Re: I'm too appalled for a lyrical re line.
 

Here is where you and I have a rare moment of near total agreement. Walmart's a depressing shit show of a store. I have been there, but generally, I avoid the place at all costs. I don't want to see the people in it or patronize the greed-addled degenerates who own it.

As to pedicures, manicures, shoe shines, and the like - fuck all that, as well. Nobody patronizing those institutions can claim ignorance. We all know damn well the people doing that work are being paid like shit, and the work is by definition demeaning. Manage your own cuticles. Shine you own shoes. Too many of the people who go in for these sorts of "personal concierge" services get off on the idea of having someone service them. They're all about complaining if the waitress is a bit slow, getting a caddie to carry their tiny travel golf bag, pushing the cleaning lady to do more than is polite, etc. Too many people with a taste for "personal service" are all about enforcing power on another. There's a special ring in hell for these sorts.

Re: I'm too appalled for a lyrical re line.
 

Are you saying that American willingness to buy foreign occurred sometime after foreign manufacturers were able to provide products that were good value for the price?



Sure seemed that way. And you so often do. But I guess you were adopting the Detroit Big 3 line of blaming consumers for looking for good value for their money. Confirming my earlier point.

As for the Big 3's cynical advertising "Buy American! [from our factories in Mexico]", well, okay.

Re: I'm too appalled for a lyrical re line.
 

I tip my strippers well, so I feel exempt from this kind of damnation.

Re: I'm too appalled for a lyrical re line.
 

Sure, and products that worked. The only way to have supported the high wages was blind buying of US made products, all products. I grew up in a home where we would not buy anything "made in Japan."





The $$$ value COMBINED with US quality and fuel economy and options was finally enough to break the wall keeping everyone buying US.

My cousin was the first in my family to break out, to quote him:

People tell me if I buy a Japanese car I'll put 3 US workers out of work. Yeah, 2 pump gas and one fixes cars.

And you can blame fuel and options on management, but the quality was a result of worker apathy. I was there so I know what I'm talking about, but you carry on seeing the entire UAW work force as 100% loyal salt-of-the-Earth workers sitting around at lunch wishing that management would finally make the cars folks want!

I'm not sure what this means, you're saying today the argument is cynical? Sure. It's also why people pointing to the import factories in the South are wrong too.

Re: I'm too appalled for a lyrical re line.
 

Don't forget lawn services and landscaping. Mitt Romney was cool enough to say Hola! to his yard workers and hang with them a bit, but then he was shocked -SHOCKED! - when they were discovered to be poorly paid illegals.

Re: I'm too appalled for a lyrical re line.
 

This is actually the dumbest thing you've ever said. Not so much the first sentence. That sentence is extraordinarily dumb, even for you -- you cannot blame line workers for the fact that American car companies in the 70s were designing and producing behemoth gas guzzlers. Unless you think that a lazy union worker added 2000 pounds to the car and made it 4 feet longer and 2 feet wider than it was supposed to be.

But the second part? Jesus fuck, you think being a 20 year old, or whatever you were, living in Detroit gives you special ability to make pronouncements about an entire industry?

You are hopeless. Feel free to respond however you want, I'll ignore it. If I'm going to pay attention to stupid people on the Internet, they need to have nice tits.

Re: I'm too appalled for a lyrical re line.
 

I blamed management for that. I simply said the workers made the big gas guzzlers break down because they didn't care. You really can't read can you?


Translation: yes I do believe the entire UAW was full of honest good folk, who worked hard each day, and were robbed of their birthright by the evil management.

Are you on pain meds for something short term, or you're just crazy in a retard kind of way, huh??

Michael, row the boat ashore.
 

The decline of the Big 3 isn't a simple of case of either/or between labor and management. It's more complicated than that - there are bookshelves full of the works of smart people trying to figure out why. David Halberstam's "The Reckoning" is a good start. I also like "On a Clear Day You Can See General Motors."

Re: Michael, row the boat ashore.
 

So, say if you could talk to a mammal that was around when the dinosaurs died out about what happened, you'd rather look at studies written by scientists millions of years later who studied fossils?

Someone's praying, Lord.
 

Hank, mi amigo, the shrew could only provide me with anecdotal evidence. Plus, (1) On a Clear Day was basically written by John DeLorean (an automotive executive T-Rex if there ever was one) and (B) neither of the books I mentioned were written "millions of years later" or the equivalent. The Reckoning was based on contemporary reporting that probably overlapped with your stint on the assembly line. Maybe Halberstam interviewed you.

And I think one or both of them mentioned the whole "don't buy a car assembled after a big sporting event or a 3 day weekend" quality issues caused by hungover, apathetic UAW fossils.

Re: Someone's praying, Lord.
 

John DeLorean? Do you realize his history with GM? Taking his opinion would be like accepting notme's take on the history of the PB.

Tell me, doctor - where are we going this time?
 

Saying that Johnny D's had a bias is a different argument than the one you made. And his time running Pontiac (as opposed to running Chevy, which is probably what you're talking about) was pretty impressive - the GTO was his baby.

Plus the dude was behind the creation of a time machine, man (a stainless steel sports car? Made in Northern Ireland before the Good Friday accords? Incredibly expensive? Fuck yeah! Cocaine is a helluva drug).

It's just talk/talk/talk until you lose your patience.
 

[scene: a man in a car, alone, driving in the middle of nowhere, smoking, listening to the radio]

Announcer: Thank you all for tuning in this evening to "Car Talk" with Hank Chinaski and Not Bob.

Not Bob: Hank, our next caller has a question about whether the undercoating scams run by Big 3 new car dealers in the 1970s had anything to do with the rise of Honda, and ultimately the nail salon wage theft scandals exposed recently by the NYT. Can we really blame it all on Rusty Jones?

Hank: You know, Not Bob, Mr. Ford didn't believe in unions, but he did believe in paying his workers enough so that they could afford to buy the cars they made ....

[click]

[static]

"I want to sleep with common people! I want to sleep with common people like you!"

https://espngrantland.files.wordpres...6-hp.jpg?w=750

Re: Someone's praying, Lord.
 

Obviously, we all need to establish our bona fides before commenting further. I may have been more of a hayseed than a grease monkey, but I was arrested and charged with "obstructing employment" at an auto parts plant in Westfield, MA in the the early 80s. I admitted the facts and was fined $25, which was paid by the UAW. My uncle sold John Deere's his whole life near Lima, NY, so we did have a grease monkey in the family. And I know that positraction wasn't available on the '64 Buick skylark.

Re: I'm too appalled for a lyrical re line.
 

See, Hank, you could have done something about this. Back when you were 20, you could have gone into the two mile long assembly line and, with great spirit and enthusiasm, welded that gas tank assembly for twelve hours a day like there was no tomorrow! You should have done it for America.

Re: I'm too appalled for a lyrical re line.
 

Re: I'm too appalled for a lyrical re line.
 

You know there might be room between what he said and your "translation," right?

Re: I'm too appalled for a lyrical re line.
 

Whoa. Someone needs to brush up on their early Michael Keaton.

http://www.sonymoviechannel.com/site...ho_980x350.jpg

TM

Re: Someone's praying, Lord.
 

Did you have to go sit on the bench and fill out the forms with the mother rapers and the father stabbers, and the mother stabbers and the father rapers and did they all move to the other side of the bench after they said "Kid, what are you in for?" and you said "obstructing employment?"

Re: Someone's praying, Lord.
 

Re: Someone's praying, Lord.
 

I was asked that by meanest nastiest ugliest one, the nastiest father raper of them all looking mean and nasty and ugly and horrible and all kinds of things, and then I told him I also incited a riot and Hank came back and talked to me and shook my hand....

Re: Someone's praying, Lord.
 

AND you had to go pick up the garbage.

When I was a lad, Arlo used to play every summer at Ravinia, a nice little outdoor venue nestled among the mansions and very easy to sneak into. He did that song every year. You haven't heard Alice's Restaurant until you've heard 2000 drunken teenagers and their drunken parent sing "You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant."

Re: Someone's praying, Lord.
 

It's the "Not sure" numbers that are terrifying.

TM

Re: Someone's praying, Lord.
 

I vote we do it and just make RT Queen.

Re: Someone's praying, Lord.
 

Can we give some of it back to Mexico? There are some seriously crazy motherfuckers living in that state.

Re: Someone's praying, Lord.
 

I rather like the Hispanic part. It's the whites who are loco.

I say we just open the boarder and let everyone across. It can only help.

Re: Someone's praying, Lord.
 

Chris Christie embraces jack booted thuggery, worldwide aggression, and alliances with brutal dictatorships. Denounces "civil rights extremists", e.g., people who object to domestic spying recently ruled unconstitutional.

So this is what a moderate Republican looks like?

Hi Atticus!
 

Re: Hi Atticus!
 

From the article:

I have my doubts. SF and SJ, together, have fewer than 2 million people. Could you really add "millions more" to them, and still expect average wages to be so high? Are personnel costs not subject to the laws of supply and demand? If housing prices were lower, would employers feel the same pressure to pay more to attract talent?

Re: Hi Atticus!
 

Mine is the fastest growing city in the country right now (at 4 million) AND I chose to stay here rather than move to the Bay Area mainly because of the ridiculous cost of living compared to here.

Re: Hi Atticus!
 

But this underlies the problem with the 10% number. All those people need to come from somewhere. SF's loss was Texas' gain, and Goddess knows Texas needs all the help it can get.

That said, I appreciate any attack on zoning, that mindless machine of homogenization that curses our land.

Re: Hi Atticus!
 

The fundamental observation is that productivity is so much higher in NY, SF and SJ. Wages are higher there not because of the higher costs but in spite of them.

Re: Hi Atticus!
 

Oh, I think the higher costs have something to do with the high wages, too. I promise you, if housing costs were lower, Silicon Valley Gazillionaires would pay their household help less.

Re: Hi Atticus!
 

I definitely agree that the restrictions here, and the costs they've created, are a huge problem. Geography is part of it -- SF could never sprawl out like Houston (though I suppose San Jose could) -- but so are bad policies.

But 10% increase in nationwide growth, from having one large city (NY) and two small ones (SF/San Jose) change their building codes? That seems ridiculous.

Re: Hi Atticus!
 

You like to assign one reason to this: Wages are higher because productivity is higher here.

Okay. I guess waiters, janitors, and bus drivers here are sooo much more productive than in any other city. And lawyers, I-bankers, and hedge fund managers too. So I'll accept the higher productivity as a reason (even as I contradict its existence by posting here).

But, I tend to believe that there are multiple factors that contribute to most results. So, higher costs are one such factor: You have to offer people higher salaries here, because otherwise they won't come here, where they know that $x doesn't go nearly as far as it goes where they live.

I also believe that the higher costs are a bigger part of this. Perhaps your workplace is one where the powers-that-be think, "We could pay our secretaries $x per year, but they are just so much more productive in the Bay Area that we'll voluntarily pay them 150% of $x." I think most businesses would prefer to pay as little as they can to retain people -- and that "as little as" number moves higher when the cost of living moves higher.

Re: Hi Atticus!
 

That's what they said about the internet. "A giant electronic web with virtually unlimited free pornography and funny cat pictures/videos? That seems ridiculous."

Who seems ridiculous now????

Re: Hi Atticus!
 

Think about it: If we didn't have the Internet, then all of those low-cost contract lawyers and programmers in India wouldn't be nearly as well-positioned. We'd be keeping those jobs here.

Of course, if housing were cheaper in SF, then we could move them all here, pay them 10 times what they make in India, and the work would stay with them. At least, that's what a study showed.

Re: Hi Atticus! Hi Mad Max!
 

If we didn't have the internet, housing would be a helluva lot cheaper in SF, and there would be hordes of what are now 20 something nerdy anti-social male programmers out joining bike gangs in Texas for something to do.

Re: Hi Atticus! Hi Mad Max!
 

No, because if housing were cheaper here, we'd all be rolling in money. Didn't you read Ty's link?

Re: Hi Atticus! Hi Mad Max!
 

Apologies, SF lawyers are more productive than the rest of us so it takes longer for us to catch on. Be patient with us.

RT, you should have moved to SF. You'd be productive like Sidd.