US Politics

You mean the one when they slashed bonuses the day after, effectively leaving the workers no better than before?

I don't know if the bonuses affected everyone, but the wage increases definitely affected a large swath of their employee base. There are videos of the workers celebrating like they just won the World Cup. If your hypothesis is correct then what's in it for Amazon and McDonalds to take action ?
 
I don't know if the bonuses affected everyone, but the wage increases definitely affected a large swath of their employee base. There are videos of the workers celebrating like they just won the World Cup. If your hypothesis is correct then what's in it for Amazon and McDonalds to take action ?
Because they benefit massively from the US government and a PR exercise where they can pre-empt any further potentially harmful legislative action on their pay structure while avoiding hurting the shareholders bottom line is the logical course of action to take?
 
I think you are fundamentally misunderstanding how and why Trump won the election - the key voting blocks that voted Trump and why. The independents and moderates among working/middle class in many of these swing states felt lied to and deceived by Obama's promise of change and hope. Obama didn't deliver in their eyes because things like wage growth were still bottomed out. It wasn't just white nationalism as is constantly mentioned for why Trump won. But those left behind by neo-liberal policies that had no trust for establishment Democrat standard bearers. Michael Moore identified this important voting block early on:



This effect was borne out by some data analysis after the election:



And now Trump's biggest advantage is really the economy. On paper its booming. And a lot of people are seeing gains. The message the Democrats really need to be focused on countering is that with that backdrop of key voting blocks that swung the election to Trump in mind this should be troubling news:



So a lot of the short term benefits of the tax cuts and deregulation are flowing to some of these communities that felt ignored by the Clinton-Obama years while the long term problems won't be felt yet and even then more dispersed. If Democrats really want to combat the advantage the Republicans have gained in messaging they have to stop focusing on issues that won't inspire the independents, moderates and apathetic progressives and grow some courage on championing universal healthcare - their best winning issue for the next decade.
Very informative post. I would add that they should champion affordable higher education as well.
 
Because they benefit massively from the US government and a PR exercise where they can pre-empt any further potentially harmful legislative action on their pay structure while avoiding hurting the shareholders bottom line is the logical course of action to take?

So then you would agree that they would be reducing their profit margins and shareholder ROI to protect the broader equities of the company ?
 
So then you would agree that they would be reducing their profit margins and shareholder ROI to protect the broader equities of the company ?
Except they didn’t do that? If they are reducing their profit margins, why the sneaky cuts?

Besides, this is hardly a case of free market capitalism. Amazon, McDonalds, WalMart etc are all beneficiaries of the welfare state. From the viewpoint of a regulated market then sure, avoiding public backlash to preserve their perks follow the market principles.
 
Yes it is not the best example. No board will stop a growing company from investing further even if it means delay in dividends. Amazon pretty much grew on similar strategy for so long. The issue is making obscene profits and still refusing to increase wages or benefits of workers at lowest totem pole. It may reduce profits but firms like Amazon, Wallmart, Apple etc can easily afford a reduction in their current profit margin.

I'm on the same page with regards to that issue. If market settings don't improve the issue we need the govt. to fix it.
 
Except they didn’t do that? If they are reducing their profit margins, why the sneaky cuts?

Besides, this is hardly a case of free market capitalism. Amazon, McDonalds, WalMart etc are all beneficiaries of the welfare state. From the viewpoint of a regulated market then sure, avoiding public backlash to preserve their perks follow the market principles.

That's my point. They are providing a higher wage to their workers to the detriment of a return to their shareholders as they are going to have to factor all of this into their future earnings guidance. The company has lost 10% of its value since making the announcement a week ago since investors are taking the position that the new policy will affect the current financial trajectory of the company.
 
The Dems must run on Universal Health Care...not "Affordable health Care" as Perez and Corporate dems are fond of calling it.

As for the SC, Roberts will not want his court to be seen as a kangaroo court for the Right.

Though the traitor in the WH may think he has cover for his criminal activty and acts of treason, Roberts is an American first.

Importantly a lot of decent people liberal and conservative have been highly offended by the actions of Trump and a Republican Senate that has merely acted as a rubber stamp for a man who has completely destroyed the Republican party.
 
Very informative post. I would add that they should champion affordable higher education as well.

Agreed. I think universal healthcare and education (affordable higher ed being a big part) are the most important issues for most people and a potential game changer for the Dems if they transform and find the right people to champion these ideas.
 
The Dems must run on Universal Health Care...not "Affordable health Care" as Perez and Corporate dems are fond of calling it.

As for the SC, Roberts will not want his court to be seen as a kangaroo court for the Right.

Though the traitor in the WH may think he has cover for his criminal activty and acts of treason, Roberts is an American first.

Importantly a lot of decent people liberal and conservative have been highly offended by the actions of Trump and a Republican Senate that has merely acted as a rubber stamp for a man who has completely destroyed the Republican party.
Roberts has already shown big signs of bipartisanship when he voted twice for the legality of Obamacare. Obviously, he is a conservative judge and it is going to vote for conservative causes, but cannot see him ever being a Trump puppet, like if Trump somehow stops his investigation or Russian inference goes into Supreme Court.

Absolutely agree that Dems should run on Universal Health Care and other Bernie causes, be it with Bernie or with some other candidate. Keeping the status quo of Obama and Clintons won't work in next election, same as it didn't work last time around. As much as I like Biden as a person and find him a very good debater (like when he schooled) Ryan, not sure that a centrist Democrat is a good choice. Dems should look in the left in order to oppose Trump.
 
Roberts has already shown big signs of bipartisanship when he voted twice for the legality of Obamacare. Obviously, he is a conservative judge and it is going to vote for conservative causes, but cannot see him ever being a Trump puppet, like if Trump somehow stops his investigation or Russian inference goes into Supreme Court.

Absolutely agree that Dems should run on Universal Health Care and other Bernie causes, be it with Bernie or with some other candidate. Keeping the status quo of Obama and Clintons won't work in next election, same as it didn't work last time around. As much as I like Biden as a person and find him a very good debater (like when he schooled) Ryan, not sure that a centrist Democrat is a good choice. Dems should look in the left in order to oppose Trump.

agree.
Lots of people in the Rust belt who voted for Obama turned to Trump.

But he has lost support in key states he won like WI,MI and PA. OH looks ok for now. But once a Leftist candidate with creds runs, he will be in deep trouble.
 
Cause if they (Amazon for example) can afford to pay their developers 100$+ for hour, they should be able to afford their low skilled workers a bit more than the bare minimum.
They should be able to, but they have no incentive to do so. You'd also end up with all sorts of creative accounting to reduce their "profit"
 
I really don't understand this thing of putting "free market" and things like Amazon in the same sentence.

Sure, at some point someone had a good idea, implemented it well, fairly fought the competition, etc. Fast forward 20 years and the market isn't free anymore. Most basic tennet of free market economy is that no agent can affect the price alone.

When I order my books from Amazon because it's 20-30% cheaper than any of the (still a few) surviving local bookstores, no one will convince me that they have not grown to a size in wich they can simply undercut everyone.

Yes, I beneffited as a consumer, but take this forward, and society will massively lose as a whole, as we'll be left with oligopolies or monopolies alone.

For all the talk that communism is an utopic idea (and I agree) badly unregulated capitalism is too. Someone will win (even if assuming fairly, and just because they were better), and the market will then be theirs. Then how the hell can any free market concept work after that?
 
I have a good amount of ESPP stocks issued for the company I work, but I'm also baffled by the shareholders. Some douchebag like Elliott Management can come in and invest a good amount of money, make a 50% gain on their investment but forcing the company to cut their staff and improving their profit margin just to push their stock prices higher. Now, although I had a sizeable sum for my income level, the gain I personally saw because of this improvement was negligible but my company ended up letting go nearly 6 percent off their workforce and reduced committed bench strength for new projects, forcing the work to be picked up associates on the payroll. Elliott made a gain, Cognizant board members and shareholders made a gain, I worked my ass off and gained a little and a bunch of people lost their jobs. I don't get this shit at all, but I made a little money. Year on year, projected profit growth is just not sustainable as after a while, you can't grow organically at that rate and only way to achieve that rate is to improve your productivity and that normally means workers take the hit. So we end up working more, making less (or lower salary increases) so that some douchebag can make more money as a shareholder.

At the very least, I can understand my state but Walmart and McDonald's (who I work for as a consultant now) have no excuses with their employees relying on welfare state while these assholdes make more money.
 
I have a good amount of ESPP stocks issued for the company I work, but I'm also baffled by the shareholders. Some douchebag like Elliott Management can come in and invest a good amount of money, make a 50% gain on their investment but forcing the company to cut their staff and improving their profit margin just to push their stock prices higher. Now, although I had a sizeable sum for my income level, the gain I personally saw because of this improvement was negligible but my company ended up letting go nearly 6 percent off their workforce and reduced committed bench strength for new projects, forcing the work to be picked up associates on the payroll. Elliott made a gain, Cognizant board members and shareholders made a gain, I worked my ass off and gained a little and a bunch of people lost their jobs. I don't get this shit at all, but I made a little money. Year on year, projected profit growth is just not sustainable as after a while, you can't grow organically at that rate and only way to achieve that rate is to improve your productivity and that normally means workers take the hit. So we end up working more, making less (or lower salary increases) so that some douchebag can make more money as a shareholder.

At the very least, I can understand my state but Walmart and McDonald's (who I work for as a consultant now) have no excuses with their employees relying on welfare state while these assholdes make more money.
It is a nightmare. Though a few companies (especially the big ones like Facebook, Man United etc) have ways of protecting against short term stockholders, by giving the founder in the first case, main owner in the second, disproportional voting power (10x the voting power other stockholders have). Zuckerberg for example can sell the majority of his shares and still control the voting power of the company, meaning that people who are there just for short term profit, can't influence the way how he is ruling the company. Of course, if the founder is a prick then that doesn't solve anything.

I think that stockmarket has really advanced many things and helped in the creation of a lot of wealth, but at the same time, at times I think that we would have been better off without it. At the very least, I think that HFT should be totally banned, and there should be discussions on how to stop stock predators, people who just jump in a stock, force as you said the company to cut their stuff in order to increase the profit and so increase their stock value, then leave for some other company, with the original company probably going bankrupt cause in long term it cannot survive with the lack of staff. I absolutely have no solution about this, but I guess that there are smart economists working on this, and there should exist something better than the (almost) old wild west we have.
 
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/08/us/san-francisco-dirtiest-street-london-breed.html

New York Times covering the nightmare million dollar home owners in SF are facing, having to deal with dirty homeless zombies on the street. Maybe someone should start a GoFundMe page for the real estate owners.
Really odd tone to this article. Seemed to change mood a few times

“Ms. Breed has made unannounced inspections of neighborhoods, sometimes carrying a broom.” What.
 
Well when someone starts off saying they "loathe" you, your friends and family for completely irrational and/or selfish reasons it doesn't start things off on a tone of mutual respect or demonstrate a desire for mutual understanding of other people's situations.
And I dislike how he elevated his personal situation as more important than anyone else's absolutely valid and real personal reasons for not voting Clinton.
I've reread the whole thing and I stand by what I said. If you read post # 3186, you can see others have had the same impression. Anyways. There's something I want to say about a specific accusation that surfaced in that exchange, and which recurs in your post here:

When telling someone who worries about a serious threat to his social existence to stop being "selfish" for a supposed greater cause or strategy, something's fundamentally wrong. Same goes for the demand to go learn some theory instead of viewing the situation from the perspective of one's own immediate interests.

A left theory and practise worth its salt has to acknowledge and incorporate people's social grievances and the resulting interests, instead of expecting them to just function according to the 2020 (or any other) masterplan. If people insisting on their basic interests appears as an irritating disturbance, there's something wrong with the concept, not those people. And blaming them for this irritation is helpless at best, or something worse, depending on the level of hostility involved.

----
I've also read your longer post and will perhaps answer sometime later & in another thread.
 
I have a good amount of ESPP stocks issued for the company I work, but I'm also baffled by the shareholders. Some douchebag like Elliott Management can come in and invest a good amount of money, make a 50% gain on their investment but forcing the company to cut their staff and improving their profit margin just to push their stock prices higher. Now, although I had a sizeable sum for my income level, the gain I personally saw because of this improvement was negligible but my company ended up letting go nearly 6 percent off their workforce and reduced committed bench strength for new projects, forcing the work to be picked up associates on the payroll. Elliott made a gain, Cognizant board members and shareholders made a gain, I worked my ass off and gained a little and a bunch of people lost their jobs. I don't get this shit at all, but I made a little money. Year on year, projected profit growth is just not sustainable as after a while, you can't grow organically at that rate and only way to achieve that rate is to improve your productivity and that normally means workers take the hit. So we end up working more, making less (or lower salary increases) so that some douchebag can make more money as a shareholder.

At the very least, I can understand my state but Walmart and McDonald's (who I work for as a consultant now) have no excuses with their employees relying on welfare state while these assholdes make more money.

Trickle down economics :drool:
 
I've reread the whole thing and I stand by what I said. If you read post # 3186, you can see others have had the same impression. Anyways. There's something I want to say about a specific accusation that surfaced in that exchange, and which recurs in your post here:

When telling someone who worries about a serious threat to his social existence to stop being "selfish" for a supposed greater cause or strategy, something's fundamentally wrong. Same goes for the demand to go learn some theory instead of viewing the situation from the perspective of one's own immediate interests.

A left theory and practise worth its salt has to acknowledge and incorporate people's social grievances and the resulting interests, instead of expecting them to just function according to the 2020 (or any other) masterplan. If people insisting on their basic interests appears as an irritating disturbance, there's something wrong with the concept, not those people. And blaming them for this irritation is helpless at best, or something worse, depending on the level of hostility involved.

----
I've also read your longer post and will perhaps answer sometime later & in another thread.

That wasn't my point. What's selfish is "loathing" people who didn't vote the way you wanted without recognizing and respecting the perfectly valid reasons people have to vote they way they do. Especially when the loathing is based on misinformation and debunked myths. Anyway I don't have time to re-hash all this that I already explained
 
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That wasn't my point. What's selfish is "loathing" people who didn't vote the way you wanted without recognizing and respecting the perfectly valid reasons people have to vote they way they do. Especially when the loathing is based on misinformation and debunked myths. Anyway I don't have time to re-hash all this that I already explained
And I think the unwillingness to see anything else than stubborn, irrational selfishness in that stance is already an indication of the problem I tried to describe.

But yes, no need for an endless back and forth.
 
And I think the unwillingness to see anything else than stubborn, irrational selfishness in that stance is already an indication of the problem I tried to describe.

But yes, no need for an endless back and forth.

I never said that is all I see. And you already made your point posts ago. I get it. You think I should have used a different tone. Fair enough, I can accept that, but I also believe fishfingers should stop using language like "I loathe people" based on misinformation and falsities and then fail to even look at the actual facts. If someone says they hate people based on misinformation, they are going to get push back. It's been two years now and misinformation is still being repeated.
 
its certainly true that i will never understand what it is like to be an immigrant since i am not one. i do have family members who are immigrants from el salvador, guatemala, honduras and germany. (one of them even voted for trump!) i think we've discussed immigration policies on here before and if i recall correctly i was more in favor of open borders and legal protections for those already here and massively expanding quotas currently in place.

i would also say that i dont consider my vote to be a protest vote. i voted my conscience. im under no illusions that by not voting for hillary clinton i would send a message that anyone would take seriously. i just couldnt bring myself to vote for someone who has caused so much suffering and learned no lessons from it, eagerly touting themselves as someone who would do it again. i understand people who came to a different conclusion, i just couldnt do it personally.
Someone on here called this guy a Nazi :wenger:
 
Regulations?
Agree although thats just one part. Firstly how do we get these regulations, it will mostly likely be through ''mass movements'' and strong worker power and then even with that there's still need to be strong unions to make use company keep to the regulations, constant pressure against these the lobbying these companies will do and then finally these regulations won't stop a company moving jobs abroad for basically slave labour or in the future robots.
 


where my party unity dems at?


Unsurprising.

I'm heading down the night before to vote for Ben Jealous for what it's worth.

I don't expect him to win, Hogan is the second most popular governor in the country, but Jealous is the direction I want the Dems to go in. A strong showing against a very popular incumbent (fighting cancer, not O'Malley, does the "I hate Trump" stuff, not O'Malley, clever in marketing himself as bipartisan, does 'enough' on the environment to satisfy MD Dems -except those who work in the field-, lowered the Bay Bridge toll, not O'Malley) could in itself be a shot in the arm or a boost. Call me naive, sure. But...a crushing defeat lets corporate Dems play the "we tried that and it didn't work do it our way" card. The optics matter. To me at least.


And then there's this from WaPo

"“I don’t quite know what he stands for, and it’s not clear what he would do. I haven’t gone out of my way to find out, either,” Somia Hickman, a 46-year-old Democrat from Montgomery County, said of Jealous."

(Montgomery County the tenth wealthiest county in the country)
 
Running a corporate dem against hogan would be so stupid. You can't get the inside track on him.
 
In other news, Snowflake Ann Coulter ( of Sharknado 3) pulled out of her politicon debate with Kyle Kulinski of Secular Talk even though she's still attending.

Now it's looking like he'll debate with David Pakman against Candace Owens and Charlie Kirk, the Turning Point/Professor Watchlist prick. (Kulinski had asked for Ben Shapiro).

I don't really go for politicon and I think public debates are actually a very inefficient form of political discourse in their current form but I'd watch to see those fecks get publicly embarrassed.
 
Liberals in America are up against it .country is rotten to the core.
 
Well, we do have some rather odd posters so not really surprised. Eboue is probably one of the best political posters on here.
The person advocating genocide is one of the best posters? :wenger:
 
The person advocating genocide is one of the best posters? :wenger:

Let's just be very generous and assume that there are 5000 people with a billion dollars or more globally.

Even if @Eboue achieves his lifelong dream, singlehandedly, that would only make him the most successful serial killer in history, hardly genocidal.
 
Let's just be very generous and assume that there are 5000 people with a billion dollars or more globally.

Even if @Eboue achieves his lifelong dream, singlehandedly, that would only make him the most successful serial killer in history, hardly genocidal.
Actually, that doesn’t really work, if he achieved his life long dream. The number of billionaires in the world will likely INCREASE, most billionaires have multiple heirs.