Today in Wisconsin students rise up and protest!

[Jeannieco]

This video clip is from yesterday, I actually saw this posted by Caroline Kennedy on Facebook whom I am friends with on FB! The students are joining public servants marching in support of them because they may lose the power of collective bargaining, gasp, yes that means union busting is going on right here in middle America. Finally the protests are starting and people are fighting back against the corporate control of this country by marching peacefully. This thing is going to spread!

YouTube - Protest downtown Madison 2/16/11 #wiunion

Here is the article from Talking Points Memo: SO GREAT!!!

Report: Wis. Dem State Senators Leave State To Block Budget Quorum | TPMDC

[2861U2]

I don't think getting on a bus and fleeing the state is something to be applauded. I think this is the Governor's fight to lose at this point.

Can I point out the hypocritical hateful, violent, Nazi references made by people at these protests? Or would that just go nowhere?

[Headache in a Suitcase]

go badgers

[Irvine511]

Originally Posted by 2861U2

Can I point out the hypocritical hateful, violent, Nazi references made by people at these protests? Or would that just go nowhere?

would you be making the thunderous point that there are ninnies at any protest, and that this is much different than elected representatives using Nazi comparisons?

[corianderstem]

I was thinking about starting this thread myself, as my Facebook feed is full of updates about this (with my brother the lone voice of governor support in my sea of liberal, public servant Wisconsinite friends). Although I'd say "student protest" doesn't seem to capture the story.

Did the governor fudge a bit with the budget shortfall? I'm unfamiliar with the site, but this was the first link I saw today about this particular piece.

Wisconsin Gov. Walker Ginned Up Budget Shortfall To Undercut Worker Rights | TPMDC

It's also now the top story on CNN.com.

Sounds like school districts all over the state are now preparing for striking teachers as well, at least based on comments people in my hometown have made online.

Wow, it even made the BBC:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12498249

[BVS]

Originally Posted by 2861U2

I don't think getting on a bus and fleeing the state is something to be applauded.

Did you not applaud it for the last two years, when your party was the party of 'no'?

[BVS]

Originally Posted by 2861U2

Can I point out the hypocritical hateful, violent, Nazi references made by people at these protests? Or would that just go nowhere?

Please do, please show us how these protestors are just as bad as the tea party protestors.

[kramwest1]

I am proud of my Sconnie neighbors.

[deep]

This is not a Wisconsin issue, this is everywhere

There are serious problems with funding these programs and here in CA public employees have much better pensions, compensation and benefits than the private sector. All government agencies are running deficits, and the projected future deficits will bankrupt many agencies.

There needs to be a change in how government employee are compensated. The current system is not sustainable.

[Irvine511]

Originally Posted by deep

There needs to be a change in how government employee are compensated. The current system is not sustainable.

i agree with this. retirement at 65 was a good idea when average life expectancy was 64. no longer.

however, we also need to attract good people who might otherwise be lured away from the public sector because of higher salaries in the private sector. good pensions and health care were/are one way to do this.

however, if we want quality public services, we need to pay for them.

with taxes. which are presently at historic lows.

[deep]

Originally Posted by Irvine511

i agree with this. retirement at 65 was a good idea when average life expectancy was 64. no longer.

however, we also need to attract good people who might otherwise be lured away from the public sector because of higher salaries in the private sector. good pensions and health care were/are one way to do this.

however, if we want quality public services, we need to pay for them.

with taxes. which are presently at historic lows.

many in the public sector retire at 50 and 55 and collect from 50-90% of their last year's salary, they can be getting 100,000 a year for the next 40 years when they have only worked 30 years

and the 'mantra' that public employees need to be paid well to compete with the private sector is no longer true.

The private sector now earns less than the public, there was a survey and the public get about 20% more, plus the great pensions that far exceed what others get from SS or even 401 K plans. Not to mention health and prescription benefits for life.

The last 30-40 years the private sector has taken a beating, pensions pretty much have disappeared, private sector employees must plan their own with contributions from their earnings into 401Ks and the like. The reason the Auto Makers all went bankrupt was because of the legacy costs, pensions and benefits, public employees are going to have to start planning for themselves, that is what people in the 'private sector' have to do now.

If that means paying a bit more in annual wages to attract employees, that is fine.

Several analyses of average wages and benefits in the public and private sectors reveal that state and local government workers earn more than private sector workers. According to the most recent Employer Costs for Employee Compensation survey from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, as of December 2009, state and local government employees earned total compensation of $39.60 an hour, compared to $27.42 an hour for private industry workers-a difference of over 44 percent. This includes 35 percent higher wages and nearly 69 percent greater benefits.

Data from the U.S. Census Bureau similarly show that in 2007 the average annual salary of a California state government employee was $53,958, nearly 32 percent greater than the average private sector worker ($40,991). In addition, as noted by reporter and Calpensions.com blogger Ed Mendel, in 2006 the state conducted a comparison of state and private sector compensation for the first time in two decades. While the Department of Personnel Administration survey did not include all job classifications, the analysis determined a number of benchmark job classifications and found that state compensation was greater than private sector compensation for clerical jobs, accountants, custodians, electricians, stationary engineers, and analysts, but lagged in medical occupations.

Moreover, data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis illustrate that average state and local government compensation has been increasing at a faster rate than average private sector compensation over the past 30 years (see the graph on page 89 of this Cato Journal article).

[Jeannieco]

Originally Posted by Irvine511

would you be making the thunderous point that there are ninnies at any protest, and that this is much different than elected representatives using Nazi comparisons?

Exactly.

[2861U2]

Apparently all the AWOL Senators have been hiding at a hotel across town from me all afternoon.

Originally Posted by BVS

Please do, please show us how these protestors are just as bad as the tea party protestors.

There's a video on Breitbart showing all these tasteless signs, including part where a Dem State Senator makes a comparison of Walker to Hitler. I won't post it here, just because I think this story is too important to risk being derailed. I just wanted to point it out.

Originally Posted by deep

This is not a Wisconsin issue, this is everywhere

There are serious problems with funding these programs and here in CA public employees have much better pensions, compensation and benefits than the private sector. All government agencies are running deficits, and the projected future deficits will bankrupt many agencies.

There needs to be a change in how government employee are compensated. The current system is not sustainable.

So true. It's too bad so few people will acknowledge this.

[Jeannieco]

Originally Posted by 2861U2

I don't think getting on a bus and fleeing the state is something to be applauded. I think this is the Governor's fight to lose at this point.

Dude, the Republicans did this in Texas when Bush was in office.
So before you get all Palin on me, study your history.

[/QUOTE]
Can I point out the hypocritical hateful, violent, Nazi references made by people at these protests? Or would that just go nowhere?[/QUOTE]

You can point it out all you want. In any large group of people there are going to be the fringe element. Difference being the number.

[corianderstem]

Originally Posted by 2861U2

Apparently all the AWOL Senators have been hiding at a hotel across town from me all afternoon.

Someone found them already? Apparently they're not very good at hiding.

[deep]

Originally Posted by Jeannieco

Dude, the Republicans did this in Texas when Bush was in office.
So before you get all Palin on me, study your history.

I thought it was the Dems that were hiding then, too.

and Tom Delay abused his power by using The Patriot Act to hunt them down.

[financeguy]

Expect a lot more of this over the coming years.

[yolland]

Originally Posted by deep

I thought it was the Dems that were hiding then to.

It was. Once under GWB and once back during the 70s.

I agree about the unsustainability of many states' pension programs (California's situation is the worst, I believe?), but a surprise bill to strip all public employees of collective bargaining rights (save police and firefighters, since they backed Walker during his campaign) suggests a more extreme agenda than that. Especially when, as cori mentioned, the shortfall ostensibly necessitating such action would seem to have been created by Walker's own special-interest spending on HSAs and tax shifts.

[deep]

Originally Posted by financeguy

Expect a lot more of this over the coming years.

I know you have posted on this and other related financial topics.


It seems like every thing is unwinding. We (the West) have had a system that worked fairly well from the end of WW2 until about the end of the 80s.

And then practices that were put in place in the 60s and the 70s became too expensive to maintain. The segment of society the is consuming services and resources and far outgrown the segment that is producing and paying for the same.

The longer life spans do to advanced health care and better nutrition drive up costs without contributing to the funds to pay for the same.

[yolland]

I'm fully willing to pay more taxes for eldercare, so long as stricter means tests for Medicare and Medicaid are applied and SS is pegged to lifetime earnings. That won't fix the age distribution problem but there is so much waste.