Also, many white collar workers that get paid overtime, medical insurance, holiday and vacation time, can thank unions.

Posted at July 10, 2008 6:05 PM in response to Do Blogs Take Labor Issues Seriously?

One of the big mistakes the unions are making by accepting two-tier scales is that you have a group that feels screwed over right from the get go.

In a decade, those same young workers will be able to vote on getting rid of health benefits for retirees in exchange for a raise for themselves.

Posted at July 2, 2008 1:16 PM in response to A Warning For Young Workers: The Up-Escalator May Be Broken

Wow, I'm amazed. What was he thinking?

This guy was instrumental on making some of the insurance companies pay up after Katrina.

Posted at June 27, 2008 2:08 PM in response to Big-Time Attorney Dickie Scruggs Gets Five Years In Prison

My DVD's were gone through thoroughly when I crossed the border. I had to explain why I had so many.

Posted at May 27, 2008 12:12 PM in response to Today's Must Read

Good treatment and respect of employees, not exactly an American traditon, especially if they are lowly workers.

I personally know of 3 separate cases where employees would be $$$ rewarded for their ideas if they saved the company money.

One was an aerospace engineer who suggested that instead of spending millions of dollars in disposing of "waste" chemicals, that some could instead be sold to other industies that could use them. She was supposed to get 10% of any savings for the year. The 1st year it saved over 15 million dollars...and this was in the 80's. The company was shocked, they reneged and cancelled the program. She won the lawsuit and left the company.

Almost identical to the major airline my husband worked for. They had a similar employee suggestion program and another engineer came up with an idea on how to load planes so that the weight and balance would save millions of dollars worth of fuel. They reneged, cancelled the program, and the employee won the lawsuit and left the company.

These same companies will pay out millions to consultants who come up with brilliant ideas like getting rid of accounting depts. and purchasing depts. that in the long run cost more because of mistakes and lack of oversight. They show them how to use "just in time" inventory methods that work until they don't. The cost incurred by not having the inventory when needed can quickly overrun any savings.

But it's easier to blame those pesky American unions for companies not running efficiently. BTW, many of those efficient Japanese workers are unionized, too.

Posted at May 26, 2008 9:49 AM in response to Liberals and Markets: A Strained Relationship

Who says the Euro isn't doing "much better"?

http://uk.reuters.com/article/managerViews/idUKNOA34668720080523?pageNumber=1

Posted at May 25, 2008 12:04 PM in response to Oil Bubble

Ellen, I agree that the Bush administration is willing to use high oil prices as a reason to push their agenda with regards to ANWR, etc. They might even use it as an excuse to cut corporate tax rates, it's the kind of stretch I've come to expect from them. They are pretty good at tapping into worry and anger.

But demand from the US SPR has stopped. Congress has gone on veto proof record as going to go up against OPEC. Dems and Repubs are both very afraid of voter anger over this issue and want to appear to be fighting for them.

And yet, here we are. Oil prices are still fluctuating in a pretty high range.

Posted at May 25, 2008 10:49 AM in response to Oil Bubble

(g) I see your point, but Congress stopped Bush from filling the SPR for political reasons only, to make it look like they were taking a stand against high oil prices, not because they thought prices were too high or that supply is unlimited in the future.

Cutting off supplying the SPR is being done for symbolic reasons. It does remove a small demand from the market and makes it look like Congress cares about the little guy in America.

It doesn't materially change the fundamentals.

Posted at May 24, 2008 7:24 PM in response to Oil Bubble

So Congress finally gets a veto proof majority on something to oppose Bush on and it's a pandering OPEC bash? Pathetic. This is where they take a stand?

Though I might have to go pour myself a glass of wine and mull over the fact that I agree with Bush on something....

Posted at May 24, 2008 6:08 PM in response to Oil Well Not Ending Well

First, speculators cannot raise the spot price unless thay can take physical delivery. In which case they are hedgers.

Also, there is no huge inventory of stored oil indicating this is happening, other than various government's SPR's, which are just a small fraction of the world's demand. The fact that both China and, until recently, the US were still buying oil for their SPR's at these prices means they are not convinced that prices will go lower anytime soon, and it may even mean they are concerned about future availabilty.

Oil in the ground and waiting to be produced at a later time in this environment is truly worth more than oil produced today. As proof, the oil future's market slipped into contango last week.

I suspect that numerous national oil producers will soon recognize this, if they haven't already, and that's why we are seeing worldwide oil exports falling far more rapidly than worldwide oil production is falling.

Going after speculator's (who are not always net long) won't solve this, they have both long and short positions and provide liquidity. We've seen some pretty big swings up and down lately and someone that only bets long could be wiped out pretty quickly.

I remember Southwest Airlines was criticised for hedging so much oil years ago at a price that was considered "high". That decision on their part left them one of the more viable airlines today.

Posted at May 24, 2008 5:48 PM in response to Oil Bubble