Could this happen in California? (Sacramento, Montclair: camp, cost, law)

[user_id]

Originally Posted by nullgeo

Written by the person who launched considerable personal commentary about me, unsolicited, in the past. Your attempts to define what others write are pretty transparent to a number of readers.

Considerable? I called you a health nut in a conversation about health and diet.

Regardless, the reason why people as yourself think I "argue for the sake of arguing" is because I'm not partisan. I argue against what I think is wrong and argue for what I think is correct regardless of whether its a conservative or liberal position. This bothers partisans, because they like to create little alliances with fellow partisans so they can team up on the "other side". Anyhow, like other partisans, you'll rep me and pat me on the back when I say something you like and then whine when I argue against something you believe. Its bothersome, you not able to label me friend or foe.

[nullgeo]

Originally Posted by Lovehound

Unions are the concentration of power by workers banding together. Corporate America and Wall Street are the concentration of power by collecting large amounts of money. In either case the end result is the same: those who aren't part of either are the ones who suffer. We ordinary citizens suffer from both moneyed interests and unionized interests overpowering us.

I have never belonged to a union either ... yet I believe that while both the unions and the wealthy class battle, I/we all benefit from their war. Without the unions' collective stance, "ordinary citizens" have no strength against the lords. Today's labor laws could, and I believe would, be cast aside by future legislation influenced by the wealthy class were it not for the power of the unions. Much de-regulation has occurred under the influence of Wall Street since Reagan ... why would anyone think it would be different with labor laws if there was no collective opposition?

Aside from "opinion", it is scientific fact: homo sapiens are a social animal. Social animals do not exist by sacrificing the many for the few. This is not to say that we must sacrifice the majority for the few "weak" either ... Survival of the fittest pretty much rules -- but within the axiom that the welfare of the majority is paramount. The wealthy elite class will not respect the majority without being forced to.

[Lovehound]

Originally Posted by user_id

Its merely a scapegoat to avoid the real issues. I've noticed it popping up in many places, the budget problems are all "wall streets" fault because we had a financial crisis. Don't punish the common folk because those big bad guys on wall-street.

Its all done to hide the fact that many states, cities, etc have been running structural deficits for years before the financial crisis. That is especially true in California, now the dirty laundry can't be hidden.

I agree with you on that. The housing market crash can be blamed upon Wall Street and upon liberal government factions that encouraged the concept that everybody should be able to own a house irrespective of income. They turned the mortgage lending system into a joke, then took the mortgages and bundled them as investment derivatives. That worked for a while (thus the bubble) and then failed almost like some Ponzi scheme, and the bubble burst. Fat cats and elected government nuts made the bubble possible and greedy and/or stupid people filled the bubble with hot air. And pop goes the economy!

Now that the economy is busted and we're in a recession suddenly government has lost a critical part of its income and cannot any longer afford the extravagances that were affordable when money was plentiful.

So now we've arrived at the situation where the government just doesn't have the money to continue operating at its previous level. We can no longer afford the ill-advised deals that were signed with unionized government workers. I don't see any way to balance the budget without renegotiating the deal with unionized government workers. We could afford them before, we can't now.

Now there is enough pain to spread all around. Except for the fat cats of course, who continue to live in their mansions and get million dollar bonuses.

[nullgeo]

Originally Posted by user_id

Considerable? I called you a health nut in a conversation about health and diet.

Sir, you hardly limited yourself to calling me a "health nut" ... I call myself that, proudly. You went off on considerable attack using phrases that included "pathological" and "freak" ... then you went on with several forays into psychoanalyzing me negatively at some length. You are a very petty individual with nothing to offer.

[nullgeo]

Originally Posted by Lovehound

I agree with you on that. The housing market crash can be blamed upon Wall Street and upon liberal government factions that encouraged the concept that everybody should be able to own a house irrespective of income. They turned the mortgage lending system into a joke, then took the mortgages and bundled them as investment derivatives. That worked for a while (thus the bubble) and then failed almost like some Ponzi scheme, and the bubble burst. Fat cats and elected government nuts made the bubble possible and greedy and/or stupid people filled the bubble with hot air. And pop goes the economy!

Now that the economy is busted and we're in a recession suddenly government has lost a critical part of its income and cannot any longer afford the extravagances that were affordable when money was plentiful.

So now we've arrived at the situation where the government just doesn't have the money to continue operating at its previous level. We can no longer afford the ill-advised deals that were signed with unionized government workers. I don't see any way to balance the budget without renegotiating the deal with unionized government workers. We could afford them before, we can't now.

Now there is enough pain to spread all around. Except for the fat cats of course, who continue to live in their mansions and get million dollar bonuses.

All well said. Note, though, that what is happening in Wisconsin isn't renegotiating deals with the unions -- it is union-busting, entirely. The unions there have repeatedly and publicly stated they are willing to renegotiate and cut back. The record shows that governor Walker has created $140 million in new budget expenditures favoring wealthy parties [who support him] ... while refusing to negotiate at all with the unions.

[user_id]

Originally Posted by nullgeo

Without the unions' collective stance, "ordinary citizens" have no strength against the lords. Today's labor laws could, and I believe would, be cast aside by future legislation influenced by the wealthy class were it not for the power of the unions.

The tread is about public unions, public unions are a lot different than private unions. How? If the leadership of a private union over inflates the salaries of the workers the company will suffer and ultimately go out of business, the possibility of bankruptcy or going out of business greatly limits the sorts of things private unions can demand. In essence, their demands must be realistic. What checks the leadership of public unions? Not nearly as much. States cannot file bankruptcy and bankruptcies at the local level are very destructive, what usually happens is that more and more tax dollars are extracted from the general public until it bleeds so much from the local economy that the system collapses.

Lastly, public unions aren't providing cover to employees from the big bad capitalists, but rather state and local governments and ultimately the voting public.

So great, California's public unions have provided inflated pay and benefits to state workers for a couple of decades and now future workers are going to receive poor pay and benefits if the state/local governments are going to avoid default/bankruptcy. In this sense public unions just provided a mechanism for the Boomers to steal from younger folks future.

Originally Posted by nullgeo

The wealthy elite class will not respect the majority without being forced to.

Yes, all the wealthy folks are big bad people that don't care about the welfare of the majority. The only way a business owner will treat his/her employees well is if the government forces him. Right.....

With such class envy its no wonder why you believe such odd things...

[Lovehound]

Originally Posted by nullgeo

ANote, though, that what is happening in Wisconsin isn't renegotiating deals with the unions -- it is union-busting, entirely. The unions there have repeatedly and publicly stated they are willing to renegotiate and cut back.

I don't have any opinion on the Wisconsin situation although I'm not sympathetic to unions or union workers. However it will be interesting to see what happens considering the obvious bearing on what may happen in California and other states.

I'm certainly not going to cry crocodile tears for the poor, poor union workers. Boo hoo.

[.highnlite]

Yes, all the wealthy folks are big bad people that don't care about the welfare of the majority. The only way a business owner will treat his/her employees well is if the government forces him. Right.....

With such class envy its no wonder why you believe such odd things...

Well, pretty much, as a member of that wealthy elite I can say and show, Nullgeo is pretty close to the truth. Here, let me illustrate, first locally,
My father hated Edmund G "Pat" Brown, why? Because he was responsible for forcing employers to consider the safety and welfare of workers.

1. My father required the field workers to use short handled hoes, he said there work would be more precise, Brown forced farmers to stop the use of short handled hoes, and required the use of long handled hoes, which of course, my father had to go out and buy a few hundred. Guess who got to continue using the short handled hoe... family, me. One reason I joined the military at 17, I needed the vacation.

2. Father had a bunch of old farmall tractors, the classic farm tractor, small front wheel, two large driving wheels...... and no fenders, if a driver caught his boot, or his arm etc on the revolving tire the drive could be sucked out of his seat and under the tire. It made for very careful drivers, but also resulted in countless driver injuries and fatalities, The State of California under Brown required fenders on all tractors... More money wasted, according to father.

3. For years heavy tractors were moved from farm to farm on trailers towed, in our case by half ton trucks, which, when towing a Caterpillar tracked D3 was marginal. The State of California under Brown's leadership required all farmers to go to 3/4 ton trucks, Father had to go out and buy 3/4 ton trucks.

So, there you see, the government forcing an employer to provide for the welfare and safety of the worker, something that was not done without government intervention.

Now, lets go global, Child labor, children were worked dawn to dusk, often the were used to lube and maintain incredibly dangerous belt and gear driven machines.

Politicians and the government tried to limit child labour by law, but factory owners resisted; some felt that they were aiding the poor by giving their children money to buy food to avoid starvation, and others simply welcomed the cheap labour

The later years of the 19th century and well into the 20th century government intervention was required to improve the conditions of labor.

[.highnlite]

I don't have any opinion on the Wisconsin situation although I'm not sympathetic to unions or union workers. However it will be interesting to see what happens considering the obvious bearing on what may happen in California and other states.

I'm certainly not going to cry crocodile tears for the poor, poor union workers. Boo hoo

Apparently you did not get the memo, there is no crisis no budget problem in Wisconsin, as of Jan 31 Wisconsin had a project surplus of 127 million dollars, the crisis has been manufactured by the Republicans, period.

[nullgeo]

Originally Posted by Lovehound

I don't have any opinion on the Wisconsin situation although I'm not sympathetic to unions or union workers. However it will be interesting to see what happens considering the obvious bearing on what may happen in California and other states.

I'm certainly not going to cry crocodile tears for the poor, poor union workers. Boo hoo.

Neither am I particularly "sympathetic" to unions ... I have never belonged to one myself, as I said ... I also don't feel that public union workers are particularly entitled to the generous pay and packages that have swung in their favor over recent years ... furthermore, I agree, and have stated so repeatedly, that their compensations need to be scaled into reality given today's crisis -- which crisis was created by Wall St. and Wall St. influenced politics (on both liberal and conservative sides).

All said, however, I DO absolutely think the union role, both public and private is critical to maintaining healthy balance of classes and opportunity in our society. As for the public unions differing from private in that private answers to the profit of corporations -- public service is every bit as critical to the health of our society as is private enterprise. Public unions help insure a parity of quality professionalism.

Now then, is that goal [of parity of quality] being upheld by current contracts? Is the work and service executed at the level the compensation should buy? Those are entirely fair questions to ask and it is appropriate to apply correction where public service comes up short. But those issues are separate from the theoretical healthy function of unionization.

As to the connection of Wall St. and the wealthy elite oligarchy to public unions: politics is bought and sold by Daddy Megabucks and cronies ... public unions bargaining to challenge that one-sided picture is also entirely healthy for our system. That such union wrangling challenges the oligarchy with similar tactics is otherwise known as "fighting fire with fire".

The ability to deal with our economic shortfalls has been severely compromised by the wealthy ... not only by their avarice and greed in trashing the economy with their "products" ... but also by their unwillingness to pay any fair share of the recovery. The unions have over-reached their boundaries, and are being brought to their knees for that ... the wealthy? They are walking away with more and more money by the minute.

Class envy? Moi? Hardly. I am a minimalist by choice. I have the education and skills and experience to prosper well financially -- and have done so in my past at times ... it is through my personal commitment to using no more than I need to be happy and healthy that I live as I do. You can divide up the false wealth however you all wish.