Wack-a-doodle liberals are...

[tucker6]

Originally Posted by mostpost

Wack-a-doodle liberals are... responsible for all the social progress in this country over the last eighty years.

I don't know about that. Reagan cracked the unions and liberated the masses from the shackles of union tyranny. That has done more for the average worker than the Great Society, which has brought institutionalized poverty to us. Any time a new social program is initiated, it has to be paid for on the back of the common man. That common man is thus thrust closer to needing social programs himself to survive. What a wonderful downward spiral you liberals have created. Tax the common man into poverty so that the govt can dole out that tax as a benefit and get credit for helping the poor man. Only in your world is that good.

[Tom]

Originally Posted by maddog42

Wack-a-doodle liberals are.... the reason we have a minimum wage. At one time trump said $7.25 was too high.

And he was right.
$7.25 is ridiculous for some jobs.

[davew]

Wack-a-doodle liberals are... SJWs (social justice warriors)

[ElKabong]

I just find it very amusing that mostpost has posted 'the most posts' in a thread titled Wack-a-doodle liberals

Very fitting

[woodtoo]

Originally Posted by ElKabong

I just find it very amusing that mostpost has posted 'the most posts' in a thread titled Wack-a-doodle liberals

Very fitting

It would fit better if he was winning, not whining.

[ElKabong]

Originally Posted by woodtoo

It would fit better if he was winning, not whining.

Haters gonna hate, whiners gonna whine

[mostpost]

Originally Posted by tucker6

I don't know about that. Reagan cracked the unions and liberated the masses from the shackles of union tyranny. That has done more for the average worker than the Great Society, which has brought institutionalized poverty to us. Any time a new social program is initiated, it has to be paid for on the back of the common man. That common man is thus thrust closer to needing social programs himself to survive. What a wonderful downward spiral you liberals have created. Tax the common man into poverty so that the govt can dole out that tax as a benefit and get credit for helping the poor man. Only in your world is that good.

I'm not supposed to say that someone is stupid, but it is hard not to when I read something like that.

Unions were probably at their strongest between 1950 and 1970. (In 1960 union membership was around 33%.) From 1950 to 1970 the Median wage in the United States increased by 60%. Then, Reagan liberated us from the shackles of union tyranny. In the twenty years after that the median wage increased 13.5%. Those figures use adjusted 2000 dollars, so don't try to tell me that the cost of living is less now.

In addition to the median wage increasing at a four times greater rate, uemployment was much lower back then. In the twenty years between 1950 and 1970, there were nine months in which the unemployment rate went to 7% or higher. It never went to 8%. In the twenty years after Reagan took office, the rate went over 7% in 97 months and over 10% ten times, And that doesn't even include the Great Recession.

[mostpost]

Originally Posted by tucker6

Any time a new social program is initiated, it has to be paid for on the back of the common man. That common man is thus thrust closer to needing social programs himself to survive. What a wonderful downward spiral you liberals have created. Tax the common man into poverty so that the govt can dole out that tax as a benefit and get credit for helping the poor man. Only in your world is that good.

There is none so blind as he who will not see. And you can't see that the reason so many people are forced onto those social programs is because they are not being paid a just wage. There have been many stories referenced here about the large number of WalMart workers who are forced to be on some type of government assistance. In the meantime, members of the inbred Walton Family are worth billions.

If those people were paid what they should be, they would not need food stamps.

[mostpost]

Originally Posted by woodtoo

It would fit better if he was winning, not whining.

I am winning. It's not that I am so great; it's that the competition is so weak.

[ElKabong]

Originally Posted by mostpost

I'm not supposed to say that someone is stupid, but it is hard not to when I read something like that.

Unions were probably at their strongest between 1950 and 1970. (In 1960 union membership was around 33%.) From 1950 to 1970 the Median wage in the United States increased by 60%. Then, Reagan liberated us from the shackles of union tyranny. In the twenty years after that the median wage increased 13.5%. Those figures use adjusted 2000 dollars, so don't try to tell me that the cost of living is less now.

In addition to the median wage increasing at a four times greater rate, uemployment was much lower back then. In the twenty years between 1950 and 1970, there were nine months in which the unemployment rate went to 7% or higher. It never went to 8%. In the twenty years after Reagan took office, the rate went over 7% in 97 months and over 10% ten times, And that doesn't even include the Great Recession.

Your post wasn't directed at me, but I can reply to this in one paragraph (not a mini book like some are inclined to). The timeframe you gave , the US had a ridiculously great advantage to other industrialized nations. Europe was reduced to rubble, Japan was picking itself off the floor. I visited Germany, France and Belgium in the early 60s, to think they could compete w/ the US in a global economy at that time is outright stupidity

[Tom]

Originally Posted by mostpost

I am winning. It's not that I am so great; it's that the competition is so weak.

What, pray tell, do you think you have won?

[HalvOnHorseracing]

I grew up in a very blue collar, union family in a very blue collar town in New York. I spent four years in Buffalo, and what I remember is that union jobs allowed that city to thrive. People who worked in steel mills, auto parts plants, and granaries were able to afford a decent middle class living with modest suburban houses and two (usually American) cars. They put kids through college and kept an economy humming.

There is no doubt the greed of the unions led to their demise. If employers couldn't get a good deal, they had an alternative evolving - moving the jobs to places where there weren't unions to deal with. At first that meant the American south. Dozens of small towns that depended on textile and other manufacturing. Amsterdam, NY, once known as the carpet capital of the world, lost its one horse economy entirely to Dalton, GA and never recovered. It exists today only to continue dying. And in an ironic case of what goes around comes around, 50 years later they gave Dalton the finger and slipped away to Mexico. Anyone from New England has similar stories of similar towns with factories that made gloves, shoes, clothing and had a thriving middle class that kept those towns viable.

This was not Obama's fault. It was 50 years in the making after the end of the war. What changed was simple. Whatever loyalty companies had to towns and their workers became secondary to maximizing profits. At some point the only thing that mattered was making as much money for shareholders as possible, and when you had to share profits with workers that became harder. Whatever loyalty companies had to towns and their workers also got lost in the shift to a world economy. GM or Ford or a thousand other manufacturing plants sealed the fate of workers when they decided they needed to compete in new markets outside the U.S. At that point priority one became selling their products as cheaply as possible.

Union tyranny. Yeah, places like Detroit or Buffalo were tyrannical cities in the 30's, 40's and 50's, not to mention places with thriving middle classes instead of burned out neighborhoods and boarded up stores. What kind of selective memory says years when there was a real middle class was only a result of union tyranny. Well, the poor set upon businesses showed us by leaving town. Perhaps if they had been willing to pay their CEO's less than $25 million a year and passed some of the profit to workers instead of just shareholders we'd still have a middle class capable of driving the economy. The biggest five companies in the U.S. have half a trillion dollars in cash reserves. I hope no one is crying for them.

While the unions thought they were holding a gun to the head of manufacturing firms, they were just as much holding a gun to their own heads. The world changed, and unions never contemplated that they would have to give up a benefit and wage package that was pretty much over the top. But don't kid yourself. The unions could have renegotiated contracts sooner, and they were still going to lose jobs to Mexico or China.

Trump can threaten and cajole all he wants, but the traincarryingn the world economy has long since left the station. American companies will keep jobs in America or move them back only as long as they can pay the shareholders the returns they have come to expect. Use your head and understand the reason they left in the first place. Even America's minimum wage is seven times the hourly wage on foreign countries they would still compete with us. We can never match what they pay their workers and we shouldn't. We need to live like middle class Americans not peones.

Use your head. If you pay Americans crap wages they won't be able to afford to buy goods that would become even more expensive if labor prices were higher, and the economy would tank even worse. Or we would turn into Mexico with the Carlos Slim class and a generally absent middle class. You don't have to guess - just look at the standard of living for the working class in countries that pay low wages. They can hardly afford the goods they make.

When I read something that says we've been released from union tyranny and it is the Great Society that has led us to the downward spiral I have to shake my head. Wages have essentially stagnated since our release from union tyranny which makes any thinking person wonder if the two things could be connected. Clinton and the Congress reformed welfare. One of the first things Obama did was cut taxes for the middle class (conveniently forgot that, didn't we). Reality does a much better job of explaining why we are where we are than the ridiculous fantasies some concoct. A lot easier to figure out the chicken and the egg when you understand biology.

[davew]

Originally Posted by HalvOnHorseracing

There is no doubt the greed of the unions led to their demise. If employers couldn't get a good deal, they had an alternative evolving - moving the jobs to places where there weren't unions to deal with.

The government unions are still doing well. Some retirement programs are basically going to break the bank of some cities/states...

You can only increase the property taxes so much until no one can afford to live there..

[Jess Hawsen Arown]

Originally Posted by ElKabong

I just find it very amusing that mostpost has posted 'the most posts' in a thread titled Wack-a-doodle liberals

Very fitting

...and not the least bit surprising. It proves what we all know. They cannot get over the humiliating disembowelment of the Democratic Party by the American people.

[Grits]

And this, gentlemen, is our U.S.History....lest we forget it. Thank you, Halv!! This was nice to see in print, to read once again.

If we had back all the jobs that left Carolina, for overseas, in the furniture and in the textile industries, alone.....

Originally Posted by HalvOnHorseracing

I grew up in a very blue collar, union family in a very blue collar town in New York. I spent four years in Buffalo, and what I remember is that union jobs allowed that city to thrive. People who worked in steel mills, auto parts plants, and granaries were able to afford a decent middle class living with modest suburban houses and two (usually American) cars. They put kids through college and kept an economy humming.

There is no doubt the greed of the unions led to their demise. If employers couldn't get a good deal, they had an alternative evolving - moving the jobs to places where there weren't unions to deal with. At first that meant the American south. Dozens of small towns that depended on textile and other manufacturing. Amsterdam, NY, once known as the carpet capital of the world, lost its one horse economy entirely to Dalton, GA and never recovered. It exists today only to continue dying. And in an ironic case of what goes around comes around, 50 years later they gave Dalton the finger and slipped away to Mexico. Anyone from New England has similar stories of similar towns with factories that made gloves, shoes, clothing and had a thriving middle class that kept those towns viable.

This was not Obama's fault. It was 50 years in the making after the end of the war. What changed was simple. Whatever loyalty companies had to towns and their workers became secondary to maximizing profits. At some point the only thing that mattered was making as much money for shareholders as possible, and when you had to share profits with workers that became harder. Whatever loyalty companies had to towns and their workers also got lost in the shift to a world economy. GM or Ford or a thousand other manufacturing plants sealed the fate of workers when they decided they needed to compete in new markets outside the U.S. At that point priority one became selling their products as cheaply as possible.

Union tyranny. Yeah, places like Detroit or Buffalo were tyrannical cities in the 30's, 40's and 50's, not to mention places with thriving middle classes instead of burned out neighborhoods and boarded up stores. What kind of selective memory says years when there was a real middle class was only a result of union tyranny. Well, the poor set upon businesses showed us by leaving town. Perhaps if they had been willing to pay their CEO's less than $25 million a year and passed some of the profit to workers instead of just shareholders we'd still have a middle class capable of driving the economy. The biggest five companies in the U.S. have half a trillion dollars in cash reserves. I hope no one is crying for them.

While the unions thought they were holding a gun to the head of manufacturing firms, they were just as much holding a gun to their own heads. The world changed, and unions never contemplated that they would have to give up a benefit and wage package that was pretty much over the top. But don't kid yourself. The unions could have renegotiated contracts sooner, and they were still going to lose jobs to Mexico or China.

Trump can threaten and cajole all he wants, but the traincarryingn the world economy has long since left the station. American companies will keep jobs in America or move them back only as long as they can pay the shareholders the returns they have come to expect. Use your head and understand the reason they left in the first place. Even America's minimum wage is seven times the hourly wage on foreign countries they would still compete with us. We can never match what they pay their workers and we shouldn't. We need to live like middle class Americans not peones.

Use your head. If you pay Americans crap wages they won't be able to afford to buy goods that would become even more expensive if labor prices were higher, and the economy would tank even worse. Or we would turn into Mexico with the Carlos Slim class and a generally absent middle class. You don't have to guess - just look at the standard of living for the working class in countries that pay low wages. They can hardly afford the goods they make.

When I read something that says we've been released from union tyranny and it is the Great Society that has led us to the downward spiral I have to shake my head. Wages have essentially stagnated since our release from union tyranny which makes any thinking person wonder if the two things could be connected. Clinton and the Congress reformed welfare. One of the first things Obama did was cut taxes for the middle class (conveniently forgot that, didn't we). Reality does a much better job of explaining why we are where we are than the ridiculous fantasies some concoct. A lot easier to figure out the chicken and the egg when you understand biology.