Re: The one piece on what's happening in WI you must read

On Mar 1, 2011 4:45 PM, "Johne Cook" <[email protected]> wrote:

> 

>
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/24/AR2011022406
520_pf.html

 

I've a couple of nitpicks.

 

> They were contributing a fifth of a penny on a dollar of wages to their
pensions and one-fourth what private-sector workers pay for health
insurance.

 

This is very misleading.  The simple fact is that 100% of an employee's
negotiated compensation is 'contributed' by the employee.   What percentage
'comes out' of the base salary is mostly irrelevant accounting details
primarily motivated by tax law or marketing spin.  Comparing this minor
detail in one compensation package vs another rather than comparing the
complete packages is deceitful and harmful to understanding.

 

**Either there is a dollar mount or not.  Group rates are negotiated like
anything else, and the employees participation amount is there to be
measured.  And the unions are getting a sweet deal, not to mention how many
unions are now exempt from Obama Care.My employee contribution is clearly
tied to my coverage and my family needs.  The only saving grace is that they
are pretax dollars.  I pay over 600 a month in medical and dental.  That is
600 less disposable income, only slightly offset by a reduced tax footprint.

 

**my cousin told me something that made me laugh.  His pension, that he
contributes almost nothing to, is actually not a pension, it is just part of
his compensation.  That is nothing but sophistry.

 

This isn't 'bringing it in line with the private sector', it's a simple
paycut and possibly a breach of contract.

 

**So renegotiate the contracts.  Paycuts in many sector would have prevented
many layoffs.  They did in mine.  The layoffs we eventuall had were due to a
loss of a major contract, not the economy.

 

In the private sector, the employer who treats his employees with respect
and honesty from the beginning usually has little need to deal with unions.

 

**tell that to the card check crowd.  They won't rest until the unions are
even more common, whether we want them or not.  I weep for if they ever hit
the high tech industry.

 

> desperately trying to hang on to the gains of their glory years - from
unsustainable federal entitlements for the elderly enacted when life
expectancy was 62 to the massive promissory notes issued to government
unions when state coffers were full and no one was looking

 

No one was looking?  This is dishonest.  They are legally required to keep
'looking' and regularly report exactly how full the pension fund is.  The
life expectancy didn't jump up overnight.

 

What the politicians and bureaucrats don't want to admit is that they
mismanaged the fund during the boom years, effectively stealing from the
employees.  Now that the bubble's popped they can't hide behind unreasonably
optimistic projections anymore.  They underpayed the fund when times were
good and now that times are bad they are diverting attention from their
earlier incompetence.

 

***effectively?  If you are referring to SS, they were mandated by LAW to
steal.

 

Insurance and annuities and pensions are some of the most wonderful and
useful financial tools.  But I'd never trust them to be managed by
politicians.

 

**which is exactly what is happening.  When the politicians are advocating
for the unions they way they are, when they are turning collective
bargaining into a 'right', and when they are happily spending millions in
campaign dollars from the unions, there is a huge problem.

 

>> Amazingly, the answer is: now. Led by famously progressive Wisconsin -
Scott Walker at the state level and Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan at
the congressional level - a new generation of Republicans has looked at the
debt and is crossing the Rubicon. Recklessly principled, they are putting
the question to the nation: Are we a serious people?

 

This framing of Walker, et al. as heroes leaves me a little bit nauseous.
My belief is that the whole union smashing bit is just sleight of hand along
traditional partisan arguments to distract us from the more dastardly bits
of the bill: e.g. the no-bid energy asset firesales.  Corruption and crony
capitalism at its finest.

 

**perhaps.  The democrat defense of the unions is just quid pro quo for the
voter base.

-- 
dadl-ot mailing list
http://mail.thehood.us/mailman/listinfo/dadl-ot_thehood.us
http://news.gmane.org/gmane.music.dadl.ot