(no subject)

http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/666369/ron_paul_wasn't_joking_about_letting_uninsured_people_die_--_his_uninsured_staffer_died_of_pneumonia/

Oh yeah.
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http://www.alternet.org/story/153848/the_economic_idiocy_of_economists?page=entire

Hello, Mr Holtz-Eakin! Have you ever heard of the US dollar, the world's key reserve currency?

The United States is not going to end up like Greece, any sooner than it will end up like Haiti or Burkina Faso. A country that can pay its foreign public debt in its own currency and runs its own central bank does not end up like Greece.

In fact, even Japan is not going to end up like Greece, and Japan has a gross public debt of about 220% of its GDP, more than twice the size of ours and vastly larger – again, relative to its economy – than that of Greece. And the yen is nowhere near the dollar in its importance as an international reserve currency. But the Japanese government is still borrowing at just 1% interest rates for its ten-year bonds.
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During the discussion, Blinder – who identified himself as a Democrat – expressed his frustration in not being able to convince fellow Democrats to cut social security. Double yuck. The average social security check is about $1,177 a month, and a majority of senior citizens are getting most of their meager income from social security. Why these people insist on creating more poverty among the elderly, especially when the program is solvent for decades to come, is beyond me.

I got to ask the first question for the panel. I called attention to Blinder's presentation of the long-term budget problem as almost completely a problem of the rising price of healthcare. I pointed out that you could take any country with a life expectancy greater than ours – including the other high-income countries – and put their per capita healthcare costs into our budget, and the long-term budget deficit would turn into a surplus.

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http://www.alternet.org/story/153849/occupy_san_francisco_takes_the_fight_to_local_banks_in_ambitious_next_step_for_movement

Back up at 555 California, beyond the big turd-in-a-plaza artwork jokingly called the “banker’s heart,” I came upon an older man in a suit, carrying a sign that said “Give Us Our City Back.” I was intrigued: he was definitely not the usual Occupy protester. But when I asked him who he was, he turned out to be even more unusual than I could have expected. He was Warren Langley, the 69-year-old former head of the Pacific Stock Exchange.

What brought a man with his background out to protest?

“I was in the industry. I worked for an option trading firm that was sold to Goldman Sachs. So I played the game on the other side. But I have two grandkids and two daughters, and I became increasingly concerned that their future wouldn’t offer them the same opportunities that I had as a young man. The income inequities in our society are a huge problem.”
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Langley went on to say that Occupy was sharpening its ideas. “It’s moving to get a more specific message across, from ‘We’re hurting’ to “This is what’s hurting us.’ He said he didn’t see the Occupy movement ever aligning with any political party. “Chuck Schumer does as much damage as John Boehner. In the end, it’s about occupying people’s minds, so people who aren’t down here will see that the system is not fair."

(no subject)

http://nlpc.org/stories/2011/09/08/sen-hatch-unveils-employee-rights-act-reform-labor-law
Seriously, the anti-union biases of the website selling this bill are so blatant it's amusing.

Union recertification elections. The Hatch-Scott bill stipulates that unionized workplaces must hold a secret ballot referendum every three years to determine if employees want to maintain current representation. In practice, once a workplace becomes unionized, it becomes very difficult for dissenting employees to reverse course. Thus, millions of employees simply "go along to get along." This tendency will become more pronounced if the NLRB finalizes its proposed rule change authorizing fast-track elections. Bureau of Labor Statistics data indicate that less than 10 percent of current members voted for the union representing them.

This is fine, so long as all workplaces, unionized or non-unionized, must also, every three years, hold secret ballot elections on whether to add new representation. That would be protecting employee rights.

Paycheck protection. The idea behind what has come to be known as "paycheck protection" is that unions ought to obtain prior written approval from private-sector employees before spending dues or fees on activities beyond collective bargaining, contract administration and grievance adjustment. The Hatch-Scott bill thus would codify the U.S. Supreme Court's 1988 ruling in Communications Workers v. Beck, which stated that workers shouldn't be forced to involuntarily subsidize union-sponsored political causes. At present, NLRA allows unions to route dues for such purposes without employee consent, though a number of states in recent years have passed paycheck protection laws applying either to all unionized employees or those in state or local government.

Wow. Can we have a law like this restricting the right of employers to use the wealth their employees create to lobby for the shareholders' interests? No? So it's one rule for the bosses and another for the labor reps. Huh.

Standardized election timing. This provision would require that the National Labor Relations Board wait at least 40 days before conducting a secret ballot election. This June, the NLRB unveiled a proposed regulation that would dramatically speed up the representation election process to the distinct benefit of unions. Though the rule doesn't specify a time limit, the wording suggests that elections could occur as soon a week after the union files a petition for recognition as a collective bargaining agent. That's well down from the current average of around 38 to 40 days. An employer under such circumstances would have very little time to communicate opposing views on unionization to employees.

"Communicate," he says. Yeah. Nice job you've got here, be a sha-ame if something were to happen to it.

Decertification Coercion Prevention. As it is the right for workers to seek certification, it ought to be the right for workers to seek decertification. Unfortunately, unions often go out of their way to intimidate recalcitrant employees from circulating or signing decertification petitions. NLRB statistics show that only one in four decertification efforts are successful, with only half of them even put up for a vote. The Hatch-Scott measure would penalize unions employing coercion or other undue interference to block a decertification effort.

Would it penalize anti-union activists employing coercion or other undue interference to block a certification effort? We can at least be even-handed, right?

Secret ballot strike vote. There is no federal law requiring majority support from represented workers as a prerequisite for a union to declare a strike. The Hatch-Scott would establish such a standard, requiring a simple majority of union members to approve a strike via secret ballot before their leaders can order a strike. A strike is risky business for those who engage in one, even willingly. Union strike funds typically compensate members for well under 50 percent of lost wages during a work stoppage - and often receipt of the money carries a requirement that the beneficiary walk a picket line. Union rank and file should have a say in whether to strike before the consequences occur.

Do they get such a vote in company decisions? Does the company need a majority of workers to sign off on layoffs, or on abandoning a given project (and the jobs that go with it), or on mergers and acquisitions? No? If you want democracy in business, Mr Hatch, you should go whole hog.

Criminalization of union threats. Unions have been notorious over the decades for intimidating and assaulting employees, and vandalizing employer property. This pattern of behavior is anything but extinct. Within the last five years, the NLRB has received more than 150 complaints of union violence. Prosecution of such crimes has been made more difficult by the Supreme Court's Enmons decision (1973). The Court ruled in that case that union violence is exempt from prosecution under the Hobbs Act of 1946, which made it a federal crime to inhibit interstate commerce by robbery or extortion. The Hatch-Scott legislation would close this loophole, declaring that furtherance of union objectives is not a legitimate basis for committing violent or property crime.

As with the rest of this bill, let's be sure that there is equivalent repercussion for employers attacking employees and employee rights.

Look, I don't think labor unions as we have them are the best answer to the well-being of the average citizen. But they are institutions designed to protect employees' rights. Which businesses are not.

Looking for information on this bill, I found this-- http://laborpains.org/2012/01/05/the-employee-rights-act-2/ --on the "Labor Pains: Because being in a union can be painful" site. Is laborpains.org a site where unhappy union members share their grievances with the unions? Nope, it's just another mouthpiece (alongside unionfacts.com ) for "The Center for Union Facts," and almost all it does is whine in unspecified, unelucidated, generalized ways about how unions are eeevil--though occasionally it lets slip that it thinks they want too much money for their members. It's not union members that are complaining. It's people who aren't being represented by one.

We need representation of the interests of all workers. Let's not tear down those in labor unions, let's lift up the currently unrepresented. Let's have social democracy for all citizens.