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I think you may have slipped in an extra negative or two there. Why should there be a law regulating interactions between workers and employers?

As far as the racism thing, I've met enough racists growing up in Ohio.

Because, employers will do anything to get the maximum profit, to the point of paying below poverty line. I personally don't want to go back to the 1870-1900 era in terms of regulation.

Touchy subject? Anyways to the OP this is just silly, you shouldn't let something like this make you hate half the country.

But they have to compete for workers, and people aren't going to keep a job that doesn't allow them to feed their family. Hardly anyone pays as low as minimum wage, so it's a hard sell to convince me that removing such legal restrictions would suddenly lead to lower salaries for working people. Further, I have not heard of any economists who are seriously in favor of any form of minimum wage, as any objective analysis shows very few benefits but serious costs.

1870-1900 saw persistent increases in real wages for workers, regardless of what your liberal propaganda has told you. A lack of regulation during that time allowed business to prosper and create economic growth, and a rising tide lifts all boats. There were serious issues during that time (such as poor factory conditions and child labor), but similar problems would not be expected to recur in a more developed economy as we have now.

I have a feeling on sundays when it's time to clean the highway, there's a multitude of fat, tatoo-clad, alcoholic plumbers in really tight jeans with gargantuan belt buckles and funny mustaches breaking a sweat trying to renew beautiful downtown Kansas City. Did you know Kansas City Missouri houses one of the biggest gay populations in the Midwest?

No offence to plumbers. Mario is still my one and only.


Talk to the hand, grrl.

I'm a born and bred native of New Jersey (also called Jersey around here... f**k you if you're from some small island in the English channel, we don't care about you here...). I've never heard of the term "Joizey" outside of the other 49 states making fun of us, and I'm opposed to the auto bailout. Corporate bigwigs take risks thinking that there is only a positive outcome, and start crying like little babies when their number finally comes up...

Such as?

I would accept the "unions don't get s**t done" argument, as that one would be effectively true, and I know from experience.. But I don't see where you would get off saying that they're detrimental to workers... For one thing, unionization, especially in the NYC area, has accomplished the impossible: they've kept the worst offender against the common worker that is still allowed to operate in the US, namely Wal-Mart, out of NYC. Wal-Mart would make a killing if they could operate a store in NYC. There's nothing in any de jure law that's keeping them out, either. The only thing that holds them at bay is the fact that all of NYC is unionized, so Wal-Mart's only way to get a store open is to compromise its long-standing anti-union policies, which could propagate throughout the entire chain...

PS: I'm not for complete equality. Of course a doctor should get paid more than a janitor (a factor of 5~10 I think would be sufficient, plus a little more to cover cost of insurance, including malpractice insurance). However, when a corporate CEO makes 2 orders of magnitude more than an average worker, I see problems...

It's not that they don't get things done, it's that they don't get beneficial things done. I wish I had my econ book to refer to here, but pretty basic analysis shows that unionization is detrimental to the market as a whole, drives up prices for consumers (and guess what? that hurts the workers too!) and severely harms non-union workers. Basically, a union is a labor cartel.


What would be so horrible about Wal-Mart? "Worst offender against the common worker?" Please. Most of the people working crappy minimum-wage jobs are just teens and students looking for some spending money. Not a big deal if they aren't paid enough to afford two cars, cable TV, and a house.


The Socialist Party USA has, as part of their platform, a maximum income of ten times the minimum, and you'd probably mesh well with a lot of their other policy positions. Not denouncing you as a commie, just mentioning that you aren't alone in that belief. In a perfect world, I would be happy to see income disparity drop that low. But I don't think there will ever be a workable mechanism of attaining that goal. Free market policies work, and they get good results for the working class as well as the rich. If you want to temper that with some of the amenities of a modern welfare state, that's understandable. But full-on socialism simply can't allocate resources properly. Complete confiscation of income over a certain ceiling would be disastrous.

I am against the bailout, I don't think southerners hate the north as much now as in the past. (Mostly because many people from the north are moving to southern states.)

i never really considered it a north/south thing until this thread mentioned it. it seems more like a "they're not getting the job done" thing.

The South has resented the North ever since the Abolitionist movement.

if you have nothing to say, then just say nothing.

see...that's the problem with living in the South; it's so 2-dimensional, the concept that there's only 1 kind of person living in the South, so we don't really need to think about or understand Southerners, we only need to hate them for something they did 140 years ago.

I think if you ask any minority person in the US if they think all the racism is in the south, they'll either laugh, of dope-slap you...

As for joisy? I've heard lots of derision about Jersey (mainly from New Yorkers. Oh, you live in Jersey? Which exit?... Think about that; New Yorkers see only north Jersey; petrochemical plants, factories, remnants of pollution, etc. But what of South Jersey? Who ever visits there?

It's the same attitude, just on a smaller scale.

You'll find intelligent, polite, liberal, educated people in the South. Granted, they may not be thick on the ground, but you can't change attitudes about a people unless you're willing to let go of your prejudices towards them.

do people really think that?


wow, and I didn't think my opinion of the general populace couldn't get any lower.

I don't get out much so that may account for it, but I've never seen or overheard any Northern hate while living here in the South for over 18 years. Mostly I hear about this supposed hate on message boards, and it's always the Northerners bashing the Southerners. Really, I'd like to hear some Northern bashing for a change. I have no terms/words for Northerners other than Yanks, but can name 6 for Southerners, what's up with that if there's so much Northern hate? What is it that Southerners are saying about Northerners that I'm totally not hearing? I'd like to know. I get the feeling that Northerners harbor more irrational hate for the South than vice-versa.

Yes there are people who I guess isolate themselves in their own states that stereotyping comes easy to them such as the states in the south that're only racist and backwards.

I don't normally take it seriously cos I here it all the time but I have to question people who do take it seriously. Do they assume everyone or most everyone is white or had generations of ancestors who actually lived in America?

I agree that some states in the south are strictley conservative just as I thought California was a very liberal state. When I heard about prop 8, I kind of laughed...even though it isn't funny some. They not only banished gay marriage just outta the "sanctity of marriage" but they took back a constitutional right for the first time in America.

Anyway, I think we're all inclined to stereotypes. I just make jokes of them...I never really take them seriously.