Politics (formerly Election 2012)

[Klaudandus]

http://news.yahoo.com/romney-family-inv ... 09723.html

[Paxen]

You haven't got unions in the US. You have guilds.

[Aubade]

I don't understand that statement Paxen.

[Brekkie]

I think the complaint about money is more than fair. A corporation donating money is donating their profits. They earned it and it's theirs to do with what they want. Unions in non right to work states force employees to pay dues whether the employee joins the union or not. That money is confiscated and used for whatever the union wants, even though the employees don't want to join.

I don't think this distinction is fair.

A company spending it's profits on political contributions is no different from unions spending union dues. The opportunity cost of those profits being spent on campaign contributions means that they are sacrificing, say, raising employee salaries.

Remember that most of the biggest offenders here have been simultaneously cutting wages. Is that really any different from a union extracting union dues? The effect is the same. The workers receive less money than they could have, and that money flows to political causes the workers did not choose.


I also think you are exaggerating how monolithic unions are. Union members do not actually vote as a rigid bloc, and they tend not to be single-issue voters. Look at Massachusetts, a heavyweight unionized state that is deep, deep blue. Republican Senator Scott Brown is just as popular as Democrat challenger Elizabeth Warren among unions.

[Brekkie]

I don't understand that statement Paxen.

They are full of drama, nobody is happy with the way loot is distributed, and some are more hardcore than others.

[Aubade]

Right, I forget people still play MMO's sometimes >.< I was thinking guild's like the Carpenter guild or something haha

[Skye1013]

Moar debatez!

Here's hoping they're interesting. (I'm beyond hoping for any actual information about the issues.)

[Aubade]

Moar debatez!

Here's hoping they're interesting. (I'm beyond hoping for any actual information about the issues.)

I thought it was funny when Romney said "don't keep attacking me and ignoring the question"

When it's all Romney does.

[Fridmarr]

I don't think this distinction is fair.

A company spending it's profits on political contributions is no different from unions spending union dues. The opportunity cost of those profits being spent on campaign contributions means that they are sacrificing, say, raising employee salaries.

Remember that most of the biggest offenders here have been simultaneously cutting wages. Is that really any different from a union extracting union dues? The effect is the same. The workers receive less money than they could have, and that money flows to political causes the workers did not choose.

To be clear, my primary concern is with those employees that are forced to pay union dues, even when they are not in a union. Folks doing this by choice, well that's their choice so enough said.

However, what you say about corporate money is not accurate, if it were, that would be extremely problematic. Corps pay their employees prevailing wage, and that's really about it. They don't give big bonuses as their Profit/Expense ratio rises, and even when they aren't profitable (which is really really common) they still have to pay their employees. Sure there are bonuses and what not, and the occasional industry that's primarily bonus oriented, but by and large people get paid their prevailing wage for their trade. If a corporation is going to invest in personnel as profits soar, they don't give out raises, they hire more workers and grow their corp. Layoffs are on the flip side rather massive pay cuts when companies lose money. The truth is, paying too much or too little for employees just simply doesn't work, increasing their pay to a point doesn't increase production, and reducing it too little means they'll leave.

Overall though, we are really splitting hairs here and likely agree on the topic as a whole more than we disagree, if you want to equate the corporate and union side as roughly equally distasteful, fair enough. As long as we recognize this is a two way street is the only reason I re-entered this thread.

I also think you are exaggerating how monolithic unions are. Union members do not actually vote as a rigid bloc, and they tend not to be single-issue voters. Look at Massachusetts, a heavyweight unionized state that is deep, deep blue. Republican Senator Scott Brown is just as popular as Democrat challenger Elizabeth Warren among unions.

I'm not sure any of my primary points are affected by how monolithic unions are. That said, they are pretty consistently democratic. They've been locked in at 59% in the last few elections. For a group of that size, that's nearly as big as it gets. For consistency dating back to 1976, they routinely turn a double digit difference compared to the general public. The only time it wasn't double digits (2008) was because Obama got a higher percentage of the popular vote as opposed to any real change at all in the union vote. The only thing that consistently beats them is race.

Good stats on that can be found here: http://www.ropercenter.uconn.edu/electi ... ction.html

[Skye1013]

I wish I could predict the future.

I actually agree with him about something...

[Skye1013]

So... Romney pushed for crippling sanctions on Iran 5 years ago... when Bush was in office. If he had been the nominee for 2008 (and subsequently elected), does he think he'd have been able to get them in place sooner than Obama managed to?

[Klaudandus]

Obama to Romney: “Sounds like you would say the same things we said, but say them louder.”


"I'm pleased you are now endorsing our policy of increasing diplomatic pressure"

[Skye1013]

I don't know, but I think Obama won this one. Romney didn't seem to voice his own views, he just agreed that most of what Obama is doing is the correct path.

[Klaudandus]

I don't know, but I think Obama won this one. Romney didn't seem to voice his own views, he just agreed that most of what Obama is doing is the correct path.

Yeah, he agreed with Obama a lot, or would repeat what Obama said but louder... but then he goes “I just don’t want to go back to the same policies of the past four years.”

[Brekkie]

Overall though, we are really splitting hairs here and likely agree on the topic as a whole more than we disagree, if you want to equate the corporate and union side as roughly equally distasteful, fair enough. As long as we recognize this is a two way street is the only reason I re-entered this thread.

Agreed.

I'm not sure any of my primary points are affected by how monolithic unions are. That said, they are pretty consistently democratic. They've been locked in at 59% in the last few elections. For a group of that size, that's nearly as big as it gets.

So are, say, Scientists.
Doesn't mean there is some coercive spanish inquisition in the National Academy of Sciences that is enforcing orthodoxy. It just means that certain demographics tends towards certain political philosophies because of their perspective.

I don't consider that a bad thing. Any relatively homogenous socio-economic-cultural group is going to be somewhat of a circlejerk.