Aren't there rules on post length?
Aren't there rules on post length?
"...with like-minded people one cannot discuss. With like-minded people one can only participate in a church service, and you know how I feel about church services." Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Excellent! Good job, Commonsense, you make some very good points (though you, as I tend to do, stray into ideological rantings far off the subject...).
Princess said:
My understanding also was that the new rules were aimed at people who earn MORE than 24k--sorry if I was confusing--and I guess that is part of my point there is a very large number of people who earn more than 24k but less than, let's say around 75K (I have no source for this--I am simply pulling a number out of the air based on my expirence and knowledge), who feel that without the protection of overtime pay requirements they would be drastically exploited.
exploited?! they feel they would be exploited? how exactly would an employer exploit the worker?
Here is one of the underlying problems I see: Basically, the socialist believes that everyone has the 'right to work'. As Princess said (not quoting) "we all have to eat, pay our bills, and put the kids through college" as if these things are owed us by the mere fact of us being human. As complex and removed from nature as our society is, it CANNOT ignore economic and natural laws: you MUST labor to survive, and that labor must be productive labor. One cannot sit and make mudpies all day and then expect a steak dinner waiting for them at the dinner table. This means that if all you know how to do is make buggy whips and you refuse to protect yourself through education and increasing your skillset - you have thrown your life to the winds carelessly. And, yes, you DESERVE to suffer the consequences. No, not thrown in jail or some other punishment, but you will be 'forced' to take that low-paying burger-flipping job when the buggywhip business goes belly up due to the automobile replacing horse-drawn carraiges.
Wages are NOT some arbitrary number plucked from the sky - they are DIRECTLY related to productivity. There is an upper-limit of a wage based on the productivity of the worker and a lower-limit based on productivity. Not based on 'the need to earn a living wage', or 'the need to send your kids through college'. The grand effect of 'minimum wage laws' is to have greatly increased unemployment and reduce the number of goods and services in the economy. But it also has had another, possibly worse, effect of preventing low/no skilled people from obtaining that necessary 'first job' or entry-level position. From this first job, the unskilled person agrees to take a lower wage in return for training and learning 'employability' skills: responsibility, budgeting, honesty, integrity, dependability. Once the person has aquired these skills and perhaps learned a trade THEN they are worth more to the (and other) employer(s) so their wage increases. and so on, up the ladder. This same principal continues at ALL wage levels and is directly tied to 'overtime'. The employer cannot magically make an extra hour over 40 worth more to him for the same type of work! If this were true then lets just pass a law that says EVERY hour of work is overtime and MUST be paid at 1.5 (or whatever fancy multiplier you arbitrarily determine) times the going wage! So, what is the net effect of forced overtime increased pay? Less earnings for the employee than they would otherwise desire. Example: My wife is out of town this upcoming weekend and my boss has work for me to do that would entail me to go over my 40 hrs and come in on Saturday. Since we need the money to pay our taxes, and I wouldn't be taking time away from my homelife with my wife (something I highly prize), I would jump at the chance to earn another 6-8 hrs worth of wages (even at the same exact wage) BUT the work does not justify paying me 1.5 wages. What happens? I sit home all saturday drinking beer and playing with myself and my boss either forgoes getting the work accomplished or hires a temp or someone else he would have rather not have choosen. yeah for forced overtime.
OK, then, lets look at the 'exploited' scenario:
My boss tells me that I have to work 80hrs per week for $3/hr and no overtime. I tell him to go to hell and start looking for another job with an employer that wants to stay in business because the 'exploiter' is not going to find ANY workers do slave for him at under market wages! No workers, no production, no profits, no business.
wow, long post! sorry.... one more point that will continue on to next post...
Take on the responsibility to be free
sorry about these post lengths... I like to hear myself type...
ok, last thing: Princess stated something to the effect that corporations were evil because they have one motivation - big bad profits!
um, how does a business earn these profits? Who pays these gross profits? The ONLY way a business can earn profits over a period of time is if they provide a product or service that a number of consumers consider valuable. Not only do they have to provide this 'good', but they have to provide it at least equal or better than their competitor! So, the REAL focus of EVERY company is to cater to yours and my most precious desires! Profits are the result of successfully providing goods that people desire! This is a GREAT thing, Princess! This is why our standard of living has increased so greatly over the last 200 years! This is why even our 'poor' have refrigerators and microwaves and cable TV and internet access! Rejoice, Princess! Revel in the fact that we have finally discovered the single most efficient engine to deliver goods and services, to create and innovate, to extoll individual rights - Hail Profits! Hail the Free Market! Hail capitalism! now if it were not for government dragging us back down, we would be enjoying a standard of living over twice that we do now...
I suppose you also are aghast at the immoral and depraved practice of that other evil, "Outsourcing" - well, thats yet another thread I fear....
glad to meet ya,
michael
Take on the responsibility to be free
Originally posted by grainger612,
Princess and EvilBaby,
I would very much like to hear a more direct response to Kyran's central point: Why should he (or anyone) be forced to work two jobs in order to get more than 40 hours a week?
If working more than 40 hours is a safety issue, shouldn't overtime be in effect accross multiple jobs? As in, no matter how many jobs you work, anything over 40 hours must be at overtime rates? Since there is currently an easy (though not as easy as not having the law) way for workers to work more than 40 hours a week without overtime, how can safety really be the issue? Not to mention salaried workers who work more than 40 hours (raises hand).
You are going to change the law accomidate a relatively small number of people?
That doesn't make much sense in this case to me. The point is 40 hours was the agreed apon middle ground.
Salaried workers have it different cause they have to agree to a certain contract, and in every case that I know of(howerver I could be wrong) get paid more money then those not on salary. With higher wage comes more responsibility.
My understanding is that this 40 hour work week was set up to protect against the average labour worker. A company could save millions by having less workers work more often. That means less benefits, less safety equipment, less supervisors and well pretty much less of everything. But I believe it is not reasoniable to force somebody in a factory to work more then 40 hours a week, becuase if that person dones' there will be somebody more desperate who will and in the long run it will endanger that person
also this is not an argument I would make personaly but food for thought.
As I see most right wing people claim to be more family oriented and tradtional.
With longer work weeks means longer work days which means less time for family and community.
Originally posted by imperialprincess,+--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (imperialprincess,)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>And actually you made my point for me to Kyran. I am asking him to recognize "the positive dynamic that collective bargaining has played historically"[/b]
Even better than collective bargaining in union labor practices is power bargaining. Figure a union of 100 workers does not have as much buying power as say 1,000. Corporations use the buying power of chain stores to get better deals on contracts and inventory. Unions could do the same to get benefits, higher wages, or better jobs. All it takes is a professional business approach instead of a politician lobbying one.
Prove your assertion: "regulation or restructuring of corps is essential to allow collective bargaining to be what it should."
Originally posted by imperialprincess,+--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (imperialprincess,)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>I also would not deny that labor unions have their own problems with corruption, but without them and the laws we have giving them an equal footing with corporations collective bargaining would have been starved and beaten to death in it's infancy.[/b]
What's wrong with letting corruption die in and of itself? See, if the "failing unions" would have just given up, someone else would start anew to replace it. That someone would play by the rules; not getting government involved in their business affairs. I strongly disagree with the notion that "collective bargaining" was ever in any danger. It's a free market action! The only people in DANGER were the ones not utilizing it correctly.
Look at temporary work services. The basic model of selling labor through business-to-business action is a professional field today. It works! Collective bargaining is a business. Imagine what it could be like for unions.
My political philosophy does not compromise, being that it is already a mixture of libertarian and conservative ideals. Pure capitalists like myself do not want the government involved in our market affairs unless there is unjust force or fraud going on. I would like to build your interest in free market solutions to free market problems...especially with the tyrannical OT laws. If some union somewhere actually bartered for it and won it, then it would be ok. But it's not okay when the government orders every business to do it.Originally posted by imperialprincess,
I would like to reach that so elusive "common ground" with people like you who come from a libertarian or conservative point of view but I think we are having the same problem that I always run across. We can agree in the basic, and very, VERY, general theory of what and why but it is the implementation and the details of how that tear us apart.
Best paragraph I've read today. I mean that.Originally posted by imperialprincess,
I agree that the structure of our modern society is radically different than what our founders intended. But so is life. And I agree that they intended the structure (the constitution) to protect the freedoms of individuals from the tyranny of government but what you don't seem to want to acknowledge is that the current system is in place for a reason. Many of the concepts conservatives disagree with were begun in response to horrible things that were happening. Maybe the solutions were only intended to be temporary and their permanence has corrupted them or maybe they have been interpreted and reinterpreted until the bear little resemblance to their original intent but to allow what was happening to continue would have been wrong and it was the best answer leaders could come up with at the time.
I've heard about children working in dangerous conditions to help their families and the whole nine yards. It may be my opinion that the parents of those families are deadbeats who don't pull their own weight, but I have high respect for a child who will risk life and limb for another.
The right solutions were never suggested as far as I know. The division between capitalists resulted in a loss of economic freedom for everyone, IMO. Today...if a child needs to work to help support their families...they'll just get turned away. That family might starve. It's these situations which scare me the most. We have to stop killing people's financial choices, especially those of the poor. I've been poor and I know what it's like to have serious problems, and have no choice due to government nannying.
Charity costs more when the government administrates it. However, if the taxpayer has decided that his taxmoney shall be spent upon Social Security then it is the duty of the Federal Government to do as he says. Of course, if Social Security was a business, then government officials couldn't swindle the security fund could they?Originally posted by imperialprincess,
To simply say that people can take care of themselves turns a blind eye to those that can't. I think it is disingenuous to think that charity can handle it all. They never have in the past...
Government has never handled it all either, and never will. There will always be someone so lazy they will refuse to work. There will always be people who make bad decisions that land them into the poorhouse.
<!--QuoteBegin-imperialprincess,@
Labor laws about safety and overtime were passed to give workers a chance to bargain with employers on an equal footing because until the law changed the negotiations always favored the company.[/quote]
They did NOT bargain Safety or OT after the government regulated business. This ended all bargaining completely. Perhaps those negotiators sucked? I mean, cmon, a business and it's employees need each other. The only way you can have a one-sided win is where someone doesn't know how to bargain effectively. Of course, the business side is naturally advantaged due to this being a marketplace practice rather than a workplace practice. The unions should have replaced their negotiators and kept trying...taking a business approach instead of running to Uncle Sam when they failed.
<!--QuoteBegin-imperialprincess,
The modern publicly traded corporation DOES corrupt not only government, but also people and the very fabric of our society. Because corporations are ruled by one inescapable law of the modern economy:
The only thing that matters is to make the most profits possible in the next three months.
This is a corrupt value but it is the only one a modern public corporation can have and that is why corporations, as they are currently structured, are corrupt and corrupting and if they are not changed always will be.[/quote]
Don't unions do the same thing?
I know what you're implying. You're saying the corps will risk their employees' life and limb and profit from it...all for their God the Dollar Bill. And because people "die" in this situation, compared to the "loss of property rights" in the employer's situation...you feel that it is completely justified.
However, the truth is when unions give the government control of corporations, they do so thrice to themselves. It becomes illegal for employers to work employees overtime without a time and a half pay...which is okay until one of those employees is forced to get two jobs. It becomes illegal for employers to work employees unsafely...which is okay until nondangerous work is included. It becomes illegal for children to work...which is okay until some child needs a job to eat.
Everything that goes around comes around. Killing someone else's financial choices results in killing your own.
As a human being, you should not be the property of other human beings. You remember that story about corporations cashing in on the deaths of their employees through insurance? Nothing has changed. Employees = slaves = assets = property.
Trading off your rights for money is equal to risking your life for money. I'd go on, but it's time for band practice. I'm in business for myself and I refuse to employ others.
What a strange way to approach the problem! Laws are almost ALWAYS written to accomodate a relatively small number of people! Do you have any idea how many laws there ARE in the United States? How about the huge number of quirks and loopholes in the tax code? Most laws probably only impact 1% or less of the population. My point is not to advocate a law change, but to understand the REASON behind having overtime laws in the first place. To say that the government just wrote the law that way because it was easy flies in the face of any evidence regarding what laws the government does write.Originally posted by Evil Baby,
You are going to change the law accomidate a relatively small number of people?
I think my question was very relavant, and deserved a much more interesting and creative response. If SAFETY is the concern, then the law would have been written to address safety, by saying a person can only work so many hours in a factory, for instance. It was not, so I reject that as the reason for overtime pay. I think there have to be other reasons. Surely you (or Princess) can think of some!
The Bushistas have destroyed so much that it's hard to keep track; but, yes, their attack on workers' rights, specifically on overtime pay, has at times risen above the heap to be noticeable. My attitude is that American workers can see what's happening -- now they need to vote the bastards out.Originally posted by imperialprincess,
Has anyone seen some of the news reports about the new rules the Bush admin is trying get through about overtime pay rights?
I read something (sorry I don't have the reference) about new rules that would mean companies could tell their workers who make over 24K/year to work more than 40 hours in a week but would no longer be required by law (at least in my state--TX) to pay time and a half.
I think that is wrong. It is immoral and unethical.
I also think it shows the true nature of the Republican party and who it is owned by and works for -- especially Bush II!!
Corporations. They have changed the nature of capitalism into "corportism" and it is going to destory our country eventually. Frankly, I don't see anyway to stop it but I'll die trying.
--imp
QUOTE (imperialprincess,)
I agree that the structure of our modern society is radically different than what our founders intended. But so is life.
Libertarians believe society's present "moral" deficiencies devolved into what they are because the Founders' philosophy was perverted.
And I agree that they intended the structure (the constitution) to protect the freedoms of individuals from the tyranny of government but what you don't seem to want to acknowledge is that the current system is in place for a reason.
Libertarians believe current laws and our present "social systems" create nothing but human suffering and in ways not readily identifyable as the direct result of their existence.
"The reason" those laws and systems are in place is because it benefits the politicians and administrators of them.
Many of the concepts conservatives disagree with were begun in response to horrible things that were happening. Maybe the solutions were only intended to be temporary and their permanence has corrupted them or maybe they have been interpreted and reinterpreted until the bear little resemblance to their original intent but to allow what was happening to continue would have been wrong and it was the best answer leaders could come up with at the time.
Political leaders have no right addressing them.
There are ingenious, creative, productive, beneficial means to solve every societal need and every social "problem".
The noble savage always seemed to manage it.
The fact that governmental "solutions" inevitably come at the point of an armed agent's gun are their own indictment.
To be a Libertarian, one must be among the most open-minded, spiritual, loving, selfless, humanitarian and multi-cultural of men.
Stuff that in your birkenstocks and walk the walk, liberals.
Commonsense, no wonder why we come across as 'high and mighty' or 'better than thou' - LOL 'stuff that in your birkenstocks'?!?!? lol
I love when conservatives label us as liberals and liberals label us as conservatives - I saw Ann Coultier throw her hands up in the air and flabberghastedly try to describe Penn as a 'confused liberal' with some good ideas.... lol
michael
Take on the responsibility to be free
What a strange way to approach the problem! Laws are almost ALWAYS written to accomodate a relatively small number of people! Do you have any idea how many laws there ARE in the United States? How about the huge number of quirks and loopholes in the tax code? Most laws probably only impact 1% or less of the population. My point is not to advocate a law change, but to understand the REASON behind having overtime laws in the first place. To say that the government just wrote the law that way because it was easy flies in the face of any evidence regarding what laws the government does write.Originally posted by grainger612,+--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (grainger612,)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteBegin-Evil Baby,
You are going to change the law accomidate a relatively small number of people?
[/b][/quote]
That was in reply to the idea this law will be great for those who have to work mulitple jobs. All I was trying to say is it will only hurt the middle class and it will make the owners more money, far more money. I believe it is unreasonable to ask anyone, nevermind force them to work passed what they are expected to do. It is accepted that you work an 8 hour day, 5 days a week at a certain wage. If you are salary that is a completely different story, but if you get paid by the hour you are genearlly paid less and not expected to do the same amount of work as somebody who gets paid more. If you work more then you get paid more, its that simple. When does it become too many hours in one day? 9 hours, 15 hours, 20 hours a day? The agreed apon reasonable amount of time to work is an 8 hour day. I don't know why that is the agreed apon working hour but I can only assume there are many factors involved in it.
Originally posted by imperialprincess,+--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (imperialprincess,)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>I understand the conservative or libertarian arguement that overregualting business can be a problem. But so can underregualtion. I think finding a balance between the two is a better choice than abandoning the strides we have made so far.[/b]
I prefer Justice to regulation, anyday anywhere.
A corporation is a property, not a human being. Hey, sounds good. We can't tax an object's income tax.Originally posted by imperialprincess,@
Kyran: Civilian entrupeneurs? Come now you really think GE is a run by entrepeneurs???
These behemoths are not any more benevolent that the federal government. Useful tools when used properly but they should not be allowed to have all of the rights of an individual.
Because of course, just like workers rights, neither are corporations mentioned in the constitution.
See, a business belongs to someone. And he has the rights.
<!--QuoteBegin-imperialprincess,
If your only purpose was to "classify" me I suppose your overbraoad and vague description is close enough:
"personal freedom and a balance between capitalism and economic equality."
Funny, I thought the purpose was to have a dialoge? And to get away from sterotypes?
As for my beliefs about other topics, they too have some depth to them rather than the bumper sticker mentality you espouse. I'll address them in the appropriate thread.[/quote]
No, unlike my superjudgmental counterparts in the GOP I figure out what you think so I can dissect you like a frog. I'm working on my ability to discern political alignments, because it's my pride and joy. And since we both agree that I'm right (enough) and not psychic, I will now celebrate with a dosage of my favorite nicotene provider: Basic.
I find that being able to anticipate others' arguments (via their political school of thought) gives me an incredible advantage to strategizing my own moves. The reason I bring this up is because you seem like you support social democracy (mix of capitalism and socialism with personal freedom.) I would like to understand your school of thought more in-depth, no matter which one you belong to.
But I have been mistaken. You say Workers Rights are higher priority than the personal freedom issues mentioned. That suggests you are not a radical, but a borderline liberal who regards Economic Equality more than Personal Freedom. Now let's try something.
Would you support or oppose the following ideas:
1. Letting workers exempt their employers from paying them overtime, workman's comp, and the like via a notification to government filed with income taxes. This would refund the money to the employer without giving them the ability to force new recruits to exempt them.
2. Letting people who make less than $40k/yr exempt themselves from paying for social security, medicaid, medicare, and other public services they do not wish to use. This does not apply to the military or justice system.
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