Barack Obama, our next President

[RealDave]

John Galt wrote:

<quoted text>
When the economy crashes because of tax increases, the democrats will be demanding tax cuts.

Like it did in the 90's?

[sonicfilter]

Proponents of right-to-work laws defend them on several grounds:

The laws lower wage costs, and thus consumer prices.
The laws benefit workers in non-unionized workplaces, who will earn less in their absence.
The laws give particular workers opportunities to negotiate for better, or different, terms of employment.

It’s not the job of the government to interfere with free agreements to lower costs or boost incomes. Presumably the government could force lots of people to work for no wages at all. That would also do what right-to-work laws do, albeit much more dramatically: It would treat people as slaves. The same would be true if it mandated wages for everyone.

All that people need in order to negotiate for themselves is freedom of contract.(Of course, sometimes they might not be able to do so if an employer is bound by a union contract that prohibits individual negotiations. But if the contract is a voluntary one, the government has no business interfering with it.)

Read more: http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/whats-w...

[sonicfilter]

Good Conservative Policies Fall Off Fiscal Cliff

In the absence of good ideas that Republicans agree on, bad ideas that Democrats hate will do.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-12/good...

[sonicfilter]

Right-to-work is big government

It deserves mentioning that right-to-work laws are actually counter to the expressed philosophy of the right wing, and especially the libertarian sorts. Few seem to understand (or discuss) the mechanics of how right-to-work laws actually achieve their expressed aim. They do so by prohibiting freedom of contract. Specifically, the laws make it illegal for a union and a business to freely enter into a contract with one another over requiring that employees be union members. If these two actors want to enter into such a contract, it does not matter: the law says they cannot.

So it functions as an economic regulation that prohibits certain kinds of contracts. Naturally you would expect politicians that are vehemently against economic regulation and laws that restrict freedom of contract to be opposed to right-to-work. Right? Well, no. Because at the end of the day, those are simply shell arguments. Freedom of contract and less government regulation are principles to stand behind only as long as they flatter the needs of capital. When capital is better served by violating these principles, then the right is more than willing to do so.

On this blog, I like to entertain right-wing arguments on face value because I do not think they actually generate the kinds of conclusions right-wingers claim they do. But in reality it’s important to always keep in mind that that these arguments are purely objects of convenience and seek to obscure the true interests of the right. If you want a model that will predict how right-wingers will behave, the best one going is to just determine what behaviors best flatter capital and the rich. If you use a model that relies upon the principles they espouse, you will wind up looking as stupid as Dick Morris and confused as Karl Rove.

http://mattbruenig.com/2012/12/06/right-to-wo...

[RealDave]

Eman wrote:

<quoted text>
Even letterman thinks he's a lying sack of sht.
" DAVID LETTERMAN, HOST: Here's what upset me last night, this playing fast and loose with facts. And the President Obama cites the op-ed piece that Romney wrote about Detroit,“Let them go bankrupt, let them go bankrupt,” and last night he brings it up again.“Oh, no, Governor, you said let them go bankrupt, blah blah blah, let them go bankrupt.” And Mitt said,“No, no, check the thing, check the thing, check the thing.”
Now, I don't care whether you're Republican or Democrat, you want your president to be telling the truth; you want the contender to be lying. And so what we found out today or soon thereafter that, in fact, the President Obama was not telling the truth about what was excerpted from that op-ed piece. I felt discouraged.
RACHEL MADDOW: Because the "Let Detroit go bankrupt" headline you feel like was inappropriate?
LETTERMAN: Well, the fact the President is invoking it and swearing that he was right and that Romney was wrong and I thought, well, he's the president of course he's right. Well, it turned out no, he was taking liberties with that."

Romney's plan was to let GM go bankrupt. That was the truth.

His plan was that it would then come back after receiving funding from private sources.

Experts say that those sources weren't available.

Then what would happen?

[OldRaider]

Lil Ticked wrote:

<quoted text>Unions are a scam and have out lived their usefullness.
1) Labor unions often harm the well-being of the worst-off by making entry into low-wage work more difficult, raising the bottom rung of the wage ladder above the marginal productivity of outsiders.
2) This provides the unions institutionally with a kind of control over access to labor market rents, which contributes to hierarchical power relations within unions that can be highly problematic.
3) Unions have often contributed to making their firms or their industries uncompetitive; they lack a built-in check that would keep them from killing the goose. This may be an even worse problem when they are faced with temporarily oligopolistic or monopolistic firms– the big traditional airlines, the Big Three automakers, traditional AT&T— which are themselves prone to become vulnerable overcommitted dinosaurs over time, and which are happy enough to lock in medium-term labor peace with contracts that put the firm one transformative competitor away from disaster.
4) Public sector unions have, under some conditions, a considerable ability to capture both sides of the bargaining table and seriously weaken public sector budget restraint.
5) Unions bureaucratize work relations in ways that can be both unpleasant and counterproductive for all concerned; they create rigidities and inflexibilities that can prevent cooperative improvements.
6) Labor unions form the organizational core of political parties and movements that seek to do more than bargain in the workplace; they’ve been a major force for social-democratic political economic organization. And the politics they shape is not especially prone to be liberal along cultural, social, or constitutional dimensions.
7) Unions– their leadership, their membership, their supporters– are capable of significant bullying that easily spills into immoral coercion against outsiders, nonmembers, and dissenters; the charge of “scab” is often an accusation of punishable treason against a cause that the accused never signed up for.

There are costs in negotiating and enforcing a contract. Ensuring a safe working environment and lobbying for remedies to work related problems takes time and money. Protecting against management abuses of power such as nepotism and favoritism requires oversight. No reasonable person believes that each individual is better off bearing the burden of these tasks themselves.
Don't fool yourself, non-union workplaces use models developed through union efforts and non-union workplaces also benefit from the competitive salaries generated by union contracts.
Its naive to say unions have outlived their usefulness.

[Obama 2016]

ObamaRezcoDoddReal estate wrote:

<quoted text>
You'll be another Obama Muslim lover hiding in a brand new Mosque built by the Unions!

I'll be safer there than in my local mall or movie theater.

[Obama 2016]

gun nuts wrote:

<quoted text> they will get all the ammo befor getting the guns.

I think Cook Countie's 5 cents per round "violence tax" should be implemented nationwide. Let the gun nuts fix the deficit since there responsible for most of Americas health care costs.

[Obama 2016]

gun nuts wrote:

<quoted text>bann libtards ,they cause much worse damage than guns

Typical racist republican. Wants to bann free speech.

[ole_47]

RealDave wrote:

<quoted text>
Blah Blah Blah
If all employers treated their employees with respect & paid a fair wage, unions would not exist.

Ethics realdave...
Laws and 'unions' won't change idiots into einsteins or a-holes into angels...

[carol]

PDUPONT wrote:

<quoted text>
Yes Carol but the GOP is rejecting tax increases on the wealthiest advocating cuts only.
Under the Democratic proposals middleclass taxes will stay the same.

You keep believing that.

On the Health Care Bill alone, in 2013 everyone's medicare tax will go from 1.45% to 2.35% no matter how much you make in salary.

http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-427107

NBC News:

Rising prices, higher taxes in store for Americans in 2013.

NEW YORK - Consumers will have to dig deeper into their pockets next year to pay for costlier healthcare, more expensive grocery bills and higher taxes, an extra drag on the country's already slow-moving economy.

http://www.nbcnews.com/business/economywatch/...

[RUSH10ME]

Obama 2016 wrote:

<quoted text>I think Cook Countie's 5 cents per round "violence tax" should be implemented nationwide. Let the gun nuts fix the deficit since there responsible for most of Americas health care costs.

You are clueless as to how this country was founded and the true cost of freedom , the second amendment shall not be infringed upon , the tree of liberty need be watered with the blood of patriots and tyrants alike from time to time . Now get back to the drive thru window .

[Obama 2016]

RUSH10ME wrote:

<quoted text>You say you want a revolution , the people are ready its long over due anyway .

A bunch of fat alcoholic tobacco-chewing redneck goobers up against the highly trained U.S. military and Homeland Security forces. HAH!!! That would be fun to watch. I hope they televise it live.

[carol]

Lincoln Duncan wrote:

<quoted text>
Fox taught us all that Romney was going to win in 2012.
MSM thought it would be Obama.
Who do you trust?

All but one contributor on Fox predicted a close election - even Rove - and everyone was skeptical of that one person's prediction.

Obama won because of Romney's 47% remark, Obama's campaign lies, Obama's imaginary culture wars, a decline in societal standards and hurricane Sandy.

The liberal machine is a well-oiled machine. The unions and ACORN were out en masse getting voters out to reelect this president as well as other corrupt liberal organizations.

So Obama basically won because of corruption, lies and a devastating storm.

Sort of like the perfect storm - the nation being the Andrea Gail.

[Obama 2016]

John Galt wrote:

<quoted text>
Most people work for corporations that are non-union. Salaries and benefits are driven by competition for the best employees.
Individuals are compensated based on their individual worth.
Ever talk to a classroom teacher about their feelings about being paid the same as a gym teacher or librarian who does a fraction of the work that they do?

How do you know how much work librarians and gym teachers do? Are you a librarian or gym teacher? No, your not. You dont know nothing.

[Obama 2016]

shinningelectr0n wrote:

<quoted text>
I just kicked your adolescent tush.
Your knee-jerk reaction is "Who cares?"
Hee, Hee. I rest my case:>
Go play in that corner I put you in.

Who cares? Your an idiot.

[RealDave]

entrenched wrote:

<quoted text>take one zero off , its 6.2 million not 62.2 million

You are right, I was wrong.

[Obama 2016]

Obama 2016 wrote:

<quoted text>The unions did not cause Hostess' demise. Hostess caused their own demise by producing fattening, unhealthy food. Their junk food is banned in many public schools.

Walmart is trying to buy the now defuct Hostess foods company. Now they cannot only kill their overworked slave laborers with poor working condition, low pay and no benefits, they can poison them to death too. And Walmart sells guns and ammo. It's time for the goverment to take a close look at Walmart. Their practices would not be tolerated in most countries.

[Obama 2016]

John Galt wrote:

<quoted text>
Maybe you should blame Obama for throwing Susan Rice under the bus.
Maybe Obama didn't want Susan Rice in the first place, but lacked the balls to tell her so and needed Republican help.
Maybe the folks at Goldman Sachs wanted someone else.

Susan Rice withdrew herself from consideration because she was tired of the sexist, racist attacks from Republicans. She was tired of being the prime target of the republican's "War on Women" and "War on Blacks".

[Obama 2016]

RUSH10ME wrote:

<quoted text>You are clueless as to how this country was founded and the true cost of freedom , the second amendment shall not be infringed upon , the tree of liberty need be watered with the blood of patriots and tyrants alike from time to time . Now get back to the drive thru window .

Don't you have a KKK rally or Tea Party riot to attend?