President Eisenhower on Unions

Some people are quoting President Eisenhower to express their support of public sector unions. As I've said over and over again, there are major differences between public and private sector unions. To compare them together as a unified, single entity is foolish, and quoting President Eisenhower in support of public sector unions is beyond foolish. Why? It wasn't until John F. Kennedy was president that government workers were allowed to organize--which is after President Eisenhower's presidency.

In any case, here are some interesting excerpts from President Eisenhower's 1955 speech to the AFL/CIO:

The second principle of this American labor philosophy is this: the economic interest of employer and employee is a mutual prosperity. Their economic future is inseparable... The American worker strives for betterment not by destroying his employer and his employer's business, but by understanding his employer's problems of competition, prices, markets. And the American employer can never forget that, since mass production assumes a mass market, good wages and progressive employment practices for his employee are good business...

The Class Struggle Doctrine of Marx was the invention of a lonely refugee scribbling in a dark recess of the British Museum. He abhorred and detested the middle class...[L]abor relations will be managed best when worked out in honest negotiation between employers and unions, without Government's unwarranted interference.

More from President Eisenhower's December 5, 1955 speech here.

Motto of an American

I am against unchecked, concentrated power in all forms and permutations. In other words, I am an American who understands the Constitution and Declaration of Independence.

California's Finances, a Retrospective

Below is a snippet from an old November 2009 LAO report--but boy, does it have amazing data. Here is one particularly juicy excerpt:

In General, the Legislature Retains Power Over the Budget. Some observers of the California budget process have asserted that—due to voter–approved propositions, federal law, and court decisions—the state’s budget is unmanageable and basically impossible to balance. In reality, however, the Legislature remains in control of the vast majority of state spending. This is particularly true over the longer term when there is enough time to allow major decisions by the Legislature to be fully implemented. Even in the shorter term, the Legislature generally holds a considerable degree of freedom to adjust state spending. Such decisions are often more restricted by the lack of political consensus as opposed to any structural budgetary constraint.

More here. Voters must realize that almost everything they read from CNN, Fox, or any major media outlet contains some element of bias. In contrast, all states have finance departments that will provide you with the (mostly) unvarnished truth. In California, we have the LAO. For the feds, we have the CBO. Turn off your television, and go forth and read.

Emerson on Trade

Ralph Waldo Emerson, from his 1844 lecture, "The Young American":

Trade was the strong man that broke it [feudalism] down, and raised a new and unknown power in its place. It is a new agent in the world, and one of great function; it is a very intellectual force. This displaces physical strength, and installs computation, combination, information, science, in its room. It calls out all force of a certain kind that slumbered in the former dynasties...

Trade goes to make the governments insignificant, and to bring every kind of faculty of every individual that can in any manner serve any person, _on sale_. Instead of a huge Army and Navy, and Executive Departments, it converts Government into an Intelligence-Office, where every man may find what he wishes to buy, and expose what he has to sell, not only produce and manufactures, but art, skill, and intellectual and moral values. This is the good and this the evil of trade, that it would put everything into market, talent, beauty, virtue, and man himself...

The `opposition' papers, so called, are on the same side. They attack the great capitalist, but with the aim to make a capitalist of the poor man. The opposition is against those who have money, from those who wish to have money.

Isn't it fascinating to see the great transcendentalist speak so eloquently about trade?

Rumi, the Romantic Alchemist: Copper over Gold

Rumi: There's courage involved if you want to become truth. There is a broken / open place in a lover...What's the use of old and frozen thought? I want / a howling hurt. This is not a treasury where gold is stored; this is for copper. / We alchemists look for talent that can heat up and change. Lukewarm / won't do. Halfhearted holding back, well-enough getting by? Not here.

Fiscally Responsible? Follow These Resolutions

An oldie from 2010, but still a goodie:

Don’t vote for any ballot measure that creates an unfunded obligation on the state budget or “locks in” more of the budget.

Constitutional provisions that limit the use of certain tax revenues or impose spending requirements on the budget without providing the resources to fulfill those obligations exacerbate California’s fiscal problems. These provisions range from dedication of sales taxes collected on gasoline to transportation to the “Three Strikes” law establishing minimum sentencing requirements.

Why don't we teach these civics concepts to kids in high school? More here.

Law Quote of the Day

Dean Roscoe Pound: "The law must be stable and yet cannot stand still."