How the heck am I supposed to feel on Labor Day? It’s the end of the summer, yet the weather is perfect. Good or bad? Happy or bummed? I can’t decide how to feel!Happy Labor day. Here’s a politics-free thread to talk about the last long-weekend until Thanksgiving (Columbus Day for some).
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Labor day is cool, because it means the start of football season… Go Seahawks!
fall is my favorite season.everyone have a great labor day.
I went to a barbecue today hosted by the Teamsters. It was lots of fun, and a reminder that Labor Day is an appreciation of UNIONS. They are still the best advocate for working people, and more of us should be union members. No point in praying for better times — Organize!
Taught my daughter how to ride a bicycle today. It was a beautiful thing. She’s so strong.
Have a nice labor day weekend.
Dorky Mommy:
There really is no point in unionization unless the Taft/Hartley anti-union act is repealed.
The unions can’t effectively help us until we help them by putting pressure on our lawmakers to repeal this terrible legislation.
Unions…?
Can you name one industry that has improved with unionizing?
Here’s a question I’d like to pose…
What is everyone’s definition of the “American Dream”?
I brought my outdoor dog indoors yesterday because of serious thunderstorms. It’s only the second time she’s been in the house, the first time being a few days earlier, during another storm. I usually put her in the garage. She’s adapting very well to being an indoor dog, except for being afraid of linoleum and wood floors. She didn’t want to go through the kitchen, or up the front stairs to go to sleep when I went to bed last night. So I had to put throw rugs down in the kitchen for her to cross to the back stairs, which are carpeted. She’s non-aggressive toward the cats, so that’s working out fairly well, except for two who are a little paranoid about her.
So that’s my labor day weekend, except for going to a cookout later tonight.
If you are referring to a company’s bottom line, I would say, none of them. If, on the other hand, you are referring to improved safety conditions and increased wages for the workers, I would have to say, all of them.
alexatheist
If you’re out there lurking, I saw this at Pharyngula and thought you’d be interested:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/08/reprogramming_the_pancreas.php#comments
Comment from: Ren
Agreed…unions tend to kill the golden goose…
Great Point…and I would agree in general.
Again, good point. But I would add that eventually this will lead to killing the golden goose…
I would have to say the real problem with Union/Non-Union Jobs, is that all the decent paying jobs (read union) have been sent overseas, where companies don’t have to worry about safety and environmental regulations and, so, they don’t. On top of that, they pay the workers slave wages and they end up producing the quality of crap we have all come to enjoy from our local Wal-Mart.
I would gladly pay $30 for a shovel, made in the united states and guaranteed to last ten years, before I would go to Wally World and plop down $10 for a shovel that probably will not make it through the season. The only problem with that statement is: You can’t! All the American manufacturers have been shut down and their jobs sent overseas.
I am not an isolationist, but open trade is not fair trade. Only when countries like China, India, and Mexico start enforcing the same safety regulations we have here in the US, and start paying their workers their due (maybe THEY should unionize?) we will continue to loose more and more of the American Middle-Class.
I guess one good thing about rising gas prices is, it makes things made far away more expensive because of shipping. Maybe once gas is $10/gal it will be cheaper to buy things manufactured close to home. Sure wish it didn’t have to come to that, though.
See what happens when you drink and blog?
Let me see if I can’t clarify that statement.
Until countries like China, India, and Mexico start enforcing the same safety regulations we have here in the US, and start paying their workers their due (maybe THEY should unionize?) we will continue to loose more and more of the American Middle-Class
Ren,
The reality of sweat shops is not that they make their money because they are free to do as they please to the environment or that they even necessarily have worse working conditions to similar jobs here. These are people living in overpopulated areas and competing for the same resources. If they were instantly paid the American idea of a fair wage, they would not have a job at all and they would not be able to provide for their families. Enforcing an American minimum wage law in China would likely kill a lot of people.
Labor unions and minimum wage laws put upward cost pressure on companies. Some companies cannot remain in business each time these pressures exceed their sales potential. As a survival mechanism they’re essentially forced (by our own workers and government policy) to export labor to remain in business.
If you’d like to portray that as being always a result of greedy capitalist fat cats maximizing profit margins, feel free. Hoping the rest of the world will one day recreate the same regulatory pressures (and starve some of their people to death in the process) we have is a little silly. They’ll do what’s best for their people (more jobs) and we’ll try to do what’s best for ours (lower cost products).
Tinkering with a free economy with governmental regulation causes predictable results. Sometimes desired results are produced, sometimes they’re not, but it’s not always due to a lack of understanding of economics. Sometimes it’s because some people in power believe that no cost is too steep in support of their cause. In this case, they believe the benefits of a minimum wage law are greater than the loss of jobs to international trade.
If anyone here gets the chance, please watch ‘CHINA blue’, a documentary about a young girl in a jean factory.
And if you haven’t seen ‘The Corporation’, do.
Whether to support Chinese manufacturing or not is a very complex issue.
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/chinablue/jeans.html
AT,
Kind of like how illegal aliens are competing with Americans for the same jobs, but the immigrant is willing to work for much less and no healthcare to boot?
Personally, I don’t know any Chinese, so I couldn’t care less how much they make. What I would like to see is the mother of all tarrifs slapped on cheap, foreign goods, so that American workers can compete. Of course, nobody would shop at Wal-Mart any more because it would no longer be a bargain, but at least Americans would still have jobs and be tax payers instead of being on the dole.
Yes, they do.
And yet, many of those same companies that cannot afford a minimum wage hike without going out of business, can give their CEOs multi-million dollar bonuses for ‘downsizing’ and saving the company money.
I’ll bet they would find a better way if they were penalized, monetarily, for moving jobs overseas. Besides, 9 out of 10 start-ups go out of business within their first year. If a business cannot stand on it’s own two feet, then it deserves to go under. I’m willing to bet that many more business go belly up because of bad management, than from over-regulation.
Not always. It’s just the norm.
I would argue that more people have been under-regulated to death, than over-regulated to death. Hint: Think airline and coal industries.
Doubtful.
Lower cost products only help if you have a job in the first place. Besides, what good is lower priced products when they are just so much plastic, Chinese Junk? Give me a good ol’ hunk of American Steel over a cold, rolled dinosaur turd, anyday.
I’ll be the first to say that I don’t understand Macroeconomics. In fact, I will even admit to knowing less about it than John Dubya McCain. I married a soldier, while he married an heiress. I guess he knows a little something about money, afterall.
What am I going to be dong on Labor day?? Working. Unless it’s really slow (doesn’t rain). Then they’ll call me and tell me not to bother coming in.
SEAHAWKS!! They suc… oh, nevermind, I live near Detroit.
Unions don’t kill the goose, they just let more that the CEO have a bite of omelet.
Ren
glad to see you back.
a safe,happy labor day everyone.don’t drink and drive.
reason,
Good to be back. I’m full of piss and vinegar, but mostly piss. Thanks!
Ren,
I can’t help but see a lot of focus on the negative things that corporations have done. Understandably there will be a certain amount of envy for those that accumulate more wealth than we do. Is this where all of this stems from?
The last bit was a wicked little jab. I can’t help but ask why your husband, who is in the business of death, has a more respectable position than an heiress.
I’m not trying to cause offense or attempting to be crass, so I apologize if it seems that way. I’m attempting to provoke thought. Perception is a funny thing. You (and many Americans) could look at a picture of your husband in uniform and feel pride in your country and think “that’s a patriot.” Show that same picture to someone in the middle east and you’ll evoke feelings of revulsion and they may think “that’s a murderer.”
See how powerful perception is? Of special note is the fact that we’re only talking about a photograph. While I agree that some corporations do terrible things, many others do right by their employees, follow all the laws, and some even behave in a manner that is better than the law stipulates.
I am not meaning to imply that all government regulation is harmful or that all companies represent all of the virtues we hope they have. I am saying that some of the problems we have are due to harmful regulation and that companies do respond to this in negative, unintended ways.
I do completely agree that we, as a society, need to cease extending the rights of an individual to a corporation. I completely agree that they should be required to stand on their own feet, should be accountable for their actions, and should be operating in a safe and environmentally friendly a manner as they can without destroying our economy in the process (so we have time to find better alternatives without throwing in the towel and going back to living in grass huts).
As for your apparent distaste for everything made of plastic: ask that nothing produced with petrochemicals is used to save your life when you go to the hospital. Another of your requirements should be that nothing disposable should be used either (think re-usable hypodermic needles).
(Please, don’t really do this) Remember that I am merely being thought-provoking.
I apologize that my time is limited to responding only to a few comments.
This is subject to the law of unintended consequences. This may cause as many negative outcomes as positive ones. Those outcomes may be worse than the current situation.
I suspect that one outcome to closing off our trade borders in this way is likely to increase immigration (legal or otherwise) which, in turn, creates opportunities to exploit those immigrants and increasing our population-related problems, our exploitation of natural resources to support all of these immigrants, the strain on our social services, etc. The myriad of other problems caused in this hypothetical situation would be unlikely to be attributed to their cause because most people would refuse to believe that such a simple change in policy could create such wide-sweeping problems. The majority rules, even if they are wrong, after all.
Of course, we could just cede all of our freedoms and all the fruits of our labor to the government. They know best, after all.
AT,
Envy? I got off that train a long time ago. I can assure you that I want for just about nothing.
I sure hope my wife doesn’t find out I have a husband. Besides, I was the one in the business of death. My wife is just a glorified secretary in ACU’s. (Her words, not mine) I don’t know what respect has anything to do with the subject at hand. I was simply commenting on the fact that while I married a soldier (you’ll never get rich by digging a ditch…) he married an heiress, and therefore knows more about money than I. Nothing to read into there.
Nope. When I look at a picture of myself, with a chest full of medals, I don’t think, “There’s a Patriot.” I think, “There’s a pawn”.
As well it should. We DID afterall invade a country, preemptivly. That is to say, we invaded a country that had not attacked us, had not threatened to attack us, and was of no threat to us. Yet, we are responsible for the deaths of over a hundred thousand Iraqis; the displacement of millions more, and YES, I would say the ones that did this are war criminals. “I was just following orders”, didn’t cut it at Nurenburg, and it will not be excusable when our judgement day comes. Karma is a bitch!
Terrorist: Noun- One who terrorizes for political gain. If that doesn’t sum up the Bush administration, I don’t know what does.
I don’t need photographs. I have the images of dismembered Iraqis burned into my brain for all eternity. Pretty terrifying, I must say!
Agreed. I hear Google is a great place to work. I guess I wouldn’t know.
Again, I agree. However, I would like to see more regulation of corporations, and less regulation of individuals. The gov’t we have now seems to want it the other way around.
I never said I hated everything made of plastic. Only cheap crap made of plastic. I have a beautiful Corvette that is full of plastic. I also have a tire pump that I bought from Wal-Mart that is full of plastic. Guess which one lasted more than one use?
You needn’t worry about me taking offense to your agruments. I only get offended when people say patently stupid things. That is why I have such a hard time ignoring Phreedm. You, on the other hand, are obviously intelligent and are entitled to your opinions. We don’t have to agree in order to remain cordial.
So is NAFTA. Your ball!
Sorry. *sheepish* Someone I know (fellow atheist that does not post or read this blog) was looking over my shoulder once as I was reading this blog. He happened to see a post by you and told me that he thought you were the same poster on another blog with a very similar handle. A number of details actually matched things I remember you saying here and I meant to ask you.
It’s been many months since then and I’d long since forgotten about it, though I’d managed to associate you with the other poster’s gender.
I’ll try and remember. I don’t recall the last time that I actually blushed. Even more odd, there was nobody around to see it. If a blogger blushes behind internet anonymity, does his face turn red?
On a tangent about internet anonymity, I appear pretty rarely in Google. Even this handle is used by others in a variety of places. My other handles used to be unique but that has changed in the many years I’ve been using the internet and leaving footprints in various places. My words have made their way onto computers spanning the globe. Some have even translated some of my technical contributions. I’ve found four different foreign language translations of work I did years ago (ancient history). Small world afer all, huh?
AT,
No harm, ho foul. I was pretty tickled by it, so no, no harm done.
I don’t post many places, but when I do, I use either Ren, or Renfew if Ren is too short, or taken already. To read some of my other work, you would have to frequent the Tacoma News Tribune, the Salt Lake City Tribune, The Seattle Times, or maybe The Des Moines Register. Besides this blog, I pretty much limit myself to Letters to the Editor, and comments on letters by others.
Want to know the easiest way to remember me? Weren’t you a Monarch in HS? I believe it was you that had my mother-in-law for German Class. If that is not you, I apologize, but I am pretty sure it is.
BTW, I married the daughter that is 9 yrs older than the one you might have known. I just saw her last week when she flew in from LA. (that’s Los Angeles, NOT Louisiana) She still looks great.
Ah, yeah, that is correct. I didn’t know any of her daughters though. IIRC we were several years apart. I wonder how many atheists we had there.