When you say "public sector pensions crisis" I say "bullshit"

[Cain]

"Public sector pensions crisis"

A senior union source told The Observer that it was clear Alexander had jumped the gun as the Treasury attempted to show it was taking a hard line on the burgeoning pensions bill.

"Danny Alexander has been reined in by the Cabinet Office," said a union source. "What he did was inflammatory and showed no sense of the seriousness of these issues for people's lives."

"Bullshit"



"Public sector pensions crisis"

"It's an uncomfortable truth, but I'm afraid it's the reality, that the world is changing around us and people are living for much longer, and we have not been paying for those extra years of pensions – the taxpayer has. Strikes won't make this problem go away, we have to act now. If we don't act now, it's our kids who are going to pick up the tab, and it's not right."

"Bullshit"



I could go on, but you probably get the point.  There is no crisis, payments will go down after this year and we've known this for ages.  It's all bullshit, an ideological fantasy constructed as an assault on public sector workers.  But you'd never know that from reading the papers.

[Freeky]

Nobody'd ever know anything if they believed everything in the papers.

[ñͤͣ̄ͦ̌̑͗͊͛͂͗ ̸̨̨̣̺̼̣̜͙͈͕̮̊̈́̈͂͛̽͊ͭ̓͆ͅé ̰̓̓́ͯ́́͞]

This seems to mirror events in the US.

Do you think there is a conspiratorial aspect to this sort of trumped up attack on public sector unions, Cain, or is it more of a matter of rich cunts seeing the same opportunity?

[Cain]

I think it is opportunity + 30 years of an economic model which posits unions are a drag on economic growth (it should also be remembered that, of course, unions are deeply involved in politics so there is an element, especially when the rightwing does it, of punishing the base of its electoral opponents for not voting for them.  When the left does it, its usually the result of an internal power struggle between a corporatist and social democratic faction, like with New Labour versus Labour, with the corporatists trying to reduce the influence of the former to their benefit).