Off Topic…sort of…Walker knows how to hit a bee’s nest.

[Jonathan Smith, RLA]

So why should those who serve the citizens have it better than the citizens they serve? Why should they have better job security? Why shouldn’t they have to contribute to their health care and retirement like everyone else? Why should they be sheltered from the kind of job competition that people in the private sector face every day?

 

With more unionization of our private labor force, people with private jobs would experience these same benefits.  Do you know how many times McDonald’s employees have tried to unionize?

 

As for cushy jobs, gov. employees who retire with pensions often retire to draw a fraction of the monthly pay they received as an employee.  There are exceptions, where unions have negotiated huge pensions…but out of millions of government workers, that’s the exception, not the rule.  I worked as a teacher making 28k a year…if I had stayed I would have hit my ceiling at a little over 50k…after spending my summers earning a masters degree and working 20yrs.  And there’s no such thing as a 40hr work week when it comes to educators.  English papers don’t grade themselves.

 

The one thing not addressed in this discussion is the irrefutable fact of stagnant wages…look at the last census stats…our dying middle class is not able to demand higher wages or safe conditions  without collective representation.

[Trace One]

first – I pay into retirement, and social security. I will probably have paid for you when you are destitute, laying in the street, and get the social security check at the po box you have registered. Second, the state retirement is not enough to live on, and I am 54 and have three years under my belt..do the numbers..

the private sector gets slightly higher pay, and slightly less benefits..The key word is SLIGHT..the mass of the benefits for our present system are going to the rich, and to the corporations..Right now, TJ, I pay taxes to fund the roads YOU are driving on, and since you have NO income, what are you paying in to the road system – nothing?

see how society works?

by the way, today is a furlough day for me, required 15% reduction in income, for two years now – what reduction in income did wall street take, in the last two years – nothing? why is that?

We need to agree that we have a society, agree that  we need to ALL pay in to the society,  and be taxed appropriately..Right now, the benefits are going to the rich, yet you guys who are making nothing, continue to vote for increased benefits for the rich, in the way of reduced corporate taxes, and refusal to raise taxes on those who make over $250,000. How much closer are YOU to that $250,000 number, TJ, in the past five years? Yet you vote to let them reduce their taxes, not pay proportionately into social security? It makes NO sense..

What makes sense is giving as many people as possible stable jobs and stable incomes..the masses..who will never make $250,000, yet still deserve to live a secure life, without trips to the bahamas every year…or ever..Part of that was the minimum wage..So the private sector HAS to pay a minimum wage – is that the same crime as my having to pay into my CalPers every month?

you have it completely back-asswards..there have been NUMEROUS articles recently comparing private sector employment to public – don’t tell me you have missed them all?

 

Too silly. I hope you get a job, and join our side..But it is too ridiculous as an unemployed person to want us, the workers, who are paying every month, every week, for the social contract that you are living off of, to vote against US, and to vote for the rich to keep more and more of their money, on the backs of teachers, cops, fire men..It s ridiculous..

If we went back to the tax structure that existed under Reagan, we wouldn’t even have a deficit..dont you get it? what do you read? I recommend Nouriel Roubini, Paul Krugman, and Joseph Stiglitz..will get you specific articles if you want….

[Heather Smith]

Note to self: Public employees pay taxes…and in many states are not allowed to collect social security which saves tax payers the fees the state would otherwise pay into the system.

And most of them do contribute to their pensions. I am sorry you are having such a hard time Thomas but you are going after the wrong people. Which is of course…what the people in power have planned. Pit the unemployed private employees against the public employees. I take it that you would turn down a public sector job? I certainly hope so.

Time for me to bow out everyone have a wonderful weekend!

[Anonymous]

Trickle down economics does work. The great robber barons once they were done killing all the beavers, striping the land, polluting the air and water, building palaces all over the place and working our forefathers to death they looked after us working stiffs. That’s right the workingman got all kinds of museums, parks, universities and all kinds of stuff like that out of the deal.

 

I say out with the unions and all governmental regulations, they only get in the way of the future Rockefellers and Carnegies. I can only imagine what the guys over at Halliburton and Cargill would do for us if we just got out the way.

 

What are these teachers in Wisconsin kicking up a fuss about? They make $35K a year. If they would work during the summer they could afford to pay off their student loans and maybe even buy a car.

[Thomas J. Johnson]

Just give me a cabin in the woods and let everyone fight over the shards of civilization… you can have it.

[Chupacabra]

I regret to inform you that Teh Woods have been rezoned as a conservation unit .  The construction and occupation of free-standing dwellings (“cabins”) will no longer be permitted without a Special Use Authorization.

 

Please fill out forms CUC-14-BDL-1177 and CUC-14-1170 in triplicate and return them to the planning and permitting office to apply for a Special Use Authorization.

[Andrew Garulay, RLA]

Mitigation requirements are that he must re-design a piece of suburban ground as moose habitat at a 3:1 ratio to the section of woods that he’ll range in. He shall not displace any employed people as they are rare species. Catch basins, leach pits, sewer plants, drainage swales, and all forms of stormwater management are also protected wetlands and shall not be disturbed or counted in the mitigation calculations.

[Trace One]

and he has to pay his $60 union dues before he can even apply for a permit..Sorry,that’s the rules..

[Thomas J. Johnson]

OK, OK, I see that the bureaucrats have gotten their little fingers into the whole “cabin in the woods” idea… maybe I’ll just move to central America and trade in my “cabin in the woods” fantasy for a “beach hut and a hammock”… besides, beards grow faster in warm weather…

[Ben Yahr]

Back on topic- an interesting comment from an interesting article on impending “Financial Martial Law”:

Article:

http://blogs.forbes.com/rickungar/2011/04/16/gov-scott-walker-repor…

Comment:

This is all about privatizing the public sector. Standard operating procedure for crony capitalists and oligarchies. But really this has been going on in some form for generations in America. Traditional public space and walkable human-scaled communities (typical of late 19th/early 20th century America) have been replaced by privately owned shopping malls (where free speech and other pesky civil rights do not apply), suburbia and gated communities. This living arrangement requires car ownership and the ability to drive as a minimum price of full citizenship. It conveniently eliminates or marginalizes children, old people, poor people, and others from membership and participation. Is it any wonder why home builders and sprawl developers have been a bastion of Republican support for decades? They have fully embraced the tyranny of automobile dependency.

Funny how these self-described “conservatives” are always comparing their foes to Mao or Stalin. This is classic projection, also standard operating procedure for Republicans. The US right now resembles the USSR of the 1980s in many ways, particularly in it self-delusion and denial of inconvenient realities. Tea Baggers are the useful idiots for the new American Stalinists.

Now the oligarchs are grabbing as much loot as possible before the whole system collapses, in large part due to high fuel and energy prices that are inevitable. I think the smarter ones see the writing on the wall, they are going into siege mode.

But really, this is a bipartisan effort now. The Democrats drank the koolaide when Clinton came in and hitched their wagon to the same oligarchs as the Republicans. Now 98% of Americans have no one representing their interests in Washington and increasingly at the state level too. It’s tragic. If more people don’t push back and very soon, the entire American experiment of 200 plus years is sunk. Kiss it goodbye.

If you really want to get your populist blood boiling, check out the latest Matt Taibbi contribution in Rolling Stone:

The Real Housewives of Wall Street
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-real-housewives-of-wa…

[Alan Ray, RLA]

So, in this govt. collective bargaining process, who represents the tax payer???

[Alan Ray, RLA]

 

I didn’t think you could answer the question…I don’t know who Ann Colter is and you don’t know me. I am not for your info a republican nor am I affiliated with any other political organization…..Please, someone else with a name, tell me who represents the taxpayer? And please answer without the piss and vinegar.

Why are you such an angry little girl?

[Andrew Garulay, RLA]

“As you can see from what is happening in California, with our new governor Jerry Brown, the taxpayer is represented through the electoral process, in negotiation with unions.”

 

That is what happened in Wisconsin, but it went the other way. Sometimes it swings left and sometimes it swings right….. and the farther a pendulum swings from the center the more it goes against gravity and it swings in the other direction with more momentum. 

 

Being on one side or the other does not make good people or bad people. This is America where we appreciate differences of opinions and have free elections where we stand by what the people vote for. We don’t have to like it, but attacking anyone and everyone who does not agree with you is not very mature and not very helpful in coming together for the things most of us all agree on.

[Jason T. Radice]

(is playing the world smallest violin)

 

Try being LAID OFF for YEARS as so many LAs are right now!!!!!!!

 

 I feel NO sympathy for the Peoples Republic of California. There isn’t any more money to bleed from the taxpayer stone, and businesses have fled by the thousands. The people made their own mess, now they have to wallow in it.

 

Also, Gov’t wages ain’t what they used to be and have surpassed private sector wages. Add in the bennies and the “vacation” days and the compensation is far and away above private sector. There is a lot of dead weight with unions as well, because it is almost impossible to get rid of people who don’t do their job.  

 

The private sector, even with its instability, at least allows me to have some control of my career, and how hard I work is relative to my compensation and position. I have to use my talents to get ahead. I own my retirement, I own my bennies, and my “bargaining” is done with my feet. All this, and I don’t have to pay dues!

 

BTW, the Federal Government unions are not allowed to employ collective bargaining, and merit and not just seniority plays a role in career advancement, so why not the states?

 

This conversation has gotten well out of hand.

[Jason T. Radice]

Michael Moore…you just lost your argument.

 

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