Should I be worried?

Received the following notification earlier today – somehow I doubt these guys are interested in my views on Greenwich real estate:

How could I forget?

The dignity of work, made possible only because line painters enjoy a secure, government job

Earlier today I posted on the California meter maids paid $100,000 salaries, and mentioned in passing that in the promised land, “nearly one third of municipalities require collective bargaining”. But lawdy lawdy, I forgot that here in the land of steady habits the Democrats have long imposed collective bargaining and worse, binding arbitration, on 100% of all municipalities and the state itself. Surely it is mere coincidence that Connecticut’s public sector workers are the second highest paid in the nation, earning an average salary of $77,600?

Surely.

Out with the old

Clueless?

The entire RTM Labor Contracts Committee has taken the hint and will leave. Hundreds of millions of dollars are involved in those contracts, so this might be a big deal.

Six of the committee’s seven incumbents were part of a slate that was put up for reappointment during the June RTM meeting.

Notable among those incumbents who have since withdrawn from the running is Joan Caldwell, the committee’s vice chairman and longest-tenured member who is also second in command of the full RTM.

“If there was no confidence in the Labor Contracts Committee or me as a member of the Labor Contracts Committee, why would I be stupid enough to put my name forward?” Caldwell said.

Caldwell defended the work of the committee, which she said has been functioning effectively as liaison between contract negotiators for the town and the legislative body until it came under fire from the RTM Finance Committee during the past two years.

“I think there’s infighting going on in the town meeting, initiated by the Finance Committee,” Caldwell said. “They seem to have a much better idea of what should be done than we do, even though we’ve been doing it for 30 years.”

I don’t know much about the personalities involved; I leave that to Fudrucker, and others who might care, but if Caldwell thinks her performance with the town’s labor contracts over the past thirty years supports her continuing in the job, I’d say her retirement is long overdue.

With a new name comes a new working environment

Lockwood & Mead will no longer conduct business as we used to or like this brokerage firm still does:

A real-estate salesman says his former boss threw scissors at him, bit him, intentionally sneezed on him — and even urinated on his clothes.

That’s the old firm – we’re real dignified now, and sales associates are gonna love it.

Philadelphia police still have nothing to do after 43 years.

Officer Friendly to the rescue

In 1969 a classmate of mine at The George School was arrested and held in jail in Philadelphia for drawing a hopscotch grid, in chalk, on a city sidewalk. This week the grandchild of that arresting officer  ticketed two teens for drawing, in chalk, a picture on a parking lot’s pavement.  I had heard that there was crime in Philadelphia – obviously, that rumor is untrue.

Why I hate government

DCP employee

As mentioned yesterday, we are now officially “Lockwood & Mead” here at the world-wide international headquarters of what was formerly EBT Realty. That process was initiated over a month ago with a name change notification with the Department of Consumer Protection, which regulates and oversees all things realty. But after filing the necessary paperwork, nothing happened. Not for days, not for weeks, not at all, with no response and no one willing to respond to inquiries.

On Thursday, Fudrucker finally tracked down the regulator at the DCP in charge of the file and the guy was atrociously, obnoxiously rude: yes, he had the file, no, he hadn’t looked at it, no, he wasn’t planning to look at it before he was good and goddamned ready, how dare you question me, and by the way, “f’you, citizen”.

The idiot then made the incredibly stupid mistake of repeating those sentiments in an email to Frankie, who took the message and forwarded it to a few of his high-level friends in Hartford, including the rude clerk’s boss. Within half an hour the clerk was back on the phone, “Sirring” with every other word, assuring FF that the paperwork was now, miraculously completed and that everything FF needed done was in fact now done. Was there anything else he could do to assist Mr. F?

So fine: we’re all set down here and off we go. But what FF found “disturbing” and what I find disgusting is this: how many small business people, how many average citizens who are regulated by the state happen to know top-level politicians they can call on for assistance? How many thousands of hours are wasted, how much money is lost because state bureaucrats hate the people they serve?

You tote that all up – all I know is that next time I have to go to the DMV, I’m bringing Fudrucker with me.

That didn’t take long

Simply Not Our Class, Dear

The New Yorker sees two huge problems with Paul Ryan’s nomination: he lacks private business experience and despite six terms in Congress (first elected 1998), he’s light on actual time in Washington. When you stop laughing, perhaps you’d care to prowl the Internet or even this blog’s Dollar Bill’s comments excoriating Romney and all other businessmen for daring to think they can run a government, and then try to compute Barry “I vote present” Hussein’s experience in private business: nil, or his time in Washington before he decided to save the world: two months?

Next up, Ryan’s wife poisons children.

Connecticut state employee union chiefs start sweating

 

But they told me this was entirely legal!

Organizers of “Gifting Table” arrested for running a pyramid scheme. New members paid cash for a seat at the table but the money ran out before they could collect their promised return.

Paul Ryan to be VP?

Looks as though he’ll get the Republican nomination but after that, who knows? Interesting profile of the man here, but this is the part that I think neatly sums up the Democrat base and a succinct summary of the Obama campaign, which employs, as taught by Saul Alinsky, a strategy that refuses to engage in any sort of discussion of actual issues and attacks the man instead:

The town hall in Kenosha is Ryan’s third public meeting of the day. He begins his comments by urging those in the crowd to treat each other with respect in order to facilitate a good conversation based on an exchange of ideas. As he says this, supporters of Rob Zerban, the Democrat who will lose to Ryan in November, hold up bumper stickers in front of their faces and begin talking loudly amongst themselves. When a security guard asks them to stop, several of them, led by a woman who looked to be in her 50s, affix the bumper stickers to their foreheads, an act of defiance that they evidently find quite hilarious.

As our own Dollar Bill has so amply demonstrated on these pages (and where is DB these days? The Vineyard?), those of limited intellectual capacity: Democrats, can “think” only at a bumper sticker level. We’re in for a raucous fall.

Here in California pols believe in “a living wage”; if not for taxpayers, then for their friends

I got my job through the LA Times

Hermosa Beach meter maids paid $100,000 per year.  And you should see their retirement benefits. But at least there are standards for these taxing jobs: you need a high school diploma to get one.

UPDATE: WSJ – municipalities struggle to pay bills, maintain services. ”Rising pensions, health care costs top the list.” Yet here’s good news for those meter maids:

[N]early a third of California cities require collective bargaining and prohibit outsourcing of administrative and maintenance services.