Top 20 pensioners cite city service

[KSMountain]

[quote=jimmyle]I also question your comment that Police Officers provide much more benefits to society than Engineers.
[/quote]

Well that whole subdiscussion treaded dangerously into “what is fair” territory. And that’s just silly because Life Is Not Fair.

If life were fair, and salaries were set based on their benefit to society, would baseball players make 100 (or even 500) times as much as teachers?

And yet, it is so.

Apart from the financial aspect, I personally feel Police and Engineers are both *indispensable* in our current society. Not sure how you would rank one versus the other. I guess I might say the average police officer provides more benefits to society than the average engineer, but I’m not sure.

[sdduuuude]

My concern isn’t so much with how much they make – it is the method used to determine how much they make. The city officials buy votes by upping union salaries, giving in to union bosses who are effectively thugs asking for protection money. There are likely significant kick-backs as well for the city officials.

This gives the union workers the ability to say “Hey – I didn’t choose my salary. That’s just what the city gives me.”

It also ends up unbalanced – where the higher-up union workers get treated well while the lower echelons get screwed.

So, yes firefighters and police deserve to get paid well, but they don’t deserve to have their salary set by under-the-table deals between city officials.

I can understand how a non-union city worker could get tired of hearing about overpriced city workers.

[sdduuuude]

My concern isn’t so much with how much they make – it is the method used to determine how much they make. The city officials buy votes by upping union salaries, giving in to union bosses who are effectively thugs asking for protection money. There are likely significant kick-backs as well for the city officials.

This gives the union workers the ability to say “Hey – I didn’t choose my salary. That’s just what the city gives me.”

It also ends up unbalanced – where the higher-up union workers get treated well while the lower echelons get screwed.

So, yes firefighters and police deserve to get paid well, but they don’t deserve to have their salary set by under-the-table deals between city officials.

I can understand how a non-union city worker could get tired of hearing about overpriced city workers.

[sdduuuude]

My concern isn’t so much with how much they make – it is the method used to determine how much they make. The city officials buy votes by upping union salaries, giving in to union bosses who are effectively thugs asking for protection money. There are likely significant kick-backs as well for the city officials.

This gives the union workers the ability to say “Hey – I didn’t choose my salary. That’s just what the city gives me.”

It also ends up unbalanced – where the higher-up union workers get treated well while the lower echelons get screwed.

So, yes firefighters and police deserve to get paid well, but they don’t deserve to have their salary set by under-the-table deals between city officials.

I can understand how a non-union city worker could get tired of hearing about overpriced city workers.

[sdduuuude]

My concern isn’t so much with how much they make – it is the method used to determine how much they make. The city officials buy votes by upping union salaries, giving in to union bosses who are effectively thugs asking for protection money. There are likely significant kick-backs as well for the city officials.

This gives the union workers the ability to say “Hey – I didn’t choose my salary. That’s just what the city gives me.”

It also ends up unbalanced – where the higher-up union workers get treated well while the lower echelons get screwed.

So, yes firefighters and police deserve to get paid well, but they don’t deserve to have their salary set by under-the-table deals between city officials.

I can understand how a non-union city worker could get tired of hearing about overpriced city workers.

[sdduuuude]

My concern isn’t so much with how much they make – it is the method used to determine how much they make. The city officials buy votes by upping union salaries, giving in to union bosses who are effectively thugs asking for protection money. There are likely significant kick-backs as well for the city officials.

This gives the union workers the ability to say “Hey – I didn’t choose my salary. That’s just what the city gives me.”

It also ends up unbalanced – where the higher-up union workers get treated well while the lower echelons get screwed.

So, yes firefighters and police deserve to get paid well, but they don’t deserve to have their salary set by under-the-table deals between city officials.

I can understand how a non-union city worker could get tired of hearing about overpriced city workers.

[sdduuuude]

[quote=KSMountain]Apart from the financial aspect, I personally feel Police and Engineers are both *indispensable* in our current society. Not sure how you would rank one versus the other. I guess I might say the average police officer provides more benefits to society than the average engineer, but I’m not sure.[/quote]

Salary is not determined by your value to society. Like all markets, it is a function of supply and demand.

Demand for labor is driven by the importance of the job, and the capacity required.

Supply is determined by the difficulty of the job and the enjoyability of the job. Less enjoyable jobs have a lower labor supply – fewer people want to do it.

Lets say a city needs someone to keep their finger in the dike to keep it from flooding the city. Well, the demand for that position is 1. And, although it is an indispensable position, it does not require a remarkable amount of skill or training. Nor is it a very unpleasant job.

Thus, the number of people willing and able to do it is rather high. Thus, I doubt it would be a highly paid position, though clearly it is critical to society.

As I mention above, these wages are not set by market forces or supply and demand, but by union thuggery. As such, I suspect they are too high, regardless of their importantce.

In other words – if the city had offered a lower salary with a lower pension, would some other qualified candidate have taken the job? If the answer is “yes” then they overpaid. Plain and simple. Unfortunately, it is never posed this way.

[sdduuuude]

[quote=KSMountain]Apart from the financial aspect, I personally feel Police and Engineers are both *indispensable* in our current society. Not sure how you would rank one versus the other. I guess I might say the average police officer provides more benefits to society than the average engineer, but I’m not sure.[/quote]

Salary is not determined by your value to society. Like all markets, it is a function of supply and demand.

Demand for labor is driven by the importance of the job, and the capacity required.

Supply is determined by the difficulty of the job and the enjoyability of the job. Less enjoyable jobs have a lower labor supply – fewer people want to do it.

Lets say a city needs someone to keep their finger in the dike to keep it from flooding the city. Well, the demand for that position is 1. And, although it is an indispensable position, it does not require a remarkable amount of skill or training. Nor is it a very unpleasant job.

Thus, the number of people willing and able to do it is rather high. Thus, I doubt it would be a highly paid position, though clearly it is critical to society.

As I mention above, these wages are not set by market forces or supply and demand, but by union thuggery. As such, I suspect they are too high, regardless of their importantce.

In other words – if the city had offered a lower salary with a lower pension, would some other qualified candidate have taken the job? If the answer is “yes” then they overpaid. Plain and simple. Unfortunately, it is never posed this way.

[sdduuuude]

[quote=KSMountain]Apart from the financial aspect, I personally feel Police and Engineers are both *indispensable* in our current society. Not sure how you would rank one versus the other. I guess I might say the average police officer provides more benefits to society than the average engineer, but I’m not sure.[/quote]

Salary is not determined by your value to society. Like all markets, it is a function of supply and demand.

Demand for labor is driven by the importance of the job, and the capacity required.

Supply is determined by the difficulty of the job and the enjoyability of the job. Less enjoyable jobs have a lower labor supply – fewer people want to do it.

Lets say a city needs someone to keep their finger in the dike to keep it from flooding the city. Well, the demand for that position is 1. And, although it is an indispensable position, it does not require a remarkable amount of skill or training. Nor is it a very unpleasant job.

Thus, the number of people willing and able to do it is rather high. Thus, I doubt it would be a highly paid position, though clearly it is critical to society.

As I mention above, these wages are not set by market forces or supply and demand, but by union thuggery. As such, I suspect they are too high, regardless of their importantce.

In other words – if the city had offered a lower salary with a lower pension, would some other qualified candidate have taken the job? If the answer is “yes” then they overpaid. Plain and simple. Unfortunately, it is never posed this way.

[sdduuuude]

[quote=KSMountain]Apart from the financial aspect, I personally feel Police and Engineers are both *indispensable* in our current society. Not sure how you would rank one versus the other. I guess I might say the average police officer provides more benefits to society than the average engineer, but I’m not sure.[/quote]

Salary is not determined by your value to society. Like all markets, it is a function of supply and demand.

Demand for labor is driven by the importance of the job, and the capacity required.

Supply is determined by the difficulty of the job and the enjoyability of the job. Less enjoyable jobs have a lower labor supply – fewer people want to do it.

Lets say a city needs someone to keep their finger in the dike to keep it from flooding the city. Well, the demand for that position is 1. And, although it is an indispensable position, it does not require a remarkable amount of skill or training. Nor is it a very unpleasant job.

Thus, the number of people willing and able to do it is rather high. Thus, I doubt it would be a highly paid position, though clearly it is critical to society.

As I mention above, these wages are not set by market forces or supply and demand, but by union thuggery. As such, I suspect they are too high, regardless of their importantce.

In other words – if the city had offered a lower salary with a lower pension, would some other qualified candidate have taken the job? If the answer is “yes” then they overpaid. Plain and simple. Unfortunately, it is never posed this way.

[sdduuuude]

[quote=KSMountain]Apart from the financial aspect, I personally feel Police and Engineers are both *indispensable* in our current society. Not sure how you would rank one versus the other. I guess I might say the average police officer provides more benefits to society than the average engineer, but I’m not sure.[/quote]

Salary is not determined by your value to society. Like all markets, it is a function of supply and demand.

Demand for labor is driven by the importance of the job, and the capacity required.

Supply is determined by the difficulty of the job and the enjoyability of the job. Less enjoyable jobs have a lower labor supply – fewer people want to do it.

Lets say a city needs someone to keep their finger in the dike to keep it from flooding the city. Well, the demand for that position is 1. And, although it is an indispensable position, it does not require a remarkable amount of skill or training. Nor is it a very unpleasant job.

Thus, the number of people willing and able to do it is rather high. Thus, I doubt it would be a highly paid position, though clearly it is critical to society.

As I mention above, these wages are not set by market forces or supply and demand, but by union thuggery. As such, I suspect they are too high, regardless of their importantce.

In other words – if the city had offered a lower salary with a lower pension, would some other qualified candidate have taken the job? If the answer is “yes” then they overpaid. Plain and simple. Unfortunately, it is never posed this way.

[KSMountain]

I agree with you sdduude. I don’t like skulduggery with public money, nor kickbacks. And I don’t like unions, sorry.

I did like your dike example though. 🙂

I think if you take the top 20 folks in almost any endeavor, a cursory glance at their salaries would be surprising, and you might initially think they were shockingly unjustified. Imagine what the top 20 plastic surgeons make…

But isn’t this called “selection bias”? Of course the numbers were large, they were the top 20! What about all the rest of the folks? How many folks are drawing a pension from the city of SD? 100,000? 500,000? What’s the mean and standard deviation of their payouts?

Now of course that’s much less sensational and less fun to grouse about, but statistically more relevant I think.

I think we need to be careful when considering making policy decisions based on some small number of folks we want to “target”. That’s how you end up with things like the AMT.

[KSMountain]

I agree with you sdduude. I don’t like skulduggery with public money, nor kickbacks. And I don’t like unions, sorry.

I did like your dike example though. 🙂

I think if you take the top 20 folks in almost any endeavor, a cursory glance at their salaries would be surprising, and you might initially think they were shockingly unjustified. Imagine what the top 20 plastic surgeons make…

But isn’t this called “selection bias”? Of course the numbers were large, they were the top 20! What about all the rest of the folks? How many folks are drawing a pension from the city of SD? 100,000? 500,000? What’s the mean and standard deviation of their payouts?

Now of course that’s much less sensational and less fun to grouse about, but statistically more relevant I think.

I think we need to be careful when considering making policy decisions based on some small number of folks we want to “target”. That’s how you end up with things like the AMT.

[KSMountain]

I agree with you sdduude. I don’t like skulduggery with public money, nor kickbacks. And I don’t like unions, sorry.

I did like your dike example though. 🙂

I think if you take the top 20 folks in almost any endeavor, a cursory glance at their salaries would be surprising, and you might initially think they were shockingly unjustified. Imagine what the top 20 plastic surgeons make…

But isn’t this called “selection bias”? Of course the numbers were large, they were the top 20! What about all the rest of the folks? How many folks are drawing a pension from the city of SD? 100,000? 500,000? What’s the mean and standard deviation of their payouts?

Now of course that’s much less sensational and less fun to grouse about, but statistically more relevant I think.

I think we need to be careful when considering making policy decisions based on some small number of folks we want to “target”. That’s how you end up with things like the AMT.

[KSMountain]

I agree with you sdduude. I don’t like skulduggery with public money, nor kickbacks. And I don’t like unions, sorry.

I did like your dike example though. 🙂

I think if you take the top 20 folks in almost any endeavor, a cursory glance at their salaries would be surprising, and you might initially think they were shockingly unjustified. Imagine what the top 20 plastic surgeons make…

But isn’t this called “selection bias”? Of course the numbers were large, they were the top 20! What about all the rest of the folks? How many folks are drawing a pension from the city of SD? 100,000? 500,000? What’s the mean and standard deviation of their payouts?

Now of course that’s much less sensational and less fun to grouse about, but statistically more relevant I think.

I think we need to be careful when considering making policy decisions based on some small number of folks we want to “target”. That’s how you end up with things like the AMT.

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