IS IT TRUE October 9, 2014

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IS IT TRUE that Evansville is about to endure yet another two day rainstorm that will most surely activate the combined sewer overflow alarm bells and send raw sewage into the streets and the Ohio River?…even with what seems like a record year for the willful destruction of our precious environment Mayor Winnecke and most of the City Council sit on the banks and avoid the most important and expensive project Evansville has ever known?…they can not wait this out and make it go away and even the dumbest among them know it?…it is as if they are trying to run the clock out on the EPA?…that may indeed be what they are trying to do in hopes that the next President of the United States will relax the regulations for dumping crap into the river?…you can bet your last dime if the EPA had a consent decree for a dog park or a bocce ball court hanging over them these play toy children would be all over it no matter the price?…since all of the princes and princesses do Evansville are worried about identity, one would think that the identity as one of the least compliant polluters in the country would not be at the top of their lists?…it is part of the brand though?…we may have to send the writers of Southpark a “We are Evansville” T-shirt for Mr. Hanky to wear in a future episode if our electeds don’t face the music and get this repair started without the fun and games distractions they cherish?

IS IT TRUE with the recent news of the slaying of the “official” unemployment dragon many Americans are asking “why haven’t we gotten a raise?”…in the past few years, corporate profits have climbed ever higher and Legions of unemployed people are now finding gainful employment?…if you’re anything like the average American worker, your pay has been flat, just barely keeping pace with inflation?…If you are in the very middle of America’s income distribution, in fact, your overall household income is lower today than it was when the recession officially ended more than five years ago and even lower that it was in 2008 when the wheels fell off the bus called the American economy?…job openings are plentiful in many skill areas with really good programming jobs at Google going up filled at $300,000 per year?…this conundrum of high demand with flat wages is just not consistent with a broad recovery?…the reality remains that despite the prosperity of certain high wage jobs there are still at least 15 Million able bodies still sitting on the sidelines that are not being counted among the “official” unemployed?…there are that many more who are working part time or at depressed wages for their primary skill?…it is not yet time to dance the happy dance over the economy unless you happen to have tech skills and live in a place like Silicon Valley where such skills are rewarded?

IS IT TRUEat the other end of the spectrum are minimum wage workers who President Obama and some others have started a movement to nearly double their pay?…while sticking up for the poor is admirable the President has this one backwards as the real efforts should be to double their value?…if one doubles their value it will be rewarded with more pay and usually exceeds any mandated minimum wage?…just this week a Jack in the Box in Palm Springs started piloting an interactive kiosk to eliminate cashiers?…the kiosk does not call in sick, needs no healthcare, and does not make mistakes as fast food workers often make?…another fast food CEO announced a kiosk program that will launch in 2,000 restaurants that will eventually eliminate nearly all of their cashiers?…these innovations in the kiosk world are brought to you courtesy of the threats to raise the minimum wage beyond the value of a cashier?…just the other day for the first time this year this writer went to a drive up window a Popeye’s and ordered the eight piece family dinner and requested all dark meat?…when I got home what I found was 6 pieces of white meat and 2 wings?…I am certain the people involved were making more than $10 an hour because there was a help wanted sign out for $12 an hour?…I am also sure that if there had been a kiosk with voice recognition instead of a microphone I would have gotten what I paid for?…the skills crisis in this country is what is depressing wages and the pride of workmanship problems on top of an entitlement mentality is why kiosks are poised to make the minimum wage irrelevant in the fast food industry?

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

49 COMMENTS

    • When one has an engineering degree from Stanford and a successful employment history, one has earned the elitist status.

  2. I notice the author is quick to defend the $300,000 salary all the while saying the person bringing him coffee is not worth $7.50 a hour. I believe Goast be right.

    • The $300,000 is what Google has to pay to get the skills it needs and is driven by the free market. The minimum wage is driven by government edict, and is immune to market forces. Costco is a model for paying 3x the minimum wage to get exemplary low to medium skill workers. Costco’s choice is voluntary for business purposes and is market driven. People like the one the ones who messed up my chicken order can’t get a job at Costco.

      • The government attempts to manipulate the minimum wage by edict but it is folly. The audacity that the government can control and direct the plethora of unintended consequences that spring forth when they set out to manipulate that which can only be set by a free market is laughable.

  3. When you can’t get a chicken order right, you’re not going to have $300,000 a year skills.

    • Duh! I’d hazard a guess that some of the $300,000 earners don’t have them, either. Ever hear of a “Golden Parachute”?

      • The exception does not write the rule. If one earns $300,000 then one most likely has a $300,00 a year skill or idea. If one can not get a chicken order right, then one is not likely going to earn $300,000 a ear. If one has less marketable skills than a kiosk, then one will likely not have a job.

  4. Just think if the mayor would have fought like the dickens to get the sewer problem moving forward when he took office, look how far we would be on getting it done.

  5. The Editor’s unfortunate experience at Popeye’s is an inconvenience, but it doesn’t justify the implied conclusion that a raise in the minimum wage is undeserved by all fast food workers. I doubt that $12/hr is a living wage in Coachella. The family of Maria Fernandez, the Dunkin Donuts worker with three jobs who died while napping in her car between shifts, probably feel very differently from the Editor.
    Btw, I believe you will find that the “wheels came off the economic bus” in 2007, not 2008. I also believe you will find that POTUS has presided over far more months of job growth than the Great Republican President, George W. Bush. Remember the emergency meeting in DC and John McCain’s brilliant observation about the fundamentally strong economy? Nobody, including the President is saying the recovery is strong, but we’re adding jobs. The fact that those jobs don’t pay as well as the ones that were lost is not the fault of the President.
    I find it ironic that our Editor is calling for our much-needed infrastructure repair here in Evansville, while being critical of government spending. The truth is that there are many places in this country that are in crying need of infrastructure upgrades and a Congress that would pass a Jobs bill would be making an investment in the future of this country, but they will do nothing that might make this President look good.

    • LKB: “The Editor’s unfortunate experience at Popeye’s is an inconvenience, but it doesn’t justify the implied conclusion that a raise in the minimum wage is undeserved by all fast food workers.”

      That may be so, but your little sob story about lady that dies (God rest her soul) does not justify that there should be a doubling of the minimum wage either. Typical leftist double speak.

      Oh and here comes the mandatory ‘Bushes fault” declaration that has to be brought up anytime the current lotus is called on the carpet.

      I find it hypocritical that LKB will rail against the local government spending money hand over fist unnecessarily. Yet she can sit back and ignore the endless waste of our taxpaying dollars on useless government agencies and programs.

      Oh and there is the other playbook response….If Congress would do something, we could fix the country. If you were an educated woman and not a drone for the uninitiated, you would know that the House has passed several “jobs bills” and sent them on to the Senate. Where your hero Harry Reid has tabled them and refuses to discuss or vote upon them. But if you mention that you would have to bring up how dishonest and crooked your (and the Demoncrats) agenda is, now wouldn’t you.

      I really wish you lobbies would get some new entries into your tired old playbook.

      • Thank you. The wheels fell off the economy bus in 2008. The lug nuts were being loosened over a period of 30 years starting with the governments mandate to loan money to those who could not pay and ending with derivatives and margin calls. Every president and congress that failed to repeal the laws that contributed are responsible. In all fairness to President Obama he did inherit a mess but that mess like the Evansville sewer mess took many years to looking the other way to make. When banks stopped servicing home loans and just cashed commission checks from Fannie and Freddie the die was cast.

        • Obama didn’t “inherit” a mess, he campaigned on a promise to fix it. I didn’t believe him any more than I believed Bush, Palin, McCain, or Limbaugh could fix the problems. Romney might have been able to fix it.

      • Brandon, those bills are likely earmarked with tons of corporate freebies and tax cuts for billionaires. Sneaky sneaky comparing apples to oranges as always Brandon.

        • I’m against earmarks, but do you really know what you’re talking about, or are you just guessing?

        • Likely filled with tons of union benefits. There’s no way we will have an effective jobs program with powerful unions involved. The reason we don’t have a convention hotel is because of a PLA that private enterprise can’t profit from and refuses to put up with union games. Any profit from the hotel will come from the general tax fund, basically union welfare. The unions today would not allow a WPA in this country. There’s an elitist group in unions, the high snots and low snots, the Teamsters are your low snots, low skill, low wages. The IBEW, operators and others are the high wage earners that are seasonal workers, they work 8 months out of the year, draw unemployment and live in Florida for the next 4 months. Union unemployment is a real drain on the Indiana tax base. Our sewer problem would already be fixed if the union fix wasn’t involved. Winnecke had a chance to be a great mayor but he owes too much to unions and African American voters, the people of Evansville have lost again.

        • Ghost – Maybe they were, I haven’t read them and I know you haven’t. But if they were brought before the Senate, then your wonderful party could have pointed that out, debate could have taken place, changes made and then a vote taken. But when Reid refuses to acknowledge a bill, then whatever positive aspects that were within are ignored as well.

          Instead we get the administration blocking what could be positive developments, because it doesn’t fit their beliefs.

    • “The truth is that there are many places in this country that are in crying need of infrastructure upgrades and a Congress that would pass a Jobs bill would be making an investment in the future of this country, but they will do nothing that might make this President look good.”

      Yep,and the next three or four elected, as well., maybe this is the problem , the fix for the infrastructure is pretty easy, getting elected the next POTUS, not so much.
      BTW you all are also pretty high on the list of the infrastructure of contributing pollution to the nations existing clean water balance. (if not #1 in the Strategic Ohio River drainage basin.)

      http://www.cleanwateraction.org/

      http://www.americanrivers.org/initiatives/pollution/public-health/

      • McConnell wants to repeal the Davis Bacon Act before proceeding on any infrastructure projects!!
        Mitch says eliminating the act would save $13B over 10 years, a pittance really, while screwing over construction workers. Even his Northern Kentucky conservative supporters don’t agree with him on this issue.

        The Act requires the use of prevailing wages on Federal projects. Grimes has proposed paying for it by ending some corporate tax loopholes, which makes more sense but also has zero chance of passing the corporate corrupted House.

        Tolls are estimated to be about $5 each way and it seems everyone is against that. “We don’t want this done on the backs of locals” So typical American logic. Well it’s going to be done on the backs of somebody!! Good grief!

        So we have stalemate and the public is left with a structurally deficient and obsolete bridge and in 2011 chuncks of concrete fell from the upper deck onto the lower deck. Eventually, people will get killed, then what?

        http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/blog/2014/06/mcconnell-s-brent-spence-bridge-plan-falls-flat.html?page=all

        Just ONE Example of THOUSANDS of bridges, dams, roads and other infrastructure in the US that desperately need repairs but can’t get done because of people like Mitch McTurtle.

        • The problem with Davis Bacon is that it’s artificially set “prevailing” wages are anything but prevailing. For example in the Evansville are a painter is paid $35 per hour on prevailing wage jobs but the real prevailing wage for painters is only about $15 per hour. The same discrepancy goes for nearly every skill. It really does overpay union workers at the taxpayers expense. McTurtle as you call him is correct and he is choosing not to screw taxpayers to put excessive wages in union pockets who will turn around and give donations to democrats. Either Davis Bacon should be repealed or the “prevailing” wage rates need to be adjusted to reflect reality. Why should taxpayers get screwed for the unions?

          • I bet if Davis Bacon gets repealed that Evansville can save $200 Million or more on the sewer project. Hell man, we probably could have save $20 Million on the Ford Center and even eliminate the handout for the hotel. McConnell for Mayor!

    • What I would prefer as opposed to a government mandated increase in the minimum wage is that these workers upgrade their skills so the minimum wage is irrelevant. There is a need in this country for low skill jobs so teenagers can learn soft skills like showing up on time, courtesy, and competency at things like filling a darn order for chicken correctly. Those that do move up fast. Those that can’t manage the basics are going to struggle for their entire lives.

      Giving a teenager with no soft skills a raise to $10.10 or even $15 will not do one thing to make them better. Quite frankly is rewards them for their shortcomings and marginalizes the people who are making $12 to $15 an hour right now. They worked hard to be better than the minimum only to have that work negated by an over reaching government edict. The other thing I guarantee is that the price of fast food will rise to accommodate the wage expense line. And, who buys most of the fast food? I think we mostly know that it is low wage people who shop at fast food outlets. The cycle is only broken with a skills upgrade. Perhaps a kiosk repair person is the next step up the wage ladder.

      • The whole problem is in specific training for the wage, as earned. Using innovative skills and creating new jobs such as 21st century infrastructure jobs creatively to solve both problems is one of the focused tipping points our global analytics consortium sets forward as objectives with valuable goals. That should be sported for every region where those actions are initiated.
        Higher wages and wage increases through programmed scheduled tier level training. Better focus on developing career pathway skills for each job classification.
        The Skilled trades do this and many who possess every skill needed to build better numbers in applied infrastructure set for climate migrations. with evolving resilience.
        Most of those skills are somewhat sitting at an idle today.
        “Its definitely time America revs up that economic engine, equal opportunity can then flow forward through the training pathways, and additional technical careers that balance and sustain the motion.” Mentoring that has evolution in educational values needed, as well.
        The $10.10 minimum is just another standard start point for entry or exiting the workforce, how anyone lives effectively today on as little that must be a full time job balancing ones life, in itself.

    • “The truth is that there are many places in this country that are in crying need of infrastructure upgrades and a Congress that would pass a Jobs bill would be making an investment in the future of this country, but they will do nothing that might make this President look good.”
      Yup, the infrastructure fixes are pretty easy, getting elected to the office of POTUS isn’t.
      That could be the whole issue for the next 3 or 4 who might be elected to the office.

      http://www.americanrivers.org/initiatives/pollution/public-health/

      http://www.cleanwateraction.org/

    • What part of “you can be replaced by a kiosk” is difficult to understand?

      There is a difference between the opportunity cost of an arena/hotel vs streets/sewers/sidewalks and federal spending. Here is a great graph of federal spending. Notice the highest budget item is Health and Human services, welfare, and the third highest is treasury, interest on our debt. Transportation is 10% of H&H. How much will we have to increase that “investment” to offset H&H and Treasury?

      http://www.federalbudget.com/

    • Doesn’t the fact that this “recovery” has been anemic at best deserve some consideration rather than your simplistic comparison antics? Do you think a 50 year term growth rate of 1% a year equates to a 50% improvement in the economy?

  6. Is it true…. That the Vanderburgh County Prosecutor’s Office bungled a home invasion/robbery, and resisting arrest case? The perpetrator was caught red handed with a stolen television and a note paper where he had copied down the cell phone numbers of the two elderly victims, whom he tied and duct taped to chairs while he spent 4 hours in the victims home.

    Seldom does on see such proprietorial incompetence. The perp was convicted only of resisting arrest and is now walking the streets on a $1,000. cash bond. Unbelievable, is the only word that comes to mind.

    • When and where did that happen? This isn’t the one that happened on Mesker Park Dr., is it?

      • Outer St. Joseph Ave. Article in today’s C&P. There is no way this guy should be out walking around. How did this guy wind up with the piece of paper with the victims cell phone numbers on it in his car, along with the stolen TV set?

        There is more to this story than the public is getting, and it seems the court is involved in some fashion.

        • I expect you’re right about there being more to the story. It really bothers me when these invasions involve innocent, usually elderly or vulnerable, victims. A lot of the crimes of this type are criminal-on-criminal, though. I could see making a deal in those cases, but not one like this.

    • And to think, Nick “no plea deals” Hermann was elected by straight ticket republicans like yourself.

  8. They don’t want to pay a real minimum wage. They don’t want to pay for birth control or real sex ed. They don’t want to pay for food stamps. They don’t want to pay for the prisons we’ll need to house the poor. What would they be willing to pay for? Mass graves.

    • Eight hours pay for eight hours work, If your responsible enough to have sex, then be responsible enough to pay for you own birth control. If you have figured out what sex is, then education is not going to change much. Who said “they” don’t want to pay for food stamps? I would rather not pay for prisons but we have to. It irks me every time I drive past a prison and see how much it cost us because some won’t obey the law. I would rather be driving to work on better roads than paying for my neighbors who are half my age but do not work. We need mass graves for straw men arguments.

  9. Continue to be amazed by the quality of the new C-C0. It’s EASY to spend time here.
    Further believe that the comments have improved as well. …

  10. Hey, CCO. I got a real “Is it true” for you. Is it true Wendy McNamara’s husband has sued her for divorce? It sure is. I ran into a Democrat guy I know who lives in Mt. Vernon at the Fall festival and he had copies of court papers he was giving to people that show that Marc Alan McNamara filed for divorce from Wendy Marie McNamara, who lives in Mt. Vernon on August 12, 2014. IT WAS FILED IN DAVIESS COUNTY. The case number is 14C01-1408-DR-000269. I know things happen and people get divorces, but why didn’t they just file it in Posey Co? This might be why she is so hard to find. Does anybody know why they are being so sneaky about this? Your new lay out is a lot better.

    • That is personal information that is not worthy of being in IS IT TRUE unless of course there is some relevant political information IN THE FILING.

      • when someone asks you to vote for them, then I believe such information as this is important and worthy of being in IS IT TRUE. withdraw from the election and it becomes not worthy, but when you as someone to vote for you, then I believe it is worthy of IS IT TRUE.

    • Another family values christian republican hypocrite, much like our Lt governor.

    • lookout, you suck. This is their private life. Will you start peeping in windows next ?

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