Councilman
DP Veteran
- Joined
- Apr 25, 2009
- Messages
- 4,454
- Reaction score
- 1,657
- Location
- Riverside, County, CA.
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Conservative
He did conduct himself better. He didn't do what they thought about doing. I'm thinking about smacking my cat because he is bugging me right now. I'm not going to though, because I don't believe in abusing animals.
Are These People Overpaid?
MADISON, Wis. -- David Rhode is a paramedic in Middleton, Wis. He works 56 hours a week, mostly in 24-hour shifts, frequently carrying wheezy patients up and down flights of stairs. He said he earns about $43,000 a year.
HuffPost asked Rhode, 36, how it feels to be overpaid. His eyebrows went up.
"I drove my Ford Focus here," he said. "I live in a 950-square-foot condominium!"
Wisconsin has become the front line in a national debate over pay and benefits for unionized public workers, with conservatives arguing that people like Rhode have become a privileged class overburdening taxpayers. Gov. Scott Walker (R) is pushing a budget bill that calls for reduced pay, cuts to pension and health plans, and an end to collective bargaining rights for public workers. Similar measures are popping up in other states as lawmakers cope with recession-fueled deficits.
Rhode said he participated in contract negotiations between the Middleton city administrator and his union, which he said successfully bargained for less vacation time in order to maintain its current level of health coverage. Under the resulting contract, the city covers 95 percent of the cost of premiums. Walker's bill would cap that at 88 percent, which union bosses have said they're willing to accept so long as collective bargaining rights are preserved.
Rhode said the contract negotiations process in which he participated led to a successful compromise. "And that's what they're trying to take away," he said.
On the second floor, HuffPost met Erica McCool, a seventh-grade English teacher in Stoughton, carrying a sign that said she wouldn't let Walker into her classroom because he's a bully. A former paralegal, McCool said she she started studying to get a Wisconsin educator license in 2005 and now earns about $30,000 a year as an English teacher. She loves her job but laughed when asked whether she considered herself overprivileged.
"I can't get a home loan. I set my thermostat at 62. No cable at my house, no internet," said McCool, 29. "I'm also $36,000 in debt from becoming a teacher."
On the ground floor, Madison resident Pete Silva told HuffPost he had been a firefighter for 26 years when he retired in September at age 52. Silva said he worked 56 hours a week, often 24-hour shifts, driving a fire engine in response to fires and medical emergencies. He said his salary started at $31,000 and had reached $60,000 by the time he retired.
Silva said his pension provides $30,000 a year, which isn't enough for him to live on, so he's taken a job as an instructor in the Wisconsin Technical College System, earning roughly $55,000 a year. His total income is significantly higher than what he earned as a firefighter, but he makes no apologies, arguing that a nice pension was part of the deal he made in exchange for his decades in a dangerous job. He said he sustained two neck injuries from lifting "very, very heavy patients" and has had to replace herniated discs.
"We had the promise of stable retirement," Silva said, after a career spent in what he described as frequent contact with human blood, puke and poop. "You'd be amazed how much poop is out there," he added.
As for the push to limit the rights and funds enjoyed by unionized public workers, Silva said, "People hate to see someone doing better than they are."
Are These People Overpaid?
No, I must have missed the latest Beck episode...........
Popular awareness
Often in the West, the goose step is invoked as a reference to Nazism, fascism or militarism in general. This is especially common in English-speaking countries, where World War II propaganda has indelibly associated it with fascism.
Yes they invest it as to make more $$$ for themselves
"Taxpayers in State of Wisconsin will pay $11.8 billion for proposed Dept. of Defense for FY11.
For the same amount of money, the following could be provided:
8.8 million Children Receiving Low-Income Healthcare for One Year OR
187,914 Elementary School Teachers for One Year OR
258,971 Firefighters for One Year OR
1.7 million Head Start Slots for Children for One Year OR
3.4 million Households with Renewable Electricity - Solar Photovoltaic for One Year OR
9.2 million Households with Renewable Electricity-Wind Power for One Year OR
1.6 million Military Veterans Receiving VA Medical Care for One Year OR
1.6 million Military Veterans Receiving VA Medical Care for One Year OR
2.6 million People Receiving Low-Income Healthcare for One Year OR
182,022 Police or Sheriff's Patrol Officers for One Year OR
1.4 million Scholarships for University Students for One Year OR
2.1 million Students receiving Pell Grants of $5550"
Solidarity With Wisconsin | United for Justice with Peace
Really? I tried the number 50,000 times 2150 and my calculatar doesn't have enough room for all the zeros. So geez, I might agree that they make too much money.That's a terrible analogy. That is what is called a straw man. You simply took my point of view, packaged it and turned it into something else, and then tackled that argument.
Guess what? I never asked whether or not you could buy a car. I asked why I should believe the free market is correct in deciding compensation for a CEO that makes 2150 times the amount of most his employees? That was my question.
Look when your income is cut what do you do? If you believe giving tax breaks to corporations create the deficits then stop the damn spending.
I posted the 2010 budget and I am sure you can find 30 billion in cuts there to promote job creation.
How many employees will that 30 billion tanker contract create?
You really don't like CEO's apparently, how many are there and what did they create of our 14.3 trillion dollar debt?
the problem here Conservative is that you judge others by what you yourself describe as your own political experience. You proudly trumpet how your own views have not changed but the Democratic Party... ooooppps --- you call it the Democrat Party - don't you.....(as if that Limbaughism is not a complete giveaway to the fraud) left you. You stood still while the dems left you behind and you found yourself as Republican.
You see sir, many people tend to change a bit - sometimes alot - and evolve with the times. That was the type of person FDR was and there is tons of evidence of it in the excellent series of books about him and the New Deal by Arthur Schlesinger. You should read them. Its all in there and will give you all the proof you need that FDR changed his views to the demands of the times and the situation. He was far from the type of individual that you yourself proudly proclaim to be.
to help you
Amazon.com: The Crisis of the Old Order: 1919-1933, The Age of Roosevelt, Volume I (9780618340859): Arthur M. "Schlesinger Jr.": Books
Not sure but could the lack of subsidies effect the price of gas for all of us?
Two minutes ago you were telling someone to look at his calendar and forget what FDR said about public sector Unions...now...
I agree--people change. as they become wiser and hopefully more independent they tend to throw off the shackles of dependency and needing parents and become self sufficient Those who remain in a permanent state of childhood tend to want to substitute their often deceased or distant parents with surrogates-ie government
Get used to it my friend. It is standard operating procedure for that poster and is his favorite way of 'debating'. twist it - change it - rephrase it - pervert it - turn it into a Frankenstein monster of the actual idea - because its so much easier to attack it that way.
And get ready for the part where he puts on the referee suit and proclaims himself the winner, you the loser, and you FAIL. Thats my personal favorite part.
When you reply to a post that you reproduce from another person - in this case mine - a good tip to remember is to have something which actually speaks to the post that you reproduced leading into you remarks. It makes so much more sense that way. Nothing you said had anything to do with my words. Nothing.
I guess I don't see the exploitation you see by public school teachers. If there is a bad teacher in your school district, there are more opportunities to address that than in the private sector. And the so called exploitation, I suppose you mean their meager salary and benefits, is about what the average is for someone with comparable education.
Are there probably some examples of bad teachers in Wisconsin that don't deserve $75,000 a year? I'm sure there are but it doesn't mean that teachers in general are being overpaid.
We have a lot of problems in this country but overpaid teachers is not one of them.
solletica;1059310407]If you stop voting GOP, we could.
Spending cuts do not necessarily create jobs, and in any case, it shouldn't be the responsibility of the government to create any private sector jobs.
I don't want the US gummint taking $$ from me or my kids to create jobs for others that have no value to anyone else.
The CEOs and corporate board members created a major portion of the debt by constantly influencing boehneristic lawmakers to spend money on their (useless) products.
arrogrance is unbecoming when one utters dullardly posts
so you have you voted for in the last ten presidential elections?And who should I vote for. I am not a Republican, I am a conservative and right now the GOP beats the alternative.
Well that is just my argument. The free market has set their value and it has set the value of their respective CEOs. I am arguing that the free market, in this case, got it wrong. Especially in the case of Wal-Mart, which in my opinion is proof of what happens when unions are not allowed to enter into a market. And even with unions, it would be difficult to raise compensation to a fair level because the free market has deemed these people so unvaluable.
According to this Wal-Mart fact sheet, they employ around 2 million people worldwide:
http://walmartstores.com/download/2230.pdf
So that means, if the CEO were to take an $8 million dollar pay cut (he would still make $27 million not including benefits and bonuses), each employee would receive $4 an hour more. That's a 50% increase in wages for many of their employees! In fact, for those that have a starting salary of $8 an hour, their annual salary would look like this:
$8: $16,440 (which if I have to tell you how terrible that is...)
$12: $24,960 (still not great)
To me, that is a market failure that this can happen in front of everyones eyes and nothign is done. In fact, many of you argue against it.
from Conservative
so you have you voted for in the last ten presidential elections?
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