noted. but let's consider, for example, the firefighters and police packages, with retirement at 20 years in many cases. There are far too many of local cops and firemen, as each municipality is a fiefdom with lots of patronage. Why does a small town with a low crime rate need 50 cops and a SWAT team? And why do we need all those firmen? They don't actually "pull people out of burning buildings" very often. For for most part they sit on their duffs day in and day out.

I love the idiots like anonymous who stated "noted" and then proceeded to say firemen sit on their duffs all day and they don't pull people out of burning buildings enough to earn their pay. What the hell do you want? Untrained firemen who sit at home making $5 an hour and then bring buckets to your house when it's burning down? These guys train constantly and risk their lives to save others. But they don't do it enough for you? If the job is so great why don't you do it moron?

It's class war, pure and simple, and we working stiffs are getting our butts handed to us on a daily basis. The Republicans and their conservative Billionaire Wall Street masters need to be put back in their places.

Teddy Roosevelt considered the wealthy investor class as being "malefactors of great wealth" and "the men who seek gain, not by genuine work...but by gambling." It's not that Roosevelt was against wealth, but against those industrialists and Wall Street speculators whom he considered cheats.

"I know the banker, the merchant, and the railroad king," he famously said," ...and they also need education and sound chastisement."

The Republicans won't be happy until we pay them to work. How we pay? What do your children look like? Yes, even your sons! Take a good look, because when the GOP is done with them, they will be completely used up - if not dead.

To Anonymous @ 00:00 on 9/10/10: You obviously don't know what firemen do, or how they spend their time while on duty. Yes, provision is made for sleeping time when on continuous 24- or 48-hour shifts; much of the non-call time is spent in continuous training, so assigning additional "administrative tasks" is/would be a non-starter.

Perhaps police officers and firemen DON'T hold the "most dangerous jobs in the USA" but those jobs are dangerous enough to warrant higher pay/benefits. And perhaps you think you'd like to be a fireman.

No matter the numbers of applicants for openings, MOST police and fire departments hire on the basis of qualifications, including written and physical test performance. So maybe you could improve your chances of getting hired by better preparation for the qualifying tests, unless, of course, you'd rather just complain about the number of applicants, or the "unfair" wages/benefits provided to those already in the two professions.

If you think the Krugman "article is a lie" then maybe part of your test prep would be to try to improve your reading and logic skills.

The corporations have screwed over their employees (while rewarding their shareholders and themselves quite handsomely, thank you very much): corporations STOLEN promised pensions, gutted their health care coverage, and generally treated their workers like crap. So how do those employees (and former employees) respond? They lash out at public employees who have not yet been destroyed by the system. This is not a rational response.

Yes, folks, it is class warfare, but the corporations have cunningly enlisted the very workers they screwed over to attack their equivalents in the public sector, doing the bidding of those very corporations. Pretty clever, don't you think?

Economic elites have the rest of us exactly where they want us: scrabbling amongst ourselves for the few scraps they deign to toss to us. It is ugly, and bound to get uglier, but the elites had better think twice if they think it won't bite THEM in the butts ultimately. Walled compounds may seem safe, but that is only an illusion.

Everyone does better when everyone does better, elites included.

- a college-educated (biology) public employee who has worked hard for a lifetime, and who EARNED every penny of (and contributed 7% of total salary to) the (projected) $3ok pension that's about to begin...

I'm a teacher. It took years of study and hard work to meet the qualifications required for a teaching license. It was so hard. And expensive.
I enjoy what I think is a reasonable salary and hope for a livable pension, but I didn't get into teaching for the money. Teaching is not the first career choice for those who want to make money. It might appeal to those who seek stability and some freedom from daily grind.
Believe me when I say I work hard for the money, and I know what hard work is.
What do these republicans want that complain about people with pension plans and unions? What is wrong with having a social network in place to pick up the pieces when we loose our productive selves? Are we all to live on cans of catfood in our twilight years?
If you dismantle social security what will replace it; gas chambers? These people that are so bitterly anti-union scare the hell out of me. Unions are a guide for the working man. They are not the cause of the financial straits we find ourselves in. We are here due to shortsighted greed and corporate governance. We are run by corporations.
The Tea Party has one thing right, we need to take back the government from corporations and return it to the interests of the citizens. This can only be done by voting. At least that is the first and most important step. Turning out in largess and voting for sane and decent people that have moral integrity and intelligence.
Let's Vote!

It amazes me the volume of working class people that will treat unions as an evil. If not for unions and workers that collectively stood up for what was decent and right, we(including our underage children) would be standing around outside of factories hoping to get picked by a boss to work that day, for 12 to 16 hours without overtime compensation, no breaks, and for the bare minimum of wages. There would be no regard for health-care or well-being of the employee as the employee would be of a temporary nature. Read your history people, and notice how things are going. There is Strength in Union.

It seem that most of the commentor's Have begun to realize that this is not a normal cyclical recession. Unlike any other recession the consumers are not there to bail the economy out. Consumers are becoming very fiscally conservative. The disparity in wages between the classes has been greater than at any time in the history of this country. The distribution of wealth is and has been going to the upper 2% of this countries constituents. Those who have power are richer than they ever have been. Much of their money is invested in debt. Bernanke and the Federal Reserve are doing nothing or virtually nothing. The deflation is stagnating the econmy. The fed's should be raising inflation to reduce real interest rates and debt burdens. The deficit is increasing because the government is trying to offset the lack of private spending. Bernanke could buy and hold the government debt therby making the interest payments on the debt go back to the treasury leaving no debt burden on the government. Instead we are borrowing and the interest on the debt is itself becoming a burden. Wall Street is using the Republican party to advocate, through false arguments, that the deficit is the problem so let's cut Social Security and in truth any idiot could see the fallacy in this approach. What is going on is a class war in true Marxian proportions.

It may be a phony issue, except that certain "public servants," like Boehner and his VOTE NOTHING cronies make a lot of money, not just from their slaries but from the benes they get and the payoffs they exact from their "constituents." If there wasn't a lot in it for them, why would they fight so hard to keep it from everyone else. Away with them!!!

One thing that Krugman failed to point out, but which he alluded to, is not only that public employeesare older and better educated, in the private sector there are a lot of minimum wage jobs and part time workers who drag down the average for the private sector. How many wait people and bus boys work for government? How many part time checkers ala Wal Mart? This is a good example of how people can lie with gross statistics. As to the criticisms of fire ;fighters, let's look at an analogy. Modern airline pilots only really fly a plane at take off and landing and probably 90+% of the time those are quite routine. So, let's push for reducing the pay, benefits, and requirements for pilots since most of the time they don't do anything except sit there and shoot the breeze. That way the airlines could reduce the cost of tickets. How many conservatives would volunteer to fly on those planes? You are paying for expertise in emergencies. And firefighters also spend a lot of time answering medical calls. Typical ignorant b.s. by those criticizing.

Let's see, since 2000 military personnel got a 84% raise, fed employees 32% while civilian wages rose just 9%.

http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2010/09/gannett-marine-military-communities-among-most-affluent-090510w

Maybe we should freeze govt salaries so we can afford health care for taxpayers as well as their civil "servants".

Hate and anger demand Action. As long as One is Happy, or Content, there is no demand for Action and we'll Go With The Flow.
So who is happy and content? People with union jobs or decent salaries (at least they should be...) and some sort of pension plan. Sort of like the Middle Class that once was...
The middle is worth fighting for.
The Middle Class is clearly under attack, for whatever reasons cannibalizing itself. AstroTurf is delicious! Get used to eating it cause that is what's on the menu.
The best way to protect your interests is to VOTE!
Keep in mind that your opponents recognize that it starts with at the local level!
We need to organize again and take control of the situation as it is already out of hand.
Vote, Vote and Vote

There actually are people who are always eager to post comments on blogs and news articles about the "overpaid" teachers and how they aren't any good because of the test scores of the kidlets. I'm usually just as eager to post a reply that I think it is the defective kidlets nowadays that are hard to teach. They come to school lacking in basic social skills and seem perplexed when instructions are not in the form of questions. -M.G.

Not too long ago, Matt, I got an e-mail from an irate parent who wanted me to explain how it was that here son felt criticized by me when I remarked negatively on her son's performance on a quiz in college. The implication was that I had no right to criticize her son. I did not explain anything to her, and the boy withdrew from the class. I have to wonder whether children so raised are going to be able to make it in a world in which, already, China is supporting us in our thoughtless and undisciplined lifestyle. Soon, our young may be good for nothing except invading other countries--and of course, not very good at that.

I believe that there are forces in the US who want to do away with all health care and all pension / retirement benefits. These people do not care for you or your family. They are looking to benefit themselves.

The Middle class is becoming a lost group that will go the way of freedoms for the average worker. That is why the workers must stick together and demand a part of the benefit package. Many of the young people will get sick as they get older and will not have the same benefits as the older workers.

People want you to believe that you can stand up against the companies as an individual. How many people would have been let go without the union or a group of workers behind them? Many of the conservatives try to split people so they can deal on an individual basis not as a group.

The legislators in many of the states crying over the workers benefits have their benefits far exceeding the workers. How many of the legislators have changed or removed their benefits to save money? I wish people would read about the wasteful money the legislators appropriate every year. The people, the children and the future is what we should be looking towards. This is the battle not the removal of future assistance.

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