Philosophy Now Forum

It never fails to puzzle me why some poor participate in their own poverty by bashing unions, and supporting the tea party rhetoric - who is behind these ideologies?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aURJ9GRpmo4

In 1965 CEOs got 20x the wages of their workers.
Now they get 234x the wages of their workers whilst many of those that once had a job no longer have.
With each economic boom and bust these guys have just got richer,

chaz wyman wrote:It never fails to puzzle me why some poor participate in their own poverty by bashing unions.

Let's get one thing straight, there's absolutely nothing wrong with unions making any demands they want to employers. What is wrong is the government telling employers they have to deal with unions at all. Unfortunately, this special prerogative that unions have destroys jobs. Just ask the 18,500 former employees of Hostess Brands, the Twinkie company. Go ahead and tell those idiot union members that if they had a job, they'd be making more money than they were making before the union destroyed the jobs they had. Chaz, economic fools like you are the real problem, not people who bash unions.

bobevenson wrote:

chaz wyman wrote:It never fails to puzzle me why some poor participate in their own poverty by bashing unions.

Let's get one thing straight, there's absolutely nothing wrong with unions making any demands they want to employers. What is wrong is the government telling employers they have to deal with unions at all. Unfortunately, this special prerogative that unions have destroys jobs. Just ask the 18,500 former employees of Hostess Brands, the Twinkie company. Go ahead and tell those idiot union members that if they had a job, they'd be making more money than they were making before the union destroyed the jobs they had. Chaz, economic fools like you are the real problem, not people who bash unions.

Watch the program and comment on it.
As for Twinkie, they just moved their profits out of the country and the owners are still making money whilst the ex-workers are now drawing dole money from you. The CEOs of Twinkie are still rich and not paying tax, whilst people like you foot the bill.

You are people like you are sleepwalking into endemic poverty, whilst the rich get richer.

chaz wyman wrote:

bobevenson wrote:

chaz wyman wrote:It never fails to puzzle me why some poor participate in their own poverty by bashing unions.

Let's get one thing straight, there's absolutely nothing wrong with unions making any demands they want to employers. What is wrong is the government telling employers they have to deal with unions at all. Unfortunately, this special prerogative that unions have destroys jobs. Just ask the 18,500 former employees of Hostess Brands, the Twinkie company. Go ahead and tell those idiot union members that if they had a job, they'd be making more money than they were making before the union destroyed the jobs they had. Chaz, economic fools like you are the real problem, not people who bash unions.

Watch the program and comment on it.
As for Twinkie, they just moved their profits out of the country and the owners are still making money whilst the ex-workers are now drawing dole money from you. The CEOs of Twinkie are still rich and not paying tax, whilst idiots like you foot the bill.

You are people like you are sleepwalking into endemic poverty, whilst the rich get richer.

I'm sorry, I have better things to do than watch an hour of socialist polemic. Hostess Brands is not outsourcing anything, they are liquidating their facilities and selling off their brands, including Twinkies, to the highest bidder, and there are a large number of them, who will continue to manufacture these brands, and give unions second thoughts about initiating another strike. Fortunately, union membership continues to dwindle in the United States, and only in government jobs do they have any power at all, which hopefully will come to an end in the near future.

Long live free-market capitalism! Socialism must die!

Labour Unions forced up wages across the board. They also increased safety at work.
The result of this was to elevate ordinary working people to being more important to society; more that the exploited workhorses worked to death on poverty wages.

The Unions forced the rich to share their profits. Now they are pretty much a thing of the past and we have a situation where CEOs are paid 230x more than the workers, whilst in 1965 they earned 20x.
This is not due to productivity, but greed and anti-union media; the rich controlling the political process, whilst real poverty has massively increased in the same time.

The result of all this was to increase the amount of money to the lowest paid people in society.
This increased the spending power of the population, this fed demand, and enabled the economy to grow. More goods supplied to more people who were able to demand a better life and better working conditions.
This in turn helped the development of new goods such as washing machines and cars, that enabled man and wife both to go and make the economy for even faster economic growth.

This has had a knock-on effect by making other employers have to offer better wages to other workers and to make employers have more respect for ordinary people upon who they rely for the health of their businesses.
120 years ago the average wage was not enough to live on. Unions have helped make this a positive change.

The danger now is that in the East workers who live below the poverty line and work 18hours a day are outcompeting US and UK business which now has decided to make goods over there.
Unless the eastern workers also unionise the economy will implode unless the west can out educate
foreign countries.

chaz wyman wrote:Unless the eastern workers also unionise, the economy will implode unless the west can out educate foreign countries.

Teachers probably have the biggest unions in the United States, and I guarantee you this is the reason our education is in such a free fall. Unions are the road to poverty for everybody, including both rich and poor.

... I guarantee you ...

Anyone convinced by this kind of assurance from Bob "Ouzo" Evenson? lol

mickthinks wrote:... I guarantee you ...

Anyone convinced by this kind of assurance from Bob "Ouzo" Evenson? lol

As God's gift to political economics, my word is my bond.

bobevenson wrote:

chaz wyman wrote:Unless the eastern workers also unionise, the economy will implode unless the west can out educate foreign countries.

Teachers probably have the biggest unions in the United States, and I guarantee you this is the reason our education is in such a free fall. Unions are the road to poverty for everybody, including both rich and poor.

Teachers are paid at just above the poverty level despite all the qualifications they are expected to have.
If you had your way you'd pay them less and that would attract even lower quality of teaching.

I know you had a shit education, but try to think about it.

mickthinks wrote:... I guarantee you ...

Anyone convinced by this kind of assurance from Bob "Ouzo" Evenson? lol

Bob is the character here, most like the village idiot.

chaz wyman wrote:Teachers are paid at just above the poverty level despite all the qualifications they are expected to have. If you had your way you'd pay them less and that would attract even lower quality of teaching.

You and other socialists want the government to run everything, and bring economics to a screeching halt, like the U.S. government running the postal service into the ground. Any economist worth his salt knows that a free market is the only way to improve anything by offering goods and services that people want to buy at the prices they want to pay. Maybe you would like to treat teachers like royalty and pay them an annual stipend for just sitting on their ass, which pretty much describes what they're doing now.

bobevenson wrote:

chaz wyman wrote:Teachers are paid at just above the poverty level despite all the qualifications they are expected to have. If you had your way you'd pay them less and that would attract even lower quality of teaching.

You and other socialists want the government to run everything, and bring economics to a screeching halt, like the U.S. government running the postal service into the ground. Any economist worth his salt knows that a free market is the only way to improve anything by offering goods and services that people want to buy at the prices they want to pay. Maybe you would like to treat teachers like royalty and pay them an annual stipend for just sitting on their ass, which pretty much describes what they're doing now.

Do you really think that sacking all teachers and getting people to buy their kids education will result in the next generation being better educated or less educated?

If that was so great, then why aren't people buying a decent education for their kids right now?

Have you any idea how much a private education is per term?

Have you any idea how little is now spent on publicly funded education?

You are so busy listening to Fox News that you have not done your basic research.

You are sleepwalking into an uncivilised third world economy.
Civilisation costs. Right now the the percentage spent in public services is at an all time low, not co-incidentally at a time when basic service are in adequate; educational standard is at it slowest; and tax cuts for the rich are at an all time high.
WHat is funny about you is that you are trailor-trash that is begging for more tax cuts for the rich and asking the government to throw away you rights to the fruits of the civilisation that your forebears have fought for.
All the while the rich are laughing all the way to the bank that you have paid for; bailed out and kept alive. WHilst they laugh and dip their hands in to an ever growing pot of money, you are getting a less well funded police; fire-service; roads; bridges; and education for the kids in your neighbourhood whose only choices are going to be crime.

bobevenson wrote:Long live free-market capitalism! Socialism must die!

A global super-rich elite has exploited gaps in cross-border tax rules to hide an extraordinary £13 trillion ($21tn) of wealth offshore – as much as the American and Japanese GDPs put together – according to research commissioned by the campaign group Tax Justice Network.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012 ... re-economy for more details. This elite is reckoned to be 92 000 people. We have mortgaged ourselves, our children and our children's children to these people. That is free market capitalism bobevenson.

tillingborn wrote:

bobevenson wrote:Long live free-market capitalism! Socialism must die!

A global super-rich elite has exploited gaps in cross-border tax rules to hide an extraordinary £13 trillion ($21tn) of wealth offshore – as much as the American and Japanese GDPs put together – according to research commissioned by the campaign group Tax Justice Network.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012 ... re-economy for more details. This elite is reckoned to be 92 000 people. We have mortgaged ourselves, our children and our children's children to these people. That is free market capitalism bobevenson.

My friend, you know nothing at all about economics, so you would be wise to stay away from the subject altogether.

bobevenson wrote:My friend, you know nothing at all about economics, so you would be wise to stay away from the subject altogether.

Well bob, my friend, you don't seem to know a great deal about reality, but it is gratifying to see you heed your own advice. How is anyone to learn anything by staying away from what they don't know?