Do we get rid of the Unions?  Are the Unions really what is hurting businesses and our economy?  If you think Unions are the problem, you might want to read this.

Our government was created to serve the people. The government  consist of elected officials that are chosen representatives of the people — it is those representatives that fight for the rights and concerns of the people. These representatives take the concerns and issues expressed by the people and make laws that will protect and help the people. Do you think one person can go to Washington and present an issue and get some consideration? Not likely. Do you think one person can simply walk up to the president and ask him to change a law? Not likely.

Now consider the Unions. Unions were created to serve the worker/laborers. The Unions consist of elected officials that are chosen to fight for the rights of the workers. The officials of the Unions do what is known as ”collective bargaining” which is where the Unions may negotiate with employers over wages and working conditions on behalf of the employees. This is what is considered as fighting for decent wages and working conditions for the employee (worker/laborer). What would happen if a lone employee went up to his/her employer and requested a raise or better working hours? The first time nothing, if the employee approached the employer again, they might be looking for another job.

If you noticed there’s not much difference between the structure of our government and a Union, you would be correct. We have representatives in Congress and we have representatives in Unions. If you’re in the mind of thinking that Unions are wrong and not needed, then perhaps you should think the same about our government in that is also wrong and not needed.

I on the other hand think we need our government and we need Unions. There is more power behind a Congressman speaking on issues on behalf of the people of the country than one citizen speaking for themself. There is more power in a Union representative speaking on behalf of hundreds or thousands of workers than one employee speaking out against low pay or poor working conditions. A citizen cannot get a law changed without support — a worker cannot get better wages or working conditions without support. A citizen might get ignored, a worker might get fired.

Unions have achieved better pay, better working conditions, shorter working hours and better benefits for the worker. During two major economic growth periods in U.S. history — first agriculture,which was tobacco and cotton those that made great wealth used slaves; the second was during the industrial revolution, which was steel, railroad, and oil – those that made great wealth paid their employees pennies a day — and in both periods the workers worked 14 -16 hour days – there were no Unions in either case.

To get rid of Unions is taking away power from the worker/laborer and giving more power back to the employer and the wealthy. So, think again when you hear someone saying Unions are bad for the economy — based on who’s checkbook?

When it come to politics, those that go into it want “power” and with that power comes money.  But here’s the deal, more often than not, those that get into politics get some power and start abusing it, lose focus and they start becoming greedy — either for the power or for the money and in many case they want both.  Our current group of politicians are totally out for power and money and they are out of control going for it. They are lying, bending the truth and simply being deceitful. Why?  Because, the people are letting them! We the people are not stepping up and saying “YOU’RE LYING!”  Case in point, San Diego Councilperson Carl DeMaio — he is absolutely a liar. I say that because he is!  If you were asked by someone if you walk your dog on a leash and you said “yes’ and the next day you heard that you were abusing animals for your own pleasure – would that be the truth? Of course not. If you took your family out for a special occasion at a very nice resturant and some neighbor saw you and decided to tell everyone that you were rich and spending lots of money all the time — would that be a true statement?  Again, of course not, but you can see how it can be mis-interpreted by someone with bad intentions.

This man has nothing but bad intentions and he is not the solution to fixing this city’s problems — as a matter of fact he is one of the biggest  problems — he’s another liar.

Here’s something I read that you need to keep in mind: One percent of the nation owns a third of the wealth in this country. The rest of the wealth is distributed in such a way as to turn those in the 99 percent against one another: small property owners against the propertyless, black against white, native-born against foreign-born, intellectuals and professional against the uneducated and unskilled. These groups have resented one another and warred against one another with such vehemence and violence as to obscure their common position as sharers of leftovers in a very wealthy country. 

This is what is being done by this man and other politicians now — they are simply stirring it up with the 99 percent to keep them fighting while they gain more money and power.  They will not be exposed to the aftermath of what happens after they implement these “so-called” solutions that will not fix this city’s problems. But, they will create NEW  problems which when these new problems arise, they will have made their money and have NEW solutions to fix those problems. All this is going on while “we the people” get stuck with more and more problems and they gain more and more power and money. You see when you start believing what they’re telling you then they gain power over you.  

Stop and think — city officials who are saying they have solutions to save money – they are not going to save “we the people” any money — they are saving the money for themselves. This matter of the city needing to save money is not as hard as it appears – If they need to save money simply go to the departments within the city and tell supervisors, directors and mangers to do a better job or they’re fired!  As for what they ”say” the money is being spent on – hey if it is more than they can afford then it’s simple –prioritize your responsibilities, stop taking on new projects and pay your obligations first until you start making more money. Taking money from people that have earned it is not a solution — it’s called stealing and robbery.

There is ABSOLUTELY NO BENEFIT TO THE PEOPLE/CITIZENS WHEN OUR PUBLIC OFFICIALS SAY THEY NEED TO SAVE MONEY – NO BENEFIT!

It’s still amazing how far a million dollars can go. And if a million dollars is amazing – just what do you think a Billion dollars can do? 

Let me walk you thru a bit of math.  It takes a 1,000 million dollars to equal a Billion dollars ( 1,000 x 1,000,000 = 1,000,000,000).  Now that is a lot of money, right?  Here’s another way of looking at it — a million seconds is 12 days and a billion seconds is 31 YEARS!  Oh, let me get back to dollars.

Now, let’s say a homeowner is upside down on their mortgage by $500,000 (that is a half million dollars). What that means is your home WAS worth $1 million before the housing crash and now  it’s worth half ($500K).  So, let’s say our President and elected government officials decided to help TWO THOUSAND (2,000) homeowners that are upside down with their mortgage by the same half million each. They would spend $1Billion to help those homeowners in keeping their homes. So, $2 billion would save 4,000 homeowners from foreclosure. Now that was four thousand homes saved from foreclosure with $2 billion. But we know that there were lots of homes that were upside down by a lot less than that, some were in the range of $200 – $300K or even less. For the sake of those that have lost their homes, let’s use the average of $250k as the depreciated amount. Using the same math as above - 4 homes at $250k of loss value each would equal $1million.   

So, lets see the math, again it’s 1000 x 1,000,000 = 1,000,000,000. Watch closely – 1,000,000,000 divided by 1,000,000 = 1,000. Take that 1,000 x 4 = 4,000 homes that could be saved from foreclosure. That means that the government could have spent $1billion and saved 4,000 homeowners from losing their homes. $2 billion is 8,000 and so on.

As you have just seen, with $4 billion the government could have saved more than 12,000 homes from foreclosure. Do you think that with another $4 billion the government could have saved over 24,000  homes from foreclosure? That would have been only $8 billion. Does anyone know how many homes are sitting in foreclosure because they are upside down on their mortgage?  One report was over 65,000 – that would still cost less than $30 billion. 

Now, here, my question, What happen to the “Stimulus” money of $700 Billion that was “suppose” to bail out our economy?

If I have you thinking about it great, but if you don’t agree with me that’s ok too. Hey, it’s ok we’re all going to have to pay it back, so we’re all losers in this.

Here’s my problem with this – we have all these people in this country complaining about how bad things are – and yet here we have government officials that treat us like we can’t feed ourselves or worst to stupid to know anything, so they (government officials) have gotten so arrogant that they believe that they can simply tell the public (“we the people”) anything and we just go along with it like we don’t know any better. Do you like being thought of as stupid?

Wake up and say something! We are being ripped off!

Hey, Consider this — the person that assigns the reporter the task of investigating the salaries of government workers is most likely a millionaire. I don’t know a single poor person that owns a newspaper or TV station. Consider this — they’re only doing this because they want a reaction and to use the ignorance of the public to stir the pot in order to reduce wages and lower YOUR standard of living. 

Yes, that’s right they are manipulating you with the news. Honestly do you really think that paying a government employee is what’s breaking the government’s budget?  PLEASE, is this country full of STUPID people or what?  Government employees are just like anybody else that works for somebody — they get paid what the company or government decides to pay them – union or no union — it’s only a little better with the union. An employer, and this includes government, will only pay what they can afford – the worker does not control the purse strings of any company. There are negotiations, but it will always be in favor of the company. A smart business owner is not going to go broke or lose the business by paying the employees too much money, they will layoff people before that happens.

In the case of government, it is the best business to be in. Why, because the government doesn’t make or sell anything to make money — it just collects money through taxes – and as long as people pay taxes the government will always have money. If you’re thinking that we don’t pay enough taxes – consider this – there are taxes on gasoline, food, clothing, cars, tires, houses, rentals, bikes, TV, computers,  hotels, motels and then there’s fees on parking, parks, schools, books, phones, airplane tickets, and the list goes on – there is practically nothing you can do or own that you don’t pay either a tax for fee to use. Now the problem with our government is that it has given out billions to other countries, bailed out a few big executives along the way and now it needs to make up for it. Now of course those countries and executives don’t have to pay that money back, it was ”loaned” to them in good faith. Now the government needs that money to support the domestic programs that were promised to the taxpayerspublic. So, as a diversionary tactic, they (politicians/wealthy) will use the workers as the scapegoat as the reason for their overspending. All they have to do is put a few comments on TV, newspapers, internet, and radio about how much money the government worker is making and wait for the public to cry foul.  And the public falls for it hook, line and sinker.

This method of stirring the pot to get public outcry is the nothing but class warfare.  Except it is the lower classes fighting between each other. That’s like someone that lives in a poor neighborhood getting robbed by someone in their own neighborhood – do you think the rich neighborhoods feel threatened?  They want the people to fight amongst themselves while they (the wealthy) sit back and watch. “Oh, the poor taxpayer is getting ripped off by those overpaid government workers…” That is so lame!

Listen, when they get the public to scream about some government worker getting “overpaid” it opens the door for them to lower wages. Why? Because the public wants lower wages.  Now does that make sense to you?  If it does then you are STUPID! This is class warfare - the middle class against the lower class. How do you think you can rise up from the lower class if you don’t make more money. Do you think by lowering the wages of government workers, or for that matter any worker, will make your life better?  NO! You just want them to be just as poor and miserable as you, right? Yeah, and that’s the way those in power (printing and reporting the news) want you to think.  

My god, are we that ignorant or just plain stupid. Those in charge/in power  certainly think the latter of the public.  It just doesn’t make sense that we let the same thing happen over and over again. They give a little and then take it away with interest.

Stop it! Stop letting them make fools of you.  Let me clarify something, when I say them or they, I’m referring to the elitist, wealthy, politicians who are in power either in government or big business. These are the people that pull the strings and manipulate the masses. You do realize that most of the wealth of this country is controlled by less than 1% of the population and in the whole world it is less than 10% that controls the worlds wealth.  In other words those with all the wealth and power of this world could go and meet in a  small village in the alps for a ski vacation and they could fit them all in two hotels. Now, how easy would it be to have a meeting and decide the fate of the world and still have time to hit the slopes and be back in time for dinner? 

Hey, if you’re one of those that are screaming about how much some government worker is making – stop for a minute and consider this — in 1977 the average income was $15,070 a year, a new car cost $4,785 and a gallon of gas was .65 cents a gallon. If it were up to the wealthy that’s what you would still be making today, but everything else mentioned would cost more.

Go ahead, lower the wages, see who wins.

Now it may be true the city is broke and it’s always true that any entity should save money. The problem is that it’s the very same elected officials and politicians that put the city in this financial mess. Now they want to tell you they can fix it. 

First lets all agree on one thing — politicians lie! If this is something we all agree on, then why would we believe they can fix a financial problem? That’s like asking a bank robber to fix the bank’s security system after they just got caught robbing it. 

I know there’s a lot to talk about when it come to the financial problems the city is facing, but lets just start with one – Outsourcing.  This is by far an absolute scam! Yes in the beginning there will be some money saved by the city when it outsources some of it services, but those savings will soon disappear in a couple years or less, then the balloon payment hits. Oh yes, it’s just like an adjustable rate loan with a teaser rate that will be followed with a balloon payment that will completely wipe you out.

Lets first understand what the real purpose of outsourcing is all about. It was intended to be a temporary fix for an immediate, one-time only emergency. You own a business,say it repairs motors and you are one of a few businesses that repair motors. One day your shop is completely booked with motor repairs, and a regular customer comes in with a bad motor that needs to be fixed immediately, you want to keep their business, so you take it in. What do you do? You call up one of your competing businesses and send it out to be repaired so that you don’t lose that customer. That is outsourcing.  Now by doing that one time you keep your customer and your business.There are a few  other considerations that come into play here - (1) Your shop is still liable for the repairs, so you still have to warranty the work (2) how much more did you have to pay to send it to the other shop.(3) this will cut into your profit margin. These points may not be any problems at all, that is if you only have to do it once in an emergency. 

Now look at it as a regular everyday operation. You hire a company to do your work, you have a contract with that vendor.They agree to a certain price and other terms and conditions. Now in order to keep the price down, the outside vendor must keep their overhead cost low so that they can make a profit — the key here is PROFIT! The city doesn’t need to make a profit on their work. Businesses must make a PROFIT, if they don’t they will go out of business. As cost go up the vendor has to pass on those increased cost to the city and that means raising the cost in the contract – if they don’t they go out of business. The city doesn’t care, they just find another vendor. This becomes a big bad problem when there is a limited number of vendors that do the work or for that matter even bid for the work due to the conditions set by the city. The city then falls at the mercy of the limited number of vendors that do that work, so it doesn’t matter what the city wants to pay, the vendor knows that they have the city over a barrel. This places the city in a difficult situation and having to pay more for the service.  Now the city can’t go back and do the work themselves because they got rid of all the workers and equipment that did that work. Now they’re stuck and it cost more than it did before they started outsourcing. (Here’s a little secret, the city will not disclose this information until those that put this plan in place are long gone.)

This may not appear to be a big deal, but consider who this affects – you the taxpayer/citizen. The quality of work will eventually decline, the time it takes to receive service will increase – longer wait times. The citizen that needs the service now gets low quality work and longer delays in getting service. What once took a day now takes a week, what once was a courtesy service now the citizen must pay a fee. Now who’s saving money?  Who benefits from this outsourcing solution? Not the citizen. Taxes will go up but your service will go down. But you were told that it will save the city money.  Who actually benfits when the city says they need to save money. The vendors will make more money from the city, they will start getting fat contracts with inflated costs and those same vendors might just happen to get some internal help in gaining those contracts. The vendors win, the politicians win and the citizens lose.

This is not a good solution – nor does it save the city money. It only puts more money directly into the pockets of individuals and certain companies. Again, what did we agree on in the beginning. There is a better solution, which would not take anything away from the citizens and save money. Its very simple - hold all supervisors accountable for their departments production. Increased cost come most often from undisciplined operations. The employee moral would improve immediately if they would stop using the workers as the reason for the city’s financial problems, stop taking benefits away and stop cutting pay.

Here’s the Truth — There is nothing being presented by the politicians running for office that will fix our financial problems. They are simply trying to get taxpayer approval to allow them to take money out of the city treasury and give it directly to individuals and specific companies to make them wealthy or wealthier. Don’t fall for it, you’re only going to lose more.

Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is a necessary evil, in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, out calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer. Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built on the ruins of the bowers of paradise. For were the impulses of conscience clear, uniform, and irresistibly obey, man would need no other lawgiver; but that not being the case, he finds it necessary to surrender up a part of his property to furnish the means for the protection of the rest; and this he is induced to do by the same prudence which in every other case advises him out of two evils to choose the least. Wherefore, security being the true design and end of government, it unanserably follows, that whatever form thereof appears most likely to ensure it to use with the least expense and greatest benefit, is preferable to all others.  (T. Paine, Common Sense)

This all speaks of the fact that by people coming together we create society and out of necessity to keep and maintain what we have we create government.

The problem is that we (the people) are allowing government to grow and grow and by doing so it (the government) will control us. We need to remember what was said in the beginning about government – government is a necessary evil. Do you like the idea of allowing evil to grow and grow?

“Good government demands the interest of intelligent citizens” (San Diego County Administration Building)

As for me, I am somebody, yet I am nobody. I am just an individual that has decided that I really wanted to express my opinions to people that are willing to listen.  

Perhaps you may wonder who is this person who thinks they have an opinion that’s worth something — Hey, you’ve heard that old expression “everyone has an opinion they’re just like rear-ends (to say it politely). Well, we all have ’em but some are just seem better than others (not speaking visually).

I will say that I have a good education, great life experiences to share and some very decent values.

To say who I am would only distract from what I’ve got to say. Often we are quick to make judgement based on who’s saying it rather than listen to what they have to say and to think whether it is true or not  or whether it makes reasonable and rationale sense.

With that said; who am I? I am just a person with something to say about what’s going on in our society and this country itself. I have a strong belief stronger than impression and less strong than postive knowledge.

Hopefully through this exchange it will get you to think rather than go on letting others gradually and systematically gain control over your life. So, if you read further – great, if you don’t then, hey I wish you and your loved ones all the best in everything you do. 

I will close this post with this quote: ”Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all times you can, to all people you can, as long as ever you can.”  John Wesley.