GOP Convention

Quote: rxwine

AS I've heard said about computers, "now people will get things done faster". As it turns out, they can just load more work per workday.

That's kind of the point. You don't make
things faster so they can stay the same.
You don't buy 4 horses to do the job
two horses can do. You get more land
and then get 4 horses.

Quote: rxwine

Welfare system is a model that's been around for awhile. Pretty sure you would agree that doesn't make it good.

Like I've explained to FrGamble, just because something like bloodletting was used for over a thousand years, it still didn't work.

So you do not want things to get better and more efficient as time goes on?

Quote:

Be careful what you wish for.

AS I've heard said about computers, "now people will get things done faster". As it turns out, they can just load more work per workday.

Making your cogs in the machine always work better, faster, harder, is what brought about terms like "rat race."

Not a matter of "wishing" for something. It is a matter of how life works. Remember, if you want to get paid more you have to produce more. No way around that.

Quote: AZDuffman

So you do not want things to get better and more efficient as time goes on?

I wouldn't actually use "more efficient" as always desirable because it is offset against the human need not to be driven insane by efficiency requirements.

"Better" is okay as it seems kind of general.

One of the best ways to drive a worker to madness is too keep giving too much to do and too little time to complete it. It's one of things they use at military academies to put their cadets under stress and see if they can keep going.

Quote: AZDuffman

Remember, if you want to get paid more you have to produce more. No way around that.

This is a new concept, historically. In the
Dark and Middle ages, farmers and
merchants just wanted things to go
smoothly, they were not out to 'get
ahead'. If a farmer raised enough to
feed his family, or a merchant sold
enough to stay above water, they
were happy. A cobbler made enough
shoes for the customers he had, he
didn't go seeking more. Advertising
was unheard of.

Nobody strove for their children to do
better than them. If they could do just
as well, that was great. The Industrial
Revolution changed all that. With the
ability to mass produce, our attitudes
had to change. Before then all the
rich people were royalty or bankers.
Now everybody can be rich if they work
hard enough. A very new concept.

Quote: AZDuffman

Anyways, I genuinely fail to see the problem with WMT. I always hear the jeers that they have low pay and low benefits. However, the same low pay was had at K-Mart, Murphy Mart, Gold Circle, Zayre, Grant's, and dozens of others and Target, THD, and others today. Retail pays low. Always has, always will. It is a rough business. It is not a career at the low levels. Move to management, drive their trucks, yeah, you can make a living. At the store level it is hard, although WMT made a few millionaire employees at the store level via stock purchases and matches.

Did the aforementioned chains die because of WMT. Sure. But if not for WMT it would be from someone else. Many of these chains needed to be mercy-killed. If WMT killed so many other stores their strip-mall locations would not be filled.

WMT has done nothing new, they just did it better. Sooner or later someone will knock them off same as there is no more A&P today.

Good points. Maybe I missed making my own.

I don't want to go back to pre-revolution where life was about literal survival. Surely even our most terribly underemployed parts of the country are light years better than that. I guess (and of course feel free to smash this idea too) I feel that our successes have been diluted for the gains of a few.

EB's parents (I'd reckon) are about were I'd like to be. Old school traditional, where a man could be the sole breadwinner, mama could stay home and create a proper family, and a person could get by. Sure, they couldn't afford extravagances, but they could get by. Not only get by, but have the TRUE wealth of raising a proper family according to their beliefs.

Even something as vital as raising your family is not possible in today's world, and I think you'd agree that the loss of the family structure is possibly the greatest cause of the many ills we have today. I like to think I am capable both physically and mentally, but I can't pull this off. The only reason it LOOKS like I'm doing a good job is because I have my retired mama just the other side of the hill and therefore have no childcare concerns (neither financially or in a "proper raising" sense) and because I have the immeasurable boon of living in my childhood home rent free. As much as I busted my ass and despite that I now have a "good" job, I would be eternally sinking if you took just those two things away, things that very, VERY few people are lucky enough to have. That Is Not Right.

I do not understand financials. Not taxes, not business; anything further than my personal money coming in and what I do with it is beyond me. I am one of your "low information" folks. And what I see is "my class" falling, no longer able to be self sufficient, no longer able to raise their own family, while a select few rake it in, not by "working hard" or "creating", but by tax breaks, funneling labor offshore, and getting the hook up from political cronies.

I don't want Ted Turner to be held at gunpoint by .gov and have his wealth taken. I don't want his half of Montana (or wherever his ranch is) to be parceled out to needy families. But I do feel that his success, while surely HIS, IS a result of a symbiotic relationship. Some, like perhaps Facebook in its inception, seemed mutualistic. Both parties, the creator and the consumer, benefited. Some may be more commensal, and that's all well and good, too. But too often things feel parasitic. Choices vanish, options get narrowed down, and instead of a return, the "power" given is shipped out, leaving nothing for the very people who bestowed it unto you.

I dunno how to fix it. I probably don't even have enough of a basic grasp to opine on it. But that doesn't stop me from getting realllly pissed off about it =p

Quote: Face

EB's parents (I'd reckon) are about were I'd like to be. Old school traditional, where a man could be the sole breadwinner, mama could stay home and create a proper family, and a person could get by. Sure, they couldn't afford extravagances, but they could get by. Not only get by, but have the TRUE wealth of raising a proper family according to their beliefs.

Yet they were the last generation of it.
All four boys in the family joined the
Navy as soon as they graduated, and
never lived at home again. This devastated
the farm concept and at the start of the
war they sold it and moved to the east
coast where my grandpa got a job when
he was in his 60's. The self sustaining
farm life just wasn't possible when all
the free labor left and never came back.

What it shows is that people lived that
way because they had to, because they
had no other choice. When choices were
made available, they took off away from
the farm like jackrabbits.

Quote: Evenbob

. Yet every single Trump rally
has a thousand people who can't even get
in.

What planet do you live on?
Have you even been to a Trump rally?
Last Trump Rally I went to, maybe 1/3 of the room full
Tampa Convention Center
Pictures don't lie :-)
Here's the one I took while John Miller (aka Trump) was speaking
Free tickets,
Johnstown PA is tiny
This is Tampa baby, major city in a battleground state

https://www.flickr.com/photos/22787213@N02/27603171525/in/dateposted-public/

Quote: terapined

What planet do you live on?
Have you even been to a Trump rally?

TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — To a crowd of thousands, Donald Trump spoke for about 45 minutes at the Tampa Convention Center on Saturday morning... The line to see Mr. Trump began early this morning, with hundreds of supporters lining up as early as 4 a.m. to snag a front-row spot.. Saturday marked Trump’s third campaign stop in Tampa since February, when he drew at least 10,000 people.

http://wfla.com/2016/06/11/trump-holds-rally-in-tampa-saturday-morning/

Yup, that sounds just like Hill's rally where
60 attended.

Quote: Evenbob

TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — To a crowd of thousands, Donald Trump spoke for about 45 minutes at the Tampa Convention Center on Saturday morning... The line to see Mr. Trump began early this morning, with hundreds of supporters lining up as early as 4 a.m. to snag a front-row spot.. Saturday marked Trump’s third campaign stop in Tampa since February, when he drew at least 10,000 people.

http://wfla.com/2016/06/11/trump-holds-rally-in-tampa-saturday-morning/

Yup, that sounds just like Hill's rally where
60 attended.

I was there, my estimate 2k(look at my picture, no way more then 2k) in a city of Tampa 350k. St Pete 250k and Clearwater 110k is really part of the Tampa Metropolitan area
So the reality is attracting only 2k among 710k.
Not impressive
Johnstown is tiny, 20k
Anyway your statement "Yet every single Trump rally
has a thousand people who can't even get
in."
Is wrong
You are wrong EB :-)
The rally I went to was far far from sold out
In fact they never bothered to scan my ticket due to poor attendance
Not sold out, Thousands not left outside.
Wrong EB

Quote: terapined

I was there, my estimate 2k

Yet all other reports are it was 10K. Hmm,
who to believe, who to believe..