Trouble in Wisconsin—and elsewhere
It’s not just the Arab street that’s boiling over. There’s trouble in the streets of—Wisconsin.
“Trouble in Wisconsin” sounds like an oxymoron. But it’s just a reflection of similar troubles all around the country, and even the world (see Europe, for example Greece).
Sooner or later, in state after state after state, there will be some sort of showdown between state employees who won’t give up the benefits to which they’ve grown accustomed—with the help of their unions, that have become pythons with a stranglehold on state budgets—and the beleaguered states who plead that the crush is killing them.
I purposely used strong language in the above paragraph, because I noticed that President Obama has gotten into the fray and used some strong language himself. He has accused Wisconsin’s Republican Governor Scott Walker of “assaulting” the unions by backing legislation that would limit the collective bargaining rights of state employees.
What is being proposed by the governor and his supporters? That state public workers—excluding police, firefighters and state troopers—pay half their pension costs and 12% of their health insurance costs, and lose their right to collectively bargain anything but pay.
Doesn’t sound all that onerous to me. But I guess if you’re used to tremendous benefits, it’s very hard to give them up. But for Obama, it is the equivalent of a vicious attack on his most-favored constituency, public employees and public unions.
Note that the public employees we consider most vital and heroic are exempted. That leaves, I would guess, mostly teachers. (not that they’re not vital and heroic, you teachers out there). So it seems roughly parallel to the fight going on in New Jersey for Chris Christie (although firefighters are included there), except that Obama has yet to insinuate himself into that battle, as far as I know. Perhaps the president is loath to take on Christie, and is sticking with Governor Walker as an opponent. Or perhaps Obama feels more proprietary towards Wisconsin, which after all is practically a suburb of Chicago.
Does it surprise me that Obama has taken on this battle, despite its being a state issue? No, not at all. Fine points like state autonomy do not concern him, and in fact they have mostly been troublesome for him. He sees winning this fight as essential to placate his base of support.
[NOTE: See this for plenty more about the fight.]
“Meticulous attention should be paid to the special relations and obligations of public servants to the public itself and to the Government….The process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service.
A strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to obstruct the operations of government until their demands are satisfied.
Such action looking toward the paralysis of government by those who have sworn to support it is unthinkable and intolerable.” President Franklin Roosevelt, 1937
The Democratic Party and its sockpuppets–or should I say ‘leftist special interests and their sockpuppet, the Democratic Party’?–are bringing national-level resources to bear on Wisconsin.
I hope the GOP and Tea Party give Wisconsin Republicans the resources and support they need.
Public union employees are human parasites living off taxpayers. Like mosquitos they should be swatted and crushed.
right about the time i said the socialist riots will start warming up…
where is hux so i can tell him i told him so about all of this (And a lot more is coming!!!)…
Art:
And this is MILD.
Everyone should note what GREECE is doing, here:
http://traditionalcatholicism.wordpress.com/2011/02/17/this-is-unbelievable/
“What you have here is micro-quantitative easing, or money printing,” said Cathal O’Leary, head of fixed-income sales at NCB Stockbrokers. “The banks are issuing unsecured loans to themselves.”
I had the final collapse pegged for five years from now, but it looks like they’re in some sort of a rush. I might have to rethink my estimate. Collapse 2012?
I should point out that the final two paragraphs are quoted from that blog.
Ok, how I got Ireland mixed up with Greece…
Maybe I need more coffee…
*hides, embarrassed*
Brad,
Arthur Laffer, former Pres. Reagan’s financial adviser, thinks the ‘cliff’s edge’ may well be reached this year: Tax Hikes and the 2011 Economic Collapse
Get to know them, and even police and firefighters are neither vital nor heroic. Only on occasion do they rise up as heroes, just like everyone else.
Mostly, they are paid to do a job. Why wouldn’t nurses and prison guards also be heroes, if we are going to be generous with the label?
And the job they do (cops and fire) is certainly important, but we do not require a paramilitarized cabal of cops. Peel’s Principle make the explicit point that each of us has responsibility for policing each other. The organized professional police has made us dependent on them through legislation against self-help.
Similarly, the organized firefighters have used lobbying power against volunteer and private fire-response teams.
Not to get further off topic…my essential point is that it is objectionable that ANY government employee is given special treatment. It’s merely political expedience in a nation of sheep.
If the following isn’t zipping through the intertubes, it soon will:
Apparently 13 hedge fund managers earned an average of $1B last year. Some of this is taxed as capital gains. According to Robert Reich (Rhodes Scholar, Secretary of Labor, Berkeley professor), if it had been taxed as ordinary income, the proceeds could have paid salaries and benefits for 5 million teachers.
His own supporters didn’t let this howler go by.
Maybe Reich got his data from somebody with a degree in math education, who can’t multiply and divide but understands the concepts really well. (Reich claims that government workers including teachers are underpaid when education is taken into account.)
President Reagan’s handling of the Air Traffic Controller’s Union needs to be revisited. Some lessons could be learned by both public service unions and state governors. A majority of the voting public will support diminishing or eliminating unions in the public sector because they add no value and corrupt the election process. In our current fiscal hole we need desperately need to get rid of these self-serving diggers.
Reich claims that government workers including teachers are underpaid when education is taken into account.
Proof positive that Reich is not only a physical but a mental midget.
What does education necessarily have to do with pay? Bill Gates dropped out of college. Reich got his Ph.D., albeit in economics. Who makes more money? Reich acts as though pay should be a linear function of educational level.
What an incredibly stupid comment. Can the man not think at all?
The confrontation in Wisconsin is coming to at least 10 or 12 other states before the 2012 election. “Its all Greek to me” will soon be replaced by “we are all Greeks” as the next stage of the credit-debt crisis unfolds.
Obama’s meddling in the affairs of the badger state is not unexpected, but it is rather presumptuous of him to lecture the governor & legislature of a sovereign state about fiscal matters after he’s racked up 3+ trillion in new debt in 2 years and is proposing another 1.5+ trillion in new debt for the next fiscal year. The DNC and its school of piranha (ACORN, MOVEON.ORG, etc.) are going to get behind the protests and create even more acrimony and division. As crows eat carrion, ‘progressives’ cause chaos because that’s what they do.
Obama and the Cloward-Piven left have been trying to instigate chaos all along. They want unrest and violence, since that gives them an excuse to crack down. Glenn Beck has been warning of this for at least a year or more.
Obama has been doing everything he can to outrage and piss off normal, patriotic Americans. The litany is too vast to rehash here. The media has been trying to create an image of racist, violent, extremist Tea Partiers. They hoped someone on our side would snap and do something foolish.
When the Tucson shooting happened, the media immediately went into full blood libel mode. It’s as if they already had their stories pre-written, and just needed to plug in the names.
So far the right has disappointed the left by not falling for their provocations. But the left needs chaos and violence to take their agenda to the next level, and they will get it one way or another.
These union protests will spread to other cities and states, and they will be organized and coordinated. They WILL turn violent. Presumably the left feels that they’ve sufficiently prepared the narrative so that no matter what happens, it can be blamed on the right.
The events in Wisconsin are as serious as a heart attack, and this is only the beginning.
Outlaw Government Unions!
In that phrase, the first word works just as well as a verb or an adjective.
# Occam’s Beard Says:What does education necessarily have to do with pay?…What an incredibly stupid comment. Can the man not think at all?
OB, my guess is that Reich dashed off this piece more or less on autopilot. He’s working backwards from a desired outcome that he labels as ‘social justice’ and inventing pretexts as he goes along.
gs Says: Apparently 13 hedge fund managers earned an average of $1B last year. Some of this is taxed as capital gains. According to Robert Reich (Rhodes Scholar, Secretary of Labor, Berkeley professor), if it had been taxed as ordinary income, the proceeds could have paid salaries and benefits for 5 million teachers.
This works out, of course, to $1K per teacher, more or less.
Although I suspect that Reich got his numbers from an intern or some such person, I’m sure that he is capable of doing the arithmetic. It may be revealing that he, and his Salon editor, didn’t bother.
IMO they operate from the leftist bias that there is this mass of cash out there which the evil rich are sequestering from the rest of us. If they only paid their “fair share”, all would be well. That’s the leftist narrative and neither Reich nor his editor are likely to look critically at a claim that supports it.
(Btw, I am more than willing to unleash a philippic against those who got rich via crony capitalism, but that’s a topic for another time.)
ricki maybe the left believes they can profit from this, but if Wisconsin stands strong I believe the left will lose and lose more completely and quicker than anyone suspects.
There’s a good thread about this at the Ticker Forum. It started yesterday and is still active. It’s up to 18 pages of comments now.
Since Ticker Forum focuses on economics rather than politics, members range across the political spectrum. There are liberals, conservatives, and libertarians, and probably even some anarchists. This often makes for spirited discussion.
james:
You may be right. I certainly hope so.
Only the most uninformed clueless idiots can fail to grasp our dire economic situation by now. Let’s hope they represent a minority of the electorate.
President Obama intervened because the crowds turning out in the streets brought out the “community organizer” in him. Remember their goal is to find an issue – any issue – that mobilizes the masses.
I don’t think the left will necessarily lose here. Until a state or two defaults on some bonds or hosts a payless payday, a lot of people will continue to believe that if we just whine and stomp our heels hard enough Daddy will have to give in.
On the other hand, james, the fact that the left is instigating and orchestrating chaos means that they are moving beyond politics as usual.
The Bolsheviks of 1917 weren’t concerned about opinion polls. They were more interested in raw power and physical force.
The TEA Parties and those of us on the Right will be in Madison to counter-protest tomorrow. Honestly, I fear for our safety, but we are going anyway.
Will this be peaceful? Lexington and Concord? Or Reichstag Fire?
Good luck and Godspeed, Deeka.
I don’t know what’s going to happen. I think it may be a little too early for violence, but I don’t know.
Today I read that the average compensation package for Wisconsin teachers is $87,000 a year, hardly the stuff of oppressed labor. In a state with high unemployment and disappearing jobs, the public is unlikely to be sympathetic.
By publicly committing to this fight Obama and the left have much to lose and very little to win. Don’t be afraid for this is much sound and fury and definitely desperation. A desperate enemy will fight desperately, but when they lose, it comes suddenly and more completely than expected.
I think the thing that really has the unions pissed is taking away their automatic union fee deduction– so the unions have to do their own billing, and folks realize that it costs them– and making the state workers right-to-work. (that is, they can’t force people to be in the union)
He’s attacking the state unions’ two main clubs– everyone is forced to be a member, and in cases where it’s a right to work state*, the union fees are still deducted by the employer and people have to go get reimbursed from the union they didn’t join. Naturally, the unions screw the heck out of those who dare to go it on their own.
(*I haven’t researched this recently, I remember the big blowup a few years back about “right to work” and all)
Sometime the fight simply comes. You don’t get to choose the time and place. Or perhaps you let that choice go by, and find yourself presented with the fight.
So be it. I hope that those of you who rally tomorrow in opposition all come home safely. This will spread rapidly across many states. I don’t expect it here, because my state has little tolerance for such behavior. Still should it come. I will meet it head on.
We face a tough and difficult, possibly dangerous 20 months. We have a nation to save. The greatest nation in the history of mankind. Should we be surprised that those who would destroy it would make us stand in the breach? I think not.
Good luck to us all. We fight for our homes, our families, and our honor. Our opponents are there because they are paid to be there. Which side do you think cares more?
China, with its massive and growing ACFTU union, continues to kick America’s butt economically.
But how can that be according to right wing economic theory?
How can Communist China with its huge government and even more powerful unions have beaten America economically every single year for the last 30 years?
America’s economic problems are not unions or even government spending, but lazy, unimaginative and self centered businessmen.
Why don’t we clawback all the government handouts and bailouts they’ve been given recently before we go after the decent and hard working middle class American’s benefits?
Folks..
The big issue with the public unions is that the legislation stops automatic deductions in favor of the union from every teacher. Instead, every year the union has to get re-elected as the bargaining unit and depend on checks being mailed in by the membership on a VOLUNTARY basis.
What’s been happening is the Democrat-Union has been funding the Democrat Party with public funds via this two step procedure.
Ohio, Indiana, Michigan all want to go down the exact same road.
BTW, 3/5 quorum standard does not apply to non-budgetary legislation. So the budge can be tabled and the State can move straight forward bills that eliminate collective bargaining for the teachers — completely. Then a joint committee could be established to determine wages and benefits — with the numbers pushed onto the Net.
Oh, my!
What inTheory misses here is that it’s Communist China. The union is controlled by the government who is also the employer.
Who is more lazy? The worker protected by the Union? Or the businessman who puts his property out there as collateral and has to work hard to make his own bread?
Who is more entitled to the wealth? The one who earns it? Or the one who clamors for it and claim’s the owner of the wealth is “greedy”.
No, it’s backwards now. Those who take the risk are punished while those who take no risk suck off the tit of those who do.
I have a feeling this Wisconsin thing could be decisive, in a good way or a bad way.
The battle has been joined. This is an opening salvo. A President has basically organized union thugs to instigate mob rule.
If they win, it’s over for us. If they lose, it’s over for them.
As this becomes clear, the fever will rise. Things will accelerate. Things will spread. How long it will last, I don’t know. At the end there will be a winner and a loser.
Maybe it will be a draw. Possible. But if it is that only means the decisive battle is merely delayed. Postponed, not canceled.
The stakes are extremely high in this one. I hope America is up to it.
I wonder if gun sales when straight up in Wisconsin today. I’d have bought one today if I lived there.
Or the businessman who puts his property out there as collateral and has to work hard to make his own bread?
Deeka,
How naive can you be?
Few executives put their own wealth on the line while they’re busy destroying American jobs to get a temporary stock boost so they can cash out.
Even the worst CEOs, who practically destroy the companies they run, like Republican darling Carla Fiorina, for example, manage to walk away with tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars.
And the funny thing is, these greedy idiots have bribed the Republicans, once the champions of middle class Americans to deflect the blame onto some of the most hard working members of our society.
InTheory:
What about small business owners?
What about small business owners?
They are convenient human shields for they greedy, government teat suckling morons who run America’s big businesses, rickl.
Like the mythical “small farmer” the mouthpieces of huge corporate farms hide behind whenever the subject of government farm subsidies comes up.
Just one subsidy, the ethanol production subsidy, costs American taxpayer $6 billion a year and raises the cost of corn by 40%.
The bailout of AIG cost the U.S. taxpayers $80 billion and the CEO who cratered AIG with his moronic decisions, Martin J. Sullivan, walked away with tens of billions of dollars.
Real Republicans would be marching on Washington D.C. to protest this outrage.
Instead, they’ve decided to go and protest the working class folks of Wisconsin because the new Republican governor of that state gave away $150 million worth of handouts to his cronies on his first day in office and now he’s trying to pay for them by gouging his state’s lowly public servants.
Why don’t we clawback all the government handouts and bailouts they’ve been given recently
Because they are the major donors to the Commun…er…Democrat Party, you moron. Check OpenSecrets.com. Goldman Sachs went 3:1 for the Reds, and the biggest recipient of their ill-gained largesse was …Barack Hussein Obama.
And GE was a huge recipient as well. GE, you say? Yes. GE makes most of its money now from finance, not making refrigerators, and was one of the biggest recipients of TARP funds. (Think that had any effect on the NBC Nightly News, produced as it was by a subsidiary of GE? Hmmmmm?) And now Obama has appointed Immelt, GE’s CEO, to head his economic advisory panel. Now there’s a coinky dink, eh?)
Neo, time for some WD-40 on the troll hammer, IMHO.
Occam’s Beard: Oh, I don’t know. I kind of like keeping IT around as a pet.
Lowly public servant? Now there’s the humorous phrase for the day!
InTheory & Occam’s Beard:
You’re both describing fascism.
See? You do agree sometimes.
Because they are the major donors to the Commun…er…Democrat Party, you moron. Check OpenSecrets.com. Goldman Sachs went 3:1 for the Reds, and the biggest recipient of their ill-gained largesse was …Barack Hussein Obama.
The Democrats being in power somehow prevent Republicans from protesting the massive government handouts the morons of Wall Street have received, Occam?
Care to explain how?
Obama meddling in a state affair and using paid thugs to yell and scream in WI really does remind me of brown coat activity in Nazi Germany.
We MUST get rid of this dangerous man and his cohorts.
A couple of points:
First, I was born and raised in Wisconsin (I now live in Iowa). Furthermore, my mother was a member of a public sector union for 25 years.
Second, I was a lifelong liberal Democrat until about three years ago. I interned and worked for the SEIU, I volunteered on dozens of Democratic political campaigns, I went to several state party conventions, etc. I won’t label myself an “expert” but I know the political terrain in Wisconsin pretty well.
Thus, I honestly can say that what is happening in Madison is not the least bit surprising. The public sector unions in Wisconsin (e.g. AFSCME, WEAC, etc.) are incredibly powerful, demanding and insatiable. Politicians of both parties fear them. I remember growing up in the 70’s and 80’s, when my mom was active in her union. ANY minor concession was verboten. ANY cutback in benefits (and “cutback” usually meant a smaller than typical increase) met with howling cries of protest, absurd rhetoric about how whichever governor was in office at the time (Lucey, Dreyfus, Earl, Tommy Thompson) was “anti-education”, “anti-working families”, “anti-children”. It was really bad theater, but generally the state (regardless of which party was in charge) backed down, the unions conceded a tiny amount of ground, and all went back to normal (edging ever closer to the cliff).
Well, we’re at that cliff. I don’t think the unions ever expected Scott Walker to keep his word, to do what he made very explicit in the campaign. But, he has; and that outrages them even more. Given how little his predecessors asked from them and how much they screamed at the time, I completely expected a thorough meltdown when they faced a politician who is actually demanding serious concessions (though far more modest than they could be) and won’t back down. I just hope and pray that he (and the legislature) stays strong and unyielding. The venom, the hate, the juvenile yet disturbing rage directed against them is highly organized and well coordinated. It will only intensify.
I agree with the view that: A) This is is the first of many, many similar battles that will fan out into several states over the next year or two and B) The battle will be long, brutal, poisonous and success is not at all guaranteed. The unions and the Democrats (often one in the same) know how high the stakes are. They will stop at NOTHING; and I mean nothing (that includes violence). Expect the organizer-in-chief to put himself more and more on the center stage as well. Because the reality is this: if the dominance of public sector unions over state governments is broken, the honey pot will start to dry up for the Democrats. Their principal bankrollers will suddenly find themselves much more cash strapped. And without organized labor (now dominated by public sector unions) as its loyal foot soldiers, the Democratic Party will be seriously disadvantaged for many elections to come. They know this.
It’s going to be a brutal and ugly year in the political climate of many states. But, I also agree that this is a struggle to reclaim our lost political and cultural heritage (limited government, low taxes, economic liberty, etc.). It is more than worth the fight.
Perhaps “Intheory” could compare the average salary of the beloved Chinese Union member with the average salary of the American Union member.
Here is you a clue “In theory”. You want good paying , blue collar, non union jobs? Its called “Drill, baby , Drill” In my neck of the woods the non- union contract welders were making $50 an hour recently till they cut their pay back to $40 an hour building drilling rigs. Seems the chinese have a massive factory set up where they are building rigs in doors. Course, the “workers” are riding bicycles to work …. somehow I doubt they are making American minimum wage even…..
Thanks for your insight, BurkeanBadger. Excellent comment.
of course, those welders I mentioned owned their own trucks with giant welding machines mounted on those trucks- so they are basically small buisiness owners. They are also mostly a bunch of red-necks. They have guns, chew tobacco, etc-typical red neck stuff. So those jobs wouldn’t need to be expanded by opening up more area for drilling here in the good ol USA. As a matter of fact, they are pretty much “bitter clinger’ types. So to hades with those jobs- lets shut down the oil industry cause President Obama said oil is the fuel of the past. But lets protect every inch of the public sector unions salaries. The oil guys contribute tax dollars to the system- the public sector unions spend those tax dollars. So in a time of expanding public debt, lets kill the thing that pays into the system, and protect the thing that takes from the system.
Makes sense to democrats everywhere…..
The myth: Republicans & multi-national corporations are Tweedle Dum & Tweedle Dee twins. Democrats are the saviors of the repressed working class & hyphenated Americans in general.
Occam is right, the likes of Goldman Sachs, GE, et al have used the democrats like cheap members of the oldest profession. Big business loves big government. Anyone who can’t figure that one out should stay away from large paper bags.
InTheory says, “The Democrats being in power somehow prevent Republicans from protesting the massive government handouts the morons of Wall Street have received…”
They did protest. They were the racist, gun clinging, white trash, ignorant domestic terrorists you call the tea baggers.
Oh, I don’t know. I kind of like keeping IT around as a pet.
You keep cockroaches for pets, neo? To each his own, I guess!
Thanks, rickl.
I have to say that even though I am not surprised at what is happening, it still is a little surreal. Anyone who knows Madison (the Berkeley of the Midwest) knows that protesting anything and everything is the norm there. But, this is well above and beyond that. It is very well organized and shows just how formidable public sector unions and their motley crew of lefty allies (i.e. ACORN and ACORNesque organizations) really are.
I know that Andrew Brietbart and many Tea Partiers are planning a counter protest on Saturday; I encourage that wholeheartedly. However, I caution them to be very careful and very disciplined. Were they just countering the typical Madison hippies, there would be not much concern. But, this is far bigger and more pernicious. Expect Alinskyian tactics to be employed. If ANY violence (and I mean even just one person shoving another) results, it will immediately be blamed on the Tea Partiers, and the well worn refrain (“These angry, racist, ignorant Naziesque troglodytes who are all emulate Jared Loughner attacked a peaceful and civil demonstration of innocent and gentle teachers”) will be replayed a gagillion times throughout the mainstream media.
Yes indeed, BurkeanBadger.
On the Ticker Forum thread which I’ve already linked a couple of times, I quoted Napoleon: “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.”
Breitbart and the Tea Partiers would do well to remember that.
They were the racist, gun clinging, white trash, ignorant domestic terrorists you call the tea baggers.
Are the Wall Street owned bots known as the Tea Party protesting while the Republicans they helped send to Washington continue make meaningless speeches and pass bills that have zero chance of getting signed into law instead of actually cutting the massive amounts of pork flowing to Republican cronies?
Nope.
Why?
Because Wall Street has ordered them to go to Wisconsin and protest because some teachers have dental insurance.
So dumb, so predicable.
So Intheory, were you for or against the Tarp bailout?
Occam> People do keep roaches for pets. Even hissing ones! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGiUq42fv-c
Well, I see you kinda answered this earlier: “The bailout of AIG cost the U.S. taxpayers $80 billion and the CEO who cratered AIG with his moronic decisions, Martin J. Sullivan, walked away with tens of billions of dollars.”
except that somewhere along the way you failed to realize that this is the kind of thing that spurred the Tea Party into existance!
How is it possible that someone can so misunderstand the Tea Party as “InTheory” does?
Nevermind- its called the MSM.
I must leave now. My Wall Street masters have ordered me to drop what I’m doing, go to Wisconsin, and await further orders.
[B]lert’s point is excellent. The Flee-bagging Democrat Senators are preventing the Senate from having a quorum of 20. But that quorum rule only applies to budget bills. Per the Wisconsin Constitution, a simple majority is all that’s required to pass other legislation. So, as blert noted, the Senate Republicans can table the budget and proceed to pass a bill eliminating the public unions’ privilege (it’s not a “right”) to collective bargaining — delivering a staggering loss to the Democrats and Unions on their biggest issue in this fight. I’m sure Gov. Walker and the Wisconsin Republicans know that they have both the law and the facts on their side, and I think most of the citizens of Wisconsin are with them also. I lived in Wisconsin back in the late 60’s, and while Madison was way far left, the rest of the state, not so much. Sen. Joe McCarthy came from the Fox River Valley.
Walker and the Republicans only need to keep their cool and wait this out. The Senate should simply note the absence of a quorum every day. The Dems and Unions are harming their own cause more than they realize, but the people see them for what greedy little fools they really are. If the government of Wisconsin, or its school system, is shut down, the blame will fall on the Democrats and the Unions.
InTheory: The frequent commenters on this blog, and its host, are generally quite polite. Especially when a differing point of view is supported with logic, reason and facts. I’m not a frequent commenter, and the issue being discussed here is far too serious for them to waste time being polite to a fool. You’re way over your head in here.
except that somewhere along the way you failed to realize that this is the kind of thing that spurred the Tea Party into existance!
Yep, funny thing, ain’t it?
Almost like somebody planned it that way.
Funny too, that since its inception, the Tea Party almost exclusively goes lumbering after the enemies of rich Republicans.
You’re way over your head in here.
Rusty,
The Tea Party is hardly the first mob created by the wealthy, riled up, and sent to attack “undesirables” in the lower (not rich) classes.
I could name many similar cases from the last century.
It is simply America’s misfortune to be living through this latest reincarnation of the phenomenon.
Odds are it will get much worse before it gets better…
TO: InTheory
FROM: Parker
RE: Tea Party
Most people here think you’re an ugly troll. Neo, who owns this stage, seems to think you are an amusing troll. Personally, I’ve not passed judgment (yet) but I’m leaning towards the dogmatic, yet well intentioned confused puppy with a master’s degree in poli-sci category. So, here’s my last attempt:
The tea party people are not in any way controlled by what you call ‘Wall Street’. That would be laughable were it not so pitifully absurd. What they are is everyday people who are scared shitless about the calamity facing their children and grandchildren if the nation continues to careen recklessly on a pogo stick along the edge of the abyss of debt.
What you fail to see through your partisan glasses is that many ordinary people became frogs tossed into the boiling water after Obama rang up more debt in 2 years than Bush signed off on in 8 years. That is what is fueling the spontaneous, grassroots movement demanding government austerity. The tea baggers in all their unwashed, uneducated glory see the simple truth — we can not longer survive as a society unless we sharply reduce debt in the public sector.
Final unsolicited wisdom: The bell curve is real, be on the right or be left behind.
That would be laughable were it not so pitifully absurd. What they are is everyday people who are scared shitless about the calamity facing their children and grandchildren if the nation continues to careen recklessly on a pogo stick along the edge of the abyss of debt.
The same people who cheered “Yeehaw!” while George W. Bush increased the size of the federal government by 50%?
I know, I know…that Bush made y’all real mad, and he’s not a real “conservative” and all that…it’s just that during his 8 years in office y’all just couldn’t find the time to, um, you know, say anything about it.
And the fact that a Democrat is now in the White House has nothing whatsoever to do with your (new found) concern for deficit spending.
Honest!
It’s just an amazing coincidence that during eight loooong years of George W. Bush turning Bill Clinton’s surpluses into deficits y’all were quiet as church mice and then Obama gets into office and OH MY GOD! THEM DEFICITS IS GONNA KILL OUR CHILDREN!!!!
Perfectly understandable and totally believable!
IT,
You weren’t reading or watching. Or…. you are being dishonest.
Whatever the case – we were against the increases in spending then – and we are against the increases now.
Are you making the case FOR increases?
No.
You are making believe that we were in favor or ignoring the increases without attributing any factors that it’s gotten WORSE!!!
The nominal dollars, the percentage of GDP, whatever way you look at it the federal spending has gotten absurd.
You can get on us – But guess what – it makes you look irresponsible not us.
Because we are asking for responsibility. Are you?
Ezra Klien doesn’t get it either
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2011/02/unions_arent_to_blame_for_wisc.html
http://michellemalkin.com/2011/02/17/watch-wisconsin-part-iv-the-salary-info-big-labor-doesnt-want-you-to-see/
Scroll through this list of highly paid people in WI.
I might move there and get one of those jobs. Pays better and I can do it better.
🙂
Of course these are just “workers” to IT.
And the state just needs to shut up and pay ’em
Ahhh Madison. You can spot a flaming liberal town as soon as you hit the city limits. They all have ten thousand dollar lamp post every hundred feet and some ridiculously low speed limit. I had to drive so slow through that town (25mph!) i felt like i was driving around looking for a lost dog. 🙂
Madison a 100 sq. miles surrounded by reality.
What kinds of lessons do these teachers actually teach our future generations? That it’s OK to throw temper tantrums like a 5 year old? That life should never have any hard times? That money is more important than character? That creativity doesn’t involve in making the best out of what you have? That our yearly Thanksgiving Day is to remind us of what we don’t have in comparison to inhabitants of the Hamptons or Malibu?
These people shouldn’t be allowed in the vicinity of kids. They all seem to have majored in grievance studies in college.
There’s much talk of the protesting teachers. Interesting point: Most teachers are not affected. This only affects state employees. The VAST majority of teachers are employees of the local schools.
Orchestrated? TEA Party isn’t, but OFA is orchestrating these union protests from their website.
IT is deluded as to who-is-who. I’m sure when his Socialist masters yell jumps, he wants to know how high.
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@Parker,
There is no way to rationally argue, convince, or talk to a liberal. They are not wired that way. Period. End of story.
The only thing to be done with a liberal or liberalism is to defeat it. That’s all.
It has nothing to do with what kind of people they are in their personal lives. As liberals, they are the most dangerous threat America has ever faced, bar none.
It’s us or them and not both. Anything else is wasted and fruitless effort.
Radical sociologist David Harvey argues the problem with the economy isn’t organized labour, it’s the excessive power of finance capital:
The animated version of the lecture (astonishing). 11 minutes.
The original lecture.
From Harvey’s conclusion:
I think Harvey’s at least correct in suggesting we need a broad-based discussion.
Well, yes, the excessive power of financial capital is AT LEAST part of the issue.
I’ve tried to bring this out before. You can’t have a consumer based economy with almost infinite pressure and flexibility to depress wages.
The Fed’s bailouts have cost trillions of dollars , but all they’ve done is stave off an immediate collapse at the cost of bringing instability into other parts of the national and international monetary systems. Worse, people see this crony capitalism and get enraged as no one is ever held the slightest bit accountable for their part in the mess. It gets even more galling when you notice that many of the same people that support the Fed’s actions in bailing out Wall Street (temporarily of course) don’t support any help whatsoever to the unemployed and underemployed families and people in this crises.
@Alt…
From the link: Radical sociologist David Harvey asks: is it time to look beyond capitalism towards a new social order that would allow us to live within a system that really could be responsible, just, and humane?
It is guaranteed this guy is a tyrant and would impoverish half the world if he could get free food in the faculty lounge.
Are you kidding me?
Red flags went up when your quote referred to him as an “academic”. Right therre the odds are 75% he’s a whacko who never actually worked in his life and who thinks Marxism is fine just its implementation has been problematical.
But I thought I’ read a bit of the “lecture”. Once i saw the bio blurb I knew I’d seen that lecture a 100 times before and it would be total BS.
Another Rule of Thumb: Anytime there is the “one guy” who gets it and the “rest of the world” – especially the ordinary people – don’t….then it is 99.99% certain that the “one guy” is wrong.
Parker:
The Tea baggers mean well, but as far as the financial crises goes they are fools and tools. This country isn’t ready for real austerity and given the world and national economic climate this country can’t take it right now. What I suspect the smarter tea baggers (esp. some of the politicians) know is that the more corruption and government waste you uncover, the more obvious it becomes that in order to remove it you’d have to re-start the current political system from scratch, nothing less will do. And there are entrenched interests that will fight against that, and they aren’t all teachers unions.
I don’t totally agree with how Wisconsin’s governor is handling this , it’s one thing to impose some austerity cuts , it’s another to try to remove healthcare from collective bargaining. Healthcare, as I’ve said, is a crisis, and this isn’t some small sacrifice the unions are being asked to give. All this will do in the long run before or after our economy collapses will be to put pressure on some level of government for national health care.
@Parker
“The Tea baggers mean well…”
When I smell a fake, phony fraud and a rat I am almost never wrong.
Your use of the term “Tea Baggers” disqualifies anything you say, and proves you are one of the people America must either defeat, or fall to. No third option. America does not live with the likes of you; and your side can never win if America remains America.
You’re on the side wearing the black hats dude. It’s us or you, and not both. Everything that does not recognize that is just people BSing to pass the time.
Karl Denninger has a new post up. The word for today is sedition.
Brad:
I would take it a step further and say you can’t have a consumer based economy, period. You can’t consume wealth without it first being created by somebody. Wealth is created by growing, mining, or manufacturing.
There are a lot of complex reasons why manufacturing has fled the United States, but part of the problem is that the government has created an unfriendly climate for business with taxes, environmental regulations, and bureaucratic red tape. Unions have played a role too by driving wages above what the market will bear.
Brad:
Do you read the Market Ticker? Some of your comments here suggest that you do.
We forget Judge Harold Medina, or would do well to remember him and our previous history in these matters, as the repetition of them is incredibly parallel.
Harry Sacher, Abraham Isserman, and Richard Gladstein were pretty much trying to play on him. But it was the circus around things that would show the parallels of the crowd then and the crowds today.
The crowds gathered in Foley Square in November of 1948 shouting “Adolf Hitler never died. He’s sitting at Medina’s side”.
James Forestall committed suicide jumping out a window. “Medina will fall like Forrestall”
who were these people. The communists in the form of Mothers of the Purple Heart Veterans (A woman’s group, like today’s code pink, as always but their followers dont know, or seem to care to know, they like being lied to if they like the lie – no other conclusion can be made since the groups have not changed on iota over historical time other than methods), and Consumer Union housewives. The Times called for laws to ban picketing and assembly.
what got them all riled up?
well, a prior attempt to break the communists by making communism itself illegal which would then make the unions go away.
sound familiar?
it was called the Smith Act…
Rather than defend on 1st amendment terms, they went for validity of communist ideology. while the same groups outside did the same things they did and are doing today. (except for then Truman won, not Wallace, and so a compromise between removing them and leaving them was had rather than keeping them completely if Wallace had won. so obama is not Truman, he is Wallace, in Oh so many ways).
I have head more law in kangaroo courts! Gus Hall
More than 500 Negroes have been lynched in this country! Henry Winston
[true! Actually more were murdered other ways, but he failed and neglected to mention that i was done by his own side]
Louis Budens who was part of it all was witness for the prosecution, and willing to tell the truth.
[since that time, they have scrubbed as many laws as they can to prevent their deligitimization by law when and if any time, like today came]
“The communist party of the united states is basically committed to the overthrow of the government of the Unites states. socialism can only be attained by violent shattering of the capitalist state” Budenz
[notice that the false idea that socialism and communism were two different things had not yet been established in the publics mind and so given them a way of denying what previously they could not]
The potential danger of these men as the leaders of a subversive group is probably incalculable – McGohey
The supreme court got involved..
it was effective enough as a demonstration that they could no longer operate at all in the open or partly open as they did before.
Winston was pardoned by JFK…
Gil Green changed his name to john swift, dyed his hair red, and put wax in his nostrils to make them flair. a party dentist provides a special set of dentures to change the shape of his cheeks. he moved from party member to party member to avoid jail for a long time.
everything was in turmoil..
the book Reds lays out how the members of the party were divided between an open party of 16k, and an underground party having three layers.. (which i previously explained how the outside people, like the common college girl in her feminist courses, are the innocents clubs, and the leaders operate also at levels. this is WELL KNOWN from prior history of the SAME ORGANIZATIONS. which is why their early years were so tumultous… NOT because men were pigs, but because they didnt want socialism!!! we are taught today that the whole of the groups are honest, the leaders are just fringe and not of the whole, which know better, and its the SAME ideology – according to the people THEMSELVES).
you can read it all in the history books but you have to WANT to, and not get lazy and let people who have a checkered past they dont want you to know tell you of the past!!!!
the social movement collapsed and went back underground, to later come up again, as the third way again, and the new progressives.. a constant cycle, of out in the open when they can make all the turmoil and seize and do. if they succeed, they are in power. if they fail, they pretend to break up, and go back underground until the peoples short memories, lack of conviction, and lack of organization, and allowing deconstruction of their morals, let them have at it again.
we are now in the have at it again..
the parallels are striking…
rather than try to go directly at the ideology, they are now trying to neutrlalize its strong arm section. same difference as far as history is concerned. so what will be the same behaviors and outcomes?
as long as the people are ignorant, they get to keep trying over again, improving, as THAT is what causes history to repeat. if the people arent ignorant, then they are being blocked and the same old ways with the wrong choices made right wont work, so they are prevented.
since they repeat history to improve outcomes, they do it after periods of re-ignorance… where we forget, they can argue what we see is not what we see, and we march down the same path…
they moved to “five minutes to midnight policy”.
read about Barbara Hartle… (i know.. i know… who? but THATS the point!) she is also Margaret Johnson…
After doing what she did, the least this committee could do would be to suggest to the Board of Pardons that she be released – Fracnis Walter
“strangely enough, she asked us not to do anything. she said she had made a mistake and wanted to pay for it”
and we celebrate sanger, while she is erased, and we repeat over the same history with the other side better than it was the time before, and the people no better and in fact, much worse off… as not only have they prepared their side, but they have used those innocents clubs and ideas of equality from the romantic period (the antithesis to the enlightenment) as the enlightenment, and so have insured that we are lesser to meet the better challenge.
two steps forward one step back with one side getting stronger and more knowledgeable, and the other getting weaker and less…
but BOY do they have self esteem among other things… (like STDs)…
Altemeyer
Harvey is blind to the correct terms: It’s the MONEY TRUST that he’s railing on about — and his critique is as old as the 19th Century.
He’s also entirely incorrect on Big Labor — specifically Government Labor.
What ties both together is economic parasitism and first access to Fedsury funding.
The failure is something that an atheist Marxist can’t contemplate: a collapse in public and private morality.
He also fails entirely to comprehend that Moscow’s First Directorate is behind these gambits.
The dark hand of the Russian Mafia is all over the Failure To Deliver gambit — Naked Short Selling of common stock equities — particularly Lehman Bros. and Bear Stearns which caused them to implode. Naked shorting caused the same panic logic of a bank run.
If you want to dig deeper Google the DTCC.
The Money Trust was at the heart of anti-trust thinking a century ago. The exact same players were permitted to re-congeal under Rubin, Gorelick and the Clenis.
Rubin received a $ 1,000,000 per month annuity for corruption rendered by Citicorp. ( He had no duties/ staff/ hours !) His cumulative take is well over $100,000,000 !
Gorelick crafted the policy — hands on — and was annuitized by Freddie Mac to the tune of tens of millions of dollars.
At the heart of the modern Money Trust is MERS — a staggering fraud bigger than Credit Mobilier. Like that ancient scam the modern trust worked its magic by working Congress. The whores.
The Money Trust completely corrupted our mortgage market with lies, fraud and shredded documents.
As for the Government Unions — they are a wing of the Democrat Party and a direct threat to the polity as a whole. They nullify representative democracy at its core. They have to be re-outlawed — completely — before the entire government collapses due to hyper-parasitism.
Wages can’t go anywhere as long as we have wide open immigration and H1Bs.
WWI stopped immigration for a generation. American blue collar wages exploded upward. It’s not a coincidence. Clever labor efficiencies are not viable in the marketplace as long as labor costs are on the floor.
(The Black Plague triggered technical advances: labor saving devices. In a world of endless serfs they had been still born.)
Cheap Mexican farm labor killed off new-wave mechanical harvesters on the cusp of introduction. ( Chavez used political clout to terminate the UC Davis projects. ) The machines would have entirely replaced the lettuce-labor !
But how can that be according to right wing economic theory?
Because dippy its left wing economic theory of what right wing economic theory is, not right wing economic theory!!
the spectrum of political discourse is not existence between two totalitarianisms, even you with your broken self might be able to see that that is not a spectrum, but a choice of slavery or slavery.
you tell me, and everyone here if your the whip of the world in brightness.
where does minimal government, capitalism, and such sit if on the left you have communism, and on the right you have fascism, BOTH SOCIALISM…
duh…
and to further answer you…
How can Communist China with its huge government and even more powerful unions have beaten America economically every single year for the last 30 years?
because sir, the unions serve socialist/communist state, not serve the people as they tell useful idiots like you.
which is why they serve obama… and obama is using them as the muscle to bring terror to those to influence their short term choices in hopes that they think that they can skirt it all and pass it on to the next guy (or if they are complicit, help).
the reason china is doing that is the same reason that russia got better during lenins liberalization… which suddenly reversed.
but you wouldnt know this… your a poseur.
what china is doing is what YOU would call right wing… its FASCISM…
the state and corporations colluding against the people.
what YOU dont get is that hitlerian/italian type socialism was the WINNER… not the LOSER…
it afforded a place for both camps of elite, and the slavery of the lumpen proletariat.
where communism as a version, was the only power, and so found itself crushing its own golden gooses as they cant produce without power, and cant have power if its not to be shared.
so when they collapsed, and it changed, the world went to aristocratic oligarchical fascism…
so basically your the fascist, but dont know it… as your busy labeling others falsely with it with smug superiority.
but since you cant answer your own question from the broken version of ideology they provide the innocents, and you never actually took the time to read to be like a leader, or at least know what they know, you dont know what your supporting and what the end will be.
since your sawing the branch your sitting on telling us that when your done, we will all be warm with firewood… (not dead on the ground 30 feet below when we fall).
rickl:
Yes, I read the market ticker. That’s in part why Mike Mc’s words ring so very laughably hollow.
There is no saving this country. The only question to me is when it collapses will it be a mostly humane process or not.
Ironically, right now, it’s China and many other countries with very different “official” ideologies than ours that are holding us up, like a prop on some stage or a domino, where if certain ones fall, they all might fall.
How naive can you be?
Few executives put their own wealth on the line while they’re busy destroying American jobs to get a temporary stock boost so they can cash out.
see your ignorant…
and claim ignorance as smart
and so then claim those who know more, are ignorant, so you can pretend in ignorence your smart.
the engine of fascism are large monopolistic corporations who are in cahoots with the government. chrony capitalism, is not capitalism, its fascism!! in this way, capitalism gets the bad name, while the other stays clean.
since socialism requires the control of the means of production… and fascism is a form of socialism, they centralized the means of production by creating huge monopolies, and then preventing competition by tweaking patent laws, finance, tax gifts, etc.
all the things your complaining they do, are the PRODUCT OF socialism, not the product of capitalism. since you dont know, you dont know that collusion, treating entities differnet under the law, and ignoring the rule of law, is not capitlism, its despotism.
and they cant do that unless the peoole in state are socialists.. why?
because merit need not collude to win.
got that? only losers have to collude to build a false consensus, and then change the rules in their favor asymetrically to win.
so, the more socialist the state is, the larger the monopolistic firms are, and the more they swallow small companies up like borg to make up for the lack of innocation, and other things.
read hayek… who got a nobel before obama.
in russia, you have Gasprom.. whats its competitor?
see… no absence of companies and such.. just that the state owns them, the people own nothing, andso the state owns the people
only idiots like you would step into a collar of slavery and call it neo freedom!!!
only those hatched yesterday and so full of self esteem built on nothing would consider themselves wiser for being less intelligent and old with experience, and all because they blindly believe what some people tell them!!!
you like the lie of your greatness they wisper to you for not learning, parroting, and being their free unpaid soldier facilitating your own demise. to despots thats sweet candy.
Just one subsidy, the ethanol production subsidy, costs American taxpayer $6 billion a year and raises the cost of corn by 40%.
yes it does..
and who did that?
oh yeah.. the socialist greenies and their friends instate colluding against the people in fascism (socialism) to design a future by their own will and desire..
the people you belittle said from day one it was a scam, was not allowed, and would lead to starvation and riots.
but socilaism needs starvation and riots… you cant take control of the people otherwise.
but back then… you were for it..
now you forget, and your agin it
both times you hated who they said, and forgot whose ideas it was!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
dumb dumb…
the state and corporations colluding against the people.
Oh yeah, artless dodger, them Chinese people are really suffering with their standard of living doubling every seven years.
The horror, the horror.
Where as middle class Americans have seen their standard of living fall for the past decade.
Because American corporations are on the workers side!
rickl:
If it’s “mere government” that drives away those poor , poor little manufacturing jobs, then perhaps you could explain Germany which , on top of being far more socialist than many here would like, just happens to be on of the top 2 or 3 major industrial exporters in the whole world. Or China, which because transnational capitalism owes no loyalty to American principles of human rights has built an entire manufacturing bases on what are little more (and in the case of Chinese prisons no more) than slaves.
Sometimes you guys remind me of Dr. Pangloss in Candide. No, this is NOT the best of all possible economic worlds here in America. Our capitalist system needs more regulations in some areas, less in others and possibly a restructuring of our business formation rules. In order to have a sustainable system you need cooperation from both capital and labor and the shit for brains in the US chamber of commerce and similar places have forgotten that , even as the spit on honest small businessmen via using the power of government that they decry as a tool for anyone else. I spit on them.
Neo:
I know it’s your blog. But,
I hope you have a sense of duty to your loyal allies here, me included. That means: get rid of In Theory. He is a waste of time and space.
Just because you like purple does not mean you should let SEIU attend your party!
The Democrats being in power somehow prevent Republicans from protesting the massive government handouts the morons of Wall Street have received, Occam?
Care to explain how?
easy.. your dip shit friends show up and refuse to let them speak. they start fires, break windoes. and generally have a fit so that things cant proceed.
the difference in the near future is that that behavior allowed in a free pluralistic society, is destructive, and denies the normal function and process… the system has no real way (anymore) of handlng such enemies.
when you are in power, i ask for my rights, and protest and force you to comply… for that is your way…
when i am in power, i wont let you, for that is my way… (said by a french revolutionary).
ONCE they win the power your working to gain for them… the protesters breaking CIVIL society (by being uncivil) will have constructed an UNCIVIL society…
what happens next is what happened in Bahrain…
you did see the video, no? the military shot on the crowd marching peacefully, protesting abnormally in a closed society (its abnormal in an open one too), and they respond with the new way.
they murder people in the crowd…
you havent noticed thsi difference.
the very fact that you can protest and do the things you think you have a right do (and dont), is your indication of what kind of society you live in.
and if you live in one that allows it, your doing it will change it to one that never allows it.
and my family is from such a place…
experience sir counts more than your fantasy, and the stories they are telling you as they told us those same stories.
they told us those same stories
we found out the hard way that they were lies. and when we were ignorant, we believed as you, and we suffered for it, and wondered when would it be like it was… it never was again.
At bottom, all we get from InTheory are the two great fallacies, tu quoque and the genitive fallacy (however foolishly)–sure markers for the semi-educated Leftist.
By contrast what a wonderful and authentic contribution from BurkeanBadger. And he’s right: dig in for a long fight. This is all the other side has, and all they do, and all they know how to do. It is hard to imagine a negotiated settlement.
Neo: I hardly ever comment, but I’m a loyal reader. Can I say that I agree with Tom and others who are calling for you to crack down on the trolls?
Folks like InTheory aren’t creating a more challenging discussion; they just distract and demoralize.
You keep cockroaches for pets
are you saying that she is an etymologist or has such leanings?? Maybe Herpetology would be more apropos?
Occam, you are aware of the current problems with classifications.
Personally i think I lean toward Placozoans, until i see it, i aint sure if it has form…
however given his behavior maybe he is definitely a heterotrope?
though a good list of salient qualities might define it better…
upon thinking hard i finally have it classified correctly, and i think you might just agree
Tabanidae
definitely not “troll”…
kind of like a Zimb or a cleg…
[if you like complicated puns work through it all]
and probably a Linnaeus…
Unlike Carl who definitely was a Linnaeus, but definitely not a Linnaeus. 🙂
the pun is starting to take the shape of the cyclone at Coney island… with two loops if you realize Carl also knew Rousseau
cant do calender math, but history, puns, patterns, art, music, fast research, science, engineering, memory, and more… yes.. 😛
throw in that one Linnaeus is a lectotype in my example, and the other i would hope isnt, and we have a whop curve around the bend.
and to bring opposites in line, InTheory is probably a superior atheist to Carls probably Lutheran view of the world…
slamming the break of the roller coaster we come into the station of identity and opposites with Goethe who wrote of one of the two opposing Linnaeusi : “With the exception of Shakespeare and Spinoza, I know no one among the no longer living who has influenced me more strongly.”
I to find that few have so influenced me too.
I’m normally not for banning, but I will state I’ve never seen InTheory link to anything thought provoking, write a long, well thought out post (which Art does from time to time) or indeed, contribute here in any way. It’s your blog Neo, and to be fair to InTheory he or she hasn’t personally attacked any other poster that I’m aware of. Perhaps a compromise could be reached where InTheory’s posts would go permanently into moderation and if he or she says something funny or kind or actually makes an argument you could release those comments on to the blog. Just an idea.
I agree that InTheory has perhaps outstayed his welcome, although he has really been a very mild sort of troll, as trolls go.
The thing I keep noticing about InTheory and so many others is how predictable and repetitive and uninformed their arguments and approaches tend to be. I think their tone often indicates that they believe their own hype that conservatives (or people on the right, or however they conceptualize the people here) are stupid and won’t be able to counter their brilliant arguments. When it doesn’t quite work out that way they are often rather stunned. I think it’s interesting to give them a chance to go through that process, and to watch it happen. But not for an indefinitely long time.
InTheory
Anyone with a modicum of knowledge about countries ruled by Comunist parties knows that in those countries the unions are powerless government tools. Try to strike in a country ruled by the Communist Party.
Only an ignorant fool or a troll — or both- could have made your comment.
The issue at hand was the situation in Wisconsin, where the state is facing a budget crisis. Where else do you suggest the state of Wisconsin cut spending? What are the “government handouts and bailouts” you want cut in the state of Wisconsin? Inquiring minds want to know.
Your line about “decent and hard working middle class” is just boilerplate, because there are plenty of “decent and hard working middle class” people who see the Wisconsin union protestors as spoiled brats.
I work as an independent contractor. I pay double for Social Security. I have neither a lifetime job nor guaranteed pension nor a “free” health insurance plan, which government employees enjoy. Government employees who grouse about paying a low percentage of their health care insurance, or about contributing more to their pension plans will get no sympathy from me.
Occam, you are aware of the current problems with classifications.
Personally i think I lean toward Placozoans, until i see it, i aint sure if it has form…
however given his behavior maybe he is definitely a heterotrope?
Nah, his Linnaean classification is straightforward: Coprocephalus liberalis.
Oh yeah, artless dodger, them Chinese people are really suffering with their standard of living doubling every seven years.
The horror, the horror.
nice of you to mention.
since my wife is Chinese…
rule number one
if you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.
you project your living to their lives, and have little time to actually take some time to look and see beyond some surface idea that you think is enough to validate whatever it is that makes you think it does.
The Chinese people have some serious issues to contend with, some of them, like us, are from their own central planning policies (overt or covert, its the same thing. manipulating people).
the vast majority of Chinese are NOT benefiting from whats happening. unlike the society that your in or from (i can tell by your answers and behavior and lack of respect – for if you were ever under such a yolk, you may joke, but you would respect it), there is a lack of freedom, and so activity cant spread as it does here as anyone does business with anyone anywhere in the country.
the workers work at a level you would balk at, and they do so with little complaint.
on average, unless your white Ashkenazim Jewish, they are probably smarter than you (pure odds).
they still live under the one child policy, and they WILL terminate the extra child. they WILL strap the woman down, and force an abortion. if she tries again, they WILL strap her down and remove her uterus. if she protests they WILL put her in prison for political re-education.
ever do a bit of research (what am i saying?), as to what happened to those kids like you that were tricked into protesting (by their teachers who were party members) at Tianamen square? Do you know any of their names?
What happened to them sir, and how long did they wait?
You realize that they have an executions van which travels the countryside basically offing people for crimes.
execution method depends on whether your in the city or the country, but is generally the same. you get a sign around you that labels you for what you did. a soldier is positioned behind you with i believe his right hand on your right shoulder. you are then walked with lots of others, to were the sentence would be carried out. in the country, a trench, in the city, a stadium in front of a large crowd. a gun is drawn, placed to the back of your head, and fired. dont worry though, most of the gun powder has been removed from the bullets so the bullet does not leave the skull and be a danger. if you have any family, they will be billed and fined for the bullet and the procedure.
you probably will disbelieve this, as its so far removed from your life that you have no idea of how to get your mind around it.
you can probably travel, and be a nuisance as you are here, if you had the money, the Chinese people cant.
Where as middle class Americans have seen their standard of living fall for the past decade.
Because American corporations are on the workers side!
actually, thats not how that works…
its been your beloved dems trying to give houses to people, by pegging the interest rate artificially near zero AND printing lots more fiat money.
in case you didn’t know (i should assume), 20 dollars in gold buys what the same weights worth in paper dollars would buy today…
(read that several times slowly)
your a parrot. not an economic literate. you think your a geniuse for copying people not because they are right, but because their lie sounds better than someone elses trujth and your way way way way way too lazy to actually stop being cargo cult, do some research and know for yourself.
your knowlege has no depth…
you wont check the facts…
people like you dont usually do until late in life when their lives are in shambles and they no longer care what they believe others think of them.
the reason is simple, its easier to keep going to an uncertain doom you cant conclude, than it is to expend effort and will to determine that you have been screwed and lied to, and threw away so much of what little life you have and your artificial saccharine caring pretends to value.
corporations are on the workers side for the most part… workers can leave at will, so you better treat them well after you have spent money training them, integrating them, funding their insurance, funding their retirement, equipping them, and then putting up with them not liking you while you pay them a market value for the merit of their work (unless they are a protected class, then you give them an unearned boost for fear of what they or friends of theirs may do to you and your company).
you have never even TRIED to be anything but a parasite…
i would read my thread identifying your true classification… its spot on, and the more you answer like this, the MORE spot on it is.
The thing I keep noticing about InTheory and so many others is how predictable and repetitive and uninformed their arguments and approaches tend to be.
almost as if they have a hive collective mind and feel warm and cozy like a drone bee and fear the undomesticated who are also unwashed in the blessings of their prophet and his disciples
They are borg
(which technically would be an end result fulfilling all the promises of feminism perfectly. a woman ruler. a notch of your own. no raising of children. freedom from the friendly gulag. equality of the sexes, sort of. the female dominated collective one mind. etc… i dont make em up, i just notice their correlations… the show always encapsulated social experiments from time and hegelianly applied them in conflict – most of them being exaggerations of their final form if they became the dominant ideology of the species and they lasted long enough to be part of the future meleiu )
“How can Communist China with its huge government and even more powerful unions have beaten America economically every single year for the last 30 years?”
That’s startling news, that China’s GDP has been greater than that of the US for thirty years, let alone *per capita*.
Let me guess. IT is trying to win a contest proving who has the lowest IQ. I’d say he won already.
Gary Rosen-
he might be talking about their “growth rate”–the one that will be 8% next year, just like it has been every year? *eye roll* It’s kinda like when dictators get “voted in” with overwhelming majorities… every… single… time….
Artflgr,
Your 12:30 p.m. post is outstanding!!! Thank you.
China’s growth rate has its price. For example, you’re 100 times more likely to die in a mine in China than in one in the US:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11497070
for IT since he looks to china with eyes closed
here is how they are different.
do note that thats why you chickens protest here for more slavery not there for less.
its easy to protest in a place where your allowed and its a right, go do it china, and see where it gets you.
China tries to stamp out ‘Jasmine Revolution’
news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110220/ap_on_re_as/as_china_jasmine_revolution\
Arrests after “Jasmine Revolution” call in China
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/1111918/1/.html
Several top Chinese rights activists have disappeared into police custody as a web campaign urged angry citizens to mark the Middle East’s “Jasmine Revolution” with protests, campaigners said Sunday.
Up to 15 leading Chinese rights lawyers and activists have disappeared since Saturday amid a nationwide police mobilization, according to activists, while the government appeared to censor Internet postings calling for the demonstrations.
Madison as Gettysburg: http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/wisconsin-whats-the-right-analogy/
The problem with Blue Social Model (Big Government + Big Unions + Big Business) is that it works only in industrial society, like to-day China, and in post-industrial became stagnant and inefficient. Walter Russel Mead showed why.
See http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2011/02/18/the-madison-blues/