Keeps us in popcorn.

Well, yeah... like I say, most of my votes just seem to end up in the loser's bin. You know it's rough when the volunteers give you the stare down at the voting booth.

mike_mccue


Hi James,
I sort of find your post offensive James... I say this because I was not complaining.

I doubt you meant to be offensive... but seeing how I have lived my entire adult life while reacting to the blow back from "labor's" over indulgence by finding my own way to stay happily employed... and the fact ( with the exception of my focused and steady work towards fixing X1 ) that I am not a "complainer" makes your post especially irritating.

I have always been willing to walk off a job... and I do not understand people that endure jobs they don't thrive in while complaining. The idea of enduring abuse just so you can document it seems alien to me. I have always just found a job I liked.


I do understand that good people do find them selves trapped... but I've spent my whole life not being trapped.


So, I feel obliged to react to your one line post as if it was delivered casually and without proper consideration.


I have voted for what I believe in... and it just so happens that on the whole, I have been on the losing side on most of those cycles.

I wish other people voted for their own best interests instead of supporting the industrial special interests that they have actually voted for. But, that's a long long story.


Now a days, Executives gobble up more profit that ever... but somehow everyone wants to suggest that somehow labor crippled the operations, and so therefore, labor deserves to be abused just as labor was back when it was ok for executives to hire armed thugs to settled labor issues.

I am part of the labor pool... but I'm a free lance contractor. I make my deal and do it with out complaining. 

So, please don't describe my observation that the past 30 years in America has been hallmarked with an endless succession of anti labor laws being run through Congress as complaining.


all the best,
mike




Okay, point taken, Mike, but it does come across kinda myopic, and by that I mean no offense. I am a big believer in the fact that every action causes a reaction. To state that the last 30 years there have been anti-labor policies foisted upon a electorate too stupid to vote their own interests is just a specious arguement. There is more workplace protection today than there was 30 years ago. There are more vastly more legal ramifications for hiring and firing people then there were 30 years ago. There are more protected classes of workers than 30 years ago. There are a million more rules, edicts, laws and guidelines around workers then there were 30 years ago. If you think me mistaken, then you have never worked in a large corporation, where Human Resources departments hold incredible sway and power.
 
You wrote:
"I sincerely think you are simply very late to have recognized that we have just lived through 8 4 year cycles where politicians have hood winked people into voting about "moral" issues while special interests were very busy gutting any and every advancement that "labor" had made in the past 120 years."
 
Really? "Any and every advancement"?  That broad, sweeping, straw-man generalization is far more offensive than anything I wrote in response. It makes no connection to the reality of what I just wrote above. So when work rules get so out of hand that it makes it next to impossible to compete on a global market, there is a reaction. That is what we have seen in the past 30 years.  And a big reason we are in the economic state we currently reside. It is too damn expensive to manufacture here. Too many rules, too much risk, most of it imposed upon a business community by an overweening government that has choked the golden goose through its good intentions.
 
Now, back to the music!  I guess we agree to disagree on this one!

I started my first 40 hour a week job when I was 13.

I worked after school as an apprentice to a civil engineer.

Then I worked myself through college and finished with out any debt.

Then I bought a really nasty old house that I refer to as the shack and I paid it off completely.

If that's snobbism... well... I guess I was too busy to learn about that.

At the polling booth I always vote in favor of the people who did not have the good fortune I have enjoyed.

I am a liberal social democrat but I also acknowledge the reality of the free market economics.

The job market out in the "real world" is adversarial combat. I might suggest it's snobbish to pretend that there really is a reality with 8 hour shifts and 15 minute breaks.

That is nothing like what the majority of us world citizens encounter out in the real world.

I am suggesting that the portion of society that does enjoy such a lifestyle is living in a dream.

I am suggesting that it shouldn't be surprising to learn that on the margins of a non sustainable lifestyle that you will find people struggling to sustain a lifestyle that so few people enjoy.

I am suggesting that I'd like to enjoy that lifestyle too... but 30 years ago it became apparent, to me, that a future like that seemed uncertain, or worse it seemed certain that everything you expect from a corporate career will be slowly taken away as you near retirement.

For example my wife was recently informed that pension contributions were cut 5%. That is like, a breach of contract... but I figure there will not be any pensions funds by the time it's actually supposed to pay out. She will have paid in all her portion of the contributions to support other people's non sustainable lifestyles.

Just one person's perspective.


all the best,
mike

I am so thankful that my Father taught me that debt was making a deal with the devil.

My dad was an incredibly tough taskmaster type father... and I have learned how lucky I was to have learned what he was hoping I'd learn.

My dad was a child of the depression... and he knew what it takes to survive the hard times.

The other thing I learned from my dad is that even a guy sweeping a side walk with a broom can make pleasure from taking pride in his work. When you have that sort of vision your options really open up. And... I've swept a few side walks.


I'm gonna shut up now.  Thanks to all of you for being good friends.

very best regards,
mike

I agree, Colin.  and in the US there are ways to hold employers like this accountable too, but people are afraid to use them, IMO, because they can't afford not to have a job.  they take whatever the employer dishes out because they can't afford to quit.  and if they turn in their employer (i.e. "whistleblow") then they will likely lose their job while the matter is being resolved unless it's a high profile case.  that's not going to be the situation for most workers just trying to earn a living.

no need to apologize to me, Mike.  Like I said, I didn't take offense personally.

thanks for your well wishes for my wife!