Florida State Seminoles

[eCat]

[Tree]

It is unfair and absurd but more to the point it's what you get when you let a tiny group of people own the means of production.

Side note didn't Nixon fix gas prices in the 70's to prevent inflation? It's just something the govt should be doing in a capitalist economy, pervasive rightie propaganda notwithstanding.

[eCat]

price fixing and caplitalist do not go together.

first, how can you fix the price of gas when we import it ? We are the mercy of supply and demand and it doesn't look like Biden is too interested in increasing Americas supply.

What's amazing is the price of gas is rising during a pandemic when a significant percentage of Americans aren't even commuting to work on a daily basis.

What you can count on with capitalism, that you are missing with your price fixing mentality is the idea of someone building a better mousetrap.

Initially costs will be passed on to the consumer to the extent the company can be competitive, but somewhere along the way someone will figure out a cheaper way to create and sell the product in the name of competition. Price fixing eliminates that competitiveness. Think of the airlines now and back in the 80's before deregulation.

Yes, the air travel experience was more enjoyable but airline ticket prices limited air travel to the middle class. Deregulation allowed budget airlines to come in, cut costs and pass those savings on to the consumer, opening up airfare to people who now take their shoes off and hang their feet over the back of seat in front of them or bring their emotional support service animal chicken with them.

its not rightie propaganda, its basic economics.

[Jungle Rat]

"What's amazing is the price of gas is rising during a pandemic when a significant percentage of Americans aren't even commuting to work on a daily basis."

I don't agree with that at all. They weren't last year to the point that 18% more were staying home because of the pandemic. Things are open almost everywhere now, for now,
How can you not justify a demand?

[Tree]

They have to go together. All the right wants to do is spend billions on mountains of propaganda and paid think tank economist papers to justify what they have wanted to do (free trade, zero regs on anything, switch from Keynes to Friedman, union busting, etc). At the end of the day though if you don't have a government that can step in in times of crisis to keep people from getting crushed, that's exactly what you'll get, millions of folks losing their shirt. And house. And maybe even their ability to feed themselves.

The better mousetrap is admittedly a data point that goes the other way. It has its place in all this but it shouldn't be held up as the be all end all. Protecting Americans from devastation at the hands of greedy capitalists should.

[eCat]

i agree that a very small percentage of Americans should not have whatever emabarassing % it is of the total wealth and we've learned that trickle down economics is horseshit.

What I think Americans are going to wake up too very soon is the idea that unions are anti-American or are some Communist plot. Unions give the American worker a voice and should play a role in determining our immigration status , our standard wages and our trading policies.

I'm 100% behind the support of unions as long as states are right to work and unions are heavily regulated when it comes to employee dues, loans, pensions and the like.

[Dave23]

I can’t understand anyone casting a vote for that doofus.

[Dave23]

Tell someone you don’t understand how business works without saying “I don’t understand how business works”…

[Tree]

As for unions, 'right to work" is just a way for the super rich to drill holes in them. There's a reason these people support what they do and it's almost never the common good. Having said that the labor unions that still exist do appear to be heavily corrupt and need to be reconfigured.

[innocentbystander]

It is unfair and absurd but more to the point it's what you get when you let a tiny group of people own the means of production.

Side note didn't Nixon fix gas prices in the 70's to prevent inflation? It's just something the govt should be doing in a capitalist economy, pervasive rightie propaganda notwithstanding.

Nixon wasn't the only one. We forget that there were TWO OPEC oil crisis events:

• 1973: United States supports Israel in Yom Kippor War, and Arab nations refuse to sell the United States oil so Nixon freezes prices
• 1979: United States supports Shah of Iran and Ahatolah Komeni and the rest of Iran goes batfuck crazy, they take our embassy, and the Arab nations refuse to sell the United States oil so Carter freezes prices

The 1973 oil crisis was the SOLE MOTIVATION for the construction of the Alaskan pipeline. There would have been NO PIPELINE without the 1973 oil crisis.

With the 1979 oil crisis we were re-opening wells in Texas and Oklahoma that we had closed down since the late 1960s when oil was a glut. Then we got oil centered movies like Mad Max in 1979, Urban Cowboy in 1980, The Road Warrior in 1981, and Midland Texas opens a Rolls Royce dealership.

Nixon and Carter both fucked up. They thought that they could keep people from shooting each other in the 1970s by fixing gasoline prices. All that did was create a super shortage of gasoline (since Texas, Oklahoma, and Alaska couldn't keep up with demand) and create long lines at the pumps. I'm old enough to remember waking up at 5 in the morning and my parents threw me in the car to get in line for 2 and half hours to get a damn tank of gasoline because we were only able to buy gas on certain days based on the letters or numbers on your license plate. It was that bad. My dad's firm, all the guys in the office threw in together and bought this 18 passenger van and they were doing 120 minute "commutes" to the office by picking everyone up at their house and driving them all to work together so that the cars could stay parked in the driveway.

Tree, no one here wants that again.

Having government fix prices is anti-capitalist. Both Presidents were given the wrong advice from economists who knew nothing about economics. But if you listen to the left and their constant "crusade" against CO2 in the atmosphere (CO2 is "food" for every plant on the earth, I might add) I'm sure their "economists" and "scientists" insist that we need to once again fix oil prices, but they want them HIGH not low (and just collect the difference in taxes and give that money to the 3rd world.) We don't need numbfucks like that in government setting prices based on their religious faith in CO2 being poison and raising the temperature of the earth.

By the by, it was Carter who de-regulated the airline industry, the best thing to ever come out of his administration.

[innocentbystander]

As for unions, 'right to work" is just a way for the super rich to drill holes in them. There's a reason these people support what they do and it's almost never the common good. Having said that the labor unions that still exist do appear to be heavily corrupt and need to be reconfigured.

The problem we have now with unions is not the concept of the "Right to Work" state. That is not the problem and has never been the problem. If people want to form a union in a Right to Work state, they can, and every "worker" at that plant will join the union even if they have the right NOT TO. That is not the issue.

The issue tree is that we are no longer in the Atomic Age. We left that age in 1991 and we are in the information age. All our well formed work (that a union can set up a contract to properly "define") has been sent to China. The more well formed the work, the easier it is to send it to another country OR have it replaced by automation. Tree, how do you get 100 computer scientists who write code for a living to sign a contract and form a union? You can't. Their job changes every day. Every day. There is no 3rd party who could possible define the responsibilities of their job and put it into a contract and have their employer sign it because there is no union on the earth who could possibly understand what IT people do all day. That is not going to happen.

Yes unions are disappearing. But that is because of the age we live in, because of globalism sending manufacturing to China, NOT because of Right to Work states. You must unlearn that which you have learned.

[Tree]

I've known for a while that at some point you climbed down the rabbit hole, IB. Hope you're enjoying the fantasy world down there.

[Jungle Rat]

How do we cover the hole? Where's Doc?

[innocentbystander]

I've known for a while that at some point you climbed down the rabbit hole, IB. Hope you're enjoying the fantasy world down there.

Tree, without a collective bargaining agreement (a contract) you can not form a union. Its impossible. How does a 3rd party form a collective bargaining agreement for IT people (or anyone for that matter) where their careers are based entirely on project work and those projects change day to day? That is the reason why education sucks in the United States, collective bargaining agreements signed by educators force the education process to be entirely well formed and rigid which ties the hands of administration who are trying to educate our children.

I welcome disagreement. But if you are going to disagree, its usually best to provide counter examples to what I have provided and explain exactly why my logic is not sound. You have not done that. Do that. If you don't do that, then I have to believe it is because you CAN'T do it.

[eCat]

wife and I got the shingles vaccine yesterday, today we both feel like we have flu like symptoms. Its a common side effect of it but I wasn't really expecting it. I've slept most of the day. I'm feeling better now but I'm still in the recliner not moving

I've known enough people that have had shingles that it was a no brainer. The bad thing is I have to do it again in 3 months.

[Jungle Rat]

It's a rainy Sunday. Could be worse.

[sardis]

Hey, you are not allowed to bring logic into this..

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/ ... s-councils

[hedge]

This guy is pretty good...

[innocentbystander]

Hey, you are not allowed to bring logic into this..

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/ ... s-councils

Exactly. Logic is soooooooo, racist and patriarchal. And I'm sure when those 5 governing bodies provided all the numbers and math to the government officials for them to set legislative policy, their response would likely be

I was told there would be no math.

[eCat]

Fauci says its "too soon to tell" if Americans should gather together for Xmas.

Meanwhile.....