My goodness, the first week of October is almost consumed. How short the 31-day fall month is, compared with a 31-day month like July or August. That's relativity.
Palin No-Go
She says she can be more effective as an outsider, is not running for President. She is wrong. She would have quite an effect as Prez, but probably not benign overall. It will be much more benign for her to remain an outsider, and certainly more benign to her bank account.
Governor Christie of NJ has also opted out. This is just as well. He needs to season himself in a hostile political environment (NJ is hardly an R stronghold), and acquire more chief executive experience in a republican (note the lower-case "r") government setting. Perhaps a Romney-Cain ticket will emerge. That is unlikely, but would be interesting.
Knox-vile
Amanda Knox has been freed by an Italian appeals court, which overturned her murder conviction in Italy. I was late to this case, having wearied of the murder du jour during the protracted Anthony debacle. Whether Miss Knox is really guilty or not, I do not know, but I know that her parents need to tell her to sleep off the ride home, go find a job (preferably menial), and forget about her subsidized spoiled and self-indulgent life.
Speaking of Casey Anthony, I saw a headline that reported that the acquitted murderess cannot find a job. I do not believe in Hell, but to hell with her. She doesn't need money. The Fusian bar closed.
Word watch
Bad choices: As in a spoiled brat who is arrested for selling drugs to middle-schoolers. Nonsense. Let's try, "He committed crimes," or "He did wrong," or "He was selfish and stupid." Much more honest. Murdering someone is a bad choice. So is making a rolling stop through a stop sign. Saying someone made bad choices is simply saying someone shouldn't have done something, but to say that is to be judgmental, which somehow has become the wrong thing do. Come to think of it, declaring judgmentalism to be wrong is, um, judgmental, isn't it?
Labor pains (leftover)
OT, I did not understand your relating right-to-work with Reynolds' labor relations in the 40's. How did right-to-work undermine the union contract? Did enough workers take advantage of the law to depart the union? If so, isn't that Freedom of Choice, so beloved by liberals?
You also have mentioned labor's appx 10% private sector penetration, implying it is less and less a factor (and ignoring the much higher public sector unionization rate). Ignoring public sector unions for a moment, the minimal private sector penetration makes unions' political influence disproportionately large, as they pump hundreds of millions of dollars into a Presidential year election cycle. And that money comes from dues, not ad hoc contributions, and is disbursed by people who are in general not directly elected by union members, thus a proletarian plutocracy of a sort. Much of that money is from people who are compelled to pay dues to unions whether they want to or not. Social justice revealed.
And, union members have no input re how the money is spent on politics. Oh yes, they can request that the political part of their dues not be withheld, but the amount unions state that is spent on politics is lyingly low in its own right, and does not include the dough contributed to outfits like NOW and the NAACP, which in turn recycle it politically.
Oh jeez, unions again.
ReplyDelete1. The thing about how the NC Right to Work law got passed was a joke that I made up! No worker ever asked for such a law. The laws were enacted at the behest of powerful corporations, in NC, mostly textile companies, many owned by northerners who began moving into the south where they could find ignorant peckerwoods who would work for 2/3 or less of what northern workers demanded. To even suggest that Right to Work laws were passed to ensure worker's rights is well outside reality. As anyone who has ever worked in employee relations knows, the laws are reverse named...they are actually Right to Fire laws.
2. The TWU contract signed by RJR in the late '40s was CRUSHED by the money and power of the big companies and their wholly owned judges. RJR workers had worked far too hard against unbelievable odds to win that contract. During all the hoopla, at one point, the local police attempted to provoke riots and union officials were sentenced to 3-4 years on the chain gang for trumpoed up charges of blocking a sidewalk. When they appealed the outrageous sentences to superior court, the company owned judge doubled the sentences. They all served their full time.
3. The 10% figure includes all workers, private and public. The percent in private companies is about 6%. I cited a total figure around 16 million for union members, that number is now down to 15 million. In other words, unions are about as significant as Confederate money.
Someone needs to study up on their labor history.
Also, all union members can, and many do, opt out of paying into the political funds, so that business is a paper tiger, and anyone who thinks that corporations and wealthy individuals do not falsify a significant amount of their political contributions is simply not paying attention.
Palin a no go. I never thought she would. Christie made the right choice since he may be the only person that can save what is left of NJ. I have believed all year that Romney would be the nominee and I see nothing to change my mind. If he chooses a running mate from that stage, I will bet on Herman Cain. I like Mr Cain as he has a biz story to tell and a cancer story to tell. Both things I can relate to.
ReplyDelete"Bad Choices". The language. It is what you lose first before you lose the argument and then civil society.
ReplyDeleteI agree with WW that Romney SHOULD be the GOP candidate, but considering some of the others in the race, I find it difficult to believe that they will give his Mormon beliefs a free pass.
ReplyDeleteLeaving out the Mormon business, I think a Romney/Cain ticket would be a reasonable one. Not betting on it, though.
As to Palin, she can say what she wants, but her decision is based more on her poor showing in the polls than anything else.
ReplyDeleteOT...Romney/Cain would certainly be unique. Mormonism, I couldn't care less. The only Mormon I have ever known is a lifelong resident of Downeast NC. He more than anyone else helped me get my start in commercial real estate. I still get in touch with him from time to time when I go to Carteret county.
ReplyDeleteAgree re Mormons...I know several excellent people of that faith and could not care less what they do on Sunday. But remember that the christian right is the new base of the GOP. Will they support someone who is clearly, by their own reckoning, destined for hell?
ReplyDeleteWell, if Mr Romney is destined for hell, at least, if he is the nominee, he can spend a 4 year term in purgatory (White House) first. This election will be ABO...anyone but Obama.
ReplyDeletePurgatory? See, that's the curious part to me. Why would anyone in their right mind want the job?
ReplyDeleteEven in good times it is pretty much a thankless task. But it is obvious at this point that the current economic situation will not be remedied anytime soon. By 2016, whoever the occupant of the White House is will be seen as the devil himself.
That is why I ignored the recent rumors about Christie. He is obviously too smart to fall into that trap. I actually would love to see Perry get elected and watch the smugness get wiped off his pretty little face...the economy will get better when the economy gets better and not before.
"But it is obvious at this point that the current economic situation will not be remedied anytime soon. By 2016, whoever the occupant of the White House is will be seen as the devil himself."
ReplyDeleteThat's absolutely right. The real crime is, we know how to get out of this...a massive infusion of government spending, preferably on infrastructure, public works, and public assistance projects.
How we're supposed to get out of this situation by further enriching an already obscenely wealthy elite, I have no idea. Both parties are culpable to some degree, but the GOP is really a faith-based organization now, based on upper-class tax cuts as the solution to all of society's ills.
As a (relatively) young person trying to break into the job market, it really makes me want to bang my head against a wall.
Arthur.. "That's absolutely right. The real crime is, we know how to get out of this...a massive infusion of government spending, preferably on infrastructure, public works, and public assistance projects". Apparently you have already done too much banging your head against the wall. Robert B. Reich would hug your neck for all the good it will do. You have a "solution" for a problem it will not solve.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteSo, to stimulate demand and help with deleveraging, we lay off gov't workers, cut public assistance, and jack up interest rates...in the complete absence of inflation?
ReplyDeleteThe nicest thing I can say about that is, it's counter-intuitive. This ain't a Calvinist morality play WW, where thrift and austerity will provide long-term prosperity. People are hurting right now.
The world's best financial magazine, "The Economist" and I agree with Arthur. As The Economist has pointed out, the first "stimulus" was too meager (should have been tripled) and the latest proposal should be too.
ReplyDeleteSince the big corporations are sitting on huge cash surpluses both at home and overseas and the rich are busy buying Ferraris, somebody has to get the money moving. And taxes MUST be raised to reasonable levels, with the upper brackets bearing the brunt.
Almost all legitimate economic historians have pointed out that the Great Depression lasted much longer than it needed to because Hoover spent four years sitting on his hands and then FDR, despite his CCC and WPA was unable to spend as much as he should have because of a parsimonious Congress and a reactionary Supreme Court.
As Arthur points out, thrift and austerity will not get the job done right now and, in fact, will probably bring the economy all the way down.
OT and Arthur. There is no Calvinist morality play involved. And the Economist magazine, which is fine, is a status quo publication which I often read myself. They are in the camp of occasional cheerleading and most often in the camp of economic "comforter". There have been no major break throughs in the field of economics in over 50 years, so our "experts" continue to recycle old theories. Which puts us here now.
ReplyDeleteWe have had an unprecedented financial collapse, brought on by the over speculation in real estate for many years. The collapse of the RE bubble caused the collapse of the stock market bubble in 08 which inturn caused the collapse of the private debt bubble as well as the descretionary spending bubble.
Our Federal Reserve has tripled our money supply in an effort to prop up burst asset classes and stimulate demand. It has not worked except to keep the real estate market from reaching bottom and has allowed the stock markets to rise on printed ever cheaper dollars. This won't last. A stimulus program under these circumstances would be meaningless as it only "pushes on the string" of no demand from a public that is scared frugal for years to come.
Afterall, it took Washington to make the Great Depression "Great". We have a long way to go.
Loony Phones
ReplyDeleteThe Westboro Baptist Church took to an iPhone when they heard about Steve Jobs’ death Wednesday night, sending out a message saying the Apple founder would be going to hell and calling for a protest of his funeral.
“Westboro will picket his funeral. He had a huge platform; gave God no glory and taught sin,” wrote Margie Phelps, daughter of the church’s founder.
The controversial group often pickets outside of soldiers’ funerals to draw media attention to their cause, which includes anti-gay material. Phelps tweeted the messages from her account, with an automatic note appearing at the bottom of the Tweet saying “via Twitter for iPhone.”
“No peace for man who served self, not God,” she wrote with the hashtag, #hellgreetedhim. “Westboro must picket.”
Thursday morning, Phelps responded to widespread criticism of her using the iPhone to Tweet the messages, saying that the phone was created by God–not Jobs–for that purpose.
“Rebels mad cuz I used iPhone to tell you Steve Jobs is in hell.God created iPhone for that purpose! ” she wrote.
Arrangements for Jobs’ funeral haven’t been announced.
It is an indication of Americans' good nature (or Kansans' backward nature?) that Phelps' house of blasphemy hasn't been hit by "Jewish lightning" and that someone hasn't hit Phelps.
ReplyDeleteOT, re the union discussion again. So, union penetration of the workforce is 10%. That makes the hundreds of millions that unions will put into the next election even more disproportionate, especially since that money comes from dues and not from contributions.
As for union members being able to opt-out of paying money for politics: the unions tell employers what that cut is, and understate it thoroughly.
I give up. From now on I will spend all of my time worrying about 15 million union workers and the "millions" that they contribute to political campaigns while ignoring the billions spent by corporations. You have converted me into a company flack. I guess the devil had just stolen my mind there for a while.
ReplyDelete