seabeckind
seabeckind's JournalNice try but you missed the USW point
Just because Mondragon was a coop doesn't mean that's the kind of coop the USW was talking about.
I think what they mean is that rather than closing a plant and moving all the equipment out, perhaps a better approach would be to turn that factory into an employee-owned venture. In effect use the eminent domain and tax power of our gov't to change the thing from a cog in a corporate conglomerate which cares only about profit but one which cares about the livelihood of the workers.
An better example of the USW idea would be the Republic Window incident:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_Windows_and_Doors
And no, I didn't quit reading in 1900. I read quite a bit about the worker movements in the early part of this century and in the liberal approach to the economy of the depression.
Oh, and I was very good at comprehension and correlation...but never confused correlation with causation.
Addendum: Bit of the libertarian in you I see. BTW, you get enough people stomping their feet and the noise can be heard quite a ways.
The fly in the ointment -- for us
I noticed that so many of the outsourcing moves are based on long term contracts, 20, 30 years. That means that even if a democratic regime takes over, they are still burdened with this contract and cannot easily reverse it without paying penalties.
Like the parking meter business in Chicago. No wait...that wasn't a republican.
Anyway, after doing this contract where the infrastructure that was built using taxpayer money is then funnelled to the private concern to reap profits instead of providing bonus funds could have been invested into more infrastructure,
the public system that could have done this operation is then dismantled and even if the public sector wanted to bring the function back, it has to train and rebuild.
We have seen examples of this recently, like the security clearance vetting of contractors which turned out to be a joke.
So not only do these vultures rape our system, they make it nigh impossible for us to escape.
So true...heard Thom present it before
The question is how do we change the policy to reverse the effects of the lie?
What happens when the rich are taxed (not just the human people but also the corporations people) that tax money goes into infrastructure which indirectly employs so many, who then also make enough to pay taxes instead of being a drain on the economy.
But the latest memes I've bee hearing, even parrotted on this forum is that the unemployment is our fault for not learning how to function in this environment. I even heard Axelrod paraphrasing it last nite. That unemployment is caused because:
technology did away with our jobs, not the investor who makes an extra half penny a widget by having labor somewhere else cheaper. Who found that rather than investing in his company he could get some idiot politician to use taxpayers money to build him a factory and supply all his infrastructure needs.
and...
it's our fault cause we didn't invest personally in the training we needed to take advantage of the jobs of the 21st global economy. Ignoring unemployment rate of college graduates and when they can't saying that they picked the wrong major.
Maybe we ought to elect some democrats. Real ones.
What I said was that using a generational metric
is wrong. The things we are talking about aren't determined by the age of the people involved but by the culture around them. And whether that environment is conducive to innovative solutions to the problems facing us.
As I said: The 50s, 60s, and 70s were the years we saw the greatest achievements in this country since the industrial era...The 80s ushered in the MBA age, the age when individual initiative and innovation started dying. You can't apply the blame for the loss of that dynamism on a "generation". It is caused by the environment and how the people react to that, regardless of their birthdate.
And I really hate to break it to you but there were computers long before 1980. In fact even the PC predates that. To say that making that technology smaller and more affordable is an innovation is a bit o a stretch. It's kinda like Apple saying a new color for their phone is an innovation. BTW, cell technology dates back to the 70s.
As I said, the legacy systems that are complained about, like in the ACA interface were installed long ago. They are the ones that pump out those SS checks, VA payments, etc. I don't know fo certain but I believe the whole electrical grid and control systems probably date back to that era also.
But the point I have been trying to make is this: If our country has gone to hell since 1980, maybe instead of blame you should look to cause.
I didn't see any examples.
I meant exactly what I said. The problem is trying to define the attitudes of an era in terms of generations. That's a mistake. The 50s, 60s, and 70s were the years we saw the greatest achievements in this country since the industrial era.
The 80s ushered in the MBA age, the one that looked at people like they were resources. That put those people into little boxes and then treated the box like it was a commodity. Corporations took over and became mindless...truly mindless. Everything was a simple spreadsheet with a number that added up to a profit on the bottom line. The accountant became the controlling influence over the direction of companies. Somebody along the way defined entrepenuer as investor. Do you think DARPA built the internet as an investment? Do you think Wozniak did what he did with the idea of a investment?
This generation is the whiniest bunch of ... When my generation was faced with a war we couldn't accept we stood in front of loaded weapons and said no. And the ones behind those weapons were forced to the reality of being on the wrong side of history. The civil rights movement was the same. How long has Afghan been goin on?
Passion. That's what's missing.
As I said in my first post, the generation immediately after WW2 felt if there was something they couldn't accept, they changed it. When I wanted to build something, my father had the empathy to see that there was something I needed to do -- for my own reasons -- and helped me do it. His belief, a man who dropped out of the 9th grade to work in the mines, was that if a man put something together he could figure out how it worked and fix it when it broke.
So I go back to my challenge: what major social, cultural or tecnological achievements have there been since the 80s. In the computer systems world can the current crop of IT people build the replacement for those "legacy" systems? The ones I built from scratch...literally from scratch. They haven't shown it so far.
Boy but they sure can make up some great excuses and find blame.
</rant>
I was a war baby.
What bothers me so much about what has been happening is the absolute theft of all the inherent wealth that was built into our country, from magnifcent buildings, city infrastructure, energy, communications...
all stolen in some MBAs dream of value extraction.
Like the art in the Detroit museum. Some gop thief wants to steal the people's treasure and sell it to his friends to pay off a loan to his other friends.
In the 80s I lived a mile or so frm a major rail corridor that paralleled the old National highway. We, the people, had bought all the right of ways and signed leases.
In the space of one administration Reagan gave it away. If we are to do HSR, we'd have to buy it back.
I don't think it works that way.
No employer has any incentive to change their current wage unless they are forced to. You can't drive wages up by pushing from the bottom, it has to be pulled from up above.
What made the midde class advance was that big employer in town who had positions at tiers from common laborer clear thru skilled up to mgmt levels. There was an established career path and people could advance inside the company.
The bottom tier was usually more than the prevailing wage in the area because the employer valued loyalty and paid for it. There was quite an investment in even the lowest worker.
Add in the deferred compensation in pensions and benefits and that one large employer drove the whole economy of the town. Any other employer had to offer similar benefits to retain their better people.
Then there were the unions that guaranteed that the big employer couldn't start lowballing and use the threat of terminations. That union also guaranteed that the employer couldn't point to the next town over that was offering non-union job at a lower wage and using that as an extortion threat to force the lower wages at the current location.
(Picked up the economic model name the other day for that...beggar-thy-neighbor or race-to-the-bottom).
Then we lost the unions as the outsourcing took away the town's big employer and blamed the union (f'in lie).
So now, where's there to go? Our labor is like the battered wife who has no alternative.
That's wht the democratic platform should be fighting to fix. Get rid of that disgusting right-to-work at the federal level by using the NLRB and NLRA. That's what was promised long ago when that Taft-Hartley screwjob happened.
Another example of the laissez faire society
We are failing in every part of our society where a coordinated effort is needed that transcends individual corporate or personal interests.
Pick one...any one. Communications, transportations, energy, education, finance. Overall, the commons.
As Dakota points out above, profit in each interest overrides the common good.
The corporations have gotten stronger than our gov't.
One area I keep bumping into is discourse. We have none, no medium to have an in-depth dialog. Hell, we can't even have a decent intelligent debate between our politicians.
Facebook and "social" media
I'm sorry if I might be putting this comment in the wrong place (claiming ignorance). I'm sure others have noticed what I did and may have already pointed it out, but...ignorace again.
A few week ago I began posting on our local rag...actually an outlet for the gop in Indiana. I guess espousing liberal views in opposition to the gop admin isn't accepted very well around here. Here's what I just posted to my facebook account.
"Later today I will be terminating (as much as possible) my FB acct. If my political views and comments have caused any problems for anyone, I am very sorry. I didn't realize how the ignorati exploit the FB system. I noticed that my problems with the star started right after I pointed out that the Indiana Policy Review (started by Pence) has been sending LTEs pushing his position. I guess voicing liberal ideas is a big no-no, especially when they can be justified.
Jimmy asked about the NSA and privacy. I trust the NSA with my personal info much more than FB. The Privacy Act is directed at people who divulge your stuff. FB, OTOH, encourages you to show personal stuff and makes it visible to the world if you aren't very careful. It errs to the divulge side.
I'd gotten some nasty messages from those who disagree with my positions, not based on those positions, but personal. I'm glad now that I didn't show any personal info, like my name and DOB. BTW, that reluctance is what was used against me to remove me from the star. In order to reactivate I have to go to FB with a picture of my ID. As if. Especially since there's no way that guarantees a react on the star.
What makes all this so much worse is that so many public forums have started using FB for their postings. It makes it easier because they don't need staff for admin but it then allows a spotlight to be shined on anyone who might disagree with the party line. Just like long ago during the labor movements where the guy who could be identified was targetted. I noticed that so many forums have taken up that right wing argument...the one that says you should stand behind your position.
We have laws in this country to protect us from our gov't. We have no such laws to protect us from "private" gov'ts.
Take care...there're some real nasty, ignorant people out there"
And here are a couple of sample comments, the first to a article about Pence pushing for Bein to relocate to Indiana (http://www.indystar.com/story/money/2013/12/15/gov-pence-indiana-vying-for-boeing-airplane-facility/4033217/):
"While I applaud any opportunity to bring good, well-paying jobs to Indiana, let's pretend for a minute that Pence is giving our taxpayer dollars to a private company to buy jobs for us. But you see, that's not pretend. That's reality.
Now let's look at the issue. Right now Boeing is in negotiations with WA to see what kind of concessions (tax-free operations) they can get. It's not going well for them. WA close to saying...if you're not going to contribute to pay for our infrastructure, maybe we might be better off you don't contribute somewhere else.
Second point. Boeing got the same deal some years ago in SC. SC jumped all over the opportunity and gave them all kinds of stuff...including free job training. But that deal just might be running out. Kinda like when Comcast says you incentive just ended and your rate just went up $30/month. Difference between us and Comcast and Boeing and SC is that they aren't dealing with a monopoly. They can have the "right-to-work" states bid against each other.
BTW, this corporate relocation tactic is being used all over. Even here...
Ok, last point. From Pence's viewpoint it's a win-win. He gets to point to all these jobs he created (bought - with our money) and help him get reelected.
When the free incentive period ends and Boeing leaves us another empty factory, Pence will be running for Pres.
Sorry I couldn't fit it on a bumper sticker. I'm aware of the attention deficit."
and one about the economic benefits of early education (http://www.indystar.com/story/opinion/readers/conversations/2013/12/13/economic-benefits-of-preschool-are-clear/4016929/):
"Wow, 2 different editorials from the Policy network that hit right at the same time and both pushing the Pence agenda.
In 2008 Pence said, "I was part of, what we called the seed corn Heritage Foundation was spreading around the country in the state think tank movement. We actually called our little foundation in Indiana the Indiana Policy Review Foundation, very much as a homage to Policy Review Magazine of Heritage, and we modeled on the state level what Heritage had done before."
Go figure.
But as I pointed out in another propaganda LTE, the question isn't whether a good pre-school environment is beneficial. We know it is. That is a given.
The question is: What is the best way to spread our very limited taxpayer dollars to benefit the most in need and in the best way possible.
Vouchers for a few? I think not."
If you follow those links you won't see the comments.
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Gender: MaleHometown: Indiana
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Member since: Thu Dec 8, 2005, 10:45 PM
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