Why Are Conservatives So Resentful Of Americans With Good Jobs?

[JoeB131]

[

Without investors there are no workers.
Investors are both workers and consumers.
Most investment comes from middle class Americans.
Get it off your chest and tell us how terrible they are also.

You can have an economy without "investors".

You don't have an ecnomy without consumers and workers.

Investors are parasites that have convinced us they are vital organs.

 

[Mac1958]

.

I really don't think this is about a person's hourly wage or their annual income. It's about two other things:

1. The impression (and I frankly don't know enough to confirm whether this is right) that a union worker is far more likely to get away with sub-standard work than a non-union worker, and

2. The rich, long-term benefit packages (with pensions often based on completely overstated projected investment returns) enjoyed by union workers that are simply no longer economically feasible in a global economy.

That's for non-government union jobs. For government union jobs, add the fact that the taxpayers are paying the freight for those long-term benefit packages, which seems like an entirely reasonable concern to me.

It's not about "hating" or "resenting" anyone; it's about the equilibrium between the advantages of unions and the disadvantages of their costs.

.

 

[JoeB131]

.

I really don't think this is about a person's hourly wage or their annual income. It's about two other things:

1. The impression (and I frankly don't know enough to confirm whether this is right) that a union worker is far more likely to get away with sub-standard work than a non-union worker, and

2. The rich, long-term benefit packages (with pensions often based on completely overstated projected investment returns) enjoyed by union workers that are simply no longer economically feasible in a global economy.

That's for non-government union jobs. For government union jobs, add the fact that the taxpayers are paying the freight for those long-term benefit packages, which seems like an entirely reasonable concern to me.

It's not about "hating" or "resenting" anyone; it's about the equilibrium between the advantages of unions and the disadvantages of their costs.

.

How come a good wage isn't "economically feasible", but oddly enough, 8 figure executive salaries and Golden Parachutes and big glass office buildings are?

The fact is, we enjoyed our greatest prosperity when we had our highest level of unionization.

 

[Mac1958]

.

I really don't think this is about a person's hourly wage or their annual income. It's about two other things:

1. The impression (and I frankly don't know enough to confirm whether this is right) that a union worker is far more likely to get away with sub-standard work than a non-union worker, and

2. The rich, long-term benefit packages (with pensions often based on completely overstated projected investment returns) enjoyed by union workers that are simply no longer economically feasible in a global economy.

That's for non-government union jobs. For government union jobs, add the fact that the taxpayers are paying the freight for those long-term benefit packages, which seems like an entirely reasonable concern to me.

It's not about "hating" or "resenting" anyone; it's about the equilibrium between the advantages of unions and the disadvantages of their costs.

.

How come a good wage isn't "economically feasible", but oddly enough, 8 figure executive salaries and Golden Parachutes and big glass office buildings are?

The fact is, we enjoyed our greatest prosperity when we had our highest level of unionization.

To answer your question, because the guys with the 8-figure incomes usually run companies with thousands of employees, and their salaries as a percentage of the company's total revenues are relatively small. I agree that those people are overpaid, and I'd like to see that situation addressed in the tax code. I'd also like to see pay (or lack thereof) tied more to company performance when stock options (often the lion's share of "salary") are a part of their compensation package. We win, you win; we lose, you lose. That's capitalism; you win, no matter what, not so much.

I actually have no problem with more and stronger unionization, as long as overall benefit packages don't warp the market, and as long as the unions enforce quality standards and are held strictly accountable for them. Sounds good to me. I have a much tougher time with government union costs, I'd much rather see the private sector with a far higher percentage of those jobs.

What accomplishes nothing, however, are questions like those posed in the OP.

.

 

[editec]

All authoritarians HATE unions.

Typically when authoitarians take control the first thing they do is gather up the union leaders often killing them, and they make UNIONISM illegal.

Most notably fromm recent history, authoritarians like HITLER, STALIN AND MAO totally hated unions.

Now of course, the GOP has joined that team of haters.

Show me a communist state or a fascist state and I will show you a place where unions are outlawed entirely or they are devised as SHAMS run by the authoritarian government.

 

[zeke]

Where I lived, unions were the norm. For a while. And every person working that was not in a union, benefited from those union wages. Because, if you were a non union shop, you had to pay somewhere close to a union wage to attract good workers.

If you were a sevice sector worker, the union's helped you out because all those good paying union jobs were allowing those workers enough disposalable income that they could buy from the service sector.

In other words, unions raised the standard of living for an entire city.

And in case you missed it, as the unions declined, so have wages and benefits. And so has the standard of living.

But who cares. A declining standard of living is what we have been working toward for a long time. At least for the middle and lower middle class.

If you are wealthy, things are going fine. Ultra wealthy people have their own unions, except they call them "lobbyists". And "politicians"

 

[Barb]

 

[Stephanie]

oh brother, the DRAMA

 

[Barb]

oh brother, the DRAMA

 

[Gadawg73]

[

Without investors there are no workers.
Investors are both workers and consumers.
Most investment comes from middle class Americans.
Get it off your chest and tell us how terrible they are also.

You can have an economy without "investors".

You don't have an ecnomy without consumers and workers.

Investors are parasites that have convinced us they are vital organs.

Who builds a 2 billion auto assembly plant Joe?
Workers and consumers?
'Splain how that works.
So you have NO $$$ in retirement funds, no IRA and nothing anywhere invested.
Liar.

 

[Gadawg73]

Where I lived, unions were the norm. For a while. And every person working that was not in a union, benefited from those union wages. Because, if you were a non union shop, you had to pay somewhere close to a union wage to attract good workers.

If you were a sevice sector worker, the union's helped you out because all those good paying union jobs were allowing those workers enough disposalable income that they could buy from the service sector.

In other words, unions raised the standard of living for an entire city.

And in case you missed it, as the unions declined, so have wages and benefits. And so has the standard of living.

But who cares. A declining standard of living is what we have been working toward for a long time. At least for the middle and lower middle class.

If you are wealthy, things are going fine. Ultra wealthy people have their own unions, except they call them "lobbyists". And "politicians"

But how about if I CHOOSE NOT to belong to a union?
I can not work in that state.
Unions are for those uneducated low skilled workers too stupid to negotiate their own wage.
Where is the IT union? The HVAC union in Florida where the average starting wage of a HVAC trained employee is 60K?
Where are those unions?
Union shop states deny people the right to work.

 

[JoeB131]

Who builds a 2 billion auto assembly plant Joe?
Workers and consumers?
'Splain how that works.
So you have NO $$$ in retirement funds, no IRA and nothing anywhere invested.
Liar.

In Germany, those assembly plants are government agencies...

Works just fine without greedy assholes making bad decisions and eight figure salaries.

You aren't as nearly as indispensible as you want to think you are.

 

[Gadawg73]

.

I really don't think this is about a person's hourly wage or their annual income. It's about two other things:

1. The impression (and I frankly don't know enough to confirm whether this is right) that a union worker is far more likely to get away with sub-standard work than a non-union worker, and

2. The rich, long-term benefit packages (with pensions often based on completely overstated projected investment returns) enjoyed by union workers that are simply no longer economically feasible in a global economy.

That's for non-government union jobs. For government union jobs, add the fact that the taxpayers are paying the freight for those long-term benefit packages, which seems like an entirely reasonable concern to me.

It's not about "hating" or "resenting" anyone; it's about the equilibrium between the advantages of unions and the disadvantages of their costs.

.

How come a good wage isn't "economically feasible", but oddly enough, 8 figure executive salaries and Golden Parachutes and big glass office buildings are?

The fact is, we enjoyed our greatest prosperity when we had our highest level of unionization.

To answer your question, because the guys with the 8-figure incomes usually run companies with thousands of employees, and their salaries as a percentage of the company's total revenues are relatively small. I agree that those people are overpaid, and I'd like to see that situation addressed in the tax code. I'd also like to see pay (or lack thereof) tied more to company performance when stock options (often the lion's share of "salary") are a part of their compensation package. We win, you win; we lose, you lose. That's capitalism; you win, no matter what, not so much.

I actually have no problem with more and stronger unionization, as long as overall benefit packages don't warp the market, and as long as the unions enforce quality standards and are held strictly accountable for them. Sounds good to me. I have a much tougher time with government union costs, I'd much rather see the private sector with a far higher percentage of those jobs.

What accomplishes nothing, however, are questions like those posed in the OP.

.

I have NO problems with unions also as a lot of the work done on my house has been done by FORMER union workers that are now here in the south.
Why did they move to the south? They get MORE for their work here negotiating their SKILLED labor than working up north with high taxes, high cost of living, low job opportunities, non existent union representation and high union dues.
I DO have a problem with union shop states, something most here HAVE NO FUCKING CLUE what that is.
Same with almost all the union folks down here that moved here because the state they left is union shop.

 

[Gadawg73]

Who builds a 2 billion auto assembly plant Joe?
Workers and consumers?
'Splain how that works.
So you have NO $$$ in retirement funds, no IRA and nothing anywhere invested.
Liar.

In Germany, those assembly plants are government agencies...

Works just fine without greedy assholes making bad decisions and eight figure salaries.

You aren't as nearly as indispensible as you want to think you are.

So you want our government to own all these companies.
Uh, Joe, take a look at how our government runs their business and get back to us.
You are fucking crazy. We borrow 40% of every dollar we spend.
Government fucks everything up.
As usual, you avoided my question like a monkey on fire.
YOU are the asshole investor you judge everyone else on.
They hypocrit you are.

 

[JoeB131]

I have NO problems with unions also as a lot of the work done on my house has been done by FORMER union workers that are now here in the south.
Why did they move to the south? They get MORE for their work here negotiating their SKILLED labor than working up north with high taxes, high cost of living, low job opportunities, non existent union representation and high union dues.
I DO have a problem with union shop states, something most here HAVE NO FUCKING CLUE what that is.
Same with almost all the union folks down here that moved here because the state they left is union shop.

In short, they are rushing to the bottom...

Because given enough time, they won't be able to negotiate much of anything.

The American Middle class has been declining since 1981, when Reagan decided that he was going to take the side of "investors" over working folks and he fired the PATCO workers.

Our biggest mistake was going along with the "OKy-Doke" and trusting the greedy assholes to do the right thing.

 

[Gadawg73]

Who builds a 2 billion auto assembly plant Joe?
Workers and consumers?
'Splain how that works.
So you have NO $$$ in retirement funds, no IRA and nothing anywhere invested.
Liar.

In Germany, those assembly plants are government agencies...

Works just fine without greedy assholes making bad decisions and eight figure salaries.

You aren't as nearly as indispensible as you want to think you are.

Exactly, I am NOT indespensible.
But you union dudes want GUARANTEES for your job.
The market DEMANDS that I know every second I am on the job that I am NOT indespensible.
You have to have a guarantee of that.
Because your milk is too weak to compete without it.

 

[JoeB131]

[

So you want our government to own all these companies.
Uh, Joe, take a look at how our government runs their business and get back to us.
You are fucking crazy. We borrow 40% of every dollar we spend.
Government fucks everything up.
As usual, you avoided my question like a monkey on fire.
YOU are the asshole investor you judge everyone else on.
They hypocrit you are.

We borrow because idiots inisted that letting Mitt Romney hide his money in the Caymans and only pay 11% tax while working folks are paying 25% is really a plan.

The problem is, I've worked in both the government and the private sector. I've seen plenty of brilliant management in both, and I've seen some gross incompetence in both. The theory that one is better than the other is just silly, they both have the limitation of working with human beings.

Business spends a lot of money blowing its own horn with bullshit magazines like Forbes and Fortune and IBD getting high on their own supply, but you ask your average worker if his boss is clueless, and the vast majority would probably say, yes. The good ones are carried by their workers, the bad ones are sabotaged by them. I've seen both happen.

Volkwagen is owned largely by the German Government. they have union workers that have a say in the management, they pay their folks a good wage and Germany's economy is so awesome they are carrying the rest of Europe right now.

 

[Gadawg73]

I have NO problems with unions also as a lot of the work done on my house has been done by FORMER union workers that are now here in the south.
Why did they move to the south? They get MORE for their work here negotiating their SKILLED labor than working up north with high taxes, high cost of living, low job opportunities, non existent union representation and high union dues.
I DO have a problem with union shop states, something most here HAVE NO FUCKING CLUE what that is.
Same with almost all the union folks down here that moved here because the state they left is union shop.

In short, they are rushing to the bottom...

Because given enough time, they won't be able to negotiate much of anything.

The American Middle class has been declining since 1981, when Reagan decided that he was going to take the side of "investors" over working folks and he fired the PATCO workers.

Our biggest mistake was going along with the "OKy-Doke" and trusting the greedy assholes to do the right thing.

Funny Joe, I am American middle class as they come, NEVER making more than 100K in one year ever in my life.
And I own 3 corporations and have 2 mil, SAVED, in the bank.
Funny also that my 2 sons both work and both are mid 20s and my 19 year old daughter works and attends college full time.
I live in a 1600 sf 4 br 2 bath home. I bought this place with 12 acres in 1981 and had the house built in 1983. Drive old cars, the Sienna van has 282K on it.
I am more middle class than you are.
Middle class does BETTER without unions.
Many of the middle class IS IN DECLINE. Why? "I want a guaranteed assembly line job that someone with a 10th grade education can do at 65k a year with wages and benefits".
A job someone can do anywhere for half of that.
Middle class needs to take THE JOBS THAT ARE IN DEMAND.
HVAC, auto repair, plumbing, IT, marine engine repair.
HVAC jobs are growing so fast they can not keep pace. Most states the state will pay for the vocational training and the course is less than 12 months.
Folks need to get off their ass.

 

[JoeB131]

[

Exactly, I am NOT indespensible.
But you union dudes want GUARANTEES for your job.
The market DEMANDS that I know every second I am on the job that I am NOT indespensible.
You have to have a guarantee of that.
Because your milk is too weak to compete without it.

Guy, I don't belong to a union. I wish I did, and they've be mandetory for all workplaces if I had my way.

The notion that some asshole business administration major is a good judge of anything is laughable to me. I've just worked for too many awful bosses, some of whom ran their businesses into the ground, to buy that anymore.

The last job- the one where they illegally fired me because I got sick - pretty much cured me of the "Greed-Worship" you seem to be infected with.

No go back and take some dirty pictures, some of us have real work to do.

 

[JoeB131]

[

Funny Joe, I am American middle class as they come, NEVER making more than 100K in one year ever in my life.
And I own 3 corporations and have 2 mil, SAVED, in the bank.
s.

Whatever.. I'm sure you have a 12 inch penis, too, and are very popular with the ladies.

We can all be totally awesome on the internets.

Don't give a fuck, guy.