shopping-store.org/

"Fun Fact: In 2009 the Federal Government (excluding Defense) employed just 200,000 more people than Wal-Mart stores, which in turn employed 1,607,000 more people than the entire state of California."

Fun Fact: Wal-Mart can't throw me in jail and seize my property for not patronizing their stores and giving them money, yet state and federal governments can. Public employee pay and pensions are gathered at the barrel of a gun.

YOU WILL USE THE US POST OFFICE OR YOU WILL BE ROUNDED UP INTO TERMINATION CAMPS!

Can Wal-Mart test drugs for efficacy, inspect food producers, maintain bridges and roads, regulate the quality of water and air, provide free education so your kids have a chance of not being illiterate dopes (despite the teachers' union), provide a system for which law can be upheld in an orderly manner, organize large scale public works, provide funding for research (such as research that led to the Internet which you are currently using)? I don't think so.

Great. Liu noticed pay discrepancies.

Now let's see him take a look at the pensions and health benefits and the discrepancy between what the private sector gets and what the public sector is guaranteed.

In the private sector, there are no defined benefit plans, there are defined contribution plans, meaning when you retire, what you put in + what your employer matches is what you get, have a nice day. In the public unions, you're guaranteed a certain percentage of your salary (usually your highest few years, which leads to stacking; just ask the LIRR folks) for 30 or more years.

In the private sector, people pay upwards of 30% for health care.

In the public sector, people pay around 10-12%.

So yeah, they make less money, but their employer, the city, doles out as much more money for them than a private employer.

You make a really strong argument for socialized medicine.

Only if you believe that the money for it doesn't come from you and I anyway. I think I make a stronger argument for everyone paying for their own medical care and not taking from me to pay for you.

I thought everyone knew (or at least I always knew) city workers took a trade off, lower salary for a stable pension. I didn't think people actually believed Bloomberg when he said it was the city workers that hurting the economy.

And of course we can't have city workers wait until 65 to retire. Do you really want 65 year old cops, firemen, mta workers, construction crews etc out there? That would mean in the years following that change nobody would be hired (because now all these workers have to wait years to retire), and that would leave a generation of all these old city workers.

I'm pretty sure there's plenty of administrative office positions at the NYPD & FDNY etc that can be filled once someone is no longer able to perfrom field work. Should we really be funding their full pensions (at least for the NYPD) after 20 years on the job? They can be making good money (over $120k) when they retire at 41-42 and are still able to perform in the private sector so why should we be giving them a pension then? Either they should stick it out or their pensions shouldn't kick in until a reasonable retirement age. As for the MTA, my dad is a 67 year old retired farmer who worked hard than anyone there has his whole life and is still active so I won't believe there should be an issue there easier. I 100% believe that city workers pensions are a drain on the city.

I'm a cop. Just got off at 3 actually. Today I rode up and down elevators with running piss in the corner and human feces smeared on the walls. I walked the halls with 80% good people, 20% the scum of the earth who I can't turn my back on, cause i've made that mistake before.

The first year my daughter was born I broke two ribs, was stabbed (more like slashed really), and had my nose broken.

I've done all of this as the lowest paid cop in the entire tri-state areas, with the surrounding departments doubling my salary.

Forgive me if i'd like to retire after 20 years and collect my pension, the main reason I took this job.

I respect what you do. But, after 20 years, what would you do after retiring? Most cops who retire are not broken-down to the point they really cannot work at anything anymore and must retire.
Still, you do have a good point: A deal is a deal.

No, but after 20 years of what I described and my wife's heart racing every time the phone rings and i'm at work, is it selfish to think I deserve to retire? It might be.

There probably are plenty of office jobs the older ones can fill, but to do that i'm assuming they would have to get rid of all the civilians doing a lot of the office jobs. I have no idea how much they get paid, but its probably half of what a 20 year cop makes.

That's seriously awesome about your father, but you have to admit he's the exception to the rule. Your argument is the whole point of the article, yes they get a good pension, but they took a 17% pay cut for those 20 years.

Seriously, the weird intra-class war that is being instigated in the Middle West is spooky-- we're supposed to let over-weaning corporate bastards do whatever they want, doom the economy for a decade with unbridled greed (& either evil or stupidity, take your pick), we're supposed to cry a river of tears for a moneyed class that might have to pay taxes on their ill-gotten wealth...but TEACHERS WE MUST DESTROY. Yes, the middle class unions are America's problem. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

the first sentence of this article has an error, making the introduction kind of confusing: "After the recession, city Comptroller John Liu claimed that people began thinking of those in the *private* sectors as the "new fat cats,"

actually, he said: "There have been characterizations of *public* employees as the new fat cats or the new welfare queens"

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/20...

Wow he really is doing $helly's shilling.