At the same time, many individual states and our national government are fiscal and budgetary train wrecks as well.
In sum, we are witnessing in real time, including but not limited to, such things as the following: that our public sector pensions and health care promises for public workers are unaffordable, our increasingly nationalized health care system is a mess, and our efforts to educate our young people through a government knows best system of public education (including K-12 through college) is needlessly expensive and rapidly becoming uncompetitive on a worldwide basis.
Meanwhile, Social Security and Medicare are operating in a field of dreams.
Financial literacy is pervasive throughout our society.
Simply put, we don't know what we need to know and can't afford to keep doing what we've been doing.
Government is not the answer to our problems: We the People are.
Despite our many problems, there's growing hope as We the People get "mad as hell" and become aware that depending on self interested government knows best officials is a losing strategy, and that self reliance, embracing personal freedoms and taking responsibility for our actions are the only true and lasting solutions to our many and deep moral and financial problems as individuals, families and as a nation.
We'll focus herein on what outgoing Mayor Bloomberg of New York has labeled the 'Labor-Electoral Complex' and the debilitating impact it has had and continues to have on many of our larger cities such as New York, Detroit, Chicago and others too numerous to mention.
The 'Labor-Electoral Complex' has this to stay:
"New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg . . . saved his best speech for last. . . . he coined a term this week that deserves national currency—the "labor-electoral complex."
That's how he described the public union political machine that has ruined so many American cities. "We cannot afford for our elected officials to put their own futures ahead of the next generation's, and to continue perpetuating a labor-electoral complex that is undermining our collective future," the mayor told the New York Economic Club. Cities are dynamic and attractive places to live, but their future is jeopardized by "the explosion in the cost of pension and health-care benefits for municipal workers."
He knows this from hard experience. When he took office in 2001, New York City spent $1.5 billion a year on pensions. Now it spends $8.2 billion, nearly a 500% increase when inflation rose by only 35%. Add health-care costs, and benefit payments are swallowing an ever larger share of the city budget. . . .
Everybody knows this has to change, but Mr. Bloomberg nailed the main obstacle to reform with his reference to the "labor-electoral complex." This is the cozy relationship between public unions and politicians that dominates modern urban government. . . .
Union cash helps elect politicians who then reward the unions with higher pay and benefits. The cycle repeats until taxes become destructive and spending is unaffordable. Exhibit A is Detroit. But some 38 local governments have filed for bankruptcy since 2010, "largely because of out-of-control pension costs," Mr. Bloomberg said."
Summing Up
Government doesn't know best.
In fact, politicians often don't even try to do what's best for We the People.
They are too busy "feathering their own nests" and "lining their own pockets" while pretending to serve the public interest.
As individuals we have to begin to aggressively assert our rights and take more responsibility for how we live our own lives.
Fundamental change in how we allow our governments at all levels to spend and borrow on our behalf, and not do so at the expense of future generations, is essential.
So let's get busy acquiring the necessary knowledge and having the courage to stand up for what's right.
And not blindly trusting our "elected trustees" to do what's right for us.
Our kids and grandkids are depending on us.
Knowledge is power.
More to come.
Thanks. Bob.
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