"In a field where an overlooked bug could cost millions, you want people who will speak their minds, even if they’re sometimes obnoxious about it."
You didn't get the memo from Dread? It was public servant unions that destroyed their own pension system. They negotiated, in good faith, with the jurisdiction and then the jurisdiction gambled with their pension funds and lost. It's clearly the fault of the public servant unions because they should have known better than to believe their employer would be judicious with their retirement funds.Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer
Faith is Hope (see Loki's sig for details)
If hindsight is 20-20, why is it so often ignored?
And public-sector collective bargaining protects everyone interested in employment opportunities how? Oh wait, it doesn't, it helps ensure those 3 years worth of recent graduates still don't have work, don't collect unemployment, etc.
Last night as I lay in bed, looking up at the stars, I thought, “Where the hell is my ceiling?"
I can't help but think this is simply you taking this personally because you've struggled to get a job. It's a recession, jobs are scarce. Once again, this is reality. Doesn't have to do with a "skew" in labor relations. Most new college graduates can't do what I do. But when the economy gets better, there will be plenty of jobs out there for lots of people. But long term there won't be many jobs if we're paying endless retiree pension benefits.You didn't get the memo from Dread? It was public servant unions that destroyed their own pension system. They negotiated, in good faith, with the jurisdiction and then the jurisdiction gambled with their pension funds and lost. It's clearly the fault of the public servant unions because they should have known better than to believe their employer would be judicial with their retirement funds.
Once again, salary isn't the issue here, it's benefits and pensions. Our states are on the hook for trillions in pension obligations they can't pay. The idea of a lifetime defined-benefit anything is garbage. This system must be dismantled before it devours all of us.
Ultimately this is also about what government is about. Is the role of government to endlessly tax to support its employees? Or is it to actually do things like build infrastructure, build a social safety net and enforce laws?
The choice is becoming one-or-the-other, which is why I fully support this jihad on collective bargaining for state workers. It's a relatively recent experiment and it's failed miserably, both for the taxpayers and the workers who were deluded by promises that couldn't be kept.
Who made the promises that can't be kept? It certainly wasn't the workers; they kept their promises. No, the promises that can't be kept were made by elected officials and their henchmen who don't care about breaking promises because if they loose the next election they will still get their government retirement along with healthcare paid by the smucks they lied to.
Faith is Hope (see Loki's sig for details)
If hindsight is 20-20, why is it so often ignored?
Really? You believe the government that couldn't manage workers funds should now be put in charge of dictating workers benefits? I'm part of that government so I say let's give them SNAP and tents as compensation for their labor.
Faith is Hope (see Loki's sig for details)
If hindsight is 20-20, why is it so often ignored?
The unions basically pay the politicians to make those promises. We have state constitutions that protect state employee pensions above the rights of bondholders and gay couples.Who made the promises that can't be kept? It certainly wasn't the workers; they kept their promises. No, the promises that can't be kept were made by elected officials and their henchmen who don't care about breaking promises because if they loose the next election they will still get their government retirement along with healthcare paid by the smucks they lied to.
You're complaining that the politicians are lying? They are promising what their union-backers are demanding they promise. The unions suffer from self-delusion and an outsized sense of their importance.
Oh really? Swatting at flies while the maggots are flourishing.
Faith is Hope (see Loki's sig for details)
If hindsight is 20-20, why is it so often ignored?
I think that collective bargaining primarily helps those already employed at the expense of employers and the unemployed. In fairness it also has usually helped the recently employed, but only for a fairly short while. I'm part of the unemployed, so I say if a pay or benefits cut allows people to at least keep earning some income, well, that's still better than I'm doing right now. You can bitch all you want about whose fault it is, the blame game doesn't do a damn thing for anyone.
Last night as I lay in bed, looking up at the stars, I thought, “Where the hell is my ceiling?"
Which does not mean that unions are always the answer... especially in the public sector. There should be more competition in the public sector (ie: for teachers), especially with bajillions of teachers out of work who can't get in because currently employed poor teachers aren't fired...
Anyway.... at least, you know, those teachers have jobs to worry about, unlike 20%+ of the population..
SNAP and tents for all then...oh, and enough to pay some tax. But when they retire it's just SNAP and tents. The blame-game is important when you villify the victims rather than the perpetrators.
Faith is Hope (see Loki's sig for details)
If hindsight is 20-20, why is it so often ignored?
Skewed in favor of the employer? Right now yes but in boom times it is skewed in favor of the employee. Remember no employee is forced to stay working but depending on the state, city and type of job some employers must keep employees employed even if it no longer benefits them.
Miles and miles of regulation protect employees from employers but few protect employers from employees.
If we had campaign finance reform, legislators wouldn't be stroking public unions OR corporations with deep pockets.Who made the promises that can't be kept? It certainly wasn't the workers; they kept their promises. No, the promises that can't be kept were made by elected officials and their henchmen who don't care about breaking promises because if they loose the next election they will still get their government retirement along with healthcare paid by the smucks they lied to.
Depends on how the reform is tilted. We recently witnessed reform from the bench that went the other way and made the pockets not only deeper but annonymous as well. But I understand your point and I agree.
Faith is Hope (see Loki's sig for details)
If hindsight is 20-20, why is it so often ignored?
You realize that unions are reaping the greatest bonanza from Citizens United, right?
Snippet from a David Brooks column which I disagree with, but which also frames the issue well.
Walker’s critics are amusingly Orwellian. They liken the crowd in Madison to the ones in Tunisia and claim to be fighting for democracy. Whatever you might say about Walker, he and the Republican majorities in Wisconsin were elected, and they are doing exactly what they told voters they would do. It’s the Democratic minority that is thwarting the majority will by fleeing to Illinois. It’s the left that has suddenly embraced extralegal obstructionism.
Still, let’s try to put aside the hyperventilation. Everybody now seems to agree that Governor Walker was right to ask state workers to pay more for their benefits. Even if he gets everything he asks for, Wisconsin state workers would still be contributing less to their benefits than the average state worker nationwide and would be contributing far, far less than private sector workers.
The more difficult question is whether Walker was right to try to water down Wisconsin’s collective bargaining agreements. Even if you acknowledge the importance of unions in representing middle-class interests, there are strong arguments on Walker’s side. In Wisconsin and elsewhere, state-union relations are structurally out of whack.
That’s because public sector unions and private sector unions are very different creatures. Private sector unions push against the interests of shareholders and management; public sector unions push against the interests of taxpayers. Private sector union members know that their employers could go out of business, so they have an incentive to mitigate their demands; public sector union members work for state monopolies and have no such interest.
Private sector unions confront managers who have an incentive to push back against their demands. Public sector unions face managers who have an incentive to give into them for the sake of their own survival. Most important, public sector unions help choose those they negotiate with. Through gigantic campaign contributions and overall clout, they have enormous influence over who gets elected to bargain with them, especially in state and local races.
As a result of these imbalanced incentive structures, states with public sector unions tend to run into fiscal crises. They tend to have workplaces where personnel decisions are made on the basis of seniority, not merit. There is little relationship between excellence and reward, which leads to resentment among taxpayers who don’t have that luxury.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/22/opinion/22brooks.html
I hate (love) David Brooks. He always seems to make sense, even when I disagree with him.
And I'm dissapointed with you for leaving out a poignant piece of his analysis,
Yet I think Governor Walker made a strategic error in setting up this confrontation as he did. The debt problems before us are huge. Even in Wisconsin they cannot be addressed simply by taking on the public sector unions. Studies done in North Carolina and elsewhere suggest that collective bargaining only increases state worker salaries by about 5 percent or 6 percent. That’s not nearly enough to explain current deficits. There are many states without collective bargaining that still face gigantic debt crises.
...
Moreover, the constitution must emphasize transparent evaluation. Over the past weeks, Governor Walker increased expenditures to pump up small business job creation and cut them on teacher benefits. That might be the right choice, but if voters are going to go along with choices such as these, there is going to have to be a credible evaluation process to explain why some things are cut and some things aren’t.
Faith is Hope (see Loki's sig for details)
If hindsight is 20-20, why is it so often ignored?
Did someone mention Citizens United?
Continued @ http://www.theworldforgotten.com/new...0386&noquote=1WASHINGTON — Among the thousands of demonstrators who jammed the Wisconsin State Capitol grounds this weekend was a well-financed advocate from Washington who was there to voice praise for cutting state spending by slashing union benefits and bargaining rights.
The visitor, Tim Phillips, the president of Americans for Prosperity, told a large group of counterprotesters who had gathered Saturday at one edge of what otherwise was a mostly union crowd that the cuts were not only necessary, but they also represented the start of a much-needed nationwide move to slash public-sector union benefits.
“We are going to bring fiscal sanity back to this great nation,” he said.
What Mr. Phillips did not mention was that his Virginia-based nonprofit group, whose budget surged to $40 million in 2010 from $7 million three years ago, was created and financed in part by the secretive billionaire brothers Charles G. and David H. Koch.
State records also show that Koch Industries, their energy and consumer products conglomerate based in Wichita, Kan., was one of the biggest contributors to the election campaign of Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, a Republican who has championed the proposed cuts.
Even before the new governor was sworn in last month, executives from the Koch-backed group had worked behind the scenes to try to encourage a union showdown, Mr. Phillips said in an interview on Monday.
Because you know, political speech must be suppressed...
Sure they would, they'd just be stroking for non-monetary contributions. Of which organized manpower is probably the most useful, and something unions provide better than just about anyone else.
Last night as I lay in bed, looking up at the stars, I thought, “Where the hell is my ceiling?"
It would be better than what we have now----the ability to "buy" special treatment from law makers, based on who contributed money to their election.
Opening that can of worms again, eh. Well, money is not speech.
Faith is Hope (see Loki's sig for details)
If hindsight is 20-20, why is it so often ignored?
Au contraire mon ami, money IS speech, and it IS power. SCOTUS gave its blessings.
Question is.....is that how we want our nation to operate?
Last edited by GGT; 02-23-2011 at 10:53 AM.
Judging by the early morning news, Walker doesn't have much support from other GOP Governors for what he's trying to do (bust public unions). The teachers and prison guards have already conceded the financial concessions asked---to pay more for their health care and pensions. So why is he hanging onto the ban on public unions? His election campaign didn't mention busting unions. And he didn't make the same requirements for police or fire fighters.
Maybe some political wonks gave him bad advice, and he refuses to compromise because he keeps listening to the same wonks?
Because he, and others, believe that public unions are bad for the government in general, and now is as good a time as any to get rid of them?
It's literally not better -- unions have historically contributed enormous amounts of ground troops for elections. In New York, the building worker's union contract has specific clauses for their unions to leave the job and work on electoral get-out-the-vote operations.
Pulling this quote from elsewhere
What sort of person does not think there is anything wrong with asking the folks that are tasked with teaching our children to take a 20% cut on a 50,000 annual salary, but think it’s terrible idea to asked millionaires to pay an additional 3% more in taxes?
"In a field where an overlooked bug could cost millions, you want people who will speak their minds, even if they’re sometimes obnoxious about it."
And what kind of governor or legislature would think it's a good idea to extend the Bush tax cuts, after the worst recession since the Great Depression, while fighting TWO wars.....and then ask the middle class teachers to make sacrifices that the wealthy won't? I thought this was supposed to be about shared sacrifice.
What a load of claptrap OG.
It is millionaires who single-handedly almost bankroll the state. But continue closing your eyes to reality and try and strangle the goose that lays the golden eggs, that will show them.
Not when you consider tax to wealth they don't. And then consider the marginal worth of tax to taxpayers quality of life. Your view is very narrow-minded.
Faith is Hope (see Loki's sig for details)
If hindsight is 20-20, why is it so often ignored?
I was going to say it another way. Millionaires may make themselves or others wealthy, but they don't necessarily create jobs. And they definitely don't "bankroll the state".
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