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Just the tip of the iceberg.
Wisconsin
- Thread starter Narcotized
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D
deleted126335
Yup. Current and soon to be retirees will take a small hit, Public employees not close to retirement will take a bigger one. Public school students, taxpayers, and beneficiaries of state programs will take an even bigger one.
The unions' better days are far behind them. 👍
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- Attending Physician
I'd have to disagree with students and taxpayers taking a hit. How would making teachers pay tiny amounts for their retirement/healthcare and limiting the union power affect students? Throwing money and benefits at teachers is not what makes them better teachers. I'm in an area where teachers make WAY over the national average and the school systems are crap. If anything, limiting the union power (and hopefully busting them completely in the future) will weed out those crappy teachers that are untouchable due to union influences.
As far as taxpayers are concerned, how would limiting the ultracushy benefits and retirements hurt taxpayers?
The government employee benefits are way way too generous at a time when there is massive government debt. I know many city workers (some are family) and not one of them is without stories of how they scam the system. Stories include sleeping in city cars collecting overtime, no show jobs and retirement at <50 y/o to a 600K lakehouse!
I'm not saying that teachers do this, but union busting is way overdue. These are not the times of child labor and Jimmy Hoffa anymore. Way to go Walker.
D
deleted126335
Everybody is going to feel some pain. Taxes will be going up, union members will not get all the benefits promised to them, public school students will see bigger classes, loss of sports, the arts, special programs, consolidation/closure of some schools.
Unions are seniority based. Retirees frequently have voting rights in unions as well. From the point of union politics it is better to have 9,000 very happy members with excellent packages who are employed than 12,000 satisfied employed members with OK packages. Those 9,000 people will do less work than 12,000 people...Hence the drop in services to students and members of the community.
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- Resident [Any Field]
It's too bad it's come to this. I think things will get ugly for most people.
My biggest "gripe" is the loss of productive capacity. Not "production" as per capita GDP, but PRODUCTION. Our economic "thought leaders" promoted a "knowledge" economy over making things. They SOLD the concept that it "doesn't really matter" if we continue to make things here.
In the meantime virtually ALL of the emerging economies (as well as "old" economies such as Germany and Japan (not without faults) have sought to build their industrial bases as a means of creating a middle class and bringing their people out of poverty.
Our business schools too often promote "laissez faire" and "free trade" economics while utterly ignoring unfair trade practices from the U.S.'s competitors such as massive state subsidies such as guaranteed government-backed loans at low interest for a South Korean company to procure expensive machine tools which their American counterparts could never do with, for example, a similar balance sheet.
The brainwashing (or lack of critical thinking, but likely both) has gotten so bad that I've heard people state that they'd "never buy a Government Motors vehicle" anymore, and then run out to WalMart to buy the cheapest Chinese made product (read Peoples Republic of China) they can find.
We, on this forum, love to bitch about "low cost providers". About how we're shooting ourselves in the foot with respect to these providers. Meantime, some are absolutely flippant about loss of key industries and manufacturing jobs that have historically paid very well, and can still despite what some of "our" economists might promote.
Isn't it time to think not just of ourselves but of our neighbors? I'd rather my neighbor be in a productive industry making a liveable wage than working at WalMart or Starbucks making an UNliveable wage. And, I really think the medical community is waking up to how close to home it can get when fellow citizens become unemployed or lose jobs to "more competitive" economies. But, it shouldn't take that. We shouldn't be so short sighted that we only get motivated when it effects us.
Can you imagine what a German finance minister would say (or do) in response to a statement that "it doesn't matter" to the German economy whether they make high tech products which employ skilled labor (as well as some not-so skilled) all the way up to PhD's, and that these industries (from designing and building entire paper processing facilities that get exported to Saudi Arabia, to light bulbs for their own market), OR the alternative "service economy" (whatever that means)?? He/She would laugh out loud. Yet Americans have been sold this BS for decades.
Now, the US will pay the price for having lost productive capacity in favor of a "service" economy and an inflated financial sector (just like our "cousins" in the UK). We're seeing which model is prefered.
***I'm not grandstanding as I know that many on this forum agree with these general concepts. I also realize that part (I think a large part) of the problem is the easy credit that a "reserve currency" like the US dollar "affords" the country in terms of making it that much easier to maintain (it's unravelling now though) a standard of living with increasingly diminished productive capacity.
We need to think for ourselves, however. And don't hesitate to take on some "MBA" who buys as gospel, what the establishment feeds them. The establishment has had an agenda. Perhaps with worsening overall conditions as well as a threat to large beauracracies we'll see a realignment of interest.
Also, I don't mean to pretend that this is a zero sum game. We just need to reevalute the game we've been playing.
cf
My biggest "gripe" is the loss of productive capacity. Not "production" as per capita GDP, but PRODUCTION. Our economic "thought leaders" promoted a "knowledge" economy over making things. They SOLD the concept that it "doesn't really matter" if we continue to make things here.
In the meantime virtually ALL of the emerging economies (as well as "old" economies such as Germany and Japan (not without faults) have sought to build their industrial bases as a means of creating a middle class and bringing their people out of poverty.
Our business schools too often promote "laissez faire" and "free trade" economics while utterly ignoring unfair trade practices from the U.S.'s competitors such as massive state subsidies such as guaranteed government-backed loans at low interest for a South Korean company to procure expensive machine tools which their American counterparts could never do with, for example, a similar balance sheet.
The brainwashing (or lack of critical thinking, but likely both) has gotten so bad that I've heard people state that they'd "never buy a Government Motors vehicle" anymore, and then run out to WalMart to buy the cheapest Chinese made product (read Peoples Republic of China) they can find.
We, on this forum, love to bitch about "low cost providers". About how we're shooting ourselves in the foot with respect to these providers. Meantime, some are absolutely flippant about loss of key industries and manufacturing jobs that have historically paid very well, and can still despite what some of "our" economists might promote.
Isn't it time to think not just of ourselves but of our neighbors? I'd rather my neighbor be in a productive industry making a liveable wage than working at WalMart or Starbucks making an UNliveable wage. And, I really think the medical community is waking up to how close to home it can get when fellow citizens become unemployed or lose jobs to "more competitive" economies. But, it shouldn't take that. We shouldn't be so short sighted that we only get motivated when it effects us.
Can you imagine what a German finance minister would say (or do) in response to a statement that "it doesn't matter" to the German economy whether they make high tech products which employ skilled labor (as well as some not-so skilled) all the way up to PhD's, and that these industries (from designing and building entire paper processing facilities that get exported to Saudi Arabia, to light bulbs for their own market), OR the alternative "service economy" (whatever that means)?? He/She would laugh out loud. Yet Americans have been sold this BS for decades.
Now, the US will pay the price for having lost productive capacity in favor of a "service" economy and an inflated financial sector (just like our "cousins" in the UK). We're seeing which model is prefered.
***I'm not grandstanding as I know that many on this forum agree with these general concepts. I also realize that part (I think a large part) of the problem is the easy credit that a "reserve currency" like the US dollar "affords" the country in terms of making it that much easier to maintain (it's unravelling now though) a standard of living with increasingly diminished productive capacity.
We need to think for ourselves, however. And don't hesitate to take on some "MBA" who buys as gospel, what the establishment feeds them. The establishment has had an agenda. Perhaps with worsening overall conditions as well as a threat to large beauracracies we'll see a realignment of interest.
Also, I don't mean to pretend that this is a zero sum game. We just need to reevalute the game we've been playing.
cf
