[chadmalik]

Um, I guess you were frozen in cryostasis pre-2007 and missed the entire financial "crisis" which involved something on the order of $14 trillion (i.e. 1 year's GDP or > the entire national debt) was funneled in the form of free money, loan guarantees, etc. into the pockets of Wall Street and the rich. Welcome, and prepare to be surprised at our new president's middle name and how crazy Mel Gibson really is.

[api]

America already totally forgot about that. All I read now is people blaming overpaid union workers (what few there are of those) for our government financial woes. Lobbyists? Bailouts? Corrupt contractors? Endless wars to make the world safe for international corporations? Nah, it's the unionists who are bankrupting us!

(I'm not necessarily that big of a fan of public sector unions... just saying there are much fatter pigs at the trough.)

[starkfist]

Wars and defense contractor money comes out of a mysterious black pool of federal tax dollars. One can actually kinda measure how unionized county sheriffs making $600,000 a year in California are bankrupting the state.

[api]

I don't think that's typical. You're dealing with an outlier there, and a case of blatant flat-out corruption. Most union members do not make anything like that.

[chc]

It's not that union workers are overpaid as a rule, but that a few unions manage to get unmaintainable benefits for their workers (particularly the more influential ones) in order to justify high union dues and bring more power to those union bosses. A lot of union workers I know don't really like their unions too much, but it doesn't matter — those unions have become hungry political entities that are no more the sum of their workers than the American government is the sum of its populace.

[chadmalik]

Are those benefits really "unmaintainable"? The FACT is that middle class wages have been stagnant or even declined in real terms since the 70s while executive compensation has absolutely exploded. Corporate profits have gone through the roof as well yet workers have not shared in the gains, and it is not an accident.

I maintain that 90% of the union whining we are subjected to is nothing more than propaganda for obvious peoples' benefit.

[chc]

That's why I said only some specific unions are this way, not all of them. The GM workers are one example. Yes, their corporate masters were overly well-compensated as well, but that cost was at least limited to only a few people whose ranks weren't likely to grow.

At any rate, I think government employee unions are a bigger problem. Corporations are more capable of standing up for themselves (as you say, sometimes too capable) than a government hobbled by political machinery.