For an organization whose reason for being is to judge what’s a fact and what’s not, PolitiFact sure has a funny idea of what “true” means.
Or “Barely True,” as it says.
Audit commenter Thimbles points to a PolitiFact piece on Fox Business Network anchor Eric Bolling. Bolling told a whopper on air, and PolitiFact is good to point out where he was wrong. But then it gives him a “Barely True” rating on its Truth-o-meter.
Here’s what Bolling said:
“We got blackboard, here it is, Wisconsin teachers make a salary of $51,000…Benefits $38,000 per year, that comes to a whopping 89,000 bucks, while the rest of us, all workers in the United States, union, non-union, etc., $38,000 is your average salary…there, $10,000 in benefits, a quarter of what you make, that you would make if you were a Wisconsin teacher, to 48 grand, almost half the amount. Yet collective bargaining says that is OK. That’s not anti-free market?”
The whole thing is flat false, but first, I can’t let this pass uncommented, because it’s pure Murdoch/Fox: Here we have a guy who’s a rich TV anchor/commodities trader including himself with “the rest of us, all workers in the United States” to carp about teachers bringing home 700 bucks a week. Dude’s a real man of the people.
Back to the point: Bolling’s numbers aren’t just rounding errors, as PolitiFact’s own reporting shows. They’re so far off that they’re materially misleading. Wisconsin teachers get about $76,000 a year in total compensation, not $89,000. And private-sector workers in Wisconsin make $62,000 a year in total comp, not $48,000, according to the Economic Policy Institute’s analysis of Census and BLS data.
So instead of an 85 percent difference, as Bolling claimed, we have a 23 percent gap.
But there’s more misleading going on here, as PolitiFact also points out. Bolling is comparing apples and oranges. All Wisconsin teachers have four-year degrees and more than half have master’s degrees. By contrast, just 35 percent of private-sector workers in the state have college degrees. Educated people get paid more on average.
How much? We can use EPI’s report to compare apples to apples. It shows that private-sector workers with bachelor’s degree in Wisconsin average $82,000 in total compensation a year. Private sector workers with masters degrees make more than $100,000. Some back-of-the-envelope math shows that for their education levels, Wisconsin’s teachers would make about $92,000 a year in the private sector—or about 21 percent a year more than they make working for the government.
Now, there’s a case to be made about how much teachers get paid per hour or per day. No private sector worker that I know gets three months off a year (though if you notice, three months off is 25 percent of the workyear, which is pretty close to the 21 percent pay gap) [ADDING: I should note that teachers who are dedicated, and I think most are, don’t just sit on their duffs all summer—there’s still a lot of work to be done then]. But that’s not the one Bolling chose to make.
For PolitiFact, the question is basic: Why didn’t it call a clear falsehood “false”? It has the goods here. It shows clearly how wrong this argument was. Then it screws up the verdict.
UPDATE: Rob Farley of PolitiFact and the St. Pete Times says on Twitter that Politifact’s judgment “takes into account that Bolling gave corrected numbers the next night.”
And so it does, saying in the kicker that “We don’t take too much issue with the raw numbers provided by Bolling (the clarified ones).” Bolling, to his credit, had corrected his original numbers with ones closer to reality a day after his report ran.
But I’m not sure that parenthetical in the last paragraph was good enough. I’m sure I’m not the only one who read the piece as PolitiFact taking on the original statement. That’s what the headline says:
In Wisconsin, teachers make $89,000 in salary and benefits, compared to $48,000 for all other workers in the United States.
As well as the subhed:
Fox Business News’ Eric Bolling says Wisconsin teachers get compensated nearly double those in private sector
(Applause. Standing ovation)
Thanks for calling out Politifact, Ryan. It's been a long time coming. Well done. You are the only journo with the guts to do it. Virtually every other journo is afraid to take Politifact on.
#1 Posted by James, CJR on Mon 28 Feb 2011 at 01:36 PM
First of all...
Politifact found that Wisconsin teachers actually earn MORE in salary than the $51,000 than Bolling claimed... So the only problem could be with the $30,000 in benefits...nd hard
Politifact couldn't find hard data... But even the teacher's union came back with a figure in excess of $25,000 for benefits.
I'd like to know what figures Mr. Chittum is using to come with "about $76,000"? I think he is either (i) pulling this number out of thin air, or (ii) accepting as fact the number that Politifact found to be indeterminate.
However... we are only quibbling over $5000... Bolling's point remains perfectly valid.. The average Wisonsin teacher earns WAY more in salary and benefits than the average worker... WAY, WAY more...
And yes... as Politifact noted... teachers are better education in general than the average worker... BUT... As Politifact (and Mr. Chittum) neglect... Teachers only work nine months out of the year...
If you put a dollar figure on the time off... The average teacher in Wisconsin would earn $100,000 a year on a twelve-month basis.
So.. Bolling's overall point is well-taken..
#2 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Mon 28 Feb 2011 at 02:13 PM
And another thing....
Why are we treating EPI's "data" as journalistic gospel?
EPI is an agenda-driven, low-income advocacy organization.
Are we going to see Mr. Chittum (our resident neutral "watchdog") blindly accepting figures from the Heritage Foundation?
#3 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Mon 28 Feb 2011 at 02:33 PM
I'd like to see a better analysis of this kind of salary/benefit data than has been presented so far. (Nothing against you, @Ryan. It is what it is.) First of all, it is more appropriate to use median salary levels than average salaries because the top end often distorts the real picture. Like, you, me, and Bill Gates, between the three of us, have an average salary of $500 million dollars per year. And I'm a county worker! (Watches Padikiller's head explode.)
I'd also like to see the comparison stratified by years of service as well as education, and compared over a period of years. Teachers generally have an extremely low starting salary, especially for someone with at least one year post-bachelor educational level. They start out in the neighborhood of $30,000 per year and don't hit $40,000 for 5 to 10 years of experience. They generally top out in the neighborhood of $60-70,000. So I'm better that their career earnings for the level of education are drastically lower than their college schoolmates who went into other fields.
They also get a level increase for completing the master's degree and the doctorate. I'll bet if you compare a doctorate-level teaching salary with a doctorate-level anything-else, you'd see a massively huge disparity. In fact, I know network administrators with no high school diploma who make a lot more money than the teachers I know.
If I could get my phalanges on that data, I'd do the analysis myself.
#4 Posted by James, CJR on Mon 28 Feb 2011 at 02:47 PM
Padikiller, how many things can you be wrong about in one comment?
You: "Politifact found that Wisconsin teachers actually earn MORE in salary than the $51,000 than Bolling claimed"
Reality: PolitiFact found that Wisconsin teachers earn $51,000 a year both through NEA data and state data.
You: "PolitiFact couldn't find hard data"
Reality: They got data from the Department of Public Instruction on median benefits.
You: "I'd like to know what figures Mr. Chittum is using to come with "about $76,000"?"
Reality: $51,000 salary plus about $25,000 in benefits equals about $76,000 in total compensation.
You: "As Politifact (and Mr. Chittum) neglect... Teachers only work nine months out of the year..."
Reality: I said: "Now, there’s a case to be made about how much teachers get paid per hour or per day. No private sector worker that I know gets three months off a year (though if you notice, three months off is 25 percent of the workyear, which is pretty close to the 21 percent pay gap). But that’s not the one Bolling chose to make."
By my math, that's four basic things you got flat wrong there.
#5 Posted by Ryan Chittum, CJR on Mon 28 Feb 2011 at 03:12 PM
All Wisconsin teachers have four-year degrees and more than half have master’s degrees. By contrast, just 35 percent of private-sector workers in the state have college degrees. Educated people get paid more on average.
If Bolling is comparing apples to oranges, then you are comparing apples to blueberries. All college degrees are not created equal. Why not compare what Wisconsin public school teachers make vs what private school teachers in Wisconsin make. There’s your apple to apple metric. No one cares nor is it relevant how much a college educated teacher makes compared with a petrochemical engineer or accountant.
#6 Posted by Mike H, CJR on Mon 28 Feb 2011 at 03:27 PM
Ryan's Non-Reality: PolitiFact found that Wisconsin teachers earn $51,000 a year both through NEA data and state data.
Actual Reality: The latest figures from the National Education Association actually put the average salary for a Wisconsin teacher at $51,264. 51,264 is M-O-R-E than 51,000, Ryan. My statement was absolutely true. Yours is absolutely false. Now, I'm not trying to be nitpicky over a few bucks, but you are... You can't have it both ways.
Ryan's Non-Reality: They [Politifact] got data from the Department of Public Instruction on median benefits.
Actual Reality: In FACT (not that it matters to you neutral "watchdogs") Poltifact clearly stated "[w]e couldn't find a definitive, independent state average for benefits in Wisconsin"....
Dude... What part of that do you not grasp?
So they turned instead to an undefined "fringe benefits" figure taken from the Department of Public Instruction to calculate a median figure very close to Bolling's claim (as they noted)
As I said... No hard data.
It is what it is, Ryan... Deal with it.
Finally... Although you mention, you do neglect, the fact that teachers work only nine months. Bolling never mentioned education, either, yet you and Politifact raise the issue.
Again... You want it both ways, Ryan.... In criticizing Bolling's calculus, you want to distinguish teachers from other workers on the basis of their level of education, but you want to ignore the fact that teachers work nine months out of the year. Why?
Why should the education level be translated into dollars, but not the time worked?
It was Politifact, not Bolling, that brought up the education disparity. In fairness, Politifact, not Bolling, should have addressed the time off that teachers enjoy. You're trying to stick this responsibility on Bolling in order to further your own agenda - it wasn't his job - it was Politifact's job and now its yours.
Do it.
#7 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Mon 28 Feb 2011 at 04:16 PM
Mike H: In most states private school teachers do not have the credentials of public school teachers. In fact, many of them only have a high school diploma or an AA degree. Compare that to an average bachelor's or masters degree and teacher credentials required of most public school teachers, and you're once again comparing apples to oranges.
#8 Posted by Thalia, CJR on Mon 28 Feb 2011 at 05:24 PM
Padikiller, you are exactly nitpicking over a few bucks. It's an incredibly weak argument to claim that they make more than $51,000 when it is accepted practice to round for media stories. I don't hold that against Bolling but I also don't see how you can make such a big deal out of it to turn it into an attack on Ryan. I think it's more telling that you, in your attack were so set on capitalizing the "MORE" in such a way as to imply that the number was dramatically off while at the same time not actually stating how much more (at least not until your follow up post).
The rest of your nonsensical attacks on Ryan aren't even worth the time to address. Both you and Bolling are playing the same game of manipulation through selective fact presentation. The reality is that FOX, and apparently you, have an ideological agenda and damn the details if they don't support your argument.
Bolling is a reporter and a reporter is not supposed to withhold details and facts that disagree with their claims. They are supposed to be digging up as many details that may affect the issue and presenting them to us to help us get past the propaganda and manipulation that political sides take. He failed spectacularly. Even just leaving out that fact that teachers have more advanced education than the rest of the private sector taken as a whole is a practice in willful ignorance that leave us not just less informed but misinformed. If all you watch is FOX you come away with a severely slanted picture of reality and are ill equipped to make any kind of an informed decision. (But FOX doesn't want you making an informed decision, they want you making their decision.)
Instead, Bolling appeals to his viewers emotional side rather than logical side with comments like "what you make" and derision and sarcasm. Even if we completely leave aside what the right thing to do about public sector collective bargaining is, this is an example of what is wrong with FOX as a new source. They are not informing, they are manipulating. If you agree with their ideology, as you clearly do, than you don't see it as manipulation, you see it as news finally telling you the "truth" merely because you don't like that the news rarely lines up with your ideology.
The irony is that this wasn't even another call out of FOX. (What's the point anymore?) This was a callout of PolitiFact for not calling a spade a spade. (And it wasn't even that much of an actual call out on them.) What Bolling said and implied was "not true" and they should have been clear about that. Ryan feels they waffled and chose to say so, backing himself up with facts.
The book is already written on FOX's legitimacy as a news organization. I come here because I want to know if others like PolitiFact are are actually doing what they claim (checking facts, providing news) and if and when they aren't, and how and why. Defending FOX and attacking Ryan over that is only an exercise in ideology thumping.
#9 Posted by Dan, CJR on Mon 28 Feb 2011 at 05:41 PM
@Dan - Look... I am NOT nitpicking over a few bucks..
Of course Ryan is rounding... But, technically, in a nitpicky way, he is wrong..
Using his own reasoning, Politifact should give him a "Pants on Fire" rating.
Bolling claimed that the average teacher in Wisconsin takes down $80,000 a year in benefits, and the "rounded" numbers Ryan and Politifact use come to within a few percent of this figure.
So Bolling is substantially right on the numbers, unless you get nitpicky.
The real issue is the "apples and oranges" comparison between education of the "average" teacher and the "average worker". This comparison did not arise with Bolling, but is instead a straw man - a comparison Politifact manufactured to attack Bolling because it could not (at least not credibly, in good faith) attack Bolling on the arithmetic.
If one sets out to note (or perhaps, to manufacture) a distinction in education levels to explain (or perhaps, to justify) the discrepancy in compensation between the education of the "average" teacher versus the "average" worker, then simple fairness dictates examining any other obvious distinctions that should be made.
The most obvious distinction to be made between the "average" teacher and the "average" worker is that the teacher works a LOT less. If the calculus can be adjusted based on a quantification of the dollar value of the discrepancy in education, then certainly the same calculus can be adjusted by quantifying the discrepancy in the amount of time spent on the job.
We see Poltifact (and Ryan) flying off to use a the leftist numbers of a low-income advocacy group. Why can't we see his eager little "watchdog" fingers typing away to quantify the value of extra time the average worker spends on the job compared to the time the average teacher does?
Answer? Because he isn't interested in digging into this side of the story. He only raised here because it became an issue that I raised in the comment thread of another story. Ryan would rather chew nails than demonstrate to his readers the truth - namely that, when the figures are adjusted to account for the difference in work hours, the teachers are making out like bandits.
It will be a snowy day in the Hot Place before you see any of our "neutral" watchdogs providing such background.
#10 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Mon 28 Feb 2011 at 06:12 PM
Looks like you awoke the hornets, Ryan.. Good job, in my humble estimation.
What the hornets are neglecting is that politifact chose the quote:
"In Wisconsin, teachers make $89,000 in salary and benefits, compared to $48,000 for all other workers in the United States."
Chose the claim:
"Fox Business News' Eric Bolling says Wisconsin teachers get compensated nearly double those in private sector"
Rated it "Barely True"
and then buried in the article the fact that Bolling himself admits he got the facts wrong:
"On his show the following night (Feb. 22) Bolling said in the numbers he had posted the night before, "our math was off a bit." A new graphic, he said, showed the unweighted average for Wisconsin teachers for the 2010 school year: a $51,000 salary, plus $30,000 worth of benefits (for a total of $81,000 worth of compensation). For an average private sector worker, he said, the salary in 2010 was $46,000 with $20,000 worth of benefits (total compensation $66,000).
Those revised numbers are much closer to the ones we found."
The quotes and claims Politifact lead with are not "Barely True", not even according to the guy who said them.
They should have lead with the more the more accurate quotes and claims and then rated them "Trueish" or they should have rated the original quotes and claims "False". By not doing so, they allowed the original falsehoods to spread via selective quoters and headline scanning readers.
Very sloppy work.
#11 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Mon 28 Feb 2011 at 07:55 PM
Oh, my post must have came in just after the update.
Once again, good call.
#12 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Mon 28 Feb 2011 at 08:01 PM
Are you freaking kidding me?
You ran this story without actually reading the Politifact article?
Off a HEADLINE?
Jeez!... That's a hell of a thing, isn't it, Ryan?
Of course, it doesn't make a practical difference....
Bolling's point is perfectly valid, either way - at 89K at 80K or at 76k a year.
Wisconsin's teachers are pulling down tens of thousands of more dollars in total compensation than the average workers.
PERIOD.
It's just the REALITY here.
#13 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Mon 28 Feb 2011 at 08:11 PM
Well, at least you got them to respond to you. That's sumthin.
Once again, they bend over backwards to be generous to the misinformation and distortions of a rightwinger, leaving their readers with a mistaken impression by highlighting the egregious lie, as you noted, and burying the correction way down at the bottom.
By contrast, their factual error and dishonest editing of Maddow is uncorrected, after numerous requests from MSNBC executives.
The Maddow Blog - TRMS correspondence with Politifact
MSNBC Executive Producer, The Rachel Maddow Show Bill Wolff writes:
...Politifact alleges that an assertion was made on The Rachel Maddow Show that in fact was not made.
Compounding the error, Politifact asserts that The Rachel Maddow Show ignored factual truths that Ms. Maddow explicitly did acknowledge, on television, out loud, and clearly.
We are not nitpicking here -- Politifact is seriously and clearly wrong and should correct the matter immediately. Your inaccurate representation of Maddow's statements has now been posted online for enough days, with enough secondary pickup in the media, that a full new statement correcting Politifact's errors in this matter would be a more appropriate action than a simple update to the erroneous original post.
Compare their take on this: PolitiFact Wisconsin | Rachel Maddow says Wisconsin is on track to have a budget surplus this year with the generosity they have shown to the rightwinger. The Maddow smear remains uncorrected by Politifact.
#14 Posted by James, CJR on Mon 28 Feb 2011 at 08:24 PM
Padi,
I don't write about anything unless I've read the entire thing. The whole thing, as I point out, is structured to look like it's about the original Bolling claim. I imagine most people reading their piece got that impression.
#15 Posted by Ryan Chittum, CJR on Mon 28 Feb 2011 at 08:24 PM
And by the way. Please inform your twitterfolk from Politifact and elsewhere that MOST people have social media sites like twitter and facebook blocked at work, so they miss this kind of clarification altogether. Only around 6% of internet users (according to recent Pew data) are on Twitter. So a correction or clarification on twitter does not absolve journos of the responsibility of correcting and/or clarifying their work *where it resides* for the *audience who reads it.* They need to inform the audience they misled, not just their buddies on twitter.
#16 Posted by James, CJR on Mon 28 Feb 2011 at 08:43 PM
Are we in Leftist La La Land forever, or can we someday return to Realityville?
Precisely what new information did this tweet convey?
The ORIGINAL POLITIFACT ARTICLE made it clear not only that (i) Bolling had clarified his statement by correcting the numbers a day after his initial statement and (ii) that Poltifact was using these corrected numbers in its analysis...
Read the following from the original article and tell me what you can't understand here, people:
"On his show the following night (Feb. 22) Bolling said in the numbers he had posted the night before, "our math was off a bit." A new graphic, he said, showed the unweighted average for Wisconsin teachers for the 2010 school year: a $51,000 salary, plus $30,000 worth of benefits (for a total of $81,000 worth of compensation)"
"We don't take too much issue with the raw numbers provided by Bolling (the clarified ones). They're pretty close to the numbers we found as well."
So....
Where are we now? It comes as some sort of surprise after a tweet that Poltifact used Bolling's corrected numbers, when the original article was a clear as a bell on that very point? A surprise only to anyone who never bothered reading the original Politifact article.
Are you people on crack? If you had read the article carefully enough to begin with, the tweet wouldn't have come as some revelation worthy of an "update".
Free advice to all you wannabe "professional journalists"
Read first, write second!
Learn it, live it, love it, and all will be better in the world.
Again... All this gnashing of teeth, this reliance upon commie think tank data regarding the education of Wisconsinites, this dismissal of the plain and irrefutable reality that teachers don't work full-time.. None of this makes a damned bit of practical difference... Call the average Wisconsin's teacher's salary $89,000... Call it $80,000.... Call it $76,0000....
No matter what.. Teachers in Wisconsin earn WAY, WAY more than the average Wisconsin worker does...
PERIOD. It's just the Reality here, dudes!
Bolling was right, and you guys are off your damned liberal rockers!
#17 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Mon 28 Feb 2011 at 09:15 PM
Well, Padikiller is finally getting it. The average Wisconsin public employee is far more educated and skilled than the "average" worker and it stands to reason that highly skilled, professional college graduates get paid more than unskilled, less educated workers. I'm glad that revelation finally sunk in!
Of course, that also holds true for workers in private industry -- highly educated, skilled professionals generally get paid more in the private sector than less educated, unskilled workers.
So, we've come to agreement here.
#18 Posted by James, CJR on Mon 28 Feb 2011 at 09:39 PM
James is stuck in La La Land
Nobody is talking about "public employees"....
We are talking only about T-E-A-C-H-E-R-S and the plain statement of F-A-C-T that teachers in Wisconsin make WAY, WAY, WAY more money than the average worker in Wisconsin does. Just as Mr. Bolling said they do.
This is just the R-E-A-L-I-T-Y, there James.
Nice try at obfuscation, but no cigar!
Better luck next time.
#19 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Mon 28 Feb 2011 at 10:05 PM
Yeah Ryan, padi has a point. Only some idiot would quote the headline without reading the article. Only some incredible moran would go around screaming "89,000 dollars, SUCKERS! Read it and weep!" without reading the link himself.
http://www.cjr.org/the_kicker/ryan_chittum_on_unions_apple_a.php
Maybe we should give people more credit. Not everyone is a complete imbecile.
Row row fight the powah, Padi!
#20 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Mon 28 Feb 2011 at 10:15 PM
Just to keep us grounded in Realityville....
The F-A-C-T of the matter is that my "read it an weep" post made it clear that we were dealing with 51,000 (plus a few hundred bucks and change) in salary for the "average" Wisconsin teacher along with $25,000 in benefits (a low estimate, but hey... who's nitpicking here?).
So I got to the SAME 76,000 figure Ryan did.
And... It doesn't make a whit of a difference because, even at $76,000, the simple fact of the matter is that Wisconsin teachers make WAY, WAY, WAY more than the average workers do. PERIOD. This is just the irrefutable, undeniable, actual R-E-A-L-I-T-Y
Nor that it matters to you guys.
#21 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Mon 28 Feb 2011 at 10:36 PM
Yeah, Padikiller, that's what I said. Teachers T E A C H E R S are highly educated, skilled professionals, so it makes sense that they would be paid more than your average burger flipper in the private sector.
Padikiller demands that credentialed T E A C H E R S with a masters degree work for minimum wage! No, LESS than minimum wage! Who are T E A C H E R S to demand any kind of pay at all, he asks!
And here I thought we had come to agreement. Tsk.
#22 Posted by James, CJR on Mon 28 Feb 2011 at 10:42 PM
I keep wondering when we're going to address the R-E-A-L-I-T-Y that the guys responsible for putting state finances underwater, putting state residents into underwater mortgages, blowing state pension funds, and are currently slurping enough federal reserve capital to put the federal government underwater, I keep wondering when we're going to say "These guys are overpaid." Because they are. You keep complaining about $89,000 dollar salaries plus benefits bankrupting people but you say diddly about TBTF bankers sucking up 8.9 million, 8.9 billion bucks from the country's GDP.
And health care is bankrupting people too. Don't see you railing on overpaid doctors and hospitals who are taking advantage of the fact that there's half as many doctors per capita in the US than in other countries:
http://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpress/enough-with-the-wait-times-already/
Or overpaid pharmaceuticals who rigged their government compensation so that there's no collective bargaining with the government, who acts as collective purchaser in the conservative medicare you passed under Bush.
No, just the unions. The country would be fine if it weren't for those teachers and GM workers all of whom are overpaid because they get pensions (which were destroyed by cooked book tax cuts and wall street money managers) and health care (the cost of which is double of any other country and continuing to explode because the medical industrial complex knows nothing can stop it) and they get a summer off after spending 7 days a week worrying about 200-300 kids, each of whom we as parents expect to be treated and educated as individuals on the cheap.
For someone focused on reality, you really don't want to talk about the overpaid people who are really bad at their jobs.
The R-E-A-L-I-T-Y is:
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2010/12/upon-what-meat-hath-our-financial-sector-fed-to-grow-so-great.html
"Finance again collects savings from all over the world, underwrites the securities that corporations issue, makes them liquid, and so gives non-financial operating corporations their capital base. But it is the operating companies that make the profits. Finance is supposed to simply aggregate and slice the profits in various ways.
It is supposed to take a small commission as it serves as intermediary between the companies that make the money and the households that saved the capital by packaging the money flows to households in safe, convenient, and liquid forms--and keeping an eye on the managers of operating compnies as well
But how did this provision of safety, convenience, and liquidity--which turned out, of course, to be none of the three in the fall of 2008--ever come to be valued at 30% of the total?
And it is not all finance. Our newly redrawn map of the U.S. economy shows another leading sector besides finance. The administration of our ill-designed health care system now costs us about 4% of GDP over and above the costs of administering health care in other comparable countries.
Do not get us wrong: we do not hate service industries. But most service industries produce something of value in return for their profits. Health care administration simply produces denials of coverage. Finance as currently construed simply produces portfolios for individuals that involve them bearing extraordinarily large and idiosyncratic risks that they had no idea they were bearing. There are two ways to make money in health care: (i) by providing people with valuable treatments that they are willing to pay for, and (ii) by collecting insurance premiums and finding some excuse not to pay them out when people get sick. There are two ways to make money in finance: (i) to find
#23 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Mon 28 Feb 2011 at 11:59 PM
What do you guys think teachers do in their off time, diddle themselves? Hello? Developing curriculum & projects for the next class? Also, those benefits are deferred compensation and not part of take home pay, so you can't say they are making something this year that they will actually get in the future when they are no longer working.
#24 Posted by Dblacksd, CJR on Tue 1 Mar 2011 at 01:35 AM
Padikiller, you're just moving the goalpost. When $80,000 turns out to be wrong you just say it doesn't matter. But that's minor compared to what is clearly a bias bordering on prejudice. You clearly hate teachers and that seems to be more what this is about.
Do you actually know any teachers? Do you know how much they work compared to the private sector? I actually have several close friends that are teachers and I guarantee that they work more than 8 hours a day. WHile I don't know how much that offsets they time off over the summer I do know that you aren't making any effort to fairly account for the amount of time they actually put in. Nor are you taking into account any of the unique aspects of the teachers job. In addition to being essentially free day care for all those private sector workers, they have to deal with all manor of troubled kid from troubled households and then are reviled by people like you for one, making too much and usually, two, not producing perfectly educated children.
The education system is one of the unique sectors of our society in that it can't function like a normal business. Schools are tasked with "manufacturing" educated people, but unlike other manufacturing institutions, like say a chip manufacturer, you can't throw out the bad chips and just keep the good ones. Here's a hypothetical; How much more would we have to pay workers at a chip factory if we insisted on 100 percent perfectly functioning chips all the time?
The point is to attack teachers pay in a vacuum, ignoring all the little details is nothing more than grandstanding. You continue to harp on the FACTS while repeatedly abusing those same facts. Bolling was wrong. HE even admitted he was wrong. You are wrong. Take your hits and move on. If you want to have a rational, informed debate (which I doubt) you could do well to tone down your attack rhetoric, lay off the derisive name calling and actually engage.
Of course, if you hadden't been such an easy troll target I probably wouldn't have commented here and were's there fun in that.
#25 Posted by Dan, CJR on Tue 1 Mar 2011 at 03:08 AM
I'm not badmouthing teachers or discounting their importance to society.
I, like Poltifact (and now also Ryan), am just noting the REALITY - namely that Wisconsin teachers make a LOT more on average than the average Wisconsin worker does. And also noting that teachers aren't full-time employees. If you're going to account for the disparity in education between teachers and workers, you should also account account for the difference in days worked.
At any rate, we don't have any hard data on teacher benefits in Wisconsin. Bolling claimed teachers made $89K and corrected his figure to $80k... Politifact came up with nearly $77k. Ryan (through selective rounding) comes up with $76k. But, no matter which of these figures you use, Bolling's point is made.
At any rate, Ryan's "update" seems to have rendered the argument here moot.
#26 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Tue 1 Mar 2011 at 07:54 AM
Too bad padikiller has diverted the attention away from the bad call by Politifact. We really need to have a discussion about how egregiously biased Politifact has become.
Instead, the troll hijacks the thread with the same old savage attack on teachers that I first heard back in 1980, with the exact same talking points -- teachers are overpaid, they work six hours a day, they get three months off, unions are bad, my taxes yada yada yada.
This rightwing argument has not changed in 30 years. The first time I heard it was sitting next to a guy in a bar, and I was gobsmacked at the dishonest, vicious attack on a profession that is among the lowest paid for the level of education and hours put in per day, with points that are not only factually wrong but display a kind of seething hatred against teachers that borders on pathological.
I regret getting sucked in. It's a boring discussion. The right wants to destroy professional education just like they want to destroy unions, which are the blue collar workers only chance at decent pay and safe workplaces through collective bargaining. Thirty years the right has been out to destroy teachers and unions. One thing, they never give up, no matter how many times they are proved factually wrong.
How about that Politifact? Once again they generously absolve a dishonest rightwinger of his dishonest argument, and when publicly called on it by @Ryan, Politifact twists the fact that they gave Bolling a pass on his lie, and @Ryan gives them a semi-pass. And they do this on Twitter, which doesn't reach the people who *are* misinformed by the Politifact post.
Saying "Oops, my bad" on Twitter doesn't qualify as a correction/clarification for journos.
#27 Posted by James, CJR on Tue 1 Mar 2011 at 08:14 AM
I like it when we can agree Dan.
And again, padi, if you are going to harp on the salaries of the professionals who teach your kids, can you please say a single word about the salaries and bonuses people earned while bankrupting the nation?
As I remember, you were defending their capital gains rates and salaries. "Damn teachers, costing the working man money with their 80,000 dollar compensation while the poor rich have to pay 70% of the income taxes to support their pudgy union butts. How's a man supposed to support a family on 800,000 dollars when the GOVERNMENT steals 35% percent of his paycheck and tries to criminalize the fraud riddled profession? WE NEED LESS REGULATION!"
http://www.cjr.org/campaign_desk/the_budget_narrative.php#comments
I try not to think it, but the question does come to mind from time to time... How much does Koch pay you? Or does Bozwell sign your checks?
http://www.alternet.org/media/149197/are_right-wing_libertarian_internet_trolls_getting_paid_to_dumb_down_online_conversations
Like I said, I try not to think it. I try to picture a guy on the other side of the screen with whom I have an honest difference of opinion, but you make it hard, paddy.
#28 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Tue 1 Mar 2011 at 08:54 AM
Thimbles...
You are wandering rather far afield in this comment thread.
However, the "salaries and bonuses" people earned have not "bankrupted" our nation.
Printing money, borrowing money from China and Japan, and uncontrolled government spending have bankrupted our nation.
Market efficiencies (in a free market) automatically render fair compensation - people get paid what they are worth based on their production.
In the government (and especially in teaching) people are compensated on a political basis (usually based on time in service, tenure, and locality) instead of on their merits.
#29 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Tue 1 Mar 2011 at 09:36 AM
You obviously haven't read the financial inquiry commission report:
http://www.fcic.gov/report
watched the documentary "Inside Job":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffHFjlqIzKE
(2 minutes in for the substance)
or read half the stuff that appears in the Audit.
Pathetic.
#30 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Tue 1 Mar 2011 at 10:21 AM
Wow, really? To much blind allegiance to conservative ideology for me to waste playing whack-a-mole with, especially as it has nothing to do with this article.
I'll just second Thimbles and recommend you take your opinions somewhere where they don't challenge your sacred cow. You can't debate with someone who is not open to facts that conflict with their belief system.
#31 Posted by Dan, CJR on Tue 1 Mar 2011 at 02:49 PM
As usual, Jon Stewart adressed this better than I ever could on last night's Daily Show. I defer the rest of my rebuttals to his brilliant segment on this.
#32 Posted by Dan, CJR on Tue 1 Mar 2011 at 03:23 PM
Is this the awesome you were looking for?
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-february-28-2011/crisis-in-dairyland---angry-curds
#33 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Wed 2 Mar 2011 at 11:08 AM
If an office worker came to a classroom of 4th graders or 9th graders for a month( one day or week isn't enough. The kids will play you till you're gone) at a teacher's pay, he/she would be gone before the month is out!!! ( I taught 38 years of school--9-12 grade English). An average teacher has to spend 2-4 hours per day preparing BEFORE classes start and 2-4 hours after correcting papers--esp if it's high school essay writing time or answering long answers to a reading assignment. That's for 28-34 students per class, and 5 classes per day. In many states and California where I am, most teachers had to spend time GOING to college--not for their masters or more but to keep their state licenses up-to-date. So that takes about 6-8 weeks of the "summer" vacation from June 15 through August 30 (teachers' faculty meetings start then or before) It depends which day Labor Day comes on. If Labor Day is within the first 3 days of the month of September, that teacher must prepare in August her classroom, her necessary books and materials and lesson plans for the next 2 weeks--one copy to the principal, one to the dept. and one to use those weeks after Labor Day. She(He also) seldom has a correct list of students--more will come during the next 2-4 weeks--one by one and each must be brought up to par. Others will be transferred to other class to balance numbers for all teachers or to change students' schedules as needed.
While she's keeping lists of students names, numbers, past grade levels etc, she' teaching a subject, showing the methods to be used and making sure all 30+/- kids are on task those 50 minutes and if they are talking, it is only to their group, not their friends across the room or out in the hallway. After all she's only facing three directions at a time, listening to students recite or gossip, keeping their phones and laptops either off or on topic.
After all she only has 150 names to know by seating chart tomorrow. Is your memory that good!!?? I hope so.
There is no way a well-prepared teacher--esp in humanities with writing--can do all she's to do in a 8:30-3:00 day. Most English teachers don't have the luxury of aides and even if they did it would not be for correcting writing papers since 99% of the aides aren't trained for that. That may be upper level for college but not public schools. Those hours she uses are above and beyond those 35 hour weeks and 180+ school days with no pay. If the state cuts the number of school days--as has Hawaii--the amount of money in her salary goes down even though teachers are not paid by the hour technically.
You get up in front of restless teens there and keep the class rolling 5 times over--usually 2-3 DIFFERENT lessons per day--, no attendance problems, no discipline problems and therefore all the kids get A's and you have no headache. Even Superman or Spiderman would quit since they get away by jumping or flying off, but strangely enough most teachers that I have known couldn't. Some did quit and worked for 3-5 times the salary.
Is that what you each want?? Ask your Republican friends, too!!!! Those lessons and requirements fit in public schools, voucher schools and private ones.
#34 Posted by Patricia, CJR on Thu 3 Mar 2011 at 06:15 PM