- This topic has 13 replies, 8 voices, and was last updated 11 years, 9 months ago by
CA renter.
-
AuthorPosts
-
August 11, 2012 at 7:00 AM #20053August 11, 2012 at 7:20 AM #750061
EconProf
ParticipantPension promises made by politicians in past years will continue to squeeze out needed government expenditures at all levels. This again shows the folly of having public sector unions at all. In the private sector a fair contest exists between unions and their workers bargaining against a management that seeks the best deal for the shareholders (and indirectly, the custormers who buy the output). In the public sector, management is replaced by politicians who are heavily dependent upon unions and can easily promise extravagent pay and benefits that must be paid by future, less-informed and less activist taxpayers.
August 11, 2012 at 8:40 PM #750075mike92104
Participant[quote=blake]City Pension’s Low Returns Hit Budget
[quote]
…
The San Diego City Employees’ Retirement System earned 0.3 percent on its investments last year, initial data released this week said. The system assumes it will return 7.5 percent on its investments each year.The investment returns are one of three sources the city uses to pay its pension bills. When returns don’t come in, it needs to come up with the money itself.
0.3 percent!?! My savings account pays more than that. W(where)TF did they invest?
While the investment figures aren’t final, city Chief Operating Officer Jay Goldstone said the city’s pension payment will increase.
This is bad news for the city budget and all the promises that mayoral candidates are making about new initiatives.
…
[/quote]Is it “investment” if the losses are backstopped by other people money?[/quote]
August 12, 2012 at 3:25 AM #750085CA renter
Participant[quote=EconProf]Pension promises made by politicians in past years will continue to squeeze out needed government expenditures at all levels. This again shows the folly of having public sector unions at all. In the private sector a fair contest exists between unions and their workers bargaining against a management that seeks the best deal for the shareholders (and indirectly, the custormers who buy the output). In the public sector, management is replaced by politicians who are heavily dependent upon unions and can easily promise extravagent pay and benefits that must be paid by future, less-informed and less activist taxpayers.[/quote]
Not true. A public union’s #1 adversary would be the private corporations/entities who want to take over all public assets and services. They are also throwing massive amounts of money at the politicians (and winning).
Eliminating unions does nothing to curb the other competitors from getting everything they can get from the govt entities who hire/contract with them. As I’ve said many times before, too many people don’t seem to understand how the relationships between govt employers and unions work. They are not “on the same side of the table.”
The bottom line is that many people are vying for the same money — special interest groups (like developers or even local residents who want special amenities, infrastructure, or programs), private contractors, and unions, to name a few. No one group has more power than the others unless they have more money. If unions are eliminated, it doesn’t reduce demand for public money; the void is filled by others who want a greater share of the pie.
If you want to fix the problem with govt finances, get ALL of the money out of politics and make ALL bribery (with promises of jobs, etc.) a capital offense (literally, along with asset seizures from any person/entity found trying to bribe a politician). If you take away labor’s voice, then you have to take away capital’s voice as well. Corruption happens when there are no checks and balances. If unions go away, the capitalists/corporations will have unilateral power over our entire economy and society. That is a dangerous path, and too few actually understand where this is all headed.
August 12, 2012 at 9:59 AM #750095sdduuuude
Participant[quote=CA renter]Not true. A public union’s #1 adversary would be the private corporations/entities who want to take over all public assets and services. [/quote]
Again – you ignore the fact that a union is a private entity. Corporation. Union. Same thing. Both highly profit-oriented and, most certainly, capitalists.
August 12, 2012 at 5:32 PM #750117ctr70
Participant1. Public pension investment tank = tax payers make up difference
2. Private sector 401k investments tank = retiree has to just take less and live with it
#1 we all know is complete b*llsh*t, an out of date corrupt archaic relic of history, is bankrupting our communities across the nation, and must end.
August 13, 2012 at 3:58 AM #750131Participant[quote=sdduuuude][quote=CA renter]Not true. A public union’s #1 adversary would be the private corporations/entities who want to take over all public assets and services. [/quote]
Again – you ignore the fact that a union is a private entity. Corporation. Union. Same thing. Both highly profit-oriented and, most certainly, capitalists.[/quote]
You missed the entire point of the post, SDD, which was that the unions are one of many parties lined up at the trough. If you take one away, the void will be filled by another. The attacks on unions are not coming from “taxpayer advocates,” but from those other parties whose slice of the pie would become larger if one of their competitors were taken out.
Again, the privatization of public assets and services has been going on for decades…have your taxes gone down as a result?
In most small departments, there are no paid union/association employees. They are all volunteers, so not profit oriented, and they are certainly not capitalists. Are you talking about the heads of the large national unions? If so, how are they capitalists?
August 13, 2012 at 4:18 AM #750132Participant[quote=ctr70]1. Public pension investment tank = tax payers make up difference
2. Private sector 401k investments tank = retiree has to just take less and live with it
#1 we all know is complete b*llsh*t, an out of date corrupt archaic relic of history, is bankrupting our communities across the nation, and must end.[/quote]
No, what’s bullshit is private sector workers LOSING their DB pension benefits. It is bankrupting our communities across the nation, and it will be our #1 problem in the future as waves of workers are forced into retirement (because of sickness/disability and/or age discrimination in the workplace), and they will have no means to support themselves.
UCGal has repeatedly recommended this book:
About the book:
In December 2010, General Electric [GE] held its annual meeting in New York City for analysts and shareholders. CEO Jeff Immelt reported on GE’s financial health and said that GE’s pension plan was a problem. “The pension has been a drag for a decade,” he said. It would cause the company to lose 13 cents per share the coming year. In order to control costs, GE was—regretfully—going to close the pension plan for new employees. The implication was that workers’ pensions were dragging the company down.
What Immelt didn’t mention was that GE’s pension plans had actually contributed billions of dollars to the company’s bottom line over the last 15 years, earnings that the executives had taken credit for. Nor did he mention that GE hadn’t contributed anything to the workers’ pension plans since 1987 and still had enough to cover all the current and future retirees.
Nor did he mention that the executive pensions for GE executives were a burden. Unlike the plans for the 250,000 workers and retirees, the executive pensions had a $4.4 billion obligation that steadily drained cash from the company’s coffers, including $573 million over the past three years alone.
Why was GE closing its fully funded pension plan, while continuing its financially burdensome executive plan? This is the question to which Ellen Schultz’s incisive new book, Retirement Heist: How Companies Plunder and Profit from the Nest Eggs of American Workers (Portfolio, 2011) offers a powerful answer.
It’s time people educate themselves about the topic before spewing the rhetoric and propaganda of those who are trying to destroy the middle class in America. Once the power is concentrated into the hands of the weathiest capitalists, it will be nearly impossible for labor (and that means YOU, if you work for a living) to ever gain a foothold, again. When other countries have seen such similar concentrations of power, they have almost always had to endure many years bloody revolution after bloody revoltion. I hope Americans wake up before it is too late.
August 13, 2012 at 11:52 AM #750139Participant[quote=CA renter][quote=sdduuuude][quote=CA renter]Not true. A public union’s #1 adversary would be the private corporations/entities who want to take over all public assets and services. [/quote]
Again – you ignore the fact that a union is a private entity. Corporation. Union. Same thing. Both highly profit-oriented and, most certainly, capitalists.[/quote]
You missed the entire point of the post, SDD, which was that the unions are one of many parties lined up at the trough. If you take one away, the void will be filled by another. The attacks on unions are not coming from “taxpayer advocates,” but from those other parties whose slice of the pie would become larger if one of their competitors were taken out.
Again, the privatization of public assets and services has been going on for decades…have your taxes gone down as a result?
In most small departments, there are no paid union/association employees. They are all volunteers, so not profit oriented, and they are certainly not capitalists. Are you talking about the heads of the large national unions? If so, how are they capitalists?[/quote]
Unions sell their services for cash. That’s pretty capitalistic. (Can’t say the same about volunteers, of course.)
They are also pyramid structures. The top brass makes alot of money and they protect the higher-level members first. Those last to join are thrown to the wolves when it benefits the rest of the union because they demand higher wages, which reduces the number of available jobs.
I agree with you that the term “privatization” – as it is used to describe a practice where the government hires private companies using taxpayer money – is not necessarily a way to reduce government spending, as usually touted by the right wing. I think the same incestuous relationship that exists between the unions and the politicians also exists between the private corporations and the politicians.
So, I’m not a big “privitization” guy, but a big “spend less money” guy, which would definitely not be something the unions would like. They have a vested interest in increased government spending. While the corporations are their biggest competitor for the money, the money has to be there to compete. So, their biggest enemy is lower taxes.
The practice of disallowing non-unionized workers from working for the government in certain fields is a heinous crime.
I completely agree that we need to funnel less money through the government, which would solve both problems, as well as all the special-interest lobbying.
August 13, 2012 at 6:15 PM #750232ParticipantThen you would agree that we need to get ALL money out of politics, and make ALL kinds of bribery (including the promise of lucrative jobs, connections to the “right” people, etc.) a crime? Personally, I’d like to see it become a capital offense, but that’s just me.
August 15, 2012 at 2:06 PM #750337Participant[quote=CA renter]Then you would agree that we need to get ALL money out of politics, and make ALL kinds of bribery (including the promise of lucrative jobs, connections to the “right” people, etc.) a crime? Personally, I’d like to see it become a capital offense, but that’s just me.[/quote]
If you really mean all money, yes.
Probably need some money for cops and courts, but yeah – I’d be up for all money out of politics. Vote with your wallet. Let individuals choose where their tax money goes on their tax form. Voucher systems to support private services that sell direct to the tax-payers. No bailouts for weak companies of any size. Make the funding of government-based charity and entitlement programs voluntary. No back-stopping of loans. No borrow-and-spend. All that makes sense to me.
August 15, 2012 at 2:10 PM #750338briansd1
GuestI personally would love de-funding small airports in small towns where taxpayers subsidize the passengers.
That would be where I’d want wasteful government spending to be cut first before anything else is cut.
August 15, 2012 at 3:40 PM #750345The-Shoveler
ParticipantSmall Towns are kind of a national security imperative. ( A lot of these small town airports are Federally funded and serve the Air national guard as well).
Were there ever to be a serious pandemic, the last place you would want to be in is in a high density cityscape.
It’s only a matter of time.
Or something man induced.August 16, 2012 at 8:59 PM #750421Participant[quote=sdduuuude][quote=CA renter]Then you would agree that we need to get ALL money out of politics, and make ALL kinds of bribery (including the promise of lucrative jobs, connections to the “right” people, etc.) a crime? Personally, I’d like to see it become a capital offense, but that’s just me.[/quote]
If you really mean all money, yes.
Probably need some money for cops and courts, but yeah – I’d be up for all money out of politics. Vote with your wallet. Let individuals choose where their tax money goes on their tax form. Voucher systems to support private services that sell direct to the tax-payers. No bailouts for weak companies of any size. Make the funding of government-based charity and entitlement programs voluntary. No back-stopping of loans. No borrow-and-spend. All that makes sense to me.[/quote]
No, not all money out of government; after all, I’m a socialist. I mean all money out of **politics.** Have publicly-funded campaigns. NO campaign contributions, no bribes of any kind, no lobbying, full transparency WRT money in government.
IMHO, a government that is run by the people, and for the people — where every individual has an equal voice — is the only way to keep corruption at a minimum and serve society’s best interests.
-
AuthorPosts
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.