Covering The Assault On Working People

[BridgeTheGap]

A common theme runs through a variety of news stories: there isn’t enough money around, and so working people must take a hit. But is that really the only solution? First, let’s look at the stories. There’s growing talk of letting state governments declare bankruptcy so they can get out of paying pension benefits to retired state workers. As The New York Times put it:

Policymakers are working behind the scenes to come up with a way to let states declare bankruptcy and get out from under crushing debts, including the pensions they have promised to retired public workers.

The article does not really get into why this is all happening, and the only real defense of not going this route is from—surprise, surprise, a union leader, making it sound like this defense is of only parochial interest:

Still, discussions about something as far-reaching as bankruptcy could give governors and others more leverage in bargaining with unionized public workers.

“They are readying a massive assault on us,” said Charles M. Loveless, legislative director of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. “We’re taking this very seriously.”

http://whowhatwhy.com/2011/01/23/covering-the-assault-on-working-people-2/

[CTyankee]

1. WHAT, pray tell, are retirees who have worked all their lives and have been counting on their

pensions, supposed to do? I have a friend who is a plumber for the state university system. He is 60 and his knees are shot from working on them for over 40 years. He is planning on retiring at 62. He's barely hanging on. He's worn out.

This is crazy and it is criminal. Wear working folks like my friend out at hard labor and then screw 'em when they are getting ready to retire. What will happen to him and those like him?

[LiberalLoner]

2. The oligarchy's plan is to let all of us die when we are worn out. That's it. And they

aren't even trying to hide it any more. And for reasons I truly do not understand, a large part of the U.S. is just fine with going along with that agenda and voting for the people who are carrying out this agenda.

[DirkGently]

3. So, when banks go broke because they screwed up, we save them. And make up the diff by screwing US.

There's been a massive, deliberate transformation of the discussion on our economic "problems." They arose due to banks and investment firms exploiting deregulation to make bad bets with their own money (the thing the regulations used to prevent)but the problem is now being discussed as being one of "too much government spending."

And the solution is for working people, civil servants, and teachers to accept less. It's okay to villify, of all people, Social Security beneficiaries who worked all their lives and paid into the system for future benefits, but picking on billionaires who literally destroyed the world's economy in a fit of greed is unacceptably "anti-business."

We couldn't reform the bankruptcy system to allow borrowers to mark down their purchase money loans to market value, in the wake of a collapse caused by the very lenders whose loans would be marked down, who can't even collect more than market value in foreclosure anyway, because that bothers them somehow.

But we can reform bankruptcy to help states impoverish pensioners with no other means of support.

Our country is being packed into gunny sacks and stolen from us.

Right before our eyes.

And our President is most concerned with not offending the people who are doing it.

[BridgeTheGap]

4. "make bad bets with their own money" - I think it was other people's money. But the really big

ones gamed it by buying insurance to cover the inevitable failure. It was just one huge con - game. And the people involved are still paying for lobbyists and making huge campaign contributions in return for the "wink-wink, nudge-nudge." Laughing all the way to the bank in deed!