On 25/07/2010 9:41 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

Amazing how many people think it is "free" and trust government to do it.

On the whole, China is "tax efficient" and that means that while the
Chinese worker makes less, they can purchase services and items that do
not have the high tax load associated with them and has a much lower
cost of living. Lets use a dentist comparison.

If a dentist is taxed at a combined total rate (civic, provincial/state,
federal/sales/etc) of say 50% taxes. They also pay more for supplies
because they have componded taxes in them, the Chinese have the
advantage as:

$1200 for a crown in Canada
$900 for a crosn in US
$200 for a crown in China.

Taxation componds, if I product a product for the dentist, I have to
make more to to pay taxes thus charge more to the dentist. The dentist
in turn has to charge me more. All said and done, the governemtn is the
big winner.

It is why the question:

Does the governments work for us, or do we work for the government?

What has really happened in this depression is people, primarily middle
class people do not have the purchasing power to drive the economy.
Taxes have inflated costs and reduced net incomes. Real goods producers
no longer see the value. Highly paracitical.

And it is why Obama-democrat debt spending is so bad, it is government
on it's last gasp trying to preserve itself in a system it has botched
up completely with too much statist government and debt.

I would say the US is in for Japans lost decades for decades to come.
Until the leasons are learned, peoples standard of living will
depreciate as governmetn gets bigger. Just like Cuba or Venezuela.

--

Government has liberals, idealists and lawyers, but where is the common
sense?

On 7/25/10 1:01 PM, wrote:
On Sun, 25 Jul 2010 11:51:02 -0400, 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?

I think workers need to go get the skills to compete in a 21st century
labor market. That is not really being provided by our K-12 and
secondary education system.
The reality is I am not really sure what the middle class in all of
the Western Democracies are going to do to maintain the lifestyle they
desire.
I blame a lot of it on the greed of the consumer. Nom summed it up
when she said "why should she pay moreto support American
manufacturers".


I blame most of it on the greed of multi-national corporations.

I remember when a good quality RTW men's shirt cost less than $10...from
brands like Gant, Hathaway, Arrow, et cetera. The shirts were made in
the USA by members of garment workers unions. The workers made a living
wage, the manufacturer made a profit, and so did everyone else in the
retail chain.

Now, those same style shirts, but with lower quality materials, are made
in sweatshops in Vietnam and China by workers who are paid pennies a
day, and the shirts sell in U.S. stores for $70.

It isn't the consumer or the now-gone U.S. garment workers. The
corporation are the profiteers.

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.

On Sun, 25 Jul 2010 11:41:03 -0400, wrote:

On Fri, 23 Jul 2010 15:13:42 -0400, bpuharic 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

german purchasing power parity is on a level with US PPP when compared
on a per hour basis

the difference is that europeans go more for quality of life.
americans, slaves to their companies, have no choice but to work at
least 200 more hours per year than their european counterparts

On Sun, 25 Jul 2010 12:36:49 -0400, Wayne.B
wrote:

On Sun, 25 Jul 2010 11:51:02 -0400, Harry ?
wrote:

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

And what is your rationale for believing that they have an inalienable
right to either ?

uh because this is america...of, by and for the people? who says the
rich have rights to money they haven't earned.


Traditionally good health care and good retirement plans were fringe
benefits that employers used to attract and retain a top notch labor
force.

or used to control the work force. loss of healthcare can keep
employees subservient and in line.


When did that become a "right" ? I find nothing in the
constitution. Our ancestors grew up and proliferated without these
"rights". How did they manage? Perhaps by being productive and
thrifty?

the constitution talks about 'unenumerated rights'. integrated
marriage wasnt a right either until the courst said it was.

On 7/25/10 7:27 PM, bpuharic wrote:
On Sun, 25 Jul 2010 11:41:03 -0400, 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

german purchasing power parity is on a level with US PPP when compared
on a per hour basis

the difference is that europeans go more for quality of life.
americans, slaves to their companies, have no choice but to work at
least 200 more hours per year than their european counterparts



Those who oppose providing decent quality healthcare and decent
retirement possibilities for lower-income workers have no ideas that
will improve the lives of these families. A large percentage of
lower-income workers simply don't have the ability to climb up the
ladder since they must devote all of their time to survival.

Instituting higher tax rates on those who can afford them is a way to
provide the poorer among us with a better quality of life. That, and
cutting the military budget in half would do the job, I am sure.

On Sun, 25 Jul 2010 13:01:37 -0400, wrote:



I think workers need to go get the skills to compete in a 21st century
labor market. That is not really being provided by our K-12 and
secondary education system.
The reality is I am not really sure what the middle class in all of
the Western Democracies are going to do to maintain the lifestyle they
desire.
I blame a lot of it on the greed of the consumer. Nom summed it up
when she said "why should she pay more to support American
manufacturers".

Most of our prosperity was based on union factory workers making
outrageous money for doing a mediocre, mundane job.

dont you love the right wing!!

wall street managers LITERALLY made BILLIONS while contributing
NOTHING to the ecomony. in 1997 the financial sector accounted for
about 20% of GDP. in 2007 it accounted for 40%

yet americans weren't richer. we weren't more competitive.

so who does the right wing blame?

the middle class



I also fear for guys like Bob P. It sounds like he has a dead end job

notice how the right wing obsesses on anecdotes. they can't understand
the collapse of the economy wrought by their radical free market
'final solution' to the worker problesm

the right wings says

1. pay the rich as much as you can
2. pay the middle class nothing

then they wonder why the middle class can't spend

the right wing simply does not know that 10,000,000 people have lost
their jobs in the last 3 years. to them, everything is OK because the
rich are doing fine

in a company that does not really value his work and he talks like his
prospects for future employment are not that great when they ship his
cubicle to India.
Thus is the global economy and the union in Germany doesn't seem to
have any more power than ours do in that regard.

gee. the germans seem to be doing fine. and they're heavily unionized

Wow! i couldnt' resist and jsut had to get in on this thread.

Mine is post #423

On 7/25/10 7:41 PM, Tim wrote:
Wow! i couldnt' resist and jsut had to get in on this thread.

Mine is post #423


It's been pretty humorous, with most of the righties offering up the
"it's ok for everyone except the rich to be ****ed." W'hine offered up a
classic rightie response earlier today, saying that since the
Constitution didn't discuss providing decent health care for the poor,
there was no rationale for doing it...or something like that.

On Sun, 25 Jul 2010 11:15:48 -0600, Canuck57
wrote:

On 25/07/2010 9:41 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

Amazing how many people think it is "free" and trust government to do it.

guess he didn't notice this article is

five years old


And it is why Obama-democrat debt spending is so bad,

actually it's the bush/paulson spending. obama is spending roughly
what bush spent in his last year in office

but, you see, bush is white

and obama is black...


I would say the US is in for Japans lost decades for decades to come.

uh, hate to inform you

but japan has LESS government spending as a percentage of GDP than we
do

http://www.tnr.com/blogs/jonathan-chait



Until the leasons are learned, peoples standard of living will
depreciate as governmetn gets bigger. Just like Cuba or Venezuela.

lessons learned? let's see....

the right winger says because of high govt spending we're going to
wind up like japan

but he's too ****ing stupid to realize japan's govt spending is less
than ours!

the right wing is FILLED with incredible bull****