Balta1701

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Dec 21, 2010 -> 09:39 AM) So, you just played the role of Fox News, claiming that people have to take a 20% pay cut to go public, when in reality it's not a whole lot different, and it really depends on the type of job you're going for yes? The total cost number is including benefits. When you include the value of the pension benefits and healthcare, that's when they become similar. If you're talking strictly the total that you get as a paycheck every month, the private sector wins.

You gotta wonder if that's just a function of Norway being small and cold.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Dec 21, 2010 -> 09:33 AM) link? I thought a study just last year said that public now out pays private? Public workers do get a lot more than private workers on average...if you fail to control for education and for experience level. If you look at the average pay that you would get for the same job for a public position versus a private position, the differences vanish, and it winds up being a question of the exact type of work you're really doing. The "Public workers are overpaid!" meme is another of those things Fox News loves to harp on, that ought to tell you how accurate it is.

We need to send you to Norway.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Dec 21, 2010 -> 09:27 AM) We did it in 2005... BUT....we were also in a position where that salary relief could be immediately re-invested in a trio of players that the market was undervaluing...Iguchi, AJ, and Hermanson.

Outsourcing the job to the private sector consistently proves more expensive as well in terms of actual budgeting. It's another of those political games...you get to be nice to a contributor and you get to take the salary officially off your books, but when you do the real math, the price goes up significantly.

QUOTE (balfanman @ Dec 21, 2010 -> 09:13 AM) Understandably so; but how desperate are they for pitching help. This is when you need to take advantage of them, not just help them. Even if the Yankees have no confidence in the back end of their rotation right now, I don't think they'd get truly desperate until the season starts. They still have a legit ace at the top, Hughes may be young but he is on his way up, and they have a lot of money invested in Burnett. If you went into the season with CC, Burnett, Hughes, Nova, and then some combination of Mitre/Garcia as your starting rotation, you wouldn't think "This is the worst rotation I've ever seen". It might not be a "The Yankees will win 130 games" rotation, but if I asked "What's sillier, going into ST with that rotation or going into ST with Mark Kotsay as your DH", I'd clearly point at the 2nd option. They could well go into the season and see 3 of those guys blow up, then hang around the .500 mark for April and May. IF that happens, that's when they get desperate.

QUOTE (balfanman @ Dec 21, 2010 -> 08:55 AM) How about something like either Floyd or Jackson, + Pierre for Gardner, + 1 of their cathing prospects? I think the Sox would be open to it but I think the Yankees would seriously hesitate.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Dec 21, 2010 -> 08:48 AM) Well, the benefits in general are the equalizers, along with knowing you will have a job with minimal extra-schedule demands, etc. Pension is certainly one of those. But a 401k with a good match can also look pretty darn good. And frankly, this is a great opportunity for government agencies to hire more like the rest of the world. If they can hire for a job below market, then do it. If they need to go higher, do it. Be competitive with private business in either case. That is of course a challenge when you have a fixed budget to deal with, but its not THAT much different than private business has to address. There's a reason why the system has grown up this way though...the top line "average salary" number is the easy one to politick on. That's why you hear so often that "Government employees are overpaid!" as a general slam for why government employees are lazy and should all be fired. You even get the silly political game of "I'm going to freeze all government employee salaries and save $60 billion" thrown in there. The reality is that raising the top line salary number to the point where it is competitive with the private sector offering for an equally educated worker is an impractical option politically. Once you get to that point, you'd need to offer better retirement plans than the private sector in order to stay competitive. So, it has to be a 401k with a better match than you could get from a private sector company, and on top of it, you can't offer benefits like cheap purchases of your own stock, since there's no such thing.

Until the Norwegians return. Then it's Norwegian Season.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Dec 21, 2010 -> 08:25 AM) As far as I'm concerned, Illinois and all other government agencies need to get out of the Pension business entirely. Go to 401k with match. The problem with that concept is actually attracting skilled and competitive workers for the positions you have available. A big reason to go into any sort of government job is the benefits, because compared to a worker with equal education, you're taking a 20% pay cut on average to go into government work. The Pension and healthcare are your equalizers.

QUOTE (Chet Kincaid @ Dec 21, 2010 -> 08:38 AM) I wonder if the Yanks would be willing to give up Brett Gardner for Floyd. They might be more hesitant now that Crawford is off the market. I don't know who they'd replace him with.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Dec 20, 2010 -> 11:10 PM) All I meant was they need Weeks, Hart and McGehee to have repeat years in 2011 and for Braun and Fielder to be Braun and Fielder or their lineup could be pretty mediocre. All in all I expect them to score plenty of runs. And in response, I can say the exact same thing about every NL team. "If Ryan Howard isn't Ryan Howard, and Utley can't stay healthy, the Phillies offense will be pretty mediocre".

Considering he wasn't supposed to be starting to throw until January on the original recovery schedule...

QUOTE (Chet Kincaid @ Dec 21, 2010 -> 08:25 AM) What the hell? You guys act like we're not going to win the AL Central this year. WE'RE ALL IN. Didn't you get the memo?? After the first 2 months of last year where everyone and their grandmother underperformed, I'm not counting anything until I see the W's.

Heat get Mike Miller back but the Mavs take them out again, this time in Miami.

I'm amazed that teams think they can win field position games with 25 yard punts

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Dec 20, 2010 -> 08:57 PM) I don't know. I'm just saying. You're talking 3 automatic outs for a team that's expected to contend. So there's like no margin for error from the rest of the lineup. In that case, then no NL team would be expected to contend.

QUOTE (DrunkBomber @ Dec 20, 2010 -> 09:25 PM) The announcers telling us that Toby has been a cold weather running back since his days at Stanford was kind of funny too. Earlier in the game I wanted to punch them when they said that the Bears O-Line had done a bad job because the Minnesota line had blown past them. It was a screen play.

QUOTE (IlliniKrush @ Dec 20, 2010 -> 09:17 PM) There's been no less than 5 "shut the f*** up already!" Favre comments in the first quarter. Including calling him a "warrior" before the first snap of the game. That snap went off Favre's hands and really wasn't that bad. He should have had that snap.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Dec 20, 2010 -> 07:14 PM) That's been my personal experience, so it's the only experience I can draw upon, regardless of what some graph shows should be happening. Which is why one might take a larger survey. ANd perhaps graph the data.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Dec 20, 2010 -> 07:30 PM) I will say the Brewers have no margin for error from the top 6 in their lineup. Because right now you're looking at a 7-8-9 of Gomez, Betancourt and the pitcher. That will definitely be the "go take a s***" inning when those three come up. This is the NL though. How many teams have better 7-8 hitters than that?

QUOTE (Rex Kicka** @ Dec 20, 2010 -> 04:36 PM) Future House chair of Homeland Security Committee Peter King, terrorist sympathizer. http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-sto...ashington/full/ In case you didn't know, he's also going to hold hearings which I'm sure will bring honor and dignity onto himself and onto the house next year, as a committee chairman. Seemingly at the top of his list is holding hearings on the "Radicalization of the Muslim community in the U.S."

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Dec 20, 2010 -> 05:13 PM) I can see what's going on out there, it's not very hard to do, either. You should try it once. I see prices rising across the board on everything from gasoline, to milk, to bread. I see people taking pay cuts for new jobs or to keep their current jobs. I see the costs employers are covering in terms of 401k's (matching), and/or healthcare/dental care falling, meaning they're covering less and having you make up for the difference. I see the value of the dollar (while on a recent rise), still worth far FAR less than it once was. I don't need nor require a book, graph, study or paper to prove this to myself...and I really don't care if you believe what I say or not. Let me have some fun with anecdotes. I track my grocery expenses very closely. In 2008, I hit about the end of a 2 year runup of milk prices: CA ran a multi-buy deal, where you buy 2 and you get a better price. On average, I was paying nearly $5. By the end of 2008, that amount had been cut more than in half. In 2009, it went up slightly, but no where near the amount that it was. Strikingly, this is amazingly similar to the "including volatile commodities" part of that graph; including food and fuel costs. A big spike followed by a huge decline. Now, I don't think that we were suffering from the worst deflation in history based on my milk prices, and I don't think that we suffered from the worst inflation in history based on my milk prices. But I wrote this just to illustrate...what your anecdotes tell you is different from what other people's anecdotes tell them.

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