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Posted: 1/24/2006 3:25:51 PM EDT
[#1]
SteveO--
Why don't we have this sort of forced-labor problems in right-to-work states? Texas is not a pro-union state. Steve, you must be a  and a Marxist.
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Posted: 1/24/2006 3:26:59 PM EDT
[#2]
If you really wanted to learn, you would. There are tons of good books out there. You just want to spout your BS. BTW, I ask again - please give me an answer to my "raising the minimum wage" question posted earlier. I'd like to know how your UAW newsletters prepared you to answer that type of question. |
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Posted: 1/24/2006 3:28:07 PM EDT
[#3]
You do realize that labor is not the only cost to run a business? 
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Posted: 1/24/2006 3:28:12 PM EDT
[#4]
Many union contracts have clauses that provide for automatic raises if the minimum wage goes up.
It's about greed and money. When you see this sort of crap, just look for the Union label. |
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Posted: 1/24/2006 3:29:15 PM EDT
[#5]
Companies don't keep people around if doing so isn't profitable. If you're working for me and I see that I can raise profits by firing you, and that increase in profits outweighs the cost of any problems caused by getting rid of you (have to do more work myself, etc.) then you'd better look out. It means you're not pulling your weight and you're gone. If you're getting paid $XX thousand a year, you'd better frequently be asking yourself if you're adding $XX thousand worth of value to the company. If you ever answer "no" you'd better be keeping your resume tuned up. |
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Posted: 1/24/2006 3:31:11 PM EDT
[#6]
That is correct, in the thread you mentioned you advised that I invest in the stock market. I have however seen you post on days when the market has done well that you had a very good day. I don't have a problem with you making alot money in the stock market, or by any other means, unless it comes at the expense of impovrishing the middle class. |
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Posted: 1/24/2006 3:31:23 PM EDT
[#7]
no unions? A nice new afordable pick-up truck would be nice. No unions, yes
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Posted: 1/24/2006 3:32:13 PM EDT
[#8]
Do you believe that is lowering our standard of living? |
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Posted: 1/24/2006 3:33:10 PM EDT
[#9]
Yep - that is why unions want it. They don't give a shit about the "poor workers". Minimum wage is supported as a way to keep poor people OUT of jobs - not to get them into jobs. If an employer has to pay $6 an hour for a $3 an hour job, he simply won't hire someone for it. He will find another way to get it done - either outsource it (foreign or domestic) or assign the work between other employees. That keeps the guy with the $3 an hour skill from getting in the door and getting the on the job training that would increase his marketability. Unions (especially non-trade) like this because it keeps their overpaid jobs safe - less workers competing for their low skilled jobs. Of course, corporations are just plain evil, so none of these facts matter. Just emotion, baby. |
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Posted: 1/24/2006 3:34:42 PM EDT
[#10]
So, you'd like a minimum wage be dictated? What level do you suggest it be placed at and why?
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Posted: 1/24/2006 3:35:49 PM EDT
[#11]
He's already said several times that he's a private consultant and has nothing to do with unions. |
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Posted: 1/24/2006 3:36:43 PM EDT
[#12]
The problem with the whole thing is meddling. People try to meddle with the economy to attain a desired result.
Perceived Problem: Workers wages too low. Possible solution: Enact minimum wage law. Effect: All workers below minimum brought up to minimum. Now this extra cash has to come from somewhere. I am assuming a closed economy (no foreign trade) to keep this simple. Raise price of product to compensate for higher wages. Since the minimum wage affects all industries, presumably, all would have to raise their prices to compensate. This means that everything gets a bit more expensive. This means that the now higher wages earned by the min. wage workers doesn't go as far as they thought. Shit. New problem. Solution? Raise the minimum wage again. Repeat. Bringing foreign trade back in to the picture, american business becomes more expensive compared to foreign business. Foreign products cheaper, Americans buy more foreign products. American companies lose business. They lose income. Since they can't pay less than min. wage, they have to lay people off. If they want to still attain the same production, they have to use foreign contracts which are cheaper than Americans. Sounds logical to me. Minimum wage means that low paying jobs get cut and work gets exported. Net effect: We just fucked ourselves. Real fuckin' proud. |
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Posted: 1/24/2006 3:37:58 PM EDT
[#13]
Also, unions have had a long history of being anti-minority. Like BYU, they accepted blacks only when it benefitted the unions.
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Posted: 1/24/2006 3:38:25 PM EDT
[#14]
It's partially due to labor laws, and it's partially due to the threat of organization. Many companies do business in the south to get around the unions, but they treat their employees well to prevent unions from organizing their employees. And there are unions in Texas. You aren't required to join a union to get a job, but don't think that doesn't mean they aren't here.
OK, if you say so. |
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Posted: 1/24/2006 3:38:33 PM EDT
[#15]
No, you haven't seen me post any such thing. Not that it matters. If you disagree, provide a link and prove it. |
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Posted: 1/24/2006 3:42:55 PM EDT
[#16]
Unrestricted capitalism does NOT do that. Unrestricted completely free markets produce the gigantic trusts we saw in the 19th and early 20th century. Stopping their predatory power was the only way to ensure a FAIR market. Workers had to unionize just to get decent safety and wage provisions, and even then they were set upon by Pinkertons and others hired by the fatcats to force them back to work. Some were even slaughtered by government soldiers! (A mine strike out west was "settled" that way. A bunch of government soldiers opened up on miners and burned their tents with women and children STILL INSIDE) Carnegie's doing.... Like it or not, folks, there are some labor laws we need. Unions were necessary at a certain point in history. Whether they are still necessary is a matter open for debate. What is absolutely clear is that we DO need some safety and health regulations in the workplace and some regulations about how a company can treat its employees. A market cannot be free if it is not FAIR. Forcing someone to become a part of a union is not fair. Saying that the company can't hire someone who isn't union isn't fair. Neither is working someone 80 hours and paying them for 30. |
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Posted: 1/24/2006 3:44:10 PM EDT
[#17]
I believe the real issue is the "global" economy.
Companies have an incentive to their shareholders to move overseas where there is a nearly unlimited supply of low cost labor and almost zero labor protections, or environmental regulations to drive up production costs. As a consequence, many companies find it more efficient and profitable to simply move offshore. I am a capitalist, but also believe that our National interests are being subverted in ways that make our country incredibly vulnerable to competing nations' economies, as well as weakening our own capabilities to defend ourselves in a time of war. If, and when, we go to war with China (and perhaps Russia too), it will be years before we have enough production capacity to build enough planes, bombs, and ships to mount an effective campaign. As of now, we still have an edge, but in 5-10 years, we will not. To me, THAT is the real danger, not unions, or labor laws. Indeed, I would not want to see our country revert to the labor situation of the early 1900s. |
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Posted: 1/24/2006 3:44:50 PM EDT
[#18]
If I'm wrong then you have my apology. Both for attributing something to you that you did not say and for implying that you are intersted in profiting off of the misery of others. |
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Posted: 1/24/2006 3:46:01 PM EDT
[#19]
Whether unions exist or not, there is a body of federal and state regulation that sets some standards for the workplace. A company cannot, for instance, put your desk in an area a couple inches deep with toxic sludge. In a completely unrestricted marketplace, they could. Federal regulations prohibit that sort of thing today, and liability laws add further protection. Unions may no longer be necessary and some federal labor laws are looney, but there are a fair number of regulations that we need to keep to maintain health, safety, and fairness. |
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Posted: 1/24/2006 3:48:06 PM EDT
[#20]
Yup! +1 on wanting to hear that! You know, fuck it. Let's just raise the minimum wage to $100,000 per year, that way everyone is rich right? STFU with this class bullshit. There is no class sytem in the US as much as the socialist want to make us think there is. You wanna divide the population by income for statistical purposes? Fine. But the spread of this class idea serves only to promote the belief that people in lower incomes cannot ever raise their station in life and have to rely on the oh-so-altruistic socialists to help them. The class notion results in only a dependent class. Nothing more. |
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Posted: 1/24/2006 3:49:26 PM EDT
[#21]
And that is a big problem for me. Because union leaders are constantly harping about increasing the minimum wage, which puts the hurt on small buisnesses and the employees THOSE buisnesses employ. Unrestricted capitalist interest does not necessarily produce the best outcome. Similarly, unrestricted union activities do not neccessarily produce the best outcomes. Why? Because each group has a narrow focus and persues their own specific interest to the exclusion of a lot of other matters. (The UAW's recent history is a perfect example of this tunnel vision...) We have done a fair job of making buisness behave responsibly, but nobody has undertaken forcing unions to do the same. And that's one of the reasons Ford and GM are having problems. |
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Posted: 1/24/2006 3:52:29 PM EDT
[#22]
The problem businesses got bad with government help. Subsidies, restrictions on would be competitors, etc. Get a copy of "The Myth of the Robber Barons" by Burton Folsom |
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Posted: 1/24/2006 3:53:43 PM EDT
[#23]
Yes, but it is one that the business can control. Let take a widget factory for example. The factory cannot control the cost of the raw materials to make widgets, it cannot control the cost of the electricty required to light the factory floor and run the machinery, it may have some ability to control the cost of packaging the widgets, and it may have some (but very little) control over the cost of shipping widgets. However, if it does not have to abide by a minimum wage and does not have to worry about a strike then it can control the cost of labor. It can either reduce wages and benefits or it can move operations overseas. This would result in an increased cost of shipping their products to market, but if they were able to reduce their labor costs by 2500% (the difference between an employee making $25/hour and an employee making $1/hour) this will usually more than make up for it. |
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Posted: 1/24/2006 3:57:06 PM EDT
[#24]
I'm not saying that I would like to see the minimum wage dictated. For the most part the minimum wage only effects high school kids flipping burgers...today! |
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Posted: 1/24/2006 4:08:15 PM EDT
[#25]
You don't work in manufacturing, do you? In order to get this big labor savings by off-shoreing, you would need to spend a fortune in transportation, increase your supply chain costs, increase your lead times to customers, tie up lots of capitol in materials, etc. I work for a +/- $20 Billion/year manufacturing company. We make a lot of our stuff in China, but we still employ thousands in the US. At some US sites our hourly labor rate is more than 5000 times what we pay in China. And it is still cheaper to build it here. |
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Posted: 1/24/2006 4:08:36 PM EDT
[#26]
You are trying to force your incorrect micro economic ideas into the macro economics world. Both of which you have incorrect.
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Posted: 1/24/2006 4:08:59 PM EDT
[#27]
THANK YOU! Our ability to jump start our war machine for the next world war, by churning out tanks, planes, guns, boats, bullets and bombs like we did during WWII has been severely compromised by the fact that we have shipped so much of our manufacturing might overseas. The problem that I see is that due to the Global Economy, we are competing with impovrished nations with little or no labor laws, low standards of living and no unions. These countries have much larger populations than the US (India and China specifically) and are actively pursuing American jobs. As we know with the law of supply and demand, when demand is low and supply is high prices come down. Well, right now the demand for alot of American job fields is low due to the fact that they can be performed in other countries cheaper. Therefore, the price for American workers has to come down to compete with forgien job markets. However, we as a nation can't compete with the labor costs that corporations are paying in China, Mexico, Vietnam, Pakistan, India and now Hondurous, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Brazil, and so on. In order to compete, we have to come down, and we can't do it with our current labor laws in place. |
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Posted: 1/24/2006 4:09:17 PM EDT
[#28]
Completely wrong. Unrestricted capitalism is poison to trusts and monopolies. You are regurgitating the kind of drivel that is all too common in public and private schools these days. However, you provided the correct answer when you mentioned government soldiers breaking up strikes. Monopolies, trusts and "robber barons" are all the result of government intervention, control and limitation of the free market. They cannot exist in a truly free market. Ever heard of the prisoner's dilemma? It applies to the markets as well. |
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Posted: 1/24/2006 4:13:33 PM EDT
[#29]
Steve, I understand what you do for a living. I was using the editorial "you".
In most industries, the employeer must compete for qualified employees. All of these things that you listed are there to lure quality employees. Companies, as a whole, are benevolent because it improves the quality of the employee and, thus, improves the bottom line. |
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Posted: 1/24/2006 4:16:53 PM EDT
[#30]
Uh-huh. If it cost sooooo much money to open the new plant in China, and soooo much money to ship the part to the United States after it's been built in China, that it is actually cheaper to build it here, then why build it in China? |
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Posted: 1/24/2006 4:21:13 PM EDT
[#31]
Taxes. |
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Posted: 1/24/2006 4:25:03 PM EDT
[#32]
High labor, low value-added margin stuff gets made in China. Low labor, high value-added stuff gets made here. Labor is only a small proportion of our COGS. It comes down to an economic calculation. |
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Posted: 1/24/2006 4:26:02 PM EDT
[#33]
Look at all costs, $$$ and other, and if it's more profitable to build it there, you build it there. If it's more profitable to build it here, build it here. China isn't the "mud hut and rice" slave camp you think it is. It's a damn shame they're saddled with their commie government. Check out these pics of modern china: www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=271906 |
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Posted: 1/25/2006 4:39:06 AM EDT
[#34]
Their success gave them money, and money equals power and voice in government. They did have some government interference on their behalf, but at the same time they sought to completely dominate the market to the exclusion of the others. The robber barrons were no myth. Carnegie was one of the most ruthless people on this planet who persued naked self interest to the hurt of millions. Railroad magnates were price fixing and causing small farmers to go broke because of it. Thus the creation of the ICC. Some regulations are necessary to keep buisnesses honest. Government should not regulate everything, but without some rules the game won't even be close to fair. |
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Posted: 1/25/2006 4:44:15 AM EDT
[#35]
I am a lot older than the public and private schools are "these days".
Carnegie and those like him had enormous influence because of their wealth and control of entire segments of the US economy.
Economic regulation didn't really begin at the Federal level until AFTER price fixing and monopolistic practices became a problem. If there was no SEC, for instance, there would be no such thing as insider trading, as it would be legal. That isn't a particularly comforting idea. |
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Posted: 1/25/2006 4:45:45 AM EDT
[#36]
SOME areas of china look like that. Most of the country, however, really is quite poor, and in many places people don't have enough to eat. Don't buy the Chinese marketing. They do have a growing middle class, but they still have severe poverty problems. |
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Posted: 1/25/2006 5:14:36 AM EDT
[#37]
That about sums up my position on it. Total free-reign no controls free-market? Nope. State controled centrally planned market? Nope. You need a balance. The natural result of total free-market is a monopoly, and the best situation for customer choice, development, and progress is stiff competition. You need to balance that scale to limit the monopoly but not make it impossible to prosper and grow if you produce a good product. That's governments role. Not to make sure that *I* have a job and like my pay, but that the market is kept so that there is good opertunity to find a decent job and on the whole people are paid well enough to keep the market fueled. My $0.02 |
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Posted: 1/25/2006 5:25:03 AM EDT
[#38]
Wrong. The natural result of a free market is NEVER a monopoly. Under a free market, as a company approaches monopoly status, as it buys more and more, the cost of buying more gets higher and higher, and the value of buying more gets less and less. It's supply and demand. As company A buys up more and more of the market, the supply gets lower and lower, so the price on the remaining supply goes up, and the demand for company A to buy up the rest goes down. It is impossible for a monopoly to exist without governmental interference, period. I challenge you to find a true non-local monopoly that lasted more than a short time (ie. after a new invention) that was not created by some form of government intervention. |
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Posted: 1/25/2006 6:37:01 AM EDT
[#39]
So now that it takes two bread winners per skilled and semi-skilled bluecollar households to make ends meet and nearly everything is imported, CEO's are still raping corporations into bankruptcy, tossing stockholders a bone as they walk away with fortunes and the pensions of those who spent perhaps 30 or more years earning it.
Holding companies you invest in are classic examples, doing nothing but raking in money but as long as dividends are paid, who cares? Skilled labor used to have pride and meaning...and a "living wage" and June Cleaver stayed at home.  Selling junk products from a mismanaged company and blaming a union or "joe 6 pack" is an easy way out for the elitist to take. As you read your economics books, we are in big trouble, being out-capitalized by even the communists at every turn and american businesses in their arrogance are just too heavy on their feet to react. in time, if ever. Having no solution at hand and rather than just arguing, there are way too many individual issues that can be debated until someone pops a vein. Evidently, I see things from another perspectiveand hope nobody was offended by my "ignorance". |
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Posted: 1/25/2006 6:49:06 AM EDT
[#40]
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Union FUD isnt evidence. Put up or shut up. BTW, how are the union employees of Ford doing lately? |
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Posted: 1/25/2006 6:50:16 AM EDT
[#41]
That about covers it. "free market capitalism" is great stuff.............in a vacuum. A lot of theories are great stuff.................but then i have to leave the keyboard and walk out my door. Hmmmm. balance. novel idea. ya think a balanced political/economic concept might work? |
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Posted: 1/25/2006 6:56:42 AM EDT
[#42]
Take Macroeconomics course, then a Microeconomics one, and a few more for good measure, plus a government class and then form an opinion.
Freer the economy, the freer the people. If a company is about to tank, good! That means they aren't using their and all of our resources correctly. You can't make beer-bottles out of leather, so any company that does it and fails is something great. That frees up our supply of leather and rewards those who employ our assets well. If you need G-money, you need to be killed off ASAP. A failing company needs to fail and go bye-bye. |
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Posted: 1/25/2006 7:08:21 AM EDT
[#43]
Take a writing class. You can find one at your local community college. How do you type in crayon? (j/k, humor, nothing personal meant here  )I recall some time ago reading something by Milton Friedman. He (along with his wife) wrote an intersting paper on equality of opportunity and freedom. The problem w/ unbridled freedom is that at some point it impinges on someone elses freedom. If I were in control of a monopoly, you would in no way have a chance to enter into business against me. I would crush you. I would have the freedom to prevent you from entering the business, you would not have the freedom to compete against me. |
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Posted: 1/25/2006 7:14:03 AM EDT
[#44]
As the banner waving capitalist that I am, I would sincerely hate to see OSHA regs abolished.
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Posted: 1/25/2006 7:17:46 AM EDT
[#45]
Ever heard of a colloquialism before or do you take joy in being a pedantic forum grammar nazi? |
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Posted: 1/25/2006 7:21:08 AM EDT
[#46]
what's pedantic? ETA: My Nazism is not to be taken seriously. |
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Posted: 1/25/2006 7:23:44 AM EDT
[#47]
I'm no econmonist, but from what I know...
1. If there is no minimum wage law, we'll all be making .50 cents an hour! ---Just as there is a competion for markets there is also competition for labor. A company can only make good products and profits if it hires the best people possible. Therefore it's in the company's best interest to keep it's employees happy. 2. Without labor laws to keep workers safe,we'll all be working in sweatshops! ---See above. If you won't treat your employees well, someone else will. 3. Government involvement is necessary in today's complex economy. --- Governments usually pass laws for political reasons, thus favoring one sector over another. In a free market, the consumers(you and I) made the decisions. Like in a Democracy but we vote with our dollars. 4. Capitalism is about expoitation of the poor. --- Capitalism has raised the standard of living for people around the world. merely compare life before capitalism and after. You'll see that the productive power of capitalism has raised our standard of living. It is capitalism which drives technological inovation and scientific discovery. It's capitalism which is responsible for our agricultural surplusess which feed the world. |
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Posted: 1/25/2006 7:24:07 AM EDT
[#48]
I have no clue what you're bitching about, maybe you need to pull that pack of crayons out your self-conceited ass. I guess you have an extra large e-penis. Tell me, how many women can you nail with it at once? 
Life isn't fair. Economics work by taking out what is weak. You have just as much right to crush me as I do to you. If you don't like competition, go to Red China and suck on a Maoist's tit, you nitwit that smells of elderberries! There is nothing wrong with unrestricted capitalism. If you are afraid of it, you should. The lazy and misguided suffer and succum to their lack of their own aggression. If you're not slitting throats, you're going to get bayonetted to the back. |
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Posted: 1/25/2006 7:31:13 AM EDT
[#49]
True. I have never liked minimum wage laws.
We tried that. The result was that most got treated like sh*t. Laws about safety and fairness are necessary in some instances to stop abuses of employees.
Firstly, most regulation done in the US is NOT the result of direct action from Congress. It happens through the authority Congress delegated to regulatory agencies. Regulatory agencies do respond to political pressure. The vast majority of the regulations they have produced has been in response to various interest groups campaigning for them. The first was the ICC, formed to respond to farmer's complaints that the rail companies were fixing prices and driving the farmers into debt and out of buisness. It was a legitimate complaint and the ICC stopped the price fixing and made the market more fair, reflecting more the economic realities of the railroad situation in the eastern part of the US. Government economic regulation is as old as industrialization. It isn't going anywhere. Some regulation is burdensome and unecessary, but it is just as true that some of it is necessary and effective.
Capitalism is a wonderful thing. The only problem with capitalism, as Teddy Roosevelt said, is some of the capitalissts. Some people really WILL do ANYTHING for a buck, and those are the people that we need regulations to control. |
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Posted: 1/25/2006 7:36:21 AM EDT
[#50]
You make this observation while defending policies and laws that have made such a move desirable. So, which is it? Higher manufacturing costs (labor + environmental + taxes, etc) decrease competition in a global market, but are the consequence of the "higher standard of living" that unions and labor laws claim to provide. My grandparents had the same purchasing power at 10 cents/hr that I do today at $40/hr. They owned their house, car, had food on the table just like I do. What has my increased wage done for me, compared to them? Am I better off financially than they were? The basic issue here is the perception of "higher standard of living". A lot of people consider not having a McMansion, 2 new cars, plasma TV, vacation home, etc as a step backwards. Too fucking bad for them if they feel that way. If both parents need to work to provide these "basic needs" for the family, they need to seriously re-evaluate priorities. The actual amount paid as wages is irrelevant - it is the PURCHASING POWER of the wage that matters. Increasing minimum wage to $1,000,000 a year wont do shit to eliminate "poverty" - the increased cost of labor will simply be passed along in the price of goods, or companies will sidestep the problem by exporting more manufacturing overseas. NOBODY gains from minimum wages, you gain by increasing your usefulness to an employer. |
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