**Patriotic Retirement**

[VCrossfan]

Dear Mr. President,

Patriotic retirement:

There are about 40 million people over 50 in the work force - Pay them
$1 million apiece severance with the following stipulations:

1. They retire immediately. Forty million job openings - Unemployment
fixed.

2. They buy NEW American cars. Forty million cars ordered - Auto
Industry fixed.

3. They either buy a house or pay off their mortgage - Housing Crisis
fixed.

It can't get any easier than that!

P. S. If more money is needed, have all members in Congress and their
constituents pay their taxes.

[Solitude]

Amen

[Osteomata]

OK, another wild hair idea, ease our economic/houing crisis, and an interestig take on immigration at the same time:

Free citizenship to anyone who buys a home in forclosure at market value, pending standard security checks.

- Os

[Gussie2000]

Vcrossfan for president

[don moore]

wait till sept. lol i turn 50 then

[snowtrooper1966]

Simply.......
















Brilliant!
Best,

[AREA 51]

Ok, first off, the 40 million people x $1 million each comes out to $40 TRILLION dollars.

That don't work.

Next, on the subject of union bashing, maybe we should abandon what unions gave lives for and go back to child labor, 16 or more hour work days, and work 6 or more days a week mandatory with zero benefits, no worker safety laws and live in the company town, in company housing that you will be charged for, and buy from the company store ending up with little or no savings. That is if they will hire you based on your ethnicity. Businesses routinely hired Pinkertons and other private security to beat and kill union organizers while police stood idly by. Now they have the police and national guard doing that job on occasion.

I hope nobody believes that businesses gave anything to unions out of the goodness of their heart. Everything is negotiated. A general way of putting it is that both parties give things up to reach a settlement. Now the Administration wants the UAW workers to give up wages that they negotiated while keeping businesses' side of the negotiations intact. NOT FAIR! And is it fair that UAW workers should reduce their standard of living to match that of a semi-literate former dung farmer, south of the mason-dixon line who THINKS he won the lottery because a foreign owned company is paying half of what he should be making?

The only reason non-union offer any benefits at all is because they are so scared of the employees having an EQUAL seat at the table, they match their benefits to what...? They usually match, but rarely exceed what the union would offer.

How is it that until the decline in unionism, early 70's, That one man could support a family without the wife or kids having to work? A lot of so-called "skilled workers" conveniently forget that they got their college education through union employed parents paying the bill. THE UNIONS OFFER A MAN OR WOMAN A DECENT STANDARD OF LIVING and EQUAL REPRESENTATION and PAY!!!. That is what it is about.

Now with the decline in unions, corporate greed dictates what benefits are cut or eliminated, as well as the threat of H1-B visa foreign workers competing for your job (at a lower wage, of course) and pay inequity between the sexes.

Another oversight in the blame game is that there is no major difference between a UNION and a "professional" ASSOCIATION . You know , like the American MEDICAL or BAR Association. Nobody is complaining about their rules preventing foreign lawers or doctors practicing in this country for less. You just have to go to their country to get the same proceedure and with the savings, you can take a nice vacation too. If any business could have a foreign worker do your job here and do it for less, they would do it in a heartbeat.

Over the last 20 to 30 years, unions and blue collar jobs have been torndown in general, by PRO-BUSINESS administrations. Look where that has got us now. The businesses said they had to move production overseas due to labor costs , but did they ever reduce prices after paying sweatshop and child labor pennies on the dollar? No, and now we have been tricked into lowering our standard of living in order to compete with the GLOBAL ECONOMY.


Why is it that for almost 20 years congress would not raise the minimum wage, even if just to match inflation, but they have no problem giving themselves raises AND cost of living increases? The businesses that own the politicians would not allow it. Even our politicians are so elitist that some of them, like McCain think the MIDDLE-CLASS is annual income up to "$5 MILLION". What a joke. Politicians should make no more annual income than the average of their constituency. Include insurance and pension too. That would bring them back to reality pretty quick.

What is the difference between a person who works for minimum wage or is at the poverty level and an inmate in a jail? Well, taxpayers spend about $60,000 dollars per inmate per year to support the inmate. Who's the sucker in this scenario?

Not all union workers "push buttons" all day long and when you see a union worker working outside in the nice weather and think "that's easy", just remember he's doing the same job when it's 20 degrees or colder with wind chill and or in other unfavorable weather or on the top deck of a high rise building.


Long story short, The businesses BUY (access to) Politicians who screw the rapidly vanishing , true middle class. Look how many politicians received big contributions from AIG and the other financials. Just like the politicians involved in the banking crisis of the 70's (like JOHN McCAIN, who got a slap on the wrist for influence peddling for the financial organizations. It's an eye opener, but as always businesses can afford to ..um
INFLUENCE politicians, can you as an individual afford the same?

Rant off.

[tom4bren]

Ever stop to think that the current financial mess is nothing more than a predicatable cyclic trend?

Sure, a lot of good points were made in this thread about cause & effect (although it did degenerate into a lot of generalizations that should have been left unsaid).

The consumer based economy had gotten so inflated that it HAD to deflate or burst. Cmon, does a city the size of Fredericksburg, VA really needs 3 super WalMarts, 1 Target & 2 super Targets, 9 McDonalds, 5 Burger Kings, 5 Wendys, 48 grocerie stores, 22 auto parts stores, 16 new car dealerships, ... ?

[tom4bren]

Sorry - I exagerated. We only have 2 super WalMarts & 1 regular.

[Moncha]

I must say, you make me proud!
It's been a long time since I have been able to witness an actual debate on this forum without the tendency to turn it into a tyrannical tirade.

My "kids" are growing up!

[Marlin]

I must say, you make me proud!
It's been a long time since I have been able to witness an actual debate on this forum without the tendency to turn it into a tyrannical tirade.

My "kids" are growing up!

Oh Scott, you sound like my dad....makes me laugh. My little brother and I go at it all the time (he is a social worker at an old folks home, so we often don't see eye to eye when it comes to politics)

[Marlin]

Ever stop to think that the current financial mess is nothing more than a predicatable cyclic trend?

Very good point as far as the trend, kind of like global warming, we are on our way out of an ice age, of course it's gonna get warmer...lol

"Sure, a lot of good points were made in this thread about cause & effect (although it did degenerate into a lot of generalizations that should have been left unsaid)."



As far as things that should not have been said, that's just crazy, our country is full of close mouthed whiners that are too scared to talk about anything because they might offend someone. Who cares, it is NOT against the law to offend others. No one is willing to say what they think, so we sit around waiting for someone to say it for us. I 100% enjoy these threads, almost as much as I enjoy talkin about the Vx!!!!! Freedom of speech is the most important freedom we have, and we are one of the last places in the world that have any remnant of that freedom, better exercise it, or it may go away...

[pbkid]

I 100% enjoy these threads, almost as much as I enjoy talkin about the Vx!!!!! Freedom of speech is the most important freedom we have, and we are one of the last places in the world that have any remnant of that freedom, better exercise it, or it may go away...

x2!!!!

for once...........agreed, fully.....

[Jolly Roger VX'er]

I've worked jobs that are non-union as well as 2 jobs that were union and believe either can succeed if run properly; and feel that alot of the positives found in todays non-union jobs can be traced back to the past when unions fought for those rights.

I don't like how everyone is focused on what unionized work forces are struggling and drawing a generalization from them and applying it to everybody. Sure the car companies that have unions are ready to go under. But, the blame can be spread around in alot of directions. Chrysler is headed up by Bob Nardelli, he used to be MY plant manager...what a useless corporate dictator. Home Depot was dumb enough to hire him as CEO and he about run them into the ground...now Chrysler does the ultimate, dumb move and hires him to run a car company!

If you want to talk about a unionized company that is doing well...look at John Deere.

I personally work for GE. We are union...and even though the GE stock has fell into the toilet...it can all be traced back to GE Capital. It is the black hole of the whole corporation; as even though our unionized manufacturing division was making record profits building locomotives for sale worldwide...The Capital division was busy making bad loans and morgages which in the end sucked away our profits (black hole analogy).

Never felt I was owed anything by anybody. Worked hard for what I've managed to get in my life; only buying what I can afford...I bought a $50k house 9 years ago with a 15yr. morgage with payments that are equivalent to what I paid for rent when living in apartments even though the bank tried diligently to get me to go for a $120k house. Financed and paid for the VX. Saved up & paid outright for a new diesel kubota tractor and suzuki V-Strom motorcycle. Wanted a new sports car...could've gotten a new challenger, camaro or mustang with my credit rating...settled for an '07 Mustang GT (Premium pkg.) coupe w/ 5k miles on odometer for $19k.

Bottom line, having worked minimum waged jobs & factory union jobs...will do whatever is necessary to survive in this world. If this job goes under...I'll most likely look at being a truck driver as my next profession. Change can be good!

P.S.- I tried getting a job as an autoworker 20 years ago. I never did hear what they paid hourly...I just loved cars and thought building them for a living would be FUN. I even tried getting a job at Harley Davidson...came real close...never did hear what they paid...thought building Harley's would be FUN! Notice a pattern here???

[Bulldoggie]

I'm 55 today, so I thought I'd share my experience.

Unions are not perfect, but before unions, children labored in the factories, alongside their fathers.
Not only were there no health or retirement packages for workers, they owed for their needs from the employers company store!
Not much different than being owned. (Slaves?)
Unions became worthless, after a President intervened in an AIR traffic controllers strike.
He threw out the union, and BANNED all workers from seeking work in their chosen and highly skilled professions.
the National Labor Relations Board has since changed the rules for unions ability to strike, mandating that they can not interfere with a Businesses rite to carry-on business.

As some of you know, I used to work on Tug boats. (union labor)
Tug boats typically have staterooms for many hands, but through negotiations, crew members were eliminated in favor of more pay, since a deckhand is the cook, engineer, deckhand and barge pilot ect...
A modern crew is One capt. and one deckhand.
The work could not be done with less, and could not be much harder to perform.

We had one strike, management tried to crew One boat, with four "deckhands", and could only move one barge in a full day.
The strike was over in two days.

Twelve years later, a few months after signing a new contract, they sold the boats from under us. I was brought back to the dock for a crew change, only to be met by security guards. My co-workers showing up for their shifts, were met at the gate with paychecks made out to the minute.
Their attorneys poured over the contract, and found the language forbidding the sale or termination of the contract, Had no penalty for doing it spelled out.
I found myself along with everyone I worked with, competing for the lowest few junior positions available, with the few other tug companies.
Only working part-time and being bumped by the 20 year old with no experience, hired days before.

All because another Division involved themselves,with a NON-union contractor, and was sued for poor quality control on a freeway job in Calif.
Yes, my Company built the Glen Jackson bridge over the Columbia river, and dredged the mountain out of the Columbia river after Mt Saint Helens.


Soap Box #2

Even if you hate Michel Moore, You MUST see his film "Sicko".

Why I'm not wealthy today;

90% health coverage, and my share of one summer of Chemo-therapy.

$50k not counting lost wages.

Three broken ribs, punctured lung, crushed talus bone (ankle), dislocated right elbow (sling for 12 months), Angioplasty (2 stents) Diabetes, meds.
Too many back spasms, Due mostly to poor care. Back surgery;
All with expensive cost at a time of little, to no income!

I have never drawn unemployment wages.
I returned to work always with less than recommended healing time.

Add to that a mentally ill ex-wife. a special needs child (not biologically mine) and poor credit, (ex-wife again) and NO family to fall on.
And it becomes impossible to "get ahead"
and at 55, my healthiest years are behind me.

Please don't try to tell me the economy is Union Labor's fault, or American workers are lazy.

But go ahead and complain about the poor non-union quality work that you still pay the same amount for. (or more?)

over

I promised I would not get political on this site, but it is not Labors/unions fault.

And yes, I do know I could have retire well.

Best of health to you all