Former LA Mayor Richard Riordan on Schwarzenegger, Unions, and Bankrupt Cities
by Reason TV“Throughout the country, 90 percent of cities and states are going to go bankrupt within the next five years, many of them sooner.” So says former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan.
Reason.tv’s Tim Cavanaugh sat down with Riordan to discuss state and local budget crises, public-sector unions, and why Riordan recently became a fan of current LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.
Approximately 9:40 minutes.
Shot by Zach Weissmueller, Paul Detrick and Alex Manning. Edited by Detrick.
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53 Comments
When (not if) these bankruptcies occur, the public sector's big salaries, pensions and lavish vacation package will be viewed VERY unfavorably. They think they can change reality by merely ignoring it and wishing it away. The laws of economics don't change.
Look at the current prices of items and commodities. We've been told by the austrian economists that inflation was coming, and it will be severe. The first waves are crashing on our shores. Be prepared people. The public sector had better watch what they do. Their sense of entitlement will not go over well.
Wow, just finished the whole thing. This guy is dead on about every single topic. Peter Schiff had a new video blog today talking about the coming inflation. NOT good. Lots of dark clouds on the horizon.
Let the whole damn State go under.
I do not feel sorry for anyone in California….. they get just what they Voted for.
We may as well give California to Mexico. Seems they want to act like that's the country they belong to anyway.
Obama's stash will save the day. Ha ha.
That's when the fuse on the powder keg will finally reach the powder. The Unions will erupt with violence, especially here in CA.
There is only one solution to this atrocity, cut the snake off at it's head. The problem is, no one will do this, so an exploding keg is the only way this will get addressed. It has NO happy ending.
Let my State of CA FAIL…………………please.
We need a "reboot" and the only way is to let this completely fail and expose the RINO/Liberal/Progressive/Democrat failures for what they are………….massive spending, corruption, backroom deals and a failed ideology.
Please, demand that we fail.
Ok I watched it. Not one word on the cost of illegal immigration. Not one word about teachers losing their jobs because they can't speak Spanish. Not one word about the cost of having Spanish sections in the Library's.
The concept that it is only the unions that don't want big box stores is nonsense. The closest non box hardware store in San Antonio is twelve miles from my house. It might be a ten mile further drive but at least I get decent service.
The BIg Sites act like everything will be peachy keen if Unions would go away. There really aren't that many unions in the U.S.. Membership has been declining for years. There are some big well known one like the UAW and the SEIU and that is why people think they are so powerful. Remember some of the unions in Nevada spoke out against Harry Reid and he still got re-elected.
I would suggest the movie Blue Collar for a very good idea of what it like to work in a Union factory.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077248/
I hope Schwarzenegger burns in hell for reducing the sentence of Esteban Nuñez.
When you have people that have no concept of where the money they are spending comes they will spend more then they can ever repay. We have a group of politicians that are more then willing to spend Other Peoples Money like there is no limit, the only problem with that is that the tax payers do not have bottomless pockets to draw from.
If we want to avoid what is coming the govt has to live with in limited means and the tax payers have to start doing more for themselves.
Clearly, Arnold Schwarzenegger was a huge disappointment.
However, if it's a guy by the name of Jerry Brown, then flush him…enough said!
For governments (local, state, and federal) to survive,they must abolish public employee unions!
unions don't realize it, but THEY are the fat cats they keep pretending other people are. The resentment against them is immense, and when people realize we are broke because of union pensions eating the entire budgets, it will be ugly.
Which is precisely why I purchased land in the mountains Wednesday, away from the cities, far away from the cities. My only neighbors are a few black bears, some dear and raccoons.
Brown has been talking about nothing but austerity measures and spending cuts. Lets see how long the dems stand behind him. I don't care if he has a D or an R by his name. Cali needs to stop spending.
Let's not forget that Brown ran for President on a very right wing, flat tax platform. Arnold sold out to the Unions. Brown has the Left's unconditional support do to blind partisanship . . . for now. Strike while the iron is hot.
They know it. They just don't care. Look at Greece. The government has no money. All the unions can do is riot and demand more money.
if LA stoped paying 18 million a month in wealfare programs to illegals that would probably help stop some bleading
California is doomed because of the massive invasion by illegal aliens from South of the border. If they'd de-fund and cut them off, or round up and deport, the state might survive.
The problem is WHERE the unions are most prevalent: In local, state, and Federal governments. Meaning we the taxpayers are paying big bucks, in most cases unnecessarily.
Exactly.
It might even stem the bleeding.
When they do riot there are 9 non union workers to take each of the jobs that union workers under perform on. Restraining motivated workers should be easy! Since only 1 in 12 workers are union, government should be giving parity to non-union labor!
Or we could give California to China to pay off what we owe them! Then the Chinese can deal with the illegal aliens!
There's a REASON the Unions have been driven out of most Private businesses – except those PROTECTED by the Gubment: i.e. Auto Industry. Capitalism has worked.
But that can't work with the Public Sector Unions – there is NO competition for balance. That's the main problem.
What I think people are missing here is a golden opportunity to show that progressive policies do NOT work and merely rot a state or country. Yes CA needs to fail and NO bail out and NO purchasing of CA bonds by the fed.
Progressives had a state who has the 8th largest economy in the world so no excuse about lack of funds. They have the highest tax rates in the country on everything so no excuse there. Plus add in Illinois and other progressive states and they all are tanking bad. Conservative states don't do much better but also don't beat there chests about some grand progressive plan.
CA failure should hopefully drive the last nail in the progressive coffin.
OMG! Richard Riordan is part of the problem if he thinks Villaraigosa is a great mayor. LA is bankrupt already and the mayor continue to dig deeper. They are all Bell, CA now. Is there no common sense? Is there no humanity in CA?
They won't even turn the water back on for crying out loud! Don't ask me for a bailout, CA. And don't come crying to me when you have riots and people are going hungry. And don't you dare tell me I don't care about people, CA, when the roof caves in on your own stupid heads. You turned CA into a wasteland on your own time and own vote.
.
People forget management does not have to sign the Union contract. Remember the NFL season with replacement players? Remember the players who crossed the picket line? Again it is management to blame for agreeing to it. Pension funds that put the burden on future elected officials are one very good example. If I knew what the economy was going to like today back in 1980 I would be a much richer man. Only the Federal Government has the ability to guarantee a pension in the future and for members of the military I agree with it.
The biggest problem with getting concessions out of Unions is the way management does not require concessions from everyone. For those of you old enough to remember Eastern Airlines that is what finally destroyed it. The maintenance workers took a huge pay cut and then the money that was saved was given to the pilots.
If you are a union member in California would you be willing to take a big pay cut? Reduce your ability to take care of your family just so a bunch of people who aren't even supposed to be here can get there money? Or fund some politicians earmarks or set asides?
Unions and the nanny govt. Just another reason to not want unions, and the feds going against States' rights one step at a time.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110114/ap_on_re_us/u...
When they do riot , four out of five will be standing around watching the fifth union member in action. Then every hour, they will have a "safety meeting ", and return to rioting after a quick nap.
Your missing the forest for the trees.
Private sector unions, unions in general, have far outlived their usefulness. No company, of any repute, could survive if they treated their workers poorly. Union demands in the private sector make or have made many companies non competitive. Hence, the unions get less popular with the workers and they eventually wither away. This has been happening since the late fifties. There is a finite portion of the before payroll profit margin that can be negotiated. Anything after that and it's bankruptcy time.
Now, government unions can extort state and local governments for a much larger share. Why? The moron union splooting dem-O-craps just keep raising spending levels, which necessarily raises tax levels. Since government produces nothing, there is nowhere else to go for the funding to placate the blood sucking unions. Now, you friendly Marxist benefactors can herd unicorns all day long, but the fact remains that after a certain level, increased taxation reduces revenue. IT ALWAYS HAPPENS! The dumbass Dems just keep blowing smoke and the moron masses, straight from the indoctrination centers, keep lappng it up.
Unfunded obligations are the number one cause of state insolvency. The biggest slice, by a wide margin, is public sector unions and their golden deluxe pension packages and obscene pay levels.
Certainly, there are problems in addition to unions. They, however, are the number one problem..
With unemployment still above 9.4%(govt figures)( mine: over 17%), Take a look at what homeless insecurity and our stateless dpt just did. Dontcha just love our current administration and its minions?
http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.5...
You do of course realize the likelihood of then still managing to finding a way to blame conservatives for the failure?
I understand what you are saying, but let's realize the full ability of the liberahood to know how to use their thuggishness to its fullest
They are not going to like the results of their votes……
that's bleeding, not bleading
Now that would be funny in a way…I can just see the illegals marching in the streets with signs in spanish demanding they be heard and their language be spoken by the Chinese…it wouldn't end well I'm sure…
Did anyone catch GB yesterday…one billionare said we might want to be learning mandarin or at least ensuring our children do…
Anybody who wears a purple SEIU shirt is no different then the brown shirts in 1917 Germany.
Are they Socialist? Yes
Are they Nationalists? Yes
Are they Nazi's? NO
But tell me they and their leaders are not looking for their Reichstag fire.
They thought they had it in Arizona.
They'er possessed by a Zeitgeist, they sell their neighbor down the river out of self preservation.
If your good at what you do you don't need a union, in fact you don't want anything to do with a union.
Unions have outlived their usefulness and like Government programs they go on for ever even after they are outlived.
Richard Riordan served as LA Mayor for EIGHT years campaigned as a businessman "tough enough to turn L.A. around". Promising to crack down on crime and to shore up the city's finances and business environment by reducing regulation and contracting private firms to operate LAX. Many of his proposals were blocked by the heavily Democratic City Council or proved simply unfeasible in reality, but crime did decline …a tad bit. Riordan was a "moderate conservative" …which we all know now is nothing more than a Liberal. Riordan DID create a 1-STOP Shop for the private sector – where one could go to a single building to get all of the different permits & licenses for the MANY regulations to either start a business, construction permits and the like …but he didn't bother to get any of these insane regulations canceled. Finally, as a typical Liberal …most of his projects had HUGE Cost Overruns and Union Trouble …what a surprise.
Riordan was CA Secy of Education from 2003-2005 …appointed by Arnold Schwarzenegger. He had to resign in June, 2005 over an attempted JOKE made on his part, thought by the Socialist Left to be RACIST against Latino's …only to find out later that the 6 year old girl was WHITE. (Wiki) …
Lesson here: Unless you are 100% Conservative, UNWILLING to compromise …YOU LOSE.
Yes they are going broke because people who work for a living feel they should get paid and have benefits. Of course it has nothing to do with the rightwing rich not wanting to pay their taxes.
Saw that Beck show. It was very enlightening, and frightening. As a nation we need to get back to what we do best; create and innovate. One of the most powerful things we export is our culture. That culture is founded in individual liberty and freedom. IF we can restore those principles we should be fine as a nation.
Our government has sold us down the river. Over the last 100 or so years it has systematically stripped us of our liberty in the name of some collective "good". The gentle name they give for it is "public policy". Education, finance, and labor are but a few areas where government has been busily stripping us of our liberty. Government has willfully failed to secure our rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Unfortunately it was we, the people, that allowed this to happen. To correct this we must enlighten each individual to this to this fact and restore the nation. This can be done. This must be done. We must refuse to allow our childrens' childrens' children to be born into serfdom.
More than a reboot, you need a new cpu, motherboard, hard drive and operating system. California's hard drive will crash and the system will fry. Quite sad, actually.
Nothing will change in CA until it allowed to completly fail. Bailouts will only embolden the fools in Sacramento to continue down this highway to hell. When they turned the water off to save the "Delta Smelt", that not only showed their complete incompetence but their massive sell-out to the enviro-nazis who run the place.
your right, and it is obvious to anyone except an intellectual, who has to over think everything and and settle on a combination of obscure and ineffective remedies. Would you also agree that the corporate tax rate is equally responsible? I do, and maybe even more so.
Methinks the laws of economics are as immutable as the laws of physics. You can only fly a plane so long before you run out of fuel then inevitably you will come to earth, oftentimes with bad results.
You need to move away.
Why live in a place where Liberals can keep you as a Slave?
Move back when Liberals are all taken care of.
Too late now.
Spending to support RIF might be justifiable.
Californians need to get with the program. Put their little noses to the grindstone every morning and go to work and hand those paychecks over to the State and Federal Government to take care of all their needs Get there allotment of food, medication if the problem is favorable, (or the solution if not) and housing and shut the hell up. Then they will have that utopia they think exists in the brave new world order.
I would love to move, but I'm in the middle of a divorce (not my choice). It would mean a Motion to obtain a Move Away Order. I might be able to get it, but who knows. Also, I can't do that without knowing where I'm moving to.
If I'm going to move, I'd rather move so I can be closer to family, most of whom is in NE PA, Jersey and MA.
It's not that easy nowadays. Every state is having problems. There are no easy choices.
And btw, yeah, I'm NOT the one that voted for Gov. Moonbeam and Boxer or any of the other morons. I still can't believe that we got screwed. It's really just mind boggling.
What is this Firefly/Serenity? LOL!
I don't trust him at all. I guess I can wait and see if he's a different guy. But I just don't trust him.
If the intellectual elites are so intelligent, why are they so bad at fiscal management?
Or, as some suspect, is it intentional?
Obama has taken a bad situation and made it worse.
For the proof and a real fright:
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/year2009_0.ht...
There’s lies, damn lies, and then there’s liberal libel and slander.
Unions/Dmocrats: BUST TO DUST…it's over…Debt Bound Forever…they have sucked us DRY…let them pay us back…work for free until they die…the world is passing us by thanks to Democrats and Unions…Ghost Town-itis coming soon to your town.
California needs fail in order to flush their rotten system.
Sad to say these people will not change – and they are not capable of fixing the problem.
Sorry but the spending is out of control.
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