Copper theft

In article , John Fields wrote: [.....]

If your savings have interest on them, they must have already been in the system in the form of loans.

Unlike the constant efforts of the US to impose hegemony over all other nations.

It is going to come up but right now people don't understand how bad the corporations screwed the country with this downsizing. They rolled

BTW this isn't "age" discrimination, it is Wage discrimination. If you are willing to work for a new hire wage you can stay as long as you like. In fact that is what happened to a lot of "retirees". They got hired back as "contractors" for less money. (same salary, no FICA or benefits)

I stopped following this thread for awhile, thinking it was just about idiots trying to steal wire off of power poles.

What industry are you talking about?

...Jim Thompson

In my case it is the computer biz (a corporation that sold business machines internationally) but I think it is rampant all over if the articles in EE times are an indication.

As far as I know, it was the Feds legalizing age discrimination that permitted companies like QWEST to screw retiree's pensions and benefits.

Don

It's not at all a bad sort of "swamped." The great majority of Mexican immigrants are nice people and hard workers. They don't panhandle and they don't plant bombs. Thank Goodness our southern border is with Mexico, and not with Sudan. The Canadians are OK too, except that their food isn't nearly as good.

The "political class" has mostly kept their heads down, leaving the problems of immigration up to the citizenry to deal with. It seems to me that we're dealing with it rather well. As a nation of immigrants, increasingly variegated in color and culture, each group of immigrants is finding it easier to fit in. Interesting niches develop, like Indians running motels, Cambodians running donut shops, Mexicans doing construction, Bolivians cooking, Chinese running computer stores.

Obviously I don't deserve her, but I'm not going to give her back.

John

The British Empire left English Common Law and British sportsmanship in its wake. Just compare the states of former-British colonies with former-Spanish, former-Dutch, former-French, and former-Soviet ones.

The Middle Easy is one area where British intervention didn't leave British sensibilities. Well, they were still mad about the Crusades.

John

Democracy is not hegemony, and the current US position was really forced on it by WWII and the Cold War.

And there's that nasty conflict between "human rights" and "national sovereignty."

John

What's a Pillock? Some sort of hybrid of Phil and Bollocks?

Now *that* is a nasty concept.

John

There were, as I've read, zero executions in the Rev War, pretty good as such things go.

John

Arresting in-transit passengers for activities which are legal in the countries they were done it seems more like piracy than democracy.

Yeah. F*ck them if they think US companies should pay taxes and follow local laws about things like fair pay, workers rights and ecological considerations. Why can't they just lay back and enjoy being raped?

Not in the general case. If a Slitherin had legally tortured and killed a British diplomat in Slitherland, wouldn't you want to arrest him if he passed through Heathrow? Another conflict, human rights and local law. How about Milosavitch and guys who commit atrocities when they *are* the local law?

John

Gambling is legal in the US and in Costa Rica. The argument is about which forms are legal, state lotteries which pay very poor odds, or online casinos which pay much better odds. The US is acting like a gangster (no surprise) trying to protect his turf.