Category: Politics

History Class in Utah About to Get More Accurate

It seems the government of Utah is sick and tired of people claiming our country is a democracy and have passed legislation that will require Utah teachers to be accurate and call the United States a republic. Teachers will also be required to go over different form of government:

HB220 would require schools to teach students that the U.S. is a compound constitutional republic and about other forms of government such as pure democracy, monarchy and oligarchy along with political philosophies and economic systems such as socialism, individualism and free-market capitalism. The Senate passed the bill with no dissenting votes Monday.

This would be great as most students don’t even know what a fascist or socialist state even is. Sadly most students just yell fascist when the police are abusing their power and then talk about socialism as a great system we need to adopt in this country. Hopefully the Utah requirements involve teaching the fact that the United States no longer runs on a free-market system and that is our biggest economic problem besides spending more than we take in.

The Other Side of Unions

With the recent problems in Wisconsin people have been proclaiming unions as the greatest things in the whole wide world. If I take what some people are saying seriously I have to believe unions are actually unicorns that shit rainbows and happiness. The fact of the matter is unions have a much uglier side than most people realize with his very well explained in this Mises Daily article.

I’ve stated before my main gripe with unions is employees at unionized workplaces are forced to join the established union. This negates voluntary participation and forces employees to fund things that they may or may not wish to. SEIU for instance pays massive amounts of money to the Democrat Party which I would never give a single nickle to. Yes if I worked in a unionized workplace I’d be forced to fund the Democrat Party via my mandatory union dues.

Of course the article on Mises has many explains of the problems of unions. If you thing unions are great things you need to read that article and understand the other side of the coin (that way you can understand the arguments of those who oppose unionization of everything instead of just spouting off personal insults).

Stuff Government Says

It’s time for an episode of “Shit my Government Says.” The premises here is simple, I take a common line used by those in government and translate it into layman terms. Today’s episode is going to be on “reducing spending.”

When a government official says they’ve proposed a plan to reduce spending they want you to believe they’ve saved you money by spending less. For example if they put forth a budget and claim it reduces spending by $100 billion it implies they’re doing to spend $100 billion less than they currently are spending.

What they actually means is they’ve cut something from the proposed budget but haven’t actually saved you any money yet. When a government official says they’ve cut $100 from the budget they mean the proposed budget for a span of time. Therefore if the proposed budget is $1,000 over money actually available and they “cut spending” by $100 the budget as passed will still spend $900 more than they have.

This seems altogether obvious until you apply the fact out government increases the budget from year to year. Let’s say the budget in 2010 was $100 the and likely proposed budget for 2011 will be $110. Let’s say the income of our government for 2010 and 2011 was $50. This means in 2010 our government spent $50 they didn’t have which we call a deficit. Now our government is claiming they’re going to get spending under control and thus will not pass the proposed $110 plan but instead have cut the proposed budget by $10. That means out government is still going to spend $100 or $50 over the amount brought in making the deficit the same as in 2010.

Of course the government officials will pat themselves on the back for cutting spending by roughly 10% (since government always likes to round up even when that rounding makes little sense mathematically). This is meant to imply they’re only going to spend $90 for the year instead of the $100 they spent last year.

It’s a deceptive practice that many people seem to be completely oblivious to.

It’s Not Collective Bargaining, It’s Monopoly Coercion

There’s been a massive shit storm hitting the capital in Wisconsin and that shit storm has started spilling out over the border to my capital. I’ve not stated much on this subject because I’ve not had a whole lot to say but now that I’ve done a bit of research I feel I can make some actual comments on the subject.

First let us do away with the term “collective bargaining” because that’s not what the teachers of Wisconsin currently have. I propose a new term to use called “monopoly bargaining.” I’m a person who believes if a group of employees want to voluntarily come together to fight for better working conditions that is their rights. They key word there is voluntarily. As it sits in Wisconsin every teacher in that state has to become a member of the teacher’s union. There is only one union, not multiple ones available to compete for your membership dues, and anybody who wants to be a teacher must join this single union.

What we have isn’t a collective of people bound together to fight for better wages, instead we have a monopoly whom people are forced to pay money to. I have a huge problem with this type of setup because it causes potential conflicts of interest for teachers. If you pay union dues I guarantee you some of that money will end up being donated to the Democrat Party. Personally I can’t in good conscious allow any of my money to find its way into the pockets of those fuckheads. This principle would bar me from being a teach in Wisconsin since there is no way to do so without paying the union and the union donates to the Democrat Party.

Now we have my two least favorite things; money stolen from the pockets of people and mandatory donations to a political party. The only thing that could make this situation more distasteful in my opinion is if they Wisconsin teacher union were allowed to use force to enact their desires, thankfully the government still maintains a firm grip on their monopoly over the use of force.

Collective bargaining would only be an accurate term if individual teachers could come together and fight for better working conditions. Teachers aren’t allowed this luxury instead having to rely on one monopolistic union which they must be a member of. This is the main point people seem to be missing. Wisconsin doesn’t currently allow its teachers collective bargaining rights, they force teachers to become a member in an entity that will fight only for a set of ideals while teachers whom wish to go against the union have no recourse. If the union of Wisconsin doesn’t want something then it won’t be fought for leaving teachers who do want that out on the cold with needs remaining unfulfilled by the entity they are forced to pay money to.

The other thing I find interesting about this whole fiasco is the fact the people who are actually paying the bills, tax payers, aren’t present in any teacher salary negotiations. When you work in the public sector you’re paid tax dollars. Each teacher working in a public school system is paid through our money yet we don’t get to be present when their union comes to “negotiate” higher wages for teachers. Bargaining usually implies a buyer and seller haggling for an outcome that both sides find mutually beneficial. In the case of public employees the employees can be considered the sellers (selling us on the idea they need higher wages) while the tax payers can be considered the buyers (buying the services of the public employees). The problem comes when these negotiations comes around it’s between the seller and a third party who will not actually be footing the bill.

When a public union negotiates higher wages for the employees it represents it means more money will be taken from the private sector and sent to the public sector. The people who have this money, you and me, get no say in the matter. Hence what these unions do can’t really be considered bargaining or negotiations, instead it would be coercion. The union is using the government’s monopoly on the use of force to take money from private citizens and give it to public employees. So to be more accurate we should call what the Wisconsin teacher’s union does monopoly coercion (monopoly within the realm of teacher pay) not collective bargaining.

The entire situation is being misrepresented by entities that only continue to exist if people are forced to pay them a tax. Needless to say it’s in the union’s best interest to ensure their monopoly use on forcing tax payers to foot a higher bill continues. Now that we’ve defined the real problem let’s work on finding a real solution.

Bath Salts are Now Illegal in Alabama

I’m not sure what bath salts are but apparently they can be used to make illegal narcotics and thus the state of Alabama has banned them [PDF]. You know, because banning anything that can be used to manufacture illegal drugs makes total sense.

That was sarcasm in case you didn’t catch it.

Unfunded Retirement System Leads to Conflict Between Generations

When it comes to pension systems there are two types; funded and unfunded. Funded retirement systems are ones which you must put money into such as a savings account or a 401k plan. Unfunded systems are ones such as social security where tax money is used to pay for the pensions of the already retired. The problem is unfunded systems ultimately lead to a self perpetuating conflict between generations.

Unfunded systems ultimately lead to the retired voting for better benefits which leads to higher tax burdens on those still working. I think you can see where the resentment generates. The article is a good read.

Minnesota Senators, Stomping on Your Rights Since the Election

I went through the roll call for the bill to extend the expiring provisions of the PATRIOT Act. Guess what I found? Both of our senators, Franken and Klobuchar, voted in favor of extending the provisions.

Anybody want to join me is starting up a recall election? Neither of these pricks should be in office if they’re willing to shit all over our rights like this.

You know who didn’t vote for it? Rand Paul. Just sayin’ (he’s looking good and hopefully continues on this path).

Taking Their Ball and Going Home

Quite the shit storm has hit Wisconsin. Their governor has introduced legislation that is disagreeable to the teacher union in an attempt to stop the state from hemorrhaging money. As you can guess many teachers are pissed because they may have to pay more into their pension account and may lose their collective bargaining rights. Either way some schools were shut down Thursday as teachers walked out. But that’s not the most interesting battle, not by a long shot.

To delay voting the Democrats at the Wisconsin capital walked out, refusing to vote in the hopes of delaying passage of the bill under scrutiny:

Walker, who took office last month, called on the Democrats to return to the Capitol and finish their work. Police were ordered to search for the lawmakers and bring them back to Madison.

“Their actions, by leaving the state and hiding from voting, are disrespectful to the hundreds of thousands of public employees who showed up to work today and the millions of taxpayers they represent,” Walker said.

Yes they stormed out and the governor sent the police after them. I wonder how government officials like having the right hand of their authority sent after them? Either way the Democrats, being politicians, knew what to do:

The 14 Democrats turned out to be holed up at a Best Western in Rockford, Ill., where, they said, Wisconsin law enforcement had no jurisdiction. They said they later dispersed, but remained outside the state.

Good move, get out of the state you represent. Obviously the democrats are cheering this action as heroic while the republicans are decrying this as cowardice. Personally I think it’s a failure to perform the jobs they were hired to do and should be fired immediately.

“Representatives” are elected to represent our interests in law making (they rarely do it but that’s their job). They are hired to debate issues and vote on legislation. By walking out the democrats in Wisconsin’s legislature are refusing to perform the job they were hired to do. In the private sector you would be fired for that kind of action and somebody willing to do the job would be hired. If I were the citizens of Wisconsin I’d demand a recall election for each legislator who fled the state, they aren’t doing the job you’re paying them to do. They should be at the capital right now explaining why the proposed legislation is bad not hiding in a hotel in Illinois probably paid for with tax payer money.

Simply taking your ball and going home is childish at best. Do the democrats in Wisconsin feel powerless to stop this proposed budget? Is that why they ran? Welcome to our world. Those of us outside of the legislature get fucked over by you pricks all the time when you pass legislation we disagree with but have no power to stop (see the Health Insurance Company Enrichment Act). The “representatives” who fled to Illinois are finally getting a taste of what the regular citizen gets every time a bad piece of legislation (in other words most legislation) gets crammed through against their wishes. Feeling powerless isn’t so great is it?