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Biden: "Unions Built The Middle Class In America"

Tyler Durden's picture




 

You didn't build that... Unions did. Vice President Joe Biden gave a 'rousing' Labor Day speech this morning explaining that "Unions did, in fact, build the middle-class... and that built The United States of America as we know it."

 

 

Seems like the policies since the crash have not been helping...

 

FACT: There is a record divergence between the exuberant 'rich' and crushed 'middle class'

 

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Mon, 09/01/2014 - 12:13 | 5167743 Soul Glow
Soul Glow's picture

Obama/Biden White House has been a union busting regeme.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 12:13 | 5167755 kliguy38
kliguy38's picture

at least we've got Biden's son over in Ukraine "building" their middle class

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 12:15 | 5167767 casey13
casey13's picture

Regardless of who built it we all know who is destroying it.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 12:18 | 5167778 CH1
CH1's picture

Fuck Biden and fuck unions.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 12:24 | 5167794 macholatte
macholatte's picture

 

"Unions did, in fact, build the middle-class... and that built The United States of America as we know it. And Progressive politicians like me are doing everything we can to destroy America as we knew it."

-- Biden's Ghost

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 12:35 | 5167859 espirit
espirit's picture

"You didn't build that."

BHO

Bidens off script.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 12:48 | 5167897 knukles
knukles's picture

"SEVERAL HUNDRED PEOPLE CROWDED OLD TIGER STADIUM"
Several hundred don't fill half a section in old Tiger Field.  I used to go there FFS
Several hundred people might have crowded hangers end depending on how shitfaced they were.....

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 12:49 | 5167910 macholatte
macholatte's picture

 

 

 

One of the great attractions of patriotism - it fulfills our worst wishes. In the person of our nation we are able, vicariously, to bully and cheat. Bully and cheat, what's more, with a feeling that we are profoundly virtuous.

Aldous Huxley


Mon, 09/01/2014 - 13:04 | 5167970 Anusocracy
Anusocracy's picture

Governments control businesses through corporations and labor through unions.

Both are legally beholden to government.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 13:12 | 5167992 SumTing Wong
SumTing Wong's picture

The local union has a flashing billboard. Last weks' message, "Unions: the provider of the weekend."

I tried to pull out my 9mm to shoot the thing out, but decided it wasn't the best thing to do. Thing is, some assholes will actually believe it. Take Biden for instance...please take Biden out someplace in the desert and tell him to smell the pretty cactus, then take off fast.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 13:29 | 5168064 ArmyofOne
ArmyofOne's picture

Yea, everyone knows the weekends, 40 hour work week, and overtime came from the benevolence of corporations.  I mean what are these unions trying to pull over our eyes?

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 13:55 | 5168177 A Nanny Moose
A Nanny Moose's picture

Weekends came from factory workers being too drunk to work. Unions are merely corporations.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 14:38 | 5168338 Colonel Klink
Colonel Klink's picture

Ahhhh, good ole plagerizing plugs Biden!

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 15:28 | 5168514 mjcOH1
mjcOH1's picture

"Biden: "Unions Built The Middle Class In America""

Fed.

Slaughtered.

Ate.

{burp}

Now gimme's da next meal. GM shold do fine.    Yeah, yeah....bondholders.    Gimme' dat!

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 15:50 | 5168589 Anusocracy
Anusocracy's picture

@ ArmyofOne

So don't work for somebody else and you can have zero hour work weeks with no overtime.

Nobody is forcing you to work for them, except in the case of government.

You dumbasses can never learn.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 14:45 | 5168373 manofthenorth
manofthenorth's picture


"Every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other people, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving."
- Albert Einstein

As good as gospel

That being said, Joey and all corrupt skimmers , government ,banking, corporate, union or otherwise can eat shit and die.

A bunch of millionaires speaking to the "rights of labor" are like porn stars speaking of the virtues of abstinence

PREPOSTEROUS  !!!

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 19:13 | 5169227 Anusocracy
Anusocracy's picture

Good old Al forgot to give credit to the untold number of self-replicating molecules, viruses, single-celled organisms, multi-celled organisms, let alone the Big Bang and all that.

I hate sappy stupid comments like Al's.

Tue, 09/02/2014 - 07:54 | 5170443 doctorZH
doctorZH's picture

Of course, you are right.  Business and Wall Street have opposed every single piece of socially progressive legislation over time.  Busness supported slavery; then opposed child labor laws that limited weekly hourly restriction and created age limitations on young workers; then opposed civil rights laws; then opposed minimum wage laws; and then opposed unemployment insurance; opposed health care benefits; opposed vacations for workers and sick-day poliicies.

Biden is correct, the unions built the middle class.  But the Business Class does not want democracy, they want a totalitarian society run by money.  Unions were not perfect.  They were run by the Mafia eventually.  Of course, Wall Street is a white protestant mafia in suits and ties.  We need to understand that we need both unions and Wall Street if we want a creative, rich life.  But the power of each needs to be balanced.  Neither side can win.  Now, Wall Street has won.  And the Middle Class is declining into Debt Slaves.

Tue, 09/02/2014 - 07:54 | 5170444 doctorZH
doctorZH's picture

Of course, you are right.  Business and Wall Street have opposed every single piece of socially progressive legislation over time.  Busness supported slavery; then opposed child labor laws that limited weekly hourly restriction and created age limitations on young workers; then opposed civil rights laws; then opposed minimum wage laws; and then opposed unemployment insurance; opposed health care benefits; opposed vacations for workers and sick-day poliicies.

Biden is correct, the unions built the middle class.  But the Business Class does not want democracy, they want a totalitarian society run by money.  Unions were not perfect.  They were run by the Mafia eventually.  Of course, Wall Street is a white protestant mafia in suits and ties.  We need to understand that we need both unions and Wall Street if we want a creative, rich life.  But the power of each needs to be balanced.  Neither side can win.  Now, Wall Street has won.  And the Middle Class is declining into Debt Slaves.

Tue, 09/02/2014 - 07:55 | 5170446 doctorZH
doctorZH's picture

Of course, you are right.  Business and Wall Street have opposed every single piece of socially progressive legislation over time.  Busness supported slavery; then opposed child labor laws that limited weekly hourly restriction and created age limitations on young workers; then opposed civil rights laws; then opposed minimum wage laws; and then opposed unemployment insurance; opposed health care benefits; opposed vacations for workers and sick-day poliicies.

Biden is correct, the unions built the middle class.  But the Business Class does not want democracy, they want a totalitarian society run by money.  Unions were not perfect.  They were run by the Mafia eventually.  Of course, Wall Street is a white protestant mafia in suits and ties.  We need to understand that we need both unions and Wall Street if we want a creative, rich life.  But the power of each needs to be balanced.  Neither side can win.  Now, Wall Street has won.  And the Middle Class is declining into Debt Slaves.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 14:06 | 5168207 taketheredpill
taketheredpill's picture

Im the farthest thing from a raving socialist...but...im pretty sure that amoung the things organized labor fought for were things like the 5 day workweek and the 8 hour workday.

 

And when I say fought, I mean people died in protests. Nobody decided that a weekend would be a nice thing to give to workers. Nobody gave workers anything that they didnt fight for.

 

And now we get to see things taken back.

 

If you want your safe working conditions you can keep your safe working conditions. But we'll start outsourcing to countries where people get treated like donkeys.

Nice.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 17:39 | 5168926 cynicalskeptic
cynicalskeptic's picture

Unions helped rein in corporate excesses - limit workweeks, get overtime and benefits and so much more that we take for granted.  They often shed real blood doing so - look up the Colorado Labor Wars (just one of many instances).

HOWEVER you can also argue that many unions forgpt their purpose and ended up hurting their members to benefit union leadership.  Way too many instances of this  but that seems to happen to ANY 'organized' group if the members let it happen.  At the same time many good work rules have been overwhelmed by 'bad' ones that end up eventually hurtign both the employer and employee.  Failing to allow for technological progress has killed many unions and employers - think Linotype Operators.     WOrk rules taken to extremes benefit nobody - I worked in a place with 27 unions once.  One union opened a box, another took items OUT of the box.  WTF?   Plain old manual labor - that only moved things from A to B - were paid more than people that actually did work requiring thought and judgment.  Certain printing press operators made more than 90% of the company management.    This company was the largest employer in the Bronx for a century.  It - and its 1500 jobs - disappeared because it coould not produce goods at competitive prices under an absurd matrix of workrules with overpaid workers that cared nothing about quality or production.  The same paperhandling union here worked at newspapers.  I heard members talk of shooting paperclips at the continuous web of paper running through presses printing the paper - deliberately causing a work stoppage and costing 10 minutes of resetting the paper web - simply because they wanted a 'break'.   Mind you their job was simply to wait at the end of an automated process and take bundles of paper off the line and stack them on pallets.  Not hard or difficult and they were paid over $30.000 a year (in the 1980's - equivalent to $50,000 a year now).

On the other hand you had skilled workers at a place like Farberware making pots and pans - earnign a reasonable salary for work that required years to master (ever spin metal?) see their jobs disappear when the brand name was sold off and all production went to China.  Quality tanked.

The problem is that EVERYONE tneds to be as greedy as they can get away with.  Unfortunately employers usually have more leverage.   Nobody wants to be 'reasonable' because in everyone's own eyes 'reasonable' is what THEY want - not what the other guy wants.

We've seen a reversion in a move towards the cheapest possible labor costs- accompanied by the least possible benefits - to benefit companies in spite of an increased level of societal wealth.  Instead of sharing the increases in wealth and productivity we've had over the past 50 years the benefots have gone to a VERY small number of people at the top.   You could have more people making better salaries workign shorter hours with society as a whole better off but instead we're seeing a reversal of things.  Henry Ford created buyers for his products - and increased production - when he paid assembly line workers more to reduce turnover.   Now you have Walmart workers who can't live WITHOUT foodstamps while 7 Walkmart heirs are worth more than 40% of the whole US.

  It doesn't matter how cheap you sell things for if nobody is earning enough to buy things.

Tue, 09/02/2014 - 08:20 | 5170475 doctorZH
doctorZH's picture

Absolutely right. Both sides are imperfect, prone to corruption and autocracy.  The key is: we need both sides, but ntiether side to win absolutely.  Where did all the high-paying jobs in America go.  They went away with the unions.

Wall Street wants you to believe that unions are not good for you.  This is called advertising.  The less for workers, the more for the landlords and the ownership class.  We need to wake up.

As far competitng with the Third World for jobs that pay low wages, this is a Wall Street conception.  The global economy is a Wall Street conception.  Germany pays high wages and, up until the Russian War, was a thriving economy.  We need to look at everything more clearly now, including higher taxes, and massive fines for corporations that want the American market but don't want to pay American workers or American taxes.  The worm is turning.  Business is our servant, not our master.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 14:23 | 5168285 Freddie
Freddie's picture

9 mm.  Wrong tool.  Take Joe's advice and use a shotgun to blow up that f***king union billboard.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 13:24 | 5168040 weburke
weburke's picture

unions are mafia, your union dues do in fact go to support those guys.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 13:31 | 5168075 ArmyofOne
ArmyofOne's picture

I wonder if banks and corporations should be charged under the RICO Act?

Tue, 09/02/2014 - 08:23 | 5170483 doctorZH
doctorZH's picture

Yes.  Wall Street is mafia also.  Can both unions and Wall street be regulated?  Not without a strong will, a democracy, and a middle class.  No middle class, no democracy.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 15:58 | 5168612 de3de8
de3de8's picture

Anybody who thinks the unions of then are remotely the same as unions now..........

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 12:51 | 5167919 BurningFuld
BurningFuld's picture

Guess not many people want to hear a funeral speech.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 12:49 | 5167917 Millivanilli
Millivanilli's picture

Without unions the individual does not have bargaining power.   

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 13:14 | 5168001 SumTing Wong
SumTing Wong's picture

Without skills, the individual doesn't have bargaining power. I left my last job because they wouldn't bargain. I'm now making 40% more money in a different place. I don't need some gangster doing collective bargaining for me. I've got the big boy boxer shorts on, and I can do it myself. Collective bargaining is for those who don't have the skills to be in enough demand that the next person crossing the border can't take their place. 

Tell me I'm wrong. Don't use any profanity, and try to use full sentences.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 13:39 | 5168078 Millivanilli
Millivanilli's picture

Is that why programmers are watching their wages plummet?  Their lack of skills? Or is it because corporations were given tax breaks to outsource labor to india and a billion + worker supply?

 

You've got your big boy pants on, eh?   Ever try to step up to the boss after your wife got pregnant and as your youngest child fights leukemia?  Nah, didn't think so.

 

 

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 13:43 | 5168121 TrustbutVerify
TrustbutVerify's picture

Milli,

Where was the clothing you are wearing made?  Put your money where you piehole is. 

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 13:53 | 5168172 Millivanilli
Millivanilli's picture

Yeah, I couldn't cloth myself with out sweatshops, which is my point, dildo.  I hope those fucking people organize and get a working wage.

 

 

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 13:58 | 5168186 A Nanny Moose
A Nanny Moose's picture

Is that why programmers are watching their wages plummet?  Their lack of skills?

Supply and demand.

Or is it because corporations were given tax breaks to outsource labor to india and a billion + worker supply?

This is the result of Demockracy. Read it and weap. Government created the corporation. Government favors the corporation. IF you don't like how you are being treated, become a corporation.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 14:32 | 5168309 ArmyofOne
ArmyofOne's picture

So when corporations working in concert to artifically drive down wages that's not supply and demand its coporations acting like capitalist mafia thugs.

 

Suit Reveals Alleged Silicon Valley Anti-Poaching Scheme

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2399555,00.asp

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 14:49 | 5168388 daemon
daemon's picture

Suit Reveals Alleged Silicon Valley Anti-Poaching Scheme  "

All markets are rigged... even the labor market.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 14:58 | 5168414 jballz
jballz's picture

 

Thanks for posting that link, anyone looking close will be somewhat mortified that these guys are the very same who have our whole lives data formatted into their files. Total coollusion and not even meaningful in financial terms given what those companies can afford to pay, just powertripping because they can, totally illegal as well as anti-free market and immoral.

Imagine how they must play politics. 

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 16:15 | 5168657 James_Cole
James_Cole's picture

http://pando.com/2014/01/23/the-techtopus-how-silicon-valleys-most-celeb...

That's another article covering the same material (but better!).

filed on behalf of over 100,000 tech employees whose wages were artificially lowered — an estimated $9 billion effectively stolen by the high-flying companies from their workers to pad company earnings 

Anyway, the ongoing:

http://recode.net/2014/08/08/judge-rejects-324-5-million-settlement-over...

Four Silicon Valley companies including Apple and Google failed to persuade a U.S. judge to sign off on a $324.5 million settlement to resolve a lawsuit by tech workers

This is how companies treat the most exclusive workers..

Or yeah, do what all the geniuses on here do "work for yourself" lol. Very realistic for 120m people!

Pretty much you can overlay a chart of the rise and fall of american labour unions with the rise and fall of the middle class. But that's all the past, now my pitch for the future:

I'mma gunna open my own lab, just need 100M$ to start, fuck business loans, anyone got some silver?

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 14:26 | 5168293 Freddie
Freddie's picture

The good programmers that I know are getting top dollar.  They stay on top of the newest technology.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 16:16 | 5168662 James_Cole
James_Cole's picture

Stop playin' freddie, you don't know any top programmers. 

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 13:35 | 5168086 ArmyofOne
ArmyofOne's picture

"Skills" is the fallacy of your argument.  Its about wealth derived by labor and how its shared amoung those who make it.  Collective bargaining isn't just about payment based on skills its about gaining a larger portion of the wealth labor creates placed into there paychecks.  

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 15:59 | 5168616 de3de8
de3de8's picture

ST Wong
You are correct

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 13:12 | 5167994 NoPantsSpongeBob
NoPantsSpongeBob's picture

Say what you want about Biden, but I thoroughly enjoyed watching him destroy that cowlicked troll Paul Ryan.

 

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 13:43 | 5168126 TrustbutVerify
TrustbutVerify's picture

Destroyed?  huh?

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 15:14 | 5168472 Blankenstein
Blankenstein's picture

Biden didn't destroy anyone.  He acted like a pompous ass and you bought into it hook, line and sinker.  If he had to speak about the economy without spouting rehearsed platitudes designed to fool the sheep, he would be at a loss.  The man is an idiot whose overconfidence is mistaken for intelligence by the herd.   

Maybe he could call his good friend John Corzine again to help.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buRO9TSlScQ

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 13:34 | 5168091 Lumberjack
Lumberjack's picture

Why is the Market Basket issue so important?

A: they were Non Union and WON.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2014/08/28/vennochi/yGEFtx9d60vZgHUlC...

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 14:02 | 5168198 Stuck on Zero
Stuck on Zero's picture

I was under the impression that Henry Ford built the Middle Class by paying decent wages.

 

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 14:19 | 5168266 Professorlocknload
Professorlocknload's picture

Henry also figured out a few things about productivity through mass production.

If he had gone into Buggy Whips, his success might have been more limited?

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 15:28 | 5168516 bh2
bh2's picture

In the modern era, he'd have been competing against subsidized, unionized buggy-whip manufacturers having powerful congress-critters in their pocket, bought and paid for.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 17:00 | 5168790 duo
duo's picture

and massive tarrifs on imported manufactured goods, especially cars.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 12:24 | 5167800 I am more equal...
I am more equal than others's picture

 

 

Destruction precedes creation.

The destruction process of our economic and political system is on-going and will be painful. 

Obama is the accelerator.  Biden is the fuzzy dice hanging off the mirror.

Republican are the breaks.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 12:52 | 5167825 Escrava Isaura
Escrava Isaura's picture

I am more equal...,

Meaningless jargon!

Republicans and Democrats are basically manifestation of the same thing.

Finite planet, that’s the main reason.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 12:48 | 5167905 Renewable Life
Renewable Life's picture

Another completely irrelevant, out of touch, delusional statement by a completely irrelevant, out of touch, delusional politician!!!

If we weren't completely brainwashed and historyless in America at this point, such a statement would have been met with this follow up.......

"Yes Mr Biden, but those unions in the early 20th century existed in an environment of non globalism and big government de-centralization, where 80+% of American manufacturing along with every other means of economic production, mostly remained owned by Americans inside American borders!! How in the hell, does your statement make any sense or have any relevance in the world of 2014, where the exact opposite conditions currently exist"???

I would expect the pause would be quit extended, before "next question"

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 13:04 | 5167962 CheapBastard
CheapBastard's picture

Bush and Barry have shipped more jobs overseas, and allowed more illegals as well as legal immigrants to flood our country [and steal union and non-union jobs,  mainly in the private sector] then in the previous 200 years.

 

It's all part of their global scheme of things to destroy the Middle Class on the road to forced serfdom.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 14:11 | 5168062 Escrava Isaura
Escrava Isaura's picture

CheapBastard,

Your statement is false.

The decline of America started in 1949.

In 1960's, more dominos felt in Asia and South America.

In 1970's, the US was already bankrupted.

In 1980's, even running the highest debt to GDP EVER, and having the Petrodollar, the impoverishment and degradation, inequality, homelessness, destruction of family values, hunger, and other values of contemporary "conservatism" started rising in America, as well as in Britain.

All got masked by dot.com bubble in the 1990’s. And the housing bubble in the 2000’s.

2008 was the first shock. Now, we’re in an exponential moment in the crisis.

It only gets worse from here, I am sorry to say.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 15:39 | 5168553 bh2
bh2's picture

Ever-accelerating national "investment" in perpetual war always ends in tears. We reap what we sow.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 17:53 | 5168979 cynicalskeptic
cynicalskeptic's picture

Endless pursuit of the cheapest possible labor - ship jobs (and factories) overseas to avoid labor, safety and pollution laws or bring in cheap labor (legally or illegally) if you can't move the jobs.  Illegals for things lime meatpacking and construction and H1B's for programming.

It all comes down to a fundamental issue.  Do you want 'money' to be a store of value for EXPENDED LABOR or will you allow 'money' to be some abstract thing that derives value ONLY from government edict, something thts can be created at will?   

"Money' used to represent some kind of 'added value' (mining ore, smelting metal, making something out of that metal, growing grain, milling flour, baking bread, serving that bread in a restaurant) - all of which required the expenditure of labor.

If no labor is exerted and 'money' can be created out of thin air, you devale ALL 'money' - with those farthest from the source of issuance (workers) losing the most value.  Those closest to the creation of 'money' (government, banks, government contractors) can still profit greatly at the expense of those farthest away - actual workers.

'Free trade' agreements - pushed by BOTH political parties - have been the death of the US (and all western) middle classes.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PQrz8F0dBI

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 12:47 | 5167835 Escrava Isaura
Escrava Isaura's picture

casey13

We are all destroying!

One barrel of oil, priced at just over $100 boasts 5,700,000 BTUs or work potential of 1700kWhs. At an average of .60 kWh per work day, to generate this amount of ‘labor’, an average human would have to work 2833 days, or 11 working years. At the average hourly US wage rate, this is almost $500,000 of labor can be substituted by the latent energy in one barrel of oil that costs us $100. Unbeknownst to most stock and bond researchers on Wall Street, this is the real ‘Trade’.— Nate Hagens

http://www.themonkeytrap.us/twenty-important-concepts-i-wasnt-taught-in-...


Mon, 09/01/2014 - 14:13 | 5168234 Lumberjack
Lumberjack's picture

An olympic cyclist puts out 200 watts at best.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 14:33 | 5168322 MrButtoMcFarty
MrButtoMcFarty's picture

per second

per min

per hour

per year

per decade

?

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 16:13 | 5168645 Escrava Isaura
Escrava Isaura's picture

Per hour!

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 12:37 | 5167860 TheFourthStooge-ing
TheFourthStooge-ing's picture

.

Regardless of who built it we all know who is destroying it.

"Unions did, in fact, build the middle-class, which built The United States of America as we know it. This has been allowed to go on for far too long, and nobody has done anything about it. I'm here to tell you today that this administration is stepping up to the plate and saying 'no more'. It's time to put an end to it; that's what the people elected us to do, and that's what we're going to do, with or without the support of the congress."
-- 'Uncle Joe' Biden

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 12:23 | 5167793 SafelyGraze
SafelyGraze's picture

rather than having a nation chiefly populated by subsistence farmers throughout the 1900s, the us borrowed from the future.

the people who would have otherwise been subsistence farmers in 2060 will instead be penniless, destitute, diseased, addicted, landless, unable to read, unable to grow food ..

but for a few generations, the wealth borrowed to finance warfighting and resource-extraction and manufacturing was sufficient to install the otherwise-subsistence-farmers into middle-class urban tax-cow paradise

it was a great ride

 

 

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 13:32 | 5167813 Escrava Isaura
Escrava Isaura's picture

Biden,

Cheap oil, global reserve currency, and debt... mainly.

 

But nice talk point to the misinformed mass, I must say!

 

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 13:44 | 5168127 zorba THE GREEK
zorba THE GREEK's picture

Joe Biden...A legend in his own mind.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 12:15 | 5167765 Duke of Earl
Duke of Earl's picture

Not true.  They've made a union between China and Russia.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 12:16 | 5167766 NoDebt
NoDebt's picture

Government unions is what they mean, Soul Glow.  Anything private sector is bad to them, even unions.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 12:19 | 5167779 Theta_Burn
Theta_Burn's picture

@ Soul Glow

I got news for you..

The unions themselves are the union busting regime

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 12:55 | 5167943 Soul Glow
Soul Glow's picture

Sure, unions mostly consist of yes men who have found a niche in the system, but the idea of forming a union in a corpratacracy is needed.  Otherwise workers would be trounced by the shareholders per cutting wages during stagnation of growth.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 18:48 | 5169172 Not My Real Name
Not My Real Name's picture

I'm an engineer who works in the R&D house of a corporation. Our machinists are union guys. When I need parts fabricated for a new product, I always take the work to a non-union machine shop outside the company because I know I'll always get the parts I need faster and cheaper than if I had it done in house -- and I know it will also be done right the first time. The union guys in my machine shop will never admit it, but their sorry work ethic and high rates are putting us out of business.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 13:00 | 5167959 rejected
rejected's picture

I dropped out of the union for that very reason. They are a useless money pit only concerned about their next big conference. AND THEN using dues to give to the parasites in government.OMG!

 

Obscene

 

R

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 14:08 | 5168218 Lumberjack
Lumberjack's picture

Yep. I was in a union IBEW in a northern state and then a union from Boston executed a hostile takeover of the other. Left us guys out in the cold two years later. I would never work union again.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 12:43 | 5167888 junction
junction's picture

Obummer Treasury Secretary Jack Lew broke the teaching assistant union when he was NYU executive vice president.  Those teaching assistants made under $30,000 a year, sometimes way under.  When Lew left for a higher paying job at CitiBank, NYU gave him severance pay of about $750,000, including writing off his home mortgage, which NYU financed.  Quit a job after under five years and get severance pay.  Good deal for Lew, not so for NYU students, who pay the highest tuition for a school that gives out the least scholarships. 

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 13:50 | 5167996 Hal n back
Hal n back's picture

my Dad was self employed in the small grocery business in Chicago in the  50's and 60's, He, my mother, my brother and I all worked there.

We were all forced to be union members  "or else".

 

Screw the unions. They are an entitlement program for the Union Bosses, paid for by the people they are supossed to help. In the meantime ho wmany union pensions are broke cause the union leaders did not give a shit and made the companie scave on what the union bosses knew was not affordable. And remeber we are a global society, so we compete with everybody selling without regulations and unions and benefits etc.

 

 

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 14:36 | 5168327 ArmyofOne
ArmyofOne's picture

How many homeowners, workers, and retiree's lost everything because they believed in the integity of our capitalist system?

 

Memories are short and narrow it seems.  Compared to the malfeasants on Wall St. unions are like kittens to mountian lions. 

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 14:55 | 5168403 DukeDog
DukeDog's picture

People believe what the media tells them they believe.
-- George Orwell

Things like hope and change and fundamental transformation and the collapse in housing prices was all the fault of the private sector and had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with government policies and sweet compensation packages for the politically connected (like Jack Lew and Franklin Raines) at places like Citi and Fannie and Freddie.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 13:20 | 5168021 rubiconsolutions
rubiconsolutions's picture

I don't have a problem with unions. Where I have a problem is with the fact that in some places you cannot opt out of joining a union in order to practice your trade. As an example, many years ago I was turned down for a job that I was well qualified for because I would not agree to join a union. If people want the right to unionize and petition employers for better benefits and wages, fine. Just don't punish those of us who don't wish to participate to join in order to secure employment. And that nonsense about non-union people riding union members coattails is rubbish. I will negotiate my own compensation without regard to what union members receive. 

Tue, 09/02/2014 - 01:12 | 5170125 tenpanhandle
tenpanhandle's picture

I have a problem with unions.  I have belonged to the laundry workers union, the teamsters union and the laborers union.  Without a doubt, I can say they are corrupt goverment vote gathering machines that operate on a purely quid pro quo basis with the democrat party to the detriment of the country as a whole.  Selfish greed is fostered amoung a thuggish base that allows no freedoms or fresh ideas, period.

 

The need and usefulness of unions are a thing of the past.  They no longer represent the workers.  They represent government incorporated.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 13:33 | 5168084 LetsGetPhysical
LetsGetPhysical's picture

.....and yet, these sucker union chumps support the Democrats who want to bring in illegals to take their jobs and lower their wages. The union motto should be "Made With Pride In America.....Just Not By Americans". 

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 14:26 | 5168291 Professorlocknload
Professorlocknload's picture

Yup, more "brothers" = more dues. No matter wages drop.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 12:12 | 5167745 Cognitive Dissonance
Cognitive Dissonance's picture

'Pandering' is the term to use here.

'Whore' might be another.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 12:51 | 5167922 Ignatius
Ignatius's picture

That Biden might actually give a shit about good jobs for Americans.

He serves the oligarchs and the oligarchs don't give a rat's ass.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 12:13 | 5167747 Iriestx
Iriestx's picture

You wanted that nigger to give you HOPE and CHANGE.  You got it.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 14:37 | 5168331 MrButtoMcFarty
MrButtoMcFarty's picture

TAUPE and CHANGE!

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 12:12 | 5167748 alexcojones
alexcojones's picture

Said Biden, who never worked a day in his life.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 13:29 | 5168066 1stepcloser
1stepcloser's picture

Sucking your wealth from you is hard work!

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 12:15 | 5167758 NoDebt
NoDebt's picture

Biden / Kerry 2016.  The best presidential ticket EVER (for comedic value)!

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 12:54 | 5167930 knukles
knukles's picture

At the rate we're going, another ticket like Romney/Ryan or Paul would lose to the Democrats again.
(not suggesting any preference in the R/B game, just sayin' that the R's are at war with their own true conservative/Libertarian base)
In fact, I'd go so far as to say that if the R's run Romney again (them's the polls and you all know how the politicians love polls) the R's will guarantee and Clinton presidency in spite of a better set up for the R's with Nobomba than the Dem's had post Bush
(again, not my preferences, just sayin' that's what it looks like out there)

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 13:01 | 5167960 NihilistZero
NihilistZero's picture

If the GOP fails to nominate Rand Paul they can NEVER, EVER, claim to have conservative principles again.  Furthermore the idiots in their party who voted down a Rand Paul presidency can come out of the closet as the corpratist, christian facist, sychophants of state power they truly are.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 13:32 | 5168083 knukles
knukles's picture

Absolutivestilvelyrightspotonbro

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 14:00 | 5168189 DukeDog
DukeDog's picture

Perhaps an outsider...Ben Carson?

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 14:40 | 5168348 MrButtoMcFarty
MrButtoMcFarty's picture

Dr Ben hates the 2nd Amendment.

Damn shame too....

Doom.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 14:41 | 5168355 MrButtoMcFarty
MrButtoMcFarty's picture

I know I'm preaching to the choir....

Bush=Clinton=Obama

GOP=DEM=INC

Nothing changes until K Street burns.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 13:20 | 5168017 FredFlintstone
FredFlintstone's picture

Trump/Palin 2016 or Kucinich/Trafficant 2016.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 13:29 | 5168063 1stepcloser
1stepcloser's picture

AIPAC\ISIS 2016

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 15:39 | 5168556 knukles
knukles's picture

me/myshadow 2016 or whenever

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 14:38 | 5168342 MrButtoMcFarty
MrButtoMcFarty's picture

Don't laugh too hard....if for some reason the Clintons take a pass on a return to the throne....Figure the odds on that....but still possible...

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 12:15 | 5167760 tradewithdave
tradewithdave's picture

Unions built that hairline.  Hair Club for Men union.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 12:15 | 5167764 Usura
Mon, 09/01/2014 - 12:17 | 5167775 eatthebanksters
eatthebanksters's picture

Mr. Biden, if you want a strong middle class then why do you allow the Fed to implement policy that destroys them?  Why do you suck up to the criminal running the TBTF banks?  You and your boss are great at talking out of both sides of your mouth while doing nothing except partying with your rich friends, playing gold and going on vacation.  I can't belive the American public is so stupid.  Actions speak so much louder than words, but it seems desparate and entitled Americans will settle for empty promises of free shit.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 12:30 | 5167823 TrustbutVerify
TrustbutVerify's picture

Or...to rebuild the USA we could simply buy US products, preferably non-union.  And, for the hot shots here...start manufacturing businesses in the US.  

Digging out of this hole won't be easy.  Though we knew we were sliding quickly into this hole 5-6 years ago - we've gone in the opposite direction that we should have.  

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 12:45 | 5167892 ArmyofOne
ArmyofOne's picture

You aught to check out the wages scales in the "Right To Work For Less" states vs those not in the same said states.  No matter what industy you compare its always less. 

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 13:18 | 5168010 DukeDog
DukeDog's picture

Not coincidentally, so is the cost of living.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 13:38 | 5168100 ArmyofOne
ArmyofOne's picture

A virtueless cycle in deed. 

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 14:05 | 5168204 DukeDog
DukeDog's picture

Yes, it's all relative. Rich is having all your wants satisfied. Too many were willing to use homes for ATMs or believed they could afford McMansions that would always appreciate...because they couldn't calibrate their wants, because they fell for materialism as a sign of richness, only to discover they were still extremely unhappy, in over their heads, and too stupid not to listen to dolts like Biden blaming their problems on someone else.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 14:38 | 5168341 ArmyofOne
ArmyofOne's picture

Or they where stampeded into a waste land of false beliefs perpetrated by our financial services industry and their government bagholders. 

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 14:45 | 5168370 DukeDog
DukeDog's picture

Exactly...blame some one else. There is no such thing as free will and individual responsibility.

My psychologist friend offers proof that liberalism is a mental disorder, the delusion that someone else will take care of you.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 14:55 | 5168410 ArmyofOne
ArmyofOne's picture

Choice are made from the options available.  See yield chasing.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 15:21 | 5168493 DukeDog
DukeDog's picture

So, for many their only choice was to cash out equity to go deeper in debt to piss away wealth on consumption, or to sign up for a mortgage they could never realistically hope to survive. Those choices?

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 12:52 | 5167932 Anusocracy
Anusocracy's picture

Or people could leave the animal world and abandon the ingroup-outgroup concept of nations.

No real human could support something as destructive.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 13:02 | 5167961 SamuelMaverick
SamuelMaverick's picture

I have an older friend in his late 70's who used to work in GE manufacturing , He was / is a skilled machinist - one of those guys that is super smart, can do , common sense kind of guys.  He was offered a buyout from GE when they started closing the production plants ( it was a take the offer or get fired deal ), and the offered to sell him all the machinery he used at his station in GE. He bought it all for almost nothing, and is still using all the machinery 20+ years later. The giant sized machine lathe and drill presses were all mfg in the 1920's, and are still running today. Ask him and his retired GE buddies about the Unions - not one of them has an anything good to say. 

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 13:07 | 5167976 rejected
rejected's picture

@Verify

That will require many laws, treaties and policies to be axed. As the corporations feed the Washington parasites that will not happen.............. peacably.

 

R

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 13:10 | 5167985 knukles
knukles's picture

Clinton, NAFTA and well.....
Ross Perot was right...
Hear that sucking sound?

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 12:34 | 5167855 Freddie
Freddie's picture

Biden and his sons are scum.  Who put him in power in Delaware?  Credit card companies.  Some of the biggest parasite's known to man.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 12:17 | 5167776 Seize Mars
Seize Mars's picture

Biden you lying traitorous scumbag. The only thing that "built America," or "built the American Middle Class" was property rights, sound money and the ability to start a small business with no fucking oversight or approval from shitbags like you.

All of which are GONE because of Rothschild agents such as yourself.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 12:17 | 5167777 adonisdemilo
adonisdemilo's picture

Fucking idiot.

The unions, especially the public sector parasites, have never, ever, built anything.

The twat is just looking to garner a few votes.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 12:33 | 5167843 XitSam
XitSam's picture

"... as we know it."

I submit that a significant portion of the current middle class is on government benefits.  Half of households have a person on some sort of government support.  And 47 million on food stamps.  And unions helped create this.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 12:57 | 5167950 Millivanilli
Millivanilli's picture

Look into the history of working Americans during the era of the Robber Barons. Unions have done a great deal of good for the American worker.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 13:33 | 5168085 WillyGroper
WillyGroper's picture

Till they jumped in bed with the corporate FSA.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 23:50 | 5169993 Seize Mars
Seize Mars's picture

Millivanilli

Yeah bullshit. Where did you learn that, government school?

Please do us all a favor before you post again, take a course at Mises.org and speare us the regurgitation of communist doctrine.

Tue, 09/02/2014 - 11:47 | 5171312 XitSam
XitSam's picture

In places for workers who had no ability to move and were stuck with debt from a company store and unsafe working conditions.  Unions have long since outlived their usefulness.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 13:07 | 5167977 Grimaldus
Grimaldus's picture

Hey wait a minute, unions have built some pretty good economic deserts. Western New York comes to mind....

Grimaldus

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 12:20 | 5167781 yochananmichael
yochananmichael's picture

unions built the shitmobile i once owned.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 14:41 | 5168347 ArmyofOne
ArmyofOne's picture

So unions desgined, procured parts, and directed workers to built shitmobiles?  That's quite a pass for management.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 14:48 | 5168380 DukeDog
DukeDog's picture

Especially a pass for union management that demanded ever higher wages and awesome pensions and health care for life, resulting in health insurance companies that happen to build cars.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 12:21 | 5167783 The Merovingian
The Merovingian's picture

2 more years of this fuck-stick and his teleprompter in chief side-kick ... holy crap ... we are so screwed ...

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 12:52 | 5167934 Freddie
Freddie's picture

Sadly or foolishly some Americans think that the 2014 or 2016 fake elections will change amerika's desecent into hell.  The govt is filled with evil scum including all branches of govt, military and judiciary,

Tue, 09/02/2014 - 01:27 | 5170157 tenpanhandle
tenpanhandle's picture

None the less, I am going to vote Republican because when we do decend into hell (inevitable either party) I want my guns with me.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 12:21 | 5167784 NOTW777
NOTW777's picture

what happened to "you didnt build that?"

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 12:25 | 5167805 TrustbutVerify
TrustbutVerify's picture

Biden is lying.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 12:31 | 5167828 Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill's picture

The moving lips are a sure tell.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 12:27 | 5167811 DaveA
DaveA's picture

Waiting for my train at an East-coast station, I read a series of posters recounting the decades-long struggle to unionize the negro railroad porters and bargain for better wages. According to the posters, this effort succeeded. I wanted to confirm this by asking the porters themselves, but I couldn't find any.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 12:53 | 5167938 Freddie
Freddie's picture

LOL!  Amtrak - if Obama ran a railroad.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 13:20 | 5168016 knukles
knukles's picture

Shut the fuck up, Freddie! 
Don't give him anymore ideas.
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE
It would be just like him, since everything else touched by this administration has gone to hell in flaming bags, that he'd turn exactly somewhere like that for a New Just and Diverse Venture....

Maybe the best thing any of us can do is start unending conversations about how great the weather is over Congressional CC way today....

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 12:27 | 5167814 analyzer_66
analyzer_66's picture

Fuck. You. Biden and your labor day pablum putrefaction.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 12:29 | 5167817 Racer
Racer's picture

Anything that comes out of Mr Imbecile Biden who spouts such moronic rubbish as 'you have to spend money to save from going bankrupt', is a waste of air

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 12:35 | 5167857 XitSam
XitSam's picture

It's all in how you look at it.  You have to spend someone else's money to save from going bankrupt.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 12:28 | 5167818 Government need...
Government needs you to pay taxes's picture

The only union Preezy seeks is when he hands out the free cigarettes to the FSA on election day.  He expects that union to last til most of his FSA gets through the polling process . . . 6 times each.  Then it's back to the project to impregnate another welfare momma to make Preezy another loyal subject.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 12:28 | 5167820 Pairadimes
Pairadimes's picture

Geebus. At some point, someone should have leaned over to Choo-Choo and said "you realize you are delivering these remarks in what is left of Detroit, don't you?"

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 12:29 | 5167822 working class dog
working class dog's picture

Union workers pay federal  income on thier labor, Corporatiions and Oligarths like Warren Buffett pay no taxes have no allegiance to anything but thier god which is money, I agree with the anger stated here, dump the money trust and go back to sound money, if its not too late. I will be paying rent to Shwartzmen and his Blackstone henchmen soon I fear.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 12:54 | 5167838 Son of Captain Nemo
Son of Captain Nemo's picture
Biden: "Unions Built The Middle Class In America"

And the Federal Government with the help of a "manufactured series of conflict(s)" and manipulated markets can take it away!...

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 12:32 | 5167839 Moccasin
Moccasin's picture

Biden and the Democrats ass kissing unions when the big unions have sold out their workers and are as limp as Obama's dick. Fuck Biden and the AFL/CIO sell outs.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 12:34 | 5167842 tawdzilla
tawdzilla's picture
"Unions Built The Middle Class In America"

"The middle class built America, despite the unions."  There, fixed it.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 12:46 | 5167895 ArmyofOne
ArmyofOne's picture

How do you fix ass-backwards?

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 12:33 | 5167845 USD Long
USD Long's picture

Typical rich man with a guilty conscious, stupid fuck never worked a day in his life, or ever made a payroll to benefit other workers or their families.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 12:33 | 5167848 1stepcloser
1stepcloser's picture

Senior Union workers are just like Government workers. Don't do shit, still get paid and never get fired

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 12:46 | 5167853 ArmyofOne
ArmyofOne's picture

Well it sure wasn't the fucking corporations.

 

Repeal the Taft Hartley Act and we'll see how many workers find unions irrelevant.

Mon, 09/01/2014 - 12:37 | 5167863 Peter Pan
Peter Pan's picture

The unions certainly did build up the middle class in America by extracting wages and benefits and retirement benefits that were unsustainable in the longer run although in the shorter term it sure felt good.

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