The Bush Administration has proposed changing federal overtime rules and eroding the 40- hour workweek- reducing overtime protections and cutting the pay of hundreds of thousands of Amer- ican workers. With a failing economy, millions out of work and staggering health care and prescription drug cost, this is a burder American workers should not have to bear. The overtime rules protect workers from employers who woould have less predictable work schedules because of the increased demand for overtime work. The Bush overtime reform proposal: Excludes previously protected workers by reclassifying them as managers, administrative or professional em- ployees who are not eligible for overtime pay. Fails to include large numbers of low-income workers: For the first time, excludes certain middle-income workers from overtime in the aerospace, defense, healthcare, high tech and various other industries: Make shedules less predictable for working parents and confusiong standards for low income supervisors.
Newsflash - The economy is hurting RIGHT NOW and this just strips overtime wages from people that would take that money, spend it and create new jobs. I would say that the Bush sr and Bush jr era's have been the poster boy for high unemployment, corperate welfare and debt.
Salty Why is it that whenever our business leaders mismanage themselves into a hole, the solution is to take it easy on management and clamp down on the labor force? Seriously: "We screwed up, told you to do the wrong thing, and even though you did it beautifully, we're going to punish you for our mistakes because it's the only fair thing to do." People who fear leftist economic theories including Socialism and Communism ought not wonder why the left continues to exist despite all concerted efforts to kill it. Alex Rodriguez left Seattle to take a contract worth $25.2 million dollars a year for ten years because he wasn't making enough money. At the same time, Seattle teachers generally cannot afford on their salaries to live in the same city, much less neighborhood, where they teach. A billion dollars for two stadia is a reasonable cost, but it still doesn't mean we're paying the teachers. Don't you feel weird tipping your kid's math teacher a buck for the latte at the Starbuck's outside Nordstrom's? How about renting DVD's from the health teacher entrusted to teach sex ed to your daughter? I worked for a Seattle-based insurance company that essentially bought out another company, chose to lose money on its acquisition for a few years in order to keep the customer base, raised rates suddenly and sharply as things started coming apart, blew the customer base to smithereens, and plunged the company into a three-year stock slide that resulted in a massive shakeup. It's true that the new CEO did, in fact, fire his five senior VP's for making it necessary to lay off over 10% of the labor force. But when they announced the layoffs that everyone knew was coming, Bush had given them a new reason: publicly, they blamed the recession, you know, the one our President worked so hard to create? And now Bush is arguing over the size of a tax cut for the wealthy that will "produce jobs" ... I seem to remember that the "jobs" Poppy Bush was crowing about were lateral transfers out of the defense industry into the entertainment, engineering-consulting, and other fields; the "jobs" Clinton crowed about were jobs at Taco Bell. Despite all the jobs being produced in the recent economic juggernaut, we imported technical workers in part because our schools aren't turning out enough qualified and passionate students. So what kind of jobs is Bush hoping to "create" now that he's helped drop the guillotine on so many? Get rid of some production labor, get rid of some technical labor, create a thousand new baristas ...? Bad for the economy? In the mid-late 1990s (96 or 97, I think) we had an odd election up in Seattle in which the voters killed their countywide EMS in a tax rebellion, survived an ill-writ civil-rights measure, and, here's the important one, turned down an "any willing provider" law for health insurance. In the battle for patient's rights and access to good doctors, the people voted against a measure that would ensure their right to choose a quality doctor (as opposed to being assigned a doctor) because they believed their rates would go up. They believed this because the "experts" said so. Who were the "experts"? Members of the boards of three area health insurance providers. The industry basically blackmailed the people: If you pass this law on your behalf, we'll screw you. White-collar has turned out to be bad for the economy. I still don't understand why conservatives don't understand that people can make and sell things without huge management structures, but management can't sell anything if the labor force isn't willing? How is it that Apple computer can't take steps to make sure that their Arab-sold computers are built with batteries coming from the lot that doesn't come from Israel (the batteries come from several places) in order to satisfy their customers but we're expected to blacklist a whole nation (e.g. France) just because they won't go along with our little P.R. war? The answer is simple: Don't ask me about conservative logic; I generally don't believe it exists. You are, of course, welcome to prove me wrong. Believe me, I'm waiting anxiously for the day that conservatism finally serves its fellow human being instead of merely conservatives. Whoops, that won't happen ... it's just the nature of conservatives. :m:, Tiassa Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Bush Grinds The Faces Of The Unrich? So What Else is New? George W. scored another stunning victory this week in his war against America. It develops that the Internal Revenue Service plans to make it harder — sometimes impossible — for low-income families to claim money that is owed to them by law. More on this whole matter later (if I’m able to get to it), but for the moment take a look at this New York Times article and this editorial, “The I.R.S. Goes After the Poor.” The rest of the media has mostly judged this sickening story to be a yawner, and has consequently given it a pass. Apparently it is no longer news that Mr. Bush’s economic plan consists solely of efforts to eliminate all taxes on unearned income and to raise all taxes on income for which people have actually worked. Or, as the Republicans hate to hear it called, “earned income.” :m: Peace.
So lets make it worse with more regulation? You act like business leaders are one body. They couldnt cooperate unless there is serious money involved. The problem is the Goverment screws up with to strict of regulations the business has to go threw beacracy to get things done witch hurts efficiency. When was this? Could you give me a little more facts? Simple if a company can have more profite they have more capital that they can spend on the company. Expanding and creating more jobs. The more taxes the goverment has the more money it is taking out of the buisness cycle. Thats right if you want older more qualified doctors that cost more guess what? the health insurance rates will have to go up. There is no free lunch. BULLSHIT THEY CAN! Go try and make your own international buisness if you think you don't need any kind of training or expertese to run a multinaitonal corporation. Its alot harder to run a company then it looks. There is a reason why there are business schools. You wanna see the polar opposite of when the "people" or Bigbrother rule the economy go swim over to Cuba. See how there is nothing inside any store and there is no point in fixing a roof because if you do somebody with better politcal ties takes it. It looks like to me all they are doing is making sure that you arent a depedent on somebody else and applying for tax credit. (ie. a 17 year old working at McDonalds that still lives with his parents that pay for his stuff also will pay more taxes then a 17 year old single mother working at McDonalds. He just dosent want people playing the system.
Why cant an American worker be allowed to make a decent wage,health insurance and some kind of retirement? The Republican plan is a failure (except for greedy spinster employers/corporate welfare)Reagan-1980 to 1988 and Bush to 1992. It's history- and I wasnt a infant in my diapers (Salty) when all this flim/flam went on. Been there and have done that.. Check 1980-92 economic reports and unbiased studies and the truth is clear.
The American worker can there wages are higher. Republican's economics is not a shorterm thing. Immediate spending only uses up the inventory of goods that have already been produced. The decision to produce new goods, the decision to spend current revenues to build factories and hire workers, is a matter, not of consumption, but of investment. These investment decisions are what drive the economy in the long term, and they are made based on returns projected one year, or three years, or 30 years into the future. They are made with the long term in mind. So you won't see Republican economics expand the economy till a while after the presidents term.
I've seen no proof of your statement..give me some non-biased economy links. Corporate lobbying groups are pushing Congress to pass H.R. 1119 and S.317, bills that would replace overtime with comp time. (www.thomas.loc.gov,4/2/03. The employer gets to decide who gets comp time and when they can take it (Economic Policy Institute) On March 31,2003, the Bush Administration proposed new rules that would take away the right to overtime pay for million of worker, in addition to eroding the forty hour workweek.(Federal Register,Vol. 68, No 61, 3/31/03) If what ive wrote above doesnt affect you or any of your family or friends- that's fine. Vote your way and I'll vote mine because I know many people with children that NEED this money to survive.
more- On 12/12/02, the Bush treasury dept proposed a rule that encourages the use of "cash balance" pension plan. The new rule would lift a ban imposed by President Clinton in 1999 that prevented the goverment from approving a shift from a defined benefit (company financed) to plans where most employees will recieve a smaller pension. The bottom line ends up being that cash balance plans are a way for employers to strip away the value of your pension, allowing them to take back between 20-50% of the current benefits. They can do this because under the Bush rule, companies converting from their current defined benefit plan to a "cash balance" are allowed to calculate the current value of your pension using a "reasonable rate of return" leaving the employer to define reasonable! Think about Enron and Worldcom retirement scandals and the very close ties they have with Bush SR, Bush Jr, Cheany, Rumsfield. Note that the Sec of the Army that Rumsfield fired two weeks ago was an Enron CEO. I guess he was not doing what Rummy says.
I need it? Take econ 101. Simple logic, you can't make a new factory if you don't the money. Is about.com bias? http://economics.about.com/cs/taxpolicy/a/taxing_growth.htm Broken link. Lobbiest groups try and pass everything. There is probably a KKK lobiest group trying to pass the emancipation retraction or something. So if somebody can't pay there employees overtime guess what? There isint one. What if you need to work a little bit extra that week but the employeer can't pay you more? Your screwed. Employeers do not have an endless spikit of money. Alot of my family is this way. They will get it because nobody else is taking advantage of it.
Could you put a link maybe so I could read a little more about it? all you have is basically alowing the Business man to say we have pensions plans that are this big or we have em that are this small.
Salty, start supporting your theoretic assertions with links ... First of all, there is serious money involved; labor absorbs a huge proportion of a company's revenues. I worked, in my early working days, at two consecutive pizza joints. At the first (Pizza Hut) the franchise owners pushed for labor below 20%, which was absolutely impossible. Even with 25% of revenues going to labor, we were always understaffed. At the next place (Sbarro's) the franchise owners allowed 33% as the max labor number on the weekly books. We generally got by due to labor planning, but could easily be taken off-guard by a random swell in business (we were located in a mall). Analogously speaking, many people complain about "criminals' rights". While most of these issues actually pertain to pre-conviction ideas--and these are important to the example--I'm perfectly willing to let indigenous Americans use peyote in prison for religious purposes; "free religion" as applied to prisons generally means you are free to take place in the evangelical-sponsored Christian prayer meeting and Bible study. "Criminals' rights" in the pretrial phase only developed as they did because the situation demanded it. Do you know why it's called the Miranda Act? Because several cops arrested a man named Ernesto Miranda on a rape charge, held him without an attorney and beat a confession out of him. Mr. Miranda, a migrant farm laborer by trade, educated himself sufficiently in prison to appeal his case to the Supreme Court, where the justices were duly horrified by his treatment. Regulations on businesses come because the business owners will pursue every available end to increase profits. Some of these moves have been devastating and illegal. Child labor laws? Child labor used to involve children hunched for sixteen hours a day over conveyor belts, watching ore and rock speed by. Their job was to pick out the useless rock so that the ore could be transported away. Many, weary after their long day, would lose fingers and hands and even their lives due to a lack of caution and safety around the conveyors. Business owners avenged the end of slavery in the US by treating laborers worse than they did slaves. Emma Goldman is generally not held to account in the modern day for the attempted murder of a mining boss because (A) she explained herself reasonably well, (B) spent much of the remainder of her career explaining the failures of political violence, and (C) nobody could deny it was tit-for-tat, and that the government was overlooking the murders committed by mining organizations to stop labor organization; there was an essential war in mining country at the time. For Goldman, I think the triumph was surviving her prosecution, for it was her anarchist predecessors who were martyred for Haymarket: "You are not to be executed because you are murderers, but because you are Anarchists." If business leaders conducted themselves more wholesomely, regulation would not have become necessary. Well, I found a CBS Marketwatch page that puts SAFECO's layoffs at a greater number than I expected (1,650 of approximately 11,000 employees). CIO Insight offers a bit on the recovery effort led by the new CEO. I had already taken my permanent vacation from the company when this article from The Olympian came out (I quit, and was not laid off). At the time, when things were looking good, the layoff numbers were still only at 900, below the number of 1200 or so that we had been told to expect. Somewhere around here I have a file of paperwork I took with me when I left; memos, various important emails. Two problems: (1) It's somewhere in one of two houses at present, and I have no clue where it is. (2) I will be arrested if I post the internal memos. What I'm looking for on the web is one single press release, quietly made I think in January, 2001; after hearing about mismanagement for most of a year (from management), after hearing about strategic errors in the American States Insurance takeover (letting the rates lag to save the book), after watching the customer rolls collapse after the ASI rates were increased to match the rest of SAFECO's book, and after hearing round after round of explanation of how natural factors (e.g. storms in St. Louis, cyclical hardening of the market, &c), senior management invoked the recession only a couple of weeks before Bush was inaugurated and while the President-select was screaming that the sky was falling. It was a devastating blow to me, personally, because I had been rather entertained by the idea of watching a large company that blew it pull itself together. However, it's a single press release, and I can't quite find it at present. I'm trying to find an archive of their press releases online, but it's not going well. But I did find an article from 1999 in which SAFECO was still telling essentially the truth. (I found a "Screwed by SAFECO" story and, while I can't vouch either way for the complaining party, the story sounds ... just about right. The point being is that if I ever find the recession press release, your mind should be blown at the sheer arrogance of the board in expecting people to believe it. But I'll end this digression for the time being until I can find the recession press release. I'm pretty sure that if I find it it's one of the things that I can reproduce online, since it was given to the press at one time. Which removed regard is part of the problem with the business community. It is so ensconced in its own theories that the community behaves as if it is the reason government and people exist. In the 1990s, while Clinton was "creating jobs", one of my coworkers was a guy with a masters' degree in business administration. I was a cook. He delivered the pizzas I made. Five years later, I heard that he'd finally stopped bouncing around the circle of friends managing various restaurants and retail outlets and landed a job with The Prudential. He had a masters' degree and did essentially what I, a college dropout, ended up doing about the same time: working in administrative services, pushing paper for an insurance company. It's not that this is what he would have chosen, but that the "jobs" being produced were not jobs for which he was ultimately qualified. Tax cuts for the wealthy have not provided jobs that pay real wages that enable a person to survive. Consider a little paradox: Many conservatives who were both economically and spiritually conservative decried the growing trend of cohabitation in the 1980s and 1990s--couples living together out of wedlock. Well, you know ... the evidence I've seen living in the 1990s and new-millennium economy pretty much effectively states that the cohabitation trend was the result of real wages being outpaced by living necessity. Digression: Why is there so much opposition to mass transit among the political institutions in Seattle despite the people's repeated expressions of will? I tend to think it's because if X number of people stop driving, that means that X number of people are also not buying gasoline, not paying for car repairs, not paying the MVET (no longer an issue, of sorts), and not paying for mandatory auto insurance. Business expenses rise, and therefore prices rise, as (A) insurance rates rise, but also (B) as more insurance becomes necessary and sometimes mandated by law. The biggest argument I can see against effective mass transit is that money goes through the government before going to the corporations. But the government, on the occasion of mass transit, is obliged to provide transit services. A business, by nature, is obliged to make profit from providing transit services. On the one hand, a friend of mine is reasonably paid cater at the Microsoft campus. To the other, after seeing the scale of MS promotions, I'm quite sure I know why I can't afford Office: Mac. Remember, someone is going to take your money for something. Do you want to pay for Microsoft's promotional materials given to developers, do you want to pay for a lavish television commercial from Pepsi? Think about the incredible costs of advertising during the Super Bowl (it's like $2m/minute) and ask yourself how much of your payment in exchange for goods or services goes to pay for the annoying amount of advertising going on? It's a question of what you want in return for your money. One of my favorite Doonesbury strips comes from 1989, when J.J. Doonesbury painted Donald Trump's yacht. A surprising portion of the coddling of the wealthy intended to "trickle down" under Reaganomics was instead blown on cocaine and specialty goods, not filtering into the general economy. Tax breaks for the wealthy are part of a larger theoretic economy that almost but not quite came true. It was a good run, but it was as naïve as Communism in expecting human beings to play their roles voluntarily. It's just not as fun to not buy cocaine and hookers, or send the money to Germany for a top-line Beamer or Benz. And the last round of tax breaks for the wealthy led to ... well, it did, in part, lead us to the present day. How much of "the economy" is disappearing as more and more doctored books are exposed? No that's not it. Those "experts" never explained how or why it would happen. Some of their systems wasted so much money as to cost more than just paying any doctor who meets performance standards for the care. Remember, with "any willing provider", you're also transferring part of the administrative workload to that provider, and therefore your customers' premiums don't have to support a huge central bureaucracy (Kaiser Permanente comes to mind here, but I don't recall them being part of the "expert" panel). You can reduce your administrative load and therefore expenses significantly, seeing that expense transferred to pay for higher quality care. Do you really view the world as simply as your posts suggest? You know, you're ignoring a whole lot of business people in this country because they don't work for multinational corporations. Some of the best stuff I buy comes from the small, unincorporated manufacturer. There is also a difference between any training and a formalized degree that says you properly recited certain principles as being true. Do you really view the world as simply as your posts? How is it that the only choices available to you are the bad and the worse? What prevents you from considering anything but dualisms? Oh, heavens, if we don't let the business leaders cut the throats of the American people and the economy for their own personal gain, our nation will turn into Cuba? Salty, answer me one question: How the hell am I supposed to respect such a ridiculous position? I looked at my father in the middle of the 1990s, somewhat incredulously, and asked him: So let me get this straight. This family owns two houses, five automobiles, four sailboats, a ski boat, and has one son at a private university of considerable cost and you're telling me we're poor? A simple proposition, Salty: Do humans exist for the benefit of their institutions, or do the institutions exist for the benefit of the people? Oh, and one other thing: Imagine yourself the CEO of a company. How many employees do you have? Now ... how many of them are involved in production, how many in sales, and how many elsewise? You can keep all this to yourself because I don't actually care. The point I'm after is what will there be to advertise and sell if you don't have people in production? I can buy from a manufacturer with no management structure. I cannot buy from a manager with no manufacturing structure. I restate myself here for clarity because you seemed to have some problem understanding the idea last time. :m:, Tiassa Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! P.S. - I noticed you do a lot of asking for links. Why don't you start providing some which will offer a more substantial basis for debate? I'm well aware of all the superstitions you're listing off in defense of your position, so it doesn't seem to matter much in that sense. But you keep asking for links from people, so guess what? You're now obliged to provide them to back your own arguments if you expect your position to be respected. Seriously--you're so far out on a limb it would be a disservice to lie to you and tell you that your arguments are respectable. So please provide the basis for them and establish their legitimacy. I'm happy to work with people like you who have made politics and economy into a religion, but just as I'm happy to work with, say, Christians, I must insist that you work to meet your own standards. So ... please provide the links.
Re: Salty, start supporting your theoretic assertions with links ... A franchise is just 1 company yeah. But your still not competing with the employer for your wages. You are competing with other employees. What the frachise owner is doing it seems is trying to replace people who demand more with people who demand less. If there is an employ willing to do more work then you for the same money and the employer cannont hire somebody else your going to get canned. It works the other way also. If the employer is paying barley anything and the business down the street is paying more and looking for people like you the decision isint hard what your going to do. Nice analogy but you seem to be forgeting business dosent have the power of the gun. The reason child labor existed was because we had and unlimeted labor supply with limited capital. We had imigrants comming in from everywhere. (Irish Potato Famine) non of these people came with much money. So there was not enought capital to go around. The reason why childlabor no longer exists is not childlabor laws but because of the wealth we have there is no longer a need. You said it your self "labor absorbs a huge proportion of a company's revenues." They could either A) lay off those workers or B) lay off everybody because they went bankrupt. Well if it was when Bush was just in office then it can't be because of his economic policies. His wouldnt be in effect yet. All I wanted was a date. If there being arrogant then don't invest your time and money into the company. Not all businessmen are good. If they suck though its easier to weed them out then a bureacrat any day. I have no idea what that has to do with my quote at all. I don't care you sleep or cohabitate with a 20 people of all sex. Clinton wasn't a conservative. I dunno, I guess because mass transit does not produce much of a profit so the state ends up paying for it. So they have to tax the people for it. If you don't have those annoying commercials there would not be a superbowl though. The rich still had to produce to make that money. That why they have it. Now he can make more money by expanding his business or he can get a kick ass yaht. Its his choice not ours. The tax break is not as big of a break to rich as it seems. Suppose that every day, ten men go out for dinner. The bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this: The first four men-the poorest-would pay nothing; The fifth would pay $1: The sixth would pay $3; The seventh $7; The eighth $12; The ninth $18. The tenth man-the richest-would pay $59. That's what they decided to do. The ten men ate dinner in the restaurant every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement-until one day, the owner threw them a curve. "Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily meal by $20." So now dinner for the ten only cost $80. The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes. So the first four men were unaffected. They would still eat for free. But what about the other six-the paying customers? How could they divvy up the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his "fair share?" The six men realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would end up being *paid* to eat their meal. So the restaurant owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay. And so the fifth man paid nothing, the sixth pitched in $2, the seventh paid $5, the eighth paid $9, the ninth paid $12, leaving the tenth man with a bill of $52 instead of his earlier $59. Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to eat for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings. "I only got a dollar out of the $20," declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth. "But he got $7!" "Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar, too. It's unfair that he got seven times more than me!" "That's true!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $7 back when I got only $2? The wealthy get all the breaks!" "Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison. "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!" The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up. The next night he didn't show up for dinner, so the nine sat down and ate without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They were $52 short! And that, boys and girls, journalists and college instructors, is how the tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up at the table anymore. Whats so hard to see. Better doctors = more money? If you want to choose doctors it won't be "any willing provider" It will be Dr. really awesome and really exspensive. If you don't like how your health insurance is using its money go to a diffrent company. Yes that true. Thats whats great about a capatalist economy you can create any business right out of you back yard (as long as its not anthrax making or something). But I don't see any mom and pop flood insurance companies where they do mulit variable calculus to find out the flow of a flood plains. I don't see any mom and pop aeronautic space designers. I know there is a gray inbetween. There is a need for a goverment to provide some social services. Police, educaiton courts etc. But where does it end? Salty, answer me one question: How the hell am I supposed to respect such a ridiculous position?[/B][/QUOTE] What about personal liberty? the right to own property what an obsurd and wrong idea im sorry. Humans exist for our benefit. Humans make institutions to control social norms and benefit thier society. How will you make something with out anybody to organize what is to be made, how to make it, where to make it, and from what materials and most importantly where does the product go? Ask for some links then, what do you want? Btw im not Christians and I don't worship business. Its just one of the 5 institutions of society.
Salty You've missed the point so widely, Salty, I'm not sure where to begin. You wrote: You act like business leaders are one body. They couldnt cooperate unless there is serious money involved. Remember that line? So I told you about two separate companies that I knew of that reached similar situations (strained labor capacity) due to similar principles. And yes, labor percentages are serious money. I have no idea what the hell you're talking about, but where the hell do you work that you're competing with your co-workers for your wages? Every job I've ever had requires a cooperative group dynamic. Um ... whatever you say. I mean ... you don't recall the lethal actions taken against strikers for which business owners were not criminally punished? Well, I don't expect you to recall it directly, it was 19th and early 20th century stuff. Study the history of mining companies in the US. That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. A surplus of adult labor means we have to hire children and further dilute the capital supply? Would you please provide some source to describe that mechanism? Yes, but they did eventually cite the recession, which was simply untrue. It sounded better to the investors, though, than, "We utterly and completely fucked up." The economy was in a slow period becoming characteristic of the tech cycle when Bush jumped on it and started screaming "Recession! Recession! The economy is coming apart!" And, as with so many economic disasters, people hopped on the bandwagon and believed it. University economics professors were hollering into the first week of January, 2001, that there was no recession, and were offering the math to prove it. Then Time magazine ran its, "How to Survive a Recession" cover story and the race was afoot. It was right about this time that I heard company management invoke "recession" for the first of only about three occasions, and they all had to do with investors. Before the economy comes apart, the people who make up the economy by their endeavors must choose to panic or otherwise allow the economy to come apart. Watch the stock market. During the Clinton administration, someone noted that Chairman Greenspan had been seen at dinner with his wife, and he seemed to be in a good mood. Stocks picked up from a minor lag the next day. That is how important psychology is to the market. Nobody was talking about recession in any serious terms until Bush played his "chicken little" and scared conservatives in the financial community, which caused a ripple effect that would eventually touch almost every American. Actually, I quit before a massive bureaucratic clusterfuck cost me my job. (I literally can't coordinate a project that I haven't been told is taking place. I literally cannot coordinate another project with a person who does not exist. This disorganization, unfortunately, was symptomatic of the layoffs.) Your response doesn't seem to make much sense. Ask a liberal if Clinton was a conservative. He bombed the shit out of Iraq. He pandered to business institutions. He maintained the appearance of conservative Christian religion with various, hollow, demonstrative acts. He utterly betrayed homosexuals. He administrated a bloody and savage War on Drugs, and put a retired General in charge of it. Clinton was the "new Democrat", virtually indistinguishable from a moderate Republican. And a moderate Republican is still conservative. And I'm not at all surprised, judging by the nature of our discussion thus far, that you have no idea what the paragraph you cited has to do with your quote. Quite simply, the problem with the quote is that it is stained by that degree of theoretic removal that makes an idea seem attractive until one implements it among people. It's nice, shiny theory that has no real regard for a practical result. While people talk nice shiny business theories, society is taking shapes as a result that those people (e.g. conservatives) don't happen to like. It's all an interconnected puzzle, and when you operate with theories solely in isolated conditions, it's hard to keep sight of the connections. Like I said: I'm not at all surprised. Profits, profits, profits? That's the best you could come up with? First of all, that would be no tragedy to me. But, more relevant to the debate is that this would be the choice of the National Football League, who can always find a way to finance the broadcast if it's that important to them. I don't blame them, though, for having a product and wanting to televise it in order to make more revenues. I don't even blame them for wanting advertising to pay for their own advertising. But I like the sentiment in your point: "This is an important thing, and if it's not paid for and I don't make enough of a profit, there will be no important thing." Hey, NFL should stop telling us the Super Bowl is so freaking important, stop making such a big deal out of it, and restructure the damn broadcast rules to be sensible in the first place and the league will find other revenue sources to be stronger. So ... we'll give tax breaks to the wealthy to encourage business expansion, but if they want to spend it in a narrow industry and not cycle that wealth back into the general economy .... Whatever. Nice slogan. So they can't buy another Mercedes this year? Yeah, I suppose a single Mercedes isn't that big a deal. But why the determination to give it, then? Well, analogously speaking, perhaps my government should cook at home more? You're forgetting that when the meal comes, all of the food will go to the richest man, and what he doesn't eat will trickle down to the next richest man, and what is left after that will trickle down to the next richest man, and so forth until the poorest man is licking the bones and expected to be thankful to be treated like a dog. Two proportions: How much of your money is (X) going to pay for diagnosis and treatment, and how much of your money is (Y) going to pay for bureaucracy and shareholder concerns? Can you answer that? If I have $100 dollars and can pay a quality doctor $100, a certain portion of that must be set aside to pay for overhead that has nothing direct to do with the care. Facility rent, labor, insurance. Now, if I give that $100 to an HMO, what is the difference? I don't know the numbers off the top of my head, but as I see it, in addition to the things my "chosen doctor" pays for, the HMO must also support its massive management bureaucracy and also shareholder concerns. I can pay the same amount to any doctor with a private practice and get more for my money than I can from an HMO. I actually had to call my healthcare insurance provider (PacifiCare) and explain to them: "I realize that you're trying to do me a courtesy, but it is more helpful if I get to see the same doctor, and since you admit that it doesn't cost you any more or less to send me to this new guy, and since you admit you're just trying to make it convenient for me, can you please explain to me what is so inconvenient about living two miles from my doctor instead of two blocks?" I mean, in their little world, they thought I would want to travel exactly one-tenth of a mile less to get to a doctor because it was more convenient to see someone one-tenth of a mile closer than to see a doctor who already knows my body and its needs? So ... you tell me. If I give my $100 to the doctor of my choosing, it means that I'm not paying anyone out of my $100 to decide what doctor I am allowed to see. Demonstrate your assertions, please, Salty. I've heard them many a time from people who argue similar points to yours, but nobody has explained to me how devoting less of my money paid out to the actual medical care equals paying for better care. The funny thing is that for all that research, my company still wouldn't insure you for flood without a lot more money. It's one of the paradoxes of capitalism and American wanna-be capitalism: An insurance company is supposed to pinch as many pennies while doing as much as it can for its customers. Exploration has always been a government issue. Check out the history of homesteading laws. In the last few years we've seen a startup aerospace company that wants to take civilians into space for profit. We'll see what comes from that. Property is robbery. It's not my issue to forgive; I hold no power of absolution. However, you choose to hold certain things important, and I can respect that. What? It has been noted in history that people cannot award to a government what they themselves do not have in the first place. However, it seems that the beneficiary is an institution, society. Please clarify. Those decisions can also be made by the people who manufacture the product themselves. Any support of your odd theories would do. The last two sentences of your post indicate that you have no clue what you're talking about. :m:, Tiassa Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
salty The century has changed, the world has changed, yet conservatives are stuck in a perpetual daydream with ideas from 1930.
