Posts by studentofman

US chief spook: Look, we only want to spy on 6.66 billion of you

Re: Quandry

Unfortunately Murph it's called an "Executive Order" and it circumvents the checks and balances the US founders put in place to protect against abuse of power. Bushv1 first really started using it for circumvention of Congress and each subsequent president has stretched its intent further under their tenure; with the culmination of Mr. Obama. You are correct that he cannot pass most legislation, or go to "war", without Congressional approval, however the US Congress is filled with sycophants and milky-eyed monkeys awaiting their marching orders from the "guy citizens would like to have a beer with"; hence the 1.2 trillion dollar health care act which was 1,000+ pages long and passed within a week of him putting it out by Congressmen/women who openly admitted they didn't read it.

No, Obama has carefully crafted his positions to be able to hide his actions and make full use of his Executive power, creating "Czars" so he doesn't have to have Congress approve a cabinet member (not the first but has used it the most), redefining a "hostile" as male over the age of 13 so the drone civilian causality rate decreased and quietly collecting massive amounts of data on US citizens to stop "terrorists" which I guess we are by default without due process or reasonable suspicion; much like being frisked by TSA with no reason except having a plane ticket.

What the media and others aren't vocalizing is that the outrage stems from the basis that Mr. Obama was supposed to be "The Change" for the US. "No more politics as usual" in D.C. and promising complete transparency of government. Along with fixing the economy, shutting down Gitmo, ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, cutting the deficit, and on and on. As one poster said, you see various media outlets who couldn't get their lips on to Mr. Obama's ass fast enough when he was elected, having some real dissonance issues right now.

An interesting game: Read US articles and see how many time you see the journalist report something negative about Obama and then quick reference how Bush did the same thing or worse, or how Obama was just continuing a Bush policy. Yes, he was elected in 2008 and is still rolling out Bush whenever he gets caught being incompetent. Welcome to America, it's never our fault...

Amazon faces its third strike in Germany

Re: Short memory much

Have read them and am old enough to have relatives endure them. Unions helped to make some strides, particularly in blossoming industrial ages on both sides of the ponds, however their effects were more to drive legislation which has held businesses to maintenance of fair practice. Unions are now nothing more than self-serving parasites which feed on the fears of their membership. They are not needed anymore and need to be done away with.

You're correct, free trade markets are driven by earnings and competition; unions are not. If a company is unable to be nimble and flexible to market changes and downturns, they will go out of business. Unions become a roadblock to this. Imagine how much more you'd make as an employee without paying for monthly/annual union dues and imagine how much more the company could invest in labor if they were spending the money on lawyers to constantly fight union attorneys looking to show their constituency they're still relevant?

Rand's biggest failing is that the base premise of her theories is that all will behave in a manner that they expect nothing of another and will not earn something unfairly. You're right, those underpinnings quickly break down when you have entitlement programs, government backed funding of corporations and unions which use the labor force as pawns to line their own pockets and acquire power. Some of the best run companies I'm aware of have no unions and the employees are paid well and are happy. It is possible, but getting the bullshit rhetoric out of the discussion must happen first.

Re: Close down the distribution site and move the jobs elsewhere.

Just a quick reality check here. Still disagree with the concept of unions. However, in 2012 GM was number one global in car sales and VW was number 2. VW has kept strong in the European market due to their expansion into...China. However, please read your local paper as you will find their Q1 profits just went south by 38.2%. Companies have poor earnings reports and hopefully it is an aberration as VW has performed admirably in their management of Audi and Porsche, as well as their global expansion. Although it does seem somewhat suspect that their operating profits declined 26% in the same period, which is attributed to overhead and labor costs...

Re: Close down the distribution site and move the jobs elsewhere.

I don't see anywhere the statement being made they don't count. Don't make it an emotional issue. Simple economics that a company makes X amount of money, they cannot expend more than that amount beyond profit lines which, whether you like it or not, keeps the people who invest money in the company happy.

As for outsourcing and offshoring, WE outsource to YOU. Amazon is a US company. It makes sense from their market stance to have regional warehousing I assume; which is why they are located in Germany. It seems to me you have a lower outlook on shipping clerks than the other poster as they nowhere reference them as slaves...that was your emotional plea.

The poster probably is from the US, which has been riddled by poorly run and corrupt unions, which hold complete industries hostage; even to their own destruction if need be. However you stand on firm ground that Germany has enacted a number of labor policies under Merkel which have kept you quite strong during a global recession. You're right, you're not perfect and neither is the US, whose government does seem hell bent on borrowing significant amounts of money from China while also allowing them to steal military secrets and perform corporate espionage. However, you should put down the stones. Germany's number one importer of goods (based upon a 2010 Unicredit Bank assessment) is in fact China. Seems Germans love the cheap stuff as well.

Rand did have some valid points, many which are put down by populations heavily invested in union and entitlement programs as they conflict. But another subject altogether.