[mattduke]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'C')ollapsing bridges, street lights turned off, cuts to basic services: the decline of a superpower.

[Ludi]

Let's siphon more money upward, that will help!


http://www.lcurve.org/LCurveVideo.htm

[Ludi]

Or, we could spend some money on infrastructure:

"A combative President Barack Obama rolled out a long-term jobs program Monday that would exceed $50 billion to rebuild roads, railways and runways, and coupled it with a blunt campaign-season assault on Republicans for causing Americans' hard economic times."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/0 ... 06452.html

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', 'O')r, we could spend some money on infrastructure:

"A combative President Barack Obama ...

[eastbay]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', 'O')r, we could spend some money on infrastructure:

"A combative President Barack Obama rolled out a long-term jobs program Monday that would exceed $50 billion to rebuild roads, railways and runways, and coupled it with a blunt campaign-season assault on Republicans for causing Americans' hard economic times."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/0 ... 06452.html

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', 'O')bama needs to be less combative ---he should try to be cooperative for a change. We need a change from the old partisan way of doing business in DC that Obama and his cronies exemplify.

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', ',') you never openly go after Republicans, everything you have to say is always about Dems.

[hillsidedigger]

As individuals the more we design our lifestyles not to depend upon public infrastructure (or entitlements) the more stable the country will be.

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('eastbay', '
')50 billion for critical infrastructure over many years and a few instant trillion for the rich bankers for doing nothing of value whatsoever.

[Revi]

The problem is that the "critical infrastructure" that this bill is going to fund will be highways and bridges.

What we really need to do is to concentrate on the downtowns of small cities.

This is like spending huge amounts on railroads in 1910. They seemed like critical infrastructure at the time, but ended up being the decaying infrastructure of the last century.

We are going to be out of cars soon enough. We may as well start to figure out how to live without them now.

Bus stations seem like a good investment, since people are going to be using them.

I hope they have the sense to put them where people are going to be living.

It's a form of triage. We'll have to decide what parts of suburbia we are giving up and put money into the places that have a chance of surviving.

I was just reading about a large town that existed on the coast of Maine because of the coastal schooners. As they went away the town rotted away.

We have to decide which towns are going to be like that, and put money into infrastructure for those which are going to make it into the next economy.

I think coastal towns, and those which have bus service are going to make it around here.

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Revi', '
')Bus stations seem like a good investment, since people are going to be using them.

[Pops]

So our infrastructure is falling apart,
A construction "laborer" makes $40 an hour at prevailing wage on a gov job
Millions of "middle class" and construction jobs have evaporated never to return

Is this so hard?

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')t the federal level, recent studies have shown that federal workers are paid — in wages, benefits, and salary — an average of $123,000. Private-sector workers are paid $61,000. That means taxpayers in the real economy are paying $62,000 more than they earn themselves to each of their “civil servants.” Pay fairness would save taxpayers $175 billion each year and $2 trillion over the next decade. State and local government workers earn an average of $80,000 compared with $61,000 for the private sector — this includes pay, benefits, and pensions. Since there are 19 million state and local employees, we simply multiply the $19,000 per worker overpayment times 19 million and find that state and local taxpayers are overpaying by $361 billion every year, or $4 trillion over a decade. Pay equity for taxpayers would save 33 percent of all state and local taxes.

[polka]

A subject that cuts deep for me.

Your $40/hour "laborer" on a gov job is usually not even a government employee, but is a union contractor hired by the company that won the bid. He/she is also very likely a "heavy equipment operator," "surveyor," or "engineering technician" rather than laborer.

Many of these jobs are seasonal, and $40/hour does not translate to $80,000/year. Your overpaid laborer may travel long distances at his own expense and time to get to far-flung work sites. When it rains, the job may be shut down for the day (or week), and he may get nothing at all while being expected to camp out and be available.

When government contracts specify that construction workers must earn a certain hourly wage (perceived as too high by you), they are ensuring that workers receive a fair shake for doing a dirty noisy dangerous job that requires skill and takes a toll on the body.

[Pretorian]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('polka', '
')When government contracts specify that construction workers must earn a certain hourly wage (perceived as too high by you), they are ensuring that workers receive a fair shake for doing a dirty noisy dangerous job that requires skill and takes a toll on the body.

[Pops]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('polka', 'A') subject that cuts deep for me.

[Thralen]

Crap, $42.67 an hour? I was a flagger (you know, the poor schmuck with the stop/slow sign trying to guide traffic through construction while avoiding accidents) for a couple of years back in 94-95 and the government pay scales at that point were only about $16/hr for the flagman positions. That is a hellishly large raise for 15 years...

Thralen

[hillsidedigger]

All our friends will be there too.

The entire world will soon be Third World, at best.

[Lore]

The pay that is now being received by government workers or their contract labor and the few union workers that are still around, which can still maintain their wages, is all that’s left of the middle class. It is all that remains to hold the rotting fabric of this economy together. The wealth disparity continues to grow between the top 2% and the rest.

Corporations are increasing productivity though technology which is replacing humans and those they cannot replace through such means are outsourced to countries with cheaper labor. This is a fundamental structural change. Reducing the wages of the other 98% of workers as a response to those of third world countries will not solve our financial crises. Remove the top average wage worker from his pay and you will drive the country into the worst depression the world has ever seen.

Large companies and their free market ideologues are ultimately their own worse enemies. Who will be able to afford to buy the expensive goods and services of the future if most of the U.S. worker is reduced to receiving Wal-Mart wages?

[Cid_Yama]

Pops, there is no document at the end of your link. I do know that the guys working on the roads around here make $8-11 and hr.

I've never ever seen any of them make anything close to what you are claiming.

I just spoke to a friend who is a case worker for the Texas Dept of Aged and Disabled Services who has been there about 15 yrs and she makes around $26,000 a yr.

[Pops]

Just as textile factories in New England moved the south due to cheaper labor, they eventually moved to Mexico and Asia for the same reason, ain't nothing new, ain't gonna change, everyone wants cheap socks. It's happening in every industry except .gov and I think you might have noticed some people are getting mad about it.

Between union scale (public and contract), OSHA, EIS, EPA and all the rest, nothing is getting done but filling potholes, certainly nothing big like public transit. Funny thing is, I'm "for" all that stuff.

But we're at the point things are starting to fall apart and we can't afford to fix them because we've middle-classed ourselves to near-extinction. If we routinely pay people $25/hr plus benefits to do a job that takes no skills, education or training whatsoever then blithely turn around and say "all we need is a Manhattan Project and 1,000 nuke plants and we'll be all set for for peak fossil fuels", we're fooling ourselves.