Political Roundtable Cosmic String of Cataclysm - Part V

[popper]

Thanks for reply. You say you're annoyed but not belligerent and then at the end of your post you belligerently accuse me of posting "idealogical BS."

Yes. Because that's what it is.

I have no problem with the views you hold...

Yes, just as I said about you -- hold any opinion you like; it's your right.

Again, there is no need for the offensive attack terminology you employ in an attempt to demean. Simply address the issues you want to address and spare the invective.

Sure. As soon as you stop using the "offensive attack terminology" (to which I am responding) in your "attempt to demean" me (naive), Barack Obama (a socialist), etc.

Sorry, but I won't cede the use and definition of terms to you, my ill-informed friend. We're not having a friendly little discussion in which we seek to determine whether Obama and Democrats "prefer socialism over capitalism." We're having a series of accusations (by you) and a series of unyielding and spirited responses to those accusations (from me).

As soon as you start writing things like "I am against Obamacare, because it a)..., b)...," etc. -- and the items on the alphabetized list are concrete issues -- you'll get responses organized around those issues.

In short, you address the issues and I will. You throw around ideological BS ("...socialism"), and you'll get the kind of engagement from me that you've had.

payitforward - I have no doubt that if you and I went fist to fist we could work out our differences. I have numerous knife wounds on my body but look forward to whatever you have to offer. In fact, I invite you to meet me anywhere and anytime (I want witnesses so I don't go to jail). We can do fists (knives are cool too but it's illegal). Let me know.

Now for the reconstructed me - Lord forgive me for my sinful nature. Payitforward - I don't want to hit you just because we disagree. We'd probably get along just fine in normal circumstance. I disagree with you but I'm cool with your opinions and I have no doubt I can learn something from you if your drop the prideful stuff. Your challenges to my integrity however are cause for conflict and are difficult to ignore.

[doclinkin]

i want a pony for christmas

--= EDITED to remove grandpa doc's finger waving lecture. Kids these days... =--

[montestewart]

We're going back to Bush=Hitler and Obama=Stalin already?

[hands11]

I think a lot of you all are being disingenuous to Induveca's overall message of self reliance. He's not preaching anarchy (a favorite extreme that liberals like to generalize to when the topic of 'less government' is invoked) but rather preaching the mindset.

The government is blending rights and privilege rather carelessly especially since the concept of "inalienable rights" is a social construct in the first place.

Appreciated. My family always taught me "you make your own luck". They also taught me to IMMEDIATELY quit jobs as soon as I stopped learning. I had 7 IT jobs between 19-26. Each one was higher up the food chain ending with CTO/partner at a big firm in Bethesda. When I started going through the motions I quit again, zero income and started what would become a very successful IT startup.

I'm purely preaching a self-reliant progressive mindset where you attack the day and give it 100%.

I don't agree with excessive government handouts. It makes people more reliant upon government instead of their own earning power.

That's not any party speaking just my own perspective on life. I think it was a mindset more common during American boom times. It's very much the mindset of China/Taiwan/South Korea today. Also much of the rising nations of South America.

Advice I should have taken a long time ago. I did well with the company I am at but I also beat my head against the wall for way to long and so I wasted years I could have been learning a lot more then I have. Now I am somewhat institutionalized. Not as young and full of piss and vinegar as I once was.

As for the Pop and PIF dust up. Can't say I didn't see something coming. PIF was pocking at him pretty good. Pop was trying to be calm about it. I guess he reached him limit.

[popper]

i want a pony for christmas

Cut the crap. No place for that level of idiocy here. Really? That's your argument? That's so stupid. Waste of pixels. That garbage will get you banned from the site. Play nice. Hell I love a good argument, was enjoying the back and forth interplay and dust-up, but the high noon 'I'll meet you anywhere' digital-tough cliche is deeply ignorant and does nothing to extend the conversation, weakens all of your arguments when you fall back on it. Just blows a hole in your own 'integrity'. If 'pif' is being a pompous douche as usual ( ) well fine, laugh at it, move on. No need to devolve to grunting snorting and pawing the ground. If anything you make him look better. And that ain't easy.

You are right doclinkin. Apologies to the board and to payitforward.

[popper]

Thanks for reply. You say you're annoyed but not belligerent and then at the end of your post you belligerently accuse me of posting "idealogical BS."

Yes. Because that's what it is.

I have no problem with the views you hold...

Yes, just as I said about you -- hold any opinion you like; it's your right.

Again, there is no need for the offensive attack terminology you employ in an attempt to demean. Simply address the issues you want to address and spare the invective.

Sure. As soon as you stop using the "offensive attack terminology" (to which I am responding) in your "attempt to demean" me (naive), Barack Obama (a socialist), etc.

Sorry, but I won't cede the use and definition of terms to you, my ill-informed friend. We're not having a friendly little discussion in which we seek to determine whether Obama and Democrats "prefer socialism over capitalism." We're having a series of accusations (by you) and a series of unyielding and spirited responses to those accusations (from me).

As soon as you start writing things like "I am against Obamacare, because it a)..., b)...," etc. -- and the items on the alphabetized list are concrete issues -- you'll get responses organized around those issues.

In short, you address the issues and I will. You throw around ideological BS ("...socialism"), and you'll get the kind of engagement from me that you've had.

I apologize for escalating our disagreement in my most recent post. You didn't deserve my immature response. Hope we can move on.

[doclinkin]

no problem: edit. pretend it didn't happen. move on.

[hands11]

So how is this tax thing automatic cuts thing going to play out.

Seems there was just an election.

In a National Election, one side proposed allowing taxes to go up for people making over 250K ending the Bush tax cuts for the top bracket.

The other side suggested closing lope holes and setting a cap on deductions as a way of increasing revenue without increasing rates. Sounds similar to the AMT that they keep kicking down the road.

So which side won the National election again ? Cuz I distinctly remember a national election happening recently.

Second thing that is confusing me is this. Mitch is out there saying that the automatic spending cuts that are triggered to happen will greatly hurt the economy. But then he is insisting on dramatic spending cuts to happen now. Not some promise of doing them in the future. So which is it Mitch ? Do spending cuts hurt the economy or not ?

[barelyawake]

Absolutely nothing is going to take away the "greed is good" slogan from the American consciousness. The entire rap industry is built upon anthem after anthem proclaiming exactly that. People want jobs. They want to work hard. They simply want a livable wage and a clearer path to success.

Someone has to build the roads. Even when the entire road crew goes to night school, and eventually moves up to own their own construction enterprises, someone still has to lay asphalt. That person needs a livable wage. Not everyone can own the company.

But, that hard worker is not getting a livable wage (even though he takes less vacation time than the average Chinese worker). And he hasn't for a long time, so he's in major credit card debt (more of his money funneling to the top 1%). And he is one accident away from a hospital debt he can never repay (to the top 1%). And his boss is about to fire everyone to hire temp workers, so he doesn't have to pay overtime or healthcare. Not because he has to in order to keep the construction company afloat, but because he can since there is no union to stop him and because he just wants more profit. (PS I know that my use of an infrastructure company is not exactly apt for this analogy, but you understand my point. Someone has to make and sell the widgets).

We are watching the breakdown in society caused by a generation of bosses who so put their own greed over the welfare of their workers, that the system can't sustain itself -- because they have taken all the money of their would be customers already. The problem isn't a lack of "hunger for success," it's the destruction caused by an excess of said hunger.

[Induveca]

Absolutely nothing is going to take away the "greed is good" slogan from the American consciousness. The entire rap industry is built upon anthem after anthem proclaiming exactly that. People want jobs. They want to work hard. They simply want a livable wage and a clearer path to success.

Someone has to build the roads. Even when the entire road crew goes to night school, and eventually moves up to own their own construction enterprises, someone still has to lay asphalt. That person needs a livable wage. Not everyone can own the company.

But, that hard worker is not getting a livable wage (even though he takes less vacation time than the average Chinese worker). And he hasn't for a long time, so he's in major credit card debt (more of his money funneling to the top 1%). And he is one accident away from a hospital debt he can never repay (to the top 1%). And his boss is about to fire everyone to hire temp workers, so he doesn't have to pay overtime or healthcare. Not because he has to in order to keep the construction company afloat, but because he can since there is no union to stop him and because he just wants more profit. (PS I know that my use of an infrastructure company is not exactly apt for this analogy, but you understand my point. Someone has to make and sell the widgets).

We are watching the breakdown in society caused by a generation of bosses who so put their own greed over the welfare of their workers, that the system can't sustain itself -- because they have taken all the money of their would be customers already. The problem isn't a lack of "hunger for success," it's the destruction caused by an excess of said hunger.

I understand what you're saying, unfortunately it's no longer the 1950s with huge infrastructure projects during the golden age of unionization. Service economy mentality, a huge push of immigrants (legal and illegal) from Central/South America, and a flood of foreign products have drastically changed the dynamic of American work culture.

Unionizing won't solve anything if you can't come close to competing on price on a global scale.

[hands11]

Just caught a few minutes of AM 630

Wow. Same putrid lies and hate. As long as people keep listening to and supporting this garbage, this crap is going to keep reaching the ears of those that are susceptible to using this as actual factual information to formulate their ideas. As long as this is true, we will be trying to drive the boat with the anchor dragging the bottom.

Here was the take.

The dems and Obama really didn't win by that much. The electoral college is misleading. I guess he had already forgotten the whole idea that there was no way Obama should have won a second term because of the economy and unemployment rates. This election was supposed to be easy picking for the Rs. And they lost anyway. Lost the Presidency, house seats and couldn't even take the senate when the dems had 23 of the 33 seats open. Rs had projected a clean sweep of all three branches and instead they lost ground.

Exist polls show that people only voted for them because they want free stuff. Free cell phones. Free birth control.

Blacks voted for him only because he is black and they wanted a two term black president.

Obama hates businesses. Yeah. OK.

The Dems only win because they make and want people to be reliant on government.

Asian and Spanish didn't vote Republican only because they didn't do well to reach out to them with their message.

Until these people start to deal in reality, we will always be held back as a nation because we will be trying to pull people that live in some alternate universe along which is very difficult when they are feed so much bad information. I mean there is a part of the country that are loading up on weapons and wanting to succeed while the other half is trying to address the actual problems, make government better, more efficient, accountable and move forward.

Here are real fights. We need standardize election laws so Rs will stop purging the voter roles.
We need to hold Obama's feed to the fire so he doesn't sell out to big business and the super rich like the Rs do. Both these parties are still funded by these people. Dems can easily be Republican light if not keep in line. Look what Clinton did.

We need to fight for our civil liberties and freedoms. Keep government out of our privacy.
Make drone attaches regulated. Obama said he would do this. Now we have to make him.
Make our election process easier for America citizens
We need to make our government management team work more of us collectively and less for big money including multinational companies and wall street. That mean taxes, investments and balancing the budget.
We need to get the government productive again and that starts with setting the Senate filibuster rules back to the way they used to be so the majority, not the minority, leads that branch again. Actually follow how the Constitution set up the balance of powers.

Dems won the election but there there is still a ton of work to do. We have to keep Obama and Dems on task and make sure they don't sell out. The puppet masters strings reach both parties. They have a stronger strangle hold on the Rs, but don't be fooled into thinking they don't reach the Dems as well.

As for Rs. Unless they reject these BS talk shows and their message, they will continue to lose. If they couldn't win this election cycle, its not going to get easier for the next one. They lost on ideas, policies and who they are beholden to. They lost of their vision of what government is and how it is working for. They lost on their facts because they aren't facts, they are spin. If that doesn't change, they will continue to lose.

[barelyawake]

Walmart not allowing unions has absolutely nothing to do with competing on a global market, and absolutely everything about how much the top gets paid. Your argument is a red herring used to shield guys who want ten helicopters (instead of eight). If more companies like Walmart paid their workers a livable wage and provided healthcare, the economy would recover much faster. But, honestly I've written huge posts about this, and I'm sick of the argument. Moving on...

[DCZards]

Hey barely, don't stop arguing and making your points about unionization. It's the only way people are going to be educated as to just how much they and their own families have benefited from the labor movement, which essentially built the middle class.

I'm always amazed at how some people criticize unionized workers because of their good pay and benefits, or the fact that they have pensions. You would think they'd want those things for everyone. Then there are those folks, including some of my own family members, who are clueless to the fact that unions have led the fight for a program like Social Security, which either they themselves or their parents/relatives rely upon for income and a decent standard of living in their later years.

[nate33]

Those union pensions are illusions. The poor saps think they have a risk-free retirement next egg. They are mistaken. Companies will go bankrupt or default before paying them. The government will take over until the government goes broke. Lots of old people are going to get screwed.

Do you really think California teachers are going to get their full pension?

[Induveca]

Walmart not allowing unions has absolutely nothing to do with competing on a global market, and absolutely everything about how much the top gets paid. Your argument is a red herring used to shield guys who want ten helicopters (instead of eight). If more companies like Walmart paid their workers a livable wage and provided healthcare, the economy would recover much faster. But, honestly I've written huge posts about this, and I'm sick of the argument. Moving on...

It's not a red herring, not at all. It's reality, and one the American public needs to come to grips with quickly. US rate of production, for products which aspire to compete with foreign products, does not justify current US salaries, nor standard of living.

Here is the current situation (more or less) of US manufactured goods vs comparable Chinese goods

Cost of Production/Manufacturing/Wage of Widget in China = .80
Cost of Production/Manufacturing/Wage of Widget in America = 2.50

Currently, you're applying your argument to Wal-Mart, the largest importer of Chinese goods. Surely, they can withstand a reduction in their profit margin. I don't disagree at all. By all means, have the Fed investigate Wal-Mart and pass some legislation requiring brick and mortar companies importing x% of their goods from China to provide certain benefits to its workers. We agree completely.

However, the laws being bantered around do not in any shape or form apply only to such situations. These same laws will be applied to all companies, including the American based manufacturers who aspire to sell to the Wal-Marts of the world, but can't do so as they are already priced out of most markets. The same "liveable wage" and "healthcare" would put already reeling US based manufacturers out of business. Also, this approach, even if implemented correctly would only ensure the US is able to compete nationally, not internationally. In other words, China still dominates the rest of the world. I know for sure in the Dominican Republic, all hardware parts, pipes, and consumer products are 95% chinese. 20 years ago, they were 95% American.

New Equation with "better wages" and "healthcare" for companies not named WalMart.

Cost of Production/Manufacturing/Wage of Widget in China = .80
Cost of Production/Manufacturing/Wage of Widget in America = 3.50

How does this not worsen the core competitive issue? Wal-Mart sells huge amounts of Chinese goods because they are vastly cheaper, and allow them to operate their huge spiderweb of stores. I think you're aiming your blowhorn at the wrong issue, the issue isn't WalMart per se, it's the lack of competitively priced goods being manufactured inside the US.

The obvious "solution" would be to add a 150% import tax on imported Chinese goods to support the higher wage/healthcare/make the playing field more even. However that would result in a trade war, with Vietnamese/Indian/other SE Asian companies then undercutting China/US.

At the end of the day, what you're truly arguing for is isolationism. But hard to pay high wages when you have no one to sell your goods to.......oh, so let's just make a stop-gap and tax the rich. Because there is no real solution but a major correction of the US economy, and a new reality for the middle-class standard of living.

End of the day, the US is in for a major wake up call until the common American once again embraces blue-collar labor.

[DCZards]

Those union pensions are illusions. The poor saps think they have a risk-free retirement next egg. They are mistaken. Companies will go bankrupt or default before paying them. The government will take over until the government goes broke. Lots of old people are going to get screwed.

Do you really think California teachers are going to get their full pension?

So are you suggesting that having a pension is not a worthy goal because some corporate crooks are either going to fail to set aside the pension monies like they promised to or some hedge fund manager is going to convince the company's pension trustee board to make risky investments and lose the money.

In that case, maybe we should be increasing Social Security taxes and payments so that working Americans can be somewhat assured of a decent standard of living when they retire.

[Nivek]

I did a search on cost of manufacturing in US vs. China and the first several links I found were about companies shifting production back to US because of rising wages and rising transportation costs. One article I looked at was about a small electronics company (makes LED bulbs); another was about GE.

Don't have time for a more in-depth look at the moment, but there are at least a couple companies that seem to have a different view than Induveca.

[Induveca]

I did a search on cost of manufacturing in US vs. China and the first several links I found were about companies shifting production back to US because of rising wages and rising transportation costs. One article I looked at was about a small electronics company (makes LED bulbs); another was about GE.

Don't have time for a more in-depth look at the moment, but there are at least a couple companies that seem to have a different view than Induveca.

Don't make the mistake most do in this argument of "made in china" (and owned by chinese companies) vs "outsourced to china" (American companies buying chinese part to reassemble in US). Completely different scenarios.

Shipping/cost of doing business/poor customer service have made some US companies "rethink" importing their goods from China vs manufacturing themselves. Average wage a month for a US factory worker is around 2000 dollars vs 200-300 dollars in China. 100 dollars in Indonesia.

This is pure Chinese costs vs American costs to produce the same product for international distribution. China still has an undeniably dominant hand over the US in this regard. When shipping in bulk, in terms of millions of pieces of goods the prices fall even lower, and shipping costs drop further as well.

Personally I still find most Chinese products to be inferior to American made goods, but the gap has closed quickly over the past 10 years.

[nate33]

Those union pensions are illusions. The poor saps think they have a risk-free retirement next egg. They are mistaken. Companies will go bankrupt or default before paying them. The government will take over until the government goes broke. Lots of old people are going to get screwed.

Do you really think California teachers are going to get their full pension?

So are you suggesting that having a pension is not a worthy goal because some corporate crooks are either going to fail to set aside the pension monies like they promised to or some hedge fund manager is going to convince the company's pension trustee board to make risky investments and lose the money.

In that case, maybe we should be increasing Social Security taxes and payments so that working Americans can be somewhat assured of a decent standard of living when they retire.

No I'm saying that the myth of risk free investments is just that: a myth. At least with a 401k, individuals are aware of the risks and plan their lives accordingly. People on pensions foolishly believe they're going to retire after 20-25 years of service and then live a life of comfort at taxpayer expense for the rest of their lives. It won't work. Taxpayers will ultimately rebel. Oldsters are going to end up with nothing, or with dramatically lower living standards than anticipated.

All investment projections are made assuming GDP growth that rests on an underlying Ponzi Scheme of government debt expansion. That debt expansion is unsustainable. As Herbert Stein once said, "If something cannot last forever, it won't".

[hands11]

Walmart not allowing unions has absolutely nothing to do with competing on a global market, and absolutely everything about how much the top gets paid. Your argument is a red herring used to shield guys who want ten helicopters (instead of eight). If more companies like Walmart paid their workers a livable wage and provided healthcare, the economy would recover much faster. But, honestly I've written huge posts about this, and I'm sick of the argument. Moving on...

And I have heard some crazy stuff about them like.
To of the people that work there are subsidized by tax dollars because of how little they make.

while

The Wall Mart family way beyond what most would call rich.
http://www.therichest.org/world/richest-family/

The Walton Family is by far the richest family in the world (the dispersed fortunes of the Rockefellers and others being unknown to the public), their wealth inherited from Bud and Sam Walton, founders of the world’s biggest retailer,Wal-Mart.The Waltons have a combined wealth of US$93 billion according to Forbes 2011 billionaires list.

Some people can never have enough. Its a sickness. I guess they couldn't get by on say 90 billion and actually pay the people that run the stores have a livable wage ?

People don't hate the rich. They hate these kind of rich people. The kind that screw people over when they don't have to. The ones who play their people so little that they need government assistance from our government. One that try to deny them their rights to collectively bargain and have any power. The ones that try to buy our government so it works for them, not us.

Its ok to hate rich people if they are that kind of rich people. Mine Mine Mine.