W2F

Its so obvious that most of you have no clue about Unions or even care to and its not really my job to educate you but your not helping this country by being a subservient wage slave either.

Its not in dispute that the "American dream" is over.

Our wages are down cost of living is up, insurance is over the top.

We have the most expensive healthcare in the world and are ranked 23rd in terms of care by the world health organization.

Americans work more for less all the while the greedy CEO's have granted themselves massive raises while running companies into the ground.

This country is number four in terms of wealth disparity and that means only three other countries have greater income gaps between the poor and the rich.


This country has troubles for sure buts its not the Unions its the lack of unions allowing companies to pay third world wages.

We can build a better future for our kids or we can continue to slip into third world status by arguing we should all work more for less.

don't forget,there is a Guy behind you who is looking for his just Share of what you own!
It's the Nature of the Beast!

Ten Numbers the Rich Would Like Fudged
The numbers reveal the deadening effects of inequality in our country, and confirm that tax avoidance, rather than a lack of middle-class initiative, is the cause.



1. Only THREE PERCENT of the very rich are entrepreneurs.

According to both Marketwatch and economist Edward Wolff, over 90 percent of the assets owned by millionaires are held in a combination of low-risk investments (bonds and cash), personal business accounts, the stock market, and real estate. Only 3.6 percent of taxpayers in the top .1% were classified as entrepreneurs based on 2004 tax returns. A 2009 Kauffman Foundation study found that the great majority of entrepreneurs come from middle-class backgrounds, with less than 1 percent of all entrepreneurs coming from very rich or very poor backgrounds.photo: withayou via flickr

2. Only FOUR OUT OF 150 countries have more wealth inequality than us.

In a world listing compiled by a reputable research team (which nevertheless prompted double-checking), the U.S. has greater wealth inequality than every measured country in the world except for Namibia, Zimbabwe, Denmark, and Switzerland.

3. An amount equal to ONE-HALF the GDP is held untaxed overseas by rich Americans.

The Tax Justice Network estimated that between $21 and $32 trillion is hidden offshore, untaxed. With Americans making up 40% of the world's Ultra High Net Worth Individuals, that's $8 to $12 trillion in U.S. money stashed in far-off hiding places.

Based on a historical stock market return of 6%, up to $750 billion of income is lost to the U.S. every year, resulting in a tax loss of about $260 billion.

4. Corporations stopped paying HALF OF THEIR TAXES after the recession.

After paying an average of 22.5% from 1987 to 2008, corporations have paid an annual rate of 10% since. This represents a sudden $250 billion annual loss in taxes.

U.S. corporations have shown a pattern of tax reluctance for more than 50 years, despite building their businesses with American research and infrastructure. They've passed the responsibility on to their workers. For every dollar of workers' payroll tax paid in the 1950s, corporations paid three dollars. Now it's 22 cents.

5. Just TEN Americans made a total of FIFTY BILLION DOLLARS in one year.

That's enough to pay the salaries of over a million nurses or teachers or emergency responders.

That's enough, according to 2008 estimates by the Food and Agriculture Organization and the UN's World Food Program, to feed the 870 million people in the world who are lacking sufficient food.

For the free-market advocates who say "they've earned it": Point #1 above makes it clear how the wealthy make their money.

6. Tax deductions for the rich could pay off 100 PERCENT of the deficit.

Another stat that required a double-check. Based on research by the Tax Policy Center, tax deferrals and deductions and other forms of tax expenditures (tax subsidies from special deductions, exemptions, exclusions, credits, capital gains, and loopholes), which largely benefit the rich, are worth about 7.4% of the GDP, or about $1.1 trillion.

Other sources have estimated that about two-thirds of the annual $850 billion in tax expenditures goes to the top quintile of taxpayers.

7. The average single black or Hispanic woman has about $100 IN NET WORTH.

The Insight Center for Community Economic Development reported that median wealth for black and Hispanic women is a little over $100. That's much less than one percent of the median wealth for single white women ($41,500).

Other studies confirm the racially-charged economic inequality in our country. For every dollar of NON-HOME wealth owned by white families, people of color have only one cent.

8. Elderly and disabled food stamp recipients get $4.30 A DAY FOR FOOD.

Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) has dropped significantly over the past 15 years, serving only about a quarter of the families in poverty, and paying less than $400 per month for a family of three for housing and other necessities. Ninety percent of the available benefits go to the elderly, the disabled, or working households.

Food stamp recipients get $4.30 a day.

9. Young adults have lost TWO-THIRDS OF THEIR NET WORTH since 1984.

21- to 35-year-olds: Your median net worth has dropped 68% since 1984. It's now less than $4,000.

That $4,000 has to pay for student loans that average $27,200. Or, if you're still in school, for $12,700 in credit card debt.

With an unemployment rate for 16- to 24-year-olds of almost 50%, two out of every five recent college graduates are living with their parents. But your favorite company may be hiring. Apple, which makes a profit of $420,000 per employee, can pay you about $12 per hour.

10. The American public paid about FOUR TRILLION DOLLARS to bail out the banks.

That's about the same amount of money made by America's richest 10% in one year. But we all paid for the bailout. And because of it, we lost the opportunity for jobs, mortgage relief, and educational funding.

Bonus for the super-rich: A QUADRILLION DOLLARS in securities trading nets ZERO sales tax revenue for the U.S.

The world derivatives market is estimated to be worth over a quadrillion dollars (a thousand trillion). At least $200 trillion of that is in the United States. In 2011 the Chicago Mercantile Exchange reported a trading volume of over $1 quadrillion on 3.4 billion annual contracts.

A quadrillion dollars. A sales tax of ONE-TENTH OF A PENNY on a quadrillion dollars could pay off the deficit. But the total sales tax was ZERO.

It's not surprising that the very rich would like to fudge the numbers, as they have the nation.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/11/19-3

YAWN!

Ignore the other country for a change. You are trying to compare apples to oranges again.

Again you are trying to equate greed and money to the core of our issue here. Again YOU are missing the point where others have tried to EDUCATE YOU!

Unions are POLITICAL ENTITIES NOW! and Politics serves us how these days?

So how about a little personal wake up for yourself? Again ONE UNION MAKES CONCESSIONS TO SAVE THEIR JOBS AND ANOTHER COMES IN SPEWING NEW DEMANDS! So what.


Unions have become the enemy they once fought. So get over yourself.

Ok Andy lets all work longer hours and harder for less pay you win.

No, I will one up you!

Let's all kill the goose that laid the golden eggs and eat it because we got tired of Omlettes!

In the REAL world those who make the millions have to put in longer hours than you my friend! You think money comes easily? please, I have worked for a lot of Attorneys over the years. Some of them would pull five 14 hour days for weeks to keep up with their work load. They got no union but they have futures thanks to a lot of hard work.

You my friend have no CLUE what hard work is. When you have done roofing AND Plumbing (And I mean doing the actual repipes crawling under houses to do the work) then you may come to me with an argument about a hard day of work. I also did OLD SCHOOL hardwood flooring for four years. I have done my share of construction over the years. I dug my share of holes too. And all of this to keep up with a fickle job market to survive. YOUR union is not there for me and YOUR union is not there for the Employer! It is all there for you, YOU, YOU! Oh but "it is there for us too." Really?

Are you trying to sell Ice Cream and Refrigerators to Eskimos again?

How odd you should ramble about plumbing. Monday I discovered my sump pump under my house was out. so I crawled through four inches of water to the pump( I live near lake Erie with a high water table so we cant have basements so all the houses are on a crawlspace or slab)

Anyhow.. it turned out after replacing the pump I actually had a bad switch so I ran an extension cord through the rafter beams and crawled
through the water again and got it all pumped out.

I just finished putting in a new GFI switch and trouble is solved.


But your right about one thing I don't have to hustle building custom fish tanks and worry about healthcare or a pension. I just need to go to work and get paid my Union rate pay at 24.63 an hour plus overtime.

I tend 4 state of the art lathes that are robot fed and I tend the robot that feeds them I change tooling check fluid levels make precision measurements and offset to blue print specs.

There are many ways to put food on the table some choose to build fish tanks.

I chose to hitch my horse to a union company with union wages and benefits.

For every union company that goes under there are just as many non union that go under so your arguments seem to be absurd.

Again I don't do Aquariums any more. I moved up in life. job sucked so I moved on! What is so hard about that logic? And on top of that when you personally have had to wear the banana suit with an air hose under a house to set a pump to get raw sewage out from under it and do that for a living or have done that for a living.

And now for a really good engineering question, what idiot puts a sump pump under their house and does not install an access hatch for it? Even I know that one! Then again you may not have the same building codes we have to face here.

Now this makes sense to me. You are a Machinist. I met a few in my day with the same holier than thou attitude problem prevalent among "YOUR" trade.

Now let us put things in perspective here. You chose to work for someone else to entertain a wage. I am in what I do for PROFIT. I want to make LOTS and LOTS of money but the problem is the more people between the money and me means I get less in the end. Again I am in SHIPPING now. But that is not the only thing I am doing. Like I said before I am getting into business for myself, not the other guy! And it is only GOVERNMENT SUBSIDIZED BUSINESSES WITH UNIONS THAT ARE SURVIVING WHILE YOUR OTHER UNION SHOPS ARE DROPPING LIKE FLIES! here is a Union sucking wind these days. THE SHIPWRIGHTS' UNION! Why? We can't build ships for as cheap as they do, OVER THERE.

You know if you keep patting yourself on the back too much you may have one appear!

Allot of companies are dropping like flies union or not.

Little Debbie snacks are union but I suspect they are a much better managed company.


My job history also includes allot of dirty jobs and am not proud of all of them but I did them none the less.

Of course I am proud of myself to start at the bottom of the pecking order and rise to one of the highest paid jobs in my company outside of management.

I dont think I pat myself on the back but I know when I am right about something.

You can have the last word domestic items are checked off the list and its time for some R@R.

It was nice to have yesterday and today off with pay.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/remains-of-ancient-race-of-job-creators-found-in-r,26490/

Remains Of Ancient Race Of Job Creators Found In Rust Belt

WASHINGTON—A team of leading archaeologists announced Monday they had uncovered the remains of an ancient job-creating race that, at the peak of its civilization, may have provided occupations for hundreds of thousands of humans in the American Northeast and Midwest.

According to researchers, these long- forgotten people once flourished between western New York state and Illinois, erecting highly distinctive steel and brick structures wherever they went, including many buildings thought to have held hundreds of paid workers at a time.

"It's truly fascinating—after spending a certain number of hours performing assigned tasks, the so-called 'employees' at such facilities would receive monetary compensation that allowed them to support themselves and their families," said archaeologist Alan H. Mueller, citing old ledgers and time-keeping devices unearthed at excavation sites in the region. "In fact, this practice seems to have been the norm for their culture, which consisted of advanced tool users capable of exploiting their skills to produce highly valued goods and services."

"It's a complex and intriguing set of rituals we're still trying to fully understand," Mueller added. "But it appears as if their entire society was centered around creating, out of thin air, actual jobs that paid an actual living wage."

With his team having so far cataloged the decaying ruins of more than 400 edifices believed to have been used solely for human employment, Mueller said he now believes the inhabitants of mid-20th-century North America may have built their territory—in particular, the Great Lakes region and northern Appalachia—into one of the most advanced and prosperous civilizations in the world.

Numerous scholars told reporters the findings have challenged everything they thought they knew about the fundamental organization of human societies, calling it "staggering" and "almost unbelievable" that a culture predating our own had been able to provide work to nearly every person who sought it.

"By today's standards, the job creators' society was highly unusual," anthropologist Carla Delgado of the Smithsonian Institution said. "One of its more bizarre customs involved workers being employed at the same job at the same location day in and day out for their entire adult lives. It was grueling, perhaps, but astonishingly, some of these individuals were able to set aside part of their earnings for the future, slowly saving money with the hope of improving the prospects of their offspring."

"The amazing part is, this bafflingly high level of economic security went on for generations," Delgado added.

Archaeologists who participated in digs on the sites described ghostly scenes of intact but empty homes, halted conveyor belts, and crumbling storehouses still full of the lost people's signature "auto parts."

By examining recovered artifacts, they have reportedly been able to decipher the names of what they speculate must have been the grandest settlements from the height of the job creators' empire: cities known among the ancients as Gary, Lansing, Cleve-Land, Sandusky, and Pitt's Burg.

While stories have long been told of a great vanished race of job creators roaming the Midwest and providing employment to all able- bodied adults, historians said such accounts had previously been dismissed as apocryphal by the academic community.

"Tales of a long-passed time when jobs outnumbered people are particularly common among the region's older population," Professor Albert Decker of Rutgers University said. "Oral histories handed down across generations tell of travelers who, ages ago, ventured into the bleakest deeps of Illinois and saw grand, temple-like structures billowing smoke into the heavens as steely beams and flickering electrical boxes were fashioned from raw materials. What reason had we to believe such things could be possible?"

As to how the ancient cities of employment fell into ruin, scholars have argued the job creators may have exhausted their resources or, perhaps, been killed off by a competing race of foreign job creators.

"The remaining local population has its own mythology to explain the job-creating race's disappearance," Decker said. "Legend has it that they never died out, but rather entered a state of deep slumber from which they will one day awaken, bringing increased employment with them."

"And perhaps it's best to let the locals hold on to this belief," Decker added. "It's really the only thing they have left."

Folks, in the end, it all comes down to how much consumers are willing to pay for goods and services.

If unionization results in higher prices for goods and services, then consumers can make purchases from businesses that offer lower prices as a result of little or no unionization.

^^^^^^^Life in the real world!^^^^^^^^^^




Business is indeed the consumer's bytch!

Nothing your friendly Neighborhood-Politician couldn't fix!

Folks in the end it really comes down to how little Americans will work for.

Will you work for declining wages ?
Will you allow CEO's to grant themselves massive pay increases while driving companies into the ground?

Will you allow the rich to lobby congress to lower their taxes while increasing yours?

Enough is enough.

wake up.

Do you have a job Andy?

If it weren't for the Political Power they wield,they would have been gone the way of the Dodo,linger than the Dodo has been gone!