Jim Hightower on Bill Moyers

Jim Hightower | Should one beer behemoth control 70% of the US market

Jim Hightower | Should one beer behemoth control 70% of the US market

Are you sick of highly-paid teachers?

Teachers' hefty salaries are driving up taxes, and they only work nine or ten months a year! It's time we put things in perspective and pay them for what they do -- babysit!

We can get that for less than minimum wage.

That's right. Let's give them $3.00 an hour and only the hours they worked; not any of that silly planning time, or any time they spend before or after school. That would be $19.50 a day (7:45 to 3:00 PM with 45 min. off for lunch and planning -- that equals 6-1/2 hours).

So each parent should pay $19.50 a day for these teachers to baby-sit their children. Now how many students do they teach in a day...maybe 30? So that's $19.50 x 30 = $585 a day.

However, remember they only work 180 days a year!!! I am not going to pay them for any vacations.

LET'S SEE....

That's $585 X 180= $105,300 per year. (Hold on! My calculator needs new batteries).

What about those special education teachers and the ones with Master's degrees? Well, we could pay them minimum wage ($7.75), and just to be fair, round it off to $8.00 an hour. That would be $8 X 6-1/2 hours X 30 children X 180 days = $280,800 per year.

Wait a minute -- there's something wrong here! There sure is!

The average teacher's salary (nationwide) is $50,000.

$50,000/180 days = $277.77 per day / 30 students = $9.25 / 6.5 hours = $1.42 per hour per student -- a very inexpensive baby-sitter and they even EDUCATE your kids!)

WHAT A DEAL!!!!

Make a teacher smile; repost this to show appreciation for all educators.

Meredith Menden

How many is too many?

Children killed by guns since Newtown from Mother Jones on Vimeo.

Keep Sealy Mattress Co. in Portland!

Right now the investment firm KKR is threatening to move 128 family wage factory jobs out of Oregon. 

The personal part of this for me is more than my love of sleep! Those 128 family wage factory jobs have a special place in my heart and the history of my family: My grandmother, Mathilda "Tillie" Beach, an immigrant from the Ukraine of German descent, worked at that factory from the age of 19 until her retirement decades later. She began as a seamstress and, later in her career, was a floor manager. 

KKR now owns the company and would like to move production to another state and re-establish it with lower cost non-union workers. Moving Sealy would be a blow to the Portland economy while the parent company, KKR, manages and profits from $3 BILLION of the state government's investments.

I signed a petition to George Roberts, Co-Chief Executive Officer, KKR, which says:

"Mr. Roberts: We call on you to lift your threat to close your Oregon factory and stop your effort to move 128 union jobs out of the state. As the leader of an investment firm that receives BILLIONS of dollars of Oregon's investment money we call on you to not take the state's money and run."

Will you sign this petition? Click here:

http://signon.org/sign/kkr-dont-take-oregons?source=s.icn.em.mt&r_by=6829962

Thanks!

Take The Money And Run For Office : Planet Money : NPR

This American Life teams with Planet Money to delve into the dollars driving our politics. Three acts on the money in politics and the politics in money... I alternately clenched my fists, hung my head, got terribly irritated, and wondered how on earth we can change this...

Take The Money And Run For Office : Planet Money : NPR:

'via Blog this'

Disparity

Get used to it? or I don't think so!

Bill Sizemore pleads guilty to tax evasion charges, goes directly to jail | OregonLive.com

Somehow this just seems like so poetic an end to a destructive political career. I feel smugly happy as a taxpayer  paying his current room and board. In the spirit of Sizemorean Legislation, I do enthusiastically propose that he pay for his own care during his visit to one of Oregon's 'rehabilitative' institutions in the care of Public Employees who receive "too much pay and too many benefits." Perhaps he could spend some time in a private for-profit prison just to compare. 

Bill Sizemore pleads guilty to tax evasion charges, goes directly to jail | OregonLive.com