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Unions Are Not Capitalism
Submitted by James E. Miller via Mises Canada blog,
Labor unions are a dying breed. According to the Pew Research Center, union membership in America “is at its lowest level since the Great Depression.” In 1983, there were approximately 17.7 million union workers. Today, that number stands at 14.5 million, with every estimate showing a continued downward trajectory. Clearly, the Norma Raes of the world are going extinct.
But as Samuel Johnson quipped, one should never dismiss the triumph of hope over experience. In celebration of Labor Day, the leftie rag New Republic recently published an interview with labor strategist Rich Yeselson defending the role of unions in the U.S. As a labor organizer, Yeselson’s bias is on full display. Instead of giving an objective view of stagnating union membership, he obfuscates to boost his own profession.
When asked if unions are dead, Yeselson rightly says “no” while pointing out that millions of Americans are still active members. Unions not only retain fairly hefty membership, but also own valuable real estate in big cities and pension funds worth billions of dollars. Despite declining membership, there is still plenty of capital left over from organized labor’s heyday.
Fancy buildings and promised retirement benefits aren’t enough to reverse the downward trend however. Public opinion about unions is also on the decline. Between Volkswagen plant workers voting against joining the United Auto Workers and the confectionary company Hostess declaring bankruptcy to rid itself of unionized employees, there is a growing perception of greed directed at labor organizers. There is also the uncomforting fact that state and local governments – the industry most heavily unionized in the country – are underwater on their pension obligations. Even politicians are starting to face the truth: there is less money in government coffers than was promised. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie recently toured his state telling voters that pension funds “will go bankrupt if we don’t make significant changes to it.” He won’t be the last to break the bad news.
Yeselson plays stupid to this fiscal reality. Throughout the interview, he defends the legacy of unions with sophistry and economic inanity. Yeselson acknowledges that unions often try to “take the wage out of competition.” But, he asserts, this is not a problem. With locked-in wages, “the quality of the product, innovation, etc. are the ways that companies, ideally, compete.”
This is patent nonsense. Wages are an integral part of running a business. Management can’t determine costs without accounting for the price of labor. Competition in wages means business can attract the best and brightest workers. An industry without workers who compete for wages is stagnant, unable to innovate to its full capacity. For someone on the side of worker well-being, Yeselson doesn’t want to see business competing for employees by offering higher wages or more generous benefits.
The biggest whopper of the Yeselson interview comes when he asserts that unions are “inherently conservative institutions which historically developed parallel with the development of capitalism itself.“ Ezra Klein backs him up on this point by claiming “you’ll find unions pretty much everywhere you’ll find capitalism.” This is a classic mistake of correlation with causality. Just because the labor movement accelerated with American economic power during the twentieth century doesn’t mean it helped in the process. If anything, unionization inhibited the ability of the entrepreneurs to succeed. Yeselson says unions “are as much a part of capitalism as Henry Ford or Apple.” That’s also incorrect; Henry Ford and Steve Jobs created products for the marketplace. Unions don’t produce anything for consumers. They leech off the profits of business.
Yeselson even has the gall to say that unions are inherently capitalist because they “use contracts…to link their members to the fortunes of the companies they contract with.” Clearly, Yeselson needs to brush up on his common law. Contracts aren’t contracts when they have the implicit use of force at their backing. Business either chooses to bargain with unions by choice or by force. The National Labor Relations Act – passed at the height of the New Deal – compels some private U.S. companies to bargain with unionized employees. Yeselson tries to say that “contracts are not unilaterally imposed at gunpoint upon terrified managers” but “are bargained between two institutions who have both common and conflicting interests.” Again, why must management bargain to begin with? Why are there deliberations over wages and benefits?
With government acting as the muscle behind unions, there is no choice. Company owners must bargain or face the threat of fines or jail time. This isn’t an amicable relationship. It’s a thuggish shakedown. Is it any wonder why Jimmy Hoffa is such an intolerable brute?
Ayn Rand had unions pegged best when she declared their purpose has never been to empower the average worker. “Unions and trade associations,” she wrote, “are not directed against employers or the public but against the best among their own members.” The goal has never been about “raising the weak in any way whatever, but simply forcing the strong down to the level of the moron.”
Yeselson ends his futile attempt to defend unions by bringing out the classic trope: “Unions, as the old saying goes, the folks who brought you the weekend.” This is nothing but an elementary school myth. A bunch of greasy-haired petition-gatherers didn’t create the weekend. Capital accumulation and rising productivity make it possible for people to take off work at the end of the week. Otherwise, the drop in commercial activity would render a business unprofitable, and thus unable to keep the lights on. This has always been the great secret behind unionist fiction.
With economic growth still staggering, the decline of union membership can’t come soon enough. Freed from the demands of overpaid bargainers, innovation and productivity inevitably rise. Increasing numbers of Americans are migrating to states with less strenuous union laws. When given a choice, workers go where the money is; not where there’s tough talk about bargaining rights. Labor is important; business is important; and solidarity is important. They are all no doubt conservative principles worth maintaining. But the right of every man to choose for himself takes precedent over all. You can’t build without capital; just as you can’t organize without sovereign will. Unions violate the spirit of voluntary association by the very fact they have government-backing. Yeselson is lying to himself if he sees forced collective bargaining as a necessary component of capitalism. And he is doing workers a great disservice by encouraging the formation of unions.
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Yeah, this is going to be a good one. I think I'll crack a cold one and watch the fireworks.
Unions are the solution to exploitation by the elite.
Then, the union becomes the rebels. See Ukraine.
You missed it by --><-- that much.
Then the union becomes an instrument of the state.
Could fewer union members be a function of fewer union jobs, as manufacturing flees the US?
"as manufacturing flees the US?"
With all the help from Reagan's enormous manufacturing tax credits, breaks and outright subsidy....yeah...
I don't think that the word "flee" is appropriate....
....more like "pushed" and "paid for by taxpayers"....to hurt labor....
Is everyone here a Fascist? You all believe in NO law for Monopoly corporations....?
...because its done such a damn fine job in making the US 3rd World? Great!
Unions ARE capitalist. In order to make capitalism work, excess greed has to be curbed. Without limits on corporate powers, the USA is just a glitzier version of Bangladesh.
Yes, because violence and coercion are certainly capitalist...
Labor unions are a dying breed. According to the Pew Research Center, union membership in America “is at its lowest level since the Great Depression.”
TOO BAD the Bankers are not a dying breed also. Scum always manages to survive by being a parasite on the American corpse.
I'm pretty sure this whole thing is some sort of cyclic clown show. Let us liberate the money, then to the circus.
Bingo. Everyone is capitalist at heart. We go after money regardless of who controls it. If nobody controlled it, we'd all have to work for it. A novel idea.
Correction -- Unions WERE the solution to exploitation by the elite. The elite utterly destroyed them with globalization.
The elites have won. The people have nothing left but the rope and guillotine.
For once, you seem to be making good sense.
The American hostility towards organized labor is puzzling, because there is one objective advantage unions bring which even the right-wing (which likes to use liberty as its buzzword of choice) must acknowledge: That unions help to decentralize power away from corporate management and the 1%. This is very much to the benefit of ordinary citizens, and, by proxy, of democracy, transparancy and accountability.
Eirik, the "American hostility towards organized labour" is rooted in a very specific, unique and exceptional history of labour in America
mostly, when our US cousins talk about unions, they talk about civil servant's and "closed shop" unions. some of them are very well entrenched - they are survivors, after all - and others are very thuggish. very difficult to compare with europe
note how below ebworthen calls for "unions not run by the mob" (mob=mafia)
SEIOU
They are known for being violent and using openly vicious scare tactics, that is why Americans do not like Unions.
though you probably admit that the history of "union busters" in the US features plenty of openly vicious scaremongers, too
OK. A little background. My dad was a contractor with 350 employees. He hired union workers. He claimed to pay his non-union workers the highest wage in central New York. He won civic awards for hiring minorities and training them in the early 60s and then expressed remorse when the Feds got in the game and made it impossible to fire incompetent minorities. He eventually declared that from a pure cost bases, the Feds made it so hard to just incorporate minorities into (and out of if necessary) the work force that it was cost effective to minimize the numbers. (I'm not sure he ever acted on this analysis by excluding them, but he certainly didn't like the lost ability to shape his work force.) He was also President of the New York State Builder's Exchange, a non-paid position in which his primary task was negotiating union contracts (usually against some bent-nosed mafia guys).
Here is what I gleaned from a multitude of discussions over the years (one man's opinion and another's interpretation of it):
(1) The union laws were decidedly lopsidedly pro-union at the time (late 60's/early 70's for most of these discussions). It wasn't a fare fight. Management just kept caving.
(2) He was a Reagan republican by belief system (go figure). Slightly hazy recollection, but I bet he would be praising Reagan still for cracking the air controllers and causing an emotional shift in the country. Employers seemed to grow spines.
(3) When you have a strike everybody should lose. If that is not the case, then the laws are out of balance.
(4) And an important one for this debate, he was often bidding contracts that would not complete for years. Union contracts added price stability that allowed you to project out that far out.
Bottom line, he saw serious problems with labor unions and labor laws, but was not universally in opposition to unions.
My opinion: Anyone who says unions aren't capitalism is being extreme. The laws that provide them special powers, by contrast, can be seriously anti-captialism. I find it ironic that a putative libertarian opposes the right to organize.
There's my two cents.
Strength in numbers.
Libertarians don't mind if you organize, they DO mind if you coerce.
"(4) And an important one for this debate, he was often bidding contracts that would not complete for years. Union contracts added price stability that allowed you to project out that far out. "
That's a key point that many readers of this website should be able to latch onto. Perhaps if used properly, and without thuggish coersion, a union contract acts like a swap--allowing both sides to price out and hedge future labor.
Unions not run by the mob are needed.
Corporations are not individuals.
Lawyers + Bankers = Union.
Bailouts are not capitalism.
Neither are central banks.
Trade Unions and Guilds.
There was exactly one major union run by the mob and that ended decades ago.
Why do we not tolerate the ghost of mob run unions, but we do tolerate mob run corporations?
I don't think you have to go that far. Unions function as a bargaining agent and give employees a platform for negotiation. Collective bargaining stands in contrast to the employer to merely imposing their will on the employees. Mises Institute contends that this situtation is bad when the government does it to big business, but apparently it's good when corporations get to do it to the serfs.
I say yes: to those who only have three shorted brain cells awash in a sea of rotting gray matter, the act of negotiating is not capitalist.
P.S. I wonder which anti-human corporations fund the Mises Institute.
If you had even spent a few minutes of time reading some of Mises's work you would be aware that he was ANTI-Corporation.
If you must know, the Institute is supported by private donors. As a pledged member I am sure I can answer any questions you have.
Careful Elvis, you're making too much sense. You're hurting you reputation as a ridiculous troll.
What is your definition of a greedy person? Anybody with more talent and ambition than you?
Remind me again who signed NAFTA into law. Or how about The Financial Services Modernization act and the Commodity Futures Modernization act? Keep thinking in terms of red and blue low-brow.
Keeping posting this stupidity:
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/103-1993/h575
Democrats (House): Yes - 102 No - 156
Democrats (Senate): Yes - 27 No - 29
Irrelevant; maybe you should answer the questions that were asked. Does it skew your little red/blue indicator when someone suggests that U.S. Globalist Puppet #2 of 4, Clinton, signed the bills into law?
People are dense on here and act as if things don't change or time or that aren't clear 'black and white' examples. Go back and look at who voted against this and remember the'92 campaign. There were a couple of pro-labor, pro-US guys who ran from the Democratic side most notably Gephardt who initally was a strong contender but faded and was finished after Super Tuesday.
Ignorance of history on here is staggering.
I count 128 Demos and 175 GOP. 0bama would kill for that kind of vote.
Unions use state power thru the NLRB, so unions are fascist. You progressives are evil and insane parasites.
.
Unions are the #1 reason those jobs left America. Ok, that and mountains of taxes and regulations.
BALONEY. They ran away to get slave labor in Mexico and the Far East. Unions are the only tool the bottom 99.9% have to balance their end of the entire crrooked, broken system. The Koch's and Waltons won. They destroyed the tax base, and transformed the middle class into a huge pool of future indentured servants.
Double Baloney.
I'm, not part of the 1% (definately middle class) and I've never found the need for a union in my 25 years of employment.
If one applies themselves and strives to perform their job to the best of their ability, you'd be suprised how well you can do. Even in this eCONomy.
Koch's and Waltons = talking points.
Just wait, the globalization process is not halfway done yet.
Is it possible for someone in Bangalore to do your job? If the answer is no, you are not competing in the same field as some.
"Competition in wages means business can attract the best and brightest workers."
Or the cheapest workers. I for one look forward to $5 / day real income in competition with Nigerians, Bangalorians, etc.
+1 just for that ass.
Pretty sure the "#1 reason those jobs left America" was so that executives can give themselves a bigger bonus. Unions/Collective Bargining is needed, but not in its current corrupt form.
OT, but conspiracy theorists are going to shit themselves over this one. Fake cell phone towers are apparently intercepting cell phone calls and data across the US, bypassing encryption:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/mysterious-fake-cellphone-towers-intercept...
Forget that it's yahoo finance for a minute, that's just where I read it, the article didn't start with them.
For those who can't stand the suspense, here's the money shot of the article: "The towers seem to be in areas close to US miliary bases." But one of them is atop a Las Vegas casino, so...
I saw that article, if they are fake towers how do they route calls and data?
Ever notice the AFL-CIO union head is a board member of NED -
An organization that helps DESTROY unions and the working class - ala the Shock Doctrine -around the world whre unions begin to strengthen -
And there it is in a nutshell - the union leadership has been Bought Off - just as the Politician has been Bought Off.
But What organization has the ability to hold back the corporate/monopolist power and wealth used by said oligarch to Buy Off anyone or anything that gets in the way of another nickle of Monopolistic profits protected by the guv?
None that I can think of.
More for the top .001% and LESS for everyone else ought to work out real well.
We'll see.
The elite are in no fucking way beholden to low bid money issues or liquidated damage fees on construction projects, or simply to make a worthwhile profit.
Endless money stream grifters.. the public union kind.
The private unions? organized themselves right out of a job to China.
Unions served a purpose long ago, but then turned into and created a mindset of exactly what they fought against..
Yeah private unions organization was the reason that US move manufacturing and increasing other non-unionized white collars jobs to China. Some interesting comments on here but increasingly this blog has become a board of blathering parrots who repeat the same crap they are feed.
"Unions are the solution to exploitation by the elite."
"... meet the new boss, same as the old boss ..."
Unions are the priveledged elite who serve as the foot soldiers for the Dem. Oligarchs.
I have been to a union sponsored tribute to one of the biggest oligarchs, on the local fed board, and union all the way.
Unions are not capitalism but corporations are people. Orwell would be proud.
Unions aren't the solution, but they will continue
to be part of the problem...just like exploitation of labor
by the elite.
Unions may help bring the revolution by screwing up
government when they can no longer get their way.
The developing world is ripe for an international union movement. When
labor bands together to stop the flight to what ever state offers wage slaves, it will gain traction.
If you were in a fight for your life, your family, your community or your nation would you disarm unilaterally?
The individual citizen does not find himself in a world of laissez faire economics. Capitalism does not exist. Capital has long since conquered capitalism and replaced it with corporate socialism. And Capital has many, many weapons at it's disposal to accrue more gains. One of it's weapons is the government.
Unions are simply a weapon to counter-balance the tremendous advantages of Capital.
You can face that fact or you can extrapolate the last 30 years forward another 30 years and decide if that is the world you want your children and grand children to live in.
If not unions, then what? If not now, then when?
Unions for all.
Anyone who quotes Ayn Rand is a total asshole. Which is worse, bad unions or greedy billionaires? Miller should move to Communist China, where unions are not allowed.
"Anyone who quotes Ayn Rand is a total asshole."
I see your bet and double down....!
Anyone who quotes Ayn Rand is a total asshole, pig-fucking, pedophile, tranny...(and not a DOW Transport either...)
"Which is worse, bad unions or greedy billionaires?"
Can you see the false choice in that question? You're looking at two facets of the same stone.
Self interest?
All humans look to maximize their own profit to some degree. And there are some greedy power hungry assholes in any group.
Most union members perform a function or produce something. At this point capital seems to have moved away from goods and services to "banking and finance", aka fun with math, and rent collecting.
You think that billionaires could exist without .gov assistance and protection? Think again.
+100
Correct. W/o Big Gov, you'd see the wealth distribution follow a somewhat skewed Normal Distribution.
The extreme distribution we are seeing has everything to do with a totally corrupted and dysfunctional system.
Since there are no more Checks & Balances, no corrective or normalizing forces are present to counter this societal cancer, that will consume everything and all.
Were there ever checks and balances? The laws have always been written by oligarchs.
Unions arose to fight against corporate monoply and collusion. They became the beast they sought to fight.
Oh and, this article is total garbage in so many ways...
Ideologically simplistic (red vs blue), rhetorically inane and otherwise nauseatingly cliche.
I logged in to upvote you. I voted yes to join a Union in a right to work state. Management kept changing the work rules as it pleased them depending on who they wanted to reward and who they wanted to punish. The Union contract levelled the playing field. Both sides have to follow the rules now. There are a lot of bad things about Unions but most of those happen in closed shop states. Management and the Union are like two big dogs fighting each other. That way they both leave the little dogs alone and we get the work done.
They couldn't survive half an hour w/o gov't backing them up.
Yeah they would and they did in the late 19th century if use current dollar adjustments including Rockfeller, JP Morgan, Vanderbilt, and Carnegie to name a few. yes they did have some level of gov't protection even then.
junction, oh but unions are allowed in China. The Chinese government tells them exactly what they can and can't do. And if they disobey, the union 'leaders' end up in a ditch minus a kidney or lung (if they're lucky).
"Ayn Rand is a total asshole."
Is she a pig or a person? Here at Animal Farm we
don't see a difference.
I have so many things I could comment on, I literally don't know where to start. A good sign it's probably best to just sit and watch. Nah, I just GOTTA stir the pot. Just a little. So let's kick this off:
1. What is the stated purpose of a union?
2. Do they generally behave in a way that seems consistent with that purpose?
1. Extortion.
2. Yes.
Allow me to reposition the ladder to a better wall:
The relationship between American and German unions are completely different.
In the US it is a competitive and zero-sum paradigm of dividing the pie: "The more you get, the less I get."
In Germany it's a Partnership paradigm, where both cooperate to figure out how to "Make a bigger pie, so that each party gets an equitable share."
1. To gain a modicum of a living standard for otherwise vunerable people i.e., their members.
2. It works much better than "walking the line"
Public unions (opposed even by that old commie FDR) are parasites with a virtually unlimited host known as the taxpayer. This is why they are so insidious.
Private company unions are parasites that are limited only by their ability to kill the host through the host's bankruptcy or moving to a non-union venue.
Both types of unions believe firmly in extortion, but public unions have a bigger hammer with which to beat their host.
For a in-depth look at unions, read Shaddowbosses.
especially since there seems to be a lot of blue collar working on ZH.
There is no Capitalism, or you would have no Social Security, Medicare, central bank setting interest rates.
Capitalism, not yet tried.
I am a capitalist because I worked a flea market. I bought stuff in one location and moved it to another where I made a profit. Then the small dealers bought it from me and moved it to a store. In the end if it was good it was surrounded by track lighting and sold to an end user.
Of course there is capitalism and it's working right now just as it's supposed to work. For some strange reason (propaganda by their owners) the weaker minds equate capitalism with free markets when that is not the case at all. This is capitalism boys and girls. All those social programs fit right into capitalism in that the capitalists can shove off one more thing onto the public sector.
Sure, you have some utopian ideas about how capitalism is supposed to work and this isn't it because vin Mises, Hayek, Austrian Economic bullshit says... Who cares what utopian fantasy you want to wheel out. Welcome to reality. Deal with it.
Housing Bubble
Central bank lowers rates, banks loan to people who can't repay with liar loans.
Central bank raises rates, banks choke off credit.
Crash.
Wash, rinse repeat.
Housing Bubble 2
This will crash unless liar loans are brought back, they will because we are about to go to war again.
Capitalisim. LMAO!
Yes, because the people who own the central banks are communist, socialists or whatever not capitalists themselves. Sure seems like a lot of capitalist made a shitpile of money for themselves in those scams you mention.Or was it communists doing all those dirty deeds. You guys and your sacred cows will never find truth.
Once you have enough money and you know it can buy the government, power becomes the next part of the equation. Don't get too focused on your pet theories and emotionally charged terms like capitalism and communism to let it cloud see through the bullshit.
Oh, they are capitalists alright, socialism is just their weapon and cronyism is their business model. Make sense now?
That's at least closer to the truth than this libertarian fantasy porn these guys on here keep masterbating to every day.
You can call it socialism if you want, but it boils down to keeping the masses just fed and happy enough to not got apeshit on them and cause problems. By using their bought and paid for government enforcement arm to do the job they can keep the nitwits arguing over socialism, communism, free markets and capitalism and fighting each other while they run away with the spoils. Plus they can get the peons to pay for it.
Yep.
And the libertarians are the problem in this world how?
And the libertarians are the problem in this world how?
They enable the "conservatives" and other fascist sycophants by trumping an ideology that has never and will never come to exist as it is fundamentally incompatible with the human condition. Therefore 9many not all) libertarians are useful idiots for the fascist, globalist order.
The problem is that most humans are just talking animals.
Their behavior is that of animals, and the 'human condition' is one of an animal condition.
Hopefully someday you will understand that only stupid people would laud or wish continuance of the 'human' animal condition.
Four hundred million deaths by government in the 20th century. It's time to leave your savage 'human condition' for something better: freedom from it.
Yeah that's right blame the libertarians for what the central bankers are doing, because that makes perfect fucking sense...
Because the people above were bitching that we don't have real capitalism, just like libertarians do. Because it's never pure enough. If we would just listen to them and have the entire system be as pure as they say, we will reach Nirvana.
BTW, I've studied the shit out libertarianism and anarchism and I see no way to implement it, or even keep it if you could establish it. Not on a planet with 7 billion+ people. From all competent evidence to date it's nothing more than a utopian fantasy. In every modern instance where a government collapses or becomes impotent, a war lord, dictator or mafia-like oligarchs fill that void. Any evidence to the contrary beyond snide comments about me being a statist or lying about studying libertarianism in depth would be greatly appreciated.
Have you, in your studies, also noticed that it is only in USA that libertarianism is a right-wing Pro-'capitalism' ideology? In the rest of the educated World it's an ideology of 'demcratic socialism'...again USA elites have made a great piece of propaganda work...
Wtf? Do you even know what libertarianism is? A libertarian stands for individual freedom with as little government interference as possible. If you are a socialist who relies on government to extract money from other people to pay for your existence, you can not be a libertarian. You are thief. Capitalism is synonymous with libertarianism because it gives two parties the individual freedom to come to a mutually beneficial deal without the interference of government. Any other ideology has .gov involved in some for or another.
http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/the-anarchist-faq-editorial-colle...
I don't have the time to educate you. You only have to read the first couple of paragraphs...
If you don't like to read: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yxbeyn2xMQE
An excellent observation! That's one reason I find so much fault with the American brand of libertarianism: they love licking the nutsack of the wealthy.
You're correct, George. Most people start off with false premise that everyone is the same and acts out of kind consideration for their fellow man. It makes their 'calculation' easier. Consequently their "-ism" (pick one) is flawed from the get-go.
When you three get done with your progressive circle jerk, I've got a roll of super absorbent Bounty to clean up your mess.
Typical libertarian. Has a smart assed, non-funny comment, but cannot answer my actual question. This is why I write you guys off as just another utopian religion.
Yup. Any time I hear someone say they are a 'pure liberterian' or talk about pure capitalism I know I am going to hear a lot of BS that is a waste of time.
It all goes back to government as the cause of all the problems.
Society is designed by government for government and its cronies.
"Don't get too focused on your pet theories and emotionally charged terms like capitalism and communism to let it cloud see through the bullshit."
George, a rational "thinker".... +1
These "errand boys" here think their part of the 1% while they get fucked.....LOL!
Voted for Obama.
"These "errand boys" here think their part of the 1% while they get fucked.....LOL!"
If not yet, soon! They are just temporarily embarrassed billionaires. (with a nod to Steinbeck)
Uhm...I have no money. I am self employed, its day to day for me.
The good thing is I am free as you can be in America.
I bought my house at the bottom of the market, and sold my house at the bottom because it was dangerous!
So I traded a bad place for a better place. In 2.5 yrs it has gone up 50%
Nothing has changed, but more people wanted to buy because rates were so low.
I got the best of all worlds in CA, low rate 3.5% and low taxes with prop 13.
Rents up, I could get roomates and it would cover my mortgage so I won't eat cat food in future.
But when I wanted to buy a house in 2004 I opened a business instead, because I knew it was a bubble.
Lucky me or smart me, in any event I thank my luckystars for that decision. I can work till I die because
nobody can fire me. I also made friends with a Syrian banker he said to me "You know".....I got a loan when
no self employed person could.
Praise Allah the same God we know.
"Uhm...I have no money. I am self employed, its day to day for me."
No offense, but this isn't about you. The big players run this show and they game it to work them and if we can benefit from it or die from it in the process they don't really care at all. Such is capitalism as it works right here, right now. Sorry it doesn't run like the fairy tale story they sold it as.
Uh this is about me. I am an American trying to survive a government that wants me DEAD.
I also like your forum sliding hasbara , to move my comment off the front page.
fuck you asshole disinfo agent of the central banksters.
Are you really this simple? The comments move down the page and onto the next page due to people replying to the comments higher up the page. I am no disinfo agent. I seek honesty, truth and claity in everything...which is why I stir up the dogmatists here so easily.
Due to what you type, it is obvious that you are way out of your depth on this topic. You might want to dog paddle back to the shallower end of the pool and discuss Obama's fake birth certificate and government cameras in your bedroom watching you (because you are so important) with the other mental midgets.
Actually, it will be in auto loans next: http://www.cnbc.com/id/100612622
Don't bew fooled by the Bloomberg and other liberal-facist arguments that this does not exist.
Does power corrupt less than consensual trade chosen freely.
?
Is the belief that the State can someday protect the little guy a utopian dream?
And the Hasbara trolls come out when any post relates to the jew controlled economy, because that is how the Jews control the world ..........THE FEDERAL RESERVE!
Unions are the ridiculous notion that employees should dictate to the owners how to run their own company.
Yep. It's a by-product of those two mid-19th C business failures who wrote a book to justify their lack of success.
I wonder how a dues paying union member would react if I told him how to dispense his own assets?
They cannot see it, do not see it, do not care. To them it's not someone's money or property, it is something they are owed, entitled to, and then we are off to the races...
Unions guarantee they won't be hired by anyone but the giverment.
And they must be the right color to be hired.
I started reading the article and it starts with Labor Unions Are a Dying Breed. Sadly with govt workers it is not true.
The govt union workers are the worst. At least with industrial or consumer products you can decide to buy union or non-union. Local govt unionized workers or teachers? Send your kid to a private school and you still pay in your taxes.
ObamaCare will also be about unionizing healthcare through SEIU.
Lord forbid employers should have to negotiate terms with their own employees. That is, in fact, how the entire world works.
Obligatory LetThemEatRand anti-Mises jibberish in 5.....4.....3......2.....1...
I don't understand why people who don't like Austrian economics would frequent this blog.
Other than to troll...
I don't think LTER is who or what you think he is.
We know exactly who LTER is. She is a day-trader with history.
Public employee labor unions seem to be anything but a dying breed. As long as there are politicians willing to trade their votes for union support, and the number of those politicians seems endless, public employee labor unions will continue to exist, metastasize, and bankrupt the taxpayers whose taxes pay them.
Ha ha, exactly... see Chicago, Detroit, Illinois, everywhere in California....
You don't "see" anything, Dr. Dick...your head is up your ass...everyday....
What name did you use 4 weeks and 4 days ago?
And there you go with another "ass" reference.
Where did this retard Majestic 12 come from? Just from reading a few posts - I gather that he or she is a northern California liberl or just a Obama Govt Bot.
Like the clown in a Stephen King novel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsNEO4zqFZQ
You can find him in the gutter of Anytown, USA
"the taxpayers whose taxes pay them."
Oh, Einstein...do tell how "taxpayers" pay for unions.....????
BUT THE TAXPAYERS SURE PAY FOR JET SUBSIDIES AND OIL SUBSIDIES (LIKE THE ARMY, AF, NAVY, MARINES), FARM SUBSIDIES AND OLIGARCH SUBISIDIES.....
Don't try to "think"...its not pretty...
Ever heard of a teacher's union?
Too easy.
"Ever heard of a teacher's union?"
So, tell me what IRS Form number is the one where "tax payers" (as if you are one) "support" unions....?
What checkbox or schedule....or anything at all that shows direct tax money going to unions....you dolt, fucking child....?
Quit upvoting yourself. It's sad.
Fuck off, you ignorant pile of pigshit; I've seen better trolls on Yahoo Finance. Brainless fatherfuckers like you take the warm and fuzzy out of cunt.
I have seen some really bad commentators over the years, but you are by far one of the dumbest ones yet.
Ignore him.
Don't read him.
Don't vote him.
Just ignore him.
He'll go away.
Why? What's wrong with a debate?
Screaming names is not debate. It's childishness. He has not said one thing of substance.
....What's wrong with a debate?
Nothing at all.
But there's plenty wrong with distraction, thread jacking and outright horseshit propaganda. This is what trolls are made of.
Lies and half truths. That's all I see.
Someone please show me, exactly, where the the line of demarcation is with Government, Corporations and Unions both Public or Private.
They are the same. They are all there to fuck you over, in more ways than the Kama Sutra could even come up with. You are not in the club.
Unions collude with Corporations and Governments. Corporations and Governments collude through lobbies. Unions were intended to be the worker/employee lobby, but it hasn't been that way for a long, long time.
It's all top down. The best the average shleps like us can hope for is that they eventually eat themselves, but even that has less than lovely results for us.
I don't have a solution. I do know the problem.
Public unions you stupid fucking member of the 4 week and 4 day club.
Hey AssSmoke....
IF you pay any tax...which I am sure you don't....you pay for billionaires to steal from the central banking system....
but THAT is NOT what you are upset about....noooooooo....that's "cool", like your pierced-queer tat buds...
And the "time" a "profile" has been listed here is NOT the time a poster has been here....since the inception....
but you can see that i do not adhere to being "politically troll correct"...like you and many here......
@Majestic - you seem to talk about "ass" in most of your posts. Have you always been that way?
Shut the fuck up turd. You are not getting one over on anyone here, and you are not some magical sage that will change anyone's mind with your idiocy.
Ever notice how the govt has just about one holiday every month so govt workers get an extra day off?
LOL what a dumbass.
Labor unions are a dying breed
What a coincidence....so is the middle class.
This should be FUN!
Don't worry they'll double after the rebbolution!
It's always fun to let a fascist spew some phlegm now & then!
"It's always fun to let a fascist spew some phlegm now & then!"
...just before you gut their quaking bodies from asshole to earlobes....
...all that gooey goodness.... ;)
oooh, a lot of "-1"...are you all quaking? If you agree that "labor" has no place in the US...you should be....
A union should provide protection for the individual within the protection of the herd. Mess with me and mess with all my friends. Unions aren't like that though. I've been through 2 union drives here in central Ohio. One in a meat packing plant and another in a tool and die shop. Both got voted down. Simply put the product, union, just wan't offering much.
Usually the campaign strategy was, "The company sucks, the owners and managers are crooks. The are taking advantage of you." While there may be some truth in that, the greater truth is that the unions sucked, and the union big wigs are crooks and want to take advantage of you.
Unions need to change their product. People just aren't buying.
Amen Central Ohio.... meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
"Central Ohio"
Koch bros. planted Troll diatribe....
You haven't "worked" a fucking day in your life, you typist errand boy lackey...
Thus far I've read nothing but the ravings of a wild eyed lunatic coming from you. Best be careful, you're foaming at the mouth there. You might ruin your keyboard.
Obviously union proud. Any union member who suggests non union workers do not actually work is delusionally confused as the whole platform of unions is to imply that ALL workers not protected by unions are necessarily abused and overworked. I have never seen an overworked union member. They have rules!
Troll, troll, troll, troll, troll....how many "profiles" do you have....paid, anti-Constitution...fucking "TROLL"....
unions have done much good but to much of a good thing is unhealthy...when those they serve don't get a fucking raise neither should they...period...done with paying for their standard of living...while i can barely pay my f...ing property taxes...fuck shit fuck!!!!
"to much of a good thing is unhealthy"
I'll second that!
Guillotine the fucking 1%....
There is only 99% below them....that's all....
I think you may have a "consensus" with your wise call!
My forefathers had True Paradise in America for three hundred years before all the fag tyrants they had the balls to escape from caught up with us here in the last one hundred years.
You have a seriously fucked up understanding of American history if you think there were no Oligarchs fuckin the little people prior to the Fed.
True Paradise... seriously, wtf is wrong with you?
Unions only did some good in some nations.
Other nations have weekends, they had no labour movement.
Other nations have 8 for work, 8 for sleep, 8 for leisure, they had no labourmovement.
Other nations have paid holidays, they had no labour movement.
It is not axiomatic that unions are the only way a society reaches better work conditions.
Troll, troll, troll, troll, troll....how many "profiles" do you have....paid, anti-Constitution...fucking "TROLL"....
agreed.
If the unions would go a little high tech maybe they could survive and fit the needs of members. Right now the "Secret Scoring of America" is what denies people opportunities and if they went after that they could have a chance to do something decent. Although their work rules do protect people from some of the algorithmic atrocities out there in keeping the game fair, to a degree. This is the problem inequality with code hosing and it's all over the place.
http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/04/world-privacy-forum-report-scorin...
People believe proprietary math models to be accurate when you can't replicate them to see, biggest racket out there for banks, companies an so on.
I know I heard Biden and Obama talking up unions and it's a bit of a low tech solution that is not really even that for high tech issues. Those two have been living virtual for way too long. It scares me as I don't know how lost they are with an upcoming war situation.
I'm with the good quants saying we should be able to reverse engineer some of these models and see what's in there. We're code hosed everywhere from getting a car, a job, healthcare, you name it. Look at how health insurers used wall street style math models to fiddle with risk to get themselves an additional $70 billion over 5 years with Medicare advantage billing, and CMS just found it.
http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/08/cms-discovers-that-insurers-offer...
There's your wall street math modeling in the insurance business and many quants have left hedge funds and are over there now, so look what we get, fiddling with risk for profit, same old same old.
what the hell are you talking about ?
LOL! I think he thinks that hedge funds need to be unionized.