What is wrong with this picture?

[fpb]

Or, to be precise, with this quotation? Two successive titles - successive, mind you - on the conservative news service Townhall.com:

Mike Shedlock:
U.S. Local Governments Cut Payrolls to Lowest Level Since 2006

Chris Edwards:
Plunder! How Public Employee Unions Are Raiding Treasuries, Controlling Our Lives, and Bankrupting the Nation

Comments

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Sorry, this will not do. The standard union-busting narrative is that unions bleed the taxpayers on behalf of their selfish members - not that they ignore their members and take the money themselves.

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

Why must either the standard union narrative ("the unions are why the workers' pay has risen") or the standard union-busting narrative be true? IMO neither are exclusively true: the workers' pay has risen because per capita productivity has risen owing to technological progress, and the unions bleed the taxpayers on behalf of their selfish (and ambitious) leaders. Remember that a union is essentially a business in the field of controlling labor supply: why should it be any different from any other forcible monopoly?.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Yeah, right. Sure. I don't think we are on the same page, to say the least, and I suggest we stop right here.