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What happened to the FREE one hour one minute (+/-) Hartmann Report podcast that had been being put on iTunes daily since July 2017?
I don't have time to listen to Tom's three hour show on air or the full daily podcast show repeat. I found that your one hour summary Hartmann Report seemed to be kind of a daily best-of and was delivered in a daily one hour dose that was easily digestable and was very valuable to me and several friends that I have shared it with.
I certainly hope that you plan on continuing it in this critical election year of 2018.
Solution: Echoing the listener's response 1/4/18 program - Why don't we put a penny a trade on the Stock Market. We have to start a movement on that.
@#11
Well Diane... if the teamsters is the extent of your "union involvment"? then obviously you have very little experience with unions. Contrary to all the neocon, right wing rhetoric... All unions are not created equal.
The majority of unions are under the umbrella of the AFL-CIO or the CTW. But that doesnt make them all the same. They all have different contract agreements. Different constitutions and different by-laws. And then theres public sector unions and private sector unions. The rules by which any given union operates, varies greatly from each other...
I've been a member of a building trades (carpenters 344) union for over 35 years. And we have elections, where we (the members) elect our officers. Our contracts are negotiated (in good faith) with the union contractors of our jurisdiction every four years. While yes, there is set scales to our wages (apprentice, journyman, sub foreman, foreman), and while yes, we are not all created equal, there is absolutely no "seniority" in the building trades... Your usually the first layed off if you dont "pull your weight" on the jobsite! Its not first hired-last fired...NEVER!
Thanks to our Koch- whore govenor here in Wisconsin... We're on a race to the bottom. With his Act 10 legislation that was passed in 2011... all but destroying ( firefighters and law enforcment is exempt) the public employees unions. They could no longer collectively bargain contracts with the state... But he didnt stop there, in 2015 Wisconsins "right to work" laws where passed. Or should l say: "right to work for less"... But he didnt stop there, in 2015 he (him and the illegaly redistricted Wisconsin republican legistature) repealed provisions of Wisconsins Prevailing wage laws. now they're working on repealing all of WI. Prevaiing laws. A RACE TO THE BOTTOM!
I'm really not going to blame the dismantling and distruction of organized labor on any one party...right or left. In the last fourty years they've both legislated and done disastrous things to this countries manufacturing base... And in turn, they've both done dsastrous things to this countries organized labor!
In 1980 one in four workers in this country was a member of "organized labor", Now, it's less than one in ten...
@#9 Great post logdog
Thanks Thom for one of your more outlandish topics. Drifting off into communism now are we?
Why should anyone have to deal with the stress of going to work. Let's follow the Thom Hartmann rule and everyone quit working altogether. It is mostly an unpleasant task anyway and everyone in the "community" should have the option of thumbing their obamaphones and watching RT on their government provided cable television while rolling a joint waiting for the welfare check to be electronically transferred into their bank account.
Hey, FREE SHIT FOR EVERYBODY!! What could go wrong?
@road runner,
In every union and every union shop I have ever been involved with, the contracted pay of all the union members was controlled by seniority not performance, and it was forbidden for an employer to raise the pay of a single employee over any of the other union members based of merit. In fact, the employer was not even allowed to choose which route a union driver (teamsters) was allowed to drive and if another member of that union wanted to take a particular route from one of his fellow workers with lesser seniority, the employer had to comply with that demand even if the end customer requested a driver because of his/her/alphabet's skill or personality.
As far as you losing a position that you thought you were more qualified, sucks to be you. Life’s a bitch, quit, get another job, and send flowers to the new bosses daughter/son/alphabet.
Gotta love leftie/socialists, they provide sooo much entertainment. It is truly another Christmas morning.
Start the CCC over again. The lowest of the lowest can help pick up litter, clean sidewalks, Remove graffiti, etc. We can add Maintenance people to the National Parks and National Forests. The best solution to welfare is a job. You will always have a hard time selling something for nothing in America. The youth of today need to be educated to the fact that AI is coming and will take a lot of jobs away. They need education to get a job.
I am currently in Brazil. Drove through Rio. We are total amatuers when it comes to Graffiti. They are creative here. Fortunately I get out of Rio and down the coast ASAP.
This isn't an answer to your question directly and it will shed some light on it from the perspective of a small business man. One of my best friends in college was the eldest son in a logging family in SW Washington. Joe and I had a lot in common and in one of our many conversations we drifted to how we hire people for our businesses which are not the same, but have many similarities and parallel operations requiring the same skills. Joe shared his perspective on how he does or does not hire someone. He said, Mark, if a guy comes to me and asks, "Hey, Joe, do you have a job?" Joe said he always has the same answer to this question, "Nope, I don't have any jobs." The Joe said, "But if a guy comes to me and asks, "Hey, Joe, do you have any work?", he said my answer is always the same, "You bet. I got work for you." Joe said, "You see, if a guy is looking for a job, he's really looking for a pay check and not to work, but if a guy want to know if I have work, I'll make something up if I have to because he knows that he wants to work and he is there to produce something, where I will make some money and I can then pay him. That guy knows why he's there." I never forgot that. So, back to your question, I think that we need to go deeper than whether or not we give someone a UBI or a job. We need to educate our population about the fact that they have to be willing to work, to produce something, to create, prior to getting paid. I think it is a disservice to people where they don't have to be aware that they have to provide something before they receive something. I know there are mitigating factors that would need to be factored in to the equations. But it does come back to what you have always said about the macro economics in this country and it needs to be applied to this conversation at the micro economic level; "Production always precedes profit." You have to make something to sell before you can profit. To this conversation, I think that the individual needs to be very well connected to the fact that he or she needs to work (production) before they receive a pay check (profit from their labors). Again, I realize this is a first take at the topic, but it would help put pride and a sense of accomplishment back into the lives of the people. Yes, the government should make it a priority to create jobs, but it is also incumbent upon the population to know that they are expected to work to earn their keep. There is a real sense of ownership for people when see this in their lives.
This is why I always appreciated the Mexican laborers. They always, always knew that their only stock in trade was a good day's labor and that they had to produce something. If they didn't produce, there were always 3 or 4 other people waiting in line who would give it a good day's effort. Please don't mistake me saying this to support the idea that Mexican laborers should be treated poorly and under paid. I had a Mexican family that worked with me for 16 years and I always went out of my way to make sure that their lives were working if I could because without them, I was nothing. I am a very strong liberal that came from an Eisenhower Republican family. If you read the 1956 Republican Party Platform you'll know what I started with as a baseline and then built upon. Our country really could work and work well. We simply need to educate or reeducate ourselves in how we can have it work for all of us.
When was the last time you heard even liberals call for restoring the basic human rights (UN's UDHR) of food and shelter to our very poor? The US went in the exact opposite direction, ending actual welfare aid, disappearing our truly poor from the media/public discussion. Consider that the overall life expectancy of the US poor already fell below that of every developed nation, and liberal media no longer even acknowledge the existence of anyone worse off than minimum wage workers.
Many of our more fortunate are oddly uninformed or misinformed about our poverty crisis. This isn't a terribly complicated issue. Not everyone can work (health, circumstances), and jobs are not available for all. The US began shipping out jobs in the 1980s, ended actual welfare aid in the 1990s -- lost over 5 million manufacturing jobs alone since 2000. The last I heard, there were 7 jobs for every 10 jobless people who still have the means to pursue one. Once you no longer have a home address, phone, etc., you're out. You can't get a job. Seriously, what do people think happens to all those who are left behind, with no means of providing for themselves?
UBI is simplest, cleanest, most elegant answer. Maybe more important, it's the most liberating of human possibilities. Not hard to understand at all. Specially makes sense considering future technological curve. Guaranteed jobs is old school, backwards thinking. I say, don't be stifled by fear. Embrace emancipatory thinking. Believe in humans.
Cleaning up the super fund sites would create a lot of jobs.
Concentration of wealth equals concentration of power, which is why we need good "representative" government to protect "we the people" from abuse and manipulation at the piggish hands of "we the fascists."
May I add another federal jobs potential: Switching over to medicare for all would open up many federal medical administration jobs for those already working in the health insurance field in the for profit sector. This time around those same workers will have higher pay and better benefits including a pension....and I'm sure they won't miss the CEO making multi millions off the sweat their backs.
We should try all of these ideas, subsidize companies that are coops, (employee owned and managed), create tax incentives to bring jobs home, infrastructure, and create and subsidize a Think tank Department for Job Creation.
The QE program should have bailed out the Middle Class US Taxpayer instead of Bank Barons.
So true "Democrats" would have given us universal health card. GOP lite and corporate Democrats will give us what we have. What is the definition of doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results. These are the same people who sat on their hands as the Republicans stole 3 Presidential elections, 2000/2004/2016.
And also so true we will NEVER get the government we want under existing conditions.
Reply to Diane Cha Ching : In answer to your question from yesterday's blog,..... The employee displaying unusually high on the job skills and productivity should be promoted to a postion of higher pay and responsibility. Duh!
Now answer my question: I've actually witnessed this in a nonunion workplace. A low level sales person like you got married to the company president's niece, a week later he was promoted to the vice president postion... over many far more qualified candidates. Do you think this was an example of workplace fairness? Who do the more qualified candidates take their labor complaint to?
I might add that a few months after promotion to the vice president position, the former lower middle class sales person bought a mansion right next to the company president's mansion...yep!
I notice that Diane posts late all the time now.....you're not getting off easy,....I'll reply on the next blog everytime my foxmerized Kool aid drinker.
It is likeable for certain!
UBI is very unlikely to attract anyone in US... too radical by far!
God would not look too well on a person receiving UBI and consider the concept a sin
Thom... your great ideas (gilded from past observations) will gain no traction... sadly!
Now... right will twist your veiwpoint then state the feckless deserve their fate and should die
And, as usual, argue who will pay?
When they will never, ever spend all their money in a lifetime even if they live to excess grossness
That's right, Willie; unions are a very good thing for workers! That has also been my experience in over 30 years of union representation. Diane obviously views the world through an opaque filter of gross ignorance about basic economics, outrageous Koched-up lies, a dearth of real-world experience, and a buttload of far-right misconceptions that has utterly destroyed her critical thinking faculty, if indeed it ever existed in the first place.
So how many of Trump's 1,950 lies in 347 days did she gobble up as gospel truth? And how many times did she sing his praises on this blog -- a sexual predator to whom taxpayers forked over 43 million $$$ in just one year so that he could waddle his lard ass around excessive, over-the-top golf getaways instead of doing the People's business, while hobnobbing in billionaire private clubs with the primary beneficiaries of a tax cut funded by the middle-class, the poor, the sick, and the impoverished worker-slaves of the future?
https://a.msn.com/r/2/BBHLU8e?m=en-us
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtEdK6RILCQ
No, the rich don’t pay most of the taxes. Federal taxes, yes, but taxes overall (state, local, and federal added up), NO ! See David Cay Johnston’s writing on this
http://www.wweek.com/portland/article-17350-9-things-the-rich-dont-want-you-to-know-about-taxes.html
#10 Happy New Year to you. My experience working in a union job was just the opposite of what you describe. It was the slacker that got the shit kicked out of them. (Symbolically.) The union was actually harder on their own than the company was. Made for good relations, and better bargaining power.
Happy New Year!!
Ah! The New Year and right out of the box, the leftie/socialists are busy trying to convince themselves giving the middle class more money in their paycheck is a decrease in wages. I heard Thom and many follow-up callers complain that the $1000 bonus paid by dozens of employers is actually not income. Really? What then is it?
BTW Thom, you are incorrect in your statement that no company has raised the hourly pay of its workers as a result the new tax laws. Let the duckduckgo machine be your friend.
Face the facts, when you finally run out of ways to convince Americans that more money in their paycheck is a bad thing, your biggest fear is this damn thing will be successful.
Good to see day one of the New Year Rick Steves is still fretting over other people’s money.
Note to #4 roadrunner, Nice to see you are pushing for credit card responsibility.
But your words,
"It's also well documented that workers aren't being rewarded for their productivity gains. That's the problem with unionless capitalism...workers remain vulnerable and oblivious to the evil that piggish employers do."
beg the question,
Let's say I work in a Union shop and I perform at a level that far exceeds all of my fellow union workers.
1. Does the shop steward call attention to my high level of achievement and encourage everyone else to do the same?
2. Do my fellow union workers eagerly embrace me and step up to my level of excellence all by themselves?
3. When noticed by my employer, does he/she/alphabet have the ability to raise my hourly pay over the others that perform at a much lower level of achievement?
Or,
4. Do I get the shit kicked out of me in the bathroom by my “buddies” for working too hard followed by a lecture from the steward telling me to "get with the program."
I mistakenly thought the new pot laws would have mellowed some but I suspect it will only benefit the snack industry.
So, a little more money now. Less taxes withheld. Less tax money to work with at the end of the year for that big tax refund. I see disappointment on the horizon. Too bad it's so far out.
"If all we end up with is GOP Lite and Corporate Democrats -- it won't make all that much difference."
It makes a big difference, especially for those of us who are not white. Does DACA matter? Race relations and discrimination? White evangelical influence?
What about those who are sick? Democrats would have given us universal health care.
One may stick stubbornly to personal ideals - as Paul Ryan does - but it smells like privilege to me. The times are serious, and a practical approach is necessary.
You will never get the government you want.
Thom is correct here!
To re-iterate!
The worker, the self employed, the gig worker et al have no control over the tax they MUST pay
However, big tech, giant franchise, billion and millionairs are able to CONTROL how much tax they pay
Is this democracy?
Fascism sounds more truthful
Try to remember that we, as nations together, fought against fascism in 2 world wars which caused untold human misery, desperation, sadness, agony, grief along with many lives lost
Do we want to permit such events to occur again?
Credit card debt is at all time highs and savings at all time lows, and the market has hit 1929 territory, actually beyond now....we've seen this movie before, yet still no alarm. Working people need to get out now. The Fascists are about to sucker us with economic blackmail again. I'm so ashamed of our country. ..hard to believe it's the 21st century.