RadioBanter - View Single Post - Beware of hams planting dis-information...

June 15th 05, 09:37 PM

From: (Dave=A0Hall)
On Mon, 13 Jun 2005 11:29:46 -0400, (I
AmnotGeorgeBush) wrote:
David T. Hall (N3CVJ) wrote:
The number of
those without health care (seniors included) far outnumber those healthy
workers who get laid off.

Most companies who employ skilled workers,

have some form of healthcare coverage as

part of their benefits package. I've never had a
job without it.

Your personal situation is irrelevant to the majority.

Not really. Most people who are in full time

gainfully employed jobs have some form of

health care coverage. Unless you're a part

time worker, chances are you have some

coverage.

Each year (for the last 4 years) the number of part-time workers has
increased as the number of those laid off has increased.
A growing trend
has been major employers hiring at 32 hours or less to avoid offering
health care benefits.

There are laws to discourage this practice.

Bull****. Any company can fill their positions with ft or pt employees.
There is no law that claims copanies must offer ft work.

Just as there are laws to prevent an employer
from paying you a "Salary" instead of an

hourly rate to avoid paying overtime. Look into

the federal wage and hour laws.
=A0

I have to abide by the laws you speak of but it seems you are not
familiar with them. Another easy way to avoid offering benefits is to
hire people as independent cotractors, from laborers to clerical..this
is very common in Fl. It also negates the need for federal withholding,
placing the burden on the worker with a 10-99.

=A0Resumption of healthcare coverage is tied to

.the laid-off worker's need to find another job.

So what happens in between when on needs prescription medication? When
one is laid off from their job and offered the mandated COBRA, the cost
is always greater than the original. Now, you have people who can not
only pay their bills, but can't afford their medical covereage. What is
your solution?

No one said that life would always be easy.

If you don't have a solution, say so, but saying resumption of
healthcare is tied to finding another job goes without say. Problem is,
the jobs do not exist..check your stats from the feds. Last month, the
feds fell short of 100,000 jobs they expected to add to the stats of
added jobs for the month.

Try growing up during the great depression in

the 30's as my parents did, and then tell me

what hardship is.

How are your parents any different from any other of our parents who did
the same thing?

When I was a kid, all I would hear were

stories of how people did "this and that" to get

by. You've probably heard the stereotypical

stories of people walking to school with ratty

shoes full of holes in the snow.

Uphill,,,both ways.

Except that these were true. I guess my

perspective is a bit different than yours. To

me, the examples you've given are a speed

bump compared to life during the depression.

Except you weren't there and did not experience anything remotely
associated with such a hardship as that.

That way, no one layoff can cripple a

significant portion of the population.

Depends what you consider a significant portion of the population. I can
think of several examples..Reagan importing cheaper metals from the
Asians decimated the steel industry in Pa and Ohio.

I live within an easy drive of 4 different steel

plants. The towns that surrounded them were

dependant on those mills for the majority of

their income.

Not one of those small towns you mentioned were major steel producing
towns. In fact, those towns are obscure to all but those who live near
them, except for Allentown, and that was made famous by Billy Joel.

But 20 years later and things

have pretty much recovered. People can get

pretty creative when they need to be.

Recovered from what? You said it couldn't happen, but by invoking the
fact they recovered, you unwittingly admit the towns were indeed
crippled from such layoffs..

Only temporarily.

It happened. An entire generation came of age and went during that
"temporary" era you refer.

That's the whole point. Life goes on. People

adapt and adjust. Allow them to do that, give

them a few tools to help them, and they will

solve their own problem.

Except many cities did not recover.

We don't need the government mollycoddling

us and indoctrinating us into becoming

dependant on them.

Asking for health care from those who are charged with regulating it
when they have the best care available and toss our cash away like
****ing in the wind and give away health care to the very same people
you say are trying to kill us and wage war and terror on us, is not
mollycoddling. Kind of difficult to explain your position when you
suport these leaders who "mollycoddle" with healthcare those you
repeatedly insist are our enemy and hate us and want us dead.

My original point was also that having diverse

industries in your locale helps to prevent

crippling a town if one of those industries goes
belly-up. The others still go on, and the impact
is much less than a town which grew up

around one very large plant.

In many of those
industry towns, this led to the closing of the mills and a significant
layoff of those town's populations and many of those towns became
ghettos or ghost towns because of that.

Not in my area. The towns (Allentown,

Phoenixville, Fairless Hills, and

Conshohocken) are still going strong, although
the people who live there are forced to

commute to work now.

The towns are going through a revitalization,

where the old factories have been leveled and
in their place have sprung up huge business

campuses.

Those towns were never considered large steel towns or large steel
industy towns.

Tell that to the thousands of people (And Billy

Joel) who lived and worked there and were

laid off when the mills closed.

They were small, tiny mills compared to the larger cities and employed a
fractio of the workers.=A0
=A0Think Pittsburgh and similar cities in Ohio.
Same can be said with coal
mining and to a certain extent, the auto industry. History repeats
itself.

Yes, as we continue to become more efficient

at manufacture,

Whaaaa? Manufacturing is DOWN, not becoming more efficient.

Down in this country. It's growing strong in

other places where it is cheaper (Hence more

efficient) to manufacture things.

Yea, but that isn't "we". "We" is,,,,er,,,are the USA!

=A0=A0the nature of jobs have evolved along with it.

The automobile pretty much ended the

demand for blacksmiths.

=A0But we shouldn't

blame the automobile for causing the demise

of the blacksmith industry. The smart

blacksmith went back to school and learned to
repair cars.

Blacksmiths were never a large industry and the position was never one
of those that most in a city were employed, rendering the example
fruitless and non-related.

It's very much related. A particular vocation

doesn't have to be large to be relevant.

It does to be compared to an entire industry such as the steel industry
of which we were speaking.

The

blacksmith example highlight quite accurately

what happens when our society evolves and

old skills and crafts are no longer needed.

The loss of blacksmith jobs never crippled any towns or cities and that
was what we were speaking.

At the same time newer skills open up as a

result of advancing technology. People need

to keep up with the trends so that the skills

they posses are not obsolete.

That's one of the reasons why I still live where

I do. I was once contemplating a move to both
Florida and North Carolina. But the lack of

.diverse skilled jobs and much lower pay

scales pretty much nixed that move.

Lack of diverse skilled jobs?

Excuse me, I should have said diverse high

.paying skilled jobs.

When was the last time you checked the
stats? Florida has led the country in adding new jobs and has not felt
the inflation the country has felt the last so many years. The pay here
was always offset by the lower cost of living.

All that sounds fine and all, but the long and

short of it is that for the field that I am in, the

salaries offered were between 20 and 40%

lower than they are here. The employers there
(And I interviewed with quite a few) once they

find out where you're from, tell you right up

front not to expect a comparable salary.

That's a myth.

Ok,,in the same manner you claimed one who lived in another state could
not tell you about Pa, what makes you feel you can tell a lifelong
resident of another state about their state?

Because I did some extensive research

So did Shark on your laws, but you stil claimed because one lived
somewhere else, they cold not know the particulars as well as one who
resided there.

when I was considering the move there 15

years ago.

15 years ago was another era in Fl.

I walked into a K-Mart and compared prices of
the things that I normally buy with what I pay

up here. My wife was especially knowledgable
about clothing prices.

It's not a myth, Dave. There is no state income tax and prices have
always been lower in Fl,,until recently (last 10 years).

Slightly lower in specific cases, like locally

produced goods like fruit and other food.
=A0
=A0Yes, there are certain costs which are lower

in Florida. The homestead exemption saves a

bundle on property tax. Homes are (were)

cheaper. There is no state tax, and utilities are
somewhat lower.

Utilites are higher, especially electric, as the majority of homes do
not have gas.

Actually, when I was checking, I was currently

paying 15 cents per kilowatt hour. In Florida

(In Brevard County), the rate was about 8

cents per kilowatt hour. Water rates varied

depending on whether you had "city" water or

a privately owned "utility", but they were

cheaper by and large than what I paid up

here.

What do you refer to as a privately owned utility? You either have city,
county, or well water. I have city -and- a well.

Heat was not an issue as most homes used

efficient heat pumps, which spent most of their
times as air conditioners. With insulation

ratings of R34 in most new homes, the cooling
costs offset the normal eastern PA winter

heating cost by a considerable margin.

Gas was only recently introduced as a choice for heating and cooking,
and even in most cities, it has to be trucked in (propane).

I prefer electric for cooking (When I'm not

grilling).

Not me. I hate it, but until we get gas lines, I'm not paying for
propane.

And heating in Florida is not normally an

issue, as you know. A couple of logs on the

fireplace will take the chill off on those few

chilly mornings.
=A0

Depends where you live. The top of the state, even from Ocala northward
use their heat all winter every winter. 30's is a bit chilly and a
fireplace can't heat the entire house.

=A0Yes, many costs ARE lower to an extent. But

if you try to buy something like a car, gasoline,
or a major appliance or consumer good, the

cost is pretty mush the same as it is in any

other state.

Again,,nope. Autos are not only in better condition (speaking of used,
of course) but new cars are somewhat cheaper here, so are most
manufactured goods.

Not according to what I found. I didn't bother

with used car pricing because there is a

certain amount of subjective perception.

(shrug) I go by NADA or edmunds.com perceptions, as does the auto
industry. Check resale and trade-in values.

But the MSRP of new cars there was the

same (or very close) as what I see up here.

Sure, no one pays MSRP, but the degree of

discount is not going to be any more

significant there than here.

Gasoline was actually more expensive back

then than up here. What do you pay for gas

now? Last week, I paid $1.94/gallon
=A0
Last week I paid 1.94 also. This week it's 2.03 but I haven't checked
gasbuddy.com in a few weeks.
-
=A0The exceptions are the tourist areas and coastal regions that are
developed. I can get a gallon of milk for 3 bucks here. I can get a
gallon of milk in Chiefland for 2.29. this is the norm, not the
exception.

I can do the same up here. Orange Juice is

$2.00 a half gallon (for the "Not from

concentrate" stuff). That's something I would

expect to be much cheaper in Florida.

It is, bit not in the stores. Go to the stands or groves.