Sat 20 Jun 2009
Card Check
Posted by David under Jim Cramer, P '13 at 6:22 am
Jim Cramer, P ‘13, argues that card check is the most important issue facing US companies.
Best line: “Look for the union label and sell!”
Print • Email| « Aidan’s Way | Cleveland Clinic on CNN » |
15 Responses to “Card Check”
Leave a Reply
You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post
If a comment you submitted does not show up, please email us at eph at ephblog dot com. Please note that commenters are required to use a valid email address when submitting comments.
Anon 89er says:
God forbid anyone other than corporate insiders and media stars make a decent living. Wall Street uber alles.
One of the union member technicians keeping that show on the air ought to splice some of Cramer’s more outrageous statements into his next anti-unionists screeds. Either that or drop a light on Joe’s head.
You would think that business leaders taking unions seriously was a bad thing…
frank uible says:
I have a long term business plan – (1) weakly knuckle under to one’s unions and (2) then when the costs of one’s business make one uncompetitive, go to Congress [a] for trade protection and [b], if that doesn’t work, for a bailout and, [c] if that doesn’t work, for another bailout and [d[, if that doesn’t work, for bailouts ad infinitum. Ain’t American commerce great – one doesn’t have go to the nasty inconvenience of working hard to provide a good product to the world at a good price?
rory says:
so….we’ve got a conundrum coming up for ephblog.
Jim Kramer, for better or worse, is now “all things eph”. but god knows, he says enough controversial things, gets profiled, says enough politically loaded things that “all things eph” could easily become “all things Jim Kramer”.
I don’t want that to happen. what do we do?
nuts says:
Jim Kramer is not an Eph, he is a Harvard man and a pioneer in financial infotainment. It is his daughter who is an Eph. Let’s not post articles about dad here on all things Eph. If I were a student on campus now, that is what I would want. Please feel free to argue the contrary. If Mr Kramer makes news as a guest on campus or on a topic directly related to campus life, college endowments or careers that would be another matter. Is check card related to all things Eph? …What the topic of this post?
sophmom says:
I completely agree with “nuts”. We need to draw the line somewhere out of respect for the daughter, and his criteria is good.
lgeorge says:
I agree with nuts on this. Let’s not highlight Kramer lightly, as it may make the Williams experience uncomfortable for his daughter. Yeah, people may know who her father is, but they don’t need to be reminded of it (or of the controversies he gets into)all the time here, where we concentrate on Williams.
I know people have different views about this, but I, personally, would prefer for Ephblog to stick to “All Things Eph” and for the connection to be stronger than it is with this post. On a separate, but related, topic, for some of the same reasons (but this one has the added concern about an entering Eph), I also don’t think general threads about politics, for example, belong here (I know: we’ve already had that debate) and I just don’t read them, as I look here for “All Things Eph” and elsewhere for other subjects.
Ronit says:
I think we’ll be fine as long as authors continue to try to exercise good judgment. There is no need for a hard and fast rule defining what belongs on EphBlog and what doesn’t. I would suggest that authors put non-Eph-related political (and other) ranting under the “More” separator, with a brief intro above it.
JeffZ says:
I do agree that the parent of a current student is in a different category and that we should avoid posting about him — the points above make sense to me. I for one (if I have in the past, I’m not sure) will not post news stories, or make comments about news stories, about Cramer or anyone else who is the parent of a current student.
lgeorge says:
I’ll take that pledge with Jeff.
I’ll throw in room for a possible exception for where the person speaks publicly in her or his role as the parent of a Williams student or comes to speak at Williams because he or she is a Williams parent, or something along that line. I think nuts captured what I’m thinking of when he said, above: “If … [the parent] makes news as a guest on campus or on a topic directly related to campus life, college endowments or careers … [or something like that,] that would be another matter.”
Ronit, I agree that a hard and fast rule wouldn’t be good here as it is a situation that calls for discretion. I just hope people will use good judgement.
rory says:
and to respond to the “look for the union label and sell”…
that’s one of the single dumbest lines i’ve heard in a long time (as the first comment points out, the stage crew of MSNBC is unionized. GE, which owns NBC, is unionized). This canard that unionized corporations are the ones failing has been disproven quite clearly just a week or two ago. This posting is weeks behind and actually is an embarrassment to this tangential eph.
here are some fun links on that: http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/06/sorkin-i-apologize-for-flip-unscripted-comments.php?ref=fpblg
http://mediamatters.org/blog/200906030009
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/06/hoffa-sorkin-and-morning-joe-show-complete-failure-to-understand.php#more
http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/06/morning-joe-crew-cant-name-a-single-successful-unionized-firm.php
there was a great list on TPM of unionized companies that are profitable in this economy, but it appears to be a dead link now, unfortunately.
frank uible says:
Rory, is it okay to put you down for a “no” vote on the suggested pledge?
rory says:
i didn’t see the comment part of the pledge…i’ll follow from now on.
Vermando '05 says:
I tend not to mind it when David beats dead-horses that comes from the Williams stable. This one I don’t find to be our breed.
kthomas says:
I’d prefer if any current students are spared the situation of having their parents’ views discussed “by parents’ name” in this forum, when there is no particular connection to Williams that goes through the parent, when the “hook” is purely an empty formal gesture, when we could darn well discuss the issues on their own merits (the discussion itself being a “thing, Eph”); and/or when there may be reason for reference to the ‘parent,’ that reference could be an aside or otherwise well-done instead of “half-baked.”
*Strongly prefer…
nuts says:
I think we could and should follow up on this idea and have an Eph discussion about card check. We could debate what the law saws and the predicted effect. Here’s a primer, the accuracy of which I cannot attest.