My bunk, I will be in

OlafTheBent: My bunk, I will be in

lol... wrong thread

OlafTheBent: OlafTheBent: My bunk, I will be in

lol... wrong thread

Well, since the headline DOES mention stimulus...

SurfaceTension: Well, since the headline DOES mention stimulus...

... and "package"

/In the clear

FTFA: The higher output came as companies continued to lay off workers. That meant employers produced more with fewer workers.

That's because the remaining employed people are scares shiatless they'll lose their job if they don't ask "How high?" when told to jump.

Mark my words. Give it another 10-20 years, and you'll see a return to 12-hour work days 6 days a week, debtor prisons, no overtime for extra hours worked...we'll be returning to the 1800s (and earlier), quality-of-life wise.

It's gonna happen.

xanadian: FTFA: The higher output came as companies continued to lay off workers. That meant employers produced more with fewer workers.

That's because the remaining employed people are scares shiatless they'll lose their job if they don't ask "How high?" when told to jump.

Mark my words. Give it another 10-20 years, and you'll see a return to 12-hour work days 6 days a week, debtor prisons, no overtime for extra hours worked...we'll be returning to the 1800s (and earlier), quality-of-life wise.

It's gonna happen.


Yep.

You can already see it. For the middleman and low wage workers in a company their pay is being cut, their benefits are being reduced, and any perks to the job are being trimmed to the bone.

All the while upper management salaries and bonus's are being increased by several factors each time.

All of this is being justified in the name of Capitalism and greed with the theory that is what is good for the stockholder, is good for the country.


What's that old quote "Make the best quality of goods possible at the lowest cost possible, paying the highest wages possible."

That's what our country was built on. Not this stumped up investor's only club that it's turning into.

Beware_Me: But I thought increases in productivity always brought increases in the standard of living?

It has. Overall. Millions of Chinese workers now have a few ounces of chicken to go with their rice bowl. Several thousand executives have also had massive increases in their standard of living. The fact that 1950s-70s Middle America gets wiped out is more than balanced out.

/ fun while it lasted

oneodd1: Unless of course your only ability is turning a wrench clockwise at three different angles. Then you are pretty much screwed.

I guess that's why GM and Chrysler bolted to D.C. when things got ugly.

/ heh-heh, get it? "bolted". Get it? Huh?

xanadian: Mark my words. Give it another 10-20 years, and you'll see a return to 12-hour work days 6 days a week, debtor prisons, no overtime for extra hours worked...we'll be returning to the 1800s (and earlier), quality-of-life wise.

No. We're looking at the same info, but you're drawing the wrong conclusions, as is subby. (DNRTFA, I already read about this earlier)

The first thing that happens at the end of any recession is that companies are getting purchase orders but are leery of hiring new staff -- so they will stretch thin what they have left. Inventory stocks will be kept low, worker hours will go up. This NEEDS to happen; it's THE reason why employment is a lagging indicator.

What happens next is that eventually companies HAVE to hire more staff to handle the increase in orders. The first wave of hirings will come from companies that did late-stage "panic" layoffs where they got pessimistic late, and need to hire back workers quickly. After some months of dragging, optimism picks up, and the economy grows again.

The rise in productivity means companies are stretching their staff to the limit, but that only goes so far for many, many practical reasons. For example, at the company I work for, shipments go out once a day and many of the last-minute shipping changes are done same-day. Given there's a 6-hour window (at most) to process shipping, stretching the shipping guy's hours won't do a damn thing. If he gets overwhelmed, the company will have to hire another guy. Similarly, at the automotive firm I used to work for, the engineers are already worked 70 hours a week. There really isn't much productivity left to squeeze out of those poor guys.

Any return to 1800s style labor depends on how many people get suckered into buying investor-class talking points about "competitiveness". People talk about unions as if every single one is as bad as the UAW, but one of their biggest contributions (left) is their powerful opposition to any legislation that DOES repeal our labor protections. Arlen Specter pretends to be labor-friendly but voted against the EFCA; whether you like that bill or not, my point is that he's targeted for a primary next election. Dick with labor in PA, and you get counter-dicked. The anti-union Farkers say the unions are obsolete because most of what they fought for was put into law, but yeesh. . . you think laws can't be repealed?

To be clear, I'm not in favor of entitlement, which is something labor unions spend WAY too much time fighting for. But it is a fact that one of the biggest obstacles to a repeal of labor laws is that unions are still politically powerful. If the little guy's outrage stood for anything, bankruptcy reform wouldn't have been as absurdly smooth as it was (thank you, Joe Biden).