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Strategies & Market Trends : Strictly: Drilling II -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Roebear who wrote (9281)	3/12/2002 10:33:57 AM
From: isopatch	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 36161

OT/Roebear. Government employees are a privileged class That's not a rant, but a simple fact. During the past 20 years, there's been a sea change that's drastically reduced the LT value of employment in the private sector. We can attribute part of the reason for this to the large decline in nationwide union membership. But there are certainly a variety of other causes there's no time to get into. The past decade, in particular, has seen a shrinking portion of economic growth and the productivity returned to workers in many important industries. Meanwhile an increasing portion of same has been siphoned off to fund rapidly balooning executive compensation packages, at the expense of both workers and stockholders. When the economy is weak, worker benefits are cut, while most top executive compensation continues to increase. And each down cycle seems to exhibit less and less job security for private sector workers. Meanwhile, government Civil Service employees gain tenure and are almost impossible to fired. And layoffs are almost non-existent. Haven't researched the stats. But wouldn't be surprised to find that wages in many key US industries have been lagging behind wage and benefit gains enjoyed by gov workers. And, of course, the private worker's taxes pay for most of that tab. t Friend of ours (in California), a plastics engineer - in his 50s - with excellent employment record and seniority recently laid off with many coworkers and is now working in Walmart! That just doesn't happen to government employees of comparable pay level, seniority and education. IMHO, they have become a privileged class, compared to private workers. Well, back to work. Should have some time to post this afternoon. Best regards, Isopatch