Mike Marlow wrote:
> HeyBub wrote:
>
>>
>> You may have a point about there not being jobs to create. The Bush
>> administration continues to take heat over the fewer jobs that were
>> created compared to the Clinton years. But with unemployment under
>> 5%, the jobs may have been there but there wasn't anybody available
>> to be hired!
>
> You're kidding - right? Is your memory so short that you don't
> recall that the jobs that were abailable were low paying, service
> sector jobs?
Whatever. Point is, everybody that was employable was employed! Classically,
economists have held that anything below about 6% was "full employment."
That is, 6% of the people looking for work are, in fact, unemployable: They
are arsonists on parole, have no skills or an impossible work ethic, smell
funny, etc.
> Beyond that - when was the last time that you heard
> American business was crying about not being able to find an adequate
> pool of talented, qualified employees?
It's self-evident. Every year, EVERY year, the H1B quota is filled. If there
were sufficient local talent - at the right price - there would be a surplus
of H1B talent slots.
> Your statement above Hey Bub,
> refelects nothing but a completele distortion of what we all lived
> through. I'm sorry if my response is insulting - it's not intended
> to be, but it is a complete revisionist view of recent history.
What revisionist history? Did I misrepresent or misquote the economic
conditions of the first six Bush years? If so, I'll eagerly apologize when
you correct me.
>
>>
>> Now, seemingly, as you point out, we have the reverse: Plenty of
>> available workers but no jobs.
>
> D'OH??? You are really making this statement?
Of course. Again, it's self-evident. We have in excess of 9% unemployment
(~16% underemployment). That alone implies more workers than jobs. Do you
have a different interpretation? If so, I'd love to hear it.
HeyBub wrote:
>
> The issue was not on "good" employment; the issue was on employment
> period. That is, the difference is not between $7.25/hr and
> $18.00/hr, the difference is between $7.25/hr and nothing. One CAN
> maintain a family on the minimum wage - perhaps by working two jobs
> and living in a hovel. It's not upper-class, but it's doable.
>
That's where your observation is skewed. No - a minimum wage job is not
proof of a good economy. You may be comfortable with where you are, but
assigning other people to certain substandard levels of earnings is not your
privledge. I'm sorry, but I have to contend that your take on this is just
plain wrong.
>
> "The H-1B is a non-immigrant visa in the United States under the
> Immigration and Nationality Act. It allows U.S. employers to
> temporarily employ foreign workers in specialty occupations. The
> employer has to certify that there are no domestic applicants
> available with the requisite skills. Currently, there is a limit of
> 65,000 H1B visas available.
> The demand is always greater than the quota above allows.
Employer certifies? 'Nuff said...
>
> I did not say things were good - you inferred it. Nevertheless I
> assert that however bad you think the 1st six years of the Bush
> administration were, they were still far, far better than what's now
> taking place. Further, I suggest that having a menial job is better
> than having no job.
I don't thing the Bush years were necessarily bad. I don't think the
Clinton years were necessarily bad. They were at best, reflecdtions of
things changing. I only took exception to the claim that they were good
because the unemployement numbers were lower. Those numbers only reflect
one small, myopic view of things. To base an opinion on just those - which
is what you put forward, is extreemly shortsighted.
--
-Mike-
[email protected]
J. Clarke wrote:
>
> I've got no problem with letting the insurance companies price
> accordingly, but pre-Obamacare I thought they did price accordingly.
Correct. I've worked plenty of places that offered reduced group rates for
non-smokers.
--
-Mike-
[email protected]
"RonB" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> On Jun 21, 6:10 pm, Leon <lcb11211@swbelldotnet> wrote:
>> The reason is apparently no money. I lay odds that there were way too
>> many "may cause cancer in California" labels on every thing.
>>
>> http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110621/ts_yblog_thelookout...
>
> Don't get me started. I am a non-smoker. Haven't taken a puff in 25
> years.
>
> But what the hell is the government doing with this current campaign
> to put morbid photos on cigarette packs? Do our legislators have
> nothing to do? If people want to smoke themselves to death it is
> their business - theirs alone. Ditto drinking.
>
> This BS of regulating stuff like this is taking energy away from
> fixing our country!!
How can you fix the country, when government and major corporations shipped
all their manufacturing overseas. Everyone is fooling themselves when they
talk of creating jobs. There are next to none to make, the Chinese and
Indians got them all. US has to emulate England and Europe, they lost much
of their manufacturing in the 1950s and 1960s --- the jobs crossed the
Atlantic and went to the US, now they have crossed the Pacific and left the
US. England and Europe had to change the way they did business and to
concentrate on high quality manufacturing and leave the cheap crap to the
Asians.
On 6/22/2011 8:06 PM, J. Clarke wrote:
> In article<[email protected]>, lcb11211
> @swbelldotnet says...
>>
>> On 6/22/2011 1:44 PM, RonB wrote:
>>> On Jun 21, 6:10 pm, Leon<lcb11211@swbelldotnet> wrote:
>>>> The reason is apparently no money. I lay odds that there were way too
>>>> many "may cause cancer in California" labels on every thing.
>>>>
>>>> http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110621/ts_yblog_thelookout...
>>>
>>> Don't get me started. I am a non-smoker. Haven't taken a puff in 25
>>> years.
>>>
>>> But what the hell is the government doing with this current campaign
>>> to put morbid photos on cigarette packs? Do our legislators have
>>> nothing to do? If people want to smoke themselves to death it is
>>> their business - theirs alone. Ditto drinking.
>>>
>>> This BS of regulating stuff like this is taking energy away from
>>> fixing our country!!
>>
>> The problem with letting the idiots continue to smoke is that it costs
>> you and I. We pay for health insurance and much more than our share
>> because of the smokers. Let the insurance companies price accordingly,
>> that should be enough of a persuasion to drop the habit.
>
> I've got no problem with letting the insurance companies price
> accordingly, but pre-Obamacare I thought they did price accordingly.
>
Purchased as an individual you do get penalized for bad habits but for
those that are on a group plan or have insurance through their employer
every one is treated the same, they all technically pitch in to carry
the slacker, so to speak.
HeyBub wrote:
>
> You may have a point about there not being jobs to create. The Bush
> administration continues to take heat over the fewer jobs that were
> created compared to the Clinton years. But with unemployment under
> 5%, the jobs may have been there but there wasn't anybody available
> to be hired!
You're kidding - right? Is your memory so short that you don't recall that
the jobs that were abailable were low paying, service sector jobs? Beyond
that - when was the last time that you heard American business was crying
about not being able to find an adequate pool of talented, qualified
employees? Your statement above Hey Bub, refelects nothing but a completele
distortion of what we all lived through. I'm sorry if my response is
insulting - it's not intended to be, but it is a complete revisionist view
of recent history.
>
> Now, seemingly, as you point out, we have the reverse: Plenty of
> available workers but no jobs.
D'OH??? You are really making this statement?
--
-Mike-
[email protected]
HeyBub wrote:
> Mike Marlow wrote:
>> HeyBub wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> You may have a point about there not being jobs to create. The Bush
>>> administration continues to take heat over the fewer jobs that were
>>> created compared to the Clinton years. But with unemployment under
>>> 5%, the jobs may have been there but there wasn't anybody available
>>> to be hired!
>>
>> You're kidding - right? Is your memory so short that you don't
>> recall that the jobs that were abailable were low paying, service
>> sector jobs?
>
> Whatever. Point is, everybody that was employable was employed!
> Classically, economists have held that anything below about 6% was
> "full employment." That is, 6% of the people looking for work are, in
> fact, unemployable: They are arsonists on parole, have no skills or
> an impossible work ethic, smell funny, etc.
Employed at jobs that paid a fraction of what they had been making, and that
do not support raising a family. You really consider that to be good?
>
>> Beyond that - when was the last time that you heard
>> American business was crying about not being able to find an adequate
>> pool of talented, qualified employees?
>
> It's self-evident. Every year, EVERY year, the H1B quota is filled.
> If there were sufficient local talent - at the right price - there
> would be a surplus of H1B talent slots.
Sorry - what is H1B?
>
>> Your statement above Hey Bub,
>> refelects nothing but a completele distortion of what we all lived
>> through. I'm sorry if my response is insulting - it's not intended
>> to be, but it is a complete revisionist view of recent history.
>
> What revisionist history? Did I misrepresent or misquote the economic
> conditions of the first six Bush years? If so, I'll eagerly apologize
> when you correct me.
You did misrepresent by stating that things were so good. They were not in
fact. People were working at service sector jobs that paid a fraction of
what their previous jobs paid, and did not provide enough to raise a family
on a single income. To have stated how good things were and that there were
not people to be hired is a complete misrepresentation of events.
>
>>
>>>
>>> Now, seemingly, as you point out, we have the reverse: Plenty of
>>> available workers but no jobs.
>>
>> D'OH??? You are really making this statement?
>
> Of course. Again, it's self-evident. We have in excess of 9%
> unemployment (~16% underemployment). That alone implies more workers
> than jobs. Do you have a different interpretation? If so, I'd love to
> hear it.
No - it was just such an obvious thing. I guess I didn't get the purpose of
the statement.
--
-Mike-
[email protected]
Mike Marlow wrote:
>
> Sorry if I misunderstood but it seemed rather clear that you were both
> implying and directly stating that a decrease in unemployment,
> despite the fact that the jobs people were taking were now much lower
> in pay than what they were used to, was good. Get a couple more low
> paying jobs to make up for it, right?
Right. Or develop more valuable skills.
Of course I'm looking at it from the employer's point of view. People should
get paid what they're worth in productivity, not what they think they
deserve.
If I have to pay someone $7.25/hr to, say, sew a shirt but I can sell that
shirt for only $5.00, I'll quit employing people to sew shirts!
In article <be534eb4-4f48-4d10-ac1c-8d4e972144f1
@f2g2000yqh.googlegroups.com>, [email protected] says...
>
> On Jun 21, 6:10 pm, Leon <lcb11211@swbelldotnet> wrote:
> > The reason is apparently no money. I lay odds that there were way too
> > many "may cause cancer in California" labels on every thing.
> >
> > http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110621/ts_yblog_thelookout...
>
> Don't get me started. I am a non-smoker. Haven't taken a puff in 25
> years.
>
> But what the hell is the government doing with this current campaign
> to put morbid photos on cigarette packs? Do our legislators have
> nothing to do? If people want to smoke themselves to death it is
> their business - theirs alone. Ditto drinking.
>
> This BS of regulating stuff like this is taking energy away from
> fixing our country!!
Some government employee was paid to make those labels. He clearly is
excess to requirements and should be either removed from the payroll or
inducted into the Army and sent to Afghanistan where he might do
something useful.
In article <[email protected]>, lcb11211
@swbelldotnet says...
>
> On 6/22/2011 1:44 PM, RonB wrote:
> > On Jun 21, 6:10 pm, Leon<lcb11211@swbelldotnet> wrote:
> >> The reason is apparently no money. I lay odds that there were way too
> >> many "may cause cancer in California" labels on every thing.
> >>
> >> http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110621/ts_yblog_thelookout...
> >
> > Don't get me started. I am a non-smoker. Haven't taken a puff in 25
> > years.
> >
> > But what the hell is the government doing with this current campaign
> > to put morbid photos on cigarette packs? Do our legislators have
> > nothing to do? If people want to smoke themselves to death it is
> > their business - theirs alone. Ditto drinking.
> >
> > This BS of regulating stuff like this is taking energy away from
> > fixing our country!!
>
> The problem with letting the idiots continue to smoke is that it costs
> you and I. We pay for health insurance and much more than our share
> because of the smokers. Let the insurance companies price accordingly,
> that should be enough of a persuasion to drop the habit.
I've got no problem with letting the insurance companies price
accordingly, but pre-Obamacare I thought they did price accordingly.
"J. Clarke" <[email protected]> wrote
>
> I've got no problem with letting the insurance companies price
> accordingly, but pre-Obamacare I thought they did price accordingly.
>
>
Perhaps some do, but our group policy at work does not differentiate.
Mike Marlow wrote:
> HeyBub wrote:
>
>>
>> Right. Or develop more valuable skills.
>
> What a foolish statement to defend your previous statements.
>
>>
>> Of course I'm looking at it from the employer's point of view. People
>> should get paid what they're worth in productivity, not what they
>> think they deserve.
>
> Who said anything about what they think they're worth? We are
> talking about a lot of industry sectors and jobs that simply dried up
> and moved away. It does not matter what you think those people were
> worth, high paying jobs gushed out of this country, to be replaced by
> near minimum wage offerings.
Ips facto, the job was only worth the lesser amount paid to foreign workers.
In the shirt example, if I can hire 9-year old girls in Bangladesh to sew a
shirt for twenty-five cents that I can sell for $5.00, I (and the girls)
come out ahead.
By definition, the "high paying jobs" whose absence you lament were TOO high
paying.
> I'm sure you'd have a lot to say if you
> found yourself in that situation.
Sure I would. But economic decisions - or governmental regulations - should
not be made based on a single, unique circumstance.
>
> I'm quite sure I'll live to hear you bitching about those who think
> you should provide your services for far less than you believe them
> to be worth.
You can adjust your product or service up to quality or down to price;
that's probably what I'd do.
For example, if I were an exterminator and hired to remove termites, I could
dance around the perimeter of the house wearing only a loin-cloth while
mumbling unintelligible gibberish and waving chicken feathers in the air.
Then I would say to the home owner: "It's done. They'll be gone in a month.
No guarantees. $500 please."
Steve Turner wrote:
>
> I simply don't have all the time in the world to follow this group
> very closely, so I'll use my special "Evelyn Woodhead Sped Reddin'"
> (sic) techniques to scan the posts for something that is either
> on-topic (so right there you know I'm skipping about 90% of 'em),
> from a particular contributor, or is otherwise interesting, and any
> given post that doesn't make the cut gets *maybe* a half-second of my
> time. HeyBub isn't very on-topic, and I can't say I have the
> patience to understand or care about his (or anybody else's)
> politics, but I do enjoy his sense of humor so I tend to slow down
> and look for a good laugh when I get to one of his posts. :-)
Disclaimer:
Many years ago a customer in my book store introduced me to a concept he
called "Quality Control Thinking."
One of it's tenets was to take a proposal to its logical extreme, then look
at the next step. Often, when that is done, you'll find the next step
involves circling the drain.
Usually, my feeble attempt at making the conclusion humorous is really that
next step with clown makeup. My hope is that it is, thereby, remembered.
That said, sometimes I just like screwing with people. It's hard to tell the
difference.
EXT wrote:
>
> How can you fix the country, when government and major corporations
> shipped all their manufacturing overseas. Everyone is fooling
> themselves when they talk of creating jobs. There are next to none to
> make, the Chinese and Indians got them all. US has to emulate England
> and Europe, they lost much of their manufacturing in the 1950s and
> 1960s --- the jobs crossed the Atlantic and went to the US, now they
> have crossed the Pacific and left the US. England and Europe had to
> change the way they did business and to concentrate on high quality
> manufacturing and leave the cheap crap to the Asians.
Lower taxes.
Yep, the U.S. has the 2nd highest corporate tax rate in the civilized world.
Boeing moved its corporate headquarters from Seattle to Chicago(!) to escape
the obscene Washington state taxes, it's no wonder that many companies would
shift their activities to a more friendly tax jurisdiction.
You may have a point about there not being jobs to create. The Bush
administration continues to take heat over the fewer jobs that were created
compared to the Clinton years. But with unemployment under 5%, the jobs may
have been there but there wasn't anybody available to be hired!
Now, seemingly, as you point out, we have the reverse: Plenty of available
workers but no jobs.
On Sat, 25 Jun 2011 01:23:41 -0400, "Mike Marlow"
<[email protected]> wrote:
>HeyBub wrote:
>
>>
>> Right. Or develop more valuable skills.
>
>What a foolish statement to defend your previous statements.
Someday, you guys will be able to tell the difference between a troll
and a regular poster.
--
Invest in America: Buy a CONgresscritter today!
On 6/22/2011 1:44 PM, RonB wrote:
> On Jun 21, 6:10 pm, Leon<lcb11211@swbelldotnet> wrote:
>> The reason is apparently no money. I lay odds that there were way too
>> many "may cause cancer in California" labels on every thing.
>>
>> http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110621/ts_yblog_thelookout...
>
> Don't get me started. I am a non-smoker. Haven't taken a puff in 25
> years.
>
> But what the hell is the government doing with this current campaign
> to put morbid photos on cigarette packs? Do our legislators have
> nothing to do? If people want to smoke themselves to death it is
> their business - theirs alone. Ditto drinking.
>
> This BS of regulating stuff like this is taking energy away from
> fixing our country!!
The problem with letting the idiots continue to smoke is that it costs
you and I. We pay for health insurance and much more than our share
because of the smokers. Let the insurance companies price accordingly,
that should be enough of a persuasion to drop the habit.
HeyBub wrote:
>
> Right. Or develop more valuable skills.
What a foolish statement to defend your previous statements.
>
> Of course I'm looking at it from the employer's point of view. People
> should get paid what they're worth in productivity, not what they
> think they deserve.
Who said anything about what they think they're worth? We are talking about
a lot of industry sectors and jobs that simply dried up and moved away. It
does not matter what you think those people were worth, high paying jobs
gushed out of this country, to be replaced by near minimum wage offerings.
I'm sure you'd have a lot to say if you found yourself in that situation.
>
> If I have to pay someone $7.25/hr to, say, sew a shirt but I can sell
> that shirt for only $5.00, I'll quit employing people to sew shirts!
I'm quite sure I'll live to hear you bitching about those who think you
should provide your services for far less than you believe them to be worth.
On Jun 21, 6:10=A0pm, Leon <lcb11211@swbelldotnet> wrote:
> The reason is apparently no money. =A0I lay odds that there were way too
> many "may cause cancer in California" labels on every thing.
>
> http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110621/ts_yblog_thelookout...
Don't get me started. I am a non-smoker. Haven't taken a puff in 25
years.
But what the hell is the government doing with this current campaign
to put morbid photos on cigarette packs? Do our legislators have
nothing to do? If people want to smoke themselves to death it is
their business - theirs alone. Ditto drinking.
This BS of regulating stuff like this is taking energy away from
fixing our country!!
HeyBub wrote:
> Mike Marlow wrote:
>> HeyBub wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Right. Or develop more valuable skills.
>>
>> What a foolish statement to defend your previous statements.
>>
>>>
>>> Of course I'm looking at it from the employer's point of view.
>>> People should get paid what they're worth in productivity, not what
>>> they think they deserve.
>>
>> Who said anything about what they think they're worth? We are
>> talking about a lot of industry sectors and jobs that simply dried up
>> and moved away. It does not matter what you think those people were
>> worth, high paying jobs gushed out of this country, to be replaced by
>> near minimum wage offerings.
>
> Ips facto, the job was only worth the lesser amount paid to foreign
> workers. In the shirt example, if I can hire 9-year old girls in
> Bangladesh to sew a shirt for twenty-five cents that I can sell for
> $5.00, I (and the girls) come out ahead.
>
> By definition, the "high paying jobs" whose absence you lament were
> TOO high paying.
>
>
>> I'm sure you'd have a lot to say if you
>> found yourself in that situation.
>
> Sure I would. But economic decisions - or governmental regulations -
> should not be made based on a single, unique circumstance.
>
>>
>> I'm quite sure I'll live to hear you bitching about those who think
>> you should provide your services for far less than you believe them
>> to be worth.
>
> You can adjust your product or service up to quality or down to price;
> that's probably what I'd do.
>
> For example, if I were an exterminator and hired to remove termites,
> I could dance around the perimeter of the house wearing only a
> loin-cloth while mumbling unintelligible gibberish and waving chicken
> feathers in the air. Then I would say to the home owner: "It's done.
> They'll be gone in a month. No guarantees. $500 please."
I'll give you this - you make me laugh - in a good way. Don't loose that
whatever-it-is about you.
--
-Mike-
[email protected]
HeyBub wrote:
> Mike Marlow wrote:
>>
>> I don't thing the Bush years were necessarily bad. I don't think the
>> Clinton years were necessarily bad. They were at best, reflecdtions
>> of things changing. I only took exception to the claim that they
>> were good because the unemployement numbers were lower. Those
>> numbers only reflect one small, myopic view of things. To base an
>> opinion on just those - which is what you put forward, is extreemly
>> shortsighted.
>
> I didn't base my observation solely on unemployment numbers. It was
> you who glommed on to that. During the first three-quarters of the
> Bush years: * Unemployment fell below 5%
> * The stock market climbed above 12,000
> * There were 26 quarters of uninterrupted growth, averaging 2.8%
> * Number of jobs grew at 6.5%
> * Average salaries grew at 1.2%
> * Consumer spending grew at 72%(!)
> * Low to non-existent inflation
> * Three tax cuts
> * Expiration of the assault-weapons ban (although I'm not sure what
> that had to do with economic conditions)
> * and so on
>
> And again, all this in spite of two wars, Katrina, and 9-11.
Sorry if I misunderstood but it seemed rather clear that you were both
implying and directly stating that a decrease in unemployment, despite the
fact that the jobs people were taking were now much lower in pay than what
they were used to, was good. Get a couple more low paying jobs to make up
for it, right?
--
-Mike-
[email protected]
Mike Marlow wrote:
> HeyBub wrote:
>>
>> Whatever. Point is, everybody that was employable was employed!
>> Classically, economists have held that anything below about 6% was
>> "full employment." That is, 6% of the people looking for work are, in
>> fact, unemployable: They are arsonists on parole, have no skills or
>> an impossible work ethic, smell funny, etc.
>
> Employed at jobs that paid a fraction of what they had been making,
> and that do not support raising a family. You really consider that
> to be good?
The issue was not on "good" employment; the issue was on employment period.
That is, the difference is not between $7.25/hr and $18.00/hr, the
difference is between $7.25/hr and nothing. One CAN maintain a family on the
minimum wage - perhaps by working two jobs and living in a hovel. It's not
upper-class, but it's doable.
>>
>> It's self-evident. Every year, EVERY year, the H1B quota is filled.
>> If there were sufficient local talent - at the right price - there
>> would be a surplus of H1B talent slots.
>
> Sorry - what is H1B?
"The H-1B is a non-immigrant visa in the United States under the Immigration
and Nationality Act. It allows U.S. employers to temporarily employ foreign
workers in specialty occupations. The employer has to certify that there are
no domestic applicants available with the requisite skills. Currently, there
is a limit of 65,000 H1B visas available.
The demand is always greater than the quota above allows.
>>
>> What revisionist history? Did I misrepresent or misquote the economic
>> conditions of the first six Bush years? If so, I'll eagerly apologize
>> when you correct me.
>
> You did misrepresent by stating that things were so good. They were
> not in fact. People were working at service sector jobs that paid a
> fraction of what their previous jobs paid, and did not provide enough
> to raise a family on a single income. To have stated how good things
> were and that there were not people to be hired is a complete
> misrepresentation of events.
I did not say things were good - you inferred it. Nevertheless I assert that
however bad you think the 1st six years of the Bush administration were,
they were still far, far better than what's now taking place. Further, I
suggest that having a menial job is better than having no job.
"RonB" wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> But what the hell is the government doing with this current campaign
> to put morbid photos on cigarette packs? Do our legislators have
> nothing to do? If people want to smoke themselves to death it is
> their business - theirs alone. Ditto drinking.
I've had no problem in the past with the govt. making it illegal to smoke in
places like airliners, theatres, restaurants and so on (I really don't miss
that eye-watering stench in every public place). But this latest campaign
is just pointless, anyone who hasn't heard the message by now is past
saving. Anti-smoking has become a lobby and an industry in its own right,
self-sustaining beyond the point of common sense. So long as smokers are
prevented from exhaling toxic smoke around non-smokers I figure that's the
extent of the government's legitimate interest in the issue.
RonB wrote:
> On Jun 21, 6:10 pm, Leon<lcb11211@swbelldotnet> wrote:
>> The reason is apparently no money. I lay odds that there were way too
>> many "may cause cancer in California" labels on every thing.
>>
>> http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110621/ts_yblog_thelookout...
>
> Don't get me started. I am a non-smoker. Haven't taken a puff in 25
> years.
>
> But what the hell is the government doing with this current campaign
> to put morbid photos on cigarette packs? Do our legislators have
> nothing to do? If people want to smoke themselves to death it is
> their business - theirs alone. Ditto drinking.
Yep, I know someone who, over the course of recent months, lost a
good job, retirement, house, and spouse over Vokda, or whatever was
handy. I wouldn't call it drinking though, I would call it
alcoholism--there was nothing social about the mechanism. They are about
4 weeks sober (record of 3 months)--most recent treatment cost: tens of
thousands.
>
> This BS of regulating stuff like this is taking energy away from
> fixing our country!!
On 6/25/2011 2:35 PM, Mike Marlow wrote:
> HeyBub wrote:
>> Mike Marlow wrote:
>>> HeyBub wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> Right. Or develop more valuable skills.
>>>
>>> What a foolish statement to defend your previous statements.
>>>
>>>>
>>>> Of course I'm looking at it from the employer's point of view.
>>>> People should get paid what they're worth in productivity, not what
>>>> they think they deserve.
>>>
>>> Who said anything about what they think they're worth? We are
>>> talking about a lot of industry sectors and jobs that simply dried up
>>> and moved away. It does not matter what you think those people were
>>> worth, high paying jobs gushed out of this country, to be replaced by
>>> near minimum wage offerings.
>>
>> Ips facto, the job was only worth the lesser amount paid to foreign
>> workers. In the shirt example, if I can hire 9-year old girls in
>> Bangladesh to sew a shirt for twenty-five cents that I can sell for
>> $5.00, I (and the girls) come out ahead.
>>
>> By definition, the "high paying jobs" whose absence you lament were
>> TOO high paying.
>>
>>
>>> I'm sure you'd have a lot to say if you
>>> found yourself in that situation.
>>
>> Sure I would. But economic decisions - or governmental regulations -
>> should not be made based on a single, unique circumstance.
>>
>>>
>>> I'm quite sure I'll live to hear you bitching about those who think
>>> you should provide your services for far less than you believe them
>>> to be worth.
>>
>> You can adjust your product or service up to quality or down to price;
>> that's probably what I'd do.
>>
>> For example, if I were an exterminator and hired to remove termites,
>> I could dance around the perimeter of the house wearing only a
>> loin-cloth while mumbling unintelligible gibberish and waving chicken
>> feathers in the air. Then I would say to the home owner: "It's done.
>> They'll be gone in a month. No guarantees. $500 please."
>
> I'll give you this - you make me laugh - in a good way. Don't loose that
> whatever-it-is about you.
I simply don't have all the time in the world to follow this group very
closely, so I'll use my special "Evelyn Woodhead Sped Reddin'" (sic) techniques
to scan the posts for something that is either on-topic (so right there you
know I'm skipping about 90% of 'em), from a particular contributor, or is
otherwise interesting, and any given post that doesn't make the cut gets
*maybe* a half-second of my time. HeyBub isn't very on-topic, and I can't say
I have the patience to understand or care about his (or anybody else's)
politics, but I do enjoy his sense of humor so I tend to slow down and look for
a good laugh when I get to one of his posts. :-)
--
Free bad advice available here.
To reply, eat the taco.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bbqboyee/
Mike Marlow wrote:
>
> I don't thing the Bush years were necessarily bad. I don't think the
> Clinton years were necessarily bad. They were at best, reflecdtions
> of things changing. I only took exception to the claim that they
> were good because the unemployement numbers were lower. Those
> numbers only reflect one small, myopic view of things. To base an
> opinion on just those - which is what you put forward, is extreemly
> shortsighted.
I didn't base my observation solely on unemployment numbers. It was you who
glommed on to that. During the first three-quarters of the Bush years:
* Unemployment fell below 5%
* The stock market climbed above 12,000
* There were 26 quarters of uninterrupted growth, averaging 2.8%
* Number of jobs grew at 6.5%
* Average salaries grew at 1.2%
* Consumer spending grew at 72%(!)
* Low to non-existent inflation
* Three tax cuts
* Expiration of the assault-weapons ban (although I'm not sure what that had
to do with economic conditions)
* and so on
And again, all this in spite of two wars, Katrina, and 9-11.