Ann the Teacher vs. Joe the Plumber?

English as a Second Language What do you want to talk about?
1

Why are Obama and McCain constantly referring to Joe the Plumber? Is it because they want to appeal to white male craftsmen who are in favor of the Iraq war? I mean why not use the phrase ‘Ann the teacher’ instead? The name ‘Ann’ has just one syllable as does ‘Joe’. Come to think of it, ‘Ann the teacher’ might not be a good choice because it sounds like ‘and the teacher’ which doesn’t make much sense, does it? So what alternatives would you suggest to replace ‘Joe the Plumber’?

Thanks,
Torsten[YSaerTTEW443543]

TOEIC listening, question-response: Didn’t you use to work in sales?[YSaerTTEW443543]

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Wow! So Joe the Plumber is getting international acclaim! I had no idea he was being discussed on a global scale.
The first time I heard about Joe the plumber (and, by the way, he is not a licensed plumber) was on the last McCain v. Obama debate. McCain is trying to reach out to the middle class. So he talks about Joe the plumber and how he’s been working for this guy for over 15 (I think he said 18 but I’m not sure and don’t want to give inaccurate information) and Joe wants to buy the business now owned by the guy for whom he is working. First, McCain claims that the business (assuming the owner wants to sell) will cost more than $250,000 and that Obama will tax Joe so much that he won’t be able to buy the business.
My fertile imagination can conjure up all sorts of responses to this. First, Obama had a pretty good response. He pointed out that Joe could have bought the business for less than that five years ago. Obama frequently asserts that 95% of small businesses make less than $250,000 a year (I assume this is net income) so under his proposed tax plan they would pay no additional tax. (Again, I’m not clear about whether he means additional taxes to what they’d pay now or additional taxes under his new plan. But the whole Joe the Plumber thing is ludicrous. Joe (if indeed that is his real name) (could it have been chosen based on the expression “average Joe” again, to appeal to the “common people”, the “middle class”?
I’m getting all tangled up in quotes and parentheses. My apologies. Sorry. (smile) Speaking of that, does the word “sorry” come from the word “sorrow”? While we’re on that subject (Don’t you love my great seques?) the word “sorry”, at least in American English, has taken on an additional meaning. It has become a negative term, an adjective, as in “that was a really sorry performance” or “What a sorry state our economy is in.”
Back to our “average Joe” the plumber who in truth is not licensed by any reputable trade guild, has become what is known as a “media hound”. He loves to play to the media. Initially, he may have been used by McCain as an example to get back at Obama. But he is certainly enjoying the notoriety and, should he actually want to buy that business, I imagine McCain would finance it, particularly in the unlikely event that he actually gets elected. (McCain, not Joe, though Joe might do as good a job and might make a more appealing politician than a successful plumber.
Joe the Plumber (the unlicensed plumber) is an image. He is a laughingstock, a man plucked from relative obscurity and pushed into the center of something he can not understand and I don’t believe anyone has any illusions that he is just an average guy that can’t afford to buy a lucrative business that he deserves by virtue of his years of hard work. After the election, Joe will once again fade back into the masses, a mere footnote in history. In some ways I pity him. But then, he may be raking in the dough (money) and he may be milking this for all its worth. Maybe McCain and/or his campaign organization) has already paid handsomely for Joe’s story.

Being a teacher myself, I doubt that “Ann, the teacher” would be analogous to Joe. For one thing, it is unlikely that said teacher would want to buy the school for which she is an employee unless it was a private school full of rich kids whose parents were willing to cough up generous amounts of tuition both to educate their children and to actually make a profit for the school that was doing it. There are charter schools; I know someone who owns one. But she’s not a teacher. She makes the business work because she’s a shrewd businesswoman and has nothing to do with the actual teaching. (She’s definitely not a “people person”.) Actually, I have done the “business” of teaching private music lessons. But I’m not a good businesswoman because my main goal is to impart knowledge and make a difference in the lives of those with whom I come into contact, to share whatever gifts, abilities or talents I have been given, and to make a modest living. (Hmm. Or would that be “humble living”?
Oh, yes. That humble pie thing. Pretty clever; I liked the essay. There’s another “pie” expression that used to be common but I haven’t heard it much lately. You may know it. It’s used when a person wants to indicate that something is not very difficult. It’s somewhat old-fashioned but might be found in literature. I might say something like, “That looks like such a complicated problem. How did you solve it so quickly?”
Answer: Oh, easy as pie." Sometimes, on rare occasions, I’ve even heard a combined expression, “Easy as pie in the sky”, though “pie in the sky” usually has the meaning you indicated, in my experience.

Back to the Joe the Plumber thing, I’ll change the teacher example.

So, maybe we could make it Sue the sales clerk who wants to buy the store in which she works (assuming it’s not a McDonald’s or some other large chain establishment). Our Sue, of course, doesn’t have to be licensed. She would do well to have a business background but if she wanted to buy the place and retire from sales, if she had enough money, she could hire consultants to manage all of the legal and financial aspects, promote her former co-workers to management positions and hire sales people at lower salaries, since she’d hire the ones just out of school or with no sales experience. Presumably, Joe the Plumber could do the same kind of thing. Maybe he’s tired of doing actual work and just wants to buy the business so he can hire other people to do it, leave big decisions to his newly appointed board of directors and live off his profits. Now that would truly be pie in the sky.
Personally, I think Joe the Plumber is a smoke screen, a distraction, a desperate attempt to bridge a gap, to grab the vote of the “average Joe” as McCain sees him/her (the average Joanne? i.e., Joanne the sales clerk") ? and since McCain has finally (possibly) figured out that attacking Obama outright and assigning negative labels to him isn’t going to cut it (work, achieve his objective) with that large block of undecided voters, he’s trying to appeal to them. I think anyone who buys into that, who thinks McCain is going to look out for the average worker who wants to buy a business, is deluding themselves. I wish McCain would stop insulting our collective intelligence! Until recently, Obama did not attack McCain directly, though he certainly could have. He and his running mate (who really does happen to have the name Joe, managed, I believe, to emerge with dignity and humanity. I think McCain started getting desperate when he realized that he couldn’t get into the White House simply on his war record. Noone would want to minimize the fact that McCain was a prisoner of war who went through horrible things. Certainly he served his country, and if he did break under torture, well, everyone has their breaking point. But, while he claims that Obama is preoccupied with the past (mistakes of the Bush administration, many of which McCain supported), McCain is doing a similar thing when he continually refers to his war record and insinuates that the fact that he was in the service in and of itself gives him the right and the qualifications to be commander in chief not only of the armed forces but of the entire nation. He has been a senator for 27 years. He made a comment that the next president “couldn’t learn on the job”, intimating that Obama, since he has been in the congress for a shorter period of time) would be doing just that. McCain can’t have it both ways. Obama certainly doesn’t have all of the answers and the way our government works, the president doesn’t have absolute power, no matter what Bush may think. (Sorry, sort of. I get a bit carried away with my keystrokes, don’t I?) (grin)
By the way, to quote a common phrase:
This is not a political commercial, nor is it a formal endorsement, nor am I being paid by the Obama campaign. But you broached the subject of Joe the Plumber. I just couldn’t resist. I was talking to someone today who said, “What if the guy had been a construction worker? What do you think they’d call him? Bob the Builder?” American audiences will get that but I should explain it. Bob the Builder is a character on a TV show, who teaches children lots of things including that it’s fine for both boys and girls to be “handymen”, to work with tools, hammers and nails and such, to work around the house in various capacities. Of course, there are now Bob the Builder toys and all of the trappings. But Bob the Builder, while he is a great role model and has made tons of money for his creator and the person who plays him on TV, is a children’s character. So my friend was intimating that Joe the Plumber was probably about on that level. This is no disrespect to either children or Bob the Builder. It’s just that Bob the Builder is not an actual person, (well, there are people named Bob, I’m sure who do build things) but he’s an image. So, I think, is Joe the plumber. Actually, I think they did a better image job with Bob the Builder.

Laura

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Obama told Joe to “spread the wealth” apparently… and given Obama’s Marxist tendencies (despite what he says, when is the last time a Democrat lowered taxes? I don’t buy Obama’s “plan” for one second), this likely means that obama would force higher taxes on people like Joe – punish his success-- and give that money to people to whom it does not rightfully belong. We need to fight Socialism, not increase it. Capitalism is the American Way – rights of property, incentives for businesses (the people who employ most of us), lower taxes, etc.

Obama’s “Change We Need” is a move far to the Left, and it doesn’t take a history major to explain what happens when you stop respecting financial liberty.

Unfortunately, many here are ignorant either of:

A) What Socialism entails – punishing success and rewarding sloth… creating an ever-increasing welfare state, high unemployment, higher prices, fewer businesses and, hence, fewer jobs. Why should I work? I am entitled to your money! That is the Socialist’s credo.

or

B)If they do know what Socialism is, they are unaware that Obama leans that way.

Many in America, helped by the fact that our mainstream media is largely pro-Obama and won’t refer to him in a derogatory fashion, have no clue of what his rule will likely represent. Maybe the RNC should run an ad showing him draped in a Soviet flag… that might wake up some people.

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So what do we need, given that Socialism is way too extreme? I have a few ideas, none of which are original:

  1. Higher lending standards/oversight. A person on a tight budget should not qualify for a $500,000 mortgage. It’s a nightmare waiting to happen. Loose lending is one major component of the housing crisis.

  2. Live within our means. Foreclosed home owners are also to blame – they bought homes they simply could not afford. And now the rest of us are paying for their math deficiencies, sense of entitlement (I deserve a big house too!), and/or covetous personalities.

  3. We must realize that we should have an equal opportunity to TRY to succeed, but that success itself is not guaranteed. Freedom is our pinnacle ideal, and if we are free to compete we are also free to rise or fall. Those who rise provide opportunities for those who fall or never try. That sums up the traditional mode of entrepreneurship and job creation in the United States. But hey, success is almost always earned. If we punish it, who will want it? And who then will create for others? So no, we are not entitled to other people’s money. This must be our attitude. Socialism destroys that spirit. We see it today – some seem to think they are owed.

  4. We must find a happy medium between globalization and protectionism. We need to keep enough jobs in the US to keep unemployment low. On the other hand, we cannot too strictly hinder stockholders’ control, for without stockholders companies would struggle mightily. The American workforce is expensive (thanks, unions!) but excellent. Intra-sector job relocation (my name for getting a job in the same or a similar field, but with a different company) and training for different jobs are important in helping those who are laid off. But the promise of globalization is too great to simply close our borders – lower prices, lower cost, and intercultural exchange are just three of the benefits. Anyhow, finding an acceptable balance is crucial.

  5. We must actually try to balance our budget. They always talk about it but it’s almost never accomplished. So which programs do we keep and which do we trim or cut? Good question. hehe

That’s enough. I’m tired (probably became obvious to the reader)

5

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To me, this whole “Joe the Plumber” thing is nothing but a desperate gimmick. The news today has it that good old “Joe the Plumber” is soon also to be “Joe the Author” and maybe even “Joe the Singer”. OMG. I can’t stand it. :roll:
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6

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It seems good old “Joe the Plumber” stood John McCain up at a rally today. Stay tuned, everybody. Joe may soon be plumbing the country music airwaves.
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Torsten, “Ann the teacher” would not even be a close equivalent to “Joe the plumber”.

In the US, teachers are government employees who almost all belong to a radical leftist labor union that uses members’ dues money without their permission in order to promote socialist causes. Most of them have worked in the public sector their whole lives, and are outrageously dumb about economics, as are most public sector employees. Since their salaries come from taxes, they are generally of the fallacious belief that high taxes create employment.

American plumbers are generally private entrepreneurs or work for a private entrepreneur and hope to become one themselves. They own businesses that employ people, and they have to worry about paying those people. They are acutely aware that heavy taxation hampers their ability to employ people, and it reduces their customers’ discretionary income, so that business opportunity shrinks.

Laura Bright doesn’t actually know what she’s talking about. As you can see in this video youtube.com/watch?v=vFC9jv9jfoA , the plumber, Joe Wurzelbacher, was thinking about buying a plumbing business that EARNS about $250,000 a year, not that costs $250,000 to buy. He asked Obama if it was true that his plan would increase taxes for businesses like that. Obama said that if his business made over that amount per year, his taxes would go up, so that he could give “tax cuts” to businesses smaller than that and to individuals. His entire answer made it clear that he has a plan to play Robin Hood and take money from people he thinks have too much and give it to other people. In that response he said that the threshold was $250,000. In other situations he’s said $200,000, and in still others, his running mate has said the threshold would be $150,000. (If history is any indication, the threshold will wind up being about $50,000.) In other statements Obama has made, it appears that he is planning to give “tax cuts” to people who don’t even pay any taxes. So he’s deliberately using the term deceptively.

It might be interesting to you that after the video with “Joe the plumber” made him famous – and embarrassed Obama – state employees who are activists for and heavy contributors to the Obama campaign began illegally probing Joe’s personal data to see if they could find any scandalous information to discredit him. You can read about that here: townhall.com/Columnists/Michelle … rs_records

The same thing is happening to a journalist who asked Joe Biden some difficult questions: youtube.com/watch?v=jxT0ELP7az0

By the way, Obama’s supporters made a big deal out of the fact that Joe isn’t a licensed plumber, but because up to now he has been the employee of a licensed plumber, he doesn’t legally need a license. If he acquires the business, he’ll need to get his license.

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Thank you for correcting what you think I said, that “I didn’t know what I was talking about”. First, I have been a teacher both in the public and in the private sector. I have run a teaching studio from my home. Both my husband and I own small, and I mean small, businesses.
It is true that in the private sector, an employee, such as a teacher, does not have to have a license if the private school does not require it. I know of people who have had licenses, such as social workers, who have chosen not to renew them because they wanted to do things their way without having to answer to a state run licensing bureau which might have questioned some of their “spiritual counseling” methods. They can choose to do that and Joe can certainly choose not to be licensed. Plumbing is one of those businesses where, whether he buys the business or not, he’ll probably always have a job.
Regarding unions, it is true that unions do not always represent what their rank and file members want. When my father worked for UPS he had to belong to the Teamsters Union. He had no choice. If he wanted to work for the company, part of the package was joining the union. I’ll grant you that the teamsters union had its major problems, not the least of which was involvement with organized crime. But I can tell you that the workers got great benefits, hard work was rewarded and, on the local level, it worked. Ideally, there are mechanisms by which the voices of laborers can be heard. In my grandfather’s day, unions were more like that. My grandfather was a shop steward and, contrary to media portrayals, the management of the small firm for which he worked actually did care about the employees. Unfortunately, Jamie, you are right that unions have become corrupt in some cases. In others, such as our local transit union where only 50% of the workers are in it, the union is a joke. They want to strike and they have a right to because the company that employs them is all about profit and the director cares nothing about the ridership, particularly the most vulnerable of the population, the disabled riders. Just as there can be abuse of power in unions, there can be worse abuses if the laborers have no way to organize and are denied basic rights. When unions were started, it was to correct labor practices which now would be considered unethical at best and illegal at worst. It is a patently ridiculous statement to say or even imply that all or most teachers belong to unions that are socialist.
I agree that Obama has not always been consistent in his statements. Show me a presidential candidate that is or that can really keep campaign promises. There are so many other factors that come into play. The president, thank Godk, does not have absolute power. Either way, it comes down to what people think will be the lesser of two undesirables. It generally is. Politicians, like business owners, are rarely truly forthcoming with their employees anymore.
So, Jamie, Obama proposes to tax large businesses more. In the debates, he does use the figure of $250,000. And, as far as I am aware, finding out whether a plumber is licensed or not does not constitute illegal probing to get personal information. That’s just exposing the truth. So why should McCain be afraid of that? The truth is that both major political parties, democrats and republicans, have engaged in highly illegal violations of privacy rights, often justifying what they do by cloaking it all under “national security” issues. Lately, I think the republicans have a pretty poor track record. At least the budget was actually balanced when the republicans took over. Even McCain knows how badly Bush and his administration have screwed things up and is trying to distance himself from that.
I don’t envy any politician. Our whole country has gotten so huge, so bureaucratic, so inefficient, that it is hard to put faith in any of them. But if all my friends who work in nonprofit agencies in the public sector are socialists, well, maybe that’s not such a bad thing. If business owners cared more about their employees as people with real needs, if they stopped trying to find every tax shelter they could, if they stopped farming out jobs overseas if they stopped putting profit ahead of people, then maybe there wouldn’t need to be unions.
I live in a state which is a “fire at will” state. So, our local transit company has told the union that if they strike, at least 20% of the workers will lose their jobs because the company has people waiting in the wings who are trained to step in to take those jobs. We’re not talking about management stepping up to the plate to fill in while negotiations continue. The most the union will get will be that some of the workers will be hired back, by seniority. The company has a huge surplus, though they don’t want the public to know that.
Now, we socialists, if you want to call public sector employees that, know that when the rich don’t care about the poor, the poor will eventually start to stand up for their rights. What Obama, I think, is trying to say is that the small percentage of the people that have the most wealth can afford to pay more taxes to help others. When tax cuts go to the wealthy, they don’t put the money back into helping their employees. It goes into lining their pockets. Dell is a good example. I know many people in this city who have worked or are working for Dell. The company treats the employees like dirt. they hire temps and keep them temps, on a string, without benefits, working insane hours a day, and maybe after a couple of years they might get hired permanently. Maybe. Or maybe the company will not hire them but will hire more temps, making the staff who are left even busier as they try to train the new temps who work awhile then don’t get hired permanently and so on. Bill Gates looks really good when he gives a bunch of his money away to worthy charities. But it’s a drop in the bucket compared to the amount he has. If his taxes get raised, do you really think it will matter that much?
I know there are problems with socialism. I know that many countries have very high tax rates to give the majority of the population the benefits they have. I know it’s not always as appealing as it looks. Nobody has all of the answers and I certainly do not claim to know all of the ramifications of what’s going on or how to fix it. Human nature being what it is, I know the Marxist ideal of a “classless society” the idea of true equality, will never exist. I am not an economist. But I do know more, Jamie, than I think you think I know.
Laura Bright

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Laura, please learn to make your points more concisely.

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Laura

If companies are made to pay the taxes Obama will try to levy on them, they’ll have to fire people. Businesses need all the money they can have in order to operate – to create, produce and market goods and services… to pay employees… etc. Harming businesses also hurts investors, consumers and workers – basically everyone. Even Joe Welfare, who does not work for nor invest in a company, will see the price of goods increase if we punish entrepreneurs/businesses.

As for workers’ rights, it is true that some conditions were deplorable when Upton Sinclair was writing. But since then things have generally greatly improved. I had to compete to get my job, and I work my tail off to keep it. I don’t have a union telling my employer that I get to take 3 hours of breaks each day (I heard such horror stories in biz school classes: 30 minutes on the job, 10 minutes off). Because I work under pressure to produce, I do produce effectively. I do so because my employment is at stake.

One could say, “Tom, you could find work elsewhere.” And while that might not be terribly easy, the point is right:

I do not own the company for which I work. Because I do not own it, I do not own the right to work there. I am free to seek employment anywhere, but I cannot demand that any single company hire me.

Unions were great when they truly protected workers in their work environments, but when they try to dictate to owners/stockholders how a business should be run, IMO that isn’t right. They go too far. They do not own those companies, so whatright do they have to dictate anything? Working for a specific company should be viewed as a privelege, not a right. If you own a piece of the company for which you work, I’d be more inclined to say you have a right to work there. But ownership must be respected.

Nobody comes to my house and tells me what to do in it. Nobody orders me to let him drive my car.

Property rights must be respected.

That doesn’t mean I think that the manager should be able to pour hot grease on the workers. hehe

I just don’t think employment should be taken for granted. It should be earned.

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Another thing I’ve noticed over the past 30 years – in industries that are not unionized – is that companies have to compete for the best workers, so they have to treat and compensate them well. If they don’t care about the quality of their goods or services, the companies can abuse their workers in any way the law will allow them to (which isn’t in very many ways), but they will have massive employee turnover and have to compete with companies that keep their workers happy.

A good illustration of the damage that labor unions can do is the situation of General Motors, Ford, Chrysler and Delphi. In the 1980s, the United Auto Workers union forced them to accept a deal in which workers who were no longer needed (whose jobs had been replaced by automation, etc.) were retained at full salary and benefits and merely reported to a “rubber room” every day to play cards, watch TV or do whatever they felt like doing. The companies were not allowed to fire them, so many of them never found gainful employment elsewhere. Some of them spent as long as 13 years getting their full salary for doing nothing, and this cost GM alone $750 million a year, which was one of many crippling expenses the union imposed on those companies.

The reality is that automation is going to replace a lot of people, and in many situations replacing a worker with a robot is the compassionate thing to do. No human being, in my opinion, should be working in a car factory’s paint shop if a robot can do the job. Nor, if a robot is available, should any human spend eight hours a day on his knees leaning backward sanding the floorboards of trucks. The car companies’ preferred approach to removing these workers was better than what the union forced them to do: They used to retrain the workers for jobs outside the company – even bringing professors into the plants – and after two years they would give the workers some severance pay and that would be it. This approach was good for everyone, because it eliminated unnecessary expense for the company, and it sent productive workers into dignified jobs in the general economy. Instead, the UAW forced everyone into a situation that was bad for all of them: The companies had to endure enormous expense to support people who lived with the indignity of being paid for nothing, and these workers did not fill positions in the general economy, even when there was a dire labor shortage.

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Tom, don’t forget that Americans have the right to all their property except their real estate. We don’t own our houses and land, but we pay a large up-front cost and then rent them from the local municipality. Anyone who doesn’t believe it should try not paying his property taxes for a year or two and watch himself get evicted.

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if that’s true, why are the municipal leaders in office? Why don’t they get a big middle finger from property owners and get booted from office?