j_b

as if demagoguery about fat-lazy-cigarette-smoking-union-members amounted to substance ...

OH MY GOD! OBAMA DISSED THE W.A.S.Ps AND KISSED THE BROWN PEOPLE AND THE COMMIES!!!!!!!!!! DO YOU NEED ANYMORE PROOF OBAMA IS A BROWN COMMIE?

Bin Laden being dead since 2001 has always been most probable but it's nice to see it finally said in the corporate press. Conservatives need Bin Laden like they needed the Soviet Union to justify the empire and military adventurism.

I’ll believe it the day JayB starts pontificating at least as much about the much more costly extraction of public wealth by corporations in many economic sectors. This argument is as much about what is being said as about what isn't being said. Discussing unions only in term of their potential to screw the public in a day and age when most workers don’t make a living wage, competition to wages is essentially the result of social dumping (no pensions, no healthcare, widespread tax evasion, ..), and it’s effectively illegal to organize in an increasing number of regions, seems like a cruel joke. agreed but first it has to be stated that unions like other social/community organizations play an essential role in a democracy. Given the lengthy union busting history of the right wing and their recurrent handing over of the coffers to industry barons, they clearly can't be trusted to provide appropriate checks and balances.

most of those who assimilate union leaders to scum are corporate tools rather be a corporate tool than union scum at least i'm an asset by perfomance rather than a liability by sense of entitlement the problem with people like you is when they really believe that performance drives the gravy train that characterizes the modern economy.

1. If another employer is offering a better deal, it's clear that negotiating with their existing employer isn't the only option that they have for securing better pay, wages, etc. If no one else anywhere is offering a better deal, that's a sign that you're being payed the maximal price for what your skillset is worth. If the public sees that people with skillset X aren't making much money, and want to boost their income, a negative income tax like the EIC is a superior mechanism for doing so than collective bargaining, as it neither prices the employee out of a job or his employer out of a market, and you can calibrate the magnitude of the benefit more precisely. The problem for the folks that work building planes for Boeing is that they know that the second they step out the door they're looking at an immediate and substantial pay-cut in virtually all cases since they're being paid above market rates for their skillset, and even if they accept lower wages elsewhere they'll still be at wage levels above which the public is likely to feel moved to cough up tax money to supplement their incomes. 2. See above. Practicing voodoo economics enables you to reach any conclusions you want, but it is clearly not science. Social and environmental dumping temporarily enables employers to drive the cost of labor down but it has the nasty side effect of destroying the tax base that enabled the technological and social avances that are necessary to remain economically competitive. Eventually, and not too distantly in the future, the skill set of american workers will be just enough to make pizza and there won't be enough tax revenues to fuel the military machine that ensures access to resources, then the rats will jump ship.

Smith viewed prosperity as a rise in standard of living for the population as a whole, not the upper 1% of the income bracket becoming ever richer at the expense of everybody else. Smith wasn't an apologist for unfettered capitalism despite what libertarians would like us to believe.

in JayB parlance it means that people are supposed to negotiate with owners-managers one on one, because it is so much more expedient that way. All trades haves associations including doctors, lawyers that lobby for their professions, yet I never heard JayB complain about those. Trade associations have existed for almost a millenium and they are likely to be around for a while longer.

Nice Barney Frank interview: [video:youtube]8AYT8P50WEE

As a matter of fact, it is widely acknowledged that the 30 years following WW2 were an era of prosperity for most people compared to what followed. An era during which unions were at their strongest.

Onward to the age of the robber barons:

most of those who assimilate union leaders to scum are corporate tools

The race to the bottom continues. At the minimum, it's time to ask back for the billions in tax incentives plus interest Boeing received over the last 20 years. Isn't it remarkable how PP couches it as if he were sorry to see the jobs go, yet he hasn't said a word about the 10,000s of jobs lost over the last couple of years (~11000 this past June alone).

except that you have drunk the corporate Kool-Aid because nobody on the left is suggesting throwing money at the healthcare problem. On the contrary, the left is arguing to extend medicare (or something nearly equivalent) to the entire population, which would cut out the the insurance middleman from the equation. as if forcing people to buy insurance from private oligopolies was going to be good for anybody else but already bloated oligopolies. not nearly as getting rich through denying access healthcare to those who need it, very few of which are alcoholics needing a liver transplant.

they go hand in hand for a Marxist like you unfortunately for you I am not a marxist, neither am I an 'XXXXXist' at all btw. But, it's not like me telling you so will prevent you from red-baiting since you have no argument. Conservative red-baiting today, like 50 years ago, just to be sure they remain on the wrong side of history.

at least you didn't use quotes for what you made up.

Got a reeducation camp all line up for me, don't you comrade? or a pit dug somewhere in the forest... your "solution" for your political opponents. aaaw, the good old McCarthyst days ... aren't you nostalgic:

perhaps, but it's a full whoring service. One stop does it all.

So, how come you couldn't talk to your own kid about "personal responsibility and all", and needed the president to take care of this? Just curious. Bill's kids not needing anyone else doesn't mean that other kids don't, as the frequency of failure in parenting seems to indicate. on the other hand, you could have benefitted from someone teaching you to think a little before you spew.

I tend to agree but it is certainly no worse than pledging allegiance to the flag and a nation under god every day, which conservatives have no problem with forcing every school child to do including non-believers.

[video:youtube]ofxVMlU97yA

the petty arguing is on right wing cable, is televised nation wide, and ends here. I seriously doubt Obama writes his own speeches (including during the campaign), although he may contrbute ideas.

hafilax: I am not sure the concerns you raised could be all addressed in a talk to kids, except about having some examples that featured a skilled trade. I only scanned it and thought it read somewhat like an admission that the social safety net was broken because of the emphasis on kids being responsible for wanting to learn no matter their circumstances.

Don't expect an answer from Fairweather. His MO is to make outlandishingly ridiculous statements that only the far-right could think of, then ignore salient responses, issue a couple of would-be trenchant one-liners to pare off dismissive jabs, and behave as if nothing else happened. He will only answer to you when he can insult or denigrate you without it being blatantly obvious he is not answering your comments. Why would I respond to someone who once posted the above? Why would you ally yourself with the same? it is called lampooning of the logic (and often terminology) leading to the adoption of the policies you advocate. Demonization, by yourself and others who certainly used that kind of rhetoric, of iraqis (and muslims) and of those who opposed invading Iraq (and opposed torture, etc ..) was a very good illustration of what Tvash was lampooning. It is far from being the only example because fear mongering about foreigners, brown people, etc is constantly used by conservatives to frighten the elderly (or other isolated folks) and the feeble minded. The hypocrytical aspect of your comment is that you and your type usually rant against political correctness until you use it in the most inappropriate fashion such as now.

as if it were the test of whether you systematically supported racist and xenophobic policies. I don't know what you are talking about. I know that you periodically go into a rant about how so and so is racist, but I don't recall any time your rant was justified. Right wing talking heads have started accusing minorities and liberal of racism because it sustains the silly notion that "not-lazy white folks will end up paying for it" as if you knew anything about me beside what I write here and you have yet to provide a cogent answer to any of it.