Just face it: the private sector runs everything. Financial companies can do absolutely horrible, lose all their money, and somehow the executives still end up receiving generous bonuses on top of their luxurious salaries. Need a bail out? Oh, just let the tax-payers take care of it - it's not like we have a bad economy and people are struggling to make ends meet.
Teachers are getting laid off; having their pay, benefits, and pensions cut; and generally being sent a message that they're worthless, little slimey worms. Somehow cops and firemen get off better when their jobs require a junior high school diploma. In the coming decades there are going to be shanty towns popping up all over the country, set up by former teachers who made like $12 a hour and no longer have pensions because the money was used to bail out financial companies, ensuring that bigwig executives don't have to lose their ski houses in Aspen.
If I have a kid one day, I may mold him into the greediest man on the planet. Screw your ideals, just go into the private sector, make a lot of money, then send your kids to private school like Governor Christie (the biggest teacher-basher) does. My kid is going to be like Michael Douglas in Wall Street. Crush your enemies and backstab your friends. I'll read him Ayn Rand before bed.
Christie is a Republican darling. They loved him up to a few months ago with talk of him running for president. Does he have your vote? Is he better than Obama?
ReplyDeleteFor the record, the money that the federal government used to bail out the financial companies(Citi, BofA, etc) turned a profit for the U.S. taxpayers. How can you complain about that? If you have a moral issue with bailing them out, the counter argument was that if we didn't bail them out we could have experienced another Great Depression. With the economy largely back on track (with the exception of unemployment) and financial regulations enacted to prevent this from happening in the future I don't see the problem.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is that there are lots of places in the govt we are leaking money and people want to think that teachers are the main cause.
ReplyDeleteUnderfunded public pensions are a HUGE liability for states. So that would include all government workers at the state and local level, not just teachers. If you want to talk about government waste on the federal level, the biggest chunk goes to defense spending. But even if that was miraculously cut, that doesn't help the state's budgets.
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't matter what happened with the bail out money, it's the fact that executives in the private sector can fail miserably and still get huge bonuses. Meanwhile one lazy, stupid student gets a 58 on his Regents and a couple teachers are laid off.
ReplyDeleteAnd it's not only about the pensions. Teacher's salaries and benefits are being cut as well... and some are even losing their collective bargaining rights. It's ridiculous.
Ok slow your roll....Without private business and profits then teachers make ZERO, or $2000 like they do in Uganda. The private sector pays for every teacher, cop, missle, tank, bridge, subway car, jail, and bus. If you work for civil service or city/government you should wake up early everyday and shake the hand of every person you see wearing a suit and tie... http://thecaptainpower.blogspot.com
ReplyDeleteIf you work for civil service in NYC you should take a trip to wall street once a week with bagels and coffee and say " Thank you!! Thank You!!Thank you for making so much tax revenue so that my family has this great job with benefits..." Please, Please don't leave NYC and if there is anything you need from us let us know"
ReplyDeleteThe fact is that teachers are underappreciated and don't deserve to be scapegoated like they've been recently.
ReplyDeleteBesides, look at the great state of affairs we're in due to private business. Lets see how many more fake wars we can start.
What John says is 100% true. Tax revenues from the private workers you bash pay the salaries of public employees. I agree teachers don't deserve to be scapegoated. But you can't make this a "us" versus "them" argument. Everything is interconnected.
ReplyDeletePut fingers are getting pointed squarely at teachers. The politicans have made it an "us" against "them" scenario.
ReplyDeleteYou can argue that the private sector caused all of our problems. I'll play devil's advocate and say that it's the teacher's fault because they didn't educate the people who hold private jobs well enough.
ReplyDeleteI would lay off cops in a heart beat, if crime is low why are there 25k cops on the job??....It's all politics.....teachers union laws are weaker...Hire more cops if the crime goes up. In the mean time, summer is approaching!!
ReplyDeletehttp://thecaptainpower.blogspot.com
I'm going to agree with Mr. D here as he is taking a middle of the road approach...it is very complicated.
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