China's growth: is it motivated by anti-labor or pro-business sentiment?
There can be no doubt that China's rise to economic superstardom was the result of a concerted effort by US economic and political elites for decades. Do you think that push to move manufacturing to china in the last few decades the 20th century was motivated more by a hatred of labor unions or driven by profiteering?
On Alex Berensen’s substack!
URGENT: A Southwest Airlines pilot explains why you will not hear anything about vaccine mandates from his union - and why Southwest has more flexibility than it admits to stand up to the White House Alex Berenson Oct 10 887 The pilot emailed following the first Southwest post today (and provided his SWA ID to prove his identity). He asked that I paraphrase the email. Essentially, the union cannot organize or even acknowledge the sickout, because doing so would make it an illegal job action. Years ago, Southwest and its pilots had a rough negotiation, and the union would not even let the pilots internally discuss the possibility of working-to-rule (which would have slowed Southwest to a crawl). But at the moment the pilots don’t even have to talk to each other about what they’re doing. The anger internally - not just among pilots but other Southwest workers - is enormous. The tough prior negotiations notwithstanding, Southwest has a history of decent labor relations, and workers believe the company should stand up for them against the mandate. Telling pilots in particular to comply or face termination has backfired. — Meanwhile, Southwest has more flexibility than it has acknowledged. Federal contracts represent about 3 percent of its revenue, but even the Biden administration CANNOT alter existing contracts (please note, I have not checked this, though it seems reasonable); Southwest is only at risk of losing future contracts. This pilot believes that the fact that the airlines received $25 billion in no-strings-attached cash for “payroll support” last year (as well another $25 billion in loans) has made them particularly reluctant to stand up to the Biden administration. Southwest’s CEO, Gary Kelly, may be in an especially tough spot since he is the head of the airline lobbying group. — Finally: This pilot says he loves Southwest and finds the crisis painful but feels that if this is the only way Americans can stand up to these mandates, then let the chips fall.
CNN’s Sanjay Gupta’s Sit-down with Rogan
I watched Sanjay Gupta’s chat with Joe. While I don’t agree with everything Rogan says, I think he’s sincere, respectful, empathetic, and has lots of great guests. I thought their conversation was refreshing, and potentially meaningful to the “BP movement.” (I also have reason to belive that Sanjay might be a viewer/ subscriber to BP, so this message is potentially also for the S-dog) 1- it was a great conversation, enjoyable to watch, despite an obviously tough back-story. Joe and Sanjay had an honest, extensive conversation, and then – hold onto your blue hair – they parted ways as mutually-respectful adults (with Sanjay realizing that Joe will almost certainly own his network at some point in the not-too-distant future). It was a pleasure, I’ll just say, I had multiple flashbacks to like 2006. 2- More importantly, the discussion was clearly a kind of marker for the industry and highly relevant for CNN in particular – it underscored the very real trend towards a decentralized, longer-form, sincerity- and facts-driven reporting/ podcasting format that this country so needs, and which I believe BP is helping to lead (… in contrast, of course, to the heavily commercial, low-IQ, didactic slop we’re accustomed to receiving from legacy news networks). In short: I thought highly of Sanjay for agreeing to do the podcast, highly of Joe for having him on, and especially happy for BP in terms of what the episode represented as a whole (… and only a little bad for Brian Stelter, that bald, performative windsock, who probably watched the episode while sitting alone in his dark, over-priced Manhattan apartment, because what the hell else is he doing when he’s not in Hair & Makeup?) - Ed