US Elections 2012 Part II: The Conventions, Debates and Election results

[TooPurePureBoy]

This may not be the right thread for this but I had an interesting conversation with my neighbor yesterday and I'd be interested to see what some of you think of this situation.

So my neighbor is a guy in his 60's who works for a $100 million+ company that I'm not sure what exactly they do other than some kind of pipe fitting and plumbing. I just know that they are a big company that the guys been working in since I was a little kid. They handle huge contracts all over the place apparently.

Anyway he was telling me about how the foundry/factory/mill they buy there materials from down in texas is moved to china in the last year or so. He said the issue was that the company was being fined around a couple million a year for not having some kind of equipment up to date. The upgrades would have cost them close to a billion dollars apparently. So the obvious choice for years has been to eat the 2 million dollar fine every year and still make plenty of money.

Then last year the town they were based in decided not to grant them the permits they needed to keep operating. So according to this my neighbor they were practically forced to go to China. Now his boss has gone from bonus' ranging in the tens of thousands, to a bonus somewhere around 400,000. They are literally raking in the money more than they ever have.

The thing is he says the company was perfectly fine staying in Texas the way they had been forever, but they were pretty much kicked out, into a more financially profitable situation that does nothing to benefit the country.

Is this a problem? If so how do we stop this from happening? Everyone I know is really having a tough time economically (other than my neighbor I guess) and this sort of thing frustrates me to hear.

[Vexx]

We'd need to know more about why they were getting the fines -- were employees getting sick or killed? Were the products failing? Causing unsafe conditions when used?

Do those problems still exist in China now? If so, why is that okay?

When "making money" is more important than "doing it right" - we get coal mines that kill the employees, etc. The way to stop companies from relocating because their executives can multiple their bonuses is for all the countries to realize that a fairly equitable regulated playing field would reduce the incentive to play groups of citizens against each other in a race to the bottom.

[ganbaru]

Originally Posted by Sumeragi

He did manage to turn a public fiasco and budgetary disaster into a pretty good event. Of course, things were most likely exaggerated, but still you have to admit that considering the bribery scandals, he did pretty well.

Did he ''made pretty well'' at not getting accused of briding ?

[Sumeragi]

I did say budgetary disaster. That should somewhat explain what Romney did besides keeping up a clean image.

[willx]

Originally Posted by Vexx

We'd need to know more about why they were getting the fines -- were employees getting sick or killed? Were the products failing? Causing unsafe conditions when used?

Do those problems still exist in China now? If so, why is that okay?

When "making money" is more important than "doing it right" - we get coal mines that kill the employees, etc. The way to stop companies from relocating because their executives can multiple their bonuses is for all the countries to realize that a fairly equitable regulated playing field would reduce the incentive to play groups of citizens against each other in a race to the bottom.

Hate to be the guy that poops on human rights and all .. (not really ) but the question of whether it's okay or not is a function of 1) how much that society values human life and health vs. 2) how much that society values money, wealth and security. Until the day progress advances to the point that there is societal unrest due to working conditions (which seems to be somewhat happening) then this won't change.. When it does change, we'll start to see some of the trade imbalance shift and China taking a larger piece of the global consumption pie. Manufacturing will come back to the U.S. somewhat but the days of it being a staple of U.S. GDP are long over.

EDIT: Look up Salt Lake City, it's one of Mitten's "crown jewels" of public accountability and fiscal responsibility. Ultimately, as Sume says, he probably didn't do nearly as much as anyone thinks.. but it's still a part of the resume.

[Solace]

Originally Posted by TooPurePureBoy

Is this a problem? If so how do we stop this from happening? Everyone I know is really having a tough time economically (other than my neighbor I guess) and this sort of thing frustrates me to hear.

It's a big problem, since the workers really have no say in the issue yet they are the ones most affected. Democratize the workplace and this problem would be virtually nonexistent. It blows my mind to see a country that preaches so much about democracy, freedom, and liberty.....go to a workplace where your primary job is to do what your boss tells you what to do and how to do it, and your say in that is essentially limited to "if you don't, you're fired". And then he moves the company overseas anyway while complaining the US taxes him too much.

[willx]

Thought this was a very intelligent comment/discussion on reddit (shocking, I know) that people should be aware of and remind themselves of:

Question: If you read Reddit it looks like Mitt Romney will never ever make it to the White House. But then you see the polls and they say he actually has an advantage. Reddit, are we creating our own distortion field or are we living outside the bigger one created by the media? (self.AskReddit)

Response:
Political Science major here;
Reddit is a news aggregation website. The basic premise is to upvote content we want to see, and downvote things we don't want to see. This personalizes content to our particular biases. You're inherently more likely to see pro-democrat comments.
This personalization has a really negative effect on how we are informed as citizens. Just by browsing Reddit, you'll passively reinforce particular existing views - and even radicalize them. Without any content to counter or challenge the things we want to see, Reddit essentially becomes an echo chamber. We hear what we already think because the website is personalized to us, and because we hear it again, we think it's right. This effect is vastly compounded if Reddit is your only source of news. Because there is no overarching content control, there is no pressure to supply the other side(s) to issues.
This sort of thing occurs all over the web these days for advertising revenue (think about how your search history is tracked by Google to tailor future results to things you want to see so you'll use them again), but in my opinion Reddit is one of the worst culprits to visit in terms of genuine discourse failure.

Accusations against Fox and other media outlets are fair .. But, be wary of the possibility of a "reality distortion field" here as well folks -- the world and reality has a habit of biting people in the ass when you ignore it. Oh, and bold emphasis is mine.

[Vexx]

Originally Posted by Solace

It's a big problem, since the workers really have no say in the issue yet they are the ones most affected. Democratize the workplace and this problem would be virtually nonexistent. It blows my mind to see a country that preaches so much about democracy, freedom, and liberty.....go to a workplace where your primary job is to do what your boss tells you what to do and how to do it, and your say in that is essentially limited to "if you don't, you're fired". And then he moves the company overseas anyway while complaining the US taxes him too much.

To me that is the primary *modern* purpose of the democratic city-states-countries: to protect the citizenry from the excesses of the warlords aka corporate entities and plutocrats.

The latter, of course, will try to subvert the city-state-country (will of the people). It is up to the people to keep a spotlight on their ONLY tool outside of violence for reining in these modern warlord-robber-barons.

That's why the "gubmint-is-evil" people sound so ... bizarre to me. Basically, they're *asking* to be raped by the roving bands of looter-barons because they're throwing away the only tool to slow them down.

[Sumeragi]

Originally Posted by Vexx

That's why the "gubmint-is-evil" people sound so ... bizarre to me. Basically, they're *asking* to be raped by the roving bands of looter-barons.

Well, in those people's minds, the government IS the group of looter-barons.

[Vexx]

Originally Posted by Sumeragi

Well, in those people's minds, the government IS the group of looter-barons.

Yes, but its raving about the puppet instead of the puppeteers. Follow the money, as one might say.

[Irenicus]

Originally Posted by willx

Accusations against Fox and other media outlets are fair .. But, be wary of the possibility of a "reality distortion field" here as well folks -- the world and reality has a habit of biting people in the ass when you ignore it. Oh, and bold emphasis is mine.

*yawn* Facts are facts. I refuse to accept false equivalency. The false equivalent "moderates" have been doing harm by unconscious collusion with the far right for years. So long as they are moving right at lightspeed (oh wait that's too science-y), aren't self-proclaimed centrists moving right too to keep their "centrism"? "The Right are bad and the Left are bad" may make people feel like they're the most responsible person in the room talking above the partisanship, but they are just fooling themselves.

Like Mr. David Brooks, I suppose.

Facts are pretty simple to dig out even on the Internet unless "you don't believe in fact-checking." Don't go to the DailyKos or HuffingtonPost (they're partisans, new media equivalents of classic old party rags), try something like factcheck.org. Data, congressional voting records, they're all available, and there are sources which make it their raison d'etre to digest and analyze them for the public benefit. Policies ought to be set not by taking A and B and mix them up the middle (not that the Republican party made even that easy these days), but by rational decisions based on established data, guided of course by principles which are up for contest in a proper functioning democracy.

Besides, reddit is user-directed. If the users are liberal (as the young and Internet savvy are wont to be), that's how the website's going to look. It isn't a news source claiming neutrality, as Fox News claim to be. It's not even entirely pro-Democrat, redditors are natural allies of the EFF, The Pirate Bay, and other sworn enemies of the Party of Hollywood. Karma-whoring through anti-IP legislation posts is a tradition. They just hate the Right that much more.

[KiraYamatoFan]

Here we go, people. It's a make or break matchup now.

[Vexx]

Originally Posted by Irenicus

*yawn* Facts are facts. I refuse to accept false equivalency. The false equivalent "moderates" have been doing harm by unconscious collusion with the far right for years. So long as they are moving right at lightspeed (oh wait that's too science-y), aren't self-proclaimed centrists moving right too to keep their "centrism"? "The Right are bad and the Left are bad" may make people feel like they're the most responsible person in the room talking above the partisanship, but they are just fooling themselves.

Like Mr. David Brooks, I suppose.

Facts are pretty simple to dig out even on the Internet unless "you don't believe in fact-checking." Don't go to the DailyKos or HuffingtonPost (they're partisans, new media equivalents of classic old party rags), try something like factcheck.org. Data, congressional voting records, they're all available, and there are sources which make it their raison d'etre to digest and analyze them for the public benefit. Policies ought to be set not by taking A and B and mix them up the middle (not that the Republican party made even that easy these days), but by rational decisions based on established data, guided of course by principles which are up for contest in a proper functioning democracy.

Besides, reddit is user-directed. If the users are liberal (as the young and Internet savvy are wont to be), that's how the website's going to look. It isn't a news source claiming neutrality, as Fox News claim to be. It's not even entirely pro-Democrat, redditors are natural allies of the EFF, The Pirate Bay, and other sworn enemies of the Party of Hollywood. Karma-whoring through anti-IP legislation posts is a tradition. They just hate the Right that much more.

I concur and support this person for whatever position they're running for

[KiraYamatoFan]

Looking for trouble with Russia before even sitting in the chair in the Oval Office? C'mon man!

Romney is hitting a low right now.

[james0246]

Originally Posted by Vexx

I concur and support this person for whatever position they're running for

Maybe he is running for Moderator? .

---

That being said, Romney is doing great so far [in the debate]. Straight up attacks on Obama and then casual dismissal of Obama's counterattcks. Fine bit of rhetoric, nicely staged. He came prepared.

[Sugetsu]

Obama just nailed Romney in the first minutes of the debate when he told him: "You need to be consistent and stop sending mix messages to our enemies and allies." Consequently, Romney was backed into a corner and had nothing to say about it.

[Ithekro]

An election like the one from 1912 would have been interesting. While we had something like that in 1992, Teddy's Progressive Party got a lot farther in the Electoral College than the Reform Party every did.

[Vexx]

Romney is doing a bit better just now at least in rhetoric but Obama keeps shoveling countering facts that, in a scored debate, would undermine the rhetoric. In practice, Romney actually has a reputation for diving deeply into a topic (Carter style) - its just been invisible during the primaries and afterward.

Unfortunately, facts are irrelevant to a large portion of the electorate. This may end being another "Ah lahk him cuz I drink a beer wit dis guy" -- the only difference being Obama is the "beer dude" this time (whereas Bush, Jr. was the last time).

edit: ouch.... the states are *not* doing a better job, its tanking the poorer states. I'm not sure why we're talking domestic policy again outside of military spending.

edit: balancing a budget for business does NOT equal balancing a budget for government. The "customer" in the former are the shareholders (which means employees and customers get short shrift). The "customer" in the government is every citizen of the United States (not just the tax payers, sorry). Priorities are not the same.

[KiraYamatoFan]

I just chuckled at Obama's response to Romney's issue with numbers in military forces. "Less horses and bayonets."

[sikvod00]

Oh, look. We're at the segment where the candidates have to suck up and grovel to Israel...great.