Of course I am aware that there is a trade-off for this flexibility. I am a highly skilled and educated employee and my compensation and career path are not what they could have been if I had devoted myself to moving up the ladder. I and those like me with young families have turned down promotions because they would have limited our work-life balance abilities. However, my hours are fairly regular and I rarely have to travel meaning we don't worry about child care or missing a school event (since I have the flexible hours and my wife doesn't I'm usually the one who goes to these type of events). I choose life over just work. So shoot me and members of my generation (Generation X for the record), but before you do, remember that this is only for a relatively short period of our career life and, at least for those of us who are highly skilled and talented, if an employer chooses not to place our skills sets back on the corporate ladder, there is usually somebody else who would.
Here is another wonder American who thinks anyone who does not live in rural America and swear allegiance to Jesus, Sarah Palin and their version of conservative values is not a real American. Unbelievable. Not so much that he was able to say this on TV; this is America after all and I'm not into censorship. What I find unbelievable is that these evil people have such a following. Yes, evil.
All these "conservatives" who make their living turning one group of Americans against another should be taken out back and shot for treason. It is fine to disagree but to say someone is not a real American because they don't agree with you is a bunch of bull. These terrorists, hiding under the cloak of conservatism, who are busy dividing the country on the basis of religion, urban v. rural or education by pandering to the lowest common denominator, are our real enemy. Yet we allow them to vomit their hatred with barely a peep because "uneducated, socially conservative, gun-toting, Jesus freaks" are the real Americans and the rest of us are not (although we were apparently good enough in 2001 when two of our cities were bombed by terrorists) because we decided to better ourselves in school, have a let and let live attitude regarding homosexuality, don't feel the need to bring our guns to church and are friends with those who may have different religious views then us -- you know, that whole freedom from persecution thing.
As to Sarah Palin, I just don't understand the so called conservatives' love of this woman (not to mention their sincere embrace of Joe the plumber as a party symbol). Her experience as mayor of a small town and as governor of a state with a population smaller than many major US cities has already shown her limited abilities and leaves me with no confidence that she can be anything more than eye candy on the national scene. Is there nobody who has the same general conservative beliefs with a brain and a bit of gravitas? An Alito or Roberts type who wants to run for President? Somebody who can keep Obama and the Democrats from getting too complacent. Taking anti-intellectual (Oh no! Elitists!), anti-science stances to attract a segment of voters couldn't have sidelined all the intelligent conservatives, could it?
It doesn't seem that long ago when I was driving home from my after school job, listening to one of Michael Jackson's latest hits on the radio, before crashing on the couch for a few minutes, listening to Ed McMahon laughing at Johnny Carson's monologue while I wound down so I could go to sleep in my room where the Farah Fawcett Majors poster used to be (that thing fell off the wall years before). And this week, all died.
To be honest, none of their deaths surprised me. McMahon was older and had been reported in poor health for some time. Rumors of Fawcett's impending death had also been circulating for a time. And let's face it, are any of us really surprised Jackson died at a relatively young age due to a possible perscription overdose? Additionally, unlike when older relatives and friends my own age have died, their deaths don't affect me personally. Carson's Tonight Show has been gone for almost two decades and, aside from clips when he was about to lose his home, McMahon had been out of the limelight of late. Same for Fawcett, aside from occasional appearances here and there. As to Jackson, it has been almost 20 years since any of his music appealed to me and I prefer to remember him as the entertainer of the 1980s and not this weird, sick creature he morphed into in the 1990s and 2000s. So why am I feeling a little sad today?
As a child of the late 1960s to mid 1980s, my childhood was one surrounded by cultural icons. And, for better or worse, Jackson, McMahon and Fawcett were the icons of my youth (along with Prince, The Brady Bunch, Lucille Ball, the original Star Trek crew etc), even if they had drifted in from the previous generation. Though I didn't know Robert Reed or James Doohan (though I did see him once at a Star Trek convention, funny guy) I remember being sad when I heard they had died. And though I remember being interested in the coverage of Presiden's Nixon's death, I was much more affected by President Reagan's death, though it was also somewhat expected, as I recalled his presidency and barely remembered Nixon's, aside from being confused at the time as to why the President of the United States would consider breaking into our home to steal my mother's scotch tape. Still I had never met Ronald Reagan so why should I have been affected? Probably because it simply marked the passage of time.
During Reagan's presidency, my parents were young and healthy (though I thought those old farts in their 40s and 50s to be ancient) and even most of my grandparents and their generation were still around (at least in 1981). By the time of Reagan's death, my grandparents' generation was all but gone and even many of the relatives of my parents' generation were dead or ailing, including both of my parents. With children of my own and a mother suffering one health crisis after another by then, it was as if another piece of my childhood had died. So maybe that is why now, when I am at an age I remember my father being and my children are at ages I remember being, these latest deaths just remind me that I am getting older. And that's the way it is.
More recently, it has rained 18 out of the last 21 days (and I think the last week of May was cool and rainy too). In June we're usually cooking on the grill, eating outside, wearing shorts and going to the pool. This month I've cooked on the grill once, have not bothered to take the chair cushions out of the deck boxes since May, am still wearing a jacket and haven't been to the pool club in weeks.
I'm tired of being cold. Last Monday evening I mistakenly wore only a light wind breaker to my son's little league game and froze. My car has a feature where you set the internal temperature and a few days the heat has gone on instead of the AC. I guess the only bright spot is I haven't really had to use the AC in the house (it pops on now and then but not like a normal June). Bring on summer!
Now the article itself, written by a college graduate of course, while making some valid points about some of the waste of college, has a whole lot of fail. The writer obviously wants to keep more surfs out of college because the uneducated are easier to control. Yes, not every job requires a college degree and there are plenty of skills that can be learned without it. And there are many people without a college degree that are able to think for themselves and learn on their own. I also agree that not every student is cut out for college and would do better to focus on where their talents lie (for example, a 4 year degree may not help a plumber, but a series of course related to his or her career in a 2 year school, such as business and writing so they have enough skills to control their fate might be better). However, the author's points missed out on many things.
The author uses two men as examples, Ernie, who went to work right out of school, and Bill who went to college. The author argues that at retirement Ernie will have more money because he will have been working longer, meaning he could invest longer, and not have the college loans to pay off that could delay Bill's investing start. However, the author glosses over many little troublesome facts.
Even during this recession, where more college grads are being laid off, high school graduates don't get promoted as fast as their college educated colleagues and usually suffer layoffs in greater numbers (For sake of argument, I'm going to exclude those not in the corporate world, such as smallbushiness people or other skilled workers). The lack of a college degree also hinders their ability to land another job for various reasons. High school graduates are typically paid lower wages, meaning they have less discretionary income to invest so Ernie may not be able to invest as the author suggested. Also, there is no law that says Bill must go away to a private school without a scholarship. Perhaps he stays at the public university and lives at the MommaPapaSister dorms and has less debt. Finally, there is more to life than money. Perhaps Bill takes a class that enriches his life in many ways that one would be hard pressed to put a dollar amount on.
I think philosophy was one of the best classes I ever took. It opened my mind to things I had not considered before and that has helped me more in life over the last 20 years then anything else I learned in college (and as to law school, it teaches you to think like a lawyer but you don't really learn to be a lawyer until you're out in the real world). That was the one college class that I think enabled me to learn how to learn. Perhaps I could have learned what I learned in that class on my own, but I suspect it would have been much later in life and not done me as much good as it did when I was 18 or 19. Though I'd be hard pressed to answer if someone asked me what business skills I learned in philosophy class (I can still remember the precise moment, when the professor was describing faith as how else can you believe someone walked on water 2,000 years ago), I feel that the ability to learn how to open my mind has paid dividends.
The college experience is simply the foundation for what a person will be. The college degree, for better or worse, has become the price of admission to the better jobs with, hopefully, evidence that your foundation is sound. And as to the sales clerk the author points to who still hasn't started college 18 months after he decided to go -- well, that clerk is still going to be 18 months older anyway by then anyway. If that clerk looks at the long term that 18 month wait is nothing. And if he or she is so eager to learn, there are plenty of online options, not to mention the good old public library, that the clerk can review to prepare for his or her formal education in the meantime.
Not everything you learn in college is for the furtherance of work. Much of the work I do now didn't even exist when I was in school and I learned the new skills as I needed to. Though my job title is the same, much of what I do today I wasn't doing even a decade ago. Sometimes there is a love of learning that is fulfilled in college that is not as easily fulfilled on your own. Perhaps you take a course that enables you to learn how history repeats yourself or heaven forbid, why the other side has a point in their argument that you never done on your own. Other times you learn something that opens your mind to new possibilities or allows you to see how you may be manipulated by those with an ulterior motive. Not all of that can be found by reading a book or searching the internet on your own.
While I agree that the current educational system that leaves graduates in heavy debt upon graduation leaves much to be desired, we live in a post-industrial world. Our greatest tool is the one in our head. Knowledge is power but, unless properly trained, may not live up to its potential. Properly focused knowledge is real power. A college degree is not worthless.
As a white middle aged professionals with a 6 figure income (both mine and my wife) tired of paying high taxes & generally conservative, my wife and I should be smack in their demographic. Yet, as we've aged, become parents and a tad more conservative, we look at them and see nothing that appeals to us. We feel we would not be welcomed because we don't pray to Jesus, have a live and let live attitude to homosexuality (it's none of the government's business), refuse to force our views on abortion on those who disagree with us, support affordable higher education and health care for all and ... gasp ... don't think every tax or government regulation is evil. 30 years ago, I probably would have been classified as a Reagan Democrat (with the exception of my live and live attitude about homosexuality). Today, for holding these views, I would probably be called a bleeding heart liberal by the "true conservatives."
When I look at what the GOP stands for, I don't see my views reflected in theirs. I have no problem with diversity. I think an educated society with a relatively healthy population that is free from worrying about the most basic needs is an overall good thing for the nation as a whole. I think some government regulation is a necessary evil, especially after recent events where the players took out innocent bystanders, but don't want the government telling me what to do when the only person harmed by my actions is me (if I choose to be an idiot and ride a motorcycle without a helmet than that should be between me, Darwin and whoever receives my organs). Much of this used to fit squarely within the GOP, but not today.
Instead the GOP is obsessed with sex and religion, particularly homosexual sex and those who don't accept Jesus as their Savior. The sex obsession, particularly their insistence that people don't have it, is kind of ironic considering the amount of conservatives caught in sex scandals. The religionobsession is the same one governments have been using for centuries. They use religion as justification to hold back free thought, free expression, sex, scientific discovery, and even potentially life saving research.
Worse, the GOP doesn't seem to have the nation's best interests in their hearts anymore as they try to make sure their friends get theirs and yours and mine as they try to return us to the boom and bust robberbaron economy of the 19 th century, ignoring all the prosperity the maturation of our capitalism brought to all because it contained a little socialism and regulation. They have forgotten what they used to stand for: fiscal responsibility and reasonable government.
Do I think there is too much government with their hands out? Yes (but then I live in NJ). Do I think government can solve all problems? No. This used to be the GOP's mantra but now it seems their mantra is to follow what the least educated want no matter if it is bad for our nation as a whole. The GOP has become the party of no and has run out of ideas. They have abandoned us.
What a brilliant idea. Kill your business because you're having a temper tantrum. Give me a break. If you're going to bluff, at least make it a believable bluff. The banks make a ton of money from every little credit card purchase, something like 1 - 3% of each purchase. Even cash buyers pay for that in increased prices. They are not going to kill their golden goose by chasing away their good customers.
Do they really want consumers acting like they did in the past and, instead of using a credit card for everything, do what our parents did, and pay cash or write checks for everything with the added bonus of saying bye bye EZPass, online shopping and anything else people use credit cards for (debit card use online is not something I plan to do -- too much risk if something goes wrong)? I don't think so.
The banks and Wall St argue that their moves in bringing more money to the economy over the last few decades helped the US more then it harmed it. That includes loosening consumer credit. And while that may be true don't think they did it for charitable means. They made money hand over fist. They don't really want consumers to spend less and, through reduced consumer spending, bring the economy and their businesses down. They're just trying to scare Congress into letting them to continue to charge usury rates that should embarrass them.
The banks haven't learned their lessons and think the party should continue. They are not content to make a good living, they want to make a fabulous living. Call their bluff and tell them their interest rates on the money they've borrowed from us has just jumped and see what happens. And, if that doesn't work, raise the ante. With the increase in electronic payments credit cards are almost a default currency. Have the Treasury Department announce that they will now be distributing electronic currency cards that anybody can use in lieu of paper money, with the action the merchants give to the credit card companies going to the US Treasury instead. Maybe then the credit card companies will remove the gun they pointed to their heads and start being realistic.
There will always be a need for credit and a dollar to be made by banks. They will just have to lower their standards of what is an acceptable risk and what is a reasonable profit. And part of that will be not expecting money for their luxuries to come from extending credit and charging usary rates on high credit limits to those who can least afford it, settling instead for the hum drum small percentages they make from each merchant sale.
Forget the negative attitude that current "leaders," such as Dick Cheney, offer in lieu of the optimistic attitudes of leaders such as Ronald Reagan. It's more then that. They seem to not want anybody who doesn't believe in no taxes, no gay marriage, no abortion, no regulations and no to schools not allowing Jesus in the classroom. Forget anything in the middle, such as a live and let live attitude on gay marriage and the necessity of some taxes and regulations to help us maintain our freedom, unless it is for weapons to bomb people we don't like to keep our military manufacturers employed. While I don't think government can solve everything, I see a place for it and sometimes think it needs to be more active then other times. Less active in the people's individual life choices, more active in keeping the country strong as a whole so I may remain free, even if it costs me a few extra dollars. For that, I feel unwelcome.
I think that some taxes are a necessary evil, as they pay for services that keep me more free. For example, paying taxes for school, welfare, police, fire etc is a lot cheaper then paying for those on my own and improve society as a whole. It benefits me if some government money is spent on stopping swine flu (or the next medical disaster) before it spreads and knocks out my employees or my children. It benefits me if my taxes educate my workforce so I don't have to (aside from basic training any new employee needs). It benefits all of us if our children can become contributing members of society, not just yes men or women to a foreign overlord because they have not been taught the skills needed for living in the 21st century. yet, according to some, raising taxes to pay down our debt and invest on potential domestic energy and manufacturing plants that may help us stay free and independent will enslave us, as if being forced to make policy decisions based on the wants of a foreign government who holds our debt will not. Personally, if I'm going to be forced to pay for something I disagree with, I'd rather it because a majority of my fellow citizens disagree with me and not because a foreign entity held a gun to my head.
Same with government regulations: I tend to think that my meat won't kill me because the government sent some regulators out and not because the free market works so well and I am incredibly pissed that a lack of government oversight let a few do so much damage to the economy that even innocent bystanders got taken down in the cross fire. I also don't think it is government's role to be involved with anything regarding the sex life of consenting adults, especially when they start enforcing their religious views on all. And I also don't like big deficits, at least when times were good. I can see a budget deficit in recession times, such as 2008 and 2009, when the government is trying to kick start the economy, but there is no reason to pile on debt when times are good and there is enough money available to pay for the government's costs (or at least come reasonably close).
There used to be Republicans (Reagan democrats) who felt as I did. A live and let live attitude for adults not bothering anyone, a pay as you go standard and a business atmosphere that allowed for savvy people to prosper without harming the economy as a whole. These days I see that on the Democratic side of the aisle (with the book still being out on pay as you go, I'll withhold judgment on that until the recession ends). The GOP is allowing a few hard cores to chase away those who could help it succeed in the 21st century. And unless we want another generation of one party rule, we will all be poorer for it.
We live in a development with sidewalks and near mass transit, school and the library. We also have several lovely parks a mile or so from our home. Yet we are constantly using our cars. Even though we want to walk or use transit, we find ourselves driving, especially if we have our children with us.
Walking to the stores and library from our home requires crossing a major 4 lane road with traffic lights. Though we live about 2-300 yards from the crossing as the crow flies, the sidewalks take a more circulatory path and require a 20 min walk. No biggie, but not so much fun when lugging books or groceries home. This road is about half the width of Queens Boulevard of death yet may be more dangerous as drivers, especially on the weekend, don't look for pedestrians, even those crossing in the crosswalk with a traffic light. One day, about a month after our son was born, and not too long removed from living in Brooklyn, we decided to walk to the library. When we got home there were several calls on our answering machine from my mother-in-law and one of her friends, complaining we did something no good parent should do -- cross the road in the crosswalk with the light. At the time I thought they over reacted, but after crossing that road, in the crosswalk and with a light, for the last 9 years coming home from NJ Transit and seeing drivers not paying attention, I can see their point.
One of the other things we looked for when buying our home was walkability to mass transit and thus we bought a house that gives me a less then 10 minute walk to the bus stop to NYC outside our development. What I didn't count on was the difficulty walking back from the bus stop in the evening. See the stop 10 min from our house is on that 4 lane road I mentioned above. The bus from the city stops directly across the road from the stop to the city. There isn't a crosswalk at the stop and the road is a divided road (grass median) with 55 MPH traffic, making crossing the street both dangerous and illegal. Fortunately there is a light about 200 feet up the road at the next stop. Unfortunately, there is no sidewalk along the road there making walking home from the stop challenging, especially as drivers, hoping to avoid traffic backed up for the light, drive on the shoulder where pedestrians walk. Adding sidewalks or a crosswalk (there is another development across the highway from us that haves the same problem in reverse) is laughed at, but not paying for police to ticket jaywalkers with nowhere to go. So that leaves the stop with the round about path (which is a no go for the development across the road as they don't have a way to walk there). After doing that a few times late in the evening when you're tired or cold, you either learn to pray that the drivers are paying attention when you get off at the closer stops or you add your name to the park and ride lists (well behind the telecommuting times, our town has plenty of monthly spots that stay empty but almost no daily parking for the commuters who go in only once or twice a week).
Finally, we live 2 blocks from our son's school, yet he is bused. While this may make sense in the newer parts of town, we live in an older part with a neighborhood school built right in the middle of our development of almost 1,000 homes. No matter. The children are not allowed to walk to school here anymore. They must be supervised at all times, either on the bus or organized before care in the school itself. Walking or biking to school with your friends, and then hanging out in the school yard until the bell rings is a no no.
And the parks I mentioned, well the roads that go them don't always have sidewalks along them (depends what, if anything is developed alongside) or even shoulders in some places, making walking or biking to them, especially with our children, less then desirable.
So in conclusion, while I and my neighbors live in a neighborhood with sidewalks, close to school (well grades 1-5 anyway), stores and mass transit, we have to use our cars more then we would otherwise due to the rest of those in the community not willing to live in a walking community. The feet are willing, but the community's mindset is weak.
A lot of us "yuppies" are the children or grandchildren of the candy store owner who "tawked like dat," born and raised in Brooklyn (or surrounding boroughs and suburbs) and wanted to stay home. Sorry if going to school to make enough money to stay in the New York City area hurts your sensibilities, but that is life these days. Youshow me all the great paying blue collar jobs left in this city for the average person to go. Heck, show me all those greats across America. They don't exist, at least in numbers that they used to and, even if we weren't busy outsourcing everything overseas, those blue collar jobs wouldn't exist like they did back then due to automation. Knowledge is power and if that makes me yuppie scum, so be it.
And New York City, while always a great place, was not the best place to live in the later portion of the 20th century.I had a lot of fun growing up in the outter boroughs in the 1970s and 80s, but I don't miss the budget cuts that closed schools and libraries, let parks and subways fall apart and let police protection decrease so much that we stopped being surprised that the car was broken into or one of our bikes were stolen. And though many of us who grew up in the city during the lean days are priced out today (yes, even us yuppies), that is the price of progress. For every yuppie who pays $1M for a walkup in Park Slope, there is a long time resident weho makes out like a bandit (my mother included, who got 4x the price my parents paid 35 years earlier for our home).
That said, no way will I be taking my children to baseball games as much as my dad took my brothers and me. The cheapest tickets (those $11 tix are on weeknights, not a great time to go with small children), excluding parking (or mass transit) for our family of 4 will set us back about $100 (much more if I aimed for the mid level seats). Not a lot, but I can think of a lot more to do with that money then see a baseball game. With today's prices, my children will be lucky if I take them to one game a season. The stories my mother tells of walking over to Ebbets Field almost every afternoon after school to see the Dodgers will seem quite alien to her grand-children.
Back when I was a teen, it was not uncommon for my friends and I to run over to Shea at the spur of the moment on a Friday night to see the Mets for $5 (assuming they weren't sold out, they were pretty good then). Even with inflation making those $5 seats probably closer to $10 in today's money, the cheapest seats at Citifield are still twice that for a Fri night game. And again, forget about the better seats which we also used to buy tickets for. Some of my best baseball memories come from those games. All that started with the games my dad took us to when we were young. Sadly, I will not be doing the same, choosing instead to see minor league games. Though I am trying to raise my son as a Mets fan, the closest minor league teams belong to the Yankees and the Phillies. Ugh.
Some of it is already happening as talent and high performers have started bailing out of the bigger financial firms or banks for smaller ones. Once that is well underway, perhaps then it will be time for the plug to be pulled on those larger firms and we should let the chips fall where they may (I just hope the US is high up on the secured creditor list). The auto makers are a bit trickier as they will take many other manufacturers and small businesses if they go down too fast. Sooner or later we'll have to decide if $7B is worth the price to keep Chrysler around or to tell Chrysler we're selling our equity for whatever we can get (which, if all goes well, might be more then $7B at the end of the day).
Congress is now focusing on the future of newspapers. Here is a radical thought: stop thinking of newspapers as something on paper, at least as a daily news device. You want to money again? Start charging for your internet content. The Wall St Journal seems to have it right, giving away dome content for free online, or a the first few paragraphs of an article, and then charging for the full content. Right now I pay roughly $10 a month to read the WSJ electronically, which is considerably less than I would pay if I bought the physical paper each day. There is no reason why other papers, such as the NY Times, couldn’t do something similar.
Yes putting the free news all the time genie back in the bottle may be hard but there is no reason it needs to be painful. Smaller newspapers could combine efforts, perhaps charge a more nominal fee for access to many papers owned by the same parent. Or, at the same time, any newspaper could make their physical weekend papers more attractive to advertisers by allowing weekend subscribers, who probably pay more than $10 a month, full access to the newspaper's web site at no additional cost. Perhaps a publisher would limit some of what appears in print, such as a magazine article, from the website for a day to encourage online only readers to subscribe to the hard copy? Under this plan the newspaper could survive and even make a few extra bucks in advertising on the weekend when circulation tends to be higher.
Of course that wouldn’t work for every paper. Many are going to have to find some other way to charge for content and to focus on more local news. I’m sure more mergers and closings are in the near future as the new business models sort themselves out. One thing that is important though is to make sure we still have a press that investigates and reports on possible misadventures by our politicians and citizens.
I just read a sad article in the Washington Post about a teen killing himself because he was about to be expelled from high school because he possessed marijuana in violation of the school's zero tolerance policy. Very sad, but then I started looking at some of the reader's comments. Wow. The venom in some of those posts. He was a kid and kids make mistakes. While I don't feel there should not have been consequences for the student's actions, ruining his life by expelling him for just smoking pot is a bit extreme. We're not talking about a kid selling drugs to his classmates, we're talking about a kid who was only harming himself.
We've all made mistakes in our lives, especially when we were younger, where the only person harmed was ourselves. Fortunately most of those mistakes didn't have long lasting consequences.
Re-reading the posts in that thread and I'm still not sure if some of the responders are just trolls or the type of people so afraid of every little thing that could go wrong that we've legislated ourselves into a nanny state with limited rights so we can feel safe from the bad guys; you know, the type who live in Iowa but were fine with New Yorkers being searched on the subway so they in Iowa would feel safe from terrorists, regardless of whether New Yorkers were potentially having their Constitutional rights violated.
Whatever happened to using the brains we were born with and looking at every situation individually? If the kid was a seller, expel him. But if he was just a user, then place him in some appropriate program so he can continue his education and move on from this mistake. Get rid of these zero tolerance policies and let justice prevail.
The bad economy is forcing pet owners in Boston to abandon dogs, cats and even alligators (a self correcting problem, the alligators take care of the dogs and cats and then winter takes care of the alligators -- I kid). Actually, the article is pretty sad, but the bit about the pet alligators reminded me of a story from my youth.
My grandparents had a "pet" alligator. By pet I mean my grandfather was a science/biology teacher in Brooklyn in the 1940s and his classroom had many animals. He was able to find summer homes for the ducks, hamsters and other critters but, for some reason, not the gator.So the gator ended up summering in my grandparents apartment, living mostly in the bath tub (he wasn't that big). Whenever someone wanted to take a bath or shower, the gator was simply moved to a crate on the fire escape. This worked well until the day someone forgot to lock the crate. Did I mention the fire escape was one of those old fashioned ones with stairs?
When my grandmother noticed that the alligator had wandered off, she went looking for it. She passed an open construction pit on Ave P (near Coney Island Ave for those who know the area) and heard some men screaming and hissing from the hole. She looked down and there was the gator about to be clobbered by some sewer workers. She screamed down "Don't hurt my alligator!" climbed in and rescued it to the bemusement of the workers.
This being Brooklyn in the 1940s, no one really thought this was strange. Today my grandparents probably would've been fired (my grandfather), sued and evicted. The gator remained in the class for another year or two before moving to the Staten Island Zoo where I presume he lived a long happy life.
According to Governor Corzine, my family is rich as we make over $75,000 a year and don't need our property tax rebates. Cool. Nice to know I finally made it. Now if only we could afford the nicer car and the weekly dinners out our poorer older relatives, who still get their property tax rebates because they are deemed poor, despite being more well off then us, due to their age, have. Oh well, since I'm rich, despite a salary freeze for me and either a furlough or salary freeze for my wife, while our childcare costs continue to rise as we look at the destroyed values of our 401ks and college funds, I'm sure I don't have to worry.Governor Corzine is dealing with the state finances and he has deemed me rich so happy days are here again, right?
Yeah, right. If the governor was really dealing with the state's finances exactly as every family in New Jersey is dealing with theirs, he would be figuring out how to live without a raise (higher taxes) or a decrease in income. Hiring a landscaper to do my lawn or going out more than once every month or two are gone. The nice summer camp is replaced by the Y. The new car we were thinking of buying stays in the showroom while we squeeze more out of our old cars or trade them in for a newer used car. In other words, the non-essential luxuries are gone to make way for the necessities. In all the talk about salary freezes or furloughs for state workers, I didn't hear a peep about leaving the necessary employees like the state road crews, criminal justice system, motor vehicle workers -- the necessities for most of the public -- alone in lieu of getting rid of some of the luxuries working in offices in Trenton. I think we can do with a few less accountants, and their staffs, then a few less pothole repair crews.
Cutting pension funding? How about cutting pensions for new employees and placing those people into the public employee version of 401ks? How about forcing departments to cut 5% of their most highly paid, political employees? If incentives to get people to decrease alcohol and cigarette consumption use via higher taxes are fine, how about incentives to force towns and their individual departments to consolidate so we can finally begon to reduce our state's long term costs?
And to those who think New Jersey state salaries should not be ridiculously above a national average, don't be stupid. Cost of living is much higher in NJ then the rest of the country. You can be living large on $50k a year in many parts of the US, not here, especially if you have a family to support.
In my office, the senior management announced salary freezes for all, including them. When, at a company wide meeting, someone questioned whether that included bonuses, which senior management usually gets while the average content contributor gets nothing, we head a lot of harrumps that, by contract, the company was required to give them their bonuses. So we get to decide if we'll cancel vacation this year while they get to decide if they'll put off buying their new Rolex for a year, while they argue they are saving money for investments (or larger dividends).
NJ Governor Corzine's plan to save the state money is to force unionized state workers to take one day off without pay (apparently one day a month?) or he will lay off employees to help balance the budget. While I don't disagree that the state needs to save money, I find it interesting that the furlough/lay off threat applies to only those workers that work with the public and not those who are higher up the food train (I don't see political appointees in Trenton helping the average citizen day in/day out on a regular basis). Coincidence? I think not, just the big boys looking out for their friends while making sure the average citizen suffers.
To be honest, I'm not surprised. Senior management always watches out for themselves first. They will go on wasting taxpayer money and duplicating services, a fixed cost that seems to never get lower, while we stand in longer lines at the motor vehicle office. I don't know what all those bureaucrats in Trenton do, but I imagine some of them are more expendable to the average citizen then the park ranger keeping our state parks running in the summer are.
Therefore, my real complaint is that the Governor's plan does nothing to fix the long term problems this state has. We have too much government. Aside from too many politicians would lose their power, why don't we use this opportunity to reduce government? Is the state looking for ways to make government service more efficient (what can be automated with newer computer systems) so as to eliminate the need for so many state employees? Are we looking to see what divisions in state government can be eliminated or consolidated so we can get rid of some of the highly paid the political appointees and their staffs who don't work with the average citizen. Here's something radical: eliminate all local government, departments and agencies and move central command to the county level (or something similar) and eliminate all those bureaucracies?
The other day, the the son of the Westchester County Executive called for the elimination of county government to save money. He has it backwards. Get rid of the local governments and move those services to the county level. If Westchester is anything like NJ, all those local governments are wasting a ton of money and may even be breeding local corruption (ex: local Mayor giving his friend the road paving job over the best qualified person because his friend needs the work).
Tell me why the state can't get rid of all the town government/agencies etc (town government, schools, police etc) and bring those up to the county level, at least here in NJ (aside from a lot of corrupt politicians and their friends would lose their jobs and power). We could do with a few less business administrators et al plus their staffs, letting the cream of the crop stay on. We'd also have the benefit of having fewer wolves to keep an eye on. This would hurt the average citizen less then finding out the motor vehicle office or the court is closed on the day they want to do business or that the pothole on the state road they use will remain a little longer because the road crew is off that day.
No wait, this is too logical -- it will never happen.
As to the furloughs, I feel bad for the workers on the bottom. Not so much that they're getting 12 unpaid days and a salary freeze, but that the one day a month plan doesn't allow the workers to cuts fixed, monthly costs. For example, if I'm taking 2 weeks vacation in summer, I don't buy a monthly NJ Transit pass, I buy 2 weekly passes and save some money. Same for day camp or child care, I pull my children out those 2 weeks. If I were taking off only a day a month, it would probably make sense for me to keep my monthly pass.
If I were about to be unemployed for 12 days, I would similarly buy weekly passes and take my children out of camp/day care for the period. Daycare doesn't offer a discount for just one day nor does switching to weekly passes every week (unless I'm taking a few vacation days too) give me any savings. But, if state government is anything like the private sector, I imagine that Corzine et al really holds the average state worker in contempt. The difference being, of course, is that the public, holds a similar view based on a few assumptions or jealousy that they had to settle for an even worse job themselves. I've seen the enemy and he is us.
President Obama has decided that those financial companies that choose to accept aid from the government to survive should limit compensation to senior executives to only half a million dollars a year. And of course, many are whining that those businesses, will simply lose the top talent to their competitors. Wah.
To all those complaining about socialism and the government taking over businesses by limiting pay, the solution is simple: don’t take taxpayer money and let the chips fall where they may. If your company survives, great. You obviously didn't need the money. If not, too bad for you , your stockholders and your employees.You work for the government now and new rules apply. You have demonstrated that the oldlaissez faire business model is broken and needs to be repaired, or at least adjusted, for a time.
I understand that the government is not the best player to create wealth, outside of making long term investments in infrastructures like schools, roads, police etc. that capitalists can exploit to create wealth. But the capitalistsystem is broken for the moment. You are dependent on the taxpayers' money and different rules apply. The government is the player of last resort and as the player of last resort, gets to dictate the rules. Don't believe me? Ask Andy Pettitte how well that rejection of $10M guaranteed for 2009 from the Yankees worked for him (he ended up signing for $5M, plus $7M in incentives after no one else would meet his price). And let's not start on the still unsigned Manny Ramirez, who was insulted by a one year, $25M offer from the Dodgers.
And as to leaving for other companies? Good luck. You have already failed at what you do. You’ve put your company on welfare. While you may have friends who will give you jobs, they will also have more competent friends than you. You have run your company into the ground. You have not acted in a prudent manner as you were supposed to have done. The only way for your company to survive to accept government money. You don’t deserve even $150k a year. You have failed.
And, Mr. Failure? $500k a year will be a lot better than $0 a year if your company fails and those assets (including jobs and customers) go to competitors. But go ahead. See if someone will hire you for more than $500k when they realize you're one of the ones responsible for killing the golden goose. Your successors, who will happily accept whatever fringe benefits and stock options (for when the company is off the dole) that replace the excess bonuses, can’t do worse than you and might even do better. However I doubt it. And if I'm wrong, I plan to make sure I dis-invest out of whatever company you land up in. My childrens' college funds have already taken a big enough hit.
No one is forcing them to accept only $500k per year. They're still free to take their failures to a competitor or allow their companies to go belly up. If it's the former, I'm sure there are some bright folks right behind them willing to take $500k and gamble on possible stock options etc if things go well. If it's the later, while there may be a little pain at the start, their competitors should become healthier a little more quickly and new businesses will be created to take their places.
This financial crisis won't last forever. It probably won't even last more than a few years at worse. Consider this challenge a speed bump on your road to riches.
- Mood:
infuriated
Because it has worked so well lately, the GOP is advocating even more tax cuts, despite the ever growing debt of money we owe to others. So far, President Obama is having none of that. I wonder if that is because, as a fairly young man, he realizes it will be his generation (tail end of the Baby Boomers and Generation X) are going to be left to pay the bills left by the last 2 generations. If we and our children are going to be stuck with the bills, we should at least invest in making sure that the tools that will enable us to earn the money to pay these bills are available. However, some want more tax cuts so Americans can run to the mall and get the economy moving again.
I have to admit, I can see why the idea of tax cuts to juice the economy is popular, at least for the short term. After all, we are a consumer nation. We like to buy our way to prosperity, or at least put it on our credit card. And, as we've already seen, unless we can entice citizens of othernations to act like us and spend instead of save, no one will be able to buy the world out of a recession but us, so to heck with the future. Tweet. Time out! As someone fairly young (40) I'm a bit interested in what happens to this country's future as I hope to live in it for many more decades.
What has happened to this country that we are so afraid to sacrifice for a few years to right our economy for the long term? Enough of robbing from the future to buy more garbage we don't need today. We've already spent too many years not properly investing in our future. It's time to get back to work and stop squandering our legacy and the newest iPod or couch.
We've been exporting more money than goods for decades. There is already trillions in debt that needs to be paid. Social Security, Medicare will be broke before long. Our roads, rails and schools stink. Our competitors, such as India and China see the future and keep investing in science and math. We won't because it may interfere with that tax break that we need to buy an even bigger flat screen TV. Sooner or later those high paying, dominating jobs will go elsewhere because we had avacation to go on in lieu of increasing our brainpower. When that day comes we really will be at the mercy of the rest of the world.
Silicon Valley, where the world's leading industrial research labs are, know we are in trouble for scaling back our investments in the sciences and are worried about it. Technology has been delivering most of the innovation and profits for our economy for years, yet we refuse to invest in it because that would cause taxes to rise. It is not hard to see the coming storm andforesee a time where the US won't be the dominate player in the highly lucrative tech field that has given us robust jobs and superior weapons. But sure, lets cut taxes now so we can continue the party that should've ended years ago. I hear Nero has a fiddle and some matches for sale.
Recently, a town's representative on the Regional High School District Board of Education resigned "saying the politics of some members and a too-powerful team of administrators were getting in the way of good decision-making."
Why is anyone surprised? Granted, we're only hearing one side of the argument, but this seems to be another example of how things stay the same. Those who want to do right find they can not. Those who want to do something unpopular that will adversely affect those in power, or their friends, find themselves personally and professionally attacked (as seen on various message boards on the net). Money and energy is wasted if filing lawsuits or attacking members of governing bodies (I'm expanding beyond the school board here) instead of actually doing the work that is supposed to be done.
The biggest stories in this area lately, so it seems, has been the use of the term doctor incorrectly by the school superintendent and a lawsuit by another town, that has seemingly gone on forever, against their former attorney that is costing God knows what in lawyer fees. Anyone who opens their mouth against whoever is in power is viciously attacked and then delegated to some corner. That is if they are not somehow sued by politicians annoyed that the citizens criticize their actions. This results in many of us deciding not to participate as we don't want to put ourselves or our families through all the crud that is politics as usual in this area, making us all poorer. How many of us have seriosuly thought I could do something to change things but for I don't have the stomach to play the dirty full contact politics that would cause Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich to blush.
I saw a letter to the editor in my local newspaper whining about the injustices of those without children being forced to pay taxes to subsidize the education of those goldbricking, layabout slug a beds working parents who dare to populate his town with freeloading children. He makes a good point. Why should he pay for school now that his children are done with it (assuming he had children in the first place). I'm willing to entertain his idea and pay more taxes for my children (only one of whom is in public school at the moment). But, before I do, I want the answers to the following questions (and before someone complains, I'm just using children and senior citizens in the next paragraph as handy examples).
Why should I pay taxes to fund my county's senior citizen center as they don't provide a service I can partake of (the senior center, not the seniors themselves)? Why should I subsidize their bus transportation through either taxes or higher fares for me? Speaking of taxes, I think my property taxes can be lowered if the government eliminated any tax breaks senior citizens get for their property for the simple benefit of not dying. Perhaps my utility bills can be lowered if the utilities took away any breaks it gives to the seniors or the poor. Going further, I'd like to see my social security and Medicare taxes to stop supporting those older freeloaders since I don't use those and, as a 40 year old looking at those funds, realize they won't be there, at least as is, by time I'm a senior citizen. Food stamps, welfare, unemployment -- I want all my tax money back from that too (especially as I'll need that to pay for school and increased taxes if my tax credit iseliminated as the writer suggests). If some don't want to pay taxes to subsidize education, why should I subsidize their pet needs? I'll tell you why.
I pay those taxes because I live in a society, not a private island. We all live in this society where we live by certain implied agreements to maintain a social order. We live in a society that has remained free and incredibly wealthy in part due to those investments our tax dollars have made to educate our young, keep our seniors in their homes and care for them as they age, while not burdening individual families with costs that could force them to decide between Grandma's medicine or heat for their child's bedroom (my mother is in a nursing home now and those bills would've bankrupted me and my siblings by now), a society that takes care of its poor (I'm not here to debate welfare cheats) or those temporarily down on their luck. We've agreed, by living in this nation, to give up our national rights, where it's pretty much every man for himself (read Locke, Hobbes and Rousseau for more information) and agreed to live under a social contract because we realize it is ultimately in our best interests to do so. If the price I pay is higher taxes, so be it. The investment is much less to each of us personally and the rewards are much greater to us as a nation as a whole.
You can argue that paying for education and senior services in New Jersey through property taxes and not income taxes, or at least a fairer ratio so a senior who is house rich but income poor can pay an affordable rate, is unfair. But to suggest, as the writer of the original letter did, that the property tax should be adjusted based on the number of children a family sends, or doesn't send to school is wrong. Sometimes our self interests are outweighed by the greater good. Stop being cheap and looking out only for yourself or feel free to move to a society that will support selfish people (I believe some 3rd world country where the rich lock themselves in enclaves while the uneducated poor scrounge for crumbs would suffice).Profile
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