Things Are Going to Get a Lot Worse

Public-sector unions aren't protecting government workers against abuse; they're inflicting abuse on the rest of us -- because private workers pay for all the government jobs by losing their own jobs and with higher taxes. _NYP

Public sector unions are sucking the blood out of the private sector.

Thirty years ago the vast majority of union workers were in the private sector. Public employees in unions reached parity with private sector members by 2009. This was aided in part by campaign contributions from the unions to elect Democratic Party candidates and generous pay packages and retirement plans passed by those same politicians in return.

By 2010, the general public received a series of shocks. The first shock was the jobless recovery of the Great Recession that cost 8 million jobs. Most of the job losses occurred in the private sector yet the majority of the $800 billion Stimulus Bill went to “save and create” public sector employment. The second shock was learning that civil servants earned twice that of private workers. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, Federal workers received average pay and benefits of $123,049 while private workers made $61,051 in total compensation. The third shock was revelation of incredible retirement plans doled out by politicians since 1999. In 2002, California passed SB 183 that allowed police and safety workers to retire after 30 years on the job with 3% of salary for each year of service, or 90% of their last year’s pay. During the Great Recession, fireman began retiring with $150,000 pensions at age 52 despite a life expectancy approaching 80. In Orange County CA, lifeguards, deemed safety workers, retired with $147,000 annual pensions. The Orange County sheriff, recently convicted of witness tampering, will receive $215,000 annually while in jail. Bob Citron, the Treasurer of Orange County who pushed the county into bankruptcy in the 1990s, receives a pension of $150,000 per year. A tsunami of anger and resentment is building. _NG

$3 trillion pension disaster on the way Will Obama Pelosi bail out their union buddies yet again -- at the private sector's expense?

Pension Tsunami blog

Overpaid government worker blog

Is it time to end tenure for university indoctrinators?

At a time when nearly one in 10 American workers is unemployed, here’s a crew ...who are guaranteed jobs for life, teach only a few hours a week, routinely get entire years off, dump grading duties onto graduate students and produce “research” on subjects like “Rednecks, Queers and Country Music” or “The Whatness of Books.” Or maybe they stop doing research altogether....dropping their workweek to a manageable dozen hours or so, all while making $100,000 or more a year... _NYT

And those are the more responsible of the tenured professors. ;-)

Things are going to get a lot worse, because there are a lot more shoes left to drop.

As US interest rates inevitably rise, every additional $trillion that Obama adds to the national debt will be felt by all but the richest Americans. Eventually even Obama zombies will mutter Obama's name as a curse, like everyone else.