Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker survives recall effort, NBC News projects

mac · Jun 13, 2012

Boo Radley said:
Hardly. But do feel free to advance the argument with something constructive.

:coffeepap

Do feel free to answer the question. What direction are you looking at it from? Or is it as I suspected...nothing of any substance?

cpwill · Jun 13, 2012

Boo Radley said:
Still playing silly. It's been a good tactic for you. You can't address things properly, so you play silly. I can quit as a teacher, firefighter, or police officer. And with no real difficulty are all. This is a difference. A real one. The military called me property. None of the other proffessions do this.

Not the same thing. A contract has an obligation to provide a service, not the individual workers to become US property. You are once again confusing things. It happens when you skip the issue to try to and skew your response.

Well I don't know about being silly, but when I joined the military - and again when I reenlisted, I signed a contract. It was quite explicit on my obligation to provide a service. Signing contracts with specified sunsets to which both parties are obligated assuming the non-arisal of specific outlined circumstances doesn't exactly make one not a public employee.

First, unions don't attach anything in either. Keep that in mind.

State has as much interest to work within a budget as does the private sector.

:lamo Hilariously Wrong. What in the world gives you the idea that politicians have as much an incentive to spend less than their revenues than the private sector? Where do you find evidence of this?

Private businesses that do not consistently make profit die. Governments that consistently do not make profit... :shrug: here's a hint.

And unions don't drive.

They don't as a matter of definition, which does not mean that they can't, or that in the case of government they don't.

It takes two sides to agree to a contract.

It does indeed. The problem being that one side is often more powerful than the other - and in the case of government, one side can actually control the other.

The auto industry made poor decisions on union contracts they signed. It was the union made them, it was that they exercised poor judgment.

They did indeed make poor decisions. However, they were faced with powerful unions who had the ability to coerce them into doing so. If I offer to split a sandwich with you 75-25, and you argue that's not fair, and I point out that I am holding a tire iron and look at all your teeth it would be a shame if you were to lose some of them... that's not exactly fair negotiation.

The same can be said about state negotiations

That is incorrect - in private negotiations management represents the company's desire to make a profit. In public negotiation, management can represent the union it is negotiating with.

And yes, elected officals answer to voters as private does board members.

Apparently you haven't been paying attention. Even the Governator had to bow down to someone bigger and badder than him - 80 cents of every government dollar in California goes to Public Employee Compensation, their fiscal hole is bigger than ever, and the state is collapsing because of it. In most localities, the most powerful political force is the Teachers Union.

As SEIU likes to brag, they have the power to elect their own bosses. But when you elect your own boss, you sit at both ends of the negotiating table. And when you sit at both ends of the negotiating table..... (...drumroll...) you control it.

And they do elect their own boss. It turns out that when you look at those actual local elections that Public Union Support Is Just As Or More Powerful A Political Force Than Incumbency.

...incumbency boosted a candidate’s reelection chances by 47 percent. Union support boosted the odds by 56 percent. The combination of union support and incumbency boosted the odds by 76 percent — an important factor, since many of those incumbents became incumbents on the strength of earlier union support, meaning that the unions are compounding the effectiveness of their electoral efforts over time, stocking the incumbent pipeline with their favored candidates...

At the local and even at the state level, our elected leaders often answer more to public sector unions than the public sector unions do to them. That's an inverted power structure, and it means that the voters (who are powerful only as much as their representatives are) are effectively neutered in a general basis from affecting their own government. As AFSCME's Larry Scanlon put it: "We're the Big Dog."

Who suggested dotherwise? Other than you, who suggested they are workers working for a wage. When the firefighter runs into a burning building and saves alife and puts out the fire, he's working for the populace. When a police officer enters into a dangerous situtation, he's working for the populace. And when a teacher walks into an overcrowded classroom, facing all kinds of disrespect from children, parents, and conservatives. they are woking for the populace.

Yes. And when they deny those services to the public, they are working for themselves. When they use their positions as political weapons, they are working for themselves. When they push fiscally suicidal policy on State and Local populations in order to suck as much out of a dessicated state before it collapses, they are working for themselves. Wisconsin's voters decided they wanted a public education system, and the teachers union decided that if they wanted to protest instead, too f'ing bad for the voters.

You just want them to do it on the cheap and with second class status. Call it like it is.

Actually I want teachers salaries to increase, and I want those increases to be tied to merit, so that we attract and keep good ones. Woops turns out you have no idea what your opposition is about.

No, like so many you overstate in order to forgive responsibility to one. Everyone has lobbying groups. Business, wealthy, the I hater teachers movement often called republicans, all of the have groups that lobby.

Everyone lobbies - but they are all private citizens. "Government" should not be an interest group, especially given the exceedingly dangerous interest group it has proven to be.

Union has no more, and perhaps less, influence than all of them.

You know, opensecrets.org keeps a list of it's heavy hitters, which depicts the largest political donors between 1989 and 2012. You might be interested in their top 20.

1 ActBlue
2 AT&T Inc
3 American Fedn of State, County & Municipal Employees
4 National Assn of Realtors
5 National Education Assn
6 Goldman Sachs
7 Service Employees International Union
8 American Assn for Justice
9 Intl Brotherhood of Electrical Workers
10 American Federation of Teachers
11 Laborers Union
12 Teamsters Union
13 Carpenters & Joiners Union
14 Communications Workers of America
15 Citigroup Inc
16 American Medical Assn
17 United Food & Commercial Workers Union
18 United Auto Workers
19 National Auto Dealers Assn
20 Machinists & Aerospace Workers Union

Well huh. Would you look at that.... And that's at the Federal level. The State level is even more impressive.

What worthless conservative hit peice are you getting this crap from? In other words, I don't buy it.

:lamo all you can counter with is an ad hominem?

par for the course.

But let me get this straight. You believe that if a politician is put in his seat by a Public Union, and knows he can be yanked from it by a Public Union, then he will not then be pliable to that Unions' demands?

I'd like to see where this comes from. Make sure it isn't just another misrepresentation.

Misrepresentation how? Them's the numbers. Unsurprisingly, there is a positive correlation between unionized public workforce and public debt. Of the 10 States in the worst fiscal shape, all but one of them give collective bargaining to their employees, and that one (Louisiana) was hit by Hurricane Katrina. Equally unsurprisingly, the chart was put together by CATO, who does a pretty good job of tracking this stuff.

Ockham · Jun 13, 2012

Karl said:
Since right wing laws say that you can get union benefits and union wages without paying union dues, of course there is no advantage of having a union any longer. You can get it for free.

Perhaps if unions spent more time working for their members and not to consolidate power for themselves, they'd be better off. There are no "right wing laws" there are only "laws".

Karl said:
Until all the unions are gone, of course, then the capitalists will lick their chops and drop the hammer on the backs of the workers; at which point there will be no going back, because the right wing will have, by then, legislated unions powerless (as Scott Walker has effectively done in Wisconsin).

While socialists like yourself demonize capitalism as a matter of course, the world goes on. Either unions step up to the plate and change with the times or die ---- so far they're fighting the change and are dooming themselves to die. :shrug:

Ockham · Jun 13, 2012

The Man said:
But, Walker did nothing to warrant a recall in the first place. And if you want to talk about mobs, how about all of the teachers and other government union workers who neglected the duties of their jobs to camp out and protest, and all of the whiny death threats from sore losers? Looks like mob does not rule.

The democrats overplayed their hand in Wisconsin by backing the unions.... they lost and now pay the price.

AdamT · Jun 13, 2012

apdst said:
And, none of that has a damn thing to do with a company spending money on campaign ads.

Campaign donations reduce profits, or increase losses.

apdst · Jun 13, 2012

AdamT said:
Campaign donations reduce profits, or increase losses.

OMG! Where do you come up with these arguments? You claim to be smarter than the rest of us and then post bull**** like this?

apdst · Jun 13, 2012

Karl said:
Might want to do a little historical reading on the founders reasoning in choosing a representative form of government for the country, versus 'direct democracy'.

Or not :shrug:

I don't need to re-learn history to know that when you thought Walker was toast, it was Democracy in action and it was beautiful. Now, when things didn't go your way, you claim it's "mob rule", and not good.

Kal'Stang · Jun 13, 2012

apdst said:
OMG! Where do you come up with these arguments? You claim to be smarter than the rest of us and then post bull**** like this?

Actually what he said is true.......but ONLY for the IMMEDIATE SHORT TERM....over the long term however the opposite is generally true.

AdamT · Jun 13, 2012

apdst said:
OMG! Where do you come up with these arguments? You claim to be smarter than the rest of us and then post bull**** like this?

You have to be capable of the most basic logic to see it.

Karl · Jun 13, 2012

apdst said:
I don't need to re-learn history to know that when you thought Walker was toast, it was Democracy in action and it was beautiful. Now, when things didn't go your way, you claim it's "mob rule", and not good.

Delusion and strawmen do not masquerade well as argument. Nor does an inability to follow a conversation. FYI.

Karl · Jun 13, 2012

Ockham said:
Perhaps if unions spent more time working for their members and not to consolidate power for themselves, they'd be better off. There are no "right wing laws" there are only "laws".

While socialists like yourself demonize capitalism as a matter of course, the world goes on. Either unions step up to the plate and change with the times or die ---- so far they're fighting the change and are dooming themselves to die. :shrug:

Deluision and strawmen do not masquerade well as argument. FYI.

Unions are being destroyed by the government. There is little one can do to fight back against that, other than at the ballot box (which they are doing, but is an uphill battle against non-stop right wing propaganda and bottomless coffers of right wing corporate money).

Dickieboy · Jun 13, 2012

This explains it all:

Hitler finds out that Scott Walker won the Wisconsin recall election - YouTube

Boo Radley · Jun 13, 2012

mac said:
Do feel free to answer the question. What direction are you looking at it from? Or is it as I suspected...nothing of any substance?

Ask a valid question and explain what you mean. ALl I saw was an attempt at an insult. If you have something of substance ask it, and explain it as I really don't know what you're asking.

MaggieD · Jun 13, 2012

Karl said:
Deluision and strawmen do not masquerade well as argument. FYI.

Unions are being destroyed by the government. There is little one can do to fight back against that, other than at the ballot box (which they are doing, but is an uphill battle against non-stop right wing propaganda and bottomless coffers of right wing corporate money).

Please link us to credible proof that "the government" is destroying unions. First, I'd remind you that "the government" is the will of the people. (Unions certainly don't make up a majority of voters in this country....) Second, I would remind you that our government most often takes the side of workers in union disputes and arbitration. Wasn't it Boeing who was disallowed from moving jobs from a state out east to a RTW state? I don't know how you can make that statement.

Boo Radley · Jun 13, 2012

cpwill said:
Well I don't know about being silly, but when I joined the military - and again when I reenlisted, I signed a contract. It was quite explicit on my obligation to provide a service. Signing contracts with specified sunsets to which both parties are obligated assuming the non-arisal of specific outlined circumstances doesn't exactly make one not a public employee.

Employees can quit. They are not obligated to stay. There is no such obligations. Companies sign contracts. Employees are not US property. Soldiers are. Again, your purposefully ignore differences.

:lamo Hilariously Wrong. What in the world gives you the idea that politicians have as much an incentive to spend less than their revenues than the private sector? Where do you find evidence of this?

Private businesses that do not consistently make profit die. Governments that consistently do not make profit... :shrug: here's a hint.

They don't as a matter of definition, which does not mean that they can't, or that in the case of government they don't.

It does indeed. The problem being that one side is often more powerful than the other - and in the case of government, one side can actually control the other.

I don't know whay you have such trouble addressing ideas in their entirity, especially when you lose the meaning so easily. I have spent years trying to determine if Update was correct that you were disingenous and purposefully do this, or if you really don't know what you're doing. But, in any case, the fact remians, two sides sit at the table. One side does not run the other and both have to sign the agreement. Both private and public have to be concern with the budget. Both have leaders who fail and leaders who succeed. The private sector has no better record than the government officals, see the auto industry as an example of some failure in the private sector.

Now break this dwon in the twenty response and see if you can miss the point altogether.

They did indeed make poor decisions. However, they were faced with powerful unions who had the ability to coerce them into doing so. If I offer to split a sandwich with you 75-25, and you argue that's not fair, and I point out that I am holding a tire iron and look at all your teeth it would be a shame if you were to lose some of them... that's not exactly fair negotiation.

another example of you missing the point entirely. :swoosh:

That is incorrect - in private negotiations management represents the company's desire to make a profit. In public negotiation, management can represent the union it is negotiating with.

Nonsense. Manage represnts the tax payers. They do not work for the unions. You overstate any influence unions have but light years.

Apparently you haven't been paying attention. Even the Governator had to bow down to someone bigger and badder than him - 80 cents of every government dollar in California goes to Public Employee Compensation, their fiscal hole is bigger than ever, and the state is collapsing because of it. In most localities, the most powerful political force is the Teachers Union.

Not sure how you think this answers me at all. Does he or any of them answer to the voter or not? Can the electorate not elect someone else?

At the local and even at the state level, our elected leaders often answer more to public sector unions than the public sector unions do to them. That's an inverted power structure, and it means that the voters (who are powerful only as much as their representatives are) are effectively neutered in a general basis from affecting their own government. As AFSCME's Larry Scanlon put it: "We're the Big Dog."

Accepting commontary as fact again I see. I do wish you'd learn the difference.

Yes. And when they deny those services to the public, they are working for themselves. When they use their positions as political weapons, they are working for themselves. When they push fiscally suicidal policy on State and Local populations in order to suck as much out of a dessicated state before it collapses, they are working for themselves. Wisconsin's voters decided they wanted a public education system, and the teachers union decided that if they wanted to protest instead, too f'ing bad for the voters.

And Governor Wlaker is not using those jobs as political weapons? If any fool accepts what you said, they have to consider it works both ways. Workers of all stripes for both for someone else and for themselves. independently wealthy people rarely work for someone else. You do understand how working for a wage actually works, don't you? Like anyone else, an employee, not a soldier, seeks to make as much as he or she can. if they ahve no voice, they ar emuch likely to make less. With a voice, they couold do better. It works this way in both the private and public sectors.

Actually I want teachers salaries to increase, and I want those increases to be tied to merit, so that we attract and keep good ones. Woops turns out you have no idea what your opposition is about.

Merit? So, if I teach at a wealthy selective school, I will have more success and thus I will have merit. If I work at a troubled school, odds are strong there will be less success, thus no merit? That's another subject, but I'm sure the point would be lost on you anyway.

However, you are complaing about that they make, repeatedly. And for the small number of poor teachers there are, the argument that you're only targetting them really holds no water at all.

Everyone lobbies - but they are all private citizens. "Government" should not be an interest group, especially given the exceedingly dangerous interest group it has proven to be.

Employees are nto government. They are private individuals who work for the government. Not government.

You know, opensecrets.org keeps a list of it's heavy hitters, which depicts the largest political donors between 1989 and 2012. You might be interested in their top 20.

yes, they donate. So do others. But who would they don't to if they didn't get their way? Answer, the same people. It works that way with all donors, which is why so many donate to each side. the influence works both ways, for all of them. You have too simplistic a view. The answer is not to attack workers, but remove money from politics altogether.

:lamo all you can counter with is an ad hominem? par for the course.

But let me get this straight. You believe that if a politician is put in his seat by a Public Union, and knows he can be yanked from it by a Public Union, then he will not then be pliable to that Unions' demands?

CP you have a clear history with what you read and accept unchallenged. You can call that an ad hominem if you like, but the issue is real and problematic in debates with you. I always ahve to know where it came from because your source seelction si suspect.

And no, unions do not by themselves put anyone in office. They do not have that power (see Walker in Wis.)

Misrepresentation how? Them's the numbers. Unsurprisingly, there is a positive correlation between unionized public workforce and public debt. Of the 10 States in the worst fiscal shape, all but one of them give collective bargaining to their employees, and that one (Louisiana) was hit by Hurricane Katrina. Equally unsurprisingly, the chart was put together by CATO, who does a pretty good job of tracking this stuff.

The how I can't say until I study your source. it would not be the first time you presented something as fact from a questional soruce that wasn't quite what it reported. Also, do you know what a causal relationship error is? So many confuse something as the cause because it happens at the same time or before something else. Show causation requires a lot more.

Prof. Peabody · Jun 13, 2012

apdst said:
I don't need to re-learn history to know that when you thought Walker was toast, it was Democracy in action and it was beautiful. Now, when things didn't go your way, you claim it's "mob rule", and not good.

They were so sure Walker was outta there. I think what the Union Goons did at the capital and the Fleebaggers who ran out of state rather than vote really did in any chance the Democrats had of success.

mac · Jun 13, 2012

mac said:
Kinda like some would love to benefit from education, but not pay for it.

Boo Radley said:
Kind of. I see quite a few who don't want educatin paid for. But I'm likely looking ina different direction than you are.

mac said:
Oh, what direction is that? Down your nose?

Boo Radley said:
Hardly. But do feel free to advance the argument with something constructive.

:coffeepap

mac said:
Do feel free to answer the question. What direction are you looking at it from? Or is it as I suspected...nothing of any substance?

Boo Radley said:
Ask a valid question and explain what you mean. ALl I saw was an attempt at an insult. If you have something of substance ask it, and explain it as I really don't know what you're asking.

What. Direction. Are. You. Looking. At. It. From?

and now another question....which one of those words or series of words do you need explained?

Karl · Jun 13, 2012

MaggieD said:
Please link us to credible proof that "the government" is destroying unions.

That's not even funny.

MaggieD said:
First, I'd remind you that "the government" is the will of the people.

Neither is that. Faux naiveté masquerades poorly as argument.

MaggieD said:
Second, I would remind you that our government most often takes the side of workers in union disputes and arbitration. [1] Wasn't it Boeing who was disallowed from moving jobs from a state out east to a RTW state? [2] I don't know how you can make that statement.

1. No. A complaint was filed. Boeing then settled the issue with the union, and the complaint was withdrawn. Boeing is now building the plane in question where they wanted to. However, you are obviously considering the federal government as the sole government in the country; any casual observer of labor law over the past few decades will have noticed that most of the attacks on unions are at the state level (RTW, for example, as well as the recent stripping of union rights in the state of Wisconsin). Of course the federal government is not innocent of attacks on unions either; witness the Taft Hartley Act.

2. Because I possess information and rational thought.

Ockham · Jun 13, 2012

Karl said:
Deluision and strawmen do not masquerade well as argument. FYI.

Then heed your own advice and stop doing it.

Karl said:
Unions are being destroyed by the government.

Unions are destroying themselves.

Karl said:
There is little one can do to fight back against that, other than at the ballot box (which they are doing, but is an uphill battle against non-stop right wing propaganda and bottomless coffers of right wing corporate money).

They can go on strike ... see how that works for ya.

Karl · Jun 13, 2012

Ockham said:
[...] They can go on strike ... see how that works for ya.

Wisconsin teachers, arguably the subject of the thread, are prohibited by law from going on strike.

Yet another failure in your argument.

Ockham · Jun 13, 2012

Karl said:
Wisconsin teachers, arguably the subject of the thread, are prohibited by law from going on strike.

Yet another failure in your argument.

Awww... "sick out" a better word? "Walk out" maybe is preferred? Different words... same thing.

Kal'Stang · Jun 13, 2012

Karl said:
Wisconsin teachers, arguably the subject of the thread, are prohibited by law from going on strike.

Yet another failure in your argument.

They are not prohibited by law. They are prohibited by contract. But that certainly did not stop the Wisconsin Teachers from calling in "sick" and going to a protest. Which lots of teachers did. So much so that from what I heard some schools did not have enough substitute teachers to cover for em.

And don't try to tell me that if they called in sick then they were sick. Because we all know damn well that they actually were not sick despite thier claims.

Aberration · Jun 13, 2012

Karl said:
Wisconsin teachers, arguably the subject of the thread, are prohibited by law from going on strike.

Yet another failure in your argument.

Not being protected by the law, is not the same as being prohibited.

Walk off the job all you want. Go protest where ever you want about it. Don't expect to be welcome back. I don't care what your buddies think of ya.

apdst · Jun 13, 2012

Kal'Stang said:
Actually what he said is true.......but ONLY for the IMMEDIATE SHORT TERM....over the long term however the opposite is generally true.

Actually, he's off by a mile, because that money would come out of net profits, after payrolls have been accounted for.

apdst · Jun 13, 2012

Karl said:
Delusion and strawmen do not masquerade well as argument. Nor does an inability to follow a conversation. FYI.

Translation: "I got burned by my own silly comments, now I'm resorting to insults, because it's all I have left"

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker survives recall effort, NBC News projects

mac

cpwill

Ockham

Noblesse oblige

Ockham

Noblesse oblige

AdamT

apdst

apdst

Kal'Stang

AdamT

Karl

Karl

Dickieboy

Boo Radley

MaggieD

Boo Radley

Prof. Peabody

Debate MMA

mac

Karl

Ockham

Noblesse oblige

Karl

Ockham

Noblesse oblige

Kal'Stang

Aberration

apdst

apdst