taking political risks, not least by trusting one another as fellow human beings.- http://www.culturewars.org.uk/2007-03/trap.htm
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Answer me second....
I'm really hurting here, and I have no good answer.
I'm not going to just knock up some girl to get benefits that will make my life suddenly copacetic financially.
Why can't I live without all the female BS and bleeding and kids without being taxed to death?
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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6-ix
Income Inequality: 1 Inch to 5 Miles
SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.
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Quote:Money is the answer. Turn your knowledge into money. Remember this one? "First person out of the initial 126 to pass all four tests..." http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=59819&mid=9
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Answer me second....
I'm really hurting here, and I have no good answer.
99327#999327
Remember this one? "Passed Industrial Electricity 2 yesterday...
I didn't think I had a chance in hell since I only scored a 75% on the Level 1 test, when I got at least 90% on the other two tests....
This was the most FUN I've ever had taking a test!!!!" http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=59822&mid=9
99326#999326
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Quote:
6-ix
Income Inequality: 1 Inch to 5 Miles- KIKI
Thanks KIKI, I was going to post approximately the same thing.
This is like the story that I heard several years ago about how to imagine income inequality, by stacking $1000 bills on a football field. On one end- at the 0-yard line, the stack of the bottom 0.001% is about 1/4" high. At the 50-yard line - where half of the people are one side, and half are on the other, the stack is 1" high.
At almost the 100-yard line, where the OTHER 0.001% of the population is - the stack is 18 MILES high.
Jack, you clearly have no idea where you and that woman with children are on that football field! You're so close, you're practically in each others laps. Stop begrudging her the $$ she needs to raise a child, YOU need to get your head out of your drunken, self-centered stupor and figure out who and where you are.
------
You don't know what to do???
GET HELP. Apply for any and every assistance you can think of: food stamps, unemployment, Medicaid, welfare. Reduce your drinking. Continue your training. It's your only way out.
--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.
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No, the 99.99% have to stop following the 0.01% ...
I agree.
SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.
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"More democracy won't work as well as you hope. That isn't because voting is hopeless, but is because voters' minds are a tiny bit deranged."
That's pretty much what I posted. But it didn't just happen, it was done on purpose. All you have to do is withhold real information and analysis of action and outcome; advertise relentlessly, and portray the world the way you want people to think it is at every turn - in the news, the ads, and the shows - and you can end up with a population that couldn't tell you which way is up if their lives depended on it. Which they do - after all, look at how many USers volunteered for Iraq to fight for US freedom.
Anyway, I'm about halfway through the entire BBC production. But while they do a good job explaining the origins of the crazy market theory, they don't explain WHY the politicos adopted it so wholeheartedly. And they don't make the case that the populace substantially did either. I think there's a lot of specific British history and worldview I don't have that make it feel like there are a lot of gaps. But I'll finish it. It's good to get a different POV.
< Fwiw that particular theory is just a model - one of many - that people use to think about the world. Like any model, gigo. The biologists, geneticists, and evolutionary biologists recognized its shortcomings a long time ago. And even as biologists continue to explore its strengths and limitations, they're uncovering one important variable that wasn't accounted for, which is timescale. Short-term success (everyone optimizing their success based on time-limited information) may not be long-term viable - not even genetically. And since evolutionary success is judged in the millions and billions of years, a short-term success will often flame-out over time. And that's an evolutionary dead end. Over the long haul, evolution favors adaptable redundant systems, not wildly booming individual populations.
Even the original Nash analysis, which indicated equilibrium and therefore, one assumes, a limited form of stability assuming nothing changes in the environment, only focused on one type of equilibrium. But there are many equilibria possible through many different processes. So on the whole it provided a new way of looking at evolution and other processes, but I think it by itself was extremely limited, almost crippled.>
SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.
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Quote:That's good you're looking into the BBC's The Trap. Some of us sleepwalked into this Trap. Others were pushed. Who is doing the pushing and why? www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=59994&mid=1002273#
Originally posted by 1kiki:
Anyway, I'm about halfway through the entire BBC production. But while they do a good job explaining the origins of the crazy market theory, they don't explain WHY the politicos adopted it so wholeheartedly. And they don't make the case that the populace substantially did either. I think there's a lot of specific British history and worldview I don't have that make it feel like there are a lot of gaps. But I'll finish it. It's good to get a different POV.
1002273
John Ralston Saul sees the problem as originating long time ago. There are villains in his story about the trap we have fallen into. He wrote a book about them called Voltaire's Bastards. Chapter 1 begins like this:
1. In Which the Narrator Positions Himself
In moments of great passion, the mind tends to be flooded with a warm vision of the person in our arms. We are unlikely, at that point, to be analyzing their flaws, real or hypothetical. Even less likely if lying in darkness. As for the possible product of our intercourse, only the most peculiar lover would be fretting, while in the act, over whether such a child might or might not be an appropriate and worthy creation.
Voltaire and the other thinkers of the eighteenth century could be criticized, with the facility of hindsight, for the passion with which they embraced reason. But they lived in societies still ruled by the demeaning vagaries of court life. All of them had been thrown in jail or risked it simply for expressing their opinions. In most countries justice still used torture as an official method of interrogation and the condemned faced a variety of brutal punishments; being broken on the wheel, for example. This and other tools of arbitrary power constituted a social form of darkness. The philosophers of Europe, England and America threw themselves into the arms of reason, convinced that birth would be given to new rational elites capable of building a new civilization. This love affair was fertile to the point of being miraculous and society was subsequently reformed for the better beyond what any of these thinkers had imagined.
And yet the exercise of power, without the moderating influence of any ethical structure, rapidly became the religion of these new elites. And their reforms included an unparalleled and permanent institutionalization of state violence. This was accompanied by a growing struggle between democratic and rational methods, with the rational increasingly at an advantage.
Were Voltaire to reappear today, he would be outraged by the new structures, which somehow deformed the changes for which he struggled. As for his descendants -- our ruling elites -- he would deny all legal responsibility and set about fighting them, as he once fought the courtiers and priests of eighteenth-century Europe.
John Ralston Saul summarizes his book for a reviewer deliberately misreading it for ideological reasons, here: www.nytimes.com/1992/09/27/books/l-voltaire-s-bastards-006192.html
Quote:
I argue that the rational elites, aggressive and without direction, claimed credit for many of the accomplishments of the humanists while blaming the humanists for the disasters they themselves brought on. The effect of this parallel development on military strategy, science, politics and business makes up the body of "Voltaire's Bastards."
In a new introduction twenty years later, John Ralston Saul wrote about our most recent Bastards running this world:
Quote:
The ability to embrace doubt in the middle of a crisis is a sign of strength. Voltaire’s Bastards ends with what might seem a surprising eulogy to doubt— our ability to live with uncertainty as a creative force. You could call this an expression of consciousness. If w
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Interesting insites.
Hav you ever thot about how you woud run the world if you were given absolute power?
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DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early
http://www.nooalf.com
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Second
I'm afraid I'll probably never read the book, as worthy as it may be.
But I see several different strains in the process.
One is that rational thinking gave us science. We stopped framing the universe in human terms - the solar eclipse is a signal from the gods TO US - and started to frame it in its own terms (as best we can understand them). And as bits of the universe, our existence too follows some impersonal rules. But we're far, far from understanding those rules, and given the role of random events, we may never understand them. So, trying to frame those rules in impersonal terms, as useful a tool as it may be, should never be mistaken for reality.
The other thing I think is that some portions of biology vigorously embraced Nash's game theory of existence - 'the selfish gene' theory. And while it has some utility, its shortcomings at accounting for the variety of behaviors and organisms were recognized quickly.
So how does a theory - a model - fall out of favor so quickly in the sciences, yet still continue unabated in psychology, economics and politics?
The cynical me says it has as much to do with human reality as social Darwinism has to do with Darwin's mechanism of evolution; or neo-liberalism has to do with liberalism - ie - nothing at all.
To backtrack a bit, I've always wondered if the Maya priest-kings, or the leaders of various church hierarchies, or the Roman emperors, or other people whose power depended on the belief of their subjects, actually believed what they preached. Or was it just a cynical ploy that they used to manipulate others? Or simply a system that they existed in and responded to without too much thought either way?
And when you look at think tanks, whose entire reason for being is to shape our discussion and understanding, you can see a mechanism for how an obviously crippled theory could be inculcated into government.
Did The Framers really believe that all men are created equal, as an outgrowth of Locke and Rousseau, or were they simply rich men grabbing onto a narrative that would let them keep more of their money by getting rid of the king's taxes by getting rid of the king?
Does Obama believe that if you open up the Arctic to drilling but make speeches about the effects of global warming that one will cancel out the other? Does he believe that selling the country to the medical insurance industry is the best way to improve healthcare access? Does he really think that 'the market' will provide the answers? Or is he just cynically shilling for corporations at our expense, simply to line his own pockets?
My impulse is to say 'follow the money'. Belief in 'the market' and the 'rational economic actor' is as unsupported by evidence as any religion.
In sum, an obviously incomplete idea was rejected as the sole explanation in the biological sciences. But that idea has been maintained and even inculcated, in psychology, economics and government - partly through the mechanism of think tanks whose sole reason for being is to influence policy and thought - despite its obvious shortcomings. Like many rationales invoked by the powerful before it - and there are many historical and present-day examples - it's role is as a cover story to bamboozle the powerless, so the powerful can maintain and even extend their power. It makes a handy cover story to do what you want to do.
SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.
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Quote:It might amuse you to read random pages at Amazon. This is page 532 from the chapter “Surviving in Fantasy Land” in Voltaire's Bastards.
Originally posted by 1kiki:
Second
I'm afraid I'll probably never read the book, as worthy as it may be.
Where's the Rest of Me?, Ronald Reagan's autobiography, is out of print. And yet in it Reagan explains how, for the first time in the Age of Reason, a pure star was able to rise to the summit of power.
One of his basic principles was that leadership in a confused era is primarily a matter of clear perspective. He seems to have understood this as early as his first public appearance, when he was scarcely twenty. He was calling a football game live for radio:
“We are speaking to you from high atop the Memorial Stadium of the University of Iowa, looking down from the west on the south forty yard line.” Reagan the autobiographer goes on to comment: “I’ve always believed in the teller who locates himself, so the audience can see the game through his eyes.”
This is a principle which contradicts everything rational men believe and do. They provide answers and then prove them to the listener, who can not help but feel this is an aggression upon his dignity. Reagan may have insulted the intelligence of the people, but he did not question their dignity. He merely placed himself in a chosen position vis-à-vis reality, told people where he thought he was and then described in simple but mythological terms what he saw. If you accepted that he was where he said he was, it was difficult to reject the description that followed. He placed himself in such a manner that he spoke as if he were the people’s eyes.
Actors understand that what all of us want is to believe. The plausibility of drama has always turned on our willing suspension of disbelief. It is not the unwilling suspension. The individual wants to believe. We can hardly be blamed for that.
The rational elites can deny this with answers and arguments, but the truth can be seen in the growing number of below-average politicians who occupy the positions of power from which clear descriptions can emanate. The illusion they create is double that of an actor like Reagan. In search of real power, they must pretend to be people who pretend to be real. The German chancellor, the leaders of both major parties in Britain during the 1992 election, the prime ministers of Canada and New Zealand — all operate from limited intelligence. They adjust their convictions with the arbitrariness of those who rely upon pollsters. They describe these temporary visions with memorized formulas. The stock phrases roll off their tongues. And they behave as much as possible like B-movie actors. In other words, after a period in which technocrats attempted to become stars and stars to become politicians, the political void has been occupied by the force of mediocrity, which can easily master enough of the star techniques to produce inoffensive personalities and enough of the rational vocabulary to create the sounds of competence.
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As an announcer, Reagan made up a a lot of play-by-play. He may have understood the listener's need for a clear narrative, but he used that need to concoct and sell fables.
Quote:
One of his responsibilities was to give accounts of Chicago Cubs baseball games via telegraph. During one game between the Cubs and their arch rivals the St. Louis Cardinals that was tied 0-0 in the 9th inning, the telegraph went dead: An often repeated tale of Reagan's radio days recounts how he delivered "play-by-play broadcasts" of Chicago Cubs baseball games he had never seen. His flawless recitations were based solely on telegraph accounts of games in progress. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/presidents/40_reagan/reagan_early.html
6. Once in 1934, during the ninth inning of a Cubs - St. Louis Cardinals game, the wire went dead. Reagan smoothly improvised a fictional play-by-play (in which hitters on both teams gained a superhuman ability to foul off pitches) until the wire was restored.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Reagan
7. Reagan says: “There were several other stations broadcasting that game and I knew I’d lose my audience if I told them we’d lost our telegraph connections so I took a chance. I had (Billy) Jurges hit another foul. Then I had him foul one that only missed being a homerun by a foot. I had him foul one back in the stands and took up some time describing the two lads that got in a fight over the ball. I kept on having him foul balls until I was setting a record for a ballplayer hitting successive foul balls and I was getting more than a little scared. Just then my operator started typing. When he passed me the paper I started to giggle - it said: ‘Jurges popped out on the first ball pitched.’” http://www.intellectualconservative.com/article3120.html
http://radio.about.com/od/djsandhostsqt/a/aa060704a.htm
The ability to lie convincingly is the mark of an actor ... or a sociopath. The rather disturbing conclusion I reach from this example ... and pretty much most of human history ... is that most people love to be lied to, as long as it's a story they're used to hearing.
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You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.
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Quote:People love a good story. They love Apple iPhones and deeply mourned Steve Jobs' death despite this business leader being an irresponsible bastard who had no conscience about killing people and then excusing himself of all blame. I know this from Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine (2015) www.sfgate.com/movies/article/Jobs-documentary-a-tale-of-two-Steves-64
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
The ability to lie convincingly is the mark of an actor ... or a sociopath. The rather disturbing conclusion I reach from this example ... and pretty much most of human history ... is that most people love to be lied to, as long as it's a story they're used to hearing.
80680.php
Apple earned $300 profit from each iPhone and paid Chinese workers $12 for assembling the phone. They were so unhappy working for Steve Jobs that workers were jumping from buildings to their death. Questioned about it, Steve Jobs could see absolutely no connection between their low pay and their suicides. According to him, it was regrettable but a normal rate of suicide.
This was at exactly the same time that Jobs was rewarding himself $20,000,000 of backdated stock options (perfectly illegal, Jobs claimed he knew nothing about the illegality) because he felt he was working too hard on weekends and he needed to be compensated or else he might kill himself from overwork.
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"With increasing regulations forcing other mines to close, we would see more and more inspectors on our job. At one point, we had 12 inspectors on our property on the same day. They told us they were all there that day because they had nowhere else to go … That would lead to more violations because of their interpretation of laws. More violations lead to higher cost per ton. Higher cost per ton leads to less profits. Less profits lead to job loss.”
SEE, I TOLD YOU PEOPLE THAT OBAMA CLOSED THE MINES.
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http://www.forbes.com/sites/ucenergy/2016/10/27/whos-waging-the-war-on
-coal-not-the-government/#5903bf87543c
Dumb ass article disproves their own point...
This drop has coincided with new regulations that have raised the cost of operating coal-fired power plants going forward, such as the Mercury and Air Toxics Standard, the Cross State Air Pollution Rule, and the Clean Power Plan.
YOU PUT THAT MANY REGS ON ANYTHING AND IT WILL FOLD!
It's not like they didn't KNOW that there was already increased competition with natural gas. He saw an opportunity to slit coals' throat and he did it.
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