US Politics Mega-thread - Page 2291

On September 15 2015 07:21 Eliezar wrote:
On unions: I've worked in companies with unions and have this general idea:

Without unions workers get trampled on.
With unions the quality of life for workers gets better both where the unions are and where they aren't.
Over time the unions wield their power into making things worse for the company and the workers.
Remove the unions and many people are happy and see an immediate benefit.
Without unions the workers trampled on...

On September 15 2015 07:28 Chewbacca. wrote:

I will admit the union at my facility is mostly doing good things for the unioned employees. Our lowest paid employees (sub-HS graduation) are making a little over $22.00 per hour, which is about $7.00 more than other local non-union manufacturing facilities. But with that, boy does it really screw the company and myself over on a lot of things seemingly just to try and "take it to the man".

Edit: added "mostly"

On September 15 2015 07:10 Eliezar wrote:


The common strategy is to go after the more liberal or conservative part of your party in the primaries and then go more central in the election. Bernie is actually reaching out to people who are not likely to vote in the democratic primaries at all and so in that way it gains him almost no advantage now for the time spent.

I think I probably disagree philosophically with about 50% of what Bernie believes in, but I feel like I could vote for him without feeling like I was signing on the line to support the killing of innocents around the world and selling out to the massive money interests.

On September 15 2015 07:46 yrba1 wrote:


There ought to be third-party arbitrators who would find reasonable compromises between companies and unions.

On September 15 2015 07:21 Eliezar wrote:
On unions: I've worked in companies with unions and have this general idea:

Without unions workers get trampled on.
With unions the quality of life for workers gets better both where the unions are and where they aren't.
Over time the unions wield their power into making things worse for the company and the workers.
Remove the unions and many people are happy and see an immediate benefit.
Without unions the workers trampled on...

On September 15 2015 08:03 Stratos_speAr wrote:


Unions near-universally improve the wages and work conditions of workers. They also seem to narrow the racial wage gap.

Unions have corruption issues just like any entity with power. However, you'd have to be blind to think that crippling unions actually helps unionized workers in any way whatsoever. Without unions, almost all businesses will just try to exploit workers to get the most work possible without giving them anything. Its not like labor protection laws came out of the goodness of business owners' hearts.

On September 15 2015 08:24 Chewbacca. wrote:


Yeah....nowhere did I say that getting rid of unions would help unionized workers. But the idea that there aren't middleclass people worse off because of unions is ridiculous.

On September 15 2015 08:28 Plansix wrote:

Like, do you have any evidence to back up that totally vague claim? Unions don't help 100% of people they come in contact with, but that isn't really proof of anything.

On September 15 2015 07:52 IgnE wrote:


What do you disagree with Bernie about philosophically?

On September 15 2015 08:38 Chewbacca. wrote:


My own personal experiences trying to work with unionized employees?

I can guarantee you that our production would be better off with non-unionzied employees -- We have so many employees just gliding on by because it is an absolute nightmare trying to get someone fired. My bonus is directly tied to our facilities productivity.

When our facilitiy has an issue and I get called in at 2:00 am, determine what the issue is, but then can not fix it myself or with the operators on the floor, even though we are perfectly capable of performing the task, because it doesn't fall in one of our job categories. I now get to sit around waiting for the proper unionized employee to wake up, shower, get dressed, come in, and fix the issue themselves. Not only does this hurt me in that I have to sit around for hours on end when I could be home sleeping, but we now are required to pay these employees $200 + overtime for them being called in off-shift. This shit really adds up, goes against our facilities performance numbers, and again affects my bonus.

There are plenty of middle-class people who have to deal with managing in a unionized facility who would be better off if they were dealing with non-unionized employees.

I also don't see why I'm the one being asked to support my claim, when you're the one making the ridiculous absolute statement about getting rid of unions only helping the rich. I'm the one making the non-absolute argument that unions both help and hurt people in the middle-class.

Edit: Not sure how I managed to mis-type the amount that we have to pay someone for being called in...corrected

On September 15 2015 08:38 Chewbacca. wrote:


My own personal experiences trying to work with unionized employees?

I can guarantee you that our production would be better off with non-unionzied employees -- We have so many employees just gliding on by because it is an absolute nightmare trying to get someone fired. My bonus is directly tied to our facilities productivity.

When our facilitiy has an issue and I get called in at 2:00 am, determine what the issue is, but then can not fix it myself or with the operators on the floor, even though we are perfectly capable of performing the task, because it doesn't fall in one of our job categories. I now get to sit around waiting for the proper unionized employee to wake up, shower, get dressed, come in, and fix the issue themselves. Not only does this hurt me in that I have to sit around for hours on end when I could be home sleeping, but we now are required to pay these employees $200 + overtime for them being called in off-shift. This shit really adds up, goes against our facilities performance numbers, and again affects my bonus.

There are plenty of middle-class people who have to deal with managing in a unionized facility who would be better off if they were dealing with non-unionized employees.

I also don't see why I'm the one being asked to support my claim, when you're the one making the ridiculous absolute statement about getting rid of unions only helping the rich. I'm the one making the non-absolute argument that unions both help and hurt people in the middle-class.

Edit: Not sure how I managed to mis-type the amount that we have to pay someone for being called in...corrected

On September 15 2015 08:43 Eliezar wrote:


If you go find all of his positions here

http://feelthebern.org/

You can find mostly things to agree with. I don't like his tax plan and think the tax code should just be a flat tax period. Make it 20% of income or whatever, but just get it for everybody and cut out all loopholes and so forth and then make a budget that pays off the debt while staying under the total income. His idea about increasing the tax rate for people making over $400k is fine, but I definitely like a simpler code with everybody paying their share.

I disagree with him on abortion. I'm middle of the road here where I have no issue with early abortions, but once there is a heartbeat, brainwaves, and a reaction to pain then I can't support infanticide and especially many of the procedures which are used in the US.

I disagree completely on the gay marriage position. I don't believe the government should be regulating private affairs in any way or form. I believe that poly, gay, whatever should be an individual social issue. The government could receive legal documents giving someone rights over someone else in case of death, incapacitating injury, or mental illness and that these could be given to a partner, child, parent, or whoever, but I don't think the government should regulate and tax consensual adult relationships.

I agree with much of his education ideas, but I want there to be bilingual education of Spanish and English starting in the first grade or maybe even kindergarten. I put my daughter at age 3 in Spanish language class and bought her Spanish movies (which both of my daughters like to watch), but there is a massive reason to learn other languages which we are simply ignoring.

But yeah...I like the guy as a person and his positions are reasonable...just not want I want.

On September 15 2015 09:00 Jormundr wrote:
I love the moronic libertarian way of saying that gay marriage shouldn't be a thing.
"BRO THE GOVERNMENT SHOULDN'T BE INVOLVED IN MARRIAGE"
"Ok so you're going to get rid of the whole not testifying against your spouse thing, guardianship, and the other legal things bestowed by a marriage?"
"Nooooo of course not we like those things"
"So you've come up with a system to replace those things?"
"Lol no"
"Have you at least found a way for your system not to be set back 60 years by small town judges?"
"LOOOOL NO, if you should know anything about Libertarianism it's that we assume courts are perfect and not made of people, just like markets"
"Have you come up with anything except for a perfect middle of the road talking point that can be spun to pander to both the anti-government crowd in your party and the social conservatives in your party?"
"No."

On September 15 2015 09:14 Eliezar wrote:


Other than a strawman and the fact that in Florida there is a growing population of seniors that are divorcing their spouses just so the healthy one doesn't face financial ruin, I have no idea how one could not be convinced of the soundness of your argument there.

On September 15 2015 09:00 Jormundr wrote:
I love the moronic libertarian way of saying that gay marriage shouldn't be a thing.
"BRO THE GOVERNMENT SHOULDN'T BE INVOLVED IN MARRIAGE"
"Ok so you're going to get rid of the whole not testifying against your spouse thing, guardianship, and the other legal things bestowed by a marriage?"
"Nooooo of course not we like those things"
"So you've come up with a system to replace those things?"
"Lol no"
"Have you at least found a way for your system not to be set back 60 years by small town judges?"
"LOOOOL NO, if you should know anything about Libertarianism it's that we assume courts are perfect and not made of people, just like markets"
"Have you come up with anything except for a perfect middle of the road talking point that can be spun to pander to both the anti-government crowd in your party and the social conservatives in your party?"
"No."

On September 15 2015 09:27 Plansix wrote:

There is the whole testifying against spouses, survivorship rights and all that other stuff. Marriage is complex and there are a lot of very practical, no religious reasons why its important. And most of them don't have to do with taxes, to be honest. Children, medical proxies and other things along those lines are covered by marriage. And many of these are protection from the government or other people.

So yeah, gay folks should be able to get those rights. You can't be a libertarian and the government should deny them.

On September 15 2015 09:14 Eliezar wrote:


Other than a strawman and the fact that in Florida there is a growing population of seniors that are divorcing their spouses just so the healthy one doesn't face financial ruin, I have no idea how one could not be convinced of the soundness of your argument there.