The last 4 years..... (Page 2)

My wife is CEO of a new small business.  My salary and savings extended all loans for operating income.  We have a single employee.  Our employee makes more money than my wife, or the business.  I still extended that employee a very nice Christmas bonus to thank her for her hard work this year.  Even though we have yet to make a profit.  Our emplyee also gets tips and sometimes in the form of a check.  I HAVE to report those tips and pay taxes on them.  Yet I give the entire amount to our employee even if it eats away most of our profits for the job.  But I have to 40% when I actually do turn a profit, her rate is more around 15%.  At least I have that to look forward to!  There are absolutely no caring CEO's....right?  

I thought it was "what a maroon".

Clearly she is the exception since the stereotypes are that CEO's don't care about anything other than their own wallet and that Government workers don't work hard at all.  Your anecdotal evidence means nothing.

Okay, all this niceness needs to stop now, I don't want to have to come up with a new sig line!

@ Phil, your break is over get back to work!

At lunch.  I'm using my well-deserved 45 minutes DAMMIT!!!!

Fine.....but I don't remember saying "all" government workers were lazy.  If you want to analyze what I said the point would be it was "better" for the lazy ones.  

Wasn't calling you out anyway.  Look at who responded.  I was calling out cruse for his over generalization.

....have been great for my family.

My daughters go to phenomenal PUBLIC schools.

My wife and I are making about 30% more than we were 4 years ago.

Big fans of the current administration!

You don't get to have it both ways. You can't make broad generalizations then get upset when that includes you.

If you do not like the last 4 years and how government operates, that's fine. But "government worker" extends to a whole bunch of different people. A lot of the stuff you are complaining about comes from unions for teachers and not the "government". And many of your examples deal with local and state government and not Federal which is what the last 4 years are about.

I am a "government worker" at a municiple utility in a very conservative, anti-union city. In my industry, I am underpaid, which is a known fact. Yet my benefits are a "little" better, and I have good job security. But job security comes from my industry, not my employer. I willingly take less pay, to have a better retirment. And while it is a defined benefit plan which most American's do not have, it is by no means extravagant. It's just garanteed, as much as anything can be garanteed in this economic climate. In the last four years, we have not had a raise, our health care has increased, out retirment contributions have increased, and for the first time this year, they discussed furloughs. This is a rate payer enterprise, and not a tax funded agency. Our retirments have been cut back to the point it is becoming a toss up on getting paid more somwhere else. Now our conservative Mayor, who I voted for... wants to get rid of my retirement all together... just because we are fat lazy government workers that have sacrificed short term pain for long term gain.

It's an awesome talking point, until you actually look at what you are talking about.

My district has not had a raise in 6 years, and we now have to contribute an extra 2% to our pensions, so I have essentially taken a pay cut. Mean while I am paying twice as much for gas.

Title of my story:  My lazy aunt

Story:  So my aunt lost her job in the last year.  She is around 54, married, never had children, lived in a small town in Iowa, had a very cheap house that has been paid off for 25 years.  In other words, she was very wealthy when she lost her job.  She has been collecting unemployment for a while now.  She uses it to go gambling.  She "tries" to find a job, even though she tells us she doesn't want to work again. 

This really pisses me off, which is why I wont vote for the current president.  He makes it too easy to be lazy and still get what you want.

example from the facility I am managing:

Female employee works here for two weeks and can't work the overtime that we told her upfront was going to be happening as we are in our busy season.  Third week shows up 3 days of the six.  Others were "sick" days.  Fourth week AWOL Monday - Friday. Following week we get the paperwork from the state filing for unemployment.  She will get unemployment, probably not from us, but will get it from her previous employer.  Why is she doing this.  According to her, she will make a LOT more money on unemployment and get free food and health care.  Why not????

I am not a CEO, but I do run a manufacturing facility.  I don't make what I used to at my previous employer, but that business went to Mexico for lower wages.  I don't have health benefits, but I do work 60 -89 hours a week to have full time employment.

We need change.  But, I honestly don't think any president is going to make the difference.  It needs to be a huge change across the entire country.  As long as people can live off the government, they will.

I like your idea better.

...I only went to Iraq once, I had another daughter, I got two Master's degrees, I moved twice, and I got promoted.

Slacker.

Been downsized 2x in the last 4 years, watched the real estate market crumble around us(still above water luckily) and watched jobs in my field (Contract Logistics and Distribution) dry up....

Last for years have been Great

I only make 100% more than I did 4 years ago, pay less in healthcare, and hit some pretty major career milestones.

I'd say the last 4 years have been pretty great.

My apologies for singling out this particular message to respond to, but it really is a response to many of the messages in this thread. Your aunt story is just a great example of a problem, but not the one you brought up.

You're aunt is lazy and that's the president's fault? Seriously? There will ALWAYS be people who will take advantage of a system meant to help those who truly need it. Most people wait in lines for their turn to get gas, see a movie, or buy their groceries, but some people cut in. Most people obey the laws, but some people commit crimes. Some will get caught and some won't. That's life.  That does not mean the vast majority of people who get that unemployment assistance do the same thing. The alternative is to cut off everyone who needs that unemployment assistance just so we can make sure a relative few don't cheat the system. That's short-sighted and would have made the recession much deeper and prolonged. Sure, I'd love to think the government could step up enforcement to catch more people who are cheating the system. The problem with that is there are a lot fewer of them now and their case loads have skyrocketed. I guess that's the president's fault too, except that to fix that, he would have had to hire tens of thousands of government workers over the last four years and we all know how well that would have gone over.

I'm simply tired of people taking some examples of poor PERSONAL behavior (remember that personal responsibility ideal we keep hearing about?) and using that to paint everybody with that broad brush and then looking for people to blame. Blame your lazy aunt, period. 

That may be true for welfare or fraud... but with unemployment it is simple ecomomics. Lots of people lost high paying jobs. They got the max in unemployment... then it got extended, then it got extended, then it got extended... What incentive is there to take a low skilled job just to be "employed", when their high paying job is not hiring, and they make half of what they did on unemployment???

I'm sorry, my sister has not worked in 3 years. IT/data. Made about $2500 a month on unemployment I think, tax free. That's good money tax free, but not close to what she was making. Not too many jobs paying that. Not having a job when the music stopped, well that was on her, ... 100,000s were doing the exact same thing. Yes she was looking for work, so it wasn't fraud. Yes... the vast majority of high paid people were doing the exact same thing... they still had bills to pay. There are other factors I won't go into. I'm not defending, just saying it is simple math.

I know.

Unemployment benefits are taxed at the federal level, but may or may not be at the state level, depending on the state.

What state?  That's awesome.  For one month this summer, I made the max unemployment in California, $1950/mo.

California asks you if you want to withhold federal taxes from each of your checks, then withholds 10% if you check the yes box.