Friday Oct 13 1307. The Templars were ended for the crime of possessing liquid assets. Friday the 13th. This day will return. But it won't be the Templars who will see their lives, assets and organization confiscated and forfeited. Liquid assets will be needed by future bankrupt governments. Private pensions, cash hoards and even larger assets will be open to predation by bankrupted states. History does sort of repeat itself.
Governments in the developed world owe some 800% of GDP (a bad measurement it is true), in total debts and off the balance sheet obligations. Putting future debt into unrelated entities is a criminal offence in the private sector under General Accepted Accounting Rules, and various security laws. The directors of Enron, World Com and Arthur Andersen can testify to that fact. But not so for government. The politicians and the professional bureaucracy can do what they like with finances. Of especial importance are their union friends, which for the `Progressives` or Marxist-Socialist monger of power, equates into fundraising, campaign `volunteers`, and violent agitation. Woe betide the politician who dares to speak truth to union power.
The real world fact is that unions create bankruptcies. Countless firms including GM have been destroyed by unions. The most effective corporations, and the most efficacious at producing technological innovations are the ones sans les syndicats. That is also a simple fact. Private unions cripple firms viewing them as prey, not partners. GM and other firms are turned into welfare states, with massive debts and burdens to fund union pay, pensions, benefits, education, and even expenses for family and relations. It is absurd.
It is worse in the public sector. Teachers unions bankrupt education budgets. Civil service unions bankrupt local and federal governments. Public sector unions eviscerate public sector budgets whilst providing, on average since there is no competition or reason to perform better, low quality service. Unions are obviously a blight – and they are killing our finances. Medieval guilds drove up costs, reduced competition, and created a preferred club which quickly turned their power into political gain. Modern unions are far worse creatures than their predecessors, the medieval guilds.
Modern unions are a financial disaster. They don't 'fight for the little guy' any more than rich Ivy elites in the US do. The average union member makes double over his or her lifetime, in total payments, than the poor hack in the private sector. It is the poor worker in the small private company working at a low hourly wage who is most in need of help through tax reduction and smaller government. But of course perversely the media, the politicians and the academics all chime to the song that unions 'defend' the working poor. It is pretty hard to categorize a $70.000 per annum union worker with guaranteed benefits, pensions, time off and sundry paid expenses as 'poor'. What twaffle.
Consider that in Illinois, a state with a GDP that is 50% of that of Canada, the state government is running a 33% deficit or some $13 billion. The compassionate and caring politicians and bureaucracy can't possibly cut spending of course, so they will be 'forced' into raising taxes to access private cash and incomes. This is called plundering. Even 'Progressives' aka Marxists and Communists understand that a future bankruptcy is assured in part, by unionization:
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal think tank, estimates that this coming year alone states will face an aggregate shortfall of $180 billion. In some states the budget gap is more than 30%
So in one year in the US, just at the state level the deficit is $180 billion. More than half of that is union related costs. To resolve the debt crisis destroying the unions is an obvious priority and solution. If we don't we will have our monies forfeited to the state to fund their bankrupted immorality.
Across Europe cash hungry governments are now eyeing billions in private pension funds as an easy target to close deficits. In Hungary and elsewhere governments are giving their citizens a choice: pay your private pension into the state program or lose your right to claim a public pension, but still contribute to the program. This is extortion and allowed Hungary's government to claim $14 billion in cash. This move is being repeated across the Continent in various disguises. Basically the state is simply stealing private monies and using them to fund their deficits.
It is clear why governments want to seize liquid assets. It is far easier for governments to use rhetoric about Mother Earth, the children`s future, and the poor and old, and to confiscate private money; than to actually cut costs and spending, and imperil their re-election chances. When Phillip the 'Fair' [he looked fetching in tights] stole the Templars wealth, the French state issued lurid propaganda depicting the Templars as sodomizing foreskin kissing demons, who worshipped Satan not Christ. Today's politicians are a little more skillful with the propaganda. They will stay with the Mother Earth-children's future-save the poor and old themes. And why not? With over 50% of the population as a client, the state or the average politician will have little difficulty in selling the 'need' to confiscate money to fund all matters of necessary socialized programs for various 'moral' causes. But once they steal our pensions there is nothing to stop them from taking your bank account, your house, and your large assets. All for the children`s future, or to save the poor and old of course.
Solution? Break the unions. Make them illegal. Return to basics. Stop the plundering of our wealth by unaccountable state slaves and knaves. NO MORE UNIONS.