Gingrich Dreams of State Bankruptcy

[Stark]

If Australia is anything to go by (and the services listed by Aeris suggest they are) the city doesn't directly employ most of the essential services of a state or country anyway, and probaby a lower proportion of the skilled or senior workers. I don't think any of the essential services in Brisbane, for instance, work for the city.

[Broomstick]

What you are proposing is not the temporary suspension of services. You are proposing firing hundreds of thousands of workers and replacing them basically over night. This is not a localized strike you would be facing, where services could be brought in from other regions. You would be facing nationwide strikes.

In 1981 US air traffic controllers when on strike. A nationwide strike. An air traffic controller requires high specialized talents and takes years to train. Reagan fired 11,000+ of them in one day and busted their union. Their places were taken by supervisors, military controllers, and even some "nonrated" (i.e. not fully trained) personnel. It took them 10 years to regain former staffing levels. Many in business still applaud that as a totally right and proper action and were happy to put up with the resulting delays and inconveniences in return for busting a union.

Seriously, anyone in public service who somehow thinks they're irreplaceable is fooling himself.

And all for what? Stealing people's pension money so they will live in poverty when they can no longer work?

No - they care about being "cost efficient" - they don't even think about what this will do to people down the line. Never enters their consciousness. If it did, well, those people were foolish for not taking care of their own retirement. Seriously, that's the party line. These are the same folks who want to end government social security as "communist" and "theft" and end employer pensions as non-competitive. Then cut the wages of the average worker 50-70%, after which said workers will be scolded for not saving as much as the elites who are ranking in millions from all this.

[bobalot]

What you are proposing is not the temporary suspension of services. You are proposing firing hundreds of thousands of workers and replacing them basically over night. This is not a localized strike you would be facing, where services could be brought in from other regions. You would be facing nationwide strikes.

In 1981 US air traffic controllers when on strike. A nationwide strike. An air traffic controller requires high specialized talents and takes years to train. Reagan fired 11,000+ of them in one day and busted their union. Their places were taken by supervisors, military controllers, and even some "nonrated" (i.e. not fully trained) personnel. It took them 10 years to regain former staffing levels. Many in business still applaud that as a totally right and proper action and were happy to put up with the resulting delays and inconveniences in return for busting a union.

Seriously, anyone in public service who somehow thinks they're irreplaceable is fooling himself.

Agreed. I don't like public sector slackers either or the entitlement sentiment a lot of these douchenozzles have.

However, aerius is proposing this disrupting many different government services at the same time. I really just don't see how this is actually going to be feasible. Disrupting one service in isolation is one thing, disrupting many different services (and often interdependent services) all at the same time across an entire nation for months (if not years)? Seriously?

And all for what? Stealing people's pension money so they will live in poverty when they can no longer work?

No - they care about being "cost efficient" - they don't even think about what this will do to people down the line. Never enters their consciousness. If it did, well, those people were foolish for not taking care of their own retirement. Seriously, that's the party line. These are the same folks who want to end government social security as "communist" and "theft" and end employer pensions as non-competitive. Then cut the wages of the average worker 50-70%, after which said workers will be scolded for not saving as much as the elites who are ranking in millions from all this.

Sounds like insanity. Simply raising the top rate of taxation to the Clinton Era levels and some modest cuts to entitlement programs would cause far less suffering than letting large parts of America go into default.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Yes, actually you can.

In fact, for many public sector workers strikes are illegal. Not only can they be fired for that, they can be fined or potentially even jailed for striking.

And who is to enforce these fines or jail them? The logistics alone of doing this is astounding; to say nothing of the fact that on a strike of this magnitude (at minimum an entire state's workforce of various public sectors) you'd have to erect a whole new jail to hold them, since throwing police officers in with the people they themselves may have played a role in putting behind bars is shankings waiting to happen.

And that's assuming that the jailors themselves aren't out on strike with the rest of them; they don't particularly want to see their pensions just fiat fucked anymore than anybody else does.

No problem - there are tens of thousands of laid off police officers across the nation. They're already trained. They have experience. Just swear 'em in and issue GPS units to those from out of town.

Tens of thousands of police officers laid off from disparate locations, with differing levels of and methods of training, which may or may not be rusty, and thousands of different legal codes from their previous background?

You can't just take a sailor, hand him a rifle and tell him he's a Marine, even if they were part of the same service. Even if these tens of thousands of police officers were willing to come work for a place which has just betrayed its retired veteran officers by doing in their pensions and fucked over those who were actively employed, at a significant reduction in salary and non-union position at that, you wouldn't be able to. You cannot just raise a police force overnight; even with veterans of other police forces, they still need to be trained in the local methods, trained to work together as a team, and educated in the local legal system's byways and bylaws, not to mention they need to be evaluated to see how much of their prior training and fitness remains, background checks need to be conducted to make sure they're not unemployed for reasons of unsuitability...

It just won't work. You cannot conjure a constabulary overnight, even if you have the willing volunteers who have prior training. Maybe a geographically small nation with a much more cohesive legal, judicial and constabulary systems could fill a large gulf in one area by taking recruits from another - the UK might manage to pull this hare-brained idea off. But in the US, it just won't work.

First of all, not all fire departments are union. In fact, the fire department that covers my area is all volunteer. Not only do the have no unions, they have no salaries either.

The plural of anecdote is not data, Broomstick. Volunteer firefighters may be able to help, but you're not going to replace a large, professional force with volunteers and have any hope of maintaining the same level of security. And even if they're not union, but are professional, I bet they'd unionize in a New York Minute if they were told that not only were their pensions now gone, but the pensions of those who came before them (which will in many cases by fathers, uncles, and even grandfathers, knowing how firefighting can be a familial profession) are null and void.

On top of that - municipalities have been laying off firemen, too. So there are plenty of already trained and experienced firemen who are out of work that you could hire to replace any firemen so foolish as to strike in today's economy.

You have to be mighty foolish, or mighty desperate to volunteer to break a strike when that strike was caused by a massive, egregious betrayal of those whom you are replacing by those for whom you are volunteering to work. Maybe there's enough desperates out there, maybe there's enough fools out there... But a civil service composed of desperate fools doesn't strike me as a particularly effective one.

And you are not addressing the loss of institutional knowledge, let alone equipment. Even if you have a firefighting force of, say, one thousand firemen and tell them all to get the fuck out and bring in one thousand new volunteers, you have a disorganized rabble of one thousand people. How many of them are qualified to fill leadership positions? How well do they know the ways your fire department was run? Who is going to train them? And firefighting equipment is also personally assigned to the fire-fighter, in at least some muncipalities, at least at the level of the jackets and helmets and breathing apparatus. You now have a thousand sets of useless gear, and you need to conjure up a thousand new sets immediately - and even if some gear can be salvaged (assuming it's not the personal property of a fire-fighter which he will take with him when he leaves,) you're still going to have a headache quartermastering the situation.

It will not work.

Then you hire people like me, with 20+ years of secretarial experience for 1/3 the union wage because for us it would be a step up, and we happily put in extra hours digging through the files and back rooms.

Again, see my point about desperate fools, to volunteer to take a shitty wage with neither security nor building for later, that's already been betrayed once by its employers. Anyway, there's no amount of extra hours you can put in that's going to make up for the fact that you just axed the workforce that had been doing the job continuously for god-knows how long. Even if you can get people with experience in the general field, they're still not familiar with the way things are supposed to be run in the locality. They need training to work as a cohesive whole, training that they cannot get because the people who could train them just got axed.

In the Great Depression the railroads went on strike using that logic. The PotUS brought in the army to get the trains running again.

Not only was that act illegal, if Barack Obama tried to do that the tea bagger fruitloops would be in open revolt. You've turned a general strike into something that's very close to becoming civil war. Care to try again?

Again, you are naive. Unless the unions do have the support of the majority of the population the elites in power will just do an end run around them, utilizing the millions of desperate unemployed. There's a certain group of ideologues out there who are salivating over the current situation as a means to implement their social engineering and devil take the hindmost.

So what, then? Should all of those working in civil services just shrug and resign themselves to the poorhouse after their next fifteen years of civil service are up? Should the octogenarians who've been betrayed and impoverished just commit suicide as an alternative to being an elderly homeless person?

Trying to pull an end-run is retarded, asinine, and dangerous. At the very worst it's going to cause unrest, and even talking about it could cause corruption, and without a doubt it's going to cause poor morale in the ranks. Allowing states to declare bankruptcy and absolve themselves of their obligations to current and past civil servants is about the worst governmental move I can imagine.

The only circumstances under which I'd allow a governmental subdivision to declare bankruptcy would be unconstitutional in this country. The only way I can see it being acceptable is if the subdivision's elected officials are all swept out of office and control of the subdivision's functions assumed by appointed officials from the next-highest division's legislature until such time as it was operating in the black again (IE, the county takes over a township, the state takes over a county, the federal government takes over a state.) In such capacity the higher-level division would assume the obligations of the lower-level one, including keeping it running if it's fallen short, paying off such necessities as the municipal infrastructure, pensions and employee wages.

[aerius]

You don't get it do you? The money to pay those pensions does not exist, period, and no amount of budget juggling will make it exist unless you're willing to cut essential services right now. And by that I mean a large chunk of police, fire, and hospital workers get laid off right now along with a bunch of teachers, clerks and other city workers. The choice is a failed State tomorrow or a bunch of starving retired public sector employees. Take your pick. Amputate your arm or let the gangrene get to your body and kill you dead. Hell of a choice. But that's what some States will be facing.

I'm sure you can provide evidence for this instead of simply stating it?

This is California's budget
Have fun trying to take $30-35 billion off it without killing something essential.
That's the size of the deficit that needs to be closed.

[mr friendly guy]

Seriously, anyone in public service who somehow thinks they're irreplaceable is fooling himself.

Well in some countries the health service is part of the public service. Not to blow my own trumpet but I think if a significant number of doctors hypothetically did go on strike (which is never done in Australia, although in NZ junior doctors did), I would find it hard to believe they could replace us on such short notice.

Now I am not saying doctors should go on strike because that would have adverse outcomes on patient care, but I am pointing out that some public services with highly skilled workers (obviously not all sectors like your air traffic controller example) would take time to replace and in the interim that sector would be highly dysfunctional.

[aerius]

Now I am not saying doctors should go on strike because that would have adverse outcomes on patient care, but I am pointing out that some public services with highly skilled workers (obviously not all sectors like your air traffic controller example) would take time to replace and in the interim that sector would be highly dysfunctional.

That's what back to work legislation is for, you'll work and you will like it or you'll get fined a ton of money and go to jail. It's been done many times in Canada, we've whacked railway workers, transit system workers, healthcare workers, and many other workers with this stick over the years. We make them work until they sign their new contracts or they're replaced.

[mr friendly guy]

Now I am not saying doctors should go on strike because that would have adverse outcomes on patient care, but I am pointing out that some public services with highly skilled workers (obviously not all sectors like your air traffic controller example) would take time to replace and in the interim that sector would be highly dysfunctional.

That's what back to work legislation is for, you'll work and you will like it or you'll get fined a ton of money and go to jail. It's been done many times in Canada, we've whacked railway workers, transit system workers, healthcare workers, and many other workers with this stick over the years. We make them work until they sign their new contracts or they're replaced.

Just for interest, how does Canada prevent this type of legislation from allowing the government to negotiate a shitty deal with said union? Given that according to you the unions are overpaid, and from Canadians I talk to their doctors are generously renumerated.

[ShadowDragon8685]

You don't get it do you? The money to pay those pensions does not exist, period, and no amount of budget juggling will make it exist unless you're willing to cut essential services right now. And by that I mean a large chunk of police, fire, and hospital workers get laid off right now along with a bunch of teachers, clerks and other city workers. The choice is a failed State tomorrow or a bunch of starving retired public sector employees. Take your pick. Amputate your arm or let the gangrene get to your body and kill you dead. Hell of a choice. But that's what some States will be facing.

I'm sure you can provide evidence for this instead of simply stating it?

This is California's budget
Have fun trying to take $30-35 billion off it without killing something essential.
That's the size of the deficit that needs to be closed.

Are you stupid or something?

We're not teabaggers, we're not of the opinion that the only way to close budget shortfalls is to sharpen the long knives on the state budget!

California's GDP outranks most countries. They need to abolish that bullshit about needing 2/3rds of the legislature and putting budgetary concerns to public vote and start actually raising funds.


As for Saint Reagan's union-busting escapade, that was the height of irresponsibility. 11,000 ATCS gone, replaced with military controllers and untrained personnel? Lucky that didn't result in mass collisions in the skies. It should never have happened, and "business leaders" applauding the decision should be crammed into airplanes being controlled by novices over and over and over again.

[Aaron]

Just for interest, how does Canada prevent this type of legislation from allowing the government to negotiate a shitty deal with said union? Given that according to you the unions are overpaid, and from Canadians I talk to their doctors are generously renumerated.

Usually goes to binding arbitration IIRC.

[bobalot]

You don't get it do you? The money to pay those pensions does not exist, period, and no amount of budget juggling will make it exist unless you're willing to cut essential services right now. And by that I mean a large chunk of police, fire, and hospital workers get laid off right now along with a bunch of teachers, clerks and other city workers. The choice is a failed State tomorrow or a bunch of starving retired public sector employees. Take your pick. Amputate your arm or let the gangrene get to your body and kill you dead. Hell of a choice. But that's what some States will be facing.

I'm sure you can provide evidence for this instead of simply stating it?

This is California's budget
Have fun trying to take $30-35 billion off it without killing something essential.
That's the size of the deficit that needs to be closed.

Nice try. Pension costs are about $3 Billion dollars a year.

If you read the California budget, it's base revenue for 2010/11 is $94,230 million.

So the cost of providing for pensions is 3% of the budget. If we use the 2009/10 revenue figures, it's 3.4%. For this, you want to fire tens of thousands of workers, cause disruption across the entire government for months or years (and deal with economic cost of these disruptions) and also shoulder the costs of rehiring an entire workforce.

You want to go through this course of action instead of modest pension reforms such as scaling back pensions for future employees or simply capping pensions at a certain level? Really?

[aerius]

Just for interest, how does Canada prevent this type of legislation from allowing the government to negotiate a shitty deal with said union? Given that according to you the unions are overpaid, and from Canadians I talk to their doctors are generously renumerated.

Usually goes to binding arbitration IIRC.

Yup. After the unions have been without a contract for long enough (long enough could be anything from a couple months to several years) the case will go before a judge or panel for arbitration. They'll look at the final offers from both sides, see if any changes need to be made and release a ruling that finalizes the new contract. Depending on the union involved they could have mandatory arbitration where once certain conditions are met (eg. no contract for x months) the case must go before the judge or panel, or they have voluntary arbitration where they go before the judge/panel only if both sides agree to do so after negotiations have failed.

[aerius]

If you read the California budget, it's base revenue for 2010/11 is $94,230 million.

So the cost of providing for pensions is 3% of the budget. If we use the 2009/10 revenue figures, it's 3.4%. For this, you want to fire tens of thousands of workers, cause disruption across the entire government for months or years (and deal with economic cost of these disruptions) and also shoulder the costs of rehiring an entire workforce.

You want to go through this course of action instead of modest pension reforms such as scaling back pensions for future employees or simply capping pensions at a certain level? Really?

It's not what the pension fund pays out every year, it's what's in the pension funds themselves, what the States want to do is cutback the payouts so that they can raid the fund itself for a crapload of cash. For instance, Calpers which is California's public workers' pension fund has $226 billion in assets, if the State can reduce current & future pension payouts by 50%, they can then raid the fund for a $100 billion & change.

[bobalot]

If you read the California budget, it's base revenue for 2010/11 is $94,230 million.

So the cost of providing for pensions is 3% of the budget. If we use the 2009/10 revenue figures, it's 3.4%. For this, you want to fire tens of thousands of workers, cause disruption across the entire government for months or years (and deal with economic cost of these disruptions) and also shoulder the costs of rehiring an entire workforce.

You want to go through this course of action instead of modest pension reforms such as scaling back pensions for future employees or simply capping pensions at a certain level? Really?

It's not what the pension fund pays out every year, it's what's in the pension funds themselves, what the States want to do is cutback the payouts so that they can raid the fund itself for a crapload of cash. For instance, Calpers which is California's public workers' pension fund has $226 billion in assets, if the State can reduce current & future pension payouts by 50%, they can then raid the fund for a $100 billion & change.

I'm guessing it wouldn't be politically feasible to reduce future payouts by 50%, but modest reforms and annual payment caps should free some cash for the states and reduce the annual cost to the state. Regardless, it doesn't warrant the mass firing of most government employees across the nation and the massive disruption and costs that would ensue.

[J]

So that leaves 3 options; borrow money on the bond market until that runs dry, take bailouts from the Federal government, or default. The last I've been told is not legal for some reason, so that leaves borrowing and bailouts until that gets shut off, then illegal or not, it's a default.

You forgot option #4, the Hungarian model; the State carries out a de facto theft of pension funds. "But that's unconstitutional!" you say or words to that effect, to which I reply "since when does the constitution matter?"

[Broomstick]

First of, let me state that I'm arguing from a Devil's advocate viewpoint. I myself am not in favor of raiding/dissolving anyone's pension or balancing the budget on the backs of the poor/retired/government workers/whoever.

Yes, actually you can.

In fact, for many public sector workers strikes are illegal. Not only can they be fired for that, they can be fined or potentially even jailed for striking.

And who is to enforce these fines or jail them?

The military, if necessary.

As I said, there was precedent during the Great Depression. You can scream "illegal!" and "Unconstitutional!" all you want but the fact remains it was done.

The logistics alone of doing this is astounding; to say nothing of the fact that on a strike of this magnitude (at minimum an entire state's workforce of various public sectors) you'd have to erect a whole new jail to hold them, since throwing police officers in with the people they themselves may have played a role in putting behind bars is shankings waiting to happen.

Uh... jail?

How about - camps. Using a sports stadium to confine the strikers. Putting up a tent city surrounded by barbed wire and military guards. Not that I'm saying that it will happen, but that sort of thing has been done before in this place or that place. Studying history can teach you all manner of interesting things.

Not that I think ALL public sectors would strike at once - that's Aerius' scenario, not mine.

No problem - there are tens of thousands of laid off police officers across the nation. They're already trained. They have experience. Just swear 'em in and issue GPS units to those from out of town.

Tens of thousands of police officers laid off from disparate locations, with differing levels of and methods of training, which may or may not be rusty, and thousands of different legal codes from their previous background?

For basic law and order the rules will be much the same, the out of town newcomers will be able to keep some level of order/prevent riots/looting until things get sorted out. It won't be pretty, but it won't be a free for all either.

First of all, not all fire departments are union. In fact, the fire department that covers my area is all volunteer. Not only do the have no unions, they have no salaries either.

The plural of anecdote is not data, Broomstick.

I'm well aware of that - however, volunteer fire departments are still pretty common once you get out of the major cities, either as the sole coverage or as a supplement to professionals. The point is, not all firemen are union.

On top of that - municipalities have been laying off firemen, too. So there are plenty of already trained and experienced firemen who are out of work that you could hire to replace any firemen so foolish as to strike in today's economy.

You have to be mighty foolish, or mighty desperate to volunteer to break a strike when that strike was caused by a massive, egregious betrayal of those whom you are replacing by those for whom you are volunteering to work. Maybe there's enough desperates out there, maybe there's enough fools out there... But a civil service composed of desperate fools doesn't strike me as a particularly effective one.

I guess you are unaware of the situation. There are already desperate people out there. If you've got a spouse and kids and suddenly no income you are desperate. History shows that such people WILL accept work they would ordinarily run from under such circumstances. Why? Because this country doesn't really have a safety net. What the FUCK do you think happens to people who are laid off in today's economy who can't find work after a year or two? Where do you think out of work people go when they're foreclosed on, or evicted? They're homeless, even if they aren't sleeping in shelters but moved in with relatives. They lose everything.

Then... here's a job offer. It's not as much as they used to make, and it's strike breaking, but it's enough for a roof overhead and food on the table and new clothes at the second hand store for the kids when they go to school. Do you seriously think people are NOT going to take that offer? Worry about pensions? Get real - what happens in retirement isn't even in your head when you are scrambling just to survive today.

Then you hire people like me, with 20+ years of secretarial experience for 1/3 the union wage because for us it would be a step up, and we happily put in extra hours digging through the files and back rooms.

Again, see my point about desperate fools, to volunteer to take a shitty wage with neither security nor building for later, that's already been betrayed once by its employers.

Oh, so it would somehow be less foolish to remain unemployed right now? How much do you think someone without a job can put away for the future? How much security do you think someone facing eviction has right now?

Here's a real simple concept, Dragon - you have to take care of today FIRST. If you can't make ends meet today you sure as fuck won't have anything for the future.

I earn one fifth of what I used to in a year. One fifth. Thank god we weren't stupid about things and didn't have any debt otherwise we WOULD have been homeless and broke two years ago. Yes, if I could get a job earning 1/3 of my former wage I would take it in a heartbeat. Why? Because then I'd be able to buy a new pair of shoes instead of using superglue to hold my current pair together. I'd be able to buy new underwear and socks instead of repairing what my spouse and I own because, you know, darning is so much fucking fun or selling off my books and grandmas china and jewelry to pay the bills (bye bye wedding rings). Little goddamn degrading things like that and we are better off than many in that we don't have debt, don't have kids to worry about, are not facing eviction!

THAT is what I mean by you are naive. You do NOT understand that there really are people in horrible situations right now who can not afford to stand on principles or worry about pensions because they are in dire straights right now. They WOULD jump at a chance for that sort of employment and whether or not it would be ideal or good long term would not matter because they're operating at the level of I need to eat today, I need to be warm today, I need to worry about today because otherwise they're sleeping in a shelter and eating in a soup kitchen. Oh, alright, maybe living with a relative or sleeping on a friend's couch, but they no longer have a home of their own or much of anything left. They've been stripped bare.

Anyway, there's no amount of extra hours you can put in that's going to make up for the fact that you just axed the workforce that had been doing the job continuously for god-knows how long. Even if you can get people with experience in the general field, they're still not familiar with the way things are supposed to be run in the locality. They need training to work as a cohesive whole, training that they cannot get because the people who could train them just got axed.

And if you're in desperate enough need of money, if you're facing homelessness you will not care about all that because what you NEED is enough money to survive.

In the Great Depression the railroads went on strike using that logic. The PotUS brought in the army to get the trains running again.

Not only was that act illegal, if Barack Obama tried to do that the tea bagger fruitloops would be in open revolt. You've turned a general strike into something that's very close to becoming civil war. Care to try again?

Yes. It was illegal. It was done ANYWAY! You do not seem to grasp that essential point. At a certain point legality will not matter. The government will exert force in order to maintain order.

You are correct that if it does not work there will be DISorder, rioting at the very least. You know what? It HAS happened before. Why do you therefore continue to insist that it is somehow impossible? Do not let your optimism or wishful thinking blind you to just how ugly the world can become.

Again, you are naive. Unless the unions do have the support of the majority of the population the elites in power will just do an end run around them, utilizing the millions of desperate unemployed. There's a certain group of ideologues out there who are salivating over the current situation as a means to implement their social engineering and devil take the hindmost.

So what, then? Should all of those working in civil services just shrug and resign themselves to the poorhouse after their next fifteen years of civil service are up? Should the octogenarians who've been betrayed and impoverished just commit suicide as an alternative to being an elderly homeless person?

No, I do not think that should happen. I am also smart enough to realize that what I prefer isn't necessarily how the world works.

Should all those working in civil services just shrug, etc? No, of course not - but if they strike and their work is offered to someone in the poorhouse right now should that person shrug and turn down the job? Should the middle-aged and young people who are homeless right now just commit suicide to keep the octogenarian comfortable?

Trying to pull an end-run is retarded, asinine, and dangerous.

Yep. But since when has that ever stopped the government from doing something stupid?

At the very worst it's going to cause unrest, and even talking about it could cause corruption, and without a doubt it's going to cause poor morale in the ranks. Allowing states to declare bankruptcy and absolve themselves of their obligations to current and past civil servants is about the worst governmental move I can imagine.

Oh, I agree, it's a terrible move - nonetheless, there are people who are in favor of it. Not me, no, I think it's terrible, but some folks think it's a splendid idea, particularly those folks who may well profit from the resulting mess.

Too many people think we'll get out of this mess by throwing some other group under the bus. I would like to think we haven't reached the point that would truly become necessary. Other people, however, seem to be looking forward to the spectacle.

[Broomstick]

As for Saint Reagan's union-busting escapade, that was the height of irresponsibility. 11,000 ATCS gone, replaced with military controllers and untrained personnel? Lucky that didn't result in mass collisions in the skies. It should never have happened, and "business leaders" applauding the decision should be crammed into airplanes being controlled by novices over and over and over again.

>sigh<

You know why we didn't have mass collisions? Because there are pilots flying airplanes. Really. Sitting in the front of the airplane gives you great incentive to NOT run into anything else. That, and the US allows airplanes to fly without needing to talk to controllers or file a flight plan - so a lot of those same businessmen applauding Reagan's decision bypassed the resulting mess at the commercial airports by chartering private airplanes that could fly in daytime without a flightplan or needing to talk to a controller. That was one of the mistakes the controllers made, thinking they were essential to aviation. They aren't. They sure are nice to have around, especially in heavy traffic areas, but they are not needed. They are not essential. They can be eliminated.

Likewise, you CAN cut a lot of police, fire, and other civil service out of the equation. Not all of them, no, but some level of society will continue to function with far fewer of them than we like to have around. The ordinary folks might have to form bucket brigades until the fire truck shows up, or organize neighborhood patrols, but hey, whatever they feel they need to do... meanwhile, the wealthy employ private security (non union of course) and fund their own fire departments for their own mansion filled gated communities.

See, that's part of the problem - the people applauding these actions most heavily are wealthy enough to buy their way out of the ensuing chaos and inconvenience. That's why they don't give a shit about you or me. They see this as generating profit for them, or reducing costs for them, and to hell with everyone else. It's greed, really, on a certain basic level it's the greedy "fuck you, I got mine" attitude.

Meanwhile, the ordinary folks have to put up with all sorts of bullshit and find workarounds.

[aerius]

For the record, my point isn't that we should go right in, break the unions and rape their pensions just because we can, rather, it's that public workers' pension aren't sacred and there will come a point where everyone will be forced to take a cut and pay more taxes. The only question is who, when, and how much? The reason this is necessary is because things were managed to hell in the past, people got shortsighted and careless as is human nature and when the economy went the wrong way everything went to hell. Things would've gone to hell anyway, it would just take longer, that's what happens with exponential growth when the exponent on the expenses number is larger than the one on the income side.

[Alphawolf55]

To be honest, I've never seen why public unions are supported so much. I mean I support private unions but I always felt that the point of a union was for the average worker to have representative in his business, if the business works for an elected government, don't they already basically have representation? Additionally it always seems like any benefit unions have (healthcare, paid sick leave) isn't something should be fought for just union members but for everyone. I mean someone feel free to educate me because they just seem counterproductive in a sense

Also to be honest I've never seen how the pension system makes sense, you work for 20 years and get 1/2 pay for the rest of your life. It seems like a system that only works if you have enough new workers to cover the leaving workers, especially since there are union members getting around 60-70,000 a year plus SS because of pay manipulation.

Granted I agree with Broomstick, people if having to choose will probably not back public unions,especially people in big cities. People in NYC for example despise public union members like the MTA, who get twice to three times the salary for workers who aren't qualified for those wages while getting incompetent service and entitled worker attitude. They know they can't get fired, so they just don't fuckingcare.

[MKSheppard]

Also, absolutely incompetent. Do they not realize that if they did this, the public sector would grind to a halt? This wouldn't crush the Unions, it would put them on the fucking war-path. Immediate strikes in all sectors of public employment, from police to sewerage officials to secretaries to...

Basically, everybody but the politicians would say "hell no, we're not working."

I hate to break it to you but that has happened before.

The Solution?

The US Army handled it, like they've handled every task given to them in 234 years of service to the Republic.



This is an artwork piece commissioned by the National Guard bureau to commemorate it's service during a New York Public Employee Strike.

1970

The postal strike began on March 18 in New York City and spread rapidly to widely scattered cities. The peak of the work stoppage was reached on March 23 and 24. Mail service in thirteen states was disrupted as some 200,000 of the 750,000 postal workers were off the job.

On March 23, President Nixon declared a national emergency and directed the Secretary of Defense to respond to requests of the Postmaster General for help in restoring and maintaining postal services. The Secretary of Defense in turn designated the Secretary of the Army as executive agent. The joint operation was nicknamed Operation Graphic Hand.

Although planning for military augmentation of postal facilities had to consider the possibility of a nationwide postal strike and operational requirements in thirty-five priority cities, Graphic Hand was executed in New York City only, during the period from March 23 to April 4. The multiservice force, named Task Force New York, was under the operational control of Major General Walter M. Higgins, the commander of Fort Hamilton, New York. Authorized by EO 11519 of 23 March 1970, a total of 28,100 Active and Reserve (26,273 Reserve, which included 10,845 ARNG and 1,876 ANG) were mobilized. Over 18,500 military personnel were assigned to seventeen post offices on March 25, the peak day of operation; 12,764 were Army (750 regular Army, 6,839 National Guard, and 5,175 Army Reserve). The balance were Air National Guard and Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps Reserve forces. More than 1,000 troops delivered mail in New York City’s financial district; the remainder sorted mail and kept strikers from interfering with delivery.

The military personnel, working under postal supervisors, sorted mail, transported it to substations and other areas, and delivered bulk mail to businesses and charitable organizations. No residential deliveries were made. According to postal officials, service personnel processed 12.8 million pieces of outgoing letter mail leaving New York City; processed 4.4 million pieces of letter mail for delivery in New York City and cased over 3.2 million pieces of mail for city delivery; delivered nearly 2 million pieces to business firms and charitable organizations; delivered 3.2 million pieces to callers; delivered 11,986 registered letters; and loaded or unloaded 96 trailers of mail.

Postal workers began returning to work on March 25, as prospects of an acceptable settlement of their wage and other grievances increased. On March 26 postal authorities canceled requirements for military augmentation of the post offices, demobilization began, and the operation was completed on April 4, 1970.

1979
The 7,000 officers of the NY State Prison authority went on strike for 17 days. 12,000 Guardsmen were called up to replace them.

Etc.

[Xon]

Even in the government jobs which I've worked, there mightn't be any particular qualification required, but you're still looking at at least 6 months to learn the systems, legislation and intricacies involved to get to even a passable level of competency.

So for 6 months that branch of gov't doesn't work. That'll go down a treat.

That's unbelievably optmistic. I doubt you where learning in a total vacuum of people who know what the system is, never mind how to use it.

[weemadando]

Even in the government jobs which I've worked, there mightn't be any particular qualification required, but you're still looking at at least 6 months to learn the systems, legislation and intricacies involved to get to even a passable level of competency.

So for 6 months that branch of gov't doesn't work. That'll go down a treat.

That's unbelievably optmistic. I doubt you where learning in a total vacuum of people who know what the system is, never mind how to use it.

Thankfully there's a massive amount of online training and knowledge databases on the intranet.

But yeah, without anyone to help it'll be a minimum six months before its reasonable. So there's a six month backlog of work for the new regime to handle. And that's assuming there's no urgent response stuff like say three states getting flooded to deal with.

[Broken]

So what is the lesson for anyone with a pension to learn from this nightmare? That unless your retiring or better yet have been retired for 20 years, your screwed. The fact you were likely a tiny cog in the massive machine that is a major company or state government is irrelevant. Even if you can't see the levers of power much less the people pulling them, you must pay for their assumptions and mistakes. That pension and retirement plan you negotiated for in good faith so you would have more than Social Security to rely on in your old age, its next to worthless or soon will be. It's chronically underfunded and they are already sharpening the knives to cut out the choice bits left. Those wages and benefits you traded for a more comfortable life after you stopped working, those are lost forever but don't worry, the rich still have their tax cuts and they already made sure they got their cash up front at the negotiation table.

The middle-class has lost a class war most of them never even knew they were fighting and "left" is too incompetent and spineless to explain things clearly and easily in a voice the whole country can hear. So our politicians who think Rand's La-La Land should be reality are following the lead of our corporate, high unemployment is the new normal, lords and masters to grab back all the gains the working people made over the last century. Congratulations America, you are truly a shining example to the world.

Sorry if that came off over the top, but I'm sick of this. I'm sick of seeing people who worked hard their entire lives and played by the rules being told to suck it up because the tiny number of people in actual positions of power screwed up. Or even worse, view making the world work according to their ideological positions as so important that minor details like the suffering of real humans beings doesn't even entire their consciousness much less the equation.

Should state employee's and public sector unions have to take a hit because the entire economy imploded and most "planning" needed fairy dust to work even before that? We can talk about that so long as it is done in good faith all round with a view to making the best of a horrible situation, but that's not what Gingrich and his cohorts are dreaming of. They want to take advantage of the ruinous environment to ram home their ideological dreams.

[K. A. Pital]

Also, absolutely incompetent. Do they not realize that if they did this, the public sector would grind to a halt? This wouldn't crush the Unions, it would put them on the fucking war-path. Immediate strikes in all sectors of public employment, from police to sewerage officials to secretaries to...

Basically, everybody but the politicians would say "hell no, we're not working."

I hate to break it to you but that has happened before.

The Solution?

The US Army handled it, like they've handled every task given to them in 234 years of service to the Republic.



This is an artwork piece commissioned by the National Guard bureau to commemorate it's service during a New York Public Employee Strike.

Oh, how cute - nice to know that the U.S. Army did it's part in crushing organized labour. Thanks for the trivia, Shep, I didn't know that the USA used the staple of worst Third World dictatorships - when labour strikes, use the Army! Yeaaahaw! I love that mural. Streikbrecher - more often than not it was uttered as a swearword. Here, Streikbrechers are hailed as heroes.

[Arkadzakriel]

It does seem to me, talking about how it is this situation is a prime opportunity to ram home the ideological masturbatory fantasies of the Right , that in taking this path Newt & Pals aren't trying to return the United States to some idealized 1950s glory land that never actually existed. It seems to me, frankly, that what they're dreaming of goes back much farther than that - they're interested in recreating the Gilded Age, with themselves as the new Astors, Rockefellers, JP Morgans and the rest. The creation of a truly dual tiered society where the wealthy have everything and the poor can drop dead so long as they're productive doing it is the endgame- without things like pesky regulations of any kind that would fetter all that glorious capitalism. Someone mentioned earlier in this thread that the middle class in the United States has already lost a war they didn't even know they were fighting, and that statement rang very true - I believe its not even a question of "is it too late" anymore, its simply a question of "how long will this new reality be allowed to continue". My fear is that the answer to the latter question may well be "indefinitely" - the new elite have learned well the lessons of the past, and this time seem to be taking steps to rig the game in their favor with an eye toward subtle, (but no less ironclad) statutory, institutionalized permanence. Just my opinion.