end of free speach signed into law by Obama

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A responsible employer pays. Pays all the social programs that we should have. Insurance, dental, vacation, retirement, blah, blah. Someone has to do it because the poor guys that are lifetime employees aren't getting anything socked away and forbid if something goes wrong with their health.

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Right, but unions originated because of irresponsible employers and those employers are less responsible now than ever. Those firefighters that don't want to roll on a call are mimicking the higher-ups because they know those guys get lots of money for virtually nothing. You can't blame them for wanting a better wage than a suit because the suit takes NO risk. Firefighters are injured and die of heart attacks on the job frequently... never mind buildings falling on them... but you know that.

What I'm saying is, if you risk physical harm as part of your occupation... you should be paid waaaaay better than some suit in an office, I don't care where he went to college.
This is why I rant about tree guys and groundies being paid crap. So you make 50K a year in tree work, you could be killed OTJ tomorrow. That guy making a mil-five salary plus 15 mil in preferred stock annually doesn't risk SHITE. The worst thing that will happen to them on the job is, they get forced to resign with a golden parachute... yeah, they EARN that money though, right? Three martini lunches take their toll, so does the hot sun on the golf course... and then there's the repetitive stress injury... no, wait, that's the secretary who is also paid shite.

Tom is right, you can't paint any group with a broad brush and be 100% right... but in the case of big corporate CEOs, I'm betting the accuracy of my statements is over 97%.

Here's a nice controversial statement... eliminate publicly traded stock and limit private stock to FT employees only, leave the company, sell your stock.
Right now CEOs have a single incentive... get the maximum amount of money possible into the hands of the shareholders.
That works against everything democracy and capitalism sought to make possible. The incentive should be to serve customers and enrich employees... you know, the ones that actually do the work that creates tangible value... the ones that have demonstrated loyalty by showing up on time every day for decades (people used to do that) and taking the good with the bad. Shareholders jump ship whenever sailing gets tough, they have ZERO loyalty to a stock... it's chattel to them, not a livelihood for a family. The stock market created the robber barons as they created the stock market. Look at history, when have common people ever truly benefited from a bull market. the misery index goes UP during bull markets, not down.

Blasphemy you say? Capitalism doesn't include stock trading, it was a fabrication of the early robber barons. Capitalism is about everybody owning their own stuff and taking responsibility for it. It's not about everybody being a millionaire.

And I forgot, Taxes aren't punishment... they are repayment for shared resources consumed. Big consumers owe big payments. Make all the money you want... but when you do, you owe a significant portion to the web of people and resources that made it possible.

GE burns through US resources like a fire through pinion pine. They owe us BIG.
 
In order to thrive, people must have work to perform sufficient to their abilities, regardless of who they are, however smart or stupid they may or may not be.

Full employment is entirely possible if the govt views you as a valuable asset worth a generous fair helping hand to get you started on the road to self sufficiency and the skills necessary to become productive tax paying citizens of the country in question.

What do you think a father or mother would resort to before watching their children go hungry?

Let unemployment get higher and learn your grim lesson yet again for the thousandth time you would be kings of greed and pomposity.

If govt can't regulate and police corporations of tremendous wealth and power, then who will my fellow citizens?

Note that Exxon Mobil can now selectively afford to fund college indoctrination courses for students as if they Exxon were themselves a benign govt, rather than greedy gougers getting filthy rich by over charging us for gas by 100% just like the Bush administration/Halliburton planned back in 2001 at the so called "Energy Taskforce Meetings".

They get filthy stinkin rich, by gouging you, then use their ill gotten gains sponsoring commercials to convince you they're not greedy immoral unethical crooks gettin fatter as our country gets emaciated and skeletal.

We put a tiger in our tank alright. And it's eating us inside out!

When you can double the price of something as vital as oil in an up or down market at will? Well then, you've got real power to buy govt with.

jomoco
 
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Actors in the whitehouse, just like J C Fogerty predicted?



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Grandpa was a carpenter
He built houses stores and banks
Chain smoked Camel cigarettes
And hammered nails in planks
He was level on the level
And shaved even every door
And voted for Eisenhower
'Cause Lincoln won the war.

---John Prine---Grandpa was a Carpenter

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nice!
 
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What are you whinin bout Frax? Your living standard exceeds ours down huare considerably last time I checked!

I'm all for lettin the Canadian standards of life lead the charge of the light brigade love.

Lead on Madmoiselle!

PS, The Internet may not be true "magic" but, it's purtee dang close.

jomoco
grin.gif


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I'm not whining and I'm not talking about Canada. I'm talking about the neocon focus on valuable countries where people live lifestyles with differing values or religions.

Yeah, our economy is smoking hot now. Its a great time to be in Canada. Our freedoms are greater than yours and our costs of living are about the same as far as I can tell, if you roll up everything together...that is for the average working person, not the uber-rich. Actually, I think we are further ahead.

We have social protections and programs that make sense and mostly work but aren't way out extreme like in Europe. You guys use the 'S' word but you get so much misinformation and scare messaging from your goverments, especially Republicans.

And the Internet definitely is magic. Life-changing really. For me.
 
Yeah... the S-word... my next rant.

Americans freak out at the word Socialism as though it means communism... they need to go back the high school civics. Just because a communist super power was name the USSR with one of those S's being 'Socialist' doesn't mean socialism is communism. It takes a pretty simple minded person to make that correlation and then uphold socialism as evil and godless and whatever else is bad.

We are socialists, period. We live in a cooperative society... supposedly. Sharing roads is socialist, sharing anything is socialist. Republicans don't like sharing though so they rant against socialism.

They fail to grasp that having a social safety net is necessary when companies lay off 30,000 people in a single go. Nobody wants to be in a safety net... the fact that we have people in the net all the time is a clear indicator of how current policy fails to support job creation and retention... Republican policy.

Why am I slamming on republicans with every breath? Because they deserve it. They aren't conservative, they will spend other people's money in a heartbeat... it's their own money they want to conserve. They don't want less government, they want government for everybody BUT them. They want less regulation for corps and more for people... that's precisely 180 degrees in the wrong direction. Working people and poor people didn't trash the economy, rich, greedy assholes did. Hearing republicans blame home buyers for the recession was so blatantly hypocritical it was staggering. As if working class people shouldn't own homes because they don't have 20% in reserve. Corps leverage themselves waaaaay more than any home buyer ever did. It was the banks who made loans without sufficient capital that required the biggest bailout in history... no citizens are getting that kind of relief.

Socialism is part of civilization, you can't have a country without socialism because a country is socialist by definition.
 
Passionate discourse.

You don't see the safety net as a problem? I am constantly reminded of (or my perception of anyway) that age old expression: Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach him to fish he eats for a lifetime. Not the firing type, but some people just are losers and erode what you work for. Wait, those are the people that net is for. I have an often misplaced faith in my fellow man. WIIFM is such a shiity driver for a man!

The problem is in implementation of the socialism. Some countries have figured out better how to make it work than others. When the evil few are tailoring the socialisms, it goes wrong quick. This is our particular system.

Since partisan has entered I have to put this on the table:

Republican is "conservative government" supposedly. Conservative with respect to governmental interference in MY operation. For some reason this plank works for me. I am responsible and will take care of my business to the best of my ability whether you regulate me or not. Now to create the coffin with a few more planks... Abortion you can't do. You must be religious to be in our party. Gays are evil (but nothing wrong with a little fun when the door is closed). Art is wrong place to fund. If a corp. makes a few bad decisions, provide as much help as they need. Go on???

Democrat is the "liberal" party. Apply government to fix things we do not feel the individual can fix. OK. Agreed. Create the safety net as a means to get those that fall back on their feet (Q: Why did they fall?). Only been fired once in my life. Had other problems that I managed to dust myself off with pretty much no help (THE help came from an individual). I did it. Why do others have such a hard time? There are differences between people. Evenly apply help because of those differences? Refer to Give a man a fish... AND make me pay for the fish!

Mine should be Halibut please at $35/lb. I like the government cheese too :)! Having much of it when I was a kid ;)

Personality of the two party members jack with my simple mind. Republicans tend to be pretty generous with help on a personal level. Democrats tend not to be. Makes really no sense to me and is a really super broad (probably too much so)generalization.

Behind closed doors, both parties (and now a third) act pretty much the same. Give me money and I will write or vote how you wish. WRONG ANSWER!!!

For me an incumbent will NEVER get a vote! Ever! Too darn many "friends". I almost want to vote for the guy that I never heard of or has made himself more invisible. I interpret that to mean he has taken less money from interests.

I would NEVER base a vote on gender OR race. EVER! Pretty silly how race comes up all the time with our president! Both sides do it.

If you open your mouth and say something STUPID, no vote for you. O shite, no one to vote for.



As I was driving home at 2130 from a long day of doing an odd small job myself and working trying to find work for my guys to do so there is enough to pay the bills (including the 55% payroll), I was glimpsing at the responses. The risk driver for equal pay thought really stuck in my head. You know that the guys that are behind the evil corps have similar personality traits to climbers. The CTSP training, at the end of the day, sums up that people take a personal level of risk. A level which cannot be easily modified. Some just do not take risk, others do. Why should that differentiate pay?

IMO Hard application of your talents should dictate your pay. Not so much who is taking the risk. It is a risk to manage a company, one taken too lighly by too many. What is the "equitable" ratio of pay? 2:1, 6:1, 100:1?

The worker looks at the check for the job and thinks to himself: Wow, I only get 5%. WTF? The ratio would then be 20:1? That doesn't seem very fair. That greedy SOB!!!

5% is WIIFM???

Do you think he thinks about the other 2 people on the crew? The overhead on the wage? The 30 minutes of time (of theft really) he spent on the clock checking facebook status? The raping by the insurance company/lawyer complex? The raping by the fuel providers? The raping by the banks? The raping by the fed and state? The time that is invested in locating, writing, managing, and closing of the contract? The selection/variety of the finer tools?

Puhlease don't tell me about how underpaid people are until you place them on the other side of the table signing the checks. I have put them in charge for a day or even a few days. The company would last about 60 days until it was reposessed. What is it about 90% of businesses fail in the first 2 years?

An alienated geographic American. Genes from Europe mostly, Y chromosome containing.
 
Another lengthy post for which I will not be offended if no one reads.

Getting fired and getting laid off are different.

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Puhlease don't tell me about how underpaid people are until you place them on the other side of the table signing the checks. I have put them in charge for a day or even a few days. The company would last about 60 days until it was reposessed. What is it about 90% of businesses fail in the first 2 years?

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If they don't OWN the business, don't expect them to be as passionate as you, they were doing you a favor by running your business without the benefit of owning it... and that benefit is significantly more than financial.

People fall into the net because companies have NO loyalty. If the can make a few extra bucks by laying you off, you're gone. HP is laying off ~30,000 people this week... you think they will all go get jobs at McDonalds or something?

Try being ACTUALLY poor sometime.
Let's say you got laid off (because most people work for someone else, which is stupid, but I digress)... let's just pretend you got laid off. You can't find an equivalent job because 29,999 people also are looking for jobs that morning. You do what every republican says do, you take a FT job at Home Depot or Wal-mart or something a kid should be doing and get paid way less than it takes to pay the bills.

Let's see, you're working FT now but you have to spend more time compensating for lack of money, you do odd jobs, you cook unprepared foods... you basically squander any time you could spend building a business or looking for a decent paying job. Never mind that your quality of life is absolutely crushing, you're either working or exhausted, always stressed, always dreading phone calls, but nothing else.
BTW, you read in the paper that morning that Meg Whitman, CEO of HP got a 25M bonus because she did such a bang up job of pumping HP's stock up with the layoffs.

...But still, miraculously you find another job in your field... at 2/3 the pay... 75 miles from home. Companies don't have to pay what you're worth, they only have to pay what you will accept. According the republicans, any job is better than no job so, you do it.

You never used the safety net, good for you. And now, by no fault of your own, you are deeper in debt with nothing to show for it. You make significantly less money and you drive 3-4 hours a day, every day in your Volvo at 22 mpg ($25 a day just to commute, daycare for the kids is out of the question) and consequently you have no energy left when you go to that second miserable job you kept, just in case.
BTW, that morning in the paper you read that Lee R. Raymond, CEO of exxon was paid $35M in direct compensation for doing such a bang up job enriching exxon's shareholders.

So anyway, you're working again, you're in your prime earning years, your two kids will be ready for college in a few years, you gotta get some money together because a college education now costs as much as a house. You're lucky to have a house BTW, but it just appraised at $43,000 and you owe $110,000.

Where in this picture did you do anything wrong or loser-like. Was it just bad luck? Prolly not since 3/4 of the middle class is in the same boat. Your quality of life is degrading, and so will your children's.



My point, most men know how to fish, they don't need lessons... they need opportunities. Having your income and/or re-education subsidized while you get back on your feet would allow you to boostrap your self, get a better job or start a small business without losing all the ground you spent a lifetime gaining.

The social safety net is necessary because we have such screwed up financial incentives. Nobody likes the net, it sucks, it's not a happy place. Business should provide the net but they don't... they have us mostly paying for our own. When someone falls into the net, that's a failure of business, not the individual.

I know the system is abused utterly by a large group of people... and that pisses republicans off because they think that only THEY should be allowed to mooch from the system via corporate subsidies and tax relief. Only the wealthiest in this country are deserving of the free money.

I love it when people bitch about single mom's having babies to fatten their welfare checks, hell, they might get $300 a month for that extra kid! Man are they ever abusing the system! When a company changes it's status to 'minority owned' (since the owner made his wife the president on paper even though she's a Lab Manager somewhere) so they could get millions in government contracts, that's just business right? ...not gaming the system.

The poor simply have no power to affect our economy. Blaming them for the results of corporate and political greed is so completely wrong you can't put it into words. The poor are called poor for a reason... their lives suck! They aren't living the life, they aren't even living a little bit, they get no vacation, don't eat out, can't send their kids to college and never own a vehicle. Can we just lay the hell off of them for a bit, they aren't a factor here.

Look at the money volume... poor people can't possibly be responsible for trillions in national debt... but now banks? How much money did we give banks? How much did they make off that money we gave them before paying it back?... did any of them have to go on a diet of top ramen and peanut butter? Did they have their frikkin' water cut off? Let's be realistic and go after the big fish first.
 
Saying republicans dont like sharing anything period is a total load of crap..untrue!( this doea not apply to me or my friends PERIOD!!!! your belief, your opinion, fine!! but not fact.. I was a registered independant until last election cycle because i wanted to vote in primary...I had to register Republican ....i share and love it ..along with many others.....so either you are just putting your opinion out there or you are pushing t he myth. which is it...
How do you lump groups together like that ? you my friend believe what you are fed....i hope it goes down easy....this discussion is dead!! you are all so liberal.....(yes SPiker!!! i know the diff between classic liberalism and todays progressive liberalism) Classic liberalism IS,IS todays conservatism!!! ) yet you cannot open your minds? all in your NPR ,Obberman,Bill maher boxes..What a shame!! do think the Huffington post is journalism??
John F kennedy
" Ask not what your country can do for you,but what you can do for your country!" A Democrat with a decidedly conservative lean!! not to mention how he dealt w the bay of pigs!!! Peace through strength! he did not say .... Get what ever you can from your government.. did he?
 
for thye record it makes me sick when guys do that minority status crap!!! MANY OF US play by the rules and feel like the Government and insurance companies are eating us alive!!
 
Paul, relax. This isn't a fight, it's a discussion and EVERY word is opinion. I won't apologize for mine. I don't listen to NPR or watch TV, I read from lots of sources and think for myself. If something seem hokey, I run it down. I'm not easily persuaded by pundits.

My statement about 'republicans' is a broad brush statement that encompasses the republicans and tea baggers in power, not individuals. The republican party isn't run by actual republicans. It's being controlled by organizations with either lots of money or the ability to affect elections.

I was NOT stating that rank and file individuals don't like to share, sharing is personal and everybody has their own way. But the republican party has no interest in sharing ANYTHING but blame. They want every penny that they scam up to stay in their greedy little pockets. I stand by that statement of opinion 100%... because it's EASY to see. Look at the policies the promulgate. Look what they vote against and for. Republicans don't won't to share anything unless it's with their good buddies. The idea of contributing to a something for the greater good of ALL the people is completely off the table with them.

Like I said before, I was a lifelong republican and i think the current republican party is nothing but a bunch of lame, greedy old pricks and their religious allies. Ronald Reagan would not have made the nomination against the like of Santorum and Gingrich... and Romney? Really guys?

The republican party is no more.
 
Is it the government? or is it the insurance companies? is it the oil companies maybe? is it the drug companies, or the big ag companies? who is eating us alive and who is running who? is the government running the big pharma and big farm? or visa versa? Are they one in the same. Maybe its the muslims or the mexicans. maybe the gays. Regardless of who you blame, a lot of people seem to be in agreement that we are getting eaten alive.
 
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I'll bite (stupidly): bologna

besides the first 15 seconds of incendiary and hate filled images, it opens with a FOX News clip... nuff said

oh yeah, to open the never ending can of worms too, if we hadn't a had the preceding 8 years of lunacy and fear mongering who who knows how much better the world might be today ;)

mk

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To say the "8 years" would have to be a specific reference to Pres. Bush, because there would be no other reason to just pick an eight year reference out of the hat.

So with that in mind, be sure to remember what majorities the Democrats retained in that time-frame, and who voters chose to keep in various seats.

The lunacy has some of it's roots in the voters actually. Although, for both Republican and Democrat parties, and independent, it's apparent that people being elected are not acting consistent with the way they campaigned.

And for me, it seems to be getting more irritating every year.

cool.gif
 
Please answer the question in a forthright manner then Taitree.

If the govt doesn't both regulate and police multinational corps, then who will?

Enron?

Worldcom?

Why do your political leanings prove so beneficial to their likes so dang consistently?

Alan Greenspan proved himself tangibly an idiot by stating markets invariably and dependably act in their own best interests while actively lobbying for the repeal of Glass Steagall. And his fellow idiots in office believed him, dems and reps alike.

2008's crash cleaned out all the small fry from both the market and their own homes, into the homes of others or the streets. giant multinational corps and equity groups are flush with cash to buy up these homes and businesses at pennies on the dollar. Then rent the homes out at more than the actual monthly mortgage payment, or whatever the "market" will possibly bear.

Usury has been twisted into a virtue of strength and cleverness in today's American corporate mentality. War profiteering is no longer shameful or dishonorable, but rather a virtue to be advertised to millions on TV by Lockheed Martin and others like Exxon Mobil.

Though I prefer the term Simony rather than usury, as there's something distinctly unholy bout how these good ole boys operate.

Jomoco
 
If being liberal means that i think freedoms are sacred and helping out my fellow humans when they're down is a social responsibility... then I wear that badge with pride.

Nobody lives or works in a vacuum, nobody gets rich in one either. It requires a system, a society, resource consumption, cooperation and in the case of getting rich... lots of favors from your well placed buddies.

The money you make in business ISN'T all yours. You have to give back to keep that system functioning. If you don't, you are part of the problem. Lots of wealthy people have no issues with paying a large portion of their income in taxes. Those are VALUABLE people and often great leaders... and strangely, they're still wealthy!
Most just whine and complain that like they could've bought an extra boat or a new sugar baby with all that tax money... it's just unfair that they should have to give that up. Poor guys. How can they survive like that? All that government meddling is just totally harshing their mellow.

I'm a liberal by FOX's definition, by Limpbaugh's definition... but not by Reagan's, not by HW Bush's... definitely not by Eisenhower's.
No, I'm only a liberal if you think helping others, socially and individually is a RESPONSIBILITY of all who benefit from the common wealth. That's how i was raised... in a republican family, in a christian household, in the Deep South.

If I believed whatever i was fed, I wouldn't have rejected the party. I'd still believe jesus was my savior and I would pull the republican party handle in the voting booth... but I think for myself, based on my experience and observation... I have no faith, I prefer evidence. And I don't see that as a weakness.

(I should add that I don't see faith as a weakness either... it just isn't for me)
 
Re: end of free speech signed into law by Obama

I am angry too. Things are bad. You know what? It doesn't matter which rich outrageously wealthy individual, corporation, government, lobby group, HMO, or insurance company is to blame. They are in it together. It's beyond conspiracy. The uber-wealthy have always acted in their own self-interest and will take what they want because they can. They don't even think they are doing anything wrong. It's just the way things work for them. I'm not talking your average self-made millionaire either, or decent business owner. I'm talking about the people in governemnt and business who have accumulated power and money unimagineable to us.
It is no different from the feudal age. The idea through either 'capitalism' or 'communism' that every hard working person can have a fair slice has played its course.
 
Re: end of free speech signed into law by Obama

Call it Asimov's mule aberration or Murphy's law as you like.

But the strengthening of social adhesion to like minded people worldwide by hundreds of millions, in real time, scares the livin bejesus outta conspirators and colluders of vast dynasties of wealth and privileged lives.

The "magic" of the Internet has not yet been realized anywhere near its true capacity to change thangs,........see?

jomoco
 
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If being liberal means that i think freedoms are sacred and helping out my fellow humans when they're down is a social responsibility... then I wear that badge with pride.


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Blinky, Do you seriously believe we don't want to help fellow humans?
You should come up and hang with me sometime, I'll show you what an evil TEA party activist does for the fellow human.

I'm all for helping those that need help, I don't need a goverment to force me to do that.
 
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