JayB

You're such a fucking douche! Yes. Tee-hee. Particularly funny to the folks on the wrong end of the cuts to Medicaid, the disability lifeline, mental health services, etc, etc, etc, etc Nice. Except for one thing: That's not the trade off, liar. Tax the rich. It's not hard. Which state has that actually worked in? New York? New Jersey? California? Illinois? Maryland?

I, [insert truther name here] can simultaneously believe that the US government can slaughter thousands of its own citizens, inflict scores of billions of dollars worth of damage on its own economy and infrastructure and maintain absolute silence on the part of all those involved *and* grant a buck private access to hundreds of thousands of classified military documents and diplomatic cables - and fail to conceal sex acts that two consenting adults engaged in in the oval office.

Kevbone: People who dispute the existence of a conspiracy are, in fact, always agents of the conspiracy. I have irrefutable evidence - which I have stored in a microchip that I've implanted subcutaneously in a dwarf squirrel that lives in a location know only to myself, who is trained to make himself evident only when a native Maori speaker stands beneath his tree and sings a falsetto rendition "The Milkshake Song" in his native tongue - that "JosepH" is one of many aliases generated by an AI-driven propaganda algorithm invented by the Mossad. Reverse engineering by a select band of counter-operatives has shown that the "JosephH" variant derives from a suite of code originally used to compute the responsiveness of Taiwanese Evangelicals to selected inducements to gamble at a variety of Dead Sea casinos in the early 80's. One need only look at the finances of the "We Make Prosperous Heaven Load Revival" Baptist Church of Keelung after the Deacon and Rector's disastrous visit to the Holy Land in 1986 in order to appreciate the menacing powers the "JosepH" v4.3.8.1 now possesses. Now that you've been detected, it is imperative that you A)regard any and all squirrels with suspicion and B)cease posting to this and all other message boards immediately. That is all.

I should note that I regard anything that makes it more difficult to bring *any* musical of any kind to any stage anywhere is something that I consider of massive benefit to mankind, and hope that stage-hands will demand and receive a fifty-fold raise for musicals, and a thousand-fold raise for anything done by Andrew Loyd Weber.

Saw this news item and mostly thought it was amusing since AFAIK it's not public money paying the stagehands, and AFAIK there aren't any state or nationwide government rules that force theater companies to pay stagehands as well as trauma surgeons - and the only ones who have a stake in this are the performers, patrons, and other theater/performance folks.

All that and more here: http://www.lamebook.com/

You're such a fucking douche! Yes. Tee-hee. Particularly funny to the folks on the wrong end of the cuts to Medicaid, the disability lifeline, mental health services, etc, etc, etc, etc Nice.

What - exactly - is kind about cutting social services for the least vulnerable and shunting the tax revenues to a bunch of politically connected insiders who are way better off?

x2. Bill - dude.......for real? I blame these guys:

Um, isn't REI a Co-op? technically, yes. practically they've been changing their bylaws for more and more "corporate" control of the poor governance kind and taking advantage of a distributed ownership which has for all practical purposes fuck all control. As an example: previously REI Members (Owners) had the ability to nominate a candidate for election to the Board of Directors by collecting a number of signatures (I believe 1% of members - there's a thread here on cc.com with more) they've eliminated that. JayB- try buying Ski Touring or Telemark gear, the selection is increasingly poor with a number of stores that used to stock not stocking anything at all. If you are going to order online, why be hampered by a retailer that has local presence? Bought skis/boot/bindings online but had them mounted there for convenience's sake - but when I was strolling around the selection at the Flagship store seemed okay - but when I was looking for a whippet I went straight to FF. Seems like the constant stream of people looking for super high-end/niche/technical gear at REI that wind up heading to FF has been good for FF over the years?

on paper that may be the best solution, but the people being taxed would bitch endlessly about the deadbeats not doing anything, and the people getting the checks do in fact need something to be doing to feel a sense of fulfilment and out of the streets stirring up shit. Clearly then the solution is to cut the pay in half and offer full-time ticket-taking work to twice as many people - thereby achieving twice the wealth-distributing utility of arrangement at precisely the same cost! You could also achieve the same thing much more efficiently and productively, without distorting the cost of government, giving the public sector a reputation for waste and inefficiency, etc by channeling the same money into an inflation-indexed negative income tax for the working poor.

So the social services you say are being massively cut are still being staffed and compensated at the same rate? How does that work? By cutting funding for programs that are paid for by the state, but not delivered directly by state employees - like Medicaid, etc. There will be pay cuts and layoffs, but their impact will be minimal relative to cuts elsewhere.

Like I said - it's an interesting speculation and if the entire population of the state were vaporized by a magical wizard and replaced with clones bred in the Cato institute's basement - then perhaps the political consensus you are dreading would emerge here in Washington. In reality - what actually has, and will continue to lead to cuts in social services is a set of public sector union engineered political constraints on spending that prioritize the protection of public sector worker compensation above all other budget priorities. Which is why we're seeing....massive cuts in social services while leaving public sector worker pay and benefits largely untouched. Jim has touched on this before - but the above reality is a large part of the reason why the public has become resistant to supporting additional tax increases. The best way to gain public support for higher taxes is to demonstrate that they'll be used as efficiently as possible on behalf of legitimate public priorities.

pay attention: it helps the poor by pumping up commodity prices through wise investments in hot private equity funds. Any idea what percentage of all real savings generated in the US each year are invested in leveraged commodity funds vs, say - government bond issues? Corporate bond issues? Loanable bank deposits, etc? How much is the fund manager's personal wealth vs money that pension funds, foundations, etc have given the fund managers in the hopes of generating a return with which to satisfy their pension obligations, fund grants, etc?

There is no reason to think that layoffs and wage and benefit cuts would necessarily lead to the continuation, much less the expansion, of social services. This is particularly so since the most vocal advocates for busting public sector unions are also opposed to the public provision of social services. At least Fairweather has the intellectual honesty not to go here. This answer is just as ignorant of the realties as FW's, however. Look at the ferry link posted by JayB. No matter what your political stripe that kinda of pay, $500k above base pay over 10 years, that doesn't need changing? I agree that there is a need for a more federal and state progressive tax sturcture, but the argument you provide above is, well, a non-starter. What I keep hearing is this "Everything else is tipped to the rich folks so there is no need to pay attention to financial responsibility ont the state or local level". Huh? Do you encounter this kind of reasoning amongst your progressive peers? I do - but as a regressive-libertarian-neocon-war/hatemongering corporate stooge I sort of wrote it off as something akin to an allergic reaction to the ideas I was putting forward, seeing as they're so seldom encountered in personal interactions in these parts - and figured once I left they'd regain their senses and think "Gee - now that I can let my guard down I can admit that I *don't* really think that's the most beneficial use of public money!" Since your convictions seem to be much more in tune with the progressive zeitgeist, and you can engage progressives in a candid dialogue without them turning peuce and looking like they're going to crush their Riedel Grand Cru wine glass in their hand - perhaps you can tell me if the defenses put forth for the kind of spending/budgeting we've been discussing here are indeed typical of what the average Seattle progressive thinks in their heart of hearts.

There is no reason to think that layoffs and wage and benefit cuts would necessarily lead to the continuation, much less the expansion, of social services. This is particularly so since the most vocal advocates for busting public sector unions are also opposed to the public provision of social services. At least Fairweather has the intellectual honesty not to go here. That's certainly interesting speculation - particularly given the minimalist libertarian conception of government that prevails both inside all state government institutions, the legislature, and the voting public's mind here in Washington - but the reality is that social programs for the poorest and most vulnerable are actively being cut in order to maintain funding for things like $50K a year ticket-booth attendants.

How is overpaying ferry workers by millions of dollars per year beneficial to the common folk? Particularly in an environment where the said millions could be used to fund public defenders, social services, etc, etc, etc? http://www.king5.com/news/local/Investigators-10-million-spent-on-extras-for-group-of-state-employees-97113379.html look at my quote box above. your question is a non-sequiter. Hmm - not sure why that is but here's another question or two. What level of tax-revenue funded compensation above what's necessary to fill a given position with someone capable of doing the job would be required for you to object to it in today's budget climate? Would paying them a million each be okay? If not - why not? If the benefit of paying more than necessary to have people sit in booths and sell tickets is to redistribute wealth and promote the consumption of consumer staples - why not automate the process as much as possible, divide the total annual savings by 5000, and send the 5,000 poorest families in the state a check funded by the savings each year?

Don't get me wrong, the shit is hitting the fan big time. But the crisis is not limited to the current fiscal constraints on states and municipalities. As the original Mish piece makes clear (not that there aren't problems with it) the crisis is global and systemic. Any argument that doesn't address this fact doesn't pass a sniff test any more than Peter and Jay's newfound concern for food stamps and healthcare. At the risk of "getting all meta", ferry ticket takers and Metro bus drivers are only indicative of a larger questions that's facing the post-industrial world as a whole about what the hell we're going to do with all our people and what kind of society do we want to live in. There have developed serious contradictions between achieving maximum utility and efficiency in the economic realm and meeting the demands people have for living with a modicum of security, compensation, and hope for their future. Whether those people work for the government or not is irrelevant. Some appeal to the "private sector" as a model for how things should be run but one only need look at how the American worker has actually fared there to see that it's failing dramatically to meet those criteria. Is $16-$20 an hour unreasonable in this day and age? How is making more people redundant or reducing their purchasing power in the context of (permanent?) structural unemployment going to improve the outlook? How is is it likely to rebound on the political landscape? In the current anti-tax climate, is there really likely to be an improvement in service delivery (or god forbid an increase) corresponding to government worker layoffs and wage and benefit reductions? We certainly know there will be a corresponding increase in demand for those services in the event. That vague thumping sound you hear in the background is this guy's head slamming against the inside of his casket.

How is overpaying ferry workers by millions of dollars per year beneficial to the common folk? Particularly in an environment where the said millions could be used to fund public defenders, social services, etc, etc, etc? http://www.king5.com/news/local/Investigators-10-million-spent-on-extras-for-group-of-state-employees-97113379.html

Ivan what do oyu mean by this and why is it important? i'd be quick to point out again i had shit grades in econ, and only 2 classes in it at that - i did actually like macro-economics, which this thread seems to concern more at the moment? my primitive understanding is, for folks to be happy in our economy, that money must keep pumping around, not unlike blood through a body, and that when money collects in the hands of a few, it tends to get put into various forms of savings, many of which won't have the effect of pumping the money back into the lowerclasses hands, and can even have the lovely effect of fueling speculation bubbles that bust the overall economy, causing disproportional suffering to the poor If you are for redistribution - income indexed transfer payments are a much more efficient, and less economically destructive means of doing so than systematically distorting the cost of government/delivering public services through politically determined wage and benefit schemes that only benefit people directly employed by the government. Make government as efficient as possible and you'll have more resources for the state to redistribute to the people who really need it - not less.

Yup. "Alabama Town’s Failed Pension Is a Warning" http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/23/business/23prichard.html?src=twrhp

Are you saying that paying only what's necessary to staff a state job with a consenting adult who's qualified to do the job is the moral equivalent of child labor??? The persistence of child labor in countries where the value of the average adult's economic output is extremely low is a conversation worth having - but I'm not quite sure what the logical or moral connection to what the state pays consenting adults in one of the wealthiest countries in the world is....

$23.40*40*52 = $47,840. To some people that's a pittance, to some it's good money - both are subjective value judgments. It's a fact that the state could attract qualified people to dispense and collect ferry tickets for considerably less than the cost of $47K, + health benefits + the cost of an inflation indexed pension. It's also a fact that the state could save a considerable amount of money by contracting out this service and automating a significant amount of it. I can think of quite a few ways in which the state could make better use of the money less saved, which would benefit people who make considerably less than $65K in total comp each year. Having said that - the mystery is not why people are willing to accept those wages for taking ferry tickets, it's why the state is willing to pay them. Particularly when more important things are getting cut or entirely eliminated.

Hey - found some people making less than $23.47 in hourly wages! " CYNTHIA TICKET TAKER Department of Transportation Hourly 100 $21.37 AMIR M TICKET TAKER Department of Transportation Hourly 100 $21.37 ROBERT G TICKET TAKER Department of Transportation Hourly 100 $21.37 MARC TICKET TAKER Department of Transportation Hourly 100 $21.37 ROBERT C TICKET SELLER/A Department of Transportation Hourly 100 $16.70 PAULINE J TICKET SELLER/A Department of Transportation Hourly 100 $16.70 O D TICKET SELLER/A Department of Transportation Hourly 100 $16.70 MICHAEL N TICKET SELLER/A Department of Transportation Hourly 100 $16.70 MELODY TICKET SELLER/A Department of Transportation Hourly 100 $16.70 PATRICK M TICKET SELLER/A Department of Transportation Hourly 100 $16.70 WANDA J TICKET SELLER/A Department of Transportation Hourly 100 $16.70 JOSEPH J TICKET SELLER/A Department of Transportation Hourly 100 $16.70" $23/hour*40 hours/week*52 weeks/year * 147 full time ticket takers = $7,032,480 + pensions and benefits. I'd guess the total tab is ~$12million per year in present and future costs for taking taking money and handing out tickets. Even if you assume zero costs for pensions and benefits that's a pretty steep tab, and far, far more than it'd take to attract and retain people who are qualified to do the job. Can't help but wonder how that compares to the annual tab for 147 FTE's at movie theater chains that do pretty much the same job. Or the annualized costs of automating all or part of the ferry-ticketing process.