X2.
This was an interesting discussion back when it was about railroad workers and their negotiations with the major carriers.

I don't care if I carry "any weight" with you. Your response doubled down on fallacies with ad hominems.

If you had something to say other than "pay and obey", buttressed with logical fallacies it would have merited a different response. We just spent two years being harangued and coerced and some of us are damn sick of the sheep among us telling us we have no dominion over our own lives. We have every damn right to voice our grievances.

And don't accuse me of imagining "intellectual superiority". I know my area and I keep in my lane. I'm not going to start arguing steel quality or boiler calculations-because I don't know a damn thing about them and I know I know nothing about them, so I don't argue with the people that do and wouldn't expect to be praised for doing it. I would fully expect to be told I was wrong, uninformed and dangerous if I started yammering on about such things and I have no right to complain.

The point I think supe's making is similar to the one in the old story -- I heard it as being George Bernard Shaw, but who knows? -- about the man at a party who asked a woman 'would you sleep with me for a million dollars?'... to which she simpered and said 'probably'. He then asked 'would you sleep with me for a dollar?' Enraged, she said 'what do you think I am?' to which he replied 'We've already established that; all we're discussing now is the price.'

If there is no benefit to an upstate county from subsidies to SEPTA... even if the amount billed to it is 0.00728 mill of assessed valuation or whatever... supe argues it is immoral, and I'd agree with him. That is an example where he has distinctive competence to assess the implications.

Likewise, in the 'bad old days' of Progressivism, the idea of funding schools got expediently added to property tax, with the economic fig leaf that 'everyone benefits from public education'. That presupposes both that public education is successful and that it is kept cost-effective -- neither of which, I think, is even remotely true nowadays. Furthermore, if a voucher system is in place, there is a similar transfer of wealth from taxpayers without children to those who do.

Of course, if you adjust the tax base so only families the census identifies as having school-age children pay a pro rata share of the school expenses -- which on one level is fair -- not only adds to the burden of raising children effectively, but leverages the issues with 'poor districts' having substandard schools. (It also disposes with the idea that public education is a fully 'public good', but that's a different theoretical discussion for another thread.

Returning to issues of railroad employment, did anyone catch the 'post-PEB250' commentary in one of the trade magazines (either RT&S or Railway Age) that "noted" that railroads have something over 40 applicants for every position they advertise as open? Makes sobering reading if anyone actually takes it seriously, and I would not be surprised if the railroads do take it seriously. At the very least, the statistic to use is how many prospective employees make it through training, and a better one would be how many 'survive' the forced transition from conductor to engine service 'and all that that implies' (to quote Kipling).

The problem with all such discussions is simple:
Those of the "progressive/socialist" ilk will insist that the upstate counties DO benefit, however indirectly, from reduced roadway congestion and commute times in metropolitan areas, just as the residents of urban areas derive benefit, however indirectly, from expressway/Interstate highway construction through rural areas, infrastructure grants to shortlines for such things as replacement bridges and sidings to industries (a noted Commonwealth of Pennsylvania program), etc.

The point of a united nation or state (or, aptly, in the case of Pa. and Virginia, "commonwealth") is that we should share in the benefits of each other's advantages--Florida has oranges, Maine has lobsters, Pennsylvania and West Va. had coal, Texas has oil and cattle, Nebraska grows corn, etc.). (These days, of course, embracing the ideas of one great unified nation can get you labeled a "Fascist" in some quarters.....)

I think you just about hit my concern, but I would use a the legend on a poster I once saw:

"Every drop complains that is not the flood".

Politicians are constantly telling us that this or that is a good, and that this or that is a bad and that they have the wisdom of Solomon so they can concoct a corrective program, tax, credit, subsidy or expenditure that will correct this matter, whether real or contrived.

There is no evidence of this and observing that even those most obvious stupidities seem to be invisible to the great mass of Boxers (the character from Animal Farm, not a pugilist) so imagine everything the pigs say is right.

Once you understand the first rule of economics is every thing is scarce and the first rule of politics is ignore the first rule of economics; then you understand Machiavellian machinations, Talleyrand's "thousand subterfuges" and Juvenal's panem et circenses.

By the way, if you think anything has changed since Juvenal, we still have bread and circuses-just now it's food stamps and municipal stadium finance.

As a current RR employee.... and a Democrat, I can see what the company's doing.

They know the entire country is split along party lines. They can see the writing on the wall that they'll benefit from a strike in the court of public opinion, and the republicans are chomping at the bit for us to strike, so they can pile even more on the Biden administration.

I would say that from the interactions I have with my fellow employees, only those of us who've been there for a while lean Liberal and can see the big picture. I feel that I am in the minority. I get the feeling that the younger (30~45 y.o.) set is apolitical, except they're wound up about guns and welfare.... subjects that the republicans excel at exploiting. You know... republicans ARE politicians, but to a man all these guys are vociferously hostile about politicians only when they're Nancy Pelosi or Chuck Schumer.... they never denigrate any republicans. They're all about "term limits", as long as it's Nancy and Chuck that get sent home.

Through our locals grapevine, I've been told the local chairman said "there will be no strike". I haven't read that in an email, so I can't confirm or deny. But, I know they're between a rock and a hard place.... they've got to be politically correct, lest they be ganged up on by the conservatively leaning members who think "the unions corrupt, they're selling us out".... There's also a Union vote occurring right now, and one of the two is emailing us members and accusing the incumbent National President of the Union of being a "career politician" and things like that.. tactics used by the guy who won the 2020 US presidential election. Playing to "the base".



Republicans win no matter what happens, and by extension the company.

There is a company called "Hallcon" that hauls railroad crews on our property.

Last week on our local employee's facebook page, one poster put up a link to Hallcon and it showed that, besides driving vans, they have employees (Conductors/Engineers) for hire to companies needing such employees.

Basically, scabs.... https://hallcon.com/careers/contractor/ ... tid=li3ck7

I don't know how much comfort this may give, but you might be interested in these comments:



Source: https://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying ... ke-threat/

The last paragraph comes from here. Read the whole thing, and show it to your younger compatriots. Tell them it's not about politics, it's business.

https://www.supplychaindive.com/news/ra ... 1rwg6mhiUk

Well, that is encouraging. I'm glad to see that hopefully, not all industry trade groups are partisan...but, like my post indicated.... the elephant in the room is the upcoming national elections.

The GOP doesn't care about anything but recapturing and retaining power at any cost. They make hay no matter how this turns out.

If we don't get what we want and aren't allowed to strike, the men will blame Pelosi and BIden and the GOP will latch on to that and run with it accusing the Dem's of not caring for Union members.

If we DO strike, the GOP will latch on to that and blame Union loving Democrats of crippling our economy in exchange for votes.

The only way they lose is if the company relents and gives in to our demands, and in my estimation the company can weather any storm... the political wind is at their back.

The way inflation is going, the unions better go for 30% annual wage increase because the real rate of inflation is close to 20% on the assortment of goods and services you actually need to survive. Compounded annually that means the cost of those items will just about double every four years.

Conversely if inflation holds at this rate it means that your dollars you are saving for retirement will be worth half as much after four years. If inflation continues at this rate or rises, many of the people now working might never be able to retire.

The way the published CPI (Consumer Price Index) is measured has been changed three times since 1980 to make the COLA (cost of living adjustment) smaller. Despite that, there will be an all-time record social security COLA increase next year.

PC

and you seriously think Democrats aren't???
Ah, the "drunk the koolaid" stance of the left that wants to paint the right as cardboard cutout villains and declares that any other ways to look at any situation that aren't liberal by nature shouldn't even be allowed to exist.
Living in the Pacific Northwest, I hear this drivel every day, and look at the failed utopia we have here because of it.

The hilarious thing about this sort of "four legs good, two legs bad" thinking is that it should be obvious by now the real division is between the political class and the apolitical class.

There's a reason Paul Ryan married the niece a Democrat Governor and Arnold Schwarzenegger married a Kennedy. To quote the late George Carlin: "it's a big club, and you're not in it" (Neither am I, or anybody else on this board).

It's unfortunate Mr. Bad Order would rather stay in the part of the pool he just made warm, rather than risk clearer but colder water. Ironic too, because people like Warren Buffett and Bill Ackman are creatures of the left, because the public virtue signaling conceals their rent seeking. Keep in mind Buffett was lamenting the inadequacy of his tax bill; while litigating a decade old matter; and not writing a check to the Treasury's box office for "Gifts to the United State". I assure you they will happily accept your check.

The late Angelo Codevilla wrote this excoriation of the arrogance, hubris and incest of both parties a dozen years ago.

https://spectator.org/americas-ruling-class/

Well, superhet, are you trying so eloquently and profusely to write that both sides are bad?

Unfortunately we only get two choices and the GOP has shown me who they owe fealty to.... and the golden calf to which they're bowing down to is repulsive

Eloquent yes, profuse no.

Capable of penetrating the hardest substance in the universe; lithocranium? Hell no.

The red pill is a choice.

Personally, I don't like or trust politicos of either party. However, in the context of railroad labor agreements, I only need look back a few years to the effort made by the Class I RRs to do away with two man train crews in my home state of Colorado. The way it went down in our state house was a vote split right across party lines, with members of one party voting to keep two man minimums for all train crews, while their opposition voted to allow one man crews.

Seriously now, WHICH of the two parties that I don't like or trust would you suppose voted to keep trainmen's jobs ?? For the record, labor won that round.