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Strategies & Market Trends : Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: axial who wrote (108313)	2/15/2010 3:12:25 PM
From: Unalakleet	7 Recommendations Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 116555

I don't know if Mish is right about the private sector. But I know for a fact that unions in the public sector are a disgrace. I worked in the public sector and the jaw dropping situation is so surreal that it defies description. It really is enough to make Karl Marx blush. It is shocking. You can't believe what public officials make and many of them don't do anything. I know "don't do anything" is an overused cliche that is often an exaggeration. But I swear to you, many public employees don't do anything. As in nothing. All day long. I watched it myself. You could fire half the staff in any given city or county department and nobody in your town or city would know the difference. People get hired by department managers so that they don't have to do anything, until eventually they don't.

To: axial who wrote (108313)	2/15/2010 3:28:38 PM
From: mishedlo	9 Recommendations Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 116555

You are nuts if you do not see that public unions wrecked the country. I am ok with whatever stupid things private unions want to do. I am also OK if in response owners shut down a plant. You want government telling you that you cannot close your business no matter how much you are losing (or if you have better things to do with your money elsewhere) If so, you are a socialist fool. Mish

To: axial who wrote (108313)	2/16/2010 1:25:14 AM
From: Hawkmoon	2 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116555

There was a time in our history when Unions WERE representing the working man and defending against oppressive and unsafe working conditions. But somewhere along the line they lost their way and thought they held more power than the corporations. They stopped being partners in business and became dictators making demands that exceeded the economic reality. Mish has presented some very compelling examples, especially with regard to public sector workers who are making extraordinary amounts of money that are completely out of sync with the reality in the private job markets. It's an emotionally charged situation that Unions are completely misreading. Taxpayers are not going to put up with paying huge salaries for gov't workers out of their pathetic private salaries. That mining union needs to look at the actual operations of the corporation they are working for, not the entire umbrella organization. If they are not productive enough to make that subsidiary productive and profitable, then how can they justify their wages? Personally speaking, I'm a big believer in workers being stockholders in their companies. Thus, if the company is successful, the workers are successful. However, THAT SAID, there is more than enough room to indict (spiritually and probably criminally) the excessive pay packages that corporate CEOs and bankers are receiving for just moving money around and not adding to actual productivity. Productivity is producing something. It's taking a raw material and adding value to it. It's taking raw skills of workers/engineers and integrating their designs into a functional product that adds to overall economic profitability. And we're falling behind in this field. But underlying all of this is the Mercantilist policies of China and wage differentials between their work force and our own. So.. we have a choice.. Either hoist the walls of protectionism to defend our workforce, or we all suck it up and innovate so that we're even more productive than they are. The choice we'd all like to avoid is seeing US labor forced to compete dollar for dollar with Chinese labor. Btw, it could be even worse.. We could be forced to compete with Mexican labor. Hawk