[quote=pri_dk][quote=CA renter]still, they [unions] are far more accountable to the public than private companies are, no matter what Pri and others try to assert [I have no actual argument to make here or facts to back this up. I want it to be true so I declare it so with absolute confidence.][/quote]
Now some actual facts:
FACT: Unions only answer to their membership. There are some very limited disclosure laws, but the public has no control over who unions choose as their leaders or how unions spends their money. Every major union spends substantial amounts of money on political lobbying.
About half of the top 50 spenders on political lobbies are labor unions; unions dominate the top 20 on this list, (11 of 20 unions, only 3 of 20 corporations):
In many states, unions can FORCE anyone who works in an industry to pay union dues, regardless of whether they choose to be a union member.
Not exactly “accountable to the public.”
FACT: The “unelected technocrats” that the article you cited is a reference to the ECB “troika” which consists of the European Commission, the International Monetary Fund, and the European Central Bank.
These organizations are all PUBLIC international organizations – they are NOT privately owned (the ECB techically has shareholders but their activities are very tightly regulated). Funding for these organizations is from public funds of the member countries. In effect, everyone of the “technocrats” that works there is an employee of a government or an intra-government body such as the UN. (And btw, the former managing director of the IMF is none other than Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the pervert and soclailst.)
So the answer to the question, “Aren’t these technocrats public workers?” is an unqualified YES.
The only thing “Fantastic” about the article is that it argues that the problems Europe is facing should be solved by the same process that created the problems in the fist place instead of by a more objective and realistic committee managed by government organizations.
(But it’s not at all fantastic that your arguments are so hopelessly based on fantasy. That occurrence has become entirely routine.)
Tocqueville (another European!) is particularly apropos here:
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury.
So please spare us the self-contradictory descriptions of the bogeyman.
The facts are simple: Europe is broke, just like California pension funds. The obvious and ethical solution is to simply stop promising everyone so much money.[/quote]
They entities who are trying to privatize everything are NOT public entities, though they use “unelected technocrats” to do their bidding. The entities who would be taking over public resources are NOT public entities. What part of that do you not grasp?
The same thing that’s going on over there is happening here, too.
