Thread: Don't Worry About the Mule, Just Load the Wagon

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

Different world we live in now. There used to be, when I was growing up, a "social contract", but that is ancient history. Watch his short video of an example of that mindset from 1962 ;

Everybody knows he was a commie. Yeah me may have put an embargo, but he did secure for himself more than 1000 sticks - the Castros lived off this dollar infusion for half a century and just when it was about to out and Cuba wholeheartedly embrace capitalism the current commie gave up

Originally Posted by gugi

Everybody knows he was a commie. Yeah me may have put an embargo, but he did secure for himself more than 1000 sticks - the Castros lived off this dollar infusion for half a century and just when it was about to out and Cuba wholeheartedly embrace capitalism the current commie gave up

The point of the post/video is that there was a social contract between business and main street. A moral imperative unspoken, that we would be loyal to the company and they would be loyal to us. Tariffs, trade unions, designed to protect the American worker gradually went by the wayside, and so has the American worker. The pity is, you have to be 60 years old to remember when a man could support a family, own a home, a couple of cars, send a couple of kids through college, while the wife stayed home with the kids.

Then they started offshoring blue collar jobs, and the white collars didn't worry about it ......... until they came for their jobs. Anyway ....... it is greed that is the driver for all of this. They killed the goose that laid the golden egg ...... figuratively speaking. Their egg wasn't large enough apparently.

I'm not sure if it's greed or just the impassive and objective application of Capitalism. The principle of maximum profit only deals with cost and price, not people and society.

James.

Originally Posted by Jimbo

I'm not sure if it's greed or just the impassive and objective application of Capitalism. The principle of maximum profit only deals with cost and price, not people and society.

James.

True, but we all , to paraphrase JFK, breath the same air, live in the same world. They have made this what it is, from what it was. I guess if you can afford the gated community it is not that big a deal. OTOH, living in a fortress with a moat and a drawbridge isn't the best way to go through life either.

I agree Jimmy.

At some point these things will settle down again and find an equilibrium, but at the moment there are such huge cost disparities especially in labour across the world that I fear things will get worse before they get better.

James.

Originally Posted by BobH

The same type of thing is happening in Europe too I am sure.

Yup, it's happening here as well. When I started paying into the local pension system you could retire on a full pension after 37 years paid (I could have retired before hitting 60). It has since been changed to "65 years old earliest" with talks of moving it to "67 years old earliest". I totally expect it to be moved further before I reach 67. By that point, I'll have paid 49 years into the system and I'll get less than current retirees who didn't pay 37 years... if I even get something out of it.

These words in retrospect will mean nothing to many. For many are living with their heads in the sand. Could this be you ? If you say the United States is a democracy, if you think what you hear on the news has any truth to it whatsoever, if you think the system is working, I say get your head out of the sand. No matter how good or bad of a job you think this man did, he died for what he believed in. And America wept. He was the last President I heard speak the truth. He was the last to stand his ground against enemies foreign and domestic. It wasn't long after this speech he was shot. 3 days I believe , but I could be wrong. It was the last time you heard the truth from a politician. The rest learned that they had everything to lose if they fell out of line. And so here we are.

Could not agree more with Jimmy and Jim. The "social contract" was torn up and discarded a long time ago when it became increasingly a nonprofitable proposition for huge corporations.

Bob

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

you have to be 60 years old to remember when a man could support a family, own a home, a couple of cars, send a couple of kids through college, while the wife stayed home with the kids.

Now a woman can do it, while the husband takes care of the kids

Seriously, I have several friends just like that. Of course the wife is not a blue collar worker, but a 'professional' - banker/doctor/CTO/etc.

Actually, working longer doesn't seem bad to me. People now live 8 years longer than they did in the 1960s, and are generally healthier - they've got to work some of those extra 8 years so that there is money to pay for the balance where they draw a pension. Or if they want to work the same amount of time that means that the money they get in retirement should be less than they were promised because it's being spread over a longer period.
Anything else is demagoguery and forcing the financial burden on your children and grandchildren.
That's the intra-generational social contract and it's heavily slanted to the benefit of older people because they hold the political and financial power.


As far as corporations being part of the social contract - that was probably the exception than the rule as in the previous gilded age they weren't. It seems to me that it's fundamentally darwinian and at a certain period of time the power balance was better.
Or may be I'm just too young and from what I've seen corporations have never been concerned with what is moral, only with what is legal and only in terms of calculating the cost/benefit to breaking the law or not. Those with deep pockets can simply buy the law instead, cf. http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CPRT-11...3HPRT91668.pdf

gugi I get your math and reasoning but you are missing a factor. When my Father past my Mother started to receive his pension being the higher of the 2. (she had 1 with the same company). Gas was about 1.25 a gallon then. Bread was 50 cents a loaf. She may live longer than her Mom who passed at 102 1/2 last year , but things are going to coast a lot more by then and her income will not go up to meet those costs. These costs are driven up by the same people who ,,, well pay that pension and todays wages which have pretty much stood still for the last 20 years . Just saying :<0)