tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post762624002702192688..comments2023-10-30T06:31:05.501-07:00Comments on MilPub: Arc of a DiverFDChiefhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10607785969510234092noreply@blogger.comBlogger68125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-55318874875799667222011-04-03T19:26:13.086-07:002011-04-03T19:26:13.086-07:00Btw, forgot to point out, your concern about cops/...Btw, forgot to point out, your concern about cops/inspectors/other gov"t officials becomming more corrupt, your description of 3rd world practices has allready been commonplace here. Don"t know about your community, but know my experience here"s not unique.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-36354290330239988732011-03-07T09:22:04.868-08:002011-03-07T09:22:04.868-08:00Publius,
So capitalism is going to the gym while s...Publius,<br />So capitalism is going to the gym while somebody sweats in your yard working.<br />It's ok with me.<br />I'm glad that you're a trickle down kinda guy.<br />jimjim at rangerhttp://rangeragainstwar.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-70131932236559466332011-03-06T23:56:56.694-08:002011-03-06T23:56:56.694-08:00Forgot to mention, it was Rothchild who said, &...Forgot to mention, it was Rothchild who said, & i paraphrase, "give me control of a nation"s currency & I care not who makes it"s laws". (1 can interchange regulations with laws). Afterall, most applicable laws here will boil down to "thou shall not steal. Fulfill the terms of your contracts. Also, like how some seem to suggest that during great depression the wise philosopher kings of gov"t were simply keeping society together with make busy work. This all of course led to the ultimate group activity of a world freaking war. Nice.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-79496273744352042172011-03-06T19:06:18.965-08:002011-03-06T19:06:18.965-08:003." Re: the "dollar worth $0.02" th...3." Re: the "dollar worth $0.02" thing. Horseshit. We went over this when you said it the last time. I'm not going to correct this again. Absolute inflation is meaningless; relative inflation is, and we are in a deflationary period and, if the sort of permanent structural unemployment I am talking about occurs we will be in for a long time."<br />Of course wages have kept up. It of course doesn'thurt savers to the benefit of the prolifigate. Food & energy don't count in the gov't's alternate universe of accounting. Hence, if you don't eat or heat, you'll do just fine. Housing (which most wish would rise, will keep prices down). Nothing to see here folks , just move along.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-78422943076304122202011-03-03T23:14:58.156-08:002011-03-03T23:14:58.156-08:00FDChief- Nope; capital is the last man standing.
...FDChief- <i>Nope; capital is the last man standing.</i><br /><br />And Capital investing in, well, More Capital, is the biggest game in town. Publius and our friend, Marina, may invest their modest holdings in providing job stability for a couple of folks, but the big players are more concerned with their vast wealth producing even vaster wealth than producing anything else. The fat cats investing in mortgage backed securities were not looking to create jobs or get people into affordable housing. They were looking to get a monetary return on investment. Had any of the big investors in the mortgage melt down looked past potential ROI, they would have seen that the quantity of mortgages being written was far greater than the number of people who afford a mortgage. Didn't even have to look at the obvious lies and fraud in underwriting practices. Simple demographics would have been a red star cluster. But, money was being invested in money, and the downstream impact was of no concern.<br /><br />Capital is king.Aviator47https://www.blogger.com/profile/05585964386930142907noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-31619963467321696842011-03-03T16:52:10.969-08:002011-03-03T16:52:10.969-08:00Ranger:
Why don't I do my own yard work? Beca...Ranger:<br /><br />Why don't I do my own yard work? Because I don't want to. And because my wife, who handles the budget, tells me she doesn't want me to do it because I'm an old fart and we can afford it. And because I can afford to pay to have it done, a couple of guys get to feed their families.<br /><br />Isn't that kind of how the system is supposed to work? Or are we supposed to eschew restaurants and always cook at home because we know how to cook? To change our own oil because we know how to do it? To not go to newly released movies because we can wait and watch them on TV?<br /><br />It's capitalism, Ranger. People are employed because I can afford to engage them to render services or to sell me products. <br /><br />IMO, that's a good thing.Publiushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06189226852559033120noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-20367569064617324412011-03-03T09:01:24.129-08:002011-03-03T09:01:24.129-08:00Publius 27 feb,
Why not do your own work? If you c...Publius 27 feb,<br />Why not do your own work? If you can golf, then can't you weed?<br />jimjim at rangerhttp://rangeragainstwar.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-29264021477919309052011-03-03T04:47:52.016-08:002011-03-03T04:47:52.016-08:00Chief,
"Labor is finished, dead, done."
...Chief,<br />"Labor is finished, dead, done."<br /><br />You better hope not! I heard a fine analysis on NPR today that pointed out something we hadn't considered that is probably the root-cause of the current Republican attacks on the unions.<br /><br />The unions are overwhelmingly pro-Democratic. They provide a fair amount of funds (which could be replaced) but more importantly, they provide manpower for the Democratic get-out-the-vote campaigns (6,000 union members volunteered in the last weeks of the 2010 campaign in California alone) and union members tend to reflexively vote Democrat (with some notable lapses like 1994), which offsets the overwhelming Republican vote in the US military.<br /><br />I expected the Republicans to try to outlaw the existence of the Democratic Party and they are doing it! <br /><br />Next up: redrawing of congressional districts to comply with the census. The gerrymandering should be extremely "creative" with a side of vicious. If the Republicans play their cards right Obama could be the last non-Republican president for the next 20 years.Plutohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04036751798841079048noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-26561465478488697652011-03-02T16:41:43.745-08:002011-03-02T16:41:43.745-08:00Andy: I don't think that retaining the right t...Andy: I don't think that retaining the right to bargain is "crossing the line", and certainly that seems to be what's driving the latest hysteria.<br /><br />The bottom line really is that unions are a lost cause for the non-professional class (as Ael points out) in the U.S.<br /><br />When you think back to, say, the Fifties and Sixties, you had three big fighters in the U.S. economy; capital, labor, and the government.<br /><br />Where are the latter two today?<br /><br />Labor is finished, dead, done. Most people in the U.S. think of and act towards labor as you do. They see it as a mixed blessing at best, an unbound evil at worst.<br /><br />The government is now terrified to tax anyone or anything. Its business, commercial, and financial regulations are written by the regulated, their enforcement zeroed-out, its willingness to act against anyone but the most foolish and unconnected of the malefactors of great wealth gone. Isn't it strange, after all that money vanished Madoff was the only one to go to prison?<br /><br />How odd.<br /><br />Nope; capital is the last man standing.<br /><br />If you are a player, a Master of the Universe, then you've won. If not...<br /><br />Well, we'll have to see, now, won't we?<br /><br />But for the record - I'm not cheering.<br /><br />That's it for me; I'm talked out on the subject, and it's just depressing the shit out of me now. I'll be moving along...FDChiefhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10607785969510234092noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-39404092287645314562011-03-02T07:41:33.361-08:002011-03-02T07:41:33.361-08:00Ael,
That's exactly right. We graduate about...Ael,<br /><br />That's exactly right. We graduate about the same number of doctors in this country as we did in the 1950's. If it weren't for the fact that we import a lot of immigrant doctors we'd be in even worse shape than we are since we have, IIRC, the lowest ratio of doctors-to-population of OECD countries.Andyhttp://organizingentropy.typepad.com/blog/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-7034486501136745382011-03-01T21:44:22.236-08:002011-03-01T21:44:22.236-08:00Chief:
The high cost of entry for doctors and law...Chief:<br /><br />The high cost of entry for doctors and lawyers is a feature, not a bug.<br /><br />The key attribute for their high wage is legal exclusivity. Their guilds then use various techniques to maintain barriers to entry.Aelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10788190394672505925noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-69669456063938040482011-03-01T17:57:30.886-08:002011-03-01T17:57:30.886-08:00But there a big difference from that to deciding t...<em>But there a big difference from that to deciding that the world would be better off without those organizations, or that those organizations should be forced to become smaller and weaker. And as seydlitz points out, the whole business of demonizing unions is silly and self-destructive.</em><br /><br />Well, I pretty much agree. I don't think I've ever suggested that unions of any kind should be disbanded or made illegal. That doesn't mean that I'm not going to look at the actions of unions, particularly public employee unions, with a lot of skepticism and criticize their excesses. They are large, powerful interest groups that have a ton of money and influence. They deserve to be scrutinized and criticized when they cross the line.Andyhttp://organizingentropy.typepad.com/blog/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-89561364489625748202011-03-01T16:17:59.403-08:002011-03-01T16:17:59.403-08:00Again, I don't want to try and pretend that un...Again, I don't want to try and pretend that unionization is an unmixed blessing. Whenever you develop an organization that allows individuals to hide behind a group - whether its a family, a political party, or a union - you're going to get abuse of that organization by shitheels. Human Nature 101.<br /><br />But there a big difference from that to deciding that the world would be better off without those organizations, or that those organizations should be forced to become smaller and weaker. And as seydlitz points out, the whole business of demonizing unions is silly and self-destructive.<br /><br />One reason that public sector unions are so vicious about job protection, BTW, is that people like GOV Walker are all around, and there's always some gomer who thinks that it'd be a great idea to replace cops, firemen, paramedics, game wardens, prison guards, etc., etc. with contractors. <br /><br />Well, here's one of my favorite views of the sort of thing that stuff like "private prisons" can lead to:<br /><br /><i>"Ciavarella and another judge, Michael Conahan, shut down the county's juvenile detention center by cutting off public funds. Then they funneled kids to two new detention centers, privately owned by the judges' friends, who had given them nearly $1 million. Ciavarella has steadfastly denied a quid pro quo -- cash for kids. He says the money was a "finder's fee" for putting the jail's owner in touch with a builder. However the arrangement is characterized, the fact remains that he and Conahan, who pleaded guilty last year, took money from the owners of a private prison to which they then sentenced children."</i> (http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2011/02/justice_for_an_awful_judge.html)<br /><br />Sweet, eh?<br /><br />Anyway, guys, I don't really have much more to say on this one.FDChiefhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10607785969510234092noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-82396426815030558212011-03-01T15:56:22.641-08:002011-03-01T15:56:22.641-08:00The US Labor movement made a faithful decision in ...The US Labor movement made a faithful decision in the 19th Century with rejecting Marxism, which probably was the only choice open to them in any case. The European Labor movements on the other hand became political, linking with the various Socialist/Social Democratic Parties (which were all Marxist at the time) and we see the result today. Unions are alive and well in Europe because they share political power.<br /><br />The revolutions of 1989 owed a good bit to the labor movement, especially Solidarity . . .<br /><br />My own experience with unions is not particularly positive. The South is "right to work" and union membership is/was rare. Still I did work as a "white hat" (company man) in a steel plant for 8 months right after college and the bargaining unit people were well cared for. The problems were more bad decisions by management, not wage pressure from the union.<br /><br />Sure unions should reform, but that's not really what is at stake at present, rather the future of collective bargaining in general. One could argue that state employees should not be able to strike, but these unions as institutions have to be respected imo, they are the result of a long history and cannot simply be brushed out of existence with the stroke of a pen, at least not in a democratic system . . .<br /><br />Reading the recent commentary of the Right Wing Radical blogs, their visceral hatred of the (especially teachers') unions, only confirms for this conservative, that the unions are something to be retained. I never trust the Radical Right, who are nihilists imo, and I see soooo much of what is going on as more the nature of just another naked grab for power . . .<br /><br />http://thinkprogress.org/2011/02/26/report-top-10-disastrous-policies-from-the-wisconsin-gop-you-havent-heard-about/<br /><br />It comes down simply to submit or resist, I will continue to resist in my own way.seydlitz89https://www.blogger.com/profile/15431952900333460640noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-36855508324962092502011-03-01T14:37:47.425-08:002011-03-01T14:37:47.425-08:00First of all, I agree that unions - or at least th...First of all, I agree that unions - or at least the threat of unions - are a necessary check on the "structural might of wealthy people at the top" in the private sector. I don't think that's the case with public-sector unions and that is where I see most of the bad behavior that should not, IMO, be excused. It's one thing to close ranks behind a guy who slacks on the job, it's quite another to close ranks behind cops who beat up (and sometimes kill) and falsely arrest people, or guys in very sensitive security positions who chronically commit security violations. Or there's the prison union that lobbied for the three-strikes law in California and for measures to criminalize minor drug crimes. I see very little public interest in maximizing the number of incarcerated people in this country and, by extension, maximizing the number of prison guards, but hey, the union needs to protect and expand its membership!<br /><br />In most cases public employee unions are not standing up against the rapacious effects of cost-cutting corporate boards bent on screwing over replaceable workers. Public workers begin in a position that is inherently more secure than a private sector worker and they have inherently greater power than a private sector union since they can lobby for their interests. Just to give an extreme example, in Illinois the public sector union pensions and health care were written into the state Constitution. Paying benefits is therefore a higher priority than providing essential services. That's good for the unions, potentially very bad for the public. <br /><br />Finally, unions need to take some responsibility for the state of unions in this country. Their decline is partially attributable to their own policies. My father-in-law, for example, is a steelworker and lifetime union member. The union has been great for him in his 30+ year career, but he also sees the inherent problem with a seniority-based system. In his plant the youngest guy there is literally 50 years old. In the course of promoting current workers, the union is burning the seed corn.Andyhttp://organizingentropy.typepad.com/blog/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-80266410792370082222011-03-01T13:09:34.326-08:002011-03-01T13:09:34.326-08:00Lots of great comments here. Comments about the un...Lots of great comments here. Comments about the unions are particularly interesting. I've never been a union member, but I'm generally pro-union, specifically because I'm very well aware of the nature of unfettered capitalism. Capitalism is great and we all love it, but uncontrolled, it will ultimately doom our society, especially in this modern era of every man for himself. We all get infuriated when we see unions closing ranks to protect those whom we don't believe deserve protection, but from the union standpoint, it's all about the greater good. I like the Chief's family parallel. We always did that in the military, too. And you'd better believe the Wall Street boys join ranks to protect their fuck-ups, too.<br /><br />What's most disappointing to me nowadays is the realization that a whole bunch of my fellow citizens are just dumber than dirt. The tea party crowd is especially bad: Most of 'em are not plutocrats by any means—I mean, shit, how can you be a plutocrat if protecting Social Security and Medicare is all that important—but like the lemmings they are, they're racing for that cliff that's been so conveniently placed in their path by those wealthy folks with whom they are now identifying.<br /><br />Being an anti-union blue collar worker: priceless. Identifying with a master of the universe. That's stupid squared. <br /><br />Welcome to the new order.Publiushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06189226852559033120noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-86116825157780384432011-03-01T10:37:59.285-08:002011-03-01T10:37:59.285-08:00Ael: True dat. But look at it this way;
How real...Ael: True dat. But look at it this way;<br /><br />How realistic is a medical career as a way-out-of-economic-serfdom for most people? Leave the academic skills needed just to get accepted into med school, the cost of a medical education are horrific; this prices them out of reach of pretty much anyone except the incredibly bright and the very wealthy.<br /><br />And I should add that one of the real monsters at the U.S. economic table right now is health care costs. The AMA has been a player in ensuring that any attempt to rein in physician compensation and fee-for-service medicine has failed. So the docs are, in a sense, part of the problem rather than part of the solution.<br /><br />The lawyers have similar educational costs, which in turn (as it does with the docs) forces them to bill insane costs to recover their expenses.<br /><br />And in both cases you can't really categorize these as "service" jobs. Professional and technical work tends to be more resiliant than true low-level service to the downward pressure of immigrants and competition - although I have heard some complaints from physicians about outsourcing of stuff like radiology and nuclear medicine where x-rays and scans are sent to a physician in Canada or Taiwan!<br /><br />So while the doctor/lawyer professions will help keep their American practitioners in the upper classes, I don't see how they will help "save" those poor doomed bastards at the bottom...FDChiefhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10607785969510234092noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-37267562463192594662011-03-01T10:19:29.704-08:002011-03-01T10:19:29.704-08:00Re: unions.
I would say that Ezra has some GOOD w...Re: unions.<br /><br />I would say that Ezra has some GOOD weed.<br /><br />Any organization evolves protections for incompetent family members. Do you imagine that the Walton or Koch families don't find some sort of featherbed for their moron relatives? Hell, the "idiot boss's son" is practically a cliche'. So to try and imagine that unions aren't going to do this in some form is a nice fantasy, but you might as well wish for magical ponies while you're at it.<br /><br />And the bottom line is that a strong industrial democracy NEEDS some orgainzational counterweight to the power of employers, industrial management, and the immense structural might of the wealthy people at the top. You can argue around the edges of what unions OUGHT to do or could do better, but the bottom line for the U.S. is that you can track the disappearance of economic gains for the working and middle classes pretty nicely with the deunionization of the U.S. economy.<br /><br />A lot of that has nothing to do with unions, of course. But the same imperatives that are working to direct wealth to the top, be it through changes in fiscal policies, regulations, or trade and tariffs helps work against unionization.<br /><br />I've worked a fair number of shitty industrial and service jobs, and the realization that you have absolutely NO defense against your employer is pretty terrifying. You shut your mouth and earn your cornpone. When your boss says frog, you jump.<br /><br />That ain't exactly a hardy Jeffersonian citizen, now, is it?FDChiefhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10607785969510234092noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-89523866036218424612011-03-01T10:12:12.193-08:002011-03-01T10:12:12.193-08:00Andy: I don't think we can put the lid back on...Andy: I don't think we can put the lid back on the box, either; that's why I'm so pessimistic about this. I think the hammer is coming down, and I think that the resulting smash will end up with a lot of Americans a lot worse off, and I don't think that anyone or anything - unions, government, entrepreneurs - will be able to put Humpty back together again.<br /><br />And I think that this will have really ugly political repercussions. I caught this little gem in a comment about the Egyptian revolution:<br /><br /><i>"Egypt does have to worry, however, about economic inequality and the severe daily hardships suffered by most of its population. Without providing solutions to these problems, even the most democratic regime can be toppled by massive protests, possibly leading to new forms of dictatorship. A good example of such a failure of democracy was December 2001 in Argentina, when the masses flooded the streets calling for "all politicians to go home" and toppling five presidents in a row.<br /><br />This happened only two years after democratic elections swept a broad leftwing front to power, which had promised to bring the country out of its deep economic crisis, but failed. The elected government pursued the policy dictated by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which protected the interests of foreign investors against those of the local middle and salaried class. The crisis caused all holders of local bank deposits to lose 70 per cent of their money, with the blessing of the IMF.<br /><br />Therefore, Egypt must realise that although democracy is essential, any formal constitution or system of government will not solve its economic problems. Immediately after the elections, Egypt's new policymakers will have to switch from the formal liberal discourse of democracy to face and discuss the fundamental questions of Egypt's economic structure. In the process, they are liable to discover that it is far more difficult to uproot a corrupt economic regime than to topple a single dictator."</i><br /><br />I think if we had been thoughtful about the perils of globalization we MIGHT have been able to do some deflection of the social and political ills that its effects on the U.S. middle and working class will have. Probably not. But instead we bought it wholesale, and now I think we're going to have a severe case of buyer's remorse.FDChiefhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10607785969510234092noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-15916965382177255422011-03-01T07:45:21.890-08:002011-03-01T07:45:21.890-08:00Ezra Klein has some good comments on unions. In p...<a href="http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2011/03/column_how_unions_can_be_more.html" rel="nofollow">Ezra Klein has some good comments on unions</a>. In particular I like this:<br /><br /><em>If unions are to not just survive, but to actually flourish again, they need to create an identity beyond being a protection service for people who aren't very good at their jobs. For too long they've been defending individuals at the expense of the collective. Every time an incompetent teacher or overly aggressive cop hides behind a union, unions in general become a bit less attractive to everyone else. Next year, when a slew of beloved and decorated teachers are fired not because they were worse than the teachers who kept their jobs but because they were younger, good people everywhere will find themselves that much less sympathetic toward organized labor.<br /><br />Scott Walker's overreach in Wisconsin has done unions a great favor. The public may not hold them in the highest esteem, but it doesn't want to see them destroyed. That is, however, a low bar to clear. The question now is whether unions can persuade the public of something altogether more difficult: that it has reason to want to see them thrive. If in five years the words "education reform" make you think of teachers unions rather than the people who tangle with them, my guess is organized labor will be well on its way to making a comeback.</em>Andyhttp://organizingentropy.typepad.com/blog/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-85023916039437652572011-03-01T07:26:09.470-08:002011-03-01T07:26:09.470-08:00History may not be so rail-bound as many of the co...History may not be so rail-bound as many of the comments assume. There are wild cards, not the least of which is oil production. <br /><br />For example, Mexico currently exports about a million barrels of oil a day to the U.S. But production has peaked and most people, including the International Energy Agency, think that Mexican oil exports will end around 2015. <br /><br />That's bad news for the Mexican economy -- Pemex provides about 40% of the federal budget -- and, short of divine intervention, it also means much higher world oil prices.<br /><br />Expensive oil acts as a tariff to inhibit global trade. We may be moving back into the 19th century model of local, small-scale production. It appears that the Chinese understand this and are moving toward domestic development. <br /><br />Podunk PaulAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-81039858467292391332011-02-28T17:53:44.988-08:002011-02-28T17:53:44.988-08:00Getting back to the original post, I have wondered...Getting back to the original post, I have wondered if we are entering a period where our production is so efficient that there simply won't be enough work for a growing population. I don't know what to think about that - certainly in time past new jobs and industries have risen up as others declined and that transition was always messy and violent. I don't know if we are in a similar transition today where we'll eventually come out on the other side with an improved standard of living and entirely new patterns of specialization and trade, or if we're headed to a Blade Runner dystopia.<br /><br />Regarding globalization, I don't think it's possible to close that Pandora's box. I have some experience with competing on a global level - when I got off of active duty in 2000 I spent almost two years trying to start a web design business. The timing was bad since the internet bubble burst shortly afterward, but the real kicker was when I started trying to get business on the freelancing websites. I saw there who I was competing with - teams of designers and programmers from India who could build a complete solution in a day for what I would charge just for the page design. They would do the page design, a backend database, all the scripting, ecommerce, etc.<br /><br />The second nail in the coffin were the "roll your own" web services that were sprouting, Blogger being one of the most famous. Who needs a designer or a pro to code a website when there's a website that can give you an 80% semi-custom solution? <br /><br />I might have been able to eak out an income and slowly build a client list by concentrating on personal service and support (people generally prefer doing business face-to-face instead of some unknown team of foreigners) even though I had no hope to compete on price. However, with my wife still active duty, and PCS's every couple of years, building a local client base was impossible.<br /><br />Anyway, the business was a failure and I threw in the towel, but I did learn a lot so it wasn't a waste.<br /><br />Anyway, the final point I wanted to make is to bring up demographics. I think we tend to underestimate the effects of the various cohorts, especially the boomers. Demographic trends are hugely important factors that need to be considered.Andyhttp://organizingentropy.typepad.com/blog/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-90963760628996579732011-02-28T17:23:52.035-08:002011-02-28T17:23:52.035-08:00Two of the strongest guilds are those of the docto...Two of the strongest guilds are those of the doctors and lawyers. Neither one contributes materially to economic well being (Good food and clean water account for almost all public health benefits, and lawyers, well, that sort of speaks for itself).<br /><br />These two guilds (and their associated hangers-on) account for a non-trivial portion of the overall economy.<br /><br />It is proof that a service economy does not have to be composed of McJobs.Aelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10788190394672505925noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-79167662288231256442011-02-28T17:20:32.676-08:002011-02-28T17:20:32.676-08:00Chief,
The main problem with Krugman's chart ...Chief,<br /><br />The main problem with Krugman's chart is that most pensions assume an annual rate of return of around 8%, not 4.5%. Sure, pensions could invest in treasuries and maybe get 4.5% (the current rate is about 1% - less than inflation) but the effect of a much lower rate of return would mean that contributions into the funds would have to go up - way, way up - which would mean that in order to meet future obligations, the funds would have to collect a lot more in terms of contributions. Those contributions have to come from somewhere. For public pensions they would either have to come out of employee's pay or other current compensation or they'd have to come from increased taxes or government cuts elsewhere. It's not surprise that pensions try to maximize return in order to keep contributions low.<br /><br />But really the whole point is that this problem isn't a problem with unions, or union compensation or even non-union compensation (non union pensions and retiree health care have the same problems - for that matter so do military pensions and health care). Once again, it's a problem of cost growth exceeding revenue growth. It's unsustainable. I don't want to see public employees worry about making ends meet anymore than you do, but one can't simply wish the math away. We've been doing that for far too long already. The defined benefit system of pension and health care cannot survive in these circumstances which is why almost all of them are in trouble or already in default.Andyhttp://organizingentropy.typepad.com/blog/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-381917167978264683.post-84709679806300919172011-02-28T17:09:45.354-08:002011-02-28T17:09:45.354-08:00I think the rapacity has always been there. But it...I think the rapacity has always been there. But it has found an ally (or a stooge, hard to tell the difference) in the TeaBag Right. All this stuff, from the antilabor actions in Wisconsin to goofballs trying to investigate miscarriages and outlaw driver's licenses...it hard to tell which is cause and which is effect.<br /><br />But its the political enabling that the difference; the greed was there in 1929 and its the same greed in 2011. We learned the hard way in '29 and muzzled the greedy bastards for fifty years. But they were always there, and now they've found a foolish guard that believes them when they say that they only want to LOOK at the shotgun...<br /><br />What IS radical (at least in my view) is the social conservatist side of these Tea Crackers. I think that most Americans thought that some things were "generally accepted", like access to contraception, the desirability of integration, and the distancing of religion from politics. There's an assload of these people who would like a freaking Republic of Gilead. No shit, really.<br /><br />THAT's radical, in my mind.<br /><br />Repealing the 20th Century is just the same-old, same-old for the Masters of the Universe; seventy years ago they were going Trans-Lux to hiss Roosevelt.FDChiefhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10607785969510234092noreply@blogger.com