It's a desire not to give tax dollars to those who don't need it. Also I don't think that retired veterans are as nearly as helpless as you're making them out to be. Unemployment for newly retired veterans are similar(albeit slightly higher) to civilians of a similar age group.

If you're concerned about veteran unemployment then you should be looking to help the young veterans whose unemployment is much higher than civilian equivalents.

As for Smoke Jumpers I don't know much about them, what benefits they get, employment outlook etc... so I won't comment yet.

This. A thousand million times this.
(a position that I hold on pretty much all retirement/pension promises public or private)

I'm not sure how much money ending military pensions would save v. say, what it costs to spend a day occupying Iraq, so it just seems like a weird place to draw the line. And that might lead to a greater reliance on civilian private contractors, since it'd be more difficult to retain qualified government employees. (And generally, people who don't like military spending don't life private influence in military, or say prisons, even more).

Edit: I think about military employment the same way I think about most other government employment at any level - a smaller amount of highly educated, highly qualified employees is the way to go, and you can only get that by offering decent pay and benefits. You get what you pay for, and on the scale of government waste, paying good people good money isn't one of our nation's critical budget problems.

Yes indeed.

Fuck - we agree on this.

And the saving grace here for possible amendment is that it was bi-partisan, so if a change comes at least it won't need to be a bloody, knock-down, drag-out fight to the death between R's and D's.

I personally think people serving in the military deserve pensions for risking their lives - HOWEVER I also think the US Military is hugely bloated in size, slimming it down to a more reasonable level would save a huge amount of money in costs and eventually in a lesser number of future pensions.

The idea behind 'pensions' for veterans is that they have spent 'x' years training in areas which while vital for the military might be next to useless in a civilian role - I mean how many jobs require you to be able to assassinate someone from a mile away for instance ;)

As such the pension is a compensation for the earning power they have sacrificed by being in the military (ie. if they hadn't signed up they might be 20 years into a career with far more current earning power presently).

This is why I think pensions for veterans are fair - its the size of the US military machine which is causing them to be a larger cost than is incurred by most western countries who have been winding down the size of their militaries for decades now.

PS - As with Jon and others I believe if a promise has been made to people on Pensions then it should be upheld, to do otherwise is frankly conning people and should be illegal.

Ultimately though -- how many actually risk their lives? This is not to diminish the commitment they make but we've started throwing around the term "hero" pretty casually lately and the pomp and circumstance built around the military of late seems fairly overbearing to me.

I don't view all people in the military as being heroes - I grew up in a military family and am well aware that not all of them are 'heroes'.

HOWEVER all of them have sacrificed their earning potential by specializing in military functions* and its this difference which is what their pension compensates them for.

*There is 'some' cross over in certain positions obviously, but not all and even where there is cross over there is a huge difference in approach between military and civilian setups.

You won't find a bigger supporter of ending a lot of the United States overseas adventures than myself. That said I have to agree with the typical hawk response to the third paragraph. Most western countries don't have a huge military because the United States does all their dirty work for them.

Anecdotally, I have a roommate and friend who was a nuclear chemist in the navy and has had a successful private sector career after getting out because of, not in spite of, the training and job experience he got there. Or my brother-in-law who was a doctor, same thing.

Couldn't you also say the same as the bolded for any profession in some sort of civil service (or any profession for that matter)? Being a postal worker or teacher or firefighter have a range of crossover skills - some translate better or worse to other careers. However, we don't treat them in a special way.

SI

Thats a fair point - but one of the reasons I tend to treat servicemen differently is that often the pay (esp. in the lower ranks) isn't what I'd consider competitive in comparison to the private sector.

(this may differ over here to back in the UK - but pay for UK soldiers is fairly low considering the risk of harm)

Firefighters definitely draw early pensions. Plenty of other government employees do too, but police and firefighters have their own seperate deals and younger retirement ages. Plenty continue to work, but requiring firefighters, police, and military to work until they're 65 to get the same retirement benefits as someone with a desk job seems a little silly. I'm really surprised this is such a controversial thing at fofc.

Edit: it's also not necessarily the easiest thing in the world to find good people for these jobs. Jobs which are pretty important. Strong compensation packages (more salary than benefits) strengthening the applicant pool is a pretty decent investment, imo.

What's the dividing line that you're using to say "early pension is fair/good"? I was taking issue with the argument that it's because they can't cross train or do other jobs? I thought that was what the GI Bill was for. Never mind that there are good jobs in the military that can train you for future jobs. But like other companies or fields, there are bad jobs, too. If you're a grunt at HP or GE, you're not getting the same level of training as a higher level engineer. One could make the same argument in the military (glibly "the world needs ditch diggers, too").

Or is there another line we're talking about? Is it that it's a physically demanding job? Why not construction workers or factory workers, too? Is it that it's in service to country? How about other civil service? What is the combination of factors that makes military specially qualified for a pension at 20 years regardless of age whereas almost every other job uses a combination of service time and age?

SI

What jobs pay better than the military for someone coming out of high school? Especially when you consider health benefits, GI Bill etc...

UK soldiers get £14,349 as their basic pay initially - so pretty much any job which isn't minimum wage really (bearing in mind health benefits etc. in the UK is moot as everyone has access to health care anyway).

Minimum wage is presently £6.31/hour which is roughly £12,000 per annum taking a basic 38 hour working week - so soldiers are paid a little above minimum wage initially back home.

(if you have details of what soldiers in the US are paid by all means let me know - as I indicated my comments are based on UK pay scales for soldiers as thats what I'm familiar with)

The basic pay for an E-1 (which is the lowest enlisted rank in any service) is $1532/month. In the Air Force if you're unmarried you'll be living in base dorms and eating at no cost to you at the local chow hall.

After about 3 years you'll be an E-4 and moving out of the dorms. Which then you will be earning $2216/month in basic pay. You'll be getting $352 for food and a variable amount for housing based on where you live. For example where I live it would be $783 (which is lower than most places). The last two are tax free btw.

So add it all up and you're earning about $40,000/year plus benefits. Not bad for someone 3 years out of high school.

Slighty off-topic about our health care system and decisions in general, but a case over a California teen that the surgeons/hospital declared brain-dead on December 12th is being ordered by a judge to keep her on a ventilator for another week.

Judge tells Calif. hospital to keep treating teen - seattlepi.com

I think cases like theses are a big, missing part of our discussion that no one wants to touch in a big way, especially when it comes to Medicare/Medicaid. A big part of it is due to the disproportional costs end-of-life eats up of our health care costs.

room & board.

Yeah, we don't talk about it because our political elders can't have an adult debate publicly without the eventuality of "death panels" coming into the discussion. Sort of like saying somebody has cooties or something...you don't want to be the person that has cooties.

I'm not even convinced that we shouldn't have death panels. Somebody has to decide tough things...why not have an accountable entity to make such decisions.

This case is slightly more complicated than that and has nothing to do with the health care debate or end-of-life costs.

Well the "case" may be unrelated, but the relevancy is dependent on the person mentioning it.

I saw it as a corner case where there is potential conflict of interest in who is deciding to pull the plug here. And that suggests (to me anyway) there is inherit need to have a healthcare system (whether ACA or incarnations of it eventually) which actually has methods for such determinations.

The case may not be directly relate,d but it has everything to do with the health care debate and end-of-life costs. Tough decisions will have to be made.

Like any employer, the ultimate issue is just offering a salary/benefits package that will assure an applicant pool from which you can find the caliber of people you want. And there's a PR element on top of that where some businesses and governments don't want to be seen as taking advantage of working people. There's no one factor. There are trends though. All across governments, in every state, physically demanding jobs that old people can't do, and require specialized training and skills honed over years or decades, tend to have benefit packages that include some kind of supplemental income or pension after you put in some period of years that tends to be less than government desk jobs. A city or county could just decide to hire only minimum-wage firefighters or police officers with no benefits, and fire them all when they start to get older, but you'd probably be scraping the bottom of the barrel (especially with the influence of unions), your city services would suck, and your constituents wouldn't be happy. You're competing with other cities and towns for good talent too.

Edit: And for how amazing we've apparently collectively established the military's compensation packages are, they're still the only employer I'm aware of that needs to aggressively troll high schools all over the U.S. looking for people. This is not a job for everyone. I sure as hell wasn't going to do it, and I got more than a couple phone calls in high school wanting to tell me all about the benefits.

You don't think GE or Microsoft or Chrysler would troll high schools if they were allowed to? They sure as heck do it on college campuses. I just always assumed the military could do it because they were allowed privileged access when others weren't. I also think that the average level of education needed for many jobs is college level as opposed to high school standards for many jobs in the military (tho many others require college education).

SI

There's nothing stopping GE and Microsoft and Chrysler from calling you at home, or setting up an off-campus recruiting center in your town. But I think most smart, non-trouble making kids with good grades would prefer a 40-hour per week job with a good salary with a major corporation, or to experience the college lifestyle, then jump immediately into the military lifestyle. And again, only a portion of people who go into the military after high school are going to make it 30-years and draw a full pension. I imagine plenty just want to do the minimum commitment and get help for college to move onto a different career. I can't imagine who they'd get to sign up if they took THAT angle away (are you in favor of eliminating the help with college tuition as well)?

What is your point, ultimately? Just that people in the military are overpaid? That we could get the same bang for our buck by paying less and eliminating pensions? Do you want to impose that immediately or grandfather it in with new recruits?

Maybe we should go after teacher's salaries too - does the average $70k+ teacher salary in New York and Massachusetts seem a little high? Do they really "need" that? Starting salaries are lower, maybe we could just fire all teachers when they hit 45 or so to keep costs down? If they can't figure out another career by then, that's on them. (Edit: And the pensions they get! My mother didn't start teaching until she was around 38, and she was eligible for a pension after 10 years of service, but ended up putting in closer to 25 and was able to get close to a maximum benefit. She did have to opt-out of federal social security though, but that's a small price to pay for getting a significant chunk of your full salary in your retirement years)

Teacher Salaries By State | Average Salaries For Teachers | Beginning Salaries For Teachers | Teacher Raises | TeacherPortal.com

I see the military as very different from other public sector jobs. You give up a lot of individual freedom when you make that promise to your country. That requires a different form of compensation.

My dad undoubtedly benefited from the GI bill, though he was a 17-year-old at Yale when he volunteered to serve in WWII. While money probably wasn't an issue (back then, you could work in the library or food services and make a huge difference with room/board, and tuition hadn't yet gotten out of hand), it gave him years of responsibility, and when he returned, he changed majors (which upset my grandparents to no end - he was pre-med and went into academia) and did something he loved.

FDR had the famous quote about unions in the public sector. Kennedy was the one who reversed course and set us down this path. We see the end of the path today in many municipalities. The problem is what do you do when you have a negotiating body (local and federal government) that has no incentive to control costs going up against a union that wields a certain amount of power? The result was inevitable. I can't go up to any public-sector retiree and say, "hey... you don't deserve that pension." That's absurd and mean. But the net weight of these deals has broken the budgeting process - we've spent money that our children and grandchildren need.

Can we wave a magic wand and make that debt go away? I don't know. It probably can't be done without greatly reducing the savings of those in the private sector. Either way, the government is breaking a promise made to a large group of people.

There's smart public pension plans and there's terrible ones. A lot were created in good economic times where that they assumed would continue forever. But many are tied to the economy, not in any financial trouble even in the lean years, and can be a great way to help keep good talent around a little longer from bailing to more lucrative private careers.

Edit: But still, the ultimate loser in the "terrible plan" situation is still the employee themselves - plenty of terrible plans are "remedied" by strong-arming public retirees to accepting just a fraction of their promised retirement benefits - even when they had PAID INTO those plans, just like a 401(k))

On the military pension thing, I'm not saying its good, but I think some may be overreacting. It's a 1% decrease in the annual Cost of Living Increase. And if you wait until 62 to take it out, you get all that money back (they re-calculate).

I believe it's 20 years to get a full pension. I find it difficult to keep most pensions financially viable with populations that are living longer and one that can start paying out before age 40 seems almost impossible. (not accusing you of this) I guess I'm also frustrated that it's politically expedient to be ok with cutting pension and benefits for "evil overpaid union workers" when there are a lot of similarities with the military.

Since you asked, I would force the pension structure for any new retirees to look more the few remaining pensions out there: it's age plus service based and realistically, you wouldn't be able to draw it until at least 60 with the option that it might be adjusted upward by a couple of years to adjust for potential shortfalls.

Meanwhile, I think pay and benefits for the military are good as is. The pay plus free room and board (or housing stipend) and a lot of money for college are an excellent benefit package, unmatched for anyone coming out of high school. I know I seriously considered ROTC because of all the money for college but ultimately did not because of the long term commitment (which is funny because now I'd kill for guaranteed employment for 6 years).

And I certainly agree with lots of others, yourself included: we need a smaller military. If we had a smaller force, I wouldn't have as many issues with paying better but, really, we have way too large of a military as is. Fortunately that is starting to be stepped down.

So, basically, keep the education package because that's the real benefit that addresses the perceived training gap and the costs are locked in. But adjust the pension for any future enrollees.

It's still not fair to adjust it for current ones. However, I can almost guarantee you that we will have a huge shift in public sentiment in the next 20 years and it's already started. As towns and counties and eventually states start declaring bankruptcies to get out of their pension obligations, people will be increasingly ok with it because of all the anti-union sentiment. But I expect that if our jingoism is still where it is, there will be even more disconnect between what's ok for the military and what's ok for everyone else.

SI

Someone might be able to correct me, but when I googled this the other day, it was 20 years until you became eligible for a minimum pension, which would be about 50% of your base pay. The longer you put in, the more you get (2.5 percent more for each year of active duty after 20 years, up to 75 percent.)

Understanding Military Retirement Pay

Correct.

Also worth noting, 80% of veterans do not receive a single pension payment. If you server 19 years...you get nothing. That's a HUGE cost savings to the government right there.

While the government advertises the retirement pension as 50% of your salary for life...the reality is it's only your base pay, which is not enough to provide you food or a home, so those are "special pay" or what should be called supplemental pay thay is not calculated in your retirement. So an E-7 (Sergeant First Class, Navy Chief Petty Officer, Master Sereant, Gunnery Sergeant) makes about $80K a year (for the last few years of their career typically), his/her retirement annually is around $20K. Which is probably a bit misleading to 18-year old recruits.

So the retirement system that the military advertises isn't 50% for life for 100% of the vets...which is how the government portrays it to civilians...it's really 25% for life to the 20% of the veterans that qualify.

But hey, if you were "fortunate" enough to make it that far guess what...even that is too much and the US needs to cut back, obviously using the slow-rolling method. "What's 1% here...or 1% there?" ...yeah, we know how this snowball ends up.

Grandfather in everybody, write the "new deal", and get recruits to buy off on that. It's the only way that is fair.

I think we're all in agreement here

SI

Oh yeah, I think we are all in agreement, but our government (bi-partisan government) figured they could slip this one through without much of an issue since military vets drawing retirement are less than 1/2 a % of the population. Stick it to those who complain the quietest, I guess.

Well crap. I was hoping for better.

Al Qaeda-linked forces capture town of Fallujah in Iraq - World News

I think a large number of the long term unemployed will likely stay under/unemployed ... how much longer is long enough? The economy has improved, maybe one more extension (if it can be offset somewhere else) and say this is really it?

Obama Urges Congress to Restore Benefits to the Long-Term Unemployed - NYTimes.com

The problem is a lot of those jobs are never coming back, either due to technological gains or more lean companies. Its a real problem that I have no clue how to solve.

I've been blessed to never have to be on unemployment, so i have a question - are those on unemployment required to do any sort of community service or other work while getting benefits? I suppose this sort of thing could vary state to state, but I think if those on benefits were required to work one day a week cleaning parks, working in animal shelters, whatever, others would be more willing to fund extended unemployment. And don't tell me people can't look for jobs then - no one spends 40 hours a week searching.

More on the above - while technology has done a great job of making "low value" jobs irrelevant, business and government leaders have done a piss poor job of training both the displaced as well as the future employees with the skill set required to compete. At no other time has it been possible for two guys in a garage to start a billion dollar empire in next to no time through app development, but so many people are not properly situated to take advantage of this new reality.

I know personal responsibility is huge (trust me, I busted my ass to get through Georgia Tech as a CompE to prepare myself), but i think we need more businesses getting involved. Although they are probably happier paying less money to H-1B visa employees rather than US employees.

I may be mistaken but I don't think H-1B folks are the issue. These are largely the tech folks and any US tech person is likely not having issues finding a job.

I think the problem is the non-tech job seekers such as manufacturing, marketing, middle managers, low skill workers etc.

My point was companies have little incentive to train non-tech workers to do tech jobs when they can just get cheap h-1b workers.

Yep...though I'd probably say it isn't the "problem" of corporations to solve as much as it is an American problem to address.

We haven't put a pricetag on "retrain non-tech workers to become tech workers" and let corporations compete for that business (won't rant on about "college" here...but suffice to say I find that a Ponzi scheme of costs that are unsustainable for all but perhaps 1% of actual workforce jobs). I think there are many, many jobs that are labelled as "tech" that most skilled labor, factory workers, etc. could do with some reasonable vocational courses.

This takes leadership, direction, and big picture thinking. We haven't mobilized our workforce to solve big problems in so long we've forgotten how to do it, and when to do it, apparently. We put people on the moon, built interstate highways, and built weapons to fight (and win) world wars. And instead of solving the next big problem, we find ourselves fighting over 3% in tax hikes like people saving the fine dinnerware while the titanic sinks and people are drowning. Its disgraceful.

It's not about training, it's about schooling. You can't "train" a programmer, except for some job-specific bits, you need someone to come in with some programming skills already, either from a 4-year degree or a proven record of home programming. You then expect to train them in your particular software setup, but you don't expect to teach them what a "for loop" is.

I actually would 'debate' that with you - I'm a frustrated teacher at heart (that was my original career preference but I didn't have the grades to go into teacher training in the UK) .... as such I've regularly taken on the role of helping people in QA at SI learn the ropes for programming and have several move through the ranks and eventually become full programmers at the studio.

There are HUGE benefits to a company from this approach in my opinion including:
* Visible career progression within the company breeds loyalty and hard work (ie. people know they can be rewarded and build their career within the studio if they work hard).
* They learn exactly* what is required to do the job before they are actually in that position full-time (when you hire a programmer into a studio there is normally a 'lag' before they become fully productive** - with regards to specialized software like FM/FMH this is normally 3-6 months in duration depending on the area they're working in).
* The studio know who they're hiring, that is you've worked with them and know their personalities and work ethics in advance - frankly this is a huge benefit and anyone who wants to become a full programmer at SI knows they have to do things 'right' or there is zero chance of me helping with mentoring them.
* People who come through from other areas of the company have a greater appreciation of those areas than people who come straight out of university and straight into a programming role - I've found this means they're better communicators with these other areas which is a huge benefit at times.

And yes I know we're unusual in this manner - but then our staff turnover rate which is minuscule by industry averages ... we've a LOT of people here who have been with the studio for 5+ years and a fairly scary amount who've been here 10+ (I've been at SI over 15 years now ... when I was first at SI I was considered to be 'young' for someone in a Head of Development/CTO role ... its THAT long ago ;) ).

*The way things usually work is partially them learning in their own time and partially when things are 'quiet' in QA I assign them small 'safe' tasks to undertake with my supervision/monitoring - these are generally tweaks to small/simple existing modules or implementations of a 'slot on' module which is optional to the game and can be left out if everything goes awol. This approach gives them real experience of development and allows both them and the studio to ascertain if the potential role is really something they'll enjoy and thrive at, while they learn more about how to do it.
Incidentally the BIGGEST things I find I have to teach people whether they're being trained up from QA or coming in from university is 'defensive coding' (ie. error trapping so errors are spotted by the program and ALSO don't break it, ie. if recovers cleanly) and memory/pointer handling .... most university courses these days seem to concentrate on Java/C# which leaves people somewhat deficient in this area.
**By this I mean actually able to work in a productive manner without serious handholding from other staff (i.e. them having to ask questions etc.) - I've found studios seriously underestimate this side of things which is why so many tolerate high turnover.

Is SI hiring?

I expect you're not being serious - but yes we are presently ... if you go to sigames.com you'll see what positions are open.

Completely unsurprised. They've had sectarian violence for generations, they'll continue to have sectarian violence for generations.



Yes and yes - I couldn't agree more with both, and would say it goes beyond tech jobs as well. When I was hiring people (a lot of people) I really wanted people with broad skills and an ability to learn and adapt quickly.

I could see this - you've hired them to a "lesser" position (I put that in quotes intentionally - good QA/QC is worth their weight in gold, I mean "lesser" as in less schooling / training / minimum requirements, but if you've got the right mindset you've got a job for life, and can move up to more senior QA positions), and then spend the time training them. We've had several do the same progression, although it usually involves school on the side, or they went to school, didn't pick it all up, and use QA as a launching point while they learn more.

Yeah we've had similar combo's previously - ie. some have some programming knowledge, others don't and we have previously paid for people to attend evening classes etc. if they've proved themselves (we're big on helping people improve their skill sets here, in case it amuses anyone I'm presently approved for a digital art course whenever I find the time to take it :D ).

Two of the best software developers I know have very little college training on it. One was an operator on the floor and was mentored by myself and another guy for three years is now a much better programmer than me (even though I have the systems and software engineering degree). Writing software is a lot like translating language. If you understand algorithms and solving problems, learning to code isn't insurmountable.

One of the other problems is two fold:

1) Many companies are putting too many conditions on what they need for a position. I've seen some factory jobs requiring a 4 yr degree (which the worker would never use!).

2) Many of the young kids entering the workforce are not looking at get-your-hands dirty jobs. There are a slew of positions for blue collar tech positions that companies are having a hard time filling because the younger generations don't want to do that sort of work.

My current company:

CTO - No college degree.
4/6 Developers - No college degree.
1/1 Network Admin - No college degree.

Most of the best IT folks I've worked with over my 15ish years in the industry either have no degree, or if they do, it's unrelated. There's just not much in most development jobs that one can learn in a college classroom - at least not how it's presently taught.

IMO, if colleges had a software development program that functioned more like a classic trade school, graduates would enter the job market much more prepared.

I'd agree with this. I have two bachelor degrees and a master's degree. My first employer in IT basically saw my college background as a sign that I was a motivated worker and put me in an eight week IT training class to get me up and going. Spent 12 years in the industry after having no experience in IT during my six years in college. The skill set can be taught. The main thing is getting the right people in place to learn and implement it.

Damned if I run across many that want to do any sort of work.

This is DEFINITELY the case - I remember seeing adverts for C# developers when it'd first come out which required 4 years experience in a language which had only been out for a couple of years :D

I agree totally - this is one of the reasons I've told my daughter (19) that she's getting a job during the summer next year, she's never had one and won't truly appreciate her career unless she has more mundane jobs to compare it to ... as such it might sound odd, but I want her to spend several months stacking shelves or cleaning toilets ... it'll make her appreciate her career all the more once she graduates.

PS - For the record my full resume would include such jobs as: Stock Filler, Factory Worker and would include toilet cleaner ... but the 17 year old me was turned down for that one ;)

You guys need to open a satellite office in the U.S. Somewhere near (me) Portland, Maine would be ideal.

:D

I think you're in the wrong Portland for the US soccer hotbed

SI

Lets not kid ourselves, tho. Very few companies, especially larger ones, want to significantly train within. They want commoditized labor- cheap (or expensive) replaceable parts. Whereas it's a significant investment for a smaller company to go find new hires and, as such, have more invested in keeping an individual trained and happy, larger companies have "streamlined" hiring so it's not nearly as big an ordeal for them.

Every larger organization I've been a part of or contracted to was working towards simplifying individual components so labor costs were lower and more controlled.

SI

My Dad was always willing to pull strings to get us jobs. The problem was his strings led to jobs like grave maintenance, sludge pond maintenance and road crew. By the time I saw my three brothers go through this, I found my own job at a grocery store.

I firmly believe everyone should have a nice mundane job for a couple years in HS or at worst during summers in early college years. It really sets your head on straight.

My full resume would start in elementary school (4th grade) when I was a paperboy for our local neighborhood. Every morning. Rain, snow, etc. Been working ever since.

Code is definitely the easy part, it's algorithms and data structures that so many self-taught programmers seem to have trouble with. For so many kids that want to go into game programming (and for many of them that means "I want to work on Call of Duty!" which affects this list), when I tell them they should take physics, calculus, algorithms, and data structures, they don't believe me, they think they can just take those l33t web hacker skillz and get cracking.

There are definitely exceptions, though, and depending on the particular programming job you might get away just fine with l33t hacker skillz. The programmers that have a natural feel for algorithms and data structures without formal training are great to find...

I didn't see anyone answer this yet. The only requirement for a person on unemployment is to make sufficient "job contacts" in a week. In Wisconsin, that is 2 contacts. A contact can be as simple as sending your resume in response to an online posting. Community service is not a requirement. Working anywhere that pays you can cause problems with unemployment benefits. At the very least, it causes confusion on filing for benefits. It is better for an unemployed person to not work at all if they can't work enough to at least cover the unemployment benefits.

Agree 1000%. From age 14 to 20, I worked on a farm, refereed soccer, umped baseball, painted exteriors for business, did construction, stocked inventory at retail stores, sold computers and wrote for my college paper. Finally, at age 21, I got a summer internship with Honeywell for my "career". If you can learn a decent work ethic between the ages of 14-19, you will be more successful than most - independent of whatever arena you enter.

That was the model 2-3 years ago, but a lot of companies are investing more in their own workers. The company I am Manager at now has done this with 3-4 different people. What you find is it's much better to "promote within" and train a motivated employee that knows your business and doesn't make a ton than deal with big salary "authorities" on certain subjects that want a ton of money and want to redo everything you have setup because they feel they know best.

We had a DBA open position and got three qualified guys with a ton of EXP who wanted top line money. They each made it to our final round of interviews and each had massive changes they wanted to do to make our systems better. The cost to do this would have been massive (man hours + software/hardware). So, instead, we promoted a guy who was a hardware tech but a very good problem solver. In a year, he has become a very good DBA and makes a fair salary now (because he doesn't have the 5-7 years yet to demand more). Plus, we didn't have to buy one piece of hardware as he understands we don't sell database jobs/procedures - we sell wafers :D

Sometimes "good enough and cheap" is better than "perfect and expensive". That's something a lot of high-paid experts don't like to explore.

I agree with you that I think it's typically better to invest in your own people at least for anything more than entry level (entry level- just find the correct attitudes and a real base level of competence as you can teach the rest, and you build yourself a competent farm system for recruiting up the ladder). I just don't think most large companies see it that way

SI

Call me jaded but I think its very difficult to train an older worker in non-tech to tech. Younger kids can absorb and adapt. In my experience, older workers do not make this transition as successfully or at all.

Depends on the mentality of the individual, their willingness to learn and mentality in my opinion - on my Computer Science course at university was a REALLY inspirational lass in her 50's who was frankly awesome, I don't think she was the best programmer out of us - but her attitude, passion and general approach was fantastic and I learnt a lot from her.

Yup, I tell the guys I work with right now that the our business is cutting back on funds. That means the old days when we could have the best software tools and the best engineers are over. Can you work with the open frameworks and build and use what we need or do I need to get the fully-built software and get a cheap IT dude to maintain it. The choice is yours. And they usually agree to go with the less expensive software solution.

Basically: "Do you want badass software or badass engineers?"


I mostly agree. But there are some brilliant old dudes out there too. Depends a lot on time, passion, and frame of mind.

Don't be shocked if we eventually learn that this information was casually mentioned to the NYT and others by Republicans.

I'd be downright giddy to see this waste of protoplasm relegated to being a footnote.

Yeah, I'm not so sure that being the candidate of all people (i.e. appealing to both sides) is a good idea if you're a politician in this climate. Then you've got both sides looking to sabotage your campaign.

The emails came via FOIA requests by several media organizations. The original story started via the Ft. Lee mayor complaining about the "study" being political payback.

If this sinks Christie it will be an amazing fumble. He was going to win the election by a landslide, and that was obvious months before this. He had no need to use any dirty tricks to win.

Your move, Jeb Bush!

Edit: I think Christie is the only electable Republican presidential candidate and my gut reaction is that this will blow over and some staffer will take the fall.

Just like the Barksdale crew in The Wire, you always keep the top dog away from any means of communication that can be traced/recorded.

That is unbelievably fucked up though. Hopefully nobody died in the back of an ambulance but at best it made thousands of commuters lives hell for a couple of days. I wonder if you could make a criminal case out of it somewhere

After reading the article, unless it's proven that Christie had direct knowledge of what was going on or approved of it I don't think this will be enough to sink him. It will be more akin to the IRS targeting conservatives groups.

On another note apparently a lot of the documents released had redacted information. If the released parts are this juicy, what wasn't released?

BREAKING NEWS: Man who sincerely and honestly believes that he, personally, should be the most powerful man on Earth has issues with narcissism and abuse of power.

I know that it is important to do our due diligence and report all of these things. But, really, it's more surprising when people with naked ambition for the presidency don't have this kind of stuff in their past than when they do.

Civil suit?

Oh undoubtably a ton of civil suits coming - you know there's somebody who missed a plane or got in trouble for being late to work who is already lining this up. Usually I'd moan about a litigious society but in this case I hope they get burned.

And I agree they will never touch Christie for this, but the people on the email are toast

This is much bigger than the IRS thing, since it involved more than a local office. It involved someone in Christie's office who was a Deputy Chief of Staff. It'd be as if the IRS decision was made by someone who worked in the West Wing.

It won't touch Christie, but it's bad nonetheless. It shows questionable executive decision making. He's either lying about it, has no idea what's going on in his office, or has questionable judgment on who he places in higher positions of authority.

If the NJ US Attorney has political inspirations, he can do what Christie did--start a corruption investigation.

This first broke 117 days ago. Since then he's accepted the resignation of two Port Authority employees. Now he's shocked that something happened and he was lied to?

Yeah- I guess it's a slow news cycle.

SI

I'm not sure I believe Christie, but he's doing a very good job in his press conference. He's striking just the right tone, IMO.

It could just be that I am from NJ, but the Letterman top 10 last night was pretty epic. I recommend youtubing it.

Rather poor jobs report. Not good.

And November's was better than expected. Your point?

So where is this Christie news coming from? I can come up with 3 possible explanations but I'm sure there are more:
1) GOP wants to bury him before he gets a chance to get out there
2) Christie wants to float some of these things to get them out of the way now as opposed to closer to 2016
3) The Clinton machine is getting an early start.

SI

It's too early for #1 or #3. They would wait until closer to the primary and try to sink him right before Iowa/NH. For #2, his press conferences before the e-mails were released don't make sense.

I think this is just a snowball effect of the initial story. For instance, there is a story out now about Christie cancelling a meeting with the Jersey City mayor after a declined endorsement. That would get zero attention before this scandal, but now every little thing like that becomes a story because it's tied to the main story and it fits the Christie bully narrative.

A commentary I read (sorry, can't remember the link) posits that it's not motivated by a political rival (current or potential), but has blown up because Christie's a juicy target for the press, and any indication that there's fire behind the smoke has been enough for them to try and press home their advantage.

One does wonder what effect this will have on Hillary Clinton. Obviously the Clintons have had enemy lists and petty reprisals. Wonder if that sort of thing will come out with Hillary in the Democratic Primary, or if they are liking that this is so early in the Presidential race that it'll be super old news by the time everyone is running.

That got dealt with way back when Bill won two terms. It will be an issue if the opponent is any good, but as we've seen from both sides if you trot out a lousy candidate, it doesn't matter what the other guy has done, he'll / she'll still win.

Waiting to see the details, but a good thing to get rid of the uncertainty

Congressional leaders back $1 trillion spending bill - CNN.com

It's sad that we've gotten to the oint where passing a spending bill for one year is cause to break out the hallelujahs.

A step in the right direction - a proposed budget that is actually lower than the previous year (years?).

amazing that the fact that the mid-term elections are coming and both sides need the support of the voters, so finally "positive" things can happen now after more gridlock than ever before.

whiskey....tango...foxtrot

I'm going to go with "I'm confused"

SI

My guess is that they took the referral logs from healthreform dot gov and sent a mass email to admins of sites that had a link to the page that had been clicked since the site went offline.

Redacted = Steve Bollea. :)

At least SOMEONE thinks we have valuable information on our site...

I can't believe they made it to the site and didn't get sidetracked by the Cool Images thread...