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RE: Impact of Obama

Comment a comment by scottb, published on 07 December 2009
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Exactly my point—during tough economic times, actions need to be take to preserve the company—and try to preserve jobs as well. To do anything else is not acting in the best interests of all—employees OR investors.

Except that the fiduciary responsibility of those who take those actions bind them to consider the investors interests over those of the employees. If there are two available actions, one that helps both employees and investors and another that helps only the investors, but helps them more than the first, then they’re legally bound to take the second action, at the expense of the employees.

Now, it’s true that such a situation isn’t always the case. Often, what’s good for the investors is good for the employees. The problem is that there are no decision-makers in the process for whom the employees’ interests are paramount.

The company should be able to take whatever actions are necessary to preserve jobs.

But that’s not what they do. The company takes whatever actions are necessary to preserve profits. That may or may not require them to preserve jobs. In today’s world, it often more effective to cut jobs.

When Insurance company X increases it’s rates to a company by a factor of 5 (as they did in my case—from 8K per year total cost to almost 48K per year) I certainly can’t expect my employer to pick up that tab.

You can expect them to find an alternative insurer, or in some other way continue to provide you with the benefits they offered you when you signed up. Unilaterally deciding to discontinue the benefits with no compensation isn’t acceptable.

Wait a minute Scott—I believe you took the position in a posting some time ago (and I don’t have time to search for it right now) that my position that an elected official should be doing ‘the will of the people’—meaning the will of the majority of their constituents was an incorrect position; that (parapphrasing your point) our Elected ones need to be doing what is best for the people regardless of how the people feel about it. How do you now say that the government is the people?

I’m sure I did. I do hold a position close to that, and I don’t see any conflict.

It’s wrong to construe “the will of the people” to mean “the majority rule”. A major motivation behind a representative democracy (as opposed to a direct democracy) is precisely to avoid “the tyranny of the majority”. A representative democracy protects against that because the representatives are not supposed to simply implement the majority opinion.

That doesn’t preclude the representative government from being “the people”. It’s not as if they’re elected from a separate caste of people or anything. The incredible range of cranks and weirdos that we manage to elect (and often re-elect) is a pretty good indicator of that.

And btw.. not all Libertarians are ‘Anti Government’

I know. I just don’t care for the use of the term “libertarian”, for much the same reasons I don’t like the term “agnostic”. It seems like it’s mostly used by people who want to distance themselves from a more accurate label.

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RE: Impact of Obama by ldsudduth :: NR6

You can expect them to find an alternative insurer, or in some other way continue to provide you with the benefits they offered you when you signed up. Unilaterally deciding to discontinue the benefits with no compensation isn’t acceptable.

I should clarify this—I elected to discontinue coverage, based on costs. My employer does business in several states, and they have about 7 companies they could do business with to cover all of their employees. Each of them had similar rate hikes, so they chose the cheapest. I can buy cheaper from the local Chamber of Commerce, by about 2/3. Being a contract company, they couldn’t go back to the ‘client’ and ask for more money—as the client (a financial institution) is also looking for ways to reduce cost.

I just don’t care for the use of the term “libertarian”, for much the same reasons I don’t like the term “agnostic”. It seems like it’s mostly used by people who want to distance themselves from a more accurate label.

Libertarian is what the ‘tests’ say I am.. I call myself simply an Indpendent.

It’s not as if they’re elected from a separate caste of people or anything. The incredible range of cranks and weirdos that we manage to elect (and often re-elect) is a pretty good indicator of that.

Hmm when is the last time you saw ‘Joe the Plumber’ elected to the Federal Level? Sure..sometimes they start locally, but more often than not they stay local. I can’t think of too many elected officials (there have been exceptions—mostly actors) in recent years who have been elected to the Federal Level, who are in a higher ‘caste than most people’—meaning higher level of income. Most are well to do; many are lawyers. Not a ‘caste’ system, but certainly a different level of income.

Posted 07 December 2009, Hide, Parent, Reply

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