*promote the headline about the *lies

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Yeah those damn people wanting to be treated decent. Maybe we should just demand our billions back that you fuckers gave to the banks?

How DARE they fight for a living wage! What RIGHT do they have to ask for the terms of their contract to be honored? Why can't THEY sacrifice when the Bush tax cuts save the wealthiest Americans billions of dollars every year? How DARE they band together to promote what they want?

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When are we going to see a time when public workers and unions aren't complaining about the pay? I don't get paid enough either. Shit.

When? Right now. They aren't complaining about pay. The teachers are even agreeing to increase their contributions to their health benefits and pension plans, but the state also wants to take away their right to collective bargaining.

Rain and snow moved most protesters at the Wisconsin State Capitol indoors Sunday as rallies continued against a plan that would strip public workers of union bargaining rights.

Republican Gov. Scott Walker calls his plan politically bold, but says he's only asking for modest contributions from public workers on health care and pension benefits. Union leaders said this week they were willing to make those concessions to help balance Wisconsin's budget, but state AFL-CIO President Phil Neuenfeldt told a crowd in the Capitol rotunda that taking away bargaining rights is a step too far.

So the "Stimulus" was an abject failure? Statist idiots.

*quality

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Obama's stimulus was too small and didn't put enough people to work, unlike FDR, who got us out of the great depression with his stimulus plan. Economist Paul Krugman correctly predicted that Obama's plan was big not enough to make dent: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/06/stimulus-arithmetic-wonkish-but-important/>> ^quantumushroom:

So the "Stimulus" was an abject failure? Statist idiots.

^Haha. Obama's stimulus was too small, he says. Fuck me sideways, I'll never understand you statists. Maybe we should print another couple trillion or so, keep feeding it to the top percent in the corporatist and banking machine see if that helps the poor out this time? Maybe the banks will lend this time? Or maybe the corporatist giants won't take the golden parachute this time and instead will reinvest in American jobs?

If it doesn't work, we can always say the amount wasn't enough and start all over again.

"Wait, inflating the money supply makes people poorer, because it deflates the value of their savings and earnings? Haha, no way! Hyperinflation means more money for everyone! Yay!"

-Paul Krugman

@blankfist what's stimulus got to do with money supply? For that matter, why do you think either is going to cause inflation?

What happens to wages when there's inflation? Do they go up, or are they permanently fixed in amber?

Wouldn't having big, healthy unions putting constant upward pressure on wages keep the downsides of inflation on the backs of the people who have the most power and influence over monetary policy?

@NetRunner, what's stimulus money got to do with money supply? Are you serious? You must be trolling. For the benefit of others, I'll answer that question:

The Treasury Department borrows the money from the Federal Reserve. This money is printed new and is NOT already in circulation. So, once those trillions get circulated into the economy, what happens? It inflates the money supply. Presto!

And you asked what happens to wages during inflation? Well, I don't know, let's look at history, shall we? There are plenty of examples in history (Rome, Germany, Yugoslavia), but let's look at Zimbabwe in the 2000s because it's really easy to google. According to wikipedia, Zimbabwe's "annual inflation was estimated at 6.5 quindecillion novemdecillion percent (6.5 x 10108%, the equivalent of 6 quinquatrigintillion 500 quattuortrigintillion percent, or 65 followed by 107 zeros – 650 million googol percent)." But that's fine, right? Because they just increased the wages and everyone went back to happy Krugman land and ate marshmallows and played with bunnies. Oh no, that didn't happen at all, did it? No. In the end the Zimbabwean Dollar was destroyed, and the people were forced to adopt foreign currencies.

I'm sorry, but inflation is bad. Very bad. It's not as easy to fix as "putting upward pressure on wages". In fact, the people who are first impacted are the people on the bottom, because ALL (and I mean absolutely ALL) inflation enriches the government first, the big businesses with government contracts second, the rich third, and ultimately it's the poor and retired who suffer through the adjustment phase.

And what of the people with savings? Are you so willing to write them off with a big dildo shoved up their asses, because they're not currently "earning" a wage? What of those people who saved and saved because that's what society told them was prudent for their retirement? What does your precious Krugman messiah say of the grandmothers and grandfathers who see their savings diminish while their social security payments play catch up with the current cost of living changes?

Un. Fucking. Believable.

>> ^blankfist:

@NetRunner, what's stimulus money got to do with money supply? Are you serious? You must be trolling. For the benefit of others, I'll answer that question:
The Treasury Department borrows the money from the Federal Reserve. This money is printed new and is NOT already in circulation. So, once those trillions get circulated into the economy, what happens? It inflates the money supply. Presto!

Are you serious? You must be trolling. For the benefit of others, I'll correct you.

The Treasury Department borrows the money by selling Treasury bonds on the open market. Domestic investors and banks buy most of it, a big chunk of it is bought by other governments. Some might be purchased by the Fed using freshly printed money, but that's entirely based on what the Fed wants to do with the money supply, and has nothing to do with whether we did stimulus or not.

Not to mention, even if the Fed prints money and buys a treasury, there's no guarantee the buyer won't just hold the dollars as a reserve of some sort, and keep it out of circulation.

>> ^blankfist:
And you asked what happens to wages during inflation? Well, I don't know

An honest answer. Too bad you kept writing...

>> ^blankfist:
[L]et's look at history, shall we? There are plenty of examples in history (Rome, Germany, Yugoslavia), but let's look at Zimbabwe in the 2000s because it's really easy to google. According to wikipedia, Zimbabwe's "annual inflation was estimated at 6.5 quindecillion novemdecillion percent (6.5 x 10108%, the equivalent of 6 quinquatrigintillion 500 quattuortrigintillion percent, or 65 followed by 107 zeros – 650 million googol percent)."

Yes, inflation can happen. But looking at nominal price levels alone doesn't answer why inflation is bad.

>> ^blankfist:
But that's fine, right? Because they just increased the wages and everyone went back to happy Krugman land and ate marshmallows and played with bunnies. Oh no, that didn't happen at all, did it? No. In the end the Zimbabwean Dollar was destroyed, and the people were forced to adopt foreign currencies.

Well here's the thing, have you actually looked at what's happened to the wage level in Zimbabwe? Is the problem that wages never increased at all, and that inflation meant no one had any purchasing power at all?

Or was it something a little more esoteric like a collapse of market confidence that really buggered them?

>> ^blankfist:
It's not as easy to fix as "putting upward pressure on wages". In fact, the people who are first impacted are the people on the bottom, because ALL (and I mean absolutely ALL) inflation enriches the government first, the big businesses with government contracts second, the rich third, and ultimately it's the poor and retired who suffer through the adjustment phase.

Again, you're hamstrung by not actually understanding the underlying economic principles. If the main issue with inflation was really this confiscatory debasement you're talking about, then that would in large part be fixed by greater wage flexibility.

>> ^blankfist:
And what of the people with savings? Are you so willing to write them off with a big dildo shoved up their asses, because they're not currently "earning" a wage? What of those people who saved and saved because that's what society told them was prudent for their retirement? What does your precious Krugman messiah say of the grandmothers and grandfathers who see their savings diminish while their social security payments play catch up with the current cost of living changes?

The answer there is that inflation screws people with large amounts of liquid money (the rich), and helps people with debt (the not-so-rich), while making holding assets look more promising than holding cash in any form. People who saved for retirement by stuffing $100 bills into their mattress get screwed. People who put their money in a savings account may get screwed if the bank doesn't offer them competitive interest rates. People who invested in a mix of stocks and bonds will see those stocks go up in nominal value, while the bonds will likely become worthless (depends on the exact terms though).

People who rely on Social Security will be fine, so long as a) wages as a whole go up with inflation, and b) conservative morons don't come in and cut the COLA below inflation for no reason. It's part of why anyone who wants to privatize Social Security is pretty much a fuckwad.

In the end, the negative effects of stable but high (~10% or so) inflation wouldn't be so bad. There's basically no downside to inflation around 2-4%. And by the way, we're sitting somewhere around 1% right now, with not even the remotest hint of hyperinflation.

The only way for us to really trigger hyperinflation right now is if conservatives follow through on threats to make the US go into default on its debt. But that won't be hyperinflation because of the Fed printing money, it'll be because conservatives will have trashed our nation's credit rating because they're stupid.

^Thank you, Adrian Veidt.

^Thank you, Peter G. Peterson. Would you like some John Birch Society with your Glenn Beck this evening?

The funny part is that you think we're the puppets of elitists.

>> ^blankfist:

^Thank you, Adrian Veidt.


I'm touched that you think I'm comparable to a superhero/supervillain, even if he was a left-wing straw man to be torn down by a right-wing cartoonist.

Seriously though, you seem to have bought into this idea that actually learning about stuff is for suckers, because everything in life is intuitive, and never requires more than a couple simple aphorisms to explain.

For example, right wing economics: Debt bad, strong currency good, unions bad, low taxes good, non-defense spending bad, free trade good, regulation bad.

All of those things are wrong at least some of the time, based on any actual objective look at economic history.

Wow. ^Great debate. Very serious about that. I always like informative arguments.
My understanding is that in 1972 Kennedy gave the right to collective bargaining to federal employees and that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights views collective bargaining as a basic human right, but I have a couple of basic questions.
State Employee Unions bargain with elected officials for pay increases and pensions, correct?
Don't State Employee Unions and Non-State Employee Unions have a sympathetic relationship where some unions will join the strike of another union?
State Employee Unions spend millions of dollars on funding the elections of pro-union Officials and have LARGE voter bases that they can pull from, correct?
Couldn't it be said that in states like Illinois, New York and California, which have some of the highest numbers of Union labor and also have the highest levels of debt, the current fiscal issues facing those states are, in part, the result of poor bargaining with the Unions by elected officials that had it in their best political interest to be helpful to the Unions? I would hope that Unions would not be allowed to negotiate with an elected official or employee of the state, but I think that unlikely. I don't know.
I suppose that it could also be said that the State politicians should have kept their hands out of state employee pensions. I'd be interested in knowing where the pension money went to.
In a private company if an employer robs his employees pension doesn't he go to jail? Can we go back and jail the politicians that robbed state employee pensions? Also if a private company robs the employee pension, don't they usually go under? What does that mean for a state that can no longer pay for pensions? Can't get water from a stone, right?

Think of it as trickle up economics. Through taxes, you take stagnant funds from the super rich and use them for infrastructure projects (taking up the slack for the lack of decent paying private sector jobs) and in the process creating jobs and wealth for the working class. Then these newly employed people put all that earned cash back into the economy, creating profit for business and tax revenue for the government. It's redistribution of wealth, but done in such a way that the money trickles back to where it started, helping everyone else along the way as that money finds its way once again into corporate coffers. In order to make a big enough dent in unemployment, the stimulus package needs to be massive. This plan worked well for FDR, effectively ending the great depression, which is no small feat. Obama's much less ambitious stimulus plan was not enough to get the job done.



>> ^blankfist:

^Haha. Obama's stimulus was too small, he says. Fuck me sideways, I'll never understand you statists. Maybe we should print another couple trillion or so, keep feeding it to the top percent in the corporatist and banking machine see if that helps the poor out this time? Maybe the banks will lend this time? Or maybe the corporatist giants won't take the golden parachute this time and instead will reinvest in American jobs?
If it doesn't work, we can always say the amount wasn't enough and start all over again.

You're confused about right wing vs. left wing politics. Those who oppose you aren't necessarily rightists. But that's the navel gazing reach-around fest I can expect from those who are holding out for that change they can believe in. Good luck.

Yes - I'd say the greed and selfishness of these labor unions and their rent-a-mobs are quite dangerous. Hope Walker stands 100% firm and tells them and their masters to pound sand. Or - better yet - hopefully it all falls through and he has to fire 12,000 of them to balance the books. These bozos are cutting off their noses to spite their faces.

Theyr'e willing to meet his fiscal requests, but they AREN'T willing to give up the right to collectively bargain their wages when those wages are at or above the NIC. That's what's going on here. These unions know quite well that if they can keep that cherry, ridiculous benefit that they can turn right around in 90 days and force all the concessions they make right back into their contracts.

Labor unions for decades have had rather too much power. These are not people fighting for a 'living wage'. These are unions fighting to keep POWER. And - no offense - they have proven 100X over that they are unworthy of the public trust or dime. The wages of the 'workers' in this equation are over 20% higher than the wages of private workers on average. If their wages were 20% UNDER the NIC then maybe I'd be sympathetic. As it is, all I see are a bunch of selish whiners who are demanding that they should be able to keep swimming in oceans of gravy rather than wading in a lake of it.

The pendulum has swung too far. It is inevitable that it MUST swing back the other way or the system istelf will collapse. Deal with it union bozos and dupes. You're just reaping what you've sown with years and years of abuse and greed.

Sometimes I wish that in addition to upvotes and downvotes, one could cast a '?' vote. There's a comment or two in here that I think deserve it.

Holy *hit! The mainstream media in the US has actually presented an actual left wing perspective. I'm not kidding, this honestly is the first time I've seen this.

>> ^NetRunner:

>> ^blankfist:
^Thank you, Adrian Veidt.

I'm touched that you think I'm comparable to a superhero/supervillain, even if he was a left-wing straw man to be torn down by a right-wing cartoonist.
Seriously though, you seem to have bought into this idea that actually learning about stuff is for suckers, because everything in life is intuitive, and never requires more than a couple simple aphorisms to explain.
For example, right wing economics: Debt bad, strong currency good, unions bad, low taxes good, non-defense spending bad, free trade good, regulation bad.
All of those things are wrong at least some of the time, based on any actual objective look at economic history.


I'm not interested in your narrative. But I'm glad you think Moore is a right wing cartoonist. He's a regular George W. Bush to you, I'm sure.

"Learning about stuff" is great; never said I had a problem with it. I just don't want people like you, who think they're smarter than the rest of the population, getting a big head and trying to plan our lives. That's exactly what you want though. That's why I call you Veidt. Because you're the worst kind of central planner. You're the kind that thinks he's smarter than everyone else.

I'm just curious, @blankfist, what do you think should be the primary quantifiable objective of our economic policies? There is, of course, no one right answer to that question, so riff away.

It doesn't sound like you to be opposed to the freedom to organize. I mean, I suppose I could see how it would fit your standard position so long as all corporate charters were also revoked, but barring that, it seems inconsistent. Without unions, you are handing disproportionate power to the elites.

Keep being curious.

>> ^blankfist:

"Learning about stuff" is great; never said I had a problem with it. I just don't want people like you, who think they're smarter than the rest of the population, getting a big head and trying to plan our lives. That's exactly what you want though. That's why I call you Veidt. Because you're the worst kind of central planner. You're the kind that thinks he's smarter than everyone else.


I just say what I believe, based on what I think is solid reasoning. I'm always happy to walk through my reasoning, and respond to challenges to it. I'll even change my mind, if someone makes a compelling counterargument.

I don't have any more political power than you do. I choose to deploy what little political power I have differently than you. I don't expect to get my way on everything, or even most things. I expect to have to argue and persuade and work to get even incremental steps towards a better society. If something I want happens, it's not because I made it happen, it's because millions of people, of which I was one, chose to make it happen.

As for thinking I'm smarter than everyone else, I'll certainly concede to being a know-it-all. But that's a pretty minor personality flaw compared to what you're really accusing me of, which is being willing to kill innocent people and engage in mass deception if it only brings about a world I think is best for everyone, like Veidt did.

Is that really how you see me, after all these years? As some sort of Machiavellian superman, intent on imposing his will on the world for its own good?

I have to say I find that flattering, if a bit odd.

@NetRunner, remember when you generally agreed with Hitler on a "visceral" level? Thought his program for NSDAP was, for the most part, a good document for government? If not, please feast your eyes on your very own words:

http://blog.videosift.com/blankfist/Prospective-Principle-Guidelines-for-the-USA?loadcomm=1#comment-873795

Heil NetRunner! It's good to know other brownshirts on here are in agreement with you, you big silly Machiavellian Superman!

Without unions, you are handing disproportionate power to the elites.

But in this matter, no one is talking about the complete dissolution of unions. There are only two things at play in WI... 1. A simple reapportioning of cost to benefits in terms of how much a public union member pays for medical care & retirement. 2. The right to collectively bargain when the average union pay & benefits exceeds the per capita average. They aren't trying to get rid of unions. They're trying to pull them back into a realm that is reasonable, fair, and financially possible. Right now the union contracts and benefits are not financially possible. Unions for years have gotten more and more for less and less to the point where the model is broken. All Walker is doing is trying to fix the system before it implodes and he as to fire thousands.

Now - the pessimist in me believes that the unions and Democrats would be PERFECTLY HAPPY if a GOP governor had to fire 12,000 people to balance the books. That way they could (like the protesters are doing) paint him as Hitler, evil, heartless, etc... But the fact remains that if the union had agreed to more reasonable terms, such an outcome would not be necessary. But rather than give up the right to collectively bargain when their members are ABOVE the per capita index, they would rather burn the house down. Pure idiocy.

@blankfist like I said, I'm always happy to talk through my thought process.

Which thing that I said am I supposed to feel repentant about? That I found the idea of "abolition of incomes unearned by work" appealing on a visceral level, but ultimately disagreed? That I also found making war profiteering a crime against the nation appealing on a visceral level...but ultimately disagreed?

Maybe because I agreed with the establishment of child labor laws and social insurance for the elderly?

I know! Maybe the part where I opposed the abolition of militias?

Hey, maybe we can all play this game. Do you find abolishing the unions appealing on a visceral level?

Guess who did that right after taking power? (Hint, I'm not talking about Gov. Scott Walker and Gov. John Kasich!)

As long as unions are an association of workers, working together to get better wages and a better working environment, I have no problem with them whatsoever. When unions start being monopolizing - "you must be a part of this union to work here, or you're a scab" I have a problem with them. I should be allowed to negotiate my own contract if I so choose.

The problem is, if that is allowed every employer will want non-union workers and thus unions only work if they are a monopoly.

In a straight up negotiation process the employer has the upper hand over the worker, since the employer negotiates for a living while a worker does his work instead.

Perhaps a third option is a better solution?

>> ^gwiz665:

When unions start being monopolizing - "you must be a part of this union to work here, or you're a scab" I have a problem with them.

What's the issue with "you must be a part of this union to work here, or you're a scab"?

When you agree to work for an employer, you're required to agree to all sorts of things you might not like. For example, as a programmer you're pretty much always required to sign away the intellectual property rights to anything you develop for the company. Hell, a lot of times you have to consent (nice oxymoron there) to drug testing, and maybe even an FBI background check.

At the most fundamental level, you're agreeing to let them own your labor for X number of hours, in return for money. Unless you're exceedingly lucky, chances are you'll be asked to do things in those hours that you wouldn't have chosen to do if you weren't being paid.

It seems to me that compared to those things, being required to become a part of a union isn't really the worst of the things you agree to when you agree to work for an employer.

If you don't like that condition (or any of the others), you're free to find work elsewhere.

If it's a requirement of the employer, then that's fine - it's their job, so they can arbitrarily set up demands for it - and pay accordingly. A union interjects itself between the employer and worker as a third party essentially going "if you want to work for that guy over there, you gotta talk with us".

It doesn't feel right.
>> ^NetRunner:

>> ^gwiz665:
When unions start being monopolizing - "you must be a part of this union to work here, or you're a scab" I have a problem with them.
What's the issue with "you must be a part of this union to work here, or you're a scab"?
When you agree to work for an employer, you're required to agree to all sorts of things you might not like. For example, as a programmer you're pretty much always required to sign away the intellectual property rights to anything you develop for the company. Hell, a lot of times you have to consent (nice oxymoron there) to drug testing, and maybe even an FBI background check.
At the most fundamental level, you're agreeing to let them own your labor for X number of hours, in return for money. Unless you're exceedingly lucky, chances are you'll be asked to do things in those hours that you wouldn't have chosen to do if you weren't being paid.
It seems to me that compared to those things, being required to become a part of a union isn't really the worst of the things you agree to when you agree to work for an employer.
If you don't like that condition (or any of the others), you're free to find work elsewhere.

>> ^gwiz665:

If it's a requirement of the employer, then that's fine - it's their job, so they can arbitrarily set up demands for it - and pay accordingly. A union interjects itself between the employer and worker as a third party essentially going "if you want to work for that guy over there, you gotta talk with us".
It doesn't feel right.

Well, the way those things work is that the unions negotiate exclusivity as part of their overall agreements with employers. If the union interjects itself in a way that's not permitted by their agreement, then they're doing something illegal.

>> ^NetRunner:


If you don't like that condition (or any of the others), you're free to find work elsewhere.


I love it when statist use the "like it or leave it" argument. Especially when those statists are central planners who pretend to stand behind a virtuous shield of social protections. What their argument really comes down to is "we'll make things better, but we'll do it our way, and you have to love it or get the fuck out."

I agree that workers should have the right to choose their own working conditions, but unions tend to control entire industries and worse they modify legislation and create instances of crony-capitalism. They're no better than the corporations that do the exact same thing. To me, that's not giving the worker a choice, that's limiting choice.

Just because you believe in unions for some perverse ideological reason, I can't understand for the life of me why you think it's okay to push those onto everyone. You think of them as a way of protecting wage earners, but a lot of wage earners don't believe unions protect them at all. They view them as gatekeepers to entire industries. The film industry is probably the worst. They close out small entrepreneurs, like me, from competing in the industry without paying through the nose or being part of their clique.

In fact, I just saw an email (with my own lying eyes) from the Writer's Guild of America that called for its members to support the Wisconsin unioners and stand against, and I quote, those "radical Republicans". We know the unions tend to lean Democratic, but it appears they now are declaring their allegiance to the political party. That doesn't sound dangerous to anyone else? Unions are nothing more than partisan hackery, protectionism and corporatism wrapped in social justice. Fuck the unions.

@blankfist Successful troll is successful.

I'm just pushing you to be ideologically consistent. If you don't care about ideological consistency, and want to just come out as a blatant tribalist who hates unions because they tend to root for the wrong team in the political shouting match, that's fine.

I don't like the "like it or leave" it attitude either, I'm just reminding you that that's basically a core principle of the libertarian ideal of a free market -- your rights are to engage in the market on the market's terms, and nothing else. No going whining to the refs about fairness, that's statism.

In this case, we're talking about whether the state should be able to abolish unions. I don't like a lot of things corporations do, but if a bill came before congress outlawing them entirely, I'd protest that too.

I'm with bmacs, it doesn't sound like you to be opposed to the freedom to organize. I just want to prod you, because in this case I think you should be siding with the unions, based on how I understand your own principles.

>> ^NetRunner:

If you don't care about ideological consistency, and want to just come out as a blatant tribalist who hates unions because they tend to root for the wrong team in the political shouting match, that's fine.


Oh, so unions are just rooting for a team? That's harmless, right? Oh wait, no it's not, because last I checked the Miami Dolphins don't create legislation that affects my life. But the Republican and Democratic parties do, so maybe this is a bit more than just a group of fanboys eating footlong hotdogs and swilling cheap beer in the parking lot of a sport's stadium.

The "core principles of free markets" have nothing to do with how unions operate. Nothing. Zero. Not sure why every argument you make recently has to be completely disingenuous and untoward. Unions use political might to change legislation in their favor. There's nothing "free" about that process. That's manipulation of markets! Certainly when you have government intervening in markets it's antithetical to free enterprise, right?

And you should know this instead of trying to spin your arguments for political gain. Did I say "spin your arguments"? I meant lie.

If unions were just people freely organizing, that would be one thing. But unions in America are people organizing and forcing others to organize with them if they want to work in that industry. If you honestly think that's remotely associated with a free market, then I know you're either trolling, hopelessly obtuse or sadly very misinformed.

@blankfist ahh, so it's not the right to organize you oppose, but the right of free speech you oppose?

Are you saying that organizations don't have the Constitutionally protected right to spend money on political advertising or lobbying? Or maybe you just think organizations who exercise that right in ways you don't approve of must be destroyed by any means necessary, including via the exercise of state power?

Unions are voluntary organizations in this country, just like corporations are voluntary organizations. If you don't want to work in a union workplace, go work somewhere else. If you don't want to work for a corporation, go work somewhere else. Hell, if you hate Microsoft's overuse of exclusivity agreements, you can choose to work someplace that refuses to enter into an exclusivity agreement with Microsoft.

According to libertarians, what you shouldn't do is go to the government and ask them to take away Microsoft's right to negotiate exclusive agreements with their customers, right?

Why ask government to outlaw the union's ability to negotiate exclusive agreements?

^Wow. Talk about missing the mark. I think I was pretty clear. If you choose to misrepresent that, then go forth and be that guy. I'm done translating English into English for you.

^Wow. Talk about not responding to any point raised.

^That's how you win arguments?

No, he's simply saying that he doesn't want a throng of blue-collar workers to have any say in the political process. He only wants the elites to negotiate policy with other elites. I guess he's being ideologically consistent, at least with the Koch-suckers like Walker.

When you combine this legislation with the citizens' united decision, you are left with a very scary campaign financing landscape.

The only thing I hope is that this has awakened the sleeping giant that is Wisconsin grassroots politics.

@blankfist how do you think arguments are won? Compare your opponent to a villain in a comic book? Proclaim that he's too dumb to understand you, and then refuse to answer the questions asked? Maybe randomly accuse him of being a liar, or a nazi sympathizer?

I might throw some elbows along the way, but for the most part I'm trying to use logic and/or supporting evidence to try to present a definitive argument.

Do you think the Wisconsin Republicans are right to take away the ability for public sector unions to engage in collective bargaining?

If so, where does the state derive the power to take away the rights of unions to freely negotiate contracts?

Do you think the Wisconsin Republicans are right to take away the ability for public sector unions to engage in collective bargaining?

That's NOT what they're doing, so the premise of your position is incorrect from the start. The GOP is telling unions that they cannot collectively bargain WHEN THEIR BENEFITS EXCEED THE PCI. That isn't taking away collective bargaining rights. That's taking away the ability of unions to rape the public. And - no offense - but since that's what the unions are fighting over then they can go jump in a lake. Them and all the other rent-a-mob thugs they bussed in.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:

Do you think the Wisconsin Republicans are right to take away the ability for public sector unions to engage in collective bargaining?
That's NOT what they're doing, so the premise of your position is incorrect from the start. The GOP is telling unions that they cannot collectively bargain WHEN THEIR BENEFITS EXCEED THE PCI.

Actually, it takes away their ability to engage in collective bargaining about anything but wages (benefits are entirely off the table), and at that, sets a cap on them ever achieving more than a break-even increase to keep up with inflation.

Technically, they can still "collectively bargain", but it's the equivalent of Congress proposing a law prohibiting political speech on any topic except the federal budget, and at that prohibiting anyone from being able to say that the size of the budget should ever grow any faster than the rate of inflation...and then responding to people who say their right to free speech would be taken away "we didn't take away your free speech" because technically they didn't completely eliminate it.

Actually, it takes away their ability to engage in collective bargaining about anything but wages

Well - technically speaking the Wisconsin public employee union didn't have collective bargaining power over those things anyway, so they can't 'lose' CB rights over things they didn't have rights over to begin with. Here is the list of actual proposals...

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/18/us-wisconsin-proposal-idUSTRE71H6I020110218

Nothing there about limiting anything but collective bargaining rights over wages, and even then it only limits the function when they exceed the PCI. Quite frankly, this is a good thing. State budgets are collapsing all across the country and the largest item in the bad budgets is always unfunded PUBLIC UNION liabilities. The public unions have pushed and pushed and pushed to get more and more and more from the taxpayer trough to the point where their benefits are breaking our nation's financial back. The same sort of argument applies to all the social entitlements at the federal level. We can't afford all this stuff. Government was never supposed to be the entity trying to pay for all this stuff. They've reached too far, and if they don't pull back then it will collapse the fiscal system.

Walker is not doing this to be popular. He's doing it to balance the budget, and he can't do it without hitting at his biggest budget item - the bad deals his predecessors have made with the greedy unions.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:

Actually, it takes away their ability to engage in collective bargaining about anything but wages
Well - technically speaking the Wisconsin public employee union didn't have collective bargaining power over those things anyway, so they can't 'lose' CB rights over things they didn't have rights over to begin with. Here is the list of actual proposals...
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/18/us-wisconsin-pr
oposal-idUSTRE71H6I020110218
Nothing there about limiting anything but collective bargaining rights over wages,

From that link, second bullet reads:

Walker wants to limit collective bargaining to the issue of wages, and cap increases to the rate of inflation, with a voter referendum needed for bigger increases.

Walker wants to limit collective bargaining to the issue of wages, and cap increases to the rate of inflation, with a voter referendum needed for bigger increases.

I take that to mean that he is wanting to limit the collective bargaining discussion to the issue of wages as opposed to expanding the collective bargaining discussion to other areas where the union does retain CB rights. I see it as limiting the scope of his effort. I think you are interpreting that differently than what is intended. Walker has been pretty clear that his effort to limit collective bargaining is restricted to the aspect of union wage levels - and even then only when they exceed the CPI.

@Winstonfield_Pennypacker sigh.

Here's Politifact on this topic. Here's a copy of the analysis done by Wisconsin's Legislative Reference Bureau (along with the actual text of the law, the key appears to be Section 188).

It's not just a whim, like "when we talk with unions, I would like to try to limit the negotiations to wages", it's him trying to pass legislation making it illegal for the collective bargaining agreements to cover anything but wages, and at that, making it impossible for unions to achieve any better than CPI-locked increases through bargaining. That's not being tough in negotiation, that's taking away the right to negotiate.

I agree with you, Walker is pretty clearly saying different things when he talks to the media. But that's because what he's saying doesn't match up to what he's actually doing.