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On January 28 2017 07:37 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On January 28 2017 07:16 Ayaz2810 wrote:On January 28 2017 07:09 MyTHicaL wrote:On January 28 2017 06:55 RealityIsKing wrote:On January 28 2017 06:41 mustaju wrote:On January 28 2017 06:27 xDaunt wrote:On January 28 2017 06:26 mustaju wrote:On January 28 2017 06:13 xDaunt wrote:On January 28 2017 06:04 mustaju wrote:On January 28 2017 05:50 xDaunt wrote:
[quote]
You have it all wrong. If we had conquered Iraq, stayed there, and taken the oil, at least the veterans' sacrifices would have meant something for the USA. As it stands now, everything that was sacrificed in Iraq was for naught. So, the lives you attempted to save from an authoritarian who used chemical weapons meant nothing. The selfdeclared attempt to spread american/democratic values freedoms also meant nothing? I don't know about American veterans, but the Estonian ones would punch you for saying such a thing, especially without having served yourself. I refuse to believe you represent any significant portion of the US. Is Iraq better off now than it was before we toppled Saddam (ie are the people better off)? Has the US gotten any return on the trillion+ dollars that it spent on toppling Saddam? Put the feelings away and look at the cold, hard facts. Like I have argued before, I think that committing to building a western-style of democracy in Iraq could have worked had Obama committed to doing it. But that ship has long since sailed. All that we're left with is the wreckage of the post-Saddam era in Iraq (you know, ISIS and stuff). I think that a country can try and fail at something, and while not being entirely successful, the United States might have been naive, but at least it was not unapologetically evil. Failure does not mean that everything about the attempt was bad. How many Americans do you know who would go and fight for Iraq's oil? Are the ones who wouldn't not your countrymen? What should be done with those who resist? Trump has bit off more than he can chew, don't follow him into that abyss. Trump's argument isn't that we should have invaded Iraq to take the oil. His argument is that we shouldn't have gone into Iraq at all, but given that we did, we should have at least taken the oil. By no justification other than "might makes right" do you have any right to that oil. And if you thought that anti-American sentiment was bad before, it's gonna get far worse after something like that. Do you apply that rationale to any other fields of life? America have literally supported the entire world in terms of being there when natural disasters strikes and giving foreign aid to countries such as food and have tons of charities. Now that America is not doing great economically and want to focus on herself, you are hating her? You should be saying "Ah that's understandable, but thanks for your previous help though!" instead of being ungrateful. America has not been supporting the world. In fact it has a long history of only supporting certain governments that it feels will in return support it. Failure to do so will result in military action, covert action, economic pressure, etc. America is hardly suffering. If you simply closed the tax loop holes that allow roughly 2/3 of your medium-large businesses to avoid paying taxes, and properly fixed your infrastructure you would be fine. But without Bernie that ain't gonna happen. The world owes you nothing so never expect anything from us. Bullying Mexico will simply in turn hurt the US. It also might push Mexico to seek more trade with the rest of the Americas. Or elsewhere. Pissing of China is dangerously stupid. I said some of the same things a couple pages ago. I don't get why people, Trump included, treat this as such a mystery. Stop catering to hunger for profits and shareholders and do what you're supposed to do for your people and everyone will be happy. Obviously that's a gross oversimplification, but it's a start. It's like every time we want to "make America great" we immediately take "fucking big business in favor of the common man" off the table. Infuriating. What I find amusing is that people seem to think that our political system functions in such a way where we even could "fuck big business over in favor of the common man" in such a way that big business couldn't defend itself adequately. I can't think of the last significant fight big business actually lost, the closest you'll come is particular segments of big businesses interests pitted against each other.
what about this election? some of big business at laest seemed to prefer hillary.
how much of big business does it need to apply to to qualify as big business losing a fgiht? (they cover a lot of different industries, so finding something that covers 99% of them mgiht be hard)
what constitutes "big business"?
how about the various anti-trust laws and trust-busting actions?
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On January 28 2017 07:42 zlefin wrote:Show nested quote +On January 28 2017 07:37 GreenHorizons wrote:On January 28 2017 07:16 Ayaz2810 wrote:On January 28 2017 07:09 MyTHicaL wrote:On January 28 2017 06:55 RealityIsKing wrote:On January 28 2017 06:41 mustaju wrote:On January 28 2017 06:27 xDaunt wrote:On January 28 2017 06:26 mustaju wrote:On January 28 2017 06:13 xDaunt wrote:On January 28 2017 06:04 mustaju wrote:
[quote]
So, the lives you attempted to save from an authoritarian who used chemical weapons meant nothing. The selfdeclared attempt to spread american/democratic values freedoms also meant nothing? I don't know about American veterans, but the Estonian ones would punch you for saying such a thing, especially without having served yourself. I refuse to believe you represent any significant portion of the US. Is Iraq better off now than it was before we toppled Saddam (ie are the people better off)? Has the US gotten any return on the trillion+ dollars that it spent on toppling Saddam? Put the feelings away and look at the cold, hard facts. Like I have argued before, I think that committing to building a western-style of democracy in Iraq could have worked had Obama committed to doing it. But that ship has long since sailed. All that we're left with is the wreckage of the post-Saddam era in Iraq (you know, ISIS and stuff). I think that a country can try and fail at something, and while not being entirely successful, the United States might have been naive, but at least it was not unapologetically evil. Failure does not mean that everything about the attempt was bad. How many Americans do you know who would go and fight for Iraq's oil? Are the ones who wouldn't not your countrymen? What should be done with those who resist? Trump has bit off more than he can chew, don't follow him into that abyss. Trump's argument isn't that we should have invaded Iraq to take the oil. His argument is that we shouldn't have gone into Iraq at all, but given that we did, we should have at least taken the oil. By no justification other than "might makes right" do you have any right to that oil. And if you thought that anti-American sentiment was bad before, it's gonna get far worse after something like that. Do you apply that rationale to any other fields of life? America have literally supported the entire world in terms of being there when natural disasters strikes and giving foreign aid to countries such as food and have tons of charities. Now that America is not doing great economically and want to focus on herself, you are hating her? You should be saying "Ah that's understandable, but thanks for your previous help though!" instead of being ungrateful. America has not been supporting the world. In fact it has a long history of only supporting certain governments that it feels will in return support it. Failure to do so will result in military action, covert action, economic pressure, etc. America is hardly suffering. If you simply closed the tax loop holes that allow roughly 2/3 of your medium-large businesses to avoid paying taxes, and properly fixed your infrastructure you would be fine. But without Bernie that ain't gonna happen. The world owes you nothing so never expect anything from us. Bullying Mexico will simply in turn hurt the US. It also might push Mexico to seek more trade with the rest of the Americas. Or elsewhere. Pissing of China is dangerously stupid. I said some of the same things a couple pages ago. I don't get why people, Trump included, treat this as such a mystery. Stop catering to hunger for profits and shareholders and do what you're supposed to do for your people and everyone will be happy. Obviously that's a gross oversimplification, but it's a start. It's like every time we want to "make America great" we immediately take "fucking big business in favor of the common man" off the table. Infuriating. What I find amusing is that people seem to think that our political system functions in such a way where we even could "fuck big business over in favor of the common man" in such a way that big business couldn't defend itself adequately. I can't think of the last significant fight big business actually lost, the closest you'll come is particular segments of big businesses interests pitted against each other. what about this election? some of big business at laest seemed to prefer hillary. how much of big business does it need to apply to to qualify as big business losing a fgiht? (they cover a lot of different industries, so finding something that covers 99% of them mgiht be hard) what constitutes "big business"? how about the various anti-trust laws and trust-busting actions?
Breaking up monopolies and giving unions back some power certainly wouldn't hurt. We can start by dropping the hammer on telecomms, energy, banks, and media megacorps. That's my personal wishlist, but god knows the whole list is depressingly long. And the only reason "big business" never loses is because the laws are set up to help them. So...... let's change them? Oh wait we can't. I almost forgot to add corporate lobbyists to my list. Number one thing I would love to see eliminated.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
ljl ryan having any backbone
the tax cuts must be obtained
congressional gop is just a bunch of hired guns
incidentally, people seem to not understand that campaign money influences smaller offices much more decisively. the roi mercer/koch/griffin etc get out of the tea party is just amazing
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On January 28 2017 07:26 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On January 28 2017 07:08 xDaunt wrote:On January 28 2017 06:55 RealityIsKing wrote:On January 28 2017 06:41 mustaju wrote:On January 28 2017 06:27 xDaunt wrote:On January 28 2017 06:26 mustaju wrote:On January 28 2017 06:13 xDaunt wrote:On January 28 2017 06:04 mustaju wrote:On January 28 2017 05:50 xDaunt wrote:On January 28 2017 05:46 mustaju wrote:
[quote]
By making a statement like this, you better be ready to go to those countries and shoot those people yourself. What a way to respect your veterans. You have it all wrong. If we had conquered Iraq, stayed there, and taken the oil, at least the veterans' sacrifices would have meant something for the USA. As it stands now, everything that was sacrificed in Iraq was for naught. So, the lives you attempted to save from an authoritarian who used chemical weapons meant nothing. The selfdeclared attempt to spread american/democratic values freedoms also meant nothing? I don't know about American veterans, but the Estonian ones would punch you for saying such a thing, especially without having served yourself. I refuse to believe you represent any significant portion of the US. Is Iraq better off now than it was before we toppled Saddam (ie are the people better off)? Has the US gotten any return on the trillion+ dollars that it spent on toppling Saddam? Put the feelings away and look at the cold, hard facts. Like I have argued before, I think that committing to building a western-style of democracy in Iraq could have worked had Obama committed to doing it. But that ship has long since sailed. All that we're left with is the wreckage of the post-Saddam era in Iraq (you know, ISIS and stuff). I think that a country can try and fail at something, and while not being entirely successful, the United States might have been naive, but at least it was not unapologetically evil. Failure does not mean that everything about the attempt was bad. How many Americans do you know who would go and fight for Iraq's oil? Are the ones who wouldn't not your countrymen? What should be done with those who resist? Trump has bit off more than he can chew, don't follow him into that abyss. Trump's argument isn't that we should have invaded Iraq to take the oil. His argument is that we shouldn't have gone into Iraq at all, but given that we did, we should have at least taken the oil. By no justification other than "might makes right" do you have any right to that oil. And if you thought that anti-American sentiment was bad before, it's gonna get far worse after something like that. Do you apply that rationale to any other fields of life? America have literally supported the entire world in terms of being there when natural disasters strikes and giving foreign aid to countries such as food and have tons of charities. Now that America is not doing great economically and want to focus on herself, you are hating her? You should be saying "Ah that's understandable, but thanks for your previous help though!" instead of being ungrateful. I'm just amused by this baseless worrying that other countries are going to punish the US for screwing with Mexico. Did everyone miss that Reuters article that I posted yesterday citing the Canadian officials? It couldn't have been more clear that the Canada is perfectly willing to throw Mexico under the Trump bus. The bottom line is that the rest of the world needs the US more than it needs Mexico. While this is true, I do think there will be a point where it goes too far. If we start trying to pull the same stuff with European countries or South Korea or something, I can imagine a situation where governments start to ally themselves against us. So while I don't expect the EU or major Asian countries to give a shit about Mexico, I do expect that they will protect each other if it becomes clear Trump is just going down the list and trying to throw everyone under the bus.
I don't expect anybody to come out and say "we're going to punish the USA for being an unreasonable business partner". I expect that quietly, and over a long period of time, if the USA continues to be an unreasonable business partner then companies and countries will decide it is no longer in their best interests to do quite as much business with the USA.
Not all consequences become obvious overnight.
Furthermore, I fully expect that competent politicians (such as those that apparently exist in Canada) don't go out of their way to piss off their neighbours in public statements... even if their private opinion, and what they might say behind closed doors, has a different tone.
EDIT: Eh, screw it, I'm just not interested in having the conversation the second quote would have made.
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On January 28 2017 07:42 zlefin wrote:Show nested quote +On January 28 2017 07:37 GreenHorizons wrote:On January 28 2017 07:16 Ayaz2810 wrote:On January 28 2017 07:09 MyTHicaL wrote:On January 28 2017 06:55 RealityIsKing wrote:On January 28 2017 06:41 mustaju wrote:On January 28 2017 06:27 xDaunt wrote:On January 28 2017 06:26 mustaju wrote:On January 28 2017 06:13 xDaunt wrote:On January 28 2017 06:04 mustaju wrote:
[quote]
So, the lives you attempted to save from an authoritarian who used chemical weapons meant nothing. The selfdeclared attempt to spread american/democratic values freedoms also meant nothing? I don't know about American veterans, but the Estonian ones would punch you for saying such a thing, especially without having served yourself. I refuse to believe you represent any significant portion of the US. Is Iraq better off now than it was before we toppled Saddam (ie are the people better off)? Has the US gotten any return on the trillion+ dollars that it spent on toppling Saddam? Put the feelings away and look at the cold, hard facts. Like I have argued before, I think that committing to building a western-style of democracy in Iraq could have worked had Obama committed to doing it. But that ship has long since sailed. All that we're left with is the wreckage of the post-Saddam era in Iraq (you know, ISIS and stuff). I think that a country can try and fail at something, and while not being entirely successful, the United States might have been naive, but at least it was not unapologetically evil. Failure does not mean that everything about the attempt was bad. How many Americans do you know who would go and fight for Iraq's oil? Are the ones who wouldn't not your countrymen? What should be done with those who resist? Trump has bit off more than he can chew, don't follow him into that abyss. Trump's argument isn't that we should have invaded Iraq to take the oil. His argument is that we shouldn't have gone into Iraq at all, but given that we did, we should have at least taken the oil. By no justification other than "might makes right" do you have any right to that oil. And if you thought that anti-American sentiment was bad before, it's gonna get far worse after something like that. Do you apply that rationale to any other fields of life? America have literally supported the entire world in terms of being there when natural disasters strikes and giving foreign aid to countries such as food and have tons of charities. Now that America is not doing great economically and want to focus on herself, you are hating her? You should be saying "Ah that's understandable, but thanks for your previous help though!" instead of being ungrateful. America has not been supporting the world. In fact it has a long history of only supporting certain governments that it feels will in return support it. Failure to do so will result in military action, covert action, economic pressure, etc. America is hardly suffering. If you simply closed the tax loop holes that allow roughly 2/3 of your medium-large businesses to avoid paying taxes, and properly fixed your infrastructure you would be fine. But without Bernie that ain't gonna happen. The world owes you nothing so never expect anything from us. Bullying Mexico will simply in turn hurt the US. It also might push Mexico to seek more trade with the rest of the Americas. Or elsewhere. Pissing of China is dangerously stupid. I said some of the same things a couple pages ago. I don't get why people, Trump included, treat this as such a mystery. Stop catering to hunger for profits and shareholders and do what you're supposed to do for your people and everyone will be happy. Obviously that's a gross oversimplification, but it's a start. It's like every time we want to "make America great" we immediately take "fucking big business in favor of the common man" off the table. Infuriating. What I find amusing is that people seem to think that our political system functions in such a way where we even could "fuck big business over in favor of the common man" in such a way that big business couldn't defend itself adequately. I can't think of the last significant fight big business actually lost, the closest you'll come is particular segments of big businesses interests pitted against each other. what about this election? some of big business at laest seemed to prefer hillary. how much of big business does it need to apply to to qualify as big business losing a fgiht? (they cover a lot of different industries, so finding something that covers 99% of them mgiht be hard) what constitutes "big business"? how about the various anti-trust laws and trust-busting actions?
Big business won whether it was Trump or Hillary. The formation of unions would be the closest example of what them "losing" looks like. Even then it's not as if unions took down dozens of large corporations who were abusing workers worse than before they had a union, it just meant unconscionably shady operations got shut down and people got paid closer to a fair living wage.
I'm not sure anti-trust laws are in the spirit of protecting the common man as much as they are an attempt to keep private business from usurping government outright.
In other words, them losing usually looks like them being forced to recognize the humanity of the people making them their wealth.
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On January 28 2017 09:11 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On January 28 2017 07:42 zlefin wrote:On January 28 2017 07:37 GreenHorizons wrote:On January 28 2017 07:16 Ayaz2810 wrote:On January 28 2017 07:09 MyTHicaL wrote:On January 28 2017 06:55 RealityIsKing wrote:On January 28 2017 06:41 mustaju wrote:On January 28 2017 06:27 xDaunt wrote:On January 28 2017 06:26 mustaju wrote:On January 28 2017 06:13 xDaunt wrote:
[quote]
Is Iraq better off now than it was before we toppled Saddam (ie are the people better off)? Has the US gotten any return on the trillion+ dollars that it spent on toppling Saddam? Put the feelings away and look at the cold, hard facts.
Like I have argued before, I think that committing to building a western-style of democracy in Iraq could have worked had Obama committed to doing it. But that ship has long since sailed. All that we're left with is the wreckage of the post-Saddam era in Iraq (you know, ISIS and stuff). I think that a country can try and fail at something, and while not being entirely successful, the United States might have been naive, but at least it was not unapologetically evil. Failure does not mean that everything about the attempt was bad. How many Americans do you know who would go and fight for Iraq's oil? Are the ones who wouldn't not your countrymen? What should be done with those who resist? Trump has bit off more than he can chew, don't follow him into that abyss. Trump's argument isn't that we should have invaded Iraq to take the oil. His argument is that we shouldn't have gone into Iraq at all, but given that we did, we should have at least taken the oil. By no justification other than "might makes right" do you have any right to that oil. And if you thought that anti-American sentiment was bad before, it's gonna get far worse after something like that. Do you apply that rationale to any other fields of life? America have literally supported the entire world in terms of being there when natural disasters strikes and giving foreign aid to countries such as food and have tons of charities. Now that America is not doing great economically and want to focus on herself, you are hating her? You should be saying "Ah that's understandable, but thanks for your previous help though!" instead of being ungrateful. America has not been supporting the world. In fact it has a long history of only supporting certain governments that it feels will in return support it. Failure to do so will result in military action, covert action, economic pressure, etc. America is hardly suffering. If you simply closed the tax loop holes that allow roughly 2/3 of your medium-large businesses to avoid paying taxes, and properly fixed your infrastructure you would be fine. But without Bernie that ain't gonna happen. The world owes you nothing so never expect anything from us. Bullying Mexico will simply in turn hurt the US. It also might push Mexico to seek more trade with the rest of the Americas. Or elsewhere. Pissing of China is dangerously stupid. I said some of the same things a couple pages ago. I don't get why people, Trump included, treat this as such a mystery. Stop catering to hunger for profits and shareholders and do what you're supposed to do for your people and everyone will be happy. Obviously that's a gross oversimplification, but it's a start. It's like every time we want to "make America great" we immediately take "fucking big business in favor of the common man" off the table. Infuriating. What I find amusing is that people seem to think that our political system functions in such a way where we even could "fuck big business over in favor of the common man" in such a way that big business couldn't defend itself adequately. I can't think of the last significant fight big business actually lost, the closest you'll come is particular segments of big businesses interests pitted against each other. what about this election? some of big business at laest seemed to prefer hillary. how much of big business does it need to apply to to qualify as big business losing a fgiht? (they cover a lot of different industries, so finding something that covers 99% of them mgiht be hard) what constitutes "big business"? how about the various anti-trust laws and trust-busting actions? Big business won whether it was Trump or Hillary. The formation of unions would be the closest example of what them "losing" looks like. Even then it's not as if unions took down dozens of large corporations who were abusing workers worse than before they had a union, it just meant unconscionably shady operations got shut down and people got paid closer to a fair living wage. I'm not sure anti-trust laws are in the spirit of protecting the common man as much as they are an attempt to keep private business from usurping government. In other words, them losing usually looks like them being forced to recognize the humanity of the people making them their wealth.
well, more unions is gonna be tricky; americans aren't that fond of unions. I'm not that fond of unions myself. perhaps switching to more european style unions would work.
that said, some of your stuff sounds more like rhetoric; being forced to reognize the humanity of the people making them their wealth? their wealth doesn't come entirely from those people, it's a complicated mix of many factors involved in wealth creation. and capital assets does have some bearing on that.
the notion that they don't recognize their humanity seems absurd and hyperbolic, and I trend toward literalist conversation.
what would it mean to "recognize the humanity" such a statement is open to a great many interpretations.
what does it mean for a wage to be "fair"?
the formation of unions is in some sense simply one business group opposing another business group.
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In hindsight, we probably priced ourselves out of the world market with absurd vanity projects like "minimum wage," "fair labor," and "worker rights." Those companies just move their production outside and we lose out.
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On January 28 2017 09:27 LegalLord wrote:
In hindsight, we probably priced ourselves out of the world market with absurd vanity projects like "minimum wage," "fair labor," and "worker rights." Those companies just move their production outside and we lose out.
Reminder that $1USD goes a lot further in a poor country than it does in a rich one.
You were priced out of the world market by not being 3rd world. But have a much better standard of living in exchange.
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On January 28 2017 09:18 zlefin wrote:Show nested quote +On January 28 2017 09:11 GreenHorizons wrote:On January 28 2017 07:42 zlefin wrote:On January 28 2017 07:37 GreenHorizons wrote:On January 28 2017 07:16 Ayaz2810 wrote:On January 28 2017 07:09 MyTHicaL wrote:On January 28 2017 06:55 RealityIsKing wrote:On January 28 2017 06:41 mustaju wrote:On January 28 2017 06:27 xDaunt wrote:On January 28 2017 06:26 mustaju wrote:
[quote]
I think that a country can try and fail at something, and while not being entirely successful, the United States might have been naive, but at least it was not unapologetically evil. Failure does not mean that everything about the attempt was bad. How many Americans do you know who would go and fight for Iraq's oil? Are the ones who wouldn't not your countrymen? What should be done with those who resist? Trump has bit off more than he can chew, don't follow him into that abyss. Trump's argument isn't that we should have invaded Iraq to take the oil. His argument is that we shouldn't have gone into Iraq at all, but given that we did, we should have at least taken the oil. By no justification other than "might makes right" do you have any right to that oil. And if you thought that anti-American sentiment was bad before, it's gonna get far worse after something like that. Do you apply that rationale to any other fields of life? America have literally supported the entire world in terms of being there when natural disasters strikes and giving foreign aid to countries such as food and have tons of charities. Now that America is not doing great economically and want to focus on herself, you are hating her? You should be saying "Ah that's understandable, but thanks for your previous help though!" instead of being ungrateful. America has not been supporting the world. In fact it has a long history of only supporting certain governments that it feels will in return support it. Failure to do so will result in military action, covert action, economic pressure, etc. America is hardly suffering. If you simply closed the tax loop holes that allow roughly 2/3 of your medium-large businesses to avoid paying taxes, and properly fixed your infrastructure you would be fine. But without Bernie that ain't gonna happen. The world owes you nothing so never expect anything from us. Bullying Mexico will simply in turn hurt the US. It also might push Mexico to seek more trade with the rest of the Americas. Or elsewhere. Pissing of China is dangerously stupid. I said some of the same things a couple pages ago. I don't get why people, Trump included, treat this as such a mystery. Stop catering to hunger for profits and shareholders and do what you're supposed to do for your people and everyone will be happy. Obviously that's a gross oversimplification, but it's a start. It's like every time we want to "make America great" we immediately take "fucking big business in favor of the common man" off the table. Infuriating. What I find amusing is that people seem to think that our political system functions in such a way where we even could "fuck big business over in favor of the common man" in such a way that big business couldn't defend itself adequately. I can't think of the last significant fight big business actually lost, the closest you'll come is particular segments of big businesses interests pitted against each other. what about this election? some of big business at laest seemed to prefer hillary. how much of big business does it need to apply to to qualify as big business losing a fgiht? (they cover a lot of different industries, so finding something that covers 99% of them mgiht be hard) what constitutes "big business"? how about the various anti-trust laws and trust-busting actions? Big business won whether it was Trump or Hillary. The formation of unions would be the closest example of what them "losing" looks like. Even then it's not as if unions took down dozens of large corporations who were abusing workers worse than before they had a union, it just meant unconscionably shady operations got shut down and people got paid closer to a fair living wage. I'm not sure anti-trust laws are in the spirit of protecting the common man as much as they are an attempt to keep private business from usurping government. In other words, them losing usually looks like them being forced to recognize the humanity of the people making them their wealth. well, more unions is gonna be tricky; americans aren't that fond of unions. I'm not that fond of unions myself. perhaps switching to more european style unions would work. that said, some of your stuff sounds more like rhetoric; being forced to reognize the humanity of the people making them their wealth? their wealth doesn't come entirely from those people, it's a complicated mix of many factors involved in wealth creation. and capital assets does have some bearing on that. the notion that they don't recognize their humanity seems absurd and hyperbolic, and I trend toward literalist conversation. what would it mean to "recognize the humanity" such a statement is open to a great many interpretations. what does it mean for a wage to be "fair"? the formation of unions is in some sense simply one business group opposing another business group.
You can ignore the last line if you don't like the rhetoric. As a business, all it's wealth is eventually traced back to someone doing something. Contrary to popular belief, money doesn't gain interest because it exists, it gains interest because somewhere it's being used to pay someone to do something. For corporations it's typically their employees who are "doing the stuff". Recognizing that you can't work people to death for starvation wages in deplorable working conditions wasn't something big business wanted to change, they were forced. I call that recognizing their humanity, you can call it what you want.
A fair wage is like porn, you know it when you see it. Otherwise it's one where you don't see an ownership class living in increasing opulence while working class people fall further behind every year.
On January 28 2017 09:27 LegalLord wrote:
In hindsight, we probably priced ourselves out of the world market with absurd vanity projects like "minimum wage," "fair labor," and "worker rights." Those companies just move their production outside and we lose out.
Yeah what kind of idiots would get rid of indentured servitude and stop companies from chaining their employees into their workplace.
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On January 28 2017 09:27 LegalLord wrote:
In hindsight, we probably priced ourselves out of the world market with absurd vanity projects like "minimum wage," "fair labor," and "worker rights." Those companies just move their production outside and we lose out.
Which ignores the standard of living in the US compared to countries that are 'winning' at low wages, exploitation and worker abuse.
I'm pretty sure the jobless poor former factory worker in the US is better off then an assembly line worker making 2 cents in a Taiwanese Apple factory.
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On January 28 2017 09:27 LegalLord wrote:
In hindsight, we probably priced ourselves out of the world market with absurd vanity projects like "minimum wage," "fair labor," and "worker rights." Those companies just move their production outside and we lose out.
Not to berate the obvious points that others have pointed out, I have to ask who is this "we" you speak of?
"Absurd vanity projects"? And you put "fair labor" and "worker's rights" in quotations?
You know, if there is any President in American history that actually "Made America Great", it was FDR, who took us from a Great Depression to World Superpower status.
Those "vanity projects" you talk about are what made America the middle-class superpower of the world. It's kind of like you don't know what you're talking about. Ever.
And really, I don't even know a Republican who would call them "vanity projects". Even Rush Limbaugh doesn't reach that far into absurdity. Spasibo, LegalLord, for continuing to influx this thread with stuff that I never imagined.
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On January 28 2017 09:31 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On January 28 2017 09:18 zlefin wrote:On January 28 2017 09:11 GreenHorizons wrote:On January 28 2017 07:42 zlefin wrote:On January 28 2017 07:37 GreenHorizons wrote:On January 28 2017 07:16 Ayaz2810 wrote:On January 28 2017 07:09 MyTHicaL wrote:On January 28 2017 06:55 RealityIsKing wrote:On January 28 2017 06:41 mustaju wrote:On January 28 2017 06:27 xDaunt wrote:
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Trump's argument isn't that we should have invaded Iraq to take the oil. His argument is that we shouldn't have gone into Iraq at all, but given that we did, we should have at least taken the oil. By no justification other than "might makes right" do you have any right to that oil. And if you thought that anti-American sentiment was bad before, it's gonna get far worse after something like that. Do you apply that rationale to any other fields of life? America have literally supported the entire world in terms of being there when natural disasters strikes and giving foreign aid to countries such as food and have tons of charities. Now that America is not doing great economically and want to focus on herself, you are hating her? You should be saying "Ah that's understandable, but thanks for your previous help though!" instead of being ungrateful. America has not been supporting the world. In fact it has a long history of only supporting certain governments that it feels will in return support it. Failure to do so will result in military action, covert action, economic pressure, etc. America is hardly suffering. If you simply closed the tax loop holes that allow roughly 2/3 of your medium-large businesses to avoid paying taxes, and properly fixed your infrastructure you would be fine. But without Bernie that ain't gonna happen. The world owes you nothing so never expect anything from us. Bullying Mexico will simply in turn hurt the US. It also might push Mexico to seek more trade with the rest of the Americas. Or elsewhere. Pissing of China is dangerously stupid. I said some of the same things a couple pages ago. I don't get why people, Trump included, treat this as such a mystery. Stop catering to hunger for profits and shareholders and do what you're supposed to do for your people and everyone will be happy. Obviously that's a gross oversimplification, but it's a start. It's like every time we want to "make America great" we immediately take "fucking big business in favor of the common man" off the table. Infuriating. What I find amusing is that people seem to think that our political system functions in such a way where we even could "fuck big business over in favor of the common man" in such a way that big business couldn't defend itself adequately. I can't think of the last significant fight big business actually lost, the closest you'll come is particular segments of big businesses interests pitted against each other. what about this election? some of big business at laest seemed to prefer hillary. how much of big business does it need to apply to to qualify as big business losing a fgiht? (they cover a lot of different industries, so finding something that covers 99% of them mgiht be hard) what constitutes "big business"? how about the various anti-trust laws and trust-busting actions? Big business won whether it was Trump or Hillary. The formation of unions would be the closest example of what them "losing" looks like. Even then it's not as if unions took down dozens of large corporations who were abusing workers worse than before they had a union, it just meant unconscionably shady operations got shut down and people got paid closer to a fair living wage. I'm not sure anti-trust laws are in the spirit of protecting the common man as much as they are an attempt to keep private business from usurping government. In other words, them losing usually looks like them being forced to recognize the humanity of the people making them their wealth. well, more unions is gonna be tricky; americans aren't that fond of unions. I'm not that fond of unions myself. perhaps switching to more european style unions would work. that said, some of your stuff sounds more like rhetoric; being forced to reognize the humanity of the people making them their wealth? their wealth doesn't come entirely from those people, it's a complicated mix of many factors involved in wealth creation. and capital assets does have some bearing on that. the notion that they don't recognize their humanity seems absurd and hyperbolic, and I trend toward literalist conversation. what would it mean to "recognize the humanity" such a statement is open to a great many interpretations. what does it mean for a wage to be "fair"? the formation of unions is in some sense simply one business group opposing another business group. You can ignore the last line if you don't like the rhetoric. As a business, all it's wealth is eventually traced back to someone doing something. Contrary to popular belief, money doesn't gain interest because it exists, it gains interest because somewhere it's being used to pay someone to do something. For corporations it's typically their employees who are "doing the stuff". Recognizing that you can't work people to death for starvation wages in deplorable working conditions wasn't something big business wanted to change, they were forced. I call that recognizing their humanity, you can call it what you want. A fair wage is like porn, you know it when you see it. Otherwise it's one where you don't see an ownership class living in increasing opulence while working class people fall further behind every year.
it does indeed all trace back to someone doing something. some of these people came in prior generations, and provided the resources that are now used for other things, in the form of capital. how does your system account for the value of capital accumulation and inheritance? not that I'im really sure what your system is.
sometimes you can't work people to death for starvation wages because the people have better options. even in pre-industrial times that happened some.
you seem to be pushing for some form of social welfare/socialism, which form, how much to spend on it?
I question the notion that working class people are truly falling behind, that seems more like a narrative they look to push than an actual reflection of reality. and if it is true, i'd say there's other available solutions, and in part the issue lies in patterns of relative savings i.e. capital accumulation. and fixing those would fix the problem.
Having a fair wage is good, and I think most can agree to it, the problem is that as we get down to figuring out what that will mean there's a lot of differences of opinion. and I think we could come up with something a bit more definite than the porn standard; though again there's a lot of degrees of "living".
how will we settle the issue when people disagree on how much is fair?
I'd say we have and continue to make good progress on things like working standards.
I'd dispute the use of the word "big business", as the issues would seem to me to apply regardless of the size of the business.
feels like I'm rambling too much and my points are unclear. is that so?
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On January 28 2017 09:27 LegalLord wrote:
In hindsight, we probably priced ourselves out of the world market with absurd vanity projects like "minimum wage," "fair labor," and "worker rights." Those companies just move their production outside and we lose out.
I'm not sure in what world those can be accurately characterized as "absurd vanity projects".
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The fact you couldn't tell it was sarcasm beacuse you don't like his politics should tell you something.
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People cant tell sarcasm around here because we have posts like that Noidberg post from a few pages back (aside from the traditional sarcasm-doesnt-translate-well-via-text problems.)
Though that post does seem relatively obviously sarcastic. Unsure because of that last line, but the first part is certainly written in a sarcastic tone
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I prefer to simply always label sarcasm, as it avoids that problem.
and sermo it seems unjustified to say he coudln't tell because of disliking his politics; as opposed to the less rude and similarly plausible explanation can't tell because of the whoever's law for sarcasm, and because legal has a strange mix of views at times.
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On January 28 2017 12:22 Sermokala wrote:
The fact you couldn't tell it was sarcasm beacuse you don't like his politics should tell you something.
Are you sure it was sarcasm?
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There are indeed a lot of Romanians here.
Anyways, the point is this: the reasons that US manufacturing "isn't competitive" is because we pursued all of those things that ensure that companies don't profit while the working class lives a life of shitty shittiness. Of course American workers can't compete with third worlders for whom being an indentured servant in a sweatshop is actually a step up in life. Doesn't mean we should allow labor to move in that direction at the cost of American workers.
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EPT
