OT: Public pay & benefits

[Coronita]

[quote=CA renter][quote=flu][quote=jpinpb]I give up. Let’s hire all those mall cops and security guards. I don’t care. I’ve got my AR to protect me when complete chaos breaks out.[/quote]

Heh XE anyone?

you know, i just wonder if it would be possible to run a for profit fire dept.

I don’t know, why is it that I feel this country is so screwed up in so many ways. i mean I don’t hate this country or anything, and it’s a great country. But we definitely got some serious issues. Everyday I wake up, it seems like everyone’s just trying to game the system. It’s pretty depressing, imho….[/quote]

Sure, but then you’d have a whole lot of whiners like that guy whose house burned down in Tennessee.

See, that’s the whole problem. People are trying to look at this as they would a for-profit industry, but the two couldn’t be further apart.

The benefits received by having competent, well-trained public safety personnel is not easily quantifiable on an individual level. You’ll never get people who are willing to pay privately (and still leave room for the corporate profits!) because *individual people* are not deriving a direct benefit, unless they use these emergency services personally.

It’s socieity, as a whole, that benefits because having competent law enforcement/safety personnel establishes the framework for a social/civil infrastructure in which for-profit businesses can thrive. People can focus on productive enterprise because they don’t have to spend all their time and resources trying to simply survive in a lawless, corrupt, and chaotic world.

The value is knowing that when you call 911, or when there is an emergency of some sort, the most qualified people will be responding to your call — and very quickly, I might add, which is only possible when you have a well-established network/system for public safety.[/quote]

There’s one problem. The last time I called 911 after being behind someone that jack-knifed his corolla, it took me 15 minutes before someone at the other end picked up….

[Aecetia]

That is outrageous. Did you ask where they were?

[Aecetia]

That is outrageous. Did you ask where they were?

[Aecetia]

That is outrageous. Did you ask where they were?

[Aecetia]

That is outrageous. Did you ask where they were?

[Aecetia]

That is outrageous. Did you ask where they were?

[paramount]

I have had a similar experience with 911 – no one even answers the call after numerous rings.

[paramount]

I have had a similar experience with 911 – no one even answers the call after numerous rings.

[paramount]

I have had a similar experience with 911 – no one even answers the call after numerous rings.

[paramount]

I have had a similar experience with 911 – no one even answers the call after numerous rings.

[paramount]

I have had a similar experience with 911 – no one even answers the call after numerous rings.

[Coronita]

[quote=Aecetia]That is outrageous. Did you ask where they were?[/quote]

Don’t you know? For awhile, 911 dispatchers were short staffed because, well, there wasn’t enough funding…

CA Renter. The problem with these generous pension isn’t by itself that they people are insanely compensated in itself. The issue is that doing these things really screws the public sector, especially all the folks who are new entering the public sector, and also screws the level of service that can be provided to the public.

Unlike a for profit company where to spend more, it has ways to make more (or go out of business), the public sector is entirely dependent on taxes, and the only way to spend more is through higher taxes. I think we’ve reached a point in which more of the public dollars are being diverted to give older public works people insane compensation while the rest of the public services and the public workers deal with having less. In a normal employment arrangement, once someone leaves a company, the company is off the hook for continuing to pay that person indefinitely, so the same funds can be used to pay for either new people that costs less or improved services. However, in the public sector, these old people never go away, so they drain the system, and without significantly raising taxes, more money goes out than come in…When budgets get cut, it’s never these pensions, but instead services. It’s ridiculous. You say firemen are important. Well UT just did an article about how they have to layoff firemen (probably the younger people), because the budgets are wacked, and yet these older folks still get to keep collecting their full pensions… Please tell me you don’t
think this is screwed up and not sustainable.

And I bring up that 911 issue I encountered as a point: paying more taxes, weren’t not getting any better public service. More likely it’s going to funding all the retirees…This problem is going to get heck of a lot worse when baby boomers retire.

For good examples of pensions not sustainable, look no further than airline companies. Eventually, airline companies could no longer afford the pensions and also to be profitable, a lot of them went bankrupt (UAL in particular). And only after bankruptcy, were they able to redo some of the pension benefits. Problem is in the public sector, it’s not so simple as filing chapter 11. And even if a city declares bankruptcy, it seems like some of those pensions still need to be paid…

[Coronita]

[quote=Aecetia]That is outrageous. Did you ask where they were?[/quote]

Don’t you know? For awhile, 911 dispatchers were short staffed because, well, there wasn’t enough funding…

CA Renter. The problem with these generous pension isn’t by itself that they people are insanely compensated in itself. The issue is that doing these things really screws the public sector, especially all the folks who are new entering the public sector, and also screws the level of service that can be provided to the public.

Unlike a for profit company where to spend more, it has ways to make more (or go out of business), the public sector is entirely dependent on taxes, and the only way to spend more is through higher taxes. I think we’ve reached a point in which more of the public dollars are being diverted to give older public works people insane compensation while the rest of the public services and the public workers deal with having less. In a normal employment arrangement, once someone leaves a company, the company is off the hook for continuing to pay that person indefinitely, so the same funds can be used to pay for either new people that costs less or improved services. However, in the public sector, these old people never go away, so they drain the system, and without significantly raising taxes, more money goes out than come in…When budgets get cut, it’s never these pensions, but instead services. It’s ridiculous. You say firemen are important. Well UT just did an article about how they have to layoff firemen (probably the younger people), because the budgets are wacked, and yet these older folks still get to keep collecting their full pensions… Please tell me you don’t
think this is screwed up and not sustainable.

And I bring up that 911 issue I encountered as a point: paying more taxes, weren’t not getting any better public service. More likely it’s going to funding all the retirees…This problem is going to get heck of a lot worse when baby boomers retire.

For good examples of pensions not sustainable, look no further than airline companies. Eventually, airline companies could no longer afford the pensions and also to be profitable, a lot of them went bankrupt (UAL in particular). And only after bankruptcy, were they able to redo some of the pension benefits. Problem is in the public sector, it’s not so simple as filing chapter 11. And even if a city declares bankruptcy, it seems like some of those pensions still need to be paid…

[Coronita]

[quote=Aecetia]That is outrageous. Did you ask where they were?[/quote]

Don’t you know? For awhile, 911 dispatchers were short staffed because, well, there wasn’t enough funding…

CA Renter. The problem with these generous pension isn’t by itself that they people are insanely compensated in itself. The issue is that doing these things really screws the public sector, especially all the folks who are new entering the public sector, and also screws the level of service that can be provided to the public.

Unlike a for profit company where to spend more, it has ways to make more (or go out of business), the public sector is entirely dependent on taxes, and the only way to spend more is through higher taxes. I think we’ve reached a point in which more of the public dollars are being diverted to give older public works people insane compensation while the rest of the public services and the public workers deal with having less. In a normal employment arrangement, once someone leaves a company, the company is off the hook for continuing to pay that person indefinitely, so the same funds can be used to pay for either new people that costs less or improved services. However, in the public sector, these old people never go away, so they drain the system, and without significantly raising taxes, more money goes out than come in…When budgets get cut, it’s never these pensions, but instead services. It’s ridiculous. You say firemen are important. Well UT just did an article about how they have to layoff firemen (probably the younger people), because the budgets are wacked, and yet these older folks still get to keep collecting their full pensions… Please tell me you don’t
think this is screwed up and not sustainable.

And I bring up that 911 issue I encountered as a point: paying more taxes, weren’t not getting any better public service. More likely it’s going to funding all the retirees…This problem is going to get heck of a lot worse when baby boomers retire.

For good examples of pensions not sustainable, look no further than airline companies. Eventually, airline companies could no longer afford the pensions and also to be profitable, a lot of them went bankrupt (UAL in particular). And only after bankruptcy, were they able to redo some of the pension benefits. Problem is in the public sector, it’s not so simple as filing chapter 11. And even if a city declares bankruptcy, it seems like some of those pensions still need to be paid…

[Coronita]

[quote=Aecetia]That is outrageous. Did you ask where they were?[/quote]

Don’t you know? For awhile, 911 dispatchers were short staffed because, well, there wasn’t enough funding…

CA Renter. The problem with these generous pension isn’t by itself that they people are insanely compensated in itself. The issue is that doing these things really screws the public sector, especially all the folks who are new entering the public sector, and also screws the level of service that can be provided to the public.

Unlike a for profit company where to spend more, it has ways to make more (or go out of business), the public sector is entirely dependent on taxes, and the only way to spend more is through higher taxes. I think we’ve reached a point in which more of the public dollars are being diverted to give older public works people insane compensation while the rest of the public services and the public workers deal with having less. In a normal employment arrangement, once someone leaves a company, the company is off the hook for continuing to pay that person indefinitely, so the same funds can be used to pay for either new people that costs less or improved services. However, in the public sector, these old people never go away, so they drain the system, and without significantly raising taxes, more money goes out than come in…When budgets get cut, it’s never these pensions, but instead services. It’s ridiculous. You say firemen are important. Well UT just did an article about how they have to layoff firemen (probably the younger people), because the budgets are wacked, and yet these older folks still get to keep collecting their full pensions… Please tell me you don’t
think this is screwed up and not sustainable.

And I bring up that 911 issue I encountered as a point: paying more taxes, weren’t not getting any better public service. More likely it’s going to funding all the retirees…This problem is going to get heck of a lot worse when baby boomers retire.

For good examples of pensions not sustainable, look no further than airline companies. Eventually, airline companies could no longer afford the pensions and also to be profitable, a lot of them went bankrupt (UAL in particular). And only after bankruptcy, were they able to redo some of the pension benefits. Problem is in the public sector, it’s not so simple as filing chapter 11. And even if a city declares bankruptcy, it seems like some of those pensions still need to be paid…

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