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ABF | About ABF's next contract

The AARP just put out a very good article why insurance and drug prices are so high in this country. The reason? Because they can....... There is no cap or overseeing body to regulate the entire health insurance "industry".
As far as they are concerned, they are in a free market system.........Free to raise costs as high as they feel, with no rhyme, reason or justification.
And since they have was and piles of money laying around, they are more than happy to finance the election of any lawmaker who agrees with their ability to rob American consumers blind, and will not pass any law limiting their ability to do so.
Single payer Medicare expansion is the only way out of this quagmire of greed.....
 
canaryinthemine said:
The AARP just put out a very good article why insurance and drug prices are so high in this country. The reason? Because they can....... There is no cap or overseeing body to regulate the entire health insurance "industry".
As far as they are concerned, they are in a free market system.........Free to raise costs as high as they feel, with no rhyme, reason or justification.
And since they have was and piles of money laying around, they are more than happy to finance the election of any lawmaker who agrees with their ability to rob American consumers blind, and will not pass any law limiting their ability to do so.
Single payer Medicare expansion is the only way out of this quagmire of greed.....
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It's kind of like pick your poison... which is worse, what we have now or letting the government run it, and I don't think those fools could manage a pisser in a brewery.
 
Abfrocks said:
I'm curious to some of the older drivers that have been here for many contracts. Do they start saying and acting like company's broke every time contract comes up? Which I notice now they've "lost" money and the stock took a nose dive. Is this all just smoke and mirrors by the company and we shouldn't be alarmed?
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They all always showed bad numbers around contract time. Years ago that was every three years before the IBT got tired of working for us and stretched it out to a five year deal. One contract was four years on the way up to five. The dog and pony show has gotten worse the last two rounds since the IBT split up the rank and file members and ABF operates on a basically stand alone contract. And we'll start to see the quarterly videos telling us all about the dire straights that the company is in. :violin:
 
ABFer said:
They all always showed bad numbers around contract time. Years ago that was every three years before the IBT got tired of working for us and stretched it out to a five year deal. One contract was four years on the way up to five. The dog and pony show has gotten worse the last two rounds since the IBT split up the rank and file members and ABF operates on a basically stand alone contract. And we'll start to see the quarterly videos telling us all about the dire straights that the company is in. :violin:
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And now with these logistic companies they bought, they can have other companies haul the freight until the contract is settled in there favor. Then wow! All this freight appears. Overnight.
 
canaryinthemine said:
The AARP just put out a very good article why insurance and drug prices are so high in this country. The reason? Because they can....... There is no cap or overseeing body to regulate the entire health insurance "industry".
As far as they are concerned, they are in a free market system.........Free to raise costs as high as they feel, with no rhyme, reason or justification.
And since they have was and piles of money laying around, they are more than happy to finance the election of any lawmaker who agrees with their ability to rob American consumers blind, and will not pass any law limiting their ability to do so.
Single payer Medicare expansion is the only way out of this quagmire of greed.....
Click to expand...
Greed: the root of all evil.
 
Songremainsthesame said:
It's kind of like pick your poison... which is worse, what we have now or letting the government run it, and I don't think those fools could manage a pisser in a brewery.
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Well...... the Government runs Medicare, Social Security, and the greatest military in the world......... we count on all three, and I think they do a good job, in spite of all the negative publicity put out by vested interests who would stand to gain greatly if they could eliminate or privatize Medicare or S.S. They know better than to try and privatize our military.......Too much responsibility and mercenaries tend to hold out for more money than what we're paying our troops. Besides, Saudi Arabia considers us to be their in-house mercenaries anyway........

But I would think an expansion of the existing program......Medicaid........ would do wonders for our economy, especially if we could fund it by eliminating corporate welfare.

But, as we all know, profiteering off of other people's misery seems to be the American way. The health insurance "industry" has marked the population of this country as their "territory ", and they don't want the Government to cut into their profits........
 
canaryinthemine said:
Well...... the Government runs Medicare, Social Security, and the greatest military in the world......... we count on all three, and I think they do a good job, in spite of all the negative publicity put out by vested interests who would stand to gain greatly if they could eliminate or privatize Medicare or S.S. They know better than to try and privatize our military.......Too much responsibility and mercenaries tend to hold out for more money than what we're paying our troops. Besides, Saudi Arabia considers us to be their in-house mercenaries anyway........

But I would think an expansion of the existing program......Medicaid........ would do wonders for our economy, especially if we could fund it by eliminating corporate welfare.

But, as we all know, profiteering off of other people's misery seems to be the American way. The health insurance "industry" has marked the population of this country as their "territory ", and they don't want the Government to cut into their profits........
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Well I'd agree with you on one of the three... the military is the only thing that the government does right, and even it is poorly run in the funding department (i.e. the $10,000 toilet seat)... Medicare and SS, forget about it.
 
Songremainsthesame said:
Well I'd agree with you on one of the three... the military is the only thing that the government does right, and even it is poorly run in the funding department (i.e. the $10,000 toilet seat)... Medicare and SS, forget about it.
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The $10,000 toilet seat occurs when a private contractor decides to cheat the American taxpayer. Of course there's a kickback to the General involved with the supply chain...... when you lie down with swine, you get up covered in pig manure.........

Go ask an Iraqi or an Afghanistan veteran about how all the commisaries and ancillary services are contracted out to big civilian companies,......... Halliburton comes to mind, formerly chaired by Dick Cheney.....

And,.........of course, don't forget about Blackwater,...... the private contractor for "protective" services that almost caused a civil war in Iraq with their indiscriminate murdering of civilians,....... for money, like mercenaries.....

Even the best of organizations can be tainted when you have corporations doing things for money,.... instead of moral responsibility.

By the way, I just signed up on line for Social Security....... seamless, quick, and efficient. Don't believe the bad publicity that gets put in the media by corporations who have a vested interest in wanting to privatize our Social Security,...... because they "can do it better"...... and, of course, profit off of it.

Then we would have the equivalent of $10,000 toilet seats in our Government retirement plans........ some corporate jerk would come up with a scheme to cheat us out of our tax-paid retirement money.
 
canaryinthemine said:
The $10,000 toilet seat occurs when a private contractor decides to cheat the American taxpayer. Of course there's a kickback to the General involved with the supply chain...... when you lie down with swine, you get up covered in pig manure.........

Go ask an Iraqi or an Afghanistan veteran about how all the commisaries and ancillary services are contracted out to big civilian companies,......... Halliburton comes to mind, formerly chaired by Dick Cheney.....

And,.........of course, don't forget about Blackwater,...... the private contractor for "protective" services that almost caused a civil war in Iraq with their indiscriminate murdering of civilians,....... for money, like mercenaries.....

Even the best of organizations can be tainted when you have corporations doing things for money,.... instead of moral responsibility.

By the way, I just signed up on line for Social Security....... seamless, quick, and efficient. Don't believe the bad publicity that gets put in the media by corporations who have a vested interest in wanting to privatize our Social Security,...... because they "can do it better"...... and, of course, profit off of it.

Then we would have the equivalent of $10,000 toilet seats in our Government retirement plans........ some corporate jerk would come up with a scheme to cheat us out of our tax-paid retirement money.
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Yeah, the corporation might be swindling the American taxpayer out of that $10,000, but that bill will still get paid because for every greedy, corrupt corporate head there's a greedy, corrupt politician that's getting a kickback for it. I don't trust the government for the same reason you don't trust the corporate raider, because neither one is doing what they do for you or me. I can pick the corporate raider I work for, but I have to trust the electorate who is either uneducated or apathetic to help me pick my corrupt politician of choice. At least when the corporate raider succeeds I get some modicum of success out of it. The government is only out to serve the elite in their own circles. They could care less about us.
 
canaryinthemine said:
Then we would have the equivalent of $10,000 toilet seats in our Government retirement plans........ some corporate jerk would come up with a scheme to cheat us out of our tax-paid retirement money.
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You almost make it sound like corporate jerks don't already have plans in place to skim money from government retirement funds if they were privatized. That's been the wet dream of many a corporate raider for years now!
 
Songremainsthesame said:
Yeah, the corporation might be swindling the American taxpayer out of that $10,000, but that bill will still get paid because for every greedy, corrupt corporate head there's a greedy, corrupt politician that's getting a kickback for it. I don't trust the government for the same reason you don't trust the corporate raider, because neither one is doing what they do for you or me. I can pick the corporate raider I work for, but I have to trust the electorate who is either uneducated or apathetic to help me pick my corrupt politician of choice. At least when the corporate raider succeeds I get some modicum of success out of it. The government is only out to serve the elite in their own circles. They could care less about us.
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Most people get into politics because of an altruistic desire to actually help people...... Many change when they are presented a plethora of money and perks....... usually by a corporate lobbyist.

I like the idea that I can vote out a crooked profiteering politician. I don't recall ever getting to vote on a CEO......

You do make a good point about an under-educated electorate falling for the circus parade of noise and fury, instead of researching the facts......... that is truly frustrating.......

The worst kind of politician is one who sees a profit in what he's doing. We don't expect anything higher out of the corporate people....... that's their reason for existence.....
 
canaryinthemine said:
Most people get into politics because of an altruistic desire to actually help people...... Many change when they are presented a plethora of money and perks....... usually by a corporate lobbyist.

I like the idea that I can vote out a crooked profiteering politician. I don't recall ever getting to vote on a CEO......

You do make a good point about an under-educated electorate falling for the circus parade of noise and fury, instead of researching the facts......... that is truly frustrating.......

The worst kind of politician is one who sees a profit in what he's doing. We don't expect anything higher out of the corporate people....... that's their reason for existence.....
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I can't think of a single politician in recent memory other than maybe say Reagan that actually wanted to help people. He was already wealthy due to his acting career, and was old enough to know that the after office benefits weren't going to help him all that long. As to voting for a CEO, you always have the power to vote, with your feet.

The key to contentment in life is to realize your place. I'm never going to be a powerful corporate executive, and I'm fine with that. I work hard and get my share of the pie. It's a lot smaller than those running the circus, but for a truck driver I'm very happy. I make twice what I made sleeping in a truck and staying gone weeks at a time. As I said in my last post, at least if the corporation I work for is successful, I'm successful as well, just in scale.
 
Songremainsthesame said:
I can't think of a single politician in recent memory other than maybe say Reagan that actually wanted to help people. He was already wealthy due to his acting career, and was old enough to know that the after office benefits weren't going to help him all that long. As to voting for a CEO, you always have the power to vote, with your feet.

The key to contentment in life is to realize your place. I'm never going to be a powerful corporate executive, and I'm fine with that. I work hard and get my share of the pie. It's a lot smaller than those running the circus, but for a truck driver I'm very happy. I make twice what I made sleeping in a7 truck and staying gone weeks at a time. As I said in my last post, at least if the corporation I work for is successful, I'm successful as well, just in scale.
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There are a few good politicians...... Sen. Bob Casey comes to mind. He's the one who led the push to restore the retired mine's healthcare fund recently......with very little help from Pa.' s other Senator, Pat Toomey, who recently campaigned to re-election by claiming he supports miners. Another case of " Thanks for the vote, now get lost and Don't bug me.."

Sen. Casey is supporting legislation to back up pensions...... he also sponsors worker-friendly initiatives.....quiet, unassuming, respectful...... doesn't grandstand...... The man has four daughters, for crying out loud....... gotta have the patience of Job. Meet him once in person and you'll see what I mean.

As for Mr. Reagan, ....... he did some good things, but much of what he did was overshadowed by the PATCO strike, and the disastrous "trickle-down" theory of economics,....... which forced his successor, George ( Read My Lips, No New Taxes) H. W. Bush to have to raise taxes across the board to make up the Federal shortfall,........ causing Mr. Bush to be a one-term president.
 
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George David said:
Kind of wondering the push here will it be the health care or the pension.
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Health care would be my guess as to what they go after next. It's such a 'hot button' issue right now. They'll be looking to rifle through a co-pay deal during negotiations, I'm sure. Personally, I'd be willing to pay up to...say...$100/month for the same plan we have now if...IF...they restored the vacation issue back to pre-2013 levels.
 
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