Harry  wrote:
On 7/25/10 11:41 AM, wrote:
On Fri, 23 Jul 2010 15:13:42 -0400, wrote:

gee. the germans have a world class export based economy that's
HEAVILY unionized.

the US, with NO unions, is not.


Yeah, and such powerful unions they are.
This union factory worker makes $22,000 a year and the government
taxes more than half of that away for things like his "free" health
care.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...M&refer=europe



What's *your* solution for providing workers who don't earn tons of
money a good health care and retirement program?

Me and gfretwell don't need a solution to that because we got our money.
Now a more important issue is keeping it.
The nation's wealth was redistributed to us years ago, and we kept what
we got safe.
That's how we retired early.
First you got a fat salary by being in the right place at the right
time. A defined pension plan helps. Living within your means helps.
A lot of that is an accident of birth year, some is personal
characteristics of birth, some is personally developed.
Nobody can question the difference in opportunities then versus now.
From 1990 until maybe 5 years ago was boom times.
The middle class got wealthy and the working class went backwards.
Those middle class who managed to keep their money are doing fine.
Those who didn't save are no longer middle class.
Don't know what middle class is really, but I thought it was $60-100k
during my work years.
Hard work was mostly optional, but whether true or not you claim that.
For many people of our age and doing well, it was mostly just showing up.
Those who don't show up don't have a chance in hell.
Anyway, you always claim hard work, or at the very least that you're
just smarter than everybody else about money.
If you're smart and not deficient about money matters, you don't have to
work hard really.
Keep in mind some who think they worked hard have no concept of what
hard work is.
Poor working and middle class people do nearly all the hard work.
You can see some "hard work" by watching "Dirty Jobs."
If you get up all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed rarin' and happy to get
to work instead of going fishing, you probably ain't "hard working."
Now you can slice and dice that how you want, but that's how I always
saw it. Since I would always prefer fishing, I was a hard worker.
But not the dirty jobs hard worker, so I knew I was lucky.
Smart folks either saved their money, or invested it in Wall Street
companies that made them more money by destroying the dumb part of the
middle class and getting their money.
All the time after early retirement you don't work to contribute to the
economy, but if you have "investment"s you can claim that it's you
keeping the economy alive.
That satisfies latent American Calvinistic "work ethic" instincts.
Weak as hell, but some don't need strong arguments.
Pretty sweet, retiring early and doing nothing really productive, but
still being able to claim your "money is working for you."
Personally, I just consider myself a bum since I retired.
Hey, bums are people too.
In the meantime you draw SS and take advantage of every gov giveaway
that's within view. Just as you did with taxes when working.
See, by talking about unions and labor and all that stuff, you're
missing the point.
It's really about simple money management and looking out for yourself,
and justifying your life of leisure, or whining about not having one.
Those smart enough to have accumulated wealth by being born at the right
time, or smart enough to have picked the family they inherited it from,
or who just plain worked hard and saved, will whine any argument to keep
from losing it, or losing their position as "smart" or "hard-working."
Those without wealth because they were too dumb to be born at the right
time, and too dumb to inherent any, or too lazy to work hard, will whine
about their having to work to get by.
That's the general rules, and of course they're many exceptions.
There are wealthy people who are willing to give some away.
And there are poor hard-working people who look at the wealthy as their
benefactors.
The "solution" will be found by the winners in the battle over wealth.
That's a very large battle and you won't find the solution here, except
by a random happenstance in predictions.
The battle is fought in the larger political arena.
With 5 million bpuharics it goes one way, with 5 million gfretwells
it goes another way.
And as always, the winners will be determined by who shows up.
So far, it looks like the Tea Party is winning the "show up" war.
They probably have the wealth to traipse around the country or are
getting paid expenses by the wealthy.
Hard to understand why they support politicians who would take away
their SS and Medicare.
I suspect they're just dumb, since that's not a prudent fiscal direction
for them. Money can't buy smarts.
I like the hell out of my SS and am looking forward to Medicare.
My view is everybody with more wealth than me should pay more taxes to
support my retirement.
I bet I'm in the majority. But I won't show up. Got mine, got no
complaints, and choose to remain neutral.


Jim - My Sunday ruminations done, I begin painting the living room.
Won't feel like a bum if I'm doing that.