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it really disgusts me that this comment has been upmodded so much. it reeks of overgeneralization, ignorance, and hyperbole. it's very easy to sit on your high

it really disgusts me that this comment has been upmodded so much. it reeks of overgeneralization, ignorance, and hyperbole. it's very easy to sit on your high horse and talk about hypothetical denny's waitresses, but a little harder when this actually effects you and your loved ones. my father worked his ass off for GM for more than 25 years, not to mention driving 100 miles each way for the last 10 so his family didn't have to move. when he retired a few years ago he made $25/hr + the overtime which he always worked so i could go to college. $25/hr an hour is not 8x of your hypothetical denny's waitress, it's what we call a "living wage". maybe your denny's waitress worked harder than my father, but assumption that every UAW worker somehow is swimming in a money bin like in scrooge mcduck while the rest of the country is toiling in the coal mines is false. i'm not defending the auto industry here, nor do have i decided whether it would benefit my country or my family to bail them out. i think management made some terrible decisions (see: suvs + $100/barrel oil), and i think UAW bargained for some deals that were unsustainable. heck, i'm not saying you should buy a buick... i'm sure as hell not. but why do you need to degrade the sacrifice of honest people to make your point?

ars 18y ago
You're talking like his job was an entitlement. Companies go bust and people lose jobs, it happens a lot. The reason people are talking UAW workers that way, is not because they begrudge the individual worker like your father - they don't. It's because the car companies were not allowed to fire or lay off people as they wished, which gives a very strong impression of entitlement and job guarantees amongst UAW workers that no one else in america has. If you got rid of that, and allowed car companies to hire and fire and set wages as they desired, people wouldn't be so opposed to the bailout. Personally I would support the bailout only if the company became non-union. So long as they stay unionized they will never survive, and the bailout will be wasted money. As a whole UAW was very destructive to the auto business - not allowing a company to fire people, or change wages, is a great way to destroy a company - and they succeeded. 100 miles each way? That's about 4 hours of driving each day, add in overtime, and there's nothing left to your day. Why not find a closer job?
- Xichekolas 18y ago
  "entitlement and job guarantees amongst UAW workers that no one else in america has" Well about 10% of Americans work for the government in some respect. How often do they get fired, in spite of doing nothing? (Disclaimer: I once worked for State Government. I'm not sure how much work UAW members did, but I can't see how anyone can get less done than Government Employees did. For every one that worked really hard, there were three that were simply showing up and waiting for retirement.)
  - Retric 18y ago
    I don't think 3/4 of teachers, police, and the military simply show up and are waiting for retirement. They might not put in 110% as it where but they still get a lot of stuff done. I think it's the Government office workers that don't really do much but most private sector office workers don't seem to get much done so I wonder how much less effective they really are. (Cue XKCD comic "it's time for science" or some such.)
    - Dilpil 18y ago
      3/4ths of teachers sounds about reasonable.
      - Retric 18y ago
        Yea, I was trying to show a trend. Plenty of teachers stopped caring a long time ago and there is also a lot of dead weight in the police and military but the less what they do is an "office job" the more effort they seem to put in. There is plenty of dead wood in the forest service, but smoke jumpers as a group put in a lot of hard work.
- mchristoff 18y ago
  huh?? in the last 15 years gm has closed dozens of plants. yes, certainly the union fought to get the best deal collectively for their workers, but you have to have rocks in your head if you think people like my father felt entitled. they felt lucky to have a job. as for finding another job... you highlight my point! it's pretty fucking difficult to find another job when after 20 years the only thing you're qualified to do is work in a general motors factory, particularly when your supporting a family. if my dad had the luxury of "finding another job", don't you think he would? again, im not defending gm, the uaw, or any of the system as whole, i'm simply highlighting the fact that maybe the situation is a bit more nuanced than you understand.
thomasmallen 18y ago
I'm disgusted as well because this is yet another manifestation of elitist resentment against systems in place that assist the middle and lower classes. Mythical "Welfare Queen," meet the mythical "UAW King."
astine 18y ago
It really disgusts me that this comment has been upmodded so much. it reeks of overgeneralization, ignorance, and hyperbole. it's very easy to sit on your high horse and talk about hypothetical denny's waitresses, but a little harder when this actually effects you and your loved ones. Very true. The dangers many Americans face as a result of all this are real, as are the hardships that prompted folks to adopt these broken systems in the first place. However, that doesn't change the fact that there are very serious problems with the system and that the hardships could be made much worse if they are not addressed.
- fallentimes 18y ago
  American hardships are nothing compared to third world countries' hardships. That's why I donate my money to the real poor (the people who don't know if they're going to be alive on a day to day basis) not the American poor. Yeah lots of people have tough lives here, but they're still in the top 5% of the world's population.
  - astine 18y ago
    Yeah lots of people have tough lives here, but they're still in the top 5% of the world's population. Or, we could say: "Yeah people here are in the top 5% of the world's population, but many people still do have tough lives." You seem to have missed my point. This discussion is not about the rest of the world but about the situation regarding the 'Big 3,' the UAW, and the impending bailout for the American auto industry. When discussing such things, you deal with people who are effected by them. As far as I know, most of the third world will not be greatly affected by the auto bailout. More to the point, I'm not advocating welfare. I'm merely intimating that I understand that others can experience hardship, but that it's not right to use that as an excuse to perpetuate bad policies.
    - fallentimes 18y ago
      The discussion (not between you and I) but on the rest of the thread reeks of self entitlement and a lack of accountability. My comment wasn't aimed just at your point, but rather the people who think they're entitled to things they haven't earned and who fail to keep things in perspective when facing challenges. I agree that the current Mother Government system is completely fucked, however. The bailout, because of financial markets, microloans, commercial paper, free markets and trade will affect almost every one. Orders of magnitude will vary.
blurry 18y ago
You know what disgusts me? Your complete blindness to how good your father had it. As a not-so-recent immigrant to the US, I've found it laughably easy to have a good life here. I am not talking about myself since I came at 25 and spoke enough English to get by. I am talking older relatives and their friends, people well into their 50's who did not speak a word of English. There is an absolute wealth of opportunities - classes at community colleges that you can take for near free, paying jobs where you have plenty of time for studying while taking care of the elderly for example, charitable organizations that assist you in everything from relocation to getting jobs, government programs that give you bridge money to get you on your feet, and so on. If you think your father had a rough life, you are truly a spoiled brat. My father almost starved to death as a teenager during World War II, almost died from tuberculosis as a young man, shared a small one-bedroom apartment with 5 people as an adult, and was forced to abandon even that little due to ethnic conflict. Your father on the other hand, had it so easy that he could afford to put his kids through college and still retire after just 25 years of work. Oh, excuse me, I forgot. Your dad had to endure a 2-3 hour commute because it would be so traumatizing for his kids to switch schools once. Your father and his buddies are who needs to get off the high horse, my friend. They've worked in a little bubble with their cushy guaranteed pay and benefits for too long. It's about time they ventured out on their own into the big bad world that the rest of us happily inhabit.
- fallentimes 18y ago
  Best comment on the thread. Thanks for injecting some much needed perspective. I'd venture to say that 99% of the people that post on HN (this obviously includes me) live like relative Kings.
- tdavis 18y ago
  Hear, hear. I was going to post something like this because I have lived among people in third-world countries who actually have it hard (total understatement), but it's better that it came from someone with immediate family who lived it.
- mchristoff 18y ago
  woah woah woah! i appreciate your zeal and your need to direct your anger somewhere, but your sending it the wrong way buddy. my original comment was not meant to express how hard mine or my family's life is/was, it was to clear up statements like this: "union workers at gm who make 8x the wages, do less work" It's simply not true, and it does disgust me that we feel the need to degrade a whole class of people to make the point that the system is fucked up. i'll be the first one to say that all of us who live in the country are extremely lucky and this goes often quite unappreciated. maybe not my father, but both my grandfathers have similar story's to your own. i thank god everyday for the opportunity afforded to me and my family. "Your father on the other hand, had it so easy that he could afford to put his kids through college and still retire after just 25 years of work. Oh, excuse me, I forgot. Your dad had to endure a 2-3 hour commute because it would be so traumatizing for his kids to switch schools once." listen man, i'm not getting into a pissing contest with you. your taking little tidbits of my words and making them into the story that you want. you don't know my story nor my families. the point of my original comment was that for the most part auto-workers are honest, working people like the rest of us. there's plenty of room for rational argument on what should happen to the auto industry, i just can't agree with the constant barrage of comments insinuating that people like my father are lazy, unappreciative, and somehow got what's coming to them for just doing what anyone of us would do in their situation.

ars 18y ago

You're talking like his job was an entitlement. Companies go bust and people lose jobs, it happens a lot. The reason people are talking UAW workers that way, is not because they begrudge the individual worker like your father - they don't. It's because the car companies were not allowed to fire or lay off people as they wished, which gives a very strong impression of entitlement and job guarantees amongst UAW workers that no one else in america has. If you got rid of that, and allowed car companies to hire and fire and set wages as they desired, people wouldn't be so opposed to the bailout. Personally I would support the bailout only if the company became non-union. So long as they stay unionized they will never survive, and the bailout will be wasted money. As a whole UAW was very destructive to the auto business - not allowing a company to fire people, or change wages, is a great way to destroy a company - and they succeeded. 100 miles each way? That's about 4 hours of driving each day, add in overtime, and there's nothing left to your day. Why not find a closer job?

Xichekolas 18y ago
"entitlement and job guarantees amongst UAW workers that no one else in america has" Well about 10% of Americans work for the government in some respect. How often do they get fired, in spite of doing nothing? (Disclaimer: I once worked for State Government. I'm not sure how much work UAW members did, but I can't see how anyone can get less done than Government Employees did. For every one that worked really hard, there were three that were simply showing up and waiting for retirement.)
- Retric 18y ago
  I don't think 3/4 of teachers, police, and the military simply show up and are waiting for retirement. They might not put in 110% as it where but they still get a lot of stuff done. I think it's the Government office workers that don't really do much but most private sector office workers don't seem to get much done so I wonder how much less effective they really are. (Cue XKCD comic "it's time for science" or some such.)
  - Dilpil 18y ago
    3/4ths of teachers sounds about reasonable.
    - Retric 18y ago
      Yea, I was trying to show a trend. Plenty of teachers stopped caring a long time ago and there is also a lot of dead weight in the police and military but the less what they do is an "office job" the more effort they seem to put in. There is plenty of dead wood in the forest service, but smoke jumpers as a group put in a lot of hard work.
mchristoff 18y ago
huh?? in the last 15 years gm has closed dozens of plants. yes, certainly the union fought to get the best deal collectively for their workers, but you have to have rocks in your head if you think people like my father felt entitled. they felt lucky to have a job. as for finding another job... you highlight my point! it's pretty fucking difficult to find another job when after 20 years the only thing you're qualified to do is work in a general motors factory, particularly when your supporting a family. if my dad had the luxury of "finding another job", don't you think he would? again, im not defending gm, the uaw, or any of the system as whole, i'm simply highlighting the fact that maybe the situation is a bit more nuanced than you understand.

thomasmallen 18y ago

I'm disgusted as well because this is yet another manifestation of elitist resentment against systems in place that assist the middle and lower classes. Mythical "Welfare Queen," meet the mythical "UAW King."

astine 18y ago

It really disgusts me that this comment has been upmodded so much. it reeks of overgeneralization, ignorance, and hyperbole. it's very easy to sit on your high horse and talk about hypothetical denny's waitresses, but a little harder when this actually effects you and your loved ones. Very true. The dangers many Americans face as a result of all this are real, as are the hardships that prompted folks to adopt these broken systems in the first place. However, that doesn't change the fact that there are very serious problems with the system and that the hardships could be made much worse if they are not addressed.

fallentimes 18y ago
American hardships are nothing compared to third world countries' hardships. That's why I donate my money to the real poor (the people who don't know if they're going to be alive on a day to day basis) not the American poor. Yeah lots of people have tough lives here, but they're still in the top 5% of the world's population.
- astine 18y ago
  Yeah lots of people have tough lives here, but they're still in the top 5% of the world's population. Or, we could say: "Yeah people here are in the top 5% of the world's population, but many people still do have tough lives." You seem to have missed my point. This discussion is not about the rest of the world but about the situation regarding the 'Big 3,' the UAW, and the impending bailout for the American auto industry. When discussing such things, you deal with people who are effected by them. As far as I know, most of the third world will not be greatly affected by the auto bailout. More to the point, I'm not advocating welfare. I'm merely intimating that I understand that others can experience hardship, but that it's not right to use that as an excuse to perpetuate bad policies.
  - fallentimes 18y ago
    The discussion (not between you and I) but on the rest of the thread reeks of self entitlement and a lack of accountability. My comment wasn't aimed just at your point, but rather the people who think they're entitled to things they haven't earned and who fail to keep things in perspective when facing challenges. I agree that the current Mother Government system is completely fucked, however. The bailout, because of financial markets, microloans, commercial paper, free markets and trade will affect almost every one. Orders of magnitude will vary.

blurry 18y ago

You know what disgusts me? Your complete blindness to how good your father had it. As a not-so-recent immigrant to the US, I've found it laughably easy to have a good life here. I am not talking about myself since I came at 25 and spoke enough English to get by. I am talking older relatives and their friends, people well into their 50's who did not speak a word of English. There is an absolute wealth of opportunities - classes at community colleges that you can take for near free, paying jobs where you have plenty of time for studying while taking care of the elderly for example, charitable organizations that assist you in everything from relocation to getting jobs, government programs that give you bridge money to get you on your feet, and so on. If you think your father had a rough life, you are truly a spoiled brat. My father almost starved to death as a teenager during World War II, almost died from tuberculosis as a young man, shared a small one-bedroom apartment with 5 people as an adult, and was forced to abandon even that little due to ethnic conflict. Your father on the other hand, had it so easy that he could afford to put his kids through college and still retire after just 25 years of work. Oh, excuse me, I forgot. Your dad had to endure a 2-3 hour commute because it would be so traumatizing for his kids to switch schools once. Your father and his buddies are who needs to get off the high horse, my friend. They've worked in a little bubble with their cushy guaranteed pay and benefits for too long. It's about time they ventured out on their own into the big bad world that the rest of us happily inhabit.

fallentimes 18y ago
Best comment on the thread. Thanks for injecting some much needed perspective. I'd venture to say that 99% of the people that post on HN (this obviously includes me) live like relative Kings.
tdavis 18y ago
Hear, hear. I was going to post something like this because I have lived among people in third-world countries who actually have it hard (total understatement), but it's better that it came from someone with immediate family who lived it.
mchristoff 18y ago
woah woah woah! i appreciate your zeal and your need to direct your anger somewhere, but your sending it the wrong way buddy. my original comment was not meant to express how hard mine or my family's life is/was, it was to clear up statements like this: "union workers at gm who make 8x the wages, do less work" It's simply not true, and it does disgust me that we feel the need to degrade a whole class of people to make the point that the system is fucked up. i'll be the first one to say that all of us who live in the country are extremely lucky and this goes often quite unappreciated. maybe not my father, but both my grandfathers have similar story's to your own. i thank god everyday for the opportunity afforded to me and my family. "Your father on the other hand, had it so easy that he could afford to put his kids through college and still retire after just 25 years of work. Oh, excuse me, I forgot. Your dad had to endure a 2-3 hour commute because it would be so traumatizing for his kids to switch schools once." listen man, i'm not getting into a pissing contest with you. your taking little tidbits of my words and making them into the story that you want. you don't know my story nor my families. the point of my original comment was that for the most part auto-workers are honest, working people like the rest of us. there's plenty of room for rational argument on what should happen to the auto industry, i just can't agree with the constant barrage of comments insinuating that people like my father are lazy, unappreciative, and somehow got what's coming to them for just doing what anyone of us would do in their situation.