Insurers shrink from coasts

ViRedd

ViRedd

New Member
Med ... your vocabulary seems to be deteriorating. Its down to only two words now. Please try harder, I know for a fact that you can insult much better than that!

 
medicineman

medicineman

New Member
Med ... your vocabulary seems to be deteriorating. Its down to only two words now. Please try harder, I know for a fact that you can insult much better than that!

Fuck off................
 
Celticman

Celticman

Well-Known Member
WOW!
That's all I can say. Quite interesting on a sophmore level. Just a thought from an Independent.
I don't believe the goverment should force insurance companies to "cover all or cover none". I live in an area with low flood risk (no flood ins.) and low risk for all major disasters. I pay $35 a month for homeowners for $185,000 in total replacement coverage. If they were forced to cover all, my rates would likely explode to help cover the losses in places like N.O. or Fla.
How fair is that? I used to live in Texas and my homeowner Ins. was twice what I pay here, but then again we were in tornado alley. More risk, more pay.
As far as the government taking it over, SLOW DOWN!
Coverage prices would SKYROCKET as we all know Unions rule in government. All repairs would have to be made by union workers, etc. etc.
And here is a simple fact, EVERY MAJOR INDUSTRY DOMINATED BY UNIONS ARE STRUGGELING! Airlines, Autos, steel industry, etc.
Before you label me a union basher. let me give you an example.
I used to work at Hamilton-Sundstrand as a Union CNC Machinist. I made $28 per hour which is about $10 above the average class A machinist around here.
In order to be competitive Hamilton-Sundstrand wanted to add "Flex-Training" into the workforce. In essence, if they were slow on one machine, they wanted to be able to shift you to another machine or dept. It wouldn't affect your work hours or pay. Guess what? Without "bonus pay" the union held a vote and decided to strike. Well to make a long story short, they backed off the flex training and decided instead to build a 250,000sq.ft building in singapore and lay us all off.
Now of course the union backers are screaming bloody murder that they shipped our jobs over seas BUT everytime the company asked something of the workers, they met with resistance unless it came with more cash (so the corrupt unions can line their pockets more)
I liked my job at Sundstrand.
I made $70,000+ with my overtime
I paid $10 a week for kick-ass insurance

But because people didn't want to maybe have to switch machines every once in a while, we struck. And ultimatly we lost.

Now I work at a non-union shop, but still make pretty good money (I am a lucky one). Guess what? We do have to shift machines once in a while. A good and profitable company is going to be flexible. Unions tend to be as rigid as a Viagra woody.

One more example,
teachers in my area average about $55,000 per year. The teachers at St.Edwards (private school) average about $40,000 per year and are non-union. guess which school's pupils do better? And yes, I know part of the problem may be where the students are living (i.e. homelife) but the school district's teachers unions adamantly OPPOSES anything that is change unless $$$ is involved. How about, if you don't want to work here, you go find another job?
If I didn't like my current non-union job, that's what I would do!

Anyway, I am jumping off topic.
I do believe there was a time and place for unions. I guess I am just a little P.O.'ed that due to our greed (yes, I mistaken voted right along the union lines) we all lost good jobs.
I just wonder how many of us would like to go back and change that vote????

Celticman
 
medicineman

medicineman

New Member
Celticman said:
WOW!
That's all I can say. Quite interesting on a sophmore level. Just a thought from an Independent.
I don't believe the goverment should force insurance companies to "cover all or cover none". I live in an area with low flood risk (no flood ins.) and low risk for all major disasters. I pay $35 a month for homeowners for $185,000 in total replacement coverage. If they were forced to cover all, my rates would likely explode to help cover the losses in places like N.O. or Fla.
How fair is that? I used to live in Texas and my homeowner Ins. was twice what I pay here, but then again we were in tornado alley. More risk, more pay.
As far as the government taking it over, SLOW DOWN!
Coverage prices would SKYROCKET as we all know Unions rule in government. All repairs would have to be made by union workers, etc. etc.
And here is a simple fact, EVERY MAJOR INDUSTRY DOMINATED BY UNIONS ARE STRUGGELING! Airlines, Autos, steel industry, etc.
Before you label me a union basher. let me give you an example.
I used to work at Hamilton-Sundstrand as a Union CNC Machinist. I made $28 per hour which is about $10 above the average class A machinist around here.
In order to be competitive Hamilton-Sundstrand wanted to add "Flex-Training" into the workforce. In essence, if they were slow on one machine, they wanted to be able to shift you to another machine or dept. It wouldn't affect your work hours or pay. Guess what? Without "bonus pay" the union held a vote and decided to strike. Well to make a long story short, they backed off the flex training and decided instead to build a 250,000sq.ft building in singapore and lay us all off.
Now of course the union backers are screaming bloody murder that they shipped our jobs over seas BUT everytime the company asked something of the workers, they met with resistance unless it came with more cash (so the corrupt unions can line their pockets more)
I liked my job at Sundstrand.
I made $70,000+ with my overtime
I paid $10 a week for kick-ass insurance

But because people didn't want to maybe have to switch machines every once in a while, we struck. And ultimatly we lost.

Now I work at a non-union shop, but still make pretty good money (I am a lucky one). Guess what? We do have to shift machines once in a while. A good and profitable company is going to be flexible. Unions tend to be as rigid as a Viagra woody.

One more example,
teachers in my area average about $55,000 per year. The teachers at St.Edwards (private school) average about $40,000 per year and are non-union. guess which school's pupils do better? And yes, I know part of the problem may be where the students are living (i.e. homelife) but the school district's teachers unions adamantly OPPOSES anything that is change unless $$$ is involved. How about, if you don't want to work here, you go find another job?
If I didn't like my current non-union job, that's what I would do!

Anyway, I am jumping off topic.
I do believe there was a time and place for unions. I guess I am just a little P.O.'ed that due to our greed (yes, I mistaken voted right along the union lines) we all lost good jobs.
I just wonder how many of us would like to go back and change that vote????

Celticman
Click to expand...
Unions, well, there are many pros and cons for unions. Having been a union member in various trades most of my working life, I feel obligated to comment on them. They are indeed not very flexible, which leads to some idiotic decisions like the one that "drove your company overseas". In your particular case, Might they (the company) just have beeen looking for an excuse to close the plant and move. Sometimes Companies will just push union buttons to effect a change to their benefit, maybe they had this all set up and just needed an excuse, but the union should have been more flexible. I watched the workings of the teamsters in which I was a member for a few years. Now I'm not bitching for myself, as I was payed a handsome wage for my services, but sometimes these teamster reps would get a big egoed out stance that would do neither the company nor the workers any good. The Unions have been very instrumental in raising the wage rates in many industries. Just like my truck driving job, the non-union jobs in our specific category were all within a couple a bucks of our wages and similar benefits, I don't think without pressure from the unions, those drivers would have been within 10 bucks an hour from us. Unions in general have been a good thing for workers and even management in some instances. Union workers tend to be more professional in general, at least in the Unions I've belonged to. I've seen the down side of unions also, but sometimes they are very necessary, here's an example of company lying and cheating that our union caved to: The company was crying that they could not compete with non-union companies, and they were losing money on every truck that left the yard, This was of course pure bullshit, but the union wouldn't cave to a 2.00 an hour cut in pay. This stand off went on for 6 mos. untill our contract expired, at this time the company locked the gates on us and brought in scab drivers. Those drivers screwed the pooch so much that half the trucks were in the shop for repair within the first week, they couldn't field half a fleet from driver damage, yet they persisted in locking us out untill we caved on the 2.00 an hour cut. Well the union drivers voted to take the cut after 3 weeks and we went back to work. The first week back to work 16 brand new mixer trucks showed up on the property, at $85,000+ that was well over a million bucks spent on new equipment. Do you really think they were going broke, or just wanted us to buy their new trucks. I did a quick Math check and our cut in pay payed for those trucks in three months. It took 3 years to get back the 2.00, how much extra profit did the company make from that? Yes Unions have their time and place, and in some instances it is here and now. I also believe in a free labor market, but if employees decide they want a voice in how they are treated and payed, then it's union time! In a non-union shop, a boss can just walk up and fire you for any reason he so deems. In a union shop, he must make a case for termination, there are some hard core reasons like Drug usage, dis-obeying an order, insubordination, etc. but you have certain rights and are entitled to a hearing, an arbitration board. Drug test failure is usually a slam dunk. At my last job, it was an automatic termination, and that included Pot. If you were a pot smoker, you couldn't work there as they did random testing and pot stays in your system for a while. I probably saw 50 guys get fired for pot, speed, and coke in my tenure at this job. They'd call you in to the office and have a tester all set up and you'd pee and that was a final deal. if dirty, you were gone. The Union agreed with this policy and rightly so. You can't have screwed up drivers driving 85,000 lb. machines around on busy city streets, period.
 
ViRedd

ViRedd

New Member
Celticman ...

Your post was one of the most cogent I've seen in this forum so far. Nice work. :)

Vi
 
Celticman

Celticman

Well-Known Member
I understand where you are coming from medicineman, and you to Vi redd. believe it or not, I actually agree with both of you on various issues. I actually like some of your back and forth debates... They sometimes stretch the mind, which is a good thing.
So both of you,
Keep up the good work!
Celticman

BTW I was born into a poor household.. If not for goverment assistance I would have went to bed hungry almost every night. I also wouldn't had been able to attend college. But know I have an Associates Degree and am partway to my bachlor's degree. I make about $50K per year and my wife brings home nearly that much as a RN. We have a beutiful life, with beutiful children so my world views kind of float between both of yours.
I do believe that there has to be some sort of safety net for the children of people who weren't prepared to have children. And people with disabilities.
At the same time, it isn't the goverment's responsibilty to make sure everyone has a "perfect" life. There are SO many opportunities here in America, People have to learn to take advantage of them!
So GO Medicineman and Vi Redd!
Some of us like your threads!
 
medicineman

medicineman

New Member
Celticman said:
I understand where you are coming from medicineman, and you to Vi redd. believe it or not, I actually agree with both of you on various issues. I actually like some of your back and forth debates... They sometimes stretch the mind, which is a good thing.
So both of you,
Keep up the good work!
Celticman

BTW I was born into a poor household.. If not for goverment assistance I would have went to bed hungry almost every night. I also wouldn't had been able to attend college. But know I have an Associates Degree and am partway to my bachlor's degree. I make about $50K per year and my wife brings home nearly that much as a RN. We have a beutiful life, with beutiful children so my world views kind of float between both of yours.
I do believe that there has to be some sort of safety net for the children of people who weren't prepared to have children. And people with disabilities.
At the same time, it isn't the goverment's responsibilty to make sure everyone has a "perfect" life. There are SO many opportunities here in America, People have to learn to take advantage of them!
So GO Medicineman and Vi Redd!
Some of us like your threads!
Click to expand...
Why, thank you Celtic, Just trying to keep them honest down on the farm.
 
ViRedd

ViRedd

New Member
Yes, thank you Celtic Man ...

Unfortunatly, there is no "Down on The Farm" anymore. We have corporate owned MegaFarms now, most of which are getting government assistance. Government cheese anyone?

And ... I DO believe in government assistance for the undefendable ... as long as all private avenues have been explored.

Vi
 
medicineman

medicineman

New Member
Unfortunatly, there is no "Down on The Farm" anymore. We have corporate owned MegaFarms now, most of which are getting government assistance. Government cheese anyone?
Corporate welfare at it's most blatant. Lets pay them to not grow a crop so prices can stay up. If this were a truly free market as you rant about, the price of food would be much less, correct? Maybe not, as then the big boys would just not grow for a season and create a shortage, (sorta like the oil co.s) and then next year gouge the living hell out of us, (like the oil co.s). Free markets might have been a good Idea when the US population was 20 million or so and Barter was the norm, but with corporations now being global economies all to their selves, the free market isn't free any more.
 
medicineman

medicineman

New Member
That's all I can say. Quite interesting on a sophmore level. Just a thought from an Independent So are you a professor or academician of some sort. Maybe this reading is too infantile for you. You should try Steven Hawkings, I understand he has a higher IQ than most.Here is an excerpt, see if you like it. The title was does God play Dice:
"What all this means is, that information will be lost from our region of the universe, when black holes are formed, and then evaporate. This loss of information will mean that we can predict even less than we thought, on the basis of quantum theory. In quantum theory, one may not be able to predict with certainty, both the position, and the speed of a particle. But there is still one combination of position and speed that can be predicted. In the case of a black hole, this definite prediction involves both members of a particle pair. But we can measure only the particle that comes out. There's no way even in principle that we can measure the particle that falls into the hole. So, for all we can tell, it could be in any state. This means we can not make any definite prediction, about the particle that escapes from the hole. We can calculate the probability that the particle has this or that position, or speed. But there's no combination of the position and speed of just one particle that we can definitely predict, because the speed and position will depend on the other particle, which we don't observe. Thus it seems Einstein was doubly wrong when he said, God does not play dice. Not only does God definitely play dice, but He sometimes confuses us by throwing them where they can't be seen."
 
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