Arkansas Blog

I was raised in a pro-union home even though as an adult I never worked in an organization or profession that was unionized. I often saw blatant unfairness and longed for a union to clean things up, but it didn't happen. I recognize today that some of the gains unions have gotten for workers don't work well in this world economy where we compete with countries were cents a day are the norm and no one cares if you work at 10 yrs or until you drop dead on the job. But there must be some way of achieving some measure of fairness and sharing. I'm wishing my kids could all be self employed because I get murderously angry at the idea of CEO's making ever doubling and tripling salaries while the people responsible for all that largess worry every night about just taking care of their families in some measure.

I'm about ready for federal wage and benefit controls on top management. Whatever the management provides for themselves, they should provide for their workers. Of course the amounts would be different, but the percentage of difference shouldn't be allowed to be hundreds of times greater for management. The business community as demonstrated that they will not willingly be fair to workers - so it's either unions world wide, or some government agency has to force businesses to be fair to employees.

I'm sick of CEO's earning millions and cutting wages and benefits to employees.

Some where, some how we as a people must really look at the situation we face.

Jobs are leaving and those that replace them, if any, pay far less than the wages needed to support a family.

Right this minute workers from south of our border are doing skilled work such as heavy equipment operator, plumber, air con, electrician and on and on. They work instead of citizens because they have zero liability for the boss, company or contractor, and they will not quit or gripe.

I can see the parking increase project right here at the Capitol and there are workers out there that I would bet do not have the documents to be working in this country.

'They' play words like tariff, import duty, tax on foreign companies like it is sinful. Mind many of the countries we import heavily from do exactly that. Collect tariffs, duties and taxes to keep our goods too high in price to be competitive.

Unless we stop the manufacturing 'bleeding' and start protecting our workers and industries. Start doing the 'make work' projects to repair and rebuild our physical infrastructure we will sink down to the standard of living now in Central America and Asia.

In my opinion people like Sen. Lincoln are a big part of our problem and should be removed in favor of someone more attuned to the needs of the majority instead of business.

Why does it have to be "us vs. them" all the time? Why is it always unions vs. management, each side calling the other names, each side just as corrupt as the counterpart?

Yes, we've recently seen the management abuses of paychecks and benefits. But I grew up in a union home where the union represented itself, not the workers.

The unions would LOVE to get rid of the secret ballot... that way they can target the workers who voted against them for fast removal. As far as the auto industry, look at the GM "job bank" abuses for proof of union self-interest. The cost of that "job bank" is passed into every car GM makes... and we (as consumers) pay for it.

Look at the cost of health care... retired GM workers do not get Medicare, they are on their own plan what we (as GM consumers) have to pay for. Why?

There was a time the unions had a necessary place and filled a very important role. But many of the unions have grown into parasites and too many parasites kill the host.

The immigrant class and the union class should be mortal enemies. They are competing against each other, either directly for jobs, or with the immigrants driving down wages for the blue collar boys.

Oddly, both groups vote en masse for the same guy. Reminds me of the genius of the folks linked at my name.

I think Joseph Tasini gets it right:

Now, I get it. The fact that wages have not kept pace with productivity for the past 30 years--and, if they had, the minimum wage would be $19.12, not $6.55--because profits and CEO pay were more important than in fact putting people on the "highway to the American Dream", is not the fault of the "free market".

It's the fault of Bozo The Clown.

The fact that actually our country's economy did better when it was a "closed economy" from 1946 to 1973, in terms of raising living standards, then, it has in the past three decades under the mania to have an "open economy" is not the fault of the "free market"

It's the fault of Bozo The Clown.

The current financial crisis was not the fault of the love of the "free market", which allowed people from Robert Rubin to Alan Greenspan to preach about the wonders of debt and leverage and for companies like the Robert Rubin-lead Citigroup to create the secondary markets for predatory mortgages.

It's the fault of Bozo The Clown.

The reality that, rather than being on the "highway to the American Dream", more than 30 million people have been pushed out of jobs since the early 1980s, and only a third held of those people found new jobs two years later that paid as well as those that were lost, another third found work paying 15 to 20 percent less and the other third just dropped out of the workforce all together--that isn't the fault of the "free market".

It's the fault of Bozo The Clown.

Executives piled on tens of millions of dollars in compensation and pay, gave themselves stock options worth billions of dollars and arranged for pensions that often equaled more than the combined pensions of the rest of a company's workforce. But, that greed was not the fault of the "free market."

It's the fault of Bozo The Clown.

The idea that hedge fund managers only pay 15 percent tax rates on their income, not the 35 percent other top earners pay, is not the fault of the "free market" and lobbyists who fashion it.

Nope, it's the fault of Bozo The Clown.

And, since everyone, including the president, likes to talk about what the wonders of the "free market" has brought to the rest of the world, the fact that growth in Latin America has basically been nil for the past 25 years, robbing an entire generation and more of a decent living standard, is not the fault of the "free market".

Nope, it's the fault of Bozo The Clown.

And the savings and loan debacle of the 1980s, the wonders of de-regulation of the airline industry, the Internet bubble and now the bursting of the housing bubble, which wiped out trillions of dollars of peoples' savings (either in stocks or their home equity)--all those are not the fault of the "free market".

Yes, it's the fault of Bozo The Clown.

So, it is Bozo The Clown who should be fired from his job. All the other wizards, business leaders, pundits, economists and political leaders who cheer-led for the "free market" should be re-upped for more service, promoted, encouraged, given Cabinet jobs and higher compensation.

Because they did such a great job.

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Great outline Jake !

>>Reminds me of the genius of the folks linked at my name.<<

If you consider that edited, slanted piece of web video as scientific Pumpkin, you need some
help. Dummies exist on both sides. It's better for the principles of the free market if people stay
highly entertained and lowly informed.
.

Jake, last I read the average CEO earns 185x what the average worker at his company earns.
How many times did we hear in the early 90s about lagging productivity of American workers.
Then it increased by numerous points and real wages decreased.

There is never enough for the narrow eyed greed monsters.
.