Political Discussion

Tys1 said:
Well shit man, that sucks but like.... what are we supposed to do? Never technologically advance as a nation? Never work towards improving our planet? Never compete in trade with foreign nations? The nation has to continue moving forward. The answer is not to seclude ourselves from the world and live off of coal and liberal tears forever.
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Start at the basic need. People want food on the table and feel like they belong to a community.
 
I can't find it now, but I remember seeing a reply to one of Bernie Sanders tweets a few months back.

Bernie Sanders tweeted about wage inequality and how CEO's can get multi million dollar bonuses at the same time they layoff hundreds of employees because business is down during COVID. That money should go to not must saving jobs, but also towards livable wages. It's not right that one person can make so much money when everyone else makes so little.

One of the replies in the thread he got was by some Republican from Rural America saying something like that CEO worked hard to earn that money. He has to make all the tough calls to keep a business profitable. But the one part of the thread of his reply I remember word for word after he was called out by people that the corporations pay people as little as possible was "that unskilled labor got paid exactly what they are owed".


Right, so that unskilled labor, which by the way includes numerous positions that require a college degree is "unskilled". And they are not owed anything more for their work then what they are being paid.

This is what's wrong with capitalism. We have one group of people who say, well that's how things work and don't see anything wrong with it.
 
Joe Mac said:
No what we’re supposed to do is bring those communities with us through incentivising companies to spread employment across the nation and not just concentrate it. By offering retraining opportunities, by having robust educational systems and by ensuring employers pay fair wages and give fair benefits. The answer is for liberals and socialists to reach out to communities and not seclude ourselves in our big cities and intellectual bubbles offering either “hard truths” or “empty platitudes”.
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The UK has spent the better part of a year demonstrating that vast swathes of roles can be undertaken by dispersed workforces. It presents a once in a generation opportunity to break the stranglehold that the South East has on the UK because we've shown that there's no need to be part of it to get a job done. All of sudden, previously 'isolated' communities are back in the game; we tested the infrastructure largely from cold and it held up.

Now we sit back and watch the political class squander this opportunity because they are, almost to an individual, fuckwits.
 
LeSamourai said:
www.thefarside.com

The Far Side | TheFarSide.com

Visit the official online home of The Far Side comic strip by Gary Larson for your daily dose of Gary’s classic cartoons.
www.thefarside.com www.thefarside.com
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I'm not familiar with The Far Side as I don't read comics or get any newspapers. But why are all the people in the comic so large? Is this supposed to be a representation of Americans?
 
RenegadeMonster said:
I'm not familiar with The Far Side as I don't read comics or get any newspapers. But why are all the people in the comic so large? Is this supposed to be a representation of Americans?
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That's just always been his style- surreal and a little grotesque. He only recently started posting some new comics this month after something like 25 years since the comic strip ended.

I have loved it since I was a kid... when it comes to comic strips, only Calvin and Hobbes holds a higher place in my heart.
 
RenegadeMonster said:
I can't find it now, but I remember seeing a reply to one of Bernie Sanders tweets a few months back.

Bernie Sanders tweeted about wage inequality and how CEO's can get multi million dollar bonuses at the same time they layoff hundreds of employees because business is down during COVID. That money should go to not must saving jobs, but also towards livable wages. It's not right that one person can make so much money when everyone else makes so little.

One of the replies in the thread he got was by some Republican from Rural America saying something like that CEO worked hard to earn that money. He has to make all the tough calls to keep a business profitable. But the one part of the thread of his reply I remember word for word after he was called out by people that the corporations pay people as little as possible was "that unskilled labor got paid exactly what they are owed".


Right, so that unskilled labor, which by the way includes numerous positions that require a college degree is "unskilled". And they are not owed anything more for their work then what they are being paid.

This is what's wrong with capitalism. We have one group of people who say, well that's how things work and don't see anything wrong with it.
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If you want to read more about this, I really like Matt Stoller's blog. The problem started with Michael Isner who took over Disney in the late 80's. He asked that his compensation be in stock options because he was promising that as the company was more profitable, the more money he would make in dividends. This eventually gave rise to some very questionable business practices and funny accounting because CEOs got their "bonus" pay every three months in the form of quarterly dividends. Once they realized that leveraging the accounting to create positive dividends each quarter means a lot more money for them, businesses got into the business of making a company look profitable by any means necessary, that included laying off work force and closing down branches that weren't as profitable as they could be. This business model works fine as long as the company is profitable but the minute they start losing money, they look to "trim the fat" and become "six sigma lean" because their dividends are at stake here. This started the trend that persists today. CEOs make business decisions not based on the long term profitability of their company, but instead for short term gains only realized by stock holders. Thus if worker healthcare becomes an impact to the profits, they reduce them and push the cost to either the consumer or the worker.
 
nolalady said:
If you want to read more about this, I really like Matt Stoller's blog. The problem started with Michael Isner who took over Disney in the late 80's. He asked that his compensation be in stock options because he was promising that as the company was more profitable, the more money he would make in dividends. This eventually gave rise to some very questionable business practices and funny accounting because CEOs got their "bonus" pay every three months in the form of quarterly dividends. Once they realized that leveraging the accounting to create positive dividends each quarter means a lot more money for them, businesses got into the business of making a company look profitable by any means necessary, that included laying off work force and closing down branches that weren't as profitable as they could be. This business model works fine as long as the company is profitable but the minute they start losing money, they look to "trim the fat" and become "six sigma lean" because their dividends are at stake here. This started the trend that persists today. CEOs make business decisions not based on the long term profitability of their company, but instead for short term gains only realized by stock holders. Thus if worker healthcare becomes an impact to the profits, they reduce them and push the cost to either the consumer or the worker.
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That makes a lot of sense. I knew about this practice, but I didn't realise that this is are more recent development since the late 80's. I kind of always thought it was a thing. I'll have to read into it more. But this definitely explains why wages are stagnant for the middle class. It's also the definition of you need money to make money.
 
Also "six sigma lean" is very much in practice by the large holding companies.

Earlier this year they mandated each company they hold cut 10% of salaries across their company. And of course 10% of total salaries amount to more than 25% of staff in the layoff. My company, had just Trimmed the fat as required by our holding company after we lost a client a couple months before. We were growing and in need to hiring because we were stretched too thin. Yet, the COVID 10% reduction to keep our holding company strong was mandated. And instead of getting help back we had to cut more and are still in a hiring freeze through the end of the year. It's been "do more with less" mode ever since and we all are facing burnout. It's a high stress long hour environment now.

And I'm afraid that now that they know they can run on less, will they ever hire back as many people as we had before?
 
This article helps me feel better.

www.npr.org

Trump Election Lawsuits Have Mostly Failed. Here's What They Tried

"The claims are baseless, and at this point folks are grasping at straws," said one secretary of state, of the Trump campaign's legal strategy.
www.npr.org www.npr.org


I guess it's because I'm surrounded by Trumpers who are so excited about all of this, I'm basically on an island most of my days for most of my week. Anything I can come up with to debate with them is shot down because my sources are "liberal." So it actually makes me start to question why I think I'm so correct, when 30 people at my work are SO confident that this thing is going to flip to Trump. It's making for tough work days because I'm such a loner here and I know they talk about me being a 'pedophile supporter.'

I'd quit, but I've been here longer than any of these fools...and I can't really quit anyway...not without a great plan in place.
 
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