Give labor its due

People have to learn that if you want good roads and safe bridges, you pay for them. If you want good schools and colleges, you pay for them.

We've been paying for them... and not getting them.

Why in the world would you deal with a system that's not using its available resources wisely by giving it more resources?

the onus is on the people, and the legislature to ensure that the money is being spent wisely. i am sure that there are many things in the state budget that could be pared back. education should not be one of them. the mantra should not be "no new taxes", but rather "priorities"

If your University is anything like my university (Worcester Polytechnic Institute), -Executive- salaries would be a good place to start cutting.

We've been paying for them... and not getting them.

I call bullshit on this tired old right-wing meme. We've cheaped out in many of these areas- thanks to the noisy prevalence of idiots like you- and are getting exactly what we paid for.

By the way, I work for a public crime laboratory, and I'm quite familiar with the operations of private forensic DNA labs- I've interviewed for jobs with 3 of them. (They pay for shit compared to the hours they demand from people. Clearly the large amount of money they bring in- see below- is going to line investors' pockets, not to provide compensation that can attract the best scientists.) Those outfits charge sky- high fees to their customers- most of whom are public law enforcement agencies paying with tax dollars. The fees we charge to out-of-county agencies- which have a healthy margin built in above generous estimates of our costs- are quite a bit lower. There is no question that we provide a lot more service for the buck.

This also means, by the way, that my job is to protect the sorry asses of fools like you.

Caledonian,

You no doubt think the free market will miraculously step in and solve all of society's ills if only that bumbling government would step out of the way. Just stop. You either get a two-tiered system wonderful for those who can afford to utilize the service or the service disappears altogether. I'll take a public park over a country club any day.

He DOESN'T think, that's the problem. You just put the penny in the slot and out comes the standard liberturd, no cortical activity involved.

Yeah, it's true. We're just not getting what we pay for. Since our public universities are, you know, the best in the world and all. And the U of M has for many years been attracting technology companies to Minnesota. Oh, and they rank among the best schools in the country while being a fraction of the cost to the in-state resident. Total failure.

It's not enough to give sufficient money to deal with a problem to the government - you have to ensure that the money is actually spent dealing with the problem in a reasonable way.

Simply raising taxes and expecting the problem to be resolved is as stupid as simply expecting the free market to resolve it. Neither solution works in a society run by morons.

Any governmental system can work - or be made to work - if enough sufficiently altruistic and intelligent people implement it. But we don't have an army of genius saints. That means that we have to work out effective methods for getting effective governance out of stupid, short-sighted, and unenlightened human beings.

Our governments haven't been effective in a long time. So why do you refuse to acknowedge and attempt to deal with this critical problem; why do you act as though giving the government more resources to screw things up with is a good idea?

Moronic non-response, as expected from Calefool. Don't bother actually learning anything about any of the institutions involved- just push out another liberturd.

You know, I have to stand up with Caledonian on this one. Earmarked funds tend to be redistributed before they get to their final destination. I was involved in a committee that had rallied to get state funding for an emergency psychiatric facility at our county hospital, and improvements in the rather make-shift adult psych er. The funds were approved, but never got to the hospital.

It's the government on all levels that's messing with school funding, not the taxpayers (although I agree totally that if you want something, you have to pay for it) Another example from mental health: When Patacki closed state mental hospitals in New York, the money saved was SUPPOSED to be earmarked for community mental health services. It went to state government employee pension increases.

I think we could ALL agree that government waste is rampant on all levels of government, and they could bleed us dry financially and STILL keep cutting tuition and aid.

...and while I don't mind increased taxes if they're NEEDED, I want to see the money going to the programs they should be going to (healthcare, education, infrastructure maintenance) rather into the back pocket of some cash bloated bureaucrat or a fund to get more of our kids killed overseas.

So why do you refuse to acknowedge and attempt to deal with this critical problem; why do you act as though giving the government more resources to screw things up with is a good idea?

Because the U.S. has the best higher education system in the world, so your premise that this particular governmental system isn't working is wrong. If this system is beginning to have problems because its budgets aren't keeping up with inflation, then we should give it the money it needs.

I think we could ALL agree that government waste is rampant on all levels of government, and they could bleed us dry financially and STILL keep cutting tuition and aid.

And you know this to be a fact, how? You have some independent measure of what things SHOULD cost that enables you to draw this conclusion intelligently? Don't keep us in suspense- please share this invaluable information with us.

And of course, there's no waste or misallocation in corporate bureaucracies. Nossirree. Not even when the CEO is paid umpty hundred million dollars to lose money. Right?

I am completely sick and tired of this kind of dumbass, substance-free rhetoric.

This is clearly an economic issue--has anyone asked Vox for his opinion yet?

I agree whole heartily that the UofM system is being screwed out of cash.

But the clerical workers "sacrificing" and this is a worthy cause? Sorry dude - you are on thin ice here. The people that run the union are at the top of the seniority ladder so they no longer get their step increases which limits their pay to standard "inflation" increases. While all other members do get their step increases which gives them between 4 and 5% increase. The senior leaders are pressuring the others to strike so they themselves can squeeze more out of the system. Classic union bullsh*t if you ask me (and this is coming from people that are members of the union).

Also - let us not forget that working within the university system is a pretty cushy job. Flexible hours, free education, lax atmosphere, and decent public transportation to/from and within the system (in the TC's at least). As someone that works in the real world I am sometimes envious of the working conditions of my peers at the U (only sometimes).

Steve, sure there's waste in private buisness. I agree with that 100%. As for where the money goes and how it's wasted or misdirected, I already gave you two examples for that. Having worked with the state legislative committee, the hospital, and mental healt advocacy groups, I saw exactly how funds earmarked for mental health care in New York were diverted. As a private citizen or a service provider sitting on these committees, I had to sit through a lot of drek.

No doubt you would believe that State Lottery money is all going to education as well.

You're going to pick out what you don't like of what I said (governement waste) and ignore the rest (you DO have to pay for quality) but I kinda expect that. Some people just don't bother to read things through, it's MUCH more fun to just jump to conclusions.

BTW I worked on a project for JPL back in the day. They were putting out big bucks for what industry paid a lot less for at the silicon crystal growing company I worked for. I'm not sure who was behind the money, but they didn't get any better than anyone else for the extra cash, except a door seperating their grower from the others being manufactured. How do I know? I worked QC on all of the machines.

Ever since Reagan we've been getting told that government can't do anything right. The public has elected officials who went into office determined to eliminate government services and responsibilities, not maintain or expand them. When you couple that with budget cuts the inevitable result is going to be a system that does indeed look like it's failing on multiple fronts. It's called a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Education is still the best thing that the U.S. does, and higher education is both our greatest achievement and greatest export.

Higher education was left alone by many of the troglodytes who advocate blind cutting of budgets, because even the troglodytes often had ties to research conducted by college and university personnel, research that affected their business. Plus, they bought in to the old American patriot line that we need good education to make good citizens.

But now, many of the troglodytes have abandoned that former consensus, that we need education, or even that we should care about our fellow citizens and their children, or even that we should care about children and the future.

Unions still stand up for a better future. Thank God for that.

It's the ridiculously broad generalizations that I have a problem with. Especially when they are based on the particularly screwed-up politics of my naive state (and former employer). Your experiences with particular branches of New York State's government do not entitle you to make sweeping statements about "the government" in general, especially when it would be extremely easy to multiply equally bad examples from the private sector. Moreover, no human enterprise operates with maximum theoretical efficiency, so you are not entitled to claim that even New York is wasting an excessive amount of money without being able to compare some pretty detailed estimate of what services could otherwise be obtained for with the actual expenditures. Interestingly, when this has been done for specific examples of privatization of government services, more often than not it turns out that privatization (even in New York) did NOT save money and even increased costs. (Anybody who understands the role of insurers as parasitic middlemen in screwing up our health care "system" should be familiar with this principle.)

Cheap anti-government rhetoric has done a great deal of damage to the fabric of our society. Bullshit needs to be called a lot more often.

That should have been "native state", it's an entertaining typo though. ;)

I remember an incident similar to this one when I was an undergrad at the University of Massachusetts. Undergraduate resident assistants voted to unionize, becoming the first undergraduate employee union. Some university official (I can't remember who it was off the top of my head) immediately made a public statement that the costs of negotiating with the union could lead to a tuition increase. It was all bluster, but it certainly got a lot of undergrads pissed at their RAs.

In the system I work in, the higher-up administrators are paid a quarter of a million dollars plus lots of perks. There are lots of them. It's sickening.

This is not the way things are supposed to work.

And that situation is part and parcel of the ever-growing corporatization of public agencies, thanks to decades of the kind of rhetoric we see above and the concomitant denigration of public service. After all, you know, you've got to have corporate-style pointy-haired "managers" and they've got to be paid the "market" rate for their "services". How would the people who actually do the work ever get along without them?

In the system I work in, the higher-up administrators are paid a quarter of a million dollars plus lots of perks. There are lots of them. It's sickening.

And this is different than the corporate sector how?

Costs have increased at colleges and universities due to factors outside of their direct control in many cases. One case in point: Health care. Our institution just went through a major reorganization of its health care plan. As a result, we as individuals now have to contribute to our health care plans (we were still getting a full health-care plan for free up until 2 years ago). I forget the numbers, but the increases were quite dramatic, and let to a huge increase in the operating budget. I think it was the single largest budget line increase across the college.

So, for all the free-market worshipers out there, explain how this can be the fault of the unversity and colleges. When all other budget lines are frozen, but one outside their control increases at an astronomical clip, how are the schools supposed to deal with it? They do what they have always done... make budget cuts, freeze salaries, cut capital projects, all of which my institution has done.

Our story is different than PZ's because I'm at a private institution. So we only have ourselves to blame for not raising funds. But at a public institution, this message should get out, and should be included in the health care debate.

There are other costs that went up astronomically, too. Namely, heating and fuel costs after Katrina and Rita. Again, not much the college can do about those costs... they have to pay them.

It's interesting that here in Michigan with a Democratic governor, we are also facing an education crisis and a governor who refuses to raise any taxes (and, in fact, just proposed cutting taxes again). It's too bad that we who work in the K-12 sector can't strike when they continuously cut our benefits and pay.

I applaud your support of afscme and a possible strike. In a better world, the TA's, the Asst. Profs., the Profs. and the Administrators should have union representation. The nature of employer-employee relations is inherently not balanced and umbrella union negotiation has so far proved to be the best (if not the only) means to address that imbalance in capitalist and mixed societies. It worked for several decades during the 2nd half of the 20th century, but alas the Corporatist policies that started during the Reagen era have not only worked to destroy the working class, but are greatly eroding the middle class as well.

I always get a kick out of conservatives saying that they're the "grown-up" party. It's always seemed to me that learning and being able to apply the concept "there's no such thing as a free lunch" was the major passage from childhood to adulthood, yet here are these ostensibly "grown-up" Republicans laboring under the delusion that we can have good schools, roads, etc. by NOT paying for them, or that people making minimum wage don't have health insurance because they simply don't want it. There simply is no more juvenile attitude than that. The sign of a real adult is someone who says, "I want this, I'm going to pay for it because that's the way the world works."

Also - let us not forget that working within the university system is a pretty cushy job. Flexible hours, free education, lax atmosphere, and decent public transportation to/from and within the system (in the TC's at least).

Not for all systems, and certainly not for all workers in the system. I'm in New York, possibly the most unionized place of all (we have at least 3 separate unions on campus), and some of the workers are still treated terribly. Free education is a joke - employees get $500 per semester total towards taking classes in the state system. Flex hours is not true at all for the support staff - we had an entire campus shutdown last week because the electric company was cutting off all power to the campus. It was known far in advance, and there was no way for anyone to work, but all of the secretaries/professional staff/facilities staff/janitors had to show up on time and SIGN IN to keep it from being taken off of their vacation time. Because, you know, can't just give them a day off. Make them drive in to campus for a whole 5 minutes just to show them who's boss.

A lot of university workers are treated quite poorly.

Joel,
Why can't you strike?
Ultimately the only weapon a worker has in negotiating to get better wages and/or working conditions is the right to withhold labor. Exercising that right only makes sense if you have a unique skill, or can do so in a union setting. If that right is abrogated by state law, then the law must be changed. This requires political organization. This is also why unions must be politically active. Strong politically active unions are the best brake that workers have to slow down this race to the bottom (in wages) that the Republicans have had us engaged in since Reagen's breaking of the Air Traffic Controller Strike in the early eighties.
Solidarity Forever!
Ken

I was afraid at first that it was going to be another anti-union screed. I guess I have been hearing to much of that for so long. I agree with you professor on this one also.
We have been hearing for a long time about how government wastes "our money" doing what it wants. We do not hear much about how the government is ourselves not some other people some where. I also get the distinct impression that instead of more oversight of government spending the "wise republican" leadership just pushes through lower taxes, which leads to budget cuts, which leads to failure of government services, which leads to more voter dissatisfaction and then starts all over again with more tax cuts.
I get the feeling that there is not very much reality or reason in these tax and spend arguments. Instead what I see is the triumph of belief over reality regardless of the out come or any objective evidence. I do get tired of the struggle which does seem to go on forever one small issue after another but I see no better alternative. I'm sticking with the union, it is another important democratic institution There are no "benevolent leaders" to save us, no "big sky daddies" either only ourselves and our fellow creatures on this planet. We can see from history what happens when we work against each other and let belief triumph over reality what would it be like if we worked together in the real world?

Our governments haven't been effective in a long time. So why do you refuse to acknowedge and attempt to deal with this critical problem; why do you act as though giving the government more resources to screw things up with is a good idea?

As long as we pretend to pay our public servants our publics servant will pretend to work for us. About the only thing your solution does is justify continuing to run things on the cheep.

Also, do you really think calling a group of people "stupid, short-sighted, and unenlightened" or "morons" and then underpaying them is going to get you anything but crappy service from them?

Not to worry, the Minnesota government has other priorities. From a couple years ago.

"Fabian says the state's prison population has increased 45 percent in the past five years. Fabian says her agency is using several strategies to address the trend: double bunking inmates in cells designed to hold one; keeping low level offenders in local jails; and housing inmates in a privately run prison in Appleton, Minnesota. Fabian and her boss, Governor Pawlenty, say it's important now to add prison space. Fabian wants lawmakers to borrow $106 million to expand the Faribault and Stillwater prisons.

"With this Faribault expansion, we'll get about 1,060 beds and that will take care of the problem for a while," she said.

Sen. Jane Ranum, DFL-Minneapolis, says her caucus supports Pawlenty's expansion plans but she's concerned the state could still run out of space. Ranum says because a quarter of the state's inmates are in prison because of non-violent drug crimes it may be time to rethink sentences for those offenses. It costs about $77 a day to house an inmate in Minnesota. Ranum says an increased inmate population could add to the state's budget problems. Minnesota has a projected $700 million deficit. Ranum says drug treatment may be a better option for some inmates."

http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/2005/01/07_scheckt_priso…

Granted, Minnesota has a better record than most, but it is working to catch up. With such urgent problems has housing non-violent drug offenders, it is no wonder there isn't much money for insignificant things like education.

As a former member of AFSCME 3800 AND a volunteer trying to organize the information workers at the U, I also empathize with these workers. Once you learn how the U REALLY works and you discover that, while they say there is no money, there are raises for some people under certain circumstances.

For example, I learned that if you get a job offer, you can get a raise. Sure enough, I got an outside job offer and the U countered me a 33% raise over my current salary!

I just took the other job and left -- this seems like a ridiculous way to pay people the salary that they rightly deserve.

Who says we have the best higher education system in the world? I'm told the United Kingdom has a pretty spiffy setup.

Our governments haven't been effective in a long time. So why do you refuse to acknowedge and attempt to deal with this critical problem; why do you act as though giving the government more resources to screw things up with is a good idea?

Posted by: Caledonian

Only because people like you have been undermining them for a generation. And, frankly, in many areas the government does a far, far better of delivering goods and services than the private markets.

Let's take education. And before we start, the correlation between academic performance is PARENTAL INCOME, not Public/Private. That is, when stratified for INCOME LEVEL, there is no objective difference in performance of public and private school students in America.

The cost, per pupil, where I live, is just over $7,000 per year to educate my daughter. She's in a magnet school which is actually better than EVERY private school in my city. And she will, if her performance is adequate, matriculate to one of the Top-25 HS' in America.

To get the substantially equivalent education (in private school) it'd cost me about $15,000 per year in tuition. At twice the cost of public education, FRA (the private school I'd send her too) has some advantages. Don't get me wrong. But those advantages get neutralized by their liabilities. But for FRA to compete with my local public school they:

A: Charge twice as much.
B: Pay the teachers half as much. (About 25K/year compared to 48K for Metro.)
C: They don't educate disabled children.

Or we could get onto public utilities. One thing we've seen the past few decades is that privatization of utility districts (especially water districts):

A. Decreases quality.
B. Increases cost.
C. Decreases in accountability.

Typically when privatization occurs in a water utility you can expect, adjusted for inflation, a 50% to 100% increase in your rates. And this goes on and on and on, district after district.

Which always makes me wonder about people who take your position. Have you paid any sort of attention at all? Both to the real world and underlying economics and behaviors?

And that's because for-profit companies have higher costs in areas that public utilities don't have. A municipal water system MIGHT pay it's rank and file somewhat better than prevailing wages (though no guarantee). HOWEVER, they're not working out of fancy, expensive offices and having CEO's making $2 million a year, plus other useless expenditures you commonly find in Corporate America. Never mind having to pay dividends to the shareholders.

Rather, municipal water districts are very much devoid of frills and bloated executive salaries because the over-sight and public budgeting process makes it nearly impossible. And, because they're accountable to publicly elected officials who must stand for election, there is a great "top-down" interest in making sure the system works at a high level, rather than being run to make it profitable (and the problems that happen in those circumstances).

So, really, pay attention to the real world. You might change your tune. Though I massively doubt it as you seem to have "True Believer" syndrome.

Sure to bring out the "Libertarian" "thought"!

I dunno - until the American public decide that we're willing to be grownups and take responsibility for our government, I only see a slow decay of the system - at least until we hit the transition to collapse. You see it with statements of the form "the government is..." as if the government is an alien appendage, some foreign body that is in no way related to the public.

The government is corrupt because we are corrupt - the government is ignorant because we are ignorant.

As the old saying goes, a nation gets the government it deserves.

Solidarity forever? Solidarity if you want your competent workers lumped into the same pool as your slacking jackasses. Solidarity if you want unsafe, abusive rednecks protected by professional representation just because they are hourly. Solidarity if you want your union dues used to support politics that are not your own. Solidarity if you want your union dues to pay for repeated union leader junkets to conferences that just happen to be in sunny vacation spots. Solidarity if you want union negotiators so craptastic they negotiate paycuts one bargaining session and below cost of living raises the next. Solidarity if you want union dues increases so large that your paycheck, in absolute dollars, will go down during the current contract.

Sorry. After eight years as a member of PACE/USW, I am growing more and more bitter and disillusioned with both the practice and theory of the modern labor union.

Minnesota U, from a 60 second outsider's glance, looks to be a case in point. Striking and harming student education because your health costs are not going up and most of your bargaining group are getting above cost of living raises? Is there anything more to this story that I am aware?

Sean,

Isn't your representation elected? Wouldn't that mean that your union is getting exactly the representation it deserves? Maybe competent, non-greedy people don't give enough of a damn to fight to control their union?

Tell me about it. I have been trying to crack this nut of a leadership clique since I hired on. Somedays I believe it would be easier to enter politics, climb the ladder to the Presidency, and reform the entire nation.

1. No term limits.
2. In the entire history of organized labor at this mill, the incumbent union president has never failed to retain office.
3. The appointed heir designate of a retiring president has never failed to be elected.

The hourly employees as a whole have drunk so deep of the Union Good Kool-Aid that firing them up to actually go against the incumbents on an issue is... *sigh* It would be easier to convince a creationist that evolution is on solid factual ground.

I am strongly thinking about throwing in the towel. I am tired. Thankfully Idaho is a Right to Work state, so my membership in the union is at my own choice. Then I will just have to deal with the air being dumped from the tires, the tobacco juice on the door handles, and the fact the bulk of the hourly employees will be looking to screw me of the mill floor. Nonmembers are not treated well.

I'm told the United Kingdom has a pretty spiffy setup.

Did you bother to notice that their spiffy setup is public, not private?

Over here in Washington State we have our own form for .EDU labor wrangling. Recently the state legislature completed a salary review for Civil Service jobs, of which U of W and related institutions are included. As a result of that, a bunch of job classes are getting a lot more money. This is a result of years of cost-of-living-only raises in fields seeing large wage inflation in the state job market (IT jobs are right up there). State law says that after a salary study is done, all classes earning less than 25% of job-market average for that class will be given raises to bring them to the 25% mark.

Since we have a Democratic house and gov, money exists for this particular increase.

What doesn't exist, and was specifically excluded, are above-cost-of-living raises for Exempt/professional staff in higher ed. Raises for those employees will have to come from 100% tuition and fee sources. In one IT job series I'm familiar with, this will lead to people with 5 years of experience earning markedly more than their exempt/professional supervisors.

On the plus side, there is committment to run the salary survey and resultant re-grading of classified staff every two years. This will mean the classified staff (i.e. unionized) will be getting reasonable raises at least every other year. This is good! Civil service jobs all too frequently lag behind (sometimes a lot behind) their private sector counterparts thanks to wage freezes, lack of market forces acting on wages, and no-new-taxes pledges.

Unfortunately, I expect this boon for classified staff to last until the next recession forces Washington State into deficit spending again.

Nonmembers are not treated well.

I'm not at all for threats and intimidation, but I can see why union guys take a dim view of freeloaders who gain the benefits of the union yet don't pay dues.

Sean, just curious -

Do you think the mill would run any better without the union? Would the increase in management thievery be less than the current union leadership thievery?

My impression has always been that, at worst, the union is inefficacious, corrupt and in bed with management, which pretty much results in a work environment indistinguishable from not having a union. But then again, there could always be a union so dysfunctional and corrupt that it's actually worse than not having them at all.

My question: When you guys say, "People gotta pay!" Who's paying? Not the government employees. Sure they pay income tax, but where is -their- income coming from?

It's amazing how the anti-free marketers are so keen to bite the hand that feeds them. Kinda like the fundy crowd when they want to ban stem cell research, but are happy to have their ailments cured by such reasearch, or the anti-animal testing crowd who have not trouble with grabbing whatever they need from the pharmacies.

I have no trouble paying for everything I get, but you who spend our tax dollars owe us value for the money we have to give you. At least in the free market, if the company we are buying from isn't giving us a good value, we can take our business elsewhere. We have no choice when it comes to the services you government employees are supposed to be delivering for us. If you won't keep the bridges up to snuff, whe just have to keep driving and pray.

Another example - All this money we give to create the best system of higher education in the world, all the money we throw at university think-tanks and you still can't figure out an inexpensive way to provide health care to your own employees?

I would think that universities with giant medical schools, like my neighbor the University of Washington, would have perfect medical systems at least for the employees and students of the U, and perhaps be able to extend their services at no or little cost to other schools in the state.

stogoe,

You bring up an interesting difference between unions and the free market: Union members get all hot an bothered about non-union members who benefit from the work of the union negotiatiors. We who work in regular business are happy to share the benefits we develop with the rest of the company.

I know your eyes are rolling, but it's true. In the free market, when someone develops a new process that brings in more profits or saves money, they spread the information through their organization, making sure every person understands how the new process works, thereby bringing up the standard of performance for the whole company. To the extent that someone hoards information, they are considered a detriment to the company and eventually let go. The process is not perfect, it's true. Some people figure out how to dig in like ticks and suck blood from the company for a long time.

As you point out, stogoe, in union shops, it is often just the opposite. In some states the unions even have it set up where only union members are allowed to participate in the benefits their negotiators have put into the contracts.

When my company brings me a new idea that will boost my prodution and help improve quality, I always remind them that I'll be happy to learn what they are ready to teach, but if they don't improve my compensation commensurate with my new contribution to the bottom line, I'm ready to take what I've learned to another company.

I would suggest that pay freezes, etc only work to address very specific short-term issues. If chronic low unding is the problem then the services needs to be cut back to the funded level with staff making decent wages for their work.

As PZ says if you want a service, a safe bridge, pay for it, but do not expect staff to carry the burden through low wages.

it's amazing how the anti-free marketers

Thanks for the asinine strawman, which makes it immediately obvious that one needn't waste time reading anything else you write.

Spike: I suggest you look up A) "argument from incredulity" and B) some statistics on actual educational and transportation budgets, costs, and funds allocation.

LaBonne:

Thanks for the asinine strawman,

Dude, have you looked at the things you've posted in this thread lately?

"Thanks for the asinine strawman, which makes it immediately obvious that one needn't waste time reading anything else you write," whines Steve LaBonne.

Pot, have you met kettle?

As for Steve LaBonne, Caledonian's position seems to be a matter of record, though I'm not sure what it is (and it doesn't seem to be a "total privatization FTW" line), but did Dorid at any point argue that privatization of services would be an improvement? I must have missed it.

Mechanically reciting boilerplate wrapped in an impenetrable layer of contumely is a creationist/rethuglican trademark. Please don't get us sued. :)

If people don't hold private businesses accountable, the results are just as bad as when people don't hold the government accountable.

Again: neither a government-distribution system nor a free- or regulated-market system will work properly if the public is made up of lazy morons. If the public isn't made up of lazy morons, private business is easier to get quality from - but it's pretty much a moot point with this society.

"Mechanically reciting boilerplate wrapped in an impenetrable layer of contumely is a creationist/rethuglican trademark. Please don't get us sued. :)"

You're directing this at LaBonne, yes?

I looked at the topics you suggested. How do they apply?

Because the first half of your post reads essentially as "I really can't believe that with all the money we pay in taxes the universities aren't getting enough to operate" with no statistics or citations to back it up. However reasonable this seems, from a logical perspective it falls into the same category as "I can't believe all this could have just come about by chance!" Your argument might be fairly persuasive if you were to produce various bits of data on how much money is going to universities in general and a given university in particular, whether it's actually being spent efficiently, specific references to areas where waste could be reduced, etc.

And yes, that was directed at Steve LaBonne, who's getting on my nerves as a matter of principle for most of the same reasons as theists who shout atheists down to insist "YOU JUST DON'T WANT THERE TO BE A GOD TO HOLD YOU ACCOUNTABLE!" (well, with the obvious difference that the view he's ascribing to his opponents in this debate is actually confirmably held by at least one person on the planet).

What I was objecting to in Dorid's rant is this wild generalization:

I think we could ALL agree that government waste is rampant on all levels of government, and they could bleed us dry financially and STILL keep cutting tuition and aid.

However qualified and sincerely meant, this sort of thing just feeds into the conservative well-poisoning. We need a lot less of it in our public discourse.

As for Caledonian, it's nice to see how completely non-substantive he's become. It's his way of saying, "I got nuthin'".

Pot, have you met kettle?

Evidently you don't know what a strawman argument is, even while employing them.

"Evidently you don't know what a strawman argument is, even while employing them."

Gawd! Here we go again. So educate me as to how this is a strawman:

"it's amazing how the anti-free marketers..."

And this is not:

"We've cheaped out in many of these areas- thanks to the noisy prevalence of idiots like you- and are getting exactly what we paid for."

I would have thought mine was more of an ad hominem.

I've seen how you operate: Can't attack the message so you attack the messenger.

"Your argument might be fairly persuasive if you were to produce various bits of data on how much money is going to universities in general and a given university in particular, whether it's actually being spent efficiently, specific references to areas where waste could be reduced, etc."

I agree, but if you expect that much work from me, I would expect you to reply in kind. What forum could we meet where this could happen? This comments section is going to get pushed onto page 5 by the end of the week.

No, it was a classic strawman. Who exactly are these "anti-free-marketers"?

Nice to see I was right. And unsurprised to see that you decline to back up your BS rhetoric with any shred of fact.

"No, it was a classic strawman. Who exactly are these "anti-free-marketers"?"

Why is it a strawman? Because you declare it so? Why not back you assertion with a shred of fact?

The anti-free marketers are those who believe that by nationalizing every industry, we're going to get some kind of socialist utopia like they have in Sweden or Canada.

"Nice to see I was right. And unsurprised to see that you decline to back up your BS rhetoric with any shred of fact."

If you are talking about my post to Azkyroth, please point out where I declined.

The anti-free marketers are those who believe that by nationalizing every industry, we're going to get some kind of socialist utopia like they have in Sweden or Canada.

And that irrelevant rant out of nowhere has what, exactly, to do with anything in this discussion? All of it has to do with institutions that are now and always have been public.

You asked me who the anti-freemarketers are, so I told you. Now you want to wag your finger at me and say that my post of 10:00 is out of nowhere?

You still haven't explained how the term "anti-freemarketers" is a straw man and not an ad hominem, and how your posts are free of the straw man fallacy.

You also haven't answered my question about where I declined to Azkyroth to back up my assertions.

What makes you so special that everyone has to answer your questions but you are free to spew without defending your mindless posts in any way?

I think I've seen you around here before. You pulled the same rhetorical tricks the other time I saw you post as well. And no, I'm not going to mine back through the previous hundreds of pages to find examples, you have demonstrated your complete ineptitude in providing rational argument in the posts above.

I know it's easy for you to go on the attack since you are protected by the anonymity of the blogosphere. So what? I can pound out pages and pages of great copy like "liberturd," too. If you want me to substantiate my claims, don't you need to show me how it's done? Or is the obligation just one way?

People, people: do not feed the trolls.

That is all.

I'll nominate Mayor Bloomberg of New York City for a profiles in political courage award. With the World Trade Center still smoldering in lower Manhattan he passed one of the biggest tax increases in city history. It was on the order of 10%, all at once. He argued simply that people might say that people will leave the city if taxes are raised, but he knew for a fact that people would leave the city if taxes were not raised and services declined. Now he's planning for a city of nine million, as opposed to eight million.

The simple fact is that people move from low tax areas to high tax areas. That's why so many Mexicans move from low tax Mexico to the high tax United States, and most of them would be more than glad to pay taxes. Some even steal taxpayer ID numbers so they can pay taxes, not to mention riding in cargo containers, paying unscrupulous sorts thousands of dollars and trekking across the open desert with some guy they've never met before named Mike, and he has the only gun.

I actually ran some numbers on how much people will pay for a house and how much they'd have to pay in taxes. This is simple economic empiricism. In the United States, comparing state against state, people will pay about an additional $15 in house price for every extra dollar they would have to pay in taxes. You would imagine that people would pay MORE to avoid having to pay more taxes. Instead, people will pay $15,000 more for a house in an area where they would have to pay $1,000 more in taxes. This comes as no shock to any realtor, or anyone who has ever gone shopping for a house or apartment. People always want safe neighborhoods (i.e. more cops, better deployed), good schools (i.e. superior teachers, better facilities), and good transportation (i.e. expensive roads, commuter facilities).

Of course, some people have never lived in a house or apartment, and they are perfectly willing to give up sleep to stand guard on their own home and home school their children while driving for hours to work.

More libertarian free-market nonsense from spike "At least in the free market, if the company we are buying from isn't giving us a good value, we can take our business elsewhere. We have no choice when it comes to the services you government employees are supposed to be delivering for us."

Tell that to Microsoft which has such a big market share that can pressure its customers to exclude competing products, or simply buys up smaller innovative companies and incorporates them into its behemoth system.

The "free market" has never existed and can never exist.

Also, if you give a public water or electrical utility to a private company, the consumer is still faced with a monopoly system but one in which the profits go into the hands of a few greedy CEO's and investors.

I say "give" and not "sell" because the public utilities are always "sold" far below their real value.

£We've seen a drastic demonstration of where that leads in our transportation infrastructure recently"

No, you DON'T HAVE a transport infrastructure.
Not compared to any developed, Eutopean country, at any rate .....

The anti-free marketers are those who believe that by nationalizing every industry, we're going to get some kind of socialist utopia like they have in Sweden or Canada.

Spike, exactly who professes such an ideology in the US today? Seriously, I haven't seen anyone other than a few Maoist and Trotskyite cultist who advance such a position. No one argues that the government should get into the VCR business, redistribute agricultural land in the US or take over tire production.

There are no anti-freemarketers who are taken seriously or are in any position of influence politically. On the other hand, there are plenty of "Libertarians" in the Republican party today who influence their ideology. There are plenty of people who hold the just as radical position of "freemarket fundamentalism", believing that all economic transactions should be free-market transactions, with as little scientific bases for these assertions as the most retrograde 1922 Lenninist (even Lenin wasn't completely anti-freemarket, as shown by his NEP in the 1920s).

Knee-jerk libertarianism is a religious cult, not a serious economic position.

Well, you've really convinced me. I'm going to go vote for 35% taxes across the board to hand over even more money to the people who run the government, like Halliburton.

Thanks for saving me from my libertarian fundamentalism.

Heh,

You want to solve a lot of problems? Bring back the 90% tax bracket. I've read a couple arguments which suggest that up to 90% of a persons success in life is based on the society they live and work in, not their own determination and drive.

Oh, the lower limit would have to be set a bit higher than it was during the great rise of the middle-class through the 1950's. Inflation you know.

But, say, for example, all income over $500,000 was taxed at a rate of 90%. You would immediately see a drop in executive pay, to say, $500,000. As well as actors, atheletes, and rock stars.

Some of that money would be used to the raise salaries of lower level employees. Some would be used to grow businesses, or returned to stockholders. Some would be given to universities as grants, or used for other public purposes.

I wouldn't expect that the government would see much in the way of increased income, but maybe enough to pay off some of the debts is owes.

Yeap, some inflation controls may be necessary, but the Federal Reserves ability to regulate the money supply should help allievate that problem quite a bit.

Not that I expect to see this level of taxation unless things get much worse than they are today.

Well, you've really convinced me. I'm going to go vote for 35% taxes across the board to hand over even more money to the people who run the government, like Halliburton.

Thanks for saving me from my libertarian fundamentalism.

Yup, thanks for proving my point. Instead of looking at the structural reasons that we keep voting Halliburton-esque bastards into office, you want the magical fairy wand of "free-market" wishful thinking to solve the problem.

It's hard work keeping democracy working. Just like it's easier to just say the Jesus'll save us, it's easier to say that the decentralized wisdom of the market will save us. The market is good at certain things - at minimizing prices of commodity products.

Don't you ever wonder why the bastards in charge keep on getting worse and worse? More and more openly corrupt? Why executive pay has skyrocketed, while their "economic productivity" is no different than 50 years ago? Why people today are willing to drop their hard-earned cash on celebrity and sports super-star industries?

Don't you wonder why our social mobility is lower than that of Germany, which is fairly capitalistic but is more constrained than ours? Why we have social mobility less than those "socialist" countries of Scandinavia?

I mean really, wishful thinking doesn't change any of these things. Believing in "One" thing won't change the fact that for some reasons we keep electing people who are openly thieving. Cutting taxes won't stop these people from thieving - they're quite good at manipulating any system to their advantage. And their particularly good at manipulating ideological commitments (often idealistic) to their own ends.

The Cheneys of the world want lower income taxes. It's even easier to manipulate property and sales taxes. If the entire social infrastructure collapses, it won't hurt them. If we privatize, they'll manage it as feudalism. Look at old Russia. The same people are in charge under their current "capitalism" as were in charge under "communism". If anything, they've given up a little social control in order to loosen the constraints on themselves - they can steal more outright and shift that cash into the west than they could under the old system. Could you have imagined twenty years ago that most Russians could be even poorer than they were under the Soviets? That under "capitalism" they would have the same political nooses under different guises?

Maybe it's not just about moving the little green pieces of paper around?