Democrat state senators continue to block the constitutional process in Wisconsin. What should be done about it?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110218/ap_on_re_us/us_wisconsin_budget_unions_59
Democrats Unite Against the Democratic Process
By RayAmerica Follow Sat, 19 Feb 2011, 6:11pm 9,167 views 310 comments
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Vicente says
Do I take this to mean you will not be joining up in the near future? I would have thought you would have loved to go marching off to fight in Dear Leader's War.
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Vicente says
How many people work in the "average household?"
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RayAmerica says
My point was you were being DISINGENOUS by comparing the compensation of the teacher, to the SALARY of the soldier. And we typically hand a teacher a classroom and some ancient books and let them scrounge for teaching supplies. The soldier has access to a supply locker which costs us QUITE a lot more.
The attempt to include compensation in one case, and salary in the other, is quite clearly wrong. You could back up and try again to be more accurate.
Or you could hare off in some other direction to avoid saying "I was wrong".
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Vicente says
Please cite a specific example in which teachers are provided with "ancient books." What exactly is your definition of "ancient?"
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Vicente says
Are you implying the soldiers should not be properly supplied?
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Another point, why are we comparing "average teacher compensation" to some uncited figure for a "soldier in Afghanistan"?
What is "average military compensation" that would be more useful. At least as of a 2005 DoD study it was $138,000 and I expect it's gone up quite a bit since then.
http://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=8271&type=0&sequence=1
If you feel a soldier in Afghanistan is underpaid perhaps it's because some chunk flying a desk in Austin is overpaid. Otherwise you are drilling in only on soldiers in Afghanistan to wrap yourself in the flag to gain emotional points instead of compare compensation.
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Vicente says
Oh I don't know. Maybe it's because I think that if a public school teacher in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, (where only 68% graduate from High School), makes on average over $100,000 that maybe, just maybe, soldiers being shot at in Afghanistan should make more than $1,700 gross a month.
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RayAmerica says
Fascinating. But if I say absolutely no corporate or finance executive should make more than a soldier in Afghanistan, I'd be accused of "hateful and unfair class warfare". Clearly a person who can crash an economy and their company all without mussing their Armani, deserves slack, a bonus and an early teeoff time.
But I digress. Please do restate your original comparison using average compensation for each with references.
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Note: Ray's 1700 military pay for a soldier in Afghanistan starting pay for a 19 year old (maybe one of those kids who didn't graduate graduate in Milwaukee).
And it doesn't include food room and board or the other allowance that they get ( I forget what it's called).
That is the 1700 to the 19 year old can go straight in to savings.
Whereas the 100K is an exaggeration of total benefits for a middle aged teacher who may well have a masters degree and had to put in 20 years to get to that level. And in a city that pays its teachers okay (50K plus great benefits) accounting for the fact that it's difficult getting teachers to come and work in impoverished districts where the drop out rate is so high. You have no idea the challenge that is.
Until recently there was a shortage of teachers in many places. I'm sure when there is a shortage of 19 year olds with minimal skills who want to go to Iraq or Afghanistan, then they will raise the benefits.
Also, if that kid stays in the military, does some school or training, betters himself and get a few promotions he will be making much more than 50K at age 40 and he can retire at 50 with a great pension. That early retiremnt is where the pay off for being in a high risk job comes in.
By the way, I'm not saying military pay shouldn't be better. I don't know. Just pointing out the absurdity of Ray's point.
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Vicente says
Please note that I referred to the average pay for a fighting soldier in Afghanistan, not the paper shufflers and planners inside the Pentagon.
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marcus says
Are you so silly to think that everything they make goes right into savings? I guess the military picks up all their travel expenses, personal needs, and entertainment during leave.
The "1700" is gross pay. Ever hear anything about taxes, or is that beyond your comprehension?
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marcus says
Fine example of what liberals do best; Class Envy. Now it's the military. A class all by itself and Marcus is green with envy. I guess 1700 gross a month is big bucks for Marcus. LOL
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Wow, you really showed me Ray. You're right, the taxes on 1700/month are going to be a huge bite.
I'll say it again. While they are in Afghanistan, their food room and board does not come out of the 1700. Nor does the expense of flying them to and from Afghanistan.
For that teacher a very high percentage of the after tax 50K goes to food and room and board.
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marcus says
Does the military pay for their leave, travel to go home, entertainment?
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RayAmerica says
Vintage Ray. That's about as close as he will ever come to a "you're right, I'm wrong."
The part he didn't read of what I said.
marcus says
As always, Ray neither reads nor comprehends most of other people's comments.
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marcus says
Marcus thinks it's a "benefit" for the soldier that the kind military doesn't charge them for travel "to and from Afghanistan." LOL!
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Troy says
That's an both a symptomatic and exacerbating issue to the originary problem: too much cash and credit sloshing around in the system trying to find a home BECAUSE INTEREST RATES' NATURAL ROLE AS A GOVERNING MECHANISM / ECONOMIC INDICATOR HAVE BEEN SHORT CIRCUITED by policy.
Look, it's common sense: the lower the rate, the more purchasing power the consumer can control via a monthly payment. Home prices pretty quickly adjust to reflect the lower rates via higher prices, which in turn became a higher collateral item to use for cash our refi's, and around we go. Lenders themselves were hoodwinked into believing their bubble's own BS, that prices would go up and and up, hence the more creative (stupid) mortgage structures, including reverse amortizing mortgages -- all of which would not have happened in an honest interest rate environment, vs. one that distorts all sorts of signals and prices.
That's not to say your other points don't have merit. There was corruption, stupidity and wild speculation across the board, and I'm no apologist for the banking / lending system (which I believe should bear (it's shareholders, bond holders, and employees) the fundamental insolvency for all of this. But, of course, bondholders are getting off scott free without nary a haircut. Equity holders were bailed out from total insolvency in all but a few situations.
But your proposals of "if we just had better regulations" is both a solution as worse as the problem, and a can of worms unto itself.
Firstly, in just a few paragraphs you described with links a host of things that should have, would have, could have done a better job if only A,B,C... X,Y,Z. All of which carry with them their own distortions to an efficiently running market.
Clearly the existing power structure simply dodges it anyway. You may be told by politicians the problem is solved, but there is always another problem looming, yet always the loopholes are there (or the laws flatly ignored), and the bailouts are there for those who have the power.
All kinda crazy when a natural market interest rate takes care of a great deal of this on it's own.
Of course, there is always caveat emptor, but even that has been subverted by bubble pricing -- what's "normal" in house pricing, mortgage rates / structure is what's enabled by the artificial regulation.
One thing you didn't mention, also, was the bottomless backstop to the mortgage markets known as Freddie and Fannie. Those are a subject unto themselves. Corrupted and politicized as they were, they were as guilty as anything -- and systematically defended despite all their flaws.
This is the subject of books. It suffices to say that my view is all the mandated / policy interventions twist and distort the legit marketplace, thus begetting call for ever more regulatory complexity and future interventions, which in turn further distort, loophole create, bubble induce, mal-allocate scarce resources, etc, and around and around and around it goes until you have a housing bubble.
But again, the subject of books.
Good thoughts, though. Although it may seem like it on some levels, I'm largely sympathetic to what you want to achieve / what you're griping about.
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RayAmerica says
I didn't say what they should spend their savings on.
Back to ignore Ray. I only saw your asinine point in a quote from someone else.
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RayAmerica says
Ray it shouldn't be anyones opinion which dictates how much anyone else makes. It should be done via free market. Free market creates efficiency this way.
If you start dictating who gets paid what, it's a down hill slope on which centralized government / unions run.
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Ronnie Honduras says
Clearly this isn't the case, however. Banks can and did make crazy loans no matter what the interest rate was.
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RayAmerica says
I see, and your point of using these ridiculously low figures:
1) $19K average Milwaukee salary (unlikely, and unreferenced of course)
2) Afghanistan private salary ONLY ignore all benefits (19 yo?)
compared to:
3) Mrs. Grundy decades of service including her retirement.
The point of that was NOT class envy? Really?
Here's your mirror, seems that finger is pointed right back at ya.
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Thanks for the interesting picture of your hat. I'll bet you wear it when you're decked out in your white socks, black shoes & shorts combo. You must be a real sight.
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Ronnie Honduras says
How can you say this without bursting into laughter?
From 1946 to 1981 we never had a banking crisis. Reagan takes power, deregulates the S&L's, and they blow up. Clinton and Bush conspire to deregulate lending and Wall Street, and the banks blow up.
How the hell can you make an assertion like that when history so utterly completely contradicts you?
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Ronnie Honduras says
Fannie and Freddie didn't have anything to do with the run-up home values 2001-2005. They had a lot to do with the *maintenance* of the 2005 bubble through 2006 and 2007 though.
The bubble was 95% peaked by 1H05, and both Fannie and Freddie's market shares were being pummeled by the private label securitization flows being passed through Wall Street.
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/REABSHNO
Texas had very strict regulations about not allowing too much cash-out refis and HELOCs, and they thereby avoided the bubble.
The bubble was allowed to happen by too little regulation of a market juiced by interest rate drops (making housing much more affordable, at least temporarily) and a lot of money in the system looking for yields.
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From these charts it's pretty clear who has FAR TOO MUCH INFLUENCE and unions are definitely not #1:
http://www.opensecrets.org/overview/blio.php#
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shrekgrinch says
Unless, of course, this energizes conservative union families to mobilize the recall of the Republicans so that the new law can be overturned. An 8% pay cut during an oil crisis doesn't tend to sit well with famlies struggling to afford the basics.
I'm not saying you are wrong on this one, but the Republicans shot their wad. Democrats have no incentive to return to Madison and pass a budget. And Democrats still retain their own "nuclear option" in the form of a General Strike.
http://politics.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474979130221
The fat lady hasn't entered stage left yet.
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@Shrekgrinch - Your analysis may be correct, it's a reasonable take on the strategy. The thing is, I don't know if modern Americans really fathom the gravity of a General Strike. The last notable one that I can think of was the 1934 Minneapolis Teamsters Strike. Whether big business or the Koch brothers realize it or not, Unions destroyed the laisse faire robber baron system of corporatacrocy in the early 20th Century. They can do it again.
I agree with Reich's call for calm among Union leadership. The anger should be allowed to burn and grow. Let the radical elements of the left agitate for a General Strike. Get the idea out there and talked about in the national psyche. Unions should play the victim, suggest stoic leadership by resisting a General Strike, and recall Walker and his rightwing minions using the electoral process.
Or not.
The idea that busting Unions will somehow destroy the Democratic party by starving it of money is a laughable proposition. Republicans literally controlled the world during the Bush W days. All they managed to do was piss people off and help elect Barrack Obama.
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shrekgrinch says
Wow, a real Utopia. Welcome to the joyful world of 1908.
Work faster you little fucking rats. Bossman needs one of them self propelled stage coaches.
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shrekgrinch says
This is extremely naive and would be cute if it wasn't from someone pretending to understand how politics work.
Roe v. Wade is the best fundraising tool the Republicans have. Furthermore it guarantees the Democrats will never be able to get in on that Southern Christian fundamentalist action.
Any Republican that ACTUALLY wants to repeal Roe is too stupid to be in office.
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SoCal Renter says
Could be right. Notable in the charts posted above is how evenly split the corporate money is between R's and D's. If you listen to D's and Lefties, they make it sound as if it's as lopsided to the benefit of the R's as is union favoritism of the D's...
Which leads to a separate point: The D's are as culpable for supporting Big Biz as are the R's, only they float the BS campaign to the masses that they're for the people while supporting craaaaaaapppppppp behind their backs through complex bills that have high sounding populist names ("save the worker act", or "Help the helpless act" or "the Corporate fairness act", or some such), which are really written by lobbyists just the same (that money pays for something, folks) thus pandering to business influence and as anti competitive as anything.
But, more directly to your comment quoted above and the charts above that Vincente claims as proof that D's don't benefit much at all from Union influence. Don't forget all the man hours put in by Unionistas as "volunteer work" largely subsidized by the Union apparatus. For these sorts of things, protesters always manage to appear out of thin air en mass as if to imply massive populist support for union causes, when really it's a bunch of people bussed in from all over. Same holds true for all sorts of electioneering.
Meanwhile, the real working people are actually producing stuff / forms of wealth to exchange for their salaries. R's and especially Third parties, especially, have to hire / pay for many of those man-hours.
I should also add, you damn well know a ton of those Wisconsin college students making up a large part of the protests / including many who took over the legislature building, are on some form of the government subsidy to be in college in the first place, and given how much govt. subsidy goes into the University systems and their professor's salaries, you know damn well there's a ton of support for preventing any of the suction cup firmly hooked to the taxpayer teet from being removed.
I don't know -- I'm kind all over the place with my reply.
I think, though, that this will affect revenues to unions and their ability to finance campaigns. If workers suddenly have to be more private-sector-like in both their market-bearing wage competitiveness, and in terms of their quality of work (e.g. the movement in other states that pay be based on effectiveness vs. ability to / duration of just showing up), they'll have a lot less time and extra wage to blow on plying politicians towards keeping the taxpayers pinned to the ground.
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Ronnie Honduras says
I know some union teachers who think that their job is by far the most "real" work they have ever done. Some of these people have done several other kinds of work, including some that you would define as real.
Ronnie Honduras says
So I guess logically, as automation and productivity increase, a byproduct will naturally be more poor people. Even if the total wealth were increasing faster than the basic needs of the population, those who aren't directly creating stuff or wealth are not entitled to a share ? There's not a good way to put that wealth to use that would be a win for everyone ?
I'm not saying that it's an easy question, and I'm all for the keeping incentives for being productive high. It's not like the answer has to be one extreme or the other.
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marcus says
According to the Pro-Plutocracy True Believers, yes it really does have to be one extreme or the other.
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extremes are only used to get votes. there are no extremes when it comes to running the nation.
Obama campaigned like a zealoted socialist, but his policies were very often very middle of the road.
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ChrisLA says
Yes, but they're not just "used." Many people think in extremes, they sometimes have extreme opinions. In a way I can understand,...its how we argue a point. If a right winger thinks that as far to the right as we have come, it's not far enough, because the rich and corporate interests need MORE, then they are going to have to talk extreme, because lets face it, further to the right IS EXTREME. (say no to mind control)
If a moderate "liberal" whos point of view is extremely far from where we are now, wants to make his or her point, he is going to express it in extreme terms so that he might help a few of the mind controlled authoritarian types, who actually buy the newscorp bs, to wake up.
But there is one other twist to the whole extreme or not point of view, contradicting what you say. What makes something extreme is how far it is from what the powerful interests say is moderate and sensible.
For example, I would say that single payer health care is not extreme, and it is in fact obviously sensible, and let's hope it's also inevitable. Medicare for all is such a no brainer. It already pays for the expensive end of life care. It's the only way to hold down costs, like other countries do.
But in this topsy turvy world we live in, singe payer is extreme, and the system we have (that is the way health care is being run) is a byproduct of the supposedly moderate sensible compromising way that our world is run.
The corruption of our lobbyist system tells me that both democrats and republicans sold democracy a few decades ago.
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ChrisLA says
?
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marcus says
The American people gave it up in 1994-98 when the transformation of the Republican party into the present clownshow was completed.
When I came back to Cali in 2000 I naively voted for the nice Republican candidate (Tom Campbell). Little did I know how little he fit in with the actual power structure and platform of the post-Gingrich Republican party.
As I said earlier, the current Republican party is a coalition of single-issue voters:
1) Pro-Life (anti-abortion)
2) Pro-Family (anti-gay)
3) Pro-wealth (anti-tax)
4) Pro-gun (anti gun-control)
5) Pro-Israel (über alles)
6) Pro-military (a trillion dollars is not enough!)
By punching the above people's buttons the Republicans receive 45% of the national vote easily, and way more in the stupider areas of the country. What remains from there is finding that 1 out of the 11 remaining voters to defect -- not too hard in general, though in 2006 I think the electorate punished the Republicans over their Iraq screw-up, and in 2008 Obama was somehow able to seize the narrative, and McCain's "This is just a Mental Recession" bs wasn't selling.
We could have a lot better Dems if the electorate wasn't so fucked up. I fail to see why this is controversial.
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SoCal Renter says
And yet another example of Hyperbole.
So easy to blast out those sorts of comments, all high and mighty. Consider:
That's a clip from an article titled "The Trouble with Child Labor Laws"
http://mises.org/daily/2858
Which presents a cogent discussion that addresses the pros and cons of younger folks becoming productive citizens through the workforce without the crap-like comment posted above by SouthCal Renter
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marcus says
You're correct in calling out my comment. I should have been clearer by what I mean by that phrase, "real working people".
Those are people producing something in exchange for something at the market value of that something. And by market value, I don't mean government imposed value -- e.g. the government's hyper complex tax code requiring the waste of $ hundreds of millions into the tax compliance sector of the economy -- what I generically call welfare with a Ph.D. -- the educated parasitic sporting various education credentials -- an Esq. or C.P.A. as the case may be, who earns their living entirely as a guide through the artificial minefields created for other productive people to navigate. Totally parasitic / host dependent, and at the core, only consumes wealth.
To the extent Unions -- teachers or otherwise -- hold down the taxpayer legislatively so that their compensation package and work environment is far above what the market would bear(which as we can see with the looming insolvency and taxpayer revolt that is taking place), there's an element of getting paid above market clearing value. Now, allowing the market to value that raises a complex discussion of value / price that lefties will argue should carry an above market premium forced on the taxpayer legislatively. I would argue that it's inefficient and harms the students it's supposed to help, to the benefit of Union Teachers primarily.
I make that distinction because I completely bristle at the lefties and unionistas who have co-opted the phrase "working people" as if the only people who work are union or democrats.
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Ronnie Honduras says
Now this is getting to the more interesting part of the question. Don't know if I can or should share all my thoughts on this because of all the work I have to do this weekend, but I'm going to try a summary.
Some argue that unions for govt jobs are inappropriate, in part because of the lack of competition. That is it is too easy for the employees to get more than they should when there aren't "profit margins" dictating the resources available for payroll. I would note that in govt work, compensation demands do not get unreasonable because the public is very aware of what public workers are paid. Right now, unions are fighting only to minimize cuts.
I am a public school teacher. I can say speaking for myself and for many other others that as much as I like working with and helping children as a teacher, if the compensation weren't decent (and that's all it is), I would be doing something else.
Is the solution competition, from charters and private schools with some sort of voucher method of payment ? That would set a true market for teachers where the market would decide what teachers should be paid. The better schools would have the higher paid teachers. But this get's complicated, and is problematic, because the worse schools, that is the ones serving poorer neighborhoods and families would have to pay teachers less, and yet these are the more difficult and challenging teaching jobs.
Also, there is a lot of research that shows the best situation for high potential kids from difficult backgrounds is to be in a socially and academically diverse school. That is, students need to see plenty of "cool kids" who are academically successful. This happens in a good public school in a middle class urban area such as the one where i work.
What you would likely end up with under a voucher system, is a slow evolution to the only public schools being ones that serve a relatively homogeneous groups of "bad students." These are students from very low income or troubled families and children who have been neglected or for whatever reason and are behind in school. This kind of dumping ground school would be tragic.
Ronnie Honduras says
Teaching, and other public service jobs are unique, not only because the government is the employer, but also because the quality is highly influenced by compensation and yet it is not quite a normal market mechanism determining this pay level. Unions and collective bargaining make it possible for pay to be what it should be.
Now maybe the current level of unemployment and underemployment means that in the short term you could slowly replace good teachers with high potential people who are willing to give it a try for less. But in the long run you wont have changed how difficult the job is or what ultimately needs to be paid to retain good people.
I can't prove this, but I'm on the front lines and know of what i speak.
I don't have time to do this topic justice, and I have to put my energies in to other work.
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If there is a "profit" to be gained by educators, what is it, and when do we get it ?