Politics of the Day

[greybeta]

You would think that as an opinion editor for a campus newspaper that I would have a lot of opinions on the politics of a day. I do, but a little thing called "senior project" gets in the way. While I have already presented, there's the matter of the final product where I have to dot all my i's and cross all my t's. I do have some quick thoughts about the politics of the day...

Domestic

• Immigrant situation seems to be yet another application of realistic vs. idealistic thinking. Realism says we have to deal with the over ten million "undocumented workers" living within our borders. Idealistic thinking says we can pass laws to solve the problem. The thing is that each party wants to control who these illegal immigrants will vote for down the road (if they aren't already voting).


• The Bush leaks have caused some consternation among certain members of Congress. The only thing is that this isn't anything new...just more public thanks to advent of the Internet. I wonder if the Bush administration will increase the time for released gov't documents (currently 30 years) in an effort to improve national security.


• Sixty-two percent of students who identified themselves as Republicans said religion was losing its influence on American society, while 54 percent of Democrats said it was increasing its influence. Most agreed, however, that a candidate's religion wouldn't affect how they voted.

Foreign

• Iran wants to play ball with the big boys. The big boys are going to play ball back. Gotta love the "we came here first" mentality. Even if Iran is discouraged from continuing its nuclear program, it will win many favorable concessions as a result of doing so. Why wouldn't Iran stay on its current path? America is too outstretched to invade and nobody else is going to want to invade Iran.


• Prodi wins Italian elections. The boon of coalition politics is that it gives you a lot of choices. The downside is that it's difficult to create a stable and coherent direction. It's a razor thin coalition though, so I don't expect this setup to last more than two years.


• France back downs on youth law. One Fox News commentator said that the French just want cushy jobs where they can't be canned and that doesn't work under capitalism. I don't know just how true that is, but something tells me that's what a lot of Americans think. No, don't give me all that high end theoretical economic theory, I'm talking about your average American here who watches Fox News. You know there are a lot of them because otherwise we wouldn't have elected our current president otherwise.

Comments

[fub.livejournal.com]

What Chirac and Vellipan did was embrace the status quo out of fear of making a politically unpopular move.
Yes. But the law wouldn't have fixed the issues, so it's kind of a moot point.

1. Businesses invest time and money in developing new employees. It is in their best interest to retain good employees who have acquired their specific business knowledge. (I am, of course, assuming we are not talking about unskilled labor here.)
Young people, fresh from college, just aren't that valuable to a business. They may know how the work is done theoretically, but it takes quite a bit of training and time before they are up to speed.
Yes, college will learn you some skills, but those skills are cheap, because everyone who finished college has those skills. Until you have acquired the skills they don't teach at college that are needed for the company, you can be replaced almost immediately and without any problems by someone who comes fresh out of college.
Yes, as a business you need to train a new generation of managers -- but the rest of the employees is certainly expendable.
At the complete underside of the market, unskilled labor, you are completely out of luck, because these issues count doubly there.

2. Employers who follow this practice would have a difficult time finding good employees who will work for them.
Unless you are the only game in town.

The problem you describe with contractors, it would seem, is in the government's strong-arming of companies - forcing them to commit to long-term contracts.
That is true. And deregulating would fix (most) of that -- but if you only deregulate a part of the market, you're not fixing anything but rather making things worse.

[kmg-365.livejournal.com]

Yes. But the law wouldn't have fixed the issues, so it's kind of a moot point.

And if students, young people, and unions are opposed to any and all reform, then it's an even mooter point. If that's even possible (being a mooter point). [g]

Young people, fresh from college, just aren't that valuable to a business. They may know how the work is done theoretically, but it takes quite a bit of training and time before they are up to speed.
Yes, college will learn you some skills, but those skills are cheap, because everyone who finished college has those skills. Until you have acquired the skills they don't teach at college that are needed for the company, you can be replaced almost immediately and without any problems by someone who comes fresh out of college.


If a new-hire was unable to ramp up their business knowledge in two years, I would want to fire them. As an employer, I wouldn't have the time to train someone at such a glacial pace.

Yes, as a business you need to train a new generation of managers -- but the rest of the employees is certainly expendable.


I'm not a manager, and I'm far from expendable. ;-)

At my company, it is usually middle management that gets the axe because they don't contribute as much as other employees.