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[McTraveller]

I live in southeast Michigan: this stuff impacts me quite directly.

So I might, might have more sympathy if I didn't see first-hand how union workers spend what they currently make and how they act.  Though, to be fair, it depends highly on the particular plant and OEM; each plant has its own culture there in terms of how stereotypical the workers are.

EDIT:
The way the Union Leadership is approaching this - that it's the unions against the "greedy companies" - is kind of telling here.  Why would you vilify the company that is the one that is employing you? Are they really willing to play the mutual destruction card here? Are they trying to get the government to step in?  This is what I can't understand - why is it painting each other as enemies, rather than partners?  Maybe I'm too much of an idealist...

[None]

Oh, topical- my work just announced a force reduction (layoffs) because they invested so much money into growth and they can't pull any more money from other employee niceties like travel expenses or additional trainings. They didn't say who's getting axed.

Businesses already cyclically grow and make cuts; people are just easier to cut to pad bottom lines for shareholders.

[Maximum Spin]

Oh, topical- my work just announced a force reduction (layoffs) because they invested so much money into growth and they can't pull any more money from other employee niceties like travel expenses or additional trainings. They didn't say who's getting axed.

Businesses already cyclically grow and make cuts; people are just easier to cut to pad bottom lines for shareholders.

"Invested so much money into growth" is, of course, almost certainly an extremely charitable description of what really happened to the money.

[nenjin]

Often when businesses grow they also re-evaluate what roles people are in and if they feel they're still serving those roles. Restructurings are a thing. Not saying it's also not all possibly bollocks but from time to time it's not.

[Duuvian]

I live in southeast Michigan: this stuff impacts me quite directly.

So I might, might have more sympathy if I didn't see first-hand how union workers spend what they currently make and how they act.  Though, to be fair, it depends highly on the particular plant and OEM; each plant has its own culture there in terms of how stereotypical the workers are.

EDIT:
The way the Union Leadership is approaching this - that it's the unions against the "greedy companies" - is kind of telling here.  Why would you vilify the company that is the one that is employing you? Are they really willing to play the mutual destruction card here? Are they trying to get the government to step in?  This is what I can't understand - why is it painting each other as enemies, rather than partners?  Maybe I'm too much of an idealist...

Yes, you are. Go look at the Michigan Works jobsearch and see what the ratio of temp service spots to actual jobs is. They even place ads that penetrate the jobsearch's temp service filter. The state operates essentially a free employment service which does not permanently take a chunk out of the wages. That means the convenience excuse is garbage, it's all about depressing wages, removing benefits from the worker, and eliminating union membership access. I have no idea why conservatives, who very much despise government income taxation, so happily utilize corporate income taxation. In addition, in my limited experience as a temp service employee, working 30-40hrs at a factory as a single person is enough to buy trinkets like video games or fast food cheeseburgers, but I was slowly losing money despite working due to paying rent in a one room rental, even forgoing such exhorbitant luxury. I don't see how the mixture of economic conditions don't add up to equals problem to our more comfortable members of society.

[None]

Oh, topical- my work just announced a force reduction (layoffs) because they invested so much money into growth and they can't pull any more money from other employee niceties like travel expenses or additional trainings. They didn't say who's getting axed.

Businesses already cyclically grow and make cuts; people are just easier to cut to pad bottom lines for shareholders.

"Invested so much money into growth" is, of course, almost certainly an extremely charitable description of what really happened to the money.

help me out here, is the evil capitalist being bad by being bad at capitalism, are they being good by being bad at being evil, or are they being capitalism by being capitalism

and did you have another point, or did you just want to make a statement to the contrary of mine as though you know more about the company's market than i do

[McTraveller]

Huh? What do you mean by "conservatives...happily utilize corporate taxation"? The GOP is notorious for corporate tax breaks, especially for corporations and the rich. They are about tax breaks regardless of the consequences.

We've talked about wage depression via temp workers before, albeit indirectly, here on the forums. The reason temp workers are attractive is because benefits laws don't scale the cost of those workers proportionally to full-time workers. A temp worker might cost a company (wage x 1.15), but a full-time worker might cost a company (wage x 1.25).  So there are two factors: one is that the wage for temp workers is lower¹ and the other is that the cost multiplier is lower.  At the very least, policies could be in place to make the multiplier the same. This won't address the other issues that make people willing to accept low pay for a low-commitment job.

¹This is odd in the first place; consultants, for example, get higher per-hour payments partly because the work is unsteady, and the hiring company is willing to pay a premium to avoid a long-term contract. Also look at other spot markets: Take electricity as an example. If you've got to buy power on the spot market, it's generally much more expensive than long-term contract prices.

So if employers are in need of more workers than they have now, you would think temp workers should cost more.   So what makes temp jobs less? I place this proximally on the job takers: If companies need temp workers, they should be paying a premium.  But what happens is these jobs are not spot needs by the employer - they are demonstrably "I need some cash, any I can get" jobs of desperation for the employees.

So the only way to fix this is to help people not be desperate for cash. This is why I said it's proximally a job-taker problem. Because there is no way, just by looking at wages, to distinguish between say a student just looking for a few extra dollars and someone who is trying to scrape by and not get kicked out of their housing.  Pressure to just afford an apartment, or buy food, etc. is a complex issue; that is, the companies "not paying a fair wage" aren't the sole problem, it's also the real estate companies, it's the food conglomerates, it's cities not having good public transportation or messed up zoning laws, it's physical and mental health care cost burdens, etc. So merely trying to address the wage side is never going to work; this needs a coordinated change across many aspects of the economy simultaneously.

In my short life I've never seen an attempt at a coordinated change - only attempts at one aspect of a problem, which inevitably doesn't work, because it's just pushing the problem to another area.

[Maximum Spin]

and did you have another point, or did you just want to make a statement to the contrary of mine as though you know more about the company's market than i do

What does it have to do with the market? The fact is that "investing money into growth" is a vague feel-good phrase management use when they have no idea what they're doing. Growth isn't something you can buy in a can. Buying facilities you don't need and can't use to the fullest yet, for example, isn't really "investing in growth", it's just wasting money. Neither is paying for too much marketing, another major pitfall. Any company that has managed to "invest so much money into growth" that there isn't enough money left to function has fundamentally failed at investing. The very fact of the situation you described is a red flag for malinvestment and that company's probably not actually going to get any real growth from it. That's a general rule.

That's not "evil capitalism", it's just mismanagement that doesn't benefit anybody.

[None]

What does it have to do with the market?

the company i work for specifically builds stuff in a market with no shortage of demand, so they're building stuff. it's a specific market, not 'the market'

Buying facilities you don't need and can't use to the fullest yet, for example, isn't really "investing in growth", it's just wasting money

they didn't

Neither is paying for too much marketing, another major pitfall.

they didn't

Any company that has managed to "invest so much money into growth" that there isn't enough money left to function

they're still functioning

The very fact of the situation you described is a red flag for malinvestment and that company's probably not actually going to get any real growth from it. That's a general rule.

That's not "evil capitalism", it's just mismanagement that doesn't benefit anybody.

Well, an evil capitalist would have reinvested the money into building more things. This is worse than that.

round and round and round we go

[Maximum Spin]

What does it have to do with the market?

the company i work for specifically builds stuff in a market with no shortage of demand, so they're building stuff. it's a specific market, not 'the market'

There are no markets with no shortage of demand (no market is perfectly inelastic), and, right now, demand is shrinking across the board and likely to keep shrinking for some time.

they didn't
they didn't

"example"

they're still functioning

You just said they're laying off an unspecified number of employees. Are you saying those employees were totally unnecessary and not doing anything useful, so laying them off does not impact the functioning of the company?

Your story literally says that, due to malinvestment, the company ran out of money and had to shrink its actual productive operation. That is not a sign of competent management.

[None]

if you're using unrelated examples to be contrary to my point, you're not making a point for me

borrowing money for growth is expensive, so the company is cutting people to cut costs, which yes is shitty to people and no does not conflict with my point that there is currently no shortage of demand for the company that i work for that i actually know a thing about

i'm not saying that those employees were totally unnecessary and not doing anything useful, no, i'm saying it's shitty that growth comes at the cost of human capital because it's easy to cut to improve bottom lines

i have no clue about the shrinkage of actual productive operation, so no, I'm not literally saying that

are you done?

[Maximum Spin]

borrowing money for growth is expensive, so the company is cutting people to cut costs

The point I'm trying to make is that, for the past year, "borrowing money for growth" has been stupid and a virtually guaranteed way to fail to achieve growth, due to the slack market and the fed funds rate skyrocketing. For a year now, it has not been a time when any competent manager would even spend money the company does have, let alone money it doesn't, "investing in growth". It's a time to consolidate, not to take on additional risk.

In other words, I'm saying that the very words of your statement inherently imply mismanagement. This isn't growth coming at the cost of human capital - it's failure coming at the cost of human capital in order to preserve the illusion of growth.

i'm not saying that those employees were totally unnecessary and not doing anything useful, no, i'm saying it's shitty that growth comes at the cost of human capital because it's easy to cut to improve bottom lines

i have no clue about the shrinkage of actual productive operation, so no, I'm not literally saying that

These two lines are inconsistent. If human capital is lost, then actual productive operation has to shrink. If, after the layoffs, actual productive operation doesn't shrink, then that means the people who were fired were not producing anything - since their contribution is gone, but nothing changed, meaning their contribution was zero. Or negative, if productive operation grew by firing them. However, I'm assuming these people did something useful, so firing them is shrinking productive operations, by definition. If the people being fired are truly unnecessary to the continuing function of the business, then the question becomes why they were there in the first place.

ETA: Now, I don't know the specifics of your case, it's true, which is why I originally said only "almost certainly", leaving open the possibility of an exception... but everything you have said since convinces me that it is not an exception.

[Random_Dragon]

I can't tell at this point who's arguing in favor of the corporate scumbags or not now. XD

[Maximum Spin]

I can't tell at this point who's arguing in favor of the corporate scumbags or not now. XD

Nobody is.

I know this will shock you, but my political positions are not what you think they are in the slightest, lol.

[Maximum™]

Clinton apparently did not win the popular vote for either of his terms also, by relatively big margins.

>.>

What the hell are you talking about?

1992 he got 44.9 million or 43% of the vote to 39.1 million by Bush and 19 million by Perot. 370 EVs.
1996 he got 47.4 mllion or 49.2% of the vote to 39.1 million by Bush and 8 million by Perot. 379 EVs.

Hilldog got 65.8 million or 48.2% of the vote to 62.9 million by dumbfuck.

A narrow plurality and just shy of majority is in no way losing the popular vote.