Flash Back! This reminds me of the good old days when we built this great country. People made things and those things were sold, what a concept. Unions took kids out of the work force. Unions gave us the 5 day, 40 hour work week. Unions saw to it that people could afford the things that they were making and this expanded the market. Unions gave workers protection from bosses that didn't like certain people because of their look or color or where they were raised or went to school.
This modern race to the bottom that only seems to serve the the people that no longer work for a living, those that sit by the pool and get their dividend check, those people that make nothing but only pay 15 percent on their unearned income, blame their problems on the unions. They need to look more at the international bankers, hedge funds, international treaties that remove tariffs, and trillion dollar wars. Oh wait, those things are working well for these special people.
Never mind that an entire ocean or more are being destroyed by an international corporation that has no moral compass and owes nothing to anyone other than their share holders.
Never mind the fact that your job has been shipped overseas by Carly Fiorina and other CEO's that would stop at nothing to make a buck.
Never mind that those same people or corporations, (it's hard to tell them apart these days) , use our roads, skies, rivers, oceans, courts, police, and commons and don't want to pay for it. Internalize profits and externalize losses is their standard operational procedure.
Make war where convenient and drill baby drill. Screw the old USA, we're billionaires against unions!
Unions aren't what they should be but they have to adapt to international corporations owned by international banksters and they have adapted as best they could.
A trillion dollars is a thousand billion. That's how much money Iraq and Afghanistan have cost us as of last Sunday. A billion dollars is a thousand million.
One has to ask themselves, are the unions and their few billion dollars really doing that much damage to the international banksters and warmongers and their trillions to attack their collective bargaining?
Are the people that go to work every day, make things and provide services really the ones to blame for our problems?
Ask BP. According to Mike Papantonio, a lawyer and host of Ring of Fire radio show, BP is hiring Mexicans to do clean up work in the Gulf of Mexico. Even when international corporations are destroying the way of life for millions of US citizens and an entire ecosystem, they choose to hire foreign labor to avoid paying honest Americans a living wage.
Unions of themselves are not the problem, they are a symptom.
Tom, one thing to be clear of regarding my distrust, dissatisfaction, and disappointment in is the PUBLIC EMPLOYEE UNIONS. Private unions will bankrupt themselves given enough time and power (assuming we stop bailing them out). PUBLIC EMPLOYEE UNIONS have hit taxpayers hard with their extremely generous retirement packages and, in most of Ca., their sizeable salaries. Traditionally, public employees were paid lower salaries than their private sector counter parts. But there was an equitable tradeoff: public employees had more job security and better pensions while the private sector had NO job security, NO pension, but higher wages. That tradeoff is missing in Ca. A Caltrans survey technician makes around $80K per year and will receive 90% of that salary for the rest of their life depending on their years of service. In the private sector, that same technician will likely make $60K or maybe even $70K BUT they will not have that fat pension to milk for 30-40 years after they retire. These fat pensions are completely unfunded and are billion dollar liabilities...at the LOCAL level! Right now, OC and Fullerton are in bad shape and removing these debts would mean solvency once again. Attempting to maintain them marches us down that path towards a OC' second bankruptcy and Fullerton’s first bankruptcy.
Holding my nose I have to agree with you on many of your last points. But my main point was made by you. "Traditionally, public employees were paid lower salaries than their private sector counter parts". Traditionally, the private sector provided good jobs and people made things that they could afford to buy. Now we build cars that we can't afford, houses we can't afford, organic food we can't afford.
When the people of a country can only afford food shelter clothing and little else, the entire system is doomed.
You and I are seeing the same thing from different perspectives. What you see as the problem, I see as the symptom.
Without tariffs and corporate taxes that have moved off shore, we, the out of work middle class are left to keep this country funded. If only those employed by the public have decent jobs, we're screwed.
Good paying private jobs are what fund the payroll taxes that used to fund world class educations, world class workers rights, a world class safety net for disabled and old people and a world class environmentally clean landscape full of opportunity and jobs.
Now off shore, international corporations and banksters are stealing the American dream and everyone is too stupid to see where the money is going.
I blame some of this on the liberal media and remember that the liberal media are only as liberal as their conservative owners.
Flash Back! This reminds me of the good old days when we built this great country. People made things and those things were sold, what a concept. Unions took kids out of the work force. Unions gave us the 5 day, 40 hour work week. Unions saw to it that people could afford the things that they were making and this expanded the market. Unions gave workers protection from bosses that didn't like certain people because of their look or color or where they were raised or went to school.
ReplyDeleteThis modern race to the bottom that only seems to serve the the people that no longer work for a living, those that sit by the pool and get their dividend check, those people that make nothing but only pay 15 percent on their unearned income, blame their problems on the unions. They need to look more at the international bankers, hedge funds, international treaties that remove tariffs, and trillion dollar wars. Oh wait, those things are working well for these special people.
Never mind that an entire ocean or more are being destroyed by an international corporation that has no moral compass and owes nothing to anyone other than their share holders.
Never mind the fact that your job has been shipped overseas by Carly Fiorina and other CEO's that would stop at nothing to make a buck.
Never mind that those same people or corporations, (it's hard to tell them apart these days) , use our roads, skies, rivers, oceans, courts, police, and commons and don't want to pay for it. Internalize profits and externalize losses is their standard operational procedure.
Make war where convenient and drill baby drill. Screw the old USA, we're billionaires against unions!
.If anyone missed my point:
ReplyDeleteUnions aren't what they should be but they have to adapt to international corporations owned by international banksters and they have adapted as best they could.
A trillion dollars is a thousand billion. That's how much money Iraq and Afghanistan have cost us as of last Sunday. A billion dollars is a thousand million.
One has to ask themselves, are the unions and their few billion dollars really doing that much damage to the international banksters and warmongers and their trillions to attack their collective bargaining?
Are the people that go to work every day, make things and provide services really the ones to blame for our problems?
Ask BP. According to Mike Papantonio, a lawyer and host of Ring of Fire radio show, BP is hiring Mexicans to do clean up work in the Gulf of Mexico. Even when international corporations are destroying the way of life for millions of US citizens and an entire ecosystem, they choose to hire foreign labor to avoid paying honest Americans a living wage.
Unions of themselves are not the problem, they are a symptom.
Tom, one thing to be clear of regarding my distrust, dissatisfaction, and disappointment in is the PUBLIC EMPLOYEE UNIONS. Private unions will bankrupt themselves given enough time and power (assuming we stop bailing them out). PUBLIC EMPLOYEE UNIONS have hit taxpayers hard with their extremely generous retirement packages and, in most of Ca., their sizeable salaries. Traditionally, public employees were paid lower salaries than their private sector counter parts. But there was an equitable tradeoff: public employees had more job security and better pensions while the private sector had NO job security, NO pension, but higher wages. That tradeoff is missing in Ca. A Caltrans survey technician makes around $80K per year and will receive 90% of that salary for the rest of their life depending on their years of service. In the private sector, that same technician will likely make $60K or maybe even $70K BUT they will not have that fat pension to milk for 30-40 years after they retire. These fat pensions are completely unfunded and are billion dollar liabilities...at the LOCAL level! Right now, OC and Fullerton are in bad shape and removing these debts would mean solvency once again. Attempting to maintain them marches us down that path towards a OC' second bankruptcy and Fullerton’s first bankruptcy.
ReplyDeleteHolding my nose I have to agree with you on many of your last points. But my main point was made by you.
ReplyDelete"Traditionally, public employees were paid lower salaries than their private sector counter parts".
Traditionally, the private sector provided good jobs and people made things that they could afford to buy. Now we build cars that we can't afford, houses we can't afford, organic food we can't afford.
When the people of a country can only afford food shelter clothing and little else, the entire system is doomed.
You and I are seeing the same thing from different perspectives. What you see as the problem, I see as the symptom.
Without tariffs and corporate taxes that have moved off shore, we, the out of work middle class are left to keep this country funded. If only those employed by the public have decent jobs, we're screwed.
Good paying private jobs are what fund the payroll taxes that used to fund world class educations, world class workers rights, a world class safety net for disabled and old people and a world class environmentally clean landscape full of opportunity and jobs.
Now off shore, international corporations and banksters are stealing the American dream and everyone is too stupid to see where the money is going.
I blame some of this on the liberal media and remember that the liberal media are only as liberal as their conservative owners.