A Bit Touchy. Or, Stepping On Meep’s Better Post Below

6Jan/1117

A Bit Touchy. Or, Stepping On Meep’s Better Post Below

In Meep's outstanding post this morning, she puts forth the following argument:

double-dipping, spiking, and other misbehavior is making it less and less likely that taxpayers will care as to the state of the pensions. ...people are becoming more aware of what people are being paid for this job and they do see how leisurely that job is being fulfilled. ...people are getting an idea of what’s involved in a public job, and then they find out the recompense for it, and they do get a bit touchy. When they’re the ones paying for it. And asked to pay for it well after the service is performed and no longer providing benefit.

"a bit touchy"

I about spit my coffee when I read that. Having become an avid reader of Meep's Number Crunching, I have experienced a couple things:

1) this subject, while I never found it unworthy, has come to enchant me

2) this subject, which used to simply piss me off, has really come to stoke the passions of my lower-self

I know Meep is only being as simpatico as possible to readers when she uses a phrase like "a bit touchy." The subject matter is such that even a rookie's reading between the lines is enough to make the blood begin to boil for those of us not at the trough.

But nowadays, I can honestly say that "a bit touchy" doesn't even begin to describe how many of us in the private sector actually feel.

I am not one to envy another man's stuff. His position in life. His creature comforts. In fact, a good gauge to discerning whether Envy is one of the deadly sins you can count among your very own is to ask yourself the following question: if a friend of yours won the lottery, would you begrudge their good fortune or would you be able to be truly happy for them?

Likewise, I am not really tied to stuff... achieving financially in order to have a Mercedes... just doesn't really bother me to know I can't and likely won't ever be able to. This, by the way, is likely part of my woes. I just don't feel the need for stuff.

My point is that the more obvious motivations one could point to as causes for the crescendo-ing of intense hostility toward Public Employees just don't cover it for me.

If we assume that there are many others like me who are blessed enough not to be enslaved by the Envy and/or Gluttoney monkeys (though trust me, I struggle mightily with several of the other Deadly Sins), from where does the intensity of resentment originate?

Thoughts?

Enoch_Root

Person with kids,a beautiful wife, a job. Catholic of the Latin Rite.

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Comments (17) Trackbacks (1) ( subscribe to comments on this post )

jefferson101
January 6th, 2011 - 12:45

You pose the question: “If a friend of yours won the lottery, would you begrudge their good fortune or would you be able to be truly happy for them?”

I’d be happy for them.

However, if the Government is taking a deduction from my paycheck every week and putting that money into the Lottery pot, and I’m not allowed to even buy a ticket for myself? That tends to curdle my outlook on the situation a bit.

Be it noted. I don’t begrudge anyone whatever worldy goods that they have come by honestly. But when the appearance of corruption starts being as obvious as it sometimes is in these cases?

I’m not notably hostile to the people who are getting these things anyway. The folks who are handing it out to them are the ones that I’m more inclined to go into “Torches and Pitchforks” mode toward.

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Meep
January 6th, 2011 - 14:11

Take a look at this:
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-shameful-attack-on-public-employees-2011-1

…for a different take.

[yes, I am a master/mistress of understatement]

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- Enoch_Root
  January 6th, 2011 - 16:51
  
  wow – what a dunce.
  
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  - jefferson101
    January 6th, 2011 - 17:14
    
    Actually, he’s correct in what he says about the solution being for employers to fully fund their pension plans.
    
    The part he neglects is that for some reason, Governments and Unions are allowed to do things that would get a private employer sent to jail for fraud.
    
    And one could note that he doesn’t seem to be suggesting that those sort of measures be applied. I’m sure that he’d prefer that the .Gov confiscate my 401k account and use that money to prop up the Government and Union pension funds.
    
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    - Meep
      January 6th, 2011 - 17:59
      
      Got nothing to say. Just want to bump Bob down even more.
      
      Man.
      
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    - Bob Reed
      January 6th, 2011 - 19:15
      
      Heh!
      
      That’s OK, it’s better to be bumped than dumped; better to be moved down than not be around ;)
      
      Here’s hoping that you don’t have to be subject to much more mindless chatter on the train.
      
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    - Meep
      January 7th, 2011 - 08:50
      
      As long as school gets back in (that includes college), I should be fine.
      
      Summer is hell.
      
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Bob Reed
January 6th, 2011 - 15:51

Perhaps a source of your resentment comes from the idea that the public sector folk’s outsized monetary “success” is coming at the expense of regular folk’s hard earned wages; and it is largely unearned. And that some of them took the jobs they have precisely because they knew that once in the door, they could practically while away a good living-again, at the expense of their neighbors.

Righteous indignation at a by and large parasitic, and somewhat unnecessary, type of material success.

Oh, and you really bumped my down, not Meep. But that’s okay, no one reads my palaver much anyway :)

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- Enoch_Root
  January 6th, 2011 - 16:52
  
  come on!
  
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  - Bob Reed
    January 6th, 2011 - 16:53
    
    Wait a minute. Shouldn’t that be, “Come on, man!” ;)
    
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    - jefferson101
      January 6th, 2011 - 20:39
      
      No. Actually it should be:
      
      “Come on, Dude!”
      
      Or at least that’s how us old folks (or old “Whatever”) would put it.
      
      But I’m rude, crude, and unrepentant about any of it, so I’m probably either not representative of my Generation, or I am, depending on who you talk to.
      
      You kids tend to talk around things too much.
      
      (Snicker!)
      
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    - Bob Reed
      January 6th, 2011 - 20:55
      
      I was trying to ape the fellas on Monday night countdown who have a feature where they show outrageous football footage from the preceeding weekend, usually punctuated by their refrains of, “come on, man!”…
      
      I guess that shows how large their audience really is :)
      
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KillTruck
January 6th, 2011 - 21:08

If it makes you feel any better Mr. KT has a good federal job and his retirement plan is a joke. He’s planning a second-career after this one.

(He doesn’t seem to take the notion of me being a world famous writer seriously)

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- jefferson101
  January 6th, 2011 - 21:26
  
  Personally, I’m planning on extending my current career for as long as my job stays in this Country. OTOH, I give it 10 years maximum before there’s some Chinese guy doing what I now do.
  
  But there’s always the chance that I can become a Greeter at WalMart in my old age. Beyond that, it’s beans and cat food.
  
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- enoch_root
  January 6th, 2011 - 21:55
  
  KT – pls explain what these two things are:
  
  1) retirement plan (never heard of that)
  2) second career implies retirement option from “first”
  
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  - KillTruck
    January 6th, 2011 - 23:06
    
    1. 401K, and unlike my dad’s pension for the post office in the 80s, we won’t be able to live on it.
    
    2. His job is physically dangerous so he’ll be required to retire/quit at 55 (I think) because he couldn’t physically do it anymore. A generation ago that would be it, but not anymore.
    
    I guess it didn’t make you feel better.
    
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snaqwells
January 6th, 2011 - 23:16

As one who works on the federal dole and is looking at a military retirement, allow me to say two words.

“Sorry.”

(The first word is implied.)

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