Who will be the first to say the king has no clothes? If you read or listen to the common wisdom, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is the best thing to come along since sliced bread. On-time budgets. Gay marriage. Trying to de-criminalize pot. The "students’ lobbyist." No new taxes. Property tax caps. The list goes on and on. Like past Governor George Pataki's first two years, our head of state is swinging hard left, but will try to get more four-year terms on the back of the first two years.
We are led to believe our government is getting smaller. Where? How? The budget still is $132 billion. Taxes were raised on high-income earners during the 2011 Christmas holiday. The two most powerful special interests, schools and health care, got more money.
The "Triborough Amendment" still stands. It allows public sector unions all benefits of expired contracts, including built-in raises, while stonewalling talks to negotiate new contracts. Not one unfunded mandate has bit the dust.
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Am I reading your statements correctly? If not, please explain what exactly you mean. BTW corrupt politicians are not all democrats.
Now I earn more than he did but work a quarter as hard. He says "Always the princess" but that's because I go away a lot on Princess Cruises! :-)
What manufacturing base? That's pretty much gone. The only thing doing half way decently that I can see is the auto industry because Obama helped support it. The wealthy don't WANT to create jobs here. Businesses find it far easier to exploit workers in China and India who haven't learned to defend themselves against abuses. As to be being outsourced...you have no idea what level of education I have, but I can tell from your responses, that it outranks what you have by a loooong shot. I also know one thing about economics...You squeeze the middle class, the entire economy contracts. They've been squeezed dry. Another thing I know - organized labor is the one weapon progressives have against people like you who would not be happy until we devolved into a banana republic with oligarchs at the top and serfs on the bottom.
What should happen here is that the unions get a FAIR deal, but perhaps not as much as they are used to getting. Perhaps they could keep things flat while the CEO takes a pay CUT. The monies saved should be used to shore up the infrastructure and give CONSUMERS a break in their overall costs.
Quite frankly, borrowing is so cheap right now - common sense is screaming for the US to borrow money to shore up our infrastructure. Sure, it will temporarily add to the deficit, BUT - it will put people to work. They will pay TAXES and they will buy goods and services which will stimulate the private sector. Without that "kick" from the public sector you are sentencing the US to a long slow - or not so slow decline. After all, who wants to start a business in a country where the electricity is going out for weeks at a time and where you have to hold your breath every time your cross a bridge.
I have posted this for you regarding manufacturing in the US: According to the latest United Nations Statistics data (http://unstats.un.org/unsd/snaama/dnllist.asp) the United States is the largest manufacturing nation, with an output of approximately $1.83 Trillion. This is followed by China at $1.79T, with these two nations far outstripping any other nations (Japan $1.05T, Germany $767B and Italy $381B).
That comes right out of Karl Marx's brain. Ergo, if you believe it you are at least on that one point a Marxist.
Think back to Ronald Reagan when he faced the same issues. He hired more federal employees and increased taxes and brought us out of it. Look at Clinton, he raised taxes on the wealthy and left us a surplus in our budget and more millionaires than he started with I don't understand why working class people like Ross think that it's a great idea for the rich to pay fewer taxes than the middle class. As to the Rich being, “job creators” I’ll grant you that many large corporations are in fact creating jobs, they’re creating them in China, Pakistan, India and Indonesia where there are no unions and they can treat their workers like slave labor. A strong middle class is the key to a strong economy and the wealth disparity has grown in this country to the point where it’s obscene. If the middle class doesn’t wake-up we will find ourselves in a Plutocracy and the ironic part of it will be that the strong conservative base that supports these policies will be among the poor along with the progressives because there will be only two kinds of people; very rich and very poor..
Hmmm so being in the top 12-13% in my field means I'm not "doing well" by your definition. Know what you are talking about before you fling around stupidity.
I'm on both sides of the above issue. Collective bargaining does help to keep private sector job wages from imploding - although the impact has been lessening. The real impact of unions has been on the politics. WIthout them, the republicans would literally get every single dime of "big money" out there. That is very dangerous for any one political party to have. However, during the early 2000's - at least in my municipality, the unions were out of control, very demanding and condescending of residents who were truthfully saying that their salaries had tanked and they simply could't afford to foot the bill for packages that way, way, WAY above anything these tax payers could ever dream of. They wanted their steps AND increases and it was amounting to 6-7% a year. Nowhere except in the top 1% were salaries and benefits going up like that, and became to me an issue of basic fairness. They had an "I've got mine" and "you should have organized yourselves - don't blame US because you can't get what you need!" attitude. The result 5-6 years down the road was totally predictable backlash of voter fury. However, unions are an answer as well. They know how to organize rank and file like nothing else. They should join the 99% and HELP the middle organize.
Thank you for the history. I don't remember a time when public workers weren't doing well, but I know in the back of my head that that was the "deal". Lower than average pay in exchange for wonderful benefits and retirement packages. But as the salaries went up - and even exceeded the private sector. But no adjustments on the other side. So changing it has to be scaled. Those who worked for years for peanuts need to be protected. However, the growing sense of entitlement among the unions created a monster - and the wealthy in this country found a way to divide the middle and conquer by forcing us to squabble amongst ourselves for what is essentially the crumbs.
When you've gone out and have successfully begun a startup - from scratch - then you can come back and play with the grown ups.
said Ruthmarie Hicks I hope your clients know what you really think of them. Maybe your calling is rentals for Section 8 housing? You should try it so you could help people that need assistance instead of profiting off the evil wealthy.