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On May 12 2018 02:20 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On May 12 2018 01:55 Plansix wrote:
The striking part of this article is that 41% of the goverment workforce is able to retire in the next 5 years. They need a lot more workers to fill that gap. And the fact that they are suggesting working for the goverment for 30 years shouldn't mean you can get "life long retirement". Do they really want people to stay in those jobs until they are 75?
This whole thing just seems like another attempt to reign in goverment spending by doing anything but cutting the military budget. By the way, military retirement will likely be unchanged. They are just a bigger, better lobby. I would think that employee benefits are a rounding error to the Federal budget.
You are likely right, but it is red meat for budget hawks. Those budget hawks never go after military spending, which spends close to 300 billion on personnel and "operations and maintenance." And like fixing your car, the majority of the costs for maintenance on military equipment is labor. And lets not forget the $125 billion is waste that the Washington Post found in 2016. That story died on the vine.
Really, what needs to happen is we need a PR budget for goverment employees. We will call it "recruitment for civil service". They will get deep into advertising on the NBA. We will have all the players come out every game and, depending on the venue, talk about the importance the census, EPA, FDA, government research grants and the national park service.
We also need civil service bases to make sure there are entrenched communities of voters that are supported by these goverment employees. Government employees could learn a lot from how the military operates.
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On May 12 2018 01:15 Plansix wrote:
I miss the days when getting caught saying stuff like this would mean the end of your career. We were better off when we punished our public servants for cheering on the death their political enemies.
Notice how the statement doesn’t acknowledge it or apologize. Trump has Clearly felt a personal animus towards McCain ever since McCain called him out for being a joke at the beginning of his campaign. Trumps voters will now dutifully critique only McCain and not trump, as they did with Flake and Corker. They don’t want to admit that they support Donald Trump or that Donald Trump is a disgrace to their party and the country, so they only obliquely support him with statements that amount to “the establishment is no better,” which of course is a dishonest position to take.
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On May 12 2018 02:36 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On May 12 2018 02:20 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On May 12 2018 01:55 Plansix wrote:https://twitter.com/nprpolitics/status/994979194625916936The striking part of this article is that 41% of the goverment workforce is able to retire in the next 5 years. They need a lot more workers to fill that gap. And the fact that they are suggesting working for the goverment for 30 years shouldn't mean you can get "life long retirement". Do they really want people to stay in those jobs until they are 75? This whole thing just seems like another attempt to reign in goverment spending by doing anything but cutting the military budget. By the way, military retirement will likely be unchanged. They are just a bigger, better lobby. I would think that employee benefits are a rounding error to the Federal budget. You are likely right, but it is red meat for budget hawks. Those budget hawks never go after military spending, which spends close to 300 billion on personnel and "operations and maintenance." And like fixing your car, the majority of the costs for maintenance on military equipment is labor. And lets not forget the $125 billion is waste that the Washington Post found in 2016. That story died on the vine. Really, what needs to happen is we need a PR budget for goverment employees. We will call it "recruitment for civil service". They will get deep into advertising on the NBA. We will have all the players come out every game and, depending on the venue, talk about the importance the census, EPA, FDA, government research grants and the national park service. We also need civil service bases to make sure there are entrenched communities of voters that are supported by these goverment employees. Government employees could learn a lot from how the military operates.
Pretty sure the pentagon has 'adjusted' away enough money to pay for free college and universal healthcare for a few decades . We could do all sorts of things we claim not to have funding for, it's always been a matter of priorities not resources.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kotlikoff/2017/12/08/has-our-government-spent-21-trillion-of-our-money-without-telling-us
We are providing this report for review and comment. Army and Defense Finance and
Accounting Service Indianapolis personnel did not adequately support $2.8 trillion in
third quarter adjustments and $6.5 trillion in yearend adjustments made to Army General
Fund data during FY 2015 financial statement compilation. We conducted this audit in
accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.
media.defense.gov
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On May 12 2018 05:09 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On May 12 2018 02:36 Plansix wrote:On May 12 2018 02:20 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On May 12 2018 01:55 Plansix wrote:https://twitter.com/nprpolitics/status/994979194625916936The striking part of this article is that 41% of the goverment workforce is able to retire in the next 5 years. They need a lot more workers to fill that gap. And the fact that they are suggesting working for the goverment for 30 years shouldn't mean you can get "life long retirement". Do they really want people to stay in those jobs until they are 75? This whole thing just seems like another attempt to reign in goverment spending by doing anything but cutting the military budget. By the way, military retirement will likely be unchanged. They are just a bigger, better lobby. I would think that employee benefits are a rounding error to the Federal budget. You are likely right, but it is red meat for budget hawks. Those budget hawks never go after military spending, which spends close to 300 billion on personnel and "operations and maintenance." And like fixing your car, the majority of the costs for maintenance on military equipment is labor. And lets not forget the $125 billion is waste that the Washington Post found in 2016. That story died on the vine. Really, what needs to happen is we need a PR budget for goverment employees. We will call it "recruitment for civil service". They will get deep into advertising on the NBA. We will have all the players come out every game and, depending on the venue, talk about the importance the census, EPA, FDA, government research grants and the national park service. We also need civil service bases to make sure there are entrenched communities of voters that are supported by these goverment employees. Government employees could learn a lot from how the military operates. Pretty sure the pentagon has 'adjusted' away enough money to pay for free college and universal healthcare for a few decades . We could do all sorts of things we claim not to have funding for, it's always been a matter of priorities not resources. https://www.forbes.com/sites/kotlikoff/2017/12/08/has-our-government-spent-21-trillion-of-our-money-without-telling-us
It is also the largest government employer in the country, with bases in several states that make up a reasonable portion of that state’s economy. And it funds several industries making the basic equipment for the armed services. We love the war machine because it employs so many voters.
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TLADT24920 Posts
On May 12 2018 05:09 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On May 12 2018 02:36 Plansix wrote:On May 12 2018 02:20 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On May 12 2018 01:55 Plansix wrote:https://twitter.com/nprpolitics/status/994979194625916936The striking part of this article is that 41% of the goverment workforce is able to retire in the next 5 years. They need a lot more workers to fill that gap. And the fact that they are suggesting working for the goverment for 30 years shouldn't mean you can get "life long retirement". Do they really want people to stay in those jobs until they are 75? This whole thing just seems like another attempt to reign in goverment spending by doing anything but cutting the military budget. By the way, military retirement will likely be unchanged. They are just a bigger, better lobby. I would think that employee benefits are a rounding error to the Federal budget. You are likely right, but it is red meat for budget hawks. Those budget hawks never go after military spending, which spends close to 300 billion on personnel and "operations and maintenance." And like fixing your car, the majority of the costs for maintenance on military equipment is labor. And lets not forget the $125 billion is waste that the Washington Post found in 2016. That story died on the vine. Really, what needs to happen is we need a PR budget for goverment employees. We will call it "recruitment for civil service". They will get deep into advertising on the NBA. We will have all the players come out every game and, depending on the venue, talk about the importance the census, EPA, FDA, government research grants and the national park service. We also need civil service bases to make sure there are entrenched communities of voters that are supported by these goverment employees. Government employees could learn a lot from how the military operates. Pretty sure the pentagon has 'adjusted' away enough money to pay for free college and universal healthcare for a few decades . We could do all sorts of things we claim not to have funding for, it's always been a matter of priorities not resources. https://www.forbes.com/sites/kotlikoff/2017/12/08/has-our-government-spent-21-trillion-of-our-money-without-telling-us
From the article:
"The report indicates that for fiscal year 2015 the Army failed to provide adequate support for $6.5 trillion in journal voucher adjustments."
The amount of money that goes into the army is so ludicrous. I can't even imagine what $6.5 trillion would look like, it's that insane that the US keeps throwing money away imo that can probably be used to help their population live better lives etc...
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A very large amount of that money is payroll, healthcare and so on for the troops and the massive amount of administrative staff.
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On May 12 2018 05:14 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On May 12 2018 05:09 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 12 2018 02:36 Plansix wrote:On May 12 2018 02:20 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On May 12 2018 01:55 Plansix wrote:https://twitter.com/nprpolitics/status/994979194625916936The striking part of this article is that 41% of the goverment workforce is able to retire in the next 5 years. They need a lot more workers to fill that gap. And the fact that they are suggesting working for the goverment for 30 years shouldn't mean you can get "life long retirement". Do they really want people to stay in those jobs until they are 75? This whole thing just seems like another attempt to reign in goverment spending by doing anything but cutting the military budget. By the way, military retirement will likely be unchanged. They are just a bigger, better lobby. I would think that employee benefits are a rounding error to the Federal budget. You are likely right, but it is red meat for budget hawks. Those budget hawks never go after military spending, which spends close to 300 billion on personnel and "operations and maintenance." And like fixing your car, the majority of the costs for maintenance on military equipment is labor. And lets not forget the $125 billion is waste that the Washington Post found in 2016. That story died on the vine. Really, what needs to happen is we need a PR budget for goverment employees. We will call it "recruitment for civil service". They will get deep into advertising on the NBA. We will have all the players come out every game and, depending on the venue, talk about the importance the census, EPA, FDA, government research grants and the national park service. We also need civil service bases to make sure there are entrenched communities of voters that are supported by these goverment employees. Government employees could learn a lot from how the military operates. Pretty sure the pentagon has 'adjusted' away enough money to pay for free college and universal healthcare for a few decades . We could do all sorts of things we claim not to have funding for, it's always been a matter of priorities not resources. https://www.forbes.com/sites/kotlikoff/2017/12/08/has-our-government-spent-21-trillion-of-our-money-without-telling-us It is also the largest government employer in the country, with bases in several states that make up a reasonable portion of that state’s economy. And it funds several industries making the basic equipment for the armed services. We love the war machine because it employs so many voters.
It's the largest employer in the entire world. The next closest is China’s People’s Liberation Army (with almost 1,000,000 less employees), followed closely by Walmart (~2.1m) as of 2015 anyway.
www.marketwatch.com
The US military-industrial complex is the largest employment agency in the world and it reflects in our political actions. Just look at what happened to 'defense' contractors when NK peace talks took a good turn.
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On May 12 2018 05:14 BigFan wrote:Show nested quote +On May 12 2018 05:09 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 12 2018 02:36 Plansix wrote:On May 12 2018 02:20 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On May 12 2018 01:55 Plansix wrote:https://twitter.com/nprpolitics/status/994979194625916936The striking part of this article is that 41% of the goverment workforce is able to retire in the next 5 years. They need a lot more workers to fill that gap. And the fact that they are suggesting working for the goverment for 30 years shouldn't mean you can get "life long retirement". Do they really want people to stay in those jobs until they are 75? This whole thing just seems like another attempt to reign in goverment spending by doing anything but cutting the military budget. By the way, military retirement will likely be unchanged. They are just a bigger, better lobby. I would think that employee benefits are a rounding error to the Federal budget. You are likely right, but it is red meat for budget hawks. Those budget hawks never go after military spending, which spends close to 300 billion on personnel and "operations and maintenance." And like fixing your car, the majority of the costs for maintenance on military equipment is labor. And lets not forget the $125 billion is waste that the Washington Post found in 2016. That story died on the vine. Really, what needs to happen is we need a PR budget for goverment employees. We will call it "recruitment for civil service". They will get deep into advertising on the NBA. We will have all the players come out every game and, depending on the venue, talk about the importance the census, EPA, FDA, government research grants and the national park service. We also need civil service bases to make sure there are entrenched communities of voters that are supported by these goverment employees. Government employees could learn a lot from how the military operates. Pretty sure the pentagon has 'adjusted' away enough money to pay for free college and universal healthcare for a few decades . We could do all sorts of things we claim not to have funding for, it's always been a matter of priorities not resources. https://www.forbes.com/sites/kotlikoff/2017/12/08/has-our-government-spent-21-trillion-of-our-money-without-telling-us From the article: "The report indicates that for fiscal year 2015 the Army failed to provide adequate support for $6.5 trillion in journal voucher adjustments." The amount of money that goes into the army is so ludicrous. I can't even imagine what $6.5 trillion would look like, it's that insane that the US keeps throwing money away imo that can probably be used to help their population live better lives etc...
it is indeed a problem; but note that this isn't money thrown away; it's accounting errors that go both ways (still unacceptable of course), not money actually spent.
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TLADT24920 Posts
Fair points. Maybe I should've been more clear then. IMO, the US doesn't really need to have any insane spending on the military because let's be honest here, how many countries out there have actually threatened the US? Sure, there should be a good minimum and I'm not sure what that is.
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On May 12 2018 05:41 BigFan wrote:
Fair points. Maybe I should've been more clear then. IMO, the US doesn't really need to have any insane spending on the military because let's be honest here, how many countries out there have actually threatened the US? Sure, there should be a good minimum and I'm not sure what that is.
agreed; and many have known for a very long time now that the US spends far more on the military than it needs to.
There's a variety of good minimums to choose from; it depends on which objectives you want to achieve for the military; but all of them are quite a bit lower than the amount it's political feasible to reduce the military budget too; so not a lot of analysis is done to figure out exactly what they would be (i.e. why spend policy wonk time on things that will never happen). But if you want to spend some time discussing some possible values I'm game.
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On May 12 2018 05:23 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On May 12 2018 05:14 Plansix wrote:On May 12 2018 05:09 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 12 2018 02:36 Plansix wrote:On May 12 2018 02:20 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On May 12 2018 01:55 Plansix wrote:https://twitter.com/nprpolitics/status/994979194625916936The striking part of this article is that 41% of the goverment workforce is able to retire in the next 5 years. They need a lot more workers to fill that gap. And the fact that they are suggesting working for the goverment for 30 years shouldn't mean you can get "life long retirement". Do they really want people to stay in those jobs until they are 75? This whole thing just seems like another attempt to reign in goverment spending by doing anything but cutting the military budget. By the way, military retirement will likely be unchanged. They are just a bigger, better lobby. I would think that employee benefits are a rounding error to the Federal budget. You are likely right, but it is red meat for budget hawks. Those budget hawks never go after military spending, which spends close to 300 billion on personnel and "operations and maintenance." And like fixing your car, the majority of the costs for maintenance on military equipment is labor. And lets not forget the $125 billion is waste that the Washington Post found in 2016. That story died on the vine. Really, what needs to happen is we need a PR budget for goverment employees. We will call it "recruitment for civil service". They will get deep into advertising on the NBA. We will have all the players come out every game and, depending on the venue, talk about the importance the census, EPA, FDA, government research grants and the national park service. We also need civil service bases to make sure there are entrenched communities of voters that are supported by these goverment employees. Government employees could learn a lot from how the military operates. Pretty sure the pentagon has 'adjusted' away enough money to pay for free college and universal healthcare for a few decades . We could do all sorts of things we claim not to have funding for, it's always been a matter of priorities not resources. https://www.forbes.com/sites/kotlikoff/2017/12/08/has-our-government-spent-21-trillion-of-our-money-without-telling-us It is also the largest government employer in the country, with bases in several states that make up a reasonable portion of that state’s economy. And it funds several industries making the basic equipment for the armed services. We love the war machine because it employs so many voters. It's the largest employer in the entire world. The next closest is China’s People’s Liberation Army (with almost 1,000,000 less employees), followed closely by Walmart (~2.1m) as of 2015 anyway. www.marketwatch.comThe US military-industrial complex is the largest employment agency in the world and it reflects in our political actions. Just look at what happened to 'defense' contractors when NK peace talks took a good turn.
This is why fighting the war machine is impossible. That is too many people are in that system. We need to learn from the war machine’s tactics and advocate on equal measure for other government agencies. Advocate for the SEC the same way the military advocates as the defenders of American values. The FDA needs to have such a massive budget that it advertises on the super bowl. Give Americans some context for how messed up it is that the NFL has a deal with the US army.
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On May 12 2018 05:45 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On May 12 2018 05:23 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 12 2018 05:14 Plansix wrote:On May 12 2018 05:09 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 12 2018 02:36 Plansix wrote:On May 12 2018 02:20 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On May 12 2018 01:55 Plansix wrote:https://twitter.com/nprpolitics/status/994979194625916936The striking part of this article is that 41% of the goverment workforce is able to retire in the next 5 years. They need a lot more workers to fill that gap. And the fact that they are suggesting working for the goverment for 30 years shouldn't mean you can get "life long retirement". Do they really want people to stay in those jobs until they are 75? This whole thing just seems like another attempt to reign in goverment spending by doing anything but cutting the military budget. By the way, military retirement will likely be unchanged. They are just a bigger, better lobby. I would think that employee benefits are a rounding error to the Federal budget. You are likely right, but it is red meat for budget hawks. Those budget hawks never go after military spending, which spends close to 300 billion on personnel and "operations and maintenance." And like fixing your car, the majority of the costs for maintenance on military equipment is labor. And lets not forget the $125 billion is waste that the Washington Post found in 2016. That story died on the vine. Really, what needs to happen is we need a PR budget for goverment employees. We will call it "recruitment for civil service". They will get deep into advertising on the NBA. We will have all the players come out every game and, depending on the venue, talk about the importance the census, EPA, FDA, government research grants and the national park service. We also need civil service bases to make sure there are entrenched communities of voters that are supported by these goverment employees. Government employees could learn a lot from how the military operates. Pretty sure the pentagon has 'adjusted' away enough money to pay for free college and universal healthcare for a few decades . We could do all sorts of things we claim not to have funding for, it's always been a matter of priorities not resources. https://www.forbes.com/sites/kotlikoff/2017/12/08/has-our-government-spent-21-trillion-of-our-money-without-telling-us It is also the largest government employer in the country, with bases in several states that make up a reasonable portion of that state’s economy. And it funds several industries making the basic equipment for the armed services. We love the war machine because it employs so many voters. It's the largest employer in the entire world. The next closest is China’s People’s Liberation Army (with almost 1,000,000 less employees), followed closely by Walmart (~2.1m) as of 2015 anyway. www.marketwatch.comThe US military-industrial complex is the largest employment agency in the world and it reflects in our political actions. Just look at what happened to 'defense' contractors when NK peace talks took a good turn. This is why fighting the war machine is impossible. That is too many people are in that system. We need to learn from the war machine’s tactics and advocate on equal measure for other government agencies. Advocate for the SEC the same way the military advocates as the defenders of American values. The FDA needs to have such a massive budget that it advertises on the super bowl. Give Americans some context for how messed up it is that the NFL has a deal with the US army.
Something tells me it would be a little tougher to generate the type of excitement military displays do with the SEC. Maybe if we were publicly executing bankers/brokers?
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TLADT24920 Posts
On May 12 2018 05:44 zlefin wrote:Show nested quote +On May 12 2018 05:41 BigFan wrote:
Fair points. Maybe I should've been more clear then. IMO, the US doesn't really need to have any insane spending on the military because let's be honest here, how many countries out there have actually threatened the US? Sure, there should be a good minimum and I'm not sure what that is. agreed; and many have known for a very long time now that the US spends far more on the military than it needs to. There's a variety of good minimums to choose from; it depends on which objectives you want to achieve for the military; but all of them are quite a bit lower than the amount it's political feasible to reduce the military budget too; so not a lot of analysis is done to figure out exactly what they would be (i.e. why spend policy wonk time on things that will never happen). But if you want to spend some time discussing some possible values I'm game.
thanks for the option, will have to pass though. I mostly just thought it was odd so figured I'll make a comment, especially when that trillion dollar figure was posted in the article.
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On May 12 2018 05:52 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On May 12 2018 05:45 Plansix wrote:On May 12 2018 05:23 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 12 2018 05:14 Plansix wrote:On May 12 2018 05:09 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 12 2018 02:36 Plansix wrote:On May 12 2018 02:20 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On May 12 2018 01:55 Plansix wrote:https://twitter.com/nprpolitics/status/994979194625916936The striking part of this article is that 41% of the goverment workforce is able to retire in the next 5 years. They need a lot more workers to fill that gap. And the fact that they are suggesting working for the goverment for 30 years shouldn't mean you can get "life long retirement". Do they really want people to stay in those jobs until they are 75? This whole thing just seems like another attempt to reign in goverment spending by doing anything but cutting the military budget. By the way, military retirement will likely be unchanged. They are just a bigger, better lobby. I would think that employee benefits are a rounding error to the Federal budget. You are likely right, but it is red meat for budget hawks. Those budget hawks never go after military spending, which spends close to 300 billion on personnel and "operations and maintenance." And like fixing your car, the majority of the costs for maintenance on military equipment is labor. And lets not forget the $125 billion is waste that the Washington Post found in 2016. That story died on the vine. Really, what needs to happen is we need a PR budget for goverment employees. We will call it "recruitment for civil service". They will get deep into advertising on the NBA. We will have all the players come out every game and, depending on the venue, talk about the importance the census, EPA, FDA, government research grants and the national park service. We also need civil service bases to make sure there are entrenched communities of voters that are supported by these goverment employees. Government employees could learn a lot from how the military operates. Pretty sure the pentagon has 'adjusted' away enough money to pay for free college and universal healthcare for a few decades . We could do all sorts of things we claim not to have funding for, it's always been a matter of priorities not resources. https://www.forbes.com/sites/kotlikoff/2017/12/08/has-our-government-spent-21-trillion-of-our-money-without-telling-us It is also the largest government employer in the country, with bases in several states that make up a reasonable portion of that state’s economy. And it funds several industries making the basic equipment for the armed services. We love the war machine because it employs so many voters. It's the largest employer in the entire world. The next closest is China’s People’s Liberation Army (with almost 1,000,000 less employees), followed closely by Walmart (~2.1m) as of 2015 anyway. www.marketwatch.comThe US military-industrial complex is the largest employment agency in the world and it reflects in our political actions. Just look at what happened to 'defense' contractors when NK peace talks took a good turn. This is why fighting the war machine is impossible. That is too many people are in that system. We need to learn from the war machine’s tactics and advocate on equal measure for other government agencies. Advocate for the SEC the same way the military advocates as the defenders of American values. The FDA needs to have such a massive budget that it advertises on the super bowl. Give Americans some context for how messed up it is that the NFL has a deal with the US army. Something tells me it would be a little tougher to generate the type of excitement military displays do with the SEC. Maybe if we were publicly executing bankers/brokers?
We would run out of bankers real quick and then we have the French Revolution’s problem, executions are crowd pleasers. We can just go full post 2000 Brave New World where our government agencies all push for voter support. They help fund sporting events, bring back Firefly and arrest web designers who make sites with auto playing videos.
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On May 12 2018 06:11 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On May 12 2018 05:52 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 12 2018 05:45 Plansix wrote:On May 12 2018 05:23 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 12 2018 05:14 Plansix wrote:On May 12 2018 05:09 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 12 2018 02:36 Plansix wrote:On May 12 2018 02:20 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On May 12 2018 01:55 Plansix wrote:https://twitter.com/nprpolitics/status/994979194625916936The striking part of this article is that 41% of the goverment workforce is able to retire in the next 5 years. They need a lot more workers to fill that gap. And the fact that they are suggesting working for the goverment for 30 years shouldn't mean you can get "life long retirement". Do they really want people to stay in those jobs until they are 75? This whole thing just seems like another attempt to reign in goverment spending by doing anything but cutting the military budget. By the way, military retirement will likely be unchanged. They are just a bigger, better lobby. I would think that employee benefits are a rounding error to the Federal budget. You are likely right, but it is red meat for budget hawks. Those budget hawks never go after military spending, which spends close to 300 billion on personnel and "operations and maintenance." And like fixing your car, the majority of the costs for maintenance on military equipment is labor. And lets not forget the $125 billion is waste that the Washington Post found in 2016. That story died on the vine. Really, what needs to happen is we need a PR budget for goverment employees. We will call it "recruitment for civil service". They will get deep into advertising on the NBA. We will have all the players come out every game and, depending on the venue, talk about the importance the census, EPA, FDA, government research grants and the national park service. We also need civil service bases to make sure there are entrenched communities of voters that are supported by these goverment employees. Government employees could learn a lot from how the military operates. Pretty sure the pentagon has 'adjusted' away enough money to pay for free college and universal healthcare for a few decades . We could do all sorts of things we claim not to have funding for, it's always been a matter of priorities not resources. https://www.forbes.com/sites/kotlikoff/2017/12/08/has-our-government-spent-21-trillion-of-our-money-without-telling-us It is also the largest government employer in the country, with bases in several states that make up a reasonable portion of that state’s economy. And it funds several industries making the basic equipment for the armed services. We love the war machine because it employs so many voters. It's the largest employer in the entire world. The next closest is China’s People’s Liberation Army (with almost 1,000,000 less employees), followed closely by Walmart (~2.1m) as of 2015 anyway. www.marketwatch.comThe US military-industrial complex is the largest employment agency in the world and it reflects in our political actions. Just look at what happened to 'defense' contractors when NK peace talks took a good turn. This is why fighting the war machine is impossible. That is too many people are in that system. We need to learn from the war machine’s tactics and advocate on equal measure for other government agencies. Advocate for the SEC the same way the military advocates as the defenders of American values. The FDA needs to have such a massive budget that it advertises on the super bowl. Give Americans some context for how messed up it is that the NFL has a deal with the US army. Something tells me it would be a little tougher to generate the type of excitement military displays do with the SEC. Maybe if we were publicly executing bankers/brokers? We would run out of bankers real quick and then we have the French Revolution’s problem, executions are crowd pleasers. We can just go full post 2000 Brave New World where our government agencies all push for voter support. They help fund sporting events, bring back Firefly and arrest web designers who make sites with auto playing videos.
Screw you! Thats add revenue man!
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On May 12 2018 06:11 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On May 12 2018 05:52 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 12 2018 05:45 Plansix wrote:On May 12 2018 05:23 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 12 2018 05:14 Plansix wrote:On May 12 2018 05:09 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 12 2018 02:36 Plansix wrote:On May 12 2018 02:20 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On May 12 2018 01:55 Plansix wrote:https://twitter.com/nprpolitics/status/994979194625916936The striking part of this article is that 41% of the goverment workforce is able to retire in the next 5 years. They need a lot more workers to fill that gap. And the fact that they are suggesting working for the goverment for 30 years shouldn't mean you can get "life long retirement". Do they really want people to stay in those jobs until they are 75? This whole thing just seems like another attempt to reign in goverment spending by doing anything but cutting the military budget. By the way, military retirement will likely be unchanged. They are just a bigger, better lobby. I would think that employee benefits are a rounding error to the Federal budget. You are likely right, but it is red meat for budget hawks. Those budget hawks never go after military spending, which spends close to 300 billion on personnel and "operations and maintenance." And like fixing your car, the majority of the costs for maintenance on military equipment is labor. And lets not forget the $125 billion is waste that the Washington Post found in 2016. That story died on the vine. Really, what needs to happen is we need a PR budget for goverment employees. We will call it "recruitment for civil service". They will get deep into advertising on the NBA. We will have all the players come out every game and, depending on the venue, talk about the importance the census, EPA, FDA, government research grants and the national park service. We also need civil service bases to make sure there are entrenched communities of voters that are supported by these goverment employees. Government employees could learn a lot from how the military operates. Pretty sure the pentagon has 'adjusted' away enough money to pay for free college and universal healthcare for a few decades . We could do all sorts of things we claim not to have funding for, it's always been a matter of priorities not resources. https://www.forbes.com/sites/kotlikoff/2017/12/08/has-our-government-spent-21-trillion-of-our-money-without-telling-us It is also the largest government employer in the country, with bases in several states that make up a reasonable portion of that state’s economy. And it funds several industries making the basic equipment for the armed services. We love the war machine because it employs so many voters. It's the largest employer in the entire world. The next closest is China’s People’s Liberation Army (with almost 1,000,000 less employees), followed closely by Walmart (~2.1m) as of 2015 anyway. www.marketwatch.comThe US military-industrial complex is the largest employment agency in the world and it reflects in our political actions. Just look at what happened to 'defense' contractors when NK peace talks took a good turn. This is why fighting the war machine is impossible. That is too many people are in that system. We need to learn from the war machine’s tactics and advocate on equal measure for other government agencies. Advocate for the SEC the same way the military advocates as the defenders of American values. The FDA needs to have such a massive budget that it advertises on the super bowl. Give Americans some context for how messed up it is that the NFL has a deal with the US army. Something tells me it would be a little tougher to generate the type of excitement military displays do with the SEC. Maybe if we were publicly executing bankers/brokers? We would run out of bankers real quick and then we have the French Revolution’s problem, executions are crowd pleasers. We can just go full post 2000 Brave New World where our government agencies all push for voter support. They help fund sporting events, bring back Firefly and arrest web designers who make sites with auto playing videos.
I think you underestimate the culture of wealth addiction we've cultivated in this country. We could execute several a day and it would still be a growing industry. Though I think gladiator style games would be more attractive.
"Want to have a fast paced career saving humanity by killing people? Forget the military, become a SEC Gladiator!"
But seriously, neither party has any intentions of actually addressing this mess. They are so hopelessly addicted wealth and power they make Rob Ford look like Scruff McGruff
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On May 12 2018 06:16 IyMoon wrote:Show nested quote +On May 12 2018 06:11 Plansix wrote:On May 12 2018 05:52 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 12 2018 05:45 Plansix wrote:On May 12 2018 05:23 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 12 2018 05:14 Plansix wrote:On May 12 2018 05:09 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 12 2018 02:36 Plansix wrote:On May 12 2018 02:20 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On May 12 2018 01:55 Plansix wrote:https://twitter.com/nprpolitics/status/994979194625916936The striking part of this article is that 41% of the goverment workforce is able to retire in the next 5 years. They need a lot more workers to fill that gap. And the fact that they are suggesting working for the goverment for 30 years shouldn't mean you can get "life long retirement". Do they really want people to stay in those jobs until they are 75? This whole thing just seems like another attempt to reign in goverment spending by doing anything but cutting the military budget. By the way, military retirement will likely be unchanged. They are just a bigger, better lobby. I would think that employee benefits are a rounding error to the Federal budget. You are likely right, but it is red meat for budget hawks. Those budget hawks never go after military spending, which spends close to 300 billion on personnel and "operations and maintenance." And like fixing your car, the majority of the costs for maintenance on military equipment is labor. And lets not forget the $125 billion is waste that the Washington Post found in 2016. That story died on the vine. Really, what needs to happen is we need a PR budget for goverment employees. We will call it "recruitment for civil service". They will get deep into advertising on the NBA. We will have all the players come out every game and, depending on the venue, talk about the importance the census, EPA, FDA, government research grants and the national park service. We also need civil service bases to make sure there are entrenched communities of voters that are supported by these goverment employees. Government employees could learn a lot from how the military operates. Pretty sure the pentagon has 'adjusted' away enough money to pay for free college and universal healthcare for a few decades . We could do all sorts of things we claim not to have funding for, it's always been a matter of priorities not resources. https://www.forbes.com/sites/kotlikoff/2017/12/08/has-our-government-spent-21-trillion-of-our-money-without-telling-us It is also the largest government employer in the country, with bases in several states that make up a reasonable portion of that state’s economy. And it funds several industries making the basic equipment for the armed services. We love the war machine because it employs so many voters. It's the largest employer in the entire world. The next closest is China’s People’s Liberation Army (with almost 1,000,000 less employees), followed closely by Walmart (~2.1m) as of 2015 anyway. www.marketwatch.comThe US military-industrial complex is the largest employment agency in the world and it reflects in our political actions. Just look at what happened to 'defense' contractors when NK peace talks took a good turn. This is why fighting the war machine is impossible. That is too many people are in that system. We need to learn from the war machine’s tactics and advocate on equal measure for other government agencies. Advocate for the SEC the same way the military advocates as the defenders of American values. The FDA needs to have such a massive budget that it advertises on the super bowl. Give Americans some context for how messed up it is that the NFL has a deal with the US army. Something tells me it would be a little tougher to generate the type of excitement military displays do with the SEC. Maybe if we were publicly executing bankers/brokers? We would run out of bankers real quick and then we have the French Revolution’s problem, executions are crowd pleasers. We can just go full post 2000 Brave New World where our government agencies all push for voter support. They help fund sporting events, bring back Firefly and arrest web designers who make sites with auto playing videos. Screw you! Thats add revenue man!
They are the pop up ad of the modern internet. And I have a strict policy about how the internet works, websites and programs get access to my speakers when I approve them to do so. Any website without playing videos is violating the rules. Anyone game that has voice chat turned on by default is also violating the rules.
On May 12 2018 06:23 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On May 12 2018 06:11 Plansix wrote:On May 12 2018 05:52 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 12 2018 05:45 Plansix wrote:On May 12 2018 05:23 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 12 2018 05:14 Plansix wrote:On May 12 2018 05:09 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 12 2018 02:36 Plansix wrote:On May 12 2018 02:20 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On May 12 2018 01:55 Plansix wrote:https://twitter.com/nprpolitics/status/994979194625916936The striking part of this article is that 41% of the goverment workforce is able to retire in the next 5 years. They need a lot more workers to fill that gap. And the fact that they are suggesting working for the goverment for 30 years shouldn't mean you can get "life long retirement". Do they really want people to stay in those jobs until they are 75? This whole thing just seems like another attempt to reign in goverment spending by doing anything but cutting the military budget. By the way, military retirement will likely be unchanged. They are just a bigger, better lobby. I would think that employee benefits are a rounding error to the Federal budget. You are likely right, but it is red meat for budget hawks. Those budget hawks never go after military spending, which spends close to 300 billion on personnel and "operations and maintenance." And like fixing your car, the majority of the costs for maintenance on military equipment is labor. And lets not forget the $125 billion is waste that the Washington Post found in 2016. That story died on the vine. Really, what needs to happen is we need a PR budget for goverment employees. We will call it "recruitment for civil service". They will get deep into advertising on the NBA. We will have all the players come out every game and, depending on the venue, talk about the importance the census, EPA, FDA, government research grants and the national park service. We also need civil service bases to make sure there are entrenched communities of voters that are supported by these goverment employees. Government employees could learn a lot from how the military operates. Pretty sure the pentagon has 'adjusted' away enough money to pay for free college and universal healthcare for a few decades . We could do all sorts of things we claim not to have funding for, it's always been a matter of priorities not resources. https://www.forbes.com/sites/kotlikoff/2017/12/08/has-our-government-spent-21-trillion-of-our-money-without-telling-us It is also the largest government employer in the country, with bases in several states that make up a reasonable portion of that state’s economy. And it funds several industries making the basic equipment for the armed services. We love the war machine because it employs so many voters. It's the largest employer in the entire world. The next closest is China’s People’s Liberation Army (with almost 1,000,000 less employees), followed closely by Walmart (~2.1m) as of 2015 anyway. www.marketwatch.comThe US military-industrial complex is the largest employment agency in the world and it reflects in our political actions. Just look at what happened to 'defense' contractors when NK peace talks took a good turn. This is why fighting the war machine is impossible. That is too many people are in that system. We need to learn from the war machine’s tactics and advocate on equal measure for other government agencies. Advocate for the SEC the same way the military advocates as the defenders of American values. The FDA needs to have such a massive budget that it advertises on the super bowl. Give Americans some context for how messed up it is that the NFL has a deal with the US army. Something tells me it would be a little tougher to generate the type of excitement military displays do with the SEC. Maybe if we were publicly executing bankers/brokers? We would run out of bankers real quick and then we have the French Revolution’s problem, executions are crowd pleasers. We can just go full post 2000 Brave New World where our government agencies all push for voter support. They help fund sporting events, bring back Firefly and arrest web designers who make sites with auto playing videos. I think you underestimate the culture of wealth addiction we've cultivated in this country. We could execute several a day and it would still be a growing industry. Though I think gladiator style games would be more attractive. "Want to have a fast paced career saving humanity by killing people? Forget the military, become a SEC Gladiator!" But seriously, neither party has any intentions of actually addressing this mess. They are so hopelessly addicted wealth and power they make Rob Ford look like Scruff McGruff
It is campaign finance. One party has a brace of billionaire robber barons funding populist nightmare candidates and super PACs. And the other party that wanted better campaign finance has been slowly compromised by the arms race of super PACs.
Fix that and it will be a lot easier to empower the SEC and move 1/3 of the FBI back to investigation white collar crime.
Edit: There seems to be a slow, cold rage building in congress over the McCain comment and the clown on the Fox News that called him "Song bird McCain." It will likely burn out, or Mitch will smother it.
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On May 12 2018 02:26 zlefin wrote:Show nested quote +On May 12 2018 02:20 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On May 12 2018 01:55 Plansix wrote:https://twitter.com/nprpolitics/status/994979194625916936The striking part of this article is that 41% of the goverment workforce is able to retire in the next 5 years. They need a lot more workers to fill that gap. And the fact that they are suggesting working for the goverment for 30 years shouldn't mean you can get "life long retirement". Do they really want people to stay in those jobs until they are 75? This whole thing just seems like another attempt to reign in goverment spending by doing anything but cutting the military budget. By the way, military retirement will likely be unchanged. They are just a bigger, better lobby. I would think that employee benefits are a rounding error to the Federal budget. Probably more than that; certainly alot smaller than some of the big things; but a bit higher than a rounding error I'd guess. Looking around some at the numbers; the annual cost for federal employee benefits seems to be around 100 billion, maybe a bit less.
Total Federal spending is ... $4T? So.. 2.5%.. if we trim that by a 10% benefit cut we're cutting the budget by 0.25%.
Sure, my 'rounding error' is an exaggeration. But, if you're going to cut the budget that's not the lever to pull.
Different for, say, local governments.
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I've posted this link before, but it does a good job of showing what is being spent, and where.
https://usafacts.org
https://www.cnet.com/news/steve-ballmers-usafacts-site-surfaces-government-spending/
Steve Ballmer has a new project that'll help you uncover just where your tax dollars are going.
Ballmer, who worked at Microsoft for more than 30 year before retiring as CEO in 2014, started developing a database shortly afterward to look at revenue and spending across federal, state and local governments, the New York Times reported Monday.
USAFacts is a "first-of-its-kind platform to help interested citizens learn the facts about government in a comprehensive, nonpartisan way," the not-for-profit group's site states. In the New York Times interview, Ballmer added, "I would like citizens to be able to use this to form intelligent opinions ... on common data sets that are believable."
According to the Times, Ballmer spent more than $10 million between direct funding and grants on the three-year project, which was built by a team of researchers in Seattle and the University of Pennsylvania. The site uses only government data to avoid accusations of bias.
It may or may not be complete, but a lot of good sources.
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On May 12 2018 07:14 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On May 12 2018 02:26 zlefin wrote:On May 12 2018 02:20 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On May 12 2018 01:55 Plansix wrote:https://twitter.com/nprpolitics/status/994979194625916936The striking part of this article is that 41% of the goverment workforce is able to retire in the next 5 years. They need a lot more workers to fill that gap. And the fact that they are suggesting working for the goverment for 30 years shouldn't mean you can get "life long retirement". Do they really want people to stay in those jobs until they are 75? This whole thing just seems like another attempt to reign in goverment spending by doing anything but cutting the military budget. By the way, military retirement will likely be unchanged. They are just a bigger, better lobby. I would think that employee benefits are a rounding error to the Federal budget. Probably more than that; certainly alot smaller than some of the big things; but a bit higher than a rounding error I'd guess. Looking around some at the numbers; the annual cost for federal employee benefits seems to be around 100 billion, maybe a bit less. Total Federal spending is ... $4T? So.. 2.5%.. if we trim that by a 10% benefit cut we're cutting the budget by 0.25%. Sure, my 'rounding error' is an exaggeration. But, if you're going to cut the budget that's not the lever to pull. Different for, say, local governments.
agreed. it's just nice to add numbers to things. The feds give out really good benefits. iirc from the numbers I saw when browsing; for a given takehome salary, the fed give out a bit over twice as much in benefits than a private sector job would. I say for a given salary because fed jobs pay more than average private sector salary overall [not for equivalent jobs, just overall] (maybe cuz fed gov't jobs tend to be stuff important enough to at least get mid-range salaries;)
total fed spending is def around that; though closer to 3T I think.
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EPT
