There's something rotten in Wisconsin...

... and it ain't the cheese.

Unless you've been living under a rock you know that Scott Walker, the Republican governor of Wisconsin, has used a supposed state budget crisis to try to break the backs of public sector employee unions, meaning teachers and the like. The claim is that these unions are busting the state budget, so the governor has decided to use this as an excuse to cut off unions' right to bargain for pensions and other benefits, except for salaries.

There are several problems with this, but among them (and I know wherefrom I speak, having spent many years in retirement pension consulting), is that the governor doesn't understand something very basic about pay and benefits, and that is that they are all part of your total compensation. I bet he doesn't even know that term, but anyone who knows anything about worker pay and benefits does. Do teachers make a lot of money? No. But they give up making a lot of money for more security when they retire in the form of retirement benefits. When your employer figures out how much it costs to hire and retain you as an employee, he's not just looking at your base salary - he's looking at how much your pension will cost, how much your medical will cost, how much your training will cost, etc. etc. Your total compensation. You can't split pay and benefits. They're all part of the same package.

In the case of Wisconsin's teachers, they don't make a lot of money (averaging around $44,000 a year) and they don't get a huge pension, either. The reason why Wisconsin and so many other states have budget shortfalls (and there is some argument over whether Wisconsin has a shortfall or a surplus) is simple -- the recession. When you have 9% or so of your population not contributing to the tax base by virtue of the fact that they're unemployed, and when those people are not only not contributing to the tax base but are pulling from the state budget due to unemployment benefits, budgets will understandably be strained. But this is (hopefully) a temporary issue; there is no reason for unions to give up their rights permanently for a temporary issue.

I have to give kudos to The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC. Rachel has been doing an excellent job explaining what the real issue is here, and make no mistake, she's right that the governor is using budget pinches as an excuse to break the public sector unions. Why? Because unions have typically been on the side of Democrats, and Democrats have been on the side of unions. It's the old, and absolutely true adage that Republicans care about corporations, Democrats care about people, in its simplest form.

In Wisconsin's case, though, not all public sector unions were included in the governor's union-busting attempt; the police and firefighter unions were exempted. I bet you can guess why, if you haven't heard already -- those unions supported the Republican governor's election campaign! Oh, oh!! Now I get it! It's all about getting elected/reelected, as usual. But here's the deal... if your argument is that public employees shouldn't be allowed to unionize, then you just vaporized that argument by exempting the ones that contributed to your campaign! Hello!!

Here's another point... Gov. Walker gave big tax breaks to businesses equal to the amount of the monetary concessions he wants from the teachers' union (which, by the way, they've already agreed to as long as they can keep their collective bargaining rights). So here it is again, the Republicans making sure businesses (and the wealthy) get theirs by taking it out of the hides of the middle class.

Have some unions gone too far doling out much too generous pay and benefits? Absolutely. The UAW, for instance, nearly destroyed the auto manufacturing industry in this country by doing so. But that is not the case here. What is going on in Wisconsin (and now in other Republican majority state houses in the Midwest) is simple -- union people are a traditional Democratic base. They donate money to Democratic candidates, and the Republicans don't like it. But hey, the majority right-wing Supreme Court not too long ago gave corporations the same rights as people when it comes to donating to campaigns, and whose campaigns do you think big businesses are going to donate to? For the Republicans, though, that was not enough. They figure that if they break unions there will be less money flowing into Democratic candidates' coffers, and they're using the recession as an excuse to try to make that happen.

UPDATE: Yesterday a left-leaning journalist pulled a prank on Gov. Walker by calling him pretending to be one of the billionaire Koch brothers of Koch Industries (think energy companies). On tape the governor made clear his real intentions have nothing to do with money (which we already knew, considering those concessions had already been given), but that the real impetus here is to break the unions. This is the same thing that is happening in other states now with Republican governors, which he himself said when he thought he was talking to his billionaire buddy. Large corporations have bought the Republican Congress. They have bought all these new Republican governors. They are buying our government. And if you think this isn't an out-and-out assault on the American way of life, you haven't been paying attention. Most large corporations already pay NO taxes. Zero. But they still want the middle class to pay for their bloated salaries and their lavish lifestyles. They want to cripple regulations that hold them back from doing anything to keep them from destroying the environment (note that Speaker Boehner wants to cut funding for the EPA). And they want the American people to pay for it all. If you voted for a Republican, this is what you voted for. Governor Walker should be recalled, tarred, feathered, and ridden out of town on a rail.

Sayonara Fifth Third Bank!!

So far I haven't used this blog to spout off about an issue with a particular company, but I am making an exception now.

When I moved across the country 15 years ago, I chose a small bank called First Charter for my accounts. I loved First Charter. Then a couple of years ago it was bought by Fifth Third Bank out of Cincinnatti. Everything was still going along fine, so I saw no reason to move my accounts. A few weeks ago I thought I might look into refinancing my townhouse (which is under condo rules), so I went to my local bank branch and put in an application for what they call an Easy Home Refi. Well, in the first place if you happen to live in a condo, it's not easy, but that's not my main complaint. I had provided them with a copy of my last two years' W2s (from a company I've worked for for 10 years), as well as copies of my last two paycheck stubs, as requested. Come to find out they also wanted me to spend over $200 to get a copy of my condo association's financials. That on top of the fact that they wanted to add an additional 1/4% onto the interest rate just because it was a condo and not a traditional house was enough for me to decide to kill the application, which is what I did.

A few days after stopping the application I get a letter in the mail stating that they were denying my application because they couldn't verify my income! Now, keep in mind that a) I have a credit rating that is just a couple of points shy of 800; b) I've been with this bank, or the bank they purchased for 15 years, c) the place is worth more than double what I owe on it; d) my income is way more than sufficient for this transaction; e) I had already cancelled the application, and f) they apparently couldn't figure out how to call one of the largest corporations in the country to verify that I worked there! Here's the kicker - for the last several years my paycheck has been directly deposited into their bank every two weeks!! Yet they say they can't verify my income??

So, here's what's going to happen. I am going to shut down all my Fifth Third Bank accounts and I'm taking my banking business elsewhere. Now I'm sure they won't really care much about that, after all I'm not exactly rich... but hopefully someone looking for a new bank to park their money in will see this post and think twice about doing business with this bank.

Sayonara, Fifth Third - and no, I won't let your door hit me in the ass on the way out.