Ed Ring of Union Watch ('A project of the California Policy Center') writes of the collusion of three unlikely allies creating a moral hazard to the fiscal health of the state of California.
Unions want jobs for their members; fair enough. But environmentalists won't permit any big-ticket public works projects to go through without their approval. In fact, the environmentalists to a degree serve as a check on runaway union demands for budget-busting above-market wages and benefits. But rather than fight the environmentalists, the unions tend to throw their weight behind the projects that the environmentalists prefer, like the Bullet Train to Nowhere and the Delta tunnel.
Meanwhile, Wall Street investment firms get to underwrite the bond issues for the projects that please the environmentalists and the unions, regardless of their impact on less well politically connected Californians, such as the bulk of the taxpayers.
And their buddies the monetary authorities have every incentive to keep the asset bubbles inflated, failing which the bankruptcy of the public employee pension funds would be exposed.
Read the complete article at UnionWatch.org.