If you put together an entire Ricter "profile", all the pieces come together. I think of him as a "do as I say, not as I do" kind of character. Think Nancy Pelosi. He's all about re-distribution in a very vague, general sense. He'll support just about any liberal cause, but if it touches too close to home (ya know that self-interest thingy), he suddenly becomes this "capitalist". He's all for dollar debasement, inflation, anything that could possibly assist him in this import/export business he claims to be doing so well at. He constantly parrots the "there is no inflation" mantra, but when held to the fire he'll throw it his "hey, I don't really care, I don't even pay attention to prices, anyway". Really, we should all be glad we only have to interact with this guy on the internet. In real life, the guy sounds like a pretty reprehensible character.
As many before me have stated: It's CRITICAL to differentiate between private sector and public sector unions. Obviously, that little tidbit gets lost in all of this "back and forth", but the public sector unions and their largesse is what is really breaking the back of this country.
I'll certainly give you the distinction between public an private unions. Much like we need to distinguish between lobbying groups and the so called industrial complex. Bear with me here. We, the public, hire managers (for lack of a better term), and these managers hire workers, some union, some not. Then we, the public, are forced to be engaged in negotiations between our two hires, right? The managers and the unions. Federal employees have pre-determined salary levels, vacation, benefits and all. Not a bad deal, sort of transparent. Now, if we could get back to that with firefighters, teachers, and others, then they would know what they signed up for. And, not allow for management to change all their contracts. A good thing, I know my employees would be pissed if I lost a bunch of money trading, and decided to cut their salaries to cover for it. The point of the lobbyists is very similar, IMO. They negotiate with an elected official to get something they need or want for their personal or corporate interests. If, for example, a major group, oil companies as just an example, lobbied with a Senator for a pipeline, and the Senator decided it was not in the interest of his re-election to do that, and did not follow through, same result.
It's the employees that will determine the success or failure of the company. You need look no further than the steel industry for an example, or the auto industry. Both heavily unionized. Both have continueing struggles. Both have a labor force so f'n lazy it's out of control. Both have piss poor management. Both have piss poor managment/labor relations. Both industries PPS suffers as a result. The shareholders own the paper. The guy on the line determines what gets made for the day, the quality of the product, the overall efficiency of the company. He ain't happy, the whole thing turns to shit, and I can tell you from first hand expereince, that guy on the line doesn't give a flyin' fuck about the shareholders.
That's fine and the shareholders certainly should not allow such an employee to remain employed. The employees would do well to remember that in most cases they do not "own " their jobs.
What both you and Captain have described is a good synopsis of the past 20+ years of offshoring. Recurrent union/management negotiations back in the 70's/80's precipitated the exodus. The current spotlight on alot of the public sector "negotiations" if one can even call them that takes front page since it really harkens back to earlier days. If anyone wants a good look at how anti-competitive this entire process has become, look no further than the Chicago Public School teachers these past few months. Seriously, whenever I read about it, I think these people are living in a completely different era.
Apparently the republican response is one of two things. A. The CAT workers can quit and look elsewhere for a job B. Buy shares of CAT to give themselves a raise. Yea, that'll go over big as an answer from candidate Romney. Exactly why Obama should be putting this issue front and center on a national level. But wait, the follow up questions to Obama might leave him in an uncomfortable positon. So Mr. President, why is it the workers at CAT, a company making record profits can't share in those profits, but the Chicago teachers union get's a pay raise while failing to meet the mark on every single level of education year after year? How is it we continue to reward failure while punishing success? Is this how you plan to grow the economy? Shouldn't your priorites be to grow the opportunites and support fair labor conditions in the private sector where those workers are actually doing their job well? Now we see why it won't be an issue, because neither candidate represents the average American worker. One will reward only those in the boardrooms, and the other will reward only public sector employees who continue to deliver less while demanding more. Hey, what's up with that Chicken shack guy? Now that's an issue! F'N morons!
Not really. I think the general consensus is they are damn lucky to have a job in this economy, and that plenty of people would trade places with them. That tells you they don't have much of an economic argument, just the typical union demand of "more." The fact the company is making record profits has little or nothing to do with what they get paid. They don't have profit sharing. They get paid a wage, which is determined in economic terms by what it would cost to replace them. They should bre happy the ocmpany is making big profits because it means their jobs are likely secure, unless they screw it up with labor strife.
I think if candidate Romney gave that response in a debate he would drop 10 points in the polls overnight. Basicly the response would be saying you're never going to get a raise regardless of how hard you work or how well the company does, while the company exec's will continue reward themselves handsomely. You peons just be thankful you're employed at all. I'm telling ya', if that's how Romney either positions himself, or get's positioned in that stance by dem's, he's going to have a really tough time on election day. One of these candidates has to sell working class America a package that they'll be able to see some light at the end of the tunnel as far as their employment opportunities are concerned. Telling them they're going to be lucky just to makes ends meet isn't much for a candidate to run on.