You should have to work at walmart, without a college degree.

[MadSquabbles500]

Don't know about the States, but Italian mob has a huge presence in the construction industry in Montreal. As far as Vancouver dock goes, the jobs are very lucrative. It pays anywhere from $35 (regular) to $70 (weekend graveyard shift) an hour. That's just regular pay, not overtime rate. The Hells Angels members pass these jobs down like heirloom items, and outsiders rarely get it.

There are news report that construction workers' union in Montreal is controlled by the Italian mob. I

Yes I read. It sounds a bit too Communist-ish and I think it'd be hamstrung by bureaucracy. Unions are going to lose much of their power very soon when automation kicks in.

Even in French Canada, Italians are big in the construction industry. And yes, they are/were big in the construction bizz in Northeast USA for all I know, that is if La Cosa Nostra is still around.

Regular Italians, legit people are big in construction. It is the Italian american communities main bread basket aside from owning Pizzerias. Like how all the Irish are cops and firemen, or bartenders. Or the greeks own and run diners, chinese owning chinese restaurants.

 

[Jack V Savage]

When they point to it as citation for expectation of performance? Yes, absolutely.

It's like complaining about your Center failing to score 100 points in a game.




What is a lie regarding WW2?

This?

Sorry Viva, you are in WAAYYYY over your head here.

On net, it's better to have rich trading partners. Viva's generally not too sharp so he probably won't be able to defend what he's saying, but it is a myth that the destruction of trading partners was a positive for the U.S. economy.

 

[sickc0d3r]

Thanks

It depends if it's a legally enforced closed shop and if the employer can fire you for memebership. If it's an open shop it's more market, if they can be fired, even more market.

To be clear I am not saying unions are incompatible, a market system that creates wealth can be combined with a multitude of tools that redistribute it better than the market can. Unions historically have been one of those tools. I just don't believe that increasing monopolistic power of labor to be the best way of doing this.

Yeah, the way it is structured would be important. I like the idea of voluntary membership with the primary function of collective bargaining, and a third party mediator that facilitates compromise.

Anyway, your earlier post describes a simple and elegant system that works. Capital is just going to keep eating up more and more of labor's share.

 

[Sidecontrol87]

I make pretty good money at Walmart. Clearly there are entry level positions, but as you move up the pay is decent. Been there about 6 yrs and will make 55-60k depending how my bonus lands. cost of living is low where im at (renting a nice 3 BR house for 600/mo) so it isn't bad at all. Also this year i have 31 paid days off.

 

[JohnnySagebrush]

We have to fly in a few guys from NYC to work on our chillers. Then they have to fly to Hawaii the next day.

Everyone is the trades that we bring in is old. There's hardly any younger guys. Our pay keeps getting higher and higher to keep us from moving out or retiring. The senior vice president of our company sat our entire shop down a month ago and asked us all what we wanted. We're getting two new work trucks, two new scissor lifts, one boom lift, one fork lift, a shitload of tools that we don't even need, and another pay raise... the 2nd pay raise we've had this year.

Wow, what field are you in?

I work as a firefighter. I try to pick up side work to supplement my income. I really enjoy tradeswork, and am a pretty good carpenter. In my city, I think someone working solely in the trades would have a difficult time. Most the jobs I see offered are offering under $15 an hour for jobs that require skills and tools, in an area where an average home is $300k. I’ve started just doing individual projects, a deck here and there, etc.
Trades salaries are very location dependent. Some of the better folks I’ve known have left to go to a different state and instantly nearly double their salary.

 

[Rhood]

One thing I noticed about the loss of factory jobs is the extreme boom of fast food jobs.
Does it seem like there's always a new burger shop rising up in your city?
America has ultimately become fast food nation.

 

[Gandhi]

Yeah, the way it is structured would be important. I like the idea of voluntary membership with the primary function of collective bargaining, and a third party mediator that facilitates compromise.

Anyway, your earlier post describes a simple and elegant system that works. Capital is just going to keep eating up more and more of labor's share.

Agree with the post except I have some differences on the last sentence. I don’t think capital eats up labor’s share. Without capital (or more importantly the innovation that a market based system allows) there is no share. In that sense labor is just another input into the system that is paid what supply and demand dictates. Also there is many cases on a world wide level of market economics decreasing poverty. So while the relative share has gone down, the rising tide has still raised all boats.

That being said, I then kinda have to walk this all back from some 100% free market conclusion for a whole bunch of reasons. The first is that even though the market has worked down global poverty it has massively increased 1st world wealth for the top but left the bottom and middle of the 1st world stagnant. The second is that absent some form of social transfer, free markets always are accompanied by some amount of poverty.

Finally on a philosophical basis society imo should aim for increasing social utility the most and that means a $1 in the hands of a poor person creates more marginal utility than a $1 in a millionaire’s hand. However in striving for max utility, this mathematical reality has to be balanced against the economic one, that too much redistribution will kill economic incentives. So there is a limit needed.

Even if one rejects that philosophy, then they need to acknowledge that if you want to treat labor as “just another input” into the economy, you risk losing the consent of the masses. So you have to at least buy them off with some redistribution.

The only other thing I would add is that wealth = power, so to much unfettered concentration with 0 intrreferance is a threat to democracy.

Sorry for the rant .

 

[WorldofWarcraft]

Wow, what field are you in?

I work as a firefighter. I try to pick up side work to supplement my income. I really enjoy tradeswork, and am a pretty good carpenter. In my city, I think someone working solely in the trades would have a difficult time. Most the jobs I see offered are offering under $15 an hour for jobs that require skills and tools, in an area where an average home is $300k. I’ve started just doing individual projects, a deck here and there, etc.
Trades salaries are very location dependent. Some of the better folks I’ve known have left to go to a different state and instantly nearly double their salary.

We work in maintenance.

 

[SomebodyElse]

On net, it's better to have rich trading partners. Viva's generally not too sharp so he probably won't be able to defend what he's saying, but it is a myth that the destruction of trading partners was a positive for the U.S. economy.

IF that is what he meant, then he is correct. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and drop it.

 

[sickc0d3r]

Agree with the post except I have some differences on the last sentence. I don’t think capital eats up labor’s share. Without capital (or more imprtantly the innovation that a market based system allows) there is no share. In that sense labor is just another input into the system that is paid what supply and demand dictates. Also there is many cases on a world wide level of market economics decreasing poverty. So while the relative share has gone down, the rising tide has still raised all boats.

That being said, I then kinda have to walk this all back from some 100% free market conclusion for a whole bunch of reasons. The first is that even though the market has worked down global poverty it has massively increased 1st world wealth for the top but left the bottom and middle of the 1st world stagnant. The second is that absent some form of social transfer, free markets always are accompanied by some amount of poverty.

Finally on a philosophical basis society imo should aim for increasing social utility the most and that means a $1 in the hands of a poor person creates more marginal utility than a $1 in a millionaire’s hand. However in striving for max utility, this mathematical reality has to be balanced against the economic one, that too much redistribution will kill economic incentives. So there is a limit needed.

Even if one rejects that philosophy, then they need to acknowledge that if you want to treat labor as “just another input” into the economy, you risk losing the consent of the masses. So you have to at least buy them off with some redistribution.

The only other thing I would add is that wealth = power, so to much unfettered concentration with 0 intrreferance is a threat to democracy.

Sorry for the rant .

I think an increasing share of income to capital has an indisputable effect on wealth inequality, but, yes, it is offset to a degree by increased production. Driving up production is always a good thing. I'm with you on your other points. Pure capitalism requires external protection against extreme inequality. Empirical mechanisms for redistribution not only maximize utility, they are appropriate morally.

Don't be sorry, your rants are welcome around here, imo.

 

[VivaRevolution]

When they point to it as citation for expectation of performance? Yes, absolutely.

It's like complaining about your Center failing to score 100 points in a game.




What is a lie regarding WW2?

This?

Sorry Viva, you are in WAAYYYY over your head here.

Lol, your own chart shows a straight line increasing at a steady rate for gdp with exception of the great depression and WWII. Seems to me you shot your own theory in the foot.

 

[VivaRevolution]

I understand what you’re saying 100%.
If you can lay out a blueprint for how things could go from here and work for everybody, you’ll be a legend and I’ll humbly admire from the sidelines.

The pragmatic side of me instead tries to imagine where on this cycle we are as a people.

I’d imagine the poor in America are about 12.7% of the way between dependence and tyranny. A few more ticks of the clock for the middle class is when the prelims are over and the main event starts.

I think the cycle goes revolution, rebuilding, complacency, corruption, revolution, and that we are to corruption.

 

[VivaRevolution]

I remember during the last World Cup when Germany won, there was news piece that came entitled something along the lines of how germans are truely the master race or something.

It goes on to talk about how their economy is doing so well, and have a solid middle class, and how most of their largest companies are just small to medium size across all industries including manufacturing. And of course it mentions that they lost two world wars, and inspite of sanctions, becoming the heel of video games, movies, and literature, and reparations are still where and what they are now.

Maybe that is the key. To be more like the Germans, and copy their model.

Which I would argue is very similar to Scandanavian countries, and what Bernie means when he says we should take what is working there, and apply it here.

 

[VivaRevolution]

Honest question for you here. And I believe Trump voters, and economic progressives (not the other half of Bernie folks, or SJWimps) have a lot in common.



Do you really think that is possible in today's world where a company can just pick up, move to a lower taxed nation, and ship products back into the country?

I believe I've seen you mention tariffs etc before, is that how you plan on getting around this?

My answer is two fold here.

First, we could have a labor revolution for our service sector jobs. This would help a lot I think, but the service sector does not have the margins that manufacturing does.

Second, as far as companies picking up and leaving, there are multiple ways to combat this. You could use pre-emptive tariffs, but I think the smarter way to go about this would be to make example out of companies that do this. No one will have sympathy for a company picking up, and moving overseas. This path would minimize the risk of trade war, as it is a targeted approach. That is just one example. Germany uses a VAT tax that serves as a protectionist measure, dressed up, and marketed as a tax.

 

[woodguyatl]

Here in Atlanta the HVAC industry is begging for technicians. The program is 18 months in community college.

 

[m52nickerson]

When I hear people say that if you work hard, and make good decisions, you will be successful, what I hear, is them saying you should work at Wal-Mart if you don't go to college.

See, I don't want to take things from others more successful, what I want is for the average person, with an average high school diploma, is given the opportunity to have a middle class life style.

Factory jobs in this country used to suck. They paid shit wages, and people died all the time at work. Then we had a labor revolution, where we took shit paying unsafe jobs, and forced employers through law to offer middle class wages, and safe work conditions.

When I was 16, in 1996 I was a high school drop out. I was able to find a job as a machinist grunt. The worked sucked, long hours, shit pay, but if I would have stuck with it, in 6 years I would have been making a middle class wage. Those opportunities were few and far between in 1996 compared to 1966, and they are almost non-existent today.

Most of us seem to agree that the American middle class is disappearing, and I don't think any tax plan, or regulation is going to fix that.

We need another labor revolution in this country. We don't need to empower the old corrupt unions, we need to organize, and create a new union structure, in the spirit of Jefferson's quote, of let there never be 20 years without a revolution such as this. Let us start fresh, where systems are uncorrupted and can actually work.

We need a national union. 1 union for all workers, to match the power of the bohemeths of the corporate, and government bodies.

If we have a need for a national guard, national Social Security, national Medicare, then we have a need for a national Union, with the collective bargaining power of every US worker that chooses to join.

Discuss......

One national union is a horrible idea. The largest reason many unions got corrupt is because they got to big. You had a lot of people who worked and made a lot of money simply being union bosses and not employees of the company or trade the union represented. I agree we need stronger unions, but they have to be smaller local ones.

 

[Thycidides]

I like the idea of a national union, but it seems more likely that some sort of basic income is implemented along with fairer income tax etc

Personally I would love to join a union but I live in a right to work state. There is a huge collective action problem to organize one and so on.

Also the ones we have now in usa kind of suck, and I know that from reading the Jacobin.

 

[panamaican]

We need to get rid of the notion that poor = lazy and rich = hard working.

In the modern economy, this is probably the most important change in thinking that needs to be made.

 

[Renard]

At the very least having any kind of a postsecondary diploma shows an ability and perhaps a desire to learn.

For sure. It's a little weird to only have a high school diploma - you're not specialized or trained in anything.

 

[sub_thug]

The OP seems to be arguing that there should be the creation of a large amount of blue-collar, unskilled jobs that pay as much as skilled or white-collar jobs that support the highest standard of living in American history in an era of increased automation and increased competition in the global economy. Please tell me how the mathematics of this even begin to make sense.