Boat Jokes (we need a few laughs)

I dunno, Boston.

Your prejudice against Fords seems to be about as arbitrary as your stance that Douglas fir is complete garbage, and unfit for use in boats (or anything else)... in spite of the fact that many west coast lumber schooners were built out of the same Douglas fir they carried as cargo. Frames, planking, ceilings, floors, decks, superstructures, masts, spars, furniture....

 

Dougy was used cause it was really cheap and available in large sizes, still is, its qualities or lack thereof were secondary considerations. Call it what you will but I worked on a lot of Fords, they are probably the least dependable of all the American cars from what I've seen. Dougy on the other hand is what it is, cheap, plentiful and economically viable as a building material. If your doing fine woodwork, no, if your slap dashing a lumber/cargo hauler together as the low bidder, sure.

 

This is supposed to be a Joke thread -- and we keep hijacking it.

First of all, your knowledge of economics, finance, and law has been exposed. Had GM and Chrysler gone into bankruptcy they would not have gone away -- any more than K-Mart or Sears went away -- it would simply have meant that there were new owners. New owners capable of renegotiating contracts.

This administrations action was not about putting the company "back on it's feet" -- it was about supporting the unions that support the administration and making certain that their contracts were not renegotiated. Read that correctly -- even the union bosses don't really give a **** about the worker -- they want their salaries, and the politicians they court want the tribute the unions confiscate from the workers.

It is egregious that the government did not allow bankruptcy law to challenge the ownership and stewardship of these great companies.

If I had a joke to add, I would. Sorry.

 

I'm a little on the fence about the unions these days, Troys presented a pretty good argument over the last few years. Some good stuff, some bad, but the point is I don't think the unions were the only reason Detroit got bailed out. It was at least in part a ruse, a pretense to express concern for the American worker when in fact it was the failed policies of both parties which have caused the crisis in the first place.

if anyone wants to count my opinion as a joke
then I guess I posted on the right thread

 

OK. It's a joke, but I'm not laughing. The unions were the only reason GM and Chrysler did not go through the standardized, conventional, and constitutional process of reorganization.

Nothing personal, but I'm stunned at the illiteracy in economics that drifts into the boat design forums. This isn't rocket science -- it can easily be understood by reading Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell or Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt. Either one will greatly enrich the life of the reader -- and they will look a lot less uninformed.

 

ahahahaaha something about directness that has its place, OK I have a couple of new books to go pick up, but simply because I don't see unions as the major player in the corporate oligarchy doesn't mean I'm not well versed in economics. It just means that I don't subscribe to the same philosophy as the authors or professors yoru familiar with. The banksters or other Wall Street criminals weren't involved in any unions yet they made off with hundreds of billions intended to get the lending markets opened up again yet that cash went to the consolidation of the banking system. Hell we are worse off now than before. Fewer larger corporate megalopolies and even less diversity within the system. We've got derivatives up the *** and an energy sector thats got everyone bent over a barrel ( the joke part of this rant ). Deal is if your going to try and blame it all on a union you just as blind to the rest of it as you think we are to the issues of organized labor/voting block.

 

UAW stands for "U AIN'T WORKING!!!!!!!!"

Did you know that Union people built the pyramids? It was originally designed as a cube. Each shift did a little less till the last said 'throw a rock on top and lets go home'.

Jesus and a Union Guy

Two managers and a union worker were fishing on a lake one day, when Jesus walked across the water and joined them in the boat. When the three astonished men had settled down enough to speak, the first guy asked humbly, "Jesus, I've suffered from back pain ever since I took shrapnel in the Vietnam war...could you help me?" "Of course, my son", Jesus said, and when he touched the man's back, he felt relief for the first time in years. The second man, who wore very thick glasses and had a hard time reading and driving, asked if Jesus could do anything about his eyesight. Jesus smiled, removed the man's glasses and tossed them in the lake. When they hit the water, the man's eyes cleared and he could see everything distinctly. When Jesus turned to heal the union worker, the guy put his hands up and cried defensively, "Don't touch me! I'm on long term disability."

 

I owned lots of Fords when I was young and naive. I kept believing the words of the auto magazines that would give them auto-of-the-year awards and assuring me all their previous problems had been dealt with. They just got worse and worse. Then I went to Toyotas; bit of an eye-opener regarding reliability. These days I drive only Chevies, just as reliable as the Toys and cheaper than the Fords and less rust than either of them. I did have a brief flirtation with a Chrysler and I don't even want to talk about that . . .

 

You're wrong; they would have gone away; only a few units of each company would've been saved (such as Chrysler's Jeep unit). For every Kmart that gets bought out and restructured, there are a dozen other companies that just shut down. Every heard of Zodys? I remember when you could find them all over the place.

Wrong again, on several counts. The union's contracts were renegotiated--several times, both before and after the bailouts. The unions made serious concessions. And if the automotive industry bailouts were just a scheme to benefit Obama, I'm at a loss to understand why George 'Dubya' Bush started them....

Your ridiculous rant about unions is blind, hateful partisanship; you obviously know nothing about them. I do, since I happen to be a minor union officer myself . I'm an area chairman for my local, and a member of the executive board--because I care about my fellow workers, not because I'm getting rich off the twenty five bucks a month the union pays me.

Jeez... how many times can you be wrong in just one post? Are you going for some sort of record? Both companies did go into bankruptcy, and serious changes were made in management.

edit: OK, I'll back up a little. Apparently you aren't claiming the bankruptcy proceedings didn't happen; you're just claiming they were skewed towards the unions.
That's become a standard Republican talking point. Since they can't claim the bailouts didn't work, they're scraping the barrel and claiming they were 'unfair' to investors because the workers didn't get screwed as badly as they usually do.

I'm not up on the details; it may be true. If it is, good for Obama. It's about damn time somebody in our government started giving a crap about what's happening to working people, instead of giving all their attention to rich donors.

Like a lot of anti-union people, you seem to visualize a union as a handful of thugs sitting in the back room of a saloon somewhere, drinking whiskey and smoking big cigars while they divvy up their loot. That isn't what a union is. A union is its members--just like this country is 300 million American citizens, instead of just being a bunch of suits running around Washington DC.

The United Auto Workers union has almost a million active and retired members. I should be complaining because the Obama administration actually lifted a finger to help out a million workers and their families? I don't think so.

I'm getting a little tired of hearing about how it's the greedy unions who are destroying America. Between 1995 and 2005, average corporate profits in America rose 106%. Average CEO pay rose 298.2%--and the average American worker's pay rose only 4.3%. That wasn't even enough to keep up with inflation, which was 3.39% in 2005 alone. That means the average American worker effectively took pay cuts for ten years. Meanwhile the companies they work for were becoming steadily more profitable, and executive pay was skyrocketing.

I'm not talking about just unions taking it in the shorts here; it's happening to the entire work force. And unions are the only organized force even trying to fight it.... if they lose, everybody loses as we turn into a third-world work force. Don't let anti-labor propagandists and spinmeisters convince you that working-class pay is a zero-sum proposition. Don't believe them when they claim that everytime someone gets a raise, it means someone else has to get paid less or get fired.

 

You're presenting yourself as the informed voice on boatdesign? The guy who blames everything in the world on evil union bosses? OK, that's a joke....

Tell me: where does the Constitution address bankruptcy?

 

I think you'd be surprised at how much American-made cars have improved over the years, Kayaker.

 

I am surprised, the Chev IS surprisingly good, and when it needs something done - which isn't often - the job is usually cheaper than I expect. For 30 years before I changed to Chevs I got entirely different surprises from Ford and Chrysler, not the kind I hoped for.

 

After a Beer Festival in London, all the brewery presidents decided to go out for a beer.

Corona's president sits down and says, "Señor, I would like the world's best beer, a Corona." The bartender takes a bottle from the shelf and gives it to him.

Then Budweiser's president says, "I'd like the best beer in the world, give me 'The King Of Beers', a Budweiser." The bartender gives him one.

Coors' president says, "I'd like the best beer in the world, the only one made with Rocky Mountain spring water, give me a Coors." He gets it.

The guy from Guinness sits down and says, "Give me a Coke." The other brewery presidents look over at him and ask, "Why aren't you drinking a Guinness?" and the Guinness president replies, "Well, if you guys aren't drinking beer, neither will I."

 

A Scotsman is sitting in a bar in Cuba and is minding his business when a man with a large black beard walks in. The man goes to the bar and orders a shot of whisky. The bartender serves him, the man drinks the whisky then starts walking out the door. The bartender says, "Hey aren't you going to pay for that?" The man says, "Excuse me, Castro's Army." The bartender says, "Alright then" and the man leaves.

A few minutes later another man with a large black beard walks in. The man goes to the bar and orders a shot of whisky. The bartender serves him, the man drinks the whisky then starts walking out the door. The bartender says, "Hey aren't you going to pay for that?" The man says, "Excuse me, Castro's Army." The bartender says "Alright then" and the man leaves.

The Scotsman gets an idea and walks up to the bar and orders a shot of whisky. He drinks the whisky then starts walking out the door. The bartender says, "Hey aren't you going to pay for that?" The Scotsman says, "Excuse me, Castro's Army." The bartender says, "Hey where is your big black beard?" The Scotsman thinks quickly. He lifts his Kilt and says, "Secret Service!"

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqTi0ZFDawY&feature=player_embedded