Wisconsin is the New Egypt

[Sparky speaks]

 

I understand that this probably isn't that big of a deal, but it seems like it would be one quick way to cut costs by having a janitor come in when school starts and have them leave a couple of hours after school lets out.

 

 

There is a day crew and a night crew at the high school where I teach. The day crew takes care of shoveling snow, cutting the grass, lining the playing fields, cleaning up vomit and other spills, unclogging toilets and urinals, cleaning up the cafe after lunch so it can be used for study hall, setting up chairs in the gym for what ever reason, accepting deliveries at the loading dock and many other duties as circumstances merit.

 

The night crew cleans the rooms, washes the boards, empties the trash, polishes the floors, cleans the rest rooms, works the sports events, cleans up after the adult ed. classes at night performing the same functions as the day crew and many other duties.

 

The school is used from 7 AM until after 10PM on most week days. There are also many weekend activities like practices, community events, etc., that require custodians. To cut back on them would actually make the place a

a filthy run down hell hole.

 

REPORT: You Have More Money In Your Wallet Than Bank Of America Pays In Federal Taxes

 

Today, hundreds of thousands of people comprising a Main Street Movement — a coalition of students, the retired, union workers, public employees, and other middle class Americans — are in the streets, demonstrating against brutal cuts to public services and crackdowns on organized labor being pushed by conservative politicians. These lawmakers that are attacking collective bargaining and cutting necessary services like college tuition aid and health benefits for public workers claim that they have no choice but than to take these actions because both state and federal governments are in debt.

 

But it wasn’t teachers, fire fighters, policemen, and college students that caused the economic recession that has devastated government budgets — it was Wall Street. And as middle class workers are being asked to sacrifice, the rich continue to rig the system, dodging taxes and avoiding paying their fair share.

 

In an interview with In These Times, Carl Gibson, the founder of US Uncut, which is organizing some of today’s UK-inspired massive demonstrations against tax dodgers, explains that while ordinary Americans are being asked to sacrifice, major corporations continue to use the rigged tax code to avoid paying any federal taxes at all. As he says, if you have “one dollar” in your wallet, you’re paying more than the “combined income tax liability of GE, ExxonMobil, Citibank, and the Bank of America“:

 

[Gibson] explains, “I have one dollar in my wallet. That’s more than the combined income tax liability of GE, ExxonMobil, Citibank, and the Bank of America. That means somebody is gaming the system.”

 

Indeed, as politicians are asking ordinary Americans to sacrifice their education, their health, their labor rights, and their wellbeing to tackle budget deficits, some of the world’s richest multinational corporations are getting away with shirking their responsibility and paying nothing. ThinkProgress has assembled a short but far from comprehensive list of these tax dodgers — corporations which have rigged the tax system to their advantage so they can reap huge profits and avoid paying taxes:

 

- BANK OF AMERICA: In 2009, Bank of America didn’t pay a single penny in federal income taxes, exploiting the tax code so as to avoid paying its fair share. “Oh, yeah, this happens all the time,” said Robert Willens, a tax accounting expert interviewed by McClatchy. “If you go out and try to make money and you don’t do it, why should the government pay you for your losses?” asked Bob McIntyre of Citizens for Tax Justice. The same year, the mega-bank’s top executives received pay “ranging from $6 million to nearly $30 million.”

 

- BOEING: Despite receiving billions of dollars from the federal government every single year in taxpayer subsidies from the U.S. government, Boeing didn’t “pay a dime of U.S. federal corporate income taxes” between 2008 and 2010.

 

- CITIGROUP: Citigroup’s deferred income taxes for the third quarter of 2010 amounted to a grand total of $0.00. At the same time, Citigroup has continued to pay its staff lavishly. “John Havens, the head of Citigroup’s investment bank, is expected to be the bank’s highest paid executive for the second year in a row, with a compensation package worth $9.5 million.”

 

- EXXON-MOBIL: The oil giant uses offshore subsidiaries in the Caribbean to avoid paying taxes in the United States. Although Exxon-Mobil paid $15 billion in taxes in 2009, not a penny of those taxes went to the American Treasury. This was the same year that the company overtook Wal-Mart in the Fortune 500. Meanwhile the total compensation of Exxon-Mobil’s CEO the same year was over $29,000,000.

 

- GENERAL ELECTRIC: In 2009, General Electric — the world’s largest corporation — filed more than 7,000 tax returns and still paid nothing to U.S. government. They managed to do this by a tax code that essentially subsidizes companies for losing profits and allows them to set up tax havens overseas. That same year GE CEO Jeffery Immelt — who recently scored a spot on a White House economic advisory board — “earned total compensation of $9.89 million.” In 2002, Immelt displayed his lack of economic patriotism, saying, “When I am talking to GE managers, I talk China, China, China, China, China….I am a nut on China. Outsourcing from China is going to grow to 5 billion.”

 

- WELLS FARGO: Despite being the fourth largest bank in the country, Wells Fargo was able to escape paying federal taxes by writing all of its losses off after its acquisition of Wachovia. Yet in 2009 the chief executive of Wells Fargo also saw his compensation “more than double” as he earned “a salary of $5.6 million paid in cash and stock and stock awards of more than $13 million.”

 

In the coming months, politicians across the country are going to tell Americans that the only way to stave off huge deficit and balance the budgets is by gutting programs for the poor, eviscerating support for the middle class, eliminating labor rights, and decimating the government’s ability to serve the public interest. This is a lie. The United States is the richest country in the history of the world, and income inequality is higher now than it has been at any time since the 1920′s, with the top “top 1 percentile of households [taking] home 23.5 percent of income in 2007.”

 

My link

 

 

[SeattleC]

Just heard INDIANA gov. Mitch Daniels on NPR this morning talking about the issues in his state and his thought processes behind it all. And, I have to say, the guy makes sense. I don't agree with a lot of what he said, but at least he comes off as sane and knowledgeable about the issues. This is a guy that I would listen to. This appears to be a guy that seems to be open to reasonable debate. Whether he is or not, is another matter. But I can see this guy making a serious run at the presidency in '12. And, as a lifelong Democrat (and child of the labor unions), I am willing to hear him out. There are actual ideas there.

 

 

yes, in theory, but I also heard in that interview that he was an economic advisor to Bush during the tax cuts, financial deregulation, and war initiation that got us into this mess in the first place. Granted, he wasn't making all those decisions, but if you listen to the interview, he sure did punt when that subject came up, with a claim of not having any control over that. I can't say that gave me much confidence in his credibility.

 

 

[LouieB]

Obviously I don't believe college professors deserve less job security than anyone else. Nor do I believe they have an easier job (though they do sometimes have TAs and RAs, which K-12 teachers don't.) I just find it interesting that tenure for college teachers isn't mentioned, but tenure for k-12 seems to be in the bullseye. Fire those teachers!!! Really??

 

All workers deserve and should expect job security and due process. Amazingly it seems to be something lots of folks want those who have it, to give up. I just don'tunderstand that.

 

LouieB

[Guest Speed Racer]

I just find it interesting that tenure for college teachers isn't mentioned, but tenure for k-12 seems to be in the bullseye. Fire those teachers!!! Really??

 

No, not really.

 

Who has been calling for the firing of K-12 teachers? I think the consensus here is that tenure sometimes protects incompetent and burnt out teachers. I know I extend that opinion to all members of the teaching profession; I don't know why anyone else holding that opinion wouldn't, as no one has expressed anything to the contrary.

 

I think professors aren't mentioned because this discussion has been focused on K-12 teachers from the start. There are incompetent individuals all over the public sector (and, to spell it out for you, the private sector too; even some unemployed people are incompetent - just for the sake of fairness) who keep there jobs that oughtn't.

[Guest Speed Racer]

(though they do sometimes have TAs and RAs, which K-12 teachers don't.)

 

Public university professors also have about a hundred kids in a class in the lower levels, which K-12 kids don't (to cover the bases of the TAs), and RAs assist with reseach; last I checked, not too many K-12 teachers have annual research obligations.

 

There were a number of TAs at each school during my K-12 education, usually assisting with children with alternative learning requirements.

[Sparky speaks]

This senseless bickering is what is dividing the very people who should be united in their opposition to those who do us harm through their destructive economic policies that are on display in Wisconsin and elsewhere.

[Guest Speed Racer]

I'm pretty sure this thread isn't keeping anything from getting accomplished.

[Sweet Papa Crimbo]

 

All workers deserve and should expect job security and due process.

LouieB

 

 

Due Process? This should be an understood and irrevocable right for every worker. However, job security is not a right. It's wonderful to have, but one can no longer expect to have that be a collective bargaining point.

[Good Old Neon]

My bottomline (using someone else's words) - from The New Yorker:

 

If a Republican Party that has lately become rigidly, fanatically “conservative” can succeed in reducing public-sector unions to the parlous condition of their private-sector brethren, then organized labor—which, for all its failings, all its shortsightedness, all its “special interest” selfishness, remains the only truly formidable counterweight to the ever-growing political power of that top one-thousandth—will no longer be anything close to a match for organized money. And that will be the news, brought to you by a few very rich, very powerful Americans—and many, many billions of dollars.

 

Link - http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2011/03/07/110307taco_talk_hertzberg

[Guest Speed Racer]

I always think it's funny when you and Sparky Lyle post about how others are controlling our infrastructure and media...but rely almost exclusively on others' words and ideas to convey the point.

[Good Old Neon]

I always think it's funny when you and Sparky Lyle post about how others are controlling our infrastructure and media...but rely almost exclusively on others' words and ideas to convey the point.

 

Actually, I author(ed) the vast majority of my posts - and I was often criticized for their length and/or content. So at one point I just sort of said to myself, fuck it - read this instead.

[u2roolz]

I always think it's funny when you and Sparky Lyle post about how others are controlling our infrastructure and media...but rely almost exclusively on others' words and ideas to convey the point.

 

Yes. I absolutely agree. I imagine that you aren't doing that in actual conversations with people. "What do you think of 'this'?" "Here read this while I sip on my coffee and then reply to that." Ha.

 

Although, I respect the information being shared not everyone has the same thoughts for every specific issue. I find it a bit odd that you can find people to put into words what you are trying to convey...everytime.

[Good Old Neon]

Face to face conversations are somewhat limited in that way, I suppose. Whereas communicating on the internet allows for the inclusion of other media. Say, I don’t know, gifs for example? I do most of my posting from work, as time allows. Sometimes I have a fair amount of free time, sometimes not. On those occasions that I don’t, I’ll often site other sources.

 

At the end of the day, very few if any original thoughts and/or opinions are shared on this board or elsewhere. Like most if not all people, I’m largely a product of my influences. Most of what I’ve learned and what I know comes from living and experiencing life, books, music, movies, peers, elders, etc. I read a lot of scientific literature where, to help illustrate or make a point, it’s not uncommon to find quotes or information from myriad sources. In the future, when posting on Wilco’s message board, I’ll try to hold myself to a higher standard.

 

:raised finger

[Guest Speed Racer]

Of course everyone's opinions are influenced by others. But I think most people come here to discuss with users, not links.

 

I'm more amused by the idea I posted in my original comment about this than I am upset, but I certainly don't bother reading a footlong post containing articles rather than the users own words.

[u2roolz]

Yes, but I would like to write a film or album review and I find it dreadful to sit down and do that on a daily basis. So I understand where you're coming from for coming here to post links which I reiterate I appreciate. BUT at the end of the day I need to put down into my own words my thoughts about a film or an album because I can't find any source/reviewer out there that matches my own opinion.

 

And some of what we see posted on here always seems to be in that murky area of facts intertwined with opinions that seem to jab at one side or rather an opinion piece that has facts to jab the other side. So are we to assume that you are presenting this article as your opinion or as fact?

[ih8music]

Obviously I don't believe college professors deserve less job security than anyone else. Nor do I believe they have an easier job (though they do sometimes have TAs and RAs, which K-12 teachers don't.)

no one seems to saying public university profs need to get up THEIR tenure and most of them have about the softest jobs on earth.

I guess I must have misunderstood what you meant by "softest job on earth."

 

btw, most K-12 teachers I know do have help in the classroom in the form of teacher's aides and parent volunteers -- still doesn't make their job "easy" any more than a prof with 100+ students who happens to also have to manage a team of TAs to execute the course properly.

 

But I'll stop my side of the "senseless bickering" so we can refocus on the important debate -- whether posting articles in their entirety with little commentary really does anything productive.

[tinnitus photography]

this is a pretty far-ranging topic, and i've got a bunch of unorganized thoughts about it. so i guess i'll just dive right in.

 

 

 

1 - the point about the municipality funding the organization is a good one. companies can go bankrupt and invoke layoffs or even full closures. this isn't quite the case w/ public sector, and i believe there's a legitimate concern about who is managing costs. the ever-burgeoning health care costs are now of even greater concern to a city or state budget...this was an obvious problem ~5 years ago and it's gotten worse.

 

2 - the basic idea of a union seems naff to me; everyone gets the same raise, poor performer or great performer. there goes any incentive driver.

 

3 - if capitalism drives the best outcome (and even w/ its flaws, i see no better alternative), then adaptation is a must, as lower-priced countries compete.

 

4 - rating teachers via metrics can be a very tricky proposition, as they do not have control over a large amount of variables that can enable or disable a student's performance. not sure the best way around this.

 

5 - i am ok w/ low corporate tax rates, to be honest. corporations create jobs, and as seen they can move these pretty easily. just take a look at Northern Ireland vs the Republic of Ireland in terms of companies who have invested heavily over the last 20 years. in some respects it's a race to the bottom, but as long as other countries make it more attractive to the accountants, there will be pressure. so, the US-based companies must compete in other ways...there is no way to compete on a labor rate basis against the 3rd world.

[LouieB]

I'll totally admit to the fact that what I said yesterday was totally dumb. I regret saying it because the nuance was clearly lost. Everyone is calling for the end of K-12 tenure, but I never see anyone call for the end of tenure in higher education. That is somehow sacred. And sure professors work like crazy, we all know this.

 

The real dividing line is between those who think workers should have a right to job security, collective bargaining, decent wages, good benefits, a future, a retirement, and a reasonable level of respect and dignity. The fact is that public sector workers are now the "new communists"; that somehow all our budget problems can be solved by dumping collective bargaining (rather than discuss what needs to be restructured with the workers involved) is absurd. Those organized in the private sector know that if the public unions are busted, then the rest of the trade and industrial unions are sure to fall as well. It is no secret that capital and labor are now at war and have always been at war. During good times, peace prevails. In times of crises, capital is bound and determined to slash wages and benefits. You don't have to be a leftist to know that. Everyone does. Because of the fiscal crises we are all living through due to war and financial corruption, those in the public sector are now feeling the heat.

 

You guys continue without me. I just hope to have the pension that was promised me and which I have paid into. See y'all in another thread.

 

LouieB

 

LouieB

[PopTodd]

You guys continue without me. I just hope to have the pension that was promised me and which I have paid into. See y'all in another thread.

 

LouieB

The key.

[ikol]

Well, there has to be some middle ground between firing every public school teacher and making it virtually impossible to fire any of them.

[Sparky speaks]

You kids today, you just don't like to read. If someone gets something from it fine. If you can't be bothered, don't read it. I've written several posts in this thread dealing with tenure, unions, custodians, experienced teachers versus new teachers, administrators, sweatshops and the like. I've also posted several articles and videos I believe add some important perspective to the narrative. I find the technique of copy and paste easier and quicker than me digesting the whole article for you and then sitting at my keyboard giving you my great interpretation of it, which will only create a pissing match between me and those who disagree for the sake of disagreeing. I mentioned the word sweatshop in one post and was challenged by someone who needed proof. So I provided the proof. You can't please all of the people all of the time. If you can't read an article for the sake of the information presented in it without me providing commentary, so be it. I would guess you know where I'm coming from without me getting on a soap box about it. I'm glad to see Neon and I finally agree on something...

 

LouieB, we all get frustrated at times and type things whose meanings get lost in the translation, so to speak. You've added quite a bit to the discussion. Take a break and come back to this thread in a few days. It will be here when you get back, I'm sure.

[Doug C]

I don't understand what is wrong with posting an article that you think makes a valid point. I would assume that the poster feels that the article is evidence to a point of view that may alter someone's opinion. That is how knowledge comes about. The more informed that you are, well, the more informed that you are. You don't have to read the article. That is one of the (few) benefits of this type of discussion, you can share detailed information. It is possible to read a posted article and see things differently. "Oooh, you always post long articles to read." What point does that make, other than the obvious?(Please save the keystrokes. I know that the preceeding isn't a verbatim VCer quote).

 

Somewhat related to the 'discussion'... My district has a new evaluation system, paid for by tens of millions in Gates grant dollars. We are one of the few districts chosen by the Gates Foundation to use this system (it will not be fully operational for 2 more years). It is meant to be a national model and designed to make firing ineffective teachers easier, something many politicians and citizens are in favor of. Even if it is an objective, valid and reliable method of evaluation, and thousands of incompetent teachers are fired nationwide, what then? Who is going to replace them? From studies that I have read, many teachers in America are C students from the bottom two-thirds of test scores. Do people really believe that 'the best and the brightest' will be rushing to take the vacant teaching positions? Why would they? For the 6 figure salary? For the health plan rivaling that of Congress? For the rock-solid pension? For the societal respect and status?

 

There is only one thing that will cause the 'best and the brightest' to consider public school teaching as a career. The same thing that causes the best and the brightest to consider business, finance, medicine, law, etc. The opportunity to make some money. In Finland, Shanghai, Singapore and other countries that are rated highest in test scores, the top students are recruited into the teaching profession, paid well and respected. Education is also federalized in most of these places, not a patchwork of districts.

 

This link doesn't cover every point that I made, I am close enough to violating protocol by posting one article, but it covers some. http://www.npr.org/2010/12/07/131884477/Study-Confirms-U-S-Falling-Behind-In-Education

 

Oh, VC protocol be damned! This is an informative one. http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2010/12/07/131874081/u-s-students-again-trail-other-nations

[Sparky speaks]

Have you read Diane Ravitch's book and her assessment of the Bill Gates initiative? To put it mildly, the woman who supported NCLB has had an epiphany and has turned 180 degrees against the privatization of our public school system and the attempts of Gates and others to apply business techniques and methods to teaching kids. If you haven't you should give it a look. She addresses your concerns. By the way, I got to hear her speak in New Haven before Christmas. She was awesome.

 

This should give you a taste...(spoiler alert, you don't have to read it if you don't want to)

 

Ravitch answers Gates

By Valerie Strauss

 

In a paean to Bill Gates, Newsweek's Jonathan Alter calls Diane Ravitch the Microsoft founder's "chief adversary."

 

It's the world's richest (or second richest) man vs. an education historian and New York University research professor.

 

Gates, through his philanthropic foundation, has invested billions of dollars in education experiments and now has a pivotal role in reform efforts. Ravitch, the author of the bestselling The Death and Life of the Great American School System, has become the most vocal opponent of the Obama administration's education policy. She says Gates is backing the wrong initiatives and harming public schools.

 

In the Newsweek piece, Gates poses some questions aimed at Ravitch. I asked her to answer them. Below are the questions Gates asked, in bold, and the answers, in italics, that Ravitch provided in an email.

 

Gates: “Does she like the status quo?"

Ravitch: "No, I certainly don't like the status quo. I don't like the attacks on teachers, I don't like the attacks on the educators who work in our schools day in and day out, I don't like the phony solutions that are now put forward that won't improve our schools at all. I am not at all content with the quality of American education in general, and I have expressed my criticisms over many years, long before Bill Gates decided to make education his project. I think American children need not only testing in basic skills, but an education that includes the arts, literature, the sciences, history, geography, civics, foreign languages, economics, and physical education.

 

"I don't hear any of the corporate reformers expressing concern about the way standardized testing narrows the curriculum, the way it rewards convergent thinking and punishes divergent thinking, the way it stamps out creativity and originality. I don't hear any of them worried that a generation will grow up ignorant of history and the workings of government. I don't hear any of them putting up $100 million to make sure that every child has the chance to learn to play a musical instrument. All I hear from them is a demand for higher test scores and a demand to tie teachers' evaluations to those test scores. That is not going to improve education."

 

Gates: "Is she sticking up for decline?"

Ravitch: "Of course not! If we follow Bill Gates' demand to judge teachers by test scores, we will see stagnation, and he will blame it on teachers. We will see stagnation because a relentless focus on test scores in reading and math will inevitably narrow the curriculum only to what is tested. This is not good education.

 

"Last week, he said in a speech that teachers should not be paid more for experience and graduate degrees. I wonder why a man of his vast wealth spends so much time trying to figure out how to cut teachers' pay. Does he truly believe that our nation's schools will get better if we have teachers with less education and less experience? Who does he listen to? He needs to get himself a smarter set of advisers.

 

"Of course, we need to make teaching a profession that attracts and retains wonderful teachers, but the current anti-teacher rhetoric emanating from him and his confreres demonizes and demoralizes even the best teachers. I have gotten letters from many teachers who tell me that they have had it, they have never felt such disrespect; and I have also met young people who tell me that the current poisonous atmosphere has persuaded them not to become teachers. Why doesn't he make speeches thanking the people who work so hard day after day, educating our nation's children, often in difficult working conditions, most of whom earn less than he pays his secretaries at Microsoft?"

 

Gates: "Does she really like 400-page [union] contracts?"

Ravitch: "Does Bill Gates realize that every contract is signed by two parties: management and labor? Why does management agree to 400-page contracts? I don't know how many pages should be in a union contract, but I do believe that teachers should be evaluated by competent supervisors before they receive tenure (i.e., the right to due process).

 

"Once they have due process rights, they have the right to a hearing when someone wants to fire them. The reason for due process rights is that teachers in the past have been fired because of their race, their religion, their sexual orientation, or because they did not make a political contribution to the right campaign, or for some other reason not related to their competence.

 

"Gates probably doesn't know this, but 50% of all those who enter teaching leave within the first five years. Our biggest problem is not getting rid of deadbeats, but recruiting, retaining, and supporting teachers. We have to replace 300,000 teachers (of nearly 4 million) every single year. What are his ideas about how to do this?"

 

Read more here:

My link

[sonicshoulder]

Simply put this is union busting. Union wages and benefits set the standard for the non-union industry whatever it may be. This is America, we need standards. Where do wage and benefit standards come from without unions.

[ikol]

You didn't have to post the whole book, Sparky.