Until you post specifics with sources, I will consider your post just another employee-bashing pack of lies, a la Fox News.

2  4

2  4

I say we go back to the 90% tax on the rich like in Ike’s era (the rich were still rich) when there were fewer dodges for them as well. Give the middleclass worker and business owners a break. Take back our secure jobs with decent wages, benefits and pensions, all of which has “trickled” up to the rich where it’s concentrated in people’s pockets who refuse to use it to stimulate the economy or to create jobs. Let the government take that 90% tax AND CREATE INFINITE INFRASTRUCTURE JOBS, HIRE TEACHERS AND CUT CLASSROOM SIZE AND GIVE THE CHILDREN THE TOOLS THEY NEED, HIRE POLICE AND FIREFIGHTERS, MAKE COLLEGE LOWCOST FOR THOSE THAT QUALIFY (like California once had).

People are clueless who just can’t seem to understand that their money was taken from them, not by unions, not by the government, but those at the top who are obscenely rich and don’t want to pay workers for their productivity (like Hostess).

2  2

Are you suggesting that they are NOT asking US for MILLIONS for their own incompetence?

Or are you just trying is your bird brained way to accentuate my point?

If it’s the latter… thank you.

13  5

The fact is union administrative management is almost as wasteful as public agency management and less productive.

12  5

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Your post is pointless and flawed until you define what an “average worker” is.

The devil is in the details.

Until you define what you are saying, it means nothing at all.

WHAT IS AN “AVERAGE WORKER” ??

10  6

With public employees, the government IS bankrupt but won’t go away. Promises have exceeded “revenues” to staggering levels yet the government continues to expand. This can’t happen in the private sector because there wouldn’t be any money to pay the promises. Well, I guess that’s not true. The government bailed out many union controlled companies that were bankrupted by excessive labor costs. GM is a great example. Completely bankrupt because of labor costs that were twice what competitors were paying. The government bails them out by paying $38/share for GM. Anyone know what the new GM stock is trading at? $25. What a great investment we taxpayers didn’t have a choice in making.

Anyway, unions aren’t the problem. Most people aren’t anti-union. If a private company like Hostess wants to overpay for labor, cave into the union demands and eventually go out of business because revenues can’t support the expenses…so be it. It is PUBLIC EMPLOYEE UNIONS that are the problem because they excessive pay and benefits are paid for by the taxpayer. I can choose not to fly United, buy GM vehicles, etc. I can’t choose to not pay my taxes.

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Why pick on CEOs? The same thing has happened to the pay spread between sports, movie, and music starts and the average working stiff.

One of the causes might be tax rates, but other things are also going on. Celebrity worship, massive numbers of low-end immigrates that drive down entry-level wages, and just the fact that talent seems to pay more these days.

One fact is not in dispute. Even if one upped taxes on the rich, the amount of money per poor person is too little to change much.

20  6

50 years ago the CEO to Average worker pay was 30 to 1…. Today it’s 400 to 1.

Report: Firms spent more on CEO pay than taxes
Twenty-five of the 100 largest U.S. corporations paid their chief executives more than they paid the government in federal income taxes last year, according to a report released Wednesday.
The nonprofit Institute for Policy Studies says the 25 CEOs averaged $16.7 million in salary and other 2010 compensation. Most of the companies they ran, meanwhile, came out ahead at tax time, collecting tax refunds that averaged $304 million, according to its review of public filings. http://tinyurl.com/3qnyamm

The GOP’s Intellectual Dishonesty Regarding Bush Tax Cuts For The Rich
Republicans say that tax cuts for the wealthy must be extended to protect the economy and small businesses, even though neither would be affected by their lapse. http://tinyurl.com/2cgltuc

“The Fine Print” by David Cay Johnston http://goo.gl/KW6Lv
“Republic Lost” by Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig http://tinyurl.com/3mdlcrd
According to Lessig, it’s not the top 1%, it’s the top .05% that control Washington.

11  16

And then they will sit there beaming with this quizzical look on their faces why we are not just jumping for joy over what they have achieved.

With a BOS like we see, no wonder they graduate up to being full class jerks that fools elect to the state legislature.

16  5

It’s the same with the county. In the last ten years 567 rank and file jobs were eliminated against THREE MANAGEMENT POSITIONS. The managers are the ones with the perks that are pensionable, not the rank and file. The county has again eliminated positons, specifically at the refuse dump-the staff have received notices because the county is contracting out to a company that will likely make billions on the recycling and other services. The county employees are competent, experienced, have been working there for years and years and answer to the county. The contracted company answers to NO ONE and they are negotiating for a 20 year contract. My question is why isn’t this news in the Press Democrat?

These aren’t the only rank and file jobs currently being contracted out. And everytime they contract out rank and file jobs MORE MANAGEMENT POSITIONS ARE ADDED. Instead of the county workers working to make money FOR THE PUBLIC at the refuse dump, the contractor will be making the money, cutting corners like contractors do, paying their employees less and pocketing the money into their own CEO pockets.

Yeah, people, beat up on the union employees, call them names, despise them, but they work for YOU AND THEY KNOW IT. It hurts to be hated for doing your job competently and because you had the forsight to go to college, take a test for a job, get that job, and work for 27 years in one place.

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14  7

This story is a little soft pedal propaganda.

YES, they are pretending.

Playing public official.

The game is DESIGNED to fail.

THAT’S the whole idea.

For example: ICLEI never rewards its charters for saving money. They are rewarded for crashing. Installing their crap and encumbering the tax payer with insurmountable debt.

Brought to you by the same basic cabal that brings you never ending wars, The Federal Reserve and the notion of gifting trillions of dollars in diplomacy to countries that probably won’t send a X-Mas card.

See, these One World Government supporting globalists (that our public servants are in effect working for) don’t want to remodel.

They want a whole new structure.

Unfortunately, that means demolition.

The multi-faceted carefully orchestrated, socially engineered demo of our country.

That is what we are witnessing.

23  5

Then you genius people will take their jobs? With what qualifications?

A sick joke. KMA.

8  19

You can’t ever ever ever use the word Ponzi when talking about pensions….

Tom Drumm warned us all that we would be committing “liable and slander” if we continued to use the “P” word.

So just say “Ponzi-ish”

I really miss Tom Drumm’s condescending posts.

14  5

25  11

The government is an expert at PRETENDING.

And the reason the government PRETENDS to do this or to do that….is because they have discovered that the public falls for that scam.

Yeah. They are “working” on the out of control pension problems.

And just like Prop 30 that they promised would solve the education financing problem in CA, the moment Prop 30 passed… the government liars were fast to start saying they needed MORE tax hikes or fee hikes.

Yes. The government pretends but they also LIE.

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The change is not expected to lower the county’s current unfunded pension liability, set last December at $353 million”

Um, Why is this a story? The unions haven’t agreed. The change is immaterial to the massive problem. This is a joke. Must be an election year.

40  11