Monday, February 28, 2011

If Tim McIlrath Wins, He Still Loses

So some dude named Tim McIlrath performed at one of the Wisconsin Union rallies recently. He played that ghastly CSNY song, Ohio, and urged the ralliers to "rise against" ... compound interest tables.

Fight the power! Or maybe the exponent!

Poor Timmy, you see, can't seem to fathom the whole pensions-are-underfunded thing nor does he get the idea that the Unions are the power. They negotiate with the politicians who agree to have Union dues taken directly out of employee paychecks so part can be handed over to the politicians to re-elect them so they can go back and negotiate with the Unions again. In any case, here's the Timster crooning that lovely ballad written to commemorate a few students who got shot after they spent a cheery afternoon throwing rocks and bottles at people with guns.


The song is a fitting choice for too many reasons to list here. It's a famous ballad from a group that personified the empty-headed selfishness of the time that led us to so much that is wrong with America today. The kids in the audience will spend their lives paying, paying, paying for the idiocies of the CSNY crowd. Perhaps his next selection might be that wonderful paean to sexual gratification for males and economic slavery for single moms, Love the One You're With.

Or maybe just a reenactment of the Greek riots of last year.


These Unions won their fight with The Man, Timmy, but lost to the compound interest tables. That's your stage down there in the bottom center at about 0:35, getting peppered with rubber bullets and engulfed in tear gas. Go on up there and play, man, go on! You're next!

5 comments:

Dean said...

I never understood how it is that Neil Young played with those guys. Young's no conservative but neither was he a vapid, clueless hippie.

And don't even get me started on the relative musical merits of Young vs. CSN.

K T Cat said...

I have to admit, I loved them back in the day.

steve said...

The Wisconsin pension is one of 4 fully funded pensions.

http://downloads.pewcenteronthestates.org/The_Trillion_Dollar_Gap_final.pdf

Steve

K T Cat said...

I doubt that. All of the pension data I've seen has been based on hopelessly rosy scenarios of investment growth.

Dig this.

ABC's Barbara Pinto reported on the "looming crisis" on "World News" Feb. 21, the sixth night of coverage. Pinto said: "[P]ension plans for America's public workers that are underfunded by at least a trillion dollars. Finance professor Joshua Rauh thinks the debt could be at least three times as much."

Dean said...

That data Steve presented is 3 years old.