Dino Rossi

[JayB]

If Jay actually knew anyone who was a teacher, bus driver, cop, or any of the other government parasites he rails against, he might enjoy the advantage of more accurate information and greater credibility.

 

Instead, he's pretty much a more verbose version of FW, parroting the right wing blogs and their fantasy numbers. Waste of an intellect, but what can you do?

i wish it were so simple - didn't i meet you at smith once jay? recall you being plenty funny and friendly - at any rate, he's a far more civil bloke and likely as not smarter than me (a simple feat, i know) and no less informed - its damned impossible for me to understand how folks so similiar to myself can have such different views on important subjects...ah, but this misses the pt of being funny...

 

 

Yes - we've met more than once although my three year sentence on the EC and my subsequent diversion into WW kayaking has unfortunately precluded any further social engagements.

 

For the record - I think you are a cool dude, obviously very smart, and would be glad to have the opportunity to have any hypothetical future children taught in your classroom.

 

Unfortunately for me, Diderot, D'Alembert, Turgot, Rousseau, D'Holbach, etc lead directly to Burke, Locke, Hume, Gibbon, Smith, etc - and once I veered off into Menger, Mises, and Hayek I was pretty much doomed to pariah status in progressive enclaves. This after alienating a good many social conservatives with the whole agnostic evolutionist schtick.

 

I'm also good for alienating your average naturopath/homeopath/vaccine-denier so I'm pretty much a hit at every social function in Seattle.

 

Typical evening on the town for me re-created in beat-poem form below:

 

[video:youtube]

[JayB]

When I was in Australia you would get your way paid through college if you agreed to teach for two years when you graduated. When you taught you were paid normal wages for a beginning teacher. It seems we could use a similar system here for many professions. You were also free to pay tuition if you did not want the obligation. Doctors there were not paid that much more than teachers.

 

I suspect actual earnings is dependent upon the type of physician. (Anesthesiologists make over $200k) I am sure you are also aware of the chronic shortage of Drs. in Australia. Don’t have time to find a more current article but check this out. https://www.mja.com.au/public/issues/179_04_180803/letters_180803_fm-3.html

 

There is also a shortage of physicians in Canada and amazingly enough I bet if you check out Mass, problems are starting to develop there as well.

 

Better to have a shortage of doctors you can afford than an over abundance of doctors you can't.

 

You realize that the resource-based relative value scale has done more to distort compensation towards specialists and procedures and away from GP's and prevention than any other set of incentives in the history of American medicine?

 

But I suspect that you have not idea what the RBRVS is, what its origins are, or how it distorts the practice of medicine.

 

http://motherjones.com/mojo/2009/10/blame-doctors-americas-primary-care-doctor-shortage

 

http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/lessons-from-the-abyss/Content?oid=999924

[JayB]

More nonsense based on misinformation, Jay. Bus drivers do not make 100k. This site indicates that in Seattle, where they are presumably paid more than they are in Yakima, they make $50k. I've talked to several bus drivers about their income and even that is higher than almost all of those I've seen.

 

Not only are you misinformed, but you talk in truisms. Even the most ardent union booster will tell you that the government exists to serve the public interest rather than the private interest of individual employees. So what.

 

You've fallen for a "war on government workers" that is a smokescreen for those whose goal is to reduce government. Personally, I wish we could pay police officers and school teachers more than we do because I think it would probably get us better cops and better teachers. I don't know about bus drivers.

 

Matt:

 

Given fiscal realities - government will be reduced. The only question is how.

 

When push comes to shove I'd personally prefer to see the government using the limited resources as its disposal to focus on things that only it can do as efficiently as possible. Consequently, when it comes down to a choice between a 5X5% compounded pay increase for cops, subsizing the Seattle port to the tune of ~3/4 billion per decade, COLA's for all irrespective of the budget, pension and benefit reform, etc - or providing state services for schizophrenic drug addicts, people who require a public defender, Medicaid funding, Fish and Wildlife enforcement budgets, etc I'll take the latter.

 

I still have no idea how asking public employees to pay as much out of pocket for their retirement and health benefits constitutes a war on public sector employees. Is this because you don't understand how pension finance works, or some other reason?

 

For starters, plug in an inflation-adjusted pension payout of $50K per year for ages 55-65 using immediate annuity calculators and see what kind of lump-sum it would require to fund the said payout. Then add medical care. The value will never be below seven figures.

 

How many people do you know that put enough aside out of their earnings to have a seven-figure balance when they retire? If a public sector employee has a retirement package that requires seven figures in the bank, and the combined value of their contributions and returns is in the high-five to low-six figure range where, exactly - do you think the money required to cover he difference is going to come from?

 

There are a few erstwhile progressives out there who can do math who know the answer to that question. Jeff Adachi is one of them:

 

http://articles.sfgate.com/2010-02-01/opinion/17841791_1_pension-fund-pension-debt-retirement-fund

 

 

[Hugh Conway]

Unfortunately for me, Diderot, D'Alembert, Turgot, Rousseau, D'Holbach, etc lead directly to Burke, Locke, Hume, Gibbon, Smith, etc - and once I veered off into Menger, Mises, and Hayek I was pretty much doomed to pariah status in progressive enclaves. This after alienating a good many social conservatives with the whole agnostic evolutionist schtick.

 

sweet cut n' paste

 

nothing says seattle like dogmatic book learned opinions and pedantic style

[ivan]

If Jay actually knew anyone who was a teacher, bus driver, cop, or any of the other government parasites he rails against, he might enjoy the advantage of more accurate information and greater credibility.

 

Instead, he's pretty much a more verbose version of FW, parroting the right wing blogs and their fantasy numbers. Waste of an intellect, but what can you do?

i wish it were so simple - didn't i meet you at smith once jay? recall you being plenty funny and friendly - at any rate, he's a far more civil bloke and likely as not smarter than me (a simple feat, i know) and no less informed - its damned impossible for me to understand how folks so similiar to myself can have such different views on important subjects...ah, but this misses the pt of being funny...

 

 

Yes - we've met more than once although my three year sentence on the EC and my subsequent diversion into WW kayaking has unfortunately precluded any further social engagements.

 

For the record - I think you are a cool dude, obviously very smart, and would be glad to have the opportunity to have any hypothetical future children taught in your classroom.

 

Unfortunately for me, Diderot, D'Alembert, Turgot, Rousseau, D'Holbach, etc lead directly to Burke, Locke, Hume, Gibbon, Smith, etc - and once I veered off into Menger, Mises, and Hayek I was pretty much doomed to pariah status in progressive enclaves. This after alienating a good many social conservatives with the whole agnostic evolutionist schtick.

 

I'm also good for alienating your average naturopath/homeopath/vaccine-denier so I'm pretty much a hit at every social function in Seattle.

 

Typical evening on the town for me re-created in beat-poem form below:

 

[video:youtube]

i seem to recall a driving rain-storm at skull hollow, w/ the whole party practially standing in the fire, drowning in smoke

 

can we at least blame your alleged insanity on being beaten by a nun in her undies or something?

[ivan]

nothing says seattle like dogmatic book learned opinions and pedantic style

would sound like sarah palin if'n you hadn't used that fancy pedantic word

[Off_White]

Jay, that beat poem is downright brilliant, thanks.

[Jim]

More nonsense based on misinformation, Jay. Bus drivers do not make 100k. This site indicates that in Seattle, where they are presumably paid more than they are in Yakima, they make $50k. I've talked to several bus drivers about their income and even that is higher than almost all of those I've seen.

 

Not only are you misinformed, but you talk in truisms. Even the most ardent union booster will tell you that the government exists to serve the public interest rather than the private interest of individual employees. So what.

 

You've fallen for a "war on government workers" that is a smokescreen for those whose goal is to reduce government. Personally, I wish we could pay police officers and school teachers more than we do because I think it would probably get us better cops and better teachers. I don't know about bus drivers.

 

Matt:

 

Given fiscal realities - government will be reduced. The only question is how.

 

When push comes to shove I'd personally prefer to see the government using the limited resources as its disposal to focus on things that only it can do as efficiently as possible. Consequently, when it comes down to a choice between a 5X5% compounded pay increase for cops, subsizing the Seattle port to the tune of ~3/4 billion per decade, COLA's for all irrespective of the budget, pension and benefit reform, etc - or providing state services for schizophrenic drug addicts, people who require a public defender, Medicaid funding, Fish and Wildlife enforcement budgets, etc I'll take the latter.

 

I still have no idea how asking public employees to pay as much out of pocket for their retirement and health benefits constitutes a war on public sector employees. Is this because you don't understand how pension finance works, or some other reason?

 

For starters, plug in an inflation-adjusted pension payout of $50K per year for ages 55-65 using immediate annuity calculators and see what kind of lump-sum it would require to fund the said payout. Then add medical care. The value will never be below seven figures.

 

How many people do you know that put enough aside out of their earnings to have a seven-figure balance when they retire? If a public sector employee has a retirement package that requires seven figures in the bank, and the combined value of their contributions and returns is in the high-five to low-six figure range where, exactly - do you think the money required to cover he difference is going to come from?

 

There are a few erstwhile progressives out there who can do math who know the answer to that question. Jeff Adachi is one of them:

 

http://articles.sfgate.com/2010-02-01/opinion/17841791_1_pension-fund-pension-debt-retirement-fund

 

While I don't agree with all of this (the port thing) this is the conversation that needs to occur or else local governments are going to default. At some point. And then social services will really get the ax.

 

I'm not encouraged either locally or on the national level that this will happen anytime soon. On the national level big ticket items such as the Medicade Drug benefit bill and Pharma giveaway is going to swamp the Stimulus and Bailout (at least there's some revenue recovery here) in terms of debt blowout and should be repealed. The military budget needs to be cut in half, at least. Raise corporate taxes to a reasonable level, discontinue the limit on upper income Social Security tax, and end the disasterous Bush tax cuts on the upper income brackets - now.

[JayB]

Jay, that beat poem is downright brilliant, thanks.

 

You'll probably like the rest of his (Tim Minchin's) stuff then. Lots more available on Youtube, but his stuff is usually done piano-ballad style.

[video:youtube]

[JayB]

More nonsense based on misinformation, Jay. Bus drivers do not make 100k. This site indicates that in Seattle, where they are presumably paid more than they are in Yakima, they make $50k. I've talked to several bus drivers about their income and even that is higher than almost all of those I've seen.

 

Not only are you misinformed, but you talk in truisms. Even the most ardent union booster will tell you that the government exists to serve the public interest rather than the private interest of individual employees. So what.

 

You've fallen for a "war on government workers" that is a smokescreen for those whose goal is to reduce government. Personally, I wish we could pay police officers and school teachers more than we do because I think it would probably get us better cops and better teachers. I don't know about bus drivers.

 

Matt:

 

Given fiscal realities - government will be reduced. The only question is how.

 

When push comes to shove I'd personally prefer to see the government using the limited resources as its disposal to focus on things that only it can do as efficiently as possible. Consequently, when it comes down to a choice between a 5X5% compounded pay increase for cops, subsizing the Seattle port to the tune of ~3/4 billion per decade, COLA's for all irrespective of the budget, pension and benefit reform, etc - or providing state services for schizophrenic drug addicts, people who require a public defender, Medicaid funding, Fish and Wildlife enforcement budgets, etc I'll take the latter.

 

I still have no idea how asking public employees to pay as much out of pocket for their retirement and health benefits constitutes a war on public sector employees. Is this because you don't understand how pension finance works, or some other reason?

 

For starters, plug in an inflation-adjusted pension payout of $50K per year for ages 55-65 using immediate annuity calculators and see what kind of lump-sum it would require to fund the said payout. Then add medical care. The value will never be below seven figures.

 

How many people do you know that put enough aside out of their earnings to have a seven-figure balance when they retire? If a public sector employee has a retirement package that requires seven figures in the bank, and the combined value of their contributions and returns is in the high-five to low-six figure range where, exactly - do you think the money required to cover he difference is going to come from?

 

There are a few erstwhile progressives out there who can do math who know the answer to that question. Jeff Adachi is one of them:

 

http://articles.sfgate.com/2010-02-01/opinion/17841791_1_pension-fund-pension-debt-retirement-fund

 

While I don't agree with all of this (the port thing) this is the conversation that needs to occur or else local governments are going to default. At some point. And then social services will really get the ax.

 

I'm not encouraged either locally or on the national level that this will happen anytime soon. On the national level big ticket items such as the Medicade Drug benefit bill and Pharma giveaway is going to swamp the Stimulus and Bailout (at least there's some revenue recovery here) in terms of debt blowout and should be repealed. The military budget needs to be cut in half, at least. Raise corporate taxes to a reasonable level, discontinue the limit on upper income Social Security tax, and end the disasterous Bush tax cuts on the upper income brackets - now.

 

The cuts are coming. The only question is whether the bulk of the cutting will be in essential services that only the state can provide, or in the pay and benefits of those who deliver them.

 

My bet is on cuts to essential services via layoffs that do nothing to address the structural factors driving the cost of everything from putting police on the streets to operating the buses ever higher.

 

I'm astonished that state and muni bond-yields aren't already spiking. All I can think is that people that are buying them are pricing in a Federal bailout.

 

The ghost of Christmas future is already arriving in Euroland, and he wants his money.

 

"Trichet Is Buyer of Only Resort as Debt Woes Worsen

European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet is the buyer of only resort as the euro area’s bond market melts down.

 

Just six months after he threw out his rule book to prevent Greece’s debt crisis from splintering the euro area, the 67-year old Frenchman may again be the only policy maker able to prevent the collapse in Irish and Portuguese bonds from spreading...."

 

http://cascadeclimbers.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/ubb/newreply/Board/21/Number/987732/what/showflat/fpart/5/q/1

 

 

[Jim]

Example of the King County sheriff's department, who refused to postpone scheduled pay increases. Guess which department is taking large cuts in personell, read: services.

 

Also - great video clip.

[j_b]

Unlike the economists who want to cut spendings this guy actually warned about the real estate bubble very early on.

 

The Myth of Expansionary Fiscal Austerity

October 2010, Dean Baker

 

Recently governments, economists, and international financial institutions have been debating the merits of further fiscal stimulus to combat the Great Recession versus fiscal austerity or “adjustment” – that is, higher taxes and/or lower government spending – to combat budget deficits. Some supporters of austerity have gone as far as arguing that fiscal adjustment could restore economic growth. These analyses are being touted to oppose increased stimulus to boost the economy. This paper examines the arguments for austerity and demonstrates that current economic conditions in the United States do not support the case for fiscal adjustment.

 

http://www.cepr.net/index.php/publications/reports/the-myth-of-expansionary-fiscal-austerity

 

JayB forgets to mention that Ireland has already gone through one round of austerity measures and the economy and the budget deficit have worsened considerably. ALso remember how Ireland was praised as one of the best student of the new economic order and had one of the fastest "growing" economy due to deregulation of financial and labor markets before the crash.

Edited November 12, 2010 by j_b

[Jim]

With or without the current financial mess there are policies in place that continue to be unsustainable. Wether that's benefits/pensions, a tax structure that favors the rich and corporations, and figgin' military outta control. It has to change. I'm not optimistic, however. It will be forced and it will not be pretty.

[j_b]

We are going to make people pay for the deficit and let Bush's friends enjoy the 2 trillions they didn't pay in taxes. Anybody not bringing up this fact while discussing balancing the budget is a charlatan.

[j_b]

With or without the current financial mess there are policies in place that continue to be unsustainable. Wether that's benefits/pensions, a tax structure that favors the rich and corporations, and figgin' military outta control. It has to change. I'm not optimistic, however. It will be forced and it will not be pretty.

 

Fine but let's start with obvious things. Jobs/pensions and benefits are off the table until they return the loot, until we get single payer health care to get cost under control and we slash the military budget.

[j_b]

It's a classic bait and switch. Their criminal policies caused the budget deficit as well as the financial crash that broke the economy and caused revenue shortfall. Why are we even talking about programs that have nothing to do with causing the deficit.

[j_b]

Why are we talking "balancing the budget" with people who dismiss the social and environmental costs of doing business? They don't know what's a budget.

[j_b]

The country is being bombarded with stories claiming that record budget deficits threaten our children's future and jeopardize the credibility of the dollar. These stories are a serious problem -- they have hugely confused the public about the nature of the country's economic crisis. And both parties share the blame.

 

Starting with the reality behind the scare stories -- trillion-dollar deficits are really huge relative to the money that any of us will ever see in our lifetime. But this is an absurd measure. The United States is a country with more than 300 million people. It doesn't matter that a trillion dollars is a huge amount to any of us individually. What matters is the size of the deficit and the debt relative to the size of the economy.

 

Only people who want to deceive the public would talk about the deficit or debt in "trillions" of dollars. This is a very simple lie-detector test since honest economists and policy analysts always refer to these sums relative to the size of the economy.

 

Relative to the size of the economy, the deficits that we are running are large and the debt that we are projected to incur is substantial, but the deficit level is still not coming close to the levels hit in World War II. Nor is the debt level projected to reach post-war peaks or the levels sustained by countries like Italy and Japan. The idea that we are near some debt-driven crisis is absurd on its face.

 

The United States had the strongest period of growth in its history in the three decades following World War II. This undeniable fact should put to rest the idea that our debt levels will threaten the prosperity of future generations. We hand our children a whole economy and society. If we give them a bad education, a decayed infrastructure, a ruined environment, then we will be jeopardizing our children's economic well-being. However, the debt levels we are currently projecting aren't even large enough to make it to the list of serious problems.

 

The claim that the dollar faces an imminent crisis because of the budget deficit or national debt is readily refuted by the example of Japan. Japan already has a debt to GDP level that is far larger than we are projected to have by the end of the next decade. In spite of this debt burden, investors are willing to hold ten-year Japanese government bonds at just a 1.5 percent interest rate. If these debt burdens are supposed to make Japan a high risk, someone forgot to tell the people who are putting billions of dollars on the line by holding Japanese government bonds.

 

There is another side of this Japan story that makes the idiocy of the deficit scare stories even more apparent. According to the deficit fear mongers, the dollar has been falling in recent months because investors are becoming increasingly worried about the U.S. government's ability to pay off its debt. But one of the currencies that the dollar has fallen against is the yen. Are investors who are worried about the U.S. government's ability to pay off its debt selling dollars to buy the bonds of the Japanese government, which has an even higher debt burden?

 

Let's face it: The deficit hawks will say anything to advance their agenda. Even worse, the media will print it.

 

Dean Baker.Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dean-baker/the-budget-deficit-crisis_b_367867.html

Edited November 12, 2010 by j_b

[Jim]

Why are we talking "balancing the budget" with people who dismiss the social and environmental costs of doing business? They don't know what's a budget.

 

From a state and local perspective - because that is the law. They cannot run deficts. From the national perspective - because in the long run it's not sustainable under the present course.

 

I'd agree that proposed austerity measures are used by the Republicans most often reflect their petulance to pay off their contributors. The Democrats are just as guilty to contributing to the problem and tip-toeing around and serious considerations.

 

The tax structure has to become more equatible but public employee benefits and pensions need to be closely examined and brought back to something sustainable.

 

As an example - Jay is on the mark regarding pensions - it's not possible to sustain and will affect the delivery of social services. In Washington we are not so bad off because some changes were made a decade ago but we still hover around 80% funded, so some tweaking is needed. Other state, notably California, are in crisis.

[prole]

[video:youtube]

[video:youtube]

 

If this is what passes for a sense of humor in your book then your social pariah status is well-earned. Christopher Hitchens meets Gallagher...

[JayB]

Unfortunately for me, Diderot, D'Alembert, Turgot, Rousseau, D'Holbach, etc lead directly to Burke, Locke, Hume, Gibbon, Smith, etc - and once I veered off into Menger, Mises, and Hayek I was pretty much doomed to pariah status in progressive enclaves. This after alienating a good many social conservatives with the whole agnostic evolutionist schtick.

 

sweet cut n' paste

 

nothing says seattle like dogmatic book learned opinions and pedantic style

 

None of the above were giving personal interviews at the time.

 

 

[j_b]

Except that pensions have little to do with the budget deficit today so we should talk about tweeks for the future. Today other things have to be done like increasing revenue, decreasing obvious unnecessary spending on wars, and spend money to create jobs. Cutting programs and the workforce now will make the economic crisis worse and could well kick us into a depression

[JayB]

[video:youtube]

[video:youtube]

 

If this is what passes for a sense of humor in your book then your social pariah status is well-earned. Christopher Hitchens meets Gallagher...

 

Affirmation of the day!

 

I've taken to humming the strains of this song in my head and smiling when I run into someone who has literally no idea what an antigen is, much less an adjuvant, chimes in with news that they'll be spacing out their vaccinations because - based on what they heard at their Mommy-Yoga class in Fremont - they don't want to have their infant exposed to too many "antigens" all at once.

 

 

[JayB]

Except that pensions have little to do with the budget deficit today so we should talk about tweeks for the future. Today other things have to be done like increasing revenue, decreasing obvious unnecessary spending on wars, and spend money to create jobs. Cutting programs and the workforce now will make the economic crisis worse and could well kick us into a depression

 

How much of the King County budget is currently dedicated to war-funding and what's the magnitude of the fiscal windfall that the county can expect to realize once the Kingco War Machine is dismantled? How about the state of Washington's?

 

Someone should lay the numbers out there for Gregoire and Chopp, poste-haste....

[Jim]

Except that pensions have little to do with the budget deficit today so we should talk about tweeks for the future. Today other things have to be done like increasing revenue, decreasing obvious unnecessary spending on wars, and spend money to create jobs. Cutting programs and the workforce now will make the economic crisis worse and could well kick us into a depression

 

I think you're mixing up national and state/local issues. Ok - let's stick to the state/local for a moment. So because pensions are not fully funded, woefully so, it's not an issue because? Yea the tanking economy has exacerbated weakness in state/local budgets, but because unsustainable pensions (in any economic climate)didn't cause the banking meltdown there's no reason to adjust? That doesn't make sense.