Yet Another Public Employee Bailout: $26 Billion dollars down the drain

[OutHouse]

They also don't get Year-End Bonuses

boo hoo ive never received a year-end bonus.

 

[ShawnD1]

boo hoo ive never received a year-end bonus.

Neither have I, and I've had lots of different jobs. I think the one time I got a bonus was when the drug company I worked for was purchased by a different drug company.

 

[Fingolfin269]

What about my friend who lost his job because they outsourced it to India? When is that relief coming?

OK, I don't really have a friend who lost a job due to outsourcing but I'm sure people in this thread do. Hell some of you may have actually lost your job during this economic mess. Where is your relief? Where is your $87,000 windfall?

 

[JockoJohnson]

The gripe with public employees, especially teachers and unions, seems to be the high pay. I have no problem giving teachers a good pay, they do deserve it. However, they shouldn't get the best of both worlds, especially from our taxes. I am specifically mentioning the teachers of NJ. They get great pay AND great benefits. It used to be that they got lower pay so the great benefits were negotiated and given to them. Now they get both.

I understand why people complain and they have every right to. Getting $90k/year and not having to pay medical benefits and an awesome retirement package and paid sick/vacation days when they retire is great for them, bad for the taxpayers.

 

[hal2kilo]

boo hoo ive never received a year-end bonus.

Closest anybody at the outfit I've worked for got to a bonus was the company president handed out 100 dollar bills for good attendance for just a couple of years.

I will say for my 30 years of service I got to pick out something from a catalog. Got a nice set of lugguge which I desperately need. Zippers about to go.

 

[nobodyknows]

Uh....Obama wanted to give SS recipients another $250 cost of living adjustment.

So why didn't he? The Dems could have done it. This bail -out alone would amount to almost $450 per SS receipient. But NOT getting any COLA while the feds got their raises was total BS. That means they don't get it next year, and the year, after that, etc.

TSCL's Emergency COLA Petition

I petition for emergency action to change the Social Security cost of living adjustment (COLA) in 2010:

• The Social Security COLA should not be calculated from the consumer price index (CPI), since the CPI is based on the purchases of young urban workers and does not reflect the actual expenses of senior citizens.

• Even when CPI-based inflation is very low, the expenses that form the backbone of senior citizens’ budgets – medical insurance, prescription drugs, fuel – continue to rise alarmingly.

• The federal government itself recognizes the inequity of a CPI-based COLA by calculating a senior-specific CPI formula, which it never uses, that shows our cost of living rises faster than that of most young people.

• When Medicare Part B premiums exceed the Social Security COLA, about a quarter of Social Security recipients, including new enrollees and low-income beneficiaries, will have their benefits reduced, creating a group of second-class beneficiaries who receive substantially less from Social Security than they are entitled to.

• New legislation introduced by Representative Walter Jones of North Carolina (H.R. 3557) would provide an emergency COLA increase for 2010 and help to prevent a large inequity as well as protect the Social Security benefits of all beneficiaries.

• The Guaranteed COLA for Seniors Act introduced by Representative Eliot Engel (H.R. 4193), which is based on a different formula--Consumer Price Index for the Elderly (CPI- E)-- would guarantee a 3% COLA for seniors. This is exactly what America’s seniors need to keep up with inflation.

At a time when my medical costs are going up, prescription drug costs are rising, and Medigap premiums are dramatically increasing in cost, this correction is essential. I am gravely concerned about the effect that past underpayments of the COLA are having not only on today’s spending power, but also on the future erosion of our spending power and the creation of a group of second-class beneficiaries.

I call on you to support H.R. 3557 and H.R. 4193 to manage this emergency and to consider long-term action for fair and accurate Social Security COLAs.

http://www.tscl.org/action/emergencycolaa.asp?gclid=CKPs89PwoqMCFR7X5wodjkbY5g

 

[hal2kilo]

So why didn't he? The Dems could have done it. This bail -out alone would amount to almost $450 per SS receipient. But NOT getting any COLA while the feds got their raises was total BS. That means they don't get it next year, and the year, after that, etc.



http://www.tscl.org/action/emergencycolaa.asp?gclid=CKPs89PwoqMCFR7X5wodjkbY5g

FYI http://www.bls.gov/cpi/cpiqa.htm#Question_2

 

[Carmen813]

Hurt the rich, hurt the poor, help the unions. Yup, no outrageous vote buying there.

Thank you for switching to my suggested avenue of partisan outrage.


Nobodyknows,
I have no idea why it went no where in Congress. All I know is that President Obama lobbied for it and it died.

 

[Exterous]

Why does the big push always seem to be on the teachers? Where is the push on getting rid of administrators, janitors, bus drivers, etc. From what I have seen the ratio of teachers to students has declines while the ratio of support staff to students has skyrocketed

 

[tk149]

Thank you for switching to my suggested avenue of partisan outrage.

Thank you for failing to refute any of my points in a concise, well-thought out manner and failing to convince me to switch my position, whilst maintaining your own partisan stance. ()

Did you actually read the article?

 

[ShawnD1]

Why does the big push always seem to be on the teachers? Where is the push on getting rid of administrators, janitors, bus drivers, etc. From what I have seen the ratio of teachers to students has declines while the ratio of support staff to students has skyrocketed

I don't understand why schools have school buses. In Edmonton, schools use regular city buses. Even though you buy the bus pass at school, it's a regular city bus pass for students that only works monday to friday. It works on all city buses, not just the ones with school routes. I think they cost something like $18/month.

 

[hal2kilo]

Why does the big push always seem to be on the teachers? Where is the push on getting rid of administrators, janitors, bus drivers, etc. From what I have seen the ratio of teachers to students has declines while the ratio of support staff to students has skyrocketed

Seems to be par for the course in both private and government management from what I've witnessed in the last decade and a half. How else are they going to justify hiring all those shreadsheet bean counters. Got to get that granularity, so we know how much time it takes to go to the bathroom (cleaned it up).

 

[nobodyknows]

FYI http://www.bls.gov/cpi/cpiqa.htm#Question_2

Interesting link but I don't see what point you are tryoing to make? Despite what BLS says the Consumer Price Index did, the cost of living when up. Food is higher, medicine is higher, heat and electricity are basically unchanged. Why no COLA for SS??

 

[Daverino]

My opinion is that government underfunding of education is the reason we have a Tea Party movement in the first place.

 

[heyheybooboo]

Seems to be par for the course in both private and government management from what I've witnessed in the last decade and a half. How else are they going to justify hiring all those shreadsheet bean counters. Got to get that granularity, so we know how much time it takes to go to the bathroom (cleaned it up).

I think the system is set up ass-backwards. Money from the Fed should be targeted to capital outlay and facilities improvement.

In North Carolina the local county gov't funds construction and 'supplements' teacher pay, with the State paying the base salaries. It's a legitimate function of the State, not sure the Federal tentacles should be reaching down through the states to the local level to pay for 'day-to-day' operations.

THOUGH, in times of crisis I don't have a problem with ad hoc block grants to keep the education wheels 'greased' (as Spidey put it).

Teaching sucks in public grade schools (to put it mildly). The attrition rate is horrid, and those teachers who pursue graduate degrees and up are quickly bumped to supervisory and 'admin-i-crat' positions. It's a huge waste of resources when as much as 50% of public teachers 'wash-out' in less than five years.




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[ShawnD1]

My opinion is that government underfunding of education is the reason we have a Tea Party movement in the first place.

Mental retardation has many causes, but I don't think the school system is one of them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_retardation#Cause

-Genetic conditions. Sometimes disability is caused by abnormal genes inherited from parents, errors when genes combine, or other reasons.

-Problems during pregnancy. Mental disability can result when the fetus does not develop properly. For example, there may be a problem with the way the fetus' cells divide as it grows. A woman who drinks alcohol (see fetal alcohol syndrome) or gets an infection like rubella during pregnancy may also have a baby with mental disability.

-Problems at birth. If a baby has problems during labor and birth, such as not getting enough oxygen, he or she may have developmental disability due to brain damage.

-Exposure to certain types of disease or toxins. Diseases like whooping cough, measles, or meningitis can cause mental disability if medical care is delayed or inadequate. Exposure to poisons like lead or mercury may also affect mental ability.

-Iodine deficiency, affecting approximately 2 billion people worldwide, is the leading preventable cause of mental disability in areas of the developing world where iodine deficiency is endemic

-Malnutrition is a common cause of reduced intelligence in parts of the world affected by famine, such as Ethiopia.

-Absence of the arcuate fasciculus.

I'm going to guess genetic causes. Example: Sarah Palin's baby has down syndrome. Another thing is that pro-life people tend to be extreme right wingers, so profoundly retarded babies that would normally be aborted are not aborted. These children with severe mental disabilities grow up hearing nothing but extremist right wing ranting. When they grow up, they keep ranting the same things their parents did and they can't be convinced otherwise because they have severe learning problems.

At least that's my hypothesis. Can you think of even 1 other thing that would make military people say the government is worthless? If they didn't have severe autism or down syndrome or fetal alcohol syndrome, they would understand that they are government employees. Their profound learning disability prevents them from understanding this no matter how many times it is explained.

Other extremist right wingers are just straight up psychopaths and they openly admit it.
Bill Kristol admits he doesn't want Americans to have good healthcare

 

[Pulsar]

The Union's grease is a Taxpayer lube?

I don't actually begrudge them (or you wife, except for that mighty toleration of hers). They laid off 5k in NC, and cut salaries the last few years.

They were arguing about a 0.5 percent to 1.8 percent increase for this year but I'm not sure if it passed.

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The school's income has fallen substantially. Yet they still get raises.

I certainly begrudge them that.

Everyone is this country is going to see thier standard of living drop. It's a sad fact of a global economy in which nearly everything is commoditized.

The government tendency to ignore changes in economy and not reflect in pay rates must change. It is not sustainable, and we already know that from the deficits our government is running.

 

[Carmen813]

Thank you for failing to refute any of my points in a concise, well-thought out manner and failing to convince me to switch my position, whilst maintaining your own partisan stance. ()

Did you actually read the article?

Of course I read the article. Did you read my posts? I said bitching about the deficit when the bill was not going to hurt the deficit was...well, basically, stupid. If you are going to bitch, bitch about something that actually exists. Which you did. Bravo, :thumbsup:, good show chap!

 

[Trianon]

http://seekingalpha.com/article/218853-how-bailing-out-housing-also-bails-out-the-banks?source=email

Every bailout shares one central trait: it's always really a bailout of banks advertised as "saving Mom, apple pie and the American Way" or its equivalent.


Here is the only guide you need to understanding any and all bailouts:

Bailout of X (housing, Iceland, Greece, AIG, Harry Potter Theme Park, the ibogaine industry, etc.) is always a bailout of banks. The bailout of X is simply shorthand for the taxpayer bailing out the banks which are insolvent due to their overleveraged, risky lending. The bailout of X (let's say housing) is simply the PR facade, the socially appealing and politically correct pretense to shovel billions of dollars into the banking cartel to save it from the consequences of its faulty risk models, fraud, collusion, embezzlement, misrepresentation and influence-peddling.

Let's take a few examples:

1. Bailout of Greece = bailout of French and German banks which foolishly lent gargantuan sums to Greece.

2. Bailout of AIG (AIG) ("to save the global financial system we all love and need") = bailout of AIG's counterparties: Goldman Sachs, various European banks (yet again), etc.

3. Bailout of housing (a.k.a. "America's sacred right to home ownership") = bailout of mortgage lenders, institutional owners of defunct mortgage backed securities, Countrywide/Bank of America, etc.

 

[Acanthus]

AIG is well on track to pay off both the fed and the treasury.

FFS the company runs though 2B in revenue a quarter, a large quantity of which is profit.

Nan Shen, ALICO, and AIA are being sold off to make a massive payment by the end of the year.

 

[Daverino]

Mental retardation has many causes, but I don't think the school system is one of them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_retardation#Cause



I'm going to guess genetic causes. Example: Sarah Palin's baby has down syndrome. Another thing is that pro-life people tend to be extreme right wingers, so profoundly retarded babies that would normally be aborted are not aborted. These children with severe mental disabilities grow up hearing nothing but extremist right wing ranting. When they grow up, they keep ranting the same things their parents did and they can't be convinced otherwise because they have severe learning problems.

At least that's my hypothesis. Can you think of even 1 other thing that would make military people say the government is worthless? If they didn't have severe autism or down syndrome or fetal alcohol syndrome, they would understand that they are government employees. Their profound learning disability prevents them from understanding this no matter how many times it is explained.

Other extremist right wingers are just straight up psychopaths and they openly admit it.
Bill Kristol admits he doesn't want Americans to have good healthcare

Touche. Although with a good educational system, at least we can get the mentally retarded into jobs other than politics.