Beginning of the End for Public Unions?

Camlon said:

Talking about growth rates. Your professor said there was no correlation between growth rates, employment growth and RTW laws. However, these charts tells another story

View attachment 67129277

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They would, if we pretend there can never be any other factors. what makes causal arguments difficult is too many think something like this proves a point when in fact, there are likely other factors. The professor likely knows this. What would be interesting would be to know what factors he's looking at.

haymarket said:

If that is your sole interpretation of the illustration - it is not mine.

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The title of the Cartoon is "Top Ten Ways Teachers Unions Caused The Economic Crises", and then it goes on to list 10 satirical ways in which people supposedly claim that Teachers Unions caused the fiscal meltdown we experienced. Here is the list:

1. Bankers wouldn't destroy the economy if they'd been better educated.
2. Summer Vacations
3. Teachers teach evolution, so God abandoned us.
4. Teachers Pay represents money that could have instead gone to the financial industry.
5. Unions are evil. Booga Booga.
6. First Graders are not charged for their education, meaning they become accustomed to "getting" things.
7. Teachers Unions support Democrats, which support giving mortgages to black people, which destroys the economy (the picture insinuates that this is a position of the KKK).
8. Unions lower productivity, forcing bankers to provide sub-alt mortgages
9. Voldermort formed a teachers union.
10. Math Teachers are responsible for us knowing that we are in an economic mess

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I would like to see what your "alternative interpretation of that is, that makes your claim that The Cartoon Contains Much Truth not mean that you are responsible for providing examples of conservatives actually making these claims.

Boo Radley said:

They would, if we pretend there can never be any other factors. what makes causal arguments difficult is too many think something like this proves a point when in fact, there are likely other factors. The professor likely knows this. What would be interesting would be to know what factors he's looking at.

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Allright Boo, I'll bite. What other factor only helps the RTW states and doesn't help the non-RTW states?

cpwill said:

what an interesting claim. can you support it?

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Are you kidding? These themes addressed in the cartoon have been made repeatedly in this thread:

Unions are bad because they increase taxes.

Teachers get summer vacations

Teachers hurt the state economy

Unions support Dems.

Henrin said:

Is there a reason you are posting dumb cartoons in the place of arguments?

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Is there a reason you are posting dumb arguments instead of cartoons? I fail to see the distinction between cartoon-ish posts and actual cartoons on the subject.

cpwill said:

Allright Boo, I'll bite. What other factor only helps the RTW states and doesn't help the non-RTW states?

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CP, that's just stupid. I did not suggest. I suggest that there are different factors in all states, and that unless you look at all of them, you don't know which ones are having the larger effect. It is ignorance to assume something si the cause without looking at all factors.

Manc Skipper said:

If public sector unions are so effective, why don't workers in the private sector sign up to them?

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Because they can make more money in the private sector. You are not supposed to point out the obvious like that though because it blows the conservative's argument right out of the water that public union employees are better compensated than in the private sector!

MoSurveyor said:

I did? Maybe you should read more than the first paragraph or two, huh? :doh

In other words, for the past ~1 million years of our history - which includes the entire existence of H.sapiens and the later half of H.erectus - cooperation has been a more efficient strategy than aggression.

Only the advent of agriculture, ~10k years ago, made killing a better scheme - and, again, this is still an inter-group strategy. Even then, individuals inside a group did not kill or miam each other. Individual property rights did not exist until thousands of years after the advent of agriculture. They're a very recent and very artificial construct.

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So what you're saying is you are moving your goal posts and now claiming its just "individual" property rights that didn't exist ignoring personal property existed even then.

Catawba said:

Is there a reason you are posting dumb arguments instead of cartoons? I fail to see the distinction between cartoon-ish posts and actual cartoons on the subject.

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I don't see you defeating any of them.

Boo Radley said:

CP, that's just stupid. I did not suggest. I suggest that there are different factors in all states, and that unless you look at all of them, you don't know which ones are having the larger effect. It is ignorance to assume something si the cause without looking at all factors.

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You are right there are many factors to take into account, hence I normally do not use economic growth as my main argument.

However, Haymarkets professor was clearly dishonest when he looked at the growth rate and concluded there was no correlation. His own data do show a correlation, and the data above show it even more clearly. For job growth he cherry picked states.

Camlon said:

You are right there are many factors to take into account, hence I normally do not use economic growth as my main argument.

However, Haymarkets professor was clearly dishonest when he looked at the growth rate and concluded there was no correlation. His own data do show a correlation, and the data above show it even more clearly. For job growth he cherry picked states.

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He may have, and I may not have read back far enough. I merely saw your post, and as this type of thing is regular, on all sides, I felt the need to respond.

Camlon said:

Haymarket, we all know that you think non-RTW states such as California are far superiour to RTW states. That is your personal preference. You can also believe his research, and I can't make you stop believing it.

However, if you want me to accept his conclusions, then you need to defend his research. As you are not defending it, then please don't mention it again because it got no credibility.

I have still proved that RTW states have a higher household income than non-RTW states. So right to work states have the right to work for more.

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You do realize that nobody died and appointed you god - right?

You ask questions about decisions Dr. Lafer made that can only be answered by Dr. Lafer or people who worked with him. And then when they cannot be answered to the full depth of your satisfaction, you erroneously claim that you have discovered a 'flaw'.

Nonsense.

Dr. Lafer and the studies he uses have some forty categories of demographic information that they allow for as variables and you have nothing of the kind. And you then call that a 'flaw'.

Nonsense.

Dr. Lafer and his studies compare apples to apples and oranges to oranges while you compare apples to cinderblocks and oranges to dry wall.

And when you do that, you engage in nonsense.

You tell me to never again mention Dr. Lafer or his study because it has "no credibility". Perhaps you can then explain how Dr. Lafer is paid to go all over the nation giving seminars using his data and is well respected and honored for his work - despite the opinion of yourself.

You can boast that you 'proved' something. Sorry, but I see nothing of the sort. What I see are these hard and true facts of reality

***Wages in right-to-work states are 3.2% lower than those in non-RTW states, after controlling for a full complement of individual demographic and socioeconomic variables as well as state macroeconomic indicators. Using the average wage in non-RTW states as the base ($22.11), the average full-time, full-year worker in an RTW state makes about $1,500 less annually than a similar worker in a non-RTW state.

*** The rate of employer-sponsored health insurance (ESI) is 2.6 percentage points lower in RTW states compared with non-RTW states, after controlling for individual, job, and state-level characteristics. If workers in non-RTW states were to receive ESI at this lower rate, 2 million fewer workers nationally would be covered.

*** The rate of employer-sponsored pensions is 4.8 percentage points lower in RTW states, using the full complement of control variables in [the study's] regression model. If workers in non-RTW states were to receive pensions at this lower rate, 3.8 million fewer workers nationally would have pensions.

In RTW states - wages are lower. Health insurance coverage is lower. Pensions are fewer.

the list from cpwill contained in the illustration about teachers

1. Bankers wouldn't destroy the economy if they'd been better educated.
2. Summer Vacations
3. Teachers teach evolution, so God abandoned us.
4. Teachers Pay represents money that could have instead gone to the financial industry.
5. Unions are evil. Booga Booga.
6. First Graders are not charged for their education, meaning they become accustomed to "getting" things.
7. Teachers Unions support Democrats, which support giving mortgages to black people, which destroys the economy (the picture insinuates that this is a position of the KKK).
8. Unions lower productivity, forcing bankers to provide sub-alt mortgages
9. Voldermort formed a teachers union.
10. Math Teachers are responsible for us knowing that we are in an economic mess

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There is lots of truth there. Over the years I have heard variations of many of these points. The point is not to prove that on December 17, 2004, at a conference in gary, Indiana, Dr. Freidrich VonWhacko stated that public school teachers sacrifice babies at their monthly union meetings. The point here is that the cartoon uses satire to tweak the critics of public education as well as those who would make light of some of our economic troubles.

It is not meant to be taken as evidence in court of anything.

Lets look at the list and see if there is reality or truth within the items on it.

1. Bankers wouldn't destroy the economy if they'd been better educated.
Right wingers take potshots at the dumbing down of America and blame teachers for that.

2. Summer Vacations
I have heard and read many times how teachers get three months off and that is simply unnecessary.

3. Teachers teach evolution, so God abandoned us.
Evolution in the school has been a right wing target going back to the Scopes trial.

4. Teachers Pay represents money that could have instead gone to the financial industry.
Teacher pay has long been a target of right wing ire.

5. Unions are evil. Booga Booga.
A basic tenet of right wing ideology.

6. First Graders are not charged for their education, meaning they become accustomed to "getting" things.
How many times have we heard the right wing scream on and on about nanny state government? The entitlement mentality? Teat suckers? the dependent class?

7. Teachers Unions support Democrats, which support giving mortgages to black people, which destroys the economy (the picture insinuates that this is a position of the KKK).
Connecting the dots between some right wing favorite targets - lots of right wingers have used the too liberal mortgage standards as their reason why the industry had problems.

8. Unions lower productivity, forcing bankers to provide sub-alt mortgages
The first half is basic right wing scripture - perhaps connecting the two is not strong - but the first half is undeniable as a platform of right wing thought.

9. Voldermort formed a teachers union.
I believe this was meant to be humorous.

10. Math Teachers are responsible for us knowing that we are in an economic mess
more humor.

I think you fail to notice that cartoons - as part of their very nature - are intended to be humorous. They take things and exaggerate them, pull them and stretch them into caricatures with some truth contained within. They do this to satirize society or people and their views in that society.

THEY ARE NOT MEANT TO BE TAKEN LITERALLY AS THE GOSPEL TRUTH.

Swift wrote about the foibles of people of his age through the person of Gulliver. There were no kingdoms like those in his book. There were no towering giants or miniature worlds. But there was truth there just the same.

haymarket said:

You do realize that nobody died and appointed you god - right?

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Your posts are just getting dumber.

You ask questions about decisions Dr. Lafer made that can only be answered by Dr. Lafer or people who worked with him. And then when they cannot be answered to the full depth of your satisfaction, you erroneously claim that you have discovered a 'flaw'.

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Complete BS. The reason you are unable to respond is because you have no response. There is no secret information. Just respond to the flaws I pointed out in his research,

Dr. Lafer and the studies he uses have some forty categories of demographic information that they allow for as variables and you have nothing of the kind. And you then call that a 'flaw'.

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You think like a simpleton. The more indicators the better, you think. But if you use your brain in a more sophisticated manner, you realize that adjusting for too many factors can make it worse. Especially if some of the factors should not be adjusted for. He does not even seem to try.

He adjust for unemployment rate and the age of the state. That makes his numbers completely worthless.

You tell me to never again mention Dr. Lafer or his study because it has "no credibility". Perhaps you can then explain how Dr. Lafer is paid to go all over the nation giving seminars using his data and is well respected and honored for his work - despite the opinion of yourself.

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So is Newt Gingrich. Can I use Gingrich as an argument and expect you to accept any word he says.

Use your brain Haymarket. What makes his study flawed is your inability to defend it. You can not expect me or anyone to take it seriously when you refuse to defend it. Is that so difficult to understand?

You can boast that you 'proved' something. Sorry, but I see nothing of the sort. What I see are these hard and true facts of reality

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What did I tell you about aims, Haymarket.

I told you that I specify my aim. My aim is not to see what an equivilant worker will earn in each state, My aim was to check what an average worker earns in each state. Go up and read what I wrote, then you see that I proved that an average worker earns more.

***Wages in right-to-work states are 3.2% lower than those in non-RTW states, after controlling for a full complement of individual demographic and socioeconomic variables as well as state macroeconomic indicators. Using the average wage in non-RTW states as the base ($22.11), the average full-time, full-year worker in an RTW state makes about $1,500 less annually than a similar worker in a non-RTW state.

*** The rate of employer-sponsored health insurance (ESI) is 2.6 percentage points lower in RTW states compared with non-RTW states, after controlling for individual, job, and state-level characteristics. If workers in non-RTW states were to receive ESI at this lower rate, 2 million fewer workers nationally would be covered.

*** The rate of employer-sponsored pensions is 4.8 percentage points lower in RTW states, using the full complement of control variables in [the study's] regression model. If workers in non-RTW states were to receive pensions at this lower rate, 3.8 million fewer workers nationally would have pensions.

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Why are you keep quoting a study you are unable to defend? Would you trust a partisan right wing study, that I couldn't even defend. No, you would just say it is BS. If you want to use your study as an argument, then start defending it.

You said to me. You're not God. But you are not God as well. So why do you expect people to accept every word you say?

Catawba said:

Are you kidding? These themes addressed in the cartoon have been made repeatedly in this thread:

Unions are bad because they increase taxes.

Teachers get summer vacations

Teachers hurt the state economy

Unions support Dems.

Click to expand...

Public Unions certainly do do damage to the state's red ink. But the claim you posted was that they are responsible for the fiscal collapse.

from Camlon

What did I tell you about aims, Haymarket.

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You confuse me with someone who actually is concerned what your aims are and is willing to then suspend disbelief because of them.

My aim is not to see what an equivilant worker will earn in each state, My aim was to check what an average worker earns in each state. Go up and read what I wrote, then you see that I proved that an average worker earns more.

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Thank you for stating that so clearly.

You do not care what equivalent workers make in different states with the only real difference being if the state has right to work or not.

You do not care what like workers make in different states with the only real difference being if the state has right to work or not.

You do not care what similar workers in different states with the only real difference being if the state has right to work or not.

You do not care to compare high school grad female secretaries in urban areas with similar high school grad female secretaries in urban areas in different states with the only real difference being if the state has right to work or not.

You do not care to compare college grad male engineers in suburban areas with similar college grad male engineers in suburban areas in different states with the only real difference being if the state has right to work or not.

You do not care to compare middle school teachers with masters degrees with similar middle school teachers with masters degrees in different states with the only real difference being if the state has right to work or not.

Yes, we get that loud and clear.

You strongly DO NOT WANT TO COMPARE apples to apples and oranges to oranges. You simply want to go into the grocery store and make broad and sweeping statements about the average price of a grocery item compared to the average price of a grocery item in a different store. Don't confuse you with facts. To you it makes no difference that one grocery store A carries 6,000 different items while grocery store B contains but 1,000 different items. To you it makes no difference that store A is in a very upscale area while store B is in a economically depressed area. To you it makes no difference that store A caters to ethnic populations with different dietary needs that store B does. To you it makes no difference that store A was only recently built and is state of the art while store B is sixty years old and has not been remodeled in thirty five years. To you it makes no difference that store A is four times the size of store B.

Nope. Do not confuse Camlon with real world facts and differences which explain and provide detailed information about the complete picture.

You simply want to pretend you are a broken record and keep claiming that the average grocery item in store A costs $2.36 each while the average grocery item in store B costs just $1.87 each and that is suppose to tell us that we all should be shopping at store B because the average item is cheaper to purchase.

They say that the devil is in the details. And your refusal to look at the details of the Lafer study and accept them as solid research is positively intellectually dishonest in the extreme.

Your comparison is irrelevant and meaningless. There is no substance to it and certainly no science to it. It is worthless.

Henrin said:

So what you're saying is you are moving your goal posts and now claiming its just "individual" property rights that didn't exist ignoring personal property existed even then.

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Shall we revisit the posts that started all this before continuing forward?

MoSurveyor said:

Henrin said:

teamosil said:

Henrin said:

teamosil said:

You aren't really responding to my position. Whose proceeds they are is a decision we make as a society.

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No we don't. Its a fact of the matter who owns what.

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Its a fact? What do you mean? It's a fact that you stop at a red light and go at a green light too. That doesn't mean society didn't decide that was how we would do things.

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Property rights is crafted out of the natural order. Don't let that stop you though as it sure didn't stop marx from making an ass out of himself.

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That's horse crap! In the "natural order", that wild state we lived in for the past 200,000 years of our evolution, there was no "property" at all. People worked together as a tribe for the good of the tribe.

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I still hold to that position. The person who gathered the nuts did not barter them, they collected them for the tribe. The person who hulled the nuts with a rock did not own the rock or the nuts, they hulled the nuts for the tribe. The sharp rocks used for spear tips later in our history may have been consistently used by one person but I'm not sure he "owned" it in our modern day sense of ownership since he probably wasn't the person who made it in the first place. Most likely the best spear went to the best warrior, not the best spear maker, but I admit that's just an hypothesis.

In any event, it was a collective existence, not an individual one of barter and exchange as you seem to suggest with your "natural order" tripe. People worked together as a tribe for the good of the tribe.

haymarket said:

Perhaps you can then explain how Dr. Lafer is paid to go all over the nation giving seminars using his data and is well respected and honored for his work - despite the opinion of yourself.

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Explain this? Easy...as you so eloquently put it:

haymarket said:

PT Barnum was right.

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you are pretty damn clever for early on Friday morning young man.

MoSurveyor said:

Shall we revisit the posts that started all this before continuing forward?
I still hold to that position. The person who gathered the nuts did not barter them, they collected them for the tribe. The person who hulled the nuts with a rock did not own the rock or the nuts, they hulled the nuts for the tribe. The sharp rocks used for spear tips later in our history may have been consistently used by one person but I'm not sure he "owned" it in our modern day sense of ownership since he probably wasn't the person who made it in the first place. Most likely the best spear went to the best warrior, not the best spear maker, but I admit that's just an hypothesis.

In any event, it was a collective existence, not an individual one of barter and exchange as you seem to suggest with your "natural order" tripe. People worked together as a tribe for the good of the tribe.

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I would agree with this, but I think the kind of sharing you describe would be taking place more at the family/clan level. In hunter gatherer societies, the families/clans generally live independently, only coming together as a tribe for infrequent regular meetings/festivals. Trade was generally carried on at such events.

But in the main, I agree, in hunter gatherer societies, the family/clan operated in a mostly communal fashion, as families do today but on a somewhat larger scale.

Centinel said:

I would agree with this, but I think the kind of sharing you describe would be taking place more at the family/clan level. In hunter gatherer societies, the families/clans generally live independently, only coming together as a tribe for infrequent regular meetings/festivals. Trade was generally carried on at such events.

But in the main, I agree, in hunter gatherer societies, the family/clan operated in a mostly communal fashion, as families do today but on a somewhat larger scale.

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As an aside, I actually find cottage industries/Mom & Pops to be quite acceptable. That's not where the problems lie. It's MegaCorp & Co that creates most of the problems in the capitalist system.

cpwill said:

Public Unions certainly do do damage to the state's red ink. But the claim you posted was that they are responsible for the fiscal collapse.

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Unions hold public office? So, public officials have no responsibility, are not accountable to the voters, and cannot control state budgets. The unions do this. And we know everyone is only talking about the unions because nto teaching in the summer is due to unions.

:roll:

ThePlayDrive said:

They should be forced if they will in anyway benefit from something a union negotiates.

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Mechanics, construction workers, plumbers, and other trade workers, as well as other union dominated sectors should be forced into coercion to pay dues, regardless of whether that union does anything for them, or not? What a load of bull****. Unions should be option only, not prerequisite for any job.

haymarket said:

from Camlon
You confuse me with someone who actually is concerned what your aims are and is willing to then suspend disbelief because of them.

Thank you for stating that so clearly.

You do not care what equivalent workers make in different states with the only real difference being if the state has right to work or not.

You do not care what like workers make in different states with the only real difference being if the state has right to work or not.

You do not care what similar workers in different states with the only real difference being if the state has right to work or not.

You do not care to compare high school grad female secretaries in urban areas with similar high school grad female secretaries in urban areas in different states with the only real difference being if the state has right to work or not.

You do not care to compare college grad male engineers in suburban areas with similar college grad male engineers in suburban areas in different states with the only real difference being if the state has right to work or not.

You do not care to compare middle school teachers with masters degrees with similar middle school teachers with masters degrees in different states with the only real difference being if the state has right to work or not.

Yes, we get that loud and clear.

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Again, you are thinking like a simpleton. I told you why I am not comparing for more variables to find household income in each state. Because trying to do so will make it worse. You will certainly end up with comparing for irrelevant variables, or dependent variables. Also, your results is extremely dependent on what factors you adjust for, and how you adjust for them. Your study make itself worthless by adjusting for factors such as the age of the state and unemployment rate.

Hence, the better way is to refine your aim to something you can absolutely prove. There is a reason US government look at life expectancy, and not life expectancy adjusted for an equivalent person.

And thanks for finally admitting that I was right. People in right to work states earn more.

They say that the devil is in the details. And your refusal to look at the details of the Lafer study and accept them as solid research is positively intellectually dishonest in the extreme.

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I already told you why. If you are unable to defend your study, then why do you expect me to take it seriously.

If someone here presented some partisan right wing study that unions are terrible. Then you look at it, and find a lot of flaws. Then they ignore all your arguments, and only when you write it bold and increase the size by 5 times, they respond. They say, I am unable to defend the study because I am not him. But you still need to accept still all finding in his study.

You would never accept that, so why do you think different rules apply for yourself?

MoSurveyor said:

Shall we revisit the posts that started all this before continuing forward?
I still hold to that position. The person who gathered the nuts did not barter them, they collected them for the tribe. The person who hulled the nuts with a rock did not own the rock or the nuts, they hulled the nuts for the tribe. The sharp rocks used for spear tips later in our history may have been consistently used by one person but I'm not sure he "owned" it in our modern day sense of ownership since he probably wasn't the person who made it in the first place. Most likely the best spear went to the best warrior, not the best spear maker, but I admit that's just an hypothesis.

In any event, it was a collective existence, not an individual one of barter and exchange as you seem to suggest with your "natural order" tripe. People worked together as a tribe for the good of the tribe.

Click to expand...

So what you saying is that you continue to decide that the rules of the clan and their reality of survival in their environment meant that personal property did not exist. To do this you must forget all the little things they did not share and did individually. You continue to deny that people have always decided things as theirs and there is no society that didn't.

Second, you said there was no property at all. Collective property is STILL property. In your last post you said individual property and admitted collective property existed changing your position.

You original position is stated in this part here:

That's horse crap! In the "natural order", that wild state we lived in for the past 200,000 years of our evolution, there was no "property" at all. People worked together as a tribe for the good of the tribe.

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