Restoring Civility

[Bruzilla]

Indeed this bill was submitted for Senate approval, and yes it did include a minimum wage increase. The problem that most Democrats had with this bill was that it would increase the number of companies exempted from following minimum wage guidelines. I think that estimates conclude that over a million workers would lose their minimum wage protection under the Santorum bill.

Quite true, but there were estimates that millions of other workers would lose their jobs and benefits, and inflation would soar, if the Kennedy bill was passed... but those estimated maybes didn't seem to dampen PBS's enthusiasm for reporting the demise of that bill by the Republicans.

 

[2ndAmendment]

The minimum wage, yet another thing the feds have no legal control over unless you use interstate commerse as an excuse which is again a highly broadened scope for that clause that was never meant to be.

The economy runs best when the government stays out of it.

 

[2ndAmendment]

Quite true, but there were estimates that millions of other workers would lose their jobs and benefits, and inflation would soar, if the Kennedy bill was passed... but those estimated maybes didn't seem to dampen PBS's enthusiasm for reporting the demise of that bill by the Republicans.

Quite true. These people in Washington don't understand the realities of small business because many of them have never run a small business which are the businesses that hire most minimum wage people. I used to have a computer store. When the minimum wage was mandated to go up, I knew that I would not have a corresponding increase in sales and was already operating in the red. So, I let one person go and used that persons pay to pay the increase on the ones I kept.

Large business like the fast food industry uses lots of minimum or near minimum wage workers too. Blame the rising minimum wage for $1+ hamburgers instead of the $.025 ones and the $1+ fries instead of the $.012 we used to get at McDonald's.

Ever look at a chart of inflation vs minimum wage? If the minimum wage goes up, watch for prices to rise shortly thereafter.

 

[rraley]

The minimum wage is tied to inflation...I do not see much benefit in its increase either. What I do think should occur is that it should be tied to each year's inflation rate.

 

[Bustem' Down]

I wish they'd tie my pay increase to inflation.

 

[Bruzilla]

I think that the government has no business having any say in salary increases for non-government employees. There's no one-size-fits-all solution for salary increases, and unless the Democrats realize their dream of turning the US in to Communistic.. oops... Socialistic country, there never will be.

In an ideal world, your salary increase should be pegged to your performance. Period. For seven years I worked as a defense contractor and every year we heard the same spiel... salary increases will be based on a complex formula of profits, expenses, allowances, blah, blah, blah. And every year the increases were the same, 3%, whether we had a great year or a bad year. What was worse was that everybody got 3%, whether you were the top performer in the group or the worst.

Then I got a boss who saw things differently. He was budgeted with a 3% increase for the group, but rather than give everyone their 3% he pooled the money, took a hard look at performance, and gave increases based on how much each person contributed to the success of the group. That year I got a 12.4% pay raise while several of the no-loads got 0%. That made those people mad, but it put the word out that if you want to do the minimum amount of work, you can expect the minimum amount of reward.

 

[Ken King]

I think that the government has no business having any say in salary increases for non-government employees. There's no one-size-fits-all solution for salary increases, and unless the Democrats realize their dream of turning the US in to Communistic.. oops... Socialistic country, there never will be.

In an ideal world, your salary increase should be pegged to your performance. Period. For seven years I worked as a defense contractor and every year we heard the same spiel... salary increases will be based on a complex formula of profits, expenses, allowances, blah, blah, blah. And every year the increases were the same, 3%, whether we had a great year or a bad year. What was worse was that everybody got 3%, whether you were the top performer in the group or the worst.

Then I got a boss who saw things differently. He was budgeted with a 3% increase for the group, but rather than give everyone their 3% he pooled the money, took a hard look at performance, and gave increases based on how much each person contributed to the success of the group. That year I got a 12.4% pay raise while several of the no-loads got 0%. That made those people mad, but it put the word out that if you want to do the minimum amount of work, you can expect the minimum amount of reward.

I wholeheartedly agree that pay increases should be tied to performance. DOD and National Security are moving towards the NSPS (rules published last month in the Federal Register) where those agencies will do just that. The hoopla that this has generated from the unions is unbelievable. The unions appear to think that by encouraging and enticing people to perform with added wages is detrimental to fair treatment. Well, as a Federal employee I have one question for the unions, how fair is it for those that actually excel to be lumped in with those that just show up and meet the bare minimums?

 

[2ndAmendment]

I wholeheartedly agree that pay increases should be tied to performance. DOD and National Security are moving towards the NSPS (rules published last month in the Federal Register) where those agencies will do just that. The hoopla that this has generated from the unions is unbelievable. The unions appear to think that by encouraging and enticing people to perform with added wages is detrimental to fair treatment. Well, as a Federal employee I have one question for the unions, how fair is it for those that actually excel to be lumped in with those that just show up and meet the bare minimums?

It seems similar in the public schools. Kids that should fail get promoted because to treat them as the should be treated would be bad for their little egos.

 

[Ken King]

It seems similar in the public schools. Kids that should fail get promoted because to treat them as the should be treated would be bad for their little egos.

Exactly. Can one achieve excellence without failures along the way? Never experiencing a defeat makes you unprepared to face one. It must be realized that we aren't equal in our abilities and that rewarding failure does not contribute to success.

 

[Bruzilla]

It seems similar in the public schools. Kids that should fail get promoted because to treat them as the should be treated would be bad for their little egos.

Fools! Fools! You're all a bunch of duped fools! Do you really believe, for even a microsecond, that the teachers who pass failing students are really concerned about the child's sense of self worth, esteem, or ego? If these teachers were so concerned with those things, they would make damn certain that the child was passable.

These kids are getting passed because of the alternative. Imagine if every child who shouldn't get passed didn't get passed... how many 100s of kids would that be getting held back each year? Showing hundreds of kids on the news would put a lot of faces on the crappy job that the teachers are doing, and then who would get the blame? The teachers... the ones who say they're passing little Johnny so he won't feel bad about himself. The truth is that it's a lot easier on the teachers to advance the kids and make them somebody else's problem than to step up to the plate and fix the real problems in education.

 

[Nancyro]

Years from now, people might look back fondly at 2004 and think it a golden age of civility. (Which would mean the tenor of political debate has deteriorated even further.)

http://www.nobsnews.org/images/Bush-Kerry%20webpic.jpg

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[Nancyro]

Republicans and Democrats may differ in ideology but they share the same agenda: raise obscene amounts of money and win at all costs.

Some have coined them the Republicrats:

http://www.metaphoria.us/Bush-Kerry-2004.jpg


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[vraiblonde]

Some have coined them the Republicrats:

And some have called George Bush the greatest American president in history.

What's your point?

 

[Nancyro]

And some have called George Bush the greatest American president in history.

What's your point?

I thought it was obvious. You shouldn't even have to infer it.

hmmmm ...

 

[2ndAmendment]

Republicans and Democrats may differ in ideology but they share the same agenda: raise obscene amounts of money and win at all costs.

Some have coined them the Republicrats:

We really do not have a two party system. Both the Democrats and the Republicans are left of center from a Constitutional point of view. The time is right for the emergence of another party that is really conservative.