Politics

[Scott CWO]

The largest advantage of them dumping Biden woukd be the next candidate would have some immunity from all the disasters of the last four years

And another possible term.

 

[Scott CWO]

Not all unions can be lumped into one demographic of voters, and union executive endorsements of candidates do not accurately reflect the voting tendencies of their memberships. Membership voting tendencies can vary widely depending on both the region and demographics of the membership as well as the type of trade they represent.

As a lifelong member of the largest professional association of law enforcement officers in Florida, I can promise you that the vote from our rank & file membership has been overwhelmingly republican for both state, local, and national elections for the last 2 cycles. Same for the IAFF, and most of the other skilled labor unions... Whereas the teacher's union in Florida voted nearly 2/3 for democrats. You can draw your own conclusions as to why that occurred...

As far as labor unions being socialist organizations, I guess that is true by definition to some extent. I have come to view organized labor is a double-edged sword, and a lot of good has been established from the existence of labor unions for both organized and unrepresented workers. But that's a different discussion we can have for another time...

However, I do take exception to anyone accusing us of protecting "lazy slugs" amidst our ranks. Without naming specific labor organizations, there are some national unions that have unfortunately given unions in general a bad name, especially during covid... All I can say is that while some unions were fighting to keep their members isolated, we were running calls and working our asses off during a time when anti-police sentiment in this country was at an all-time high... Thankfully, we only have a few large dem controlled cities in Florida spewing their venom, and support for police in Florida was in general very good especially compared to some of what our fraternal members around the country had to endure. Suffice to say that lazy slugs are not tolerated or protected in our organization. That's how members get hurt or killed.

Each organization has the ability to decide who represents them and what level of integrity they choose to uphold within their own profession. Police, firemen, and skilled tradesmen in Florida are not in the same universe as a teacher in California, or New York....

I know LE is unionized but those are not the unions that come to mind when most people think about unions.

Unions did a lot of good in the ole days when robber barons became millionaires and steel mill and other workers made $2 a day in dangerous conditions but those days are long gone. The unions priced themselves right of of thousands of jobs so lots of companies out-sourced manufacturing overseas. Same happened in high-tech. I guided a guy on a sheep hunt who was the Liaison for HP dealing with the Chinese government. He said nobody wanted to pay $2500 for a computer when their competitors charged $750 for a computer built in China. HP had to do the same or go bankrupt.

The latest UAW strike and even the strike before that were ridiculous. Years ago, I saw a report that the average GM autoworker made $55 per hour plus benefits but they were on strike! They make more now to snap parts together. It's no wonder a new Ford F250 is $100,000+!

 

[Corey0372]

lots of companies out-sourced manufacturing overseas

Companies manufacturing their goods overseas should be taxed at a rate so high it deters them from doing it. Same thing with their CEOs. I'm talking 99% percent if necessary, literally 99%.

 

[CoElkHunter]

Nice work Nancy!!

https://twitter.com/x/status/1750244093370749158

View attachment 582956

Wow! And her insider trading continues unchecked.

 

[mdwest]

Companies manufacturing their goods overseas should be taxed at a rate so high it deters them from doing it. Same thing with their CEOs. I'm talking 99% percent if necessary, literally 99%.

the problem with that is.. it makes it impossible to produce competitive goods offshore..

and the US labor market (high wages, incessant desire to litigate and sue its employers over nonsense, etc..) make it impossible to produce competitive goods at reasonable prices domestically in many industries..

so nothing gets produced.. we become a nation of services provision only..

we have to find a balance..

but when everyone thinks a barista should be paid $18.50 an hour to pour coffee and a guy that pushes a button on a CNC machine should make $55 an hour.. we sorta run ourselves into a hole where we pay $100K for cars worth half as much and $8 for a cup of coffee thats worth next to nothing..

 

[flatwater bill]

While I no longer have a dog in this hunt......since Gov DeSantis dropped out, it is fun to watch the MNM and their scurrying.......will Rachel Maddow's prediction come true? Will she be executed? Haha......the mind of a small child right there. If Pres Trump is re-elected, the dems will burn my favorite Federal Bldg again.....for the 15th time, and attack, burn and loot stores in the name of diversity and justice.......so chaos will follow. But I would like to see the FBI and DOJ held accountable, and some of them prosecuted as traitors. It won't happen, but it never hurts to dream. I would also like to see the wars end and our Country have a definable border. But with 10,000 democrats per day flooding Texas, the Republican Party had only this election remaining. After that, it is "what can you give me" that will be the US motto.....................stay free, hunt often.............FWB

 

[Red Leg]

Companies manufacturing their goods overseas should be taxed at a rate so high it deters them from doing it. Same thing with their CEOs. I'm talking 99% percent if necessary, literally 99%.

This is a tough one to dictate from Washington. What you are describing is essentially a punitive central planning model in what remains a capitalist system. I worked at a rather senior level running a profit and loss center of a corporation that employs about 125,000 US based employees and shoulders a significant tax burden. My little piece of it did around 800 mil in sales a year and 90% of our employees were US based. But the 10% did significant baseline engineering offshore enabling the business unit's productivity here.

We also purchased products or teamed with companies that designed and assembled subsystems, including both software and hardware, from numerous offshore providers. If a software engineer costs X in, let's worse case it in Mumbai, and 3X in Huntsville Alabama and 5X in LA or the Northeast corridor, how does the business survive against competitors churning out whatever with Mumbai engineering expertise. If that company goes under because it is no longer competitive what have we gained by forcing it to increase its overhead costs? Share holders in all those 401Ks, employees, and the US treasury pay the price. Not some CEO or the corporate tax payer.

Good US corporations chart a balanced course. I would suggest finding ways to incentivize domestic production would be far more effective. Trump's reduction in the corporate tax rate was probably the single most economically significant thing he did in his first term. The opposite of what you are suggesting.

 

[Corey0372]

it makes it impossible to produce competitive goods offshore

We should be making those goods onshore, and encouraging (and even possibly funding through govt grants) competition in the domestic space.

we become a nation of services provision only

We're pretty close to that now.

US consumer goods, everything from furniture to electronics, being manufactured in China, is one of the many reasons they will surpass us in the future. People act like Taiwan is the most important aspect of it. It's not. There's no military solution to the China/US competition. Aside from a few, somewhat inconsequential flareups, the US beat the USSR by outproducing them, not by fighting a war with them.

Imagine if from the 1950s through the late 1980s major American manufacturers were making their goods in the USSR, it just wouldn't happen. Imagine if American movies were screened and given a thumbs or down by the Central Committee of the Communist Party before they were released, would not happen.

 

[Corey0372]

Share holders in all those 401Ks, employees, and the US treasury pay the price. Not some CEO or the corporate tax payer.

This is mostly because the US gov refuses to bring its oligarchs to heel, largely because the ones that should be holding a leash aren't, they're wearing it.

 

[Red Leg]

This is mostly because the US gov refuses to bring its oligarchs to heel, largely because the ones that should be holding a leash aren't, they're wearing it.

Don't get angry, but from my chair that sounds like blather from OAC or Biden whispering everyone should pay their fair share. No mysterious oligarch affected a single dollar of our 40+ billion a year enterprise or a penny of @mdwest 's. In a capitalist system, the key is to incentivize outcomes, not order them.

 

[fourfive8]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1749893378165391480

this does not bode well for the republican party...

when the D's clearly have an uphill battle to fight regarding corruption.. and that could have been a very strong argument/debate point for the R's across the country at all levels (from POTUS all the way down the ticket)..

this sorta negates that.. now the R's are clearly going to be in question regarding integrity, honestly, corruption, etc (not like all politicians shouldnt be in question regarding integrity to one degree or another)..


the Chair of the R party in AZ has already resigned..

Guaranteed this will be a huge discussion for the next several weeks across all of the MSM... the left will latch on and demonize the entirety of the right.. and the more right wing groups will latch on and demonize the members of the R party that are involved (or even just potentially involved).. and the R party will be even more fractured and divided than it was before..

Not good in any way...

This is not an R problem. This is a swamp problem and may require rooting them out one at a time. After that swift resignation.... one down, a pazzilion to go. After reading all the pundits on here, seems like most get their talking points and news from the MSM, specifically MSNBC or CNN.

 

[Doubleplay]

It is not surprising that the UAW supports the D candidate, unions are socialist organizations, the most for the least, protect the lazy slugs, etc. Our kids are indoctrinated to want the free stuff by unionized teacher federations.

So you're against any type of union for the workers?

 

[Doubleplay]

Companies manufacturing their goods overseas should be taxed at a rate so high it deters them from doing it. Same thing with their CEOs. I'm talking 99% percent if necessary, literally 99%.

When government dictates to companies what to do it's not capitalism anymore.

 

[Corey0372]

This is not an R problem. This is a swamp problem and may require rooting them out one at a time. After that swift resignation.... one down, a pazzilion to go. After reading all the pundits on here, seems like most get their talking points and news from the MSM, specifically MSNBC or CNN.

At the same time..... I think it's an R problem as well. Inconvenient but true, especially if they're comfortable enough to come out and say this stuff to people. Maybe the purpose of a system IS what it does?

 

[mdwest]

We should be making those goods onshore, and encouraging (and even possibly funding through govt grants) competition in the domestic space.

couldnt agree more...

we need to find ways to incentivize US industry to "come home"...

the challenge is a substantial number of US workers as a rule are turds these days.. and our regulatory environment has gotten completely out of control..

I literally had someone sue my firm a couple of years ago for "itchy sheets".. he claimed he was discriminated against because the company didnt provide him softer bedding to sleep on..

An attorney no shit had the balls to actually file that complaint and open a case against us in Virginia..

it was an obvious shake down attempt... we could pay $50K-$100K in legal fees to defend ourselves until the courts finally threw his nonsense out..

or we could just write them a check for $50K now and they'd go away.. (we refused to pay, lawyered up ourselves, and ultimately he went away.. but not before we spent a significant amount of money and time defending.. with several of our employees distracted from their duties and actual jobs while dealing with the problem)..

we arent a particularly large firm.. but we are also not "small".. somewhere in the mid market.. and without exaggerating we get hit with this sort of thing at least a couple of times a year.. (itchy sheets is the most preposterous we have dealt with in recent years.. but it is only one of countless DOL, EEOC, and court cases that have been brought forward that are completely fabricated that we have had to deal with.. when I say fabricated I mean not a single shred of evidence, not one corroborating witness.. NOTHING to demonstrate any wrong doing or any negligence in any way.. but this is unfortunately just part of doing business in my particular industry these days.. and is one of the motivating factors for us offshoring.. a significant number of our people today are NOT US Citizens..

In the current environment.. there isnt a whole lot of incentive for US companies to bring jobs back to the US..

where companies arent offshoring, they are automating.. while initial investment costs are high.. in the long run the self check out kiosk at walmart doesnt demand $21 an hour to check you out, and you dont have to fire it for coming to work drunk and then have it sue you for wrongful termination the next day..

 

[CoElkHunter]

We should be making those goods onshore, and encouraging (and even possibly funding through govt grants) competition in the domestic space.


We're pretty close to that now.

US consumer goods, everything from furniture to electronics, being manufactured in China, is one of the many reasons they will surpass us in the future. People act like Taiwan is the most important aspect of it. It's not. There's no military solution to the China/US competition. Aside from a few, somewhat inconsequential flareups, the US beat the USSR by outproducing them, not by fighting a war with them.

Imagine if from the 1950s through the late 1980s major American manufacturers were making their goods in the USSR, it just wouldn't happen. Imagine if American movies were screened and given a thumbs or down by the Central Committee of the Communist Party before they were released, would not happen.

The US manufacturing sector has been in contraction for 14 straight months now. Bidenomics.

 

[fourfive8]

Soooo... Just waiting for Trump to bad mouth the good people of Dixville Notch, NH.

Given the outcome in NH, that was an astute observation loaded with insight....

 

[mdwest]

This is not an R problem. This is a swamp problem and may require rooting them out one at a time. After that swift resignation.... one down, a pazzilion to go. After reading all the pundits on here, seems like most get their talking points and news from the MSM, specifically MSNBC or CNN.

I would agree it is a result of "the swamp"...

the the problem this particular issue is creating is going to be owned 100% by the republicans..

the democrats wont lose any votes or any campaign donation dollars because the republican party chair in AZ tried to bribe a republican candidate for senate because an unstated more important member(s) of the republican party asked him to do so..

the democrats only stand to gain from this..

 

[Boyd Brooks]

F So you're against any type of union for the workers?

No I am not, I was the person that got a great union ratified where I worked. I was a shop steward and 4 time member of the negotiating committee. Worked for 4 contracts and got full life time retiree benefits plus respectable wage increases. However glad I retired from management as I have benefits. The new young hires gave up retirement benefits for a dollar. The union should have never allowed such a gross failure of the membership. Unfortunately unions do let the dumbest lead the pack sometimes.

 

[Corey0372]

Don't get angry, but from my chair that sounds like blather from OAC or Biden whispering everyone should pay their fair share. No mysterious oligarch affected a single dollar of our 40+ billion a year enterprise or a penny of @mdwest 's. In a capitalist system, the key is to incentivize outcomes, not order them.

Biden an AOC are definitely wearing the leashes, haha

I'm not talking about ordering outcomes, but I am talking about ordering (to some extent) where and a who a company will do business with. Taking China off the list of places American companies can manufacture their goods is 100% something I'm okay with, just like how the US cracked down on US pension funds being invested in Chinese firms.