News Stories

[Sugetsu]

Originally Posted by RRW

go ahead if you want to post it there

^ It's you who brought up the subject, not me.

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by GDB

When you tell them that their job safety could be determined by the outcome of the election, it becomes a threat and coercion. That is illegal in the US. However, they gave themselves just enough plausible deniability that they can't be sued or arrested, since they didn't outright say it. Now, if Obama wins and the workers get fired, that'll be interesting because they'll have acted on the implied threat.

Except all he really said was the usual narrative of "Democrats don't understand private sector and are bad for the economy". Chuck Norris' 1000 years of darkness is a more objectionable.

[GDB]

Chuck Norris isn't running for President, or telling employers to all but outright threaten their employees. The letters they've sent out have been leaked, we know how they went about doing it. All they need is for Obama to be President and them to fire a single person, and lawsuits shall rain upon them.

[Vexx]

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

Not really. If you look at the letter of what he said, all it was was an encouragement for entrepreneurs to share their political convictions. (Which they're as free to do as anyone else.) I suppose doing it in the workplace could be illegal in some countries, but I don't think the US is one of them.

Employer coercion or implied threats about voting is very definitely against the law in the US. A person has to be rather brave to file charges though since finding another job is going to be difficult.

"Hi, Mr. Warlord #2, yeah I'm the guy that got Mr. Warlord #1 strung up. Need a hired hand?"

Its another category of whistle-blowing on skullduggery by employers.

The actual communications by the CEOs to their employees that have been leaked so far vary in terms of the expressed levels of stupidity

[ganbaru]

Originally Posted by GDB

All they need is for Obama to be President and them to fire a single person, and lawsuits shall rain upon them.

That is, if they have enough money to pay their lawyer in the first place.

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by GDB

Chuck Norris isn't running for President, or telling employers to all but outright threaten their employees. The letters they've sent out have been leaked, we know how they went about doing it. All they need is for Obama to be President and them to fire a single person, and lawsuits shall rain upon them.

But Romney didn't imply that people would be fired because their votes differed from their bosses. He implied companies would be forced to downsize or even outright go under if Obama was elected. You're only reading it that way because of much publicized assholes who happen to be Republicans.

Originally Posted by Vexx

Employer coercion or implied threats about voting is very definitely against the law in the US.

It's normal, though I hear in some states employers don't need to provide a reason for firing someone. My point was, even with "coercion forbidden", there's a spectrum of things than can be allowed or not, depending on actual legislation and, for all I know, company policy.

You can have a "don't ask don't tell" where nobody's allowed to say anything about their political convictions to "it's okay to put up posters" to "it's okay to wear pins and debate politics in the break room".

So I can see an employer sending a company-wide mail saying "I'm voting for X because I think he'll be better for my business" being legal or not, depending on where you are.

[synaesthetic]

Yes, and they can always simply be fired for some vague, undefined reason as "poor performance." It's the employee get-out-of-jail-free card; I could have sued two separate businesses into oblivion had they been honest about WHY they fired me...

[Sugetsu]

Ok this is a conspiracy theory of mine that I have been entertaining for a few years now, but now given the audio tape and the latest developments I think I am more inclined to look at it more seriously, so here it goes:

We all know that the "job creators" have been sitting on a trillion dollars record profit for years now, but instead of using that money and hiring new employees and expanding their businesses, they have been telling everyone that the market is too unstable right now. Therefore, they are waiting until the election when the market climate will become more certain.

My theory is that these guys are incredibly well organized, so much so that they have decided not to touch the mountain of cash they are setting on because they don't want the Obama administration to look good. They know that under a deregulatory environment they stand to make a killing, thus a GOP candidate is just what they are looking for.

But seriously, can these people be that well organized to effectively paralyze the nation's GDP for political gain? I really find it hard to believe, but given the current news on how CEOs are already handing out letters to their employees that they should vote for Romney or else don't blame them when the "anti business Obama administration" policies forces business to cut down on the workforce.

Am I too paranoid now to believe such a thing could be happening?

[Jinto]

Sometimes mutual interest is all you need. If the circle of deciders is small enough, they can get to mutual agreements without orgainzation or even communication.

Pricing for oil, gas, electricity/energy and soon telecommunication are areas where such mutual decission making without actual agreements works perfectly (there are many other areas, but those mentioned are most noticable imo).

[Zakoo]

Originally Posted by Sugetsu

...

Well who knows, but they didn't wait Obama for this, at the end of Bush Jr second presidency, US unemployement was around 6% while right know the official number is 7.5 something like this.

Aside this I don't remember rich creating job but it's another debate.

[RRW]

At a community meeting in a Lutheran church earlier this year, Detroit Mayor Dave Bing got an earful about his city’s distressingly high crime rate. The heckling started with members of his own police force.

“What are you doing to stop the blight, the drugs, the murder, the killing?” demanded Marcus Cumming, a police officer, at the neighborhood gathering reported by the Detroit Free Press.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/danielfi...gerous-cities/

[synaesthetic]

Well, that may have something to do with Detroit having some of the highest unemployment in the entire country...

[Xellos-_^]

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

Well, that may have something to do with Detroit having some of the highest unemployment in the entire country...

that and the city council's refusal to implement Bing idea of reducing the cities size.

[Bri]

Originally Posted by Sugetsu

Ok this is a conspiracy theory of mine that I have been entertaining for a few years now, but now given the audio tape and the latest developments I think I am more inclined to look at it more seriously, so here it goes:

We all know that the "job creators" have been sitting on a trillion dollars record profit for years now, but instead of using that money and hiring new employees and expanding their businesses, they have been telling everyone that the market is too unstable right now. Therefore, they are waiting until the election when the market climate will become more certain.

My theory is that these guys are incredibly well organized, so much so that they have decided not to touch the mountain of cash they are setting on because they don't want the Obama administration to look good. They know that under a deregulatory environment they stand to make a killing, thus a GOP candidate is just what they are looking for.

Employers are not a united front. Both the democrat and republican party have some attractive selling points for corporations. The traditional regulatory and protectionist stance of the democrats do well with industries that like some shielding from the world markets or need regulatory enforcement to protect their interest like IP etc.

I'm sure many companies in industries like manufacturing, agriculture, pharmaceutics, publishing and content providers are more likely to favor the democrats over the republicans.

The jobless recovery has more to do with globalization. Cost efficiency causes production to get shipped overseas to developing countries, technology replaces low skilled labor. Only low paid service jobs and temporal employment remain. The working and lower middle classes have seen a relative decline in wealth, not just in the US but in most of the developed world. This also affects politics as desperate people are more likely to vote for populists who promise quick fixes.

[Ridwan]

America may be about to elect it's first openly Gay Senator, and no one knows it

[killer3000ad]

Preacher appears to speak out against gay rights until.......

[aohige]

Originally Posted by killer3000ad

Preacher appears to speak out against gay rights until.......

That was badass. I mean, I saw it coming, but it was still great.
Respect to the intellect Reverend.

[killer3000ad]

Originally Posted by aohige

That was badass. I mean, I saw it coming, but it was still great.
Respect to the intellect Reverend.

You should what the people who were against the bill said.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnuwFx0mpns

[ganbaru]

Canada blocks Petronas' $5.2 billion bid for Progress Energy
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...89J02X20121020

Canada has blocked Malaysian state oil firm Petronas' C$5.17 billion ($5.22 billion) bid for gas producer Progress Energy Resources Corp, a surprise move that could signal problems for a much bigger offer by China's CNOOC Ltd for oil producer Nexen Inc.

[RRW]

The first of six defendants in the Richmond High gang rape of 2009 was sentenced in Contra Costa County Superior Court in Martinez today to 32 years in prison.

The sentencing was a formality after Manuel Ortega, 22, plead guilty last month to counts of rape, rape by a foreign object, forced oral copulation resulting in great bodily injury and robbery.

http://richmondconfidential.org/2012...igh-rape-case/