Day: February 18, 2011

It had never occurred to me that Atlas Shrugged was actually about the dire need in this country for high speed rail.

John Hodgman tweets all things Ayn Rand.
Rest assured, John, based on the trailer, they’ve converted the Taggart Transcontinental into a massive freight train operation. Though I do seem to recall seeing a bullet train zip by, presumably it was built with government stimulus funds atop cheap and reliable Rearden metal.
Cognitive dissonance alert: It seems likely that observant Objectivists can only reach Galt’s Gulch by taking the Obama Express! What to do? What to do? Help us, Jeebus.
Rand’s prescription in this instance most likely involves quasi-consensual rough sex. So you know.

I’m as Liberal as they come…

jasencomstock:

danielholter:

evangotlib:

But when you see what Unions have done to America…it’s hard to feel for the folks in Wisconsin.  Have you been to Detroit?  Have you really dug into the US Public School system?  Utter disasters.

Detroit will come back.  The school will be saved.  But unions need to go in order for this to happen.

Agreed… neither side in this current Wisconsin battle is blameless, imho. I just think our new Governor could have taken a more productive path through this process. Yes, the negotiations in years past have put us in a massive financial hole… so maybe there should be some better negotiations by someone on the side of the taxpayers and our representative government who can get people to understand the differences, the problems, and the potential solutions. Instead we get a highly politicized My Cock Is Bigger Than Yours schoolyard bout. Frustrating.

And Jesse Jackson ain’t helpin’ nothin’. In fact, his arrival this morning is a pretty good indicator that things are beyond the practical and deep into the symbolic. So here we sit, Wisconsinites, held hostage by two diametrically opposed political cults more interested in digging in their heels than solving the actual problem.

Anyone who is surprised at this turn of events simply didn’t have their eyes open during the elections this past fall. This is precisely what Scott Walker said he would do if in power. In fact, I’m rather impressed he followed through, even if I disagree with some or most of his proposals.

Wisconsin aside- let us discuss the “what Unions have done to America” and how singularly AWFUL they are:

  • weekends
  • holidays
  • overtime pay
  • safety at work
  • health care for workers
  • unemployment insurance
  • child labor laws

am I missing anything?

I’d only add the dreaded 40-hour work week. Nothing has done more to reduce America to a barren hellscape than that.

Ezra Explains Wisconsin

The best way to understand Walker’s proposal is as a multi-part attack on the state’s labor unions. In part one, their ability to bargain benefits for their members is reduced. In part two, their ability to collect dues, and thus spend money organizing members or lobbying the legislature, is undercut. And in part three, workers have to vote the union back into existence every single year. Put it all together and it looks like this: Wisconsin’s unions can’t deliver value to their members, they’re deprived of the resources to change the rules so they can start delivering value to their members again, and because of that, their members eventually give in to employer pressure and shut the union down in one of the annual certification elections.

What is it with this glut of cogent explanations in the media today? More, please. After all, something has to offset the emerging right-wing and MSM meme that this is primarily about budget cuts and that’s why Democrats have gone missing…

Ezra Explains Wisconsin

There are three things you need to know about the current budget debate. First, it’s essentially fraudulent. Second, most people posing as deficit hawks are faking it. Third, while President Obama hasn’t fully avoided the fraudulence, he’s less bad than his opponents — and he deserves much more credit for fiscal responsibility than he’s getting.

Paul Krugman, reminding us how to start a column. Later, he offers a solution in seven words: “health care, health care, health care, revenue.”
Yep.

Social Security

The size of that fix [required to keep Social Security fully funded] is significant, but not astonishing. Over the next 75 years, the shortfall will be equal to about 0.7 percent of gross domestic product. How much is 0.7 percent of GDP? To put that in perspective, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities calculates that it’s about as much as George W. Bush’s tax cuts for the rich will cost over the same period. Saying we can afford those cuts – which is the consensus Republican position – but not Social Security’s outlay is nonsensical. Coming up with 0.7 percent of GDP isn’t a crisis. It’s a question of priorities.

And this is precisely how it should be talked about every single time a microphone is turned on. Clear, simple terms that highlight the basic stability of the program, the relative ease of fixing it (as opposed to, say, Medicare), and its critical position as the only thing between catfood and dying in the streets for millions of elderly individuals who have by and large paid into it, fair and square. Oh, but now your deal has to change and you have to keep working at your labors until you’re 70. Just makes perfect sense.

The parallels to Wisconsin are striking: A group and the government enter into a deal. Now the government wants to change the deal ex post facto, and uses a bludgeon of “dread Unions” to paper over the fact that they the government are the one dealing in underhanded fashion. And, of course, the media blissfully reports it from the government perspective. This is why we fail.

But, if a few million folks show up on the doorstep of said government, well, things can change.

Social Security