Open Thread

Californians Protest City Manager’s $800,000 Salary
July 20 (Bloomberg) — Hundreds of residents of one of the poorest municipalities in Los Angeles County shouted in protest last night as tensions rose over a report that the city’s manager earns an annual salary of almost $800,000.
An overflow crowd packed a City Council meeting in Bell, a mostly Hispanic city of 38,000 about 10 miles (16 kilometers) southeast of Los Angeles, to call for the resignation of Mayor Oscar Hernandez and other city officials. Residents left standing outside the chamber banged on the doors and shouted “fuera,” or “get out” in Spanish.
It was the first council meeting since the Los Angeles Times reported July 15 that Chief Administrative Officer Robert Rizzo earns $787,637 — with annual 12 percent raises — and that Bell pays its police chief $457,000, more than Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck makes in a city of 3.8 million people.
Bell council members earn almost $100,000 for part-time work.
City Attorney Edward Lee said the council members couldn’t discuss salaries in public without advance notice. The council then adjourned for a private session. About an hour later, the council members returned, and Hernandez read a statement saying the city would prepare a report on the salaries and seek public comment at the next council meeting, scheduled for Aug. 16.
Residents shouted in protest. Lee said he would have the room cleared if people continued to speak out of line. Police Chief Randy Adams said the fire department wanted to end the meeting because the crowd outside was blocking the door.

Thanks, slopefarm. More patience than I have.

Senator Lindsay Graham really lit into his fellow republicans for voting no on the Kagan confirmation. It will be interesting how this plays out for him politically. Committee vote was 13-6, with Graham being the only GOP senator to vote yes.

Rob, in plain English, those are mutual funds. Mutual funds are made up of stocks. Stocks go up and down based on what investors think of the value of the company and direction of the economy and other factors. Historically, they are good long-term investments but risky for short term. Mutual funds keep you in a lot of stocks at once, so you do not ahve to worry so much if one company tanks. There are real companies underlying the stocks that your mutual funds are invested in, so not a rip off. But there are strategy questions.

This is a retirement account; you are saving for the long term. Over long periods of time, these should grow, but not consistently. So being in stock mutual funds generally makes sense. But sometimes they will go down. that comes with the territory. DIBS is asking you for the time period over which it went down — last quarter, last year, last month or something else? To oversimplify, he wants to see if it went down consistent with other stocks going down, or if it went down when it should have been going up. You need a time frame to do the comparison.

OK, my work here is done.

Or Latino. But he’s not so it’s a moot point.