Obamamania

[Dirty Harry]

Making money is an important part of life. It's not fun being poor, scraping by with your rent and having your consumption options limited by a paltry bank account.

[Pierre the Great]

I just take offence to your constant slamming of government workers. I'll be entering the civil servant world most likely (although there are private firms out there but they deal exclusively with these new urbanism suburb cities in the middle of nowhere). So money can't drive me, because i won't make a lot, my drive is better communities so people can live happier lives.

But you're job is purely self centred capitalistic, so I can see your motivations.

I mean we all have meaningful jobs. The teachers on HW, teach because they want to teach, the writers write because they want to write, rev. rob preaches because that's what he loves to do. I don't see this "higher calling" to your profession then just "how am I going to make myself the most money".

Edited January 27, 2008 by Pierre the Great

[JoeLassister]

there's more to life then making money, you sound like you're driven by greed. Not trying to be mean here, its just how it all came off to me.

seconded, he sounds like a man who spit in an homeless face.

[Dirty Harry]

I just take offence to your constant slamming of government workers. I'll be entering the civil servant world most likely (although there are private firms out there but they deal exclusively with these new urbanism suburb cities in the middle of nowhere). So money can't drive me, because i won't make a lot, my drive is better communities so people can live happier lives.

But you're job is purely self centred capitalistic, so I can see your motivations.

I mean we all have meaningful jobs. The teachers on HW, teach because they want to teach, the writers write because they want to write, rev. rob preaches because that's what he loves to do. I don't see this "higher calling" to your profession then just "how am I going to make myself the most money".

Oh please, I'm a bad person because I don't have some sob story about the greater good when choosing my career? I went into a finance markets field because it is a very challenging, intense and fast paced area making my job interesting and exciting every day, and as a nice bonus, if you succeed and excel the material rewards are pretty good. Then maybe one day if I grow weary of it and decide on some other pursuit I would be able to without having any concerns of going broke doing it.

Philosophically speaking I don't like government bureaucrats because they are mostly overpaid and inefficient workers doing useless things and when this is proven that they are parasitic wastes of public funds its very rare for them to be dismissed from their posts because they use their strong unions to protect themselves and their perceived entitlements. The continued and recently exponential advancement of individual human prosperity for much of the world is greatest achievement of humanity. Worthless government pencil pushers who accomplish nothing productive while being paid by the hard working taxpayers of the nation are a drag on this human progress.

And even if the government worker is doing a completely necessary job (postal or other infrastructure related job) please give me a justification on why government workers deserve often greater monetary compensation and benefits than what their counterparts in private industry can expect to get on the open labour market for the same work?

[Pierre the Great]

Oh please, I'm a bad person because I don't have some sob story about the greater good when choosing my career? I went into a finance markets field because it is a very challenging, intense and fast paced area making my job interesting and exciting every day, and as a nice bonus, if you succeed and excel the material rewards are pretty good. Then maybe one day if I grow weary of it and decide on some other pursuit I would be able to without having any concerns of going broke doing it.

Philosophically speaking I don't like government bureaucrats because they are mostly overpaid and inefficient workers doing useless things and when this is proven that they are parasitic wastes of public funds its very rare for them to be dismissed from their posts because they use their strong unions to protect themselves and their perceived entitlements. The continued and recently exponential advancement of individual human prosperity for much of the world is greatest achievement of humanity. Worthless government pencil pushers who accomplish nothing productive while being paid by the hard working taxpayers of the nation are a drag on this human progress.

And even if the government worker is doing a completely necessary job (postal or other infrastructure related job) please give me a justification on why government workers deserve often greater monetary compensation and benefits than what their counterparts in private industry can expect to get on the open labour market for the same work?

I say the same song to the same people just like yourself, you hate unions because you're not in one, fight your employer to unionize and stand up for yourself. Unions aren't just for people who get their hands dirty, you are seen as a pawn in your corporation no matter what but somehow you think unions are below you.

again hatred for the government worker. Okay you hate us so much we'll just all quit and see how everything runs smoothly. Waste of public funds, please, what do you think taxes are for? Anti government talk gets you no where, who is to build your roads, sewers, power, your streets, etc. Your wanting to get rid of all of that would mean higher costs if everything was private in your laissez faire world. the motto would be if you have the money good, if you don't f*** off, scum. Does that remind you any period in history? industrial revolution where there weren't any rules, nothing was fair and people were slaves.

Without unions there would be no middle class and you the capitalist would be scared to death of communism because we'd be f-ing tired of being pieces of capital for you to tool with. The decline of unions in North America correlates with the disparity of the wealth distribution and decline of the middle class. Shocking eh?

read your canadian history, maybe then you'd realize why we have unions and don't tell me we won't ever go back to those days, only takes a simple act in parliament to undo workers rights.

Edited January 27, 2008 by Pierre the Great

[Dirty Harry]

I say the same song to the same people just like yourself, you hate unions because you're not in one, fight your employer to unionize and stand up for yourself. Unions aren't just for people who get their hands dirty, you are seen as a pawn in your corporation no matter what but somehow you think unions are below you.

Ive worked for unions in summer jobs and they were the ones exploiting me. I was a student summer hire, they took almost 10% off my salary in dues and I got no protection (could be fired anytime) and was getting paid minimum wage to do the same shit that the full time worker beside me was getting paid 3 times as much to do. Complete RIP OFF so don't go spouting on about how great they are, they are corrupt organisations that leverage their power politically into wealth transfers into their pockets far beyond what they would ever get through the fair mechanics of market forces.

BTW typical Pierre, nothing good to say so you resort to cussing. You're not half as smart as you think you are.

[Pierre the Great]

cussing how so?

Because the union leaders aren't representing the interests of the people. these aren't my words but I can't say it any better:

It has been a long time since union leaders represented the genuine interests of the working class. They are actually managing the price of the labour with the bosses, hence being a parasite layer with big salaries guaranteeing the social peace to the capitalists. All the red baiting in the Anglo-Saxon unions comes from there. As Trotsky wrote, when an organisation is not doing what it was created to do, this organisation exist in name only.

[Zowpeb]

Safe to say this thread is officially hijacked to another topic...lol

I think it's insulting to tell the guy that he's materialistic because his profession has no "greater calling". Who made you judge and jury of what his profession is??? Every job out there supports many other professions...including many of the government jobs you profess to love...and btw, I know a LOT of government workers whose positions are not serving some greater calling and it's incredibly naive to take that type of stance. What greater service do employees of most of the non-essential services governments now provide??

The issue is not specifically with the government worker but the policies that allow too much waste in programs that are more efficiently provided by the private sector. Most important is the level of government involvement in programs that should not be run by the government, this country spends billions in government services that shouldn't be government services...or goverment policies that regulate this type of inefficiency. There is no way we should be running programs that could be contracted out at half the cost...there is also no reason they should protect government union wages over some of the union wages that are set at some private firms by setting up "fair wage" ratings that are based on the big government union costs and not necessarily the union costs, or non-union costs, of other private sector firms.

Further, the mentality of the average union worker is one that is built on protectionism. That protectionism means we get to see snow plows driving over roads that need plowed with plows their plows up. We get to see union workers work at slower paces to protect job security. I watched a couple of union auto workers install 2 of my products when a private contractor could have installed 40 over the same time period with the same number of workers...

The actual role of the unions have been misplaced and corrupted by their leadership. I have no issue with unions wanting fair wages, proper benefits, setting health and safety standards, etc...but it's gone FAR beyond those issues. The big unions(government unions, CAW, etc) all have employees paid well beyond "fair wages" and many are paid at 50-100% the wages of the private sector...often these same employees have minor skill sets that do not justify their wages relative to the skills required for many professional designations. Business have gone bankrupt due to union demands for "fair wages"...something is amiss with those policies. Even beyond this, the Unions now lobby government policies that do not affect the standards they were originally formed to protect. Sadly, unions are as "fat" as most government programs...and likely there is a correlation between the two issues. It's ridiculous to see an auto manufacturer paying CA's, P. ENG's, and more, often making less the union assembly workers...you can say "well they should unionize" but the end result of this would in fact cripple our manufacturing sector even further and drive more and more business overseas...which the union response is to provide "protection" in the form of trade barriers. It's an end game proposition from an economic standpoint.

It's become pretty common knowledge that the top beauracrats are unelected officials who remain year to year and affect the way the government spends it's money. These people are not accountable. Government cutbacks to one "sector" and increases to another simply allows those beauracrats to shuffle their workforce(in name only) without actually cutting anything back...so the waste and mismanagement is simply transferred to another department. These top beauracrats run this country and since they are not accountable to the public they hold the true power...what's their check and balance?? Other government workers...

The Trotsky quote does not fit the union scenario...the unions exist in more then name. They have fundamentally changed the competitiveness of our businesses for the worse and they are often directly related to business shifting off-shore or going under. I agree, union leadership has a different agenda then the average union worker needs...but that doesn't mean they don't exist. Saying they don't exist is like hiding under a rock and hoping the problem fixes itself. I prefer to think of Orwell's Animal Farm...the local presidents and union management is often under educated for their task and they often take their power in a direction that does not fit with the needs of the general union worker...who typically doesn't really know what they need. They fuel protectionism and fight management on petty issues that do not affect their workers...often to the detriment of their workers no less...simply because they want to exert the power they now hold.

[Pierre the Great]

Edwards drops out, doesn't endorse but I'm pretty sure that 99.9% of all Edwards voters will go to Obama.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/01/30/edwards/index.html

[Mils]

Edwards drops out, doesn't endorse but I'm pretty sure that 99.9% of all Edwards voters will go to Obama.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/01/30/edwards/index.html

How do you figure? Hillary is seen as the more blue-collar of the two remaining legitimate democratic candidates.

[Pierre the Great]

i figure by looking at the results in places like iowa, new hampshire, south carolina and nevada. The majority of edwards people said obama would be their natural second choice. Edwards people are mostly anti-Clinton