More Republican Mudslinging - In Defense of Pelosi and the Minimum Wage

i was thinking along the same lines..

a little knowledge tells us that the attack on pelosi itself is somewhat hypocritical being that the republicans under delay were doing all they could to keep wage reform away from as many places as possible.

pelosi misses one and she gets slammed..

the lack of character of the republican party never ceases to amaze me.

I'm sorry, all you Republicans out there, but this is reaaaaaaally small beer. I'm not even going to slap the half dozen Republican corporate handouts that spring to mind, any one of which is worth 1,000 times what this is. It's a silly discussion, and a silly dimension for policy critique.

There are at least three good arguments against the minimum wage that can be made, and refuted, and the refutation rebutted, in any given set of circumstances (I did a Masters Thesis on this, btw). There actually isn't one right answer, it depends on the circumstances -- empirical, not opinion -- in which it is implemented. That would be a meaningful discussion and if anyone here wants to get into it, I'll be happy to pen an article on the main issues and we can have a go.

This kind of potshot is not only pathetic in its lack of power, but demeaning to yourselves. It's a shame Killfile felt the need to refute it -- although I'm grateful he did -- because his talent could be far better spent.

Grow up.

I'd be happy to hear a discussion on it.

Be back to you in a couple days. I have visitation with my daughter on the weekends and nothing gets in the middle of that. Want an email?

If Democrats and liberals are going to go around saying that the increase won't affect anything

Nobody is saying it won't affect anything. They're saying the benefits to the class of people at the bottom of the pay scale outweigh the costs to anybody else.

If you want to debate the policy aspect of it, as oppose to questioning the way it is being implemented or the motives involved, see my comment #5.2 above, and I'll be happy to email you to be part of the discussion.

TC-
you are soooo right.. damn those dems for leaving out american somoa. the nerve!

they really do look like @!$%#s until you think about the fact that the republicans would have much rather excluded the entire country.

it's sad that you equate unions with minimum wage.. if that were the case the unions would have gone extinct long ago. a minimum wage that is high enough to live on would certainly be detrimental to the notion of unions.

if you were to actually read the commentary above, you might notice that pelosi did not write or sponsor the bill.

my question to you is what is your opinion of the lack of outrage at the republican leadership and 12 YEARS of a "culture of pork" that is now being addressed in the house?

the fact that the republicans would have much rather excluded the entire country.

At least they are consistent.

it's sad that you equate unions with minimum wage.. if that were the case the unions would have gone extinct long ago. a minimum wage that is high enough to live on would certainly be detrimental to the notion of unions.

Do you even know what you are talking about? Did you read what T.C. wrote? Many Union contracts set mandatory pay as a multiple of the minimum wage. If the Minimum wage raises by $2 per hour, then their contracts raise by $2 x the multiple per hour. Raising the minimum wage is a back door attempt to raise Union contracts without having to negotiate. It is also a bit convenient that Union's overwhelming support Democrats with their campaign contributions even if their own members do not.

Yeah, because unions are so good at recognizing when they're shooting themselves in the foot. How long did it take them to figure out that paying people a lot of money to put out an inferior product was allowing the foreign automakers a foothold in the US that they are not going to let go of.

How long did it take them to figure out that paying people a lot of money to put out an inferior product was allowing the foreign automakers a foothold in the US that they are not going to let go of.

Jason, you may be oversimplifying a bit. Let's don't shy away from pointing out bad moves on the part of people and organizations, but there are a couple of problems with your characterization here. First, unions don't pay people. Unions are people, employees, who speak with one voice at the bargaining table. Unions sometimes overreach, but they're bargaining with adults who are perfectly capable of taking responsibility for their decisions about contracts. Second, motor vehicles are designed, engineered, and marketed by people who are not union members. American carmakers shot themselves in the foot by making poor decisions about which cars to produce. As it happens, they shot a lot of union workers in the foot, too.

Unions aren't perfect, by any means, and we can argue about whether or not they've lost their relevance, but they've done far more to help American workers than they have to hurt them, and to place responsibility for the decline of the American automotive industry at the feet of unions is a bit much.

and to place responsibility for the decline of the American automotive industry at the feet of unions is a bit much.

I wouldn't put the responsibility solely at their feet, but they played a large part in it.

I live in Ann Arbor, and 45 minutes away, Detroit is a decaying city. The Big Three's legacy contracts for retired union workers is crippling their bottom line. Further, the unions seem, at least to the untrained eye, to disregard the huge slum that the Big Three are in, clinging steadfastly to a cute line of "pity the poor workers who have so much muscle that they can prevent the Big Three from hiring nonunion workers and refuse to even think of intelligently discussing compromise."

The selfish myopic idiocy of the unions here has prevented the Big Three from ever truly competing with the Japanese, crippling them, and the rest of Detroit with them.

The selfish myopic idiocy of the unions here has prevented the Big Three from ever truly competing with the Japanese, crippling them, and the rest of Detroit with them.

Respectfully, Jack, what prevents the "Big Three" from competing with the Japanese, is failing to design, manufacture, and market cars which Americans will prefer over the cars produced by their Japanese competitors. You can blame unions for high manufacturing costs, and you can try to claim that automobile manufacturers should not have to live up to their promises to their workers, but you certainly can't blame unions for the failure of American manufacturers to make the kind of cars Americans want to buy.

With respect to contracts, as I mentioned above, manufacturers have intelligent, tough, adult negotiators working out contracts with unions. If they made deals they weren't prepared to live up to, why on earth would you blame unions? Labor contracts are agreements negotiated between businesses and their workers, and both sides are responsible for the outcome of the agreement once they sign. Where is the corporate equivalent of "personal responsibility" that seems to be such a popular cudgel these days when used against individuals? Perhaps if automobile manufacturers had paid more attention in the past few decades to producing the right cars, and less attention to enriching shareholders and administrators, they wouldn't be whining about pensions today.

It's difficult to design, when you have no money left for R&D.

It's difficult to design, when you have no money left for R&D.

Sure it is, and if you're an automaker, you need to take that into account before you negotiate a contract that is going to deplete your R&D budget. When a single father on welfare runs out of money before the end of the month, we don't blame the crack dealer for charging him too much. We don't blame the grocery store for charging too much for milk. We tell him he's going to have to take responsibility for his own decisions, and maybe stay off the pipe a little bit, or drink less milk. Corporations, such as automakers, have the same responsibility. They sent adults to the bargaining table - if they negotiated contracts that hurt them, how is it the fault of the people they were negotiating with?

I'm not blaming the unions for wanting the companies to stay true to their word. My argument was not meant to be extended to things they'd already agreed on.

However, their unwillingness to compromise on new contracts regarding wages, benefits, etc. is rather short-sighted.

We tell him he's going to have to take responsibility for his own decisions, and maybe stay off the pipe a little bit, or drink less milk.

The problem is that the crack dealers and the grocery stores are unionized - and if the father wants to stop or decrease either one of them, he risks his own death.

The crack dealers are unionized? That's what you've got? What does that even mean?

Didn't you watch Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back? The weed dealers are unionized, I'd assume the crack dealers are as well ;-)

But seriously, your guess is as good as mine.

However, their unwillingness to compromise on new contracts regarding wages, benefits, etc. is rather short-sighted.

I think you're right about this, Jack. At the same time, though, the automakers are capable of negotiating contracts that they can live with. They are under a tremendous amount of pressure, of course, which might lead them to make choices that are bad in the long run, simply in order to assure shareholder profits in the short run. If they do so, and the company suffers in the long term as a result, I don't see why I should sympathize with them any more than I sympathize with individuals who, through bad personal choices find themselves in a difficult situation.

I wish that American corporations, and American workers, were all doing well - carmakers, union members, factory workers - and I really hate that there are American unions who have been greedy at the bargaining table, but I hate just as much that American corporations have sent jobs overseas, that American consumers support corporations which sell products made by foreign workers, and that Americans are so quick to blame the people who actually do the work that used to drive our economy for the decisions made by the corporations that we used to rely on. If we're going to agree that greed and stupidity are behind the decline of American industries, let's at least agree that the greedy and stupid people have been sitting at both sides of the bargaining table.

I was under the assumption that you were using crack dealers and grocery stores as metaphors for the unionized employees the big three use. As such, I was pointing out that they can no simply fire people and expect everything to work out leaving plenty of money for research and development.

Sorry if that didn't come across properly; I've been sick since returning to Japan.

The problem is that the crack dealers and the grocery stores are unionized - and if the father wants to stop or decrease either one of them, he risks his own death.

Hey, it's my analogy - I get to decide who is unionized and who gets killed by the crack dealers. ;-)

But seriously, I understand that you think I've oversimplified it, but I don't really think so. The idea that automakers (or any other corporation) are held hostage by their workers is simply not accurate. Those guys (car manufacturers) are perfectly capable of negotiating contracts that they can live with. In fact, if they're not capable of doing so, then they're incompetent in one of the most critical functions of their business. If they make mistakes at the bargaining table, if they negotiate a contract that they can't live with, they'll get no more sympathy from me than anyone else who makes a bad decision. If their shareholders have to give up their dividends in order for pensions to be paid, so be it. They should have thought about that before they made the agreement.

I officially nominate this for the most insane comment ever on Newsvine.

Perhaps you haven't seen this one, then. At least Pharaoh has a good excuse in his illness.

I do not disagree with Jack...

Nor do I disagree with you.

But you do know... don't you... that the places that need jobs more than us were places where they didn't have them? They are now getting some. Hard work it took.

If you wanted to give them someonelse's jobs ... why didn't you? If you think giving some of ours is the end of civilization... you may not understand what civilization is. Or even what the End of it is.

It is sharing (I think). What you have, with others don't?

Otherwise it is a failing point of view... take from others what they don't have... but you already have? That makes no sense.

Fattening our pot, maybe? When we have much of the most.

It might be financial things that drive this.

But I never understood finances. I understand trying... and they tried. Now I give them their due. Let's give them something you have... so they can give us something you would have felt bad about not having. A chance.

This is ineloquent. But it is my point.

Brad, the Big Three most probably can't negotiate a contract that is beneficial to them in the short run or the long run.

The mandate that every auto worker be unionized means that the Big Three would be very hard-pressed to replace unionized workers. Thus, if they cannot come to an agreement, the unions can simply pull a company-wide strike for a bit, crippling production, and probably tanking the companies (if not outright bankruptcy, then a hit that will be very, very difficult to recover from). In effect, the companies are locked in no matter what.

The Big Three are stuck between a rock and a hard place, both of which are union-created.

but I hate just as much that American corporations have sent jobs overseas, that American consumers support corporations which sell products made by foreign workers, and that Americans are so quick to blame the people who actually do the work that used to drive our economy for the decisions made by the corporations that we used to rely on.

For the first two: Why? It's much closer to market efficiency than insular nationalism. For the last one: We already blame corporations for being greedy, faceless hegemonies. We're just blaming the workers when they're being greedy, as well.

Brad, the Big Three most probably can't negotiate a contract that is beneficial to them in the short run or the long run.

Jack, I'm not sure why you think this. The relationship between organized workers and management is a well understood relationship in which both sides have tools to influence the other. Workers can strike, and management can lock them out. If the union feels strongly enough about an issue, they can strike. Manufacturers have the same capability. During the time a plant is closed by a strike, neither the workers nor the manufacturer is making money. It hurts both parties, and both parties have the ability to stop it. If a manufacturer is more concerned about getting a factory reopened and keeping their shareholders happy than they are about agreeing to an unfavorable contract, they have nobody to blame but themselves. If, by saying that "they're not capable" of negotiating a beneficial set of working conditions you mean that they're "not competent" in the area of managing their relationship with their workforce, I might agree with you - if they are incompetent, though, in such an important business function, there's no need to blame unions.

We're just blaming the workers when they're being greedy, as well.

Perhaps your view is more balanced than I've given you credit for. It seems to me that you've been blaming American workers for the decline of American automobile manufacturers, when it is very clear that both workers and management had a part in the decline, and that manufacturers have consistently made choices which benefit shareholders in the short term and harm the industry in the long term, while workers have made decisions which benefit themselves in the short run, and harm the industry in the long run. Both groups are suffering as a result of the agreements they have made with each other. Both groups deserve it. Neither group has any obligation to be vilified for making those agreements more than the other. Personally, I prefer to give the benefit of the doubt to American workers rather than American multinational corporations.

I frankly don't know enough details a to make a very clear and confident judgment, but I was under the impression that unions have been much, much more stubborn in negotiations than the companies have. Further, I think that the unions' enforced near-monopoly on auto labor is the main reason why the auto industry hasn't thrown them by the wayside.

I agree that management has had a hand in making the US automakers slow to react to both Japanese and European pressures. I'm just saying that the general "the worker is the little man, who should have our sympathy" mentality makes an ill fit for this situation.

To be global... as we are now whether we like it or not... we (Americans) must accept that some jobs will be more efficiently performed by people who are elsewhere in our world.

First I would ask that we think about how the loss of jobs to other countries... happened.

Behind it is a constant demand in the US that "underpaid" workers be paid more. Unions have been an outspoken advocate of this. Look at the Wal-mart situation.

Unions want Wal-mart's employees to sign up because they are "underpaid" or "under-benefitted." (I may have just coined a new word)... or somehow cheated out of what they "earned" by being employed.

You earn nothing by being employed except an opportuntiy from someone who does not know you... to show what you can do.

I doubt Wal-mart employees will be overly benefitted by unionizing to get status or more money, or more benefits.

Should we have better paid workers... or just better workers who earn their way up the ladder and get paid more?

You know my experience already from what I have said above.

Socialism did not work in the places that it was tried. It won't work here either. Other people in other places have discovered capitalism... and even if some people here (in the US believe otherwise)...

... that is how those people got the jobs.

I once worked in a union shop... Hughes Tool Company. And when the union boss said to me that if I didn't stop working so hard... I was never going to get anywhere. I was making people look bad...

I quit. He said you'll never get a better job than here. I said to myself... (you guess).

I actually said to him... "I already have". Good Luck to you.

My 27-year career after that was based upon what I gave to the overall community effort. No union would have ever given this opportunity to me... as demonstrated by my first experience with unions.

I venture to say that one reason jobs have gone elsewhere... is (was) our unions in the US. They don't work. Not for their good workers...who move an enterprise forward... nor for their country where they have laws to protect their existence. They don't even work for workers who held us collectively back. They just don't work.

The unions use our laws to produce... what has happened...

... hold us all back for the sake of a few and the jobs will go elsewhere.

The unions also do it for the big bucks that are received for having done little at all... in the bigger scheme of things. They do it for themselves.

I support Jack's view. But it does not mean I am right.

It does mean I am feisty on this (not to mention...long).

I agree that management has had a hand in making the US automakers slow to react to both Japanese and European pressures. I'm just saying that the general "the worker is the little man, who should have our sympathy" mentality makes an ill fit for this situation.

I'll agree with you Jack, and I'd hope that you could agree with me that, by the same token, the "poor multinational corporations got beat up by the big bad unions so they should have our sympathy" mentality is equally inaccurate.

Jack might...

...but I don't.

The points are not equal.

Sorry... Brad Farris. But you should not give up. You have a point.

the "poor multinational corporations got beat up by the big bad unions so they should have our sympathy" mentality is equally inaccurate.

One big difference is that that isn't any sort of prevailing, generalized mentality.

The Big Three were stupid to think themselves invincible back in their heyday, and they did get themselves into this compromised position, but a bit more business sense among union leaders would go a long way towards putting the companies back on track, which benefits the workers. Strategically, the companies are trying to turn themselves around. The new Euro-styled Ford line is evidence of this.

To me, the bottom line boils down to this: the companies are trying, and the unions aren't.

...and yet that still doesn't change the fact that this exception has existed for a very long time, that Pelosi did not write the bill, and that Republicans are against the raise in all locations. The fact that she has stock in some company that operates in Samoa doesn't magically make those facts go away.

The only reason Pelosi's name is coming up at all is that she's the new Speaker of the House in the new Democratically-controlled Congress. She didn't write the bill. You may as well be pointing to Random Democrat #42 as owning stock in Star Kist. If RD#42 had nothing to do with the bill, then so what?

This is a bullsh*t red herring manufactured by the rightwing noise machine to slander Pelosi. More here.

Here's the summary:

...assuming Pelosi owned 0.1 percent of Heinz in 2002, he would have received a 0.1 percent share of the 75 percent of Del Monte owned by Heinz shareholders. Del Monte is much smaller than Heinz — $3 billion in annual sales, market value of $2.2 billion. So Paul Pelosi's share of Del Monte would be worth about $1.6 million.

Then consider that Starkist represents just part of Del Monte's portfolio, generating annual sales of about $565 million (you'll have to get the 2005 Del Monte annual report and turn to page 54 to verify this). That's 18.8 percent of Del Monte. So Pelosi's direct interest in Starkist would be about $300,000.

But that all assumes Pelosi owns $17 million of stock somewhere. And he doesn't. If you check out the Pelosi's financial disclosure statement for 2005 (click on the link under Nancy's picture), you discover that not only do they not own any stock in Del Monte or Heinz, but they have only one asset worth anywhere near $17 million — a vineyard valued at between $5 million and $25 million.

So to sum up: the right-wing blogosphere, up to and including the venerable Rush, fell for and helped spread a completely false slander about the Pelosis — even though rudimentary logic and standards of evidence should have set off alarm bells, and a few basic fact checks could have shown the whole thing to be bunk.

Oh, I'm sorry - was it okay for me to point out a little bit of genuine hypocrisy on the part of certain rightwing bloviators?

Although, as Adam clearly points out, it's not really an issue anyway, just another attempt to create controversy where none exists.

I'd have dinner with Darth just to see how he eats with that mask.

Force feeding.