'How did things end up like this?' America's newly unemployed grapple with coronavirus fallout

[bristolboy]

5 minutes ago, Crazy Alex said:

Wow, I don't recall saying unions are horrible. As for living paycheck to paycheck, that is mostly a matter of how one handles their personal finances. The poor get poorer because they keep doing stupid <deleted> that makes them poor.

Except of course the american middle class is shrinking and the number of poor are increasing. In Northern European nations the middle classes are doing much better. And social mobility is much greater. In fact, the USA has just about the lowest level of social mobility among all the OECD states. Maybe even the lowest. The UK is right behind.

[bristolboy]

8 minutes ago, Crazy Alex said:

If the unions are good at one thing, it's making sure their leadership is fine. Beyond that, the use for unions has come and gone. Now they are simply money laundering operations that protect losers from losing their jobs. As for your "new evidence", laughable. New propaganda is more like it.

So you're claiming non union workers get better pay and benefits than union workers within the same industry?

[Crazy Alex]

1 minute ago, bristolboy said:

Except of course the american middle class is shrinking and the number of poor are increasing. In Northern European nations the middle classes are doing much better. And social mobility is much greater. In fact, the USA has just about the lowest level of social mobility among all the OECD states. Maybe even the lowest. The UK is right behind.

Lower wage earners have been seeing the biggest wage increases since Trump took office.

 

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/13/workers-at-lower-end-of-pay-scale-getting-most-benefit-from-rising-wages.html

 

Oops!

[Crazy Alex]

1 minute ago, bristolboy said:

So you're claiming non union workers get better pay and benefits than union workers within the same industry?

Please cite the post in which a rational person would think I made such a claim.

[bristolboy]

Just now, Crazy Alex said:

Please cite the post in which a rational person would think I made such a claim.

Well, why would a rational person claim that workers are better off not paying dues to their union when on average they get better pay and benefits as members of a union? What rational person would think that workers would get a better deal from management if they don't form a unified group for negotiating? I think basic game theory would show the falsity of that kind of thinking. 

[Crazy Alex]

Just now, bristolboy said:

Well, why would a rational person claim that workers are better off not paying dues to their union when on average they get better pay and benefits as members of a union? What rational person would think that workers would get a better deal from management if they don't form a unified group for negotiating? I think basic game theory would show the falsity of that kind of thinking. 

NO. A rational person who is confident in their work ethic and ability prefers an environment in which they are promoted on their merits rather than because some losers has been there longer. I suppose a person with marginal ethics might prefer another approach and not understand the merit approach.

[samran]

9 minutes ago, Crazy Alex said:

Lower wage earners have been seeing the biggest wage increases since Trump took office.

 

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/13/workers-at-lower-end-of-pay-scale-getting-most-benefit-from-rising-wages.html

 

Oops!

Looks like by November they’ll be on the bread queue and the pittance of rises they got will be a distant memory....

[bristolboy]

6 minutes ago, Crazy Alex said:

Lower wage earners have been seeing the biggest wage increases since Trump took office.

 

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/13/workers-at-lower-end-of-pay-scale-getting-most-benefit-from-rising-wages.html

 

Oops!

But are their wage increases keeping up with the basic cost of living?

This is from the right wing economist associated with the manhattan institute.

https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2020/02/the-cost-of-thriving/

Basically what it says is that a male head of a household of 4 people in 1979 had to work about 30 weeks in a year for his income to pay for the basics. Today, that same worker has to work 53 weeks in a year. So he has got to find a planet with a slightly longer year even to stay in place.

 

AS for the rise in wages at the lower end...one factor you're ignoring...

Minimum Wage Hikes Fuel Higher Pay Growth For Those At The Bottom

https://www.npr.org/2020/01/09/794280616/minimum-wage-hikes-fuel-higher-pay-growth-for-those-at-the-bottom

Of course, Donald Trump is opposed to increases in the minimum wage. As are most Republican politicians. Fortunately, the citizens of even strongly Republican states, have voted in referenda for those increases.

 

 

[bristolboy]

15 minutes ago, Crazy Alex said:

NO. A rational person who is confident in their work ethic and ability prefers an environment in which they are promoted on their merits rather than because some losers has been there longer. I suppose a person with marginal ethics might prefer another approach and not understand the merit approach.

Sure, because that's worked so well in the past in for blue collar workers.

[Tug]

51 minutes ago, Crazy Alex said:

NO. A rational person who is confident in their work ethic and ability prefers an environment in which they are promoted on their merits rather than because some losers has been there longer. I suppose a person with marginal ethics might prefer another approach and not understand the merit approach.

Just so you know union guys are paid well because they are professional we have a 4 year apprenticeship in my union and mysielf I dident take vacations just let the vacation pay save up generally worked 12 hr days 6 days a week and 7 if I was lucky I personally collected unemployment for 1 two week period btw I have social security on the books starting in 1966 so bucko you swim a mile in my flippers before you start attacking people’s work ethics and with my union it was by reputation you got work the slackers get weeded out rite quick the 1% types are generally predators they only care about lining their pockets 

[Nyezhov]

11 hours ago, Crazy Alex said:

Why are you more concerned with union fat cats and thugs?

Show me a non govt employee Union and I will show you the mob.

 

The folks who warble about how great unions are have never been in one, and the ones who have know exactly what I am talking about, unless the take the 5th.

 

 

[Crazy Alex]

1 minute ago, Nyezhov said:

Show me a non govt employee Union and I will show you the mob.

 

The folks who warble about how great unions are have never been in one, and the ones who have know exactly what I am talking about, unless the take the 5th.

 

 

I was a Teamster for five years. They took my money and I got nothing in return. We were seven years without a contract. The Teamsters huffed, puffed, told us all the cool stuff they were gonna do for us, but never did. Crooks.

[Crazy Alex]

2 hours ago, Slip said:

More than one poster on this board would love nothing more than to see the world regress to the time of child and indentured labour, and tied accommodation or else the workhouse for those who are not wealthy through luck or dishonest advantage.  It may cheer us to believe them trolls, but sadly they are just dinosaurs breathing way past their allotted time.  If living in a different time it may have well have been they who suffered such as against a wall or being chopped.  Those times may yet return again.

Who are some of these people you speak of? And on what basis do you make your accusation?

[metisdead]

Some off topic posts have been removed.

 

An offensive post has been reported and removed. 

Edited March 23, 2020 by metisdead

[lannarebirth]

27 minutes ago, Crazy Alex said:

Who are some of these people you speak of? And on what basis do you make your accusation?

 

He's probably talking about those who display a decided lack of empathy towards their fellow man and those who think the World is exactly as it was when they entered it.

 

 

[bristolboy]

3 hours ago, pdtokyo said:

... actually basic game theory would advantage the worker who initially supported a union, obtained the (presumed) higher pay and then quietely resigned from the union while continuing to remain employed.

 

Don't need to be a GT guru to work that out ... post-WWII that story has played out big-time in Australia and UK, i believe Europe too ... the game may be different in US, maybe there pay is determined by union membership. I neither know nor care much. 

Except of course you can't stay employed if you resigned from the union. If you want to do game theory, it helps to know the rules of the game. Those rules are for private industry. The right wing supreme court just changed the rule for government workers on the ridiculous basis that since they were working for the government, any negotiation is political in nature. So under the first amendment, to compel workers to be a member is a violation of their first amendment rights. Overturned 50 years of precedents. 

[PhonThong]

On 3/20/2020 at 7:21 AM, Chomper Higgot said:

The worst hit are service sector and gig-economy, and mostly young people but it’s moving further up the economy.

 

$1000 is not going to buy their vote.

How many hypocrites are still going to take the money though? I'm willing to bet that none of the Trump bashers are going to return the money. The old saying " put your money where your mouth is" definitely applies here.

[bristolboy]

And it turns out Trump is not using the authority given to him by the Defense Production Act to compel companies to provide needed supplies.

Trump Shuns Use of Law Allowing Control Over Manufacturers

"President Trump continued to resist calls to use a federal wartime law to mandate the production of additional medical supplies because he said he is concerned about nationalizing American businesses, as governors and health officials face shortages of masks, ventilators and other crucial equipment.

“We’re a country not based on nationalizing our business,” Mr. Trump said at a press briefing on Sunday. “The concept of nationalizing our businesses is not a good concept.”"

https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-shuns-use-of-law-allowing-control-over-manufacturers-11584927164?tesla=y&mod=article_inline

It was definitely unAmerican to do that during WW2.

[Eric Loh]

3 hours ago, PhonThong said:

How many hypocrites are still going to take the money though? I'm willing to bet that none of the Trump bashers are going to return the money. The old saying " put your money where your mouth is" definitely applies here.

They will take what is rightfully theirs. 

[bristolboy]

24 minutes ago, pdtokyo said:

I beg to differ ... UK, Australia, Europe it is generally not compulsory to be a member of a union. In Oz, union members are minority of most workforces ... but all workers benefit from union-negotiated conditions. Maybe you refer to US system? I disclaimed any familiarity with US system. Maybe they still have a "closed shop" system that means ''no membership no job" but please accept that is not the norm outside US.

In the USA it's a state by state situation. But I guess that workers have a more sophisticated understanding of game theory. That if too many pull withdraw from the union, they end up hurting themselves. It's a concept called acting in one's intelligent self-interest.

[Chomper Higgot]

9 hours ago, PhonThong said:

How many hypocrites are still going to take the money though? I'm willing to bet that none of the Trump bashers are going to return the money. The old saying " put your money where your mouth is" definitely applies here.

The old saying has nothing to do with Trump putting tax payer's money where his mouth is.

[bristolboy]

2 hours ago, pdtokyo said:

again, i will differ ... in the scenario you describe there ... the player would have no way of knowing if his individual resignation caused the effect ... the concept of a ''game" dissolves. There is no sophistication involved, it is simply a random choice with a random result.

 

Your criticism ...

Except of course you can't stay employed if you resigned from the union. If you want to do game theory, it helps to know the rules of the game

... is based on your (US?) rule ... "if you are not in the union, you can't have a job" ... if that is the rule, then there is no game ... the player effectively has only one option that allows him to stay in the game, that is union+job (because no union->no job->no game).

 

Based on my experience of Oz, UK, Europe, the worker has the choice of joining union or not. Union membership is not compulsory. So a true game exists and a 'winning' strategy for any individual player, is to opt out of the union and save cost of membership while continuing to receive benefits of collective bargaining.

Naturally, if a certain number of individuals adopt that strategy then the union collapses and in the long-term, all workers presumably lose as they lose their ability to bargain collectively.

 

But i agree with part of your criticism '... If you want to do game theory, it helps to know the rules of the game' 

or in other words ... 'if you claim to know game theory, it helps to be able to describe the game and it's rules'

 

Right. "United we stand, divided we fall" is such a difficult concept to understand.

[Tug]

1 hour ago, Chomper Higgot said:

The old saying has nothing to do with Trump putting tax payer's money where his mouth is.

We’re his pocket is???you can be sure he will have the best spot at the taxpayer trough when it comes to the hotel industry bailout money 

[frantick]

1 hour ago, bristolboy said:

Right. "United we stand, divided we fall" is such a difficult concept to understand.

I think BB must be from the UK. Wanting nanny government and nanny unions to take care of him. 

 

Fortunately I grew up in a different time. Professors still taught the benefits of capitalism. Told me if I provided a service the employer wanted, I'd be rewarded. If I f'd up, I'd get canned. If I wasn't earning what I deserved, move and find new prospects. If there's no labor pool, wages go up.

 

I was never treated unfairly by an employer or corporation I worked for. But you have to be willing to move away from mommy or refuse unacceptable work or pay. Some thing most aren't willing to do.

 

Edited March 23, 2020 by frantick
Typo

[bristolboy]

3 minutes ago, frantick said:

I think BB must be from the UK. Wanting nanny government and nanny unions to take care of him. 

 

Fortunately I grew up in a different time. Professors still taught the benefits of capitalism. Told me if I provided a service the employer wanted, I'd be rewarded. If I f'd up, I'd get canned. If I wasn't earning what I deserved, move and find new prospects. If there's no labor pool, wages go up.

 

I was never treated unfairly by an employer or corporation I worked for. But you have to be willing to move away from mommy or refuse unacceptable work or pay. Some thing most aren't willing to do.

 

That's why blue collar workers in the USA are doing so much worse than those in Northern Europe where unions are still strong. Nothing at all to do with the top 10 percent in the USA getting virtually all the benefits of improved productivity. And what are you on about your time. Unions in the USA were much stronger back when than they are now. And blue collar workers were far better off.

[frantick]

33 minutes ago, bristolboy said:

That's why blue collar workers in the USA are doing so much worse than those in Northern Europe where unions are still strong. Nothing at all to do with the top 10 percent in the USA getting virtually all the benefits of improved productivity. And what are you on about your time. Unions in the USA were much stronger back when than they are now. And blue collar workers were far better off.

Sure they were better off until they strangled the very reason for their existence. I worked blue collar jobs up until I was 28. Then my frontal lobe developed and I knew I had much more to offer than throwing timbers everyday.

 

I'm not so much against private company unions; if the employer can stay in business, more power to him. I've never been a joiner or wanted to live just to drink with my buds at the local pub. But government unions, where the union employees are voting for their next raise, via candidate A, at the expense of the taxpayer, no way is that 'fair'. I don't have to buy that employer's product, but I must pay my taxes.

 

I thought the Polish were taking all the good jobs in the UK now, but union still going strong, eh? (My ancestry is Polish by the way)

 

[bristolboy]

Trump’s claims that GM, Ford making ventilators ‘right now’ not true

 

President Donald Trump’s assertion that automakers can quickly manufacture ventilators and that some are already making them is false, according to fact-checkers from the Associated Press.

During a briefing on Saturday, March 21, Trump said, "General Motors, Ford, so many companies — I had three calls yesterday directly, without having to institute like: `You will do this' — these companies are making them right now."

https://www.mlive.com/coronavirus/2020/03/trumps-claims-that-gm-ford-making-ventilators-right-now-not-true.html

[bristolboy]

Why this Nobel laureate predicts a quicker coronavirus recovery: ‘We’re going to be fine’

 

Michael Levitt, a Nobel laureate and Stanford biophysicist, began analyzing the number of COVID-19 cases worldwide in January and correctly calculated that China would get through the worst of its coronavirus outbreak long before many health experts had predicted.

Now he foresees a similar outcome in the United States and the rest of the world.

While many epidemiologists are warning of months, or even years, of massive social disruption and millions of deaths, Levitt says the data simply don’t support such a dire scenario — especially in areas where reasonable social distancing measures are in place.

https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2020-03-22/coronavirus-outbreak-nobel-laureate

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

16 minutes ago, bristolboy said:

Trump’s claims that GM, Ford making ventilators ‘right now’ not true

 

President Donald Trump’s assertion that automakers can quickly manufacture ventilators and that some are already making them is false, according to fact-checkers from the Associated Press.

During a briefing on Saturday, March 21, Trump said, "General Motors, Ford, so many companies — I had three calls yesterday directly, without having to institute like: `You will do this' — these companies are making them right now."

https://www.mlive.com/coronavirus/2020/03/trumps-claims-that-gm-ford-making-ventilators-right-now-not-true.html

 

 

After finally (apparently) getting over his CV denial syndrome, the guy has been nothing but a nonstop parade of lies and misrepresentations on what the feds are/aren't doing to deal with the CV:

 

--Everyone in America who needs a CV test can get one... Nope, not even close.

 

--Hundreds of millions of masks on order... but no one can say when/if any of them will be available/delivered.

 

--President with much fanfare invokes the Defense Production Act... but then declines to actually use it for anything, saying he doesn't want the federal government to be taking over private businesses.

 

--President orders military hospital ship to be available to provide needed hospital beds for New York... except the ship is currently undergoing repairs and (officials later confessed) won't be deployed for an estimated 3-4 weeks.

 

--President Trump trumpets the use of chloroquine to treat coronavirus, but then his own FDA has to later clarify that they haven't approved the drug's use for CV, and reports out of China where it has been used point to a range of health risks and problems in using it.

 

Etc etc etc.... A nonstop conman circus show.

 

 

 

Edited March 23, 2020 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[watthong]

On 3/20/2020 at 11:07 PM, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

Neither CDC Director Robert Redfield

This guy is a clown in a suit. His role was to be there and chuckcle when Trump called gov Cuomo "a snake." For further proof, watch his performance - or lack thereof - during his testimony in Congress when whatever he said about his leadership or responsibility (neither seemed to exist in his mind) or the organization (CDC) he's running, all he could deliver was in the passive voice "we were ordered/told/instructed, etc... "

(Too bad Fauci had to be sitting in the same panel, which kinda marked the beginning of a great man's slide down a slippery slope , as in "we're not set up for this!")

Edited March 23, 2020 by watthong