In The USA: the Next Revolution

[slapout9]

The Giant Sucking Sound of jobs and tax revenues going overseas!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rkgx1C_S6ls

[Pete]

... we could rationalize that we were "liberators"; perhaps even up to about 1950.

No, it was earlier than that, it was in 1947 with the Truman Doctrine for Greece that these moral dilemmas began. If we take sides in a messy overseas war and train, arm and advise one side instead of the other it raises difficult questions. Are we morally complicit if the side we support lines up the prisoners it has taken and blows them away? Does it matter if U.S. advisors are present at the time? Should anyone give a damn? Which is more important, winning the war or morality in the abstract?

[Ken White]

but it does get better the new Governor of Florida (bald headed guy can't remember his name) wants to eliminate all pensions for Policemen,Firemen,and Teachers....that will be goodone to watch.

He merely wants them to contribute and the State to contribute less. Varies too much by job to cite here but all in all, most State employees do not now contribute at all, the State pays the entire cost. Scott wants them to contribute 5%.

I guess they'll march on Tallahassee over that...

[slapout9]

this Wisconsin teapot tempest turn into this - Flint Sit Down Strike (Michigan politics), which it isn't.

But, it does have its own humor - from WTMJ (TMJ = The Milwaukee Journal):



At the very least, they could have pointed their bus north and stayed at the Watersmeet Casino and given us some tourist dollars.

Cheers

Mike

I don't know what the Law is up there, but that is a pretty dangerous action IOM to threaten the use of force to locate the duly elected officials that run the state. jmm99 what's you legal opinion?

[slapout9]

I guess they'll march on Tallahassee over that...

I have know doubt you will keep them in line

[jmm99]

Here's the Wisconsin Constitution, Art. IV, Legislature (emphasis added):

SECTION 7. [Organization of legislature; quorum; compulsory attendance.] Each house shall be the judge of the elections, returns and qualifications of its own members; and a majority of each shall constitute a quorum to do business, but a smaller number may adjourn from day to day, and may compel the attendance of absent members in such manner and under such penalties as each house may provide.

and in the US Constitution, Art. I (emphasis added):

SECTION. 5. Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members, and a Majority of each shall constitute a Quorum to do Business; but a smaller Number may adjourn from day to day, and may be authorized to compel the Attendance of absent Members, in such Manner, and under such Penalties as each House may provide.

Those darn black-hatted, Iron Brigaders from Wisconsin were just a bunch of copycats. They did pretty well in the War of Northern Aggression, however.

BTW: Illinois can't fetch Dems, lawyers say:

The Wisconsin legislators on the lam cannot be touched by out-of-state police, according to veteran Wisconsin lawyers.

The attorneys agree that authority of Capitol Police and other local law enforcement ends at Beloit, meaning Illinois officers couldn't help their Wisconsin brethren retrieve those Democrats who escaped if they wanted.
....
Carla Vigue, spokeswoman for the Capitol Police, said the agency has not looked for the legislators nor has it contacted Illinois authorities.

"We're not engaged" in the situation, she said.
....
A similar situation occurred in Texas in 2003 when legislative action there was paralyzed for several days when Democrats ran off to Oklahoma and New Mexico. The Democrats were trying to block a Republican redistricting plan.

The Texas boycotts ended when one Democrat voluntarily returned to Austin. The plan was approved over the objections of Democrats.

So, MSNBC (out of many hyping media outlets) is hyping this aspect of the event.

The noon (today) crowd at the Capitol was very large (jsonline photos; #1).

MJS (jsonline) has the best coverage of this Wisconsin story.

MJS's Politifact column (a regular feature) has 2 pages of links to truths, half-truths and lies re: Statements about State Budget.

For example, this assertion, from Progressive Change Campaign Committee:

Says Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker "has threatened to call out the National Guard if workers protest against" changes to bargaining laws.

but, from MJS Politfact, after a long discussion of the evidence:

Let’s return to the statement.

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee said Walker "threatened to call out the National Guard if workers protest against these cuts!" The governor spoke of possibly calling up the Guard if state workers didn’t show up for work, but he made no reference to using it in response to protests. And certainly none that would suggest the Guard is authorized to use force to impose anything on state workers.

We rate the claim Pants on Fire.

Finally, Poll: Majority don't side with Walker; senators should come home:

A new poll shows that a small majority of Wisconsin residents disagree with Gov. Scott Walker’s plans to increase public employees’ share of their benfits and to strip the unions of much of their power.

But the poll also says that a stronger majority of respondents think that Democratic state senators, who fled the Capitol on Thursday to avoid taking a vote on the Walker’s legislation, should return to Madison.

The poll was conducted and paid for We Ask America of Springfield, Ill. The poll was conducted on Thursday by sampling 2,397 Wisconsin residents. The margin of error is plus or minus 2 percentage points.

The poll asked respondents if they approve or disapprove of Walker’s plans. According to the poll, 43.05% approved and 51.9% disapproved. 5.05% were uncertain. Females and union households registered higher disapproval.

On whether the Democratic senators should return to Madison, 55.99% said yes, 36.38% said no and 7.63% were not sure. There was virtually no difference of opinion based on gender. ....

My conclusion is that both political parties are trying to manipulate the public via the parties' respective media outlets. I hope both parties fall flat on their fat a$$es (fat because of their fat wallets).

Regards

Mike

[Ken White]

Both of 'em are criminally insane (for lack of a better phrase to describe venal, corrupt, dishonest, selfish and self righteous foolishness aided by would-be demagoguery fostered by both stupidity and cupidity) IMO.

We, the Voters, got a good start last November -- vote out all incumbents!!!

[Fuchs]

We, the Voters, got a good start last November -- vote out all incumbents!!!

I know it's domestic politics of a distant country to me, but I'm still puzzled.

I think I remember that the 'anti-incumbent movement' was exposed as a hoax of the mainstream media several times already. Incumbents are on average still very safely in their offices if they decide to campaign for another term.

[Ken White]

I think I remember that the 'anti-incumbent movement' was exposed as a hoax of the mainstream media several times already. Incumbents are on average still very safely in their offices if they decide to campaign for another term.

The media reports, correctly, that persistent calls from many to vote out all incumbents are not generally successful.

That is true because the Politicians in all legislatures -- not just Congress -- write laws and promulgate rules to protect their incumbency. The so called McCain-Feingold electoral reform law, "The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002," was also called by many the "McCain-Feingold Incumbent Protection Act" because it accorded US Congressional incumbents a number of protections and assists in retaining their seats.

They also try to protect themselves by essentially buying Votes. Many US social welfare programs and the recently passed Affordable Health Care Act are aimed at providing not sorely needed but certainly welcome cash benefits to middle class voters while throwing crumbs at those near or below the poverty line (obviously every penny sent to someone who doesn't need it takes away from someone who desperately needs help -- but the Politicians don't seem to worry about that). Politicians at all levels also bring jobs and new highways, bridges, etc. to their States, Counties, Cities and and Districts so most voters are all for voting out other politicians but not theirs...

However, this past November, there was, for the first time in many years, a large number of losses by incumbents, some of whom were deemed to be extremely safe and sure to be reelected. That, hopefully, is a sign that the incumbent may become less sure of retaining the seat.

We'll see...

[Pete]

Wisconsin has a long tradition of trade unionism. The blue-collar guys there are social and foreign policy conservatives but if you jack with their paychecks all hell will break loose. In Milwaukee labor unionism comes from the old German socialist tradition brought over by immigrants around 1900 from Bismarck's Germany.

When I was in college there at Marquette University in 1970-73 the Milwaukee Police Department had a Tactical Squad with a ferocious reputation gained from its experience in breaking up labor disturbances -- when heavy-set industrial workers of German and Polish extraction go on strike the confrontations with the police can get violent really quickly. That was in the days before SWAT Teams when the main police weapon was an oversize lead-filled nightstick. One Milwaukee cop I talked to nearly 40 years ago said the Tactical Squad was an organization of bullies that was run by a bully.

[Fuchs]

Little excursion about labour unions, from an economic science point of view:

Labour unions are a form of organisation that can serve the purpose of compensating for several market failures.

One (of many) market failures is a power asymmetry - this leads to one party having an unfair advantage over another. The result is an inefficient distortion; the market fails to allocate resources efficiently (based on preferences, not power).

The absence of labour unions provides corporations with an asymmetric power advantage over workers, resulting in an inefficient income redistribution away from labour income towards capital income (and often towards top management income, too).

Labour unions can become powerful enough to exaggerate their role and gain asymmetric power advantage over employers, but that's rare.

Labour unions also address the market failure issue of too high transaction costs. It's simply inefficient to negotiate wages individually. Centralised wage negotiations for thousands of largely identical or comparable jobs have much lower transaction costs than individual negotiations.


Both unconditional support for and unconditional opposition to labour unions is therefore an expression of economic policy incompetence (or of a principal-agent problem in politics) in my opinion.


It's 'disappointing' that there's still such a primitive view of labour unions (either pro or contra) so very much wide-spread in the western world. We had more than a century time for understanding labour unions, strikes and their roles!

What would we say about a clan of chimpanzees who fail to grasp a lesson for 150 years?
I think we'd say they're too stupid and thus insufficiently capable to learning.

[jmm99]

There are worse things to be.

As you correctly state, Milwaukee is a tough blue collar town - Madison is a universe or two removed. Old Mil = "social and foreign policy conservatives", which is one reason why I like the place.

Of course, the well-paying blue collar jobs have been reduced substantially over the past three decades. So Old Mil town is not what it was when you were there in 1970-1973. I've watched that happen over almost the last 50 years (since an MU friend invited me down to Milwaukee for a couple of weeks in 1962). I know Milwauikee far better than Detroit.

The MJS PolitiFact staff's most recent shots this evening hit two Republicans and one "progressive" (having nailed another "progressive" group earlier).

Scott Walker

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker says his budget-repair bill would leave collective bargaining “fully intact”.
....
Where does that leave us?

In arguing the changes would be modest, Walker cited the civil service system and said "collective bargaining is fully in
tact." However, Walker himself has outlined how his budget-repair bill would limit the collective bargaining rights of public employees.

Indeed, it’s that provision that provoked daily demonstrations at the state Capitol and national media attention. To now say now say collective bargaining would remain "fully intact" is not just false, it’s ridiculously false.

And that means it is Pants on Fire

Paul Ryan

U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan compares Madison to Cairo, calls protests over collective bargaining changes “riots”.
.....
Puzzled, we called Ryan’s office and asked what he was referring to in his comments about riots and his comparison of a week of Madison protests with 18 days that led to the resignation of the president of Egypt.

Ryan’s response: "It was an inaccurate comparison."

To put it mildly.

Our response: Pants on Fire.

Rachel Maddow

Rachel Maddow says Wisconsin is on track to have a budget surplus this year.
....
Here’s the bottom line:

There is fierce debate over the approach Walker took to address the short-term budget deficit. But there should be no debate on whether or not there is a shortfall. While not historically large, the shortfall in the current budget needed to be addressed in some fashion. Walker’s tax cuts will boost the size of the projected deficit in the next budget, but they’re not part of this problem and did not create it.

We rate Maddow’s take False.

I'd place the Journal-Sentinel center-left (that is, in the center on its left side, as I'm center-right). Its local columnists (that I read regularly) run across the spectrum from liberal to conservative:

Gene Kane, Raising Kane.

Jim Stingl, In My Opinion

Jim Causey, Uncommon Causey

Patrick McIlheran, Right On

It's not the NYT or WP, but it's a good regional paper. I hope it survives.

Regards

Mike

[slapout9]

I just finished watching Bill Maher and they had Matt Tiabbi(Rolling Stone Financial reporter) on tonight. He has just written a new book about the financial crisis. His take was (as is mine) that pension funds are in so much trouble because of all the crap that Wall Street sold them. They took terrible losses that will have to be made up, and since the tax base was shipped over seas(see Ross Perot) States are know playing the game of make 35k a year teachers pay for their greed.

[RJ]

Ken White posted.

"We, the Voters, got a good start last November -- vote out all incumbents!!! "

Ken, Gov. Scott has been in office for about 6 weeks. He was elected on Nov. 4, 2010.

His first act was to reduce taxes to stimulate WI's economy and generate jobs.

The puff balls on msnbc are equating the tax cuts as "distributing money to his republican crony's." He is one of several new Republican Govenors who few of us have ever heard of that IMHO will be political stars in the next few years. Andrew Coumo (D) the new NY Govenor is going after the public jobs sector, and targeting teacher's first. He is acting in a very conservative manner. It's almost like he took a page out of NJ Gov. Chis Christy's play
book.

The key word in WI, NY and NJ is "We are out of money and can not afford to pay you the giant perks of the past.

Ohio, is heading toward the same senerio.

The professional protesters are being bused in from beyond WI's borders and Saturday should be an interesting day in Madison. The local WI Tea Party is holding a Gov. Scott Support rally in Madison on Sat. It should be an interesting stand off and I hope it doesn't become a headbashing moment in the Sunday Morning headlines.

A group of protestors showed up at the Govenors home yeaterday morning and raised a stink in that peaceful suburb. Gov. Scott has small children, but his said this moring that he will not be intimidated.

I've listened to some of the protesting teachers say they would be willing to contribute too their pension and medical plans, but are adament about not giving up their right to negotiate future contracts.

If the Gov. gets an agreement from the Teachers on the pension and medical cost sharing I believe he has the retention of collective bargaining chip to give back.

Lets see who blinks and how soon. The teachers who failed to show for school this past week are playing chicken with their jobs. The Madison School Board was seeking an injunction this morning on ordering them back to work or terminating the lot of them.

Can you say Ronald Reagan and AirControllers and remember the action taken?

The millions of WI taxpayers who pay large school taxes and pay the full boat on the teachers pension and medical might reach a point where they react to their children, not getting the education they are paying for.

Has anyone googled the average wage paid WI Teachers? 35 K seems a bit light for "tenured teachers". Newbie's, may start at that, but what does the average teacher recive in compensation, including benefits?

Follow the moola!

[Dayuhan]

I just finished watching Bill Maher and they had Matt Tiabbi(Rolling Stone Financial reporter) on tonight. He has just written a new book about the financial crisis. His take was (as is mine) that pension funds are in so much trouble because of all the crap that Wall Street sold them.

Anyone who gets their financial news or analysis from Rolling Stone deserves what they get, which ain't much. Might as well trust them to tell you what's hot... oh, wait...

The notion that "pension funds are in so much trouble because of all the crap that Wall Street sold them" is to me a crock. Caveat Emptor applies in the financial world, more than in most places, and pension funds are more than capable of doing their own due diligence. Blaming your own bad investment decisions on the seller is a cop-out of the worst order, but it's nothing new. I wish I had a peso for every investor in penny stocks who blamed their losses on "those $%#@&% market makers".

Wall Street should get its share of the blame, but to a very large extent the recession was made in Washington DC. Politicians of both parties, which are equally culpable, would much rather have you blame Wall Street, though. Makes their lives ever so much easier.

Trying to force industries to stay in the US when they can operate more efficiently overseas is a fools errand that will always fail. The movement is a symptom. Treat the cause, don't try to ban the symptom.

[motorfirebox]

Let’s return to the statement.

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee said Walker "threatened to call out the National Guard if workers protest against these cuts!" The governor spoke of possibly calling up the Guard if state workers didn’t show up for work, but he made no reference to using it in response to protests. And certainly none that would suggest the Guard is authorized to use force to impose anything on state workers.

We rate the claim Pants on Fire.

MJS' analysis is more than a little disingenuous. One doesn't--one can't, it's simply not possible--casually and innocently bring up the National Guard in conjunction with protests. Nobody with a lick of education can fail to make the connection to past unpleasantness, which makes it hard to see Walker's statements as anything but a carefully veiled threat. Yes, he certainly did make sure to cover his ass; he didn't come out and say that he'd use the NG to break up riots, and I'd even be willing to extend him the benefit of the doubt and say he probably doesn't intend to do so. I don't think it's possible for him to have missed the threat his message carried, though, and therefore I don't think there's any possibility that the threat wasn't intended.

[82redleg]

MJS' analysis is more than a little disingenuous. One doesn't--one can't, it's simply not possible--casually and innocently bring up the National Guard in conjunction with protests. Nobody with a lick of education can fail to make the connection to past unpleasantness, which makes it hard to see Walker's statements as anything but a carefully veiled threat. Yes, he certainly did make sure to cover his ass; he didn't come out and say that he'd use the NG to break up riots, and I'd even be willing to extend him the benefit of the doubt and say he probably doesn't intend to do so. I don't think it's possible for him to have missed the threat his message carried, though, and therefore I don't think there's any possibility that the threat wasn't intended.

IMO, protest = generally non-violent (generally, because targeted violence in self defense is almost always acceptable to me) and is generally acceptable. Riot, on the other hand, is random violence and is therefore unacceptable. Rioters should be shot down where they stand. Throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails is not protest.

On the other hand, IIRC, President Reagan used the AF to handle ATC duties after he fired the controllers for striking. What better way to provide necessary gov't services than to activate the states ARNG (it is the state's force, until federalized, after all). This has nothing to do with a threat, accept maybe a threat to stand firm and fire those who have walked off their jobs in a tantrum over a (as I understand it) generally coherent and thoughtful effort to create a sustainable system, which the current system is not. Who are the adults here, again?

[Sergeant T]

Anyone who gets their financial news or analysis from Rolling Stone deserves what they get, which ain't much. Might as well trust them to tell you what's hot... oh, wait...

I would normally agree. Any publication whose sole mission is celebrity aggrandizement shouldn't be taken seriously by anyone over the age of 18. But Tiabbi isn't so much giving financial news or analysis as looking at the way the finance industry operates. I'd liken him to a gonzo version of Michael Lewis. I came across this piece a while back and thought it was worth the time. I'm 1/3 of the way through Griftopia and thus far it's been worth the trip.

[slapout9]

I would normally agree. Any publication whose sole mission is celebrity aggrandizement shouldn't be taken seriously by anyone over the age of 18. But Tiabbi isn't so much giving financial news or analysis as looking at the way the finance industry operates. I'd liken him to a gonzo version of Michael Lewis. I came across this piece a while back and thought it was worth the time. I'm 1/3 of the way through Griftopia and thus far it's been worth the trip.

Yep! read his books and articles. Who he has his day job with dosen't really matter.

[Ken White]

The notion that "pension funds are in so much trouble because of all the crap that Wall Street sold them" is to me a crock. Caveat Emptor applies in the financial world, more than in most places, and pension funds are more than capable of doing their own due diligence...

Wall Street should get its share of the blame, but to a very large extent the recession was made in Washington DC. Politicians of both parties, which are equally culpable, would much rather have you blame Wall Street, though. Makes their lives ever so much easier.

Trying to force industries to stay in the US when they can operate more efficiently overseas is a fools errand that will always fail. The movement is a symptom. Treat the cause, don't try to ban the symptom.

This entire thread exists due to the failure of OUR politicians to pay attention to their Oaths of Office and to do their job. Their tendency to foist blame elsewhere and avoid tough decisions is responsible for many of our current problems and that totally includes job movement and nominal Wall Street issues.

Any financial scandal is likely to be a result of sharp dealing or a scam -- and it takes two parties to make that occur...