Cutting Public Sector Wages Will Make Recession Worse

[Downfurlife]

This is so, so, so complicated. Keynesian, Consertive, Neoliberal, Communist whatever. We have schools like Harvard, MIT and others who follow these trains of thought and are often paid to assist to help write laws but their potential bias' are not disclosed. I just started trying to learn - college(additional schooling) is not an option. Can you please recommend by post or email some good websites/resources to help me. Everyone thinks their system is best. I want to learn.

[philais]

This was a total joke interview right? Money has to come from taxpayers... not as much money, either a paycut for government workers or layoffs and smaller government.

So we taxpayers don't have the money, so tax people more... is this real?

[38dragoon38]

@philais You seem to have misunderstood what is being said. Have another watch...

[marpoq]

if we all need to sacrifice our fair share, what are the rich sacrificing? they're not even sacrificing their tax cuts. the rich need to start putting their share in as they used to

[jimlaregina]

Wisconsin may signify either the start of America's overdue labor movement revival or the final nail in democracy's coffin.

[AJsOwner]

First class, Paul. Thanks.

[ace8842]

Going into more debt will make the recession worse. We can't keep looking short term for solutions, which is what the unions and those on the left want. Temporary concessions will only last until until the unions elect the next Democrat who bends over for them in exchange for votes, and then rigs the system again.

[dianarose13]

@ace8842 Securing the income of the working class is NOT a short term solution. The Unions and the Democratic Party have been selling out the working class for a long time, the Republicans are just more ruthless about it. If you look at what's going on, the Unions are willing to go offer concessions on wages, they just want to make sure they receive dues from the workers.

[sigworth223]

It's laughable when people point to right leaning think tanks and point to the fact that their financed by billionaires. What about George Soros? He's financed many different ventures in the media that promote left leaning politics? Why not try to discount the rhetoric being said by the right leaning think tanks instead of complaining about their financing.

[ytgv3fc7]

01 @donnyforte2 Recirculation of wealth is not required to be valid wealth.

You have no claim on the need for recirculation. All you need to know is that the day will come when it is spent and no one may choose that day but the owner.

Everything else is theft and slavery by definition: you are hoping someone else's work goes to your benefit, rather than their own benefit.

"You're essentially creating and sustaining tyrants with mounds of money

[ytgv3fc7]

02 @donnyforte2 from family to family"

Wrong. I am making it clear: the act of tyranny is taking this wealth, not holding it. To hold it is the precise opposite of tyranny.

"I can point to the Koch brothers and point to someone living in poverty with two jobs"

And yet this proves none of your claims.

Why do you think that is?

If you think this is excessiveness then you are blind.

What is really visible is no such thing: what is really visible is a person

[ytgv3fc7]

03 @donnyforte2 working 2 jobs that can move and work 1 for more pay.

What you are really seeing is a vast amount of wealth that is not theft of any sort, nor excessive, until you can PROVE an event of fraud or theft used to get that wealth.

By all means, please prove it & I will back ANY confiscation required to reverse the theft.

Here's a good question. How do you know your own wealth won't be questioned as being excessive? How do you know where the line

[ytgv3fc7]

04 @donnyforte2 will be set?

And if you are judged in excess, to whom will the money go once it is taken from you, since you didn't take it from someone else to get it?

[ytgv3fc7]

@donnyforte2 Bailouts certainly are a theft. Fraud by selling something which does not exist, like short silver contracts in excess of total world supply that may ever exist on Earth, like mortgage-backed securities, all that is fraud. All confiscation of proceeds of such fraud is valid in reversing thefts for which ample evidence exists. A so-called CEO-wage of 400x entry level is a fraud. We must refuse all such jobs, products of corporations, as needed to stop this.

[99cachorro]

What recession? I thought the pres said it was over!

[slimpyman]

how about we the people chose what our state does with our tax money.... i dont care about economists, but i think i can spend our money in better ways than they currently are!

[DigitalAnvilGroup]

Cutting public workers will make it worse...not cutting will make it worse...we only have once place to go- We HAVENT EVEN STARTED TO FEEL THE PAIN...we will be lucky to retain the damn country...

[Elin48]

@THEBRUTALSIX you are wrong, not this video.

[independence4wales]

@Elin48 The public sector union wants to strong arm you, the taxpayer, for more money. If you are happy for that okay, I am not okay with that. Private sector unions are something else. He nags on about people wanting hospitals and schools, yeah they do but let them keep the taxes they pay for that and let people choose which hospital and school they want to use.

[donnyforte2]

@independence4wales "The public sector union wants to strong arm you, the taxpayer, for more money."

Wisconsin unions have already agreed to Walkers cuts--- just not future bargaining rights.

[ytgv3fc7]

I agree with another commenter here: I am seeing that property taxes do not go down. Be it re-valuations or re-balancing of the equations to allow a higher tax with a lower value of property, they are not going down. Also it's not so much the lack of income on which to pay tax but the giant drain on the remainder by having no prepared saving + having welfare, unemployment, generally. A short measure is needed but long-term a finite resource will be reduced to zero.

[Darkhorse21x]

EAT THE RICH

[GrowTheTruth]

Why in God's name are hardworking people being expected to swallow pay and benefit cuts just because Wall Street fucked up the economy?

Imagine this...your employer goes on a business spending spree and puts the company into debt. However, rather than reduce his spending habits, he decides to fire or reduce the pay of chunk of employees and then cut their pension/ benefits.

That seem fair to anyone else? No.

What's more, it's a recipe for disaster because you NEED employees to run a business!

[38dragoon38]

@GrowTheTruth You are right and, in answer to your first question, the only answer I can think of is because most people will believe whatever the neo-con media tells them. In Nazi Germany the economic problems created by the Treaty of Versailles was blamed on Jews and Bolshevik agitators. Today's crisis will be blamed on Latino immigrants, public sectors, China, Iran, Venezuela, unions, blacks, Muslims/Arabs, liberals, socialists... take your pick - most people will believe what they are told.

[GrowTheTruth]

@38dragoon38 I'll hope that our world is moving towards a much more intelligent future. I think with the outreach of media outlets such as RealNews and more, we'll start to see a far more educated society that will come to understand reality in a much more logical way. :)

[italstal07]

we must start using gold again to trade for things..MADE IN USA!!

[MMicro99]

I work in the Australian public service. So may not reflect conditions for the USA.

The job that I do could pay approx 10 grand more in a private workplace.

But I trade that extra money for job flexibility, recreation leave, sick leave etc.

Comfortable job with less pay or a job with more pay and dog eat dog private business world.

[MerrillMedia]

watch?v=VbblWW2mp_4 This proves that PERI's economists are factually incorrect regarding public sector pay. Public employees shouldn't have the right to strike and refuse services to the same people which they expropriate their money from. States should be able to declare bankruptcy. If the federal reserve or the federal government bailout states then it will be a default through dollar devaluation. Raising taxes on the rich will only drive them out of the state, then WI will get no revenue.

[TheDFIANT]

@MerrillMedia

The video you refer to comes to the conclusion that FEDERAL workers are , in total, paid more than workers in the private sector. State/local workers are BELOW the private sector in total compensation. They say this in the vid you refer to. So when you piss and moan about STATE workers and tell people to watch the video you pointed them to you look like an idiot. You basically powned yourself.

[MerrillMedia]

@TheDFIANT

If you actually listened to the whole video I linked then you would have known that they also studied state employees' wages and benefits and that they are above private sector employees but below federal employees. Now your insults only look worse on yourself.

[TheDFIANT]

@MerrillMedia

It does indeed seem that I have made a grave error. How embarrassing. The only explanation I have is that, in my mind, the chart at 31:20 replaced the slide at 41:00.

I stand corrected and apologise.

[MerrillMedia]

@TheDFIANT

Wow, I appreciate your civility. It's a rare thing on youtube :) I'm always up for debate/discussion if there is something you want to bounce ideas around about.

[gdernie]

DIVIDE n CONQUER... who's making you fight with each other?...think about it!

[gjg62]

Bob Polin mentions that in a recession property taxes go down giving state goverment less to work with. I don't know where he lives, but where I am, property taxes have not failed to increase every year. Propert value has fluctuated and is currently in a dismal state but property taxes have always gone up. Every year. Without fail.

[bozeman14]

this discussion is a farce. these two men (peri instit) are talking their economic book.

both are under the massachusetts 's pension system. i also may add, that it is very generous. they will probably be able to retire at sixty with yearly pensions of 100k or more and with fully paid for health care.

[blackiron60]

The right-wing tried to pull the same shit here in Ontario in the 1990s and the result has been poorer quality healthcare, poorer quality education, a divided working class and a political environment where even the left panders to right-wing arguments about "fiscal responsibility" and "tax cuts" that favor the wealthy at the expense of everyone else - and this is Canada we're talking about here. Workers need to be ready to fight whenever some conservative bastard mentions "cuts".

[ytgv3fc7]

@blackiron60 yup. And all the while we keep out Hudak we've got McGuinty acting just like a Mike Harris wanna-be now with police powers that are illegal, cutting budgets in the wrong places but handing out budget candy-canes where none are deserved. We would be best off with NDP this time but that's not saying much - just that the other two are the worst possible choices. After G20's 50bil theft we should claw back police budgets (dirty cops) and fund HOSPITALS

[jamaulbrown]

The public sector workers should go work for the private sector .. Or except the wages..

[Iamfatbrain]

I can't take PERI nonsense. It's economic theory twisted to fit political agenda.

[guitardds]

I get the point that the public unions did not create the deficit that wall street created. BUT, here's the thing, NEITHER did the taxpayers! A lot of taxpayers in the private sector are having their wages reduced just to be able to keep their jobs. Because, a job, is better than no job. I'd like to see UNIONS accept the fact that yes, they also can contribute by taking a wage cut. By demanding no wage changes puts stress on the taxpayers to pay for it. STOP IT!

[shintsu01]

you will see that the super rich get richer and will sit on their money the middle will shrink lose buying power... will escalate more jobs will be lost and the poor will get poorer. will do criminal acts end up in jail. richest people profit more from jailed poor people. what a great future the us is going to see.......

[carefulcarpenter]

In practicality, I have NO rights or legal protection as an independent worker. Unions help me to hold some sense of value in the market. Organized illegal day laborers collectively hold at 12/hr. I charge based on that level. I'm an educated, skilled, motivated, self-responsible craftsman who would be at 12/hr without union strength. The affluent do NOT respect any rights that otherwise might be perceived that I might have. I'm pretty much looked at as a criminal.

[carefulcarpenter]

Illegals and criminals are perceived, and thus justified, to have no rights. The consumer, and money, are king.

"this magistrate is not the king; the people are the king"

~~Gouverneur Morris, Penman of the Constitution and 1st cousin in our family line.

[chelle329]

This is the best summarization of public workers' wages in comparison to private workers. It debunks the meme that public workers live high off the hog, while private workers suffer. A particular important point made is that eliminating jobs in the public sector hurts the tax revenues of the state as a whole. Public workers constitute a huge part of the workforce and are not exempt from paying the same taxes (as some believe).

[ytgv3fc7]

@chelle329 that doesn't make any sense. 100 %of public worker pay comes from private taxes, it doesn't matter how you internally loop the employee taxes, someone else's taxes who are not government workers are funding it. By cutting public expenses you cut private taxes if you move together. It's the corruption in the middle that is f'ing it up. Just admit it, USA = FUBAR. It's time to run for the hills.

[topthickproducer]

& Supposedly the recession is over, mind you only for the rich.

Therefore, we have to tax the rich, as they owe us for ASSET-SAVING OF THEIR BANKS

[ytgv3fc7]

@topthickproducer You can't just tax the rich while leaving them in power. They will take action to get the money back and they will win. If one of them is a proven criminal you need to jail the bastard and seize all assets and put life-time bans on the kinds of business they can own & run to prevent revenge against the public after they get out of jail.

[topthickproducer]

@ytgv3fc7 Excellent point, we need Bernake, Geithner, Bush, Obama in Jail for allowing THE ULTIMATE HEIST

against the American people.

[ytgv3fc7]

@topthickproducer it's not just the American people. Hyper-Printed USD harms many nations and Yen, Euros and other currencies are getting slammed as well. All those people are suffering from the same Mafia.

[pharmoncer]

It's a right wing conspiracy to benefit the super rich. First, create a financial fiasco for which the middle class ends up bailing out the rich. Second, insist on austerity measures (tax cuts) for the alleged benefit of all but which really benefits the super rich. Third, undermine the supports (collective bargaining) which help support the middle class which then compromises the supports (unions) for middle class political representatives. Fourth, replace democracy with a plutocracy.

[BroBroDude]

i am so shocked that the real news used the PERI institute exclusively on an economic piece

fucking hacks. if you want your PERI boys on every damn show, fine. but at least counter it now with a perspective from someone that is actually literate in economics

real news my ass

[Benwoodruff]

So control for having a Master's Degree but not the actual degree area? So I am comparing a teacher with an MA in English or Education with an MBA or Master's of Engineering?

Sounds like shady econometrics.

[Bunnicula71]

@Benwoodruff

Because making sure our kids aren't morons is SOOOO unimportant, profit, profit, profit!!!!! No offense, but I just can't agree that having high quality teachers isn't worth money. Wisconsin is a STELLAR state with awesome infrastructure, universities, and public safety. I'm not saying that there are no issues to be dealt with,but I am saying this throws the baby out with the bathwater. The quality of life in that state makes the entire south look wretched by comparison.

[Benwoodruff]

@Bunnicula71 I never said it was unimportant (or more importantly that it didn't have value). Having a Masters degree does not mean the teacher is suddenly higher quality. Then again if you read my comment it had nothing to do with the teachers directly.

My comment was on how a trained economist that knows better is trying to lie with statistics. It is not unlike when one uses household data from 1960 until today knowing that the size of households has decreased in that time.

[danL1011]

I love how these guys stutter whenever they try to dance around 'stealing' from others to fund their programs. "Generating revenues", "Federal aid to states", etc.

'Federal revenue sharing?' I'm sure Texans are going to love paying for WI's generosity to their state union workers.

[justonefirefly1]

@danL1011 hEY DUMBASS - TEXAS IS MORE IN DEBT THAN WI SO FIGURE THAT ONE OUT - HEY WHY DO ALL YOU PUSSY COWARD REPUBLICUNTS GO AFTER LITTLE OLDWOMEN - TEACHERS AND NOT THE COPS AND FIREFIGHTERS????? PUSSY COWARDS

[danL1011]

@justonefirefly1 Why are left wing nut jobs always so uncivilized? You would fit right in with the Democratic Senators who skipped town when the game wasn't going their way.

btw, I'm not a Republican.

[justonefirefly1]

@danL1011 BECAUSE REPUBLICUNTS KILLED 5000 AMERICANS AND LIED TO GET A WAR THAT THEY ARE NOT PAYING FOR WHEN YOU FUCKING WAR CRIMINALS GO TO JAIL

BUT THAT IS YOUR STYLE LIE AND FUCKING CHEAT AND MOLEST CHILDREN

PUSSY COWARDS

[danL1011]

@justonefirefly1 You seem to be blinded by your "convictions". Besides not being a Republican, I was also adamantly against the 2nd Gulf War. Take your rants somewhere else.

[guitardds]

@danL1011

That is so true. The left throw such temper tantrums.

[shaydm06]

@danL1011

they sure loved paying for the banks million dollar bonuses....only to STILL be left with no jobs.

[danL1011]

@shaydm06 Most Americans were and are against bailing out the banks. Unfortunately most sheeple are too busy watching American Idol to realize they are being ripped off by the banks with the aid of their gov't accomplices (i.e. Paulson, Geitner, Bernanke). The best way to rob a bank is to own one.

[shaydm06]

make the politicians sacrifice. cut THEIR pay by 10-20%. snatch THEIR pensions away.

[italstal07]

@shaydm06 cut their pay by 50%!!!! and make their health care costs negotiable!!! see if they like it..

[yuri35435]

@shaydm06 Look that’s not a good idea because the corrupt politicians don’t care about their pay so much as they get a more lucrative job when they enter the private sector to work for the guy they are serving.

[shaydm06]

@yuri35435

well let them go and work for the guys they are helping. and let us put some people in there who would look out for regular people (the majority). we need to stop allowing rich people to have so much of a say in things anyway.

[LMIMSsoi]

this guy on the left is full of BS, whats this about "after" you control properly. who's to say what that is. Just look at the bottom line. They get paid more. end of story....

[mrzack888]

@LMIMSsoi so what, even if they get paid more, they didn't cause the recession and debt. it was wall street, time to tax derivatives speculation, and put back glass stegall.

[guitardds]

@mrzack888

Ya, neither did the taxpayers. Quit trying to make the private citizen pay for you. The private citizen had nothing to do with it either.

[italstal07]

@mrzack888 and also end the fed and imprison every living current and ex board member for frauding the citizens..

[LMIMSsoi]

@mrzack888 how are you going to tax derivative speculation ? Just the talk of it has bank setting up offshore

[zebb1111]

@LMIMSsoi ya like theres somewhere else besides the usa where they can better money. no they arent going anywhere and taxing transactions will put an end to multiple trades per second driving prices up and down at the wimm of the bankers. itll also give more sovereign control over currency. wild dollar trades woul go out the window. just a 0.25% tax would do the job.

[ytgv3fc7]

@zebb1111 wrong. Taxing transactions will mean increasing all fees for all investors and all bank customers to re-balance the equations so that profit is again going where it is today in the same proportions. A 0.25% tax would lead to a 10% increase in all bank customer fees or more. period. If you don't like it you have to take all your money out of the bank and keep it that way. Forever.

[ytgv3fc7]

@zebb1111 also there's lots of other places derivative trades can go better than the USA: the UK, Germany, Russia, Australia, Canada, ALL OVER the world.

[ytgv3fc7]

hm, Ok, I know budgets are tight and the reporting on Real News is good but Pollin's normally a knob and over-featuring wayyyyy too many from PERI starts to get annoying after a while. PERI is not the most knowledgeable outfit out there

[ytgv3fc7]

re: estate taxes

it's really evil and unfair to tax people for the event of death or inheritance. It is so evil it should never have existed. It's wrong to tax a donation, it's wrong to tax a gift, it's wrong to tax an inheritance and it's wrong to make such taxes so high that a person gets no inheritance. It removes all incentive for all work except to a) be a criminal with no paper records of money or b) be a poor person unable to help your own children, ever.

[donnyforte2]

@ytgv3fc7 "it's really evil and unfair to tax people for the event of death or inheritance."

So, keep the wealth in the family? Sounds like welfare for the rich to me. Sounds like modern-day kings and queens.

"it's wrong to tax an inheritance and it's wrong to make such taxes so high that a person gets no inheritance"

And no one is talking about "taking all of their inheritance". Excessive wealth should not be tolerated when a vast majority is living on bare necessity.

[ytgv3fc7]

@donnyforte2 welfare for the rich by definition can not include already earned savings and owned property. Welfare by definition requires external money to be given. Be a person very poor or very rich their property is their ownership and to tax it on death is to steal something from a person who's just had a death in the family. That act is evil be a person one who makes $2/day or 2 million a year. Excessive wealth must be tolerated: the opposite is draconian theft, evil, and requires violence

[donnyforte2]

@ytgv3fc7 "welfare for the rich by definition can not include already earned savings and owned property."

Yes it can. It's recipients (the inheritors) are not the reason for it's creation. That person died.

"is to steal something"

Well, excessive wealth is stealing. An environment in favor of the wealthy is basically stealing. You cannot create capital without labor. Labor always comes first.

"requires violence"

Nope, just an educated public. Looking to support a majority, not the very few.

[ytgv3fc7]

@donnyforte2 already owned property by definition never can include welfare. Welfare is always non-owned property or money transferred from non-family members using tax dollars. There is no other valid definition. Your attempted definition is a fraud.

A person dying does not end ownership. That person's will to give at death or before death is 100% valid and no counterclaim has any validity. All such taxation is theft & requires violence to stop it at all times. Including death.

[donnyforte2]

@ytgv3fc7 "or money transferred from non-family members using tax dollars."

Hahahahaha... I love how you added in that "non-family" members. I'd LOVE to see where you got that "welfare definition." Probably some Austrian economics bullshit website.

[ytgv3fc7]

@donnyforte2 an environment in favor of the wealthy is NOT basically stealing. It never has been nor can it be. Again, your attempted definition is a total fraud. Can not be anything other than fraud. There is only one definition of theft: a person takes something else without permission from another person. That is theft. Wealth is not this act. Labor does not always come first either. Wealth exists IN THE GROUND, food we grow, gold we mine, before it is owned by 1 person. Labor comes last.

[donnyforte2]

@ytgv3fc7 "Labor does not always come first either. Wealth exists IN THE GROUND, food we grow, gold we mine, before it is owned by 1 person. Labor comes last."

Wow. How do you cultivate food and how do you get access to gold? You have to do the labor first. Food to sustain this large of a population doesn't grow naturally. And gold doesn't grow on trees.

[ytgv3fc7]

@donnyforte2 supporting the majority, and educating the public, leads to the precise opposite of your conclusions. Your conclusions actually support the few, the minority, the people who do not work enough or at all, who do not own enough or anything, who have no right of claim to anything. The majority of people are the ones I am defending because wealth is anything, even a single quarter, one owns and has not stolen, which you have no right to steal.

[ytgv3fc7]

@donnyforte2 just so we are clear: those intending to take on the event of death are targets and should be killed immediately. It is such a dire evil that every person attempting to extract such a tax (theft) on death (a sad event and not a trade, transaction or requiring a state-paid for service) requires the thief to be killed or so badly injured the practice stops. Example: I may let gold be inherited to my children. Someone tries to take it to tax it. End result: poison trap + death. Fair

[ytgv3fc7]

@donnyforte2 It is no more valid to say excessive wealth is stealing, than to say you are stealing my oxygen so I have a right to stop you from taking more oxygen.

The very concept is a lie and a fraud designed to do massive evil to others who have done no wrong.

If you have evidence of one person committing one theft your complaint is valid.

If you claim all ownership is theft you are evil.

If you claim some people's ownership is wrong but yours is not you are evil.

[donnyforte2]

@ytgv3fc7 "than to say you are stealing my oxygen so I have a right to stop you from taking more oxygen."

I'm sorry, is this Spaceballs? Are we selling air in cans now? I'd like a can of Perri-air, please.

"If you claim all ownership"

Never said "all" ownership. Just not excessive ownership of all new and current wealth.

You wish to establish modern day kings. Where money is circulated only within a few hands instead of a majority where the labor is responsible for this capital.

[ytgv3fc7]

@donnyforte2 is it spaceballs? I have no claim on your oxygen, you have no claim on my wealth. Neither is stolen. You have no claim on the wealth of the wealthiest on Earth: their wealth is not stolen by the nature of it existing in the hands of one. Your claim is hereby disproved. You can not define "excessive" ownership because there is no such thing: all ownership is valid, none is excessive. I have no wish for kings: you wish to rob people of their ownership & justify it. You can not.

[donnyforte2]

@ytgv3fc7 "their wealth is not stolen by the nature of it existing in the hands of one."

This vast majority of this wealth is never recirculated. You're essentially creating and sustaining tyrants with mounds of money from family to family

"You can not define "excessive" ownership because there is no such thing"

I can point to the Koch brothers and point to someone living in poverty with two jobs. If you can't see the "excessiveness", then you're just plain trolling me. Kinda boring, actually.

[dianarose13]

@ytgv3fc7 Profit is theft. A society that says that profit is more important than the general welfare is theft. Its not only theft of the current members of society, but the future generations. There is a big difference between the law and justice. Was Huckleberry Finn helping to steal the property of another, or was he acknowledging what was just?

[ytgv3fc7]

@dianarose13 much profit is theft but to be lawful and moral we must identify specific events, guilty parties and act on each event, not label it all. Less than 100% of profit transactions are theft even if it's more than 80%, which I'm sure it is. You risk, using no evidence, nabbing totally innocent parties. For any 2 people for whom there is 100% transparency of profit-margin there is no theft upon agreement of trade. Could be high-efficiency cost-reductions on both parties, but it's legit

[ytgv3fc7]

@dianarose13 so for example, find me the transactions where a person was led to believe the profit margin was 2, 5, 50% lower than the actual and I'll call it theft alongside you & demand confiscation. Show me where 1 or more (maybe all) parties gained (profit) more than before, 100% open about how those gains turn up & all voluntarily agree and I will have to say that all parties did evade theft so there's no crime, no confiscation, no penalty.

[ytgv3fc7]

re: taxing high-revenue households

Don't you think this will drive people to leave states, maybe leave the whole USA? Maybe under-report their income or change their job or just give up and stop working to ensure they get at least 100% of what they do work for, even if it's off the record? Many people feel unhappy at being unfairly taxed & would rather see less taken for no fair reason than some taken + higher income. It can happen. Then we see the biggest depression in all history.

[ytgv3fc7]

re: more spending. NO.... no no no.

You need to cut spending down to a sensible level and keep it that way for good. The prior spending levels were wrong and unsustainable. That "recovery" is destruction of the economy. People ran out of income and went to credit. Ran out of credit and went to bankruptcy. Ran out of that & unemployment rolled in. No way. All wrong. Bad economics.

Savings needs to go up like 30%, spending needs to stay at these levels or slightly lower.

[independence4wales]

@mrzack888 The recession was the fault of government because they were back-stopping the gambles made by the banks. If someone said to you "go to the Casino, bet as much money as you want, if you lose, we will pay for your losses so your gambling is risk free." If someone offered you that what would you do, wouldn't want to to see if you could give yourself and your family a better quality of life? I am not defending the banks, I think they should have been left to go into bankruptcy.

[mrzack888]

@independence4wales how is this problem related to unions? the recession was not government's fault, the only fault government had was the wrong response, and for deregulating the wall street banks in the first place, but the real problems didn't happen until 8 years After deregulation due to low interest rates set by private fed and magnified by higher computing power and internet speed. Government did NOT cause this. You can only blame government for not properly regulating wall street.

[independence4wales]

@mrzack888 Hi, in the comment I replied to you were talking about Glass Seagal (I agree with you here) and Wall Street. About the unions, again, it is the government's fault for promising things they couldn't deliver in the name of gaining votes. About it not being the governments fault, you say their response was wrong, I agree. And I don't think you agree with the government saying that you as a US taxpayer will bail out the banks if their gambles go bad, because that is what is happening

[donnyforte2]

@independence4wales "About the unions, again, it is the government's fault for promising things they couldn't deliver"

It can be delivered if taxes aren't favoring the wealthiest. Therein lies the problem. In a recession like this, unions are willing to compromise... and they did with Walker (for all of his "emergency debt worries")... but Walker wanted to remove a little extra something that had nothing to do with balancing the budget: future bargaining rights of unions.

[justonefirefly1]

@LMIMSsoi They do not - where the fuck was your big mouth when they used our tax dollars to given the ceos and wallstreet the fucking billions in bonuses????? Didn't hear you cowardly ass whining then

[LMIMSsoi]

@justonefirefly1 I think it was one of the biggest mistake to bail out wall st, that was a chance to let the game end. They didn't.. they wanted the game to continue.  Whats coming next most are not ready for. Peace

[cheddyrod]

@LMIMSsoi You did not do very well in math in school.