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Jerry Brown Confiscates 48,000 Cell Phones
Hugh Pickens writes "The Sacramento Bee reports that California Governor Jerry Brown, in his first executive order since taking office, has ordered the collection and return of 48,000 state government-paid cell phones — half of those now in use — by June 1. 'It is difficult for me to believe that 40 percent of all state employees must be equipped with taxpayer-funded cell phones,' says Brown in a written statement. 'Some state employees, including department and agency executives who are required to be in touch 24 hours a day and seven days a week, may need cell phones, but the current number of phones out there is astounding.' Brown's cell phone order directs state agency and department heads to retrieve the cell phones and the governor says he plans to continue reducing cell phone usage in months ahead. 'In the face of a multi-billion dollar budget deficit, a cell phone may not seem like a big expense,' adds Brown. 'But spending $20 million, and perhaps far more than that, on cell phones can't be justified.'"
First off, this was covered in every news outlet in the country, yesterday. Second, what the fuck does this have to do with anyone's rights online?
My day job got me a cell phone. It is cheaper than the landline I used to have, and it's much more useful, as it also lets me keep up on email and meetings.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
What about those people who aren't required to be in touch 24 hours a day, but perhaps the 8 working hours they do each day, are they going to have to use their personal cell phone? Are you going to cover those minutes? Would it be cheaper? The phones are already paid for if they were in use by the employees. You couldn't have just put in an order to NOT get new cell phones?
And working in IT, I know the costs of support from your IT team will go up if you want them to support a smorgasborg of client phones, each with their own OS and needing to sync their contacts with their email addresses, being able to have the support they would have had on a standard company phone. Standardization is so unbelievably helpful, you have no idea.
I get it if you want to cut back people's work phone plans, and you want to stem the problem from inflating, but simply taking the phones back has got to be one of the silliest things I've heard of.
hang on, I know Arnie's left office but surely I haven't slipped back in some timewarp to the 70s?
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/deadkennedys/californiauberalles.html
obviously they missed the verse about restricting communications :)
Finally budget cuts that start at the top... what a concept!!!!
"Be particularly skeptical when presented with evidence confirming what you already believe." -
Is this guy some sort of libertarian or pre-reagan-republican or something?
Good call. There a lot of other expenses that can be cut as well, but this is one piece of the puzzle. I hate it when there's always "bigger fish to fry". That's called ignoring problems. As with many things in life there's no magic bullet to cure the problem, but this is a good start. It's worse to keep looking for that silver bullet and stagnate while the problem stays the same or gets worse.
The unfortunate thing is those who need cell phones to effectively do their job will likely have theirs taken away. Welcome to the yuppie culture where a cell phone is a status symbol and not a tool.
Early termination fees may be more than $20 million....
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
What about them? Should they be forced to go back to the office to make and receive calls? What about the extra mileage? What if the office doesn't have a landline (some don't!) It's not like they can find a pay phone somewhere.
God save the Bees!
And now i have to pay to have a cell phone? I think i'm going to make a few long distance call while i still can.
And why not require "executives" to provide themselves with phones at their own expense? They'll have them anyway.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
He runs the State of California, which owns (or is paying for) the phones. Sounds like he's saying "I want my phones back." Confiscating makes it sound like he's taking people's own property away from them.
rooooar
Just cancel the plan. Let them keep the phone if they want to start their own plan. The phone is already paid for and it's not like they are going to get much re-selling the phone. In addition, for everyone that keeps the phone, the state gets the benefit without paying for it. Besides, a company issued phone is pretty standard for anyone that might have to come in on the weekend. Pretty much every IT job, every management job. every lawyer, every doctor need a phone. I bet the state of California has lot of management, law, and IT jobs that need the phone.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Close your eyes, can't happen here
Big Bro' on white horse is near
The hippies won't come back you say
Mellow out or you will pay
Mellow out or you will pay!
"He's lost in a 'floyd hole"
It's really easy to anonymously call for the destruction of bureaucracy without citing a single specific example and providing alternative, less costly solutions to the services provided.
The pursuit of absolute tolerance leads to the most rigorous and ludicrous intolerance. - REX MURPHY
cheaper or not, taxpayers don't need to be paying for a DMV clerk's cell phone. There are a few that it makes sense for, people in upper management positions, emergency response chain members, or project leaders that need to be reached off-hours and on-site, etc, but that's a very small percentage of the crowd.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Some states use stipends. They don't provide cell phones to state employees, they say, "Look, here's 40 bucks a month. Use this to pay for work related calls on your personal cell phone." It's much cheaper and everyone is happy.
The last time I had a cell phone was when I worked as the Unix admin for a 911 call center. It had all the GIS ani/ali GIS remote scada + traffic light control, + radio bells and whistles. They paid for the cell (and pager) and when I was on call I had to carry it 24/7. I did not use it for personal calls, except when I was on vacation, and then I would reimburse them for any calls I made. Cell phones are more convenient than pay phones (and surprisingly, less expensive than pay phones which have gone up a lot), but I genuinely try to avoid using them if I can (remember, I'm building a linux kernel on the other monitor as I type this), because cell phones are damned expensive. I might know craploads about technology (before studying computer science in university, I went to college for two years studying electronics engineering --it was only a 2 year course), but I'm also cheap. Cell phones are a lot more expensive than a corded home phone. Likewise, wireless television is a lot less expensive than corded television (and the content is about as good, and with digital, the picture is actually better than cable or satellite... hey you scoffers, read that again and listen up: the over the air picture quality of digital TV is better than what the 1960's technology of cable and satellite can provide, and it all has to do with compression and bandwidth). Cell phones are an excellent way to cut costs. My kernel build: 2.6.37-git8 is done. Keep in mind what I said about cell phones, and about TV. Some of you are likely paying way too much.
So you have a $60-80k a year employee, but its we wont pay $30 a month to be able to reach them if we need some information or a decision made?
But in the town I live in, we paid $400k for new boutique street signs, $180k on a roadside "beautification project" that didnt beautify anything, we're going in for $1.2M on a new park that nobody will use (there are 12 other parks within a mile or two, and most of those are unused), and a $20M highway expansion to add a car pool lane that nobody will be driving in during rush hour, while the remaining lanes will be jammed full.
In short, we're worrying about mouse droppings when theres elephant crap all over the place.
So who pays the early termination fees?
OK, how about the state board of education being cut in half. It probably could be cut more. They have increased it's size by more than 80% without any improvement in the education system as a result. Reduction in education bureaucracy has always been a significant cost saver. How about a reduction of state funded handouts. A quick analysys shows that 50% of those on the government dole is capably of holding down a job. This would increase their incentive to find work. I could go on but don't have the time right now. I have work to do.
Athiesm is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby.
He is taking government paid for phones. More than likely they already have land lines in all offices anyway, used for everything from calls to faxes to internet in some cases.
He is just trying to put some sense back into what the government is funding, and a cell phone is a luxury in many departments. It certainly is not a requirement of someone who rarely if ever leaves their office. He is going after vehicles next which is another good step. He should also go after traveling expenses and the like, nuke any employee conventions, and similar until they get their finances in order. The hard area where he will have to play in is compensation and retirement benefits that state employees have in California. That is where the real abuse is.
Should be interesting, a hero of the left can probably do things Arnie could not. I bet if Arnie did this there would screams in every California paper out there about how mean he was, if not racist.
When you can't pay your bills you have to make cuts. Every penny counts. This is why Congress is such a mess, they seem to think its okay to ignore "this cost" and "that cost" because they are so small. Well, get enough small expenses out and it will add up.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
A quick analysys shows that 50% of those on the government dole is capably of holding down a job.
For instance, they can probably spell and use grammar better than you.
also lots people in the field as well.
Spoken as someone who probably has never had to use food stamps. Guess what? It's humilating but when I was a kid, with a mom who just had hip surgery, and a father who died while my mother was in the hospital recovering from that surgery, it kept us from going hungry.
It's a safety net, and it's very much needed.
Such a tiny amount to close a multibillion dollar budget number. If even 25% of those employees use the phones effectively, then it will increase costs or lower quality of service.
There are probably $5 million to $10 million of real savings there- the rest will have a cell phone again in a year because it turns out the job requires one.
It's a good start-- but i hope they find some real meat.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
you don't much sports on OTA TV you need pay tv for that.
1960's?
CSN HD looks real good and that not on free tv.
But can they find a job?
Are there jobs available for them to do?
We hire these elected officials to analyze and solve these problems. You want me to do his job for him?
1. Rehab is cheaper than jail or paying for a junkies ER trips
2. Poor kids really do need to eat.
3. We need someone who can think more rationally than you.
I'm not a State of Calif employee, but I would _LOVE_ it for my megacorp employer to take my issued cell phone away. Then I wouldn't have to handle out-of-hours calls! For free (I'm exempt staff). I'd just get a pers cellphone for ~$15/mo.
All this instant connectivity is a race to the bottom. Employer funded competition between employees. Expectations get raised but must inevitably disappoint. There are only a few things that really benefit from instant reactivity, and you already know them.
A libertarian would have the state declare bankruptcy
Ok, declare bankruptcy. Now what? State bond rates *skyrocket* It turns out that would be the first of maybe 25-35 dominos where States would have no choice but to declare bankruptcy.
And then there's all those pesky retirees that hold State bonds because of their perceived security that you've just made near penniless. How do you think that's going to play out?
and nullify the state employee union's contract and pensions.
Ok, done. Now what? How does the daily uninteresting work of running government get done? Who are you going to hire? Probably the people you just fired because they're the only ones that know anything. Now what? They reorganize. Ohh, but there's the false promise of contracting the work out. Ask some of the regular slashdotters in the Military Industrial Complex how well that works. Hint: it doesn't shhh!
I know, I know, I don't 'understand.' Or, it doesn't have to work that way. Well, it does work that way. Libertarian ideals are being sold as a solution to every government problem when in fact, they accelerate the rate of corruption.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
How did people do their jobs before cellphones? Bring back pagers and walkie-talkies!
So you are recommending a change in policy as an alternative to looking for more efficient ways to support programs the voters want?
Why that word...oh right more clicks.
In what sane universe does it take six months to return a cell phone?
Dude, where's my packet?
Ok -
Bureaucracy: The Governor / Legislature
Alternative: Vote every bill via the internet (you can file your taxes via the internet, I don't see why you can't vote at the same time)
Bureaucracy: Prison guards Union / Teachers Union
Alternative: Fire them all, hire contractors
In so many organizations, I've seen cellphones as a perk given to management while the proles are given pagers for their 24/7 on-call servitude.
Bring back the pagers for ALL! Walkie-talkies, too!
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
How about they legalize pot, release all of the non-violent drug and sex offenders (I'm thinking of prostitutes and johns in that last group, not molesters and the like), then close up some of the state's prisons and lay off/fire the security guards in those prisons? That would be a huge first step, and by itself would almost certainly balance the budget.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
Maybe the suede denim secret police be used to collect the phones?
Ah, how I've missed compassionate conservatism.
Go die in a fire because you didn't want to pay taxes to support the fire department.
If it's determined that they don't really need to be able to get in touch with these employees, why not just lay the employee off? It seems absurd to be looking at a few hundred dollars a year in cell phone contracts compared to tens of thousands a year in salary.
Except there's no evidence that hiring contractors actually saves money. Why not just outsource every US job, too? Take a look at our military budget to see how well "hiring contractors" has worked out.
Here's an idea, instead of having to pay American military personnel, and then give them pensions and health care and other veterans' benefits, why not just hire Indians to fight our wars?
And regarding the teachers' union: there really isn't any evidence that privatizing education has any benefit. And instead of being pissed about the fact that teachers and cops and firemen get pensions, why not get pissed about why you're not getting a pension from the company you work for. Typical American shortsightedness circa 2010.
You are welcome on my lawn.
We tried that contractor alternative with NASA, take a look at how that turned out.
He's cutting the wrong way. He should be eliminating all the PBX systems and giving everyone a Motorola Atrix type device instead. It take/makes calls, send/receive email, converts to desktop/laptop, and plugs into projector/TV for multimedia presentations.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
Grats, you ran a story on government trying to save money.
How does this affect my "rights online"?
"Let them eat cake!", then? How'd that work out for Marie?
why, back in the day, when I was a sysadmin, they didn't let me take my hammer and stylus home, I had to carve all my clay tablets at work.
the upside is, these guys now are AWAY FROM THE OFFICE !!! when they are away from the office. a lovely thing, more should try it.
the downside is, they have to use their own minutes. and hard to see what the downside is, frankly.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Of course everybody will want to keep the pet agency that benefits them or their political leaning.
"and providing alternative, less costly solutions to the services provided."
That's just an assumption of yours. The first order of business is to determine whether those services are necessary in the first place. The state got along without most of them for most of its existence. The state is close to bankruptcy now, so any agency should have to pass a pretty high bar of absolute necessity in order to have its service even continue to exist.
If it is anything like some federal agencies, the blackberry is seen as a status symbol. Look, I'm important enough to be needed at anytime... most really aren't that important. I declined one when I switched offices but there are people (non-IT or managers) with blackberries. Waste of money.
I understand your plight. I am a different AC. The GP thinks it is better than you and that you and your family deserved to die. The GP feels that your father's death was deserving because you are too poor to pay for all your shit.
The GP would also not be too happy if the fire dept. charged him 10 grand to put out a fire at his house. Or if the police charged him $500 per call.
But nevertheless, the GP has never needed those services listed and is thus better than you or anyone that has used them. The GP is the guy that stands around with a sign about "morans" and gets photographed.
70 per month implies 3,360,000 per month or 40 million per year.
I'll take their cell phones and make them frown!
Actually the food stamp program is one of the few gummint charity programs I approve of. It's ridiculous for people in this country to go hungry, particularly children. We can afford to feed people. I'm not so keen on many of the other giveaways.
Worked out fine, since Marie is not the originator of this quote.
If providing the services is not affordable, they have to be cut. Which part of "we don't have money to pay for all this" is hard to understand for a bright slashdot user.
So the state government is supposed to be a jobs program now? That's news to me.
Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
You think its safe to vote online? Only until a foreign government/ corporation (corrupt ISP perhaps) figures a way to submit votes for the candidate/policy they want instead of you.
You could create a database to ensure a vote is registered to a name, in the hopes that it will slow down any one playing with the numbers. That creates a way to tell who voted for who though, and voting is supposed to be anonymous. I'm no Luddite but voting is best done in a booth on paper. The security issues doing it via the internet are extreme.
You think contractors cost the government less then unions?
Thats adorable. So naive.
You are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts.
Had they only reduced burocracy when ewe where in school may be you're spelling and grammar would have been gooder. ...and here I thought slashdot was a safe-haven from the rampant anti-intellectualism running through my country at the moment.
Anything can "probably be cut more". It's a matter of prioritizing what's important to society, as determined by society, not what a few fringe and/or under-educated people think is good.
Does this mean that they should remain on the state payroll, just because they can't hold a job elsewhere?
How about better sex education programs, and eliminating "abstinence only" programs? People having kids can be directly attributed to two causes, lack of education and religion.
I'm sure quite a few people will look forward to this. However, I do find it ridiculous the state was paying for everything. I don't know of many companies that will buy their employees the phone and pay for their monthly contracts. Where I work its $10 a month, that's it. You buy your own phone. I am on call 24/7. If I got over my $10 I can bill it out so long as I attach a copy of the call and cost where I went over.
I just use a prepaid plan, and I end up spending exactly $10 a month.
*kids they can't afford* that is.
(Really Slashdot, would it be that hard to let people edit their posts after submission?)
Here I thought the YRO angle was that CA State employees were being freed of the onus of having to carry a State-owned tracking device.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Your comment point is valid for justifying the existence of a safety net in general, but you ignore where he said:
"A quick analysys (sic) shows that 50% of those on the government dole is capably of holding down a job."
Your father was dead, your mother was disabled and you were a minor. None of you were in the group he's talking about.
Which is not to say that there are really 50% of recipients who are not "deserving", that's probably just pulled out of his ass. Still, if there is a significant fraction of payouts going to the "undeserving" out there, then he has a point. Paying people to not work is always a terrible idea and if you can find those people and not pay them, or at least, pay for finding them a job or getting training, then you really will cut down on pay outs.
As for Governor Brown... I don't know what to think about the cell phone recall. He's clearly done no study on it, his comments in TFA don't even pretend that he has, and its way too soon for that to be possible. Therefore he could be handicapping people who actually do have a need for it on is what is effectively his "feeling". On the other hand, sometimes to get stuff done, you just have to do it and then pick up the pieces as they fall.
This is the major problem with large bureaucracies. They get too big and assign themselves benefits and privileges that some don't need. And then someone gets elected who promises to use the wrecking ball, and they indiscriminately start ripping things down.
The end result is like an overweight person who has decided that instead of a carefully considered diet in the right places to bring down the bloat, he will simply amputate appendages to get down to the target weight faster and more dramatically. Who needs pinkies anyway?
The tax revenues from legalizing pot alone would probably be enough.
Where *who* said that? The guy I was replying to certainly didn't.
Also, if you choose a profession that you know you will be underpaid in for 20 years or so just so you can make a difference (teaching), then I think you should get a little security at the back end for that choice.
I agree with you.
This is such a "mood piece". It's the classic power of multiples. Saving $36/month per person is peanuts. It reeks of an Elephant in the Room effect. It's the same kind of thing as skipping the jimmies off an ice cream sundae. Let them keep the phones, but then just look for an equal and opposite $40 million being spent on something silly. Or something.
Actually, why not just make a film as a fundraiser? Don't films always clear $40 million in profits lately?
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Problem is you can only watch someone go through line and pay for food with the stamps, then pay for alcohol and cigarettes with cash, so many times before you get sick of it.
It's not perfect but if you want to try your hand at what it would take to balance the california budget The LA Times has a decent widget :
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/budget/
No, I never said that. I only mentioned as a reason why those 50% might be on the dole.
The government is supposed to be a safety net. Doesn't matter if it's state or federal, the job has to be done by the government.
Read more news if that's news to you.
Amen brother!
Every government department should be closed for six months every five years or so. If nothing really bad happens, it stays closed and the people get to look for a real job.
You just wouldn't believe how much money is wasted on running useless government departments. Since the beginning of time governments have always got bigger, never smaller. Follow the logic: There IS a tipping point where the taxpayers can't get enough money together to pay for all this. Just before that tipping point they're giving up almost all their money so some government workers can sit on their asses all day pretending to look busy.
The fat needs to be trimmed long before we get to this point. The only problem is that people in power don't have any problem spending other people's money, e.g. the guy who thought every government worker should have a free cell phone.
No sig today...
Offer compensation for them to use their cell phones, just like in any company, you have to prove (with detail of bills) that each call (usually for long distance) was placed for business purposes, not the 25 million calls a day to your home, or some relative in a far off place, then they could use their own phones for what ever they need, just like in most companies, with sales people, they want to give out there own cell number and not a company number...that way you can get to them 24/7....sales usually works like that.
Send in the Irish. The dead cost nothing.
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
Dunno, but so long as they're on the handouts I know they're not really trying...
No sig today...
Are you advocating survival of the fittest?
Yep. Make sure the handouts are food, not money which can go on cigarettes and beer.
No sig today...
Or buying hamburger with them to feed their dogs because they can't buy dog food with it.
the US debt figures are scary to say the least. The whole financial system we live in basically values money as debt. The money in your wallet is representative of someone owing someone else.
We did.
They're called Navajo Codetalkers.
...and now that expense is being put onto the worker. Whether or not you need one is irrelevant. It's like a car: Sure, you it's not mentioned in the job description, but good luck getting hired if you don't have one.
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Google citytime and see how many billions have contractors wasted for the city of New York.
You sound like a commie.
That's at least half a million a month for service on those 48k phones, if they managed to get an amazing $10/m deal. Pretty insane when you think about it.
And I'll add to it that McDonald's donesn't pay for training, you do. In the form of your tax dollars. McDonald's gets massive tax breaks for all that 'training', which in turn pay for it. Socialism for the right, capitalism for the poor.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Right...because pot sellers are such rigid adherents to the law, and are dying to share their profits with the government that has treated them so well up until now.
I get a little sick of hearing how pot taxes are going to raise so much money, when that reasoning is based on nothing at all. Legalize and tax pot, and 90% of pot smokers are still going to buy it from the same guy they buy it from today. A fact I also base on nothing at all.
I don't think either of those would be a good place to cut, but I'd agree to it in order to get a similar sized cut was made to the Department of Corrections.
Strive to make your client happy, not necessarly give them what they ask for
I guess if employer X was paying 50% less in taxes they might have more $ to hire those people that are now taking an indirect paycheck from employer X and also paying the salary of a bureaucrat using the government as a middleman.
90% of pot smokers are still going to buy it from the same guy they buy it from today. A fact I also base on nothing at all.
You're right about not basing that on anything at all. It doesn't even make sense. The only reason to go to the same guy is if he's the most convenient or has the lowest prices.
If pot were legalized, he would almost certainly not be either of those.
And to your original point, the old drug dealers who peddled pot would either be out of work or move on to harder drugs, because they would be out of the pot business in a hurry. So, whether or not they want to share their profits is irrelevant, since the legitimate businesses now filling the niche would be only too happy to charge sales tax (liquor stores do!).
<Complete your profile by adding a signature!>
Sports is the only good reason to pay for cable/satellite TV these days. While I enjoy those Sunday morning marathons on History Channel when I'm at my mom's place, I get by with an OTA antenna just fine at home. She, on the other hand, is a fan of the local pro/college football and pro basketball teams, and many of the games are on "super basic" cable and not OTA.
But that's not an inherent problem with ATSC. If anything, it was picture quality problems with NTSC that enabled pay TV to become important enough that sports games moved off the OTA networks.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
Never happen. The first place they'll attack is the teachers and people who work directly with the kids. Nobody in upper management will feel the pain. It will all roll downhill from there.
Really?
I don't live in California but I do live in another large state.
I have been unemployed for a year and 5 weeks. I count the weeks not because it is something I enjoy doing but because each week it is another failed week at finding a job to pay for the things that I once used to enjoy. Such as going out to eat 2 times a week. Or the nice house I used to live in. Or buying tires for my car.
The state pays me jack when it comes down to it. The company I worked for years laid me off. For all the years I was working I paid a tax to go to the state government insuring that if I lose my job through no fault of my own that I would be able to collect some money until I found a replacement job. So no the Government isn't a job program but it is in fact there to protect me if I may for the protection.
The state requires me to make 3 job contacts a week. I do about 5 a day so that's 25 M-F and not counting the about 10 or so I may do on a Saturday and Sunday. I don't care if you believe me or not but I don't like having to tell people that I am unemployed when I go into job interviews and they ask me why I haven't worked in the last year. I don't like having to explain to friends that I can't go out and meet them tonight because I don't have the money to pay for drinks or food. I actually don't like the fact that for another Christmas this year all I was able to get someone was a 10.00 Starbucks gift card. So please tell me that the handout I am getting means I am not really trying. Then be lucky you and the GP got a job. Because some of us would love to earn that money and no have to have a taxpayer to fund my paying of bills.
Ok -
Bureaucracy: The Governor / Legislature
Alternative: Vote every bill via the internet (you can file your taxes via the internet, I don't see why you can't vote at the same time)
Yeah, cut out the poor and black from voting. I'm sure the Republicans would love that.
Funny, I don't find that in either the state or federal constitution.
That must be why I still buy booze from the smugglers coming in from Canada. And sneaking into speakeasies in the middle of the night when the cops aren't looking.
Businesses certainly don't provide every employee a cell phone, only those that it makes sense to have one. Not a government expert, but assume there are employees that do need them, and for others it is just a perk. The only problem is sorting out which is which.
Actually, if anything, the evidence suggests that hiring contractors costs money rather than saves money.
On the upside, you get competition. On the downside, you get a massive incentive to award the contract to somebody's no-good brother-in-law and overpay for the service, or in particularly inventive areas start kickback schemes and the like.
I am officially gone from
I applaud taxpayers not paying for the cell service of these individuals. But why make them give back the phones? They are worth far more to the current phone holders as individuals than they would be to the state. Let them keep the phones and use them to signup for their own plans. Good timing for Verizon though now that they are offering the iphone.
My SO's a lawyer for the State of California. When a prison guard tries to turn a water skiing accident into a disability retirement she's the one who has to stop him. She's in court every-other day, negotiating settlements, and has to call clients (State agencies like the Board of Prisons) for clearance to accept an offer from the other side. Until two years ago no cell phone was provided. Some State lawyers used their own phones, without reimbursement. Others, to make a point, excused themselves from court in order to use the payphone (and a State-provided calling card) down the hall, while the judge and everybody else in the courtroom (most of them State employees) sat idle. I don't think the courtroom lawyers are on the list to give up their phones; rather, I'm posting this to make the point that the State isn't, or at least hasn't always been, sensible in its IT spending.
BTW, on the topic of State salaries and bennies, in the professional ranks at least State employees are woefully underpaid. My SO could double her salary next week by taking any of several standing offers in private practice (the firms that help those prison guards get their State-funded early retirements.) She likes the predictability of State work, but no way will her pension equal what she'd earn from investing the difference between her salary and what she'd earn outside over a 20-year career. But for someone with a high-school education the State might be better than industry, especially as jobs equivalent to prison guard (or DMV clerk) have seen dropping salaries in the private sector. We shouldn't forget, though, that public employees often chose those paths 20 years ago at a time when they were choosing a more reliable job at a lower salary. It turns out that since then many low-paying jobs have moved overseas, putting downward pressure on the pay rates at those that remain. They made what turns out to have been a smart choice; others, less risk-adverse, didn't.
So very THIS. Look at what it takes to become a teacher today.
... are 27 years old
... are $180,000 in the hole in debt (hoping for *some* kind of debt-forgiveness without having to teach in Compton)
... have moved at least 3 times (expecting to move yet again to whichever district will hire you)
... are without any investments
... are without any retirement
... are in a market where there are so many cutbacks that you'll be lucky to get a 75% appointment
... are looking at $25,000 take-home for your first three years and a final salary of ~$50,000 take home 15 years later if you're teaching the right classes
... paying out of pocket for student supplies
... lowered pay
... the imminent end of tenure
... severely reduced benefits
... severely reduced pension
... pressure to leave teaching so they can hire someone younger and cheaper
... proxy anti-union hate
... evaluations based on numbers that aren't directly related to your own performance
... 10-hour days and the myth of the "free" summer during which you're taking classes and/or training
Cost of public 4-year education from a UC = $120,000
Cost of graduate program in education = $40,000
Cost of teaching credential program and follow-up clear-credentialing = $15,000
Cost of all tests and college/program applications from SAT to the end of credentialing = $2,500
By the time you're fully competent and qualified to teach in California, you...
And this isn't artificial "you don't really need that..." stuff. California wants "highly qualified" teachers. That's been interpreted to means 4-year degree, "majored in the subject they teach" and/or "proving equivalent competence", and credentialing. If you actually want to be a GOOD teacher (not just qualified) from day 1, you're likely to seek out an MA, too.
After all that... here's what you can look forward to...
People who shoot their mouths off about "over-paid" teachers, evil unions, and the need to privatize are just stroking their own ignorance. It blows me away how people are still trying to become teachers in this climate... I just recently gave up. It just costs too much money and time. I'd never have the chance to own a home. I continue to work in education, but my hopes at actually becoming a teacher have been shot.
Legalize and tax pot, and 90% of pot smokers are still going to buy it from the same guy they buy it from today.
Just like you are still buying your booze from bootleggers?
A fact I also base on nothing at all.
Obviously.
Taking liquor (or tobacco) as an example: the govn't licenses who can produce the product and they control who can distribute it. Marijuana would be no different.
Big producers wouldn't risk their license selling on the side, little producers are either priced out of the market (thanks to economies of scale) and those who aren't licensed are heavily fined and/or face jail time (just as they do now).
Dealers become completely unnecessary when you can buy at the store just like liquor or tobacco. If they can even source product at a competitive price to sell it's not convenient and the dealer is taking on needless risk (unless they are a licensed distributer equivalent to a dial-a-bottle service, in which case tax is being applied).
Legalizing marijuana will generate tax money and it will eliminate the need to jail users. The only people jailed will be those trying to avoid the system by producing or selling while not licensed to do so.
"If you are going through hell, keep going." - Winston Churchill
Really? Where does it say this in the Constitution? "Safety net"?
Why are NGOs incapable of being this safety net? Do you not realize the increase in available donations were the federal government not sucking so much out of your paycheck every week?
I'm advocating for people to actually do something useful to get paid for it.
Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
Or watch as they drive away in their Lexus.
Or hear how their parents have custody of their children so they qualify for welfare....
All things I witnessed when I was younger.
No doubt he doesn't need a pension, as his 401k/IRAs are performing so well...
Where are you getting your numbers from? Of all the things to cut, education doesn't even appear on the radar.
so long as they're on the handouts I know they're not really trying
Let me guess: you're the kind of person who would look at a binder of three hundred "we went with another candidate" letters, after someone has been making ten job contacts a week for over six months, and ask "why didn't this person start his or her own business three months ago?". Not everybody has both the skills and the personality to be an entrepreneur.
A lot of people seem to think hiring contractors is a way to save money, when it is exactly the opposite. When companies look for ways to save money, contractors are the first to go. Why? Because the position contractors work, will be getting paid the same. Not less. This is before their company tacks on their profits for the business itself. Then tacks on more costs to cover that employees benefits. They are never hired for less, because the set wage has already been set over decades of these jobs being done. You use contracts for short-term jobs that allow you flexibility in hours and time. Actual positions are much much cheaper to be hired directly.
Worked out fine, since Marie is not the originator of this quote.
A different Marie is thought to have been the originator.
Because pensions are promises that are too easy to break. I'd rather see 401k programs with generous matching. The risk inherent in the investment market should be managed by employees for their retirement funds, not their employer.
I'm uncertified (but have an MAED) but I am paid very well to develop software training for adults. I'd love to work in a school, but my salary is close to 2x a seasoned school teacher's.
How do you get around the simple fact that abstinence works 100% every time it is used?
It didn't work for Joe and Mary Christ,* two Jews living in Nazareth back in the single digits BC. Before Mary lost her virginity, they had a boy named Josh, who became known to the Greeks and Romans as Jesus. But on second thought, considering significant figures, you're probably right.
* Changed for comic effect.
And then leaving the store and getting in their large Escalade|Denali|Yukon with shiny new chrome 22 inch rims. I know their are many people that really need temporary assistance but personally know far more people that scam and use the system to increase their standard of living while simultaneously reducing the amount they actually work for money.
Here are some examples.
- Having a spouse that is an illegal immigrant or not reported as a husband and filing federal taxes and for local assistance as a single mom.
- Working in a job that pays $45-55K a year but overall but the work is actually seasonal. They file for unemployment when they are actually not working. The $45-55k is enough to make it the whole year but when they are "unemployed" seasonally, they get reduced lunches, unemployment benefits etc.. Teachers can't do this, why can other trades? Often, many of these seasonal employees still do their regular work at random times during the off season but it is usually paid under the table and not reported to the unemployment office.
- People that have not had a real job more than a few weeks a year for the last 10 years because they know EIC/welfare/food stamps/free lunches/subsidized medical/HUD housing etc can get them and their 3 kids through without having to actually work. All of that assistance pays them enough that working is just not worth it to them.
- Husband and wife or other close family members transferring ownership of things between then and filing for bankruptcy. Example, the husband or non married partner giving up on his bills and the wife getting a new car/house in her name. This works really well when the two aren't really married legally or one of the two is an illegal immigrant but also works with married couples. I've seen this MANY times over and over. This is not directly related to government assistance but it is still a scam and is usually tied to the other points listed above.
Their are many people that know how to game the system, they know the rules, the players, and how to work through and extract as much as they can from government assistance. They have been doing it for years and many of them have relatives and friends doing the same thing.
I've never done statistical analysis of it but I have lived in many areas of the US over the years. It may be just a coincidence and might be related more to the average income of the area but the areas with the most lawyers advertising for personal injury claims is usually the place where most people are gaming the hand out system as well.
Sigh...I'm hoping you deliberately misunderstood my post. If not, let me make it crystal clear. Religion is responsible for people having too many kids, and as far as abstinence programs go, why don't you have a good look at the statistics and tell me how they're working out in practice.
You bible-pushers are a pain.
The state Board of Education has 11 members. You mean it was five and a half until recently?
This other article also from 2007, suggests that 76% of Americans own a computer. Have we reached a tipping point where an employer might expect you to provide your own computer? Exceptions will be made for those jobs that require unusual usage, but what about the office manager or secretary who only reads and writes emails ? Odds are he already has a computer. Should your employer (in this case the State of CA) be expected to pay the base price of the computer and internet access? I am not passing judgment on anyone with a company issued computer, just posing some academic questions.
So yeah, if your employer requires you to use a tool to perform any aspect of your job then the employer absolutely should be expected to provide you with that tool.
While legalizing pot would create a new industry -- and thus, jobs -- where would the formerly incarcerated go for jobs? What about those security guards who watched over the people within the cells?
I do suppose that it would be cheaper for the state to put them on welfare than to pay their salary or contractor.
In practice, this can't happen for a few reasons.
Actually, it can't happen, even in theory, for exactly one reason: while there is a provision of federal bankruptcy code that applies to bankruptcy of municipalities (Chapter 9, which was adopted during the Great Depression, prior to which creditors only recourse were proceedings to compel the municipality to raise taxes to pay off the debt) there is no legal provision in the US under which a State can declare bankruptcy.
The US bankruptcy code (Title 11 of the United States Code) specifically excludes coverage of governmental units other than "municipalities" (which include agencies and instrumentalities of states, but note states as such.)
Now, conceivably, every individual State agency could enter into Chapter 9 bankruptcy simultaneously, but in addition to the administrative nightmare that would create, its not clear that even that could acheive the effect you are looking for given the Section 903 limits on the power of the court as relates to State law in Chapter 9 proceedings.
In the federal government, contractors are typically much more expensive in the long-term than doing it in house.
I'm not sure I'd call being elected the Mayor of Oakland "winning".
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
They're big boys and girls, getting a new job is their own responsibility.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
In chicago the sports where on pay UHF before we got cable all over the area.
piracy and cable killed pay UHF also the UHF pay channels where not 24/7 and areas like Detroit started after sports game started so you missed the start of games.
Spoken as someone who probably has never had to use food stamps. Guess what? It's humiliating
Not these days since they are no longer stamps at least in most states, I don't know if any states still use stamps. Now you get an EBT card to use which takes away the stigma and likely encourages people to stay on them since there's no more shame since only the cashier who doesn't much care or will remember you know about it.
The only time I've seen someone get e
HAHA, good joke.
If you suddenly have more money, you don't hire more workers. You pocket that money as profit. This is why you don't run a business.
I'm sorry, but that's a terrible reason (by itself) to keep someone on payroll...
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
That's strange - I've seen religious 5-year-olds who don't have kids. In other words it having kids CANNOT be directly attributed to religion and a lack of education.
Having kids can be directly attributed to heterosexual sex between sexually mature individuals that doesn't involve contraception.
Actually, as an atheist, I have to disagree with the religion part. I grew up with religious folk who considered it normal to abstain until marriage. Heck, I even dated a girl for a short time who would not even consider it.
Granted, there is an incredible push to get married then pump out kids that you will indoctrinate, but that's not what I was thinking about when I read your post.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
Congrads, it is good to see someone genuinely trying. A close friend of mine on the other hand has been unemployed for 5 years and has a lovely cosy apartment in the city. He recently bought a new computer, subscribes to WoW and spends a shitload of money on alcohol. He is enrolled at university though he hasn't been to a class in 3 years, and thus the government gives him school allowance too. His parents are separated which has no impact on him, but there's allowance for that too. He's required to make 2 job contacts a week, and he fakes both of them.
For every example there's a counter example. Some people play the system so well that unemployment benefits really are a benefit. The parent was an absolute arse. Not all people in the unemployment line are looking for handouts. I was in that line too luckily only for 2 months during the GFC. But there are some people who actively make unemployment their lifestyle and simply live of government handouts.
It's a good start-- but i hope they find some real meat.
The things that you see reported that are being implemented now -- this cellphone takeback, Brown returning most of the funds allocated for the gubernatorial transition to the State treasury rather than spending them, etc., are all the things that are within the Governor's direct control. The "real meat" is in the the Governor's proposed budget which requires action by the legislature (and, for those things that Brown has proposed, also action by the voters). An overview of can be found in the Introduction.
There are a lot of South American's continuing to enter our country illegally for the purpose of working. Seems like they know something about finding jobs that the State of California could teach to those seeking handouts.
Posession of an ounce or less is now an infraction (like a parking ticket) and $100 fine. No jail time, no trial unless you really want to fight it which would probably be a waste of time. I assume you just mail the ticket in with a check.
That's $100 anytime a cop sees somebody with a small ammount of pot, and decides he needs to help the state.
Note, I don't see that as ideal. It certainly does nothing to take profits away from gangs who posess much larger ammounts. It's a start though. BTW, this was signed by outgoing governor Schwarzenegger, shortly before his term ended. AFAIK, prior to that it was a misdemeanor with a larger fine and court time. The court time was probably costing the state money.
If you really care about smoking pot, you're already a prop 215 holder (doc, I've got this headache...) anyway.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Yeah, cut out the poor and black from voting. I'm sure the Republicans would love that.
Um... as a poor, black Republican, I am not sure how to take that...
I doubt the US is that different -- in Poland you have large swatches of villages where no one works and every single denizen abuses some sort of benefits -- be they unemployment, fake disability or anything you can get. People who try to actually work there are mocked as being resourceless and naive. I'm told that at least in the UK this is rampant as well.
Naturally, this may be a much needed safety net, but kicking off abusers of benefits -- and especially, officials who help their locals obtaining them -- is an important duty towards us taxpayers.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
I don't think it really matters if he is getting more out then he paid in. While he was paying in, he enjoyed a lower crime rate and other benefits that comes from not throwing people to the street to do whatever they imagine in order to survive. And you or anyone else who is employed is probably enjoying the same right now when he's on the dole.
Also, somewhere in about 1956, the courts ruled that unemployment insurance, just like the name implies is actually an insurance program. The court ruled this in a SCOTUS ruling pertaining to Amish people having to pay into it and social security. Turns out, they don't under most circumstances and they can't take benefits either (because of some religious thing where their community takes care of itself).
So I guess the obvious answer to are you getting more out than you paid in might be a question of do you expect more then you paid in with any other insurance. If you have only made two payments on your auto insurance and total a 20k car, where is that money coming from? Someone else is paying for you to wreck. But that's how it is supposed to work.
I also don't think he applies to that many jobs unless he's reapplying to the same places. There simply isn't that many places to find a job in one location over a years time. That's like 1300 applications in a year.
Anyways, I'm not trying to stick up for him, he may be a loafer taking a vacation, he may not be. I don't know him. What I do know is that I had a hell of a time finding a job a few year back and ended up having to start my own business to become gainfully employed. I was either capable of doing the job but couldn't show any experience and when unemployment is high, they can pick the all the experience they want at rock bottom prices. Or, I was over qualified for the job and they wouldn't higher me because they didn't trust I would be comfortable with a lower position taking less money and eventually leave after they wasted time and resources training me. I also noticed that some employers wouldn't hire me because I had a large amount of time without a job. Yes, being unemployed disqualified me to an employer who ended up hiring me as a contractor later.
So it may not be that he's looking for the hand out as long as he can, it might be the simple fact that unemployment is sky high right now. And the average across the nation doesn't necessarily reflect the rate in his area. It may be higher in his area.
I used to think as you did. Then I was in his position and found it wasn't as easy as pulling yourself up by your boot straps and doing something. Trust me, walk into a buger hut with a masters in anything and try to get a job flipping burgers. Not only is the pay much lower then you would get staying home, they are going to look at you like you are crazy and laugh you out the door.
So, what about the studies that show a high percentage of food stamps money goes toward buying drugs? The current popular scam is that someone approaches you in the grocery line and offers to pay for your groceries. They take your place in line, pay with Food Stamps, and you pay them half the cost at the door. They now have cash to buy drugs with.
The Food Stamp program is set up the way it is due to the lobbying of the processed foods industry. I allows poor people to buy what basically amounts to frozen fat and carbs. One of the biggest health problems with the less wealthy* is obesity. Yes, sir. They may be dirt poor, but they're FAT.
What would be so wrong with setting the Food Stamp program up like WIC (women, infants, and children). NiceGeek, the Food Stamps kept you from going hungry. Would you have protested in the streets if the program limited your family to having real food? Block cheese. Whole grain cereals. Food that actually grew on a living plant. Instead of giving out cards to "Little Debbie Heaven", they should give out a card to healthy eating styles. And there is already a program in place to demonstrate how it works.
Let's, be serious. You can't really compare the US poor with most of the world with a straight face.
Yeah, got to agree about feeding the children and the disabled. Healthy adults? Fuck them, let them work or starve. I also believe if you can't feed your children, they should be taken and raised in crèches or given to folks who can and will take care of them.
The part that sees waste as everything except the stuff they like, which is indispensable and needed.
For all the years I was working I paid a tax to go to the state government insuring that if I lose my job through no fault of my own that I would be able to collect some money until I found a replacement job.
are you getting more out than you paid in? where is that money coming from? someone else is paying for you to not work.
Out of all the years I put into it. I would say probably not. But that is one to debate if I could find how much I paid every year I worked.
The state requires me to make 3 job contacts a week. I do about 5 a day so that's 25 M-F and not counting the about 10 or so I may do on a Saturday and Sunday.
you go in for 35 jobs a week and still don't have one after a year? you're obviously not trying to get a job, but just want collect your free money as long as you can.
I love this one. Personally its the best. You know I did have a 2 offers. One of them was below minimum wage and the way they planned to get around it was it was a "contract". I turned that down. The other offer was for a telemarketing position in which I was paid on commission and there was no way to guarantee I would get paid minimum wage even. Plus I am not a sales person never worked in sales.
So if that means I am trying to get my free money then I guess I am. But given that the economy in the area I am in sucks and given that my area of expertise is in computers which in this city unless you speak both English and Spanish you won't get a job. I don't speak spanish and I refuse to learn to.
quitter!
(capcha was graded lol)
That is an excellent idea. However the California Correctional Peace Officer's Association is one of, if not the, most powerful political entities in the state., and it is in the interest of the CCPOA to increase prisoners.
Policies to this effect are generally an easy political sell for the CCPOA, since "tough on crime" tends to be a sound bite with purchase. At least it seems so far to have been a more effective one than "should that nonviolent action really be illegal?"
I really am glad that I am a believer that VoIP will change some of this but in the mean time I am now on a very simple business phone plan....here is a cell phone, I, as your employer have given you this for work purposes. Each month you will receive a detailed bill. Please highlight your personal expenditures and make payment to the human resources department. This has resulted in me spending about 15 minutes per month editing my bill. I'm happy I didn't have to get into a contract and buy a phone. My employer is happy because they are providing me with a perk but not getting taken for a ride. Seems fair to me.
Why don't you post your studies. I'll be very interested to see who sponsored them and how they were conducted. Of course you probably got that information from a chain e-mail.
You may not be aware of this, but bootlegging alcohol is a problem to this very day, and considering how draconian my states liquor laws/taxes are if I knew where to find one, I WOULD buy from a bootlegger.
Shake off your pothead-nirvana dreams for a minute and this this through. Is the entire underground pot industry going to disappear? Why would it? If pot is legalized and taxed, bootleg pot will cost less...that's a certainty because there's no way market for it to cost more. The market just shifts from expensive illegal pot, to cheap illegal pot competing with expensive legal pot.
Sure, people who aren't plugged into the illegal pot market would buy from legal sources, but there's already sufficient market for the illegal stuff to keep that industry thriving...and we'd expect people to migrate to the cheaper source.
I just don't get the logic behind people thinking that legalizing pot is going to make the hundred year industry of illegal pot evaporate.
And instead of being pissed about the fact that teachers and cops and firemen get pensions, why not get pissed about why you're not getting a pension from the company you work for.
I guess I'm not pissed because I understand that they can't fund my pension by holding up my neighbors at gunpoint. The way that state pension funds have been able to pay out at the rate they do is by investing in risky investments like mortgage backed securities. And they knew that if their risks didn't pay off, the taxpayers were legally obligated to make up the shortfall. The private sector can't hope to compete against that level of corruption. And while I would love a more secure retirement, I love being able to look at myself in the mirror more.
I hear lots of complaining from teachers and non teachers alike about how they get compensated. There are a whole bunch of people that say they are under paid and whole lot of people who don't like the tenure system. What both groups need to understand is the tenure system is part of that compensation as is the relatively early by today's standards full retirement with a decent pension. Teachers in most places enjoy considerably better job security and retirement security than people in industry, trade off for that is no they don't see salary as high as someone with similar education might else where.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
The number of acceptable children is an opinion that is best left to the parents, and not the government or outside parties.
The statistics are very good for abstinence programs. They work 100% of the time they are used. You can't get better than 100%.
On the other hand, the pill and condoms and other birth control systems work just as poorly as you claim abstinence works, when they, too, are not used. They also do not reach 100% effectiveness even when used as they are intended to. (Nor do some of the acceptable systems do anything to prevent STDs.)
If you are going to denounce abstinence as a method because it doesn't work when people don't use it, then you have to be consistent and denounce condoms and the pill and IUDs and whatever for the same reason.
You bible-pushers are a pain.
Just where did you see me "push the bible"? I'd say that people who try to compare apples to oranges trying to prove that apples shouldn't exist are the pain. If you want to compare failure rates of abstinence when used against condoms when used, condoms lose. If you want to compare abstinence when it isn't used with condoms when they are, you are being dishonest, and are being a bigger pain than any "bible pushing" I've done.
To use your line of argument, if you haven't gotten it yet, I'd argue that teaching children about condoms in school is an abject failure at preventing births when those children fail to use them, so we should stop teaching them about condoms.
How about we settle on a compromise? We teach them about SEVERAL methods that all fail when they aren't used, including one method that is 100% effective and several that are >90% when used properly?
Ok the person I was responding to said that "people shouldn't have kids they can't afford" and I was stating that religion and lack of education were prime reasons for that happening. I never said that
"the government" should determine how many kids someone could churn out. Don't put words in my mouth.
Also, a program that isn't effective in getting people to adhere to it is less than useless, so no, I'm not going to "compromise" with you.
I don't mind teachers and firemen and cops getting pensions, or indeed a decent wage. What annoys me is the layers of management above them who get bigger pensions and bigger wages. Professional people
should need little management.
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
Wrong lesson, my friend. The voters of California need to learn that you can't do stupid shit like slashing the state's income (Prop 13, for those of you with a memory or an interest in history) and expect the same level of service.
Actually the lesson was "starve the beast". Taxpayers in California figured out that politicians will *not* exercise self control, that they primarily view state spending as a vehicle to reward political supporters and garner additional supporters. That the only way to constrain politicians is to limit the amount of money they have available.
What you ignore is that there is also tremendous wasteful spending along side vital services. The politician's countermove to reduced budgets is not to cut the waste or excess but to cut vital services as a political gambit and/or retaliation. Politicians want to manufacture a crisis in order to have their spending restored or left alone. Basically the politicians layoff police, firefighters and teachers to manufacture outcry rather than reduce administrators and overhead and stop vanity projects as the voters desire.
California is not facing a reduction of vital services due to prop 13, it is due to political brinkmanship. The politicians believe they can make the voters blink first.
That is just crazy talk. What about the vast amount of paperwork that would not need to be done? Where would all those lawyers and bureaucrats get their easy money then?
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
shhh dont tell anybody, but governments just add all sorts of FEES, when they can't raise taxes.
Is that what's happening?
I just can't seem to get away from gun imagery in political dialogue.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Does the disparity between CEO wages and pensions and those of the workers in the same company also "annoy" you?
You are welcome on my lawn.
By admitting this, you are feeding the trolls who would claim that you truly aren't looking for work. Why would you apply to places you know you wouldn't work if they tried to hire you, except to keep your required number of contacts up?
On the other hand, why are you applying to places where you haven't done any research to know what kind of job you are applying for?
If there is a "too many children" determination, who makes it? Government does, in China. Otherwise that determination is just your opinion and is about as relevant as the price of tea in that specific country.
I'd say, with the number of unwed teenagers and other unanticipated births, that the current programs aren't having a really good compliance rate, either. Either judge the programs on the same criteria or stop judging any of them.
... That for every $1 the government raises in increased taxes, they'll spend an additional $1.10.
Your comments are absolutely spot on. My wife teaches High School Physics and Biology here in California, and the amount of hours she ends up putting in the job are just ridiculous, not to mention our personal resources.
Nobody considers correcting papers as part of the working hours, or parent conference calls, or after hours meetings, and yet, everybody expects them. Setting up labs takes additional time. Keeping up to date (in particular if you teach Science) takes a lot of extra time. If I wouldn't be a Science geek myself, I'm not sure our marriage would have lasted 10 years. Occasionally, the pressure of the whole system affects her so much that she wants to quit. We could be OK only with what I make, luckily, but I'm a big believer that if you really have the love for teaching the next generation as well as the capacity and will, you have to do everything you can to stay on it.
Every once in a while a student from years past shows up at school with tremendous gratitude and fantastic stories. Those days you know you made a difference at least in one life. That keeps you afloat.
Is it not what's happening? Can I really refuse to pay the portion of my taxes that will go to bailing these funds out and not have to worry about people with guns coming to my door? Is that what you truly believe? If so, you should give a try sometime.
Well...they shouldn't apply to the School board...
A quick analysys shows that 50% of those on the government dole is capably of holding down a job.
Ask me that when you can walk into a McDonalds and not find a now hiring sign.
They can find a job, they just don't want to.
Give the option of sitting at home and getting paid versus working and getting paid roughly the same thing, which would you choose?
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Do you not realize the increase in available donations were the federal government not sucking so much out of your paycheck every week?
Yeah, you're gonna have to back that up with solid evidence and math. Don't forget to look into history to find why we actually implemented most of these programs, mainly because charity wasn't cutting it.
Work for near poverty wages? Wages below minimum wage, that one can barely afford to live on?
Yeah, that's a great lesson to be teaching people.
Most of your post is actually pretty reasonable, but I'm going to pick a bone or two anyway.
Crime rate and unemployment aren't linked .
A good, decent person doesn't become a desperate criminal when they lose their job, and a degenerate crook probably isn't all that employable anyway. Now you could argue that the presence of the benefits you (rightly) advocate is the reason they're not related, but I'd expect to see some sort of link, even if minor due to benefits.
This seems to reflect a bit of a peasant's mentality, if you'll allow me a bit of rhetorical flourish. Asking someone else for a job isn't the only way to make money.
When you work for someone else, you're relying on them to create or discover a market for their product or services, arrange the skills & implements required to fill that need, and then sell that need to the customers. When you're an employee, you only perform the function after all those 'employer' tasks are done, and now the product needs to be delivered.
Now there's nothing wrong with that, unless you think you are only capable of performing the end-stage labor to deliver the product. That's what I'm calling the 'peasant mentality'- the underlying belief that you are only good enough to be a cog in someone else's machine.
When I was in college I hooked up with one of those student painting companies during the summers. I hired people, I sold house painting contracts, I trained my employees, and I oversaw painting jobs, and collected the final payments. The franchise company taught me how to paint, how to sell, and provided me with some service links for supplies, payroll processing and the like.
At the end of the day, it was still up to me to deliver the results, get the customer, make sure the house got painted, and keep my guys working so I could keep paying them.
Honestly I was terrible at it until my third year (given that it was a summer thing, it was 8 months of 'practice' before I proficient.)
Now I'm a well-paid cog in someone else's machine, but the experience was invaluable- because it taught me that I have options, and that I can find ways to sell my services without having to work for someone else.
This provides me with a great deal of confidence, that when combined with financial modesty, helps me know that I don't need my current job. Since I don't need the job, I don't feel like a wage slave, so I work to be good at it and deliver results. Since I don't need the job, I can be honest (though diplomatic) at all times, and not worry about covering my ass or kissing the right ass.
Those factors make me a valuable employee, and higher-paying positions have opened easily for me.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
The statistics are very good for abstinence programs. They work 100% of the time they are used. You can't get better than 100%.
IFF abstinence is actually adhered to. Most people don't stay abstinent until marriage, and whether you like it or not, the State is not going to step in and tell people to stop fucking. The failure of abstinence only programs is that they almost never cover how to effectively use birth control and condoms. So the kids that get this shitty advice, when they start having sex (and they will), will have absolutely no idea how to protect themselves, and pregnancy will occur.
"Why are NGOs incapable of being this safety net?"
Read Charles Dickens.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Heh, nice, you are of course correct; here's a reference by the way for the curious: http://history.howstuffworks.com/european-history/top-5-marie-antoinette-scandals1.htm
Where there is the necessary technical skill to move mountains, there is no need for the faith that moves mountains.
Ok..I'll talk slowly. I...was...responding...to...a...poster...who...said...people...should...not...have...children...they...couldn't...afford. Ok, all clear now?
Or buying a bunch of food and going strait from the checkout to the return area and returning everything for cash (at least in OH stores can't give back food stamps). They then turn around and buy booze with the cash.
my UID occurs in pi starting at the 384,199 digit after the decimal point.
Good teachers are very important.
However, they are not educating our kids in U.S. to solve 21st century problems.
We are teaching them how to be corporate shills (to pass standardized tests).
The U.S. is rated like 25th in math and science: we've lost the race before it has begun.
Heads should be rolling across the educational administrations with numbers like these.
Disassembling the unions, and the department of education, and lowering the education requirements of teachers might save a lot of money for everyone.
But more importantly find those who are willing to teach and those willing to learn. Parents also need to set better example of being serious.
Both teachers and kids today are extremely coddled compared to when I grew up.
Well I know in some NY suburbs the teachers make $100K+. Even some gym teachers. Nice pay when you get summers off. Yes - real summers off. I have dated teachers, they all aren't "training" during the summer. And I am not talking about the uber-wealthy areas either. The real killer are the pensions. Public employees need to get 401(k)s, or even tax free deposits into money markets or gold coins, or whatever investment vehicle of their choice I don't care. The idea of the pension is long dead, the future cost is way too unpredictable. Grandfather the existing employees and switch the newcomers to what us typical corporate workers get.
Cost of public 4-year education from a UC = $120,000
Cost of graduate program in education = $40,000
Cost of teaching credential program and follow-up clear-credentialing = $15,000
Cost of all tests and college/program applications from SAT to the end of credentialing = $2,500
Your list is "artificial don't need that stuff." As a UC alum, I know the tuition has gone up significantly, but it's not $30k a year. Besides, you don't need a UC degree -- cal state or community college BA is certainly enough for elementary/middle school that doesn't do specialization. You definitely don't need a graduate degree. Even the brightest students in a high school aren't going to be taking more than the equivalent of freshman/sophomore college classes, and, except for lecture, many of those are handled by TAs at the university level. My wife has a BS in biochem and MA in education. She teaches AP Chem and says the masters is meaningless. I don't know where you pull $15k for credentials for. Realistically, the cost is more like 4 years and $40-50k total, and it's almost all the cost of a bachelor's, so you can get it even cheaper by choosing a school based on price.
I would claim that the reason is closely related to paying benefits. This stops people from becoming completely desperate. I don't have a link to show it, but from my understanding, a lot of crimes are crimes of opportunity driven by desperation.
I would note though, those unemployment numbers on the site you linked to aren't exactly accurate as far as unemployment is concerned. The numbers tracked by the feds is the numbers of unemployed applying for or receiving benefits. It isn't really an accurate measurement of the unemployed because quite a few people are completely disqualified from that accounting by either not working enough hours or months at an employer or by reaching the end of a set term limit for drawing benefits. You can search for the real unemployment numbers and get any number of articles with any number of estimates concerning them. I'll leave the reader to decide which is more accurate or not.
In my case, my biggest problem was being broke and scraping up the cash to start contracting out on my own. In my area, you have to have a business license, insurance, some jobs require a performance bond, then there is advertising depending on what you are doing, making sure you have tools and so on. But a lot of people simply aren't skilled in much of anything that could transfer into an own your own business ordeal. Some people have been factory workers all their lives because that's what dad did and it worked for him as well as it's the best paying job around.
I guess what I'm getting at is that there's a lot of anxiety with the realization you are not employable and have to be your own boss. Some people finally realize it and get stepping, some, simply won't be able to.
And I say that as a person who went 20 years employed with no gaps outside of when I broke a leg and often worked more then one job with the least time on a job being 2 years. I thought I could literally get a job anywhere doing anything. Reality was hard to set in for a while. I made the change, others will too. But it's not always easy or obvious.
If you think that's a useful counterargument, then you completely missed the point of Dickens' works.
But unlike other forms of contraception, abstinence has a very high chance of failure.
Nope, I call for the use of proven contraceptives because they have a very small chance of failure.
You can keep trying to convince yourself that denying your bodies own desires is the best method of contraception, until the point that you explode in some form from all those repressed desires. In the mean time, I'm going to practice safe sex secure in the knowledge that my form of contraception has less then 0.01% of failure.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
You missed mentioning union dues, getting forced into whatever decisions the union makes for you, and tenured teachers who haven't updated their material in 15 years, beyond what the state mandates. Those complaints come from my local high school science teacher, and are the majority of what I remember from his hour-long speech on why he hates the teacher's union.
My preferred solution: Kill off the union, and raise taxes to actually pay teachers what they're worth. Abandon tenure in favor of standardized tests including things that have been corrected. Solicit local donations of supplies/services (and mention where they came from) rather than following the lowest bidder.
Unfortunately, any political support for my plan disappears at "raise taxes".
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
My employer gives me an unlimited cell phone. They pay for it, that's the deal. They can call me on it whenever they want. I can call Swaziland eleven times a day if I feel like doing so. That cost them X amount of dollars, both of us feel like I'm just getting paid X amount of dollars more every month. If my employer stops paying for my cell phone. It save them a few bucks, but over thousands of employees, it's absolutely no different than cutting pay by that much a month. It will cost them workers, reduce their ability to retain employees, it's a small cut in pay. Not really much of a story. Certainly not some big win for the taxpayers, more than likely not some big hit for the employees, but probably a stupid grandstanding play by the Governor.
I'm willing to bet that paying for these employees cell phones was seen as more valuable to the employees than it actually cost the state, therefore it was cheaper than paying however much more cash they would see as the same benefit, over time, and large enough numbers the quality of the workforce in question will decrease by the fifty-some dollars a month per person the state is saving. So basically the whole story is a big fat "yawn" hidden pay cut. Not your rights online, not a sea change, just dumb grandstanding by an aging dork.
On the first: are you suggesting higher crime or more imprisonment would save taxpayers money?
On the second: how, exactly, do you plan to tackle poverty? Do you think people will magically get jobs if you remove the safety net?
On the third: you realize you're talking about increasing bureaucracy, not decreasing it, right?
The logical thing to do would be for the government to create special low paying jobs for the unemployed. If you're going to spend money anyway, on welfare, food stamps, and medicaid, you might as well get something for it. Make the unemployed work for their benefits.
Exactly the same.
Here it's SSI apartment complexes.
SSI is social security disability. Often alcoholism or alcohol and drug related 'mental illness'.
Add in scumbag lawyer who qualifies perfectly able people as disabled (they usually work until told they are now legally disabled). That part is pure America.
The other possible difference is very common under the table jobs for the 'disabled'. Those are the idiots with shiny wheels worth more then the car they are on.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
How do you get around the simple fact that abstinence works 100% every time it is used?
I Corinthians 7:2 Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.
The bible promotes marriage, not abstinence, as the method of avoiding unmarried sex. This is due to the fact that there are people, possibly most people, who simply can't go long term without sexual satisfaction:
I Corinthians 7:7-9 For I would that all men were even as I myself. But every man hath his proper gift of God, one after this manner, and another after that. I say therefore to the unmarried and widows, It is good for them if they abide even as I. But if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn.
The idea that all people can be sexually abstinent long term is not supported by the bible. As the man in a married couple who don't want to have any more children and don't want to use chemical contraception, condoms or surgery, I'd suggest that education on methods of giving each other sexual satisfaction without ejaculating in the vagina would be more effective than telling people to be abstinent, although information on other contraceptive methods for those who choose to use them is fine by me too.
Quite simply, it is not sexual activity that causes pregnancy, it is ejaculating in the vagina. Abstinence is not required and to most people, not desirable.
Here's an idea, instead of having to pay American military personnel, and then give them pensions and health care and other veterans' benefits, why not just hire Indians to fight our wars?
My brain just went off into comedy land with the idea of Custer's Last Stand where Custer and his army are actually hired Indians.
Second-in-command: Indians!
Custer: You are being a bloody idiot! Of course we're Indians. (gets shot with arrow)
I am anarch of all I survey.
http://www.statemaster.com/graph/eco_tot_tax_bur-total-tax-burden-per-capita
What "liberals" just don't get is that raising taxes does not necessarily mean raising revenue. California doesn't have revenue problem, it has a spending problem.
No Inflation Taxation without Representation
Try posting your resume in your sig. I got my first job out of school that way. Chances are, smart tech people are reading this blog and I know at least a couple jobs that have openings in different areas. And also -- this sounds silly -- volunteer in areas that interest you. I know people who've found jobs that way as well.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
Yep. Make sure the handouts are food, not money which can go on cigarettes and beer.
It's not as simple as that. If someone has any income at all, they can use the food stamps to buy food, and then use the money (that they would otherwise have spent on buying food) on cigarettes and beer, or even drugs. In this way food stamps can increase alcohol/tobacco/drug use even if 100% of the handout is spent on food. It's called the substitution effect in economics.
I like the concept of food stamps overall but I don't think there is any way to solve the problem of using food stamp money (indirectly) to buy drugs.
Of course, the Anonymous Coward who called for eliminating food stamps has absolutely no clue what he's talking about. (Surprise surprise -- rabid anti-government tea partier has no knowledge of actual facts.) Food stamps are a federal program, and eliminating food stamps wouldn't save California a dime or affect California in the slightest.
> getting out more then he paid
more THAN he paid. THAN.
This is not difficult; then and than are completely different words with different meanings.
Do you say that you surf the web on a "comptroller" just because it is vaguely similar to the word "computer"? No.
> less then unions
less THAN. Come on, this is fundamental English.
You mean surf the interweb?
If you drink so much that the tax part added to the price is a problem, the problem isn't the price but your drinking habits. I live in Norway with about 80% tax rate on alcohol and it's not a problem for me, when I choose to drink occasionally. A pint of beer costs about 12 dollars. Even here bootlegging isn't a big problem because the quality, health and criminal risks associated with the merchandise does not justify the lower price. Some alcoholics certainly don't mind being sold moonshine cut with methanol and god knows what, but that is the minority. So no, people don't migrate to the cheaper source unless they have a habit beyond the norm. They want reliable quality and monitored manufacturing. The same goes for pot. The black market would be seriously hurt if pot was legalized, and influx into heavier drugs and crime would diminish. Only the worst addicts would have to resort to unlicensed goods, and fortunately pot addiction is much easier to manage than alcohol addiction.
Can I light a sig ?
It was on the ballot just recently. However, "the public" voted against it.
So they can't do that.
"I don't speak spanish and I refuse to learn to."
Why's that, then?
Statements like that make me suspect there's a reason you're being turned down.
No sig today...
Yep. If you're unemployed the correct attitude is to give *anything* a try. Anything at all.
The reasons are:
a) You can always quit
b) It gets you out of the house to meet other people and make contacts (maybe the telemarketing bosses' computer needs fixing...)
Nothing that's been said so far has made me rethink my original statement.
No sig today...
For all the years I was working I paid a tax to go to the state government insuring that if I lose my job through no fault of my own that I would be able to collect some money until I found a replacement job.
are you getting more out than you paid in? where is that money coming from? someone else is paying for you to not work.
Just in case you ever meet one of these, non-retards call a system like this an "insurance". You're welcome.
Lack of religion leads to lack of abstinence.
Well that's obviously wrong. Religion leads to abstinence-only education which leads to a lack of abstinence.
Ohh noes im sow sorry that i upset the grammer nazi
There, I left you some more to do.
You are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts.
Why order an exclusive collection and return? Why not offer the current user the option to buy? Make some money on the purchase, and save the cost associated with collecting and processing all those phones.
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
Tuition isn't 30k a year. God help the students of it was. The cost of a UC education includes personal expenses, housing, books and supplies, transportation, campus fees, and system-wide fees. Not to mention that since the UC system was just cut another $500 million a couple days ago and the UCs have 6 weeks to figure out how to make up for the loss.
You suggest scraping the bottom of the barrel for creating teachers. Would you send YOUR kids to be taught by a school full of people who went to a community college for his/her first 2 years of college, finished up at Cal State Stanislaus, and did a $5k night-course credential program? Wouldn't you object and say, "Our teachers are idiots and under-trained!" Ya... thought so...
I don't think taxes actually have to be raised. I think loopholes just need to be closed in the California tax code that allow for major industry to treat massive profits as massive debt. (Hollywood.) Make them pay their share and it just *might* be a little easier living here.
Teachers aren't supposed to be teaching kids to solve 21st century problems. Our 8 year-olds wouldn't be allowed the curriculum. Do you know what would happen if we taught our kids about the various genocides around the world? Terrorism? The roles major corporations play in our government? About mastectomies, AIDS, and the increasing preference to treat homosexuals as we would anyone else? The school districts would be sued. I want to teach kids 21st century problems and how we need to fix them, and many parents say they want their kids taught that, too-- but when it comes down to it, their own personal biases against genuine education prevent them from supporting it in the ballot box.
Moreover, I'm a firm believer that K-12 education is there to prepare students for higher education. Higher education exists to create a better society than we had before and *then* train either researcher or workers. However, our systems of higher education are so diversely split that job training is seen as a low-class endeavor and thus not associated with the personal education I think everyone should have.
My plan:
First: Graduate highschool
Second: 2-3 years of intense liberal arts study (sociology, philosophy, literature, etc.)
Third: 1-2 years research training OR 1-2 years trade schooling.
That would, however, require the dismantling of the current UC and CSU systems... that's never going to happen.
I can show you any fine number of CHA (Chicago Housing Authority) establishments (Cabrini Green, Jeffery Manor, The Vill/ABLA) where serial and habitual abuse of The Link card runs rampant.
Illinois is ramping up income tax by 66%, after Chicago just "modestly" downgraded sales/use tax from 10.25% to 9.75%... and yet I see fuckheads in Hummers and gold chains using their state-issued Link card to buy milk for their kid at 7-11 on their way home from the club. And I don't even live in a bad neighborhood, but while I concur that your statement about a safety net is correct and its necessity for some... I'm going to go with Anon and state that it needs tighter restrictions. "Unemployment" and "Welfare" are apparently separate programs. One pays back as insurance; the other, a nanny state to "keep people from starving in the streets OLAWDTHINKOFTHECHILDREN!...... indefinitely".
While I don't advocate elimination of welfare, I do advocate reform. It's horribly broken, and frankly, it's a gravity well: put a time limit on the gainfully-employed to get back what was paid in, or give lifetime benefits to those who live in the PJs.
Not saying, but saying. It'd be nice if I could go drive up to the corner store in a new 'Stang and wearing some new D&G sunglasses at midnight, some new Ones on my feet... and buy all my food on a state-issued debit card. Wouldn't that be boss?
Never attribute to Hanlon that which can be adequately attributed to Heinlein.
Freely signed = we will all walk out at the same time and destroy your business.
Really, I'm not trying to be clever with my signature.
I'm impressed by your endeavors to research the plight of educators. Dating some from New York suburbs is a fantastic way to do so. But I don't think they were actually teachers... or that they were bringing home $100k+ from teaching... unless they're teaching at some uber-elite private school. If you want to believed, you've got to provide some geographic information.
And it's not just a safety net for the families with good intentions. It's also there to specifically help the kids that are dealt a shitty hand.
I say this as someone who was that kid. My mom was a druggie with a middle school education and my dad was an druggie ex-con Vietnam veteran who got his GED in prison. Welfare, Medi-Cal, Food Stamps, and WIC-- that how I got my calories and roof over my head for 15 of the 17 years I lived with them. At 17, I went to college, emancipated, and began living my own life. I'd be dead or an addict myself if those social programs didn't exist.
See, that kind of thing sounds fine to me, and I would support it much more than I would any initiative to grow a government bureaucracy just to maintain jobs. You don't need 15 aides filing papers and forms just to get the approval to do something for office X of the executive branch, or whatever. If, instead, you paid those same 15 people to transfer existing public records onto open, internet accessible databases, that would add value to society.
I am not against government jobs, in general. But if I am going to be paying taxes, I want something of value back for my money.
Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
Yes. Government is the employer of last resort. People need jobs, and the private sector has no interest in providing them. Even though they're swimming in unimaginable amounts of cash, they'd rather sit on it or invest in third-world sweat-shops. This means that either the government spends money or people starve to death like in the Great Depression.
The point was that he WASN'T willing to give the jobs he was applying for a try. He was quite clear in saying that he would NOT be a telemarketer or take an under-minimum wage job. Why bother applying for either kind of job if you know from the start you won't take it if offered? I can think of two reasons. One, so you can tell the unemployment agency that you tried and thus keep getting benefits. Two, as practice at interviewing. I doubt the latter, since he said he was interviewing alot, and an interview for a telemarketer job wouldn't have much relevance to an interview for a software engineer position.
Ok, I suppose answering the question "do you have any ethical standards at all that would prevent you from trying to suck money out of retired people for overyhyped and overvalued trinkets" could prepare you for a question like "do you have any ethical standards at all that would prevent you from writing the code the way you are told to write it instead of using good engineering practices and testing methodologies?"
I live in the United States. The laws, the constitution, the roadway signs, and school is taught in English. With all due respect as long as I live in this great country and when my president and congress people along with every law is written in english I refuse to cater to someone who refuses to learn the language in The US. If I worked in a spanish speaking country I would be excepted to learn the language for them.
It is not right to force me to learn spanish to do business in the US. Maybe I am wrong and I am sure some people out there feel as though I am making myself entitled to not have to learn a foreign language. Which is true I feel that entitlement. But not hiring someone because they will do support / business within the borders of the US and don't speak Spanish is wrong.
Now it is different to say "I need you to learn XX new thing" to which is not learning to talk to another person in the US with a different language I am all for that. I am willing to learn new things.
Thanks for your advice. It is truly welcoming and if I am doing something wrong I much rather have someone help me than tear me down.
:)
I have actually been doing the volunteer deal both in a hospital and at some local places teaching computer basics. A lot of people have learned a lot but I doubt it would get me a job. Pay isn't there but it is rewarding to make someone smile.
I will have to try the posting of my resume in my sig. Never thought of it.
Los Angeles County
Beginning Teacher Salary $38,861
Mid-Range Teacher Salary $62,040
Highest Teacher Salary $84,246
San Diego County
Beginning Teacher Salary $35,384
Mid-Range Teacher Salary $57,092
Highest Teacher Salary $73,480
Orange County
Beginning Teacher Salary $46,238
Mid-Range Teacher Salary $75,989
Highest Teacher Salary $89,821
http://www.acethecset.com/blog1/california-teachers-salary/
What were you doing wrong to be looking at $25-50K?
I believe you're 100% correct. I would happily accept low teacher salary (because I have a passion for education and teaching) if I could get some security in my position and a secure retirement. If tenure hadn't come under attack, teachers not had a better chance of being laid off than hired, and this "accountability by student performance" trend not struck, I'd probably be in an MA/Credential program right now.
But if I can't expect security in my lower-paying job, then I can't even consider having a family in the future. That's my limit.
The Food Stamp program is administered by the USDA not the state.