Tuesday News Chum

[cahwyguy]

• From the “Say That Again?” Department: Headline seen on CNN: “Bush arrives in Texas; Residents urged to leave”
  
  
• From the “Nothing Up My Sleeve” Department: We all know that the budget compromise developed by the California Senate/Assembly supposedly does not raise taxes. But it is going to hit all of us in the pocketbook. According to the LA Times:

Comments

[geah]

The fundamentals of the economy are strong. Obama is posturing at best; ignorant at worst. He'll talk down the economy in a cynical effort to get votes.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/09162008/postopinion/opedcolumnists/apocalypse_not_129294.htm

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/anatole_kaletsky/article4753649.ece

[cahwyguy]

You know, it must be real nice to live in your fantasy world. :-)

[geah]

Actually, it's here in the real world where it's nice.

It's the media world where panics are created daily. Whatever happened to that 25-foot surge in Galveston? Certain death, as I recall? Oh, it never topped 11-feet? Plenty of survivors?

Imagine that.

[cahwyguy]

Actually, no, you're living in the fantasy world.

Let's start with your sources. Both owned by Rupert Murdoch, who also owns Fox News. Not necessarily unbiased sources.

Here's an interesting opinion piece from the Washington Post: Since 1950 Republican administrations have be associated with slow growth in real gross domestic product (2.8 percent) as compared to Democratic administrations (4.4 percent). The Bush administration has been the second worst in this period at 1.6 percent, which is only slightly above Ford at 1.5 percent. Bush and the GOP's effect on the economy has resulted in the worst severe poverty since 1975, with the number of severely poor Americans growing by 26 percent between 2000 and 2005, and the worst job creation since the Great Depression; this has left America with the worst child poverty, education, and life expectancy of all civilized countries, and resulted in 38% of Americans struggling to pay for food. In addition to the world's largest bond fund manager declaring that tax cuts for the rich and

[geah]

Huffington Post? DailyKos? ThinkProgress?

Hahahahahahahahahaha.

I guess you believe that Trig was the result of Bristol being impregnated by her dad.

[cahwyguy]

No. I believe that Trig is Sarah's child.

[geah]

You wouldn't know it from reading the Huffington Post, DailyKos or Think Progress.

I'd say they were as accurate on that story as they are on this one.

[cahwyguy]

As accurate as the conspiracy theorists on the other side going after Obama. I ignore both. But one conspiracy theory does not mean I write off an entire source. I do endeavor to get my news from a large variety of sources, and filter it through my common sense.

[cahwyguy]

For all you want to blame the housing market for the debacle, there's a real underlying cause, as noted by Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor:The basic reality is this: For most Americans, earnings have not kept up with the cost of living. This is not a new phenomenon but it has finally caught up with the pocketbooks of average people. If you look at the earnings of non-government workers, especially the hourly workers who comprise 80 percent of the workforce, you'll find they are barely higher than they were in the mid-1970s, adjusted for inflation. The income of a man in his 30s is now 12 percent below that of a man his age three decades ago. Per-person productivity has grown considerably since then, but most Americans have not reaped the benefits of those productivity gains. They've gone largely to the top.
Who has always worked to ensure there are living wages? Democrats.

So, go live in your fantasy world. Believe what the Murdoch-controlled media tells you.

[geah]

Pres. Clinton's labor secretary? Okay.

The only way for you to ensure you get a living wage is to earn a living wage.

Is that unreasonable to expect?

[cahwyguy]

You can do the work, but it is the employer that sets the wages (above minimum wage). So there are two parties involved in the transaction. So you need to amend your statement: Employees must earn the living wage, and employers must pay a living wage.

[geah]

"You can do the work, but it is the employer that sets the wages (above minimum wage)."

You aren't serious about this, are you?

[cahwyguy]

What? That employers set wages (above the legal minimum), or that employees work?

[geah]

Unless you're in a union, the wages are negotiated between the employee and the employer. In the case of a union, the union negotiates with the employer.

By your standard, if your boss came in tomorrow and halved your pay, you'd say, "No problem. Employers set the wage. All I do is work."

Neither my wife nor I work at jobs where we took what was initially offered to us when we started.

[cahwyguy]

Yes, there is negotiation, but there is a point above which an employer will not go. Further, negotiation tends to occur more in salaried jobs. For many laborer jobs, the wage is set and there is only limited leeway in adjusting.

[ah1270]

You are correct. An employer can offer a lesser wage, but his competitor can offer more. Thus with the exception of unskilled labor (which is hardly ever unionized) an employer runs the risk of losing you, spending an extraordinary amount of money to train someone else and bring him up to your level. Since no one at your level would work for less than the going wage, an employer will have to trade wages for training costs to bring a lesser employee up.. and then lose him when that newly trained employee realizes a competitor will offer him more money.

The only time this doesn't work is when government controls hiring practices and mandates a living wage above the going wage. Then you have France... with a 25% unemployment rate. Then it is nearly impossible to switch jobs since one risks having no job at all for almost forever. Then the employer has you by the short-hairs and you'll take whatever he gives you and be grateful for it... as long as it is at the minimum living wage.