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OWS - Finger-Wiggling Their Way To a Better Tomorrow
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(unless you're shipped off to a third world country to blow things up)
But yes gutting the public sector has been doing enough on its own to hurt the economy. Especially when it comes to education both at the primary/secondary level, and with higher ed. Screwing up your public schools, and not making public universities and state schools as affordable as possible for residents, is always going bump up your unemployed(/able) population.
Like, where do people except public sector workers who get laid off to go? This includes the military, more so since very few enlisted jobs actually teach marketable skills.
Definitely not just STEM. We should be paying teachers, police, nurses, etc. way more money. But we also do need to pay STEM more, and really any other careers that will do more for people than the high paid careers now (lawyers, finance). I think society would just be better off if fewer of our bright, talented people went into careers like mine or finance. Hell, even within the law we only pay people well for doing corporate work (transactional or litigation) instead of paying the prosecutors, public defenders, immigration, real estate etc. lawyers who actually benefit "regular" people.
"There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing." -- Andrew Jackson
I'm not saying it makes it ok, but at least older government works who are forced out may be able to collect their pensions and benefits as part of the deal (I.e., they give you extra years if vesting service).
"There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing." -- Andrew Jackson
Except it's not older workers, it's younger workers. Take Florida for example. Scott slashed the education budget so scores and scores of teachers were laid off, I think at least a thousand or so, but I think more, and there's a class size amendment that has to be met. It wasn't the older teachers or the "bad teachers" who got the ax, it was the young kids right out of college.
I think you might be overestimating how much thought people who back austerity in our government put into this kind of thing, and I know you're overestimating their generosity.
Interesting. In NY and NJ, we generally try to get older (more exspensive) teachers to retire first, by cutting a deal with them to accelerate their pension, or by giving them a better deal when they sell their accumulated vacation days back to the school. If that fails, then we excess (layoff) younger teachers, but it rarely comes to that.
FWIW, I know one of the people in charge of risk management issues for Florida, and apparantly there are HUGE amounts of money being bled from the schools by people on what may be fraudulent disability claims. We are talking enough money (between disability and providing them with medical benefits while they are out) to have saved hundreds of teaching jobs.
"There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing." -- Andrew Jackson
Too bad our legislature and governor take the cut first, ask questions later side.
We've had a Tea Party government since like 1845.
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Fuck's sake
#FreeScheck
#FreeSKFM
I dunno. The bits in there about systemic encouragement of convincing clients to make investment decisions based on what's best for GS instead of the client, and about convincing clients to buy toxic assets that GS wants to dump? Yeah, that kills any and all trust the rich may have with the organization.
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No.
I like this bit. I like it a lot.
I don't like the idea of cutting off my leg to spite my foot, though.
This. It's his word against a financial giant. Will it get coverage? Sure. Followed by 24 hours of attacks by industry analysts, pundits, and talk show hosts.
You forgot to mention his time in the Reich, which is where he learned his particularly cruel form of OWS-inspired Fascism.
Here is the most recent fallout:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/15/business/a-public-exit-from-goldman-sachs-hits-a-wounded-wall-street.html?ref=opinion
Second page goes into some general fallout of Wallstreet's culture of cut throat short term greed:
Something I disagree with though, I think greed in general is a problem, even long term greed is harmful to society and should be firmly kept in check.
This is how it used to be in New Jersey. The current governor basically put a gun to the head of the retirement eligible and scared them out the door. For municipalities/agencies that were looking to avoid layoffs (Newark Police and Fire, Camden Police and Fire, every major city police and fire) both because it sends a terrible message and is heinously unpopular with voters, state aid was cut and many municipalities had to make severe cutbacks even with a flood of retirees.
Camden layoffs.
Immediately after 1/3 of fire being laid off.
A month later.
And some of the aftermath of losing half the police force.
This will be handled the same way any major PR gaff is handled. Lots of face to face meetings with clients, lots of assurances what was said is false. Lots of free dinners to cement relationships. Nothing will change inside, except maybe the policies on internal communication, and nondisparagement.
"There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing." -- Andrew Jackson
Jesus.
After going to University for 5 years in Camden, I can say that laying off a majority of that police force is probably not in the best interests of anybody at all.
They were some nice folks, honestly!
You have to fight through some bad days, to earn the best days of your life.
http://www.salon.com/2012/03/16/mayor_bloomberg_personally_cheers_up_goldman_sachs/
Yes, it is terrible for the mayor to show support and solidarity to a major employer and a major player in the city's economy.
"There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing." -- Andrew Jackson
I hear Al'Qaeda employs a lot of people, too. Maybe he should cheer them up, too, so long as he's visiting terrorists and criminals.
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I have very much the opposite of love for Goldman Sachs, but maybe this isn't the best analogy.
I'm inventing a new version of the Godwin, here. It's gonna take some time, man.
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Dude, Bloomberg's actually a pretty damn good mayor. He's done quite a bit for NYC over the past decade. Visiting wealthy constituents to give them handjobs under the table is just something that politicians do.
#FreeScheck
#FreeSKFM
? GS has over 35,000 employees world wide. They are a huge employer.
And Bloomberg has been an incredible mayor. I would elect him for another term or 8 if I could. 311 and the abolition of the school board alone are enough to make him one of the greatest mayors of all time.
"There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing." -- Andrew Jackson
Personally I wish that him and Commissioner Kelly were both nailed to a cross for their recent escapades in turning the NYPD into a secret police force, but thats just me.
Uh wut? Not really. Walmart employs 2.1M. Apple 60K. Boeing 164K. Google 32K. IBM 426K. Deloitte 182K. HSBC 288K. AMR Corp 73K. NYPD has 36K police officers. NYC Department of Education has 75K teachers. Huge is not at all the word I would use.
(Also, Wikipedia says 33K, not 35.)
I think the 35k figure(or 33k) is worldwide, players like GS got offices in every major financial center in the world. Tokyo, London, Frankfurt and Rome. If there is money to be made of the markets there, GS will be there.
For all the money GS brings into NY however, its shenanigans takes a lot out. Those subprime mortgages hit a lot of NYC suburbs hard. Its kinda of stupid of the mayor being tone deaf to the complaints of a significant number of New Yorkers about GS reputation for douchbaggery.
GS is the posterchild for OWS hate for a reason.
Yeah,
Number of WalMart employees in NYC: 0
Goldman Sachs: about 2000 (guestimating)
Tax revenue brought into NYC by WalMart: $0
Tax revenue brought into NYC by Goldman Sachs: $TEXAS
National numbers don't mean diddles. Goldman is a big employer of high net worth constituents. I am neither shocked, nor outraged that a New York City politician with a Wall Street background stopped by a major Wall Street firm to say "Sup"
#FreeScheck
#FreeSKFM
Well I am. Violently so. With gusto.
So pretty much, it's entirely understandable from the viewpoint of a monster who only thinks in dollar signs flowing into his (or his family, or his political party's) coffers. But pretty abhorrent from people who care about the majority of human beings in New York or America. Not that we should expect better from Bloomberg, I certainly didn't, but it's still funny to see him at least own up to it: "Stop being mean to our big companies! They make a few people really rich and created the industry I made my fortune off of! Come on guys, quit it! We got rid of the hippies so let's just be happy and get back to drinking champagne while Rome burns!"