RE: It Will Only Get Worse

[cjppjc]

Re: Yes - $30 per hour Crossing Guards Do exist in Jersey

Shoot. The crossing guard in my area of NJ - is worth every penny she makes. She is obviously a retiree - and probably does this for extra spending money. On the occaisions she is out sick or such, and either a substitute fills in or worse, a police officer, traffic is backed up 1/2 a mile (10 minutes at a crawl) in all directions!

Being a crossing guard is a sh!tty job. I agree with whoever commented above about the dangerous NJ drivers - on my route to work I pass by another area and have see one near miss for the guard.....

Now there is plenty of abuse in the NJ pension system....I'd rather see a more suitable target being picked on (the tax assessor in something like 7+ towns in sommerset county, ie, working 7 jobs "full time" and making more than $250K comes to mind)

The attack on school crossing guards came about it appears as a result of this post I made earlier in this thread:

It occurs to me that there was a time in the not too distant past when many states, my own as an example, did not have a sales tax. Did not have an income tax. Did not run legalized betting, twice daily, twice weekly, pick 5, pick 6, as well as a multitude of scratch and win scams. Where did all that money go? Why will the future not be the same as the past?


With all these sources of income, it's hard to believe New Jersey is in such dire financial shape. Since not every resident participates in the lottery, maybe a standard deduction taken from our paychecks could be used to make us all lottery players. You pick your numbers, and you are eligable for every mega drawing. At the end of the year you could even recieve some random scratch off game tickets.

[wayiwalk]

Re: Yes - $30 per hour Crossing Guards Do exist in Jersey

Can't comment on where all the money went, I only "escaped" from NY a few years back.........and really am not familiar with how much the gov't has grown in the last decade. I figured then that NJ was 10 years behind NY, but I think it is merely 12 months.


Seems like there's plenty of gov't funded construction....

I can't tell you how many times I've wished to see the state go bankrupt so that pensions could be reset....

....to me, they should be capped at a normal level ($50K?). That would also reduce the likelihood that people would find overtime to work their last few years so they could game this sytem.

I was talking with my mom this weekend. Her pension from my dad's private sector employment is less than $28K per year, dad was a highly accomplished engineer.....but that $28K is certainly shy of some of the payouts our public sector employees get.

[mesyn191]

Re: Yes - $30 per hour Crossing Guards Do exist in Jersey

For every person who abuses the state pension system, and yes they do exist I know that and never said there were some who do so I object to the idea that all who get them and are in unions are some how leeches, there are many who get screwed over by that same system. For many it is also their only source of income besides SS and Medicare and they spent their life paying into all 3.

If someone earned their money through legal, arms-length transactions with other parties who voluntarily made the deal, then it's their money, period. It's not your money to loot because you're jealous and you think they have "too much".

If you accept that the FIRE economy exists then you're forced to accept that a large chunk of the money that the rich have gotten in the last 10 yr or so at least has been gotten through abusing the laws if not outright breaking them. This is why government regulation, or lack therof, is harped on so frequently. If the very industry you're regulate has captured its regulators you're going to see them do damn near anything they want now won't you? There is a reason why its known as predatory lending you know.

This reminds me of the people you will still occasionally hear who say that communism is the best economic system, but that true communism just hasn't been tried yet.

Actually I don't think communism would really work, but some of what Marx has to say about capitalism makes a hell of a lot of sense.

Yes, if the government actually raised taxes and decreased spending during boom times and used the surplus to pay down the debt incurred during the bad times, that might be good. BUT THEY DON'T.

They did it in the 1980's, Greenspan and FIRE spent the better part of a decade pissing that 2nd chance away remember? When you get shitty corrupt politicians in power for decades I think any system can be made to fail.

[Slimprofits]

Re: Yes - $30 per hour Crossing Guards Do exist in Jersey

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/...42b63c4e2a21c1

Sales of new homes fell for the third straight month in July, a sign that housing remains a drag on the economy. If the current pace continues, 2011 would be the worst year for new-home sales in nearly half a century.

Sales fell nearly 1 percent in July to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 298,000, the Commerce Department said Tuesday. That's less than half the 700,000 that economists say represent a healthy market.

Last year, 323,000 homes were sold — the worst year on records that go back to 1963.

The sales pace for previously occupied homes is trailing last year's 4.91 million sales, the fewest since 1997.

Outside of luxury markets, builders are struggling to compete with foreclosures and short sales, which have forced down prices.