The Failings of the Modern Left

I think not

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Lets start with banning unions.

Good idea. Let's bring back 15 minute coffee breaks and half hour lunches along with 35 hour work weeks. Thanks to the unions, the 15 minute coffee breaks have turned into 30 minute coffee breaks, one hour lunches and if you get to squeeze 4 hours of daily production out of any union worker (at least in construction) I'll strip down and do the hoola in Times Square.
 

CDNBear

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Help yourself Bear, ban them if you like, destroy your right of assembly and association and then see how you whine when your bussiness group is banned with the same powers. You might not like unions but you probably belong to some. Take away the right to strike and they'll make us work in dangerous conditions for as little as they like. You're on one side of the bargaining table
there are millions on the other.
Nothing like irrational fear monguering eh, the union tactic of the 21st century.

Yes I was in a union once. Way back in my heady days in contrat mining. What a waste of my money that was. I have seen unions do no such beneificial acts in the last 30 to 40 years. Their actions in antiquity, have forced governements to enact legislation and laws to protect workers from exploitation, now they are no longer the necessity they once were, now they seek only to survive on the backs of the working stiff.

Good thing you addressed the issue raised in that post beve. Nothing like just ignoring the failings of the modern left, just to poke the realist in the eye.
Good idea. Let's bring back 15 minute coffee breaks and half hour lunches along with 35 hour work weeks. Thanks to the unions, the 15 minute coffee breaks have turned into 30 minute coffee breaks, one hour lunches and if you get to squeeze 4 hours of daily production out of any union worker (at least in construction) I'll strip down and do the hoola in Times Square.
LMAO. It isn't that bad here I have to say, but for the most part, my crew does a hell of a lot more then the unionized crews around us. I find it quite perplexing when I watch my guys hustle while I watch the union guys throw slurs and such at them for not being in the union.

I also love the fact that I have been shot out of many job contract bids, just because my company is not unionized. There goes the union again, looking out for the little guy, hurting my chances at landing contracts puts my associates at risk. Yet I pay my guys at a rate that is comparible to or in some cases greater then some of the union crews out there. The only thing I can't afford to givethem is a health/dental/prescription/optical package, but I am hoping if this year goes well, I will be able to put something together for them.

I prefer the family orientation we have as apposed to the segragated BS unions enforce.
 

darkbeaver

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Nothing like irrational fear monguering eh, the union tactic of the 21st century.

Yes I was in a union once. Way back in my heady days in contrat mining. What a waste of my money that was. I have seen unions do no such beneificial acts in the last 30 to 40 years. Their actions in antiquity, have forced governements to enact legislation and laws to protect workers from exploitation, now they are no longer the necessity they once were, now they seek only to survive on the backs of the working stiff.

Good thing you addressed the issue raised in that post beve. Nothing like just ignoring the failings of the modern left, just to poke the realist in the eye.

LMAO. It isn't that bad here I have to say, but for the most part, my crew does a hell of a lot more then the unionized crews around us. I find it quite perplexing when I watch my guys hustle while I watch the union guys throw slurs and such at them for not being in the union.

I also love the fact that I have been shot out of many job contract bids, just because my company is not unionized. There goes the union again, looking out for the little guy, hurting my chances at landing contracts puts my associates at risk. Yet I pay my guys at a rate that is comparible to or in some cases greater then some of the union crews out there. The only thing I can't afford to givethem is a health/dental/prescription/optical package, but I am hoping if this year goes well, I will be able to put something together for them.

I prefer the family orientation we have as apposed to the segragated BS unions enforce.

Your rhetoric is from the late nineteenth century, it sounds fresh to you but it just old robber baron drivel. You are a failure of the modern left. We will correct that soon enough.:wave:
 

darkbeaver

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Good idea. Let's bring back 15 minute coffee breaks and half hour lunches along with 35 hour work weeks. Thanks to the unions, the 15 minute coffee breaks have turned into 30 minute coffee breaks, one hour lunches and if you get to squeeze 4 hours of daily production out of any union worker (at least in construction) I'll strip down and do the hoola in Times Square.
I understand that the American worker is one of the most productive, nothing is to much for capitalist pigs. :wave:
 

Curiosity

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My father organized labor unions and managed established ones all his life - that was his life's work except for a short stint in military service when he was young.

Towards his last years he was bereft at what unions have become, and during his last few years practicing as an manager, the communist efforts to sway the membership were a constant battle for him with threats to him, our family and our home.

I wonder what he would think now and in many ways I am glad he has gone so he would not see what
unions have become.

Initially these organizations meant life or death to some in terms of safety and a living wage, now they mean more and more perks for less and less work and of course more money for the unions themselves. They are merely useless moneymakers for the insiders now and the worker be damned.
 

Cannuck

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Feb 2, 2006
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The only place I think unions are an asset is in government. In business an ineffective manager gets fired or, if he's the owner, the business fails. In government, they get re-elected because most people are afraid of change. Infrastructure is a long term commitment and most politicians can't see past the next election. Unions help protect the workers and the public from politicians who get elected and try to turn the system on it's ear. This is especially important in smaller municipalities where skill usually isn't a prerequisite for getting elected.
 

MikeyDB

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My father organized labor unions and managed established ones all his life - that was his life's work except for a short stint in military service when he was young.

Towards his last years he was bereft at what unions have become, and during his last few years practicing as an manager, the communist efforts to sway the membership were a constant battle for him with threats to him, our family and our home.

I wonder what he would think now and in many ways I am glad he has gone so he would not see what
unions have become.

Initially these organizations meant life or death to some in terms of safety and a living wage, now they mean more and more perks for less and less work and of course more money for the unions themselves. They are merely useless moneymakers for the insiders now and the worker be damned.

I understand what you're saying Curio, but the solution (if there's a solution) isn't in continuing this adversarial posturing between mangement and unions. I realize it's a 'sea-change' in thinking, but unions have to be just as focused on climate change and econo-imperialism as corporate nabobs.

If increasing production is the answer and unions serve the purpose of protecting labor from the short-cuts in safety and working conditions the bottom-line-feeders celebrate, then we'l' always have a problem. The wealthy using every means available to wring more dollars (time/work) out of a body of employees who regard them as the enemy...

New paradigm demanded here...
 

CDNBear

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Your rhetoric is from the late nineteenth century, it sounds fresh to you but it just old robber baron drivel. You are a failure of the modern left. We will correct that soon enough.:wave:
Speaking of drivel...

I am no failure, despite the attempts of the modern left to crush me under their collective jack boots and shut me out of the most lucrative jobs, I still managae to survive and provide for the lil man, unlike the unions.

Still ignoring the hostage taking of the little man by the unions are we?
 

MikeyDB

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Bear

Try a kinder softer approach...

Juxtaposing the readiness of industry to dismiss workplace safety and proper training...that kind of stuff costs money...with the disasters like Bohpal India and the damage to the planetary environment justly lain at the feet of industrialists (Canada has been involved in devastating the eco-system of Mexico in the name of refining nickel...and non-union work environments like WalMart and MacDonalds perpetuates a dynamic that keeps the poor poor and the wealthy expanding their take...

While the world pays...

New paradigm needed here...
 

CDNBear

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Bear

Try a kinder softer approach...

Juxtaposing the readiness of industry to dismiss workplace safety and proper training...that kind of stuff costs money...with the disasters like Bohpal India and the damage to the planetary environment justly lain at the feet of industrialists (Canada has been involved in devastating the eco-system of Mexico in the name of refining nickel...and non-union work environments like WalMart and MacDonalds perpetuates a dynamic that keeps the poor poor and the wealthy expanding their take...

While the world pays...

New paradigm needed here...
But Mikey do we need a union to enact change in those areas. Unions act more like corporate pirates then most small industries do.

What I feel is more appropriate is greater social change and a unified society, hell bent on the betterment of all society, not just the sanctioned few.
 

CDNBear

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I'ld like to add...

Unions don't promote that, although they like to think they do. They raise the standard of living for the sanctioned at the expenses of the unsanctioned.

How is that social justice?

How can anyone justify that, while hypocriticaly judging corporate greed?
 

MikeyDB

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Bear

Unions only make money when people are employed. When people are employed something is being produced by labor while management orchestrates the endeavor. What's missing in the current paradigm is the understanding that we are all standing on the brink of a precipice created through our championing of greed and consumption.

I provided consulting services to the International Labors Union in Southwestern Ontario and through that contact happened upon the info that a million dollars a month goes directly from Canadian laborers to the American coffers of that union. If you ask the brick layer or the average construction worker if he's aware of how his union dues are squandered on limosines and drunken parties many will acknowlede the fact but have been conditioned to believe that anyone with a white shirt and tie is permitted any behavior...whether management or union...

Decreasing consumption is a key element here and although it's unpleasant to consider, robots don't get sick or take two hour lunch breaks....why shouldn't industry replace man-power with silicon-power...

Because one of the promises of unions is that the availability of employment to people trying to raise a family is best served by entrenching organizational systems that pivot around human work and energy. Unions prevent (used to don't know if this idea maintains currently) the de-construction of industry through replacing jobs/positions with machines...

Just one element or facet of why unions are and perhaps why unions need to exist...

Just like everything else Bear...no easy answers..

The new paradigm I speak of would I think be right up your alley (so to speak and I'm not talking proctology) but bring us closer to the necessary identification with the great spirit and our humanity..through the endeavors this existence demands of us...working for the Man...

Expand your thinking, I know you think really really well but you let your spirit get clogged with passion and sometimes anger instead of tapping that inner person that we all know exists...

and yes before anyone nails me between the eyes with it...YES so do I...get carried away with anger instead of thinking issues through...
 

darkbeaver

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Defining Wealth: Productivity or Hours Worked?

in Finance
Why is the United States the richest nation in the world? One would expect that a complex question such as this would require a degree of sophisticated analysis, taking into account all of the factors defining wealth: Quality of life, various freedoms, career opportunities, etc.
Of course, here in soundbite central, we don't have time for such niceties. Instead, we follow the path of reductio ad absurdum to reach a simple and obvious conclusion: We work more hours. This way, we avoid a more complex approach to decision making and analytical thought, dumbing down all discussions so they can be understood by a 4 year old, and then placed on a bumper sticker.
Here is the WSJ's take on the issue:
"Many analysts have attributed the U.S.'s high per capita income to higher U.S. productivity -- that is, output per worker. The OECD report found, however, that relative to other industrial countries, higher U.S. incomes are "largely due to differences in total hours worked per capita," not differences in output per hour. U.S. productivity growth has accelerated since the late 1990s, which has widened the U.S. lead in per capita income, but rising hours also have been "a major factor," the report said . . . . . . The increase in how much Americans work reflects two trends. The first is that the proportion of working-age Americans who work has risen as more women enter the work force. In other industrialized countries, that trend has been offset by higher overall unemployment, earlier retirement and declining work-force participation of young people. Last year, 71% of the working-age population in the U.S. had jobs, compared with an OECD average of 65%.
The second factor is that among Americans who have jobs, the number of hours worked per year has edged down only slightly in recent decades, whereas hours worked have fallen sharply for workers in other countries due to shortened work weeks and increased vacation and holidays."
Let's consider two alternative ways to look at this question:
The first, is definitional: What is Wealth? Is it merely income or the accumulation of goods?
Wealth consists of more than that: Leisure time is a luxury, and as such is part of a person's wealth. The quality of your education and health care also are a reflection of your wealth. Depending upon what yardstick you use as a measure, we are either the wealthiest country in the world, or the most overworked, harried, stressed out collection of work droids the planet has ever seen. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle: We willingly trade one form of wealth (time) for another form of wealth (income).
Next, let's broaden the question: What other factors may have contributed to America's financial success? How much of our wealth is a product of a bounty of natural blessings? What is the significance of geographic isolation and enormous natural resources to net GDP and Wealth?
From a sociological standpoint, how much of the innovation and creativity here stems from having a population laced with alpha males (and to a degree, alpha females) from every country on the globe? We are a magnet: Our political structure and free market approach attracts energetic and creative risk takers to a land where freedom and opportunity exists. I suggest this factor provides an enormous competitive advantage to the United States, and has been our secret weapon -- for centuries.
But if you accept that premise, than you must confront a threat to this strategic advantage: What impact are recent immigration policies having on reducing the flow of graduate students, technologists and scientists into the United States? Will some of the more onerous and/or excessive security measures reduce the attractiveness of our country to this enormous talent pool? If it does, will we slowly bleed out our advantageous economic lifeblood?

As usual, the act of reducing complex phenomena to a simple, single, "cause & effect" scenario provides little in the way of actual insight. To me, the biggest failings of modern media is this constant attempt to boil things down to an artificial (i.e., short and simple) answers which offers data, but little in the way of analysis or knowledge.
Their loss is our gain: If the media didn't do such a lousy job on issues such as this, no one would feel the need to read blogs (like this one) . . .
Source:
U.S. Wealth Tied More to Work Than Productivity, Report Says
Greg Ip
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, July 8, 2004; Page A2


 

CDNBear

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Bear

Unions only make money when people are employed. When people are employed something is being produced by labor while management orchestrates the endeavor. What's missing in the current paradigm is the understanding that we are all standing on the brink of a precipice created through our championing of greed and consumption.

I provided consulting services to the International Labors Union in Southwestern Ontario and through that contact happened upon the info that a million dollars a month goes directly from Canadian laborers to the American coffers of that union. If you ask the brick layer or the average construction worker if he's aware of how his union dues are squandered on limosines and drunken parties many will acknowlede the fact but have been conditioned to believe that anyone with a white shirt and tie is permitted any behavior...whether management or union...

Decreasing consumption is a key element here and although it's unpleasant to consider, robots don't get sick or take two hour lunch breaks....why shouldn't industry replace man-power with silicon-power...

Because one of the promises of unions is that the availability of employment to people trying to raise a family is best served by entrenching organizational systems that pivot around human work and energy. Unions prevent (used to don't know if this idea maintains currently) the de-construction of industry through replacing jobs/positions with machines...

Just one element or facet of why unions are and perhaps why unions need to exist...

Just like everything else Bear...no easy answers..

The new paradigm I speak of would I think be right up your alley (so to speak and I'm not talking proctology) but bring us closer to the necessary identification with the great spirit and our humanity..through the endeavors this existence demands of us...working for the Man...

Expand your thinking, I know you think really really well but you let your spirit get clogged with passion and sometimes anger instead of tapping that inner person that we all know exists...

and yes before anyone nails me between the eyes with it...YES so do I...get carried away with anger instead of thinking issues through...
Mikey, I try to let loose the adavantages of my spirit, to overwhelm my passions, but I find them one in the same. My spirit is driven by my passion and visa versa.

It is the hypocracy in the propping up of antiquated beliefs in social justice and injustice, as interpreted by a corporate mass, just as exploitive as any other, that fuels my anger, which is fueled by my passion.

I do not believe in socialism as a form of affecting change, but rather adhere to the communal efforts of the democracy of my ancestors, based on the needs of the populus as apposed to the needs of the wealthy.

I fully believe that neither the left nor the right has the best intereststs of the masses at heart, but rather the best interests of their own survival, as their cause. The hypocracy is present in most of this form. I readily admit my own failings, and srtive to change them. The so called left or social justices of the peace, as it were, see not the failings of their cause, but only the failings of the other side. Even at the suggestion of cooperation, they baulk and chastize.

Oh the hypocracy of it all, the duality of man without knowledge is monumental.
 

darkbeaver

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CNDBear Quote
"I do not believe in socialism as a form of affecting change, but rather adhere to the communal efforts of the democracy of my ancestors, based on the needs of the populus as apposed to the needs of the wealthy."


The communal (communist) efforts of the democracy of your ancestors was socialism based on the needs of the people as opposed to those of the wealthy and elite.:laughing7::laughing7::wave:
 

darkbeaver

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CNDBear Quote
"I do not believe in socialism as a form of affecting change, but rather adhere to the communal efforts of the democracy of my ancestors, based on the needs of the populus as apposed to the needs of the wealthy."


The communal (communist) efforts of the democracy of your ancestors was socialism based on the needs of the people as opposed to those of the wealthy and elite. You are a confused product of corporate newspeak, connect your words to meaning. You cannot have it both ways. :wave:

PS: Get well soon.
 

CDNBear

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CNDBear Quote
"I do not believe in socialism as a form of affecting change, but rather adhere to the communal efforts of the democracy of my ancestors, based on the needs of the populus as apposed to the needs of the wealthy."


The communal (communist) efforts of the democracy of your ancestors was socialism based on the needs of the people as opposed to those of the wealthy and elite. You are a confused product of corporate newspeak, connect your words to meaning. You cannot have it both ways. :wave:

PS: Get well soon.
Don't let your ignorance of my culture shine through or anything!

Communal does not automaticaly mean communist. That is the, how did you put it, socialist newspeak. It is good to see that you are just as frail and prone to indoctrination. Just like those you seek to belittle and chastize.

FYI...

The Six Nations of the Haudenosaunee is the oldest participatory democracy in history, and yet they lived communaly. So despite your indoctrinated perceptions of what words mean and whether or not you think they are dyametricaly apposed, which in this case, you would make your accusations and claims, incorrect.

But hey why stop applying the programming you have been granted to the rest of us?

Why let historical facts adjust your thinking?

Ignoring history is a common trait of the smug left elitist, unless of course they are trying to justify their communist failings.

You might want to try some to get well yourself. Getting over yourself, might be a good start.
 

CDNBear

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:laughing7::laughing7::laughing7::laughing7::wave:
Wow, now that wasn't a predictable responce from the smug leftist elite.<---note the heavy sarcasm.

It has always humoured me how they shrink away to dismissal when confronted with historical proof of their ignorance and unfounded self righteous, flawed beliefs.

Thanx for perpetuating your stereotype!