Posted by Guest (Post 500979)

It's just a fact that the benefits are lifetime benefits. Numbers?; we doan need no stinkin' numbers!

Seems we've got lots of people getting their worry free lifetime benefits that I've offended. Oh well.

Posted by Guest (Post 501144)

40% higher? Not in my case.

Contractors are costing us a lot more than government civilians, where I work. I took a pay CUT for this job. Why? Because it gives me something the private sector doesn't. Time. I am not expected to work 60 hours and be paid for 40. I get decent time-off policies (though only about equivalent to a secretary in Germany). I get sick leave *and* vacation time - unlike the way my previous employer (a national defense contractor) deliberately mislead me on my offer letter (saying I had 10 days vacation plus sick time - and when I took 2 sick days for the flu, found out I had 2 less vacation days than I thought).

If I worked for the private sector, I could be making as much as 25% more than I am now. But, by the same token, I won't be getting a phone call at 6:30am telling me not to go into the office anymore because my contract has been cut (for reasons that were completely made up, cutting me two weeks after telling me my contract was being extended).

What I've noticed in the past 20 years is an increasing probability of companies treating their employees like cattle. This "race to the bottom" in commodotizing *people* has had a number of effects on the workforce. Loyalty is unheard of anymore, just for ONE example.

Pensions? When you company gets bought out, the pension bled off to the Board of Directors and bankruptcy is filed, see where that leaves you..

Posted by Guest (Post 500924)

DG, I think I understand where you are coming from. I served in our military and have two sons and one son-in-law who did the same. One of my sons is now In Afghanistan (again) and on the front lines with the 82nd Airborne. My mother and two of my sisters were Federal Civil Service employees.

Leaving aside the issue of whether or not Civil Service employees are paid more than their civilian counterparts (I believe they are, you and B1 believe they are not), we need to look at how much government we can afford and how those funds are being expended. Today, Federal expenditures are more than 24% of our GDP, a level not seen since WWII. At our times of greatest prosperity, they were under 20%. We need to get back to those levels to return to prosperity.

No one is saying that working for the government is easy, it's not. The questions that need to be asked are; (1) do we still need to do what we have been doing? (2) Is what we are doing a net benefit to the American people? (3) Is there an entirely different way to accomplish what we are doing? (4) Is this really the responsibility of the American people or is intended to benefit a select group? (5) Are we effectively doing that which we set out to do? (6) Is this service still really necessary?

The examples that can be cited are numerous. Let's look at a two. Fraud is believed to be rampant in Medicare. A private industry where fraud is a great problem is the credit card industry. AMEX, Visa and Master Card have extensive fraud detection and prevention systems. When my wife died recently, I contacted Social Security immediately as well as her supplement provider. I was informed by her supplement provider that had I not done so, Social Security would have let them know in 90 to 120 days. By contrast, when I made a purchase that was unusual for me in Georgia a few months ago, my credit card provider had me on the phone before I could leave the store! It is not that our government has less conscientious people, but rather that Master Card has better fraud detection and thereby fraud prevention systems.

Our Postal system is a wreck. They are doing the same things the same way that they did years ago. They lost their most profitable operation to FedEx and UPS because they refused to adapt even when the need to change was clear. They still do not compete. Priority mail is a joke. If the package is too large to fit in the boxes at our mail station, they put a notification in my mail slot and tell me I can pick it up the next day. UPS delivers it. ditto FedEx. Why would I ever go back to a slower, unreliable service?

Constant change is essential to a private companies survival. Of the 100 largest companies in the year 1900, only one remains in business today - General Electric. How many government agencies go out of business because there is a better way for the need to be met?

I would hope our government employees will be concerned for our future generations and accept that change must come about.

Posted by Guest (Post 501512)

Sorry, had to go do some work so I can become one of those evil rich but back now.

Here is one for starters but I must say that you having to ask for proof that he has said this, or something very close to this would lead me to believe that you have been living in outer space and just got back today.
By the way I did not "quote" Obama I paraphrased.

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