Teachers vs the Public

I should be the last one to make fun of teachers. I loved school for the most part. The difference is that I remember teachers, not Teachers.

"Teachers" is of course the 600 lb gorilla of our provincial tax system, otherwise known as the pension plan for Ontario teachers. Partially funded by our taxes, it has morphed into a body that imagines itself to be some sort of grubsteak, pioneering capitalist, instead of the regulation-and-tax-supported protoplasm it has become.

Here's a good illustration of how screwed up our financial markets are, courtesy of CTV.ca, in reporting the Teachers' crass, grasping leveraged buyout of BCE:

"Bay Street players believe the troubled buyout of BCE Inc. could be salvaged in a restructured deal"

Players??? Is dealing in the stock price of a business that provides one of the necessities of life now a sport, "played" by our teachers?

Our financial markets are messed up. They have been perverted from their original aims so long ago no one can even remember that stock markets were created to bring companies who needed money and companies who had money together. Now it's a global video game run by empty suits who have never created wealth, just learned how to use computers and the Internet to take advantage of temporary differences in market information. (They don't have as much luck getting rich on other commodities like pork bellies because we can substitute for them and tell the pinstripes to p*ss off.

These "players" that have overrun our financial system truly believe that it's ok to "play" with the values of goods that are necessities. Just for fun and profit. Which brings us back to the topic.

The Teachers pension plan has cooked up a leveraged buyout of our biggest phone company. I'm no fan of Bell, but we're talking about a taxpayer-subsidized financial juggernaut that wants to control our biggest phone company.

The same bunch that fights taxpayers tooth and nail about how WE want THEM to educate our kids, refusing to be measured by student grades on standardized tests.

The same bunch that owns the Leafs. How are their results in that department?

We want these people controlling our telephones???

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And finally this, from CTV.ca on May 22/08 in the Business section (http://www.ctv2.theglobeandmail.com/):

"Still, rejigging the deal to win over the bondholders, would also be difficult because the banks that agreed to finance the takeover, stung by the credit crunch, are already pushing for new terms."

The banks would be Citigroup Inc., Deutsche Bank AG and Royal Bank of Scotland. In the same article a lawyer for the bondholders, John Finnegan, called it "a full-on win" (from National Post print edition May 22/08.

Ahh, the Teachers...

Messing with you at school, at the game, and now with your phone.