New Testingstan

thejester wrote:I thought jesty was reserved solely for me

you cheating bastard stark

i'm going to consult ARSE on what i should do

You know I'd never cheat baby

It's that lying iPhone autocorrect

re: unions
it's always a laugh when people say "we don't need unions, better management is what we need"

yeah in small businesses where your boss is pretty much just another worker, maybe that works

but it is the nature of capitalism that businesses have to maximise their profits or die

it is in the nature of capitalism that small businesses have to grow and become less human, or shrink and be out competed

it is in the nature of capitalism for larger businesses to buy their small competitors and eventually rule whole industries through formation of oligopolies

and sorry but there is nothing but unions (or revolutions, if you're stas) to stand in the way and put pressure on these businesses as well as the politicians. some idiots say "well then buy stock in your company, that's true democracy" but again that only works for small businesses. when that conglomerate comes you're fucked. if you don't let them take over, your company goes down

simple representative democracy with elections every four years isn't gonna help you either, especially with the media operating under the same rules, so the public won't even know about the shit the government tries to pull unless the media think it can profit from writing about it


but the best part is that this shit has been known for like one hundred and fifty years

but it's like during the '80s people suddenly forgot some pretty basic facts and here we are now

thanks reagan!

Okay so for reals I always get told unions destroyed America's auto industry because pensions but how big an impact was this relative to the fact that the auto execs were clearly fucking idiots?

I don't know how you would quantify something like that, but I guess you could look at pension expenditures vs. bullshit expenditures like bonuses, and lost business due to mismanagement.

Or you could look at something like Germany, where the auto industry did not die, despite having, I'm sure, even better working conditions.

(and while sweden's auto industry is fucked, that's because of government conservatism, not unions)

Losonti Tokash wrote:Okay so for reals I always get told unions destroyed America's auto industry because pensions but how big an impact was this relative to the fact that the auto execs were clearly fucking idiots?

It wasn't. What happened was the American company lineups weren't as fuel-efficient as their foreign competitors, the recession hit and gas prices didn't go down, this meant less people buying cars and those that did were going to be looking for mpg which the gas guzzling American brands couldn't compete with.

Didn't they also have unrealistic expectations on how many cars they could move? Something like 50% higher than the market could actually absorb?

I think we should avoid listing all the ways USA car manufacturers fucked up, as it would take a very long time to list all of it.

Losonti Tokash wrote:Okay so for reals I always get told unions destroyed America's auto industry because pensions but how big an impact was this relative to the fact that the auto execs were clearly fucking idiots?

It's almost like the entire country just stops even trying to support people once they hit retirement so they need to force their employers(who used to employ them for "life") to foot the bill as no one else will.

The UK suffered similarly in its manufacturing industry. In that, thanks mostly to Margaret Thatcher, we don't have one anymore. And everyone still manages to blame the unions. Funny that.

Sandman wrote:In that, thanks mostly to Margaret Thatcher, we don't have one anymore. And everyone still manages to blame the unions.

It's not the Great (or The Greatest?) Lady Thatcher's fault you spoiled Brits no long have an automotive industry, she was only acting as a loyal functionary of the Invisible Hand that had deemed you undeserving.

Weren't British cars terrible anyways?

did you guys like my comment in the lightsabre thread

it all comes back to Super Empire Strikes Back

Aaron wrote:Weren't British cars terrible anyways?

They were great up to the late sixties, but took a nosedive afterwards. If you're low on money and can't afford proper engineering, decent parts, a minimum of quality control or the development of cars the market actually wants, you tend to get a bad image. It doesn't help when you're up against the Japanese and brands like VW or Ford Europe.

maybe i need to stop this passive aggressive shit against star wars

if i was inclined i would ask him to demonstrate just how far away Padme was, rather than just give him credence by accepting his 'dozens of metres away' vague bullshit

with screengrabs and shit

but it's your fight veef

just like how i picked a fight with mr. 108 page novella

it's a good idea

look you know what you're asking for by posting in a forum over there

yeah but Ford, Hawkeye, and Vendetta don't post here

plus my big robot thread is over there

it's all my fault Camille

I sort of want to go into that 9/11 thread and start yelling at Asedra for daring to know that there could be 'truth' about 'scientific' claims and demand to know what the root cause of his psychoses that allow him to try and project an ordered world onto the rest of us are.

Just full on loony bin with only the slightest shred of sanity.

tell us som recipies instwead

that secular morality thread tells me liek nobody really got an idear on wat morality rly is

especially sexular moralrity

what i love is how one little post by a canadian gets everyone flailing about like turkeys how cheating is natural and evolutions this and game theory that

apparently secular morality must have been in deep trouble until darwin came along


guess that's the sad result of declaring philosophy to be bullshit

Sorry, I'm a little slow and off my game today. Am I to understand that there is a thread where people are arguing that somehow religion is responsible for the imposition/creation of morality?

so isn't it kind of strange that Jedi don't use blasters

but they'll fly starfighters all the time

like why don't they have starfighters with only lightsabres attached

oh right Luke and Vader flew starfighters so the new ones have to as well