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Lockheed To Furlough 3,000 On Monday, Layoffs Also Kicking In
Dawn Kawamoto writes "Lockheed employees are the latest casualty in the government shutdown, with the defense contractor announcing Friday it plans to furlough 3,000 workers on Monday. But what they didn't mention is they are laying off workers too, says a Lockheed source on the hush-hush. Lockheed, of course, isn't the only defense contractor taking it on the chin. Other contractors include United Technologies, which has furloughed 2,000, and BAE Systems which cut 1,000."
They want to make you think that if you don't give them what they want then you'll suffer for it. Legal extortion from the ring masters.
Defense spending needs to be reduced, but this bullshit isn't the way to do it. If anything these shenanigans are going to end up costing the American taxpayer more.
Your (dipshit) Congress in action.
ObamaCare is indeed "the law of the land," as its supporters keep saying, and the Supreme Court has upheld its Constitutionality.
Actually, the Supreme Court noted that two sections, the Individual Mandate and the Medicaid expansion that burdened states were unconstitutional. They upheld the former only. The latter was severed from the law despite the Supreme Court having no constitutional authority to do so (they've done this before, the precedent is some time ago).
(I got layed off today. There my Hope and Change right up my ass.)
Shortly for me. But I was close to end of season anyway. I'm dubious that the government shut down will fix anything, but if it does curb the harm of Obamacare, it will be worth losing my job.
Lockheed gets to lay off a bunch of employees while blaming the government even though the government shutdown doesn't actually affect them. That's brilliant PR. Now the employees will be angry at the government for shutting down instead of Lockheed executives laying off thousands of people in order to pad their own back pockets.
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
Bravo for laying this all out so clearly, and my heartfelt condolences for being laid off. I would add one thing: that Congress, like any parliament or legislature, is designed to be inefficient. A king or dictator is much faster at implementing new policies; a bicameral legislature is supposed to fight itself and the magistrates who execute the law. Putting the power of the purse into the hands of the lower, larger, rabble-aligned and both frequently and directly elected (remember, the Senate was not originally) chamber was the Founder's way of ensuring that fights like this would happen and keep the government from running efficiently. The House especially was intended to check the administration; that's why they control the money. Now, if only the Senate would do its job and check the military...
You are correct but you're still an idiot. Now that you are unemployed and have no healthcare and potentially have pre-existing conditions, you better hope and pray for a change in attitude from the remainder of the House majority. A few days of slow business didn't get you layed off - it was going to happen anyways, this just happened to be a convenient time to do so.
So where does that leave you? COBRA for a few months if you're lucky under existing law and then you get to be a single person (or family) negotiating with a multinational insurance corporation. Have you done that before? If not I'll tell you a trick, lube up real good before you go begging, cause you're going to need it.
OTOH come Jan 1st, you'll get to join up with millions of others just like you and with your combined negotiating power you will be able to get a much much better deal, better in fact than any Corporate plan. Better because you will be paying less than what you plus the Corp would pay (yes they pay for some percentage of the policy, the individual typically pays less than 50%, depending on the size of the group).
Don't be an idiot. Realize that economies of scale are real and that group plans are better than individual plans, regardless of who manages the group enrollment policy.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
That was an awful lot of words built up on one fundamental, crippling flaw.
The House has the right to initiate budgets, as you say. But those budgets must be agreed to by the Senate and (barring a 2/3rd majority) the President.
If your stance is that the Senate and President must accept whatever the House gives them, then why do we even have a Senate or Executive?
The US political system is deliberately designed to create gridlock. The philosophy is that the less government can do, the better. Obviously nothing is idiot proof. Yelling about how one side is evil and the other good, while the other side takes the same tone is just part of the plan. Eventually though someone involved is supposed to be mature enough to ensure the essential stuff happens.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
I am sure there are some excellent rebuttals that will be coming your way... many on a technical/procedural level that I will not attempt. I will however, give you an example that shows the absurdity of this line of thinking.
When/if Democrats/Libertarians get in power of the House, you have basically stated that they are allowed to "defund" any part of the government they wish. Don't like drone strikes, just defund it. Don't like the whole damn military, just defund it. Don't like national parks, just defund it. Don't like border patrol, just defund it. Don't like the FBI/CIA/NASA/etc., just defund it. Don't like a single program within any of those agencies, just defund it.
You have basically created an end-around to the entire democratic process and made the House the most powerful group of people in the country. Screw the Senate, the Executive branch, the Judicial branch and the People... it's all up to the House to decide what is law; after all if they don't like, just defund it.
Where is the check of power on the House?
No comprende? Let me type that a little slower for you...
You just lost your job thanks to a bunch of tea party freaks and you still support them! How much of a fucking retard can you be? You support the tea party but work for the government in a non-essential capacity! You fucking idiot! Tell me who is in favor of "reduced government"? Looks like you just got reduced, bitch. Have fun being unemployed you fucking loser.
Looks like you're wrong. (I'm not shocked.)
62-year milestone: Fuel tops list of U.S. exports
2011 (through October)
1. Fuel: $73.4 billion.
2. Aircraft: $70.8 billion.
3. Motor vehicles: $39.6 billion.
4. Vacuum tubes: $37.1 billion.
5. Telecommunications equipment: $33.2 billion.
The Senate and the veto power of the President are the checks on the House's ability to defund programs. They can refuse to pass or can veto budgets that the House passes. That's exactly what's happening. That's exactly what's supposed to happen. The Constitution is not a blueprint for efficiency; it's a set of rules for political warfare designed to keep the politicians at each others' throats so that they're less able to choke the people instead. The government works as intended when the House, Senate, President, and Supreme Court are all trying to undermine each other and build their own power, because the people who designed the government didn't trust human nature to provide in perpetuity the kind of leaders who would observe moderation and remain within the bounds set upon them. The Founders knew that power attracts the ambitious, and that the only way to check ambition was to pit the ambitious against one another.
The Democrats (except for the fringe left) aren't going to try to defund the NSA or drones (Obama arguably makes too much use of both to give up either willingly), but one could imagine the libertarians (the fringe more-or-less right) doing so if they ever went mainstream, and that would be in accord with the system of checks and balances. The Senate and the President could try to stop them, and eventually the administration shuts down unless a compromise is reached. This weakens all parties involved and shows the people that their leaders are more interested in ambition than service, and that large swaths of the government are truly nonessential. The people, outraged at their leaders' incompetence and the waste of money that goes into nonessential functions, should then rabidly demand more efficient service for less tax money; that's the cue to kick out the incumbents. Once upon a time that happened, but the people have lost their ambition.
It's funny you put that at the top because you just fucking demonstrated it. Everyone's at fault, but there is one group holding government hostage to defund something that's not even part of the spending bill. ACA is already funded, and the house is trying to undo that funding at the threat of shutting down the government.
Your post was nothing but a bunch of horseshit partisan politics and I hope you enjoy your layoff. You have been clearly sucking on the government tit. You are exactly the kind of government spending we need to cut.
But the whole point of having a division of powers within the federal government is that each branch can decide independently what it wants to do or not do, regardless of what the other branches do, when exercising the powers specifically granted to that branch by the Constitution.
That's not even close to the point of division of powers. The point is to keep a check on one branch's overall power. The president can't execute a law that was found unconstitutional by the supreme court even though he's the "executor", and really he shouldn't be able to just "ignore" implementations of a law either. Likewise, the legislature, after passing a law, can't (or shouldn't) be able to sabotage a law surreptitiously. The right thing to do would be to pass a new law repealing obamacare (oh how they've tried) in accordance with the *spirit* of the constitution. What you're implying is that they can just say "well we have to approve the funding so we're going to exploit that to compensate for our true lack of power in this case".
You should read up on game theory. It might change your perspective. Particularly Nash equilibrium.
95 Americans have won Nobel Prizes in Medicine. That's about half of all such prizes awarded over the entire planet.
It seems to me that the chief US export is life.
But the budget isn't the time to fight things. The way to get a law changed isn't to say "Let's stop paying for the law!" but rather to change the law. The ACA can be repealed, just as it was introduced. That is the right way. However there isn't the votes for that.
What's worse is that there IS the votes to pass the budget in a straight up and down vote but the leadership won't let it happen. That's why people are, rightly, calling "taking hostage". The unmodified budget could and should pass a vote, but they won't let it go to vote because they are mad. A minority trying to force things on a majority.
I also can 100% support the president in saying "No we won't make concessions," because it is in the same vein as "Never negotiate with terrorists." If they can get away with whatever they want just by threatening a shutdown, then that'll happen every single time.They continue to force more and more radical agendas saying "Do this or we shut things down!" No, no negotiation when you play hostage with the budget. Do it right or fuck off.
And Australians still remember it as making a farce of representative government. One guy didn't like the government, so he dismissed it. BTW, tt wasn't the queen, but the governor general, who technically is her representative, but was acting on his initiative. It also led to the movement for an Australian republic - getting rid of the queen and her governor general. Surely any American can sympathize with a cause like that.
No, the supreme court found the Individual Mandate constitutional. They also found the Medicaid expansion constitutional, what they found unconstitutional was the part that penalized states who didn't implement it. That was the part stripped. Which is why some states chose not to implement it, even though the federal government was paying for it.
Funny thing about the supreme court- they may have no authority to cancel part of a law, but they also have no authority to say a law is constitutional or not. They took that authority onto themselves, as part of Marbury v Madison. If they hadn't done so, there would be no power capable of determining that and Congress would be able to pass and the president enforce any law, Constitutional or not (for a great example, see the Alien and Sedition acts of the early 1800s). The right to cancel part of a law is pretty much necessary to do that job- if a bill has a tiny portion that's illegal, it's much closer to what Congress wanted to cancel part of it than all of it. If Congress then wants to tweak or get rid of the law in response they have that power. Two flaws in the Constitution that we've patched without official amendment.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
I live in the middle of Austin, yet I'm represented by someone who lives in suburban Houston. My only option is to vote for or against the guy who is guaranteed to win thanks to gerrymandering.
How exactly can I fire him?
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
Aside from guitar / bass amplifiers and hi end stereo equipment who uses vacuum tubes ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavity_magnetron
You're welcome.
"Since we cannot read minds, we cannot say who -- if anybody -- 'wants to shut down the government.' But we do know who had the option to keep the government running and chose not to. The money voted by the House of Representatives covered everything that the government does, except for ObamaCare."
No need to read minds, just read a newspaper like the conservative Washington Examiner from July when they were pushing for it as a GOP tactic, headline:
"Republicans are willing to shut down government to stop fraudulent Obamacare subsidies".
http://washingtonexaminer.com/morning-examiner-republicans-are-willing-to-shut-down-government-to-stop-fraudulent-obamacare-subsidies/article/2533356
Acting like there's some question of who's to blame is ridiculous. In addition, we know that there are votes in the House to pass a full-funding bill right now but the GOP leadership won't allow the vote to occur. (See "discharge petition" in the House below):
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/05/us-usa-fiscal-idUSBRE98N11220131005
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
Ah yes, the both sides do it argument. How quaint. There is only one party here that is using questionable tactics. The democrats are correct to refuse to play this game. Do you really want to set a precedent where whoever is in charge of the house can defund anything they want by holding the economy and government hostage? They holding the value of the dollar hostage. It might be that outsiders might decide they want a more stable currency than the U.S. dollar. Then we will be up shit creek. Obama has been bending backwards trying to appease these clowns. They only are trying it again because they thought it worked last time. Now they are backed in a corner because they thought the democrats would cave.
for what it's worth, a large part of what our defense industry does is pry money out of the hands of the super wealthy and spread it around the economy.
The decision to pry money from the super wealthy, and the decision of what to spend that money on are two disjoint decisions. For instance, we could still tax the rich, and then instead of spending a billion dollars on a single B-2 bomber, we could spend $11,000 each to improve every single one of the 88,000 elementary schools in America. Which of those two expenditures would be more likely to improve the long term strength and security of our country?
The Senate passed it's own budget as well. Obviously the two were different and they were supposed to sit down and work out the differences. Boner refused to appoint anyone to the committee to do this - 18 times over something like 7 months. He forced this train wreck to occur and if he were to ALLOW a clean budget bill to hit the floor in the House it would be passed - but he refuses. I hope he's the first one kicked out the door.
The commercial with the baby crying? Yeah, that's him alright. Worse? These guys are in for a penny already, they are going to dig in their heels rather than admit they fucked up and played chicken with jobs.
The sad thing is that the response to you about health care is EXACTLY right. In your position right now you get COBRA for a few months and it might or might not be expensive. then try negotiating your own healthcare, I know some who have tried and WOW was it an eye opener! But the new healthcare law could provide you with insurance as low as $50 a month if the numbers I heard today are correct. You want to shit on that and bitch? Wow....
Oh and sorry to hear about the loss of your job. I had dinner tonight with someone who was also let go as were many others in her small company. Seems that they cannot keep these folks on with zippy income coming in from their contracts. There will be many others if this keeps up. Lockheed has furloughed 3K people and expects to furlough many more each week, they have no choice. You guys here can laugh and make stupid comments about a Govt contractor losing money but just wait until it's someone you know or it turns out that something you care about is canned. Even if they funded things tomorrow many many companies are taking it in the shorts and WILL be damaged. There's going to be a trickle effect from that and it WILL hit folks who don't work for these companies - wait and see.
Remember that it was the asshats in the House who did this, who played chicken, who REFUSED to work out differences in order to force this game. If I were the president I wouldn't negotiate on this one bit nor would I budge. They are trying to hold the nation hostage and for him to change anything would be a sign of weakness and we'd be seeing this every budget cycle whenever some jackass had some pet thing he wanted done. F 'em, come next election I WILL be making sure that jerks like this aren't elected in my area - no one wants these kinds of games. The law was passed, upheld, and now they want to cry? Tough.
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
Your assuming the 11k actually makes it down to each elementary school. And then your assuming that because it does, it will have some sort of long term beneficial effect. Your wrong on both counts. The US spends more on education per pupil then just about any other country in the world and we have shit results from it. Until the educational/unionization/bureaucratic complex is dealt with, more money wont make any difference in our schools.
Or that maybe when their employees aren't bringing in money to fund work and have nothing to do that they have to furlough them. duh...
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
News for nerds? Stuff that matters.
Apparently, it's not enough to not read TFA or even TFS. You've failed to read the tagline of the site. It's only 6 words and you zoned out after 3.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Nobody with a brain thinks state healthcare is "free", but most civilised people in every civilised country excepting The USA recognise that state healthcare is both more efficient, cheaper, and fairer than private insurance. Many people, myself included, also recognise that private health insurance, while more expensive, less efficient and less fair, offers better coverage, and so elect to have private insurance in addition to our state provided universal health care.
It's a very American way to look at fairness, a way that no other country shares, to view it as fair that if you are born with an illness or disease, or are unfortunate enough to be out of work or between jobs at the onset of a disease that you should just die.
A system that provides healthcare in a non-discriminatory manner can only be provided by government. How else would you do it? force health insurance companies to insure patients and cover pre-existing illness? No one would sign up for insurance until they had a serious illness. That spells disaster for an insurance company who operates on the principle that the well subsidise the sick. The only options then are discriminatory health cover, where the uninsured sick are left without option, as practiced in the US, and universal cover, as practiced in every other civilised country in the world.
And it's beginning to look like you guys aren't really that civilised.
You know you can't cancel murders out with medicine?
I mean, it's great and all, but it's *totally* not germane to the point. You could coherently argue that the US didn't actually murder and things were just and all that, but it's extremely irrelevant to argue that the US isn't exporting death by pointing at medicine. That's like saying there aren't starving people in the world because there's so many overweight people.
I can only imagine that you saw something vaguely negative about your home country and couldn't help but fall over yourself saying the exact opposite.