Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

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Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by joypog » Sun Sep 11, 2022 1:57 pm

MangoMan wrote:
Sun Sep 11, 2022 12:27 pm
D1984 wrote:
Sat Sep 10, 2022 8:50 pm
while states/localities/municipalities/school districts can opt out of Social Security for their employees and run their own equivalent retirement benefit systems instead
Why not just leave everybody on SS? Because then the public sector unions can't get sweet deals unavailable to the rest of us. And this is fair and proper why? Why should the taxpayers supply lavish retirement to members of the unions?
For one thing, many folks in State work could get better paying work outside of the government. My state has a couple websites that look up people's salaries, I'm certain Illinois does too. Look at the pay in positions that have private practice counterparts. The administrator of my Division makes $140k. How many executives of a high dollar capital construction entity make that little? Even mid level PM's at contractor pull that kind of cash.

The implicit deal is less money now, long term pension later. That said, your concerns are exactly why I am saving for retirement as if I have no pension - cause I'm pretty sure that shorting the fat pensioners post services rendered will be a plump target if my state ever goes under.

Mind you, our state executive branch didn't have union until two years ago....so your ire at unions is still misplaced. They might make things harder to fix, but they aren't the cause. Rent seeking is a fact of human nature, whether private corps or public workers.
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Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by I Shrugged » Sun Sep 11, 2022 4:17 pm

glennds wrote:
Sun Sep 11, 2022 1:28 pm
MangoMan wrote:
Sun Sep 11, 2022 12:37 pm

That logic is like: I'm shot in the leg and bleeding, but I shouldn't complain bc the guy lying on the ground next to me is shot in the stomach and probably going to die a long painful death.

And the striking is another reason to hate unions. Regular folks just get another job with a different employer if they don't like the pay or working conditions. As a small business owner, I have zero sympathy for organized labor.
Or the logic might be: the other guy has been shot in the leg and is bleeding, and you're wailing about your mosquito bite.

Seriously, my point is the severity of your situation is an opinion. If it is shared by enough of your fellow citizens, why aren't they changing it? I get that you're saying people are leaving in droves, but for those with roots, family, investment in Illinois that's not an option. So why isn't the status quo being voted out?
Because your opinion isn't shared by enough of your fellow citizens? Or is there some other reason?

Because when you add up all of the constituencies, their are enough beneficiaries in Illinois to out-vote the remaining taxpayers. Deficit spending is popular among beneficiaries. And the Illinois legislature was run by an evil genius who knew what to do legislatively and organizationally to keep Democrats in power. Google speaker Michael Madigan and have fun.
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Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by I Shrugged » Sun Sep 11, 2022 4:27 pm

Here’s a 2015 commentary on it. It’s gotten worse since then

https://www.illinoispolicy.org/hey-spea ... the-state/
Illinois’ political leadership has given the state the following:

The worst post-recession employment recovery in the U.S.
The worst state pension crisis in the U.S.
The worst credit rating in the U.S.
The largest recession-era tax hikes in the U.S.
All-time record levels of out-migration
All-time high levels of households on food stamps
The worst-paid manufacturing workers in the region
The most expensive workers’ compensation system in the region
The most expensive tort-liability system in the region
The highest property taxes in the region
Manufacturing jobs losses in every month of 2015
A loss of 10,000 manufacturing jobs since the summer of 2012
Population loss in a majority of Illinois cities
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Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by I Shrugged » Sun Sep 11, 2022 4:50 pm

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Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by glennds » Sun Sep 11, 2022 5:00 pm

I Shrugged wrote:
Sun Sep 11, 2022 4:17 pm
glennds wrote:
Sun Sep 11, 2022 1:28 pm
MangoMan wrote:
Sun Sep 11, 2022 12:37 pm

That logic is like: I'm shot in the leg and bleeding, but I shouldn't complain bc the guy lying on the ground next to me is shot in the stomach and probably going to die a long painful death.

And the striking is another reason to hate unions. Regular folks just get another job with a different employer if they don't like the pay or working conditions. As a small business owner, I have zero sympathy for organized labor.
Or the logic might be: the other guy has been shot in the leg and is bleeding, and you're wailing about your mosquito bite.

Seriously, my point is the severity of your situation is an opinion. If it is shared by enough of your fellow citizens, why aren't they changing it? I get that you're saying people are leaving in droves, but for those with roots, family, investment in Illinois that's not an option. So why isn't the status quo being voted out?
Because your opinion isn't shared by enough of your fellow citizens? Or is there some other reason?

Because when you add up all of the constituencies, their are enough beneficiaries in Illinois to out-vote the remaining taxpayers. Deficit spending is popular among beneficiaries. And the Illinois legislature was run by an evil genius who knew what to do legislatively and organizationally to keep Democrats in power. Google speaker Michael Madigan and have fun.
Sounds like a bad dude. I had heard something about him, and definitely Illinois is famous for corrupt politics. I wonder if the majority of refugees are heading to Texas like a lot of the California exodus.
Any resident historians here know whether migration trends like that were going on in the lead up to the Civil War? Vinny?
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Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by I Shrugged » Sun Sep 11, 2022 5:22 pm

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Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by I Shrugged » Sun Sep 11, 2022 5:23 pm

Lot of emigration to Indiana, Tennessee, Florida, Texas.
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Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by vnatale » Sun Sep 11, 2022 9:11 pm

joypog wrote:
Sun Sep 11, 2022 1:57 pm

MangoMan wrote:
Sun Sep 11, 2022 12:27 pm

D1984 wrote:
Sat Sep 10, 2022 8:50 pm

while states/localities/municipalities/school districts can opt out of Social Security for their employees and run their own equivalent retirement benefit systems instead


Why not just leave everybody on SS? Because then the public sector unions can't get sweet deals unavailable to the rest of us. And this is fair and proper why? Why should the taxpayers supply lavish retirement to members of the unions?

For one thing, many folks in State work could get better paying work outside of the government. My state has a couple websites that look up people's salaries, I'm certain Illinois does too. Look at the pay in positions that have private practice counterparts. The administrator of my Division makes $140k. How many executives of a high dollar capital construction entity make that little? Even mid level PM's at contractor pull that kind of cash.

The implicit deal is less money now, long term pension later. That said, your concerns are exactly why I am saving for retirement as if I have no pension - cause I'm pretty sure that shorting the fat pensioners post services rendered will be a plump target if my state ever goes under.

Mind you, our state executive branch didn't have union until two years ago....so your ire at unions is still misplaced. They might make things harder to fix, but they aren't the cause. Rent seeking is a fact of human nature, whether private corps or public workers.


I just cannot accept that assertion. Because if they could earn more in the private sector they would. The average benefits for government employees are significantly higher than than private employees, bringing their total compensation much higher.

I'm constantly hearing our politicians say how our teachers need to be paid more.

1) Teachers work 36 weeks a year compared to the 48 to 50 that most private employees work.

2) A CPA friend of mine once stated that there are two types of people: a. Thos who are worried about retirement b. teachers

Teaches get to retire about 55 years old and can collect 80% of what they had been earning?

I wish I could again locate this specific article I'd read but it demonstrated how if you added in teachers' benefits to determine their total compensation .... they were #1 in all professions on an hourly basis.
Above provided by: Vinny, who always says: "I only regret that I have but one lap to give to my cats." AND "I'm a more-is-more person."
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Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by vnatale » Sun Sep 11, 2022 9:16 pm

glennds wrote:
Sun Sep 11, 2022 5:00 pm

I Shrugged wrote:
Sun Sep 11, 2022 4:17 pm

glennds wrote:
Sun Sep 11, 2022 1:28 pm

MangoMan wrote:
Sun Sep 11, 2022 12:37 pm


That logic is like: I'm shot in the leg and bleeding, but I shouldn't complain bc the guy lying on the ground next to me is shot in the stomach and probably going to die a long painful death.

And the striking is another reason to hate unions. Regular folks just get another job with a different employer if they don't like the pay or working conditions. As a small business owner, I have zero sympathy for organized labor.


Or the logic might be: the other guy has been shot in the leg and is bleeding, and you're wailing about your mosquito bite.

Seriously, my point is the severity of your situation is an opinion. If it is shared by enough of your fellow citizens, why aren't they changing it? I get that you're saying people are leaving in droves, but for those with roots, family, investment in Illinois that's not an option. So why isn't the status quo being voted out?
Because your opinion isn't shared by enough of your fellow citizens? Or is there some other reason?



Because when you add up all of the constituencies, their are enough beneficiaries in Illinois to out-vote the remaining taxpayers. Deficit spending is popular among beneficiaries. And the Illinois legislature was run by an evil genius who knew what to do legislatively and organizationally to keep Democrats in power. Google speaker Michael Madigan and have fun.


Sounds like a bad dude. I had heard something about him, and definitely Illinois is famous for corrupt politics. I wonder if the majority of refugees are heading to Texas like a lot of the California exodus.
Any resident historians here know whether migration trends like that were going on in the lead up to the Civil War? Vinny?


I am no historian but on a quick Bing search I found the following:

https://www.sparknotes.com/history/amer ... r/context/

Finally, the issue of westward expansion itself had a profound effect on American politics and society during the antebellum years. In the wake of the War of 1812, many nationalistic Americans believed that God intended for them to spread democracy and Protestantism across the entire continent. This idea of “manifest destiny” spurred over a million Americans to sell their homes in the East and set out on the treacherous Oregon, Mormon, Santa Fe, and California Trails. Policymakers capitalized on public sentiment to acquire Florida and Oregon and declared war on Mexico in 1846 to seize Texas, California, and everything in between.
Above provided by: Vinny, who always says: "I only regret that I have but one lap to give to my cats." AND "I'm a more-is-more person."
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Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by Kbg » Sun Sep 11, 2022 9:20 pm

glennds wrote:
Sun Sep 11, 2022 5:00 pm
.
Any resident historians here know whether migration trends like that were going on in the lead up to the Civil War? Vinny?
Oh man I’m offended I didn’t get the nod here. ;)

Large migrations historically are associated with conflict both ways. Both ways meaning conflict causes migration and migration causes conflict. Probably the most famous of more recent history was the partition of India into India and Pakistan and then again with the split off of Bangladesh.

More near to home…the American Indian wars of the 1700 and 1800s.
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Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by glennds » Sun Sep 11, 2022 10:22 pm

Kbg wrote:
Sun Sep 11, 2022 9:20 pm
glennds wrote:
Sun Sep 11, 2022 5:00 pm
.
Any resident historians here know whether migration trends like that were going on in the lead up to the Civil War? Vinny?
Oh man I’m offended I didn’t get the nod here. ;)

Large migrations historically are associated with conflict both ways. Both ways meaning conflict causes migration and migration causes conflict. Probably the most famous of more recent history was the partition of India into India and Pakistan and then again with the split off of Bangladesh.

More near to home…the American Indian wars of the 1700 and 1800s.
For some reason I had the idea that Black Ops = Kbg, Vinny for everything else.

But seriously, what I was driving at was whether in the lead up to the Civil War, was there any significant pattern of people moving from the South to the North because they disagreed with the South's positions, or vice versa because of disagreement with the North's positions. I did some refresher reading and what I learned (re-learned) was that there was too little time lapse between the election of Lincoln and the secession of the first of the southern states. Like six weeks to be exact.
So maybe the issues were brewing for a while, but there was a solid case for the status quo continuing, until Lincoln is elect at which point things get real, and everything unravels very quickly.
So it may not be a good example because there was no time for a partition style migration.

The big question often on my mind is whether we're on a path to something approximating a civil conflict (not necessarily war, but some type of conflict). The partisanship we all see is an obvious reason behind this question.
But the less obvious one is a progression of people leaving blue states for red and vice versa. The outcome being states becoming redder and bluer and maybe purple states becoming fewer.
Add to this another phenomenon like red states antagonizing blue states the way TX and AZ are by shipping migrants to NY and DC. And I'm sure there must be examples of blue states throwing the first rock too.
What might happen if a small group of red and blue states start fighting over Colorado River water, now more precious than was ever contemplated? Where does this road lead, and how long have we been on it?

Ever heard the story of when they asked Ernest Hemingway how he ended up in bankruptcy? He said it happened gradually, then suddenly.
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Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by joypog » Mon Sep 12, 2022 12:12 am

vnatale wrote:
Sun Sep 11, 2022 9:11 pm
joypog wrote:
Sun Sep 11, 2022 1:57 pm
MangoMan wrote:
Sun Sep 11, 2022 12:27 pm
D1984 wrote:
Sat Sep 10, 2022 8:50 pm
while states/localities/municipalities/school districts can opt out of Social Security for their employees and run their own equivalent retirement benefit systems instead
Why not just leave everybody on SS? Because then the public sector unions can't get sweet deals unavailable to the rest of us. And this is fair and proper why? Why should the taxpayers supply lavish retirement to members of the unions?
For one thing, many folks in State work could get better paying work outside of the government. My state has a couple websites that look up people's salaries, I'm certain Illinois does too. Look at the pay in positions that have private practice counterparts. The administrator of my Division makes $140k. How many executives of a high dollar capital construction entity make that little? Even mid level PM's at contractor pull that kind of cash.
I just cannot accept that assertion. Because if they could earn more in the private sector they would. The average benefits for government employees are significantly higher than than private employees, bringing their total compensation much higher.

I'm constantly hearing our politicians say how our teachers need to be paid more.

1) Teachers work 36 weeks a year compared to the 48 to 50 that most private employees work.

2) A CPA friend of mine once stated that there are two types of people: a. Thos who are worried about retirement b. teachers

Teaches get to retire about 55 years old and can collect 80% of what they had been earning?

I wish I could again locate this specific article I'd read but it demonstrated how if you added in teachers' benefits to determine their total compensation .... they were #1 in all professions on an hourly basis.
There's articles all over the place about a teacher shortage, which has been reflected in my state and county. So whatever over-compensation we might be handing out is clearly not being recognized by the targets we are trying to attract.

In any case I was thinking more of the professional folks who I work with — people with jobs that have similar positions in the real world. Since you brought hours into the conversation I will admit that avoiding ridiculous overtime is another attraction for state work (at least in the non-management ranks). So the trade is lower pay but a steadier schedule, lower likelihood of sudden layoffs, and the pension on the back end.
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Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by Kbg » Mon Sep 12, 2022 8:21 am

glennds wrote:
Sun Sep 11, 2022 10:22 pm
For some reason I had the idea that Black Ops = Kbg, Vinny for everything else.

But seriously, what I was driving at was whether in the lead up to the Civil War, was there any significant pattern of people moving from the South to the North because they disagreed with the South's positions, or vice versa because of disagreement with the North's positions. I did some refresher reading and what I learned (re-learned) was that there was too little time lapse between the election of Lincoln and the secession of the first of the southern states. Like six weeks to be exact.
So maybe the issues were brewing for a while, but there was a solid case for the status quo continuing, until Lincoln is elect at which point things get real, and everything unravels very quickly.
So it may not be a good example because there was no time for a partition style migration.

The big question often on my mind is whether we're on a path to something approximating a civil conflict (not necessarily war, but some type of conflict). The partisanship we all see is an obvious reason behind this question.
But the less obvious one is a progression of people leaving blue states for red and vice versa. The outcome being states becoming redder and bluer and maybe purple states becoming fewer.
Add to this another phenomenon like red states antagonizing blue states the way TX and AZ are by shipping migrants to NY and DC. And I'm sure there must be examples of blue states throwing the first rock too.
What might happen if a small group of red and blue states start fighting over Colorado River water, now more precious than was ever contemplated? Where does this road lead, and how long have we been on it?

Ever heard the story of when they asked Ernest Hemingway how he ended up in bankruptcy? He said it happened gradually, then suddenly.
It has been a minute, but I don't recall any large movements of people associated with the civil war though there were certainly some who were A) well to do or B) military officer families that moved. The average Joe didn't have the financial resources to just pick up and move (and of course it was flat out way more difficult to do do physically).

My take is a lot of this is just news spin...doing what news organizations do to make a buck. And people who are (in my view) too into the news get spun up more so than those who do not watch it religiously. Folks will wear Let's Go Brandon shirts or post rainbow and BLM flags in their yard/window but I've just never heard anyone who feels passionate enough about any of this stuff to want to go to war and put their lives on the line for Maga or anti-Maga (or whatever). No doubt there are some people who would, but I think they would be fringe and small in #.

If one is inclined to data, the 60s were quite a bit more tumultuous statistically. Like by a lot.

Finally...as Shelby Foote said in the Ken Burn's Civil War series: "Before the war, it was said "the United States are." Grammatically, it was spoken that way and thought of as a collection of independent states. And after the war, it was always "the United States is," as we say to day without being self-conscious at all. And that's sums up what the war accomplished."

I think there's way more "loyalty' to the local college football team than the state that provides its funding.

My .02 and it's probably only worth .02
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Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by D1984 » Mon Sep 12, 2022 8:35 am

MangoMan wrote:
Sun Sep 11, 2022 12:37 pm
D1984 wrote:
Sat Sep 10, 2022 10:58 pm


Oh, and as for a place that is really "run by unions" Illinois doesn't hold an even barely flickering candle to Scandinavia. There was an instance back in 2019 where Finland's postal service tried to move just 700 workers into a new contract and new collective bargaining unit that effectively would've cut their compensation a bit; damn near every union in the country--starting with the postal, freight, transport ,and warehousing sectors and spreading from there--eventually went on sympathy strike--or was preparing to do so--and within two weeks the whole country was virtually shut down except for absolutely essential workers; the whole affair eventually resulted in the downfall of a prime minister and his government losing power in the next election...all over something that only directly effected 700 unionized workers!

And the striking is another reason to hate unions. Regular folks just get another job with a different employer if they don't like the pay or working conditions. As a small business owner, I have zero sympathy for organized labor.
All the ability to unionize and strike strike does is give employees additional bargaining power (although to be fair, one doesn't technically need to be in a union per se to "strike"; if all of an employer's employees are un-unionized but do have some grievance with said employer and they all come to him/her together as a united front and say "fix this issue to our satisfaction and while you are at it we know you can afford to pay us more so do that or else we will all simply down tools and quit work until you agree to do so" then the employer certainly has the option to fire them all on the spot....but it is far easier to replace one solitary employee at a time than to try to replace all of one's employees at once....especially in time of low unemployment and tight labor markets! That's the point of collective action. It is no different in this regard than say, a boycott...which if you think about it, is a collective action "strike" of sorts by consumers rather than by workers; if one lone guy stops buying company XYZ's product it won't even be discernible; if OTOH, say, 100,000 people as a group deliberately all together at once stop buying it then chances are the company will begin to see it hit their bottom line).

All unions (or any form of collective bargaining....even if as in the above example it doesn't actually involve an official union) do is even the odds somewhat between employer and employee. By acting collectively, the employees become like the bundle of sticks in the in the tale of the brothers and the three sticks; together they have power and are stronger and are far more difficult to break whereas they would easily have little/no strength in power if they had to negotiate alone. An employer (especially a mid-sized, large, or giant company....or for that matter, any decent-sized city or state) has far greater bargaining power than any one given worker. Adam Smith--the gentleman who both figuratively and literally "wrote the book" on capitalism--openly acknowledged as much in The Wealth of Nations:

"In all such disputes the masters can hold out much longer. A landlord, a farmer, a master manufacturer, a merchant, though they did not employ a single workman, could generally live a year or two upon the stocks which they have already acquired. Many workmen could not subsist a week, few could subsist a month, and scarce any a year without employment. In the long run the workman may be as necessary to his master as his master is to him; but the necessity is not so immediate"

Employees having the power and ability to bargain collectively evens the odds by "making the necessity more immediate" for the employer as well rather than just for the employee.

If a business owner is so worried about his employees having more bargaining power and the ability to threaten to strike to obtain higher pay (or more generous benefits, or better conditions, or shorter hours for the same pay, or more vacation, etc) then maybe they should look at what they are paying (by which I mean "paying" as covering both actual wage levels itself and things like fringe benefits, retirement benefits, working conditions, and the like) in the first place and ask themselves:

A. Is what I am paying competitive?

and

B. Does it fairly reflect the value the employee adds to the company? Am I truly paying this person as close as possible to as much as they are worth or am I paying them as little as I can get away with and then pocketing as much of the surplus value they create myself and counting on them having little/no bargaining power vis-a-vis my company so they end up having to put up with this without much recourse to do anything about it?

A. above is pretty self explanatory. B. Means that the if the employee is really adding, say, $30 an hour in economic value to the company should the employer really be only trying to get away with paying him, say $20 an hour in pay and benefits? If an employee is truly so useless that he's asking for more than he's worth then fire him and do his job yourself (and/or hire someone else to do it). If not, then paying him/her more commensurately with the value he/she produces--even though doing so would cut into the employer's profits--would seem to be the best and quickest course of action to ensure that one's employees felt no desire to unionize or otherwise collectively bargain.

That logic is like: I'm shot in the leg and bleeding, but I shouldn't complain bc the guy lying on the ground next to me is shot in the stomach and probably going to die a long painful death.
You make it sound by way of comparison like Scandinavia is some third-world hellhole LOL. What I was trying to demonstrate is that saying that "unions have too much power in America" is somewhat laughable. Union membership here is around 10.5 or 11% of the total workforce (and around 7.5% or 8% of the privets sector workforce), company union busting activities typically only get a slap on the wrist even if they violates the letter of labor law, companies can simply all but refuse to agree to a first contract and refuse to even attempt to bargain in good faith (all the while dragging out the process for years in an attempt to outlast the union financially; this is technically against the law but the penalties for doing so are pretty toothless and aren't even enforced all of the time), sympathy strikes (AKA "hot cargo strikes" ) are illegal--hell, even simple secondary boycotts without even any actual secondary strikes are still not allowed, wildcat strikes are illegal, general strikes are (arguably) illegal; there is a required "cooling off" period before a union can even legally strike in almost all cases in the US, closed "union only" shops are illegal, unions here have no legally enforceable co-determination rights on any corporate board like they do in Scandinavia, Germany, and Austria whereas in those nations workers are by law allotted seats--sometimes up to half the seats--on every large company's board even if they don't own a single share of that company's stock (and to add insult to injury, in the United States unions can't even legally get around this by trying to use their pension funds to attempt buy up a majority of a company's stock so as to be able to vote in/out the directors that way like ordinary large activist shareholders can; US labor law technically forbids workers' union trustees from having a majority of seats on their own pension fund trust boards......this was put in place because in 1946 and early 1947--when stock prices and PE ratios were a lot lower than they are now--a few of the more forward-thinking unions had began to use some of their pension fund money to start buying blocks of stock in several companies and even in a bank with the clear goal of eventually having bought enough to potentially have a controlling stake in these companies; the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 put a stop to that by implementing the "50% or less control by union trustees" for union pension fund boards), etc.

I was just trying to show that American employers have no idea what having to deal with an environment where unions still do have ACTUAL power is like or that by comparison American employers don't know how good they have things here, relatively speaking. The poster who called it "wailing about a mosquito bite" had about the right metaphor in mind. If unions are so intolerably powerful in the US, how come our middle class income share--and for that matter lower class income share--are lower than they were in the 1960s or early 1970s? Why has the median/average worker received on average about the same pay he/she got in the early 1970s in inflation-adjusted terms (again, see the AHETPI data posted by Kbg) despite decades of economic growth? In countries where unions still have real power and influence, things like that don't tend to happen (or at least don't happen to nearly the extent they have happened here).
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Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by vnatale » Mon Sep 12, 2022 8:58 am

D1984 wrote:
Mon Sep 12, 2022 8:35 am


I was just trying to show that American employers have no idea what having to deal with an environment where unions still do have ACTUAL power is like or that by comparison American employers don't know how good they have things here, relatively speaking. The poster who called it "wailing about a mosquito bite" had about the right metaphor in mind. If unions are so intolerably powerful in the US, how come our middle class income share--and for that matter lower class income share--are lower than they were in the 1960s or early 1970s? Why has the median/average worker received on average about the same pay he/she got in the early 1970s in inflation-adjusted terms (again, see the AHETPI data posted by Kbg) despite decades of economic growth? In countries where unions still have real power and influence, things like that don't tend to happen (or at least don't happen to nearly the extent they have happened here).


Some of my positions on unions come from what Peter Drucker had written about 40 years ago one of his books.

100 years ago unions had their place. Business owners had too high share of "the pie" with not enough going to labor. Now (and back then - 40 years ago) if you look at almost any company a large size of "the pie" does go to labor. Therefore, a union takes its share of "the pie" without enlarging "the pie". In other words it is taking its share away from either the company or the employees without increasing "the pie" so that the employees net out with a greater amount.

I believe that the union's first priority is NOT to serve the employee members. Instead, its first priority is to maintain its own existence (with all the attendant costs to its employee members which represents the union's income).

Bottom line: Unions had their place in American labor history but that time passed long ago. Unions are now a third party siphoning off some of its employees net pay to provide for the unions' existence.

Perhaps, that is the true reason why United States labor participation is at an all-time low? Employees recognize that they would provide no net increases to their net pay but would reduce it?
Above provided by: Vinny, who always says: "I only regret that I have but one lap to give to my cats." AND "I'm a more-is-more person."
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Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by vnatale » Mon Sep 12, 2022 11:38 am

MangoMan wrote:
Mon Sep 12, 2022 11:12 am

D1984 wrote:
Mon Sep 12, 2022 8:35 am

B. Means that the if the employee is really adding, say, $30 an hour in economic value to the company should the employer really be only trying to get away with paying him, say $20 an hour in pay and benefits? If an employee is truly so useless that he's asking for more than he's worth then fire him and do his job yourself (and/or hire someone else to do it). If not, then paying him/her more commensurately with the value he/she produces--even though doing so would cut into the employer's profits--would seem to be the best and quickest course of action to ensure that one's employees felt no desire to unionize or otherwise collectively bargain.


I see you took my comments about walls of text to heart. ::)

Your paragraph B. above illustrates my point exactly. Let's say the employee is NOT adding $30/hour in economic value to the company. Said employee should get a pay cut or get fired. But if they're in a union, the union won't allow that. No pay cuts, no termination for anything short of egregious misconduct. How does this benefit the company?

In any event, it appears that Jobs continue to flow from pro-union states like Illinois to right-to-work states , so employers must be finally waking up. This is even more true in CA which employers are fleeing at an even higher rate due to an even more difficult business climate.


This is somewhat of a strange time to be discussing this.

When I was looking for a job in the 1974-1975 recession it seemed like there was 10 to 100 workers looking for a job for each job opening. I recently heard that there is now two job openings for each person looking for a job. Therefore this is one of the best times to be looking for a job and to be asking for the highest rate of pay.

Additionally, the employees who are quality do want the higher quality employees and they are going to be willing to pay on the upper end to get them. But not all employees are upper end and many of them are not worth what they think they should be getting paid. Plus, the economics and realities of many organizations does not permit them to pay above a certain amount to their employees.

Just one of the reasons why I cannot stand Bernie Sanders.
Above provided by: Vinny, who always says: "I only regret that I have but one lap to give to my cats." AND "I'm a more-is-more person."
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Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by glennds » Mon Sep 12, 2022 2:31 pm

Kbg wrote:
Mon Sep 12, 2022 8:21 am

Finally...as Shelby Foote said in the Ken Burn's Civil War series: "Before the war, it was said "the United States are." Grammatically, it was spoken that way and thought of as a collection of independent states. And after the war, it was always "the United States is," as we say to day without being self-conscious at all. And that's sums up what the war accomplished."

I think there's way more "loyalty' to the local college football team than the state that provides its funding.

My .02 and it's probably only worth .02
Agree with most of your points. But I wonder if it's not so much the loyalty to one's own state, but an increased level of disdain for the "other" state.
But I accept the media spin point.
Just this morning on CNBC (not normally where you'll find any political reporting) they did a story on skyrocketing enrollment of NY transplants at FL private schools. Seriously, they interviewed the school principal at one of the elite ones and he said their application volume has tripled, and he wishes he could snap his fingers and double the size of the school.
Pragmatism would say people are far more likely to do things for financial reasons than political reasons. Read: taxes.

We've discussed it here before, and for people of a certain age and over, it's hard to distinguish what is truly new from things that were going on for most of your life but because of your circumstances, you just weren't tuned in to it.
And of course, the counter argument is the slow burn Ernest Hemingway quote I shared.
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Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by Kbg » Mon Sep 12, 2022 3:08 pm

glennds wrote:
Mon Sep 12, 2022 2:31 pm
Just this morning on CNBC (not normally where you'll find any political reporting) they did a story on skyrocketing enrollment of NY transplants at FL private schools. Seriously, they interviewed the school principal at one of the elite ones and he said their application volume has tripled, and he wishes he could snap his fingers and double the size of the school.
Pragmatism would say people are far more likely to do things for financial reasons than political reasons. Read: taxes.
I live east of CA and people (highly productive people) are definitely bailing and heading to locales near me.

Side rant...one thing that drives me bonkers is when people from one state go off on the government of a different state. Pug as as citizen of IL has every right to go off on IL government...but if you live in Kansas and see something on Fox about what Gov Newsome is doing in CA, just, shut, up.

If the CA voters want what I'd consider a huge liberal for gov and I wouldn't vote for him, who cares. He's giving CA voters what the majority of CA voters want.
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Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by boglerdude » Mon Sep 12, 2022 8:39 pm

The majority of voters are ignorant and will vote themselves into communism. We live in a republic and Newsom violated our constitutional rights of religion and assembly with his curfews and house arrest. All while the overflow hospital facilities stayed empty
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Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by joypog » Mon Sep 12, 2022 11:23 pm

boglerdude wrote:
Mon Sep 12, 2022 8:39 pm
The majority of voters are ignorant and will vote themselves into communism. We live in a republic and Newsom violated our constitutional rights of religion and assembly with his curfews and house arrest. All while the overflow hospital facilities stayed empty
We had patients in a makeshift parking garage COVID unit during the Christmas wave of 2020.

Maybe your city was spared the worst of COVID, but it certainly packed a wallop in some pockets.

FFS we had a drop in national life expectancy over the last couple years. One can argue that we overreacted, but this wasn't nothing.
1/n weirdo. US-TSM, US-SCV, Intl-SCV, LTT, STT, GLD (+ a little in MF)
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Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by boglerdude » Tue Sep 13, 2022 12:55 am

LA county had been putting flu patients in the hallways going back years, and even turned away cold/flu patients. Both then and now I'd be happy to pay more taxes to sufficiently fund the system. The convention center was turned into a hospital in 2020 and not used. The hospital ships in NY and LA were not used, and they didnt even bother with that theater in 2021.

Consider the possibility that the actions of the DNC and CCP were not done to keep you healthy.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-62830326

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Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by Kbg » Tue Sep 13, 2022 8:16 am

+1

Either that or entertain us with flat earther posts.
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Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by D1984 » Tue Sep 13, 2022 1:02 pm

MangoMan wrote:
Mon Sep 12, 2022 11:12 am
D1984 wrote:
Mon Sep 12, 2022 8:35 am
B. Means that the if the employee is really adding, say, $30 an hour in economic value to the company should the employer really be only trying to get away with paying him, say $20 an hour in pay and benefits? If an employee is truly so useless that he's asking for more than he's worth then fire him and do his job yourself (and/or hire someone else to do it). If not, then paying him/her more commensurately with the value he/she produces--even though doing so would cut into the employer's profits--would seem to be the best and quickest course of action to ensure that one's employees felt no desire to unionize or otherwise collectively bargain.
I see you took my comments about walls of text to heart. ::)

Your paragraph B. above illustrates my point exactly. Let's say the employee is NOT adding $30/hour in economic value to the company. Said employee should get a pay cut or get fired. But if they're in a union, the union won't allow that. No pay cuts, no termination for anything short of egregious misconduct. How does this benefit the company?

In any event, it appears that Jobs continue to flow from pro-union states like Illinois to right-to-work states , so employers must be finally waking up. This is even more true in CA which employers are fleeing at an even higher rate due to an even more difficult business climate.
As regarding employers moving to lower cost states: Well, of course they would. They'd employ slave labor if they could get away with it (indeed, the antebellum southern employer class of rich planters started a civil war in this country over their very right to employ such labor). They could (and did, back when it was still legal) employ child labor. They would pay less than the minimum wage if it were legal and if people were desperate enough to take it and had no bargaining power to demand better pay. They will cut corners on workplace safety. They will engage in wage theft (not paying workers every bit of wages legally owed to them) to the tune of billions of dollars annually for the country as a whole. Businesses will do anything they can to cut costs and increase profits regardless of whether it benefits society as a whole or not. Expecting otherwise is like expecting a wolf to suddenly start eating leaves instead of animals. The question is, why should society as a whole allow such race-to-the-bottom tactics? How does the average or median American benefit by that?

I am not sure what sort of union contracts you have dealt with but collective bargaining agreements that completely prevent firing of workers period aren't exactly common. Most will generally prohibit laying off of union workers simply to replace them with (presumably cheaper) non-union workers. Almost all will require just cause if someone is to be fired for misconduct that doesn't meet the standard of gross misconduct (i.e. the employer has to show that an employee who was, say, late repeatedly was warned, given written notice, put on a performance improvement plan and told any further instances would result in termination, etc). If nothing else, this prevents unscrupulous employers from simply firing a percentage of their employees, dumping the work those employees did on the remaining employees (for no extra pay or as little extra as possible), and then collecting the difference in wages and benefits not paid as profit.

As far as the "worker who isn't worth what he is paid but you can't fire him" I'd add two things:

One, if the employer had paid good wages and benefits instead of paying as little as the market would bear and thus keeping as much or themselves as possible, treated employees fairly, shared profits when the company had a really good year, provided an adequate retirement plan instead of saying "here's your pathetic little 2 or 3% 401K match and it's not my problem if you never have enough money to retire", didn't reduce headcount and dump the tasks on the remaining workforce simply to increase profitability or raise the company's stock price, didn't provide an unsafe or dangerous work environment, didn't fire people for arbitrary and capricious reasons and/or didn't play favorites or play politics with promotions, etc then he/she likely wouldn't have had to worry about their employees unionizing in the first place.

Two, I dare say that the situation you describe is pretty uncommon overall. I'm not saying that there aren't ever cases where it happens but you should know as well as anyone that the plural of anecdote is not data. If anything, over the past 40-50 years or so just the opposite has happened for the economy as a whole; as workers' bargaining power decreased vs their employers (lots of causes.....decreasing percentage of unionized employees was one of them but corporate concentration enabled by failure to properly enforce anti-trust law, failure to raise minimum wage, individual and corporate income tax cuts, outsourcing, increases in compensation inequality within the labor sector itself enabled by said weaker worker bargaining power, rise of shareholder value doctrine, full safe harbor legalization of share buybacks, failure to control health care prices such that money that theoretically could've been spent on employee wage increases instead went to a healthcare sector that typically charges several times the price for each good/service in the US than in comparable wealthy OECD countries, failure to raise the overtime threshold for salaried workers to account for inflation and/or allowing salaried workers to be misclassified as "supervisors" just so that employers wouldn't have to pay comp time or OT, allowing misclassification of actual employees as independent contractors, courts taking an expansive view on the enforceability of non-compete clauses when historically these weren't even enforceable except as far as an employee with trade secrets or extensive knowledge of the business was concerned, corporate-designed "free trade" agreements, a central bank that prioritized inflation control over full employment and that estimated NAIRU a few percentage points higher than they should've, etc) compensation didn't keep up with actual economic output growth.

You don't have to take my word for it. The AHETPI numbers available in this very thread should provide proof of that; inflation adjusted wages for the bottom 80-83% or so of workers are roughly the same as they were in 1972 in real terms and a tiny bit below their 1973 peak in real terms. If you don't want to go by those numbers then the median real earnings (i.e. earnings for the hypothetical worker in the exact median of the income distribution) data at https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q tell pretty much the same story albeit they only start in 1979; as such the slight decrease in real wages from the 1973 peak to early 1979 is not shown by this data set. It seems to me that the actual data show that the problem is not that workers are trying to negotiate for more than they are worth and that unions are enabling that but rather just the opposite; they are worth far more than they have the power to negotiate for.

Even if you don't want to go by numbers and data, just look around and ask yourself: Why could most families in the 1950s to 1970s on only one breadwinner's income own a home, put the kids through college, put food on the table, have good employer-provided health coverage on themselves, and enjoy a decent retirement pension....but they generally can't today despite us being a much richer country than we were then? Where did all the fruits of 40 or 50 years of economic growth go to since it doesn't seem to have trickled down to ordinary workers (and don't even think of saying "taxes"; that dog won't even begin to hunt seeing as how corporate and individual income tax rates are much lower today than they were during that era)?
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Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by Kbg » Wed Sep 14, 2022 4:32 pm

D1984 wrote:
Tue Sep 13, 2022 1:02 pm
Even if you don't want to go by numbers and data, just look around and ask yourself: Why could most families in the 1950s to 1970s on only one breadwinner's income own a home, put the kids through college, put food on the table, have good employer-provided health coverage on themselves, and enjoy a decent retirement pension....but they generally can't today despite us being a much richer country than we were then? Where did all the fruits of 40 or 50 years of economic growth go to since it doesn't seem to have trickled down to ordinary workers (and don't even think of saying "taxes"; that dog won't even begin to hunt seeing as how corporate and individual income tax rates are much lower today than they were during that era)?
I think the above is absolutely indisputable.
MangoMan wrote:
Tue Sep 13, 2022 1:16 pm
Yes, all employers are selfish, evil assholes looking out only for themselves. ::)

If any of that was true, would the states that are more selfish and evil (i.e., business friendly) be attracting employees?
Capitalists are supposed to be selfish...it's baked into the system and required for the system to function properly. And in my book, completely ok.

However, government does play a role here and government's primary role is to act on behalf of it's people.

There's never not going to be tension between capitalism/ists and government as it is inherent in their different functions. And in my book, that's also completely ok.

Businesses should be free to move to wherever they want that is conducive and employees should be free to organize if they want.

Tangent/but sort of related...I find the Chips Act (?) to be pretty interesting. The USG has figured out it's not a good thing from a security standpoint that most of the world's chips are made in Asia and maybe lowest cost isn't the only thing out there we should be paying attention to. So looks like US taxpayers are going to start subsidizing chip manf. in the US as other countries have for quite a while. Definitely not pure capitalism, definitely not stupid/a waste of money either.
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Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by vnatale » Wed Sep 14, 2022 9:25 pm

Kbg wrote:
Wed Sep 14, 2022 4:32 pm

D1984 wrote:
Tue Sep 13, 2022 1:02 pm

Even if you don't want to go by numbers and data, just look around and ask yourself: Why could most families in the 1950s to 1970s on only one breadwinner's income own a home, put the kids through college, put food on the table, have good employer-provided health coverage on themselves, and enjoy a decent retirement pension....but they generally can't today despite us being a much richer country than we were then? Where did all the fruits of 40 or 50 years of economic growth go to since it doesn't seem to have trickled down to ordinary workers (and don't even think of saying "taxes"; that dog won't even begin to hunt seeing as how corporate and individual income tax rates are much lower today than they were during that era)?


I think the above is absolutely indisputable.

MangoMan wrote:
Tue Sep 13, 2022 1:16 pm

Yes, all employers are selfish, evil assholes looking out only for themselves. ::)

If any of that was true, would the states that are more selfish and evil (i.e., business friendly) be attracting employees?


Capitalists are supposed to be selfish...it's baked into the system and required for the system to function properly. And in my book, completely ok.

However, government does play a role here and government's primary role is to act on behalf of it's people.

There's never not going to be tension between capitalism/ists and government as it is inherent in their different functions. And in my book, that's also completely ok.

Businesses should be free to move to wherever they want that is conducive and employees should be free to organize if they want.

Tangent/but sort of related...I find the Chips Act (?) to be pretty interesting. The USG has figured out it's not a good thing from a security standpoint that most of the world's chips are made in Asia and maybe lowest cost isn't the only thing out there we should be paying attention to. So looks like US taxpayers are going to start subsidizing chip manf. in the US as other countries have for quite a while. Definitely not pure capitalism, definitely not stupid/a waste of money either.


From the book I am currently reading .....

It is ironic how many modern conservatives tend to blame government action for all problems and extol the virtue of private entrepreneurship and innovation. How rarely are those two sections of society so discrete. The transportation and commercial revolutions that unfolded in nineteenth-century America did forever alter (usually for the better) life in these United States. Commodity costs dropped, travel became affordable, information proliferated, and living standards rose. This — under the sixteen years of Madison’s and Monroe’s administrations — was possible only through the combination of Republican governmental investment and prioritization of private innovation. The once laissez-faire Republicans ever so quickly pivoted from small government to the funding and application of technological inventions in cooperation with the private sector.

This was a team effort, and it forever altered life in America. Nearly everyone was affected by the proliferation of steamboats, canals, roads, and technological advances. Everyone, even Native Americans, became more tied to the commercial economy. Fewer farmers were needed, and other occupations and professions opened up. There were now both more wage laborers and more commercial entrepreneurs. This meant that property ownership — once the signal indicator of wealth and status — became less influential in economic and political life. It wasn’t long before most states eliminated property qualifications for voting.

A prime example of innovation, government investment, and societal change unfolded in New York. In the 1820s, after years of work, the Erie Canal was completed. Running 363 miles from the Hudson River to Lake Erie, the forty-foot-wide canal connected the farms of the Great Lakes and Midwest with the trading port of New York City. Almost overnight the population of that city, and of western New York State, exploded. New York became, forever, the singular commercial hub of the United States. Local farmers and merchants were now plugged into a nationwide and international economy. As the historian Daniel Walker Howe noted, “New York had redrawn the economic map of the United States and placed itself at the center.”

The commercial and transportation revolutions set off a communications revolution that sped up time and the flow of information. Mail traveled exponentially more quickly and so did newspapers, the primary items of mail in those days. The number and diversity of papers expanded, bringing politics and international affairs into the daily lives of more and more Americans. But there was, undoubtedly, a dark side to this information propagation. Most newspapers in this era were little more than organs of particular political parties or factions rather than objective news sources. These papers relied, oftentimes, on wealthy benefactors or government printing contracts from the party in power. The next time someone complains about the unprecedented partisanship and corporate influence on today’s media space, remind them of this era of the Market Revolution, the period of intense economic and communication revolutions in the years following 1815.
Above provided by: Vinny, who always says: "I only regret that I have but one lap to give to my cats." AND "I'm a more-is-more person."
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