j_b

Right, as we all know the private sector hardly raised wages and stripped benefits over quite a few years now.

Probably not comparable due to differences in make up of workforce

that is one assertion entirely unsupported by the huge rise in income and assets of the upper 0.01% of income distribution, over the last 30+ years (i.e. since the beginning of deregulation and the race to bottom labor cost)

You are assuming that health benefits, paid leaves, vacations, etc .. for the immense majority of the peons in the private sector is the golden standard of what compensations employees should get. It's obviously wrong,as everybody knows.

Here you go: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/ecec.pdf "State and local government employers spent an average of $39.83 per hour worked for total employee compensation in September 2009, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Wages and salaries averaged $26.24 per hour worked and accounted for 65.9 percent of these costs, while benefits averaged $13.60 and accounted for the remaining 34.1 percent. Total employer compensation costs for private industry workers averaged $27.49 per hour worked in September 2009. Total employer compensation costs for civilian workers, which include private industry and state and local government workers, averaged $29.40 per hour worked in September 2009." You are assuming that the distribution of occupations are the same in the public and private sectors, which can't be true. Your tool is too coarse and tells us little.

There is no clear cut evidence that the private sector is better able to keep exploding costs under control without cutting on services. Just check out the cost of privatizing war for example.

I hate the constant editorializing and compilations (commercials don't help either). Just show us the sport events, already! I have hardly watched anything this year because the games aren't on CBC, which typically has much better coverage.

It could explain the tone of the article since his relationship with the team has always been tense.

"In case you were worried that Miller completely has changed during these Games, don’t be. Tuesday proved the old Bode still lives!" The "old Bode" is the most successful US alpine racer of all time you wanker (how come so many Friedmans are clueless, is it in the name . Can you believe the nerve of these newspaper pushers? freakin' bots hate free spirits like Bode.

The significance of the current cover up of these lies comes into full perspective when one realizes that Bolton, Gates, Cheney, etc ...'s role in the Iran-Contra scandal had already been covered up by the Iran-Contra investigating commission (Cheney was the top Republican on the commission): Iran-Contra affair The political career of these people should have been over more than 30 years ago.

Bode is golden, everything else is gravy.

Despite FW's hissy fit, starting a war of aggression under false pretense to control resources puts a lot more responsibility on the perpetrators for the conduct of the war since wars pretty much always result in war crimes.

Finally, I do see how a large decrease in the number of unionized employees brought about by deregulation (yes, union busting and making workers more vulnerable to the race for the bottom labor cost was also the purpose of deregulation) is connected to the creation of a permanent underclass as reflected in the distribution of unemployment today but I don't think this is the argument you were making by citing the de-unionization trend since Reagan.

BZZZTT! Blatant distortion of what I said. I said most serious economists were announcing a serious market adjustment for years and I never said "everyone in the country was on the same page".

Spin and lies. You have yet to provide one piece of evidence showing that public employees are paid more than they should, and I mean as a whole not some cherry picked example.

How do Greece and Michigan score on each of the three axes? I am not sure where you are going with this but if you are insinuating that the situation in Michigan and Greece were brought about by progressive policies you are sadly deluded.

insufficient pay and benefits result in employees with lower qualification not in "maximizing the delivery of services", non-living wages and low appreciation result in high staff turn-over ratio not in "maximizing the delivery of services", insufficient number of employees result in completely inefficient service delivery not in "maximizing the delivery of services", etc ...

Populist rhetoric is cheap and right wing anti-tax demagogues use plenty of it. Otherwise, they wouldn't get so many average joes to vote against their own interests. Yet, once the confused rhetoric settles, this guy's actions amount to 1) cheating on his taxes, and 2) killing innocents, including a 67 y.o. government worker who apparently couldn't retire despite your claim of his living fat-ly on taxpayers' money.

If the corporate media had treated the Austin event like they did the underwear bomber event, this is what you'd have read/heard 24/7 on the "news": Wake Up America: The Looming Threat of Terrorists in Small Aircraft... and Cars by Dave Lindorff The deliberate suicide crash bombing by a domestic terrorist pilot of a small plane into an IRS building in Austin, Texas has exposed a grave failure of the Homeland Security Department to protect us Americans from the threat posed by the virtually unregulated use in this country of small aircraft. Just about anyone can own and fly a small plane, and these, as we have now seen, are readily adaptable into kamikazi missiles capable of destroying large buildings. If Homeland Security won't act, then it is up to Congress to move quickly to tighten up security and control over small planes. We need to insist that anyone seeking a pilot's license first submit to a full screening by the FBI. No one with a criminal record of any kind should be permited to fly or ride in a small plane. The same should be true with regard to all foreigners. Since it's not possible to do a full check of the background of persons from other countries, only US citizens should be able to obtain and fly small aircraft within US airspace. All civil air pilots and their passengers should be required to pass through meal detectors before entering an airfield. We don't want them carrying hand grenades or other weapons onto their planes. Planes should also be subject to full searches by specially trained government inspectors before takeoff to be sure they have not been packed with explosives. But that's not enough. We should ban all small aircraft from flying within a mile of any urban areas, and the military should be given authority to take down any plane that violates that rule. The Airforce should be ordered to have fighters, armed with loaded machine guns, in the air at all times, ready to be called into action if a small plane appears to be on a threatening flight path. America cannot lower its guard. After a would-be terrorist tried to take down a commercial plane over the Atlantic by hiding explosives in his shoe, Homeland Security responded appropriately by requiring all air travelers, from old men in wheelchairs to infants in booties, to remove their shoes and have them run through an Xray machine. When a terrorist wannabe tried to concoct an explosive from two jars of chemicals he had brought on board a plane, Homeland Security appropriately responded by banning toothpaste and all other liquid or semiliquid substances from carry-on bags--even women's pancake makeup and lipstick. More recently, when terrorists developed the insidious underwear bomb, first used last December, Homeland Security responded with a plan to introduce backscatter Xray machines at all airports, which can see under people's clothes. These measures were fine as far as they go, but how can we now do less than crack down on the virtually unmonitored use of small planes in this country? Of course, while we're at it, we need to consider the much bigger problem of the widespread access to cars and trucks, which are equally capable of being made into four-wheeled bombs. If a deranged man can use a plane to take out an IRS building, how long will it be before another equally deranged man or woman who fails a driver's test decides to take out a motor vehicle office? There is only one solution. We need to crack down heavily on who can obtain a driver's license. Probably the best solution would be to require anyone seeking a drivers licence to first undergo psychological screening. Nobody found to have anger management difficulties, or any history of violent or aggressive behavior, should be allowed to own or drive a vehicle. (One good screening technique would be to slow down service at motor vehicle offices even more, and then to bar anyone who shows signs of impatience or anger from obtaining a license.) Now don't get me wrong. I'm not in favor of going overboard here. I'm certainly not suggesting that we start doing something draconian or unconstitutional like limiting gun sales, or preventing people from buying machine guns or bazookas or anything like that. That would be unAmerican. But we do need to crack down on the ability of terrorists, foreign or domestic, to get ahold of moving vehicles--airborne or ground-based--which in the wrong hands could be used to threaten Americans with mayhem. The Austin IRS building attack was a wake-up call. It's time to act to keep Americans safe! http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/02/19-4

Did Roosevelt start a war to control resources, which resulted in the death of up to 1.2 million innocents? No. and torture had long been officially banned by the time Cheney came along for his second time around the white house. A true regressive ..

more ad-hominem from the service neo-neanderthal

should anyone be nice to war criminals and their apologists?

Skills are always better than no skills. I saw another study about unemployment versus education and it showed a similar picture although with a rapid drop off in employment between 4-year college graduates and those with a couple years of post high-school education. BUT there is no telling how long that will last because according to on-going logic many skilled jobs are susceptible to being shipped to the land of cheaper labor and absolutely no benefits.

A regressive is someone who attempts to reverse or block progress. Progress is moving toward a sustainable society: environmentally, socially, and economically. But, I note that you haven't answered my question about regressives pitting people against one another to pass their unpopular policies.

Media frenzy for sure died off pretty quickly about this. How long did it go on for the underwear bomber? One would think that sensationalism sells as many are fond of saying to explain 24/7 fear-mongering (right?), so why so little hand wringing and fear mongering in the corporate media about anti-government/anti-tax types crashing airplanes into buildings?