How about the euphemism of "civilian" for Hezbollah terrorist?

Is "chief economist for the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas" a euphamism for "asshole"?

Alas babylon.

Bingo, jimbo!

Reminds me of some 'town hall' meeting a few years ago where Bush was talking to a young woman, maybe a recent immigrant, and she pointed out that she had to work 3 jobs, and Bush thought she was bragging: he replied with some moron comment like, "That's what's great about America and Americans - people who are willing to work hard have the freedom to do that."

If only smug sphincters like this guy (a Republican, no doubt), could be unemployed for six months or so, they might understand the obscene insensitivity of comments like this. The common dignity of meaningful work that provides a living wage is something all human beings are entitled to.

As New York City is unwilling to pay its firefighters enough to live in the city they serve and "portfolio diversification" being a goal of the ruling class, I suggest the NYC firefighters be fired (sorry about that) and Federal Reserve members and other luminaries should diversify into being volunteer firefighters.

It would be illuminating.

Communism is a proven failure, Stephen.

Socialism isn't, Thomas. Please refer to Sweden, et al.

I'll take American capitalism over Sweden any day of the week too.

I hope to hell that comment was taken out of context by the NYT. Other than that, I can only note that he was from Texas.

You were obviously born white, affluent and privileged, Thomas. Ask someone black and born in the ghetto how well American capialism is working for them....

This "Thomas" is most amusing. If communism is a proven "failure", as s/he asserts, I'd be interested in knowing what is explanation for China (a communist nation, iirc) being one of the largest creditors to the US is. Also, while s/he is "at it" I hope he/she includes why firefighters are a commodity that should be treated like so many burgerKing employees.
Why do capatlists hate America?

Because what we need is cops and firefighters who are exhausted from working two jobs, which I always thought was against the rules anyway, and for that reason.

How about the euphemism of "civilian" for Hezbollah terrorist?

From wikipedia: In the context of the Internet, a troll is a person who makes inflammatory or comments, which by effect or design cause disruptions in discourse, or a post made by such a person. Trolling can be described as a breaching experiment, which, because of the use of an alternate persona, allows for normal social boundaries and rules of etiquette to be tested or otherwise broken, without serious consequences.

Actually he's right. If NYC decides to forgo fire suppression, they'll have something to fall back on.

I think Steve Martin said it well a few months ago (I'm paraphrasing here): if you can't afford to live, don't.

if you can't afford to live, don't
This only proves that Mr. Martin has forgotten how to be funny.

THE SALARY: The current minimum starting salary [for a NYC police officer] is $25,100 per annum. Upon completion of six months employment, the salary will rise to $32,700. Incumbents will receive salary increments reaching $59,588 per annum at the completion of five and one half years employment. This rate is subject to change. In addition, there is an annual uniform allowance, holiday pay, and contributions by the City to Welfare and Annuity Funds and City-paid health insurance.
----
The second job better pay a lot more.

This only proves that Mr. Martin has forgotten how to be funny.

I'll up you one. Mr. Martin and SNL have forgotten how to be funny. Here's the skit from last February:

http://www.salon.com/ent/video_dog/comedy/2006/02/06/debt/index.html

Mr. Cox was was misquoted. He really said, "I think it's great, as long as it's not me. It gives someone else portfolio diversification in someone else's income."

Thomas sounds like one of the Israeli "cyber-warriors" that the Jewish government is deploying throughout the Internet.

DHOUGMAS: How about the euphemism of "civilian" for Hezbollah terrorist?

David B:

It's called hiring trolls. Not limited to that jewish government, by the way.

You could very well be one yourself, with the content of your last post, that is.

At least he is not suggesting that the families of figher fighters share housing so as to enhance the team spirit and the bonding between their families so essential for these men and women to be able to perform their duties.

Portfolio diversification in your income: it gives the little guys the opportunity to do more stuff to make themselves happy. And have their own bathroom.

Who could say there's anything wrong with that?

as american hawk would see it, new york city is doing a service to its firefighters and other employees by underpaying them. that gives them the incentive to become highly paid lawyers!!! oh and thomas, the u.s. is a mixed socialist-capitalist economy just like sweden, britain, france, germany and yes, china. it's all a matter of degree, of course, but there are few, if any, pure economies in the world.

Gee, our reviews are in,

http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2006/07/favorite_weblog.html

(scan the comments,

"I've got to wonder if Political Animal isn't in some way responsible for its mediocre-at-best comments. The amount of trolling and obvious sock-puppetry is appalling. It's not hopeless -- there is more illuminating content there than, say, in Eschaton's comment section (which resembles a high school lunchroom). But most days I'd rather just skip it (though I generally read the posts as soon as my RSS feed tells me they're posted). Drum seems to read the comments, but doesn't seem to have much interest in maintaining any sort of decorum there." )

There goes our opening weekend.

jayarbee:

No one is calling an 18-month old infant a "terrorist". "Human shield" or "potential" terrorist, possibly. Unfortunately, even during a just war, there is collateral damage.

So, in liberalland, a police officer should automatically have enough money to buy any home he wants? You want to pay them millions a year? Um, okay...

Thanks, Mr. Cox. Think of us when you're in the hot tub tonight.

No one could have anticipated that the chief economist for the Federal Reserve Bank of DALLAS would be so callous. He probably thinks he's pro-labor.

"So, in liberalland, a police officer should automatically have enough money to buy any home he wants? You want to pay them millions a year? Um, okay..."

Grandma? is that you?

Heh. My far right sky is green sun rises in the west grandmother is aghast that the house across the street from where my parents live is owned by a police detective. Aparrantly he is supposed to be living in a trailer park or something.

It's all because of the unions, according to her.

Where the hell is the I.A.F? Living wage provisions should be built into union contracts. Ditto for cops, nurses, E.M.T.'s, etc - all of us sho do the jobs that others either don't have the skills - or balls - to take on.

Thomas does serve the purpose of reminding us how work and the dignity of holding a job that pays you enough to support yourself is something looked down upon by so many conservatives. It's almost as though he thinks capitalism requires the daily humiliation and debasement of workers (eg, forcing all minimum-wage employees at Wal-Mart to scream the Wal-Mart Cheer every day).

Let a few mansions flare up and no firefighters show up. Let a few rich folks dial 911 and wait three hours for a cop (My daughter's ex-fiance was car-jacked two years ago, and we are still waiting for a patrol officer.) Let a few fat-cats show up in the ER with chest pains and be ignored in the hallway because of understaffing as a direct result of pitiful wages.

Maybe all who serve, in any capacity need to come down with a bad case of the "blue flu."

Where the hell is the I.A.F? Living wage provisions should be built into union contracts. Ditto for cops, nurses, E.M.T.'s, etc - all of us sho do the jobs that others either don't have the skills - or balls - to take on.

They have liing wages. There's simply some houses they can't afford. That's to be expected; it's not like we can pay every cop enough to be able to afford a mansion.

The 'headline', such as it is, basically boils down to, "MIDDLE CLASS JOBS LEAD TO A MIDDLE CLASS SALARY". Stop the freaking presses.

I've got to wonder if Political Animal isn't in some way responsible for its mediocre-at-best comments. The amount of trolling and obvious sock-puppetry is appalling. It's not hopeless -- there is more illuminating content there than, say, in Eschaton's comment section (which resembles a high school lunchroom). But most days I'd rather just skip it (though I generally read the posts as soon as my RSS feed tells me they're posted). Drum seems to read the comments, but doesn't seem to have much interest in maintaining any sort of decorum there.

No offense to professors, but whoever doesn't want to spend the day reading idiotic wingnut posts, idiotic mock wingnut posts, profanity laced snarks, shortstop's flirts, and cmdicely's painstakingly detailed explanations to DOD contracted trolls -- probably has their pipe, lecture pointer, chalk, and blackboard eraser all stuck up their ass.

Federal Reserve members and other luminaries should diversify into being volunteer firefighters.

Speaking of volunteer fire departments and income diversification.

Sorry, A-Hawk, but affordable descent housing is supposed to be a given when one puts ones ass on the line. What can one rent in NYC on a $25K starting salary? A sleeping room and shared bare-bulb toilet in a flophouse? Those who serve deserve better. Housing prices are out of line. Let the fucking bubble burst and reality set in on some of these impudent jerks.

Maybe if we have a replay of the '80's and people start walking into banks and handing over the keys to their houses and condos, Mr. Cox will have a wake-up call?

Just in case A-Hawk and others are unwilling to click R.Porrofatto's link, here's the depressing article:

This town in Westchester County, famous for its famous — and well-heeled — residents, is sprucing up a rundown ranch house and planning to sell it at a bargain-basement rate to a member of an increasingly endangered species: a volunteer firefighter.

Shelter Island, the genteel summer colony on Long Island, suspended its residency requirement for police officers for a year because it could not fill its roster with locals, for whom even starter homes are now out of reach.

Westchester's cozy village of Hastings-on-Hudson, among others, allows volunteer firefighters to live outside its boundaries and is giving them and volunteer paramedics first claim on 18 moderately priced apartments built on village property.

Clarkstown, in Rockland County, is trying a more whimsical lure for volunteer firefighters: free passes to the town pool, a $500 value.

For two decades, as the suburbs have become more pricey, the number of people who can afford to live in the wealthiest communities and also volunteer or hold public jobs there has dwindled. But now, in the wake of the recent real estate frenzy, more local officials are raising disturbing questions and looking for ways to address a growing problem:

Will their communities be able to field enough firefighters to save their homes from burning down, ambulance workers to get them to a hospital in time and teachers to give their children a literate start in life?

The problem is not strictly local. All around the country, high-priced communities are taking measures to shore up municipal work forces that can no longer afford to live within their borders. But the problem is particularly acute when it comes to volunteers like firefighters and ambulance crews, for whom proximity matters.

The ranks of emergency responders are typically filled by blue-collar workers, not the business executives or professionals who can afford the million-dollar homes that are now as common as the luxury sport utility vehicles in the region's suburbs.

"All these people have heart attacks, strokes and fires at the same rate as everybody else, but they don't volunteer at the same rate," said Jay Leon, the mayor of Ardsley.

He, like others, said he saw housing the municipal workforce as the looming challenge for suburbia in coming decades — so much so that some officials are now referring to so-called affordable housing in the suburbs as workforce housing.

Steve Levy, the Suffolk County executive, said the problem went beyond civil servants. Even major employers like the military equipment manufacturer Northrop Grumman say the high price of housing makes it difficult to recruit or retain workers.

"I, myself, when I'm trying to recruit talented folks I knew in Albany as an assemblyman, cannot pay them enough to come here," Mr. Levy said.

The number of volunteer firefighters in the nation has declined from 897,750 in 1984 to 800,050 in 2003, a 10 percent drop, according to figures on the National Volunteer Fire Council Web site. While the slide is usually attributed to the increase in two-career families who just do not have the time to volunteer, the soaring cost of housing is a mounting factor.

"There are parts of the country, particularly the two coasts, where the price of housing has so outstripped any income gains that moderate wage earners find it difficult to find a decent home in the community where they work," said Nicolas Retsinas, director of the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard and a former assistant federal secretary for housing.

While a true crisis may be years off, the impact is already being felt. School districts in southern Westchester have been closing schools after just a dusting of snow because more and more of their teachers live in communities 40 or 50 miles to the north, where the housing is cheaper and the snow falls thicker. More fire companies are depending on neighbors to back them up because during certain shifts they cannot muster enough townspeople.

Frank Hutton, chairman of the Committee to Promote Volunteerism in the Rockland County Emergency Services, said that 20 years ago, two trucks would typically roll out toward a fire with 15 or 16 people on them; now they are responding with eight or 10 firefighters.

Suburban and rural communities have always depended on volunteers because, with serious fires a rarity, it did not make sense to finance a paid full-time force. Now, an increasing proportion of volunteer forces are made up of young men who live at home with their parents, said Thomas M. McCarthy, president of the Association of Fire Districts of Westchester County. He and others are asking: What happens once they start a family and begin looking for a home they can afford?

"To anyone who insists to this day that communism had saving graces, I recommend a book written by a ....."
--mhr

To anyone who insists to this day that American capitalism is the most wonderful form of economic system possible, I recommend A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn. This well-researched book reveals the massive warts of our way of life that most American history books ignore or gloss over.

By the way, anyone care to point out to this forum, where in the U.S. Constitution or Declaration of Independence it is decreed that capitalism is the preferred economic system for the United States?

Ah, but it takes 3 jobs to be "uniquely American."

Reminds me of some 'town hall' meeting a few years ago where Bush was talking to a young woman, maybe a recent immigrant

A wonderfully "liberal" retelling of the facts. Actually, the person who said that almost certainly isn't a "recent immigrant."

In fact, she's probably facing downward wage pressure and being forced to work so many jobs because of the massive immigration that both Bush and the Democratic Party support.

I sincerely doubt a recent immigrant would have passed muster to be within a mile of his ass-Holiness.

Some of Thomas' Hezbollah terrorist euphemism's

http://tinyurl.com/gokju

I like the way news of increasing home values is bad news. More people are willing and able to buy homes at higher prices (demand is rising) and Kevin Drum thinks it's a bad thing.

Silly rabbit...

He had to have been making a joke. It was his only quote in the article. I bet the reporter might have misquoted him or taken his quote out of context. That's the kind of sardonic quip economists often make.

America, Fuck Yeah! (1:40pm above),

China is investing in America because it's a better investment than investing elsewhere -- unless you deem the Chinese too stupid to know what is in their own best interest.

And yet you wrote it like a bad thing. Funny, that.

Republicans are actually the same thing as Hezbollah, though they weren't created by external powers, but by American corporations, whose interests are as alien to society as if they were external powers. Perhaps more so in that they aren't even human.

In the case of police, it is hard not to be surprised when corruption is repeatedly uncovered in the NYC police force when they are so seriously underpaid. Yeah, they have to work two jobs--what the second job is, though, is the question.

I am a nurse working nights in a hospital in Manhattan. I live here because I get child support from an investment banker, and when the children grow up I'll have to move to a cheaper location.

We regularly have people come in who called their neighbor, the nurse, cop, or firefighter, when they realized they were ill or in labor in the middle of the night because "I knew s/he would know what to do." Yes, people rely on their neighbor the firefighter.

A bunch of cops and firefighters had the brilliant idea to choose the National Guard as their second job--heck, they were ready to deploy to protect their neighbors in the event of a disaster anyway. But whoops, they got sent to Iraq...leaving the homeland devoid of not just sangbag-passers but also public safety workers.

"And yet you wrote it like a bad thing. Funny, that."

China owning a huge portion of the US national debt *is* a bad thing to those of us who don't want China to exert control over our foreign policy.

But dim bulbs like you wouldn't understand. Funny, that.

Actually, as our intelligence community will tell you, the Chinese are rapidly purchasing U.S. debt because they view it as giving them power over us. This is because their leaders are long-term strategic thinkers, unlike the retarded frat boy who we are currently led by, who can't SAY strategy let alone pursue one.

Thomas is Charlie. Enough said.

Here's a story for you....... No wonder we are all torn to bits with the news....

R.I.P. Moral Clarity:
http://scoop.epluribusmedia.org/story/2006/7/30/133252/137

Shamhat: I'm a Lab Scientist - I second everything you just said.

By the way: How understaffed is your hospital right now? I have worked for two companies and in three facilities since the start of the war in Iraq. Resp. Therapists, Med Techs, Radiology Techs, bio-med techs, nurses, doctors, pharmacists...Every department has been hit by call ups, because school has become so expensive that more and more medical professionals are using scholarships from the military to get their papers. If you think this war isn't affecting you, I hope you or someone you lovev doesn't need hospitalization any time soon.

most firemen I know work 2 jobs. they have 24 hours shifts, and are allowed to sleep at work, so that gives them plenty of time to do other things. most of them do it to increase their income, not to make ends meet.

however, there was an article in one of the UK newspapers today that said that ambulance drivers in the Uk coudln't afford housing in the areas where they work.

as for euphemisms, how about anti-Semite for anyone who disagrees with Israel!

and self-loathing Jew for those like me who think Israeli Jews are as a general rule, nuts, and who are sickened by the current situation - twice as meany dead children as armed combatants - on both sides, I believe I read somewhere.

Regarding the link to the Omaha woman who's working three jobs I posted above, does anyone remember the Democratic Party immediately seizing on this incident to highlight problems with Bush's economic policies?

Of course not.

However, if she had been a citizen of another country who's here illegally, Howard Dean would have been on the next flight out and we'd probably still be hearing about her.

Perhaps the Dems should give just a moment's consideration to representing U.S. citizens rather than citizens of other countries. Just a moment, that's all I ask.

In Qana, an Israeli airstrike killed at least 56 people - 34 were children and 12 were adult women. The airstrike came at 1:00 am and killed most of the victims where they slept, crushing them under tons of rubble.

I'm so fucking proud to be a Jew right now I could just puke.

Paul,

The PBoC is buying less US debt and hopes to balance its portfolio with other assets. Also China has been pouring money into natural resouce companies in Latin America and Russia. This was seen last week in the Rosneft IPO.

Given the relative dearth of monetary instruments available to control inflation and stabilize the renminbi's real exchange rate and ineffectiveness of tax administration, the Chinese seem to have been forced to a second-best option involving piling up massive reserves (approaching $1 trillion) and modest undervaluation of the renminbi (10-15%).

China is investing in America primarily because they have a massive trade surplus with us so they are piling up dollars and dollars ultimately have to make thier way back to the US to be spent. They aren't buying goods for transport to china (remember the trade surplus) so instead they are investing (buying income generating things in the US like financial instruments, companies, land). Secondarily they are manipulating thier currency by holding dollars.

The same thing caused Japan to buy all that real-estate in the US in the 80's. They had big heaps of dollars and dollars are the main place where you can buy 'stuff' with dollars is the US.

>"twice as meany dead children as armed combatants"

Wonder how many children the US has killed in Iraq (direct or indirectly) it's gotta be in the tens of thousands by now. Just 'collateral damage' I guess.

Probably should just forget the 'damage' part, get down to the truth of the matter and call humans 'collateral'... well, brown-skinned or non-Christian/Jewish humans that is.

It sure is a good thing Bush is protecting all those sacred blastocysts (embryos).

Fack neocon moral clarity. No wonder the world hates us. This country has gone nuts.

Birkel believes its a good thing for the US Government to be seriously in debt to a communist government.

American Hawk thinks that being able to live where you work means you want to own a mansion.

Thomas has discovered that Communism is a proven failure.

How could anyone think that PA has mediocre [at best] comments?

I love the huge leaps of illogic made by that contingent of my fellow citizens, Don't you? (yes, like it or not, tighty-righty's, I'm an American too and you can't do a FUCKING THING ABOUT IT - yet.)

"They aren't buying goods for transport to china (remember the trade surplus) so instead they are investing (buying income generating things in the US like financial instruments, companies, land)."

The point, jefff, is that China is also investing in US treasuries. By the end of April, 2006, they held more than $323 billion. If they were to dump this debt on the market suddently, it would play havoc with the dollar. They know this. So do we. Could influence our negotiating position on issues like Taiwan, N. Korea, Iran, etc.

In Kansas City, every fireman I know who has been on the job more than five years, owns a bar. That's their second income. When times are good, people celebrate - when times are bad, they drown their sorrows, or so says my friend Pat, a Captain on the KCFD who owns two bars.

Don't forget "Let Them Eat Cake!"by Barbra Bush the Elder

"This is all working out very nicely for them."

I hate that bitch. (Many appologies to my female Chow.)

Keeping up with the horn of Africa,

http://www.gwynnedyer.com/articles/Gwynne%20Dyer%20article_%20%20Horn%20of%20Africa.txt

"The point, jefff..."

Yes, I agree that these are effects of thier holding so many dollar denominated assets, but I think it is not accurate to say these are the primary reasons why they are holding dollar denominated assets just as it is not accurate to say they are holding dollar denominated assets because they "beleive in the USA".

They are holding so many dollars and buying US bonds (public and private), stocks, real estate, etc because their massive trade surplus with us makes it hard for them not to do so.

They are using the other options to dispose of dollars as well, btw. Buying things around the world with thier dollars from people who then buy things in the US with some of those dollars. The dollar being the main global currency can, to some extent, buy things outside the US in a way that other currencies cannot. You can do that with euro's to a lesser extent, and even british pounds, but you can't buy much of anything with bhat outside thailand.

Housing prices are governed by supply and demand. Population growth increases the demand for housing, thus increasing the price of housing.

The most straightforward way to hold down population growth would be to stop millions of illegal immigrants from crossing our borders.

"but I think it is not accurate to say these are the primary reasons why"

Oh, and I don't mean to imply you did say that. I was responding primarily to one of the right wing nuts who suggested china is investing in america because the chinese think it is smarter to do that than to invest in china.

"The most straightforward way to hold down population growth would be to stop millions of illegal immigrants from crossing our borders."

This is irrelevant bafflegab. If all illegal immigration ended tomorrow, it would make not one dime's worth of difference in NYC's housing prices.

If we could just empty all those 1-br apartments in neighborhoods we would never dein to enter that are housing 12 or more illegals, housing would be just hunky-dory. Is that what you are saying?

The most straightforward way to hold down population growth would be to stop millions of illegal immigrants from crossing our borders.

To follow that logic another step.

The best way to decrease the cost of housing would be to prosecute those business owners who are hiring people illegally.

Prosecute the largest donors to the Republican Party? A pox on your house!

"A pox on your house!"

Now that *would* probably lower property values.

Off Topic: Did anyone else see this blurb in their morning paper?

St. Paul, Minn., Police arrested the 81-year-old father of Sen. Norm Coleman, who was having sex in a pizza parlor parking lot with a 38-year-old woman.

American Hawk, let me put it simply, in case you don't find Global Citizen's well done posts convincing. It's not that there are "simply some houses they can't afford," (like mansions) - that's the way the world works, everybody accepts that. It's that people with lower-middle to middle-middle class incomes - including vital public servants like starting firefighters or police officers - are finding it harder and harder to find city apartments they can afford.

" In New York, the supply of apartments considered affordable to households with incomes like those earned by starting firefighters or police officers plunged by a whopping 205,000 in just three years, between 2002 and 2005."

In rural and suburban communities, where apartments and similar housing types are very rare, there are similar problems:

"Shelter Island, the genteel summer colony on Long Island, suspended its residency requirement for police officers for a year because it could not fill its roster with locals, for whom even starter homes are now out of reach."

This isn't about firefighters or cops beings able to buy mansions - it's about a widespread trend in which middle class people are finding it harder and harder to find affordable housing in many areas, as they are crowded out by rising costs. The headline isn't best glossed as "MIDDLE CLASS JOBS LEAD TO A MIDDLE CLASS SALARY" - but MORE AND MORE, A MIDDLE CLASS SALARY ISN'T ENOUGH.

Look, I grew up in New York in the late 70s and 80s, the only child of two teachers (although my mom spent many years out of the workforce, first to stay at home with me, and later because of serious illness). We had a smallish but nice 4 room (incl. kitchen) + 1BR apartment in a pretty safe neighborhood in the North Bronx. Granted, for many years we actually owned two cars, both low-priced entry level models, older than me, that as the years went on were increasingly held together, sometimes literally, by duct tape (I eventually ended up thinking of the remaining one as the 'Flintstones' car,' since enough of the base rusted out that shotgun passengers could have put their feet through the hole to the road). My parents clipped a lot of coupons, and were lucky enough to get choice cuts of meat from my maternal grandfather, who was a butcher. Every now and then, as a treat, we went down to Chinatown to eat at an inexpensive Chinese restaurant (family-style), or something along those lines. My wardrobe was pretty much department-store standard -designer brands? what were those?, with some seconds from the factory outlets over the river in Jersey. Summers we vacationed in Vermont - but that was generally because there was a couple - family friends - who were nice enough to let us stay at their summer cottage up there. In terms of education it was public school for k-5 and 9-12, with three years of pretty bargain-basement - as such things go - private school (long story, let's just say things weren't working out). We went to the public library a lot more than we bought books (in a household with two nonstop readers), and went to suggested-admission museums, open-admission zoo days, and free parks a lot more than we went to movies.

It certainly wasn't a glamorous life, but it was a good one (and as a lifestyle, I'd even say a very good one, in terms of teaching a certain kind of values. (Note, though, beside the general frugality, some of it was based on fortunate connections; I also haven't mentioned rent control or the money left by my lawyer grandfather.)

What the article is saying is that this is increasingly rare and out of reach in New York and similar cities and communities. Housing - apartments - just cost too much.

Of course, cities need police officers, firefighters, teachers. But as long as they can get the labor they need from somewhere nearby, some economists say, middle-class shrinkage may not hurt.

I don't know how realistic this is, but it seems somewhat worrying. In effect, it's the creation of a kind of middle-income servant class, who commute from separate communities into highly economically polarized cities, teaching city kids, keeping city streets safe, putting city fires out . . . but not actually making enough money to live there, being for it, but not of it.

"People have a stake in the place that they’re living in,” said Chris Mayer, a professor at Columbia Business School. “If you have a police and firefighting force saving their city as opposed to somebody else’s city, it makes a difference. In the same sense, local shopkeepers just seem to be better. What happened on 9/11 was really about ‘our city.’ ”"

And of course besides cutting out the middle of the opportunity ladder, losing much of remaining urban middle class will mean that many public services will go even more to shit, since the affluent will be buying into private-sector equivalents, and neglecting the commons - for example:

"School systems may suffer, too. While some upper-middle-class families rely on the public schools, many that can afford private-school education opt out. Urban school systems tend to be dominated by middle- and lower-income families. Middle-income parents have the ability and leverage to demand improvements."

And here I didn't think Republicans had sex. I thought their children were found under cabbage leaves - fully clothed, of course.

I recently had to discipline a phlebotomist who was using 18-guage (infusion size) needles for phlebotomies on patients who were rabidly, overtly right wing. When he walked into a room and saw "The Hundred People Who Are Screwing Up America" on a patients table, he poked him three times with a 16-guage just for spite. That's when the nurse called me and told me what he was doing, and had been for a few weeks. She was laughing her ass off, but I had to discipline him anyway.

In effect, it's the creation of a kind of middle-income servant class, who commute from separate communities into highly economically polarized cities, teaching city kids, keeping city streets safe, putting city fires out ... but not actually making enough money to live there, being for it, but not of it.

And at that, their choices are further limited in that New York State requires police and firefighters to live in the state (a major flaw in the otherwise decent Sylvester Stallone film "Copland" a few years back, where NYC police were shown residing in New Jersey). So no traipsing across the Hudson for New York's men in blue. (Not that New Jersey home prices are bargains, even some of the blue-collar burbs.)

jefff:dollars ultimately have to make thier way back to the US to be spent.

Not so. Dollars are effective tender in many parts of the world. You can buy a hamburger or a house with dollars in Mumbai or Mexico City.

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"jefff:dollars ultimately have to make thier way back to the US to be spent.

Not so. Dollars are effective tender in many parts of the world."

Sigh. I know it is a bit less true with dollars than with other currencies, but it is still an issue for the countries who have massive trade surpluses with the US.

Or what? Every country that runs a large trade surplus with the US has the same brilliant evil scheme to pile up dollars and control the world? They all do it. Every one of those export oriented asian economies end up sitting on piles of dollars, real estate, US stocks, bonds, etc. Same with the big oil exporting countries. Wonder why arab companies are buying port management businesses in the US? It is because they need to invest the giant heap of oil soaked dollars they find themselves with and the easiest place to spend dollars is the USA.

“I think it’s great,” he said. “It gives you portfolio diversification in your income.”

I read that, too, and I instantly thought: What an arrogant asshole! His 'portfolio' sure is much higher than that those people might achieve by working 16 hours a day. Yeah, really, doing two jobs must be great. Wonder what US granddads, who were able to pay the rent and feed their family with a single job in the 60s, think about this great idea?

The fact that many public servants can't afford housing in NYC is neither good nor bad, nor an issue for liberals or conservatives. It's simply a reflecion of the fact that a lot of people want to live in New York City (a function of Gotham's strong economy), and the various factors that conspire to constrict housing construction.

Last time I looked fires were being put out in New York, and the streets were being swept. If New York begings to fail in its recruitment efforts, it will have to do what other employers do: pay higher salaries.

It could also, if it wanted, radically reduce, if not completely remove, barriers to the construction of new housing (although land scarcity alone probably insures housing in NYC will never really be cheap).

Not everything is a matter for competing political ideologies.

Btw, it should be pointed out that his idea of " portfolio diversification" is totally beside the point. The middle class doesn't get much more security by working two jobs. If they lose one job, they're almost as f***ed as if they had lost their sinlge job before, when housing was more affordable. They won't be able to pay the rent. And if you do two jobs, the risk of losing one of them is much higher, of course. This 'chief economist' is just a spinmaster.

Firefighters who want to live in high-priced cities can work two jobs, said W. Michael Cox, chief economist for the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. “I think it’s great,” he said. “It gives you portfolio diversification in your income.

I'm assuming poor Michael Cox isn't one of the lucky duckies with portfolio diversification in his wages.

Question: just WTF do they feed them in Texas?

"Dollars are effective tender in many parts of the world."

Only because people know that dollars can be spent in the US. That's what makes those green pieces of paper valuable.

And to think, I could've just read this blog instead of getting a grad degree in Int'l Trade and Finance.

You guys are so smart.

Swoon.

/sarcasm

B: No offense to professors, but whoever doesn't want to spend the day reading idiotic wingnut posts, idiotic mock wingnut posts, profanity laced snarks, shortstop's flirts, and cmdicely's painstakingly detailed explanations to DOD contracted trolls -- probably has their pipe, lecture pointer, chalk, and blackboard eraser all stuck up their ass.

I take exception to this. I only flirted--with carefully screened liberals, never Republicans--because it was part of the terms of my DOD contract.

Hey Shortstop. Chicago sweltering like KC is? (And I never thought you were a shameless, unabashed flirt - But I laughed my ass off when you told us that Mr. Shortstop told you blowjobs increased your chance of having twins...

Hey, Globe. Er, yeah, I, uh, do remember telling that story.

Hot, hot, hot here! Positive thoughts and popsicles will carry us through.

And to think, I could've just read this blog instead of getting a grad degree in Int'l Trade and Finance.

I didn't realize Free Republic had an online degree program. Just how many credit-hours is a rabid, knee-jerk post worth anyway?

Or is it more of an honorary degree?

getting a grad degree in Int'l Trade and Finance.

From the USA, I assume
The Univesity of Stupid Assholes

No wonder all the smart people I know are emigrating from the US in droves. Even as Europe, Japan, China and much of the rest of Asia moves gradually to something like a group of modern nations that actually pay their workers fairly, the US manages to regress to a damn warlike feudal state.

A friend of mine now working in the tech industry in Dortmund, Germany (after years of Berlitz tapes) now says it was the best decision he ever made. He has a solid job, is respected by his colleagues, and is paid for his work-- even got to marry a pretty young Czech woman who had emigrated herself. Maybe we should be following his lead.

"If only smug sphincters like this guy (a Republican, no doubt), could be unemployed for six months or so, they might understand the obscene insensitivity of comments like this."

Nope. I've seen people, lifelong Republicans, who've gone through hard times. If they pull out of it, no matter how bad it was or how much help they got from the government, as soon as they're back on their feet, they begin to talk the same B.S. rhetoric. People have an almost infinite capacity for lying to themselves to calm the cognitive dissonance.

Firefighters who want to live in high-priced cities can work two jobs

Does this Texas motherfucker know how far out of the City you have to live to afford a house on $50K?

Does he know that many communities (and I think this was true for NYC) require you to live within the city limits?

Does he know how hard it is to have a second job when you work three days, two off, three nights, two off, and so on...?

Does this asshole want to comment on how "diverse" your portfolio is when you are forced into spending your life overpaying for rent because you will never be able to afford to buy and earn any equity in a home?

My dad was a firefighter (in CT). He moonlighted siding houses in the summer and plowed snow in the winter. There's no fucking way that would make ends meet in NYC in 2006.

Following up on the person upthread talking about Clarkstown, NY. I believe Clarkstown cops are among the highest paid in the country. Over the last 10-15 years houses in previously-affordable Rockland County have gone crazy—a typical (ie: every damn house in town is identical) 70s raised ranch split level 3BR house now costs at least $450-500K. That's pricey even for a highly paid cop.

"No wonder all the smart people I know are emigrating from the US in droves."

That's for damn sure. When I got my MA, it was essentially impossible to get a full time permanent position to teach English as a Second language any where in the US (basically all the available positions were temporary contract labor that bounced instructors from district to district from one acedemic year to the next assuring a permanent place at the very bottom of an already pitifully low payscale). Here in Japan I make enough money that my one salary pays my mortgage with enough left over to allow my family to live comfortably (my wife does part-time unpaid volenteer work).
You get what you pay for.
Cut taxes and spend money on bond issues to build stadiums for professional sports, facilities for high school sports and high salaries for HS sports coaches and there's not much left for things like English classes for legal residents and immigrants or composition instruction for everyone or supplies for science classes or field trips or new textbooks or moving classes out of trailers and into heated buildings or a full schedual of acedemic classes during the day instead of two or three periods of babysitting (study hall) or paying for an acedemic year that is at least as long as the average of the G8 rather than shorter than many third world nations. And, now there's not enough money to pay wages high enough to keep public health and safety workers near their jobs either. Next time you hear about someone getting killed because a nurse, cop or firefighter made a mistake due to lack of sleep, remember those tax-cuts. Were they worth it?
Take a look at any graduate department (but especially sciences anad engineering) why are there so few Americans and why is their GPA (and their study habits) so much poorer than the exchange students? Might it be that too many gifted writing and science students see the shit wages of teaching and "Just say no?" Might it be that properly teaching any subject requires more time out of the classroom in preparation (writing lesson plans, designing homework assignments, writing exams) and assignment evaluation (correcting homeworks and exams) than in it (time that isn't available if you MUST take a second job)?
GOP tax-cut political philosophy is turning US civil society into a stinking pile of shit.

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"My dad was a firefighter (in CT). He moonlighted siding houses in the summer and plowed snow in the winter. There's no fucking way that would make ends meet in NYC in 2006."

There was a story about the recruitment of men in the Scottish Highlands for the Crimean War, not long after the Highland Clearances. The recruiters wer told that since the landlords preferred sheep to men, let sheep do their fighting.
But FDNY is composed of people with great hearts and not much financial sense, and they'll get three jobs rather than quit, and that why you don't see too many caps or shirts with "Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas" emblazoned on the front.

W. Michael Cox probably is one of those guys that works 80 hours a week routinely and thinks everyone should do it. To do less is lazy, isn't it?

I lived in NYC for 7 years. I was shown 2 apartments in Manhatten in housing for working families with income qualifications of not making more than say 50 grand a year. 1 was across from ex Fulton Fish Market downtown the other on Greenwich St in Tribeca, big trendy neighborhood with best public school in the city. I could have had either at a reasonable rate. Uh once i paid off certain people with a 'non refundable' security deposit of say 3000 dollars.

How these people came to aquire and hold these properties is unknown. But has been reported on in NYC, as lots of apartements seemed vacant and yet there was quite a waiting list to get in.

Real estate is local. and in some cases very Italian.

Oh and btw, I did not take either of those apts. I'm not a fan of high rises. Less so after 9/11

http://www.nychdc.com/program/program_page.htm#p5

" in no way appears to affect the belief of the public that public school teachers work VERY hard and deserve pay raises and better pensions and health plans."

Because they do. Many teachers do work second jobs - evening jobs like bartending, waitstaffing, etc., summer work, from landscaping to summer school, etc. Teaching pay isn't horrific, but it's certainly not great, and a lot of teachers are paying off college loans, etc. More to the point, before anybody talks about how teachers have easy jobs, maybe you should try teaching for a little while, or volunteer in a classroom. You might be in for a little surprise. Think about it - you're taking care of perhaps 25-30 kids - depending on the grade, up to several groups of 25-30 kids - for a good part of the day. Think how raising one kid can be! How this works out will depend on where you are, since there is an enormous difference here - worst case, you may be physically assaulted by students or parents. There are great potential rewards, but they're largely those of a job well done, of seeing a student have that moment of understanding, of having someone come up to you years later and say, 'Remember me, Mr. _? I was in your sixth grade class at _ and now . . . ).

We're talking about a job where enormous numbers of people drop out in the first few years, where it's expected that you will spend a good bit of your first year crying.

I've commented here before about the reasons I see behind this conviction that teachers are lazy and have easy jobs. One thing I really wish for is a documentary/show that follows teachers around at different kinds of schools in different parts of the country (or maybe better, different kinds of schools in one small area, from impoverished urban to affluent suburban), and shows what their day to day life is like.

I think that might do a lot more to change attitudes them almost anything else . .

They're not underpaying their firefighters and police that much, it's just that the housing market is insane. It's like some big tulip-buying frenzy fueled by baby-boomers digging themselves into massive debt under those ARMS.

GOP tax-cut political philosophy is turning US civil society into a stinking pile of shit.

Nonsense. Total public sector spending in this country is probably as high as it's ever been as a percentage of GDP, and (last time I looked, at least) a few points higher than what it was under Clinton. Republicans have not managed to cut the size of government. The public sector in America is at or near its all time peak, and is likely bigger as a percentage of the economy than your adopted country. America has its problems, but they can't be attributed to a non-extant reduction in the size of government. Your high salary in Japan is almost certainly a function of the fact that the particular skills you possess -- fluency in English and the ability to teach it -- are far more rare in Japan than in the United States, and consequently demand a higher premium.

A friend of mine now working in the tech industry in Dortmund, Germany (after years of Berlitz tapes) now says it was the best decision he ever made. He has a solid job, is respected by his colleagues, and is paid for his work-- even got to marry a pretty young Czech woman who had emigrated herself. Maybe we should be following his lead.

Really? A friend of mine is now working in the tech industry in Seattle, Washington (after a number of years of climbing the latter). He has a solid job, is respected by his colleagues, is paid handsomely for his work, and now lives in sick condo on Queen Anne Hill. Still single though. Maybe we should be following his lead.

It reminds me of Barbara Bush's comments after Katrina, that the poor homeless people who fled to Houston have it better than they ever have. And Tom DeLay's comment that those forced to live in the Astrodome were having fun.

Maybe rich Texans need to diversify their braincells. By having more than one.

I agree with all you!

Good job .

!!!