[QUOTE=Stan Da Man;414951]If someone presents you with a sophisticated counterfeit, you (the employer) aren't responsible.[/QUOTE]Unless, of course, you're a Republican candidate for Governor of California.
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[QUOTE=Stan Da Man;414951]If someone presents you with a sophisticated counterfeit, you (the employer) aren't responsible.[/QUOTE]Unless, of course, you're a Republican candidate for Governor of California.
[QUOTE=Gandolf50;414952]Unions started out great and did great service to the workers. Even non union workers benifited because the employers had to improve conditions or loose all their employees. But unions gradually fucked themselves by making outrageous demands and forcing many employers to go non union to remain competitive. Look at Spain or Greece and what the unions did to them.[/QUOTE]You're really talking more about public unions. I'm no big fan of private sector unions, but there are natural economic principles that will kill them off when they become too greedy, as they did in WorldTraveler's case.
I'm also no big fan of FDR, but even he recognized that public unions should NEVER be allowed to exist:
[i]All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management. The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with Government employee organizations. [/i]
I've asked this twice before here and no one has tried to answer. Why do we allow public unions to exist? Until 50 years ago, they were allowed in the private sector and forbidden in the public sector? Now that they've bankrupted the federal government, as well as most state, county and municipal governments, why do we allow them to continue? At this point, the only people willing to publicly stand up for them are union leaders and neo-marxists like Robert Reich. Democrats will take their campaign contributions and lobby for their votes, but even they are generally too timid to voice much public support.
Last year, someone wrote a book about Goldman Sachs with an apt quote describing how greedy they are. The quote, when paraphrased, actually applies far better to public unions:
A public union is like a [i]'vampire squid wrapped around the face of [government], relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money'[/i]
So, are you saying that we go back to 70 hour work weeks, No vacations, No Holidays, No Sick Leaves, No Health Care, No Child Labor Laws, Etc.
I have a union pension. $700. A month, is that too much?
I also have a University Of California Pension. $1400. A month, because of the union.
The Retired Regents get $240, 000. Plus per year and want more.
Whose getting Fucked?
Sounds like what the Republicans got what they want.
No Unions, No Restrictions for the rich,
Lower Wages! Make us a Third World Country.
[QUOTE=Stan the Man; 414954]You're really talking more about public unions. I'm no big fan of private sector unions, but there are natural economic principles that will kill them off when they become too greedy, as they did in WorldTraveler's case.
I'm also no big fan of FDR, but even he recognized that public unions should NEVER be allowed to exist:
[i]All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management. The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with Government employee organizations. [/i]
I've asked this twice before here and no one has tried to answer. Why do we allow public unions to exist? Until 50 years ago, they were allowed in the private sector and forbidden in the public sector? Now that they've bankrupted the federal government, as well as most state, county and municipal governments, why do we allow them to continue? At this point, the only people willing to publicly stand up for them are union leaders and neo-marxists like Robert Reich. Democrats will take their campaign contributions and lobby for their votes, but even they are generally too timid to voice much public support.
Last year, someone wrote a book about Goldman Sachs with an apt quote describing how greedy they are. The quote, when paraphrased, actually applies far better to public unions:
A public union is like a [i]'vampire squid wrapped around the face of [government], relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money'[/i][/QUOTE]
I am not anti union. I think unions helped make the US what it is today or better yet, what it was 15 years ago. What happened is some unions got out of hand. As to "public" unions, if I recall public employees won the right to collective barganing with various restrictions. Such as in the cases of railway workers or the now famous ATC where they were not permitted to strike. This was for a reason, you can not let a union or any group threaten the well being of the country. Shutting down all air travel or trains would paralyze the country. If that were allowed it would just like Argentina! I felt no remorse over the ATC strikers. The were offered the option to return to their jobs or goodbye. They broke the law, they are lucky they weren't prosecuted.
"It's oh so good to be back at the Dexter Lake Club."
I'll avoid opining on the broader issue of unions and just hit on one of the key public employee union elements that is bankrupting government, at all levels (municipal, state and federal). With all due respect to those who have received them in the past or are due them today, from this point forward, there should be an absolute ban (I. E. Make it illegal) preventing any taxpayer-funded enterprise, including all public sector employers (union or not) , from offering defined benefit pensions to any employees from the lowest hourly employee to the highest (including nonunion employees like the mayor, governor, president, etc). As for the private sector, they can do what they want (they aren't using taxpayer money) and almost all of them chose not to offer this type of retirement plan.
The legacy of this type of pension is that the former employer is obligated to continue paying the former employee for life, including many, may years when the former employee is contributing absolutely nothing to the continued success of the company. That does not diminish the value of the contribution that the employee made in the past but it is payment for services never rendered. This forces the employer to ever increase the number of people to whom it is paying weekly wages while not increasing the actual number of people contributing to the bottom line. The argument that they were underpaid while they were working and therefore deserve more is ludicrous. Government employees are paid something around 150% of their private sector counterparts (USA Today 3-8-2010).
We should not take them away from those who already have them, but the practice has to be stopped. The private sector started eliminating these in the 80's. It would be very hard to find more than a few examples where this type of pension is still available in the private sector (excluding unionized positions). Why then are they so prevalent in the public sector? Defined benefit pensions in the public sector are a means through which unions extort taxpayer monies, to which they are not entitled, from weak politicians who are more concerned about doing what is politically expedient as opposed to what is actually right.
One of the problems with regards to public sector employees and their pensions is the fact that many of these people (my mother being one of them) are not eligible for social security benefits and are now dependent on those pensions for life post-retirement. In fact, I believe that she paid a portion of her salary into her own pension fund. I don't know the reasons for not allowing these people the ability to pay into S.S. and receive benefits later in life, but perhaps, if they were allowed it would make much smaller pensions feasible.
Here is an article written by former labor secretary Robert Reich. Although it has an obvious liberal slant, there are some interesting points with regards to public employees. [url]http://robertreich.org/post/2615647030[/url]
Mongers-
I have a pretty good understanding of public sector pensions at the state level as both my parents are very recently retired employees of a major northeastern state. My father was commissioner of the Department of Labor and my mother a superintendent of a large school district. Both draw six figure annual pensions AND are eligible for maximum social security benefits. Both worked almost forty years for the state and as such draw a pension that is about 40/55 (about 72%) of their BEST annual salary. Currently, this particular state is billions of dollars in the red and is trying to figure out out to close the deficit. The state pension fund is underfunded at this moment because the state did not match the employees own contributions as they are contractually and legally obligated to do; the state supreme court has repeatedly ruled the state's own behavior illegal and ordered them to comply, yet they have failed to do so.
Every time I go home to visit my parents I get in an argument about how I feel that public employee salaries, and especially pensions, are completely ridiculous at a time when the state is broke. This holds especially true with teachers, who are paid comparable salaries to other public employees to only work 180 days per year. My father is fairly reasonable in that he says he got what he got because the state signed a contract agreeing to it and after that contract expires the state can do whatever it has to do. I attempt to explain to my mother that teachers should have to either work more for the same money or take a pay cut because the employer (the state) is broke and needs to cut costs. She routinely refuses to accept my logic and babbles on about greedy capitalist pigs, etc. I try to explain to her that I am thrilled with the fact that my own parents get such nice compensation, from a pragmatic standpoint it is bad for the financial health of the state because it is unsustainable; she wants to hear nothing of it.
Suerte,
Rock Harders
[QUOTE=Rock Harders;414968](about 72%) of their BEST annual salary.[/quote]I wish your parents great happiness and longevity, despite the implications for the affected taxpayers.
They will be paid 72% of their best annual salary for doing absolutely nothing (no offense meant to either of them). That isn't to say that they didn't do anything to earn a pension rather it is to say that there is very little chance that they or anyone else in there situation so 'over contributed' to the entity during their tenure that such largess is merited.
A defined contribution pension with some level or matching is far more appropriate for private and public sector employees because it not only encourages personal savings, it requires it to maximize your benefit package. This helps to allign the retirement responsibility where it should be, on the individual. After all, when you retire, who should be responsible for paying your bills? You? Or the taxpayers?
That said, your father is correct:
[quote=]he says he got what he got because the state signed a contract agreeing to it and after that contract expires the state can do whatever it has to do. [/quote]It is not appropriate to take contractually obligated and legally obtained wealth from state retirees anymore than it is to take it from Bill Gates or Barbara Streisand. However, there has to be a line drawn in the sand that says "from this point forward there will be no more defined benefit plans." It is immoral and clearly unsustainable for entities to agree to defined benefit plans when they know that: 1) they will be stealing more from taxpayers to pay expenditures that should not be born by the taxpayer. 2) the payments are being made to 'noncontributing' individuals. 3) the private sector tax payers who are burdened with these payments are unlikely to ever be offered or receive such benefits, and 4) this model is absolutely unsustainable.
[quote=]I attempt to explain to my mother that teachers should have to either work more for the same money or take a pay cut because the employer (the state) is broke and needs to cut costs. She routinely refuses to accept my logic and babbles on about greedy capitalist pigs, etc.[/quote]With all due respect to your mother, who I am certain is a wonderful woman, trying to impart knowledge of the real world upon a union teacher is like Sisyphus asking for a water break.
[quote=]I try to explain to her that I am thrilled with the fact that my own parents get such nice compensation, from a pragmatic standpoint it is bad for the financial health of the state because it is unsustainable; she wants to hear nothing of it.[/quote]The fact that they are absolutely entitled to receive the benefits to which the two parties agreed at the time of their respective contracts, is not mutually exclusive of the fact that it s wholly unsustainable. However, she may, consciously or subconsciously feel that by accepting the truth of the latter she may somehow delegitimize the former. Nothing could be further from the truth. They fulfilled their end of the bargain, they deserve what they were promised. What we have to change is what people are promised, going forward.
WW you seem to have a excellent grasp of what has happened and how it happened plus you seem to understand what needs to be done. Why don't you get a job with Obama or better yet run for president yourself? Suerte!
BOEHNER: "An attack on one who serves is an attack on all who serve".
When is the bullshit going to stop. Do these political parasites, with their perks, free travel, medical perks, golden retirements, ever increasing salaries and worthless staffs numbering in the hundreds really think they are serving us. They are serving themselves which may be astonishing given the fact that the vast majority of them have an IQ less than their shoe size.
They would change skin color if that would prolong their lavish lifestyles.
OK, we need a government but we don't need a government that sounds like Marie Antonette ie. "Let them eat cake" while these parasites have real health care, real retirement benefits, luxury vacations taxpayers pay for, travel junkets taxpayers pay for, guaranteed undeserved salaries and, just for good measure, untold amounts of dirty money in the form of bribes.
If our elected officials want to regain the respect of their constituents maybe they should look in the mirror. Maybe they need tatooed on their forehead "I am the servant of my constituents" rather than their current tatoo which reads "my constituents are my servants."
P.S. please note that I am just as disgusted with the elitist Republicans who spend our money like drunken sailors as I am with the elitist Democrats who spend our money like drunken sailors. In my opinion, anyone of these slimeballs, regardless of party, would change their political affiliation if that would prolong their privileged life style.
The discussion about public sector salaries, pensions and unions is all fine and some good points have been made. I do think there is such a thing as waste and over-generous compensation in the public sector and it should be addressed, especially when we are running budget deficits.
But in a discussion on balancing budgets, we need to look at both revenue and spending.
The fact is that the rich have been taking more and more of the wealth in this country for decades now. Some like to talk about 'growing the pie' so we all prosper, but the data shows this is a false argument. It is the top few percent that take most of the pie, and everyone else gets a few crumbs.
So it's unreasonable to present the argument that all budget balancing has to come from spending cuts. Why should the poor and middle class take all the pain? Spread the pain over those who can afford it. As an example, you can get a similar budget benefit from cutting the salaries / pensions of all US teachers by 5% as from raising taxes on all US millionaires by 0.3%. A small tax increase represents almost no pain for millionaires, and such a tax is not 'taking other people's money'. We all (should) contribute into a pot according to our means to fund essential / important services.
Rock- I suspect you are presenting the argument to your mother in a one-sided manner, that the answer lies only in cutting spending. This is the Republican approach. If this is the case her reaction is not entirely unreasonable. I would suggest she might be more amenable if you present a more balanced argument which includes both targeted spending cuts and targeted tax increases. For example, a 1% cut in public sector pensions over 100K and a 1% tax increase on all incomes over 500K. Of course there will be state-specific considerations but you get the idea.
Asking just the poor and middle class to bear the brunt of budget balancing is unacceptable. Not when budget deficits have in large part been caused by tax cuts which mainly benefit the rich, and when wealth inequality continues to soar.
If the gov't wants more income and less expenses why not go to a flat tax or a "national sales tax". Get rid of deductions, streamline or elimanate the IRS as they would no longer be needed. What can be fairer then every one paying the same percentage? And how much would we save the country just by elimanating the IRS?
[QUOTE=Gandolf50;414979]If the gov't wants more income and less expenses why not go to a flat tax or a "national sales tax". Get rid of deductions, streamline or elimanate the IRS as they would no longer be needed. What can be fairer then every one paying the same percentage? And how much would we save the country just by elimanating the IRS?[/QUOTE]This is one of the most ridiculous and absurd ideas out there (you are not the first to suggest it). Wealth inequality would SKYROCKET under such a proposal. A flat tax is not appropriate when income and wealth distribution is so lop-sided to begin with.
If I have 98 oranges and you have 2, and we implement a flat tax of 1 orange, I'll still have 97 while you have 1. This is an analogy, but do the math with the actual revenues you would still need to raise and you'll see your proposal amounts to nothing more than a massive hit to the poor and middle class, and a massive break to the rich.
[QUOTE=Esten;414981]If I have 98 oranges and you have 2, and we implement a flat tax of 1 orange, I'll still have 97 while you have 1. [/QUOTE]???? I give up.
This implies you pay a 1% tax and Gandolf pays 50%. This is a ridiculously twisted analogy that has nothing to do with a flat tax or sales tax.
I do like your field reports from Argentina.
[QUOTE=Esten; 414981]This is one of the most ridiculous and absurd ideas out there (you are not the first to suggest it). Wealth inequality would SKYROCKET under such a proposal. A flat tax is not appropriate when income and wealth distribution is so lop-sided to begin with.
If I have 98 oranges and you have 2, and we implement a flat tax of 1 orange, I'll still have 97 while you have 1. This is an analogy, but do the math with the actual revenues you would still need to raise and you'll see your proposal amounts to nothing more than a massive hit to the poor and middle class, and a massive break to the rich. [/QUOTE]Esten, I missed you!
Without further adieu.
First, income and wealth is not "distributed", it's earned, a fundamental concept that is often lost on liberals.
Second, your analogy is all wrong. Of one thing, what you've described is not a flat tax rate. Per your description, it appears to be the same tax amount being paid by both parties regardless of their income. However, I will grant you that the scenario you described, if it existed, would certainly result in "[I]a massive hit to the poor and middle class, and a massive break to the rich[/I]".
Anyway, putting aside your assertion that everyone should pay taxes every year on the number of oranges they already earned and already paid taxes on in past years, let's assume that you meant to say "[I]If I [U]EARNED[/U] 98 oranges and you earned 1 orange...[/I]", and assuming that we actually had a 10% flat tax, then you would pay 9.8 oranges in taxes on your 98 orange income, and I would pay 1/10 (.1) of an orange on my 1 orange income, which means that you would have paid 98 times more in taxes that I did.
Thanks,
Jackson