Whoa. “You get what you pay for” is one of those cute-sounding phrases that is readily debunked.
It suggests the price or wage you pay is strictly correlated with the value of the purchase. It might be used by a union boss to convince a city council to raise firemen’s pay yet again, or a house buyer in 2006 to justify his purchase. (BTW, what is he saying now?).
The video is showing an extreme example of an overpaid fireman in CA that is based on reality. The generous pay and retirement benefits relative to the work performed are wildly above what a free market would yield. But they are the result of union power up against spineless politicians spending other people’s money who look only at the short run. Competitive private sector employers would push back and the resulting pay and benefits would be closer to free market realities. That is exactly why the video is so telling–it contrasts the private sector 50-year olds pay and benefits to those of an actual, albeit rare, public sector union guy.
