Economics, governments and sundry nonsense. With cows.[2]

[davywavy]

There's a piece which does the rounds of the internet every so often which offers to explain economic/governmental forms with cattle - "Democracy - you have two cows. Your neighbours decide who gets the milk', that sort of thing.
I've skitted it before. Here's some more.

Gordon Brown Economics: You have two cows. You write on a bit of paper that you have 17,000,000 cows and start handing out milk accordingly. In fifty years time, they’ll still be taking milk off our great-grandchildren to make up the deficit.

Sarah Palin Economics: I can see some cows from my house!

BNP Economics: You have two cows. Neither are white so you repatriate them to Africa and starve to death shortly afterwards.

Trade Union Economics: You have two cows. When someone starts providing nicer milk cheaper than you, you go on strike to force the government to make them stop. When you come back to work you find that both your cows have died from lack of care so you go right back on strike again to force the government to give you some more.

Barack Obama Economics: You have two cows. This is enough to get you the Nobel prize for Economics.

British MP Economics: You have two cows. You designate one your personal cow and the other your second cow, and claim four additional cows in expenses. At the same time, Silvio Berlusconi gives your husband another eight cows. Then you put on your sad face and tell the voters that, thanks to Gordon Brown Economics, they’re going to have to make do with less milk for the next fifty years.

EU Economics: You have [Classified] Cows. Every year you receive a further [Classified] Cows in contributions from member states, but [Classified] go missing. When the person you appoint to find out where the missing cows have gone actually finds out, you fire her and threaten her with prison if she tells anyone what she discovered.

Student Union Economics: Actually, cows are intelligent, sensitive living things and using them in examples like this makes you worse than Hitler.

Any more for any more?

Comments

[raggedhalo.livejournal.com]

Trade Union Economics should be more like:

Someone else has two cows. You are employed to milk them; you produce three gallons a day, in exchange for which you get a quart of milk.

One day, the cow-owner tells you that you must now produce four gallons of milk a day, but get paid only a pint for doing so. davywavy thinks you are unreasonable for objecting.

[(Anonymous)]

If it was, people would object much less to trades unions.

[raggedhalo.livejournal.com]

The primary and central purpose of trade unions is collective bargaining. Industrial action is a tool of last resort -- it's how the collective power of workers can be used to counterbalance the considerably greater power of the employer.

I feel comfortable saying that I speak to a lot more people who aren't in a union about trade unions than pretty much anyone else on Dave's flist, and the main objection they have to unions is based on an outdated picture from the 80s based on the embattled NUM and the legacy of the Ridley Plan.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Yeah, my opinions are twenty years out of date because I don't use London Underground and the Royal Mail every single day. You tell 'em.

[raggedhalo.livejournal.com]

The RMT, I'll admit, are pretty strike-happy. Not living in London, I don't pretend to follow their disputes.

The CWU, on the other hand, have a legitimate grievance with management, and management have steadfastly refused to budge on some pretty key issues. Royal Mail's refusal to go to ACAS (hell, they would rather meet with CWU on their home turf of the TUC than go to binding arbitration. That says to me that RM know they're in the wrong) is pretty damning, as it goes.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

It won't surprise you to learn that Bob Crow is a member of Arthur Scargill's Social Labour Party. It seems that Scargill's use of striking for political ends is being continued. The Master has an Apprentice.

As for the CWU, it also won't surprise you to learn that, like most sensible businesses, I've taken my business elsewhere. If they're fighting to preserve the Post Office they're going about it in a damn foolish way.

[raggedhalo.livejournal.com]

I'm often torn about high-profile strikes like this, because ultimately it's a high-stakes game of pain threshold. So obviously workers have less power than the employer's side, and so striking at points of weakness (e.g. postal strikes in the run-up to Christmas, lecturers' strikes during exam season) is a good way to up the power of the workers.

But we're not always very media-savvy and so we don't communicate well with the public. So rather than getting their support against the management who have created an untenable situation for their employees, the public is angry at the union for their "selfishness." This is a view often promulgated in the media but it's one we don't do a lot to shift sometimes.

The Post Office is particularly tricky. The logic of "jobs at any cost" is basically carte blanche for employers to do whatever the hell they like to workers in the name of "business needs." But, yeah, it's nice to actually have a job, too. There's this really interesting anarchist (I think) critique of trade unions that accuses them of propping up capitalism. Basically, all institutions work on some level to secure their own continued existence, and in an idealised socialist/communist state there wouldn't be any need for unions. So unions need capitalism to exist.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

In a democratic state there isn't any need for public sector unions either. The union members already have one vote, the same as anyone else, in how publicly owned organisations should be run. All I see is that when they don't get their way first time then they stamp their foot and demand another.

Six months ago, I was, in a strict Wealth of nations sort of way, anti- the idea of Post Office privatisation because, as Adam Smith said, one of the three duties of the state is to provide the infrastructure for the efficient pursuit of trade. All I'm seeing now is the CWU failing to do that so I'll go to TNT after all, thanks. I'm sure the Post Office didn't need mine, Amazon's, or eBay's business anyway.

[(Anonymous)]

I stopped being in a trades union in '92 because it bacame clear the union were picking pointless fights with management to raise their own profile rather than working with them to secure the long term security and prosperity of their members.

[belak-krin.livejournal.com]

The issues that tend to affect public sector workers (i.e. we would like more money etc.) are not really related to issues that we get to vote on (We will give the public sector more money).

I think the Royal Mail have serious problems in that even if they get everything they want, they may not have a business to come back to.

By contrast I would like to point out that Unison went on strike this year and netted us Council workers a 1% cost of living increase (instead of the intended 0), which follows from about 10 years of wage increases being about half the rate of inflation.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I think the most telling part of that is that Local Council workers went on strike earlier this year and this is the first anyone heard about it.

[belak-krin.livejournal.com]

A fair point, a day's strike only ever really affects Bin collection...

[(Anonymous)]

They sometimes go 3 weeks without emptying ours anyhow. We don't generate enough rubbish for it to be a problem, but it can't be much fun for the dustman when he finally gets round to retrieving the bag of prawn shells from the very bottom of the bin.

H

[(Anonymous)]

Hey, you got a rise.. I got a 10% cut. That should worry you, as my taxes pay your wages, and as I'm paying less, there's less for you. Hence, govt. debt grows until expenditure is forced to iterate towards income.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Anonymous poster speaks sense - I've had a 25% pay cut this year. Where do you suppose that the money for your rise came from? It certainly wasn't from my taxes. It'll be from yours (and mine) childrens taxes in about twenty years when we're still paying off the state debt.

[(Anonymous)]

We aren't paying off the state debt. We're increasing it. Hence the recent 'gilt stike' and warnings from the IMF.

Sorry to cut 'n paste...

"For the last forty years tax revenues have fallen between a floor of 32.4 per cent and a ceiling of 37.6 per cent of GDP. The most left wing of governments has not been able to push the tax take above this ceiling, nor have Conservative governments committed to the cutting of the size of government driven the proportion of national income taken in tax below this floor. Over the same four decades, public expenditure totals have come in between 36.3 per cent and 49.8 per cent of GDP. Here is the root cause of our current crisis."

[belak-krin.livejournal.com]

Similar to the 'Council workers get too much pension' argument, I'm already working at a few thou less than the equivalent role in some private organisations.

While times were good, government workers were getting effectively less wages year after year, they didn't enjoy the advantages of the boom, and are now getting stung for the recession.

You needn't worry too much though because massive job losses are coming our way over the next year or two.

[(Anonymous)]

Er, you seem to think I don't care about public services. I do. In much the same wanting to eat tomorrow leads me to not spend all my money on caviare today, the fact that I care about schools & hospitals tomorrow leads me to be scared silly of a government that speds us into a hole today.

[belak-krin.livejournal.com]

The problem with public services is a lot of them are a bit crap. The main attractors for working in the public sector are: lower but stable wage, job security, internal training and leaving with a decent pension.

As the appearance of 'getting shat upon' increases (I say its the appearance because thats more powerful than facts), more people will leave for the private sector and the quality of public services will decline.

[(Anonymous)]

That kinda worries me too, I thought the driver for working in public services would be the desire to serve the public. Still, learn something every day.

Having overspent on non - essential public services, we're now going to have to make do without essential public services as the pendulum swings back. The trouble with any imbalance is it results in overcorrection.

[belak-krin.livejournal.com]

Desire to serve the public is in there - particularly in services such as Child Protection, but those services also have a lot of emotional, social and paper-work crap to deal with. There is very little praise for 'Social workers save child's life' or 'Council successfully runs school' but there's always plenty of 'Why didn't you do this? I'm complaining'.

To put it in another context, as an NHS doctor you get overworked, underpaid and regularly thrown up on. You are however, serving the public and that gives you a warm glowy feeling, so you don't apply for Private Hospital Work, because you feel appreciated.

You then lose some of your support staff, increasing your own work load, are told by the media that you're a greedy sod and the NHS puts a hold on any increase in your wages.

how much more do you take before 'helping the public' gets outweighed?

[(Anonymous)]

Not a question I have an answer to I'm afraid. I know I've had enough of inflation outstripping my wages, and I'm not alone.

Re CWU

[sea-of-flame.livejournal.com]

The national strikes in themselves,I'm guessing londoners have less issue with - it's being done after a formal ballot, the periods it affects are well publicised, and everyone's in the same boat, so it doesn't sound so much like an excuse when something fails to arrive.

On the other hand, coming after the largely unreported localised (and, I believe, unofficial) walkouts/wildcat strikes that feel like they've been going on for about the last three months...yeah, we've had enough.

If the unions want public support when they go on strike, surely they need to do somethng about all the unofficial action - otherwise it all gets tarred with the same brush.

Am actually going to take a look back through my work emails and get a feel for how long we've been getting the 'no post today' memos...

[raggedyman.livejournal.com]

Conservative Economics Promise that when elected you will milk the cow in a completely different manner than the previous government, but never explain what the actual technique will be.

[(Anonymous)]

Say "It's wrong to milk the productive cows so hard, but we're not going to stop, as the unproductive cows will be jealous"

[susanofstohelit.livejournal.com]

slightly random - they don't have cows in alaska because you can't grow hay there. moose or elk, those you can see from sarah palin's porch.