Politically Correct Jokes?

[TBG 150]

This one isn't a joke......

The Senator

While walking down the street one day a corrupt Senator was hit by an automobile and tragically died.

His soul arrives in heaven and is met by St. Peter at the entrance.

"Welcome to heaven," says St. Peter. "Before you settle in, it seems there is a problem. We seldom see a high official around these parts, you see, so we're not sure what to do with you."

"No problem, just let me in," says the Senator.

"Well, I'd like to, but I have orders from the higher ups. What we'll do is have you spend one day in hell and one in heaven. Then you can choose where to spend eternity."

"Really?, I've made up my mind. I want to be in heaven," says the Senator.

"I'm sorry, but we have our rules."

And with that, St. Peter escorts him to the elevator and he goes down, down, down to hell.

The doors open and he finds himself in the middle of a green golf course. In the distance is a clubhouse and standing in front of it are all his friends and other politicians who had worked with him.

Everyone is very happy and in evening dress. They run to greet him, shake his hand, and reminisce about the good times they had while getting rich at the expense of the people.

They played a friendly game of golf and then dine on lobster, caviar and the finest champagne.

Also present is the devil, who really is a very friendly guy who is having a good time dancing and telling jokes.

They are all having such a good time that before the Senator realizes it, it is time to go.

Everyone gives him a hearty farewell and waves while the elevator rises.

The elevator goes up, up, up and the door reopens in heaven where St. Peter is waiting for him, "Now it's time to visit heaven...

So, 24 hours passed with the Senator joining a group of contented souls moving from cloud to cloud, playing the harp and singing. They have a good time and, before he realizes it, the 24 hours have gone by and St. Peter returns.

"Well, then, you've spent a day in hell and another in heaven. Now choose your eternity."

The Senator reflects for a minute, then he answers: "Well, I would never have said it before, I mean heaven has been delightful, but I think I would be better off in hell."

So St. Peter escorts him to the elevator and he goes down, down, down to hell...

Now the doors of the elevator open and he's in the middle of a barren land covered with waste and garbage. He sees all his friends, dressed in rags, picking up the trash and putting it in black bags as more trash falls from above

The devil comes over to him and puts his arm around his shoulders.

"I don't understand," stammers the Senator. "Yesterday I was here and there was a golf course and clubhouse, and we ate lobster and caviar, drank champagne, and danced and had a great time. Now there's just a wasteland full of garbage and my friends look miserable. What happened?"

The devil smiles at him and says,

"Yesterday we were campaigning, Today, you voted.." 

Vote wisely in November 2016

[Ozi]

[Guest TxFeller]

I like that Keynes was smart enough to state that it is a belief rather than a fact.

[TBG 150]

But damnit TxF...It took you just under 6 1/2 hours to distinguish the word belief from fact. The word belief meaning in the context used that it was fact.

[Guest TxFeller]

I don't agree, but you are free to have your opinion. Let me ask you, though... all these wonderful capitalists, most especially the 1%-ers, the ones Bush gave tax breaks to so they'd have the extra capital to create jobs... where were they when our unemployment went north of 6%? What happened to the jobs they were supposed to be creating?  In India? Brazil? China? Malaysia? Sure as heck wasn't here.

[Ozi]

[Ozi]

Many years ago, when Bridgestone Tyres purchased Uniroyal Tyres, Uniroyal sent a delegate of employees to Japan to check out the operation and see what they could expect from their new employer, including some union shop stewards.

On their return, they were asked if they saw anything they liked that would improve their working conditions. The list was endless, including:

- the canteen that provided subsidised meals 24/7;

- the free crèche for working mums;

- subsidised accommodation for some employees;

- company operated medical clinic;

- etc.

When asked if they could improve their Japanese counterparts working conditions, the list was endless, including:

- shorter working hours;

- increased penalty rates;

- more tea breaks;

- more sick days;

- more annual leave;

- leaving the workplace 15 mins before the end of the shift to clean up on company time;

- signing on then changing into work clothes;

- etc.

It's worth noting that the Japanese workers did a shift change at the workplace, to avoid any disruption to production. Also worth noting that the canteen was self service and deposit payment into a cash barrel. There was always more money deposited than the value of the food consumed.

Want to know what caused the decline of our society? Not the rich entrepreneurs that created the employment opportunities, but the greedy workers, demanding more and more benefits for less and less production, no longer prepared to do an honest days work for an honest wage.

Add the poor bugger me, you owe me a living lazy fucking bludgers to the equation and there's the real answer, we priced ourselves out of the market and are now paying the price.

[Guest TxFeller]

So, should corporations get all the benefit of 20 years of experience at a pay rate that is half, or less, what it was when the worker had 5-7 years experience? If so, why bother to work the same field for 20 years?

Politicians can talk all they want about education being the "silver bullet", but they're full of it. Once you reach 40, you'd better be trying for a CxO job when you leave your prior job, otherwise age discrimination is going to drive it hard from tush to tonsils, and you'd better have your own supply of K-Y.

As for the rich entrepreneurs in today's society, there are a precious few who create jobs. Elon Musk comes to mind. The biggest majority of jobs come from the service sector, and very few of those owners are near what you'd call rich. After that, private jobs come from corporations, not 1%-ers. Just because one of them sits on the board or is a CxO doesn't make him or her a job creator.

You know when the 1%-ers DID create jobs? When the top tax rate was around 90%. Then, rather than let the government have all that wealth, they invested it in upgrading capital equipment, expanding manufacturing plants and R&D departments, and creating jobs. However, since Reagan's first year in office, that has not been true.

[Ozi]

Australia is the second largest producer of iron ore in the world, second only to China. At its peak it was fetching $150+ per tonne, with a break even for most companies of around $90 per tonne. Companies grew and employed many more staff.

Being mined in remote locations, many workers were fly in fly out, working varying rosters, like 3 weeks on and 1 week off. The unions soon took hold of the work sites, closed shops so no non members allowed, screwing higher and higher benefits from the mining companies.

As an example, a cleaner in 2013, low education and no real skills, other than being able to use a mop and bucket, was on an average annual income in excess of $90,000. With not much to do outside hours the guys would often drink, the females would go to the gym. On their week off they would fly home, spending up big, like a pair of $280 Nike runners for the girls who would trash them within a couple of months.

The managers of the stores that sold the footwear, many years in the industry were on about $45,000 in comparison, their staff even less. Not everyone can be a cleaner at a mine site, there's only so many of those jobs.

Jump forward to 2015, iron ore is about $45 per tonne. China used to be our biggest customer, but produce much more than us now and have been stockpiling it so don't buy much anymore.

The mines can't sustain the overheads, especially on less than break even income, but the good old workers still want their six figure salaries and the unions won't compromise. A comfortable wage is better than no wage, well not according to the unions. Mines close, people get laid off.

In the meantime, the cleaner still wants her lifestyle, still wants her $280 Nike runners. Initially she stops buying them from the shoe store, instead buying them on the internet for $140 a pair. Bear in mind, the guy selling on the internet doesn't employ many, if any staff. If he does employ staff, unlike Australia, he doesn't provide them with lunch and tea breaks, pay them award wages, sick leave, annual leave, public holidays, long service leave, penalty rates for weekends. Nor does he pay compulsory worker's compensation insurance should his staff have an accident on the job, or pay any taxes to the government. So now the government not only doesn't receive royalties from the mines, it misses out on personal and business taxes.

Sales at the store now drop to a level where they can no longer afford staff, so lay people off.

Now our cleaner has spent all her redundancy money and can't even afford the discounted Nike runners, but wants to maintain the image, so starts buying $25 knock off look alikes, which feeds the Asian sweat shops, but kills Nike sales, so they lay off staff.

In the meantime, the banks want their interest and repayments from the mines they have loaned so much money to but it's not forthcoming. To satisfy their shareholders, they look to their investments to boost their dividend payments, mainly commercial property like retail. But sadly, our cleaner no longer buys her $280 Nike runners and the other niceties that go with them, so many shops are closing, the retail properties aren't returning any investments either.

But don't stress, the banks always have an ace up their sleeve, their customers. Even our now destitute, unemployed cleaner still has to have a bank to deposit her welfare cheques, so even she still remains a source of income for the bank.

Read all your fancy financial reports on global economies, blame the high paid executives all you want, then maybe look at the facts. None of that has any meaning if you don't understand the micro economics that are going on around you.

The unions used to be a valuable asset but sadly they took it too far.

Australia is on the brink of a recession, as a country we, like America, are trading in the red. They are about to announce huge improvements to the economy this week. No increase in taxes, just cuts in spending. That can only mean reducing funding to schools, hospitals, pensioners and probably defence.

But we are not using those savings to reduce debt, it's going to cover significant costs we have committed to like the extra 12,000 refugees we just accepted. Yeah, fuck the pensioners.

The true evil is staring you in the face. Despite all this doom and gloom Australia's top four banks are STILL posting record profits, year after year after year, some of the biggest to date in 2015.

And for the record, the cleaner was a bridesmaid at my daughter's wedding, her and her family have been our friends for years. The store manager is my previous Commanding Officer's wife. As for the unions, I was a shop steward in my late 20s early 30s and a card carrying member of the Labour Party, closest thing you could join to a Communist Party without being branded a traitor. And yes, during the Uniroyal purchase.

[Guest TxFeller]

I hear ya, Ozi. And I can't disagree unions got too greedy. Without unions, we would have none of the standard job benefits -- group insurance, 40-hour workweek with OT for additional time, workplace safety laws, no child labor laws, paid vacations, additional pay for worked holidays... but they went too far, especially when it comes to pensions. If someone is making a decent wage, they can do for themselves when it comes to pensions, but to ask for the moon PLUS a pension is a bridge too far, and they crossed it.

On the other hand, there's all the folks that make governments run. They agree to work for relatively low wage in comparison to the private sector jobs they could have gotten, in return for a pension when they retire. It was a stupid trade-off from the very beginning. Working for $20-45k/yr for 40 years when they could have made $50-70k/yr, just so they could get a pension that would amount to about $24k/yr for their last 15-20 years? Nope. Unimaginably bad choice. Had they earned what they could have and invested their leftover discretionary income, they'd have enjoyed their retirement comfortably without any pension.

Then along comes the City of Detroit and files bankruptcy. In the Michigan state constitution is a provision that government from the state level on down to city level cannot dick with your pension, regardless the reason. But, a judge allows the conservative governor's hand-picked assassin to give the retired city workers a take-it-or-leave-it proposition that would give them pennies on the dollar and no recourse. This rape will be forgotten far too quickly and there will no doubt be tons of people thinking they will be able to do some good in the world by getting degrees to do social work, which means they'll work for governments up to the state level and take jobs that will waste their lives for nothing, all at the risk of getting seriously hosed in the end, especially now that precedent has been set in the courts. Their unions can scream bloody murder all they want and it won't do them a bit of good.

Executives.... The year is 2002. IBM has had record-breaking earnings and profits year over year for the prior 7 years straight. However, there are undercurrents flowing that the average company grunt isn't privvy to, his only hint being the voluntary separations going on. The dot.com bust is finally beginning to reach even this multi-national giant. For two years straight, unrelated to the dot.com bust, packages have been offered and there have been some takers. In May 2002, however, layoff packages are distributed, and they're not voluntary. IBM announces they have laid off 3,000 worldwide, but the truth is more like 15k. What is shocking is that even those departments that were creating the highest profit margins were being cut. We thought we were ten feet tall and bullet-proof. Um, yeah.... not so fast. BUT... the following January, bonuses for the CEO and other top level management is paid out, a combined total of over $36M for the top 3 mgmt lvls, is the best guesstimate.  Sam Palmisano, CEO, got $12M by himself. If there was any justice, it was in the cuts Palmisano made to former execs. He eliminated the executive management committee, plus made cuts to Lou Gerstner's retirement compensation, the guy who brought IBM back from its fall from grace. What a sweet coups de grace. Gerstner is the one who got Palmisano the job as CEO. What totally blows about this scenario is how Palmisano is publicly talking about his new plan to reduce CEO pay, but privately taking more, getting it in "performance bonuses" instead. Bloomberg Business is giving Palmisano glowing reviews and yet Palmisano said, prior to this, that the real creativity (and productivity) comes from the bottom. Yeah, from those same people at the bottom he totally screwed over to get his $12M.

In case you're wondering, yeah... I was one of those people.

[Ozi]

I hear ya, Ozi.

No you don't.

[Guest TxFeller]

No you don't.

Not sure why you think I don't. Because I recognize what a bunch of sorry dogs the majority of CEOs are doesn't mean I don't see the big picture. I'm one of the few progressives you'll find that isn't pro-union. I've seen how they can demand themselves right out of employment.

As for the banks, if one of the big ones here ever gets into financial difficulties again, I will be perfectly happy to see it go down the tubes. The others will clean their act up if that ever happened.