[TheForge] Re: OT: several questions and thoughts

[Demon Buddha]

GHS wrote:
> Demon Buddha wrote:
> 
>>
>>
>> GHS wrote:
>>     Screw the unions.  They are less than worthless.  I just watched 
>> AFA sell the United flight attendants up the river.  They are assholes. 
> 
> Twofold problem. Union leadership often in league with the bosses and 
> more often simply estranged from the hoi polloi.

	I firmly believe that you are correct.

> And
> The union rank and file who have bought hook line and sinker an 
> unrealistic view of their worth.'
	
	Also correct.  Couple that with the abysmally poor quality of public 
education in the USA and one sees how easily those rank and file 
personalities are lead around by their noses.
> 
> We are back to enlightened self interest being lost. A worker who is 
> paid at or below his real value has a secure job. One paid above his 
> true value is always at risk.

	Just look at the market.  It says everything.
> 
> When a machine can do something faster , better and cheaper than you it 
> is time to look elsewhere for employment, because you will not be able 
> to earn a living if you do not.

	But people don't want to.  They want no change and no stretch.  The 
attitude is "fuck that... I'm keeping what I've got and I'll use a goon 
squad if I have to".  welcome to 21st century America.

> eg. At one time a decent income could be made making nails. People 
> needed nails and not everyone had the time to make them. Then someone 
> made a machine and the nail makers either became something else, bought 
> a machine, or starved.

	And so it should be.  Just because change is unpleasant, it doesn't 
follow that anyone has a right to be shielded from it at the expense of 
someone else.  Hell, two years ago I hung out at the Portland Rescue 
Mission when I was two weeks from becoming homeless due to my lousy 
market situation.  I wasn't happy about it, but I didn't complain about 
it to anyone, citing my rights and all that nonsense.  I was ready to 
starve like a man, so to speak.  Lucky for me that I chose to go back to 
school and that I have the best gf on the planet to help me through.
> 
>>> If the union needs to keep the screw turners then they should be paid 
>>> for the value of an unskilled job which a machine can do faster and 
>>> probably more consistently.
>>
>>
>>
>>     Welcome to fantasy island.
> 
> 
> Yeah I know. Doesn't mean I am not right. <G>

	Agreed.
> 
>>>
>>>>
>>> A decent reliable, comfortable car , made to quality standards  could 
>>> be made and sold much cheaper. We would need to apply the advances in 
>>> manufacturing and not demand a new model every year.
>>> I would gladly put up with a good solid safe 2006-2016  pickup for 
>>> 10,000 even if it did only come in black.
>>
>>
>>
>>     You would, but many (most?) people wouldn't.  The market follows 
>> the desires of the buyer.
> 
> 
> No, they follow where the makers advertisements have led the buyers. 

	This is partly true, by all means.  Chicken/egg... who knows?

> Changing really cool add ons like AC and surround sound into absolute 
> necessities is  what marketing is all about. (1950 avocado colored 
> appliance, now there is a necessity and true value added.)

	Yes, I agree that this is part of what goes on.  But demand is still 
the key driver.  If an idea gets out and enough people glom to it, the 
market will follow.  I really cannot say for sure where these things 
start anymore.  I suppose it doesn't much matter.  At this point the mob 
is so dazzled by bright shiny things that the mentality has taken on a 
life of its own.  one really need not heavily promote an idiocy before 
the market will seize upon it as the next great thing.  It's become a 
habituated behavior and I'm not sure that anything short of a major 
global catastrophe will cause it to change.  Well, that or a slow burn 
into the depths of planetary exhaustion.  Piecemeal devolution into 
material perdition over the course of several generations should provide 
the same end.
> 
>>   It doesn't have much choice.
> 
> 
> With all due respect Andy, Bull.

	It doesn't.  You either meet your customers' needs or they go to 
someone that will.  I'm not saying that it's all one-way... sorry if I 
came off like that.  Certainly business has its share of the 
cuplability, but in the end the real drivers are the people with the 
cash that burns in their pockets... or open lines of credit anyway. 
People are stupid beyond imagination in so many cases that it is really 
worth taking note of.  They buy all manner of crap that does NOTHING to 
make their lives better, yet they appear to never learn the lesson.  I 
pity the children that are coming up in this time.  I'd not want to be 
one of them.
> 
>> As the average person becomes ever more stupid, their tastes (if taste 
>> even really applies here) wander off, this way or that.  If you are in 
>> business and you do not meet the wishes of the market,
> 
> 
> Which they manipulate!

	Not all businesses do this.  One company comes up with an idiocy that 
gains traction in the market and guess what: the others have a choice to 
make.  Follow suit or suffer potentially fatal damage to the business. 
This is cold, hard reality.  Most of the companies that take the high 
road end up getting it in the neck, though not in all cases.  Would YOU 
risk putting yourself out of business for the sake of principle, 
assuming that the alternative wasn't directly harming anyone?  I don't 
think you would, especially when your decisions directly affect the 
lives of your employees.  It is a great responsibility that is assumed 
when one hires another to work.  It is a responsibility that one cannot 
really appreciate fully until one is in the position.  Then their 
childen and other dependent become a bit more real.
> 
>> it will pass you by.  If we're in a death spiral, and I'm not saying 
>> that we are, it is at our own hands that we ended up there.
> 
> 
> TOTAL agreement.

	Phew. :)