Thanks to all the past and present members of the trade and labor organizations who have improved the working conditions for all of us, no matter what our occupation. I hope for our countries future that whomever is elected president in November makes keeping jobs in the United States a priority. Believe it or not Jack in the Box is testing a new drive thru where the order is placed and the actual person taking the order is in another state or country. It is pretty sad that we are now outsourcing minimum wage jobs at a fast food restaurant. http://thesop.org/index.php?article=12724
Well, Steve #2, you can thank a successful labor movement for that trend. The single most imprtant reason all sorts of stuff is being outsourced is the fact that labor earnings in this country are so far out of whack with those in the non-industrialized world that it’s WAY cheaper to make it elsewhere. Labor in the USA has priced itself out of the world market.
So, if we don’t outsource and instead we use domestic labor for production, the price of everything goes WAY UP, Steve. That trend goes against the consumer trend in the USA where the single most important criterion in many purchases is price. People will drive miles to get a lower price, although that trend may be slowed a bit by current gasoline prices.
I am not advocating that we must pay domestic laborers less, since many can hardly pay the bills at their current wage rates. What I am saying is that if American consumers want a product at the lowest possible price, it will most likely have to be manufactured offshore.
As an example, roses grown, cut, packaged and shipped BY AIR from South America to the USA can be sold profitably at half the price of roses grown in Watsonville. Think about it, Steve. That fact remains true for countless commodities. Many American laborers don’t make enough money to live decent lives here, yet what they earn makes the prices of countless commodities made here non-competitive.
Am I advocating cutting back on worker protectios here? No way. But golbalization has changed the market landscape unalterably.
The USA is well down the road to economic extinction.
As if I needed another reason to vote against BART, the VTA Watch blog http://vtawatch.blogspot.com/ reports that “VTA General Manager Michael Burns instead chose to spend his time supporting an SVLG operative in frivolous lawsuits against Measure B opponents over ballot arguments.”
It seems that SLVG is so intent on ramming this BART tax through that they can’t tolerate dissent. Carl took the BART tax opponents to court challenging their ballot statements. Unfortunately for Carl, the judge let most of the ballot statements stand. You can, and should read all about it here: http://www.novtatax.org/wordpress/?p=29
“VTA and SVLG are not interested in a substantive public debate on Measure B,” said Greg Perry, “and this is bad for the taxpayers and the transit riding public. VTA General Manager Michael Burns should spend his time and taxpayer paid resources to fix the VTA, not to assist with lawsuits to shut down free speech that VTA finds inconvenient.”
The person taking the order at a Jack in the box is already from another country. We can now save the gas / airfair to bring the person here. We will be better off. The value meal will be cheaper if not free before long!!!!!!!!
You state, “Well, Steve #2, you can thank a successful labor movement for that trend. The single most imprtant reason all sorts of stuff is being outsourced is the fact that labor earnings in this country are so far out of whack with those in the non-industrialized world that it’s WAY cheaper to make it elsewhere.”
You are right that labor costs are much cheaper in other countries. Most of the countries are using virtual slave labor to produce the goods you speak of, including the use of children for pennies a day. I do thank the labor movement in our country that we don’t use children for cheap labor as was common in the 1800’s. The heads of corporate america have shown that they are driven by the bottom dollar, mostly in their own pocket, and ethics are not much of a factor in their decisions. It is not surprising they have decided to produce goods in China, Vietnam, Mexico etc, where de facto slavery still exists. Our current leaders in political office have turned a blind eye to this, which is one of the reasons their approval ratings are at an all time low.
It is ironic that you say our labor costs are way out of whack with the rest of the world. As we all know, you are a lawyer. What do you charge, $300-400 an hour? Yours is a profession that is begging to be outsourced but your own form of a union, the American Bar Association, protects the job a lawyer from being outsourced while at the same time giving millions of dollars in lobby money to their lawyer politicians buddies. The legal profession has caused the price of everything we pay for in the United States to rise due to endless legal litigation and friviolous lawsuits, dramitically driving up labor costs to cover these lawsuits.
“We want BART to come to San Jose, but it should not get here by dishonest means. We believe an honest approach to transit should first require VTA to improve its financial operations and to wean itself from a reflexive habit of asking voters for an ever-increasing take of our hard-earned money.”
Most of our minimum wage jobs are already outsourced to non-Americans. We Americans either just don’t realize it or we’re so spoiled by the cheap products and services that result that we won’t admit it.
The reality is that, in most places, if Jack in the Box needs a cheap employee, there are plenty of poor, illegal aliens that they can choose amongst.
If there are places in the country where it’s impossible to find people who will work for minimum wage then I say that is a good thing- not a bad thing. The natural laws of supply and demand will finally be able to take hold and the problem of the “working poor” will disappear.
Unfortunately, I don’t believe either presidential candidate will genuinely put the interests of the American blue collar worker as a top priority. Both seem determined to continue to allow unrestricted immigration. Continued low wage jobs will be the inevitable result and endless Government programs that will perpetually and vainly attempt to compensate.
The class warfare gambit is now being played to solve the budget crisis.
Some idiot named Paul McCauley, an accountant in SoCal, wants to get an initiative on the ballot to slap a wealth tax on rich folk. (Murky News, front page, 8/31/08 edition)
I wouldn’t want Paul to do my accounting. According to the Franchise Tax Board, the wealthiest 1% of California taxpayers earned 24.9 % of all income in California in 2006. But they paid 47.9% of the states personal income tax, or approximately twice the percentage that their income bears to the whole. The wealthy are already being overtaxed, Paul.
As some famous guy once quipped, anyone who wishes to rob Peter to pay Paul will have the full support of Paul.
Steve,
The expression is “those who LIVE in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones”, not “you shouldn’t throw rocks AT a glass house”.
The way you say it, it doesn’t really make any sense. You see, if a guy lives in a brick house for instance, or in a bomb shelter, he could lob boulders at anybody’s glass house without fear of reprisal BUT if HE lives in a glass house then he needs to be extremely cognizant of his own vulnerability should he decide to throw stones. At anything. Not just glass houses. Get it?
Now if you can misunderstand such a simple, trite old expression, don’t you think it’s possible that maybe, just maybe your analysis of global economics could be in error as well?
My rant not suprisingly has to do with VTA light rail. Why can’t they time transfers at the Convention Center and Tasman? There’s nothing worse than pulling into the Convention Center and seeing the train you need pulling out of the station. Come on folks, do you need a masters degree in transportation planning to figure that one out?
And, those of you who don’t want BART to SJ, muchless downtown SJ: There are alot of people who don’t take BART now, because they have to take the bus to Fremont, and Caltrain means you have to transfer to MUNI. A downtown SJ BART at least offers the possibility of a transferless ride to SF. Heck, I’d offer a free transfer on MUNI with a one way Caltrain ticket of 3 or more zones.
I got caught by the VTA’s atrocious planning this morning, waiting almost 30 minutes at the Convention Center because the VTA cannot:
1. Time its connections properly
2. They foolishly run the Winchester-Mt View line every 30 minutes on weekends, so if you miss it, get used to wasting 30 minutes of a day off at a light rail stop.
I wish VTA’s only problems were typical big city transit issues-smelly homeless, weirdos that you think are going to kill you, rude employees, etc. Rather, the VTA couldn’t manage a lunch time hot dog cart.
I obviously misstated the correct expression but the intended meaning is clear. If you think that my misstating an old saying equates to everything else I wrote being erroneous please stop reading my blogs and quit wasting your time. I think those that take grammatical errors, or spelling errors etc in a blog, point out these errors and then extrapolate everything else in the blog is incorrect are idiots.
Following up on #15, the Caltrain/BART connection to SFO is worse than the pre-BART van shuttle. In the “old” days you got off the train and boarded a free shuttle van that took you directly to your terminal. Now you pay an extra $1.50, board a BART train to San Bruno, and then transfer to another BART train to the airport. Then you have to either transfer to the people mover or take a long walk to your terminal, unless you’re taking a flight out of the international terminal.
And that BART line to SFO/Millbrae has lots of unnecessary tunneling, which jacked up the cost. This should be a cautionary tale for VTA, but apparently it’s not.
For those who like BART, remember that there’s cross platform transfer at Millbrae between Caltrain and BART. The ride on the Baby Bullet to Millbrae will as fast if not faster than going up to Fremont.
Of course one of the main reasons Caltrain riders stay on Caltrain to San Francisco is that BART is expensive and does not offer monthly passes, even though BART planners originally expected all Caltrain passengers to transfer to BART at Millbrae. If you have a bike, you can’t even take BART during rush hours.
Over the Labor Day weekend, postings may be few and far between. We thank you for your patience.
Thanks to all the past and present members of the trade and labor organizations who have improved the working conditions for all of us, no matter what our occupation. I hope for our countries future that whomever is elected president in November makes keeping jobs in the United States a priority. Believe it or not Jack in the Box is testing a new drive thru where the order is placed and the actual person taking the order is in another state or country. It is pretty sad that we are now outsourcing minimum wage jobs at a fast food restaurant. http://thesop.org/index.php?article=12724
Well, Steve #2, you can thank a successful labor movement for that trend. The single most imprtant reason all sorts of stuff is being outsourced is the fact that labor earnings in this country are so far out of whack with those in the non-industrialized world that it’s WAY cheaper to make it elsewhere. Labor in the USA has priced itself out of the world market.
So, if we don’t outsource and instead we use domestic labor for production, the price of everything goes WAY UP, Steve. That trend goes against the consumer trend in the USA where the single most important criterion in many purchases is price. People will drive miles to get a lower price, although that trend may be slowed a bit by current gasoline prices.
I am not advocating that we must pay domestic laborers less, since many can hardly pay the bills at their current wage rates. What I am saying is that if American consumers want a product at the lowest possible price, it will most likely have to be manufactured offshore.
As an example, roses grown, cut, packaged and shipped BY AIR from South America to the USA can be sold profitably at half the price of roses grown in Watsonville. Think about it, Steve. That fact remains true for countless commodities. Many American laborers don’t make enough money to live decent lives here, yet what they earn makes the prices of countless commodities made here non-competitive.
Am I advocating cutting back on worker protectios here? No way. But golbalization has changed the market landscape unalterably.
The USA is well down the road to economic extinction.
As if I needed another reason to vote against BART, the VTA Watch blog http://vtawatch.blogspot.com/ reports that “VTA General Manager Michael Burns instead chose to spend his time supporting an SVLG operative in frivolous lawsuits against Measure B opponents over ballot arguments.”
It seems that SLVG is so intent on ramming this BART tax through that they can’t tolerate dissent. Carl took the BART tax opponents to court challenging their ballot statements. Unfortunately for Carl, the judge let most of the ballot statements stand. You can, and should read all about it here:
http://www.novtatax.org/wordpress/?p=29
“VTA and SVLG are not interested in a substantive public debate on Measure B,” said Greg Perry, “and this is bad for the taxpayers and the transit riding public. VTA General Manager Michael Burns should spend his time and taxpayer paid resources to fix the VTA, not to assist with lawsuits to shut down free speech that VTA finds inconvenient.”
I completely agree.
Steve,
The person taking the order at a Jack in the box is already from another country. We can now save the gas / airfair to bring the person here. We will be better off. The value meal will be cheaper if not free before long!!!!!!!!
#6 O’Connor,
You state, “Well, Steve #2, you can thank a successful labor movement for that trend. The single most imprtant reason all sorts of stuff is being outsourced is the fact that labor earnings in this country are so far out of whack with those in the non-industrialized world that it’s WAY cheaper to make it elsewhere.”
You are right that labor costs are much cheaper in other countries. Most of the countries are using virtual slave labor to produce the goods you speak of, including the use of children for pennies a day. I do thank the labor movement in our country that we don’t use children for cheap labor as was common in the 1800’s. The heads of corporate america have shown that they are driven by the bottom dollar, mostly in their own pocket, and ethics are not much of a factor in their decisions. It is not surprising they have decided to produce goods in China, Vietnam, Mexico etc, where de facto slavery still exists. Our current leaders in political office have turned a blind eye to this, which is one of the reasons their approval ratings are at an all time low.
It is ironic that you say our labor costs are way out of whack with the rest of the world. As we all know, you are a lawyer. What do you charge, $300-400 an hour? Yours is a profession that is begging to be outsourced but your own form of a union, the American Bar Association, protects the job a lawyer from being outsourced while at the same time giving millions of dollars in lobby money to their lawyer politicians buddies. The legal profession has caused the price of everything we pay for in the United States to rise due to endless legal litigation and friviolous lawsuits, dramitically driving up labor costs to cover these lawsuits.
Maybe you shouldn’t throw rocks at a glass house.
“We want BART to come to San Jose, but it should not get here by dishonest means. We believe an honest approach to transit should first require VTA to improve its financial operations and to wean itself from a reflexive habit of asking voters for an ever-increasing take of our hard-earned money.”
See
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_10318073
#2, Steve,
Most of our minimum wage jobs are already outsourced to non-Americans. We Americans either just don’t realize it or we’re so spoiled by the cheap products and services that result that we won’t admit it.
The reality is that, in most places, if Jack in the Box needs a cheap employee, there are plenty of poor, illegal aliens that they can choose amongst.
If there are places in the country where it’s impossible to find people who will work for minimum wage then I say that is a good thing- not a bad thing. The natural laws of supply and demand will finally be able to take hold and the problem of the “working poor” will disappear.
Unfortunately, I don’t believe either presidential candidate will genuinely put the interests of the American blue collar worker as a top priority. Both seem determined to continue to allow unrestricted immigration. Continued low wage jobs will be the inevitable result and endless Government programs that will perpetually and vainly attempt to compensate.
The class warfare gambit is now being played to solve the budget crisis.
Some idiot named Paul McCauley, an accountant in SoCal, wants to get an initiative on the ballot to slap a wealth tax on rich folk. (Murky News, front page, 8/31/08 edition)
I wouldn’t want Paul to do my accounting. According to the Franchise Tax Board, the wealthiest 1% of California taxpayers earned 24.9 % of all income in California in 2006. But they paid 47.9% of the states personal income tax, or approximately twice the percentage that their income bears to the whole. The wealthy are already being overtaxed, Paul.
As some famous guy once quipped, anyone who wishes to rob Peter to pay Paul will have the full support of Paul.
Steve,
The expression is “those who LIVE in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones”, not “you shouldn’t throw rocks AT a glass house”.
The way you say it, it doesn’t really make any sense. You see, if a guy lives in a brick house for instance, or in a bomb shelter, he could lob boulders at anybody’s glass house without fear of reprisal BUT if HE lives in a glass house then he needs to be extremely cognizant of his own vulnerability should he decide to throw stones. At anything. Not just glass houses. Get it?
Now if you can misunderstand such a simple, trite old expression, don’t you think it’s possible that maybe, just maybe your analysis of global economics could be in error as well?
My rant not suprisingly has to do with VTA light rail. Why can’t they time transfers at the Convention Center and Tasman? There’s nothing worse than pulling into the Convention Center and seeing the train you need pulling out of the station. Come on folks, do you need a masters degree in transportation planning to figure that one out?
And, those of you who don’t want BART to SJ, muchless downtown SJ: There are alot of people who don’t take BART now, because they have to take the bus to Fremont, and Caltrain means you have to transfer to MUNI. A downtown SJ BART at least offers the possibility of a transferless ride to SF. Heck, I’d offer a free transfer on MUNI with a one way Caltrain ticket of 3 or more zones.
I got caught by the VTA’s atrocious planning this morning, waiting almost 30 minutes at the Convention Center because the VTA cannot:
1. Time its connections properly
2. They foolishly run the Winchester-Mt View line every 30 minutes on weekends, so if you miss it, get used to wasting 30 minutes of a day off at a light rail stop.
I wish VTA’s only problems were typical big city transit issues-smelly homeless, weirdos that you think are going to kill you, rude employees, etc. Rather, the VTA couldn’t manage a lunch time hot dog cart.
#9 Galt,
I obviously misstated the correct expression but the intended meaning is clear. If you think that my misstating an old saying equates to everything else I wrote being erroneous please stop reading my blogs and quit wasting your time. I think those that take grammatical errors, or spelling errors etc in a blog, point out these errors and then extrapolate everything else in the blog is incorrect are idiots.
VTA General Manager Michael Burns’ speech at La Raza Roundtable from last Friday is now available for your listening pleasure:
http://scvtaru.podbean.com/
It’s 40 minutes long and there is a very good question and answer section after about 22 minutes.
Amanda:
Besides contacting VTA Customer Service, do you plan on attending the next VTA Board meeting this Thursday evening at 5:30pm?
I would bring up your connection concerns there as every VTA manager attends these meetings.
http://www.vtaridersunion.org/DIY/speakout.html
Make sure to ask for a written response from staff.
Following up on #15, the Caltrain/BART connection to SFO is worse than the pre-BART van shuttle. In the “old” days you got off the train and boarded a free shuttle van that took you directly to your terminal. Now you pay an extra $1.50, board a BART train to San Bruno, and then transfer to another BART train to the airport. Then you have to either transfer to the people mover or take a long walk to your terminal, unless you’re taking a flight out of the international terminal.
And that BART line to SFO/Millbrae has lots of unnecessary tunneling, which jacked up the cost. This should be a cautionary tale for VTA, but apparently it’s not.
For those who like BART, remember that there’s cross platform transfer at Millbrae between Caltrain and BART. The ride on the Baby Bullet to Millbrae will as fast if not faster than going up to Fremont.
Of course one of the main reasons Caltrain riders stay on Caltrain to San Francisco is that BART is expensive and does not offer monthly passes, even though BART planners originally expected all Caltrain passengers to transfer to BART at Millbrae. If you have a bike, you can’t even take BART during rush hours.