House Democrats Don't Know What to Make of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

[Starlight]

So which of Cortez's brain-dead remarks has led you to believe that she's smart?

The several hours worth of interviews with her I've seen, in addition to reading a good proportion of her complete twitter feed, tell me that she's a intelligent and insightful and educated person.

"She once made a mistake!!!!" isn't a very interesting argument to me. Even I make mistakes occasionally. What's relevant is whether on the whole a person tends toward saying intelligent things or stupid things, so you need to take a significantly sized sample of their words.

[Starlight]

When an employer thinks they need workers, they make a lot of decisions about the job opening. First, they calculate if they are going to be making money by hiring someone and how much.

Which means, of course, that the employer will never pay the worker as much as the worker is 'truly worth' in the sense that the employer will never hire an additional employee unless they believe that employee will bring more total income to the company than the employee's wages/salary will be. And their goal in hiring will be to max out that exploitation in order to maximize profits: Employ the best worker who generates the most possible income for the company and then pay that worker the lowest possible rate they can get away with, and thus generate the most profit from that employee's work.

Many employees today have the vague sense that they are being underpaid / ripped off, and they are right to have that sense because the entire capitalist system is dependent upon the idea that employers can make more income by adding a worker to their business than what they pay the worker, and the business can therefore create 'profits' that are generated by the workers but not paid to the workers. So the entire system is dependent upon the exploitation of those workers where they create more money's worth of goods/services than they are paid in return for their efforts.

The situation for the workers is not much different under "state capitalism" / "communism" where a government bureaucrat replaces the capitalist in running the business and exploiting the workers in an identical manner.

The form of business in which the workers actually get their fair share is a cooperative where the workers together act as the owners to direct the business and vote together to determine what they want done with the profits that they themselves have created - e.g. to pay it out to themselves, to expand the business etc. And if we agree democracy is a good idea in politics, why isn't it also a good idea in the workplace where most people spend a good proportion of their lives so is the place where it would really matter to have democracy?

[Mountain Man]

"She once made a mistake!!!!" isn't a very interesting argument to me.

Yes, a mistake that required you to significantly alter her words just to declare that she was "essentially correct".

"The Seven Craziest Things Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Has Said So Far"

https://townhall.com/columnists/scot...recip=27116010

Yeah, she's a real intellectual powerhouse.

[Starlight]

"The Seven Craziest Things Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Has Said So Far"

https://townhall.com/columnists/scot...recip=27116010

I was expected a list of misstatements by her, but only the last one is a misstatement where she said 'red' and meant 'blue'.

The rest are... normal. They are totally fine, and don't reflect badly on her in any way whatsoever. It's a bizarre article to list them as if they were crazy things, but I guess the people who work for your nutty conservative trash websites aren't exactly a full box themselves.

[Mountain Man]

The rest are... normal. They are totally fine, and don't reflect badly on her in any way whatsoever.

Okay, now you're just trolling.

[Cow Poke]

I meant that Sparko is not listening, in good faith, to the things she says. Or in other words, Sparko is assuming the worst of any ambiguity in her words.

He shouldn't do that. She's cute.

[Cow Poke]

If that employer doesn't care about their employee and/or is greedy, they will make that job a bad job.

A) I don't think people purposely make jobs "bad jobs". They might be less incentivized to make the job a "good job".
2) I don't think you realize what a pain it is to recruit and train people.
C) And even if they wanted to, that becomes increasingly more difficult the lower the unemployment rate goes.

[Mountain Man]

Even CNN's Jake Tapper gave up trying to get Cortez to answer a question when he pointed out that her math didn't work, that raising taxes like she suggested would only raise $2 trillion of the $40 trillion required for her proposals.

"I'm assuming I'm not going to get an answer for that other $38 trillion."

[rogue06]

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[lilpixieofterror]

When an employer thinks they need workers, they make a lot of decisions about the job opening. First, they calculate if they are going to be making money by hiring someone and how much. They then decide how much the job pays, what the hours are, what the working conditions are, whether there are benefits, how long they need the job for, and what future they see in the company for that employee.

Mostly right, but not all jobs are going to have much control over working conditions. Somebody has to do those dirty jobs.

If that employer doesn't care about their employee and/or is greedy, they will make that job a bad job. They may keep the vast majority of the money that employee generates. They may give the employee way too many hours so as to prevent a healthy work/life balance or so few hours that the employee isn't making enough to live on. They may not provide a safe work environment, either in terms of physical safety or in terms of a hostile work environment. They may not offer any benefits (this being the result of scorn/greed is dependent upon the job and not applicable to every job). They may intend to fire that employee at a certain point and never let them know. They may want to deny that employee, regardless of performance, a raise or promotion.

Than sounds like they are going to have poor employees really fast and their good ones will disappear as soon as a better job comes up.

Not one of these decisions has anything whatsoever to do with the employee's choices or attitude. They are all entirely dependent upon the employer and how they treat their employees. You also say that employees can leave if they aren't happy. You are not taking into account how many jobs are available and how the job the employee leaves compares to the other jobs available. Maybe this job is the only game in town (for that employee's qualifications/skill level). Maybe all the companies offering that job have similar bad conditions. It is wrong to assume the best case scenario for every employee and then to chastise them when they find themselves in bad circumstances.

Did they have a gun held to their head and forced to work there?

[Sparko]

When an employer thinks they need workers, they make a lot of decisions about the job opening. First, they calculate if they are going to be making money by hiring someone and how much. They then decide how much the job pays, what the hours are, what the working conditions are, whether there are benefits, how long they need the job for, and what future they see in the company for that employee.

so far so good.

If that employer doesn't care about their employee and/or is greedy, they will make that job a bad job.

Starting to go off the rails here. While there are some employers who would fit this description, it is not how most employers work. They don't purposefully make a job "bad" - they just advertise for someone to do the work they need done. The city wastewater department needs someone to clean out the sewers so we can have healthy cities and water. Someone has to do that job. They advertise for people to do it, people apply and get the job. It might be a horrible job and the pay might suck. But people apply and do it. Did the city go, "Hey let's make some bad jobs to keep poor people poor and make them miserable!" -- no they did not. And if they don't pay well enough, nobody will do the job. So it is a balance, they have to offer enough money to get the job done, or it won't get done. It is entirely up to the people who do the work at what pay level they will do the work.

[Sparko]

I meant that Sparko is not listening, in good faith, to the things she says. Or in other words, Sparko is assuming the worst of any ambiguity in her words.

There was no ambiguity in her words. She was very clear. You are imagining some ambiguity for her so that you can excuse the stupid things she said.

[Mountain Man]

Starting to go off the rails here. While there are some employers who would fit this description, it is not how most employers work. They don't purposefully make a job "bad" - they just advertise for someone to do the work they need done. The city wastewater department needs someone to clean out the sewers so we can have healthy cities and water. Someone has to do that job. They advertise for people to do it, people apply and get the job. It might be a horrible job and the pay might suck. But people apply and do it. Did the city go, "Hey let's make some bad jobs to keep poor people poor and make them miserable!" -- no they did not. And if they don't pay well enough, nobody will do the job. So it is a balance, they have to offer enough money to get the job done, or it won't get done. It is entirely up to the people who do the work at what pay level they will do the work.

Furthermore, just because you might think a job is bad, doesn't mean everybody does. I once met a guy who drove tractors at the local landfill. You and I might literally turn our noses up at such a prospect, but he thought it was the best job anybody could have because he got to work outdoors. "Better than sitting in a stuffy office all day!"

[Psychic Missile]

A) I don't think people purposely make jobs "bad jobs". They might be less incentivized to make the job a "good job".
2) I don't think you realize what a pain it is to recruit and train people.
C) And even if they wanted to, that becomes increasingly more difficult the lower the unemployment rate goes.

1) People purposely decide how much an employee is paid, what their work environment is like, etc. They may not realize they are making a bad job, but that doesn't change the fact that they decided on the causes of a job being bad.
B) What does recruitment/training have to do with what I've said?
3) To recruit/train people?

[Psychic Missile]

Mostly right, but not all jobs are going to have much control over working conditions. Somebody has to do those dirty jobs.

If you're talking about jobs relating to sewage/garbage/etc, that's what OSHA is theoretically for. There's a way for "dirty jobs" to be done safely.

Than sounds like they are going to have poor employees really fast and their good ones will disappear as soon as a better job comes up.

Bingo!

Did they have a gun held to their head and forced to work there?

Maybe it's the only job where they meet the requirements. Maybe other jobs they qualify for aren't much different. Maybe they saw the job for what it really was when it was too late. There are plenty of reasons for people to be working bad jobs.