I was sifting through the Austin-American Statesman this morning looking for an article for my 2nd blogging assignment for my government class when i discovered this article. I feel the article is an important read as it relates to both myself regarding my long-contemplated decision with finishing my 4 year degree and all of my peers in college. It discusses the University of Texas' executive staff and their pay raises. Most pay raises are between 1.6% to 13-15%, however there are some executive staff who have had pay raises in excess of 50% over the last 3 years. I understand that running a nationally ranked, prestigious university system with 14 campuses is a daunting challenge and I freely admit that I have not the first idea of the logistics involved, but I do have an idea of the size of the challenge. Managing over a dozen campuses, hundreds of buildings, sports teams, student activities, thousands of professors, and tens of thousands of students is a staggering task.
Administrators pay is not my concern. What is my concern is this: consider that in 2003 the 78th legislature deregulated public university tuition. Since then, tuition has increased 72% (Tx Higher Education Board). The Texas State Legislature found itself $10 billion in the red; the compromise was to deregulate public university tuition in hopes of increasing the tax base. It sorta worked. Keep in mind, we already had a faltering economy. We still have a shaky economy and having a Bachelor's degree is now questionable. What is the point in racking up $60K, $80K, or even $100K in debt if you are looking at a $37K/year job, if you can even get a job? President Obama has been imploring Congress to enact legislation to restructure student loan repayment proportionate to income. At least $100K in student loans would be manageable on a $37K/year job. Romney has no plans to reform student loans.
Lastly, we should consider one other important point. Why was the state of Texas $10 billion in the hole? Was it perhaps because of this? I appreciate what Texas lawmakers and their efforts, however I think we can safely say that most politicians are self-serving. I happen to be both a civil servant and a tax payer. I also happen to be a member of the COAERS, the employee retirement system for City Of Austin employees. The article above really upsets me. If you happen to be a tax payer, it should upset you as well. Here's why: as a City of Austin employee, I have to work 23 years to obtain a 69% pension of my last 3 years salary average monthly pay. This is funded by my own contribution of 8% plus a matching 8% by the city. Each year I work after that increases my pension by 3%, so if I work 30 years I would receive 90%. The COAERS board recently changed the retirement rules to mandatory 30 years service for a 75% pension AND recipients cannot withdraw until age 62. If an employee starts with the city at 24 and retires at 54, they still have to find a way to make their bills for the next 8 years. The theory of the pension plans' solvency is the expectation that most recipients only live for approximately 10 years and that the pool of employees contributing is constantly increasing. Back to the main point, the article highlights that legislators would have to contribute 290 percent to cover their "earned" benefits of $125K/year. Moreover, one representative presented an option for moving future legislatures to a 401K plan. Do I need to remind everyone of how well those fared in the economic downturn? I bet that the idea stemmed from a need to create solvency. Civic leaders and city planners have been asking departments to cut their budget every year for the last 10 years.
Side bar - Along the same lines of university execs and Texas Congressional members, I (along with my peers) was asked by our city council in 2008 to forego pay raises that year. We as an employee association did. The city manager promptly rewarded us by giving pay raises to my department's executive staff. They just called it "fair wage adjustment". I wonder if legislators ever considered cutting their pay, increasing their insurance premiums, or increasing their own contributions. I doubt it.
I know that a portion of my pension is carried by others, but certainly not to this degree. Remember what I said earlier about politicians being self-serving? I think that a more accurate statement of people who are in positions of power are self-serving, whether it be as an executive staffer of a public university, city departments, or in legislation regulating, or rather de-regulating said universities. I wonder if they realize or even care that they are continuing to expand the gap between middle and upper class America. The continual unrestricted increases of tuition and financial burdening of the elite upon the blue-collars is doing just that.
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
First Day of the DNC
I will start this blog by saying my immediate opinion on blogging is that it is pointless. As i begin my blogging, few readers will cast their attention onto what i am nattering about. 7.2 billion people are on this rock and they now all have a voice. It waters things down a bit. Moreover, it does seem a touch pretentious. "Hey everybody, listen to what I have to say!". Maybe 10 years ago I felt the need to be heard and to have people give a damn about what I thought, but now, not anymore. My title includes the adjective cynic. Read on and will not understand why I am a cynic, but hopefully you will find my musings funny and insightful. All I could hope for is that you walk away with a different perspective. If you really want to know why i am a cynic, you can buy my book when it is done. It is called "Memoirs I Wish I Couldn't Remember". It is about my career is EMS, the things I have seen and done, and why I hate the world. I will say just one thing about why I am a cynic about blogs - Everyone now has a voice, however few are really experts and authorities on anything other than their own point of view; said narrow mindedness equals ignorance. That being said...
I am anxious to hear Michelle Obama's speech tonight. All of the media stooges have been saying how Ann Romney humanized her husband, and how good of a job she did. Tonight, The First Lady will probably talk about why people should continue to trust in her husband. She does. Of course she does. She has national power and status, a cushy agenda of exercise and gardening, and her biggest problems are which aide gets what chore. She has over the last 4 years publicly spoken about what a great father he is and there have been jokes about who really wears the pants in that family. Coming from the uptight world of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, it is refreshing to have some humanity and 21st century family relatable content to us commoners. Also, Barack wrote often in "The Audacity of Hope" about how hard it was on his wife and how thankful he was to her during his campaign for the Illinois Senator seat. I seldom saw Dubya or Herbie Walker deferring the spotlight to their wifeys. Bill Clinton quite routinely made comments about Hilary and their marriage seemed convenient, we all know that Hilary was really running the country and we also know what really went on behind closed doors with the open legs of interns.
I watched only the last night of the RNC. I did not get to hear Ann's speech, nor did i get to hear Paul Ryan. I did however hear Jane Edmund rave about how great a man Mitt is. I personally thought Clint Eastwood was both very funny and very out of line. I never took Dirty Harry to be a shock value comedian, but at age 82, the reinvention is either genius or senility.
Marco Rubio did give a fantastic speech. He spoke passionately about his Cuban immigrant father was a bartender, standing all those years behind a bar so his son could stand behind a podium and introduce the next potential POTUS. It was a great speech. I have just heard it a few dozen times before.
Mitt Romney's speech was long. I don't know the exact length but it was around 45 minutes. To summarize, "I'm a great guy, I'm a great guy, I'm good for this country, I'm a nice guy, and I am a good guy". He first spoke about his upbringing, hard work, and character. He spoke about how his father was one of the Motor City blue collars, then ran for and won the Michigan Governorship. Later, he spoke abot how he and 7 friends started Bain Capital, and then his voyage into politics... vaguely.
So, my perception is he grew up in the auto boom, probably north of 8th and 13th mile, in upper middle class, then in upper upper class upon his dad becoming governor. Maybe he had some hard times, but it doesn't sound like he grew up with much adversity, but rather a boring straightforward middle class upbringing and he didn't see much hardship until the 70's when he was at Harvard. He certainly didn't see Vietnam.
His personalization of his speech was good, but then he started talking politics. It was really nice hearing him say that he wished Obama would have succeeded. That was really schmoopy. But then he proceeded to point out the obvious sentiment and opinion, but not state much fact or have much objective point to what he said. He spoke about how the nation is worse than it was four years ago. He spoke about the economy and unemployment. The speech began unraveling at this point because of conjecture. He spoke of the deficit being higher than GDP for the first time in history. Unfortunately, that was incorrect on the Governor's part.
Romney's most objective moment when he spoke about fixing the economy with his "5 point plan". The only problem was he failed to go into any detail about WHAT his plan involved. When it comes to a national audience who is feeding mostly off emotion, i understand you don't want to lull people with details... Lord knows how those details are such a bore! However, if he really wanted to win over the minions and even the naysayers, throw down the gauntlet right then and there. Maybe he should have spoken less about what a good ol' boy from the midwest he is and and get right to how he is going to fix our economy.
The train really came off the rails when he spoke about how he was going to handle things differently if elected. He specifically mentioned Obama's failure to curtail Iran's development of nuclear capability and carte blanche trade restrictions removals with Russia and Putin. Romney stated that he would certainly impose and enforce much tougher restrictions if President.
Didn't the cold war end 60 years ago? WTF was the point of that comment? Way to isolate Russia. I would bet a paychect advisors of every country in the world watched that speech. Not only do we not have any reason to ostracize Russia, we really don't have the money or resources to back up Romney's boneheaded mouth. I feel like we just saw an inkling on Romney's foreign policy skills. Speaking of mouth, Romney at one point made a comment about how we need more businessmen in Washington and less lawyers... Romney has a law degree from Harvard. Yeah, he's a regular old midwest American good ol' boy.
So tonight is the opening of the DNC. I don't know that i will watch much more than the last night, maybe 2. What i hope to see is less ego stroking and more objectivity, less conjecture and more fact. It shouldn't be hard.
I am anxious to hear Michelle Obama's speech tonight. All of the media stooges have been saying how Ann Romney humanized her husband, and how good of a job she did. Tonight, The First Lady will probably talk about why people should continue to trust in her husband. She does. Of course she does. She has national power and status, a cushy agenda of exercise and gardening, and her biggest problems are which aide gets what chore. She has over the last 4 years publicly spoken about what a great father he is and there have been jokes about who really wears the pants in that family. Coming from the uptight world of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, it is refreshing to have some humanity and 21st century family relatable content to us commoners. Also, Barack wrote often in "The Audacity of Hope" about how hard it was on his wife and how thankful he was to her during his campaign for the Illinois Senator seat. I seldom saw Dubya or Herbie Walker deferring the spotlight to their wifeys. Bill Clinton quite routinely made comments about Hilary and their marriage seemed convenient, we all know that Hilary was really running the country and we also know what really went on behind closed doors with the open legs of interns.
I watched only the last night of the RNC. I did not get to hear Ann's speech, nor did i get to hear Paul Ryan. I did however hear Jane Edmund rave about how great a man Mitt is. I personally thought Clint Eastwood was both very funny and very out of line. I never took Dirty Harry to be a shock value comedian, but at age 82, the reinvention is either genius or senility.
Marco Rubio did give a fantastic speech. He spoke passionately about his Cuban immigrant father was a bartender, standing all those years behind a bar so his son could stand behind a podium and introduce the next potential POTUS. It was a great speech. I have just heard it a few dozen times before.
Mitt Romney's speech was long. I don't know the exact length but it was around 45 minutes. To summarize, "I'm a great guy, I'm a great guy, I'm good for this country, I'm a nice guy, and I am a good guy". He first spoke about his upbringing, hard work, and character. He spoke about how his father was one of the Motor City blue collars, then ran for and won the Michigan Governorship. Later, he spoke abot how he and 7 friends started Bain Capital, and then his voyage into politics... vaguely.
So, my perception is he grew up in the auto boom, probably north of 8th and 13th mile, in upper middle class, then in upper upper class upon his dad becoming governor. Maybe he had some hard times, but it doesn't sound like he grew up with much adversity, but rather a boring straightforward middle class upbringing and he didn't see much hardship until the 70's when he was at Harvard. He certainly didn't see Vietnam.
His personalization of his speech was good, but then he started talking politics. It was really nice hearing him say that he wished Obama would have succeeded. That was really schmoopy. But then he proceeded to point out the obvious sentiment and opinion, but not state much fact or have much objective point to what he said. He spoke about how the nation is worse than it was four years ago. He spoke about the economy and unemployment. The speech began unraveling at this point because of conjecture. He spoke of the deficit being higher than GDP for the first time in history. Unfortunately, that was incorrect on the Governor's part.
Romney's most objective moment when he spoke about fixing the economy with his "5 point plan". The only problem was he failed to go into any detail about WHAT his plan involved. When it comes to a national audience who is feeding mostly off emotion, i understand you don't want to lull people with details... Lord knows how those details are such a bore! However, if he really wanted to win over the minions and even the naysayers, throw down the gauntlet right then and there. Maybe he should have spoken less about what a good ol' boy from the midwest he is and and get right to how he is going to fix our economy.
The train really came off the rails when he spoke about how he was going to handle things differently if elected. He specifically mentioned Obama's failure to curtail Iran's development of nuclear capability and carte blanche trade restrictions removals with Russia and Putin. Romney stated that he would certainly impose and enforce much tougher restrictions if President.
Didn't the cold war end 60 years ago? WTF was the point of that comment? Way to isolate Russia. I would bet a paychect advisors of every country in the world watched that speech. Not only do we not have any reason to ostracize Russia, we really don't have the money or resources to back up Romney's boneheaded mouth. I feel like we just saw an inkling on Romney's foreign policy skills. Speaking of mouth, Romney at one point made a comment about how we need more businessmen in Washington and less lawyers... Romney has a law degree from Harvard. Yeah, he's a regular old midwest American good ol' boy.
So tonight is the opening of the DNC. I don't know that i will watch much more than the last night, maybe 2. What i hope to see is less ego stroking and more objectivity, less conjecture and more fact. It shouldn't be hard.
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