Monday, June 21, 2010

Related, Untold Stories

Fact: While the recession has trimmed payrolls in the private sector, government employment--measured by number employed and wages paid--has remained steady or increased.

Fact: Over the last decades, as private-sector salaries and wages have at best grown slowly, government jobs have paid better and better, so that now government jobs consistently pay more than comparable private-sector jobs.

Fact: These developments are largely the consequence of the stewardship of our Republic's public-sector employee unions, the SEIU, AFSCME, NEA and AFT most prominently.

Fact: Unions representing public employees gave hundreds of millions to elect BHO in 2008.

Fact: Federal anti-recession stimulus funds have been largely directed to maintaining the employment and remuneration of public-sector employees, and BHO wants more of the same.

Fact: Innumerable states and municipalities are going broke paying for lavish pensions granted to retired public employees, many of whom are young enough to take new jobs as public employees while receiving their pensions.

Fact: Polls show that voters are figuring all this out. To wit, Rs lead or are even with Ds in the governor's races of all the big states electing governors this year, with the exception of New York, where Andrew Cuomo (D-Shapeshifting) is running on a platform proclaiming that government, meaning state government bloated with massive costs for its employees and pensioners.

To read more: check out the ever-relevant Michael Barone.

Moral: All the misgivings once offered against the unionization of public employees are now manifesting themselves in actual experience, as is the wisdom of the proverb that one can often have anything one wants but never everything that one wants.

13 comments:

carl said...

i felt like i was reading page 1 of a dan brown novel for a moment there.

Chief Grinder said...

I would have to see some research data from several different sources to believe your second fact...that is a pretty big statement that at least in my circles does not prove to be true

Anonymous said...

Bible college faculty evidently have too much time on their hands. Wonder if they worked in the real world how they'd see things.

Jon A. Alfred E. Michael J. Wile E. SWNID said...

Grinder, these data about gummit jobs are all over. The difference is staggering when benefits, including retirement, are added in. Read Barone, who you'll remember is the editor of key reference books on political statistics and so disinclined to trade in statistical bogusness, but poke around here and there. The parallel stats are very obvious: while private sector jobs and wages have declined steeply in the recession, government jobs have been insulated from such pressures by federal "stimulus" money, all borrowed to be paid back by taxpayers in the coming decades.

Anon, we write; you read. Who has time on his hands? That depends one whether we write faster than you read.

We figure that in your "real world" there are things more real than balancing budgets, meeting payrolls, dealing with the varying interests of varying constituencies and personalities, providing career counsel to graduates entering the job market, understanding and responding to governmental and quasi-governmental regulations, and the like. That's our world. If you're going to trade in cliches, don't count your political chickens before they hatch.

Chief Grinder said...

I can buy during the recession but over the last decades? I think I will put my wallet back in my pocket on that one until further review. I would also need to weigh the reasons why the data would show such a gap before drawing the conclusion that this is a unequivocally bad. For instance I am sure a garbage collector for the city makes more than one who works for Rumpke. But what if Rumpke works their guy 30-35 hours a week therefore avoiding having to pay out benefits? I don't think socially that is a good thing. So yeah the data will show public makes way more than private in that instance. But what is the social cost on the back end?

Apostle Paul said...

Oh c'mon SWNID, you may balance budgets, but have you ever been in danger from rivers? Or bandits? Or spent a night and a day on the open sea? Until you've received from the Jews forty lashes (minus one) don't tell me you've experienced the "Real World." Call me when you're cold and naked...err...just cold I guess.

Jon A. Alfred E. Michael J. Wile E. SWNID said...

CG, review the recently posted video of Chris Christie for a reminder of what we're talking about here.

Apostle Paul, right you are, but we think you should direct your remarks first to our nameless friend.

Apostle Paul said...

That is where they were aimed, though somewhat indirectly. SWNID is a saint in my book. I don't like Anonymous. In fact, I think he should go the whole way and...

Anonymous said...

. . .and emasculate himself? What makes you think "he" has anything to cut off?

Jon A. Alfred E. Michael J. Wile E. SWNID said...

Um, this is getting out of hand. Yellow card.

Unknown said...

When I marked this story 'amusing' I meant that the comments are amusing. And by amusing I mean... well, I'll let you guess what I mean by that.

Also, since SWNID is almost as dedicated to Christie as I am to SWNID, I surprised we haven't heard about this yet.

Chief Grinder said...

Was blind but now I see what you are getting at. IMHO still too broad a statement to say "now government jobs consistently pay more than comparable private-sector jobs." Just find that hard to believe that is the case across the board.

Jon A. Alfred E. Michael J. Wile E. SWNID said...

Grinder, it's a generalization for which there are doubtless many exceptions. We blog not to disparage individual civil servants but to plead for fiscal sanity in the body politic.

BD, PhD, chronicling Christie's breaths of fresh air would take a staff of bloggers writing full time. We are heartened that the question is being asked whether he's a candidate for the national stage, that the answer comes back, "Not yet."