OT: Public pay & benefits

[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…

[CA renter]

[quote=flu][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…[/quote]

Flu,

Somewhere in this thread, I laid out what I think is going to happen to the pay and benefits for public sector workers. Yes, some aspects of the pension system are truly dysfunctional and need to be fixed. I’ve never denied that.

What people (who get all their information from MSM soundbites and propaganda) don’t seem to understand is HOW the “pension crisis” came to pass. It was NOT becuase of “greedy unions,” it was because of people at the top (union officials far removed from the workers, legislators, various politicians, and CalPERS officials) who were making decisions during a period of fantastic bubbles, and who, for some reason I can’t understand, thought those times would last forever. Exceedingly foolish decisions were made in the past 10-15 years, but they were NOT made by the boots-on-the-ground workers.

It gets old having to hear from people — who don’t even understand the issues — as they beat the snot out of the hard-working people who had nothing to do with the financial crisis…which led to the pension crisis. I prefer to keep the focus on those who created the problems, not those who are victims of it.

BTW, that sucks to hear about your 911 experience. There is NO excuse for it to happen. From time to time, changes are made to the emergency services system, and some of those changes deal with dispatch. The reason those changes are made is because they are trying to make the system more efficient because they want to avoid the very thing you’ve complained about. You might have called during one of their transition periods or when they were understaffed for whatever reason. Hopefully, they’ve remedied the problems so that nobody else has to experience any delays.

[CA renter]

[quote=flu][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…[/quote]

Flu,

Somewhere in this thread, I laid out what I think is going to happen to the pay and benefits for public sector workers. Yes, some aspects of the pension system are truly dysfunctional and need to be fixed. I’ve never denied that.

What people (who get all their information from MSM soundbites and propaganda) don’t seem to understand is HOW the “pension crisis” came to pass. It was NOT becuase of “greedy unions,” it was because of people at the top (union officials far removed from the workers, legislators, various politicians, and CalPERS officials) who were making decisions during a period of fantastic bubbles, and who, for some reason I can’t understand, thought those times would last forever. Exceedingly foolish decisions were made in the past 10-15 years, but they were NOT made by the boots-on-the-ground workers.

It gets old having to hear from people — who don’t even understand the issues — as they beat the snot out of the hard-working people who had nothing to do with the financial crisis…which led to the pension crisis. I prefer to keep the focus on those who created the problems, not those who are victims of it.

BTW, that sucks to hear about your 911 experience. There is NO excuse for it to happen. From time to time, changes are made to the emergency services system, and some of those changes deal with dispatch. The reason those changes are made is because they are trying to make the system more efficient because they want to avoid the very thing you’ve complained about. You might have called during one of their transition periods or when they were understaffed for whatever reason. Hopefully, they’ve remedied the problems so that nobody else has to experience any delays.

[CA renter]

[quote=flu][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…[/quote]

Flu,

Somewhere in this thread, I laid out what I think is going to happen to the pay and benefits for public sector workers. Yes, some aspects of the pension system are truly dysfunctional and need to be fixed. I’ve never denied that.

What people (who get all their information from MSM soundbites and propaganda) don’t seem to understand is HOW the “pension crisis” came to pass. It was NOT becuase of “greedy unions,” it was because of people at the top (union officials far removed from the workers, legislators, various politicians, and CalPERS officials) who were making decisions during a period of fantastic bubbles, and who, for some reason I can’t understand, thought those times would last forever. Exceedingly foolish decisions were made in the past 10-15 years, but they were NOT made by the boots-on-the-ground workers.

It gets old having to hear from people — who don’t even understand the issues — as they beat the snot out of the hard-working people who had nothing to do with the financial crisis…which led to the pension crisis. I prefer to keep the focus on those who created the problems, not those who are victims of it.

BTW, that sucks to hear about your 911 experience. There is NO excuse for it to happen. From time to time, changes are made to the emergency services system, and some of those changes deal with dispatch. The reason those changes are made is because they are trying to make the system more efficient because they want to avoid the very thing you’ve complained about. You might have called during one of their transition periods or when they were understaffed for whatever reason. Hopefully, they’ve remedied the problems so that nobody else has to experience any delays.

[CA renter]

[quote=flu][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…[/quote]

Flu,

Somewhere in this thread, I laid out what I think is going to happen to the pay and benefits for public sector workers. Yes, some aspects of the pension system are truly dysfunctional and need to be fixed. I’ve never denied that.

What people (who get all their information from MSM soundbites and propaganda) don’t seem to understand is HOW the “pension crisis” came to pass. It was NOT becuase of “greedy unions,” it was because of people at the top (union officials far removed from the workers, legislators, various politicians, and CalPERS officials) who were making decisions during a period of fantastic bubbles, and who, for some reason I can’t understand, thought those times would last forever. Exceedingly foolish decisions were made in the past 10-15 years, but they were NOT made by the boots-on-the-ground workers.

It gets old having to hear from people — who don’t even understand the issues — as they beat the snot out of the hard-working people who had nothing to do with the financial crisis…which led to the pension crisis. I prefer to keep the focus on those who created the problems, not those who are victims of it.

BTW, that sucks to hear about your 911 experience. There is NO excuse for it to happen. From time to time, changes are made to the emergency services system, and some of those changes deal with dispatch. The reason those changes are made is because they are trying to make the system more efficient because they want to avoid the very thing you’ve complained about. You might have called during one of their transition periods or when they were understaffed for whatever reason. Hopefully, they’ve remedied the problems so that nobody else has to experience any delays.

[CA renter]

[quote=flu][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…[/quote]

Flu,

Somewhere in this thread, I laid out what I think is going to happen to the pay and benefits for public sector workers. Yes, some aspects of the pension system are truly dysfunctional and need to be fixed. I’ve never denied that.

What people (who get all their information from MSM soundbites and propaganda) don’t seem to understand is HOW the “pension crisis” came to pass. It was NOT becuase of “greedy unions,” it was because of people at the top (union officials far removed from the workers, legislators, various politicians, and CalPERS officials) who were making decisions during a period of fantastic bubbles, and who, for some reason I can’t understand, thought those times would last forever. Exceedingly foolish decisions were made in the past 10-15 years, but they were NOT made by the boots-on-the-ground workers.

It gets old having to hear from people — who don’t even understand the issues — as they beat the snot out of the hard-working people who had nothing to do with the financial crisis…which led to the pension crisis. I prefer to keep the focus on those who created the problems, not those who are victims of it.

BTW, that sucks to hear about your 911 experience. There is NO excuse for it to happen. From time to time, changes are made to the emergency services system, and some of those changes deal with dispatch. The reason those changes are made is because they are trying to make the system more efficient because they want to avoid the very thing you’ve complained about. You might have called during one of their transition periods or when they were understaffed for whatever reason. Hopefully, they’ve remedied the problems so that nobody else has to experience any delays.

[CA renter]

Need to add one more thing…

Believe it or not, some of the union members were trying to **fight** some of the foolish decisions that were being made at the top (like not funding the pensions during the good times). The top officials pushed back, and went ahead with their plans. When some of the most generous changes were being made (the pension boost being one of the most foolish changes), many union members shook their heads in disbelief. Did they accept the better pay and/or benefits? Of course they did, as would any other worker; but they were not necessarily the ones pushing this agenda.

[CA renter]

Need to add one more thing…

Believe it or not, some of the union members were trying to **fight** some of the foolish decisions that were being made at the top (like not funding the pensions during the good times). The top officials pushed back, and went ahead with their plans. When some of the most generous changes were being made (the pension boost being one of the most foolish changes), many union members shook their heads in disbelief. Did they accept the better pay and/or benefits? Of course they did, as would any other worker; but they were not necessarily the ones pushing this agenda.

[CA renter]

Need to add one more thing…

Believe it or not, some of the union members were trying to **fight** some of the foolish decisions that were being made at the top (like not funding the pensions during the good times). The top officials pushed back, and went ahead with their plans. When some of the most generous changes were being made (the pension boost being one of the most foolish changes), many union members shook their heads in disbelief. Did they accept the better pay and/or benefits? Of course they did, as would any other worker; but they were not necessarily the ones pushing this agenda.

[CA renter]

Need to add one more thing…

Believe it or not, some of the union members were trying to **fight** some of the foolish decisions that were being made at the top (like not funding the pensions during the good times). The top officials pushed back, and went ahead with their plans. When some of the most generous changes were being made (the pension boost being one of the most foolish changes), many union members shook their heads in disbelief. Did they accept the better pay and/or benefits? Of course they did, as would any other worker; but they were not necessarily the ones pushing this agenda.

[CA renter]

Need to add one more thing…

Believe it or not, some of the union members were trying to **fight** some of the foolish decisions that were being made at the top (like not funding the pensions during the good times). The top officials pushed back, and went ahead with their plans. When some of the most generous changes were being made (the pension boost being one of the most foolish changes), many union members shook their heads in disbelief. Did they accept the better pay and/or benefits? Of course they did, as would any other worker; but they were not necessarily the ones pushing this agenda.

[jpinpb]

Okay. I really thought I was out of here, but I want to say a few more things.

I think what flu and others don’t realize perhaps is that maybe the reason people actually apply to be cops/firemen could very well be for the fact there’s a pension and for something financially stable, despite the risks of the job.

But at a certain point, risking your life is not worth it. There has to be some incentive. If you have the physical, psychological and mental ability to do the job of a cop or fireman, there has to be pay commensurate to the risk involved.

dave makes it sound like people are lining up to do the job. Does he think people would line up if it were $10 an hour? B/c given a choice, one day fighting a fire could persuade a few people to go work at In-N-Out. Starting pay there is $11 an hour. Put in your 8 hours a day and go home w/out taking your job w/you. Your time is your own when you’re not at work. They don’t have to risk their life flipping burgers. No one is going to call them in the middle of the night to go to work.

I really question if the private sector will do as good a job and for less. Private sector wants to MAKE money and don’t care about the customer.
They will cut corners and it could mean not saving every house in a fire b/c they may not want to waste fire retardant.

I saw a fireman down at the beach resuscitate some guy as if it was his brother. Think private sector would make the effort? I can see it now. “What? Give mouth to mouth. Call it!”

Name one private company that does something for the good of people and not their bottom line.

[jpinpb]

Okay. I really thought I was out of here, but I want to say a few more things.

I think what flu and others don’t realize perhaps is that maybe the reason people actually apply to be cops/firemen could very well be for the fact there’s a pension and for something financially stable, despite the risks of the job.

But at a certain point, risking your life is not worth it. There has to be some incentive. If you have the physical, psychological and mental ability to do the job of a cop or fireman, there has to be pay commensurate to the risk involved.

dave makes it sound like people are lining up to do the job. Does he think people would line up if it were $10 an hour? B/c given a choice, one day fighting a fire could persuade a few people to go work at In-N-Out. Starting pay there is $11 an hour. Put in your 8 hours a day and go home w/out taking your job w/you. Your time is your own when you’re not at work. They don’t have to risk their life flipping burgers. No one is going to call them in the middle of the night to go to work.

I really question if the private sector will do as good a job and for less. Private sector wants to MAKE money and don’t care about the customer.
They will cut corners and it could mean not saving every house in a fire b/c they may not want to waste fire retardant.

I saw a fireman down at the beach resuscitate some guy as if it was his brother. Think private sector would make the effort? I can see it now. “What? Give mouth to mouth. Call it!”

Name one private company that does something for the good of people and not their bottom line.

[jpinpb]

Okay. I really thought I was out of here, but I want to say a few more things.

I think what flu and others don’t realize perhaps is that maybe the reason people actually apply to be cops/firemen could very well be for the fact there’s a pension and for something financially stable, despite the risks of the job.

But at a certain point, risking your life is not worth it. There has to be some incentive. If you have the physical, psychological and mental ability to do the job of a cop or fireman, there has to be pay commensurate to the risk involved.

dave makes it sound like people are lining up to do the job. Does he think people would line up if it were $10 an hour? B/c given a choice, one day fighting a fire could persuade a few people to go work at In-N-Out. Starting pay there is $11 an hour. Put in your 8 hours a day and go home w/out taking your job w/you. Your time is your own when you’re not at work. They don’t have to risk their life flipping burgers. No one is going to call them in the middle of the night to go to work.

I really question if the private sector will do as good a job and for less. Private sector wants to MAKE money and don’t care about the customer.
They will cut corners and it could mean not saving every house in a fire b/c they may not want to waste fire retardant.

I saw a fireman down at the beach resuscitate some guy as if it was his brother. Think private sector would make the effort? I can see it now. “What? Give mouth to mouth. Call it!”

Name one private company that does something for the good of people and not their bottom line.

[jpinpb]

Okay. I really thought I was out of here, but I want to say a few more things.

I think what flu and others don’t realize perhaps is that maybe the reason people actually apply to be cops/firemen could very well be for the fact there’s a pension and for something financially stable, despite the risks of the job.

But at a certain point, risking your life is not worth it. There has to be some incentive. If you have the physical, psychological and mental ability to do the job of a cop or fireman, there has to be pay commensurate to the risk involved.

dave makes it sound like people are lining up to do the job. Does he think people would line up if it were $10 an hour? B/c given a choice, one day fighting a fire could persuade a few people to go work at In-N-Out. Starting pay there is $11 an hour. Put in your 8 hours a day and go home w/out taking your job w/you. Your time is your own when you’re not at work. They don’t have to risk their life flipping burgers. No one is going to call them in the middle of the night to go to work.

I really question if the private sector will do as good a job and for less. Private sector wants to MAKE money and don’t care about the customer.
They will cut corners and it could mean not saving every house in a fire b/c they may not want to waste fire retardant.

I saw a fireman down at the beach resuscitate some guy as if it was his brother. Think private sector would make the effort? I can see it now. “What? Give mouth to mouth. Call it!”

Name one private company that does something for the good of people and not their bottom line.

[Author]

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