The current uproar in Wisconsin has brought to the forefront the inequities of the ongoing economic crisis in the U.S. Yes, I said ongoing because despite a few improved economic indicators there is still massive unemployment and more U.S. families on food stamps than ever before.
Yet through this entire economic mess the least affected group has been unionized government workers. For example, the average union government employee pays less than 10% of their annual health insurance cost while in the private sector the average is over 25%. Nationally, union workers in both state and local government jobs earn approximately 45% more in total compensation than workers in the private sector.
It is estimated that the tab for the unfunded liabilities created by these government union contracts now exceed $3 trillion.
In the private sector during this time we have seen massive lay-offs, wage and benefit reductions or freezes. While in the public sector contractual wage and benefit increases hum along even though the economic conditions no longer support them.
The problem with the public unions at the state and local levels is simple to understand. The unions help elect the politicians that ultimately become their “bosses”. They make large campaign contributions and use their influence to rally union members to vote for candidates that they can count on to cooperate with them in future negotiations. The Center for Responsive Politics estimated that in the recent elections, public sector unions contributed over $20 million to candidates as well as another $90 million to the political parties. Over 90% of that has gone to the Democrats.
Meanwhile back in Wisconsin, the average teacher earns $77,857 per year (including benefits). Compare that to the median household income in Wisconsin which is only $50,000 and many households have more than one wage earner.
Over the past three years government employees have not experienced the erosion in their standard of living that rest of the workforce has had to endure. Public sector employees must come to grips with the fact that their real employers, the taxpayers, will not continue to fund a lifestyle that indemnifies them from the national economic reality.
Image by Muhammad غفّاري via Flickr
CAIRO (The Borowitz Report) – In his final relinquishing of power today, Hosni Mubarak was stripped of his title of President of Egypt on Foursquare, the popular social networking site.
Mr. Mubarak was not available to speak to reporters, but did issue this official statement through a spokesman: “I’m being forced to go to Disney World!”
A spokesman for MSNBC expressed relief that the crisis in Cairo had, for the moment, eased: “It was really interrupting our coverage of Lindsay Lohan.”
http://www.borowitzreport.com/
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report) – Explaining why he had been convinced yesterday that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was about to relinquish his position, President Barack Obama said that he had been misled by Mr. Mubarak’s out of office autoreply to Mr. Obama’s email.
Embarrassed at the misinterpretation, Mr. Obama conceded today that “maybe I took it a little too literally.”
In a sign that he is losing patience with the Egyptian leader, Mr. Obama said that the U.S. was preparing to send Mr. Mubarak a new email “with the strongest frowny-faced emoticons at our disposal.”
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also expressed frustration with Mr. Mubarak’s unwillingness to leave, calling him “Egypt’s first zombie President.”
In what some observers have seen as an ominous sign, Mr. Mubarak has reportedly been consulting about his career plans with Jay Leno.
Posted by Laurie Penny
The real ideological war going on in this country right now is not between terror and its antithesis, but between action and apathy.
Yesterday, the Prime Minister of Great Britain gave a speech on the dangers of Islamist terrorism, calling for an end to the ‘passive tolerance’ of Islamic ‘extremists’ and explicitly yoking this new ‘muscular liberalism’ to his government’s policy of withering the public sector. As Cameron spoke in Germany, thousands of members of the racist street protest movement the English Defence League (EDL) held their largest-ever rally declaring their opposition to the presence of Muslims in their communities.
According to eyewitnesses, EDL protesters were thrilled by Cameron’s speech. At best, the timing was insensitive. At worst, it explicitly incorporates working-class unrest into the xenophobic posturing of the “war on terror”.
A decade after the World Trade Centre attacks and six years after the last successful terrorist attack in Britain, the threat of Islamist terrorism is still the bogeyman under the bed, a frightening story to scare citizens into behaving. The “war on terror” is an ephemeral war, a perpetual war, a war that is fought in newspaper columns and over family dinner tables just as fiercely as it is fought in the mountains of Iraq and Afghanistan. It will be as enduring as its prosecutors deem useful, but it will never be won. That’s the point. You can’t fight terror and win, anymore than you can fight a plume of smoke and win, and like smoke, if you run into terror wildly, clouds of it will get in your eyes and distracts you from the truth.
(A sequel to the blovel, The Day the Dollar Died”)
By John Galt
The story which follows is completely fictional. It is neither this author’s prediction nor projection for future events. Any real people depicted in this fictional work are done so only to enhance the reality of a potential outcome of America’s future.
I. December, 1 Year After the Crash
Turkey Creek, Louisiana
The signs all over town proclaimed proudly, “VOTE FOR JOSEPH ALLEN WILLIAMS FOR SHERIFF” and Mike grinned from ear to ear as he removed each sign with his photo from the telephone poles and billboards all over town. Even though he had spent months trying to find a way to contact his wife in Minnesota, the move he made after the Cotton Rebellion, gave him a chance to start over until the opportunity arose that would give him the ability to head north and see his wife again.
The new Sheriff of Turkey Creek, Louisiana needed to spend his energies focusing on what was once a sleepy little town of almost four hundred souls to now protecting and defending what had become a giant refugee center of almost six thousand people. The state government had declared this portion of the state a forbidden zone and had neither the resources nor desire to dedicate the manpower to intervene in a sparsely populated and unimportant area like this. The Federal government was no threat either as it was in worse shape than ever with the dictates of the newly created United Nations Council of Finance enforcing the repayment plans for the national debt of the United States, Great Britain, and other nations mockingly labeled the “Deadbeat Club.”
At this Point:
This is *A* senerio which comes from web bots scouring the web… ~jude
The tech that brought this to you is deep in the castle and still had problems bringing you this report but the good thing is that info is leaked and that is what we are for….
As web bots scour the net for info certain things have come out..The web bots we are talking about put out a report aimed for wall street financial investments. This report issues Data pointing to the american populace as being the spark or ignition for a tipping point…
The 4th-14th Nov Obama, Hilary Clinton, Geithner, Bernanke, and all minions will be leaving for a tour of India and Asia… At the same time planning will be occurring for the G20 meeting…In other words they meet to have a meeting…This meeting will be about the currency crisis and trade; mostly between China and America…Either the Chinese Yuan or the American Dollar will be in trouble…China was asked to let the Yuan rise…Also the IMF needs reformed, tariffs and working out trading agreements…The Chinese are against the tariffs being placed on it by America..This will be during 10th-11th in China…
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