Bottom line, anyone who has not seen a pay cut these past few years is probably overpaid (others would do their jobs for significantly less). Whether or not that money coming out of my pocket is going to a public employer or a private employer doesn’t matter — I’m still overpaying. Why don’t *they* take a pay cut then, since they have such an issue with overcompensation?[/quote]
Arguably there’s the issue of “choice.” You have no choice where paying taxes are concerned. Where private companies are concerned, you can choose where to spend your dollars – even if it’s an issue of using a company with the “least overpaid” employees. There are all sorts of businesses that you can patronize in which the employees aren’t overpaid (even by your standard): co-ops for food, credit unions for banking, mutual insurance companies for insurance, etc. etc. If you’re patronizing businesses with overpaid employees (according to you) it’s probably in the name of “convenience”… which costs money. The problem with high ideals is that they’re seldom easy to live by.
[quote=CA renter]
And no, it’s not at all about the “free market.” As you know, people are essentially forced to use banks in order to conduct business these days. I don’t have a choice WRT overpaying their employees/executives. And let’s not forget the public money (TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS) being spent to prop them up and maintain their bonuses/compensation during this “Greatest Recession Since the Great Depression.”[/quote]
You are not “forced to use banks in order to conduct business” these days. I doubt your financial needs are so complicated that you can’t use a credit union for all of your banking needs. Even the CEOs of credit unions don’t make much money. Trust me, I’ve seen the stats. So, you should bank with a credit union if that’s where your conscience lies. Then you won’t be accused of hypocrisy by both maligning overpaid bankers while patronizing their businesses at the same time.
[quote=CA renter]
Bottom line, we are ALL forced to pay for things we don’t like. If I had to choose between paying bankers or public servants, the choice would be easy — public servants actually enhance our quality of life while bankers suck the blood out of the productive economy.[/quote]
I would argue that SOME public servants “suck the blood out of the productive economy” just as SOME bankers do the same. Likewise, SOME public servants do a great job relative to the compensation they receive while SOME bankers do the same. Generalizing about public servants and bankers with respect to sucking blood out of the economy is not intellectually honest.
Generally speaking, I’d say that the largest banks and largest public employees unions are, in fact, blood suckers, to use your terms. And, admittedly, the big banks are bigger blood suckers than the big unions. But once you get down to the local level, you find a lot of folks who are just trying to make a buck and do a decent job. But I think it’s very difficult to make generalizations about either group.
