Did the Recession Kill Otto von Bismarck

The question that arises from all this is how to dislodge the public and private sector unions? Perhaps by implementing legislation that made union dues wholly voluntary?

And yet, socialists still think that money just appears magically, and all you have to do is demand it.

favill - wow, to make union dues voluntary would unleash the vicious, malicious and thuggish basic nature of unions. They would not merely harass but threaten, and do actual violence, to anyone who rejected those dues.

Unions are parasites. They are actual corporations, i.e., they are not individual but collective business enterprises. However, unlike regular corporations unions do not engage in any production of goods and services. Instead, all they do is one action; they feed off the wages of the workers. They use these wages to set up an elite management, the union executive, who live very well off the workers' wages.

Unions, under the guise of helping the workers, and in actual fact, setting up a separate set of rich executives, the union management, have been disastrous for modern industry.

Their demands for more wages and benefits, and thus, higher dues, has resulted in the loss of jobs to other countries. And, of course, in driving up the costs of goods exponentially here. In addition, they have set up unionized workers in the public service as tenured, unaccountable, indifferent workers.

The public taxpayer, forced to pay for these workers, whose wages are two to three times that of the private sector, with benefits and pensions out of reach of any private sector - are bled dry. And in addition, there's no money left from the taxpayer to pay for repairs of roads, transportation, equipment. It all goes on wages and pensions.

Get rid of the public unions. All of them.

Tax 'em. If I have it right unions do not pay tax yet the member has a tax deduction. I would love to see them gone but we can hurt them a little first.

Public Sector Unions should be illegal, Unions are there to protect workers from the evil private sector capitalists, they have no role in public service sector.

The only reason Government Workers are unionized is because the Government cannot shutdown if the demands of the union bankrupt the company, so it is a perfect breeding ground for union entitlement excesses.

Everyone in America and Canada needs to (re)read Milton Friedman's "Capitalism and Freedom."

Socialism == death. Slow. Painful. Deliberate.

It really is that simple. We either right the ship or we're going on the rocks.

Adam Smith said there is a lot of ruin in a country. And the US is very, very large.

The present, slow, soft bust out that has been going on for the last four decades is only just starting. Yeah, sure a few hundred large cities like Detroit, Gary, E. St. Louis, Oakland, Newark are fairly well along, and have more stripping, debt loading to go, and sure there are thousands of medium to smaller cities like Iron Mountain, Lowell, Bridgeport, but really, wait until the unions, the politicians, the reserve welfare voting army, and the businessmen and debt financialist start to push California, Michigan, New York over.

It's just starting folks. Last one in is a sucker. Get the getting while the getting is good, or at least a job at your local Federal Reserve printing plant. They should be working full out, 24/7, 365.

Public Sector Union rationalization strategies.

Pass a bill that says their aggregate benefits package --> wages, vacations, benefits & pensions cannot be more than 5% different than non-public sector workers.

Increase the time required to qualify for a pension . . probably by ten years.

Make it illegal to double dip. If you are working in the Government, you can't collect a government pension . . sorry all ex-Forces officers who retire after 25 years at age 45 and then work another 20 years while collecting their military pension . . . one or the other.

Reduce the size of the government by 25% by putting in a hiring freeze.

I'd start with these ideas.

I read an article about how the olympics in greece helped ensure it's bankruptcy here is the link if you care to read.

http://www.businessinsider.com/what-bankrupted-greece-it-was-the-olympics-2010-2

Paul in calgary

Organized Labour = Organized Crime

How long until California goes under with its massive unionized public sector? Or will Obumbles bail it out too?

Otto at least at the smarts to set the retirement age to be somewhat greater than the average lifespan.

Basically at least 50% of people never lived to collect benefits.

We'd have have to set the retirement age to what, 74 for men and 78 for women? Something like that.

Betcha suddenly many of our problems would evaporate if we did that.

Untrammelled welfare states are like naked emperors.

"I have seen three emperors in their nakedness, and the sight was not inspiring."

Otto Von Bismarck

Cheers

Hans-Christian Georg Rupprecht, Commander in Chief

Frankenstein Battalion
2nd Squadron: Ulanen-(Lancers) Regiment Großherzog Friedrich von Baden(Rheinisches) Nr.7(Saarbrucken)
Knecht Rupprecht Division
Hans Corps
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North"

Unions are parasites. ...
Could "right to work" legislation be brought to the public service in Canada? that may be the answer, although I don't know if it's possible. By making membership optional, instead of merely the dues/skimming optional. Yes I know that in the lunch room lines will be drawn, I'm ok with that.

I think the upcoming confrontation between Stockwell Day and federal public service unions is going to be interesting, I know my extended family hates him (Stockwell Day) beyond all normal scope, reserving their contempt for him to only be compared with George Bush type hatred, and that's usually a good sign for me. My extended family is 90% politically insane, my kids are on my side, that's all I care about.

Very similar thoughts from Neil Reynolds in the Globe and Mail today, whose columns unfortunately are buried in the "Report on Business" where most readers won't see them:

'Against the wall? Through it, more like

Debt is part of the problem with democracy. The constant pressure for more government is pushing the richest countries toward insolvency
...
This isn't only a Greek problem. This is a democracy problem. The constant pressure for more government - more public alms, more public programs, more public subsidies, more public investment, more public-sector workers - is pushing the richest countries on Earth toward insolvency. You can track the progress of public debt most easily by comparing the debt-to-GDP ratio of the 30 OECD countries. Economists differ on how much is too much, but the European Union has held, as a founding principle, that no euro zone country could let its debt exceed 60 per cent of its GDP...

The fundamental fact is that almost all democratic countries share the same destructive dynamic - to solve every perceived social and economic problem by throwing money at it. Only a matter of degree, not of principle, separates the debt levels of most of these countries. It is characteristic of the mega-folly spending that politicians cite each incremental rise in debt not as an increase in risk but as an essential accomplishment - perfectly reflecting the words last week of Ottawa Mayor Larry O'Brien, ostensibly a fiscal conservative, on City Council's approval of a municipal tax increase of 3.7 per cent for 2010: "I'm delighted with the outcome."..'

Mark
Ottawa

marc in calgary - Actually, the UN Human Rights 'law' does include a 'right to work'. That is ignored by unions.

There is no right to strike, although people like Toronto's mayor David Miller, a cozy dependent on the unions, insisted the that UN Human Rights includes such. It doesn't. Other politicians who are linked to unions even claim that the Charter includes a 'right to strike'. It doesn't.

In Quebec, membership is optional but even if you choose NOT to be a member, your dues are deducted anyway. Got that? Membership is irrelevant. Your union dues are deducted whether or not you choose to be a member.

Public service should not be unionized. Simple as that. The reason is because the service provided by the public service is a monopoly and that means there is no option of competition. The public cannot choose to go to another service if service is unavailable or poor. This then means that the public unions hold the taxpayers hostage.

We all know how bad the service can be provided by a public service - indifferent, inefficient and focused, not on the provision of services but on an elite set of employees and union bosses living off the taxpayer.

It is my understanding a 1947 Supreme Court decision gave unions a free hand by ruling no one could opt out of paying dues if they tried to work in a place substantially infected by union cards.

1947

State of the Ark

We are burdened by reactionary elitist thinking, with opinions the '47 Supremes likely formed in their university days before WW1.

Why not let people choose to pay or not?

Step aside as the massively pro-choice old media and other 'activists' prove their integrity and rally to this pro-choice issue.

Iggy, lead the way!

.......chirp, chirp, chirp...(deafening silence accentuated by crickets)

Public services should be delivered by private corporations. There is almost no service that the government provides that cannot be completed by a private corporation, anything from data entry to bus drivers to cutting the lawn. Then if you think the cost of a service is too high, you can bid on the contract and do it for less money.

"Otto von Bismarck's entitlement state"!? Projection of current ways of thought into the past can be ... amusing.
Yes, Bismarck did introduce old age pensions. But in Bismarck's Prussia, men were "entitled" to
serve in the Prussian army as well.

Re union dues: I think that a union member must pay dues but can insist that they be directed to a charity instead of the union.

john lewis - diversion of union dues can't be widespread.

First, the purpose of those dues is to pay for the Union executive, their salaries, their offices and staff and so on. They aren't going to accept a situation where a proportion even a majority of the workers choose to divert the funds to a charity!

Therefore, the union must insist that the number of people who reject membership in the union is kept low. So, there's religious objection and the dues still have to be paid, and the union boss selects the charity to send those dues to. The union history is that the union will fight to prevent this loss of dues.

The record of court cases is that the worker often fails; the union wins. So, the worker may object to the political agenda of the union and want to divert dues to a cause they support - the union fights it in court, the union wins.

"the collection of its union dues and support of conscientious issues is more important than accommodating religious or conscientious objections of its members."

Get rid of unions in the public service. That's the only answer.

The cure for high prices is hogh prices.

Unions are pricing themselves into oblivion. The question that is unanswered is what will happen in their stead.

john lewis - diversion of union dues can't be widespread.

First, the purpose of those dues is to pay for the Union executive, their salaries, their offices and staff and so on. They aren't going to accept a situation where a proportion even a majority of the workers choose to divert the funds to a charity!

Therefore, the union must insist that the number of people who reject membership in the union is kept low. So, there's religious objection and the dues still have to be paid, and the union boss selects the charity to send those dues to. The union history is that the union will fight to prevent this loss of dues.

The record of court cases is that the worker often fails; the union wins. So, the worker may object to the political agenda of the union and want to divert dues to a cause they support - the union fights it in court, the union wins.

"the collection of its union dues and support of conscientious issues is more important than accommodating religious or conscientious objections of its members."

Get rid of unions in the public service. That's the only answer.

I agree the public service unions should be gotten rid of. Private sector unions should not allowed by law to engage in any political activity and not be allowed to contribute to any political cause, as their membership is of all political stripes and the union would use "dues" to support only one party.

In Saskatchewan the public service unions are already campaigning for the NDP for the next provincial election by buying billboards and radio and television ads.

Oh, Vitruvius! Any chance that our resident DJ can spin "Sink the Bismarck" for this auspicious occasion?

Alberta handled the bloated unions by privatizing liqour stores. No more forms to fill out and half a dozen clerks (union members) to serve you. You simply took the product off the shelf and took it to the cash register - just like buying groceries. Competition was introduced as well. I usually can find my favourite wine on sale at one of the several neighborhood stores near me. It used to be an ordeal to renew your license plates, drivers licenses etc. A huge room full of people waiting for hours for a sullen clerk to do the paper work. We now have "Registries" that are privatedly run and licensed to do these services. Again competition is encouraged. No price manipulation but sales based on service. I have three providers within a five minute drive of my house and have never waited more than five minutes for service. No union jobs there. I can hardly wait until they figure out how to bring this concept within the Canada Health Act. Ralph did some funny things but these were strokes of genius.

Re payment of union dues - so much for writing
without checking. According to the "Rand formula"
all workers in a union shop must pay dues, whether
they formally join the union or not.

It is possible for dues to be paid to a
charitable third party, and in fact some members
of the "faculty association" at Memorial University
in Newfoundland do so, but it is not easy.

This is all fine and good, but this rejection of massive government should have happened several years ago when the Obamabot's prototype implemented massive spending increases. That statist model lacked articulation upgrades and appearance enhancements that the newer, smoother model has.

The bottom line is that the government must balance the budget and start running surpluses again to reduce the grand debt.

They must think long term.
1. As someone already stated, public sector workers have a too generous pension plan. Convert it over from defined benefit to defined contribution, that way, early retirements are discouraged and the future pension liability is greatly reduced and no longer funded by the taxpayer.
2. As much as it pains me, taxes should be increased, preferably the GST, put it back to where it was. That's preferable to an income tax increase but I feel that is unavoidable as well.
3. Hurry up and pass legislation to increase the CPP penalties for retiring early. And really, with people living longer and I would like to think, living longer healthier, the retirement age for collecting OAS should be increased by a small amount (to minimize the pain), say 67. Also the CPP of course to enforce the penalties to 67 as well.
Federal and provincial governments need to stop the increasely swelling size of government workers.