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Cont: The Biden Presidency (3)

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Bob001 said:
Most strikes are focused on one employer. If, say, GM employees go on strike, it only affects GM and their customers and suppliers. That's bad enough, but most people and businesses would continue pretty much as normal, and most strikes don't even have the impact that a GM strike would have. Who would really be hurt if all the Starbucks shut down? But a rail strike wrecks the entire economy, including ordinary families who can't buy food and fuel oil. It's just not realistic to expect the entire country to suffer for the benefit of workers who already have much more in pay and benefits than they can hope to get for themselves.
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An entity capable of causing the damage you describe should not be a for profit enterprise in private hands.

Why this all falls on workers who want better working conditions is a pretty good sign of bootlicking mentality. Do these human shields you invoke get a break if they can't afford something because of railroad profit margins?

Is it realistic for all of these people to suffer for a company that already massively profitable?
And when was the last major strike in the U.S.? I suspect it's been at least 30 years. There has been general recognition that strikes are bad for employers and labor.
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Probably closer to 90 in the sense that most modern strikes are theatre compared to how things went down in the early days. Which is what we really don't want.

30 years is a fair enough benchmark though. Labor has been getting absolutely hammered since then on every possible front and if anything it's an example of what happens when labor doesn't flex it's muscle.

(The WV teachers strike kicked off a lot of under the radar stuff that's still going on but that's too close in the past to objectively analyze on the same scale)
 
Suddenly said:
Is it realistic for all of these people to suffer for a company that already massively profitable?
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Profitable? Nah. Just look at the numbers! They're barely surviving! I mean, with numbers like these, how could they possibly handle not massively exploiting labor?

Railroads are USA’s most profitable industry with a 50% profit margin

A bit more seriously, I rather suspect that it's exactly because the labor and unions for railroads have been so hamstrung by Congress (while the management has decidedly not been) under arguments much like Bob001's that the management has been able to screw them over so badly.
 
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Aridas said:
Profitable? Nah. Just look at the numbers! They're barely surviving! I mean, with numbers like these, how could they possibly handle not massively exploiting labor?

Railroads are USA’s most profitable industry with a 50% profit margin
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Certainly sounds like a lot.

To play devil's advocate, I'd have to ask things like: How consistent are those profits? (i.e. have they been earning ~50% profit margins for decades or is it a temporary spike brought on by certain economic conditions) Are there reasons why high profit margins might be required? (such as higher capital costs)
 
Segnosaur said:
Certainly sounds like a lot.

To play devil's advocate, I'd have to ask things like: How consistent are those profits? (i.e. have they been earning ~50% profit margins for decades or is it a temporary spike brought on by certain economic conditions) Are there reasons why high profit margins might be required? (such as higher capital costs)
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Paywall and opinion piece, but the headline does somewhat sum up the issue.

Railroads Get Off Track in Obsessing About Profit Margins

The companies have angered customers and alienated workers while leaving little room for growth.

The management employed strategies in relatively recent times to increase profit margins successfully. It's just that those strategies screwed over the workers and customers. Talking about the long-term consistency of profits is thus a red herring, at best. Are there reasons why a high profit margin might be required? To please Wall Street and benefit shareholders. That was done successfully.
 
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To offer a slight bit of praise for the oratory of the new House Minority leader, I'll highlight a bit of his speech -

House Democrats will always put -

American values over autocracy
Benevolence over bigotry
The Constitution over the cult
Democracy over demagogues
Economic opportunity over extremism
Freedom over Fascism
Governing over gaslighting
Hopefulness over hatred
Inclusion over isolation
Justice over judicial overreach
Knowledge over kangaroo courts
Liberty over limitation
Maturity over Mar-A-Lago
Normalcy over negativity
Opportunity over obstruction
People over politics
Quality of life issues over QAnon
Reason over racism*
Substance over slander
Triumph over tyranny
Understanding over ugliness
Voting rights over voter suppression
Working families over the well-connected
Xenia over xenophobia
'Yes We Can' over 'You can't do it,' and
Zealous representation over zero-sum confrontation
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Skeptic Ginger said:
No it wasn't.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenia_(Greek)
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Ehh, I had to look it up, too. I'll also add that I've also seen people interpret it as Xennial, for that matter, which seems like it'd be wildly out of place. Either way, the very fact that we had to look it up is why I don't disagree with it being a reach. After looking it up, Xenia was fitting, certainly, but how many people are likely to look it up?
 
Aridas said:
.... Either way, the very fact that we had to look it up is why I don't disagree with it being a reach. After looking it up, Xenia was fitting, certainly, but how many people are likely to look it up?
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Who cares that some people had to look it up or wouldn't? People in the Trump cult could use some vocabulary expansion.

Seems like a silly nitpick.
 
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My only issue with the list is that I wish he'd not used "normalcy."

e.t.a. as for "Xenia," there's no harm in having to look up a word. More people should look up new words, and then they'll know just a little more than they did before. It may come as news to some conservatives, but the process is pretty painless.
 
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mgidm86 said:
No need (you already did

;) :D
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But I didn't edit it. This whole exchange is bizarre. I never saw the 'options' link. I looked up the word, took the link that popped up at the top of 'search' and copy pasted the address after opening the Wiki page which showed the meaning.

It's a mystery, link altering gnomes maybe?
 
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