Union Millwrights

I haven't. He's probably somewhere in your class, if you compare his pro-union diatribes with your snarling put-downs. d8-)

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NB: Your qualification "if it [capital] has no place to go" is the critical one.

If you check all the free trade pacts, capital movement is one of the first things discussed and guaranteed.

It should be noted that one of the foundational assumptions in Ricardo's thesis of "Comparative Advantage" was the fixed nature of capital, and has been pointed out by numerous later analysts/economists, if free flow of capital is assumed, any apparent "comparative advantage" disappears and only "absolute advantage" exists. This indicates the degree to which free trade pacts were and are justified by "new-speak" and "double-think" for more information on this point click on ==========================

Yeah, except with China and India. They've both dragged their feet on that issue.

My God, George, you've kicked off a 400-level course in trade economics. I'll just sit back and watch.

Meantime, for anyone interested, it's necessary to understand "comparative advantage" and "absolute advantage" as economists use the terms. They are NOT what most people think they are. In fact, comparative advantage will throw anyone for a loop, the first time they find out what it really means.

Without that, though, you can't get anywhere in understanding what economists are talking about on the subject of world trade. Since it's becoming an ever-larger factor in our lives, it's worth taking the half-hour it requires.

-- Ed Huntress

=========== As in "yes, we have no bananas..."

In short, "comparative advantage" is concentrating on doing what you are the least bad at. A real-life current example of "new speak" and "double think" which apparently underlies our economic and trade policy.

Unka' George [George McDuffee] ============ Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), U.S. president. Letter, 17 March 1814.

It's nice to hear some reasoned and experienced views on such a hot topic, Matt. Yes, we hardly touched on the effect of subsidies. Maybe we'll get into that next winter term, after finals. d8-)

-- Ed Huntress

============== Showing again how much difference having national leaders in your government, industry and society with memories of living under foreign occupation, or at least domination/exploitation, of your country, society, economy, etc. can make.

No "citizens of the world" in those governments, having been there and done that!

Unka' George [George McDuffee] ============ Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), U.S. president. Letter, 17 March 1814.

Chuckle!

Sorry to say, I am not, but I think there's a guy here that is well connected with unions!

Harold

Thanks, Ed. I consider that high praise from someone I respect.

Harold

Hi Ed,

I don't know all about this but you might try the National Writers Union site for insurance info. You don't have to live in Hollywood or belong to the guild to be a member.

My daughter tells me it wasn't so great a number of years ago, but if it's available in your area, it HAS to be better than your 14K (or at least I hope so). Good luck.

dennis in nca

I appreciate that, Dennis. Yes, that was one of the possibilities I was looking into when I was on the COBRA plan at $14,000. I was on the full-blown Blue Cross/Blue Shield plan that I inherited from my former employer. I didn't intend to stick with that for very long, at that price.

What happened is that my son and I qualified for my wife's plan in September, and I switched us to that. Now I'm paying around $6,000/year, total, for the whole family. It beats $14,000 and it's a full Bl. Cr./Bl. Sh. program. We should be able to hang on to that even after my wife retires, if they don't change the program.

COBRA/Blue cross here as well. Although I recently received a letter from my doctor's group saying they plan on dropping Blue Cross at the end of the year due to the fact (they say) Blue Cross only pays 80% of Medicare but haven't increased their renumeration for 6 years. Jolly.

Now I just have to keep myself alive until Medicare kicks in (a joke).

Congatulations on finding a good alternative, it isn't easy these days.

dennis in nca

Two of the three hospitals closest to me have dropped Blue Cross/Blue Shield in the past three months. They're playing a game of brinksmanship, my doctor tells me.

My wife is in the teacher's union. However, she has to pay a lot more than I did when I worked for a private company, and the coverage is missing a couple of things I'd like to have. They tell me that those were givebacks at the last negotiation.

They published what the average teachers medical insurance coverage cost in our local paper a few years ago. It was only a few thousand dollars less than my gross pay...

A senior electronics tech doesn't get paid crap compared to a teacher.

Well, when I last worked for a private company, self-insured and managed by Blue Cross/Blue Shield, the total cost of the plan per employee family was $12,200/year. Of that, I paid $3,036/year. When that was transferred to me via COBRA, with Blue Cross/Blue Shield doing the insuring, my cost was $14,652. That's what I was paying out of my pocket: $1,221/month.

Now I'm on a teacher's plan that costs $11,450/year. Of that, the teachers pay $1,476/year, so it costs the school district $9,974/year per teacher. To get onto that plan, I pay an additional $2,952 per year for my son and myself.

Make of that what you will, but the cost to my employer was about the same as the cost the school district is paying for similar coverage. And when I was paying it all on my own, it cost me more than either of them, by almost $5,000/year.

The teachers plan here was costing the districts ~$24,000 year average. This was 4-5 years ago already. I hate to think what it is today.

When I left my last job over 7 years ago it would have cost me ~$175 a month for COBRA. Hell, I couldn't afford that back then. The numbers you are bandying around just make my head swim.

I wrote health care off for myself years ago. I do what I can to stay healthy and if it doesn't work out, well dead people don't need health care. Nobody gives a poop if I'm dead or alive anyway (no kids, no wife, no girlfriend...). I feel for you folks than do have people that need/depend on you though.

Something is fishy there, Leon. The national average for family plans for teachers is around $13,000, and teachers are paying part of that in many, if not most districts. Either you're getting screwed, or the reporter who wrote that story is arithmetically challenged.

Yeah, mine, too. I've been swimming upstream since last June.

The trick is to make enough money to pay for it all. It has kind of directed my focus, but not enough to make me go into finance, which I consider the life of the living dead. d8-)

When I get a chance I'll see if I can dredge up that old article. May have to email it to you, it will come off a limited access site if I can find it. I was pretty much dumb founded at the time and this article was either on the front page or pretty close to it. If it was bogus I'm pretty sure the Press would have been called on it. I don't remember seeing any retractions or such. When somebody that I consider an equal more-or-less takes in more in benefits than my gross (or close to it) we have a big problem.

The old Delphi guy's used to make over twice my pay too. They used to think I made more than they did and treated me as such. I was just a lowly outside contractor repairing stuff. I offered to swap paychecks one day when one of them got a bit under my skin. He wouldn't do it and said he couldn't live on what I was making at the time. That wasn't even considering their benefits package. I couldn't figure out how they could get that kind of pay for what they did. No surprise to see the place floundering around like a fish out of water nowadays. Their hourly rate is going to drop to $20 an hour or less or they will be history.

OK, I'd be interested, and I'd appreciate seeing it. For email, delete the "3" in the following: