Posted on 01/13/2004 5:54:13 AM PST by JustPiper
Citing the authority of "Uncle Miltie" Friedman, who's as big a hard-money Republican as you're likely to find, yes, I favor efforts of workers to unionize and bargain collectively. After all, it's free association to begin with, and the last I'd heard, negotiation wasn't illegal.
Considering that employers dispose of vastly greater economic power than the individual employee and are always at a great advantage unless some factor intervenes to level the playing field, and considering furthermore that employers have resorted throughout American history to any number of devices, both legal and illegal, to increase their negotiating leverage versus their employees, I greatly favor workers' bestirring themselves, like free men, to do whatever they can to improve their working conditions or pay. The line of business they and their employer are in, will set the limits of their productivity, and therefore of their compensation.
Friedman also pointed out the social benefit of labor syndicalism in causing employers, very much against their inclination, to "trickle down" the benefits of capitalism to the employee base whose efforts, after all, make these large enterprises possible. It was this oh, so reluctant "trickling", Friedman further pointed out, that created the mass prosperity that made possible the consumer economy and its dazzling array of goods and services that are the matchless glory of the American economy. You may remember the news footage of Russian babushkas weeping silently in front of their TV sets when, under Mikhail Gorbachev's orders, Russian news outlets finally confessed the truth -- that our visions of plenty, our overflowing shelves in huge stores, all the things we take for granted -- were the truth, and that the West had left the equity promises of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in the dust.
Also are you a supporter of a raise in the minimum wage to prevent such breaking of people on the wheel?
I favor a thin cushion -- the 'Rats have been bad about pandering on minimum wage -- but it serves a useful social purpose, in taking away the legal advantages to employers of fiercely weaseling down wages below a certain level, so that if they want truly obscene profits, they have to go off the books and start employing people illegally, thus exposing them to the punishment their avarice deserves.
I've never been against making a killing, and bully to the investor or inventor or new-products manager who is able to hit a home run. Bill Gates deserves his billions. But the man who makes a few extra dollars by gouging it out of his already low-paid employees, who takes food off struggling families' tables and tries to doom their kids to vo-tech school even as his own swagger through the doors of Yale, that man wears the chains of Jacob Marley and deserves to bark in hell.
Or at least, failing that, he deserves to have the winds of public policy blow strongly against him. I hope I've made my position clear.
Okay, I'm game. Surprise me. I probably read it at the time, somewhere. Of all people, Soldier of Fortune was running articles -- some of them just rehashes of Los Angeles Times and other reporting -- when I wasn't seeing much about Loral in the mainstream media. But SOF did a good job of connecting the dots, and the picture of the Clinton Administration's involvement in Loral's sales, their Asian political money, and their connection to Chinese gunrunning into California was absolutely damning.
Interesting opinion, however, I was speaking of immigrants under a worker program.
It's all about getting the work done cheaper. There's never a number that the employer has to get -- they're just opportunistically fishing for dirt-cheap wages among desperate people who weren't making it at home because of domestic mismanagement and because their native country's well-to-do enjoy effective control of their labor market and are positively administering and assigning poverty within their society for their own benefit.
Say I am a CEO of company X, I just go and fire 50% of my work force, and brag to the board about saving say $100 million/year. I demand to get $20 million bonus for such savings, and my hand-picked board approves it. What the heck is wrong with this picture! Wake up people and stop thinking in terms of Republican and Democrat. Both are evil worthless leaders. They never empathize with the working American. The working American unions have lost its reputation as well to the demise of the working stiffs.
IMO, I see nothing wrong with that. I lean a little more to the right in the free market. These jobs are taken with free will. However, I could see it getting out of hand if ALL jobs were competitive with foriegn nationals who were willing to make less than the average American.
So of course this becomes an issue of whether we are willing to accepting rising costs on every cheap product that we take for granted. I don't have an answer for it. I'm not willing to buy lettuce at $3 a head. If a foreign nation produces lettuce with cheap labor like we do, and we kick all illegal workers out, that insudtry will no longer be a competitive American business and we will TOTALLY lose out. I'm not sure what it hurts to have these people work here as long as they obey our laws.
It is easy to understand all these liberal agenda initiatives. They mostly stem from the so called NEOCONSERVATIVES that are dominating the policy making posts, OR opressing the policymakers with unrelanting pressure/threats. The eagerness of getting re-elected, coupled with having no worry about the right wing voters since they have no place to go, has worked together to deliver this no win situation for us.
What's wrong with having law abiding foreigners work the fields?
I think my post was talking about Mexicans living in Texas during the Texan war of independence. At the time, they were still, technically, Mexicans, since Texas wasn't a recognized country. After independence, I think the proper word to describe them is Tejanos.
So, would you be in favor of raising taxes on those rich businessmen to pay for the public housing of those poor workers?
I don't believe that for a second. The people come here with their mexican loyalties and mindset, and after they get here, they remain LOYAL TO MEXICO, fly mexican flags, and vote for liberal democrats. Many of today's illegal immigrants aren't interested in citizenship, just leeching off of our society. They have no respect for our laws, no respect for our heritage (they have contempt for it!), no respect for our heroes. They fly mexican flags at soccer games in LA. I believe you need to rethink.
bushrevealed.com
Many Christians are now climbing on board the bandwagon. hahaha. It seems there are many like me pal! Bush presents himself as a sort of "angel of light" while he repeatedly speaks and acts in ways that are contrary to the Christian faith and worldview. That IS A FACT that you cannot deny. Facts speak very loudly!
Boy, that's quite a blanket prejudice view you have.
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