Since it would appear that it is de rigueur to have up-to-the-minute polls on the new President's job performance, I feel that I have been somewhat remiss in waiting a whole 46 days to ask: How Do You Like Him So Far?
Pick a couple of things you really like, and couple of things you really don't, give a grade & explain. Easy, right? (Not for this crowd...)
As an experiment, how about if your first comment on this topic is about the topic and not another's comment, hmmmm? Think we can do that? There will be plenty of time for bickering later - god help us. (Don't make me turn this blog around!!!)
I'll update with my opinion - I wanted to post this, and I need time to do a little research and make sure that I have all of my facts right. (If I don't, I know I'll hear about it later...)
UPDATE: I decided to forget about research...I'm entitled to the same half-assed and hare-brained opinions as the rest of you!
Cheers: Hilda Solis for Labor Secty, Recovery.gov & FinancialStability.gov websites (transparency in government?), Hillary Clinton for Secty of State, putting war costs in budget, health care for the masses, setting a date for the end of the Occupation in Iraq
Jeers: Siding with the previous administration on warrantless wiretapping (WTF?!?!?!?)
TBD: Geithner as Treasury Secty, Gates as Defense Secty, Afghanistan policy
That's it, off the top of my head. As usual, I'll probably think of more as soon as I post this.
Overall: B-. The grade is weighed down by that one negative, plus the down side of the 'TBDs'.
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125 comments:
I'm not big on grades, but I'll say this: compare Obama's visibility and transparency with the previous administration. He is always out there, explaining, defending, promoting, and correcting misperceptions.
Now, I didn't mind seeing so little of Bush when he was in office, because looking at him made me physically ill, but it was no accident that he was rarely heard from in his 2nd term. Secrecy, obscurity, and disinformation being Bush/Cheney's watchwords. Even if you don't like Obama, he is very accountable for his actions by comparison.
He's starting the semester out right. As a mid-quarter grade I'd give him an A-. It would have been great if he could stop the market free-fall and get the republicans to work with him, but it's certainly not for lack of effort.
He is really trying - trying to reach out, trying to keep everyone together, trying to keep hope afloat.
There is much out of his control - especially in the scant 6 weeks or so since his innauguration. In many ways I feel that he's accomplished more than we have any right to expect - and he's definitely trying to start on the right foot with everyone.
I'm also a little tired of people constantly taking polls. It's been less than a single quarter, for god's sake! If he were working for some companies he wouldn't even be eligible for benefits yet! Jeez.
I am impressed, so far. Some point to the number of Obama's appointees who served under Clinton, as if those appointments contradict his promise of change. I disagree. People driven to join the federal government get in while they can and work their way up. A lot of great, talented people got in with the Clinton administration and now some of them are back. The fact that they started then doesn't bear on what they're committed to now. They're careerists, but they're pros.
The expeditious reversal of Bush era executive orders is great. Concrete plans to close Gitmo and to end the war on Iraq (that's not a typo) really impress me.
These are the things that immediately come to mind. I would say Obama is doing what I hoped he would do when I voted for him.
No comment. It's your turn at bat.
Abiding *strictly* to our hostess' rules:
2 things I like:
1) He appears to be talking straightforward and honestly to the American people
2) He's got the guts to try what on the surface appear to be somewhat radical ideas to make change and make'em quickly
`
2 things I don't like:
1) He *appears* to be talking straightforward and honestly to the American people
2) He's trying, what on the surface, appear to be somewhat radical ideas to make change and make'em quickly
`
So, obviously, I'm a wash
So far I'd give him a B-. On the plus side; stem cell research, equal pay, don't ask don't tell, and a positive outlook. The downside; giving money to AIG et al, a surge in Afghanistan, some dodgy appointments (Geitner), sucking up to the Republicans.
IDIOCRACY is on TV now, arguably the best movie about the Bush administration.
make sure that I have all of my facts right. (If I don't, I know I'll hear about it later...)
**
Ya got that right, toots!!
;D
Definitely a step up from the last guy. I do like the candor, and I love the resolve.
Pro: Appts of Steven Chu and Hilda Solis, evidenced-based policy making; he really is withdrawing combat troops from Iraq as Juan Cole has shown.
Negative: stimulus may be too small, though I worked out with Nick Rowe at Brad DeLong's blog as well as Rowe's own blog one plausible reason why a stimulus package may not have the intended beneficial effects on aggregate demand--still it is the one option that we have, and it's not being tried aggressively enough.
A DeLong persuasively argues, Obama is also stuck in a no man's land in terms of the banks--neither socializing losses at the taxpayer's expense nor nationalizing them so that taxpayers get the upside.
Final grade: B
Of course if we are grading on a curve, comparing Obama's performance to what the Republicans are proposing (then A+ of course) or what the Europeans are generally doing and what Japan is doing--his grade would be better. Perhaps B+. He may however be to the right of Sarkozy (!!!) in his willingness to play hardball with the financial sector; the British seem to be more willing to let taxpayers get the upside of the banks that they are bailing out; and the Chinese stimulus package seems to be more aggressive as a percentage of GDP than ours. But overall on a curve basis he's a B+ or A-.
I think the analysts who peg Obama as, primarily, pragmatic are right. He gets things done. Luckily his job came with a long to-do list -- he needs to reverse just about everything the previous administration did.
I have no interest in engaging in a debate on this point. I will say, however, that Obama's position on labor and on organized labor is heartening, but the new legislation, I believe, will be too little, too late.
In a previous discussion we talked about the value of future generations. I sidestepped the question by trying to argue that even this generation has self-interested reasons for the birthing and rearing of the next generation--so that there is someone to pay into their social security and to provide the labor that will allow them the returns on their portfolio as they approach retirement.
But we do have the question of our obligations to future generations, the question of whether we have the right to deprive them of a habitable earth.
So if Obama does not take decisive action to stop global warming and preserve our fresh water and forests, he will have failed his presidency. He has made excellent appointments so far to the Dept of Energy, EPA and other offices. But now they must act, or he fails, we all fail, and life will be no more. It is that serious.
Lefty - what did you decide about "Slumdog Millionaire"? I'm looking forward to the youngster's review...
When have your opinions been hare brained, FH? I can't think of a single example, and I have been following your posts for several months.
Too early for a grade, really. He and McCain made offers on a fixer upper whose roof collapsed in escrow. Obama might go to bed some evenings wishing we'd accepted McCain's offer...
I guess I'd give him an A for his forthrightness thus far but I'm less than thriled about his economic team.
Ms. F -- I have decided to take the tyke to see Slumdog Millionaire. I weighed the helpful warnings and comments I received here. I think the boy will be able to handle the violence and enjoy the rest of movie. Now all I need to do is find a time on a weekend when he and I are both free. I will return with his review.
"fixer upper whose roof collapsed in escrow."
Perfect image!
I think dsgonzale6 has intimated that he's a Stanford trained lawyer specializing in commercial real estate. Did you see the story in the NY TImes about how GE had to take a financing charge to infuse GE Capital with 'capital' (GE Capital has specialized in commercial real estate). Is GE the next to go down? Anyone know?
We know what the Lehman shock did to the economy; I am concerned that the fall of GE could...well....let's not think about it.
Let me just say that it's mind-boggling how heavily our industrial giants seem to be with speculative bets in real estate and bets on the currency markets and other derivatives.
The plight of GE capital shows that one can't speak of a bad speculative capital and a good industrial capital.
How rotten to the core is the system?
A fixer up with the roof collapsing. And perhaps the floor too.
Good topic, FH. Thanks. ;)
I wrote a poem recently, which I will spare you. It's been bugging me because I look at it and it seems familiar, have any of you had that happen? Like I'm not certain that it's all mine. I'm singing to my daughter and she does not hear me as she is sleeping... Now she sings to me and it is the same, music in the dark, that I do not hear but remember...
It's hard with my family here, they are so nice. Smiles, all the time. They went to Calistoga today and shopped, it's terrible to say, but i'm glad they were gone. Mickey the cat is afraid of them, he came in after they left and chewed my thumbs while I listened to the ballgame. I gave Mickey an A+.
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
It's the floating headman! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
Like the picture in the mirror thing? It's kinda fun, huh?
A substantial amount of our work has been in commercial and residential development of community college district surplus land. That particular area is completely inactive right now. To the extent people can wait to proceed with development projects, that's what they're doing. The only work I'm seeing these days is commercial lease restructuring and related landlord/tenant matters.
wv: splat Maybe the market will hit bottom soon....
BTW, hartal, I saw the headline about GE Capital but I didn't read the article. Perhaps I'm stating the obvious, but as I see it, people have, practically speaking, concluded that the cause of the economic crisis was unwise and excessive borrowing, so on both sides of the equation, and at all levels, this activity has become much more deliberate and cautious, which has led to a general slowdown in economic activity on all levels as well.
I think we all should post one short poem that we've written.
Xoot, can I just cut and paste one of mine from another post? ;-)
All of my poems were lost in a fire. It was arson....
What's worrying me is how tied up the whole system was in real estate speculation. For example, GE seems to have been making its profit projections by selling assets from GE Capital, but that indicates that the real or industrial side of the economy has been unhealthy for some time, surviving on the proceeds of commercial real estate speculation.
Another example: it seems that the health of the real economy has depended generally on the real estate bubble. People spent like drunken sailors because they falsely thought that their homes were worth a lot more than they are and because people committed real resources to housing construction on the basis of inflated real estate values.
But without the consumption and construction activity created by the fictitious prosperity of the real estate bubble, the real economy would have manifested itself as weak.
So not only do we have a financial sector that has gone bust due to bad bets and chocked off the supply of credit, we are now having to come to terms with the bad underlying heath of the real sector.
For this reason, Obama is right that we need a fiscal stimulus to compensate for the weakness of the private sector that has become even weaker due to the implosion of the financial sector. But that stimulus probably needs to be bigger and Geithner and company have to figure out how to rescue the banking sector.
No one should underestimate how difficult the tasks are; nor should anyone believe that had the Republicans won, McCain would not be pushing huge deficits as well.
Wasn't one of the reasons the Crash of '29 had such a negative impact on the general economy the fact that so much stock had been bought on margin?
Wasn't Creedence prescient with that tune of theirs, Keep on Googlin?
You guys are probably right. Why bother with our own short poems when there's stuff like this already published:
Getting up at night to pee
The wife curses the chessmen.
Margin calls in 29 sure would explain the suicides.
wv: millyike
a tiny shock
"Googlin' on down to New Orleans" -Born on the Cyber-Bayou -CCR
If you can choose it, who can refuse it,
Yall be Googlin tonight.
Go on, take your pick, right from the git go,
You gotta Google tonight.
Good live version on youtube.
As I understand it--and I don't control this kind of money--margin calls lead to panic liquidation of assets (say the case is that you borrowed money against your stock portfolio to speculate in stocks, buy a second home or have concubines pleasure you on a junket; your stock portfolio had served as collateral, and now you have to make up the difference between its original and current value). That panic liquidation of some peoples' assets leads to further decline in asset values, which exposes more people to margin calls. Ultimately a lot of asset wealth is wiped out, people start trying to save, consumption contracts and the economy slips into Depression. This is a reverse wealth effect.
There is also the added result from a drop off in demand--debt deflation , so called by Irving Fisher to whom no one any longer listened since he had predicted endless prosperity on the eve of the Great Depression. Fisher had been America's leading monetary theorist as well as an exponent of racial eugenics. Krugman puts high the risk of debt deflation at present. in deflation the real burden of debt increases.
Look all that typed in a couple of minutes without any google search or notes.
But what do you understand the dynamics and risks of margin calls to be at present, dsgonzale6?
That's not my understanding of what a margin call is. Maybe you shouldn't work without the google net, harharhartal.
It's the kind of margin call a friend got. So what's your understanding?
suza - where'd your poem go? I came back special to read it again...
Hey everybody! Tomorrow is EFCA day!!! Which probably means nothing, with the obstructionists in the Senate...
The swing senators are interesting people:
http://tinyurl.com/bqq5b3
It'll be close there.
Okay. Here's my poems. Whilst reading it, please imagine a roomful of guys and gals wearing sunglasses, berets, black turtlenecks, smoking "reefers" and a couple folks playing bongos:
`
My first poem is called..."A Little Boy":
A little boy comes to a donut shop
He stares at the apple fritters
But there will be no apple fritters for you today.
Only death.
`
kazam. Soobamba. Shezlake.
`
My next poem is about a stray cat...It's called..."A Stray Cat":
A stray cat comes to a fish market. He stares at the mackeral. But there will be no mackeral for you today. Only death.
`
flimmin' fatoozie, boss daddy
`
My last poem is about an honest politician. It's called..."The Honest Politician":
An honest politician goes to congress. He stares at the the multitude of crooked politicians around him. But there will be no honest politics for you today...
I'm sorry. I have no ending. None.
`
Sorry
In spite of the obstructionists in the Senate, President Obama probably can put the pressure to bear on Congress to get it passed if he real wants it, and with Solis in the Cabinet, he may be convinced not only to want it but want it sooner than recovery is complete. What Solis also reduces the risk of is an Obama compromise--accept the higher penalties and binding arbitration in the ECFA but remove the card check with the compromise of more pro labor appointees to the NLRB. Labor is scared not only of the EFCA being delayed but also of it being gutted by the time the President agrees to sign it. It still may happen but Solis may make that more unlikely.
Ted, are you like, giving us the gaff, man? 'Cause like, if the cats and chicks don't dig it, like the wildest...like I don't feature you, man. The maximum utmost. ;-)
Well garbled hartal. Solis is not a national democratic union-side heavyweight who can put pressure on the swing senators. Biden is.
Solis was a great choice for Sec. of Labor. I said that from day one. But she's not going to be the one who makes the difference in the card-check fight. Nor is she going to have any role whatsoever in enforcing once it's law. The NLRB will have that role.
Face the facts.
And do anything you can to support the bill.
You did not read what I wrote. First, Solis will have Obama's ear, and he is already under pressure to jettison the card check provision to get a compromise. Her appointment makes that less likely. Secondly, Obama may be pressured to encourage the Democrats to put off EFCA to work on recovery rather than reform issues. Again Solis will be a powerful voice in his cabinet not to delay the legislation. Thirdly as I already pointed out there are a lot of empirical questions that will come up about how oppressive the card check is compared to an ostensibly secret ballot process. Solis will be able to provide cutting edge research to prove that the latter is actually more oppressive and intimidating that the former, and that research will have the Dept of Labor imprimatur.
If anyone wants a basic explanation of the effect of margin calls on the Crash of '29, here's one:
http://beginnersinvest.about.com/cs/newinvestors/a/040101a_2.htm
The article notes that margin trading was suspended after the crash; my recollection is that this was part of the securities reforms passed by Congress under FDR. Margin trading is now allowed, but with much higher maintenance requirements (the percentage of your money required to be deposited with the broker to be able to borrow to buy stock). What's interesting to me from the Time and Newsweek articles that I've read is the low ratio of deposits the banks were required to have relative to the amount of money lent after the deregulation in the late '90s--as little as 1/9; or to put it another way, banks were lending $9 for every $1 in deposits.
Let's try tinyurl:
http://tinyurl.com/aozkvb
Thanks for the link, DSG.
oh, I got all weird and insecure. you know, it happens sometimes. too much stress. :)
PS, I might have my bank lending ratios wrong, I didn't go back and check the articles I had read.
Here's my poem:
MID-LIFE ANGST by Gina
Blah, blah, blah. Blah, blah blah. BLAH,BLAH, BLAH. BLAH, BLAH.
Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah.
Death.
The End.
WV: sheatic...what this poem is.
Heh. That was really funny.
SEC description of margin call.
http://www.sec.gov/investor/pubs/margin.htm
I think the minimum maintenance requirement is 25%. But I would guess that--this being the age of financial innovation-- people have borrowed from brokers to invest in and brokers have recommended investments in products other than stocks--derivatives and mortgage backed securities.
In the example above, one invests on margin to go long on stocks, but there must be ways to invest on margin to go short, too.
If I followed my friend, even personal loans have been arranged with portfolios as collateral, but once the portfolio crashes in value, then one has to provide additional collateral.
Back to FH's topic.
Here are people who think Obama is doing very badly indeed.
www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_11/b4123016507664.htm
NEWS MarBusinessWeek BusinessWeek Exchange
NEWS March 5, 2009, 5:00PM EST A Backlash Against Obama's Budget Businesses from startups to global giants to drugmakers and farmers are gearing up to fight the President's spending plan with ad campaigns and public protests
hartal's poem, hidden within his 10:41 pm post last night:
President Obama probably can put the pressure to bear
on Congress
to get it passed if
he real wants it,
and with Solis in
the Cabinet,
he may be convinced not
only to want it
but want it sooner
* * *
Deceptively pedestrian, subtly erotic. Good work.
And just to be sure I get my fair share of abuse, here's an old poem of mine:
TALCHULITNA RIVER, CIRCA 1974
Two trumpet notes
announce departure
wing-beats lift-off
and silence
their perfect whiteness
rising
under clouds
heavy
with late April
snow.
* * *
peace, hartal
When I was around 6 years old, inspired by hearing The Impossible Dream, I made up a couple of couplets and set them to a melody. As far as I can remember, no one has ever heard that tune, and wild horses couldn't drag it out of me.
Oh poor xootsuit rattled and driven mad by his inability to keep up in argument with a Fry Cook on the significance of Solis' appointment (it is not relatively less important than the appts to the NRLB will prove to be!);
the complexity of Conrad's work (remember the quiz you failed, the symbolism you did not understand, your hasty denial of Conrad's implication in the colonialism that he decried);
and the meaning of Wordsworth's verse.
Each argument he has lost to a Fry Cook.
Watch xootsuit revert to a child to make fun of names when he himself has nothing to add to a topic such as a margin call;
watch him type out his poetry from 35 years years ago to distract from his sophomoric misunderstanding of some lines from a Wordsworth's Bildung poem.
And yet his own poetry may well be--and there is a bit too little to go on here--the expression of one of those poor little men who gather together to pathetically complain of their wounds, beat some drums and tell each other that they see in each other the authentic and natural self that other people, especially women, can't see in the loud mouthed, bully lawyers that they actually are.
Oh, poor pathetic men so proud, so wounded, so pathetic.
So convinced of his eloquence and brilliance, xootsuit yet finds himself stranded with no one to confirm him, no one even to acknowledge him, except of course Gina.
But xootsuit reminds us of people whom he thinks remember him but surely avoid him.
He'll be back with his little group of men, fretting that the world no longer makes room for their authentic, natural, and above all else passive aggressive masculinity.
You are a lonely man, xootsuit. Of that I have no doubt. The only woman in your life seems to be your mother, and she does not seem to think she has a choice. Give her peace; tell her that she does.
Off to work.
Why do I hate thee Whole Foods?
Thou art a good a gracious store
Full of healthy deliciousness and freshly prepared meals.
But thou art most expensive...
And thy shoppers are smug and self-righteous.
Overblown, and feeling too proud of themselves for their choice in store. It's not a club you know, they'll let anyone walk in the door.
Thy aisles are crowded with cell phones and people who don't say "excuse me" when they bump into you.
Thy cashiers are surly and chat with their tattooed and lip pierced friends when they art supposedly ringing your purchases.
Thou has nice butchers, but butchers are almost always nice - so nothing to brag about there.
Why dost thou charge $8.99 for a single serving pizza? Why $10 for a rotisserie chicken?
And what is going on again with the Wild Oats? Thou hast become a terror, an smug and overreaching corporation, with no end in sight.
Oh Whole Foods, I would lament thee more, but at least thy presence keeps people out of Trader Joe's, which is crowded enough without your smug, cell phoned store stompers.
I wish thee well, Whole Foods. Please keep your customers - and hopefully lock them in the store forever, never to return to the rest of us...
Can't stand to hang with this ragged company?
On the card check bill: the new employer-penalty and binding-arbitration provisions may be just as important as the provision that would replace the much-abused secret ballot procedure. The confidential voting issue, however, is the easiest to grasp.
If the democrats pull this off without gutting the law, it will be a huge victory.
oh well. no peace I find.
hartal, your 10:41pm post last night was perfect. Your true mind reflected.
And you know what's really funny? You probably don't know why you can't delete it, to run from the embarassment. Maybe FH will do you a favor.
Keep on googlin, hartal.
You might have noticed the poll on the home page of the blog. 66% voted to "STFU Already" about Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness'.
Bowing to the will of the people, from this time forward Brushfires of Freedom is a 'Heart of Darkness'-Free Zone! ALL future posts mentioning this work will be deleted!!!
Do I need to do a poll on Wordsworth??? I will do it!!!
Well, I voted for STFU.
You know, a few weeks back one of the regular posters over on the Splash visited here and then returned to that fine dive and said (in effect), "People over there say things like, hmmm, I see your point, or, I hadn't thought of it that way. Must be nice."
Well, what has changed since then?
Not mentioning the name of the work, I think there was only one vote for liking it. And the vote was anonymous. So just for full disclosure:
That was me.
But, to comply with my hostess' wishes, I won't elaborate. Just thought I'd let you know it was me and not anyone else if any of you were hazarding a guess.
I have my rasons. And they'r odd, but...that's me
And yes. I do have my rasons.
wv:acidi,'nuff said
And they'r odd,
They'r R allot of odd rasons on this blog...
I didn't know you could make a posting entirely out of WV's, but I guess you can... ;-)
How about "Big Two Hearted River"?
wv: graspers
At real clear politics there is a whole section on card check in a special section in the left column of the page. Haven't read them yet. This is from earlier discussion...
___________________
Twice in the last month I have said here at SF gate that the question of card checks is one of the main divisions between parties.
Lochhead says that card checks would give unions more political power. This is not strictly correct. It would allow workers greater ability to unionize in the first place. Lochhead also does not explain why secret ballots stand in the way of unionization while card checks do not (by card checks workers are allowed to check on a card that they want a union and once a majority do they can claim to have authorized a union).
But aside from the details of the controversy, the background is important.
I think we are close to only 10 percent of the private workforce being unionized (there has been a steady decline of union and strike rates over the last thirty years); and income inequality has exploded in recent years. Real wages are declining if not stagnant. Job insecurity is on the rise, and workers aren't often paid overtime. There can be no equal opportunity capitalism without a renewal of workers' unions.
To the extent that the Republicans allow for unionization, they advocate unionization by long drawn out elections rather than card checks as I pointed out on Ross' blog on March 17th (I drew from Steven Greenhouse's reporting for the New York Times).
But the Republican policy effectively gives workers the same status they have in Communist China and Cuba. Employers don't allow union officials on the premises; they don't allow use of company email; they fire with impunity those who argue for unionization in the long drawn out elections which workers can't afford anyway. Card checks give workers an effective right to unionize that Marxist regimes deny. If anyone should be red baited, it is the Republicans who want workers as unfree as they are in Marxist regimes.
Posted By: ahartal | June 13 2008 at 10:59 AM
Hartal, I'd argue the point differently, but your basic contention is exactly right.
Posted By: dsgonzale6 | June 13 2008 at 11:08 AM
Thank you for so perfectly explaining the union card checks issue. I will be borrowing liberally from it in the future.
Posted By: ferrethead | June 13 2008 at 11:09 AM
In the spirit of open communication, I want to chide hartal (just as an example) about something, in a non-hostile manner. On a couple of occasions, in the heat of arguments, you've said something like, "You don't know who I am and I refuse to tell you anything about me." That seems to me like the wrong approach.
Mark Morford did a recent column about the scourge of anonymity on the Web, arguing that it leads to more flaming, and I tend to agree with him. I think that the more we reveal of ourselves, within reason, the harder it is for us to say ugly things online. Frankly, I don't see much real point in hiding the sorts of things that anyone who actually met you in a normal social or business context would know about you (and now I'm speaking generally, not just about hartal).
There's a funny scene in the movie You've Got Mail where the character played by Meg Ryan, who has wished she could come up with the cutting remark in the moment instead of hours later, finally gets off a zinger. She immediately feels terrible about it, and the Tom Hanks character affirms that he often regrets saying those things, even though they are momentarily satisfying.
I think some inhibition of the urge to flame is good, and online, when communities form around common interests, it's unhelpful and silly to try to hide the sorts of facts that people would know about you if they met you face to face.
wv: bledrat
Replacing the secret ballot and the drawn-out certification process really are two separate things. If the democrats compromise on the election procedure but change the law to expedite it (one month, e.g.) a lot of union-busting tactics won't be possible.
After unions get certified, the union busters then often drag the contract-negotiation process out. In single shop bargaining units, this tactic gives the employer time to get rid of union supports, to intimidate those who are slightly ambivalent, and to hire new employees who will vote to decertify. I've seen this happen. My labor law professor said that it was one of the most common union-busting tactics she enountered in private practice.
The card-check bill contains a mandatory mediation/arbitration provision, which kicks in if the parties don't reach agreement within 90 days. The bill also includes stiffer penalties for employers who commit unfair labor practices (such as firing or intimidating employees over the union issue).
Those parts of the bill are crucial. In other words, if some compromise version of the bill finally passes, it still could be a great thing for organized labor.
And let me be the first to admit that I can get carried away in an argument, before anyone else points out that fact.
wv: sarge (FH, is that you?)
"Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal carried a front-page story warning that “[k]ey Senate Democrats are wavering in their support” of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), making it “more likely the bill, in its current form, will be stalled without the 60 votes needed.” Yesterday RANDY JOHNSON of the Chamber of Commerce — which has vowed to spend $10 million to defeat the bill — boasted that he had “planted” most of the story"
>
I thought Randy Johnson was a lefty.
WV-Tyliss The most popular name for boys in the year 2020
It looks like ambivalent Senate Democrats are being intimidated behind the scenes, and special interests are stalling to try and install Senators who would vote against it. Where's Norma Rae when you need her?
I have the flu today. I feel completely humorless. I posted a link to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce webpage devoted to defeating the card-check bill. A lot of money is paying for the fight against.
I think the biomed and tech companies in Silicon Valley remain largely un-unionized. Some of them sure could use representation. I know a mechanic who worked at chip fabricating plants in the Valley. He drove an old classic Mustang he'd restored. After he'd worked at one place for five years, the company cut him a check to get his car repainted. Serious chemical releases often got sucked up into a turbine system on the roof and expelled into atmosphere. Some, apparently, rained down to the ground, too.
I'll be back when I've thought of something similarly dreadful to related. Sorry.
The Church Lady is a blog monitor for the Huffington Post. Erica Jong wrote a corollary piece to DSG's 10:32 comment and this couplet was deleted.
http://tinyurl.com/d3u4lb
A world of people with whom we have no truck
Is the bastard child from a zipless fuck
Erica Jong is always interesting, even when she's neurotic.
My WV is now rantingf, I can't let this opportunity pass.
>
The internet with all its snarkiness
Is cholesterol to a heart of darkiness :)
xoot, forgive the stupid question, but how would unionization improve that situation? Wouldn't the company just end up cutting a check to repaint the employee's Maserati?
Now, I'm all for unions, and I'm all for a clean environment, too. But how the company is supposed to green up and compensate their workers more (driving a classic Mustang-- more than I got) remains the dilemma. It would appear that while the plant is probably unsafe, the employees are able to afford luxury items. I guess I'm just not really sure what your point was, and since you have the flu, that's understandable.
And if my own point wasn't exactly clear, it's that I believe unions should protect workers, and provide them with fair wages. If American uniions would only stop there, industry would have a lot less problem with them. Like the next guy, I take issue with fat cats who ride on the backs of workers. But workers who ride in restored classic muscle cars are hardly sweatshop victims. Let's get the health aspects sorted, by all means, and make the workplace safe. But would your friend be willing to take public transit to work to make that happen? Such is the American burden. Blessed, aren't we?
Well, it was an early Mustang -- 65 I think. Not really a muscle car. I don't think that guy, however, would be interested in trying to get to work on the Sunnyvale/Mountain View public transit system. Classic working class american guy.
Some unions fight over safety issues effectively. If the air from inside the factory that gets sent up through the "scrubber" turbine system on the roof is corroding cars in the parking lot, its corroding lungs in the hallways too. In situations like SV, fights over worker safety could lead to safer handling of the stuff that pollutes the air and ground water.
I belonged to one union that focused pretty fiercely on safety issues during contract negotiations. But it represented workers only in one heavy industry and it negotiated at the national level with all of the companies in that industry. General safety protections were pretty easy to focus on.
I'm all for that, xoot.
Of course, it could be that the air is effectively removed from the hallways before it reaches employees' lungs, but is then simply deposited on their cars (and into the ground water and the air around the plant).
I heard one story about a guy who put some type of acid used to etch the chips into the wrong container. Acidic gas emerged first. Workers had to wheel the deteriorating container down the hallway to an elevator. Stainless steel pipes running along the hallway ceiling (carrying other chemicals, I guess) started to tarnish and corrode as the acidic gas cloud rose up and reached them.
The elevator, of course, went straight up to the "scrubber."
In order to do my job, I have to write under a pseudonym. I am hoping that others feel the same way.
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Maybe tech business moved to the orchards of what became Silicon Valley to escape the strong presence of unions in Oakland and San Francisco.
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Chris Matthews may have been arguing for a quick secret ballot election after a card check authorization. But that would still give the employers three or four weeks--and they would surely appeal for delays--to take advantage of a closed informational environment and isolate the activist employees. I don't think the unions will accept quicker elections and stronger NRLB enforcement as a compromise solution for card check; nor will they thin binding arbitration and stiffer penalties are good enough.
My real name is Robin. Robin Hood.
Doesn't the bill as it's currently drafted give employees the option of checking the card to vote directly for certification or checking it as a vote for a secret ballot election? Been a while since I looked at it. So there may be some creative ways to approach the secret election issue to make it more palatable.
In any event, the right wing seems to be pretty effectively using the "abolishment of the confidential vote" as the public rallying cry against the bill. I'll be interested to hear the rationale behind any democratic traitor who votes against the bill. The unions may end up watching the Senate make sausage out of the thing. Man I'm cheery today.
Unions are the first step toward getting wealth redistributed properly. The second step is ensuring that home security systems are priced out of reach of union employees. ; )
Robbin Hood the infamous and uncatchable burglar? No wonder you use a pseudonym on the web.
I am but a humble miller.
hartal, I'm not talking about pseudonyms, I'm talking about general information. IMO, it seems sort of silly for you to say that we don't know anything about you when you've told us various things about yourself. Nobody's asking anyone to reveal any more about him or herself than one would feel comfortable telling someone that he or she met on the street.
Let's start with your social security number, hartal...
If we met on the street I would not have to tell you hot I am.
If I met you on the street, I could simply say nothing to you. But given the amount of discussion we have had, it would seem only natural to give our comments some context.
I was describing this Daumier work -- THE BEAUTIFUL NARCISSUS -- just the other day to someone at the office:
http://tinyurl.com/acyzub
Let it go, dsgonzale6. Judge me by what I write, not my credentials, job or portfolio. It's the internets. I told you I am hotter than Salman Khan; what more do you want to know?
hartal, as I said, I think it's kind of silly to make a statement refusing to do so when you've actually given information.
I'm hotter than Rondo Hatton.
I'm hotter than I look
(I have no idea what anyone's writing about any more. I'm going to have to start reading hartal's posts again)
;)
What do you want to know? How much I can bench press and squat? You know I could make it up.
Getting to know hartal,
Getting to know all about hartal...
How many years ago was that picture taken, Too Sense? And are you are sure you don't have kids?
I guess it would be nice to suddenly be bright and breezy
Yes better than trite and cheesy
Hmm. Trite. Sort of, lacking in freshness, eh? Anyway, I like cheese
I HAVE A QUESTION!
WHY DON'T SOME MARRIED MEN WEAR WEDDING RINGS???????????????
3 reason come to mind right away:
1)They are uncomfortable wearing any kind of attachments including wristwatches, necklaces, wrist bands, neck ties, etc.
2)I know one guy who stopped when his wife stopped wearing hers
3)Well, I'm sure you already thought of the 3rd reason
hartal, I don't really want to know anything, I'm just saying that it seems silly to say that you will never disclose personal information when you've been disclosing personal information. Context is key.
I wear a ring, but not on my finger.
TMI!!! ;-)
Gina, your question seems to have a personal facet to it. Care to share?
Such dirty minds...TS could have meant and ear ring!
Gina, his accent?!?! Oh, so he was a native Homosexual...got it!
Gina, perhaps I wasn't clear. I wasn't asking if your question had a personal aspect to it, I was asking for the particulars.
I'm not following you, dsg.
Married men should wear their rings--no exceptions. I've encountered several married guys not wearing rings that offered to take me to bed if I wanted to. That was before I found out they were married.
If a man is wearing a wedding band, I treat him a different way from a guy not wearing one.
Gina, that answered my question. Thanks.
FH, "native Homosexual" cracked me up. Seriously, though, it seems to me, based on my expereience, that many (not all) gay men have a certain common speech pattern that is recognizable, which few straight men have.
wv: skica Boosterism hits Blogger.
This is probably going to get me into serious trouble, but that never stops me. It's called 'fagese'. I made that one up myself.
Yes, dsg, it's call an 'affectation'. Accent...not the same thing.
Did you guys read the Jon Carroll column about Shakespeare and gaydar? He is brillant, I only dream of being a quarter of the writer that Jon Carroll is...sigh.
i read the Carroll column...Hated it (with apologies to In Living Color). You'll think I'm blowing smoke up our hostess, but I think she's a better writer than JC, and I know who I enjoy reading more.
Blow, WT, blow!!! Was it just that column, or do you generally not like him? I'm especially partial to the cat columns...I read them to my office mate 'cuz he makes me laugh.
I just think Carroll's kind of lost what little wit he had. I like the little quotes at the end of the columns best, which tells you something. It just seems like he's trying too hard, and that 'gaydar' column was yet another example of a tiny idea stretched to breaking point.
I don't really like many Chron columnists, except the obvious one, lol, so maybe I'm biased. I dislike Morford even more than Gina does, for instance. If I wasn't opinionated, what would I be doing here? ;-)
I really get more out of a lot of online writing than I do from the mainstream media, although I read everything, and watch all the news channels. Some highly-paid commentators might've been better off as hairdressers, for all the insights they bring.
...also, Carroll would never ever use the word 'craptacular,' to his detriment.
I LOVE Jon Carroll!
Leave Grandpa Jones ALONE! He's my favorite!
Mostly I can't stand Morford, but every once in awhile he's pretty funny. Especially since Obama won.
One time I wrote to him after his 18 kids column and told him he had uterine envy. He wrote back something equally nasty and signed it with a "big, wet kiss". Gawd.
And as for the other favorite that we all seem to have in common. I don't know what it is about him, but I can't seem to stop reading him. And he doesn't really even say anything too funny. Kinda rambles and makes observations and brags about himself like we're supposed to care or something.
FH, I didn't want to use the word affectation, because I don't think that's quite right, and I didn't use the word accent, either, because that was clearly not right. I didn't read Carroll's column; for some reason, although I used to read him religiously, I haven't read him in about a month.
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