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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tejek who wrote (659026)	6/19/2012 1:28:15 AM
From: i-node	2 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1584252

>> Public-sector job loss this time, though, has contributed mightily to overall stagnation. Barack Obama spent $1,000,000,000,000 that was supposed to create jobs. That's enough to provide 10 million people with $50,000 jobs for two years. Any monkey could have managed that. So, who are you blaming, exactly? It was your guy who spent the money. Whose fault is this mess? No one I know of has ever said if you want to provide "make work" for people and pay them to do it, you can't keep them off the street. But these jobs do not end recessions, which I suppose is what the author is trying to suggest. We already know, when you stop spending "stimulus" dollars (as FDR did in '37 and as BHO did last year) the recession comes back. Which makes the entire concept untenable. Really, you need to leave this stuff to people who understand it because you are clueless ted.

To: tejek who wrote (659026)	6/21/2012 5:03:15 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1584252

Now, first of all: hey, isn't it interesting that our three recent recessions started under Republican presidents? No. Recessions are going to happen. Clinton was lucky in that he had one end right before he became president, and the next one started right after he left, but if you shifted his term a year or two forward or backward, he would have had a recession start in his term, and if you combined a shift back of a couple of years and he had a third term then two recessions would have started during his term. Obama hasn't had a recession start during his term because we haven't even had a real recovery from the last one even after most of his term is over. And all the other presidents since Reagan took office where Republicans. At any rate, the chart shows you that in all those bleak periods, while the private sector was draining jobs, the public sector was gaining jobs. As it has almost all the time, except during major military cut backs. Even if they're sincere about smaller government, which is open to question in many cases, but even if they are, they understand enough about economics to know that a person working and making $50,000 is doing more for the economy than a person not working. Not Necessarily. A job is a cost. When its a government job its a cost to the tax payer and thus to the private sector economy. If the work done on the job produces more benefit than the cost, then you get a net gain, but you get the gain from what is produced, not just because someone gets $50k in direct deposits pulled from the tax payers.

To: tejek who wrote (659026)	6/21/2012 5:06:47 PM
From: TimF	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1584252

Full salaries for Albany part-timers make for gross pay Six-figure salaries for Skelos advisers NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Monday, April 30, 2012, 4:00 AM ALBANY — It really pays to be a part-time staffer in the state Legislature. In one of Albany’s dirty little secrets, some of the Legislature’s highest-paid employees aren’t required to work anywhere near full-time hours — but pull in salaries and benefits as if they did. These workers — 345 in the state Senate, 271 in the Assembly — enjoy a special annual designation that lowers the mandatory number of hours they must work each week, compared with 35-hour weeks most employees put in. The advantage, little known to the taxpaying public, is that having fewer required work-hours can free up these staffers to do campaign work that legally can’t be done while punched in on the state clock, insiders say. Or, in other cases, the workers are able to focus on their nongovernment side jobs. “How does that benefit the public?” questioned Susan Lerner, executive director of Common Cause/New York. “It raises questions as to whether this is a scheme to subsidize political activities on the taxpayers’ dime,” she added. Of the 345 Senate staffers who get the special designation, 267 work for the GOP majority, and 78 toil for Democrats, according to the latest payroll records. Some 56 of the Senate “part-timers” take home at least $50,000 — and seven of them make more than $100,000. The seven in six-figures are all top staffers, advisers, or counsel to Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos and the Republican conference. At the top is Thomas Dunham, Skelos’ director of operations, who is paid $165,000 a year. Senate GOP officials wouldn’t say how many hours he is required to put in each week. In terms of those with lucrative side jobs, Skelos’ $140,000-a-year counsel, David Lewis, has a law firm that has been hired in the past by individual state senators. And, John LaValle, a private lawyer who is Suffolk County GOP chairman and the son of a state senator, makes $50,000 as the assistant counsel to the Secretary of the Senate — even though he is based on Long Island. “These individuals have worked incredibly hard to help turn New York around, and have far exceeded the minimum hours required,” said Senate GOP spokesman Scott Reif. Among the Senate’s 20 highest-paid “part-timers” are five Democratic aides, led by Paul Rivera, the $80,000-a-year special adviser to Minority Leader John Sampson. He is required to work just 25 hours a week, and was in line to get a $50,000 raise until it was nixed after the Daily News reported it last week. In the Assembly, which handles its payroll designations differently than the Senate, 40 “part-timers” gross more than $50,000 a year, records show. Most of the 271 total are year-round “part-timers” who still qualify for salaries and benefits that top those of many full-timers in the private sector. Others are considered full-time, but work just 30 hours a week. Only one has a six-figure salary: Marc Kronenberg, who earns $107,703 a year as Brooklyn Democratic Assemblyman Dov Hikind’s chief of staff; he is required to work 30 hours a week. Insiders say that those who are selected to be “part-timers” are often key players on the political front. The designation also allows them to more quickly bank compensation time for overtime work, and the comp time is then put toward campaign work, the sources added. nydailynews.com