I am pleased to report the end of collective bargaining at the national level. Unfortunately, I am talking about the UK, not the US, and also unfortunately, local wage bargaining will remain in place. The Telegraph reports National pay rates will be scrapped in budget. Millions of teachers, nurses, civil servants and other public sector...
Many scholars are better versed on the history of public employee unions than I am, but there is one credential I can claim that they cannot: I am a taxpayer in the People’s Republic of New Jerseystan. That makes me an authority on how public sector unions—especially at the state and local level—are thwarting economic...
Economist Allan Meltzer once quipped that “Capitalism without failure is like religion without sin. It doesn’t work.” Americans have been witnessing this axiom on a broad scale, as government efforts to prop up industries, bail out the financial sector and protect select private businesses from failure have only caused a prolonged financial crisis. Without failure,...
California Tax Revenue Plunges Inquiring minds have noticed a huge plunge in California Tax Revenue for the month of February compared to February 2011. That is a 22.55% plunge in spite of the fact that this February was a leap year adding a day to the calendar. Madeline Schnapp, at TrimTabs Investment Research sent me...
Stockton, Calif., a hard-pressed industrial city of nearly 300,000 people in the agriculturally lush Central Valley 80 miles east of San Francisco, is grabbing national headlines because it might become the largest U.S. city yet to enter Chapter 9 bankruptcy. First, it must go through a 90-day mediation process mandated by a new California law...
In the worst possible form of kicking the can down the road, at the worst possible time as well (given the lofty overvalued condition of the stock market), To Pay New York Pension Fund, Cities Borrow From It First. When New York State officials agreed to allow local governments to use an unusual borrowing plan...
Editor’s Note: The claims made in this commentary by Wayne Allen Root are incendiary. But they are true. We are on track in the United States to pay more money to 20 million public sector retirees – at an average pension of $65,000 we will pay these retirees $1.3 trillion per year, then we will...
The gall, arrogance, and stupidity of public union pandering has reached new heights. A senate bill sponsored by written by Sen. Kevin de León, D-Los Angeles seeks to force businesses with five or more employees to create personal defined benefit plans, managed by CalPERS. The Sacramento Bee reports California Democrats push pension plan for nongovernment...
In my last column, I documented how California’s pro-union Attorney General Kamala Harris provided an unfair and dishonest title and summary to a pair of pension reform initiatives submitted to her office, thus effectively killing the measures. Last week the unions tried—and almost succeeded—with an even nastier stunt designed to undermine democracy. In San Diego,...
Bondholders of Stockton, California debt are about to be punished as City Manager Takes Steps Toward Bankruptcy. Stockton, California, may take the first steps toward becoming the most populous U.S. city to file for bankruptcy because of burdensome employee costs, excessive debt and bookkeeping errors that misrepresented accounts, city officials said today. The Stockton City...
The average state or local government worker in California makes nearly $70,000 per year (ref. U.S. Census 2010 State Payroll – California and U.S. Census 2010 Local Government Worker Payroll – California). The average state or local government worker in California, if they work 30 years, will retire with a pension that averages $66,864 per...
Untenable pension promises made by corrupt politicians to corrupt unions in an unholy alliance is about to sink another city. Please consider Providence is facing bankruptcy Rhode Island’s capital city will be in bankruptcy by June if it doesn’t get help resolving its financial crisis. That was the dire warning from Providence Mayor Angel Taveras...
On January 29 Bloomberg reported Bing Races to Beat Michigan Deadline for Union Detroit Deal Democratic Mayor Dave Bing is racing to wrest concessions from 48 bargaining units to erase a $200 million deficit in the home of General Motors Co. and the cradle of the U.S. auto industry. Otherwise, the city of 714,000 dominated...
Every year state politicians loot the pensions of more than 17 million public workers and retirees to “balance” budgets, yet those workers keep putting the looters back into office while fighting the few who try to head off this $4-trillion national economic catastrophe. A look at the latest U.S. Census data shows that over four...