Top Tax Bracket in the 50's was 90%, yet US prospered
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So workers truly want with their every rising day to go into their factories or cubicles and sabatoge their company? How can anyone who has worked a day in their life really believe that?
I went to high school with a lazy jerk who managed to get into UPS. He is protected by a union, and he knows exactly what he can get away with, so he pulls tricks such as, pick a package up from one location, walk (slowly.................... mosey) across the entire warehouse floor to the wrong destination, make the manager of the wrong destination "check" to see if it is supposed to go here, feign surprise when he learns that it doesn't, repeat. All day long. He brags about how few parcels he actually moves to their proper locations. He gets paid $30 an hour, has astounding health care, gets 4 weeks paid vacation every year, has a company matched 401K that he fully vested in immediately, and will retire after "working" there for 15 years on 65% of his salary. For the rest of his life. His union has insured that his laziness will be protected, and he will stay on the payroll, screwing around every day and draining the company of resources and efficiency. He laughs about this.
It is really dangerous to base a whole philosophy on a limited experience. You might know one lazy union worker but to project that outward is a fallacy. I worked in logistics for three decades, the last ten with the parcel carriers.
First off, did you know that these "hated" union UPS guys and gals have to bid each month for their two (two!) 8-hour days? That's right, the rest of the time they are required to work overtime because it would cost too much to staff adequately for an 8 hr day. This seems to undo all the work and sacrifice of the workers in the 1900's who fought and received an 8-hr day.
Second, is it appreciated at all the tremendous time and safety pressure these workers are under, especially the ones who drive? Have you ever had to drive an empty truck around in the wind and snow under a time clock?
Third, and most signficantly especially if you have little to no appreciation for UPS workers, have you ever seen an old UPS driver?
-Debra0 -
Stop that, force corporations who want to sell here to create jobs here,
YOU, consumer, have the power to decide which companies get to sell here, by deciding who to buy from. We don't need the government to "force" it, all you have to do is vote with your dollars.
If you want an American to be the one making your t-shirt, then shop at American Apparel. If you want an American to be the one making your car, go buy a Toyota Camry (the most American-made car). Buy an RCA instead of a Sony.
It's in your hands. The government isn't supposed to be picking the economic winners and losers in life.
Good luck with that. We are too large a nation to organize in that fashion. But what we could do if we got properly organized is elect lawmakers who ban those items for us. And that is what we should do. That is where our power is, if only we would seize it. It used to be most Americans only knew of the two main political parties. Now there is the net, and any American who cares to can learn in a few hours about the possibilities for change. Real change, outside the corporate supported parties.
So far, Americans haven't been angry and desperate enough to vote those corporate shunned, underfunded parties. But times might get worse, and then Americans just might decide it's time for real change. Probably not, as humans are a species that tend to panic and get stupid when times are tough, but maybe. Just maybe.0 -
So workers truly want with their every rising day to go into their factories or cubicles and sabatoge their company? How can anyone who has worked a day in their life really believe that?
I went to high school with a lazy jerk who managed to get into UPS. He is protected by a union, and he knows exactly what he can get away with, so he pulls tricks such as, pick a package up from one location, walk (slowly.................... mosey) across the entire warehouse floor to the wrong destination, make the manager of the wrong destination "check" to see if it is supposed to go here, feign surprise when he learns that it doesn't, repeat. All day long. He brags about how few parcels he actually moves to their proper locations. He gets paid $30 an hour, has astounding health care, gets 4 weeks paid vacation every year, has a company matched 401K that he fully vested in immediately, and will retire after "working" there for 15 years on 65% of his salary. For the rest of his life. His union has insured that his laziness will be protected, and he will stay on the payroll, screwing around every day and draining the company of resources and efficiency. He laughs about this.
I worked in logistics for three decades, the last ten with the parcel carriers.
First off, did you know that these "hated" union UPS guys have to bid each month for their two (two!) 8-hour days? That's right, the rest of the time they are required to work overtime because it would cost too much to staff adequately for an 8 hr day. This seems to undo all the work and sacrifice of the workers in the 1900's who fought and received an 8-hr day.
Second, is it appreciated at all the tremendous time and safety pressure these workers are under, especially the ones who drive? Have you ever had to drive an empty truck around in the wind and snow under a time clock?
Third, and most signficantly especially if you have little to no appreciation for UPS workers, have you ever seen an old UPS driver?
-Debra
My friend works a 40 hour week. Every week. I don't know what you're referring to, he doesn't have to "bid" anyone for his schedule.
What does the general age of the drivers have to do with the topic at hand?0 -
Perhaps it helped that from the top down there was respect from the bosses to those who did the work!
So explain to me why we needed to create giant powerful unions whose greed has torn apart our country? Because of all those happy, well-respected workers living behind picket fences in your imaginary utopia?
be realistic.
Giant powerful unions are needed to counter giant powerful corporations. If greed has torn our country apart, it is not the greed of workers unions, it is the greed of those corporations.
so tell me why we need to unionize public workers?
I worked at a charter school in Oakland, as a non-union teacher. While I was there, Oakland proposed Measure N, a very small ($18 per year per property) property tax increase in order to increase the money for Oakland schools, some of the worst-performing schools in the state. My school also would have received the funds, as the measure was written to include all schools in Oakland, charter and district schools. The teacher's union rose up and fought tooth and nail against the increase wich would have brought more money to their schools, because they wanted to make sure the charter school (who was wildly out-performing them) would not get the money.
You've had one bad experience with a union. I live where there are none. State law pretty much makes them impossible to form and maintain. Corporations move down here to the south to save money by underpaying workers and firing and hiring temps to save on benefits. Great for corporations and investors, terrible for workers.
But the worst thing corporations have done is take our jobs...overseas, where they pay even less and treat workers even worse and where unions are put down with lethal violence. That should never be allowed. American markets should never be open to products from countries where workers are treated as slaves. Stop that, force corporations who want to sell here to create jobs here, then we can worry about the power balance between corporations and workers unions and what is and is not appropriate for either to do.
I don't know what state you live in... but here in Texas unions are allowed and they are used... the companies that don't have unions (like Toyota) typically pay better and have better benefits than those that do.
And I agree, shipping our jobs overseas was/is atrocious... but the only thing that could save us from that would be isolationism (at least economic) with large tariffs on exports... which is touted as a bad idea (whether it would be or not, I don't know as I am not economist).
I think if we refused to allow most imports and put heavy tariffs on the ones we did allow, there would be such a surplus of jobs in this country that we would actually risk a labor shortage. In those circumstances, conditions and wages for workers go up even without unions.0 -
Good luck with that. We are too large a nation to organize in that fashion. But what we could do if we got properly organized is elect lawmakers who ban those items for us. And that is what we should do.
Here is where we differ. I think the freedom to choose should be left in the hands of the consumer. My Dad is very strongly against buying foreign-made goods. He chooses American-produced items because this topic is important to him. I enjoy having the freedom to decide if I want to buy the $4 Taiwan-made shirt over the $20 American-made one.
I do NOT want to elect lawmakers who will decide for me which companies to ban, which companies should win or lose. NO NO NO.0 -
What does the general age of the drivers have to do with the topic at hand?
"Do not judge a man [or in your case a whole segment of the working population]. . .until you've walked in his shoes" !!!
-Debra0 -
Good luck with that. We are too large a nation to organize in that fashion. But what we could do if we got properly organized is elect lawmakers who ban those items for us. And that is what we should do.
Here is where we differ. I think the freedom to choose should be left in the hands of the consumer. My Dad is very strongly against buying foreign-made goods. He chooses American-produced items because this topic is important to him. I enjoy having the freedom to decide if I want to buy the $4 Taiwan-made shirt over the $20 American-made one.
I do NOT want to elect lawmakers who will decide for me which companies to ban, which companies should win or lose. NO NO NO.
And if the majority of Americans agree with you that there should be no laws restricting goods, I am content that this is democracy, whether I agree with it or will continue to live here or not. But one day the majority may decide that personal purchasing power and attempts to organize boycotts are less efficient than simply electing those who will carry out policies we desire, and then that will be democracy at work, too.0 -
If you're not a worker, your position is understandable. Loaded with propaganda phrases, but understandable. So long as you are wealthy and attempting to keep and grow that wealth, I wouldn't expect you to care about the welfare of others. Humans generally don't. But if you are a worker, you are speaking out against your own best interests, and that has never made sense to me.
I am a worker. I am a teacher, and I've purposefully sought out a position where I am working for a private corporation rather than a public school district. I am not protected by any union. I will keep or lose my job based on how well I perform that job.
I'm currently the #1 GED teacher in all the country, in my company. I don't need a union to protect my job for me. I do a fantastic job, and that's what ensures I'll keep it. That's just the way I like it.0 -
If you're not a worker, your position is understandable. Loaded with propaganda phrases, but understandable. So long as you are wealthy and attempting to keep and grow that wealth, I wouldn't expect you to care about the welfare of others. Humans generally don't. But if you are a worker, you are speaking out against your own best interests, and that has never made sense to me.
I am a worker. I am a teacher, and I've purposefully sought out a position where I am working for a private corporation rather than a public school district. I am not protected by any union. I will keep or lose my job based on how well I perform that job.
I'm currently the #1 GED teacher in all the country, in my company. I don't need a union to protect my job for me. I do a fantastic job, and that's what ensures I'll keep it. That's just the way I like it.
Fair enough, but for every one of you, there are a lot of other teachers who can't afford to pay off their student loans on their salaries, who face oversized classrooms and difficulties due to underfunding. Shall we fire them all and keep a few dozen top performers? Who will teach all those children you don't have time for?0 -
If you're not a worker, your position is understandable. Loaded with propaganda phrases, but understandable. So long as you are wealthy and attempting to keep and grow that wealth, I wouldn't expect you to care about the welfare of others. Humans generally don't. But if you are a worker, you are speaking out against your own best interests, and that has never made sense to me.
I am a worker. I am a teacher, and I've purposefully sought out a position where I am working for a private corporation rather than a public school district. I am not protected by any union. I will keep or lose my job based on how well I perform that job.
I'm currently the #1 GED teacher in all the country, in my company. I don't need a union to protect my job for me. I do a fantastic job, and that's what ensures I'll keep it. That's just the way I like it.
Fair enough, but for every one of you, there are a lot of other teachers who can't afford to pay off their student loans on their salaries, who face oversized classrooms and difficulties due to underfunding. Shall we fire them all and keep a few dozen top performers? Who will teach all those children you don't have time for?
There are also a lot of teachers who took district jobs because they thought they couldn't lose them then used their unions to demand more time off, more benefits, and when the budget fell apart, they got pink slips instead of all the goodies they thought they were going to get.
They killed their golden goose.
We should abolish teaching unions, and rid ourself of the dead weight teachers who signed on for three reasons only (June July and August)
If you truly only think there are a "few dozen" top performers, then education is more doomed than I even think........................0 -
If you're not a worker, your position is understandable. Loaded with propaganda phrases, but understandable. So long as you are wealthy and attempting to keep and grow that wealth, I wouldn't expect you to care about the welfare of others. Humans generally don't. But if you are a worker, you are speaking out against your own best interests, and that has never made sense to me.
I am a worker. I am a teacher, and I've purposefully sought out a position where I am working for a private corporation rather than a public school district. I am not protected by any union. I will keep or lose my job based on how well I perform that job.
I'm currently the #1 GED teacher in all the country, in my company. I don't need a union to protect my job for me. I do a fantastic job, and that's what ensures I'll keep it. That's just the way I like it.
Fair enough, but for every one of you, there are a lot of other teachers who can't afford to pay off their student loans on their salaries, who face oversized classrooms and difficulties due to underfunding. Shall we fire them all and keep a few dozen top performers? Who will teach all those children you don't have time for?
There are also a lot of teachers who took district jobs because they thought they couldn't lose them then used their unions to demand more time off, more benefits, and when the budget fell apart, they got pink slips instead of all the goodies they thought they were going to get.
They killed their golden goose.
We should abolish teaching unions, and rid ourself of the dead weight teachers who signed on for three reasons only (June July and August)
If you truly only think there are a "few dozen" top performers, then education is more doomed than I even think........................
That wasn't my point. Unions don't exist for top performers, top performers will always find work. Unions also should have no problem rewarding top performers, it encourages better performance from everyone. Nor should unions tolerate outright slackers. Unions exist when working conditions and wages are unfair for the average worker, and average is what most workers are, obviously, that's why it's called 'average'. Without average workers, we have no education system and no economy.
I guess I'm a Utilitarian on most issues. I believe in pushing for what would improve the greater good. Which means making sure your average worker has what they need to do their job safely and well and is paid an adequate, fair wage for their work.
But for the greater good, I also believe excellence should be acknowledged and rewarded and leeching punished. I think that makes society better. I see no reason unions have to be incompatible with that. Some may well be incompatible, but that just means they need to reconsider their policies, not disband and allow average workers to be mistreated.0 -
Recap to the question that if the 1950's had such a high tax rate yet the country prospered and the Republican President at the time called those who would want to end social security and labor laws "stupid", then why do the conservatives fight and scream that higher tax rates will hurt the country instead of help it? So far the answers have been because in the 1950's
#1) Americans worked (there was no outsourcing of jobs)
#2) Unions were too powerful then and that house of cards eventually came tumbling down. . .though that argument projects and avoids the FACT that America was working in the 1950 and 1960 and very well too, with unions, not without them. Still, it's a point.
What are some others? There were many reasons and it's important for us to remember so that we can not only avoid the bad decisions but remember the good ones too. Lets us get back on topic target. So, why did America progress back then with a higher tax rate than it does now with a lower one and, just to make the answers a bit thoughtful, how could that same thing be applied today? What would we as a country have to do differently to make that happen?
-Debra0 -
So workers truly want with their every rising day to go into their factories or cubicles and sabatoge their company? How can anyone who has worked a day in their life really believe that?
I went to high school with a lazy jerk who managed to get into UPS. He is protected by a union, and he knows exactly what he can get away with, so he pulls tricks such as, pick a package up from one location, walk (slowly.................... mosey) across the entire warehouse floor to the wrong destination, make the manager of the wrong destination "check" to see if it is supposed to go here, feign surprise when he learns that it doesn't, repeat. All day long. He brags about how few parcels he actually moves to their proper locations. He gets paid $30 an hour, has astounding health care, gets 4 weeks paid vacation every year, has a company matched 401K that he fully vested in immediately, and will retire after "working" there for 15 years on 65% of his salary. For the rest of his life. His union has insured that his laziness will be protected, and he will stay on the payroll, screwing around every day and draining the company of resources and efficiency. He laughs about this.
I can vouch for this. My bf works IN a terminal at FedEx. FedEx has independent contractors as drivers though.0 -
Oversimplification of a complex issue.
Remember what else was happening in the 50's? All of Europe had been ravaged by war and couldn't produce enough food, much less anything else. The U.S. was poised to be a major exporter of goods. Major.
There was no such thing as outsourcing. All labor was done by American workers.
You can't just look at one piece of something as complex as the economy and make firm conclusions from it. If it were a simple issue it would have been solved years ago. It's vastly complex.0 -
If you're not a worker, your position is understandable. Loaded with propaganda phrases, but understandable. So long as you are wealthy and attempting to keep and grow that wealth, I wouldn't expect you to care about the welfare of others. Humans generally don't. But if you are a worker, you are speaking out against your own best interests, and that has never made sense to me.
I am a worker. I am a teacher, and I've purposefully sought out a position where I am working for a private corporation rather than a public school district. I am not protected by any union. I will keep or lose my job based on how well I perform that job.
I'm currently the #1 GED teacher in all the country, in my company. I don't need a union to protect my job for me. I do a fantastic job, and that's what ensures I'll keep it. That's just the way I like it.
Fair enough, but for every one of you, there are a lot of other teachers who can't afford to pay off their student loans on their salaries, who face oversized classrooms and difficulties due to underfunding. Shall we fire them all and keep a few dozen top performers? Who will teach all those children you don't have time for?
There are also a lot of teachers who took district jobs because they thought they couldn't lose them then used their unions to demand more time off, more benefits, and when the budget fell apart, they got pink slips instead of all the goodies they thought they were going to get.
They killed their golden goose.
We should abolish teaching unions, and rid ourself of the dead weight teachers who signed on for three reasons only (June July and August)
If you truly only think there are a "few dozen" top performers, then education is more doomed than I even think........................
I completely agree with you here. Teachers unions are killing education, not funding. The funding for MORE teachers is being drained by the unions who demand more or the funds.
Just like with the 'big three' auto companies. Unions killed them also. The average wage of a UAW employee is $80 per hour. Not to mention full benefits. The unions also required that the auto plants pay 80% of an employees wages while laid off or in a "bullpen" waiting for someone to go home sick. Around $60 dollars an hour to NOT work.
$80 an hour to work in a factory is not a fair wage... That's extremely excessive.
My friend's husband is an union ironworker and never works when it rains. His facebook status every time he gets a rainout... "Woo, it's a rainday and I'm still getting paid!" Who absorbs thoses costs? The consumer, who has to pay an inflated rate for services or products so the unions can continue to push for higher wages.0 -
Recap to the question that if the 1950's had such a high tax rate yet the country prospered and the Republican President at the time called those who would want to end social security and labor laws "stupid", then why do the conservatives fight and scream that higher tax rates will hurt the country instead of help it? So far the answers have been because in the 1950's
#1) Americans worked (there was no outsourcing of jobs)
#2) Unions were too powerful then and that house of cards eventually came tumbling down. . .though that argument projects and avoids the FACT that America was working in the 1950 and 1960 and very well too, with unions, not without them. Still, it's a point.
What are some others? There were many reasons and it's important for us to remember so that we can not only avoid the bad decisions but remember the good ones too. Lets us get back on topic target. So, why did America progress back then with a higher tax rate than it does now with a lower one and, just to make the answers a bit thoughtful, how could that same thing be applied today? What would we as a country have to do differently to make that happen?
-Debra
I think we've beat the Outsourcing and Unions issue until it is bloody and unrecognizable. Time to start finding the other reasons that made America great in the 1950's even with a higher tax rate. 'K????0 -
I think we've beat the Outsourcing and Unions issue until it is bloody and unrecognizable. Time to start finding the other reasons that made America great in the 1950's even with a higher tax rate. 'K????
^Read my post above. Most of the industrialized world had been leveled by war and the U.S. was untouched for all intents and purposes. It gave us a huge advantage.0 -
So why do we have to focus on what we hate about each other here. How can we MOVE FORWARD or BEYOND to a place where each has more respect for the other?
So workers truly want with their every rising day to go into their factories or cubicles and sabatoge their company? How can anyone who has worked a day in their life really believe that?
-Debra
The media told them so. In a thousand little ways. Some have been conditioned to believe that workers are lazy, greedy, and evil and that corporations are headed by generous, put upon, wonderful people with the best interests of humanity at heart.
In reality, people are people, and we're a nasty bunch from top to bottom. The only reason the wealthy are worse than the poor is that they have more power to be worse, and we all gang up on each other trying to stop others from taking advantage of us. This is the human condition. Workers are no saints, neither are the wealthy. And we're at war. And the workers are losing. As a lifetime worker, I'm not happy.
Actually, I have seen with my own eyes... from my cousins who expect everything hand to them (my grandfather was lamenting over this... and they live in Ohio... a union state)... to people in a right to work state in a union company... Yes, there are good workers on the line... but there are bad as well... Unions (and I'm not necessarily talking those protected by one... just those in charge) and corporations are both equally as bad... or they can be... Like everything else there is good and there is bad... but to say that Unions are saints is fallacy... They are no better or worse than the corporations... they are just the other side of the coin.
The only thing I agree with here is your second statement.0 -
I agree with Brett, not only for the reason he posted but for a much larger umbrella problem with initial question. We don't live in the fifties anymore. The entire world has changed, corporate and fiscal law is vastly different, concept of wealth is vastly different, you simly can't apply or usefully compare the fifties with the present day. Any attempt to do so is just rhetoric and can be shaped and molded for whichever political end one desires.0
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I agree with Brett, not only for the reason he posted but for a much larger umbrella problem with initial question. We don't live in the fifties anymore. The entire world has changed, corporate and fiscal law is vastly different, concept of wealth is vastly different, you simly can't apply or usefully compare the fifties with the present day. Any attempt to do so is just rhetoric and can be shaped and molded for whichever political end one desires.
I'm not asking for comparison. Besides, who the hell wants to go back? We must move forward. But do we do so ignorantly as the screamin' no-tax people say, or do we review history and evaluate what worked as well as what didn't? The question is not flawed, your interpretation of it is because you equate only the negative with the 50's or do you equate only the negative with President Eisenhower? If today's conservatives can bow at the altar of Ronald Reagan, also a figure of the past btw, why can't they acknowledge another conservative, Eisenhower, who was actually a war hero and not simply a B-rated movie star who served in the war in a movie studio???
The irony is that often we modern Americans look on the 50's as totally negative, yet we forget the good things. Both of these extremes is to our detriment. We had a trade surplus in the 50's, the dollar was strong. We still made steel here. Infrastructure was important - hell, Eisenhower's policies built the interstates to name just a few. So, were those investments in American infrastructure for nothing? Are those same investments today not worthy? The jingoists today say that increasing the tax rate will ruin the country and completely disregard the past when it worked. The jinogists today, I argue, don't care one whit about a competitive America but instead seek to make the rich richer.
-Debra0
