JayB

Plenty of fighter jets in Euroland.

Courts or autocrats, Jay never met a dictatorial power in the service of capital he didn't like. So...the Democratic mayor of Sacramento is a dictator, and the pool of revenues generated by local taxes, for the express purpose of providing public services, is "capital?" Yes. Every public adminstrator trying to maintain the minimal level of public services with the actual stream of income at his disposal is a cigar chomping plutocrat hellbent on leveraging his power to enrich himself at the expense of the poor wretches under his charge. :lmao: "Critical Social science degrees and and the damage done, a Marxist cartoon for everything under the sun, ohhhh, the damage done..." Can the good guy bullshit, psycho-boy. We all know this is about bond traders and shareholder value for you. The crisis in public services just provides a convenient talking point to make sure the "right people" get paid and the "other guys" take the haircut. If it were about anything else, y'all wouldn't have been cashing out all your chips through tax cuts when times were flush. What role are the Freemasons and/or the Bilderburg Group playing all of this? Please expand. Interesting to record all of the non-answers that Jim's very straightforward questions have generated here.

"One of these days, thought Winston with sudden deep conviction, Syme will be vaporized. He is too intelligent. He sees too clearly and speaks too plainly. The Party does not like such people. One day he will disappear. It is written in his face."

Courts or autocrats, Jay never met a dictatorial power in the service of capital he didn't like. So...the Democratic mayor of Sacramento is a dictator, and the pool of revenues generated by local taxes, for the express purpose of providing public services, is "capital?" Yes. Every public adminstrator trying to maintain the minimal level of public services with the actual stream of income at his disposal is a cigar chomping plutocrat hellbent on leveraging his power to enrich himself at the expense of the poor wretches under his charge. :lmao: "Critical Social science degrees and and the damage done, a Marxist cartoon for everything under the sun, ohhhh, the damage done..."

Math

Wingnuts aplenty at every level of government these days, it seems.... " San Jose mayor targets pensions in budget San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed said Friday the city cannot afford to pare its work force any further to close chronic budget deficits. But with a 10th straight year of red ink raising the specter of massive cuts to everything from police to libraries, avoiding more layoffs will require hefty reductions to current and future employee pensions and perks, Reed said in budget recommendations released Friday. The City Council will consider the recommendations Tuesday and vote on them the following week. "It is a big sell," Reed acknowledged. "The level of service we have today is the minimum. We've cut and cut and cut for nine years, and we have to do things to preserve services to the community, and there aren't other ways to do it." The council can modify Reed's recommendations, which provide policy guidance to the city manager. The council must adopt a final budget by June for the budget year starting July 1. Councilwoman Rose Herrera, who represents the Evergreen District in East San Jose and is considered a moderate swing vote, said Reed's proposal "sets the right tone in terms of our goal to right-size the organization so we can return to our focus on providing services to our community." Upon taking office in 2007, Reed vowed to end the city's chronic budget deficits, driven chiefly by employee costs outpacing revenues. Since 2000, revenues grew 22 percent while employee costs rose 77 percent and staffing fell 17 percent. But Advertisement employee unions have fought his calls for concessions, even after a national recession worsened the city's financial woes. For much of the last decade, the city patched deficits by eliminating vacant positions of employees who retired or resigned and cobbling together temporary funding in hope that an economic recovery would deliver more tax revenues. But the economic downturn that began in 2008 has eaten into revenues, and the city has fewer jobs to cut. Last year, when a record $118.5 million deficit threatened layoffs and budget shortfalls loomed far into the future, a half-dozen city unions grudgingly accepted the city's demand to reduce their pay and benefits 10 percent, a level matched by the council and top officials. The city imposed 5 percent cuts on one small union, and police agreed to 4 percent reductions to save 70 officers from layoffs. Firefighters couldn't reach agreement on concessions with the city, and 49 were laid off. Two other unions still under contract continued receiving raises. Still, the city cut 800 jobs and demoted or laid off more than 150 employees. This year, the deficit has climbed to $105.4 million, driven chiefly by pension costs that are projected to grow from $156 million to $256 million next year and top $400 million in four years. Next year's deficit doesn't include $23 million that temporarily maintained several police, fire, library and community center programs through June. It also doesn't include a possible $10 million in additional costs from the city's struggling redevelopment agency. The agency has seen its revenues plummet in the economic downturn, and Gov. Jerry Brown wants to end redevelopment statewide. Several unions have stepped forward with offers to accept the 10 percent cuts city leaders had called for last year to ease the ongoing budget woes, most notably firefighters, who reached a tentative agreement with the city that will be voted on March 22. But Reed noted that the worsening budget picture means employees will have to give up much more to avoid further layoffs. The 10 percent cuts would save only $38 million. About 480 jobs would have to be axed to cover the balance. Reed said the city already is thinly staffed and can't afford to lose more employees. The city, he added, can't afford to keep "fiddling around the edges" of the pension reforms he's sought. Reed said employees need to reduce pensions not only for future hires but existing workers, including raising retirement ages, reducing automatic pension increases and bonus checks. Eliminating other perks like a provision that pays retiring workers for unused sick leave can also save millions of dollars, he said...." Guess Chuck Reed's party affiliation...

I have no objection to letting them go bankrupt and having the courts make the cuts via the bankruptcy process. Bills that can't be paid, won't be paid.

Deep brush The horror...the horror....

Awesome. Thanks for posting that - loved the photos.

It's cool, Philonius, whatever Our Little Janitor needs to puff himself up! Nothing wrong with being a janitor, amigo.

No, Jay figured out a way to get in with a good money making protected racket that gets in on serious government $ that he's ideologically willing to give up, but realizes practically he'll never have to in the meaningful future. He's become the yuppies he mocks More like I ran into a woman that I was actually attracted to that didn't run away screaming when I started talking about climbing, economics, and the political economy of foreign aid in Africa.

Doesn't have anything to do with my politics - but the fact that I'm married to someone that's hot, fit, smart, talented, and loves to ski, climb, travel, and makes good money doing something she enjoys that genuinely helps people probably means that I can personally look down on a guy like you, though.

Except that in this case, the containment of pension and benefit costs will actually enable the government to *avoid* laying off workers. None of this drama has anything to do with the awful plight that awaits public sector workers once they're subject to being victimized by the cruel whims of the voting public that they're employed to work on behalf of under terms like those that the legions of destitute and bedraggled Federal Employees labor under.

Just thought that the hipster beard and heavy-frame vintage glasses were potent visual signifiers of the transition away from the trade unionists of yore. uh...okay...doesn't look so different from this union guy or these auto union guys or him you seem atypically mean-spirited on this... Think the empirical data supports a pretty substantial shift in the union demos since the advent of public sector unions, and in the midst of the massive decline in percentage of unionized private sector workers.

Just thought that the hipster beard and heavy-frame vintage glasses were potent visual signifiers of the transition away from the trade unionists of yore.

Sweet TR. Another vote for the Rocky Mountain Ski lodge for those looking for a place to stay.

Life isn't fair. Ask these guys. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health/canadian-surgeons-face-flat-lining-job-market/article1920006/

The point wasn't to be inspire anyone. It was to point out that I'm one of millions of people who have found themselves having to work unpleasant jobs that were orders of magnitude below what they might feel like their education and training qualify them to do, just to get by. That's life. I was eventually lucky enough to land in one that had a path to something better. Much less likely to happen if you stay out of the workforce entirely.

It doesn't work that way anymore.... but touching none the less Yeah - some jobs are going away forever - like a significant percentage of the construction jobs that only materialized as a result real-estate bubble in the history of the world. Even if trying to squander trillions more fully-reflate the real estate bubble wasn't profoundly retarded, there isn't enough real wealth in the US to do so. They're going to have to find other lines of work. Anyone who tells them otherwise really isn't helping them. Programs that help them make the transition are good - trying to pretend that the bubble is going to reflate, or squandering trillions trying to reflate it isn't.

My first job out of college, after double majoring in Biochem and History, and adding a minor in Chemistry was working as a substitute graveyard shift janitor at a middle school. As one of my friends put it "Dude, that's just one step up from substitute crack-ho." I got a job at an investment company ~3 months later. When it was clear that I wanted to do something else, I did everything from painting to stacking semi-loads of hay-bales at a horse farm to try to save enough for the transition. When I bailed out of that job a few years later and moved into the life sciences, the best I could do was power-washing kaka and urine and various related tasks at Hutch's underground beagle colony. When that job ended it was light-assembly, then a brief stint at REI - then a job at an imploding biotech start up doing ordering, stocking, and making buffers for waaay less than minimum wage with no benefits of any kind. They were short handed and could see that I was capable of doing quite a bit more, and within a few months I was working on my own project and using every bit of education and training I had, and apparently impressed one of the board members enough for him to immediately offer me a job at his operation when the startup finally imploded. Or maybe the head of the imploding company pulled a bunch of strings and called in a few favors on my behalf. Who knows. That finally got me to a point where I had enough skills and experience to be fairly employable in my new field. At the very least sometimes working unpleasant jobs that are way below what you are qualified for can keep you afloat long enough to get your foot in the door at the right place.

Not everyone has the skills, the education, etc to start out at the top of the career ladder, or get back on it at a place that constitutes what their betters would deem an acceptable job for them. Things like establishing an employment history, good work habits, the ability to cope with stressful on-the-job situations and difficult co-workers without losing it, how to interact with customers, etc, etc, etc are all important factors that do quite a bit to help people move towards economic self sufficiency, and are usually a necessary - though not sufficient - part of getting better, higher paying jobs later. They're doing themselves and society a favor by choosing to work, even in these entry level positions, as are the people who employ them. Good for them.