Funny?

Bob Ingle thinks that a skit about public employees on SNL was hilarious.

I guess it's all a matter of perception, but it seems to me, from the reaction of the audience, that the whole thing laid an egg. Compare the reaction of the crowd to Tina Fey's last Sarah Palin romp.

Bob says: " Satire always has a grain of truth, that’s why it is funny." Well, no Bob; bad satire has a grain of what the bad satirist thinks is truth, but is really nothing more than ideological posturing.


Case in point: when the woman from Precious plays a bitchy DMV worker in Bob's "hilarious" skit. See, a few months ago, I went to the Springfield DMV to renew my license. I was in and out in 15 minutes. Everyone was very friendly; the lady who took my picture couldn't have been nicer.


Compared with the last time I dealt with my private health insurance company, it was a trip to the spa. Or when Verizon Wireless screwed me over (long story). Or the auto shop...


So, no, there wasn't a ring of truth here. There was a ring of "here's another big media conglomerate trying to shift the blame to people who make mid-five figures a year while while Lloyd Blankfein sells securities he bets against."

Pot, Meet Kettle

Protests against Christie's policies during school: BAD!

"The schools did a lousy job in really permitting all these students to walk out in the middle of the school day. Their parents send them there not to protest. They send them there to learn. And I have no problem with students protesting. They have absolutely every right to exercise their first amendment rights. But they should exercise their first amendment rights either before school or right after school."

Photo-ops that take up students' class-time so Christie can preen for the cameras: GOOD! GOOD! GOOD!  GOOD!

Hypocrisy, thy name is Christie.

UPDATE: I love this:

The Republican governor questioned why students were blaming the state instead of asking teachers about refusals to take wage freezes and other give-backs he said would have saved jobs.... "But the fact of the matter is that those teachers and their union have not stepped up to join the shared sacrifice. ... Their unwillingness to do that makes me wonder why the students are protesting only against what the governor is doing, and not against what their teachers are doing. I have a suspicion that since I don't give them grades and the teachers do, that might have something to do with it."

Now he's pitting students against teachers. "You know, you're only giving me a D because I refused to go out and protest!"

Can we stop pretending once and for all that he loves teachers and is only going after the union?

Two rallies

The 2010 New Jersey Education Reform Rally is tomorrow. All you need to know about its credibility is that the two big participants are 101.5's Jersey Guys and The Cartel's Bob Bowden.

Their Facebook page has 12 confirmed guests as of tonight.

18,000 students signed up for yesterday's walkouts on Facebook.

1) Compare and contrast.

2) Will media coverage of the two events differ? Hmm...

Speaking of benefits...

Since the budget speech, Christie has been pushing the notion that teachers got full medical, dental, and vision coverage for free. He pushed it on Morning Joe - but he was slippery. He managed to conflate teacher benefits with state employees', which he claimed was "full family medical, dental, and vision coverage." I can't speak to state employees, but...

I'm going through open-enrollment at my school right now. Let me tell you about my "full" coverage:

It's good. But the idea that I don't pay anything toward it is ridiculous. I have co-pays, deductibles out of network, and prescription costs like anyone else. Last year I could choose one HMO; this year, it's two (POS-types). If my doctor doesn't take it, tough. And I have to go through the same bureaucratic nonsense as anyone getting employer-based health care does.

My dental isn't even close to "full." I'm paying plenty for my kid's braces; I get partial reimbursements for routine procedures. My HR person tells me to look carefully every year at the insurance, because there's a good chance it's not worth the premiums.

My vision is a free examine every year and a discount on glasses - not a big discount, either.

Listen, if it comes off as whining, it's not. Like I said, this is pretty good; not France or Holland good, but good. But the notion that I wasn't paying anything for it before the 1.5% contribution is just not true.

Fuel to the Fire

Via Capital Quickies, I hope we're going to be hearing about this as the debate goes forward:

Key findings include:

Jobs in the public sector typically require more education than private sector positions. State and local employees are twice as likely to hold a college degree or higher as compared to private sector employees. Only 23 percent of private sector employees have completed college, as compared to about 48 percent in the public sector.
Wages and salaries of state and local employees are lower than those for private sector employees with comparable earnings determinants, such as education and work experience.  State workers typically earn 11 percent less and local workers 12 percent less.
During the last 15 years, the pay gap has grown:earnings for state and local workers have generally declined relative to comparable private sector employees.
The pattern of declining relative earnings remains true in most of the large states examined in the study,although there does exist some state level variation.
Benefits make up a slightly larger share of compensation for the state and local sector.  But even after accounting for the value of retirement, healthcare, and other benefits, state and local employees earn less than private sector counterparts. On average, total compensation is 6.8 percent lower for state employees and 7.4 percent lower for local employees than for comparable private sector employees.

Bruce Baker at Rutgers has been on top of this for a while, but there is a ton of resistance to letting this point sink into the debate. "Teachers make up for it because they get better benefits! And summers off!"

Baker points out that it's roughly 5/6 of the time for 2/3 of the pay. And the health care and pension are good, but it's not enough to make up the low pay. Those facts, however, pale in comparison to the fear that this downturn has generated - fear that has turned to envy of those who make less put have greater perceived stability.

I recommend looking at the Powerpoint that SLGE put out with the report - although NJ isn't one of the states specifically studied. Two highlights:

State and local sector employees are disproportionately:

– Female

– Married

– Black

– Unionized

– Older

– More educated

Emphasis mine - gee, this couldn't have anything to do with the perception that state/local workers are working easy jobs, could it?

Why We Did This Study

• Reporting often is misleading

Ya think?

You don't know what's best for you

Do you see a pattern below?

So the kids who protested the school budget cuts in NJ were obviously getting duped because they don't get the real facts:

"It is also our firm hope that the students were motivated by youthful rebellion or spring fever – and not by encouragement from any one-sided view of the current budget crisis in New Jersey. Students would be better served if they were given a full, impartial understanding of the problems that got us here in the first place and why dramatic action was needed.”

Just like the "drug mules" the teachers use:

"Scaring students in the classroom, scaring parents with the notes home in the bookbags, and the mandatory 'Project Democracy Homework' asking your parents about what they're going to do in the school board election, and reporting back to your teachers union representatives, using the students like drug mules to carry information back to the classroom, is reprehensible."

Of course, NJEA bashing isn't the same as teacher bashing in the Christie world:

I honor the service of good, conscientious teachers who care deeply about training the leaders of tomorrow for our state.

The leaders of the union who represent these teachers, however, have used their political muscle to set up two classes of citizens in New Jersey... Political muscle fueled by intimidation tactics, political bullying and smears of public officials who dare to disagree. 

 Because the NJEA isn't working in teachers' interests:

“If they're so concerned about the $750 a year the teachers would have to pay, you know, their dues that they make every teacher pay are $730 a year   --   just about the same amount. It raises $130 million a year for the teachers'  union. How about they just try and get by on the  $130 million they got last year, waive the dues for this year, and then their teachers would be held harmless?"

 Because they don't really care about the teachers:

It's mind-boggling that they [the NJEA] care so little about their colleagues' jobs. These are unprecedented times of financial distress.

So the teachers use the students, and the union uses the teachers. Everybody is a sap and is everyone being duped. If you disagree with Chris Christie, you're either an evil PT Barnum or another poor one-a-minute sucker.

Gee, I seem to recall another politician from not too long ago who used similar rhetoric:

Jazzman Radio Silence

Light posting this week: big concert coming up at work!

The things I learn on NJ 101.5

This morning, in about a 5 minute span on my commute, I learned:

• We're going to have a wave of teacher retirements, which is good, but it's not a bad thing to be an older teacher.
• Abbott districts are ratholes that we throw money down.
• It would be good to force smaller school districts to consolidate with those same Abbott districts in county-wide districts to save money.
• No one wants to do that because everyone is corrupt.

Uh wha huh?

The biggest problem we have in NJ politics today is the media.

Retirement wave? The math says "No."

A retirement wave is coming - so says the Bergen Record:

Christie wants to cut pension and health benefits for current teachers, but would allow those who retire by Aug. 1 to get a free pass. The state’s largest teachers union says the plan, which has not been submitted to the Legislature yet, could prompt mass retirements. 

The analysis shows more than 29,300 of the state’s nearly 143,750 certified teachers — about 20 percent of the workforce — qualified for retirement, either through age or years worked, according to data from the 2008-09 school year, the latest available. 

OK, a quick primer on the teachers pension system. You take every year you work and divide it by 55. Then you multiply that fraction by the average of your last three years' salary. The result is your yearly pension.

We obviously don't know the details of Christie's plan yet, but it's safe to say we're talking about two changes for those who retire after August 1: pay part of your pension to your health care premiums for life, and base your pension on the last 5 years of your salary (or more) instead of the last three. That would, ostensibly, bring your average salary down, so your pension would be less.

Hmmm - is this incentive to retire before the changes take effect? Let's see:

We'll start with two teachers in their 35th year - call them Chris and Jon, who were making $80K in 2005. They got 4% raises each year, but their district has imposed a wage freeze for the next TWO years. And they're going to have to pay 1.5% to their health care starting next year.

Assume the Christie plan is to change your average salary period from three years to five, and to contribute 2% of your pension to health care.

Chris is going to take the deal and get out now: "I'm not gonna get stuck paying 2% for the rest of my life on health care!" He retires with a pension of $59,587.

Jon decides he's not ready to go yet and teaches another 2 years like he planned. He retires with a pension of - get ready - $62, 322! AND he has an additional $72,570 in the bank!

Chris can't believe it! What happened? Jon was supposed to get screwed in this deal, not him!

See below for the math, but it all really comes down to three things:

1) Even if you base your pension on your last five years average wage instead of your last three, you're still going to make more money on average if you keep teaching - and that makes your pension bigger. Even if you took a wage freeze this year, you made more than three years ago, and way more than five years ago.

Even if you factor in the 1.5% that you now pay on your health care, even if you assume a wage freeze for the next two years, your average ending salary will still go up, because you will make more next year than you did two years ago. And that makes your average salary over five years go up.

2) Every year you stay on the job, you get a bigger piece of your salary for your pension. If you retire now with 35 years on the job, you will get 35/55ths of your final average salary; if you wait two years, you'll get 37/55ths. Your slice of the pie gets bigger with each passing year.

3) You make more working than retiring. So, if you were prepared to stay on the job - or if, heaven forbid, you LIKE your job (we all know every senior teacher is burned out, because that's what we read...) - you will make more money NOW than collecting your pension, which is just part of your salary.

Yes, I'm not factoring in Social Security - geeze, I've got a life, I can't play around with Excel all day. Yes, the number of years in service makes a difference.

My point is that, even assuming the proposal makes stark changes, the incentive is not going to be very great for a person who could retire but doesn't care to. Might it push those on the edge a bit? Perhaps. Might the Chrises not think this through and make an irrational decision. Of course.

But I really don't think you'll get a big wave of retirements - UNLESS you make the plan much more onerous than the one I've described.

Here's the math, you geek (meaning me):

$62,321.65

$59,586.98

$2,734.67

$72,570.54

Just in Case...

Via Digby: if you haven't spent two minutes with this yet, you really need to:

Click through and look at the full-size version. This is who we are right now. I love the tea party.