Politics What is happening????

So the die was cast today and I didn't have to make a decision. They talked about their drug policy and since this job would require working with heavy machinery (it's a factory job making parts for Honda for $9.25/hr), my prescribed meds (Ambien, Hydroxyzine, Keppra, and Tegretol, exclude me from the job, because of possible injury and damage to the machinery (or so I was told, the Temp agency has no say in the matter).

The better news is I was called in for an interview for a job working with MR/DD, I interview Friday and it is at least local and offers overtime. Where this will leave me with finances, I have no clue. But it sounds a little more promising than what I was looking at.

 

Pan, I'm lousy at debate in tfp...but I agree with your posts and think you have important ideas to share and discuss here. The common voter better be well read and use his BEST gut instict these days if he's voting. Us Americans are on the brink of some major game-change rules. If you're middle class (like I am) we really need help and direction and more than ever: Truth. We are on the edge of extinction and the future is looking bleak. If I had kids who are in Gen X - I'd be scared shitless for their future.

Keep on and share the Good Fight. There are us who appreciate your brave and honest writing.

 

A bit off topic, but maybe not.

Anyone who has ever shopped at Walmart is well aware of the fact that diversity of brand is not their strong suit.

I've done my grocery shopping at Kroger for years now. A little bit higher priced than the competition but I enjoyed the diversity of brands they offered. Slowly but surely, they've been offering less and less of a variety but still better than Walmart.

The last time I bought laundry detergent (a month ago) I had at least 10 different brands to choose from. I went with a brand name that was on sale.

I was shopping yesterday and remembered I needed more. I went to the detergent aisle and was floored to find only 4 brands to choose from. 4 brand name products and one bargain brand. None of them on sale, in fact all had almost doubled in price since the last time.

I paid a bit more attention as I continued my shopping and discovered that it wasn't only the laundry detergent varieties that had thinned out and increased in price.

I've also been noticing another trend. Entire aisles dedicated to very pricey specialty foods, cosmetics, hair and face products.

Less choices for basic items at a higher price. Very high prices for specialty and non-essential items. What's going on?

 

People get rich from mergers and acquisitions (along with the attorneys and accountants). It is the only way to renegotiate your worth if you are high up at a company and don't want to find a different job.

 

It hurts no matter where you put it.

 

I appreciate this and thank you. Everyone needs to know that they are being heard every now and then, even us curmudgeons.
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Shhhhh you are letting out Proctor and Gamble's big secret since they now own a bunch of the makeup brands. That's also how Wal*Mart has destroyed companies that "won't play ball with them". I often use Rubbermaid as a prime example of this. Rubber Maid was located here in North Central Ohio (Wooster, to be exact), had great employer/employee relations was a very well run company and consistently was rated one of the best brand names in America. They were a beacon of what a company with very strong leadership, who paid their non union employees well, giving tremendous benefits while maintaining community and fiscal responsibility. If I owned a factory, I would very much base it on the Rubber Maid example.

Wal*Mart went to Rubber Maid and asked them to lower their prices so Wal*Mart could sell them more (even though it was one of Wal*Mart's biggest in store selling brands). Knowing it would hurt their famous quality, Rubber Maid said, "NOPE". Wal*Mart thus threw ALL Rubber Maid products out of their stores and in their place, promoted a brand they had financial interest in, Steri-Lite, which is cheaper made, does not compare in quality and endurance.

Anyway, Rubber Maid ended up fighting for awhile but in the long run, other stores started selling Steri-Lite. Rubber Maid came out with what was to be sadly their biggest idea. I say sadly, because Wal*Mart had Steri-Lite put the product on the market a few months before Rubber Maid could introduce the product to the public a new "Cool Blue" color. When Rubber maid came out with it Wal*Mart and it's close buddy Steri-Lite (even at other stores) decided to drop prices on their "cool blue". What ended up happening is Rubber Maid went down in value and Newell came in and with Wal*Mart brokering the hostile takeover took over Rubber Maid, wiping out the excellent employee benefits and lowering Rubber Maid's famed reputation as a trusted brand name. Rubber maid ended up closing the Wooster facility after a storm did a little damage (that was investigated as possible sabotage and insurance fraud) but that gave Newell reason to close that plant and pull out of Wooster, costing 1000's of well paid jobs. Now, you have Steri-Lite's cheaper products monopolizing the market, where yeah, there are factory jobs but they are also "Temp" jobs with no benefits and minimum waged jobs. So who won?

Wal*Mart also did something very similar to Hoover Vacuums and Canton, Ohio's workforce, selling once to Maytag (which kept operations in Ohio and Hoover profitable in 1989, then to Chinese owned Techtronic Industries which consolidated white collar jobs to Iowa, then in the name of lower priced product sent the jobs that made Canton famous to Mexico. Costing the area 1000's more jobs inside the factory/the warehouse and so on plus the small mom and pop places that relied on Hoover employee's business.

People (usually Republicans), argue that is just how the "free market works". How is that exactly? Destroy a quality company and then set up monopolies? Sending the jobs to Mexico for cheaper wages or using temp agencies to staff for minimum wages with no benefits?

I go to Wal*Mart primarily for 2 reasons. They are the cheapest around for Diet Rite 2 liters (and for some reason I like the non caffeinated, Splenda Diet Rite product more so than Pepsi or Coke products which are more expensive.

And, personally, I don't see why it is off topic, it is a concern that does need to be talked about.
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Money is KING, don't you know that?

It's funny, 100 years ago there was a GOP president, one the Republican Party considered its greatest (until Reagan), Theodore Roosevelt fought against monopolies and oligopolies and here today that same party is in the pocket of those wishing to create the monopolies and oligopolies. And I have a feeling 95% of those considering themselves Republicans have no idea who teddy Roosevelt was other than "The Rough Rider president" or what he did. But they'll hold him up as a great GOP president. He was a "PROGRESSIVE" oh by the way and if you like the man's ideas then there is no way you could support what the GOP is today.
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Yeah those in Time Warner never forgave that "hick", Ted Turner for his hostile takeover (anyone remember Time Warner - Turner?). So they agreed to the AOL merger where he would "share" the CEO title with AOL's CEO. Not long after Ted went from just about everyone knowing his name to, "Isn't he some kook up in Montana (One of Montana's largest landowners) raising Bison?" And then AOL was sold off and Time Warner garnered the technology to create Road Runner's technology. AOL has pretty much gone the way of CompuServe, since then. Turner Network has become TNT and they very rarely if EVER use his name, except recently on Conan O'Brien (on the old Turner flagship TBS (Turner Broadcasting System)) as an old crazed insane man, a butt of jokes.

So yeah Ted Turner and AOL's CEO really profited since both are now pretty much not even affiliated with the companies they created.

From wiki:

Guess that will teach him to go up against Rupert Murdoch and the Christian community. Since the loss of Turner CNN has lost ratings and what appears to be purpose and direction, WCW (World Championship Wrestling) a company Turner built to be a competitor to WWE(F) has been sold and disbanded by WWE Chairman Vince McMahon. BUT while Turner had say, he was effectively destroying the WWE, as soon as he was gone Time Warner sold it.

 

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Doesn't sound much different than the Reagan-nomics crowd:​

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OCCUPY Wall Street, according to Andrew Mellon, (banker, "robber baron", and Tsy Secy for Calvin Coolidge)​

Mellon championed preferential treatment for "earned" income relative to "unearned" income. As he argued in his 1924 book, Taxation: The People's Business​

The fairness of taxing more lightly income from wages, salaries or [versus] from investments is BEYOND QUESTION. ​

In the first case, the income is uncertain and limited in duration; sickness or death destroys it and old age diminishes it; in the other, the source of income continues; the income may be disposed of during a man’s life and it descends to his heirs.​

Surely we can afford to make a distinction between the people whose only capital is their mettle and physical energy and the people whose income is derived from investments. Such a distinction would mean much to millions of American workers and would be an added inspiration to the man who must provide a competence during his few productive years to care for himself and his family when his earnings capacity is at an end.​

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On the other hand, Mellon was also an Austerity kook who arguably played a huge role in causing the Roaring 20's inflationary bubble, and then made the Great Depression worse by insisting on a balanced budget. He also pushed foreign policy that punished Germany via European winners via Versailles Treaty, leading to the rise of the Nazi Party, and World War II that ironically cured the Depression via massive Budget Deficit spending.​

Mellon became unpopular with the onset of the Great Depression. He advised President Herbert Hoover to ​

"liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate farmers, liquidate real estate… it will purge the rottenness out of the​

system. High costs of living and high living will come down. People will work harder, live a more moral life. Values will be adjusted, and enterprising people will pick up from less competent people."​

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Additionally, he advocated weeding out "weak" banks as a harsh but necessary prerequisite to the recovery of the banking system. This "weeding out" was accomplished through refusing to lend cash to banks (taking loans and other investments as collateral), and by refusing to put more cash in circulation. ​

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He advocated spending cuts to keep the federal budget balanced, and opposed fiscal stimulus measures. In 1929–31, he spent much of the time overseas, negotiating for repayment of European war debts from World War I.​

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Later he was tried, but not convicted, for being a tax cheat.​

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A new way that "For Profit Prisons" are getting populated.... VERY SCARY. And Ohio is one of the states. No defense lawyers allowed...

Jailed for $280: The Return of Debtors' Prisons - Yahoo! Finance

 

wow.

 

Even though the national debt can't be blamed solely on Democrats or Republicans, and the unfunded liabilities for social security/medicare aren't looking too good. While things are close to being back to normal, we are still just living on borrowed time unless something gets done that both sides won't like.

I wonder how much debt the USSR had when it broke apart? How about a lot of other countries around the world that have had financial problems? (Argentina, Portugal, Japan, Pakistan, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Hungary, Spain, Mexico, Brazil, Europe, Asia, and Africa is pretty much always a mess.) Just type in "[country name] financial crisis" into Yahoo! or Google and it will probably be there. Are the people running the economy stupid or corrupt?