I Heard It On The NARN
By Mitch Berg
Gary Gross’ coverage of the WEA Union Insurance racket.
Ed mentioned Shattered Peace (by David Andelman) A Peace to End All Peace and (by David Fromkin). I mentioned Imperial Grunts (by Robert Kaplan).
12 Responses to “I Heard It On The NARN”
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February 26th, 2011 at 4:44 pm
The foundation of organized labor in the US is racketeering. Before legal unions, longshoremen, for example, had to pay a kickback to local gangster for the right to work on the docks.
The way it worked was:
Capitalists and shippers needed people to load and unload cargo quickly and on an irregular schedule. They would deal with a local tough guy who would make certain that the workers were there as needed — for a price, of course.
If you wanted to work on the dock you would line up with the rest of the poor bastards at the dock in the AM. If you were willing to kick back a buck of your wages to the gang leader, you put a match in the brim of your hat. If you were willing to kick back two bucks, two matches.
Re: the insurance scam:
http://archives.starbulletin.com/2002/11/20/news/story1.html
This caused a bit of kerfuffle locally because traditionally the head of the UPW sits on the board that recommends HI supreme court candidates when their are vacancies. Rodrigues kept his job as head of the UPW after he was convicted of various felonies — fraud, embezzlement of union funds, etc — so we had the prospect of a convicted felon, still serving his sentence, choosing Hawaii Supreme Court justices.
February 27th, 2011 at 8:59 am
While there have been problems with crime in unions in the past, there are plenty of equally terrible crimes at the top, in management.
Or…….did you forget all the fraudulent credit ratings given to investments in the credit default swaps debacle of recent memory?
Or, may I refer you to the Pecorra commission of 1934?
Or….well, the list is far too long to relate here. I would have greater regard for your clearly warraned objections to Rodrigues, if you had equal objections to the convicted felon/ sex offender that Scott Walker put in charge, illegally apparently, of the county courthouse in WI, but sadly the outrage seems to be too often cherry-picked on the right.
February 27th, 2011 at 9:36 am
“In the past”?
The Rodrigues crimes happened in ’97.
Or…….did you forget all the fraudulent credit ratings given to investments in the credit default swaps debacle of recent memory?
Are these crimes? Maybe you can tell me why they aren’t in jail. Bought politicians, perhaps?
The Pecorra commission? Spare me. When has a government commission ever found the policies it favors to have caused any problem?
I am highly cynical of business and corporate interests, Dog Gone. I am not a “corporate” republican, I am a conservative. I am no more cynical of government than I am of corporate interests.
February 27th, 2011 at 9:53 am
Or, may I refer you to the Pecorra commission of 1934?
No, since we’re talking about what is happening in 2011. Try to stay on point, please.
Are you okay with how the WEA Trust operates? If so, say it. If not, quit with the red herrings. Criminy.
February 27th, 2011 at 10:05 am
Dog Gone, I think that I see the problem here.
Unions are supposed to work for their members. They are supposed to protect and promote their members’ interests. When they fail to do so it is a betrayal. Rodrigues screwed over the people he was supposed to represent.
Wall Street is an entirely different matter. If Goldman-Sachs screws over the national economy in order to make money for their investors, who, exactly, are they betraying? Not me.
Politicians swear an oath to the Constitution and are supposed to represent the people who elected them. Bankers and businessman are supposed to represent their interests and the interests of their investors.
February 27th, 2011 at 1:01 pm
Doggie, don’t ever change. You are so damn funny. When the subject is quite specific, you trot out moronic statements like “here are plenty of equally terrible crimes at the top, in management”. Don’t you ever get tired of being A) a liberal stooge or B) the one voted most likely to compare apples to oranges?
The queen of FACT CHECK strikes again.
February 27th, 2011 at 1:08 pm
DG,
You’re indulging in a bit of a logical fallacy, the “Tu Quoque Ad Hominem” – in other words, “your side has not been perfect (on some issue, related or not related to the issue at hand), so your argument is invalid”.
It’s illogical; a previous wrong (even if it’s accurate, or related, both of which are dubious in the cases you brought up) doesn’t actually invalidate a case against a current wrong.
February 27th, 2011 at 4:36 pm
DG,
You’re indulging in a bit of a logical fallacy, the “Tu Quoque Ad Hominem” –
Well, Dog Bone has learned at the feet of the master.
Tell me, DG: Does Peev ever look down upon you and utter the phrase “you have learned well young apprentice?”
February 27th, 2011 at 6:47 pm
Dog Gone, let me give you what I think is an example of the self serving thinking of many on the left.
When Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism was reviewed by lefties, a common criticism was that liberalism could not be fascistic because it lacked several of fascism’s defining characteristics, especially a reverence for a mythical past.
You don’t have to be a deep thinker, but you have to be an honest thinker, to note that progressives believe in a non-existent and idealized future. If the defining difference between fascism and preogressivism is progressivism’s lack of reverence for an idealized past, than any non-progressive ideology becomes fascism. Duh!
February 27th, 2011 at 9:28 pm
Here’s the best part DogGone, you don’t even have to go back to 1934 to find executives getting away with bilking their fellow citizens.
The other day Anthony Mozilo, former head of Countrywide Mortgage, essentially walked on charges he knew his firm was hanging bad paper. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703796504576169033374651752.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
See, Bill (Honest, Honey, I’ll Pull Out) Clinton decided everyone was deserving of a home loan, regardless of their creditworthiness. He sent his HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo – now living in sin and fancy tablescapes with Sandra Lee in the NY Governors Mansion – to audit every bank and S&L to see if they were loaning enough to certain, ahem, communities. And if Don Cuomo determined the bank wasn’t doing its bit, a mob of government lawyers showed up at the bank and told them what a nice bank they had, be a shame if anything bad happened to it. Now you and me (and our children and their children and their children) have to pay for all these bad loans because FannieMae and FreddieMac promised our money (or at least us suckers that still pay taxes) would back up every no money down, liar loan that came down the pike.
Here’s the best part though Dawg, this Mozilo guy was so wired in with prominent Democrats, that prosecutors looked the other way at his crookery. If he sang, so many Dem’s would have been frogmarched out of the Capitol, White House and Cabinet Departments, that they would have run out of US Marshalls to put raincoats over their heads.
Much like Catholics who won’t believe that priests diddled alter boys while the Catholic Church looked the other way, Democrats never believe that their own do wrong and when ever accused, pull out the old “yeah but you guys do/did it too” defense.
And unions are so conspicuous in their corruption that it even inspired the left leaning show “The Simpsons” to parody it when Homer got elected union shop steward…
Homer: What does this job pay?
Carl: Nothing.
Homer: D’oh!
Carl: Unless you’re crooked.
Homer: Whoo-hoo!
But hey, the Star Tribune has gotten away with no credibility for so long, that you probably will to.
February 27th, 2011 at 11:40 pm
You are letting the Wall Street guys off too easily, Seflores.
For years these guys made millions — more than millions, billions and
trillions — by claiming that they were the smartest guys in the room.
They weren’t. They were idiots. They had no more brains than the guy in the cheap sportcoat at the track playing his “system”.
Lehman bros. was the 4th largest investment bank in the US. It had been around for over a hundred and fifty years. The greedy bastards bankrupted it, damn near caused a second Great Depression, and it happened under the regulatory regimes of both GOP and Democrat congresses and presidents.
The same people that advised Bush are advising Obama, God help us.
February 28th, 2011 at 7:32 am
Terry – I concur with your assessment – the Wall Street guys did get off too easily. My point to Dawg was an attempt to echo your previous comment, that the Unions are supposed to – if you believe their P.R. – protect the “little guy” but generally don’t. So are the billions our government spends on regulating banks and financial markets. Yet for all the regulations, all the rhetoric and all the hurdle jumping some unenforced law requires a bank to do, in the end, we the people wind up on the hook because some banks papers over the Congress with cash so they face minimal downside risk while reaping maximum reward. After the bubble bursts the bankers walk away from their mess and go on to their next bubble fully aware that Uncle Sucker is gonna pick up the tab the next time too.
Also – I wouldn’t say that bankers are idiots. World history is filled with episodes where smart people didn’t realize they were in a bubble until the bubble burst. You have mentioned previously you are in the trades. Wouldn’t you like it if a technique or product you used that was considered perfectly acceptable (like asbestos or aluminum wiring) when you installed it was found to be hazardous later on and you could simply pass responsibility back to the government and move on with life? No, you (or at least your insurance company) get held liable and have to make good on the claims. Bankers figured out that they could pass all their troubles on to government. That’s not idiotic, amoral maybe, but not idiotic.