Updates by Wishimay

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

I've got no clue.

On 9/11 I thought - yanno, we'll get past this. We need to take lessons from it about how not to conduct ourselves in the world, but in the grand scheme of things this is a blip.

Little did I realize that a tide of government and deep government would use it as a whip to drive anger, invade Afghanistan - and then Iraq, because Iraq was so clearly involved (ahem) - bankrupt the government, spy en masse on Americans - AND THE VAST MAJORITY OF USers WOULD FERVENTLY, EVEN RABIDLY, SUPPORT ALL OF THAT.

So, what do I know?

SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.

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Saturday, August 29, 2015 5:46 AM

President Trump...............has a rather unique ring to it, doesn't it?

He'll win by a landslide, according to everyone. Yep, I'm going with Trump. He said he'll be the greatest jobs president in the history of the country. He'll build the Great Trump Wall to keep those pesky intruders out. He's promised to repeal Obamacare, a crowd favorite and he's going to kick out 11.4 million illegals and make our country great again.

He hasn't said exactly how he'll do all this, but I'm going with him because he said so. Lucky me, he'll be the greatest president ever, even better than Bush or Reagan combined. Woo Hoo!!!

Trump 2016
Paid for by "All The Hispanics in the World Love Trump, 2016"

SGG

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Saturday, August 29, 2015 11:36 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Wow, a lot has been happening in the past few weeks, hasn't it? It's always scary when a job is lost. I'm glad that your hubby found a new one.

Quote:
Two. No, not THAT Two
Hubby finally lost his job coal minin'. We at least got a couple weeks severance. More than we ever got before. There isn't ANYTHING out here that pays comparable so... F U OBAMA.

Um... I don't follow coal, but what happened that made coal unprofitable? As far as I know there are no new regulations in place that are going to have an impact any time soon. Even the first implementation date for carbon reduction is in 2022, that's too far in the future to have an effect on coal NOW. (As a regulator, I've never seen industry do anything proactively.) I would have thought the very low price of oil would have been the problem because it's putting pressure on the price of ALL fuels, including natural gas.

So, what am I missing?

Quote:
And on the "renewable energy" front I see the second biggest solar company has run from Vegas after TWO WEEKS of business. So that'll be here... thirty years from now???

Most solar cell mfrs are doing quite well and are expected to do well in the near future. http://www.statista.com/statistics/245212/projected-revenue-of-the-sol
ar-panel-manufacturing-industry/ I looked into this and it seems the death-knell to this company was the death of its CEO in a plane crash.

Quote:
But he starts a new job Monday. Like I said, you can get by here if you mind your P's and Q's. Not by depending on unemployment, which we didn't get...AGAIN.

Is your state governor a Republican?

Quote:
And with the horrible financial year we had, too. But, we're still movin' along, somehow. Those 2 visits to the E.R. earlier this year?? We just got another bill...
We're up to $3000 !!! dollars. And his previous job is refusing to pay for a docs visit from an injury he got at work, too.

Oh man! That sucks!

Quote:
And the homeschooling?? Right out the window. At least she seems to be doing ok. Thought I was going to get a job, but I ended being more help fielding calls and printing resumes. At least she wasn't here to see all the fretting and worry.

Maybe homeschooling in the future? Or are you looking for a job?

Quote:
I see India is still Dark Age'n it. I stand by my original assessment.

MOST nations are Dark-Aging it. Look at the USA death penalty!

Quote:
Now, who do we think will win the election? And don't give me who YOU want to win....Give me who you think will actually take the cake. I know it's early yet... I'm just curious.

I have no idea. But maybe Trump. Even long-term Dems that I know are bailing on Hillary. I think people are just spinning the wheel, because NOBODY has made a positive improvement in their lives lately.

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

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Saturday, August 29, 2015 12:51 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

Even long-term Dems that I know are bailing on Hillary.

It's her personality. In the abstract she fills the bill, so she started out with generic acceptance. But the more she puts herself out there, the less people like her. I think people vote for personality more than policy. I do want to caveat that I think if she were a he, he would not be judged as negatively. There's still a double standard.

Though in her case, her policies suck, too. She's as much a corporatist as Obama or Bush/ Cheney.

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Sunday, August 30, 2015 12:04 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Um... I don't follow coal, but what happened that made coal unprofitable? As far as I know there are no new regulations in place that are going to have an impact any time soon.

So, what am I missing?

Even long-term Dems that I know are bailing on Hillary. I think people are just spinning the wheel, because NOBODY has made a positive improvement in their lives lately.

Combination of things... Natural gas has gotten cheaper, many coal-fired plants are getting old, and if the regulations on emissions actually go into place, it will be too expensive to produce due to fines, so they are getting out NOW rather than build up stocks they can't sell.

We live in the Illinois Basin, which Peabody is one of the last companies still turning a profit and actually functioning. Because of the geography here, they dig medium-sulfur coal, whereas many others have high-sulfur coal. Medium sulfur is easier to use and sell. Hubbs tried getting on at one that is still hiring, but they offer NO INSURANCE. Basically using a temp agency to run off of. It's a great job if you're an 18 yr old kid, and can use mom and dads insurance. Ironically, the coal they are selling is primarily going to India.

He misses it. I even miss it. Since the thyroid problem, he has developed an allergy to his own sweat. At the mines he took a long hot shower every day, and it wasn't a problem, now it is. More than that, it made him feel like a man, and he had respect there. Now he's startin' all over again. Ain't so easy at 40.

I would like to get a job. Having wrecked three cars in eight years(and a tornado), every time we get the money together something happens. It's been OK for the last eight, because I always had something to do on the house, but I'm fresh out of projects... My dads old truck is not reliable enough to get me to a job (we just use it to haul trash, but it is broke more often than not), and I don't want to have to depend on me working (as I get sick frequently) to pay for the vehicle, so I guess I will continue to wait.

I've only seen a handful of people supporting Hillary, but I think even they know a lost cause. I've seen lots of support for Bernie Sanders, but not enough to beat Trump. I find it odd that people who consider themselves ethical are supporting him, esp. in light of his horrible moral code. But then, last night I was explaining to the kiddo who Donald Trump is... and I got it...

Donald Trump is the last great celebrity relic of the EIGHTIES. Gas and food was cheap, laws were easy to undermine or ignore altogether, and people pretended to get along. At least, that's what some people cherry-pick to remember, anyway. I mean, Dynasty, and Yuppies with mobile phones (yeah, my mom had one of those giant battery pack ones the size of a small TV, too) and home computers, VCRs and Cassette tapes. It was an age of new and exciting things that the mainstream could actually afford. Gives ya warm fuzzies, don't it?

Yeah, as nauseating as it is to think it, he's going to win. Provided he doesn't say something horrible about old white men and the 47% that are on welfare, of course. And he does suffer horribly from hoof-n-mouth disease...

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Sunday, August 30, 2015 12:17 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

I guess it's the overall (world) economic slowdown. We're still feeling the effects of 2008, as hard as that is to grasp. But when the USA mortgages collapsed, all of that debt-based spending collapsed too, which meant that China ("factory to the world") lost a large market, which meant that it stopped producing so much "stuff", which meant that the demand for raw materials (commodities) collapsed too ... aluminum, iron ore, copper, coal, soy, beef ...

Now I know China tried to increase internal demand by encouraging lending, but all that did was create a housing bubble, a commodity bubble, and a stock bubble in quick succession, all of which seemed to have collapsed. So basically we seem to be heading into what is known as a "trade war" (altho at the moment being waged as a "currency war")...

Ah, the ultimate failure of capitalism: it destroys the markets that it depends on! The existential search for capitalists is never about cheap labor or cheap materials, it's all about finding new markets.

----

I never paid much attention to Trump, but your explanation sounds as good as any! I think whatever support Hillary has is the same desire to get back to "the good old days" of Bill, but that connection seems to be getting more and more tenuous. Like KIKI says, people just don't LIKE her very much!

Hang in there, WISH.

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

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Sunday, August 30, 2015 3:21 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

Hey Wish -

I know that you were replying to Signy, but I wanted to say I appreciate your post. Thanks. I truly hope things go better.

BTW, that whole thing about using temp workers - in the energy business I think it started in the refineries in a big way about 15 years ago. And literally just yesterday I struck up a conversation (in the local family restaurant where I get iced tea) with an energy geologist who owns a consulting firm. He was telling me that even the vital 'think' work, like identifying oil fields and setting up and overseeing the site, is now contracted out to consultants.

I used to think that there were certain types of jobs that could never be exported and that were safe in terms of finding steady employment. Those would be jobs that need to be done hands-on HERE, like healthcare and eldercare or fastfood work (service work). Or it could involve working with resources and products affixed here, like construction, farmwork, mining, logging etc.

But capitalism has found a way! You can import cheap foreign labor to do the work, like nurses and programmers. Or let them import themselves illegally like farmworkers, or hardhats or food processors. Or you can offload your workforce to temp agencies, or you can make your workforce individual contractors, or you can pay piecework for e-jobs like editing. Or, for the cheapest labor force of all, you can shut down your business entirely.

YAY for capitalist ingenuity! (I hope that that's obvious sarcasm.)

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Sunday, August 30, 2015 9:37 PM

Capitalism. *snort*

I mean, I get that you two think somehow you are fighting a winnable battle here, but it's soo far outside the realm of possibility I just blow you off. Like everybody else does. Haven't you noticed the lack of arguing on the subject? SMH.

Maybe you should start a door-to-door program, like Jehovahs Witnesses. Heck, there's about ten million of those, and they did it in only 100 years. Maybe if you start now, and go door-to-door for the rest of your lives...you might get a million together. What's our population again?
320 million??

Good luck.

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Sunday, August 30, 2015 10:04 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

Capitalism. *snort* I mean, I get that you two think somehow you are fighting a winnable battle here ...

No. But if it's the root cause, what's to be gained by pretending it's not - and that something else is? I thought you believed in uncomfortable truths. Apparently you prefer comfortable fairy tales.

OK. . . So. ... ... THANKS! Obamacare for ruining your life! Because the corporations had nothing to do with it.

Now, let's discuss how Obamacare, and only Obamacare, is at the core of all that went wrong.

How about it?

ETA: - OK. That was snippy and took discussion backwards, not forwards. I apologize. How about this. Tell me how corporations are an irrelevant cause of the sinking American standard of living, and decreasing American hope for the future, including yours. OR, if not that, why they are not worth discussing.

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Sunday, August 30, 2015 11:32 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
I thought you believed in uncomfortable truths.

ETA: - OK. That was snippy and took discussion backwards, not forwards. I apologize. How about this. Tell me how corporations are an irrelevant cause of the sinking American standard of living, and decreasing American hope for the future, including yours. OR, if not that, why they are not worth discussing.

I believe in fighting battles I can WIN too.

Probably not the best week to even have this discussion. The place that hubby took the job is a place we said we would never work for. They screwed us outta four years of vacation days a decade ago just in the ridiculous manner they hired people. So yeah, we sold out big this week.

What else would you like us to DO about that, Hmm? Gotta eat. Gotta heat. Don't see a whole lotta people offering either. High minded ideals don't mean much to a hungry or cold kid.

Edited to add: And thanks for bringing up insurance. Don't have any. Even with adjustments, it's still another $400 we can't give out, Just have ta wait till it kicks in again in three months.... Oh...well.....

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Monday, August 31, 2015 12:16 AM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

What would I have YOU do, personally, as individuals? Whatever you can.

But, people used to be smarter. They unionized. They understood that individually they'd be crushed, but together they had power. Together they fought for better conditions. It's how the 40-hour workweek, worker safety, and other improvements were won. If there's a drive to unionize temp or contract workers, that's an important fight to join, or perhaps start.

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Monday, August 31, 2015 2:59 AM

http://moodybeatlegirl.deviantart.com/art/Big-Damn-Heroes-557325248

Forgive me Wish, I don't mean to make fun of your situation, that's not who I am.

I look at it this way. I'm not up to date on the coal mining situation, but overall, workers are generally at the mercy of the powers that be and, in this case, the bosses in charge of the coal mining industry. Like any major industry or corporation they buy low and sell high for profit. So a situation is created whereby those in charge can produce, with some certainty, a form of cheap labor to ensure the bottom line - profit. More rather than less.

So, like the Koch brothers, they hire lobbyists to pitch those in government, local, state and federal; assurances that if they vote for certain measures favorable to their industry, they assure to contribute to their cause -
namely re-election. That's a simple approach, but for the purposes of this little note it'll have to do. It's more complicated than that. My guess, and a big one at that, is that most folks on both sides of the aisle - Dems and Repubs - are conservative in nature with varying degrees of enthusiasm. I say all this because I firmly believe that the corporate mentality is that of "profit at all costs" and believe me, there's serious money to be made. I'm talking billions, perhaps trillions.

Perfect example - Repubs pushing for Deregulation in the Banking Industry.

Result: Banks made trillions in derivatives (that private insurance among the huge corporate banks that nearly caused the economic collapse back in 2008. For which we, the people, paid through the nose to bail them out. In other words, the old double dip. They hit us going and coming).

Remember 'Too Big To Fail,' guess who thought of that one. Well, does it matter? Here we are, 7 years later, and the rich are richer and salaries remain stagnant. That wasn't voted on by you and me. That was decided on by hmmmmmmm, let me see...........well, definitely not the illegal immigrants that came here escaping near economic collapse back in their country.

The hiring of an undocumented worker is not decided upon by the average voter, but by Big Business, the same ones that decide what to pay their workers, and deposit millions in overseas accounts so as not to pay their share of taxes. And who has to pay for that I wonder? This is not left wing rhetoric, but what lies beneath the surface and what they won't tell you in any media, mainstream or Fox.

It's tough, I've been through the wars. I was unemployed for over a year and down to my last 20 bucks in the bank, when I landed the job where I work currently. I am, what they term as 'underemployed.' I make far less than when I was working in my field as a paralegal. But I continue to strive towards a better future, despite my age, I haven't given in. It's not easy, no matter your background, place of birth or economic station (unless you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth).

I do wish you well, good health and good luck!

SGG

Quote:
Originally posted by Wishimay:
Well, it's been a few weeks since I stepped back from FFF.

First off, I apologize to JSF for the misunderstanding on that thread a month ago. I'm pretty good at intent most days, but some are better than others....

Two. No, not THAT Two
Hubby finally lost his job coal minin'. We at least got a couple weeks severance. More than we ever got before.
There isn't ANYTHING out here that pays comparable so... F U OBAMA.

And on the "renewable energy" front I see the second biggest solar company has run from Vegas after TWO WEEKS of business. So that'll be here... thirty years from now???

But he starts a new job Monday. Like I said, you can get by here if you mind your P's and Q's. Not by depending on unemployment, which we didn't get...AGAIN.

And with the horrible financial year we had, too. But, we're still movin' along, somehow.

Those 2 visits to the E.R. earlier this year?? We just got another bill...
We're up to $3000 !!! dollars. And his previous job is refusing to pay for a docs visit from an injury he got at work, too.

And the homeschooling?? Right out the window. At least she seems to be doing ok. Thought I was going to get a job, but I ended being more help fielding calls and printing resumes. At least she wasn't here to see all the fretting and worry.

I see India is still Dark Age'n it. I stand by my original assessment.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/indian-sisters-rape-punishment_55e
09fece4b0b7a96338d781?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000592&ref=yfp

Sad thing is, I've seen dozens of these types of articles....

Now, who do we think will win the election? And don't give me who YOU want to win....Give me who you think will actually take the cake. I know it's early yet... I'm just curious.

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Monday, August 31, 2015 6:59 AM

TWO

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

two often you use the emoticon for eyeroll

Quote:
Originally posted by Wishimay:

Two. No, not THAT Two
Hubby finally lost his job coal minin'. We at least got a couple weeks severance. More than we ever got before.
There isn't ANYTHING out here that pays comparable so... F U OBAMA.

Quote:
Originally posted by Wishimay:

You REALLY think everyone works or should work the way you operate don't you?

http://fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=59974&mid=10018
60#1001860

http://xkcd.com/1570/

The Joss Whedon script for "Serenity," where Wash lives, is
Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Monday, August 31, 2015 10:49 AM

Two often is it altogether fitting and necessary

Better?

How about

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Monday, August 31, 2015 11:18 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
It's how the 40-hour workweek, worker safety, and other improvements were won. If there's a drive to unionize temp or contract workers, that's an important fight to join, or perhaps start.

Unions *snort*

Lemme tell you about UNIONS.

Years ago hubbs was working at an alarm installer place that was in the Communications union (transmitting signals).

There were the sales guys and the installers. Sales actually made a living wage, installers had a take home around $27k. This was a full time job, which had unpaid weekend duties like taking the truck in for van maintenance. He drove more than most truckers, driving as far away as 5-6 hours, crawling through crawl spaces, perching on roofs, in the heat, in the snow.

At one point there came a decision to restructure how everyone got paid (per hourly, or per job) and the union rep went with THE SALES GUYS...KNOWING it would cut installers pay down to nothing and forcing them to double their hours, while increasing what sales made for basically SITTING ON THEIR ASSES.

Conclusion? UNION REP WAS PAID OFF.

There's how yer damn unions work in this country. And this is just ONE example. It's almost TRADITION for coal mining union reps to get paid off by the mines to blow smoke at the workers.

People representing people doesn't work, because.... GREED.
Taking the money is ALWAYS easier than doing the work.

All having an ethical code means in this country is you are at the bottom of the heap getting crapped on by the rest of the garbage. Look at Trump, running for Prez. 'Nuff said.

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Monday, August 31, 2015 2:01 PM

TWO

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Quote:
Originally posted by Wishimay:

Conclusion? UNION REP WAS PAID OFF.
. . .
Look at Trump, running for Prez. 'Nuff said.

What would Mal do if he was in the situation your husband was in? Once Mal discovered how much lower his next paycheck was compared to the previous one, what would Mal do to that union rep? Kill him is my guess. There would be a new union rep and a new deal with the company.

What would Trump do? If Trump was working as a burglar alarm installer, would he wait until his next paycheck to compare with his previous one? No! Trump would know the exact details of the deal and have made a calculation of which choice is better. Trump would have sued the union rep is my guess. Or Trump explained to Mal what was happening and Mal decides to kill the rep thus saving Trump from hiring a lawyer. This is why Trump is rich.

The third way is the American way: bitch about a conspiracy, take however little is given, and eventually quit.

Mal and Trump know Americans are chumps.

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Monday, August 31, 2015 2:15 PM

The difference being that Trump has the cash to lose fighting for a crap job and we do not. Nor the time or energy. Any day NOT spent with a lawyer is a good day...

Hubbs gave his two weeks notice right then, and did not wait. The point isn't the crap job at all, the point was that unions don't work anymore.

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Monday, August 31, 2015 2:53 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

"Conclusion? UNION REP WAS PAID OFF."

I've been through two union decertifications and one massive internal mutiny where the existing board and the attorney were dumped and new ones put in place. Also, I was a union rep and a contract negotiator for 16 years, so I like to think I have some union experience.

My early union experience was fairly uneventful. I ran for and won as rep and negotiator when it looked like the original long-term union was going to be decertified. One year after the new union was voted in, it was decertified and another union took its place, but the union board was reelected intact. At the time the employer was still being pretty reasonable about most things including contract negotiations. For those things we felt were unreasonable we depended on the advice of our lawyer.

But in the last 5 years when I was a negotiator, negotiations were getting tougher and tougher. Management would leak rumors that if we waited to enter negotiations at the specified time we'd lose benefits if not wages, and so it would behoove us to go into early negotiations and extend the existing contract; would refuse to bargain over some items; did not promote board members who were qualified; and other such tactics. In that situation, the negotiating team of which I was a member, negotiated the last contract where we got a raise (until this recent contract). And I like to think the presentation where I took apart the agency's budget had something to do with it.

But a lot of us got tired after that, and most of us didn't run again.

An essentially new board was voted in and after a while it became apparent that either they were majorly incompetent or in management's pocket. For example, all the usual rumors about wage and benefit retrenchment that we used to ignore (with concern; it was never an easy decision), the new union board would amplify and broadcast in order to stampede the members into doing what management wanted. And also, after 2008 management used the ongoing economic crisis to screw the workers. Negotiations became brutal, involving multiple reductions in benefits for workers. There was a gap of 8 years where we got no raises and benefits cutbacks. And employees faced harsher scrutiny over trivial things, and more severe punishment.

It took a few years for people to build up steam over the bad contract/ no contract/ bad working condition situation, but they did and voted out the old board after 4 years and ALSO contracted with a different lawyer.

And the new law firm made all the difference in the world.

In retrospect, the lawyer who was advising us when I was a board member was either incompetent or in bed with management.

The new law group took the employer to PERB (Public Employees Relations Board) over unilaterally changing the terms of the contract and over multiple infractions during negotiations and was able to win concessions as a result. They are also far more capable and aggressive about representing individual employees who've been targeted by management.

Having a good lawyer makes all the difference.

BTW, in your husband's history - a contract has to be voted on by the members to be valid. If sales had a numerical advantage such that installers could never have a say in the contract, installers could have joined a different union.

Not pointing fingers here. But the way it seems to work out, unions are like government. It's up to the people who are being represented to make sure their representatives are working in their interest. And once that stops happening they have the right to get someone else.

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Monday, August 31, 2015 7:13 PM

rezident owtsidr

Quote:
Originally posted by Wishimay:
Hubby finally lost his job coal minin'....

And with the horrible financial year we had, too.... We just got another bill...And the homeschooling?? Right out the window.

I hav a job for you AND it helps with the homeskooling! How perfect iz that?!

The only possible drawback for you iz that you hav to betray The Queen. I need sumwun to go back in time and stab her in the chest befor she commissionz the Oxford English Dictionary. (I dont exactly know the history, so you'll need to do a little reserch first)

Seriously, you coud conseevably get rich.

----------------------------
DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early

http://www.nooalf.com

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Monday, August 31, 2015 10:57 PM

Well, considering I think Monarchies are a relic from the dark ages and people are ridiculously stupid for having people around who think god gave them the right to rule...that probably wouldn't be tooooo hard.

Seriously, when you read how much the "Royal Family" is worth....

When the Queen dies, it needs to be over, just for the sake of rational thought.
Make those people get JOBS, like the rest of the shmucks. Then FILM IT.

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Monday, August 31, 2015 11:05 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
Having a good lawyer makes all the difference.

Good...Lawyer...?

Somehow, I do not think that means what you think it means...

Like I said...crap job. Best to find somethin' else, but no one likes to get screwed anyhow. He stayed at that job for two years tooo long, but you can't believe how people like to see that on a resume. May have even gotten him this job. Doing Maintenance, BTW.

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Monday, August 31, 2015 11:31 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

Good...Lawyer...?

They exist!

But if he's got a ft job, that's less of a disaster than if not.

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Tuesday, September 1, 2015 2:24 AM

rezident owtsidr

I think the entire job thing iz overdue for a major overhaul.

The relation between the work you do and the pay you get iz totally out uv wak. It seemz the less your work iz worth to society, the more you get. Many jobz are actually detrimental!

----------------------------
DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early

http://www.nooalf.com

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Tuesday, September 1, 2015 5:41 AM

Ahhhhhh, capitalism and the ever fabulous trickle down..............and I mean trickle.

SGG

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Tuesday, September 1, 2015 5:43 AM

Sadly, tis' true!

SGG

Quote:
Originally posted by Wishimay:
The difference being that Trump has the cash to lose fighting for a crap job and we do not. Nor the time or energy. Any day NOT spent with a lawyer is a good day...

Hubbs gave his two weeks notice right then, and did not wait. The point isn't the crap job at all, the point was that unions don't work anymore.

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Tuesday, September 1, 2015 6:04 AM

It's funny how that works. Resume with a crappy job, You're Hired!
Out of work for more than 3 months, "Sorry, can't use ya!"

Was working for a major hospital in a supervisory role, generally as an assistant to the manager; in charge of 19 people. Then slowly took over responsibility of another supervisor (which came about naturally, in other words no power play on my part). I went to ask for a raise.

Was given the old Run Around by the Administration and my Dept Head. After 5 years of solid performance, I was treated like crap. I left for another lousy job (little did I know at the time). No union, no nothing. Just a poor sucker thinking that hard work would eventually pay off.

Making America Great Again..............it's not just Trump trying to sell us a bill of goods. That American Dream bull, is just that. That died long ago. It started in the late 70s, early 80s. And now it's come to this. There's Super Rich, Rich, then it goes to scraping by, and finally poor..........the Middle Class is much like the Land of Oz.

SGG

Quote:
Originally posted by Wishimay:
Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
Having a good lawyer makes all the difference.

Good...Lawyer...?

Somehow, I do not think that means what you think it means...

Like I said...crap job. Best to find somethin' else, but no one likes to get screwed anyhow. He stayed at that job for two years to long, but you can't believe how people like to see that on a resume. May have even gotten him this job. Doing Maintenance, BTW.

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Tuesday, September 1, 2015 8:43 AM

rezident owtsidr

Quote:
Originally posted by SHINYGOODGUY:After 5 years of solid performance, I was treated like crap. I left for another lousy job (little did I know at the time). No union, no nothing. Just a poor sucker thinking that hard work would eventually pay off.

I wuz in hi skool wen I figured out that working wuz for chumps. Too bad I didnt figure out that I shoud pak up & go to Wall Street.

----------------------------
DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early

http://www.nooalf.com

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Tuesday, September 1, 2015 10:15 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by SHINYGOODGUY:

Making America Great Again..............it's not just Trump trying to sell us a bill of goods. That American Dream bull, is just that. That died long ago. It started in the late 70s, early 80s. And now it's come to this. There's Super Rich, Rich, then it goes to scraping by, and finally poor..........the Middle Class is much like the Land of Oz.

Here is a short-short story about American business's poor behavior toward white collar workers writing software. It's foreign workers, but business can do similar to citizens and make them micro-serfs at Microsoft:

James Bach and Robert Werner’s How to Secure Your H-1B Visa is written for both employers and the workers they hire. They are told that firms must “promise to pay any H-1B employee a competitive salary,” which in theory means what’s being offered “to others with similar experience and qualifications.” At least, this is what the law says. But then there are figures compiled by Zoe Lofgren, who represents much of Silicon Valley in Congress, showing that H-1B workers average 57 percent of the salaries paid to Americans with comparable credentials.

Norman Matloff, a computer scientist at the University of California’s Davis campus, provides some answers. The foreigners granted visas, he found, are typically single or unattached men, usually in their late twenties, who contract for six-year stints, knowing they will work long hours and live in cramped spaces. Being tied to their sponsoring firm, Matloff adds, they “dare not switch to another employer” and are thus “essentially immobile.” For their part, Bach and Warner warn, “it may be risky for you to give notice to your current employer.” Indeed, the perils include deportation if you can’t quickly find another guarantor.

Matloff also found that employers “tailor job requirements so that only the desired foreign applicants qualify” and they “have an arsenal of legal means to reject all US workers who apply.” Despite Microsoft’s talk of “best minds,” the majority of H-1B workers are, in Matloff words, “ordinary people doing ordinary work.” On a Government Accountability Office scale, only 17 percent were graded “fully competent” in their specialty. Typically, they produce the lines of code needed to keep so much of our digitized world functioning. Of course, coding can be challenging and creative. But behind each innovative designer, there’s a need for dozens of routine coders whose main job is to get every symbol, letter, and integer precisely right.

Most businesses prefer having an oversupply of workers, in part to keep those on board fearful lest they be replaced. And if less money goes to the rank-and-file, that often means that more money is available for the executive floors. In Matloff’s view, the dramatic warnings about scarcities of skills are actually “all about an industry wanting to lower wages.” To this extent, he argues, wider income spreads between executives and other employees are integral to corporate visions for the years ahead. But unlike in earlier eras, a STEM proletariat will be digitally literate, thanks to the coding classes Microsoft would make universal (and which are increasingly available from other firms and from high-tech education companies providing classes for recent high school graduates as well as older workers; among them are “boot camps” that charge as much as $12,000 for eight or nine intense weeks). What they’ll do as they reach, say, thirty-five years old is not the concern of an economy based on revolving cubicles, marginal salaries, and importing acquiescent labor. In the summer of 2014, Microsoft laid off 18,000 of its employees.
www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2015/jul/09/frenzy-about-high-tech-t
alent/

Earlier this year, Disney laid off several hundred American technical workers, to be replaced by H-1B arrivals from India. Key to the shift, as Disney phrased it, would be “knowledge transfer.” Thus those slated for dismissal were told that if they wished a severance check, they had to teach what they did to the newcomers. See Patrick Thibodeau, “Fury Rises at Disney Over Use of Foreign Workers,” ComputerWorld, April 29, 2015
www.computerworld.com/article/2915904/it-outsourcing/fury-rises-at-dis
ney-over-use-of-foreign-workers.html

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Tuesday, September 1, 2015 2:24 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SHINYGOODGUY:

Just a poor sucker thinking that hard work would eventually pay off.

Making America Great Again..............it's not just Trump trying to sell us a bill of goods. That American Dream bull, is just that. That died long ago. It started in the late 70s, early 80s. And now it's come to this. There's Super Rich, Rich, then it goes to scraping by, and finally poor..........the Middle Class is much like the Land of Oz.

On this, we agree. Had this conversation a couple days ago.

You either have kids and have nothing, or don't have kids and have stuff or travel cheap. Working harder than your co-workers means NOTHING to employers these days because everyone is expendable and can be tossed out the second the ledger hits red. My uncles had decent money at one time got hit hard in the market TWICE, and are still working at 65 and 72...

We don't even know anyone who has real money. My neighbor across the street always says they sold a house in Arizona for $500, 000 but that was years ago... That's as close as it gets to "rich" around here.

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Tuesday, September 1, 2015 4:20 PM

rezident owtsidr

2nd, thats the inspiration for Office Space wich came out in 1999.

You reminded me uv this song, Wishy:

----------------------------
DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early

http://www.nooalf.com

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Tuesday, September 1, 2015 5:57 PM

I could see that being re-worked and put into a FF episode...

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Tuesday, September 1, 2015 9:01 PM

rezident owtsidr

Ye! It fits rite in there!

----------------------------
DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early

http://www.nooalf.com

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Tuesday, September 1, 2015 10:36 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK

Quote:
Originally posted by Wishimay:
Quote:
Originally posted by SHINYGOODGUY:

Just a poor sucker thinking that hard work would eventually pay off.

Making America Great Again..............it's not just Trump trying to sell us a bill of goods. That American Dream bull, is just that. That died long ago. It started in the late 70s, early 80s. And now it's come to this. There's Super Rich, Rich, then it goes to scraping by, and finally poor..........the Middle Class is much like the Land of Oz.

On this, we agree. Had this conversation a couple days ago.

You either have kids and have nothing, or don't have kids and have stuff or travel cheap. Working harder than your co-workers means NOTHING to employers these days because everyone is expendable and can be tossed out the second the ledger hits red. My uncles had decent money at one time got hit hard in the market TWICE, and are still working at 65 and 72...

We don't even know anyone who has real money. My neighbor across the street always says they sold a house in Arizona for $500, 000 but that was years ago... That's as close as it gets to "rich" around here.

There's the much lesser known 3rd option.....

No kids, single guy with a house....

The silly thing is, as unemployed as I currently am, I'm not really struggling any more than I was when I had a shitty 30 hour a week minimum-wage job.

Whether working or not working, I haven't been able to buy anything nice for myself in going on 4 years. Sure... I wouldn't even be able to have this house at the wages I've been making if I didn't buy it outright, but you would think that would give you some freedom, wouldn't you?

It's actually a pretty horrible place to be, to be honest.....

I could work 30-40 hours a week, part time, no insurance/benefits and make 8 bucks an hour. In doing so, I get nearly $200/mo. food stamps, I get nearly $500/yr. energy assitance, I get on the Healthy Indiana Plan for about $8/mo, I get a $300 property tax credit on state taxes.

Or, I could work Full Time at $12/hr. Food Stamps are gone ($2300/yr). Energy Assistance is gone ($500/yr). Property Tax Credit gone ($300/yr).

Unless I can make $15 an hour with good benefits, what is my incentive to ever work more than part time minimum wage, stuck where I'm at?

All of those benefits I get, not including insurance, are tax free. Add 12% to them to cover state taxes and Social Security/Medicaid and now that's an extra $3,472 I need to make Gross to break even.

Full time is 2080 hours a year. That's an extra $1.66 an hour I need to make JUST TO BREAK EVEN with the NOTHING I have now. So even if I'm making $4 more an hour, even before taxes, I'm losing nearly half of that to lost benefits.

And that's not even including health insurance costs. Instead of paying $8 bucks a month for the Healthy Indiana Plan, now I have to pay over $120/month for the lowest level of the company health plan for myself. That's about $0.80 an hour more that I don't get to see when I finally cash my check.

I'm teetering right on the precipice of Bull and Shit.

Whether I make 8 bucks an hour or 12 bucks an hour, the end result for me is the same. Life sucks, I can't afford to have any fun, I rue the day when my car stops working.....

I don't understand why I get taxed so hard for being single without any kids. Women I used to work with used to make more than twice as much at my old job than I did because they'd get $12,000 checks after taxes. They would get more "back" in taxes than I made all year working.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Tuesday, September 1, 2015 11:00 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

Why are you bitching about people who are a .01 millimeter up the scale from you? Why not bitch about the taxes and benefits of the people who are in stratosphere?

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Wednesday, September 2, 2015 1:31 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
I don't understand why I get taxed so hard for being single without any kids. Women I used to work with used to make more than twice as much at my old job than I did because they'd get $12,000 checks after taxes. They would get more "back" in taxes than I made all year working.

Supporting a kid is tough these days, hon. They intentionally don't put up prices at my kids school at lunch... She came home on the first day of Jr High school and spent $6. We pack lunch now. But, GROCERIES!

They take pictures twice a year here, $40 minimum

Book and tech fees were $125

New shoes, bag, clothes... We re-used a lot since she's at a growth plateau for a while. She's 12 yrs old and 5'7, btw. Size 10 shoes... We've gone through twenty sizes of clothes in twelve years. She can go through a book a DAY on a kindle if I let her, and I would like to. Between her and her dad, we keep Amazon in business I think...

And Kiki, it's like I said, he probably doesn't even KNOW anyone with money. Hard to focus on a people you can't SEE. It's not like they mix with us "low-brows"...

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Thursday, September 3, 2015 2:23 AM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

And Kiki, it's like I said, he probably doesn't even KNOW anyone with money. Hard to focus on a people you can't SEE. It's not like they mix with us "low-brows"...

There is that ...

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Thursday, September 3, 2015 10:03 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:

On this, we agree. Had this conversation a couple days ago.

You either have kids and have nothing, or don't have kids and have stuff or travel cheap. Working harder than your co-workers means NOTHING to employers these days because everyone is expendable and can be tossed out the second the ledger hits red. My uncles had decent money at one time got hit hard in the market TWICE, and are still working at 65 and 72...

We don't even know anyone who has real money. My neighbor across the street always says they sold a house in Arizona for $500, 000 but that was years ago... That's as close as it gets to "rich" around here.

------------

There's the much lesser known 3rd option.....

No kids, single guy with a house....

The silly thing is, as unemployed as I currently am, I'm not really struggling any more than I was when I had a shitty 30 hour a week minimum-wage job.

Whether working or not working, I haven't been able to buy anything nice for myself in going on 4 years. Sure... I wouldn't even be able to have this house at the wages I've been making if I didn't buy it outright, but you would think that would give you some freedom, wouldn't you?

It's actually a pretty horrible place to be, to be honest.....

I could work 30-40 hours a week, part time, no insurance/benefits and make 8 bucks an hour. In doing so, I get nearly $200/mo. food stamps, I get nearly $500/yr. energy assitance, I get on the Healthy Indiana Plan for about $8/mo, I get a $300 property tax credit on state taxes.

Or, I could work Full Time at $12/hr. Food Stamps are gone ($2300/yr). Energy Assistance is gone ($500/yr). Property Tax Credit gone ($300/yr).

Unless I can make $15 an hour with good benefits, what is my incentive to ever work more than part time minimum wage, stuck where I'm at?

All of those benefits I get, not including insurance, are tax free. Add 12% to them to cover state taxes and Social Security/Medicaid and now that's an extra $3,472 I need to make Gross to break even.

Full time is 2080 hours a year. That's an extra $1.66 an hour I need to make JUST TO BREAK EVEN with the NOTHING I have now. So even if I'm making $4 more an hour, even before taxes, I'm losing nearly half of that to lost benefits.

And that's not even including health insurance costs. Instead of paying $8 bucks a month for the Healthy Indiana Plan, now I have to pay over $120/month for the lowest level of the company health plan for myself. That's about $0.80 an hour more that I don't get to see when I finally cash my check.

I'm teetering right on the precipice of Bull and Shit.

Whether I make 8 bucks an hour or 12 bucks an hour, the end result for me is the same. Life sucks, I can't afford to have any fun, I rue the day when my car stops working.....

I don't understand why I get taxed so hard for being single without any kids. Women I used to work with used to make more than twice as much at my old job than I did because they'd get $12,000 checks after taxes. They would get more "back" in taxes than I made all year working.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

And now you understand what government handouts are for. They're to make up for the cruelties of BUSINESS, so that BUSINESS can continue to destroy jobs and depress wages without engendering a total revolt.

Oh, and what KIKI and WISH said.

If you want to find the problem you have to look UP. Not "just above your head" UP, But FAR FAR UP.

That woman with kids, she's not a decision-maker in society, and neither are you. And neither am I. NOBODY is free, except the 0.01%. Join the club of the wage slaves.

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

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Thursday, September 3, 2015 6:01 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

And now you understand what government handouts are for. They're to make up for the cruelties of BUSINESS, so that BUSINESS can continue to destroy jobs and depress wages without engendering a total revolt.

What I still don't understand, is with all the atrocities you have seen all around the world, why do you two expect any better out of people? You'd have to chemically eradicate ego to get the 1% to operate any differently, and I'm not sure that that would be advantageous to begin with.

Hello, G-23 Paxalon Hydrochlorate, anyone??

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Friday, September 4, 2015 11:04 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
What I still don't understand, is with all the atrocities you have seen all around the world, why do you two expect any better out of people? You'd have to chemically eradicate ego to get the 1% to operate any differently, and I'm not sure that that would be advantageous to begin with.

No, the 99.99% have to stop following the 0.01% to their collective and mutual self-destruction.

However, I'm seeing that the 99.99% pretty much deserve what they get.

But thanks for responding to that thought.

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

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Friday, September 4, 2015 12:36 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

Originally posted by SHINYGOODGUY:
Making America Great Again..............it's not just Trump trying to sell us a bill of goods. That American Dream bull, is just that. That died long ago. It started in the late 70s, early 80s. And now it's come to this. There's Super Rich, Rich, then it goes to scraping by, and finally poor..........the Middle Class is much like the Land of Oz.

Originally posted by second:
Here is a short-short story about American business's poor behavior toward white collar workers writing software. It's foreign workers, but business can do similar to citizens and make them micro-serfs at Microsoft:

James Bach and Robert Werner’s How to Secure Your H-1B Visa is written for both employers and the workers they hire. They are told that firms must “promise to pay any H-1B employee a competitive salary,” which in theory means what’s being offered “to others with similar experience and qualifications.” At least, this is what the law says. But then there are figures compiled by Zoe Lofgren, who represents much of Silicon Valley in Congress, showing that H-1B workers average 57 percent of the salaries paid to Americans with comparable credentials.

Norman Matloff, a computer scientist at the University of California’s Davis campus, provides some answers. The foreigners granted visas, he found, are typically single or unattached men, usually in their late twenties, who contract for six-year stints, knowing they will work long hours and live in cramped spaces. Being tied to their sponsoring firm, Matloff adds, they “dare not switch to another employer” and are thus “essentially immobile.” For their part, Bach and Warner warn, “it may be risky for you to give notice to your current employer.” Indeed, the perils include deportation if you can’t quickly find another guarantor.

Matloff also found that employers “tailor job requirements so that only the desired foreign applicants qualify” and they “have an arsenal of legal means to reject all US workers who apply.” Despite Microsoft’s talk of “best minds,” the majority of H-1B workers are, in Matloff words, “ordinary people doing ordinary work.” On a Government Accountability Office scale, only 17 percent were graded “fully competent” in their specialty. Typically, they produce the lines of code needed to keep so much of our digitized world functioning. Of course, coding can be challenging and creative. But behind each innovative designer, there’s a need for dozens of routine coders whose main job is to get every symbol, letter, and integer precisely right.

Most businesses prefer having an oversupply of workers, in part to keep those on board fearful lest they be replaced. And if less money goes to the rank-and-file, that often means that more money is available for the executive floors. In Matloff’s view, the dramatic warnings about scarcities of skills are actually “all about an industry wanting to lower wages.” To this extent, he argues, wider income spreads between executives and other employees are integral to corporate visions for the years ahead. But unlike in earlier eras, a STEM proletariat will be digitally literate, thanks to the coding classes Microsoft would make universal (and which are increasingly available from other firms and from high-tech education companies providing classes for recent high school graduates as well as older workers; among them are “boot camps” that charge as much as $12,000 for eight or nine intense weeks). What they’ll do as they reach, say, thirty-five years old is not the concern of an economy based on revolving cubicles, marginal salaries, and importing acquiescent labor. In the summer of 2014, Microsoft laid off 18,000 of its employees.
www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2015/jul/09/frenzy-about-high-tech-t
alent/

Earlier this year, Disney laid off several hundred American technical workers, to be replaced by H-1B arrivals from India. Key to the shift, as Disney phrased it, would be “knowledge transfer.” Thus those slated for dismissal were told that if they wished a severance check, they had to teach what they did to the newcomers. See Patrick Thibodeau, “Fury Rises at Disney Over Use of Foreign Workers,” ComputerWorld, April 29, 2015
www.computerworld.com/article/2915904/it-outsourcing/fury-rises-at-dis
ney-over-use-of-foreign-workers.html

Thanks for all the info. But now I need a few drinks because I'm pissed off all over again.

Signy's right though. We've gotten what we deserve. Most people don't think that there's anything wrong with the way things are. Or if they do, they can't identify who's doing it. Or won't ORGANIZE or JOIN with other people in unions or politically active groups. Don't even bother to vote for anyone who does differently. Until get they a fascist like Trump.

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Friday, September 4, 2015 12:51 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

This is very much like an agency that I know which hires programmers from India thru a subcontractor, and pays them shit. I see them waiting to take the bus (they can't afford a car) and I'm sure all four of them share an apartment. There are well-qualified American programmers and chemical engineers and technicians who can't find jobs AT A DECENT WAGE because of foreign competition, imported legally right here into the good ol' US of A!. Not too surprisingly, if you look at who lobbies heavily for the H1B program, it's Microsoft and other tech firms. And since we're an oligarchy, the rich usually get what they want, and we get the shaft.

But this is well-known. It's part of the capitalist game to eliminate as many jobs as possible through automation, and reduce the wages to less-than starvation if at all possible (!) through competition. 'Cause there's always more "excess" people to choose from.

So much for the "job creators".

And part of that involves enforcing "free trade" agreements like NAFTA/CAFTA and TPP/TTIP (Obama's latest pro-corporate masterpiece) and also using the military to make other places so fucking miserable that people will do ANYTHING to get elsewhere.

'Muricans ... (sigh) ... So very... very... very.. fucking stupid. You'd think sheer self-interest would cause people to do differently.

--------------

I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.

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Friday, September 4, 2015 1:42 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:

Thanks for all the info. But now I need a few drinks because I'm pissed off all over again.

. . . Most people don't think that there's anything wrong with the way things are. Or if they do, they can't identify who's doing it. Or won't ORGANIZE or JOIN with other people in unions or politically active groups.

I think that ordinary people, who are not upper middle class, don't have the resources to win justice.

Here is a story from yesterday about how the richest and largest tech companies colluded to cheat $6,484 from each of 64,000 very well paid, upper middle class white collar employees. It only takes four years and 36,215 billable attorney hours and 3.2 million pages of legal documents to bring the super-rich to justice:

www.zdnet.com/article/apple-google-intel-adobe-reach-415m-lawsuit-sett
lement/
Apple, Google, Intel, Adobe reach $415m lawsuit settlement

The class-action lawsuit filed between four of Silicon Valley's biggest names, and current and former employees has been put to bed, after a US District Judge gave approval for the technology giants to reach a $415 million settlement.

On Wednesday, US District Judge, Lucy Koh approved a settlement between Apple, Google, Intel, and Adobe, and over 64,000 current and former staff of the tech giants.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the four-year class-action case is over, with Koh agreeing for the four conglomerates pay $415 million to settle the case.

In 2011, Apple, Google, Intel, and Adobe were accused of conspiring in a secret anti-poaching "gentlemen's agreement", whereby the four companies -- and others -- secretly agreed not to steal each others' staff.

The alleged illegal head-hunting pacts, apparently put in place by top executives at the companies, agreed hiring employees collectively rather than bargaining with individuals would not only eliminate competition for staff, but result in financial gains for each firm.

In August, the four companies attempted to settle the class-action lawsuit, but Koh rejected their $325 million offer, ruling it was "too low".

Koh allegedly rejected the offered settlement amount on the basis that it was comparatively lower to the $20 million settlement she previously presided over involving Intuit, Lucasfilm, and Pixar.

At the time, Koh believed a fairer figure would have been $380 million, noting the "compelling evidence" against the companies. That evidence included an email exchange between late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs and Eric Schmidt, who was at the time both on Apple's board and Google's CEO. Schmidt confirmed in an email that Google had a "policy of no recruiting from Apple".

There is a documentary out today called Steve Jobs. The accounting of his life story, as it unfolds in the film, is grounded in the brutal realities of corporate skulduggery. I’m a big fan of Balzac’s maxim that “behind every great fortune is a great crime,” and if nothing in Jobs’s history qualifies as a great crime, there is certainly a long trail of extreme misdeeds. http://www.metacritic.com/movie/steve-jobs-man-in-the-machine

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Friday, September 4, 2015 2:27 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

Second

I don't think as a country we've really tried the ballot box as a remedy. People seem content to say - well, I voted once but s/he wasn't what I expected. So, see? It's useless.

Voting needs to be a large, steady push. You vote out the people who don't serve your interests and you KEEP ON voting out the people who don't serve your interests with every ballot. It will work somewhat at every cycle, and the more cycles you do this, the better things become.

I know what Frem would say - because he has said this before - and you'll get small concessions and it'll work until you seriously challenge tptb. And then they'll get out the army, or lock out Congress or impose martial law or find another way to suspend the constitution. But yanno - we're light years away from testing the limits of how much actual power we voters can impose through our own democracy.

Though given the state of the general US electorate...

http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2015/01/nearly_1_in_5_still_dont_
believe_obama_is_a_us_citizen_poll_says.html
Nearly 1 in 5 Americans don't believe Obama is a U.S. citizen, FDU poll says
Over 2 out of 5 believe U.S. forces found an active weapons of mass destruction program in Iraq

... we could end up being run according to the whims of fucking idiots. Because nearly 1 in 5 think Obama isn't a citizen? And over 2 in 5 think there were WMDs in Iraq? Those numbers should be zero (excepting the certifiably insane who've lost ALL contact with reality).

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Friday, September 4, 2015 4:20 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
Why are you bitching about people who are a .01 millimeter up the scale from you? Why not bitch about the taxes and benefits of the people who are in stratosphere?

You're kidding me, right?????

.01 millimeters?

I made just over 10k a year, busting my balls, coming in whenever they needed me, and otherwise being used because I was being promised a raise that they would never give....

Before taxes, I made about 11.5k

After taxes, closer to 10k.

Meanwhile, some of the females I worked with, who did 1/8th the work I did not only got paid every single cent per hour I was being paid, but rather than getting the $35 check I got in May, they got over $12,000, which was more than I made all year on top of their salary.....

.01 millimeter up the scale would grant them about $50 bucks taxes back, max....

I don't mean to hate, but they essentially made nearly $25,000 last year doing the same job that I did, when it only made me barely $11,000.....

Not to mention, and no fault of their own, but I was being promised a promotion that would never come to fruition, so I was being used big time on top of that knowledge.

EIC is the "hidden" Welfare that nobody talks about.

The best I can hope for in EIC credits as a single man is about $400 a year if i hit the "sweet spot". Most any woman with kids I've worked for can more than double their pay with it if they're not an idiot or have a family member to do their taxes.

Why do I need a bunch of kids?

Even if I did, I'd be fucked anyways and the system wouldn't work because I have 2 balls.

Good for my theoretical kids that I'm not raising them, huh?

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Friday, September 4, 2015 8:15 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
Second

I don't think as a country we've really tried the ballot box as a remedy. People seem content to say - well, I voted once but s/he wasn't what I expected. So, see? It's useless.

Voting needs to be a large, steady push. You vote out the people who don't serve your interests and you KEEP ON voting out the people who don't serve your interests with every ballot. It will work somewhat at every cycle, and the more cycles you do this, the better things become.

More democracy won't work as well as you hope. That isn't because voting is hopeless, but is because voters' minds are a tiny bit deranged. There is a BBC show about why that happened: The Trap, What Happened to Our Dreams of Freedom 2007

Watch two minutes of it. Maybe something in those first minutes will enthrall you. http://www.disclose.tv/action/viewvideo/145347/The_Trap_Fuck_You_Buddy
_BBC/

It is in 3 parts. Google will find all for you. And all free.
http://www.disclose.tv/action/viewvideo/145348/The_Trap_The_Lonely_Rob
ot_23_BBC/
http://www.disclose.tv/action/viewvideo/145351/The_Trap_3_We_Will_Forc
e_You_To_Be_Free_BBC/

'The Communists said they would make a new man. They have succeeded - and he is lazy.' This was my (West German) Godfather's verdict on East Germany's Communist experiment. The unexpected conclusion of Adam Curtis' new three-part BBC series is that liberal democracies have similarly diminished our humanity, not by deliberately setting out as the Communists did to make a perfect society, but simply by organising around an impoverished notion of freedom.

Several critics have suggested that The Trap is peddling a conspiracy theory. This is a lazy misinterpretation, but it arises from a certain arbitrariness in Curtis' account, an overemphasis on particular individuals and their particular ideas. To be fair to Curtis, though, his emphasis on ideas and political actors is a valuable corrective not just to vulgar materialism, but to a more general fatalism that dominates contemporary politics, the sense that things just happen and there's nothing we can do about it. The very suggestion that a different way of thinking about freedom might suggest an alternative politics is liberating.

Underplayed by Curtis except in his brief discussion of 'positive liberty', is the gradual failure or defeat of political movements and ideologies that gave meaning to the subjective aspirations of individuals, and connected them with something greater.

You can see the appeal of the American dream, even as you sense its emptiness. The idea was to rescue people from tyranny, and then sit back and watch the world enjoy democracy. Waterskiing and what not. But it's not enough, and unless you can engage people's passions and aspirations for something more, you can't even get there. Real freedom still beckons, for Britain, the US and beyond. The Trap is a timely reminder that we can only get there by taking political risks, not least by trusting one another as fellow human beings.- http://www.culturewars.org.uk/2007-03/trap.htm

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Friday, September 4, 2015 9:04 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK

Answer me second....

I'm really hurting here, and I have no good answer.

I'm not going to just knock up some girl to get benefits that will make my life suddenly copacetic financially.

Why can't I live without all the female BS and bleeding and kids without being taxed to death?

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Saturday, September 5, 2015 12:56 AM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

6-ix

Income Inequality: 1 Inch to 5 Miles

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Saturday, September 5, 2015 8:02 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Answer me second....

I'm really hurting here, and I have no good answer.

Money is the answer. Turn your knowledge into money. Remember this one? "First person out of the initial 126 to pass all four tests..." http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=59819&mid=9
99327#999327

Remember this one? "Passed Industrial Electricity 2 yesterday...

I didn't think I had a chance in hell since I only scored a 75% on the Level 1 test, when I got at least 90% on the other two tests....

This was the most FUN I've ever had taking a test!!!!" http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=59822&mid=9
99326#999326

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Saturday, September 5, 2015 9:01 AM