The American (USA) 2016 presidential elections thread?

[Ocean1]

So all those climate surveys top performing companies use are in your opinion a waste of time, seems a bit odd they keep doing them then doesnt it.
Have you never figured out unhappy staff are not particularly productive. Just maybe you don't know as much as you think you do.

I've never seen a survey showing remuneration as the leading factor in employee satisfaction or performance, at least not among career professionals. And I've seen a few.

And my staff were neither unhappy or unproductive. Funny how that doesn't fit your preconceived theories about how that shit works.

[oldrider]

Interesting MSM reporting for a change?

[husaberg]

Turns out remuneration has fuck all to do with whether employees are unhappy or demoralised.
But say it did. Why wouldn't you parse that as "A good way to help the company have a good year is to be happy and productive"?
See, the socialist outlook "the company/govt/taxpayer is responsible for my morale and income" fails. Every time. Demonstrably and repeatedly. And yet from exactly the same starting point, the other one doesn't.

Unhappy and demoralized staff are less productive - and a good way to help the company have a bad year ...
I'm with Richard Branson who said "Train your staff so they can leave, treat them well so they don't want to."
He's made millions implementing that approach ..

So all those climate surveys top performing companies use are in your opinion a waste of time, seems a bit odd they keep doing them then doesnt it.
Have you never figured out unhappy staff are not particularly productive. Just maybe you don't know as much as you think you do.

I've never seen a survey showing remuneration as the leading factor in employee satisfaction or performance, at least not among career professionals. And I've seen a few.
And my staff were neither unhappy or unproductive. Funny how that doesn't fit your preconceived theories about how that shit works.

I have no doubt you understand very little about about staff productivity as i seems you cant follow a simple line of thought, where did i mention anything about remuneration. i mentioned productivity and unhappy staff. you then drew an il-considered conclusion based on your own preconceived notion.
Judging by your attitudes expressed and your inability to actually read what is written i doubt you will even understand one.
Of course you will claim to know far more than everyone else on this subject as well.

[Ocean1]

I have no doubt you understand very little about about staff productivity as i seems you cant follow a simpole line of thought, where did i mention anything about remuneration. i mentioned productivity and unhappy staff. you then drew an il-considered conclusion based on your own preconceived notion.
Judging by your attitudes expressed and your inability to actually read what is written i doubt you will even understand one.
Of course you will claim to know far more than everyone else on this subject as well.

You didn't mention remuneration. That was, nonetheless the topic in discussion:

Might help if they share the increased profits with the workers too - in terms of higher wages ..

Looks like your line of thought is as short as your attention span, maybe you should start doubting your understanding of shit a bit more often.

[Viking01]

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/443390-midt...ives-strategy/

[husaberg]

You didn't mention remuneration. That was, nonetheless the topic in discussion:

You plucked it out of thin air and attempted to pass it of as being part of my thoughts expressed. That's at best delusional on your part

[seattle smitty]

I agree, it is A problem... however instead of population control, were the 20% come to consume like the 80% we go from living on an unsustinable planet to a sustainable one without any population control. We don't need to be more efficient to achieve that, we merely stop producing that which serves no life purpose that that 80% of the population don't have but have survived without access to. The energy saved will be more than enough to cater for our needs and for us to grow as a population. Then it's merely a case of adding to the education system something that teaches the reasons that we stopped production, and hence the reason for human re-production to be undertaken more thoughtfully (booze and quiet corners may put a damper on things there lol).

Were we address THE problem, so we have a chance to educate population control (as China kind of did) without a Logans Run style death lottery of some form or another, heh. As you say, we'll have to adopt "control" at some point. It'd be useful to educate it into the upcoming generations, but that just isn't profitable. Anyhoo... population control on a planet that's growing in a manner that all but ensures ecocide/genocide, is kind of a moot.

Mashman, given my DISpleasure with recent American elections, I'm pleased that you are willing to butt heads with me on this subject which is never ever mentioned by our idiots in office.

Now, do you figure to educate the poor, hungry 80% to stop slashing and burning the world's jungles and forests or selling the wood to Japan, stop killing all the animals for bush-meat or to sell to the Chinese, AND to forget about ever having the resource-consuming luxuries that you'll have educated the 20% to forgo, such as modern hospitals and medicine, communications, mass production (of such things as motorcycles, hah!), buildings (ones for schools that don't leak or collapse in a strong wind, yadda, yadda, yadda. Sure, our distant ancestors all lived and survived as you point out that the 80% have done, . . . but they died like flies in times of famine, the moms very often died in childbirth or their offspring did, or if they survived being born, their llife expectancy was maybe thirty years, their lives included nothing in the way of intellectual content, they had no such thing as weekends or vacations, oh, AND despite lacking roads, they didn't even have dirtbikes. All in all, not a way of life I'd care to adopt, in comparison to being forbidden to have more than one kid (and in fact, I've never had one).

Referring back to the destruction of woodlands/jungles/animals, the ONLY way the poor 80% have ever been educated to do less of that is when they learned that some members of the over-consuming 20% would fly in on their energy-profligate jetliners and spend tourist dollars.

Sure, I'm arguing this by making extreme contrasts, yet it's not all that extreme. Have you heard the phrase, "cedars of Lebanon"? Pretty much all of the cedars of Lebanon (among other factors than slash and burn, they were imported by Egyptian and other regional boat-builders who otherwise only had access to unusable date-palms) were GONE by Bible times, the vegetation of the area having been devoured by the sheep and goats of the poor 80% of that time. I'm saying that humans are very capable of depleting resources, even in fairly low numbers and living their (short) pre-industrial lives.

So if over-population is not THE problem, it sure is close, bears profoundly upon a lot of other problems, and dealing with it makes it more likely that the other problems can be addressed to some effect. I am ALL FOR better (and reduced) use of natural resources, have been since my 1950s boyhood (when, amazing as it might seem today, conservation of resources and wild places was a conservative Republican concern, in which Democrats of the time rarely expressed much interest). My overall point is that with a much smaller population, humans could sustainably live well, and do so WITH many of the modern trappings of Western life, intelligently modified.



Meanwhile, about your reference to a Logan's Run lottery, hmm, I might be tempted to take my chances provided I had access to a young Jenny Agutter, whoa!! (OTOH, if she got pregnant, I'd lose credibility on this subject, LOL).

[Ocean1]

You plucked it out of thin air and attempted to pass it of as being part of my thoughts expressed. That's at best delusional on your part

Thin air? It was the post I was replying to in the first of your above tedious wee list.

You're the one that picked up half the conversation and inserted your conflated assumptions about a link between happiness and productivity.

[husaberg]

Thin air? It was the post I was replying to in the first of your above tedious wee list.

You're the one that picked up half the conversation and inserted your conflated assumptions about a link between happiness and productivity.

Thin air...all right you were solely responding to my post thats why you quoted me and only me.
so again where did i mention remuneration in relation to productivity. you did, not me, then you claimed it was in relation to my thoughts expressed.
I replied to a single post where you displayed a thought process that was extremely flawed. Nothing in my reply was in regards to remuneration. quite the opposite.


In case you missed all studies there is a extremely high coloration showing a10-20% improvement in between worker productivity and staff happiness this has been proven in multiple studies.
These are not a conflated assumption these are factual studies as i pointed out there are reasons successful firms carryout and implement strategies based on the findings of climate studies.
Nor as i have said does it surprise me at all that you are unaware of that

[mashman]

Mashman, given my DISpleasure with recent American elections, I'm pleased that you are willing to butt heads with me on this subject which is never ever mentioned by our idiots in office.

I didn't keep up with the mid-terms. Too busy staying away from the news. Anything interesting happen? And don't worry, you'll get the result you wanted next time . Butting heads eh. Grrrr. Roar. Snort.

Now, do you figure to educate the poor, hungry 80% to stop slashing and burning the world's jungles and forests or selling the wood to Japan, stop killing all the animals for bush-meat or to sell to the Chinese, AND to forget about ever having the resource-consuming luxuries that you'll have educated the 20% to forgo, such as modern hospitals and medicine, communications, mass production (of such things as motorcycles, hah!), buildings (ones for schools that don't leak or collapse in a strong wind, yadda, yadda, yadda.

We do what needs to be done or die out. We're already doing it i.e. Earth Overshoot, however we call it BAU. Slash and burn to turn resources into $ to sell back again. The future hope being that we can recycle/repurpose the stuff and use it again whilst retaining profit margins in a global business market that's sprinting towards technological unemployment.... yadda yadda yadda lol.

What needs to be done is to stop producing approximately 50% of that which serves no life purpose. Things like plastic cutlery, rubiks cubes, single use packaging (50% would likely go with the production cull) etc... and all of thpse bits n pieces of planet that get turned into $ to keep people able to go out and buy more pieces of planet.

We do what needs to be done or die out.

Sure, our distant ancestors all lived and survived as you point out that the 80% have done, . . . but they died like flies in times of famine, the moms very often died in childbirth or their offspring did, or if they survived being born, their llife expectancy was maybe thirty years, their lives included nothing in the way of intellectual content, they had no such thing as weekends or vacations, oh, AND despite lacking roads, they didn't even have dirtbikes. All in all, not a way of life I'd care to adopt, in comparison to being forbidden to have more than one kid (and in fact, I've never had one).

We die like flies in times of famine. We produce enough food to feed 10 billion, yet ships that could carry food or agri stuff maybe are carrying Rubiks cubes etc... We have more dwellings on this planet than there are humans by a long way. Yet billions of them leave their house and go to some other space for 8 hours a day doing a job that they could actually do from the house... therefore leaving spaces available for people to live in etc... We could do all sorts of simple things. One of the most productive would be to retask as much of the workforce as possible i.e. if your job is inherently pointless and there's something that needs doing in your neighbourhood that you are skilled/competent enough to do, then go do that instead and you'll be paid the same salary that you were being paid. Simple things that will free people up to do what needs to be done instead of doing a job that is inherently pointless etc... Converting lawns into vegetable patches with a splash of permaculture here and aquaponics there etc... and our requirement for regionally imported foodstuffs drops dramatically, and where that is done in conjunction with water collection, so we take more people off the mains and so on again. We'll realise that in NZ we live on a subduction zone, and we'll start building schools that are dome shaped given their strength instead of boxes. Should help with wind issues too. Soooo many simple things.

I don't see why we'd suddenly go backwards. Something like 82% of the worlds energy usage is bits of planet to make concrete, steel, a never ending stream of mobile phones i.e. general stuff. 18% is electricity requirement. Maybe we're using the planet incorrectly and calling it progress. As such, yeah I can see us dropping what needs to be dropped if it serves no life purpose, because the alternative is that die thing. Who knows, that may well include the death of the motorcycle. I hope not, but hey, until we stop producing the tat, we won't know how much will be left for toys.

Referring back to the destruction of woodlands/jungles/animals, the ONLY way the poor 80% have ever been educated to do less of that is when they learned that some members of the over-consuming 20% would fly in on their energy-profligate jetliners and spend tourist dollars.

Man gotta eat. Food costs money. Catch 22.

Sure, I'm arguing this by making extreme contrasts, yet it's not all that extreme. Have you heard the phrase, "cedars of Lebanon"? Pretty much all of the cedars of Lebanon (among other factors than slash and burn, they were imported by Egyptian and other regional boat-builders who otherwise only had access to unusable date-palms) were GONE by Bible times, the vegetation of the area having been devoured by the sheep and goats of the poor 80% of that time. I'm saying that humans are very capable of depleting resources, even in fairly low numbers and living their (short) pre-industrial lives.

As someone once said, life is an act of consumption. Easter Island being another example of a population not considering how it used its resources. Given where we are in terms of resource usage and general global societal cohesion, I see no extreme contrasts lol.

So if over-population is not THE problem, it sure is close, bears profoundly upon a lot of other problems, and dealing with it makes it more likely that the other problems can be addressed to some effect. I am ALL FOR better (and reduced) use of natural resources, have been since my 1950s boyhood (when, amazing as it might seem today, conservation of resources and wild places was a conservative Republican concern, in which Democrats of the time rarely expressed much interest). My overall point is that with a much smaller population, humans could sustainably live well, and do so WITH many of the modern trappings of Western life, intelligently modified.

For sure it's a problem, just not the one that's actually killing us and doing the damage. That's wholly at the door of inefficient and illogical production for money to grow an economy. One of the U.S. edu's produced a paper that calculated how much arable land there was available for each human being (taking into account mountains etc...). There is more than enough land for us to double the population... and that's the 2D version. The 3D version involves vertical things as well as stuff that lives under ground. Our carrying capacity is potentially much larger than it currently is. Obviously not for everyone to have Rubiks cubes etc... but certainly to live a spectacular life that may well include access to motorcycles, even Rubiks cubes. We have room for more people where we use what we have more aptly. But yeah, educate the kids and tell them to go home and tell their parents would work well, heh...

Meanwhile, about your reference to a Logan's Run lottery, hmm, I might be tempted to take my chances provided I had access to a young Jenny Agutter, whoa!! (OTOH, if she got pregnant, I'd lose credibility on this subject, LOL).

Her problem

[pritch]

Interesting MSM reporting for a change?

Geez John! I could only handle a few minutes of that. The Democrats focus for the election was healthcare. The Republican focus was the "invasion" of some desperate people nearly a thousand miles away.

It was almost a given that the Democrats would subpoena Trump's tax returns, although whether the returns will provide evidence of his laundering money for the Russian mafia is another matter. They will almost certainly show he pays no tax and will likely show he is nowhere near as rich as he claims.

I'm pleased to see Schiff is still planning on impeaching Kavanaugh, and although I didn't see it mentioned, I'll also be pleased when the new unconstitutionally appointed Attorney General gets the arse.

This clown show would be fucking hilarious if it wasn't so serious.

[oldrider]

Geez John! I could only handle a few minutes of that. The Democrats focus for the election was healthcare. The Republican focus was the "invasion" of some desperate people nearly a thousand miles away.

It was almost a given that the Democrats would subpoena Trump's tax returns, although whether the returns will provide evidence of his laundering money for the Russian mafia is another matter. They will almost certainly show he pays no tax and will likely show he is nowhere near as rich as he claims.

I'm pleased to see Schiff is still planning on impeaching Kavanaugh, and although I didn't see it mentioned, I'll also be pleased when the new unconstitutionally appointed Attorney General gets the arse.

This clown show would be fucking hilarious if it wasn't so serious.

Well I for one never expected anything else but a clown show (didn't stop me "hoping" for more though) with a choice between a turd or a piss pot for "leader"?

I think the writer got that pretty much on the mark - the real government sent the people a message - "don't fuck with us"!

[husaberg]

It was almost a given that the Democrats would subpoena Trump's tax returns, although whether the returns will provide evidence of his laundering money for the Russian mafia is another matter. They will almost certainly show he pays no tax and will likely show he is nowhere near as rich as he claims.

xcuses that Trump and his supporters have given for not releasing tax returns

Trump: “I’m being audited … so I can’t.” (See next section.) (Repeatedly since February)
Trump: “There’s nothing to learn from them.” (Fact-checkers say this is false.) (February, February, May, May, January)
Trump: “Mitt Romney looked like a fool when he delayed and delayed and delayed and … didn’t file until a month and a half before the election and it cost him big league.” (February, July)
Trump: His tax rate is “none of your business.” (May)
Paul Manafort, former campaign chairman: American people “wouldn’t understand them.” (May)
Manafort: The only people who want them “are the people who want to defeat him.” (May)
Trump: “I don’t think anybody cares.” (Polls show this is false.) (May, September)
Eric Trump, son: Would be “foolish” to release; “you would have a bunch of people who know nothing about taxes trying to look through and trying to come up with assumptions on things that they know nothing about.” (August)
Mike Pence, vice president who released his tax returns: They’re a “distraction.” (September)
Donald Trump Jr.: “Would distract from (his dad’s) main message.” (September)
Kellyanne Conway, then-campaign manager and current counselor to the president: “I just can’t find where this is a burning issue to most of the Americans.” (In April, before joining his campaign, Conway said, “Donald Trump’s tax returns aren’t … transparent” and called for their release.) (September)
Jeffrey Lord, commentator: Tax returns are “a political gimmick, a gotcha … Political opponents are going to go through there and look to make issues out of things.” (September)
Trump Jr.: “There’s a lot in a 12,000-page tax return that wouldn’t make sense to open up.” (September)
Trump: “You will learn more about Donald Trump” by looking at his financial disclosure forms than by looking at tax returns. (Fact-checkers say this is false.) (September)
Rudy Giuliani, Trump surrogate: “The way all of you are treating this is a very good indication of why someone might not want to release their tax returns.” (October)
Trump: Blames Clinton for fact he doesn’t pay taxes: “A lot of my write-off was depreciation, and that, Hillary as a senator, allowed. The people that give her all this money want it.” (As a senator, Clinton did vote to close tax loopholes — including one Trump may have used to pay no federal income taxes.) (October)
Trump: “The only ones that care about my tax returns are the reporters.” (Roughly 74 percent of Americans, including 53 percent of Republicans, say Trump should make his tax returns public, according to a Washington Post-ABC poll in January.) (January)
Conway: “People didn’t care. They voted for him, and let me make this very clear: Most Americans are very focused on what their tax returns will look like while President Trump is in office, not what his look like.” (January)


Why IRS audits do not prevent Trump from releasing his tax returns

Trump’s tax attorneys said in March that his returns since 2009 were being audited. The IRS said nothing, including an audit, “prevents individuals from sharing their own tax information.”
His tax attorneys said returns from 2002 to 2008 are no longer being audited. Neither are the returns from 1977 to 2002. Trump said he will still not release any of those returns because “they’re all linked.”
Multiple former IRS commissioners say audits are a bad excuse.
President Richard Nixon released his tax returns while under audit.
All major presidential nominees of the past 40 years have released their tax returns.
Trump can delay the completion of his audits.
As president, Trump will be automatically audited every year, an IRS practice in place for presidents and vice presidents since the 1970s.
Every elected president, dating back to Richard Nixon, has voluntarily released his tax returns each year.


What we would learn from Trump’s tax returns

How much (or how little) money he makes
How much (or how little) he pays in taxes
How much (or how little) he gives to charity
What deductions and tax credits he uses
His investments
His business partners
Who he owes money
What he writes off as business expenses
How much (or how little) money he keeps in foreign accounts (including in Russia)

What Trump has said about his tax returns
2011: Said he would release tax returns after President Obama released his long-form birth certificate
2014: Said he would “absolutely” release returns “if I decide to run for office.”
2015: “I would release tax returns. … Nobody knows the tax return world better than me.”
2015: Said he would release tax returns when “we find out the true story on Hillary’s emails.”
January 2016: Said he was ready to disclose his “very big … very beautiful” returns.
February 2016: Said he would release returns “probably over the next few months.”
February 2016: “I will absolutely give my return, but I’m being audited now for two or three [years’ worth] now so I can’t.”
February 2016: Responding to claims he has a “bombshell” in his taxes,” Trump said: “We’ll make a determination over the next couple of months. It’s very complicated.”
May 2016: Said he fights “very hard to pay as little tax as possible.”
May 2016: Will “release my tax returns when audit is complete, not after election!”
July: Manafort: “Mr. Trump has said that his taxes are under audit and he will not be releasing them.”
July: “I haven’t had much pressure (to release tax returns). I’ll be honest, most people don’t care.”
September: “When the audit is complete I will release my returns. I have no problem with it. It doesn’t matter.”
September debate: “I will release my tax returns, against my lawyer’s wishes, when [Clinton] releases her 33,000 emails that have been deleted.”
January, first press event as president: “I’m not releasing the tax returns because as you know they’re under audit.”
May: “I might release them after I’m out of office.”

2012: Trump Said Romney, the Republican presidential nominee, should release his tax returns: April 1 “historically is the time that everybody gives them.”

Trump’s tax attorneys said in March that his returns since 2009 were being audited. The IRS said nothing, including an audit, “prevents individuals from sharing their own tax information.”
His tax attorneys said returns from 2002 to 2008 are no longer being audited. Neither are the returns from 1977 to 2002. Trump said he will still not release any of those returns because “they’re all linked.”
Multiple former IRS commissioners say audits are a bad excuse.
President Richard Nixon released his tax returns while under audit.
All major presidential nominees of the past 40 years have released their tax returns.
Trump can delay the completion of his audits.
As president, Trump will be automatically audited every year, an IRS practice in place for presidents and vice presidents since the 1970s.
Every elected president, dating back to Richard Nixon, has voluntarily released his tax returns each year.

[Ocean1]

Thin air...all right you were solely responding to my post thats why you quoted me and only me.
so again where did i mention remuneration in relation to productivity. you did, not me, then you claimed it was in relation to my thoughts expressed.
I replied to a single post where you displayed a thought process that was extremely flawed. Nothing in my reply was in regards to remuneration. quite the opposite.


In case you missed all studies there is a extremely high coloration showing a10-20% improvement in between worker productivity and staff happiness this has been proven in multiple studies.
These are not a conflated assumption these are factual studies as i pointed out there are reasons successful firms carryout and implement strategies based on the findings of climate studies.
Nor as i have said does it surprise me at all that you are unaware of that

So many straw mens....

[husaberg]

So many straw mens....

Really you replied stating it was in reply to stuff i clearly never said. Maybe you need to figure out why it that was and how it had nothing to do with me and everything to do with you illogical thought process.
The straw-man was you claiming i had said anything to do with remuneration at all.
I said

So all those climate surveys top performing companies use are in your opinion a waste of time, seems a bit odd they keep doing them then doesnt it.
Have you never figured out unhappy staff are not particularly productive. Just maybe you don't know as much as you think you do.

To which you replied

I've never seen a survey showing remuneration as the leading factor in employee satisfaction or performance, at least not among career professionals. And I've seen a few.
And my staff were neither unhappy or unproductive. Funny how that doesn't fit your preconceived theories about how that shit works.

A straw man is a common form of argument and is an informal fallacy based on giving the impression of refuting an opponent's argument, while actually refuting an argument that was not presented by that opponent.

You might want to point out how the numerous studies that support that happy workers are more productive is a strawman when i said happy workers are more productive and visa versa..

So all those climate surveys top performing companies use are in your opinion a waste of time, seems a bit odd they keep doing them then doesn't it.
Have you never figured out unhappy staff are not particularly productive. Just maybe you don't know as much as you think you do.

your conflated assumptions about a link between happiness and productivity.

But it gets better, My assumptions about worker productivity, really my own assumptions.But i guess you know more than forbes, Google and many other university reasarchers and other companies do.
Why not you are ocean.............

Employee happiness has increasingly become an imperative in business. Why? There is now growing evidence that when one's employees are happy, organizations thrive.
To put this claim into perspective, consider just a few key statistics.
One study found that happy employees are up to 20% more productive than unhappy employees. When it comes to salespeople, happiness has an even greater impact, raising sales by 37%. But the benefits don't end there.
Happy employees are also good news for organizations: The stock prices of Fortune’s “100 Best Companies to Work for" rose 14% per year from 1998 to 2005, while companies not on the list only reported a 6% increase. https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesc.../#5cf8d8b8581a

n a recent study Professor Andrew Oswald, Dr. Eugenio Proto and Dr. Daniel Sgroi from the Department of Economics at the University of Warwick conducted a number of experiments to test the idea that happy employees work harder. Results indicated that happiness led to a 12% spike in productivity, while unhappy workers proved 10% less productive. The research team concluded that “…human happiness has large and positive causal effects on productivity.”] https://tdsolutions.org/workplace-pr...uctive-workers

We find that human happiness has large and positive causal effects on productivity. Positive emotions appear to invigorate human beings. Under scientifically controlled conditions, making workers happier really pays off. Companies like Google have invested more in employee support and employee satisfaction has risen as a result. For Google, it rose by 37 percent. The driving force seems to be that happier workers use the time they have more effectively, increasing the pace at which they can work without sacrificing quality.

That leads to the question, how do companies begin a cultural shift to happiness to leverage its benefits? Well, first of all, happiness isn't something leaders impose or force on employees as a top-down program or engagement strategy to squeeze more productivity out of them.

For the most part, it's a mindset that begins with leaders shifting their own beliefs and accepting employees as their greatest asset. When human beings at work are held with the utmost regard, you begin to treat them differently.
https://www.inc.com/marcel-schwantes...gs-every-.html

Professor Andrew Oswald, one of three researchers who led the study, said companies that invest in employee support and satisfaction tend to succeed in generating happier workers. At Google, employee satisfaction rose 37% as a result of those initiatives—suggesting that financial incentives aren’t enough to make for highly productive employees.
https://www.fastcompany.com/3048751/...uctive-at-work