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^ One of the better Dubai rants, but a bit superfluous at this point. The genre's been flogged to death.
 
czsz said:
^ One of the better Dubai rants, but a bit superfluous at this point. The genre's been flogged to death.
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The point is that even glossy magazines for idiots are starting to realize the Disneyland in the Desert is a mirage.

Dubai is probably one of the biggest follies in human labor and financial expenditure ever. What could have been spent on a building a real functional modern industrial society was wasted on monuments to ego and playthings.

For the cost of the stupid race track the entire region could have been irrigated and provided potable water through sustainable solar heated desalination plants. That would have allowed the desert to become fertile and livable to a similar standard as Israel. The climate would have been altered to allow life outside of air conditioned buildings and actual agricultural output to feed the country.

When the oil money is gone, the city state will be an abandoned wasteland slowly getting gobbled up by drifting sand dunes. A worthless desert having squandered all its riches.

Same stupidity as the Saudis.
 
The only thing that might save this city is break throughs in solar power and de-salination. I imagine the power needed to ac everything must be ridiculous.
 
Looks like the directors of Kickass and Juno got together and made this.
 
"Ok serfs, drop your wallets and grab your ankles. Prepare to empty your retirement savings and work until you die to pay for our retirement." -Massachusetts State Workers

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2011/03/20/states_pension_costs_on_the_rise/

State?s pension costs on the rise
By Matt Carroll
Globe Staff / March 20, 2011

The number of state retirees collecting pensions of at least $100,000 has climbed more than 20 percent in the past year, jumping from 145 to 176, with the top pensioner receiving more than $240,000.

State Police retirees represent the largest group of six-figure earners, with 50, followed by faculty and administrators from the University of Massachusetts Amherst at 42, and employees of the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester, at 19.

Eight years ago, only 33 state employees made more than $100,000, but as state salaries have increased through the decades, so have pensions, which are calculated in part based on employees? income in their three highest-paid years of work.

?There is an urgent need for comprehensive pension reform,?? said Michael J. Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation. ?Soaring pension and health care benefits are cannibalizing municipal services.??

The cost of pensions and health insurance for public employees and retirees has grown dramatically over the past decade, rising from 13.5 percent of city and town budgets a decade ago to 21 percent, Widmer said. He added that costs are projected to top 30 percent by 2020.

The state retirement progam, which covers about 53,000 retirees and deceased retirees? survivors, costs the state $1.4 billion a year. The fund has $19.3 billion in assets and employees contributed $411 million last year.

But a larger, long-term problem is that the state does not have nearly enough reserves to pay this group in future years, a common problem for public pension funds across the country. The state pension fund currently has an unfunded liability of $4.9 billion in estimated pension costs for current retirees, which is actually down from $6.7 billion in 2009 because the rebounding stock market fueled better returns on investments.

And the state pension fund is part of a much larger $31 billion in unfunded liabilities for all Massachusetts public workers, covered by the 105 pension boards scattered across the state.

Pensions are determined by age, years of service, and pay, and the vast majority are not enormous: The average annual payment is currently about $28,300. Employees pay up to 11 percent of their salary to help fund their retirement. State employees do not receive Social Security for their work in the public sector.

The state has enacted some pension reforms, although the effects will take years to be felt. Governor Deval Patrick is pushing more changes, which would raise the minimum retirement age from 55 to 60 for most future state and local workers, eliminate early-retirement incentives, and calculate pension payouts by using a longer time period. A legislative hearing on the bill is scheduled for April 7.

Past reforms have limited pension payouts at $125,000, but that only applies to employees hired after Jan. 1, 2011.

Most public pensions are funded by employee contributions, investment earnings by the retirement board, and taxpayer contributions. However, the UMass medical school pays directly toward the pensions of its retirees rather than billing state taxpayers, according to spokesman Mark Shelton. In 2009, the school paid the state pension board $41 million for pension and health obligations.

Dr. Aaron Lazare, a 75-year-old former longtime dean and chancellor at UMass Medical, leads all retirees with a pension of $242,441, the largest in recent history.

Lazare, who retired last year after 27 years, was surprised that his pension was that high.

?I?m not a math genius; I?m a psychiatrist,?? said Lazare, who is also the author of the book ?On Apology,?? which explores how saying sorry can heal relationships. Previously, Dr. Arthur Pappas, also of the UMass Medical School, had been the highest paid pensioneer at $233,078.

Matthew Carroll can be reached at mcarroll@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter at @globemattc.
 
Charlie Sheen is a successful version of Lindsay Lohan.

But apropos of Lurker's post, the Weimar Republic style inflation that will follow China's dollar dumping to fund its aging population issue and rising social expectations will knock those pensions into line.
 
Totally agree pensions need to be reformed, but you can't group them all together. A good teacher who probably only gets the 28K pension, and also has a masters degree, did more for their comunity than a whopping majority of all private sector workers.

Lurker said:
"Ok serfs, drop your wallets and grab your ankles. Prepare to empty your retirement savings and work until you die to pay for our retirement." -Massachusetts State Workers


The average annual payment is currently about $28,300. Employees pay up to 11 percent of their salary to help fund their retirement. State employees do not receive Social Security for their work in the public sector.

.
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GW2500 said:
Totally agree pensions need to be reformed, but you can't group them all together. A good teacher who probably only gets the 28K pension, and also has a masters degree, did more for their comunity than a whopping majority of all private sector workers.
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LOL, more like $50-$60k.
 
If the average is 28K, and I'm guessing that cops, firefighters, and teachers make up the majority of that pool, I'd have to disagree. And either way I'm not upset that the people who educate our children (and often devote soo much more than private sector employees give them credit for) get paid that kind of a pension. They do an imensly important job for society. Now w/ that being said the teachers union does need to stop protecting its bad teachers and allow for competition for better teachers to be rewarded. I know a few teachers, non of them live crazy rich lives, at best right down the middle of middle class. So in short, sure maybe these folks need to sacrafice a bit more too, but thats not the real fat.
 
Mass teachers make 50-80k a year and the kids still are getting dumber.

The average is a bunch of bullshit because of people still collecting on small pensions which were actually backed with real contributions from the 1960s & 70s. Pretty much every pension after the 1970s is overgenerous and underfunded.

Community service is a load of crap most of the time with supposed civil servants anyway. Do you think the average state worker cares about the public? They HATE the public. The public is a nuisance that asks for services and expects them take time out of their day to actually do some work.
 
Mass teachers deserve every penny of that and it would be news to some of my teaching friends that they started out at 50K (after masters). If you ask me its the lack of parenting to why they are getting dumber. And the bottom line is this every human being starts out as a child. If a child dosn't get an education (and isn't an anomally) that child has no future. One would then have to deduct that teaching is pretty fucking important. Damn near the top of the list of important jobs for society to have. So I don't understand why we scap goat teachers, when they truely work hard full days and live no better than middle class (with masters). They bring a lot of work home, they arnt' the big picture problem. The rulling rich is. Maybe its just that you like grabing your ankles for them.
 
I don't really know where to put this, so it'll go here for now.

Last year, I made a Google Map of all the obscure stairways, ramps, paths, and shortcuts I knew of in or near Somerville. The map is at http://TinyURL.com/ObscureSomerville . Let me know if I've left out anything that you know about.

Anyone know of a similar map for another local city, town, or neighborhood?
 
^ I love it! I want to see more maps like this! :)

PS: There's stairs down to old platforms (from old B&M days) at some bridges on the Lowell line. But AFAIK, completely useless unless trespassing down the tracks!
 
GW2500 said:
Mass teachers deserve every penny of that and it would be news to some of my teaching friends that they started out at 50K (after masters). If you ask me its the lack of parenting to why they are getting dumber. And the bottom line is this every human being starts out as a child. If a child dosn't get an education (and isn't an anomally) that child has no future. One would then have to deduct that teaching is pretty fucking important. Damn near the top of the list of important jobs for society to have. So I don't understand why we scap goat teachers, when they truely work hard full days and live no better than middle class (with masters). They bring a lot of work home, they arnt' the big picture problem. The rulling rich is. Maybe its just that you like grabing your ankles for them.
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Exactly. My mother is an elem teacher (in the New Bedford ghetto) and has been for 25 years. I've encountered a LOT of people that think teachers have it easy by working 8-3, getting all holidays and a 2 month long summer vaca off, but that is not the case. The reality is that their work goes FAR beyond the timeframe of the school-day. Growing up, my mother would come home at 6 at the earliest and then continue working on correcting tests/curriculum planning until at least midnight. Tests to correct and the plan book went in our luggage on every vacation we ever took. We'd be playing volleyball on the beach and she'd be in the lounge chair correcting papers. The schools also don't pay for supplies anymore (or provide a budget that is so little that you can't possibly have enough to support a classroom), so that money comes straight out of teachers' pockets. They don't get paid enough and yet still have to dish out ungodly amounts of money to support their classroom because they believe in doing what's right for students.
 
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