madness of the GOP is the central issue of our time

[spurraider21]

the background

[Uriel]

yeah i was mostly talking about low skilled laborers looking for entry level work being affected, as well as small business owners. its not going to realistically affect the giant corporations like your wal-marts and such, 49% of private sector employment is from small business anyway



i think some good came out of obamacare. better mandated coverage for women, and the ability to get insured for pre-existing conditions. but the fact that in "insures more americans than before" is just due to it being a mandate/tax. heck, the supreme court only found obamacare to be cons utional because they determined it was a tax

Then it doesn't over the "working class." It s over the unemployed. Small business owners aren't ed over because, as you wrote, they can just introduce layoffs or cuts in shift hours to compensate. But they still benefit because minimum wage owners now have more money to spend to purchase their goods and services in the first place. As I said before, my wage is your profit, and your profit is my wage. That's just the way the economy works.

Regardless, the point still stands. Obamacare gave health insurance to working class whites, and they want to screw themselves by voting Republican. Hence the irony.

[Aztecfan03]

I've read your post multiple times, but I still don't see how it " s over" the working class. Maybe it s over other low skilled labourers looking for a minimum wage job by reducing employment rates. But it doesn't " over" the working-class.


ObamaCare has exponentially increased the number of Americans who have health insurance, including working-class Americans who previously did not have access to it. Republicans, whose base consists of working-class whites, want to repeal ObamaCare. So working-class white Americans are voting for politicians who want to kill a system that gives them access to health insurance.

Wow. Btw, do you know the meaning of the word exponentially?

[spurraider21]

Then it doesn't over the "working class." It s over the unemployed. Small business owners aren't ed over because, as you wrote, they can just introduce layoffs or cuts in shift hours to compensate. But they still benefit because minimum wage owners now have more money to spend to purchase their goods and services in the first place. As I said before, my wage is your profit, and your profit is my wage. That's just the way the economy works.

Regardless, the point still stands. Obamacare gave health insurance to working class whites, and they want to screw themselves by voting Republican. Hence the irony.

well, it s over the "newly unemployed" as a result of the aforementioned layoffs . and small business owners either have to cut staff/hours (which hurts productivity) or raise prices, which can slow business. and cutting shift hours over the working class as well. underemployment can be as bad as unemployment for some. who cares about making an extra 1.50 an hour if your hours are cut. and if it comes at the expense of somebody else's job, then that's not doing so much.

obamacare doesn't "give" insurance, it just forces you to buy it

[spurraider21]

Wow. Btw, do you know the meaning of the word exponentially?

mathematically speaking, if its an exponent less than 1, he could be accurate

but yeah, conversationally, exponential is used differently and is misused in this case

[Aztecfan03]

mathematically speaking, if its an exponent less than 1, he could be accurate

but yeah, conversationally, exponential is used differently and is misused in this case

yeah i know. Any growth or decrease would have an exponent.

[Aztecfan03]

well, it s over the "newly unemployed" as a result of the aforementioned layoffs . and small business owners either have to cut staff/hours (which hurts productivity) or raise prices, which can slow business. and cutting shift hours over the working class as well. underemployment can be as bad as unemployment for some. who cares about making an extra 1.50 an hour if your hours are cut. and if it comes at the expense of somebody else's job, then that's not doing so much.

obamacare doesn't "give" insurance, it just forces you to buy it

And it s over the working class who don't get a raise but have to pay higher prices for goods.

[spurraider21]

i think a problem is many people think all employers = rich cigar smoking millionaires who can afford to pay more, but choose not to

i think a problem is that neither party's economic policy really works for everybody. i think republican trickle down stuff can apply to the small business model, but fails when you get to the large business/corporate level, and vice versa. this is why you can find numbers that show each side working/not working. i think capital gains tax rates are a bigger problem than minimum wage/income tax

[Uriel]

Wow. Btw, do you know the meaning of the word exponentially?

Well, the word "exponentially" according to the Oxford English Dictionary means "becoming more and more rapid." And certainly, when the program was being freshly rolled out, the number of Americans who obtained health insurance became "more and more rapid."

But anyway, thanks for pointing this out. I'll be sure to take better care to use the precise meaning of the word "exponentially" next time.

[Uriel]

well, it s over the "newly unemployed" as a result of the aforementioned layoffs . and small business owners either have to cut staff/hours (which hurts productivity) or raise prices, which can slow business. and cutting shift hours over the working class as well. underemployment can be as bad as unemployment for some. who cares about making an extra 1.50 an hour if your hours are cut. and if it comes at the expense of somebody else's job, then that's not doing so much.

obamacare doesn't "give" insurance, it just forces you to buy it

That's true. So I guess it works both ways, then. But over here in Australia, where the minimum wage is extremely high, there's a lot more social mobility than in the US, where it is extremely low (compared to other OECD countries). And there's a lot less unemployment and a lot more equality. I don't think that's a coincidence.

[Uriel]

And it s over the working class who don't get a raise but have to pay higher prices for goods.

That's only if businesses decide to raise the price of goods. But as spurraider21 has mentioned, in his experience, businesses don't raise prices to compensate. They just cut down on labor.

[spurraider21]

That's only if businesses decide to raise the price of goods. But as spurraider21 has mentioned, in his experience, businesses don't raise prices to compensate. They just cut down on labor.

price hikes happen, but they're generally a last resort

[spurraider21]

That's true. So I guess it works both ways, then. But over here in Australia, where the minimum wage is extremely high, there's a lot more social mobility than in the US, where it is extremely low (compared to other OECD countries). And there's a lot less unemployment and a lot more equality. I don't think that's a coincidence.

isn't australia also freakishly difficult to immigrate into unless you have some technical expertise? i think that has a lot to do with their economic structure, especially when comparing it to the US which accepts hordes of unskilled laborers crowding the lower tier job markets which we are discussing

[Uriel]

isn't australia also freakishly difficult to immigrate into unless you have some technical expertise? i think that has a lot to do with their economic structure, especially when comparing it to the US which accepts hordes of unskilled laborers crowding the lower tier job markets which we are discussing

Well, technically, those "hordes of unskilled labourers" aren't being granted citizenship. But generally, from my vantage, it's been a lot easier to immigrate into Australia than in the US. Some of my uncles and aunts were only able to obtain US citizenship because they'd served in its military. But my Australian relatives were able to obtain citizenship right off the bat just by applying for it (though admittedly, I'm not sure if it's still that easy today).

As for economic structure, Australia is far more to the left than America. Over at uni, a lot of us are appalled at how far to the right even Democrats in the US are. Here, we have high minimum wage, universal health care, generous unemployment benefits, and a whole lot more. And what has it produced? A far more egalitarian society, and one of the highest living standards in the world. In terms of HDI, for instance, Australia ranks #2 in the world (just below Norway, another socialist country).

[spurraider21]

Well, technically, those "hordes of unskilled labourers" aren't being granted citizenship. But generally, from my vantage, it's been a lot easier to immigrate into Australia than in the US. Some of my uncles and aunts were only able to obtain US citizenship because they'd served in its military. But my Australian relatives were able to obtain citizenship right off the bat just by applying for it (though admittedly, I'm not sure if it's still that easy today).

As for economic structure, Australia is far more to the left than America. Over at uni, a lot of us are appalled at how far to the right even Democrats in the US are. Here, we have high minimum wage, universal health care, generous unemployment benefits, and a whole lot more. And what has it produced? A far more egalitarian society, and one of the highest living standards in the world. In terms of HDI, for instance, Australia ranks #2 in the world (just below Norway, another socialist country).

yeah right now citizenship is really burdensome to acquire, but immigration in general isn't as tough. you can still move here, work, etc without getting citizenship

besides the obvious North Korea, from my understanding, Australia and Japan are the two most difficult countries to immigrate to (or at least two of the most difficult)

[ElNono]

yeah right now citizenship is really burdensome to acquire, but immigration in general isn't as tough. you can still move here, work, etc without getting citizenship

besides the obvious North Korea, from my understanding, Australia and Japan are the two most difficult countries to immigrate to (or at least two of the most difficult)

Speaking from experience (former H1B holder, current citizen), *legal* immigration to the US is actually fairly difficult. You need to have a "sponsor", that sponsor needs to either cut a lot of red tape or have a fat wallet.

[spurraider21]

Speaking from experience (former H1B holder, current citizen), *legal* immigration to the US is actually fairly difficult. You need to have a "sponsor", that sponsor needs to either cut a lot of red tape or have a fat wallet.

my gf's family moved here from sweden and she's going through the same crap. her bro got full time employment from Sharp and they're sponsoring him. she's still paying international student fees for school which is a complete . she's still only here on a student visa atm...

it's not that the US has inherently tough immigration laws, but its more so that its still the #1 destination for immigrants, and the compe ion is fierce. from what i understand Australia has nutty standards though

[boutons_deux]

Investigation Reveals Silicon Valley’s Abuse of Immigrant Tech Workers

They’re called “body shops.”

These under-the-radar operations act as labor brokers, helping foreign skilled workers deal with the complicated paperwork needed to get jobs in the U.S. and then offering their services to American tech companies and government agencies. They can significantly streamline the never-ending hunt for talent in places like Silicon Valley, where demand for software engineers can exceed supply. But according to a new report, they have also pocketed wages and benefits from workers and even sued them for changing jobs, and apparently, many big-name tech companies—including Cisco, Verizon, Apple, Google and eBay—have turned a blind eye to the abuses.

According to the report, which was released by The Center of Investigative Reporting (CIR), The Guardian, and NBC Bay Area’s Investigative Unit, these labor brokers have often charged workers the cost of a visa and didn’t have a job waiting for them when they arrived, both of which are prohibited by visa rules. And in some cases, when workers arrived in the U.S., the account goes, they were “benched”—placed in a guesthouse with subpar living conditions and asked to post exaggerated resumes online.

Then, when workers received jobs, the report claims, the body shops who hired them collected a cut of their salary. The authors of the investigation probed this migrant worker problem for a year, speaking to thousands of Indian tech workers both on and off the record. They found abuses in Silicon Valley, as well as other parts of the U.S. One worker described it as an “ecosystem of fear.”

According to the report, Cisco, Verizon, Apple, Google, eBay, and some branches of the federal government use these labor brokers—through others, notably Facebook, shun them. “Why a more comprehensive job of cracking down on this wasn’t done, given that it seems there were violations of the law at pretty much every juncture—that’s the basic question we hope our work asked,” Matt Smith, one of the authors, tells WIRED.

Using these brokers, technology companies can staff up their workforce more quickly, without having to deal with procedural delays. And, in theory, foreign tech workers can benefit, too: if they were already looking to move to the U.S., signing on with a consulting firm who matches them up with an open position can be less stressful than having to go out and do an extensive job search themselves. But reviewing court filings involving more than 600 fraudulent H-1B visas, investigators found a more convoluted story.

...

http://www.wired.com/2014/11/investi...-tech-workers/

[boutons_deux]

And it s over the working class who don't get a raise but have to pay higher prices for goods.

evidence?

[boutons_deux]

Alabama voters ban sharia law

Such was the case in Alabama where voters passed Foreign Laws in Court Amendment 1, which was added to the ballot by the state’s legislature in an effort to put a controversial bill in the hands of voters.

Alabama Senator Gerald Allen first introduced the idea of explicitly prohibiting sharia laws from the state’s courts as a bill in the state legislature. The bill did not pass and instead became a ballot measure that asked whether the courts should answer to any foreign law.

Unlike codified Western law, sharia is a loosely defined set of moral and legal guidelines based on the Koran, the sayings of Prophet Mohammad and Muslim traditions. Its rules and advice cover everything from prayers to personal hygiene.

A critic, Randy Brinson, president of the Christian Coalition of Alabama, called the vote a “tremendous waste of effort,” in an interview with Birmingham News last week.
“Sharia law is not going to be implemented in Alabama, it just isn’t,” Brinson said toBirmingham News.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/11/a...e+Raw+Story%29

facts? we redstaters don't need no steenkin facts

[baseline bum]

[SupremeGuy]

[Aztecfan03]

That's only if businesses decide to raise the price of goods. But as spurraider21 has mentioned, in his experience, businesses don't raise prices to compensate. They just cut down on labor.

If the minimum wage rises a lot, the prices will have to rise. Cutting down on labor wouldn't be enough.

[boutons_deux]

"So voters want a higher minimum wage, legal pot, abortion access and GOP representation. Ok then."

where those issues passed, Repugs weren't elected, weren't in red states.

[baseline bum]

"So voters want a higher minimum wage, legal pot, abortion access and GOP representation. Ok then."

where those issues passed, Repugs weren't elected, weren't in red states.

Repugs weren't elected in Arkansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Alaska last night? It's funny when people vote against Republican views but for Republicans because they don't like the nigger.