no00o...n00ooooaawwhhh!

Originally Posted by ElwoodCuse nice job falling for the right-wing myth of those living high on the hog public employees

Way to be utterly blind to the truth. IATCG is actually quite correct in his assessment. Public employees are grossly overpaid in my state compared to their private sector equivalents.

Originally Posted by Nogib Way to be utterly blind to the truth. IATCG is actually quite correct in his assessment. Public employees are grossly overpaid in my state compared to their private sector equivalents.

Only if you fall for the right wing talking point that public sector employees should only be paid the bare minimum necessary to put a warm body in the job. That way anyone who is somewhat productive is forced to move to the private sector to earn enough to raise a family and eat. At that point you end up bitching at the driver's license office (worse than people do now) about how retarded and slow the people are there. The simple question is, do you like your garbage pick up to be timely, your trips to the DMV to not be ordeals and the mail you send to the post office to actually have a better than average chance of reaching it's destination? In that case your taxes have to pay more than bottom of the bucket wages to attract employees that actually give a shit.

You cannot have it both ways. You either have to pay enough taxes that the government can hire qualified employees or you can have your low taxes and get what you pay for from your government services. I've yet to meet someone that would volunteer to spend more time at the DMV.

Originally Posted by defpally You cannot have it both ways. You either have to pay enough taxes that the government can hire qualified employees or you can have your low taxes and get what you pay for from your government services. I've yet to meet someone that would volunteer to spend more time at the DMV.

This is very true. As for IATCG's assessment of education itself and the skills needed to teach... In my experience, dumb people usually hate education and hold educators in disdain.

Anyway, I'm so sad to learn that Amazon will be taxing us Texans now. I can see how it's good for the state, but it's bad for consumers.

Advertisement

Register for free to remove this ad

It's only bad for consumers when the tax rate in your state is stupidly high like those with 8%+. I believe the sales tax rate for all states should not go higher than 5%.

Originally Posted by defpally Only if you fall for the right wing talking point that public sector employees should only be paid the bare minimum necessary to put a warm body in the job. That way anyone who is somewhat productive is forced to move to the private sector to earn enough to raise a family and eat. At that point you end up bitching at the driver's license office (worse than people do now) about how retarded and slow the people are there. The simple question is, do you like your garbage pick up to be timely, your trips to the DMV to not be ordeals and the mail you send to the post office to actually have a better than average chance of reaching it's destination? In that case your taxes have to pay more than bottom of the bucket wages to attract employees that actually give a shit. You cannot have it both ways. You either have to pay enough taxes that the government can hire qualified employees or you can have your low taxes and get what you pay for from your government services. I've yet to meet someone that would volunteer to spend more time at the DMV.

Funny you say this, since for a long time I was receiving other peoples' mail from not only one or two streets over, but also as far away as a whole neighborhood/section of the city. So to say that paying better wages makes for people who give a shit or pay attention to how they're doing their job is a crock to me.

Then there was the one woman who worked at the one post office at the mall here. She would constantly bitch about having to work hours she wasn't supposed to and just bitch in general about the place. She has since disappeared, so I'm assuming she was either re-assigned somewhere else or she was one of the small percentage of people that somehow get themselves fired from public sector jobs.

But the way I see it a job is a job. If you want to make money, you either do your job without bitching about how long/hard the hours are or you find a different job. God knows there will be 10 or more people right behind you willing to do that job without complaining about the hours or how you're owed more pay for doing it.

Originally Posted by eastx This is very true. As for IATCG's assessment of education itself and the skills needed to teach... In my experience, dumb people usually hate education and hold educators in disdain.

So because someone is critical of some teachers they're automatically stupid to you?

I guess you must BE a teacher to take my comments so personally, huh? I commend the teachers who take the time to actually interact with their students and make sure they learn what they're trying to teach them and then spend the extra time with students who may appear to be falling behind. Those teachers deserve every benefit in the world. But the ones like I mentioned above that only give out assignments from the teachers' edition textbooks are doing the bare minimum to be seen as teachers imo.

Mind you, most of what is taught in school from grades 1 through 12 will never really be needed in the real world, so most education is really for naught. An employer has never asked me to answer an algebra question on an application or to solve an equation and show my work for it.

Paying sales tax is nothing new, they have been around for ages. It's just belatedly worked it's way to the internet.

Laying the rap on public sector workers is way lame.

Originally Posted by IAmTheCheapestGamer Mind you, most of what is taught in school from grades 1 through 12 will never really be needed in the real world, so most education is really for naught. An employer has never asked me to answer an algebra question on an application or to solve an equation and show my work for it.

School is supposed to prepare you for a variety of careers, as well as simply develop your brain and critical thinking skills. Some things may not seem to have a practical application and yet they are simply good for you. Vocational schools are fine, but I doubt most people know what they truly want to do with their lives before adulthood. I guess that worked okay in the medieval times, but what would you do if you wanted to change professions and you'd only studied one your whole life?

Originally Posted by eastx School is supposed to prepare you for a variety of careers, as well as simply develop your brain and critical thinking skills. Some things may not seem to have a practical application and yet they are simply good for you. Vocational schools are fine, but I doubt most people know what they truly want to do with their lives before adulthood. I guess that worked okay in the medieval times, but what would you do if you wanted to change professions and you'd only studied one your whole life?

Don't get me wrong. I sit here and figure out the angles when playing a game and I do have my math teachers to thank for that. But some of the skills definitely aren't used outside of those 12 years of your life. As for changing professions, I'm a jack of all trade(master of none) who went back to school for medical coding. Has it helped me to get a job in that field? Not at all, since every place I've applied to has required certification or experience, one of which you can't get without first getting a job in the field. The other(certification) costs $100 for the test and that's kinda hard to get as well when you're broke.

Originally Posted by htz It's only bad for consumers when the tax rate in your state is stupidly high like those with 8%+. I believe the sales tax rate for all states should not go higher than 5%.

Mine are over 8% with some added city sales taxes currently for schools and water upgrades etc. I have no problem with it. If you want good public services and a nice city to live in you have to pay for it.

That's the thing though, dmaul. The people in the public service jobs here either don't have to live in the city they take their salaries from(teachers) or if they do(city employees) they find a loophole like building a home in an area with a tax abatement program for new home building or they rent/lease a place just to have a mailbox with an address in the city. Either that or they just go against the policy like some of the city employees had been doing and then only when the city finally realized they were not obeying that rule they do one of the above mentioned things.

To me, if you want the good salaries and benefits, then you should be willing to live in the town/city that you are drawing those from.

I can't believe I've been nosing around CAG for as long as I have, and I've only just run into (or recognized) your tripe now.

You're easily one of the emptiest CAGs ever. Top 5.

And the avatar inviting others to drink the STFU Juice is an astounding touch. This cannot be real.

Originally Posted by IAmTheCheapestGamer Mind you, most of what is taught in school from grades 1 through 12 will never really be needed in the real world, so most education is really for naught. An employer has never asked me to answer an algebra question on an application or to solve an equation and show my work for it.

This explains so much about you.

----

On Topic: I fully support states collecting taxes on internet purchases if it doesn't create an undue burden on small businesses that operate mostly locally. Amazon customers *should* pay taxes on their purchases. Fair is fair.

Just ask Cheapest gamer about his internet. He will NEVER pay a dollar. He jacking wifi from his neighbors NEIGHBORS router. 3kb his download his connection speed is wack, when he talks Digital Distribution he screams BS he's especially noisy when it comes to MSRP.

So all those posts (and there are tons) about how shitty all the updates on his PS3 are is because he's stealing wifi from two houses away? wtf.

Originally Posted by confoosious So all those posts (and there are tons) about how shitty all the updates on his PS3 are is because he's stealing wifi from two houses away? wtf.

Yeah something like that. He made his own song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEM1yWQsNaQ

Originally Posted by Paco Just ask Cheapest gamer about his internet. He will NEVER pay a dollar. He jacking wifi from his neighbors NEIGHBORS router. 3kb his download his connection speed is wack, when he talks Digital Distribution he screams BS he's especially noisy when it comes to MSRP.

Actually I have the $19.99 a month 768kbps DSL from Verizon. It sucks. But it's all I'm willing to pay for internet at this point.

So that explains why I lag in games, since I'm usually trying to surf around the net while playing a game on that 'slow' high speed connection.

Originally Posted by benjamouth Coming to PA 9/1 as well apparently, I think Target, Walmart and BBY are in for a shock when it barely dents Amazon's business, they'll still be cheaper and more convenient for most things.

Umm Target, Walmart and BBY know consumers are moving to online shopping. They have B&M in every state. Meaning they get taxed on their online sales . Do the math. Taxing Amazon will level the playing field , not entirely though of course.

If Amazon wins based on convenience and prices, that's good work by them. They shouldn't win because they're not collecting taxes though.

Originally Posted by IAmTheCheapestGamer Don't get me wrong. I sit here and figure out the angles when playing a game and I do have my math teachers to thank for that. But some of the skills definitely aren't used outside of those 12 years of your life. As for changing professions, I'm a jack of all trade(master of none) who went back to school for medical coding. Has it helped me to get a job in that field? Not at all, since every place I've applied to has required certification or experience, one of which you can't get without first getting a job in the field. The other(certification) costs $100 for the test and that's kinda hard to get as well when you're broke.

You don't seem to understand why people don't agree with you. People don't agree with you because most people want services the government provides. Just because you met a few bad employees you assume that all are bad. I read in the paper that Bernie Madoff had a ponsie scheme therefore all fund managers are fraudsters. I saw in the news that the CEO of Enron went to jail for fraud therefore all CEO's are fraudsters. I saw that a homeless man was a junkie, therefore all homeless people are junkies. See, I can stereotype too.

edit:
To expand further since you seem to have this naive idea about government like the type of opinions bandied about on right wing radio. Many Republican states outsource certain government functions and Republican's LOVE this because they get to "eliminate" government jobs (even though it saves them no money).
Here's what happens to the jobs if the jobs are held by government employees:
If a total budget of 1 million dollars, 1 individual gets 100k, 2 individuals get 80k, 17 employees get 43.5k
Now here's what happens if it's outsourced:
1 individual gets 460k, 2 individuals get 80k, 17 employees get 20k a year
The individual that gets 460k then gives 20k in campaign finance funds to his republican buddies in the legislature and they keep the gravy train rolling.

There is no cost savings just a lot less people making a living they can support themselves on and a few people making much much more.