CEO's blame layoffs and reduced hours on Obama re-election

[Purlina]

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I've heard that stimulus doesn't actually create hardly any jobs. Obama even admitted that his past stimulus projects were failures. This isn't the old days anymore, today you only see a handful of construction workers working on a project, in the old days you could very well see over a hundred.

How many jobs can you create building a single F-35 for $20,000,000,000+?

How many jobs can you create by building bridges, roads, and schools with that money?

[Kasierith]

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I've heard that stimulus doesn't actually create hardly any jobs. Obama even admitted that his past stimulus projects were failures. This isn't the old days anymore, today you only see a handful of construction workers working on a project, in the old days you could very well see over a hundred.

One of the criticisms of it was that it was far too weak to have its full intended effect, which was a result of the Democrats compromising with the Republicans to get it passed.

[Rukentuts]

How many jobs can you create building a single F-35 for $20,000,000,000+?

How many jobs can you create by building bridges, roads, and schools with that money?

For $200M (the cost of a single F-35), they could easily replace every bridge in downtown Minneapolis that is currently dated between 1914 and 1918.

[Felya420]

You do realize that the system we're getting is analogous to Switzerland right? I'm not sure what problem, exactly, liberals have with it.

You got your universal health care, don't be greedy. You're starting to sound like the GOP the last 10 years.

What? The problem I described was with employers being responsible for healthcare. Wtf?

[Nakura Chambers]

One of the criticisms of it was that it was far too weak to have its full intended effect, which was a result of the Democrats compromising with the Republicans to get it passed.

Democrats compromising with the Republicans? The Democrats had majorities in both houses of Congress and the White House. There was nobody to compromise with.

[Grimord]

Despicable human being if you ask me.

Plus, he lied about how much he needed to increase Pizza prices to offset the costs with health insurance (Forbes did an article about it).

Laying off people and reducing hours to save FIVE cents per pizza? Seriously, wouldn't it have been much more just to the employees to just keep them as they were, get the health insurance and raise pizza prices by said 5 cents? It would even be a good PR move, imo. Who would mind paying a nickel more if you know it'd help all those employees keep their jobs and insurance?

[stumpy]

Democrats compromising with the Republicans? The Democrats had majorities in both houses of Congress and the White House. There was nobody to compromise with.

You need a supermajority to shut down a filibuster (something else, along with Citizens United, that I hope gets a serious overhaul in the coming term, because Republicans abused the hell out of it during the last one). Account for the time wasted before Al Franken was finally allowed to take office, then Ted Kennedy's death, and we're looking at a window of... what was it, a month?

[Rukentuts]

You need a supermajority to shut down a filibuster (something else, along with Citizens United, that I hope gets a serious overhaul in the coming term, because Republicans abused the hell out of it during the last one). Account for the time wasted before Al Franken was finally allowed to take office, then Ted Kennedy's death, and we're looking at a window of... what was it, a month?

I'm pretty sure there were never 60 able-bodied Democratic votes in the Senate in the time-frame in question.

[smrund]

Despicable human being if you ask me.

Plus, he lied about how much he needed to increase Pizza prices to offset the costs with health insurance (Forbes did an article about it).

Laying off people and reducing hours to save FIVE cents per pizza? Seriously, wouldn't it have been much more just to the employees to just keep them as they were, get the health insurance and raise pizza prices by said 5 cents? It would even be a good PR move, imo. Who would mind paying a nickel more if you know it'd help all those employees keep their jobs and insurance?

Hell if Schannter had said "Hey, we want to treat our employees well, but it's going to cost a little bit more." And then said he was raising pizza prices by a dollar, he would have gotten MORE business and made MORE profit. But these incredibly wealthy people, they don't live in the same world the rest of us do.

[Felya420]

I'm pretty sure there were never 60 able-bodied Democratic votes in the Senate in the time-frame in question.

That's why they needed Snowe to sign off on Obamacare, a republican.

[Northy]

Think that was the quickest I've ever signed a petition.

Same here, next stop is to get this guy (Russ Feingold) back in the public sphere.

[Rukentuts]

That's why they needed Snowe to sign off on Obamacare, a republican.

They need to go back to when Filibusters meant talking for hours on end like Strom Thurmond.

[melodramocracy]

I sometimes wonder what the world looks like through the eyes of someone who truly believes this. I would imagine it's a pretty scary place.

He said nothing incorrect, and it's actually not very scary at all. In fact, once one wraps their brain around the idea that politics have FAR less influence on their lives than the decisions they themselves make on a daily basis, it becomes easier to simply ignore 80% of what you hear anyhow. Once you realize that wealth is NOT some sort of infinite pie model, and that one person getting rich is at the cost of someone, somewhere else, it becomes simpler to make financial decisions (and to likewise take the wealthy off the pedestal our society puts them on).

[smrund]

He said nothing incorrect, and it's actually not very scary at all. In fact, once one wraps their brain around the idea that politics have FAR less influence on their lives than the decisions they themselves make on a daily basis, it becomes easier to simply ignore 80% of what you hear anyhow. Once you realize that wealth is NOT some sort of infinite pie model, and that one person getting rich is at the cost of someone, somewhere else, it becomes simpler to make financial decisions (and to likewise take the wealthy off the pedestal our society puts them on).

If you do that, then you blow neo-liberal financial theology right out of the water, which basically says that money isn't a game of winners and losers, but of winners and bigger winners.

[Masark]

Once you realize that wealth is NOT some sort of infinite pie model

Oh, it is semi-infinite (large enough that it may as well be infinite from an individual human's scale), but barring outside factors, money tends to act like mass and is subject to gravity.

For example, if you look at the planets of our solar system



The "top 25%" (top 2 of 8) of planets make up 92% of the mass.

compare



Top 20% make up 93% of the wealth.

[usiris]

For $200M (the cost of a single F-35), they could easily replace every bridge in downtown Minneapolis that is currently dated between 1914 and 1918.

I really wish they would, some are just utter shit.

[Rukentuts]

Oh, it is semi-infinite, but barring outside factors, money tends to act like mass and is subject to gravity.

Think of it like conservation of energy. The total amount of "potential wealth" and "used wealth" is finite. Inflation changes numbers, but that doesn't change the fact that wealth is only ever exchanged; never created.

---------- Post added 2012-11-15 at 01:20 PM ----------

I really wish they did, some are just utter shit.

I commute on the Midtown Greenway, and I go under like 20 bridges that look like they'll be falling down within the next 10 years.

[Diurdi]

Think of it like conservation of energy. The total amount of "potential wealth" and "used wealth" is finite. Inflation changes numbers, but that doesn't change the fact that wealth is only ever exchanged; never created.

I think it's important to point out that merely extracting the raw materials and outputting human labor is not the main source of wealth. The real wealth is created when these are arranged in their most effective use.

[Rukentuts]

I think it's important to point out that merely extracting the raw materials and outputting human labor is not the main source of wealth. The real wealth is created when these are arranged in their most effective use.

It isn't created. If you make a great supply-chain for example, that means are just spending less.

If you find a way to extract purer ore, you are just extracting more of the "potential wealth" than you would have before.

[Diurdi]

It isn't created. If you make a great supply-chain for example, that means are just spending less.

If you find a way to extract purer ore, you are just extracting more of the "potential wealth" than you would have before.

Well, everyone can look at it from their own perspective. But potential wealth is meaningless if it is sitting 100 meters below the surface or in the hands of someone else.

Value (=wealth) is created when goods are exchanged between two persons and both are better off as a result. If I like metallica and you like iron maiden, but i have an iron maiden cd and you have a metallica cd, swapping cd's will create value (=wealth) for us both.

Likewise, the values of a couple grams of cedar, rubber and graphite in separate locations are much lower than the value of a pencil. Wealth is created when these materials are brought together.