It was December 3 and I went to the restroom at the Davis Community Chambers, waiting for the council item that was going to come on. It was the shared management services item with the firefighters. To get to the restroom, I walked through a lobby filled with firefighters waiting for their item to come on.
It was a familiar scene and I thought little of it. However, as I finished washing my hands I was suddenly approached by a firefighter. He was rank and file, not a leader in the union, and not someone I was familiar with.
He boldly approached me and asked me why I hated them. My immediate response was I don’t hate them. But he was insistent that my columns and articles consistently attack them. I tried to explain I had policy differences with them, but that it wasn’t personal. I did say that I do have problems with Bobby Weist, the union president, and the way he conducts business.
The firefighter explained to me that, from their position, Bobby had done right by them and fought for them.
I did not get a chance to explain that I think Bobby Weist conducts himself in a disreputable way. He retaliates against employees who do not tow the union line – we have numerous documented examples. He has attempted to intimidate those who speak out against them. And on several occasions I have been told he has attempted to retaliate against myself, the Vanguard, and even my wife and family.
These are not scurrilous attacks; I can document all of it. But I don’t dislike firefighters – I do believe they have been misled by Mr. Weist and I do believe they have not been well-served by him.
The conversation quickly evolved to a discussion on the budget. From our conversation, I do not believe that this individual was well informed and, when I challenged him to become better informed, he told me he wasn’t a union leader.
The firefighters feel like they have given concessions, they seem to fail understand how much more in compensation they make than other bargaining units in the city and they are skeptical of city claims about economic distress.
I explained to him that the city is going to be facing another $15 million deficit in the next five years. I explained where that deficit is coming from – some of it is coming from a PERS (Public Employees’ Retirement System) hit. He tried to argue that PERS is making a lot of money now, but whether they are or are not, right now they have lowered their expected return over a 30-year period. It is a fiscally responsible thing to do. But, in the short term, it means we will pay more.
Second, the city failed to invest in its roads. He argued with me that the roads in Davis are in good shape. While that is somewhat and mostly correct, the problem involves deferred maintenance. As pavement experts explained last winter and spring, the rate of deterioration increases as the roadways age.
Early intervening steps allow for the city to repair roads fairly easily. However, the longer they wait the more the costs increase. There are two problems with deferring maintenance. First, asphalt increases in cost at roughly 8% per year, far faster than general inflation. That means that costs go up in real terms the longer we wait.
Second, as pavement decays, the costs to repair it increase drastically. The city was faced with a tough choice – take a huge hit right now, or risk its roadways collapsing in the next 20 to 30 years and seeing the costs soar into the hundreds of millions.
Already, council made a tough decision by agreeing to decrease the level of roadway pavement maintenance overall, while focusing its best pavement ratings in the thoroughfares.
Finally, the city passed a water project that will increase water costs, including for the city, and right now some of that deficit will come from the city’s increased water costs to water the parks and greenbelts.
The firefighter responded by questioning city priorities. First, he mentioned all of the money that we are spending on Fifth Street. He is correct that the city is spending a lot of money on Fifth Street. Some of that is necessary for safety concerns.
But as I explained that evening, much of the money is not coming from the general fund. A SACOG (Sacramento Area Council of Governments) grant is funding $836,000, a HSIP (Highway Safety Improvement Program) grant is funding $200,000, and a CDBG (Community Development Block Grant) grant is funding $50 with the remaining funds coming from transportation funds covered by this Capital Improvement Project and the Transportation Road maintenance Program7252.
In addition, this week the city announced it is receiving a SACOG grant of $5.4 million and, while a lot of that will go to improvements for pedestrians and bikes, some will go to help repair the pavement. For example, “The L Street project will rehabilitate L Street, where the pavement is in need of repair.” The Mace Blvd project will “increase bicycling and walking and reconstruct pavement in the project area. Changes include transformation from four vehicular travel lanes to two, rehabilitation of the pavement…”
In other words, the city is getting creative – they are using grants not only to make improvements to streets to “complete streets improvements to make the corridor more accessible and safer for all modes of transportation, including cyclists and pedestrians,” but they are using these grants to help fix pavement in critical areas and save money to the general fund.
That leads me to another point – another problem with his complaint about Fifth Street is there are very few monies coming from the general fund and most are monies that were already set aside for such purposes – but even if that were not true, these are one-time expenditures.
The fire staffing and personnel costs are ongoing costs – each year we have to have the money to fund them. The Fifth Street project, while some might think it to be expensive, is only a one-time expenditure. You cannot use one-time monies to fund ongoing costs – that is part of what got us in trouble to begin with.
We relied on one-time grants to fund road maintenance and in some years that meant we had no money for maintenance.
The second problem he had is that, while we are complaining about money, we turned down the chance for economic development at Mace 391. I could not explain to him adequately that there were a number of complications there including the existing commitment to put the land into economic easements.
Ultimately, I told him that development in Davis is always going to be a thorny topic and that it will be complex moving these projects forward. I also explained that even when approved, there is not going to be an immediate build out. He seemed to believe that the entire place could be developed fairly quickly, perhaps within six months. That is not my understanding of how things are likely to work.
In the long run, I continue to see economic development as a way to bring in more revenue, but in the short-term, the council has had to ask each of the groups to take concessions. Right now, everyone else in the city has taken concessions except for the firefighters.
That will change on Tuesday night and then the next step for both fire and DCEA will be to agree to a long-term contract. And as noted before, that will not be a 3-2 vote, that will be a 5-0 vote.
I appreciate that some on the council are looking at the entire budget picture and questioning (and rightly so) things like spending $50,000 on the Explorit center, demolishing the Central Park restroom rather than spending a lower amount on improvements, $100,000 for new downtown signage – but the biggest changes in the city need to be with regard to ongoing expenses rather than one-time expenses.
Most of the savings from fire, whether it’s compensation, staffing or shared services, are ongoing savings. Why focus on fire? The bargaining unit gets the highest compensation in the city. We’re looking at hiring new Firefighter I’s, and those new hires will get about $175,000 in total compensation. So reducing the number of firefighters on staff will save the city money, ongoing.
This is not personal, this has to be a policy decision. And yes, some of these decisions stem from the fact that, from 1999 to 2010, we saw council go from three to four on an engine, create the enhanced 3% at 50 benefits, and nearly double the salaries. In 2005, the firefighters agreed to a contract with 36% payment increases over the period.
Unfortunately, the firefighters have made a huge tactical error. Instead of working with the city on these changes and compromising, they have publicly fought the council every step of the way — from protests, to petitions, to creating the Friends of the Firefighters, to asking former and current elected officials to write a letter pressuring the council.
The firefighter I spoke to felt like they had the right to ask, and if the councilmembers listened or made poor policy decisions, they should be the ones criticized.
I completely agree. In 2010, we sent out a Firefighter Brochure that did exactly that. It illustrated exactly who took money from the firefighters and how it influenced their votes. Well, in 2010 and 2012, no one took money from the firefighters. At the same time, we are disappointed that several of the key votes in the last year, including on staffing and joint services, were by 3-2 votes.
We have a tough road ahead and a very narrow margin right now. One change in June could set us on a new trajectory. A councilmember insists that we will not go back to 2010, but I’m not sure I’m willing to take any risks.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
What about the “me too” clauses that have been added to the contracts of other bargaining units? Doesn’t that create a situation where sweet deals negotiated by one group are extended to the others? This is, of course, despite other speculations about who runs the members of the council, the reason the vote to impose is likely to be 5-0. If the council gives any unit too much all the units will get the same and the budget will be busted. The days when one unit can get a better deal than the rest are gone. In the end it was the cops who reined in the FF’s .
Arguably (and I disagree with the following interpretation) the fact that the terms of the DCEA and FF contacts are NOT retroactive, the other groups could look to the fact that they have made the concesssions already.
I agree, the me-too clause was critical both in securing the early contract agreements from employees assured that they would not benefit from holding out. To some extent, the cops did help rein in the FF’s. When they showed up in September, that was a critical moment providing some counter-balance.
No, it was when the cops negotiated “me too” that changed the game. Showing up in September was about the FF’s dissing Landy Black.
Fairly sure the me too clause was Pinkerton’s idea.
Nah… it was the HR director, who wants to ‘feather her nest’.
All new council candidates need to be roundly vetted as to their stands on the firefighter issues. We don’t want to end up with another Wolk or Frerich.
David, I’ve often wondered how you were treated by the firefighters because of your brave stance against their exorbitant compensation and other issues. I’ll bet you get lots of dirty looks around town and at council meetings. Thanks for the insight and thanks for standing up to them and for what’s best for the city. We don’t often agree but on this issue there are many of us, I believe a huge majority, that have your back.
Appreciate your comments. That’s one of the few times I’ve been confronted. Usually I hear them snickering behind my back. At council meetings they are exceedingly rude.
Who is this “we” you speak of? How about simply speaking for yourself.
Toad, if you reread the sentence, slowly this time, the “we” I was talking about was David and I. Now if you had asked who the “us” is your question would’ve had some merit.
As for the “us” believe me there are many in this community that side with David on this. Too bad if you don’t like that.
GI, the selection/evaluation of a Council member/candidate shouldn’t simply be on a single issue. Both Lucas Frerichs and Dan Wolk have voted on a broad range of issues in their time on the Council. As much as you may disagree with their votes on Firefighter items, I encourage you to look at the full breadth of each Council member’s voting record, as well as the positions of each Council candidate.
On the subject of candidates, we all know that Robb Davis is an announced candidate, and he has been very clear on the need for greater fiscal sanity in our firefighting costs. Rochelle Swanson has yet to officially announce whether she will run for re-election, but her voting record on greater fiscal sanity in our firefighting costs is very clear.
At the Davis Democratic Party dinner honoring Tansey Thomas last week, Arun Sen announced that Sheila Allen, who was in the room, was a candidate for Council this June. He called her up to the podium to share a few words with the audience. She said that while she hasn’t formally announced, that since Arun couldn’t keep a secret she would confirm that in the second or third Saturday in January she will have a formal announcement of her candidacy at Central Park. It would be good to know what Sheila’s positions are on key Council issues like achieving greater fiscal sanity in our firefighting costs.
I’m going with Matt on this. Once a new contract is imposed on the Firefighters the major fiscal impact they have on the city’s budget will be addressed. Regardless of council future council make up I don’t see this issue being reversed. Thus I don’t see a candidate’s stance on firefighter issues as being as crucial as GI or David.
Appreciate the thought, but you have no skin in the game of City Council members… hell, you El Macero folks have taken the position that you should have lower rates for sewer services than the citizens of Davis.
No hp, we haven’t taken that position at all. We have said that we should have the exact same sewer rates as every single Davis resident . . . and that all those residents should not be paying rates for sewer that include lawn irrigation water that never goes into the sewer system, and therefore creates no sewer system costs. Sewage is created by people, not by blades of grass, or lawns or shrubs or trees.
Sewer rates should be calculated by the head count in each residence. A house that has four people taking dumps in the loo, washing dishes, washing clothes, taking showers, etc. should pay exactly twice the sewer fees of a house that has two people taking dumps in the loo, washing dishes, washing clothes, taking showers, etc.
BTW, if we used headcount for generating variable sewer fees, then Frankly wouldn’t have to worry about the fairness of indoor water usage in the variable water rates. Each residence would get an indoor allocation of water (55 gallons per person per day would be fair) based on the same headcount used to generate the sewer fees.
Per person allocations of water . . . what a novel concept.
There’s another city council candidate who’s declared: Daniel Parrella:
http://www.davisenterprise.com/local-news/city/second-candidate-throws-hat-in-ring-for-city-council/
I met and had a short discussion with Mr. Parrella recently, I was unaware of his political ambitions until I read about his candidacy in today’s paper. He is an interesting and energetic person, but I don’t see him as a viable candidate. That being said I’m impressed with his willingness to throw his hat in the ring
Vanguard: “In the long run, I continue to see economic development as a way to bring in more revenue, but in the short-term, the council has had to ask each of the groups to take concessions. Right now, everyone else in the city has taken concessions except for the firefighters.”
With this point, the public safety unions demonstrate their complete lack of strategic sophistication. They have earned their current challenges chasing so many short-term wins by partnering with the same political muscle that also fights to prevent economic development. The Candy Man makes you feel good for the short-term, but for the long-term he is very bad for your health.
But, instead of retooling their strategy and realigning their political relationships, at least the FF seem to growing increasingly isolated and powerless.
Davis does not really need to go an austerity route. I am sharing with you comments made by ‘South Davis’ commentator on this very issue and my response.
South Davis wrote:
>Firefighter pay has more than kept up with inflation…
Huffington Post December 16, 2013: The ratio of CEO-to-worker pay has increased 1,000 percent since 1950. Governor Brown’s net worth is 4 million. Do your firemen friends have that or more to cushion their salary? “WASHINGTON (CNNMoney) — Chief executives at some of the nation’s largest companies earned an average of $12.9 million in total pay last year — 380 times more than a typical American worker.” This is quite a bit more than the firefighters and Governor Brown’s annual income. I trust you see the injustice.
Yes, you should definitely make more and so should all other workers. Remember Germany pays it industrial laborers $50.00 an hour which adds up to more than $80,000 a year. The German government sustained this rate of pay while cutting employee work hours in half and adding new laborers to fill those vacated hours during the recession. Why – to boost the economy. It in vested in its workers. Much more effective than America’s austerity programs.
> And I have not heard if a single union firefighter in California that is not making more than 10x more than firefighters made in 1950 (a cousin that recently retired from the SFFD with a pension of over $10K a month was making more than 25x what he made when he was hired in the 70′s).
Have you heard this? The wealthiest 25% of US households own 87% of the wealth in the United States, which was $54.2 trillion in 2009. The union for the rich is called the Old Boys’ Club. I have not heard you belittle this Union. I wonder why? It seems the Union for the super wealthy has done far more livable wage harm to our citizens than unions like the Davis firefighter’s union. I hope we can get beyond the crabs in a basket strategy.
> There is no financial reason why 1% of the people should own most of the wealth locally or nationally. The reason is that the top 1% (that today includes many union “workers”) have so much wealth is that they pay off politicians (of both parties) to rig the system to screw the 99%…
Your fact is off. “The BGOV Barometer shows the heads of the top 10 U.S. labor unions took home average salary and other compensation of $394,925 last year, according to union reports filed with the U.S. Labor Department. CEOs took home on average over 12 million.
> I’m one of the “rich” rental property owners you talk about and since we moved to South of Davis and rented our modest East Davis home (that was worth more than $100K less than we owed) we have lost money each year (aka actual negative cash flow). I’m not going to complain since (at least according to Zillow) we are getting close to being able to sell at a profit or break even and/or able to refinance to make at least $100/month profit (unless the water rates go up that much) for a while (until we need to drop $15K to replace the roof last replaced in the late 80′s)…
Sorry you are not one of the rich apartment owners reflected in the data I shared. I agree you are poor. But those who own 60 apartment units are making about a million or more in gains annually. More of this passive wealth should be shared to meet our common needs and not your $100.00.
Even Pope Paul understand this: “As long as the problems of the poor are not radically resolved by rejecting the absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation and by attacking the structural causes of inequality, no solution will be found for the world’s problems or, for that matter, to any problems.”
Diane, I hope you continue to post on this site:-).
Apples and oranges, how does what apartment owners or ceo’s make justify overpaying our firefighters?
I wrote:
> Firefighter pay has more than kept up with inflation…
Then Diane Evans wrote:
> Huffington Post December 16, 2013: The ratio of CEO-to-worker pay
> has increased 1,000 percent since 1950.
As people reading my post for a while know that I think a CEO getting his buddies on the board to give him $20 million a year is a huge scam.
But telling us that the highly paid CEOs that the Huffington Post cherry picked to get the “1,000 percent” are making a ton of money to say that firefighters deserve to make double what teachers make is like saying that since JLo makes $15 million a year as an American Idol judge so firefighters deserve an extra $100K.
> Yes, you should definitely make more and so should all other workers.
> Remember Germany pays it industrial laborers $50.00 an hour which adds
> up to more than $80,000 a year.
What does pay in Germany have to do with Davis? The 49ers pay their union football players even more than Germany pays union workers…
> Have you heard this? The wealthiest 25% of US households own 87%
> of the wealth in the United States, which was $54.2 trillion in 2009.
True, and if we raise taxes on the working class people in Davis to pay firefighters (who are almost all in the top 25% you talk about) even more taxpayers will all have less money for their own (bottom 75%) families.
> The union for the rich is called the Old Boys’ Club. I have not heard
> you belittle this Union. I wonder why?
You have not been reading my posts since I bash rich and politically connected (including many members of the Bohemian, Sutter and PU Clubs) that use political connections to screw the working class and get even richer just as much as I bash the not as rich, but often even more politically connected unions that use political connections to screw the working class and get even richer…
> Your fact is off. “The BGOV Barometer shows the heads of the top
> 10 U.S. labor unions took home average salary and other compensation
> of $394,925 last year, according to union reports filed with the U.S.
> Labor Department.
About 99% of the workers in America make less that $394K so they are in (or very near) the top1%.
> I agree you are poor. But those who own 60 apartment units are making about
> a million or more in gains annually. More of this passive wealth should be shared
> to meet our common needs and not your $100.00.
Zillow says I made over $100K in passive wealth over the last couple years, but I lost more than $200K in “passive wealth” the years before. I expect that the Web 2.0 Housing Bubble 2.0 will end in 2014 just like Web 1.0 in 2001 and Housing Bubble 1.0 in 2008 and I will lose passive wealth. How can you ask people to pay cash taxes when something goes up in value since they don’t get any cash from it? I friend recently told me that the 1950’s Fender guitar he got from his grandfather is probably worth $200K, should he pay tax on his passive wealth (and be forced to sell something that he loves)?
> Even Pope Paul understand this: “As long as the problems of the poor are
> not radically resolved by rejecting the absolute autonomy of markets and
> financial speculation and by attacking the structural causes of inequality,
> no solution will be found for the world’s problems or, for that matter, to
> any problems.”
I don’t want to speak for the Pope, but I’m pretty sure that Pope Paul would not call (even the lowest paid) Davis firefighter poor…
SOD, good retorts. I wonder how many posting saying that $150-$175 firefighter compensation isn’t exhoritant are either firefighters themselves or have a family member or friend who is and feel they have to defend them? Bottom line, we have 100’s maybe 1000’s of able and willing firefighter applicants that will do the job for far less pay and aggrevation than the current bunch.
The pope is doing what a pope should be doing, but he is not an economist.
If he was, he might consider that the United States, long considered the standard bearer for economic freedom among large industrial nations, has experienced a substantial decline in economic freedom during the past decade. From 1980 to 2000, the United States was generally rated the third freest economy in the world, ranking behind only Hong Kong and Singapore. After increasing steadily during the period from 1980 to 2000, the chain linked EFW rating of the United States fell from 8.65 in 2000 to 8.21 in 2005 and 7.74 in 2011. The chain-linked ranking of the United States has fallen precipitously from second in 2000 to eighth in 2005 to 19th in 2011. This decline in economic freedom correlates nicely with the expansion of income gaps and the stagnation of general prosperity growth.
Quote: “The loss of economic freedom hits the poor especially hard. Over the past decade, countries that increased economic freedom saw poverty levels fall almost twice as much as countries that lost freedom. People in countries with more economic freedom were not only happier, but more prosperous. The correlation between economic freedom and prosperity is stunningly high, with more freedom translating to greater per capita income.”
The media and left has made a lot of political hay demonizing CEOs and business and enraging class anger. They have done well to destroy the brand of economic freedom to be replaced with love for entitlement, social welfare and government contracts.
And it is all about the money.
Wanting to work less hard than the typical business builder, and confident in their ability to leverage political relationships and power, the elites on the left are rewiring the economic levers of the country to help themselves become the new wealthy.
And they are collecting willing supporters from the business sector with fat contracts.
George Washington noted: “that a people possessed of the spirit of commerce, who see, and who will pursue their advantage, may achieve almost anything.”
What he did not predict was the extent people would go to pursue their advantage of political connections to pad their own pockets. That is what we see today with our fire fighters. Through unionization, collective bargaining and campaign spending, they have pursued their advantage of political connections to pad their pockets to absurd levels far in excess of their true market value for the labor they perform.
Thomas Jefferson said it well: “a wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement.”
Smaller government.
Abolition of public sector unions.
Free markets… including all labor markets.
It is time to demonize the real demons economic destruction, and inflame justified rage over the true instruments destroying economic prosperity. Unions and wealth from political connections are at the top of this list.
I agree that Thomas Jefferson did get it right. However, I believe that you are interpreting his words too narrowly. It is completely possible for a person to injure another by means other than purely physical. A manufacturer who has paid his American workers well allowing them to have prosperous lives and then decides to move his company to Asia in order to pay much much less to the workers so that he can make much, much more money is causing injury to his loyal workers here. To way that “they can just go get another job” while other manufacturers are doing the same is quite simply dishonest. Thus the ongoing need for worker protection and unions. If the business owners themselves will take no responsibility for the outcome of their decisions, who but the government that you so disdain is left to address the problems they have created.
However, it is not only the business owners and builders who should be working in a socially responsible manner. The unions and their members should also be working in a socially responsible manner. The main problem I have with the Frankly interpretation of free economy is that it seems that you hold only the workers to a moral standard in which they need to consider impact of their actions on the community while business ” builders have no such obligation but can be “free” to create as much economic havoc for others as they choose as long as they are maximizing profits.
Let’s walk through the facts, problems and opportunities.
First, it is generally the left that demands open borders and helping the poor and disadvantaged around the world. Many of them want to be seen as global citizens and reject American exceptional-ism. And so we have had an economic policy that supports a global economy.
Demonizing a private business that moves labor to another country involved in the global economy is either a sign of severe economic ignorance, or else arguments to deflect from the true causes and effects of joblessness and poverty. The simple fact is that a global economy means global competition, and labor being the largest expense item on the profit and loss statements of 99% of business means that it is the most important to manage for the company to stay competitive on price. Business has two choices: focus on the customer and constantly strive to do more with less to survive and thrive, or ignore these things and eventually go out of business (unless you can leverage your political connection and convince the government to bail you out.)
So now that we have that point cleared up… that business would not exist unless it keeps its labor costs low enough to compete in the global market, and that US economic policy has been in support of a global marketplace and so US business HAS to compete on a global scale, we can focus on the TRUE problems and opportunities.
The root problem is a broken mindset. It is a mindset of entitlement… entitlement that a person should have a job for life, be paid a living wage (whatever that is), retire young and not have a single financial care for the rest of his/her life… despite any and all the poor life decision made along the way.
The correct mindset… and this is the basis for the opportunity… is one of economic and personal dynamism. Where there are few jobs for live… where each person is his/her own private contractor marketing and trading labor and skills for consideration. Where education is not a step, it is constant. And the education needs to be of the highest quality and value. This is why we need to blow up the education system and completely re-engineer it. It is a broken relic of the past. Our kids have the universe of information at their fingertips 24×7 and many of them spend all their times sending their friends pictures of cats. Why are they not using these marvelous machines to create new wealth? Because they are stuck in a classroom with some 50-year old tweed coated dude that does not understand the technology and he drones on in his routinely boring lecture. These kids are sitting there capable of moving at light-speed, and they are practically lobotomized by their teachers stuck in suspended animation pushing the same crappy lecture within the same crappy system.
In addition to a brand new education system that blows the doors off the old model… to supplement this new economic and personal prosperity mindset, we need a brand new economic policy. We need smaller government and regulatory relief. We need much more of our limited public money to be spent on infrastructure and business development, and much less on social welfare. We need to teach and encourage entrepreneurial focus and enterprise. We need the rest of the country to echo the business churn that happens in So Cal and parts of Texas. It is fine if you don’t want to live there… if you can make a living in a place with low economic activity then live there. But don’t try to destroy economic opportunity for everyone else just because you like looking at fields.
What we spend on social welfare needs to focus on children, and seniors that are truly unable to work. For everyone else the spending needs to be for “workfare”.
If you really spend time with youth today and open your mind to evaluate what is there; you will have the same epiphany… that they are springs that are coiled and ready to launch if it was not for all the ignorant, selfish and narcissistic adults blocking them while screwing up their economic futures.
Where the left is screwing up big time, is that they have mistaken a political strategy to enflame class warfare by demonizing wealth, success, business, economic activity as a new truth… and in doing so they are slowing killing the heart of our system of success. That heart needs to beat strong. It needs to pump the lifeblood of revenue to the system so it can be used to fund all those righteous social and environmental causes.
You can certainly point back and blame Republicans and conservatives for much of the same. But most of them get it now. They got it in 2008 when the Great Recession was starting to hit with force. Unfortunately Democrats did not get it and they sent the country in the completely wrong direction. And Davis is no different. It is dominated by people and politicians with a left-leaning view of the world and they too are continuing to make a mess out of things.
Frankly: “Let’s walk through the facts,…”
I don’t see facts, but mostly unsupported assertions on your part. And interesting apparent contradictions, such as,
“They [the left] have done well to destroy the brand of economic freedom to be replaced with love for entitlement, social welfare…”
vs.
“What we spend on social welfare needs to focus on children, and seniors that are truly unable to work. For everyone else the spending needs to be for “workfare”.”
It looks like a criticism and then a justification of the current program.
“Demonizing a private business that moves labor to another country involved in the global economy is either a sign of severe economic ignorance, or else arguments to deflect from the true causes and effects of joblessness and poverty.”
But it’s certainly okay to demonize (blanket fashion) the public school system, right?
“The pope is doing what a pope should be doing, but he is not an economist.”
And it’s certainly acceptable to claim privilege of authority and expertise if you’re an economist or a banker, but not if one is an educator. After all, everyone understands teaching? And your experience as a parent and as a kid growing up should be sufficient to apply to everyone else when discussing education policy? And of course anything suggested or supported by a union (especially the teachers unions) should generally be opposed.
It’s unacceptable to apply the “think outside the box” claim if one argues for redistribution of wealth policies and banking restrictions, but it certainly is okay to do so if talking about blowing up the education system?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKcZ551Ex4w&feature=player_embedded
This is a wonderful bounty of well-done, left-leaning, misinformation that I am so very excited about responding to. And I will. Thanks Diane. Please keep posting.
I have some work I need to attend to, but suffice it to say that is breathtaking how so many seemingly intelligent people have lost complete perspective for what economic freedom and free markets have done to improve the lives of billions of people on this planet. In countries with economic freedom the poorest 20% are hundreds of times better off than are 80% of the global population lacking economic freedom. When you have economic freedom, you have differences in income. Too bad, so sad. Envy is an ugly thing and it leads to nothing good. You have some people growing wealthy through their hard work, risk-taking and enterprise. But here is the thing… in the US you have tremendous income mobility. Rich people grow poor, and poor people grow rich. Everyone is encouraged to climb the ladder of prosperity. There are no class barriers. There are only barriers of capability… and it is transient… except for the damage done by our crappy education system and crappy economic policies of current and past politicians. It is these things that are most responsible for the decline in economic prosperity and the plight of US poor and lower middle-class. Yet amazingly, the left demands more of the same. It is clear that they left likes this misery because they can exploit it to promote their collectivist ideology.
We really have two choices… wealth through free-markets, private enterprise and hard work to climb the ladder of prosperity. Or, wealth from being well-connected politically. The former is the only sustainable approach. The latter is a path to financial ruin… an America that is basically Argentina.
The left prefers the latter and continues to defend it and promote it even as it bankrupts us and destroys our way of life.
And while we are trumping the success of Germany, let’s not forget where that country came from and the fact that the very things that the American left are trying do desperately to tear down where in fact the things that help it become the country it is today.
There is absolutely no valid and righteous arguments to support paying a firefighter the equivalent of $175,000 per year in gross compensation, and then allowing him to retire at age 50 with 90% of that pay and his full healthcare paid for the rest of his life. Those defending it deserve to have their motives challenged.
Oops. This was in response to Diane’s post below.
Website is having some login issues that I assume are because it is still being developed.
Frankly: “There are only barriers of capability… and it is transient… except for the damage done by our crappy education system…”
There you go again.
Public schools beat private schools: A pair of education researchers have a new take on which schools work — and why
http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2013/12/15/public-schools-beat-private-schools/hWLzdKv1x7wwupcjk5zonI/story.html
A poverty, not education, crisis in U.S.: Column
http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2013/12/10/education-poverty-international-student-assessment-column/3964529/
I had this conversation with a friend recently.
Another friend had worked at Nordstroms while attending college. She had a customer come in… in her 80s. Looked a bit like a transient homeless person. Was muttering and angry. Had a Nordstroms bag that was all wrinkled. Pulled out some clothes that were hopelessly wrinkled and claimed that she purchased them there a few weeks ago but that they did not fit well. My friend treated this woman like she was the most deserving customer. That is what Nordstrom’s employees are trained to do. Turned out that the woman was a well-off and long-standing customer that had begun to have episodes of age-related dementia.
So, the education system uses the excuse that too many poor people, and too much bad parenting are the root of their crappy education outcomes. How convenient is that?
Here is the deal. The state of society is the state of society. These kids need a great education specifically so they can escape their crappy poor and poorly parented lives. But the education system increasingly demands that all children fit into a little box of perfect behavior… and that behavior is more and more a narrowing definition of ideal student.
The left demands open borders and amnesty. So we flood our country with millions of poor and uneducated people that produce children that need an education. And the left then protects the education status quo (aka adult jobs program) and they and their teacher union partners in political-connected wealth generation then go off complaining that all these poor and uneducated people are making their jobs too difficult.
That is the job. Do it well, or quit and go do something else.
The education system sucks,. It needs to be blown up and replaced with a modern marvel that treats every student as a customer that the employees of education work for.
The system has is all back ackwards. Teachers think the kids work for them. Wrong.
And the crappy state of education in this country is a BIG reason why people remain poor. The other big reason is job-stifling regulations.
And that, dear Vanguard readers, is why firefighters want high pay.
Frankly: “The education system sucks,. It needs to be blown up…”
And how do we know the education system sucks? Because Frankly says so. It’s an example of a faith-based initiative.
Before deciding to blow something up, it’s prudent to understand what the nature of the problem is:
Poverty influences children’s early brain development
http://www.news.wisc.edu/22393
I had a cogent comment, but I got vertigo trying to follow the thread.