America,Worth Saving???...

[saxitoxin]

Thank you. Too many toxic foolish people and sanity needs to make a comeback.

... by electing a party led by a senile 81 year old who wants to start a nuclear war.

As opposed to electing a senile 78 year old who wants a civil war?

The Republicans already beat the Democrats in the last civil war. I'm sure this one wouldn't take half as long.

This time around their first foray wasn't very successful.

We lost Fort Sumter before we won at Vicksburg.

[saxitoxin]

There is no issue more important to me than the destruction of the United States as an imperial power and its rebuilding into an inward developing neo-mercantilist island state.

I don't see why.

I mean, I know that neoliberal economists oversold the long-term gain of globalization while contemptuously dismissing the short-term pain that people would have to suffer to get there. That was wrong, and I understand being angry at them. I get all that.

But you can't turn back the clock, you can't put the genie back in the bottle. The short-term pain, terrible as it was, is mostly behind us now. The people who lost jobs to globalization are into retirement age now. Even if their jobs came back, they wouldn't be able to do them any more. Their kids don't want to work at Union Carbide any more than you do. Rolling back the clock on globalization just doesn't make any sense to me. There's more transitional pain going back than there is going forward.

True that mercantilism leads to imperialism and so opposing imperialism while supporting mercantilism seems counter-intuitive. But the United States is in a fortunate position due to its geographic isolation and the centrality of its financial markets that it can enforce an inwards-looking mercantilist mindset that doesn't depend on kinetic expansionism of the type it currently inflicts on the world through its military outposts and occasional mass murder atrocities (e.g. Libya, etc.).

Everything that's been done can be undone. Entire generations of families were born, lived, and died with a Roman Empire that looked like a permanent fixture of the world order. Donald Trump is merely a stepping stone to the destruction of the Republican Party as the neoconservative wing of a cartel of liberal warmongers and its reconstruction as a corporatist workers party. He's 78 years old and will no longer be with us when he has reached the limit of what he can contribute and when it's time to move to what comes next.

It's always easier to destroy than to build or maintain. We can destroy the modern world easier than they can maintain it.

[Dukasaur]

You addressed the question of How but completely avoided the core question of Why.

[Dukasaur]

And isn't "corporatist workers' party" an oxymoron?

[KoolBak]

That's a funny group name. Assuming it means someone that works for a "corporation". Since that's simply a legal business filing type, wouldn't someone that worked for a partnership be the same?

99% of working Americans work for a company. 90% plus are incorporated.

What a weird thing to say.

[bigtoughralf]

Why couldn't someone advocate for people to be treated well while working for corporations? In many civilised countries private sector employees are guaranteed all sorts of leave and working conditions by law, even if the current norm in the USA is to only allow someone to attend the birth of their child if they keep their phone on silent and are back at their desk within 3 hours (4 if there is a stillbirth and they need time to grieve).

[KoolBak]

Where in the actual f*ck do you get your information? From saxi or that psychotic confed guy?

Family Leave Act gives 3 months to mom or dad. Tons of scenarios you can argue stupidly about, but bottom line is you're an idiot.

In my 45 years of working, the only employers I've seen be douches about it are the ones with minimum wage part time gigs. And that is solved by quitting and getting any other similar job when you're ready. There are min wage employers paying bonuses to simply hire. Huge job surplus out there.

PS. That's my quota of interacting with you and your ilk for, oh, the next quarter. It's so painful, it gave me cancer.....

[fishydance]

Apparently you aren't familiar with the federal FMLA (Family Medical Leave Act) law that mandates time off. It applies to any business with 21 or more employees.

[bigtoughralf]

Oh, you guys mean the unpaid 12 weeks that people can take off? Next you'll be showing off some US federal law mandating that people be allowed time off work while bleeding profusely, so long as they make up the hours at a later date.

[jimboston]

Oh, you guys mean the unpaid 12 weeks that people can take off? Next you'll be showing off some US federal law mandating that people be allowed time off work while bleeding profusely, so long as they make up the hours at a later date.

He’s not wrong.

Also FMLA technically applies to workplaces that have 21 or more employees but there re a lot of loopholes.

*Franchises are all independent businesses… so many are exempt.

*Not sure what “21 Employees” means… likely means 21 Full-Time or at least “FTE” Full Time Equivalent.
Many retail businesses hire almost exclusively “Part Time” workers, even when those workers are doing 20+ hours a week.
I know different states have different laws here… but when a State imposes a rule like “anyone over 25 hours a week is considered full time” an employer often cuts hours rather than elevating people to FT status.

*Small business can label certain people in some roles as “Critical” thereby denying this “Right” under FMLA.
I had ZERO intention of taking 12 weeks when my kids were born… but I do remember joking about it with my boss who basically said I wouldn’t qualify anyway as I was a “Critical Employee”. So I asked for a raise.

[bigtoughralf]

Oh, you guys mean the unpaid 12 weeks that people can take off? Next you'll be showing off some US federal law mandating that people be allowed time off work while bleeding profusely, so long as they make up the hours at a later date.

He’s not wrong.

ralf and jim = standing up for workers together

*Franchises are all independent businesses… so many are exempt.

You almost have to admire the evil ingenuity of corps like McD's. How to build a global mega empire and get super rich while simultaneously washing your hands of all responsibility for it.

[Dukasaur]

Oh, you guys mean the unpaid 12 weeks that people can take off? Next you'll be showing off some US federal law mandating that people be allowed time off work while bleeding profusely, so long as they make up the hours at a later date.

He’s not wrong.

Also FMLA technically applies to workplaces that have 21 or more employees but there re a lot of loopholes.

*Franchises are all independent businesses… so many are exempt.

*Not sure what “21 Employees” means… likely means 21 Full-Time or at least “FTE” Full Time Equivalent.
Many retail businesses hire almost exclusively “Part Time” workers, even when those workers are doing 20+ hours a week.
I know different states have different laws here… but when a State imposes a rule like “anyone over 25 hours a week is considered full time” an employer often cuts hours rather than elevating people to FT status.

*Small business can label certain people in some roles as “Critical” thereby denying this “Right” under FMLA.
I had ZERO intention of taking 12 weeks when my kids were born… but I do remember joking about it with my boss who basically said I wouldn’t qualify anyway as I was a “Critical Employee”. So I asked for a raise.

Yeah.

Most benefits are denied to part-time staff.

Most benefits are denied to seasonal staff.

Most benefits are denied to workers temporary and contract staff.

Most benefits are denied to workers like cab drivers that can be (laughably!) redefined as "self-employed".

Many benefits are denied to workers in small businesses that have below a threshold number of employees.

The list goes on and on.

And the redefinition game never stops. Every day I hear of another company that found another way to redefine its workers as independent contractors when they were just employees the day before.

[saxitoxin]

Corporatism ≠ Corporationism

Corporatism is a collectivist political ideology which advocates the organization of society by corporate groups, such as agricultural, labour, military, business, scientific, or guild associations, on the basis of their common interests. The term is derived from the Latin corpus, or "body".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatism

The Republican Party is in the very early stages of evolution to a corporatist workers party. In the corporatist workers state, the party mediates the desires of the workers and and the owners of the means of production for mutual benefit. The moribund libertarian concepts of laissez faire capitalism once embraced by the GOP are replaced by active state intervention into the economic sphere. Of course, this is different than socialism as the corporatist state believes in class cooperation versus class conflict and supports nationalism versus internationalism.

“Five, 10 years from now — different party. You’re going to have a worker’s party,” Trump said in the May 17 interview.

https://www.politico.com/story/2016/05/ ... rty-223598

There is a wing of the party, led by Sen. Josh Hawley, that very much wants to lean into being a “workers party” with higher minimum wage, strong antitrust laws, etc.

https://www.newamerica.org/political-re ... of-the-gop

... conservative intellectuals say they disavow Donald Trump, but also see in his rise a reason to shift their party’s focus. The new Republicans would no longer be the party of “business and the privileged,” but the protector of a disenfranchised working class.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/p ... ty-114432/

The Democratic Party continues to be a capitalist party that makes strategic concessions to the workers as a means of maintaining electoral control. This is the Prussian model laid-out by Otto Von Bismark when he introduced sick leave and pensions as a way to suppress the potential of Marxist revolt. The evolution of the Republican Party is why the Democrats now monopolize the support of all the gilded industrials of the 21st century (Amazon, Meta, Apple, Walmart etc.; like the Republicans had Standard Oil, JPMorgan, Conagra, etc. in the 20th century).

[KoolBak]

Every day I hear about AND SEE small companies bending over to take care of their employees.

Guess it's a glass half full kind of thing.

It's like everyone here is just clinically negative

*think I'll give my employees the day off today*

[fishydance]

Every day I hear about AND SEE small companies bending over to take care of their employees.

Guess it's a glass half full kind of thing.

It's like everyone here is just clinically negative

*think I'll give my employees the day off today*

I too have seen that first hand, and I've seen some large companies that also go to great lengths to take care of their employees. Yes some do not, but others do.

[jimboston]

You almost have to admire the evil ingenuity of corps like McD's. How to build a global mega empire and get super rich while simultaneously washing your hands of all responsibility for it.

Is liability and risk not the primary reason for the ‘invention’ of corporations?

You spread the risk… both the financial risk, but also liability risk.

How often are CEO’s or Major Stockholders heard accountable?
Sometimes financially… but very very rarely are they held criminally responsible for decisions.

[jimboston]

Every day I hear about AND SEE small companies bending over to take care of their employees.

Guess it's a glass half full kind of thing.

It's like everyone here is just clinically negative

*think I'll give my employees the day off today*

I think that’s more common in small businesses… as the owners/decision makers are closer to the actual workers.

In small business the owners are forced to see the workers as humans.

In major corporations the owners see the workers as numbers.