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US shutdown: Flight delays caused by staff shortages

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Re: US shutdown: Flight delays caused by staff shortages

#551

Post by rjf72 »

Symmetry wrote: post #405
bilbo0s wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fairness it's not really the finance department and the ceo, it's the ceo and the board locking horns. And the ceo and the board decided to shutdown the whole company until they get their little tiff ironed out. (Which, yeah, was a pretty dumb idea. But the ceo and the board are kind of known for having dumb ideas.)

In a corporation or other well designed systems there's a clear chain of authority. In the US we have two different branches that can both claim to have a mandate from the people that can get into fights. The designers of the US constitution did better than I would have with the information available to them but we've had lots of sorts of democratic republic tried since then and now we know that US style presidential…

And a few years after Washington we'd have the current vice president and the former secretary of the treasury engage in a duel to the death! Claiming temperance is what kept our system afloat is probably a bit of a stretch. The American political system is literally designed to be dysfunctional. This is what checks and balances are all about. One clique wants A, one clique wants B. If they can't come to a compromise then nobody gets anything. The idea was to keep the government small and avoid a tyranny of the majority.

What's really changed since then is that government has grown unimaginably larger than the forefathers ever imagined possible, let alone intended. And we've also massively increased the power of various branches. For instance, that the president alone can now unilaterally deploy our military throughout the world is just insane and arguably completely unconstitutional. In any case it completely destroys the entire system of checks and balances that our system, and country, was built and prospered upon.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by system such as ours failing, nor that our system was kept afloat by tradition. We started a revolution against a heavily centralized mercantalistic monarchical empire to create a decentralized capitalistic democratic republic.

Re: US shutdown: Flight delays caused by staff shortages

#552

Post by 0xcafecafe »

praneshp wrote: post #76
kej wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Atlanta is the busiest airport in the world; it would be a mess whether it's Super Bowl weekend or not.

I lived there for a couple of years for grad school, and flew out about once a week in my final semester for interviews. The airport is a super well-oiled machine, it doesn;t really feel different from say, San Francisco. IMO it feels way more comfortable than LaGuardia, which is easily one of the worst airports I've been at in the US.

Atlanta resident here, couldn't agree more. It has always been the most efficient airport for me to fly out from, so far...

Re: US shutdown: Flight delays caused by staff shortages

#553

Post by AnimalMuppet »

dragontamer wrote: post #525
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #518

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. You've got short-sighted "warriors" on both sides, trying to score cheap political points while the country burns (mostly figuratively, so far). Can states do recall elections? Because maybe that's the answer. If all 50 states held recall elections for all Senators and Representatives, that might concentrate minds in DC a bit...

It doesn't matter how bad the individual politicians are. There's one side that is clearly in the right. There is only ONE side which is pushing for a clean continuing resolution, to end the shutdown. The other side is asking for concessions before they end the shutdown. Obviously politicians are opportunistic scumbags. That's why we elect them to represent our districts, so that they return more money to our distric…

I'm not looking for replacing any of the current Congress (yet...)

I'm looking to send a message. "Stop acting like two-year-olds. Stop playing stupid political games and get something done. If you won't, you risk being removed before your two-year term is up." And if that's not enough for them to stop acting like idiots, well, then let's actually hold those recall elections.

But it will only work if most or all of the states do it.

Re: US shutdown: Flight delays caused by staff shortages

#554

Post by graedus »

samstave wrote: post #349
sabujp wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

lol@thinking that people in power will vote to not pay themselves

Ha - Yeah thats the point... Meaning - Why isn't this a larger talking point? (Aside from the fact that we have more millionaires and billionaires in political positions than ever - so they are frankly the 'working-class' who would not be impacted by a pay furlough)

> we have more millionaires and billionaires in political positions than ever

I was curious about the numbers on this in terms of congress members. It doesn't appear that anyone in congress specifically is actually a billionaire as of 2016[0], but over half of them are millionaires as of 2014[1]. Of course there are non-congress members that are billionaires (Trump, DeVos, Ross, some governors, etc)[2].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_current_members_of_the...

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/10/us/politics/more-than-hal...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_richest_American_polit...

edit: added information

Re: US shutdown: Flight delays caused by staff shortages

#555

Post by dragontamer »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #553
dragontamer wrote: post #525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't matter how bad the individual politicians are. There's one side that is clearly in the right. There is only ONE side which is pushing for a clean continuing resolution, to end the shutdown. The other side is asking for concessions before they end the shutdown. Obviously politicians are opportunistic scumbags. That's why we elect them to represent our districts, so that they return more money to our distric…

I'm not looking for replacing any of the current Congress (yet...) I'm looking to send a message. "Stop acting like two-year-olds. Stop playing stupid political games and get something done. If you won't, you risk being removed before your two-year term is up." And if that's not enough for them to stop acting like idiots, well, then let's actually hold those recall elections. But it will only work if most or all of t…

Dude, over 90% of incumbents were reelected. This is what the people want.

https://www.opensecrets.org/overview/reelect.php

That's a 91% reelection rate for the 2018 election. People like their Representatives and Senators. I dunno what kind of fantasy world you're living in. But house members and senate members have overwhelming support in the districts they represent.

We all hate EVERYONE ELSE's senator or representative. But that opinion holds no bearing. We only can elect our local representative.

--------

As I said earlier: this is democracy in action. This is the reality of our system of government.

The Democrats were elected to stop the wall. The Republicans were elected to build the wall. The people have spoken, and we've entered a contradiction / deadlock situation. This is what people wanted and what people voted for.

It annoys me to no end with people saying "Vote them all out". You have to recognize that people actually like their local Representatives. What people don't like is the Representatives from other parts of the country (ie: The part where you have to make concessions and work with someone different from you)

Re: US shutdown: Flight delays caused by staff shortages

#556

Post by [deleted] »

graedus wrote: post #554
samstave wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ha - Yeah thats the point... Meaning - Why isn't this a larger talking point? (Aside from the fact that we have more millionaires and billionaires in political positions than ever - so they are frankly the 'working-class' who would not be impacted by a pay furlough)

> we have more millionaires and billionaires in political positions than ever I was curious about the numbers on this in terms of congress members. It doesn't appear that anyone in congress specifically is actually a billionaire as of 2016[0], but over half of them are millionaires as of 2014[1]. Of course there are non-congress members that are billionaires (Trump, DeVos, Ross, some governors, etc)[2]. [0] https://e…

[deleted]

Re: US shutdown: Flight delays caused by staff shortages

#557

Post by Sargos »

megaman8 wrote: post #477

I can only hope that voters learn something from all this and start considering alternative parties, rather than continuing to vote democrat/republican every year.

The vast majority of Americans don't get a choice of who to vote for as districts are extremely gerrymandered nowadays. The only politicians I had a chance to vote for last election was local ones like the school board. Congress was just one name that I had to fill in the oval for.

Re: US shutdown: Flight delays caused by staff shortages

#558

Post by socalnate1 »

School-Cotton wrote: post #431
NeedMoreTea wrote: post #87

I hope not too off topic, but I'm puzzled by shutdowns. Every other country I can think of has a system where if the finance is not agreed, the previous budget just continues. The budget sets the yearly amount for each department and it runs on until another budget changes how much everyone gets. Sometimes a new department gets created, sometimes something is abolished. Everyone gets their salary and services run on.…

Really, every other country? Even Somalia, North Korea, or Venezuela? I find that often when people criticize the US by saying "no other country has this problem!" they are mainly thinking of parliamentary democracies in Western Europe. It's true that the US system doesn't function as well as most European countries. It functions better than most countries in the world. Countries are on a spectrum of institutional co…

I would hope that the richest country in the world could endeavor to be better run than Somalia.

Re: US shutdown: Flight delays caused by staff shortages

#559

Post by mcintyre1994 »

zentiggr wrote: post #452
tomschlick wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly the last thing I want when we reach a budget impasse is for a full roster of rookie congressmen managing it. Thats ripe for abuse and you'd be getting rid of a lot of well seasoned people who know how to work around red tape to get things done and make deals.

For a well meant opposing viewpoint, flushing longer term congresspeople could mean the breaking of many lobbyist ties, shadow coalitions, and other impediments to reasonable progress. I've proposed before that campaign contribution amounts be publicized, and let people vote out the ones who have been too heavily 'bought'.

> I've proposed before that campaign contribution amounts be publicized

They are aren't they? opensecrets.org

Re: US shutdown: Flight delays caused by staff shortages

#560

Post by jessaustin »

sagarm wrote: post #509
jdhn wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I follow what's happening in the craft beer world, and some brewers are up in arms due to the fact that the government has to approve labels for all beers that are sold across state lines, or else they could potentially face career ending fines. How on earth did we get from a limited federal government to one that acts as a morality police for beer labels?

That's pretty clearly interstate commerce. Not sure what approval is required, but presumably it at least covers accurate labeling of ABV.

Are craft brewers not capable of measuring ABV? Is the bureaucratic approval of a label any guarantee of a particular ABV for beer bottled using that approved label? Lots of ridiculous BS is contained within an overbroad interpretation of interstate commerce.
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