The Politics Of Labor

[g5000]

I'm going to have to break this subject up into several posts. Please bear with me.

Labor is always getting the short end of the stick, and has been for centuries. You got your serfs and slave labor and various other proles.

In the Middle Ages after the bubonic plague wiped out close to half the population of Europe, labor had the upper hand for perhaps the only time in history.

The nobles wanted someone to farm their food, someone to make their shoes, someone to weave their clothes, and so forth.

The surviving commoners, being in short supply, were able to demand higher wages.

The nobles were having none of it, though. In England, they passed a maximum wage law, and passed a law prohibiting the ability of workers to move around.

And then you had the guilds screwing them from the other end.

A guild was a kind of union. You had your blacksmithing guild, your shoemaking guild, you weaving guild, and so forth.

You could not make shoes without being a member of a guild, and the guilds kept their membership limited so as to keep their asking wages high.

Today, we have a similar strategy being used by various industries to prevent newcomers from performing certain jobs.

For instance, cabbies. In New York, you can't operate a taxi without a medallion, and medallions are limited.

Before Uber came along, taxi medallions were going for more than a million dollars. No wonder a cab ride was so expensive.

Michael Cohen invested in medallions and was worth many millions.

And then Uber came along. This caused a huge fight by cabbies to keep Uber out of town, but they lost and we are all better for it.

Now a taxi medallion is worth about $100,000.


Another way modern day guilds keep newbies out of their sector is by bribing legislators to write regulations which make it very difficult for someone to break into their business.

Here's an interesting story about a guild in Canada called the Beauty Council which fell apart after deregulation: Licensing and Regulation of Hairdressers

 

[Obiwan]

I'm going to have to break this subject up into several posts. Please bear with me.

Labor is always getting the short end of the stick, and has been for centuries. You got your serfs and slave labor and various other proles.

In the Middle Ages after the bubonic plague wiped out close to half the population of Europe, labor had the upper hand for perhaps the only time in history.

The nobles wanted someone to farm their food, someone to make their shoes, someone to weave their clothes, and so forth.

The surviving commoners, being in short supply, were able to demand higher wages.

The nobles were having none of it, though. In England, they passed a maximum wage law, and passed a law prohibiting the ability of workers to move around.

And then you had the guilds screwing them from the other end.

A guild was a kind of union. You had your blacksmithing guild, your shoemaking guild, you weaving guild, and so forth.

You could not make shoes without being a member of a guild, and the guilds kept their membership limited so as to keep their asking wages high.

Today, we have a similar strategy being used by various industries to prevent newcomers from performing certain jobs.

For instance, cabbies. In New York, you can't operate a taxi without a medallion, and medallions are limited.

Before Uber came along, taxi medallions were going for more than a million dollars. No wonder a cab ride was so expensive.

Michael Cohen invested in medallions and was worth many millions.

And then Uber came along. This caused a huge fight by cabbies to keep Uber out of town, but they lost and we are all better for it.

Now a taxi medallion is worth about $100,000.


Another way modern day guilds keep newbies out of their sector is by bribing legislators to write regulations which make it very difficult for someone to break into their business.

Here's an interesting story about a guild in Canada called the Beauty Council which fell apart after deregulation: Licensing and Regulation of Hairdressers

So when are the Democrats going to quit raising taxes on the laborers and giving the money to the illegals and freeloaders?

 

[initforme]

So when are the Democrats going to quit raising taxes on the laborers and giving the money to the illegals and freeloaders?

Right after the gop supports labor unions. What they want is labor done cheaply. The dems are just as bad. So therefore neither is worthy of a vote.

 

[initforme]

Please please do the work....for free ok? Typical.

 

[g5000]

In 1791, at the time our Constitution was ratified, 98 percent of Americans worked in the agriculture industry.

Today, thanks to tractors, combines, and other transformative technology, only 2 percent of Americans work in the agriculture sector. Yet we are more productive than ever, and we are feeding the world.

In 2023, the agriculture industry contributed $1.53 trillion to US GDP.

What would you make of a politician who promised to "bring back farm jobs"?

You'd consider him a pandering idiot behind the times.

Technology has increased productivity in several sectors.

For instance, mining.

During the Obama administration, his detractors made a lot of noise about "lost coal jobs" on his watch.

One of the tricks of politics is to carefully frame things to make them fit your narrative.


So this is the chart which was used by propagandists to blame Obama for "lost coal jobs":

But if you pull back and look at the WHOLE picture, you see coal mining has also been drastically affected by transformative technology, not by Obama:

]

So what should you make of a politician who promises to "bring back coal jobs"?

He's a pandering idiot behind the times.

Which is why a mining CEO who was a big supporter of Trump said Trump was way off base about bringing back coal jobs.

 

[g5000]

Manufacturing.


Here's an American auto factory from the 1970s:

Here's an American auto factory today. See if you can find the humans:

 

[g5000]

Thanks to transformative technology, worker productivity has soared.

But that means it takes less workers to make the same amount of stuff.

In fact, contrary to what you've been told, the US is making more stuff than ever.

There's a right way and a wrong way to spend our tax dollars. Infrastructure and manufacture construction is the right way. These will bring huge returns for our money.

And President Biden has gotten legislation passed which has increased the number of factories being built dramatically.

This is going to create a vast number of US manufacturing jobs long after Biden has left the building.


.

 

[g5000]

So where are the jobs of the future going to be?

Leisure and entertainment.

 

[Lesh]

O know of no state where unions prevent nonunion labor . There are nonunion plumbers, carpenters, masons, electricians , and every other trade in every state in the Union.

Of course union members are better trained and get better pay… but that’s what unions do for labor

 

[initforme]

Coal miners should be paid triple figures per hour.

 

[g5000]

Where am I going with this?

I believe the greatest threat to the survival of the US as the number one economy on Earth is our federal debt. It's going to destroy us.

I believe the second greatest threat to our survival is our lousy education system.

When the Soviets launched Sputnik in 1957, the US was shocked and began a nationwide effort to ramp up our education system, focusing on "the three R's". Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic.

To this day, we have the best innovators on the planet. This is party due to our fantastic universities and our encouragement of free thought and our protection of intellectual property.

But this is in jeopardy.

We have a large segment of our population which sneers at science. Which sneers at Logic. Which sneers at education itself. And which believes schools should be able to teach the Earth is 6,000 years old.

We are not training our kids for the jobs of tomorrow. We are not teaching them to be innovators. We are not teaching them critical thinking.

There is the famous smiley curve I have posted many times on this forum to show where the money is.

At the top of the smiley face on one side is the design of a product. The innovation. Think of the iPhone when it was launched.

At the bottom of the curve, where the least money is, is manufacturing. Thats why a lot of our manufacturing was outsourced to China. There was no real money in manufacturing.

We have recently had to rethink that for purposes of protecting our supply chain. But there's still no real money in manufacturing. Not like there was when you father and grandfather were working in factories.

And finally, at the other side of the smiley curve, at the top is branding. You can make a bunch of laptops in a factory, all identical, but you slap a big brand name on one, and it will sell for a premium over the others. It's all about marketing.


Education. We need to fix it. Immediately.

 

[g5000]

So when are the Democrats going to quit raising taxes on the laborers and giving the money to the illegals and freeloaders?

What are you talking about? Tax rates on the middle class have been dropping for decades.

Historical Average Federal Tax Rates for All Households

Average federal tax rates for all households, by comprehensive household income quintile.

www.taxpolicycenter.org

 

[BertramN]

I'm going to have to break this subject up into several posts. Please bear with me.

Labor is always getting the short end of the stick, and has been for centuries. You got your serfs and slave labor and various other proles.

In the Middle Ages after the bubonic plague wiped out close to half the population of Europe, labor had the upper hand for perhaps the only time in history.

The nobles wanted someone to farm their food, someone to make their shoes, someone to weave their clothes, and so forth.

The surviving commoners, being in short supply, were able to demand higher wages.

The nobles were having none of it, though. In England, they passed a maximum wage law, and passed a law prohibiting the ability of workers to move around.

And then you had the guilds screwing them from the other end.

A guild was a kind of union. You had your blacksmithing guild, your shoemaking guild, you weaving guild, and so forth.

You could not make shoes without being a member of a guild, and the guilds kept their membership limited so as to keep their asking wages high.

Today, we have a similar strategy being used by various industries to prevent newcomers from performing certain jobs.

For instance, cabbies. In New York, you can't operate a taxi without a medallion, and medallions are limited.

Before Uber came along, taxi medallions were going for more than a million dollars. No wonder a cab ride was so expensive.

Michael Cohen invested in medallions and was worth many millions.

And then Uber came along. This caused a huge fight by cabbies to keep Uber out of town, but they lost and we are all better for it.

Now a taxi medallion is worth about $100,000.


Another way modern day guilds keep newbies out of their sector is by bribing legislators to write regulations which make it very difficult for someone to break into their business.

Here's an interesting story about a guild in Canada called the Beauty Council which fell apart after deregulation: Licensing and Regulation of Hairdressers

Are you sure labor gets the short end of the stick? Most conservatives and a good portion of moderates believe Big Business and the billionaires are being robbed by over-paid workers.




.

 

[initforme]

Where am I going with this?

I believe the greatest threat to the survival of the US as the number one economy on Earth is our federal debt. It's going to destroy us.

I believe the second greatest threat to our survival is our lousy education system.

When the Soviets launched Sputnik in 1957, the US was shocked and began a nationwide effort to ramp up our education system, focusing on "the three R's". Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic.

To this day, we have the best innovators on the planet. This is party due to our fantastic universities and our encouragement of free thought and our protection of intellectual property.

But this is in jeopardy.

We have a large segment of our population which sneers at science. Which sneers at Logic. Which sneers at education itself. And which believes schools should be able to teach the Earth is 6,000 years old.

We are not training our kids for the jobs of tomorrow. We are not teaching them to be innovators. We are not teaching them critical thinking.

There is the famous smiley curve I have posted many times on this forum to show where the money is.

At the top of the smiley face on one side is the design of a product. The innovation. Think of the iPhone when it was launched.

At the bottom of the curve, where the least money is, is manufacturing. Thats why a lot of our manufacturing was outsourced to China. There was no real money in manufacturing.

We have recently had to rethink that for purposes of protecting our supply chain. But there's still no real money in manufacturing. Not like there was when you father and grandfather were working in factories.

And finally, at the other side of the smiley curve, at the top is branding. You can make a bunch of laptops in a factory, all identical, but you slap a big brand name on one, and it will sell for a premium over the others. It's all about marketing.


Education. We need to fix it. Immediately.

Well then quit your job and take a pay cut and teach. Show the whole nation how it's done.

 

[g5000]

Right after the gop supports labor unions. What they want is labor done cheaply. The dems are just as bad. So therefore neither is worthy of a vote.

It's not political parties which want cheap labor.

It's the CEOs and stockholders who do.

Every time a company announces layoffs, their stock price jumps higher.

 

[g5000]

Please please do the work....for free ok? Typical.

That isn't even close to what I am saying.

Our education system has to move where the markets are going.

If you want a good paying job, you need the education required for it. And our country is letting us down.

 

[g5000]

O know of no state where unions prevent nonunion labor . There are nonunion plumbers, carpenters, masons, electricians , and every other trade in every state in the Union.

Of course union members are better trained and get better pay… but that’s what unions do for labor

When I came of age, I actually worked in a state where you could not get a job unless you belonged to a union, which is one of the things which made me a Republican.

I even spoke at our state capitol in support of a Right To Work bill. About 7 of us showed up to speak in favor.

About 500 union mafia thugs showed up to oppose it.

Guess who won.

But as I mentioned above, there is more than one way to skin a worker. For instance, federal regulations which require all kinds of certifications and qualifications before you can start your own business.

Some of them are common sense, but others are there to prevent competition against existing business.

This needs to change.

 

[initforme]

That isn't even close to what I am saying.

Our education system has to move where the markets are going.

If you want a good paying job, you need the education required for it. And our country is letting us down.

Well then it's up to people to teach for free.