My Blog

Category: Politics

  • Chicago Teachers Union: It’s About Children Greed

    According to the Chicago Tribune key issues separating Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Teachers Union:

    SALARIES AND BENEFITS. The district offered 16 percent increase over four years and “modified step increases that both reward experience and provide better incentives for mid-career teachers.” The union said it’s closer on pay but is still concerned about rising health care costs and other benefits. Teachers sought a substantial raise in the contract’s first year because of the longer day and want to keep raises for experience.

    This is insane.  There is no one in the private sector who’s planning on seeing a 16% increase in their income over the next four years.  Plus these people make tons of money already!

    A Chicago Public Schools spokesperson said average pay for teachers, without benefits, is $76,000.

    via CBS Chicago.

    The average family in the city only earns $47,000 a year.  Considering a regular school term of 40 weeks, at 6.25 hours per day…. The way I figure that’s $76,000.00 / (6.25 * 200)  = $60.80 / hour.  Plus they get benefits — excellent benefits.

    So what we have is a group of people who on average make over $60/hour — the highest paid teachers in the nation — and are complaining about it.

    Next issue:

    JOB SECURITY. The union has pushed for a system to recall teachers who have been laid off when new openings occur. This has become important because of rumors the district plans to close up to 100 schools in coming years. The district says teachers displaced by school closings will be eligible for a job at new schools if there is a vacancy — or may elect to take a three-month severance.

    I got some news for the CTU:  CPS is dying.   For the second year in a row, CPS is taking the maximum possible increase to property taxes permitted by law.  Further, Chicago is shrinking and here.

    There is no job security when you’re product is crappy & overpriced.  People do not want to live in a place where they’re taxed to death to fund under-performing public schools.  At CPS just 15 percent of fourth graders are proficient in reading and only 56 percent of students who enter their freshman year of high school wind up graduating.  If you want job security you need to excel at what you do… not completely suck at it.

    Next Issue:

    TEACHER EVALUATIONS. The union wants to lower how much student performance contributes to evaluations. CPS has said the new evaluation system, created in collaboration with teachers, was negotiated and settled in March under state law.

    I happen to know a few people who are tight with a couple of principals in the CPS system.  The first things they will tell you is that it is impossible to get rid of a bad teacher.  Everyone knows this.  So to improve schools CPS and CTU sat down and came up with a system to evaluate teachers back in March.  Now, CTU has decided that it doesn’t like the system it already agreed to.

    Not only is the Teachers’ Union is specifically fighting to keep bad teachers in the classroom but it breaking a promise it already made.

    – – –

    The only possible explanation for all this is that CTU cares very very little about education.  There is no talk about reducing class sizes, getting new blackboards, reimbursement for further education, or improving safety in the schools.  Nope.  It’s all about money & clout.  Money & clout.  Protecting their own at all costs.

    CTU is nothing but a bunch of bullies.  Rahm should treat them as such.

  • Obama’s Unemployment Chart

    Remember when we were promised that if we spent $2 billion of money we didn’t have all would be well?

    Let’s compare promised to actual:

    It’s also important to keep in mind that this chart does not reflect the millions of people who simply are no longer included in the workforce.  As of August, only 42% of the U.S. population was working.  42%!!

  • The Unemployment Farce: Only 42% of People Working

    Worst news ever!!

    The number of Americans whom the U.S. Department of Labor counted as “not in the civilian labor force” in August hit a record high of 88,921,000.  …

    In July, there were 155,013,000 in the U.S. civilian labor force. In August that dropped to 154,645,000—meaning that on net 368,000 people simply dropped out of the labor force last month and did not even look for a job.There were also 119,000 fewer Americans employed in August than there were in July. In July, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were 142,220,000 Americans working. But, in August, there were only 142,101,000 Americans working.

    Despite the fact that fewer Americans were employed in August than July, the unemployment rate ticked down from 8.3 in July to 8.1. That is because so many people dropped out of the labor force and stopped looking for work. The unemployment rate is the percentage of people in the labor force (meaning they had a job or were actively looking for one) who did not have a job.

    The Bureau of Labor Statistic also reported that in August the labor force participation rate (the percentage of the people in the civilian non-institutionalized population who either had a job or were actively looking for one) dropped to a 30-year low of 63.5 percent, down from 63.7 percent in July. The last time the labor force participation rate was as low as 63.5 percent was in September 1981.

    via cnsnews.

    Think about that.  In August the U.S. civilian labor force was 154,645,000 people.  The unemployment rate among those people was 8.1%.  So of those 154M who could/should be working 12,526,245 were not.  These 12.5M are on unemployment.  That means that 142,118,755 people are working; hooray for them!!

    We are a country of 314,330,000 people.  That means that only 42% of the people in this country are working.

    Forty-Two Percent of people in this country are working.

    Just think about that for a little bit.

  • Who Pays What Income Taxes?

    At the DNC there was a lot of talk about “Everyone has to pay their fair share.”  That seems to be at introduction into a philosophical discussion about what a particular group should pay.  What is everyone’s “fair share?”

    In Tax Year 2009:

    Top 1%   paid 36.73% of the total tax bill;
    Top 5%   paid 58.66%;
    Top 10% paid 70.47%;
    Top 25% paid 87.30%;
    Top 50% paid 97.75%;
    Bottom 50% paid 2.25%.

    Note: AGI is Adjusted Gross Income
    Source: Internal Revenue Service

    via National Taxpayers Union.

    We live in a country where the top 5% of earners pay over 1/2 of the bill.  How much more should we, as a people, ask them to pay?  What are the appropriate numbers for this summary?  If you asked a progressive, or a liberal, what percentage of the tab should the top 1% pay?  How about the top 25%?

    And if we’re going to have a philosophical discussion about who pays what, should we not consider the role of payment of taxes plays in simply being a good citizen?  Can you be a good citizen, and feel a connection to your country, when you pay nothing?  Do free rider’s feel like they are part of the greater community at large?

    When Obama says that everyone has to pay their fair share does he mean that anyone’s fair share is zero?

  • Race at DNC – Button Says it Plainly

    20120905-181243.jpg

  • You’re Being Watched by Your Government

    Back in July I wrote about how your government was utilizing all kinds of technology to spy on you.  At the time it appeared to just be speculation; now we know it to be true.

    Part I

    The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is suing the Justice Department for details of last month’s ruling by a secretive U.S. court that National Security Agency’s domestic spying program violated the U.S. Constitution, Jon Brodkin of arstechnica reports.

    The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) found that “on at least one occasion” the NSA had violated the Fourth Amendment’s restriction against unreasonable searches and seizures.  …

    The kicker is that there is ample evidence that the NSA has gone above and beyond the powers granted through the 2008 FISA Amendment Act by actively spying on the electronic communications of American citizens within the U.S. and by coercing service providers to feed it any and all information it wants.via Business Insider.

    And it that’s not scary enough for you, check this out!

    Part II

    A Naomi Wolf article in the Guardian about the rise of security cameras at Occupy hangouts and the multi-billion dollar biometric technologies industry includes this story:

    A software engineer … visited Disneyland, and … the theme park offered him the photo of himself and his girlfriend to buy – with his credit card information already linked to it. He noted that he had never entered his name or information into anything at the theme park, or indicated that he wanted a photo, or alerted the humans at the ride to who he and his girlfriend were – so, he said, based on his professional experience, the system had to be using facial recognition technology. He had never signed an agreement allowing them to do so, and he declared that this use was illegal. He also claimed that Disney had recently shared data from facial-recognition technology with the United States military.

    It turns out that Disney applies biometrics – that is, the statistical analysis of biological data – in the form of scanning visitor fingerprint information and identifying people with facial recognition software.

    In fact, “Walt Disney World is responsible for the nation’s largest single commercial application of biometrics” and after 9/11 the government sought “Disney’s advice in intelligence, security and biometrics,” as reported in 2006 by Karen Hamel of News 21.

    Hamel listed several former Disneyland employees that have gone on to fill “some of the most sensitive positions in the U.S. intelligence and security communities,”

    via Business Insider.

    That’s more than just a little creepy.

    There’s also a guy who used to work for the NSA who’s coming forward and blowing the whistle.

     

  • IL Pension Hole Analysis

    I wrote this a few weeks ago as a comment on a retired teacher’s blog.  The post there was about how we need to “tax the rich” in order to fund the teachers’ pensions.  I was asked to comment on the post by a retired teacher I know.  Analysis follows:

    There is no one sided solution to this problem. Perhaps if Springfield moved on this a decade ago it could be solved with “funding” but at this time both sides are going to have to give.

    According to Crain’s Illinois’ unfunded pension liabilities are $86 billion. See: https://temp.jamesbosco.com/2012/06/19/illinois-pensions-are-the-worst/

    According to the Il Dept. of Revenue there were 36,682 returns filed in the state with over $500,000 in AGI. These returns paid $1,633,991,633. See: http://www.revenue.state.il.us/AboutIdor/TaxStats/2010/IIT-NetIncome-2010-Preliminary.pdf

    If we (a/k/a Illinois) doubled the tax on these folks with AGI over $500k we could bring in an extra $1.63B assuming no one flees the state (which would happen.) So doubling the tax on “the rich” would cover 1.9% of the current pension liabilities.

    If we quadrupled the tax that would cover less than 7.6% of the current pension liabilities. So it would take over 13 years of quadruple taxation on those making over $500k per year just to get current pension liabilities square. This would not cover the additional debt.

    Union members can sit around pointing fingers but it’s not going to solve the problem. Illinois is broke. Everyone’s going to have to give more than they want. Of course, the “rich” can always move to Indiana or Wisconsin. Then they contribute nothing; that doesn’t help retired teachers one bit. So I recommend that you be careful what you wish for.

    – – –

    We cannot solve our problem by eating the rich.  We must grow the size of the pie. … Well, growth and inflation.

  • Taliban Behead People for Music (CAIR Silent)

    The news out of Afghanistan is that the Taliban beheaded 17 men and women who had gathered for a mixed-gender social event with music and dancing.

    via Business Insider.

    Some parts of the world are simply 1,500 years behind the times.  We need to leave them be.  It’s not worth the American lives and money to try to front-face backward people.

    One questions I do have though is where is the outcry from moderate Muslims?  It appears to me that this sort of behavior is simply acceptable to them.  That’s at least a save assumption until someone says otherwise.

    Back to my first thought… why should we risk our lives trying to save the innocent when their own people refuse to even acknowledge that anything is wrong?

  • Paradoxical Quote on Obamacare

    Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured… but not everyone must prove they are a citizen. Many of those who refuse, or are unable, to prove they are citizens will receive free insurance paid for by those who are forced to buy insurance because they are citizens.
    — Attributed to Ben Stein

  • New Govt Laser Reads You At Molecular Level

    The Department of Homeland Security will soon be using a laser at airports that can detect everything about you from over 160-feet away.

    Gizmodo reports a scanner that could read people at the molecular level has been invented. This laser-based scanner – which can be used 164-feet away — could read everything from a person’s adrenaline levels, to traces of gun powder on a person’s clothes, to illegal substances — and it can all be done without a physical search. It also could be used on multiple people at a time, eliminating random searches at airports.

    The laser-based scanner is expected to be used in airports as soon as 2013, Gizmodo reports.

    via CBS DC.

    Really?!  Is this what we’ve come to?

    I wonder what the ACLU’s position is going to be on this.  At the airport I kinda understand; you are giving your consent to be searched.  That’s the bargain for what is supposed to be a safe flight.

    But how long before Mayor Bloomberg decides that he wants to use this on people just walking down the street?

    1984 here we come!!