1) do your judges not have to have the support of the actual law before they strike things down?
Generally yes unless we are talking about some of the higher courts where they may rule on the legality of the law itself. Sometimes laws get passed that are incompatible with the Constitution and thus the law gets declared invalid. However in this case there are laws already in existence that may make laws requiring dealers to be unconstitutional.
2) the petition is on whitehouse.gov, which is the federal executive branch. Your executive branch doesn't control your legislative branch, does it?
No but they do control the departments responsible for enforcement of laws including the Justice Department and the Commerce Department. Also the executive branch has substantial ability to influence the actions of members of the legislative branch. Interstate commerce is under federal jurisdiction and thus the executive branch can have substantial influence under existing law. I'm kind of surprised no one has tried to make an argument in front of a judge that dealership restrictions within a state run afoul of the commerce clause of the constitution by unduly interfering with interstate commerce.
The point is not that everyone needs to verify the code, but that anyone can do so, and that someone is likely to have done so.
Anyone can do so in theory but not in practice. I'm an engineer but software isn't my specialty. I have absolutely no way to evaluate personally if there is a backdoor in any of the software I'm using. I simply don't have the skillset and for various reasons am not going to develop it either. Even if I was a really plugged in software engineer like Mr. Torvalds, I simply wouldn't have the time to review every single line of code before compiling it all myself. Don't forget to check the compiler and the firmware.
Additionally while you are correct that someone is likely to have done so, the question is who? Is it someone we trust or is it someone we don't or both? I have absolutely no way to know. I simply have to trust. Don't get me wrong, I think open source is fantastic but pretending that the code is somehow immune from backdoors is pretty naive.
The third reason is if the automation costs are declining, companies won't mind replacing a low wage job if a robot still undercuts it by half.
Not really a third reason but that does occur. Labor wages and automation prices are not fixed. Both can go up and down with some limitations. You use automation because labor costs are relatively high compared with automation costs for the volume you produce. You're still missing the point however. Companies will replace a high wage job if a robot undercuts it by half. And if you look at it macroeconomically that person who was replaced has the opportunity now to do something else and experience tells us that is what usually happens in the long run. Replacing people with robots is NOT and never has been a zero sum game. We make tools and those tools make us more effective at doing things. It's what makes our species unique. Farms in the US are highly automated now where they used to employ over half the work force. And yet unemployment is still in single digits. That meant that people found other productive things to do. Same thing is happening with manufacturing now. The work force for the manufacturing sector is and will continue to be a smaller percent of the overall economy but overall unemployment is still in single digits across the economy. That means those people are finding other things to do. People are smart, are pretty easy to retrain, and are very flexible compared with machines.
And the labor market can't really adjust because humans have a living wage floor while robots don't.
You greatly underestimate human adaptability. Humans are easy to retrain to new tasks and do not have high up front costs. Machines (even robots) are quite inflexible and expensive up front. Human labor costs scale something close to linearly. Automation costs are high up front but relatively flat afterwards. There is (almost) always a significant amount of production volume before automation begins to make economic sense. The amount of work in that gap is enormous and there is no technology that is available or being developed presently that is going to eliminate that gap in the lifetime of anyone reading this. Furthermore there is vast amounts of work that we have no meaningful way to automate or for which automation does not provide a big productivity multiplier.
If rising labor costs were the prime driver we'd see more companies leaving China for poorer countries by now.
Companies ARE leaving China for other locations with cheaper labor. I've been to China and throughout southeast asia sourcing parts. I run a manufacturing company that competes with companies in China. There is often cheaper labor available in Vietnam, Malaysia, India and other countries. I have spoken directly with business owners and economists in both countries personally that will verify that many companies find it more economical to get labor outside of China. Labor costs in China have been rising fast and you can see it in the pricing of products out of China. Don't get me wrong, labor is still relatively cheap but labor costs in China are much higher than they were even just 10 years ago and they are showing no signs of even slowing down much less falling.
At one point the us OWNED auto manufacturing, no one could touch them as they made them better, faster and cheaper then anyone.
And as a result they got fat, lazy and bloated and started making inferior products that cost more. Other companies came in and took advantage of the arrogance and sloth.
Now how'd Detroit working out?
Pretty good actually. Ford made a profit of about $1.6 billion last quarter. GM made about $1.1 billion last quarter and Chrysler reportedly made about $1.7 billion in 2012.
Automation wasn't the sole factor in the decimation but it was decimated none the less.
Automation doesn't occur unless labor costs are high. And without automation just how competitive do you think US automakers would be? The US automakers managed to keep ridiculously overpaid assembly line workers going for decades in spite of competition from much lower paid overseas labor.
What are those people doing for work now?
Many still work in auto manufacturing. It remains a huge employer. Others are working other places doing other things. Until the last few years unemployment was below 5% which is clear evidence that those people found other work.
Automation also means we can bring it back to the USA.
Already happening. My company is able to compete on some products that were made in China but as labor costs have gone up so have the prices. The so called China price isn't as low as it used to be.
After all, if we're not manufacturing in China because of cheap labor anymore, why don't they have their automated factory in the USA again?
Production didn't move to China overnight and it won't move back to the US overnight either. We're talking about millions and billions of dollars of capital investment and that sort of thing doesn't relocate instantly.
Think of the Chinese factory workers as robots doing repetitive tasks. How well has that worked out for the workers in the USA?
Considering that workers in the US enjoy among the highest wages in the world I'd say pretty good. The US has a manufacturing sector that brings in about $4 TRILLION per year. The percent of jobs in manufacturing has declined (like in agriculture earlier) but those that remain in the sector are generally doing quite well and should continue to do so.
In any case you are looking at the situation backwards. Companies only automate for two reasons. The first is if there is a task that cannot be done manually - either requiring precision or due to the job being dangerous. The second and relevant one here is if labor costs are high. The fact that Chinese firms are finding it viable to automate means that millions of people are being pulled from poverty. Wages in China are rising and rising fast. If you have an endless supply of cheap labor there is no point in automating a great many tasks. Increasing automation means that labor costs are rising which is a very good thing unless your perspective is that Chinese workers should always be dirt poor. Personally I'm cheered to see lots of people able to enjoy a better standard of living.
Which is their greatest asset. Humans are the most flexible, trainable and adaptable tool we know of. I run a factory which does a lot of manual assembly and we employ people to do things that tools either cannot or cost too much for. I can teach even a relatively uneducated person in about 30 minutes how to assemble one of our products. A machine to assemble the same product would easily cost over a million dollars and take over a year to develop. With enough volume automation makes sense but human's flexibility ensures there is plenty of work that cannot reasonably be automated. Do you really want to waste your best and most flexible asset on boring repetitive jobs that automation can do more cheaply?
I think you greatly underestimate how adaptable people really are. I think that companies who need remove someone from the payroll (for reasons other than firing for-cause) have an obligation to do what they can to make the transition gentle if they can. But there is a limit to that obligation. Ultimately it is up to the person to find their path in life, not the company to find it for them. I'm hugely optimistic about people and frankly am mystified by those who seem to think that people need to be treated like children. We don't owe them a specific job or a paycheck, we owe them opportunities to show what they can do.
Furthermore automation is a sign that wages in China are rising. If you have an endless supply of cheap labor there is no point in automating. The fact that companies are finding it financially sensible to do so is an unambiguous indicator that millions of people are being lifted out of poverty.
Where do you find 1 million gainful jobs to replace all of the inefficient human labor they're replacing?
I don't mean to be trite but the answer is, with other companies doing other things. Believe it or not seeing China beginning to automate production is a very positive sign for Chinese workers because it means that pay rates are increasing. If you have unlimited low cost labor there is no point in automating many tasks. But wages in China have been steadily rising to the point where China is now sometimes not competitive with other places. That means they will have to begin to automate some work to remain competitive. Automation being installed is an indicator of rising wages. I'm not even slightly exaggerating when I say it means that millions of people are being pulled out of poverty.
I see this logical fallacy again and again that replacing labor with automation is a zero sum game. It demonstrably is not. The computer you are reading this on has replaced millions of clerical workers who now do other things. Automation replaces some labor but frees it to do more than it could before. Washing clothes used to be a hugely time consuming task but we developed tools (automation) to wash for us and we spend our time on other things. Is it better that we spend our time having people type things repeatedly on typewriters or should we use a word processor and print it once? It isn't that there is suddenly no work, it's that now people have time to accomplish tasks that there wasn't time to accomplish before.
In many countries the mainstream churches were or (as in the US) are an import social factor in the battle against poverty and much of their money is going to 'Worthy Causes' that save the community at large from a lot of grief.
Take one look at the vatican with all their gold leaf and artwork and fancy architecture and tell me that they are truly concerned about directing their money towards fighting poverty. While I don't deny that many churches do indeed do some worthy charity work, I've never seen one that wasn't hugely hypocritical about what they do with their money. Most of it goes towards salaries, buildings, and other tangible trappings of wealth that have little to do with charity but a lot to do with making religious officials powerful and the institutions wealthy.
Marriage gives you certain benefits - taxes, insurance rates, access rights, etc - that no other 'grouping' does.
While that is presently true that does not imply that it should remain that way.
You're never going to get government out of all of the things that marriage gives benefits to.
Possibly true but that doesn't mean we should not try to get the government out of something that is none of the government's business.
Rights are given by the government.
In the USA rights are inherent to the people and power is granted TO the government for select purposes. Have you actually read the US Constitution or the Declaration of Independence?
If marriage gives you extra rights, then the government says what those are.
Marriage doesn't give any rights. I didn't gain any rights when I got married. It does give certain benefits which arguably most or all of which should not require a marriage to obtain.
I would say the same about any religion. I don't regard christianity or islam or judaism as any more sane. They are all deceitful enterprises. The only difference between a church and a cult is scale.
Seriously, just look at Tom Cruise and his claims that anti-depressants don't work.
Look at the catholic church's claims that abstinence is a realistic option for birth control. Or the various claims that is a punishment from god for . A lot of religious doctrine from the mainstream religions is absolutely just as bonkers.
The CoS is a joke, and how any country has still given them tax exempt status is beyond me.
Again, I would say the same about any church or cult. As nuts as scientology is, I don't regard any other church as being more or less worthy of special tax treatment.
Marriage is a religious activity, therefore how can the state discriminate on its basis?
Curious. I'm married and I've never been involved with any church in my entire life. Exactly how is it that I'm married if "marriage is a religious activity? Oh, that's right, churches have no legal power whatsoever aside from power delegated to individual members of the church by the state for that purpose.
You can be married without ever involving a religious institution. Marriage has nothing to do with religion aside from the fact that many marriages are officiated by members of churches.
Why don't we just get the govt (state and feds) OUT of the marriage business?
I've wondered this for many years. No government at any level has any business creating financial incentives or any kind of restrictions on marriage at all. I see no reason why I should enjoy or be prohibited from any benefits (financial or otherwise) due to my marital status. If we want to say that marriage is a way to bundle certain estate benefits in order to save time then fine but marriage should not be required or incentivized for any of those very same benefits.
Where I live it is impossible for a man to own a house in just his own name if he is married. However a woman can own a house in her own name if she is married. I'm astonished that discriminatory laws like that remain in effect.
Marriage is a religious thing...if someone wants to get married, let them find a church to do it.
No it isn't about religion. I'm married but I'm definitely not religious nor was I married in, around or by a church. A marriage is a just a public acknowledgement of a private fact. I have someone in my life who I care very deeply about and so I made a public commitment to her. Has nothing to do with religion or children or financial benefits at all. You can get married and never involve a church at all. Power to conduct marriages is given by the state to individuals, kind of like being a notary. The fact that the individual so empowered happens to be a member of a church is incidental.
Comfortable don't enter into it. How are they supposed to live? If you've been supporting a family on 45k, How do you suppose to support them on half of that?
Cut expenses. Just because you are used to a certain standard of living (modest though it may be) doesn't mean you can't live on less. I have lived on considerably less than $45K/year in the not very distant past. Any claim that they cannot live on less is nonsense. I don't think they should have to but sometimes life isn't kind. You make do for as long as you have to and you look for employment elsewhere if you still can't make ends meet. Frankly, given how shitty this company was run I can't really imagine why anyone would stay longer than absolutely necessary. This wasn't exactly an overnight revelation. They've known for years that the company way in trouble.
Not being able to pay your bills on 20k is still not able to pay your bills. What exactly aren't you getting about that? But where do you suppose the union draws the line? 10k? 5k? This is exactly there are social safety nets.
Because you can pay SOME bills on $20K. You can buy yourself time to find another job. You slow the bleeding. Yes it sucks but being unemployed doesn't make the situation any better and unemployment payments are considerably less than $20K. The union did draw the line and the company was liquidated as a result. It sucks
It's not the union's job to manage the company. That is management's job. And they're paid a hell of a lot more than anyone in the union for it.
Wrong. You can't abdicate all responsibility for running the company AND demand a say in work rules, pay rates, job descriptions and the rest. A union by definition is demanding a say in the operation of the business. You don't get to have it both ways. If you want a say in the operation of the company, then it is not unreasonable to demand an ownership stake. Being an owner is hardly a fix all but at least then the union members interests are aligned with the company.
Yeah, they'd have literally laughed in your face.
Then they can shut the company down which happened anyway. Employee ownership is hardly a novel demand. United Airlines union negotiated an equity stake in the company. The UAW got an equity stake in GM during the bail out. The management may not agree to the demand but in this case the union loses nothing by asking.
I don't think you understand what happened here; the company was bought by vulture capitalists, loaded up with debt and when the creditors came calling they literally held the company to ransom so they could look the worker's pensions and their salaries.
I understand perfectly well what happened here and my point stands. You don't negotiate terms when you have a gun pointed at you. The union screwed up by not acting sooner and by not focusing on the health of the company. I'm not claiming that the union is in any way the primary responsible party for the failure of the company. They quite plainly are not. But you are wasting your breath if you think you will convince me that they do not share any of the blame for what happened.
Because 1) it'd never happen and 2) it'd still be a shitty deal for the workers.
It certainly could happen and how exactly do you think the workers could have gotten a worse deal than they actually did? They liquidated the company which is about as bad as it gets.
How exactly? Wages had been cut from 45k to 35k, now the executive was asking to cut that by another 30%. How would these workers continue to afford to pay their bills after having their wages effectively cut in half?
No one said it would be a comfortable experience. But they did have that choice. They had the choice between having wages cut in half or wages going to zero. Last time I checked, half is still greater than zero. Pretty hard to pay your bills with no job at all.
In what world is it the union's fault that the executive mismanaged the company so badly that they couldn't afford to pay their workers a livable wage?
It's partly (in fact probably mostly) the management's fault but the union is not blameless here. It sounds like the union was fighting for wages instead of fighting for a healthy company. If I'm the union negotiator and management comes to me and says I need a 30% drop in every employee's wages, my response is going to be to ask for an equity stake in the company in lieu of pay and a seat on the board of directors. Give up pay but ask for control and participation in the upside. The union didn't apparently demand a deal like this and thus pretty much cut their own throat.
It's not the union's failt they weren't willing to shoulder the entirety of the cuts while management dicked around.
Actually it is their fault. The union could have conceded more but chose not to. They chose to take the risk of liquidation and they came up snake eyes. They let their ego get in front of their BATNA. Given the financial position of the company management clearly held all the cards in this negotiation. I genuinely feel bad for the union employees since the management seems to have been a bunch of douchebags but they made the choice to risk unemployment over further cuts.
The unions accepted job and benefit cuts totalling $110 million. They did more than their fair share.
If the company still got liquidated then it wasn't enough. Fair has little to do with it. Revenues have to exceed costs. It may be that the union didn't have enough to give in light of the other liabilities (debt etc) but labor is a major cost and whatever cuts were made obviously were not enough. I think the union got screwed but they don't escape being part of the problem here.
I honestly can not say what was in the cart of the guy (or was it a lady?) who was in front of me 2 days ago... The only time I notice is if they are buying 40 of something.
Well that is just you being self selective. I actually tend to look around a fair bit. Call me nosey but I'm a bit of a foodie. While it is absolutely possible I just didn't notice, I certainly can recall seeing green peppers, and ground beef and milk and tons of other products in people's carts. But twinkies? Nope. I have seen some little debbie snacks in people's carts but never twinkies. I see them on the shelf now and then but never in the checkout line.
Never seen them hauled out at parties, school lunches (I coach high school kids), in any friends or family pantries, or anywhere else. Never seen them at work or in any of the factories I visit.
No, they went bankrupt because their sales were cratering.
A company only goes bankrupt from falling sales if costs do not fall in proportion. Hostess had heavy debt loads, high labor costs (both management and union), and apparently heavy pension obligations as well. Their costs (of which union labor was a big component) did not fall fast enough to keep up.
Their 2011 sales were 28% lower than what they did in 2004.
So that means they needed to cut costs by 28%. A portion of that is going to come from labor when you are talking percentages that big. The fact that they had made prior concessions is irrelevant so long as sales continued to fall.
The funny part is years before the bankruptcy the unions had already agreed to allow thousands of jobs to be cut and millions in benefits as well.
I fully concur that the management did a horrible job and apparently wasn't negotiating in good faith. However the union screwed up bad. They went on strike thinking and the response was to liquidate the company. That means the unions BADLY misread the strength of their negotiating position. If they go on strike and the company liquidates, the union cannot escape blame. The main cause of the bankruptcy very probably was not the unions but pretending they didn't play any role is frankly naive. Unions never make labor costs lower. The unions basically cut their own throat here.
The union took cuts twice, and each time management gave themselves huge bonuses (million +), . SO after that, why would the union cut yet again?
The union played a game of chicken with management and lost. I think it is clear the management was incompetent (and greedy) but apparently so was the union. The company had already been through bankruptcy once before. The union leadership BADLY misread the strength of their position and it cost a lot of people their jobs.
I think the negotiation went something like this.
Mgt: We need wage concessions, etc. Union: We're going on strike Mgt: We're going to liquidate the company if you do that Union: You're a bunch of liars and poopyheads Mgt: We warned you
Mgt takes company into Chapter 7 Union: Oh shit, they weren't kidding. Mgt: Let's pay our selves some handsome bonuses before this thing completely goes under [/evil cackle]
The reason they are known to have a long shelf life is because they use banana cream instead of dairy cream, giving them a comparatively longer shelf life.
They have used vanilla cream instead of banana cream since around WWII when there was a banana shortage.
You are also falling victim to self selected sample theory. You dont do it so no one else must do it.
Wasn't talking about me though I freely admit I don't eat them. I quite seriously can not recall having seen a box of twinkies in anyone's shopping cart in the last 20 years and I've been in the grocery store at least once every week or two during most of that period. I also have not seen twinkies in anyone's home or seeing anyone actually consume one in person during the same time period. Now obviously someone must be buying this things since they sold over 30 million of them a year as recently as 2011. But I'll be darned if I ever see anyone buying or eating them.
Also you *can* loose weight eating these things.
You can lose weight eating almost anything as long as you are careful with the portions. Doesn't mean it is a healthy way to do it but if you only eat 600 calories a day it doesn't much matter what the source of the calories is from a weight loss point of view.
No, money is not an IOU though it is possible to make IOUs into a form of currency. A one off IOU is not a medium of exchange nor is it a unit of measure. It's not even clear that an IOU is a store of value since it is not fungible and possibly not predictably useful. Furthermore an IOU for what specifically? What is owed and to whom? It's possible to have IOUs become money but just writing one for a single transaction does not make it money.
No-one eats them. Why do you think the company went bankrupt?
They sold 36 million of them in 2011. That's a lot of twinkies if "no-one" is eating them. I just can't figure out who.
Why do you think the company went bankrupt?
They went bankrupt because their (union) labor costs, pension costs and debt load. Incompetent management probably played a role somewhere in there too. They had significant revenue but their costs were out of line with the amount of revenue.
Slashdot Mirror
1) do your judges not have to have the support of the actual law before they strike things down?
Generally yes unless we are talking about some of the higher courts where they may rule on the legality of the law itself. Sometimes laws get passed that are incompatible with the Constitution and thus the law gets declared invalid. However in this case there are laws already in existence that may make laws requiring dealers to be unconstitutional.
2) the petition is on whitehouse.gov, which is the federal executive branch. Your executive branch doesn't control your legislative branch, does it?
No but they do control the departments responsible for enforcement of laws including the Justice Department and the Commerce Department. Also the executive branch has substantial ability to influence the actions of members of the legislative branch. Interstate commerce is under federal jurisdiction and thus the executive branch can have substantial influence under existing law. I'm kind of surprised no one has tried to make an argument in front of a judge that dealership restrictions within a state run afoul of the commerce clause of the constitution by unduly interfering with interstate commerce.
The point is not that everyone needs to verify the code, but that anyone can do so, and that someone is likely to have done so.
Anyone can do so in theory but not in practice. I'm an engineer but software isn't my specialty. I have absolutely no way to evaluate personally if there is a backdoor in any of the software I'm using. I simply don't have the skillset and for various reasons am not going to develop it either. Even if I was a really plugged in software engineer like Mr. Torvalds, I simply wouldn't have the time to review every single line of code before compiling it all myself. Don't forget to check the compiler and the firmware.
Additionally while you are correct that someone is likely to have done so, the question is who? Is it someone we trust or is it someone we don't or both? I have absolutely no way to know. I simply have to trust. Don't get me wrong, I think open source is fantastic but pretending that the code is somehow immune from backdoors is pretty naive.
The third reason is if the automation costs are declining, companies won't mind replacing a low wage job if a robot still undercuts it by half.
Not really a third reason but that does occur. Labor wages and automation prices are not fixed. Both can go up and down with some limitations. You use automation because labor costs are relatively high compared with automation costs for the volume you produce. You're still missing the point however. Companies will replace a high wage job if a robot undercuts it by half. And if you look at it macroeconomically that person who was replaced has the opportunity now to do something else and experience tells us that is what usually happens in the long run. Replacing people with robots is NOT and never has been a zero sum game. We make tools and those tools make us more effective at doing things. It's what makes our species unique. Farms in the US are highly automated now where they used to employ over half the work force. And yet unemployment is still in single digits. That meant that people found other productive things to do. Same thing is happening with manufacturing now. The work force for the manufacturing sector is and will continue to be a smaller percent of the overall economy but overall unemployment is still in single digits across the economy. That means those people are finding other things to do. People are smart, are pretty easy to retrain, and are very flexible compared with machines.
And the labor market can't really adjust because humans have a living wage floor while robots don't.
You greatly underestimate human adaptability. Humans are easy to retrain to new tasks and do not have high up front costs. Machines (even robots) are quite inflexible and expensive up front. Human labor costs scale something close to linearly. Automation costs are high up front but relatively flat afterwards. There is (almost) always a significant amount of production volume before automation begins to make economic sense. The amount of work in that gap is enormous and there is no technology that is available or being developed presently that is going to eliminate that gap in the lifetime of anyone reading this. Furthermore there is vast amounts of work that we have no meaningful way to automate or for which automation does not provide a big productivity multiplier.
If rising labor costs were the prime driver we'd see more companies leaving China for poorer countries by now.
Companies ARE leaving China for other locations with cheaper labor. I've been to China and throughout southeast asia sourcing parts. I run a manufacturing company that competes with companies in China. There is often cheaper labor available in Vietnam, Malaysia, India and other countries. I have spoken directly with business owners and economists in both countries personally that will verify that many companies find it more economical to get labor outside of China. Labor costs in China have been rising fast and you can see it in the pricing of products out of China. Don't get me wrong, labor is still relatively cheap but labor costs in China are much higher than they were even just 10 years ago and they are showing no signs of even slowing down much less falling.
At one point the us OWNED auto manufacturing, no one could touch them as they made them better, faster and cheaper then anyone.
And as a result they got fat, lazy and bloated and started making inferior products that cost more. Other companies came in and took advantage of the arrogance and sloth.
Now how'd Detroit working out?
Pretty good actually. Ford made a profit of about $1.6 billion last quarter. GM made about $1.1 billion last quarter and Chrysler reportedly made about $1.7 billion in 2012.
Automation wasn't the sole factor in the decimation but it was decimated none the less.
Automation doesn't occur unless labor costs are high. And without automation just how competitive do you think US automakers would be? The US automakers managed to keep ridiculously overpaid assembly line workers going for decades in spite of competition from much lower paid overseas labor.
What are those people doing for work now?
Many still work in auto manufacturing. It remains a huge employer. Others are working other places doing other things. Until the last few years unemployment was below 5% which is clear evidence that those people found other work.
Automation also means we can bring it back to the USA.
Already happening. My company is able to compete on some products that were made in China but as labor costs have gone up so have the prices. The so called China price isn't as low as it used to be.
After all, if we're not manufacturing in China because of cheap labor anymore, why don't they have their automated factory in the USA again?
Production didn't move to China overnight and it won't move back to the US overnight either. We're talking about millions and billions of dollars of capital investment and that sort of thing doesn't relocate instantly.
Think of the Chinese factory workers as robots doing repetitive tasks. How well has that worked out for the workers in the USA?
Considering that workers in the US enjoy among the highest wages in the world I'd say pretty good. The US has a manufacturing sector that brings in about $4 TRILLION per year. The percent of jobs in manufacturing has declined (like in agriculture earlier) but those that remain in the sector are generally doing quite well and should continue to do so.
In any case you are looking at the situation backwards. Companies only automate for two reasons. The first is if there is a task that cannot be done manually - either requiring precision or due to the job being dangerous. The second and relevant one here is if labor costs are high. The fact that Chinese firms are finding it viable to automate means that millions of people are being pulled from poverty. Wages in China are rising and rising fast. If you have an endless supply of cheap labor there is no point in automating a great many tasks. Increasing automation means that labor costs are rising which is a very good thing unless your perspective is that Chinese workers should always be dirt poor. Personally I'm cheered to see lots of people able to enjoy a better standard of living.
Because these workers are human being
Which is their greatest asset. Humans are the most flexible, trainable and adaptable tool we know of. I run a factory which does a lot of manual assembly and we employ people to do things that tools either cannot or cost too much for. I can teach even a relatively uneducated person in about 30 minutes how to assemble one of our products. A machine to assemble the same product would easily cost over a million dollars and take over a year to develop. With enough volume automation makes sense but human's flexibility ensures there is plenty of work that cannot reasonably be automated. Do you really want to waste your best and most flexible asset on boring repetitive jobs that automation can do more cheaply?
I think you greatly underestimate how adaptable people really are. I think that companies who need remove someone from the payroll (for reasons other than firing for-cause) have an obligation to do what they can to make the transition gentle if they can. But there is a limit to that obligation. Ultimately it is up to the person to find their path in life, not the company to find it for them. I'm hugely optimistic about people and frankly am mystified by those who seem to think that people need to be treated like children. We don't owe them a specific job or a paycheck, we owe them opportunities to show what they can do.
Furthermore automation is a sign that wages in China are rising. If you have an endless supply of cheap labor there is no point in automating. The fact that companies are finding it financially sensible to do so is an unambiguous indicator that millions of people are being lifted out of poverty.
Where do you find 1 million gainful jobs to replace all of the inefficient human labor they're replacing?
I don't mean to be trite but the answer is, with other companies doing other things. Believe it or not seeing China beginning to automate production is a very positive sign for Chinese workers because it means that pay rates are increasing. If you have unlimited low cost labor there is no point in automating many tasks. But wages in China have been steadily rising to the point where China is now sometimes not competitive with other places. That means they will have to begin to automate some work to remain competitive. Automation being installed is an indicator of rising wages. I'm not even slightly exaggerating when I say it means that millions of people are being pulled out of poverty.
I see this logical fallacy again and again that replacing labor with automation is a zero sum game. It demonstrably is not. The computer you are reading this on has replaced millions of clerical workers who now do other things. Automation replaces some labor but frees it to do more than it could before. Washing clothes used to be a hugely time consuming task but we developed tools (automation) to wash for us and we spend our time on other things. Is it better that we spend our time having people type things repeatedly on typewriters or should we use a word processor and print it once? It isn't that there is suddenly no work, it's that now people have time to accomplish tasks that there wasn't time to accomplish before.
In many countries the mainstream churches were or (as in the US) are an import social factor in the battle against poverty and much of their money is going to 'Worthy Causes' that save the community at large from a lot of grief.
Take one look at the vatican with all their gold leaf and artwork and fancy architecture and tell me that they are truly concerned about directing their money towards fighting poverty. While I don't deny that many churches do indeed do some worthy charity work, I've never seen one that wasn't hugely hypocritical about what they do with their money. Most of it goes towards salaries, buildings, and other tangible trappings of wealth that have little to do with charity but a lot to do with making religious officials powerful and the institutions wealthy.
Marriage gives you certain benefits - taxes, insurance rates, access rights, etc - that no other 'grouping' does.
While that is presently true that does not imply that it should remain that way.
You're never going to get government out of all of the things that marriage gives benefits to.
Possibly true but that doesn't mean we should not try to get the government out of something that is none of the government's business.
Rights are given by the government.
In the USA rights are inherent to the people and power is granted TO the government for select purposes. Have you actually read the US Constitution or the Declaration of Independence?
If marriage gives you extra rights, then the government says what those are.
Marriage doesn't give any rights. I didn't gain any rights when I got married. It does give certain benefits which arguably most or all of which should not require a marriage to obtain.
It's a complete sham and a fraud.
I would say the same about any religion. I don't regard christianity or islam or judaism as any more sane. They are all deceitful enterprises. The only difference between a church and a cult is scale.
Seriously, just look at Tom Cruise and his claims that anti-depressants don't work.
Look at the catholic church's claims that abstinence is a realistic option for birth control. Or the various claims that is a punishment from god for . A lot of religious doctrine from the mainstream religions is absolutely just as bonkers.
The CoS is a joke, and how any country has still given them tax exempt status is beyond me.
Again, I would say the same about any church or cult. As nuts as scientology is, I don't regard any other church as being more or less worthy of special tax treatment.
Marriage is a religious activity, therefore how can the state discriminate on its basis?
Curious. I'm married and I've never been involved with any church in my entire life. Exactly how is it that I'm married if "marriage is a religious activity? Oh, that's right, churches have no legal power whatsoever aside from power delegated to individual members of the church by the state for that purpose.
You can be married without ever involving a religious institution. Marriage has nothing to do with religion aside from the fact that many marriages are officiated by members of churches.
Why don't we just get the govt (state and feds) OUT of the marriage business?
I've wondered this for many years. No government at any level has any business creating financial incentives or any kind of restrictions on marriage at all. I see no reason why I should enjoy or be prohibited from any benefits (financial or otherwise) due to my marital status. If we want to say that marriage is a way to bundle certain estate benefits in order to save time then fine but marriage should not be required or incentivized for any of those very same benefits.
Where I live it is impossible for a man to own a house in just his own name if he is married. However a woman can own a house in her own name if she is married. I'm astonished that discriminatory laws like that remain in effect.
Marriage is a religious thing...if someone wants to get married, let them find a church to do it.
No it isn't about religion. I'm married but I'm definitely not religious nor was I married in, around or by a church. A marriage is a just a public acknowledgement of a private fact. I have someone in my life who I care very deeply about and so I made a public commitment to her. Has nothing to do with religion or children or financial benefits at all. You can get married and never involve a church at all. Power to conduct marriages is given by the state to individuals, kind of like being a notary. The fact that the individual so empowered happens to be a member of a church is incidental.
Comfortable don't enter into it. How are they supposed to live? If you've been supporting a family on 45k, How do you suppose to support them on half of that?
Cut expenses. Just because you are used to a certain standard of living (modest though it may be) doesn't mean you can't live on less. I have lived on considerably less than $45K/year in the not very distant past. Any claim that they cannot live on less is nonsense. I don't think they should have to but sometimes life isn't kind. You make do for as long as you have to and you look for employment elsewhere if you still can't make ends meet. Frankly, given how shitty this company was run I can't really imagine why anyone would stay longer than absolutely necessary. This wasn't exactly an overnight revelation. They've known for years that the company way in trouble.
Not being able to pay your bills on 20k is still not able to pay your bills. What exactly aren't you getting about that? But where do you suppose the union draws the line? 10k? 5k? This is exactly there are social safety nets.
Because you can pay SOME bills on $20K. You can buy yourself time to find another job. You slow the bleeding. Yes it sucks but being unemployed doesn't make the situation any better and unemployment payments are considerably less than $20K. The union did draw the line and the company was liquidated as a result. It sucks
It's not the union's job to manage the company. That is management's job. And they're paid a hell of a lot more than anyone in the union for it.
Wrong. You can't abdicate all responsibility for running the company AND demand a say in work rules, pay rates, job descriptions and the rest. A union by definition is demanding a say in the operation of the business. You don't get to have it both ways. If you want a say in the operation of the company, then it is not unreasonable to demand an ownership stake. Being an owner is hardly a fix all but at least then the union members interests are aligned with the company.
Yeah, they'd have literally laughed in your face.
Then they can shut the company down which happened anyway. Employee ownership is hardly a novel demand. United Airlines union negotiated an equity stake in the company. The UAW got an equity stake in GM during the bail out. The management may not agree to the demand but in this case the union loses nothing by asking.
I don't think you understand what happened here; the company was bought by vulture capitalists, loaded up with debt and when the creditors came calling they literally held the company to ransom so they could look the worker's pensions and their salaries.
I understand perfectly well what happened here and my point stands. You don't negotiate terms when you have a gun pointed at you. The union screwed up by not acting sooner and by not focusing on the health of the company. I'm not claiming that the union is in any way the primary responsible party for the failure of the company. They quite plainly are not. But you are wasting your breath if you think you will convince me that they do not share any of the blame for what happened.
Because 1) it'd never happen and 2) it'd still be a shitty deal for the workers.
It certainly could happen and how exactly do you think the workers could have gotten a worse deal than they actually did? They liquidated the company which is about as bad as it gets.
How exactly? Wages had been cut from 45k to 35k, now the executive was asking to cut that by another 30%. How would these workers continue to afford to pay their bills after having their wages effectively cut in half?
No one said it would be a comfortable experience. But they did have that choice. They had the choice between having wages cut in half or wages going to zero. Last time I checked, half is still greater than zero. Pretty hard to pay your bills with no job at all.
In what world is it the union's fault that the executive mismanaged the company so badly that they couldn't afford to pay their workers a livable wage?
It's partly (in fact probably mostly) the management's fault but the union is not blameless here. It sounds like the union was fighting for wages instead of fighting for a healthy company. If I'm the union negotiator and management comes to me and says I need a 30% drop in every employee's wages, my response is going to be to ask for an equity stake in the company in lieu of pay and a seat on the board of directors. Give up pay but ask for control and participation in the upside. The union didn't apparently demand a deal like this and thus pretty much cut their own throat.
It's not the union's failt they weren't willing to shoulder the entirety of the cuts while management dicked around.
Actually it is their fault. The union could have conceded more but chose not to. They chose to take the risk of liquidation and they came up snake eyes. They let their ego get in front of their BATNA. Given the financial position of the company management clearly held all the cards in this negotiation. I genuinely feel bad for the union employees since the management seems to have been a bunch of douchebags but they made the choice to risk unemployment over further cuts.
The unions accepted job and benefit cuts totalling $110 million. They did more than their fair share.
If the company still got liquidated then it wasn't enough. Fair has little to do with it. Revenues have to exceed costs. It may be that the union didn't have enough to give in light of the other liabilities (debt etc) but labor is a major cost and whatever cuts were made obviously were not enough. I think the union got screwed but they don't escape being part of the problem here.
I honestly can not say what was in the cart of the guy (or was it a lady?) who was in front of me 2 days ago... The only time I notice is if they are buying 40 of something.
Well that is just you being self selective. I actually tend to look around a fair bit. Call me nosey but I'm a bit of a foodie. While it is absolutely possible I just didn't notice, I certainly can recall seeing green peppers, and ground beef and milk and tons of other products in people's carts. But twinkies? Nope. I have seen some little debbie snacks in people's carts but never twinkies. I see them on the shelf now and then but never in the checkout line.
Never seen them hauled out at parties, school lunches (I coach high school kids), in any friends or family pantries, or anywhere else. Never seen them at work or in any of the factories I visit.
No, they went bankrupt because their sales were cratering.
A company only goes bankrupt from falling sales if costs do not fall in proportion. Hostess had heavy debt loads, high labor costs (both management and union), and apparently heavy pension obligations as well. Their costs (of which union labor was a big component) did not fall fast enough to keep up.
Their 2011 sales were 28% lower than what they did in 2004.
So that means they needed to cut costs by 28%. A portion of that is going to come from labor when you are talking percentages that big. The fact that they had made prior concessions is irrelevant so long as sales continued to fall.
The funny part is years before the bankruptcy the unions had already agreed to allow thousands of jobs to be cut and millions in benefits as well.
I fully concur that the management did a horrible job and apparently wasn't negotiating in good faith. However the union screwed up bad. They went on strike thinking and the response was to liquidate the company. That means the unions BADLY misread the strength of their negotiating position. If they go on strike and the company liquidates, the union cannot escape blame. The main cause of the bankruptcy very probably was not the unions but pretending they didn't play any role is frankly naive. Unions never make labor costs lower. The unions basically cut their own throat here.
The union took cuts twice, and each time management gave themselves huge bonuses (million +), . SO after that, why would the union cut yet again?
The union played a game of chicken with management and lost. I think it is clear the management was incompetent (and greedy) but apparently so was the union. The company had already been through bankruptcy once before. The union leadership BADLY misread the strength of their position and it cost a lot of people their jobs.
I think the negotiation went something like this.
Mgt: We need wage concessions, etc.
Union: We're going on strike
Mgt: We're going to liquidate the company if you do that
Union: You're a bunch of liars and poopyheads
Mgt: We warned you
Mgt takes company into Chapter 7
Union: Oh shit, they weren't kidding.
Mgt: Let's pay our selves some handsome bonuses before this thing completely goes under [/evil cackle]
The reason they are known to have a long shelf life is because they use banana cream instead of dairy cream, giving them a comparatively longer shelf life.
They have used vanilla cream instead of banana cream since around WWII when there was a banana shortage.
You are also falling victim to self selected sample theory. You dont do it so no one else must do it.
Wasn't talking about me though I freely admit I don't eat them. I quite seriously can not recall having seen a box of twinkies in anyone's shopping cart in the last 20 years and I've been in the grocery store at least once every week or two during most of that period. I also have not seen twinkies in anyone's home or seeing anyone actually consume one in person during the same time period. Now obviously someone must be buying this things since they sold over 30 million of them a year as recently as 2011. But I'll be darned if I ever see anyone buying or eating them.
Also you *can* loose weight eating these things.
You can lose weight eating almost anything as long as you are careful with the portions. Doesn't mean it is a healthy way to do it but if you only eat 600 calories a day it doesn't much matter what the source of the calories is from a weight loss point of view.
Money is IOUs
No, money is not an IOU though it is possible to make IOUs into a form of currency. A one off IOU is not a medium of exchange nor is it a unit of measure. It's not even clear that an IOU is a store of value since it is not fungible and possibly not predictably useful. Furthermore an IOU for what specifically? What is owed and to whom? It's possible to have IOUs become money but just writing one for a single transaction does not make it money.
No-one eats them. Why do you think the company went bankrupt?
They sold 36 million of them in 2011. That's a lot of twinkies if "no-one" is eating them. I just can't figure out who.
Why do you think the company went bankrupt?
They went bankrupt because their (union) labor costs, pension costs and debt load. Incompetent management probably played a role somewhere in there too. They had significant revenue but their costs were out of line with the amount of revenue.
I've been keeping 2 twinkies in my basement since the 80's. And they're still 100% good.
Unless you actually eat them how would you know?