As most of you probably know the Wisconsin public unions almost bankrupted that State before Gov. Scott Walker courageously stepped in to stop it.
The unions did everything in their power to stop him including a failed recall election. I will be after my own State to open these negotiations to public scrutiny and I’d recommend you do the same in your State.

Jim





At Last, Scrutiny for Public-Union Deals

Wall Street Journal, by Matthew J. Brouillette - Thanks Eric

Year after year, elected officials behind closed doors negotiate labor contracts for 19 million state and local government workers. The result? Skyrocketing salaries, health-care costs and pension benefits are making services like public schools and policing unaffordable for taxpayers. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, compensation for government workers nationwide has grown 21% since 2000, compared with only 9% in the private economy.



Fortunately a growing list of states now shine light on secretive contract negotiations with public-employee unions—putting taxpayers back in charge. In April, Idaho’s governor signed a bill requiring open meetings and records in all executive labor negotiations. Colorado did the same last fall for public-school district contract talks. Similar legislation is advancing in Washington, and the Pennsylvania Senate passed two transparency bills this month.

To date, 12 states offer some kind of public access to the negotiating room.

The public pension crises facing states from California to New Jersey to Illinois are great illustrations of politicians and union leaders making backroom deals that taxpayers could never afford. Overly generous benefits aren’t the only concern: Conflicts of interest exist when elected officials bargain with public unions behind closed doors.

Pennsylvania’s Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf must negotiate contracts worth $3.4 billion with 16 labor unions by this summer. Six of these unions contributed more than $2.6 million to Mr. Wolf’s election campaign, and so the governor has a strong incentive to reward his financial backers. Despite the state’s budget deficit, Gov. Wolf this week agreed to one-year extensions for two unions with pay increases and no concessions [by the unions] in health-care benefits. Taxpayers learned about the deals, which will cost $23 million more than the previous year, from a news release.

In the end, open collective bargaining is a growing national movement because it’s good government. Allowing public access to contract negotiations will tame spending and shift control back to citizens, where it belongs.

Obamabucks to donuts Barack’s National Labor Relations Board tries to preempt these state laws and eventually tries to nationalize all public employee contract negotiations; to redistribute the wealth more evenly, don’tcha know? It’s only fair.

Here's another one for you Jim. I own and operate a machine shop. One day a state employee had me do some personal lathe work for him. When he came to pick up the job and pay his bill he asked me, "How come you didn't give me a state employee discount?" I screamed at him, "WHAT?" He then told me that all businesses are supposed to give state employees a discount. I told him, "F*ck off. You're no better than any other customer. The bill stays the same." He paid his bill and never came back ..............good riddance you arrogant prick.

The worst of it to me is these unions protect even the most imcompetent. I am told it's almost impossible to fire a schoolteacher anymore unless they're caught for example having sex with students. Inability to teach is certainly not a criteria for dismissal.
That's the reason charter and private schools have become so popular.
The other issue is disipline. If some students are disciplined nowdays the school may get sued. When I was in school and got disiplined my parents upon hearing about it said something to the effect "I bet you deserved it"!
Jim

My State now does a yearly comparison between State employees and comparable work in the Real World. State employees get compensated at at least 50% more at entry level jobs, climbing to 100% more as they near retirement. All at the expense of their free and equal citizens. All due to the quid pro quo of the buying of political support by the Democrat politicians. Democrat politicians that have absolutely no fiduciary responsibility since they're using other people's money. Pure, corrupt, vote-buying. There's a reason this had to be allowed (unionization) by an Executive Order signed by Kennedy. It was the corrupt payback for the unions stealing Illinois for him.

The "Democratic" party that was once the blue coller/working class party of many of our parents is long gone. It it now in fact the Communist or Socialist party - take your pick.
However they're too slimey to own up to this and change the name.
Jim

Every one of those federal and state workers should have matching 401K plans just like corporate employees in private sector have. No more pensions for anyone.

I'll let you in on a little secret-they don't have a pension. The well is dry, but, they haven't figured it out yet.


They will. There is no such thing as a solvent pension, circa 2015. Ever play "musical chairs" when you were a kid?


Best,
Ted

There should be no pensions at all and Social Security needs to be privatized too.

You are about 50 years too late. After LBJ signed the law allowing congress to loot social security funds for their pet projects, we got to where we are today, with pretty much a zero balance. The HUD gettos being torn down today in Chicago are where some of your retirement money went.
Hope that worked out for you.
We are an aging society, and in just a few years (2025, or so) there will be two people working for every seven people retired and living on social security. Since quite a few of those "two people" will be part time baristas, with no benefits, attempting to pay back over 100 large in student debt, they will be very humorless about any problems with social security.

The very good news is, due to it's "One child" policy, China has created a social monster that will be bearing bitter fruit about the same time, with that "One child" attempting to support two familys worth of aged and elderly parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and whoever ended up disabled in that family, as well. They will be too tied up socially, at home, to cause much trouble abroad.

Best,
Ted

SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE!!!!

The Red Chinese have already shown a willingness to kill millions of their own citizens.

The Soviets feared the Chinese greatly, and always reminded their military people that if they successfully managed to kill a million Chinese a day in a military conflict, it would still take them forty years to get them all. That is forty years, of killing a million people a day, 365 days a year.

The Chinese will have to come to the same realization, that they can't kill their way out of this problem. Don't under estimate the problem they are facing, one of their own doing, fortunately.


Best,
Ted

You talk a good game Jagermeister, but talk is cheap. Look at who and what you actually support. You proudly voted for Obama twice. You voted for bigger government, more deficit spending, no Social Security reform, and more gun control.

Obama is not the problem. The problem is idiots like you who thought someone like him could lead this country and make it better.

Either that, or just pot stirring.

What else could you conclude about an Obama supporting troll who frequents a Double Shotgun forum, and who doesn't even own a double?

Here is my last remaining shotgun:

[img:left][/img]

It was used for gunner training by USAF during WWII. I use to to shoot blanks on 4th of July. Let us see your shotgun.

I predict that they'll start a massive propaganda campaign promoting elder suicide, and/or advocating and facilitating State-sponsored euthanization.

That is, unless their moves towards Capitalism actually are able to provide for their Citizenry. A very good possibility.

I like it, rock solid, will digest those blanks without a whimper, even the new steel ones. Is that a Mossberg? Does it have choke tubes?

pre ww2 Ithaca 37.. nice.......what gauge? choke? barrel length??....

BTW...I get one of those pensions.. 31yrs......love it....will start SS next Feb....Well to do folks and corporations don't like pensions for working class people.. tough shet....
Corporate leaders and the "well to do" will tell you, you should save for your retirement but barely pay their workers enough to live on..Good luck with that....our pension is funded by the company and a percentage of the employees individual earnings.....and is fully funded because the union saw to it that it was...was spelled out in the contract how much each would put into the fund..with changes built in for funding during a good or poor market... .....nothing is perfect but this is working and lets us older workers retire with a livable income to make room to hire young employees....

this rich/poor thing has been going on since the beginning of time...don't think it will end anytime soon...I just think that anyone working a 40hr a week job should make a livable wage with health insurance...and if you don't want to risk employees trying to get a union established, some sort of retirement plan....
Like I said its a conflict going on since the beginning....I don't loose any sleep over it...but then Iv got a pension and own some guns....

WI is near and dear to my heart, but you were one of the lucky ones if your union actually planned and actually saved for your pension. Unfortunately, I know what "make room to hire young employees" means. They will foot the bill.

So many of your state's ponzi schemes have folded. It's not a comment about you gunut, but I just wonder if folks will really pay the cost of a drive through coffee or a newspaper for that kid behind the counter to have a 'living' wage. Or, if there's always exception, but it feels good to say the line.

All the best, here's hoping you can get after a few walleyes and big perch.

craigd;
Same scheme as investing in the stock market ...you depend that others will also invest...if they pull out there goes your investment....all depend on the young to invest in the scheme to keep it going....

I think you know there's one huge difference. 'Stock market' means more than one stock, diversity. The code word that gets negotiated into many contracts, 'employee ownership'. If you're lucky, the company is viable. Sadly, some contracts are negotiated knowing the company may end up being worthless.

Why should we even believe that is your Ithaca model 37 Jagermeister? Why don't you show your true colors and show us your Obama bumper sticker?

You proudly voted for the anti-gunner twice. No one is fooled about what you are and why you are here. I have nothing to prove to your kind.

Maybe you should try telling us that you were close personal friends with JFK or MLK. Or perhaps you could tell us about your award winning wines which were actually made by someone else. Have you written any letters to the NRA suggesting that we should just roll over and let Obama have his way with us?

If you are an individual living in WI and your company fully funded your pension my hats off to you and that's the way it ought to work.
However if your one of the individuals that Scott Walker managed to overcome because they were ripping off the taxpayers I hope you die in povery because that's what you deserve.
Jim

I suspect you are what Ed Good suggested and probably do not own any guns.

My bumpers have no stickers. Next presidential election will be enjoyable as I can sleep longer and not rush to the poll in AM prior to work. There is one candidate that is trying to do what is good for America and we all know he will not get the nomination. I predict out next president will be Hillary Rodham Klinton.

It is 12ga 30" fully choked barrel gun. Not very useful for hunting, but nice to have around 4th of July.

PJ, it would make an OK gun for trap shooting. You have to do some messing around when you reload, but, I usually just slip a round in the magazine, and pump the fired gun just before I call for my bird. You have to be aware with the 37 that the safety will not go to the on position unless the gun is cocked, or, pumped after the shot.
The Mossberg 500 is a better design for that use, as the safety is right on top, and will go on safe whether the gun is cocked, or, not. It is pretty easy to just drop a fresh round into the open action and shut it, just before calling for your bird.
I suppose it bears mentioning that there exist more efficient ways of making noise on the 4th than an older model 37, but, I digress.
Further digress, the clattering of the bones from the skeletons dancing around in Hillary's closet is beginning to become deafening, and I suspect you are wrong about that. I hope so, at any rate.



Best,
Ted

I believe that Public and Private pension plans play by different rules.

I think that private plans are required to fund their plans to a different standard than public ones. Businesses have a better idea as to what they have to contribute as far a private one's so they are forced to plan, and be fiduciary responsible.

Public pensions, I believe, are not so constrained. This is intentional, as taxes would have to be significantly higher in order to fully fund them. Government has exempted themselves from the same requirements as the Real World.

Democrat politicians have lied and promised government employees benefits far in excess of what is able to be supported in terms of Economics. Government pensions are also invested in the private sector, so policies that negatively affect business also negatively affect the pensions as well. This is the contradiction, Democrats voting for politicians that are out to destroy the very foundation of their excessive benefits. Of course, the reason is to create overall dependency, Democrats prefer entitled Welfare Cases, as well as entitled Union members who are totally ignorant of both economics as well as mathematics. In reality, government employees are simply another form of Welfare Case. They are promised, on a religious basis, other citizen's freedom simply on the basis that their Democrat religious leaders told them that they are morally entitled to it. They are the "Blessed", or "Chosen", or "Enlightened" ones.

This continual religious denial and dismissal of both economics and mathematics is absurd. Especially when someone tries to defend it, never based on facts, but only on assertions of statist, subjective morality.

doesn't matter....a binding promise from the government is a binding promise ..if the government signed a contract with its workers it is bound to follow through no matter how stupid you think it is..........just like when a bank promises you a certain return on your deposit....all the double talk in the world wont change that....
BTW...My pension was not affected at all by Walkers policies...I was a quasi government worker.....the government has a contract with the company that I worked for, to manage and service a government owned agency.......all comes down to convoluted paper work.....government owned but run and managed by an outside company....

You're missing my point, the one about Individual Freedom and Equality.

Of course this is rationalized by folks being paid to vote for the statist sociopaths that have religiously convinced them of their unconstitutional pseudo-elitism and entitlement. This is part of the problem, not the solution. Pointing to the success of inflictive sociopaths as a way of justifying further infliction is absurd, but typical of the religious. Again, it's based on subjective statist religious morality, not individual freedom, equality, or for that matter mathematics or economics. This is an example of how the Constitution has been subverted using simple majority rule, in clear violation of the Constitutional concept of Freedom and Equality.

I don't think it's stupid, that would be an anti-intellectual response merely based on subjective morality using Demonization.

I think it is sociopathically and religiously unconstitutional, and in clear violation of both the "Establishment" and "Equal Protection" clauses of the Constitution.

I certainly didn't agree to it. And I'm every bit the equal of the politicians who did.

Roosevelt made a public promise to keep the United States out of another foreign war when he was 1st elected President. Obama made a public promise to have the most "0pen" administration when he was elected. What happened to these 2 socialists when they broke their promises? Nothing. George Bush was elected as President with a promise of "no more taxes". What happened to him when he broke his promise was he was defeated in the next election.
I guess one's political philosophy has a lot to do with keeping promises or whether you think others owe you a living.
Jim

The ultimate, and supreme "Binding Promise" is the United States Constitution.

The topic shifted a bit. In any case, are the WI unions bound to follow through no matter? I think it would also make sense, that if a gov can change the rules when it comes to taxing, regs, services, etc., then I'm not so sure they feel bound to past contracts. Chances are your big unions have walked out on workers after negotiating contracts with companies that were set up to close down and shift accounts to other companies.

Your career and retirement situation is none of my business, I'm just commenting on how things just aren't working out as great as folks figure they should be, but a bunch of folks just keep going back to the same old, same old for more. Many folks are still beating down the door to get into Johnson Wax.

Fundamental tenet of conservatism: A deal is a deal, AKA "rule of law."

When one party can't keep its part of a financial deal the rule of law sends them to bankruptcy court. When they won't keep their deal and are found in contempt for not complying with a court order they go to jail. At least that is the idea and the ideal.

Google "Unfunded pension liabilities." Lots of private multiemployer union pensions are severely underfunded. That means that the net present value of monthly pensions promised to both current and future pensioners exceeds the value of the pensions current net worth. Many union construction pension funds are underfunded, including national Plumbers and Pipefitters, Sheetmetal Workers, Carptenters, etc... There are other multi-employer pensions plans also, like the teamsters, which is also underfunded.

There is a legal definition of a calculation that pensions had to calculate at the end of their fiscal year. They would then publish that calculation. It would state if they were underfunded or overfunded and by what amount. The public employees pension fund in Detroit, in those years they were overfunded, would make payments in the amount of the overfunding to their retirees once per year. It was called a "thirteenth check." The method for calculating overfunding and underfunding was changed about the time of the Great Recession stock market crash and that pension became severely underfunded, both because the stocks and bonds it owned were down and because the law changed and the new funding calculation was more conservative. But over the years the union pension fund trustees had sent all the cushion out to the retirees so the fund had a negative net worth. This was addressed in Detroit's bankruptcy. The pensioners didn't lose their Detroit pension but they took a haircut, to-be-retirees took a bigger haircut.

The problem with most of those public, private, and private multi-employer pensions is that they were all defined benefit. Also the multi-employer plans at least were backed up by a quasi government pension insurance corporation PBGC (like the FDIC) that guaranteed those pensions to the pensioners. So when stocks and bonds were going up the pension funds promised bigger and bigger fixed monthly payments to their beneficiaries. When the returns from stocks and bonds went negative they were underfunded. But PBGC hadn't collected enough from the pensions over the years to cover those pensions that were underfund. Almost almost every company that provides retirement benefits has gone to "defined contribution plans" where their contribution is agreed to with their unions or their employees but no set monthly amount is promised when the employee retires. Business has discovered that "defined benefit plans" are a trap.

Two decades ago Carl Icahn and people like him were buying companies that had overfunded pension plans (single employer pension funds) and then stripping out the overfunded portion of the pension plan (along with other assets) and then selling the company. In the next iteration of that process they not only stripped out the overfunded portion of the pension but they formed a company that insured the base portion of the pension funds. So they took out all of the cash of the pension fund and replaced that part that was needed to meet funding requirements of the law with an insurance policy from a company that they owned. Then they sold that formerly overfunded pension plan company. Then the company they owned that was insuring that pension went broke. Oh my! PBGC, the taxpayers, and the pensioners were left holding the now empty bag.

I think I earned my social security check (when I start drawing one). I think those public employees earned their pensions. I think the plumbers, pipefitters, and sheetmetal workers that worked for me all those decades earned theirs. I think the teamsters earned theirs. I think the teachers earned theirs.

I think the publication of negotiations with public unions is a great idea.

About five years ago I paid the equivalent of three years of my "take home pay" to an underfunded multi-employer union pension fund. The notification and demand came exactly seven years after I dropped a "hiring hall agreement (right to work state)" between a construction union and my small contracting business. I had to pay the money immediately, then mediate, then arbitrate, and then I could go to a real court. This was all under administrative law until I got to federal court. I spent much time and money talking to lawyers, accountants and actuaries, and googling pension law, pension case law, pension funding, underfunded pensions, pension accounting, and the history of those things. This particular pension fund had pissed off much of their assets on a resort hotel and golf course in Florida, along with much inside dealing and insider profits for most of the union pension trustees. The pension was not disputing that I had sent in every dollar required of me by my agreement with the union. They pissed off the money. They were short. The law said I had to make up my pro-rata share of the shortfall. If you happen to know where Martin Maddaloni lives please shit through the sun roof of his Ferrari for me if you get the chance.

There are a bunch of thieves, scoundrels, scalawags, hucksters, shysters, confidence men, and rascals out there. I always keep my hand on my billfold and never trust people with my money unless I absolutely have no choice (say my bank, my wife, and social security).

And I strongly favor sunshine laws.

"The ultimate, and supreme "Binding Promise" is the United States Constitution."

The only problem with that single, clear, declarative sentence, Ken, is that there are two competing and ultimately unsatisfying interpretative schools, the biggest dilemma of contemporary constitutional jurisprudence: the conservative originalist tradition of "original public meaning" and the liberal or progressive tradition with its advocacy of a "living constitution" of evolving meaning.

The dilemma is a long way from being settled.

The evolving living constitution argument is intellectually dishonest. The fact that the original Constitution had and has a mechanism in it for making those changes that need to be made to it proves that it was meant to be and is "originalist". We now have twenty seven amendments to the Constitution. They were put there by the mechanisms prescribed in the original Constitution. Those mechanisms would not have been in there had the Constitution meant that it could be changed by a Federal District Judge in Lubbock, Texas or by the legislative branch or by the executive branch or by the Supreme Court of the federal government.

Ah King, the Doctrinal, statist, religious response.

There are only two "Schools".

The "Constitutional School", and the "Totalitarian, Statist, Religious, Sociopathic, Slave-Mongering, Subversive School". This view merely rationalizes circumvention.

Statist, Religious denial of the Amendment process is so pathetic.

the best way to minimalize unions is to pay workers livable wages and treat them fairly in disputes....then they don't need union protection/bargaining....but most corporations want nothing to do with that...heaven forbid your workers are content with the place they work......my sister in law works 4 Northwestern Mutual Ins....they have a union that you can join if you want.... some do, some don't ...and most of the employees like their jobs...and make a career of it...

Geez:
I went throught my whole working career negotiating my own salary and benefits. I must be some kind of unusual individual to even think I could do this on my own.
Back years ago when I worked for what was then International Harvester the UAW was going through another bargaining session after even more outlandish benefits. I was told the following by some of the union employees that I worked with:
"What do you care what we get for benefits the company will give them to you as well." This was back in the 1970s and my response was "That may be true but our foreign competition isn't getting those benefits and we are becomming less and less competitive."
I think you all know how that scenario has played out over the intervening years.
Jim

At least with 401k type plans the individual can make his own decisions on how to invest his money. It also gives them an interest, or "stake" in the economic conditions as a whole. It would help to relieve the massive ignorance out there of people who blindly vote for those out to destroy the economy, merely because of Democrat religious morality. As it is there seems to be little association of Democrat political policies with the simple mathematics of investments. Due to this, the answer is always to raise taxes to cover public pensions.

When I (and other contractors) negotiated with the unions we negotiated a total wage package - wage plus benefits. We didn't care if they put $10 an hour or $1 an hour in benefits. After the open shop contractors got really strong (after Reagan and Clinton loaded the NLRB with anti-union members) the big benefit package became a problem. We needed young people for entry level jobs. Tell a nineteen year old man with a wife and a car payment that his starting total package is $14 but that only $8 of that goes on his check and that is probably the last thing you will ever get to say to him.

Hmmm.

I'd say that this is the reason for the overall decline in Union membership over the last several decades. The exception has been with government unions, which are not constrained by their companies actually having to stay in business, and is responsible for government union members being overcompensated to double what their free and equal counterparts make in the Real Word. Democrat politicians are not constrained by fiduciary responsibility when they use other people's money to buy votes.

Id say the reason for the decline is that every good paying job the "Patriotic American Corporations" could ship to communist China are there....with the help of our Patriotic Politicians ....from BOTH sides of the isle....

Nothing like the good'ol anti-business, evil-corporation union fantasy.

Thank the statists in the Democrat party for it. Nothing like a righteous denial of reality to set yourself up as a victim entitled to people's stuff...Hey, as long as you get some form of Welfare, what do you care?

not entitled to any free handouts; but American Corporations and Politicians should be looking out for the welfare of American workers..... we should have full employment in OUR COUNTRY B4 we allow Corporations based in this country to freely import goods from places like communist China....Seems almost like a subversive plan on the part of politicians and corporations to get rid of the American middle class..and deal with anybody in order to do it.....but no that couldn't be possible, not in this country...trouble is its working....

The best way to look out for the American Worker is to provide economic opportunity through a vibrant and expanding economy. This current stagnation/recession is what the Left has always desired to achieve.

You don't seem to, or even want to, understand that this blueprint for economic destruction being followed by the Democrats was laid out decades ago. It is right out of the Soviet Union. Virtually all Democrat policies and positions support this goal.

Nothing that is happening is new, it's all been part of the plan. It's exactly what the statists desire, to destroy the American middle class in order to facilitate Totalitarianism.

and Corporations refusing to provide decent health insurance to its workers didn't play right into the wheelhouse of the schemes of Obama Care democrats.....then that's not enough, corporate big shots decide to send American jobs overseas and pay off politicians to remove any import tariffs and taxes to make it easier ......and then lets try to rid the working class of company pensions in favor of 401s ...that goes over big after the last couple stock market crashes.......and then lets give our CEOs big bonuses for pulling this kind of sh it.....exactly how did you expect these displaced workers to react.....

Jagermeister, why don't you tell us who you think is your ideal candidate who won't get nominated. Is it the anti-gunner Michael Bloomberg who your pal Ed Good like so much.

Why don't you have to wake up early for work to get to the polls in 2016? Are you on Welfare and Food Stamps now? There must be some reason you voted for Obama two times, and are proud of it.

King Brown thinks the U.S. Constitution is as flexible and easily changed as his largely fictional resume. Of course Liberals and Progressive advocate a so-called "living constitution" with an "evolving meaning". That's just double-speak for radical Leftist infringements which would never survive the Amendment process that the Framers designed so that the Constitution would not be subject to wild-eyed and immature whims.

What King Brown finds so unsatisfying about the "Conservative Originalist" view is that it keeps mentally ill people like him from rewriting the document to suit his Liberal Left agenda. When Ken61 refers to King's Leftist drivel as "Sociopathic", it's important to remember the meaning of the word... a person with a psychopathic personality whose behavior is antisocial, often criminal, and who lacks a sense of moral responsibility or social conscience.

The more I read the pseudo patriots I'm reminded of Orwell's warning of "Fascism being imposed under the pretence of resisting Fascism." They use endless replication and recycling of ignorance and mendacity to reinforce their beliefs, to the point of an Arizona ayatollah making murderous fatwa and his sidekick condemning members as unworthy for not sharing their opinions. Apostasy arbiters look a lot like IS to me.

Speaking of competing and unsatisfying interpretive schools. Who's told us, besides yourself, that the economy is coming back stronger than ever and the world is a safer place now that the US has implemented mantra based foreign policy.

Is there any, all inclusive and tolerant, way to rationally discuss the GDP numbers that have come out today or the middle east nuclear arms race that has been created where none was before. How about china getting the green light to sprout gitmo's in far eastern no longer international waters, or the warm relations with our good friends in russia.

Could we have more tales of all the improved happiness and productivity of citizens on the left due to money saving ocare, if I promise to help reject any psuedo patriots that recycle ignorance. But hey, I do like the way things have settled down in baltimore on the racial and class warfare fronts.

Excellent example of one of the unofficial mottos of the Democrat Party. It ranks right up there with "Social Justice", "War on Women", "Police are Racist", "Equality of Outcome", "Carbon Dioxide is Causing Climate Change", "Vote-Buying is Righteous", "The Rich have Stolen From the Poor", "White Privilege", "Republicans are Racist, Sexists, Bigots and Homophobes", "Unions are for the Common Man", and countless other examples of Statist, Religious, Unconstitutional, Sociopathic Dogma designed to Demonize and thereby oppres the opponents of Totalitarianism. I can certainly go on if necessary.

You two should try rapping your answers to each other.

Ken61 is...George "ain't nobody more street than Big G" Washington

and

King Brown is... William "I'll knock you the F out" Wallace

http://youtu.be/dl7CLaZFG1c

BEGIN!


________________________
I knew a guy who gave up drinking, smoking, sex, and rich food. He was perfectly healthy right up to the day he killed himself. Johnny Carson

No... actually King, you are unworthy because you tell so many lies here that you cannot be trusted. Nobody wants to even hear the opinions of a Redistributionist Liberal Left Socialist. Now, in your absurd and degenerate opinion, anyone who wishes to keep the Constitution as it was intended by the Framers is a "pseudo patriot." Only those immature and impatient enough to change it by circumventing the legal process of Amendment additions, by sliding in like minded jurists, can be considered patriotic. Isn't it amazing how many of these like-minded Liberal Left judges flat out lie during their confirmation hearings? Do you want to try telling us that anti-gun and pro-abortion Justices like John Paul Stevens are Conservatives again?

Living document or Silly Putty, eh King?

Who is the "Arizona ayatollah" who made "murderous fatwa"? Or is this just another of your many lies? You do know what a fatwa is, don't you?

Well, your entire life is one of fabrication and exaggeration, so why should this be any different? What a total fraud you are!

Thanks for the doctrinal response. Usually, it's King that can be counted on, but you've certainly covered all the Dogma of the issue. Let's take'em one at a time.

Corporations. Of course they were able to provide "decent" Health Care pre-Obamacare. The main point here is that they should not have had to. Thank FDR for forcing business to provide Health Insurance as a benefit outside of wages. It has been this factor, with people no longer personally involved with the cost of their Health Care that has caused costs to rise. That and the direct government involvement via Medicare and Medicaid. Medical procedures not covered by insurance (Public or Private) have gone down in cost, while those covered have risen. It was easy to sell Obamacare. All it took was pathological lying. I'm sure Bill and Hillary are kicking themselves and saying "Why didn't we think of that?"

Corporate big shots? It is the tax, regulation, and labor markets that primarily drive business costs. We have the highest corporate rate in the world. Of course businesses will operate in the friendliest environment. It's better than going Out of Business.

Didn't you read the earlier post about defined benefits? Did you not understand it? The real reason sociopathic union cultists demonize 401ks is that union leadership is not in control of them. It's only the ignorant that don't understand this. Same principle as Government/Democrat control of Social Security.

The last Market Crashes were due to government involvement, except perhaps for the "Dot.Com" bubble. I suggest reading Friedrich von Hayek's "The Road to Serfdom". Another of those books that explains what the Democrats are doing. Has it occurred to you that those CEO's have earned it? After all the crap gone over in this thread, the ability to stay profitable, and therefore "in business" takes talent. Talent remarkable absent from your typical Union Cultist. What possible business of it is yours anyway? Sociopath, much?

Reaction from displaced workers? How about the intellectual realization that it is the Democrat Party that is causing the majority of this destruction. Them and Republican Statists, the one's they are able to convince to join them in order to claim Bipartisanship.

I worked in the automotive indusry for many years and IMO the biggest cause of the decline in this industry can be traced to organized labor primarily in the form on the UAW.
I mentioned briefly the outlandish contractural agreements reached in a earlier post but I'll just cite one example. This was called Layoff in Lieu of Transfer(LLT)** if your position was eliminated and you were for example a Grade 10. You could "bump" into (as I remember it) another Grade 10 position based upon senority. If this wasn't possible you could take a layoff for up to a year at 95% of your salary.
This an a host of other union concessions led to a reluctance on the part of investors to provide funding to update and improve automotive manufacturing which let to declines in quality compared to foreign competition. The assembly lines which were already out of date began to decline further. We had a group at IH whose sole responsiblity was to outsource components as they could be purchased less expensively than the could be built in house and at equal or higher quality.
When a like product can be built elsewhere at a lower cost and with better quality it doesn't take a Rhodes Scholar to figure out the end result. When I was at IH engineering management randomly pulled an assembled vehicle out of the recently built and, as I remember it, found over 100 flaws due to shoddy manufacturing.
The Japanese were routinely kicking butt back then and this has increased.
Good paying American jobs in manufacturing are IMO gone for good. The American unionized workers with a lot of help from Unions like the UAW and socialist politicians priced themselves right out of the market.
Jim
**My information is dated and this may not be the case anymore. However; I don't remember the unions ever giving anything substantial back.

I know one of the engineers that assisted in the disassembly and shipment of the East Moline foundry to Mexico. IH (at least I think it was IH) opted to do that rather than reopen it and have to deal with the union. Big surprise.

Ken61:
These were ugly days in the automotive manufacturing community. I got out shortly after this type of activity occured and found it was the case across the board in other industries.
You'll NEVER hear the truth of this from the "mainstream news media" as it much easier to blame "corporate executives" or the banking industry for the decline in American manufacturing.
The fact that these claims are bogus never occurs to most people in this Country and they'll never know the truth about what really happened.
Jim

I was talking to one of the local Garbage Men employed by my City. He was explaining to me that in order for things to be "Fair", he should make the same as President Obama.. Hell, why not think that? He's doing a better job at his work than Obama is at his.

As self servingly stupid as unions might have been, there is more to it than just them.

First corporations signed the deals.

The management made marketing and quality decisions that undercut their product lines

Everyone blamed everyone else and did not intelligently try to actually win the commercial fight.

I am neither a fan of stupid executives or union leaders

Life has taught trust some, but not too much, as Ron Reagan once put (or maybe one of his writers) trust but verify.

Problem with the reasoning is there are many 'corporations' that are 'employee owned', as negotiated by their unions. How come they run themselves into the ground, after all, the negotiated pensions can be based on future earnings of the company.

But, that's just another broken record. Does make one wonder if the contract was negotiated for the worker, or the short term dues collection. When the management and the worker are one in the same, why won't either apply a little intelligence.

My opinion: Globalization smashed American manufacturing. Globalization is a consequence of the elimination of tariffs and cheap shipping which will be even more economically efficient.

Yesterday I saw that it currently costs $500 for an average cargo container to be shipped from Asia to Europe. They are now building container ships that hold 18,000 containers. Those in current use only haul 14,000 containers.

My average current cost for an HVAC service technician is $46 an hour, including health insurance, cell phone, uniform, employer matching SS and Medicare, unemployment insurance, and worker's comp insurance. I am not a union contractor. Since I am in service and not manufacturing my company does not have to compete with a service company in Maylasia or China or India. I doubt a manufacturing company in the US could pay minimum wage with no benefits and get its hourly cost down to double that same cost in China.

Not until we decide to impose tariffs will the factories and manufacturing jobs reappear here. Blaming our current loss of manufacturing on greedy unions or slothful young people or greedy capitalists is in error if you believe that market forces work. So now we buy our manufactured consumer goods at Walmart, and really cheap at that. My shirt was made in Sri Lanka, my pants in India. Many of the tools in my garage were made in China.

Last year I hunted bobwhite with a friend on his family ranch. They were drilling oil wells every two hundred yards or so in one area. Must have been a hundred. I was shocked to find out that the pump jacks on newly completed wells had been manufactured in China.

I think this is what Pogo said: "We have met the enemy and he is us."

Mike, your opinion is accurate. Union membership is declining. There's downward pressure on wages in all OECD countries, whether they have strong or weak unions. Globalization is a greater factor than unions.

I'm pro-worker, pro-labour but within a context of markets. Without markets, innovation and enterprise, there are no jobs. The share of income going to labour has fallen almost everywhere. Industry everywhere is hurting.

You're seeing it in the service industry. A Canadian runs the Bank of England. Can you imagine the US handing over the US Reserve to a foreigner to make independent monetary policy?

Mike, here's globalization writ large, coming to a place near you: James Meek's essay of London Review Podcast, in part:

"Does it matter that the power Britain relies on to make the country glow and hum no longer belongs to Britain? After all, the lights still shine. The phones still charge. Does it matter that the old electricity suppliers of eastern and north-west England and the English Midlands, the coal-fired power stations of Kingsnorth, Ironbridge and Ratcliffe-on-Soar, the turbine shops at Hams Hall, the oil and gas stations on the Isle of Grain, Killingholme, Enfield and Cottam are the property of E.ON of Düsseldorf? Is it of significance only to sentimental Little Englanders that the former electricity boards of Tyneside and Yorkshire, the power stations at Didcot in Oxfordshire, Fawley in Hampshire, Tilbury in Essex, Littlebrook in Kent, Great Yarmouth in Norfolk, Little Barford in Bedfordshire and Staythorpe in Nottinghamshire belong to RWE of Essen (the last being the only one the German company built itself)? Is it a sign of some atavistic hostility to the Other – nationalism, chauvinism, even racism – to find it strange that the one-time public purveyors of electricity in North Wales, Merseyside and southern Scotland, along with another set of large power stations, are owned by Iberdrola of Bilbao? Are you an enemy of liberal principles if you question the fact that, when local electrical engineers dig up the roads in London, they’re working for East Asia’s richest man, the Hong Kong-based Li Ka-shing? In north-east England, they work for Warren Buffett; in Birmingham, Cardiff and Plymouth, the Pennsylvania Power and Light Company; in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Liverpool, Iberdrola; in Manchester, a consortium of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia and a J.P. Morgan investment fund.

"More than anyone, you’d think, it would matter to the people who made these arrangements possible in the first place. What has happened is not what they promised or intended when they put Britain’s state-owned electricity industry on the block. Before this year is out, politicians, regulators and corporations will make a set of decisions determining the electric life of Britain for the next half century. They will decide how the country keeps the lights burning and the wheels of industry turning for the next fifty years without severely affecting the climate or impoverishing us. But as a result of actions taken a generation ago by Margaret Thatcher’s Conservatives – a party whose nationalist programme promised independence from Europe – the decisions aren’t Britain’s alone. Thatcher promised less state involvement in industry but the future of Britain’s energy supply now hinges on state-owned French companies based in Paris: Electricité de France, better known as EDF, and Areva, maker of nuclear power stations. Will EDF and Areva build a fleet of new nuclear reactors in Britain or won’t they, and if they do, how much will it cost the British and French public?

"Defending her record in Parliament on the day she resigned in 1990, Thatcher spoke in patriotic tones of how, with millions of people buying shares in former state industries, privatisation was giving ‘power back to the people’, and how competition at home and open markets in Europe would free British enterprise to lead the world. Now, in 2012, it’s clear that the result of electricity privatisation was to take power away from the people. Small British shareholders have no influence over the overwhelmingly non-British owners of the firms that generate and distribute power in Britain. The fact that individual households and small businesses can choose to switch from the confusing tariff of one oligopolistic supplier to another doesn’t protect them from sharp, unpredictable swings in prices. In overseas chanceries the Thatcher doctrine came up against ambitious leaders who were no less patriotic, but not so arrogant and naive. Unlike Thatcher, they didn’t assume that if their country levelled its playing field, others would level theirs. The problem with the ideal of competition is that there are winners and losers. The electricity competition has now been held. It is over, and Britain lost. From the point of view of technology and capital, electric Britain is no longer a centre. It is another centre’s province."

I think you make good points also, but do you really think unions are a typical market force. Your last union story made it sound made it sound like you're in the market to give away a truckload of freebies.

I wonder how long that market would hold up, but apparently the left is pushing to foind out. Maybe, we really don't want to bring back the manufacturing of the cheapest widgets. If your guesstimates are right, who's going to pay for the 2 1\2 to 3 times price increases.

King, I wouldn't put a whole bunch of stock in what Meek's has to say, wasn't he an engraver.

Mike:
I'm going to say I agree with much of your post but I will disagree with your statement regarding unions. The unions here ran wages and benefits up so high that jobs began to migrate overseas back in the 70s. Please go back and read some of my earlier posts on this thread where I covered this subject in more detail.
Had wages and salaries here stayed competitive with what was being paid elsewhere these jobs would never have been lost.
The last I knew, and this was years ago, it cost over $700 more to produce a car here then elsewhere and this was primarily due to the difference in labor costs.
No one in manufacturing could pay that kind of overhead differential in the long run and survive.
The Libtards on this forum I'm sure are denying any of this as they really don't have much use for factual information to begin with.
The primary reason we can still manufacture cars here at all is due to factory automation which also eliminated a lot of construction jobs in the automotive industry.
Jim

Unions and Taxes. Both deplete Capital, and reduce profitability. Now, costly regulations are also in the mix for many as well.

Basic Economics. What was it that Hillary once said? (para?) "I can't be responsible for the failure of every undercapitalized business in the Country"..Yeah, "Pantsuit Obama", but the sociopathic, religious ideology of your Democrat Party has done it's part in the 'War on Capitalism".

Average wage - China: http://www.tradingeconomics.com/china/wages - about $4.40 per hour (edit - I incorrectly had $3.30 per hour as the average wage in China. Todays exchange rate is 6.19 Yuan to the Dollar)

Average wage - Mexico: http://www.tradingeconomics.com/mexico/wages As of today there 15.5 pesos to the dollar so that works out to about $2.40 per hour.

Averge wage - United States: http://www.mybudget360.com/how-much-do-americans-earn-what-is-the-average-us-income/ Or about $13 an hour.

All costs do matter. But a US manufacturer would have to violate the minimum wage law to get just his "on the check" costs down to twice what Mexico or China pay.

My opinion is still that extremely low shipping costs have combined with the practical abolition of tariffs to decimate manufacturing here.

But the lefties here are blaming the loss of those manufacturing jobs here on greedy, unprincipled capitalists. Had those capitalists not moved those jobs offshore their competitors would have kicked their brains in.

And no matter what unions or benefits or regulations we eliminated for manufacturing we could not have gotten down to the even double the hourly wage in China. Our minimum wage is about two and one half times China's, about three times Mexico's.

So blame the elimination of tariffs, blame the new global shipping container economy, blame ourselves for loving to buy on the cheap. But the problem was not evil corporations or demanding unproductive unions or regulation.

(edit - I incorrectly had $3.30 per hour as the average wage in China. It is about $4.40)

Certainly a valid aspect. However, labor costs can be significantly reduced by automation. Look at how robotics are now used in the Auto Industry. Compare how many welders are employed now as opposed to 30 years ago. Capitalism always tries to find a way. If protectionism had been used 30 years ago, it never would have happened as the Union goal is to employ as many members as possible. If protectionism had been used in the High-Tech field, and if the prices had been government regulated, a PC would cost $4000 now, instead of $400.

NYC recently replaced giant 18 ton valves in the upstate reservoir. The valves were cast in China, and machined in England. Environmental restrictions, as well as lower wages sent big equipment production like this out of the US. People say more police are needed in the inner cities---no, jobs are what's needed!

I don't think I am arguing for protectionism. I think I am arguing that it is incorrect to blame greedy mill owners for the offshoring of their fabric factories. If they hadn't offshored they would have gone broke.

I don't think I am arguing for tariffs. I am arguing that it is incorrect to blame milliner unions for the offshoring of fabric manufacturing because they could not have lowered their wages enough to compete with a $2 an hour Sri Lankan mill worker.

There is no doubt that increased automation makes a country's average wage less important. But automation is not what moved those manufacturing jobs offshore starting about fifteen years ago. Extremely low labor costs were. And there was nothing those union factory workers could have done to prevent it. And there was nothing those open-shop factory workers could have done to prevent it.

The root cause for our manufacturing decline was globalization. Globalization was possible because our nation chose to eliminate tariffs and because the cost of shipping goods across the ocean has become terribly cheap. So if blame is to be assigned, assign it to "us".

I don't think of myself as a protectionist, either, Mike. But anyone not thinking your way isn't thinking at all. Globalization hasn't offered what was promised: a happy global village where everyone took in each other's wash. Sovereign countries usually act in the interests of their citizens.

Price isn't everything. Some things are worth paying more for. Canada doesn't buy cheaper milk from the US because it prefers security of supply. US ships must be built in your country while they can be bought cheaper overseas. "Free trade" and laissez-faire notions are often a race to the bottom.

The anything-goes boys gave us The Great Recession.

In recent years, we've had huge 'investments' in 'shovel ready' jobs, far and away the biggest in history. In recent years, the police have clearly been pc reigned in. Why do the complaints still keep coming.

Easy to look up the number of shooting in baltimore over the Memorial Day weekend. Easy to look up that the latest stats say the nation just reversed, for the worse, a twenty year downward violent crime trend. Maybe it's a policy that just doesn't work, and the only thing we need is for a few folks to admit it.

Thing is, when someone thinks about it, Mike's right, we probably can't just auto blame greedy ceo's. Is there a viable counter argument for the corporate welfare mantra.

A micro example of the problem might be cali. They imposed large per container 'environmental' surcharge increases. Kind of addresses, to a tiny degree, the shipping/tariff angle, plus they nearly lock up the entire left coast. I wonder if that tariff is put to meaningful use, and why unfunded liabilities are forgotten.

Generations of social confrontation concerning how citizens want to live can't be fixed in 15 minutes, Craig. That's why there are complaints. There is growing recognition of a need for change. I'd expect more violence from current social and economic strains. Believing deliverance by changing parties is a bigger issue than confessions of failure.

King I remember this globalization promise: https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=hea...B9EFC1386375508

If there are no jobs in Baltimore why don't those unemployed people move to where there are jobs? If there are no jobs in Chicago why don't those unemployed people move to Texas? If there are no jobs in Detroit why don't those unemployed Detroitans move to Houston?

If it is so awful WHY DON"T THEY MOVE?

The Mexicans, the Eduadorians, the Costa Ricans, they are moving, enduring great hardships and taking great risks. And when they get here they face the possibility of being caught at the border and sent back. But they come none the less. But that poor oppressed unemployed twenty five year old man in Baltimore can't come up with a $100 for a bus ticket and a loaf of bread and a couple of pounds of bologna? Sounds like poverty is the problem all right. But it is poverty of culture that is holding them down, not their poverty of means.

Corporate welfare is a vital part of our economic system, Craig. It's the backstop for when capitalism, free enterprise or whatever you want to call it is out of play. It protects workers and communities from impoverishment.

We call ourselves a democracy but all these "private" corporations control our lives---until they screw it up. Then the public becomes the shareholders to keep intact industry and the banks---but no control.

Members often frame this as communist or socialism. It's neither. It's how our system works. The big boys---money--- couldn't get along without it. The real question is: Are we democrats?

Mike:
I spent 2 years managing Section 8 property on the South Side of Chicago in one of the worst Ghettos. In all the time I was there I never heard one resident expressing a desire to move or get out of that lifestyle.
Perhaps someone with a background in psychology can explain the reason why.
Jim

I don't quite think so. No doubt, it's tough tough to compete in this 'global economy'. I believe ceo's are paid what they are worth to excel in the conditions they are presented with. Another, somewhat bigger, micro example, the auto manufacturing industry in America.

All of the globalization and shipping concerns most certainly forced US jobs offshore, and it shows. Then again, as detroit withered away, there was an explosion of foreign auto makers building plants and cars in the US, just not in the 'motor city'. Maybe it's the weather that makes that community 'feel' unprotected and impoverished?

I think your real question is an unfortunate diversion. I wasn't wondering how vital it was, just how important mantra is over the reality of what our senses tell us.

...why don't those unemployed Detroitans move...?"

They have, Mike. Peak population of 1.8 million, now around 650,000. I went to a hockey game in Phoenix awhile back and there were so many Red Wing jerseys it looked like a home game. Hopefully Babcock can help get those Leafs turned around; my second favorite team. Tampa Bay (Yzerman connection) in 7. It's Detroiter, BTW.



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I wish LD would come back. I don't know who this Glenthorne chap is.

Thanks Lonesome.

But the red jersey Detroiters probably weren't the poor, oppressed, persecuted, mistreated, Detroiters I was talking about.

King, by "anything goes boys" do you mean Bill Clinton and Co. and their insane policy of making the banking industry give mortgages to people who could not afford to repay them?

I doubt it, since you can't be honest about anything that implicates your fellow Liberal Left Socialists.

Mike, I hadn't checked recently and was a bit surprised that Chinese average wages have surpassed Mexico, but then I also would assume that productivity per man hour is much higher there too. When I worked for GM, they were already looking at Africa as a source for cheaper labor costs than China and some of the other low wage nations. The GM Bankruptcy affected only the U.S. operations even though GM spent over 30 years moving assets out of the country before crying Poor Mouth and filing Bankruptcy... only a few short years after posting all time record profits. The foreign assets were exempt from the Bankruptcy, and U.S. stockholders lost everything while the taxpayers bailed out a crooked company that wasn't near bankrupt.

While employed there, I saw robotics and automation replace thousands of good paying jobs. More automation won't help the lowly production worker, because they were also exporting automation technology and had engineers working in China setting up and training the Chinese to do work that had been too complex for them. I do OK for myself because I saw the writing on the wall years ago, and I work on automation technology and robots. I did not rely on government grants or handouts to retrain myself for what was inevitable. The push for Globalization only accelerated it, and Liberal Socialists can't bring themselves to admit that Democrat Bill Clinton's signing of NAFTA opened the floodgates. Republicans are just as guilty in advancing something that has obviously lowered the standard of living for average Americans. The lesson should have been learned, but Barack Obama is still pushing trade deals that will make it even worse.

I have no doubt the Unions screwed up, mostly due to greed and corruption at the top. Workers couldn't really be faulted for wanting and accepting wage and bonus packages that seem very fat. But in reality, wages and benefits did not keep up with inflation, especially during the Jimmy Carter years... and ... absolutely when productivity gains are factored in. When the Executive Vice President of steel company I worked for was hitting us up for more wage and benefit concessions, I pointed out to him what our annual labor cost was for wages and benefits, and told him that if we worked for free, we would still be losing millions of dollars per month. My company had the lowest labor cost per ton in the world at that time, but mismanagement and corruption led to an eventual Chapter 7 bankruptcy liquidation. Massive Corporate Welfare intended to create and maintain jobs had no means of insuring repayment or punitive action if those promises weren't kept and the jobs outsourced later anyway.

Half of the population did move out of Detroit to get away from the crime, high taxes, and to seek new employment. Those remaining are content to stay because many receive the equivalent of a decent middle class wage by exploiting and gaming the Welfare System and engaging in crime as an income tax-free bonus. Many refuse to pay their property taxes. They have no incentive to buy a loaf of bread and a package of bologna and hitch hike to where the jobs are. I would have considered bologna a luxury when I was seeking my first job after I graduated from college in the midst of a severe recession. That's why I don't care to hear King Brown's crap about the poor unfortunates who don't stand a chance to pull themselves up.

Quote:
"King, by "anything goes boys" do you mean Bill Clinton and Co. and their insane policy of making the banking industry give mortgages to people who could not afford to repay them?"

And doing just that(which resulted in no doc. no money down mortgages) was a plank in the commiecrat platform both times Clinton ran for President. Of course since this whole scheme fell apart during the last years of the Bush Administration even after Bush warned Congress this would happen - Guess who got the blame for it from the commiecrats?
Oh and Keith: Don't expect a straight answer from the commiecrat trolls on this forum to what you posed in your above quote. Their avoidance of anything factual would be humorous if the consequences to us responsible citizens who pay taxes and have to support this bizarre behavior weren't so dire.
Jim

No diversion intended. You asked " Is there a viable counter argument for the corporate welfare mantra?" I replied it's an accepted part of our system. Members say the US is being run by a left-wing radical. He's a centre, slightly left politician who does money's bidding as all the others.

The finance, insurance and real estate industries contributed $38 million to his 2008 campaign, including $900,000 from Goldman Sachs. Any wonder Wall Street got off Scot-free? Was there a word of Marxism when Americans bought the banks and auto industry ---the means of production---without firing a shot? Nah, it's how capitalism works, eh?

Wrong again King. There was a lot of cries of Marxism and Cronyism when GM, Chrysler, Goldman Sachs, and others got bought or bailed out by the taxpayers. Obama wasn't doing the bidding of big money when he bailed them out. He was merely paying the price to repay them and the UAW for the votes they delivered so that he could practice the most extreme Leftist agenda this country has ever seen. The TARP money that will never be repaid by GM alone exceeded their Democrat campaign contributions, so that had a good return on investment for GM.

But since you have been so frequently dishonest, why would we be surprised to see you lie again and try to tell us that Obama is "centre, slightly left"? What a load of crap!

What a fraud you are!

I'm surprised there have been no comments about the back-door Gun Control announced by the Obama Justice Dept. yesterday. I'd suggest once again calling your legislators to complain, and also supporting the NRA.

King Brown will no doubt advise that all is well and LULL you into complacency, because he supports the anti-gun Democrats 100%.

Easy diagnosis...King has brain worms.

You'd have them, too, Joe, if you'd drunk as much white lightning as me!

Quote for Keith:
"I'm surprised there have been no comments about the back-door Gun Control announced by the Obama Justice Dept. yesterday. I'd suggest once again calling your legislators to complain, and also supporting the NRA."

I for one am waiting for the specifics. Perhaps the idiot occupying the White House will again overstep Constitutional bounds and bring up impeachment as an option.
Jim

Ah, once again the subjective term "Corporate Welfare" turns up. Real "Corporate Welfare" is the awarding of other people's freedom in the forms of grants or subsidies to companies. Take Green Energy for example.

It is not Tax Credits or Tax Breaks. The Democrat sociopaths equate them together. One is a sociopathic infliction forcing an involuntary exchange of goods and services upon taxpayers, the other is limited relief granted on a political basis to connected companies.

In order to consider it the latter, you have to be a true statist sociopath and consider that the government owns all wealth and money in America, which is of course the Totalitarian view. All non-profits fall into this category, it enables politicians to buy their votes. With only sociopathic, statist, faith-based morality as the rationale. It's unconstitutional under several clauses of the Constitution.

Okay, okay, I see your point. The corporate welfare mantra is an accepted part of our system. A mythical sledge hammer of sorts, ready to crush white male politicians who're labeled to be slightly right of center.

We need another joke thread to lighten things up. Yesterday, did you see the one about the president that hunched over a podium holding one hand over the other. He sez, six years ago here's china, with the other hand he sez, here's the US just a bit above and the russians above the US. Then, smart heads come together and come up with the talking point catch word....reengage.

Punchline, the US sling shots to way up here, I was waiting for him to get up on his tippy toes and stretch his hand way over his head. Yup, I know, off topic, but I spotted a few public union women staffers in the background that still don't have pay equity.

How to win friends and influence people.

Lottsa money and a ball peen hammer.

Didn't want to trash your Belgian clunker thread, and this one's been f'ed from the git. Besides, it's one of Jim's and he has me on ignore so it shouldn't bother him.





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Five for fighting.

This is bordering on tedious. I live by 2 mottos primarily, Never argue with an idiot because a stranger cannot tell you apart, and opinions are like a..holes, everybody has one and they mostly all stink.

I'm outraged, Jim DiSpagno! Outraged! I don't know why I'm outraged, but I am. I find it best to err on the side of outrage.

"I live by two mottos primarily, Never argue with an idiot..."

Guess you won't be spending too much time down in misfires then.


"...and opinions are like a..holes, everybody has one and they mostly all stink."

Including yours, pal.



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...and a game misconduct