j_b

Same tendentious drivel rehashed a different way. All teachers have at least a BA and not uncommonly Masters, and they are a stable worforce. The equivalent population would earn 4.3% more total compensation in the private sector. I am sure we'll read more about was left unsaid by that WSJ article (a Murdoch/Fox rag.

case-shiller index is not very meaningful when there is so little data available. City wide averages also don't mean much in this kind of market.

Indeed, the rebuttal is pretty weak too.

overhead for alpine isn't the same as for being a gym rat. springing the honey trap, huh?

Ha! true, but I bet some Democrats need to be reminded of the facts too.

the data indicates that state and local government employees in Wisconsin are not overpaid. Comparisons controlling for education, experience, organizational size, gender, race, ethnicity, citizenship, and disability reveal that employees of both state and local governments in Wisconsin earn less than comparable private sector employees. On an annual basis, full-time state and local government employees in Wisconsin are undercompensated by 8.2% compared with otherwise similar private sector workers. This compensation disadvantage is smaller but still significant when hours worked are factored in. Full-time public employees work fewer annual hours, particularly employees with bachelor’s, master’s, and professional degrees (because many are teachers or university professors). When comparisons are made controlling for the difference in annual hours worked, full-time state and local government employees are undercompensated by 4.8%, compared with otherwise similar private sector workers. To summarize, our study shows that Wisconsin public employees earn 4.8% less in total compensation per hour than comparable full-time employees in Wisconsin’s private sector. These compensation comparisons account for important factors that affect earnings, the most important of which is the educational levels of public employees. When comparing public and private sector pay it is essential to consider the much higher levels of education required by occupations in the public sector. As a consequence of these requirements, Wisconsin public sector workers are on average more highly educated than private sector workers; 59% of full-time Wisconsin public sector workers hold at least a four-year college degree, compared with 30% of full-time private sector workers. Wisconsin state and local governments pay college-educated employees 25% less in annual compensation, on average, than private employers. The compensation differential is greatest for professional employees, lawyers, and doctors. On the other hand, the public sector appears to set a floor on compensation, which benefits less-educated workers. The 1% of state and local government workers without high school diplomas earn more than comparably educated workers in the private sector. http://www.epi.org/publications/entry/are_wisconsin_public_employees_over-compensated/

or pushing through tax cuts, then requiring a 2/3 majority to increase taxes?

There is a revenue problem (part of it by design as it is the starving the beast strategy), and some compensation abuse but there isn't a public sector compensation problem.

Cool movies, Lowell. Thanks to you and the Mountaineers History Committee for doing this important work. I don't know what the idea is worth but would there be some kind of related project for a grad student that would also further the archiving and transcribing that you guys are trying to do?

Certainly isn't new but the constant cherry picking, outright lies and moronic arguments ("schools don't make money so let's pay them shit") to demonize a set of people in order to pit them against other workers is reaching beyond nauseating level. I'd say the social Darwinists need to get punked!

what's really vile is the constant demonizing of teachers and nurses making middle class wages for honest work but not a word about the highest ever Wall Street bonuses afforded thanks to trillions in very low interest loans to the banskters and many corporations or the tax breaks to the wealthy who are paying as little tax as they ever did.

about real politics. Not corporate media or the circus-in-Washington politics. strawman. Public workers being the best able to assess the needs of their sector isn't about altruism. typical dishonest regressive decoupling between wage and quality of services provided. What's terrible about your pablum (and shows your bad faith)is that you know very well that you get what you pay for. regressive propaganda without supporting evidence classic cherry picking to paint a bleak picture of the entire public sector when in fact abuses are the fact of a small minority of public workers.

I'm having trouble deciding which lycra pants to wear under my shorts. Hmmm, the pink ones or neon green? You guys should all show up in late 80's western euro fluo-colored alpine garb and see what happens.

oh yeah? how many times did you climb the toof and Raindeer in winter?

AND in typical fashion the Fox Propaganda network showed the following graphics: the host propagandist reported 61% for taking away collective bargaining!

I think it has more to do with the current crop of Regressives who are so far to the right they might as well join the John Birch Society (see Ron Paul giving the most important talk at their convention almost every year). Although they were already pretty fucked up, do you remember 25 years ago when they (and Reagan) claimed that belonging to a union was a most elemental right? When they kissed Solidarnosc and Walesa on both butt cheeks?

The point was that the United States signed the declaration, and that it goes way beyond collective bargaining.

in 1976, after the Covenants had been ratified by a sufficient number of individual nations, the Bill took on the force of international law [..] The Universal Declaration was adopted by the General Assembly on 10 December 1948 by a vote of 48 in favour, 0 against, with 8 abstentions (all Soviet Bloc states [i.e., Byelorussia, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Ukraine, The USSR and Yugoslavia], South Africa and Saudi Arabia).[11] The following countries voted in favour of the Declaration: Afghanistan, Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Burma, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Denmark, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Ethiopia, France, Greece, Guatemala, Haiti, Iceland, India, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Liberia, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Thailand, Sweden, Syria, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay, Venezuela.[12] Despite the central role played by Canadian John Humphrey, the Canadian Government at first abstained from voting on the Declaration's draft, but later voted in favour of the final draft in the General Assembly.[13 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Human_Rights

Pretty much the usual 60-30 split on most issues. These sociopaths never had a mandate to go after collective bargaining, worker benefits or cut social programs.

Nothing really new: per usual, sociopathic regressives manufactured a crisis to demonize public workers and double down on union busting with the funding of the Libertarian Kochctopus.

Article 23 1. Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment. 2. Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work. 3. Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection. 4. Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests. Article 24 Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay. Article 25 1. Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control. 2. Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.

They are playing Disaster Capitalism, after creating several crises, and they know they only have a short time to pass the most outrageous stuff before people wake up, give them the boot and promptly elect some corporatist Democrats on some promise of change she/he'll never deliver.

wut? were you thinking of me when you wrote this

More tyranny of the minority: "Today, Governor Scott Walker signed Special Session Assembly Bill 5 which requires a 2/3s vote to pass tax rate increases on the income, sales or franchise taxes." Why are regressives such authoritarians?