Re: WGA Strike 90%+ vote to strike

"Josh Hill" <usereplyto@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:on7ph35931m20v8e69r9a3qina7h2b0btc@xxxxxxxxxx
On Sun, 21 Oct 2007 23:11:19 -0500, "Dennis \(Icarus\)"
<ala_dir_diver@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

"Josh Hill" <usereplyto@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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On Sun, 21 Oct 2007 20:11:26 -0500, "Dennis \(Icarus\)"
<ala_dir_diver@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

"Josh Hill" <usereplyto@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:lmgnh3l8v2lnul121q6mlosp5khhuoo450@xxxxxxxxxx
<snip>

Perhaps, but I wasn't talking about people who work at minimum wage.
You were the one who brought that up. I was talking about people who
earn poverty-level wages, like employees at Wal-Mart.

The minumum wage, being less than what Wal Mart pays, seems to fit
your
definition of "poverty level wages".

Guess you didn't see the figures I posted from that web site. It seems
that Wal-Mart's wages are higher than the minimum, but they still put
some employees below the poverty line, and others only slight above
it.

So talking about folks making the minimum wage less than Wal Mart pays,
would fit your definition of poverty level wages.

Would fit within it, sure. But you can't apply statistics that apply
specifically to one end of a range to the entire range. It just isn't
valid. Kids working after school jobs are going to be clustered at the
low end of the poverty-wage range.

Would you trust GWB and the Republicans to run your health care?
:-)

You have a point . . .

Seriously, I'm not wild about government care. But having no
insurance, or having managed care or one of these phony individual
insurance plans that drop you when you become seriously ill is worse.


Well, we could always address the needs of the uninsured, except
government
programs just tend to get larger over time.

Sure. But the figures show that countries like Canada that have
single-payer government health care spend /half/ of what we do. With
universal care and better results.

The projected population of Canada is 33,052,533, as of 10/22/2007, 1:02 pm
eastern time
http://www.statcan.ca/english/edu/clock/population.htm

The population of the US is 303, 185, 700 as of 10/22/2007, 1:02 pm EST
http://www.census.gov/population/www/popclockus.html

So they have a tenth of the population, yet spend 1/2 of what we do on
medical care.


The problem I think is that American health care no longer has
anything to do with the market. People just say "Oh, my insurance will
pay," and spend without regard to costs. And then the insurance
companies try to cut costs by adding a layer of bureaucracy that means
doctors have to hire several full-time staff members just to handle
the insurance claims, and waste their own extremely expensive time.

I'd agree with that. I'd also add in the cost of malpractice insurance.

And then the uninsured get care in emergency rooms, which costs
several times what a visit to a doctor's office would cost, or they
can't pay their hospital bills, meaning that the hospitals have to
raise their rates for those with insurance. The private system just
isn't working anymore.

So what would you like? Embargo? Tariffs?

Tariffs would I think be the way to go. But I suspect we wouldn't even
have to go that far (and it would take some doing to get there, since
they'd probably be illegal under current agreements). Right now, the
Asian countries are manipulating their currencies, dumping, engaging
in protectionism, stealing our intellectual property. I'd tell them
that if they didn't clean up their act they'd face tariffs. I'd repeal
tax incentives that encourage companies to move factories overseas.
And I'd require that foreign companies meet basic labor and
environmental standards. I suspect that those measures would be
enough. One doesn't want to go too far, to cause a depression or halt
the industrialization of the third world, which is in our interest as
well as theirs. The idea would be to move slowly and act
conservatively, and to bring the other industrialized countries --
with whom we should IMO have a common market free of impediments to
commerce -- along. Done correctly, there wouldn't be much by way of
actual tariffs, since the third world countries would find it in their
interest to comply.


And what are the basic standards?

Complex and for the regulators to work out. I'm not saying that to
duck the question, but because I lack the expertise to regulate
mercury emissions or workplace exposures. But the general idea is to
level the playing field between a domestic textile company that's
required to pay minimum wage and overtime, say, and a foreign company
that uses bonded child workers.

But,due to unions, they may not be paying above, perhaps far above, minimum
wage.
Would we do the same to, say, automated factories that may have fewer
workers if they have lower production costs?

Dennis


..

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