Quote:
Originally Posted by AVGWarhawk
(Post 1419104)
The first 50 billion should have gone to saving teachers, policemen and firemen jobs. It is very sad. I know of many teachers getting the boot. Here in Baltimore the firehouses are being closed right and left. Good luck if you need fire and rescue. Schools in some cities and states are starting damn fund raisers to pay for teachers. Really....WTF? Where does the priority lay? Oh yeah....damn Wall Street.
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Sadly, that seems to be the general perspective. I really do not know how people can be so intelligent and so naive at the same time. Where do they think all the wealth generated to pay for such things in the first place comes from? It doesn't come from public buildings. It doesn't come from Ma and Pa businesses. It mostly comes from large, successful companies and the people they employ.By contrast, the biggest single drain on the economy and the tax base is the government itself, which accounts for roughly one third of the GDP while still running at a loss. A huge loss. Which party do you suppose is most responsible for the insufficient funding of public resources?
If you're looking for someone to blame in this case, you can point your finger squarely at public unions, especially in the case of public schools. Spending per student has only ever gone up in the last half-century, but our schools are still garbage. That's what you get when you give state sanction to a monopoly. I'd know. I work for one. Ever hear the term "railroaded?" Of course you have, but for those who don't know it means being forced along a particular and disadvantageous course of action.
*the rest of this is not directed at AVG
Railroads were among the first nationwide industries to completely screw everyone over by abusing state power, and they are still like that to this day. It all started when rail lines spread across the nation like wildfire. Railroads were engaged in constant price wars, and due to the nature of railroads themselves, long range-shipping was quite cheap. The exception came in the occassional backwater short-haul route where the railroad would charge whatever the market would bear. Many times it was the smaller railroads that were abusing this practice, but what was actually happening and what legislators heard were two different things.
Losing railroads and angry, vocal customers who paid absurd short-haul rates begged for congress to do something. At that point, wise, infinitely knowledgeable and saintly legislators stepped in and fixed the problem, right? No, of course not. Legislators created a commission within the parameters of the ICC to regulate railroads and guess who immediately took it over? It wasn't politicians. It wasn't activists. It was the railroad men who knew the game, and their solution to the problem of unequal freight rates was to raise the price of all rates to that of the highest regional rate. Way to go, gullible eligible voters. That's why railroads began a process of deregulation in the 1960's. Suffering industries lobbied for deregulation because the freight rates they were charged were so ridiculous. The railroads themselves lobbied for deregulation because regulations were becoming a threat to profitability. They wanted to abandon passenger service and rate exceptions that other major industries had successfully lobbied for because it was beginning to cost them money. And guess what!? They succeeded! How in Holy Hell did that happen? Gee, I wonder. The railroads wanted a way to nail consumers to the cross and the gullible idiots gave it to them because they trusted the state.
On the labor side, we have the very powerful and influential transportation unions, which are backed by government support and arbitration. They
do represent large voting blocks and potential sources of campaign funding, after all. Iw rok with these guys all the time. They are almost all lazy A-holes because they can't be fired. They didn't get that way because they were talented or good transportation workers or because they had a passion for their job. They got that way because, once again, gullible idiots gave them the means to do so.
The teachers' unions are no different. Anybody here ever had a bad public teacher? If you did, it's because public schools have to tolerate bad teachers. Look it up yourself. It often takes years to fire a teacher, so it isn't even worth the hassle. At the same time, these teachers are given ridiculous salries not because they are any good, but because they are part of a union. It's a closed market. The suppliers get to decide who may and may not provide the supply. It's a supply-side monopoly, and that's just how such things work. That's why teachers make so much for only 9 months of work. It sure as hell isn't because they are all invaluable public assets, or because there is any shortage of them under current protocol. If you can't understand that, then you're probably a student of a public union school. I don't say that to belittle people who have ideas abotu how public education may be made better, or more cost-effective, I say it to point out that the proponents have been duped, and the evidence is very clear.
That said, why would anyone suppose that any other public institution would work any differently? Public institutions certainly have their share of dedicated and truly motivated individuals, but so does private industry. At what point does percieved nobility become an institution worthy of enforced monopoly? Who are the saints who select the saints? How do you keep a profit-seeker out of public service? With
rhetoric? <positively dripping with sarcasm
> Are we really so stupid?
