It Pays to be a Firefighter in Vallejo, CA
First let me preface this entire entry by saying, I don't bemoan the type of work firefighters or police officers do - along with coal miners these are among the toughest jobs in America. That said, I wrote a piece on the bankruptcy in Vallejo [May 7: Vallejo California Votes for Bankruptcy]; Mish over at Mish's Global Economic Trend blog followed up Thursday with a look at the salaries of public workers in the city. He took a look at all the workers who made more than $100K - there were 292 city workers (I don't know out of how many) - but this is only a town of 100K people. Not New York City.
Below are charts of the $200-$299K and $180-$199K ranges. Dominated by firefighters (and some policemen). Again, I have no bones with these people being compensated for tough work but when private industry is being battered by falling wages, and low(er) paying jobs - how can our tax dollars continue to pay such wages? As I wrote in my earlier piece
What I've been amazed to watch locally is how local governments (in a 1 state recession we've had for about 4 years now) won't cut jobs or benefits (for themselves) while private enterprise is cutting jobs, benefits, wages left and right. I guess they will hold on - until they go BK. But we need to either see very sizeable tax increases and/or job cuts/services lost to pay for our excesses of the housing bubble.
Unfortunately this has to change in a downwardly mobile country such as ours; a country full of new Walmart shoppers. [Dec 26: Target Shoppers Turning into Walmart Shoppers] It is not fair for the private sector to take such hits, while public sector employees make wages completely out of whack with where they would be in "free markets"; and subsidized by those working in the private market. It sounds cruel but this is our reality - "shared sacrifice" is a necessity.
10 comments:
this just amazes and disgusts me - so much for my college education. I guess I should have been a fire man and then I could have afforded a house out here. They need to learn from the east coast and just have a volunteer fire department and then they can pay their teachers more than 40k a year.
Vallejo, CA
Beginning teacher salary: $33719
Mid-range teacher salary: $48492
Highest teacher salary: $64658
Wow, that blows me away. I can't belive firefighters and policeman make that much (unless you're the #1 in charge). I wonder if they're factoring other things into "total wages," like benefits, pension, etc.
Damn. Just what exactly happened in that city? I never met a policeman or fireman who got paid more than $100K in my life...
bluedog, what sort of career do you have where "benefits" would be $50-$100K?
According to the San Fran newspaper it is simply their "gross wages" - nothing else
throw benefits (which govt has the best usually) on top of that. The whole idea of public service (I was taught) was you in return for lower than market wages you got gold plated benefits. So now we have the benefits and crazy wages. This is what happens when you let the fox watch the henhouse... just like letting Congressmen vote their own wages/raises/benefits. Same at local and state governments. WOuldnt this world be a nicer place if we all voted on our own wages? And those of our close associates?
http://tinyurl.com/3gfdru
Maybe I see things differently (and wrong) but it all seems relative to me. A lesson from the east coast? Just goto realtor.com and type in Vallejo, ca. Where a 4 bedroom 4 bath house cost you $999,000. Now what do you think property taxes on that is? Now how much will a 4 bedroom 4 bath home cost you in the "east coast"? 125k? I live in the Los Angeles, ca. area and when i saw the blog it seems the norm around here in independent cities. Burbank, Glendale, San Clemente, Santa Clarita/Valencia(where I live). Maybe this is something the economy has to deal with. Housing bubble creating inflation in wages paid? But it is illogical to suggest that you are going to pay a firefighter 30k when housing cost a million. Its like suggesting..Well why buy Countrywide stock in 2004 when the CEO was getting paid out 100 million for the year. Sounds redic. doesnt it? But yet you do it because one seeks self interest and profit. Its easy to critique it from the outside though... East coast just look at new york. Manhattan/Hampton's. I bet you their firefighters/police officers receives high incomes also. Why? Because the property value/property taxes allows to pay for it/best.
Mark,
A lifetime pension somehow factored into the gross wage could get that high, conceivably... but like you said, it's gross wages pure and simple.
Kappa,
"Housing bubble creating inflation in wages paid?" I live in San Diego and am not seeing anything close to inflated wages. To the contrary, people could "afford" to live in an overinflated home buy getting into creative loans, which is a big factor into what created our mess in the first place.
BD
http://www.city-data.com/city/San-Diego-California.html
Average yearly salary for a firefighter in San Diego: $87,623. I wonder what the Chief over in La Jolla area makes? 200k + is an easy guess.
People (including myself) never see "inflated wages" because its natural for one to always want to consume more and more and belive they have less. Its natural to be greedy. But if you look back at previous yearly average salaries. You'll see the expansion rate is much quicker within the past 4-5 years.
Oooo I attend SDSU :]
Maybe I'm bias though because my Dad is a LAPD Detective and makes over 100k. So I defend it...But I just see it as being relative to the surrounding property value of the area because its those very same property taxes which pay for the city services.
OO tradermark good job on your blog. I really like it and follow it regularly. Your own personal screening/picks gives a good perspective as to what large cap conservative hedge funds are currently looking at and buying. I notice you use many IBD stocks. Do you use IBD services or do you screen for these stocks yourself?
Thanks keep up the good work. I hope you accomplish the 12m. goodluck.
kappa,
I never use IBD. Most of my picks are just from thinking out scenarios, macro views, and research. I think only MTL and MICC have come from screens.
Wow. thats really impressive! Ive only seen a select handful of people approach stocks this way (I intern at a hedge fund). Just curious, so do you go off what you think the future holds for certain corporations? Do you have guidelines for sell points?
Sorry to ask, I am just really curious how you approach a stock. I really do think its amazing you came up with those stocks without a screener.
I'm probably very unstructured compared to what you find in a hedge fund. I'll sell when the story changes or the charts completely break down. Otherwise I just move stocks up and down in weighting based on when I feel they have become overvalued versus undervalued (short term) - the majority of my holdings are long term picks that I believe I could go away for a year and I'd be fine having them in the portfolio a year later. I don't put an exit price because that would be limiting.
And yes I go off what the future holds - without estimating what the future is, how else would one pick a stock. I basically look for stories the market is missing or underestimating. Then when revisions are pushed up, so do stock prices, and I profit. That's the general theme.
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