Lets say blunty you can get a 1 person appartment in most smaller cities for about $700 (tested it on newark). You can eat for about 300 a month so you'd gave plenty left for clothing/hc but yeah. On 1 minimum wage job you cant support a family or a car or anything like that. Life on minimum wage shouldnt be luxurious but a 1 person household can get by
Pat Buchanan was the Republican Party runner up twice? I guess I had blocked that from my memory. That party has had a lot of shitburgers voting for it for quite some time now.
Union talk? Cool. Plumbers and pipe fitters 172 checking in. Unions work. Getting paid to learn a trade and the topping out is awesome, I am (was) an affiliate. Got close to it, it’s the damn best thing a non college bound person can do. Hell my best friend has a bc in journalism and he joined after. He’s now killing it.
M4A is an easy story. The US out of the government already pays the second most per capita into healthcare of any country in the world (only behind Canada) and whilst the rest of the civilized world covers everybody in some way/shape/form the US doesnt even do that. You can get by with fixing the system, eliminating useless companies like PBMs which offer absolutely nothing to the system except a cash grab. To make healthcare about 30% cheaper in the US you need to do a few simple things 1 The government buys for all citizens and is willing to accept "good enough" 2 Ban commercials for medicine (like every other western country in the world except NZ) 3 Fix malpractice legislation at this point it would still be 10% more expensive per capita than the next country in the world but ill write that down due to more violence and obesity
They are effective, numbers are just dwindling because of the anti union movement over the past several decades.
why would he have to explain how he would get something through Congress when he could just declare a national emergency? did you ask the same question of trump’s wall?
and globalisation and automation. Its where you can actually look at expirements with different countries. France is a good example of unions being too strong and it has killed the French industry. What to do with unions in industries that have mobility is a way more complex answer but just saying "bring back unions" is too shortsighted in my opinion. I think the mobility of a lot of production enforces a lot more cooperative approach. When you say the balance of power between companies and workers is out of whack I fully agree, dont think you can find many people except strict supply side jesus worshippers who disagree. Just saying that given the mobility of capital unions are a dangerous game to play that can backfire spectacularly
there is a flaw in this reasoning unionizing fucks bezos and amazon for sure but saying thats a sufficient proof of it working is wrong. The result could easily be 1 more automation and the bad jobs being replaced by no jobs 2 moving just across state lines and thats "just" amazon, a company that does not have the mobility of most production companies
Prob pretty easy to come up with funding - wealth tax, higher marginal tax rates for upper incomes, enforcement of paying taxes on the wealthy, forcing businesses to pay penalties and fines, more rigid audit processes for upper incone earners, more rigid large business audits, reduce the DoD budget, etc. It’s really just about prioritizing and zero-balance budgeting in certain areas, eliminating waste in others. Getting all of it through congress, however, would require a miracle befitting of sainthood.
Your logic is broken. 1. It doesn’t “fuck” Bezos if his business is really that mobile. 2. It doesn’t “fuck” Bezos if his workers aren’t getting any better terms out of being union members. 3. The push to automate is already there independent of the union status of the employees. Unionizing allows the workers to actually fight automation.
Wicket one of the things you’re missing on unions is that the US doesn’t have the labor laws that exist in Europe. Do you find unions too powerful in the Netherlands? Do they need to be when you have works councils that don’t exist here? Or mandatory work requirements as law (e.g vacation, paid leave, retirement, termination etc )? So in a country where there is strong labor laws, yes a union is less needed. But where there are generally lax labor laws, unions are needed.
Part of it too is that business owners are greedy fucks who exploit a lot of labor, rather than viewing labor as a partnership. Too few focus on bottom line results rather than a combo of results and retention.
You’ve been dealing with rats. Unions are nothing down there. We have a lot here too, South Bend is weird because ND will only use union labor. So it’s insanely competitive. The shop I worked for and several others here work exclusively on 500k plus projects. The “rats” come in with small store front type stuff, and home. And agreed fuck them.
huh? France has a smaller union representation than the US. You keep saying “globalization and automation” but I don’t know what you’re trying to say.
1 Just to put numbers to it. without unions things can cost 10, moving it can cost 11, with unions it can cost 12. Switching costs are also there. 2 Would kinda kill the point 3 automation is always in investment decision. If you can have things done by hand cheaper companies wont automate, if its cheaper to do machines, theyll do machines. Its not independent of labor cost at all
Im not an opponent of unions at all but all im argueing is that its not a fix all for getting the balance of powers back
wasn't there an article posted in here about how charitable donations decreased by half or something in 2018?
Some of the bids I get for new store projects make me laugh. To install 3 sinks and the plumbing to them they will bid upwards of 25k. It takes them 2-3 days tops including slab work.
yet they are very very strong. Read more about it, its very weird. Tons of people are not actually in a union but still act like they are basically. If a union calls a strike lots of times the entire workforce in that industry strikes, not just those who have officially unionized
Unions let workers have a say in the direction of the company instead of being viewed as just a tool that can be outsourced/replaced at the whim of investors. The push to automate is there in every industry. That dagger is hanging over every worker’s head. The only leverage they have to fight that is to organize.
Capitalism is always owners and labor trying to squeeze as much capital as possible out of each other. Labor has been systematically neutered in favor of ownership in this country for decades. That needs to change before guillotines get broken out but I'm not optimistic about it
I’m serious if you have a new build pm me. I was an estimator and still keep up on it. Guessing you are running pvc and pex. Shit should be maybe 5k maybe.
But what I’m saying is that the European experience with unions is not the same as the US. You have legally required works councils. Those are not unions but those are still workers respresntation within the company. On top of that, there are unions and strong pro-labor laws, that are subject of collective bargaining over here. So yes strong European unions can tip the scales because you already have baseline requirements. The US doesn’t have that. So you either need to completely rewrite the labor code, which good luck, or you need to help unions in some way
Again, im saying finding the balance of power is very important, just saying that unions are an outdated tool for this. The need to fix the balance is a screw and unions are like hammers. It sort of works in the short run but it doesnt fix the problem long term. Having companies actually "rewarded" for full time contracts and good working conditions and making corporates pay their share at the same time are parts of a grand set of tools you need to fix a balance that just is not there nowadays. (keep in mind this balance of powers between unions and companies has historically almost never been there, at first land was the dominant economic constraints, than capital, than labour, now capital again)
Yeah, God forbid we let minimum wage workers have a life that doesn't force them to live paycheck-to-paycheck, worrying that the smallest emergency might put them into financial ruin. That would be terrible.
Some (or a lot) of this is supply and demand for their skills currently. Electricians are running laps around plumbers though, at least here with regards to what they can charge
Man, you’re not wrong, but you live in a different world. The US is fucked labor wise so unions help to increase wages and quality of life. Without unions our teachers, auto workers, steel workers, etc. would be fighting to get above minimum wage. If we can reform our national stuff unions could go away, we haven’t.
Im not anywhere argueing that labor unions currently are anywhere near "too strong" in the US. What im saying is that relying on unions to fix a problem that, by greater possibilities of companies to move abroad or automate, they are flat out not suited for anymore. What can a union do for a labor force? It can push the rewards the employees get just to the edge of the switching cost and try and increase the switching cost for such a company. Both laudible goals. With some planning it can even talk a bit to management about how to plan towards the future in a way that maintains decent job security for the broad population of workers, but thats about the end of their spectrum. But what we need is economic developments that creates good and predictable jobs that allow people to take care of their family and for that to happen you need allignment of incentives between corporates and workers. When you can no longer just "power play" corporates to offer humane and dignified jobs you need to handle it smarter, the tax code needs to handle it smarter. I do not personally think that unions are anywhere near a sufficient tool to handle this and working to empower unions in my opinion is AT BEST a temporary fix and most likely a distraction on the course of finding a more permanent solution
im not saying its bad or good, all im saying is that looking at the percentage of unionized workers as a representation of the power of the union is not right in that specific case
yeah, $12.50/hr is not livable anymore. good luck with a car payment, rent, food, etc. just on that, unless you want to live with an unreliable car and scraping paycheck to paycheck, and with roommates.
I’m 34 and don’t like him for president, like his policy just not him. We have younger less “angry grandpa” people that share his values this time.
https://www.apartmentfinder.com/New-Jersey/Newark-Apartments Looks like $700 doesn't get you anything. That's section 8/ income restricted or student housing. So basically you'd need welfare to live off minimum wage in NJ.
These are my feelings. His message and policies are not the issue... he is not the best conduit for those policies. He has established barriers with the AA community and among some other groups that will be unnecessary distractions and can cause fracture within the party during the most crucial time.
i guess im not used to the us mindset about cars. Cars over here are not seen as an essential at all.
Many places in the US of A you have to. If you aren't living in an urban environment, a car becomes a necessity.