NY Post: Blame the Garbage Bosses
Today in blizzard finger-pointing: “Selfish Sanitation Department bosses from the snow-slammed outer boroughs ordered their drivers to snarl the blizzard cleanup to protest budget cuts — a disastrous move that turned streets into a minefield for emergency-services vehicles, The Post has learned. Miles of roads stretching from as north as Whitestone, Queens, to the south…
Today in blizzard finger-pointing: “Selfish Sanitation Department bosses from the snow-slammed outer boroughs ordered their drivers to snarl the blizzard cleanup to protest budget cuts — a disastrous move that turned streets into a minefield for emergency-services vehicles, The Post has learned. Miles of roads stretching from as north as Whitestone, Queens, to the south shore of Staten Island still remained treacherously unplowed last night because of the shameless job action, several sources and a city lawmaker said, which was over a raft of demotions, attrition and budget cuts.” The subject line of the email from a reader yesterday morn that included this photo: “This is Fulton street?”
Sanitation Department’s Slow Snow Clean-Up Was a Budget Protest [NY Post]
my eyes are bleeding
“how much more the top 1%
of the nation’s income earners pay in taxes than does
the bottom 95%. Over the course of the past nearly
thirty years, the trend has been inexorably against the
top 1% and inexorably “for†the other 95%.”
hahahahaha
why do you think that is? look at the other side of the coin! jesus christ. i’ve never actually seen someone make the argument in this way. look at the trend in INCOME over the last thirty years, then cry me a fucking river.
check out the comments in that Post story. truly horrifying people. there’s a particularly ugly rant on the third page, i think.
Heather, I pay my taxes. I probably have paid more in my life than 95% of Americans.
This morning, courtesy of the IRS and the Tax
Foundation we note just how much more extreme has
become the tax system, and how much more the top 1%
of the nation’s income earners pay in taxes than does
the bottom 95%. Over the course of the past nearly
thirty years, the trend has been inexorably against the
top 1% and inexorably “for†the other 95%. Consider
then what percentage of the total income taxes paid by
the “bottom†95% and the top 1% were in 1980; again in
1990; again in 2000 and then again in 2008, the last
year for which “hard data†is available, rounding to the
nearest 1%:
Top 1% Bottom95%
1980 18% 62%
1990 24% 57%
2000 37% 44%
2008 37% 40%
We are told, almost relentlessly, that the supposed “richâ€
have had it better and better and better over the years
and that they’ve paid a smaller and smaller and smaller
percentage of the nation’s taxes over the course of the
past decades, but that is simply not true. That may have
been true that since 2004 and 2005 when the top 1%
actually paid a bit more of the nation’s taxes than did the
“bottom†95% the top 1% and since have paid a bit less
than their previous “share,†but the trend is clearly for the
top 1% pay more and more of the nation’s taxes while
the “bottom†95% pay less. On balance, since ’04, the
top 1% paid the same amount of total taxes as the
“bottom†95%, whereas back in 1980 they paid “onlyâ€
approximately 30% as much. Over the past thirty years
the tax regime has become incredibly more progressive,
not less so. It’s worth remembering, and it is worth
having the data on hand to take exception with friends
on the Left who bring up the subject from time to time.
Well armed is well prepared.
Actually, my hatred of unions revolves around the current economic state. The unions won’t budge an inch on salaries therefore a lot of their members get fired and that’s totally unfair. The unions seem to believe that they should be exempt from what most Americans are now suffering through…more expensive healthcare, slashes to their pension contributions and pay cuts.
The hubris of the union leaders and the lack of balls in the politicians to stand up to them is reprehensible.
Tell me the MTA should not have taken a 3-5% paycut instead of laying off all those station atttendants.
Unless you’ve been following my union rants closely you should not judge my motives.
that said, I think AAPL is a shining example of corporate governance and success in a capiatlistic world. Most of its products are made in taiwan, specifically at Hon Hai and not in China. People who rant their left wing pablum about 80 hour work weeks and sub human wages really need to do some research and get their facts straight or just STFU.
Maybe if you owned more stocks and actually particiapated in capitalism instead of riling against it as unfair you’d be less grumpy.
And no City privatizes ANYTHING unless they are in dire financial straits, like Chicago has been and many others are finding out as well.
So in other words, dave, you’re okay with taking services you’re not really paying for, (since you don’t pay taxes), but god forbid, those bloodsucking unions are ruining us all?
It’s probably healthy that you aren’t deluding yourself into being something noble, I guess?
As usual a conservative arguing the wrong point.
Issue wasn’t the stock, or buying opportunities, PE ratios or whatever other straw man you want to erect. Instead the issue is that executives seem to make money whether the markets go up, down or sideways. You held Apple up to be a shining light of free market perfection. If AAPL believed in the same free markets then why were executive options repriced? Surely your free market spoke when they were supposed to expire out of the money?
A union, even an imperfect union, is simply the working man’s redress to these forces. Further, blaming all unions for the alleged actions of a few people is, well, just plain silly.
And you forgot to answer to my question – Unions caused the credit crunch, the fall of Lehman and the collapse of the financial sector because . . . .
Economically, I’m not really sure how anyone can actually think the free market is the answer to everything. If the free market had a reason to pay everyone a living wage, commensurate with inflation and provide them with health care, education and a pension… oh, but then we’d be sweden, which doesn’t exactly have a “free” market, and yet in sweden…
— we’d either all have skis or the snow would already be plowed.
Went out today, the fire department was shoveling the bus lanes on Dekalb. We should probably privatize them too, right?
I am not a huge fan of unions, actually. I think they tend to be as corrupt as laissez-faire capitalists. Perhaps the answer does not lie with stupid extremes.
Some of you read too much Ayn Rand in your teens.