Eighth grade math: If 10% of the police force doesn’t handle 5% of the time — even if it comprises 50% of the job — the public will have a difficult time observing this. If the NYC fire department hires almost 30 women a year for 30 years and there are still only 30 left on the job (half indoors?; 12 of the first 38 ever opted for light duty, e.g., public relations, right out of the academy) the public cannot see them not perform. If half the prison guards cannot perform the public will never see it. The part of Rikers Island I used to visit weekly — the 16 to 20 years old — is now totally out of control (see recent story in “New York Magazine”). http://nymag.com/news/features/70978/ If half the court officers cannot handle the job prisoners must enter the courtroom in chains. In my years of going to court in the Bronx in the ’70s they were brought in for arraignments in street clothes. 4 NYC court officers recently injured when judge insisted on removing chains.http://www.worldbookandnews.com/news/crime/44573-Robbery-suspect-injures-four-in-court.html Of course the rigor and aggression required of a Marine grunt pales compared to that needed to be a big city court officer.
The GOP war on teachers claimed another victim this week when Alabama state rep switched parties to become a Democrat.
“Boman, a 36-year-old lawyer from Sulligent, said Wednesday’s vote on a bill to change the state’s tenure and fair dismissal laws for educators convinced him he was in the wrong party.”
Here’s another little news piece that should shake the liberals here at AB, as Obama implements even another Republican policy recommendation.
Obama and his regulations Czar, have decided to follow the first item in the republican plan to increase job creation. They intend to: Obama proposes revamping regulations to aid businesses.
Weinergate!!! Now you’re really showing your true stripes. When did you last have an interest in the truth of any issue? Cherry picked data and statistics. Reference to any asinine story bouncing around on the blogosphere. And we’re all still waiting for yo to give us the details of CoRev’s balanced budget plan so as to contrast that with CoRev’s complaints about every slightly less than reactionary budget plan offered up by the likes of Paul Ryan. As retired military you probably have access to some decent heath care insurance in addition to the VA. Yet you champion a plan that sacrifices Medicare as a viable system of health care financial protection.
And for those of you who have been complaining that NPR is too liberal in its dissemination of the news and general socio-political commentary there’s this. This AM brought us David Brooks who is suddenly being presented as an expert on education and telling us that we really need to cut back because the country and its municipalities are broke and raising taxes may sink the ship of state. Solution? Stop expecting the most experienced teaching staff to do more with less. Give the newbies a fighting chance to do more with less and with less experience. That makes perfect sense. Maybe some day soon we’ll have the David Brooks Teacher Excellence Measurement Scale with which we can discern which teachers are worth keeping in an under funded system and which not.
Hmmm? How about recognizing that public education has been a corner stone of our democracy going back to the first beginnings of the republic. How about recognizing that certain government responsibilities are that basic and first you determine what is needed and then you raise the money to provide for the public good. Education is a public good? Or education is a luxury for the wealthier members of our nation? Which is it? And finally try developing a management corps in public education that can evaluate teachers and all other staff, just like you do in business. Unfortunately the product of educators is influenced by many external factors beyond the teacher’s control. Test results aren’t going to cut it as a measure of teaching efforts. Direct supervision and observation would be a good start. Proper funding would help so that administrators didn’t have to feel that they have to keep the bad with the good because if you toss out the bad you often get no replacement.
Jack, I’ll ignore the rant at the beginning of your comment, but how many times do I need to provide even another attempt at balancing the budget? I do have another one available, but I despair you would understand it.
If you are capable, build a spread sheet using this information: 1) GDP, 2) allow the Bush tax and FICA cuts to end, 3) freeze spending (all new/increased spending must be paid for) 4) grow the economy/revenues at the terrible, horribly bad Bush rates. Now tell us when the budget is balanced.
Of course, Clinton chose to pay down the debt when his budgets went into surplus. Bush after 3 years of Clinton surpluses chose to campaign on cutting taxes, and after elected, did so.
The below chart shows how successful was the Bush spending policies. Notice how his spending matched GDP growth. Consider if there had not been a 2001 recession or even 9/11 had never happened, Bush’s spending policies would have continued paying down debt, as borrowing would have been minimized or even not needed. When borrowing stops that usually means you are paying down debt, as it is paid as it matures.
There are many other stories contained in this chart, but I’ll save them for another day.
While we’re at it maybe we could take a look at the relative investment in say, the prison industrial complex. I read an article recently that mentioned the cost of housing an inmate at Riker’s Island at approximately $77K/yearly. Alongside with the fact that the US is #1 in prisoners incarcerated per capita. We lock up more of our citizens than every other country on the planet.
The pundit led strategery that wants to put teachers salaries under a microscope while failing to examine the huge and expanding cost of our police state ought to be worth discussing in itself. Why is it worth tens of thousands of dollars a year to lock people up while arguing over a fraction of that figure to educate and socialize them into productive citizens? Why does the FBI expend vast resources monitoring and spying on peace activists while ignoring massive corporate crime and corruption? Why are fear and cynicism more powerful political motivators than cooperation and reconciliation?
CoRev the only tools in evidence on ‘Weinergate’ are you, Brietbart and patriotusa76. And while no doubt you could muster 9″ of hard evidence between the three of you that is pretty much as far as this story is going to go.
Maybe you should just try recycling CIA/cocaine/Mena Airport Clinton Chronicles stuff, Christ at least that took more than a couple of hours to debunk. Unlike this mess.
CoRev we could just as plausibly claim that Obama was just channelling then VP Gore’s ‘Reinventing Government’ initiative from 1993: http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/npr/whoweare/historyofnpr.html
You once again have strayed across the boundary of self-parody here: “Look!!! Obama came out against WASTE, FRAUD, and ABUSE!!! Proof positive that he is a Republican!!!”
I doubt there is a politician in history that didn’t at least pay lip service to the idea of streamlining government in the interest of making it fairer and more efficient, to claim this as some uniquely Republican idea is beyond fatuous. What’s next? Claiming Mom, Apple Pie and the American Way? (Oh wait Republicans already claimed the latter).
Well, when they defund the schools and poor kids don’t get an education, they will find out why education is a public good. But then it will be too late.
On the other hand… I have seen the local schools cry “think of the children” when they meant we want a new parking lot. And I can’t figure where 13,000 dollars a year per child goes when teachers make maybe 50k and teach 30 kids.
CoRev comes out against arguments by assertion!!!!???
Dude like you have ever had anything else.
Did you advance any argument why anybody SHOULD have paid attention to so-called ‘Weinergate’ before accusing us of just burying it?
You are a ridiculous shill and always have been. And no one agrees with you except for the occassional other ridiculous shills that infest AB comment threads. You lost about 2006 but insist on maintaining your status as Dead idiot Walking. Well whatever works for you.
CoRev asks Where's the Dem plan to save Medicare? says:
Uh oh! The early jobs report for May is dismal. ADP says there were only 38K new jobs created in the private sector. 175K+ new jobs was expected. Now what?
One point at a time: “ Consider if there had not been a 2001 recession or even 9/11 had never happened, Bush’s spending policies would have continued paying down debt, as borrowing would have been minimized or even not needed. “
There’s an old expression concerning the word if. It’s far more amusing in yiddish, but that’s outside my recollection and linguistic ability. In english: If my granmother had had balls she’d have been my grandfather. But….. Otherwise, how do you come to any pro Bush economic analysis from that chart? Unless you’re referring to H.W.
“The below chart shows how successful was the Bush spending policies. Notice how his spending matched GDP growth. ” We see a sharp drop in the debt to GDP ratio under Clinton followed by just the opposite under Bush.
“Of course, Clinton chose to pay down the debt when his budgets went into surplus. Bush after 3 years of Clinton surpluses chose to campaign on cutting taxes, and after elected, did so.”
And that you suggest puts Bush in a good light? You’re the debt warrior. Is your campaign only applicable to Democrats in office?
“If you are capable, build a spread sheet using this information: 1) GDP, 2) allow the Bush tax and FICA cuts to end, 3) freeze spending (all new/increased spending must be paid for) 4) grow the economy/revenues at the terrible, horribly bad Bush rates. Now tell us when the budget is balanced.” You’re being coy regarding your budget policies. Are points 1-4 your suggestion of how to conquer the deficit? If so, why not just clearly say so? When will the budget be balanced? You expect to answer that via a spread sheet containing data fraught with assumptions and probable error? You’d make an excellent belt way economist with your reverence for speculative assumptions derived from gross economic measures with a high error of measurement score.
I don’t speculate about the future. The country has certain basic needs and the government has a responsibility to attend to those needs. I’m taking education and the health of the people as well as infrastructure. Externalities such as globalization need to be dealt with, but that is purely political. Assess the cost of meeting the basic needs of the people, as noted, and raise the revenue to pay for those basics. Cut programs that waste large quantities of money like war and corporate welfare. So your points 1-4 have some merit, but you hesitate to back them up with your own adherence.
CoRev asks Where's the Dem plan to save Medicare? says:
Jack said: “So your points 1-4 have some merit, but you hesitate to back them up with your own adherence.”, but missed this: “ freeze spending (all new/increased spending must be paid for)…”
What kind of adherence do you wish?
BTW, if you do the spreadsheet you might be amazed at how fast we can balance the budget. A balanced budget means we stop borrowing, and stopping borrowing pays down the publicly owned debt as it matures.
My point is if Bush had been just partially as lucky as Clinton (no wars and no recessions), he too would have balanced the budget. He actually would have started balanced, or nearly so. For all Mike Kimel’s analysis, with just a modicum of Clinton’s luck, bush would have excelled over Clinton. And, that’s the story you miss by relying on ideology and Dem talking points instead of critical thinking.
You laid out a four point agenda for budget discipline which differs in a major way from the Republican/Ryan plan. You hint at your own commitment to those four ideas. Good enough, but you rely upon growth to reduce debt. Maybe. I’m not criticizing the four points, but you’re not fully supporting them either given that you’re burying your own idea under a need to resurrect Bush as some kind of budgetary savior. What’s up with that? Bush is a dead issue. Gone! Out of the picture. Bad luck had nothing to do with tax cuts and two wars that accomplished nothing, but to enrich arms manufacturers. Stand behind your own ideas and forget the past mistakes and accomplishments of others. Not that I’m all too happy with Clinton for that matter. Maybe the economy did OK due to the fast and lose spending and borrowing of the first decade of the 21st century.
http://birdlightwind.com/2011/05/26/egret-fightballet/
For those who spent today inside, get out tomorrow. Plenty going on if you know where to look. 😀 NancyO
Test
My comment to: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-women-in-combat/2011/05/25/AGAsavCH_story.html
Eighth grade math:
If 10% of the police force doesn’t handle 5% of the time — even if it comprises 50% of the job — the public will have a difficult time observing this.
If the NYC fire department hires almost 30 women a year for 30 years and there are still only 30 left on the job (half indoors?; 12 of the first 38 ever opted for light duty, e.g., public relations, right out of the academy) the public cannot see them not perform.
If half the prison guards cannot perform the public will never see it. The part of Rikers Island I used to visit weekly — the 16 to 20 years old — is now totally out of control (see recent story in “New York Magazine”). http://nymag.com/news/features/70978/
If half the court officers cannot handle the job prisoners must enter the courtroom in chains. In my years of going to court in the Bronx in the ’70s they were brought in for arraignments in street clothes. 4 NYC court officers recently injured when judge insisted on removing chains. http://www.worldbookandnews.com/news/crime/44573-Robbery-suspect-injures-four-in-court.html
Of course the rigor and aggression required of a Marine grunt pales compared to that needed to be a big city court officer.
The GOP war on teachers claimed another victim this week when Alabama state rep switched parties to become a Democrat.
“Boman, a 36-year-old lawyer from Sulligent, said Wednesday’s vote on a bill to change the state’s tenure and fair dismissal laws for educators convinced him he was in the wrong party.”
http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/article/20110526/NEWS/110529701/1007?tc=ar
So, who here has heard of Weinergate?
I guess the MSM has failed again. Weiner is a democrat after all.
Here’s another little news piece that should shake the liberals here at AB, as Obama implements even another Republican policy recommendation.
Obama and his regulations Czar, have decided to follow the first item in the republican plan to increase job creation. They intend to: Obama proposes revamping regulations to aid businesses.
It can be found here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-proposes-revamping-regulations-to-aid-businesses/2011/05/29/AG2QYOEH_story.html?hpid=z4
The Republican plan can be found here: http://majorityleader.gov/Jobs/HRP_JOBS.pdf
Read the first item. Or better still, read the whole thing.
My bologna has a first name – it’s O S C A R
My bologna has a second name it’s Andrew Brietbart.
Price of war. As we remember the fallen today, also think about their families and friends, to include survivors. Because they’d want you to do that. Maybe start here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/30/afghanistan-casualties_n_868034.html
Weinergate!!! Now you’re really showing your true stripes. When did you last have an interest in the truth of any issue? Cherry picked data and statistics. Reference to any asinine story bouncing around on the blogosphere. And we’re all still waiting for yo to give us the details of CoRev’s balanced budget plan so as to contrast that with CoRev’s complaints about every slightly less than reactionary budget plan offered up by the likes of Paul Ryan. As retired military you probably have access to some decent heath care insurance in addition to the VA. Yet you champion a plan that sacrifices Medicare as a viable system of health care financial protection.
And for those of you who have been complaining that NPR is too liberal in its dissemination of the news and general socio-political commentary there’s this. This AM brought us David Brooks who is suddenly being presented as an expert on education and telling us that we really need to cut back because the country and its municipalities are broke and raising taxes may sink the ship of state. Solution? Stop expecting the most experienced teaching staff to do more with less. Give the newbies a fighting chance to do more with less and with less experience. That makes perfect sense. Maybe some day soon we’ll have the David Brooks Teacher Excellence Measurement Scale with which we can discern which teachers are worth keeping in an under funded system and which not.
Hmmm? How about recognizing that public education has been a corner stone of our democracy going back to the first beginnings of the republic. How about recognizing that certain government responsibilities are that basic and first you determine what is needed and then you raise the money to provide for the public good. Education is a public good? Or education is a luxury for the wealthier members of our nation? Which is it? And finally try developing a management corps in public education that can evaluate teachers and all other staff, just like you do in business. Unfortunately the product of educators is influenced by many external factors beyond the teacher’s control. Test results aren’t going to cut it as a measure of teaching efforts. Direct supervision and observation would be a good start. Proper funding would help so that administrators didn’t have to feel that they have to keep the bad with the good because if you toss out the bad you often get no replacement.
Jack, I’ll ignore the rant at the beginning of your comment, but how many times do I need to provide even another attempt at balancing the budget? I do have another one available, but I despair you would understand it.
If you are capable, build a spread sheet using this information: 1) GDP, 2) allow the Bush tax and FICA cuts to end, 3) freeze spending (all new/increased spending must be paid for) 4) grow the economy/revenues at the terrible, horribly bad Bush rates. Now tell us when the budget is balanced.
Of course, Clinton chose to pay down the debt when his budgets went into surplus. Bush after 3 years of Clinton surpluses chose to campaign on cutting taxes, and after elected, did so.
The below chart shows how successful was the Bush spending policies. Notice how his spending matched GDP growth. Consider if there had not been a 2001 recession or even 9/11 had never happened, Bush’s spending policies would have continued paying down debt, as borrowing would have been minimized or even not needed. When borrowing stops that usually means you are paying down debt, as it is paid as it matures.
There are many other stories contained in this chart, but I’ll save them for another day.
While we’re at it maybe we could take a look at the relative investment in say, the prison industrial complex. I read an article recently that mentioned the cost of housing an inmate at Riker’s Island at approximately $77K/yearly. Alongside with the fact that the US is #1 in prisoners incarcerated per capita. We lock up more of our citizens than every other country on the planet.
The pundit led strategery that wants to put teachers salaries under a microscope while failing to examine the huge and expanding cost of our police state ought to be worth discussing in itself. Why is it worth tens of thousands of dollars a year to lock people up while arguing over a fraction of that figure to educate and socialize them into productive citizens? Why does the FBI expend vast resources monitoring and spying on peace activists while ignoring massive corporate crime and corruption? Why are fear and cynicism more powerful political motivators than cooperation and reconciliation?
CoRev the only tools in evidence on ‘Weinergate’ are you, Brietbart and patriotusa76. And while no doubt you could muster 9″ of hard evidence between the three of you that is pretty much as far as this story is going to go.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/05/29/980400/-Breitbarts-#TwitterHoaxHow-It-Went-Down-(updated-wsmoking-gun)?via=siderec
Maybe you should just try recycling CIA/cocaine/Mena Airport Clinton Chronicles stuff, Christ at least that took more than a couple of hours to debunk. Unlike this mess.
CoRev we could just as plausibly claim that Obama was just channelling then VP Gore’s ‘Reinventing Government’ initiative from 1993: http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/npr/whoweare/historyofnpr.html
You once again have strayed across the boundary of self-parody here: “Look!!! Obama came out against WASTE, FRAUD, and ABUSE!!! Proof positive that he is a Republican!!!”
I doubt there is a politician in history that didn’t at least pay lip service to the idea of streamlining government in the interest of making it fairer and more efficient, to claim this as some uniquely Republican idea is beyond fatuous. What’s next? Claiming Mom, Apple Pie and the American Way? (Oh wait Republicans already claimed the latter).
That’s as convincing as my FB account was hacked. It’s all circumstantial, but why would Weiner follow a 21 YO way out of his diustrict?
Argument by assertion, sarcasm, and ridicule. You lose.
Well, when they defund the schools and poor kids don’t get an education, they will find out why education is a public good. But then it will be too late.
On the other hand… I have seen the local schools cry “think of the children” when they meant we want a new parking lot. And I can’t figure where 13,000 dollars a year per child goes when teachers make maybe 50k and teach 30 kids.
CoRev comes out against arguments by assertion!!!!???
Dude like you have ever had anything else.
Did you advance any argument why anybody SHOULD have paid attention to so-called ‘Weinergate’ before accusing us of just burying it?
You are a ridiculous shill and always have been. And no one agrees with you except for the occassional other ridiculous shills that infest AB comment threads. You lost about 2006 but insist on maintaining your status as Dead idiot Walking. Well whatever works for you.
Uh oh! The early jobs report for May is dismal. ADP says there were only 38K new jobs created in the private sector. 175K+ new jobs was expected. Now what?
One article can be found here: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/private_sector_employment_up_in_24YaqfGRHE3SyQnu9TAHnO
Certainly more will be written as the day goes on and the news is digested.
One point at a time:
“ Consider if there had not been a 2001 recession or even 9/11 had never happened, Bush’s spending policies would have continued paying down debt, as borrowing would have been minimized or even not needed. “
There’s an old expression concerning the word if. It’s far more amusing in yiddish, but that’s outside my recollection and linguistic ability. In english: If my granmother had had balls she’d have been my grandfather. But….. Otherwise, how do you come to any pro Bush economic analysis from that chart? Unless you’re referring to H.W.
“The below chart shows how successful was the Bush spending policies. Notice how his spending matched GDP growth. ”
We see a sharp drop in the debt to GDP ratio under Clinton followed by just the opposite under Bush.
“Of course, Clinton chose to pay down the debt when his budgets went into surplus. Bush after 3 years of Clinton surpluses chose to campaign on cutting taxes, and after elected, did so.”
And that you suggest puts Bush in a good light? You’re the debt warrior. Is your campaign only applicable to Democrats in office?
“If you are capable, build a spread sheet using this information: 1) GDP, 2) allow the Bush tax and FICA cuts to end, 3) freeze spending (all new/increased spending must be paid for) 4) grow the economy/revenues at the terrible, horribly bad Bush rates. Now tell us when the budget is balanced.”
You’re being coy regarding your budget policies. Are points 1-4 your suggestion of how to conquer the deficit? If so, why not just clearly say so? When will the budget be balanced? You expect to answer that via a spread sheet containing data fraught with assumptions and probable error? You’d make an excellent belt way economist with your reverence for speculative assumptions derived from gross economic measures with a high error of measurement score.
I don’t speculate about the future. The country has certain basic needs and the government has a responsibility to attend to those needs. I’m taking education and the health of the people as well as infrastructure. Externalities such as globalization need to be dealt with, but that is purely political. Assess the cost of meeting the basic needs of the people, as noted, and raise the revenue to pay for those basics. Cut programs that waste large quantities of money like war and corporate welfare. So your points 1-4 have some merit, but you hesitate to back them up with your own adherence.
Jack said: “So your points 1-4 have some merit, but you hesitate to back them up with your own adherence.”, but missed this: “ freeze spending (all new/increased spending must be paid for)…”
What kind of adherence do you wish?
BTW, if you do the spreadsheet you might be amazed at how fast we can balance the budget. A balanced budget means we stop borrowing, and stopping borrowing pays down the publicly owned debt as it matures.
My point is if Bush had been just partially as lucky as Clinton (no wars and no recessions), he too would have balanced the budget. He actually would have started balanced, or nearly so. For all Mike Kimel’s analysis, with just a modicum of Clinton’s luck, bush would have excelled over Clinton. And, that’s the story you miss by relying on ideology and Dem talking points instead of critical thinking.
CoRev,
If, if, if, if, if, if, if, etc. etc.
You laid out a four point agenda for budget discipline which differs in a major way from the Republican/Ryan plan. You hint at your own commitment to those four ideas. Good enough, but you rely upon growth to reduce debt. Maybe. I’m not criticizing the four points, but you’re not fully supporting them either given that you’re burying your own idea under a need to resurrect Bush as some kind of budgetary savior. What’s up with that? Bush is a dead issue. Gone! Out of the picture. Bad luck had nothing to do with tax cuts and two wars that accomplished nothing, but to enrich arms manufacturers. Stand behind your own ideas and forget the past mistakes and accomplishments of others. Not that I’m all too happy with Clinton for that matter. Maybe the economy did OK due to the fast and lose spending and borrowing of the first decade of the 21st century.
All six of the WI GOP state senators targeted for recall have now been certified by the state’s election board for recall elections.
The three Democratic state senators targeted by the GOP….