Roe v. Wade

That it's a conspiracy to control wages.

Every employer I’ve worked for has claimed that they base their wages on a survey of the prevailing wages for a job. We know that big tech companies have conspired to prevent them from poaching workers from each other (thus helping to keep wages low), so yeah. It’s a thing.

The existence of a conspiracy to keep wages low is not justification for saying this is a conspiracy to keep wages low.

Corporations luv abortions. Less expensive and safer than childbirth, plus the employee, male or female, is more productive without children to distract them.

I wouldn't call it "a" conspiracy to keep wages low, because in the case of business surveys, it's not secret, they're quite open about it. It's a standard business practice, and, AFAIK, not illegal. Now, the shit Apple, Google, etc. got caught doing? That was secret and very much illegal. But between the two of them, they have the same result: Keeping wages low. One's illegal, one's not. (Nor do I think that there's any way one can justify banning companies from doing wage surveys.)

One of the things that I've noticed as I've dug into the history of Preston Tucker is that all the evidence as to if there was a conspiracy against him isn't strong enough to pin down if there was one or if there wasn't, with any kind of certainty. It's entirely possible that there was one, and it's entirely possible that there wasn't. As it stands now, the following possibilities are equally valid:
1.) Preston wasn't good enough at business to make it a success.
2.) Preston didn't have enough money to pull it off.
3.) The Big Three did conspire against Tucker.
4.) Senator Homer Ferguson (who was alleged by many of his contemporaries on both sides of the aisle) to be the Big Three's bitch initiated everything that led to Preston's downfall on his own initiative because he knew it was the kind of thing that the Big Three would want.
5.) The way the US economy worked back then (and to some extent today), the deck was simply stacked against anyone who tried to break into the market, no active measures by any of the parties suspected of conspiring against Tucker were needed or happened. It's just that unless you were someone who was willing and able (Kaiser was able to throw Big Three money around, he just wasn't willing) to throw that kind of money around, you weren't going to survive.

All of those things are basically in superposition because the evidence I've been able to track down hasn't been enough to tilt the field definitively in one direction or another. But except for option three, there's no deliberate conspiracy involved, though it can appear that way to an objective observer. How many other things in this world are similar? You know, where it looks like someone deliberately planned something when in reality it just happened by chance.

So, are corporations deliberately wanting to ban things like abortion to ensure that there's a steady supply of cheap labor? I don't know. Are there things that indicate companies want cheap labor and are willing to do anything to get it? So, perhaps they're not consciously trying to ban abortion, but the other policies they push for cause abortion to be banned as a side-effect. After all, what group is most likely to want to pass whatever laws companies want? Republicans. What group wants to ban abortion in all cases? Republicans. What matters most to the people running corporations? That they can do whatever they want with no consequences. Which do you think has a higher priority on their lists? Protecting abortion access or being able to do whatever they want?

I think the "keeping wages low" thing was in response to the sudden interest from the right in doing away with no-fault divorce, not in reference to abortion.

Although I think the attacks on no-fault divorce are coming from the "must punish women because they're all evil bitches" flank of the party, and I can't really see a connection to corporate interests. (If anything, divorce probably increases the number of people in the workforce. Although divorced people may be less likely to accept low wages than married people, simply because they can't afford to. Nonetheless, any link there seems tenuous. Like @Order2Chaos said, just because there are organized efforts to keep wages low doesn't mean that every piece of stupidity that comes out of the right wing is part of those efforts.)

You're just asking questions, right, Joe?

I would immediately discount any organized conspiracy by big business to restrict abortion to get a more favourable labor pool 15+ years from now because that would require them focusing any anything beyond the next quarter.

I'll take, "Somebody Who Doesn't Have First-Hand Experience With Crushing Poverty" for $100, LeVar. A lot of times, especially after a divorce, you don't care what a job pays, you'll take it because you have to have money coming in. You don't have any savings, so you take it. Women are also traditionally paid a lot less than men, so the odds of them landing a job that enables them to enjoy the kind of standard of living they had when they were married are a lot less.

But we're getting into the way our impressions of history color the reality of what actually happened back then. It's a myth that women never worked outside of the home until fairly recently. It's just that prior to then, very few types of jobs were open to women. Plenty of women worked outside of the home in one fashion or another. Sometimes it was in a real job, such as being a waitress or a teacher, and other times it was informal jobs, like cleaning houses. But because those women were largely ignored by society, we don't have much of an impression of them.

Now, the corporations probably don't give a shit about no-fault divorce, but the politicians who support giving corporations whatever they want, do. And because being able to do what they want is more important than anything else to them, they happily fund those politicians.

No, FF, I'm trying to have a serious discussion on the topic. You should try it sometime.

Asking stupid questions?

Then, please, grace us with your wisdom, oh Boomer who seems to know so little about the modern world.

Already did. Bailey too.

I think Jenee was referring more to society in general, but I don't think birthing cheap labor is a motivation for anyone to restrict abortion..

It’s hardly a conspiracy when corporations are doing it outright. And have been doing so since before the US even existed. It’s just the way the world works. The expansion and acknowledgement of the existence of a middle class was due to the plagues between the late 1300 and early 1600s. There were so many previous positions available so people were able to change jobs and work for someone who will pay more. With more disposable income, people were able to buy things like pre made bread. Bakeries sprang up out of no where. Guy who worked for a blacksmith was now able to open his own shop. The last three years with covid has shown people they don’t need to work for minimum wage paying positions. Many people are turning to alternative lifestyles (van life, etc.). This is why there was a big push for getting rid of Roe V Wade and propaganda against no fault divorce. When women have options, the wealthy lose the wage battle.

Call it a conspiracy if you want stick your head in the sand. Don’t worry, some wealthy person will be along shortly to …

Why do you think guys like Elmo are worried about "declining birth rates"? I mean, there's plenty of countries that have much higher birth rates than we do that we could allow to immigrate to the US to handle the fact that people who've been in this country for a generation or more are having fewer babies, but well, you know, they're the wrong color. And those folks are often far more willing to work for shit wages than Americans are, so why not encourage immigration if you want cheap labor?

There's a big difference between what some individual wealthy people and politicians might think and larger corporate pushes.

There are certainly politicians who would think that way.

It’s not a “corporate push” or even a …”omg, we need more poor people”. It’s just a ‘this is the way it is”.

Fewer consumers. They're quite happy sending the work to countries with cheap labor.

https://x.com/WUTangKids/status/1702423960758136932?s=20

And even if we allow more people to move to the US, those countries will still be filled with cheap labor. They'll also be able to buy stuff, thanks to their relatives living in developed nations like the US sending money back home.

https://bsky.app/profile/gbbranstetter.bsky.social/post/3kcldr33awr2e

Janet Mills just signed a bill that makes Maine super-abortion-y.
Come on up to Vacationland!

About 48 years too late.

capitalism.. it always drifts back to enslavement/indenturement.

"you'll work harder
with a gun in your back
for a bowl of rice a day..."

https://apnews.com/article/election...sinformation-6b870f06abe5d70e8aa0a535b2e9dd1a

Although it's obviously way too early to know anything, an Ohio exit poll suggests the abortion rights measure has a good chance of passing.

Particularly noteworthy is the age breakdown:



The anti-abortion side is getting slaughtered among younger voters. Which, of course, will not stop the New York Times from running breathless trend stories about the "new pro-life generation" every time they see more than one 19-year-old at an Operation Rescue protest.

ABORTIONS AND WEED FOR EVERYBODY!

Abortion rights are winning by a 12-point margin.