Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed
Big Screen — Movie commentary
Blurt — Music's inside track
Booze News — San Diego spirits
Classical Music — Immortal beauty
Classifieds — Free and easy
Close to Home — What it’s like on the street where you live
Cover Stories — Front-page features
Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes
Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts
Feast! — Food & drink reviews
Feature Stories — Local news & stories
Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore
From the Archives — Spotlight on the past
Golden Dreams — Talk of the town
The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it
Letters — Our inbox
Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites
Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans
Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists
Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news
News Ticker — News & politics
Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated
Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna
Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated
Poetry — The old and the new
Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers
Reading — The hunt for intellectuals
Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails
San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds
SD on the QT — Almost factual news
Sheep and Goats — Places of worship
Special Issues — The best of
Street Style — San Diego streets have style
Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves
Theater — On stage in San Diego this week
Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative
Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work
Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego
Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads
Your Week — Daily event picks
Get Used to Unemployment
Yes, there are two Americas, and the top 1 to 2% rule. It's true in San Diego. Best, Don Bauder By dbauder ========================= Don, have you seen this Yale paper yet????? http://pas.sagepub.com/content/38/2/152.full.pdf+… Good read!!!! (BTW-it is 54 pages long, but in a PDF format-you can downloand the paper and read it in sections)— August 20, 2010 7:56 a.m.
Pinpoint Forecasting, San Diego Style
At some point, the muni unions will HAVE to make concessions. =================== What is going to happen is the budget deficits are going to be get big that the hammer will fall. What I think Brown and other Democratics are hoping for is some super stock market rally, and a super duper economic recovery. But face it-that is not happening, not now, not next year and not the year after that. The public unions have been trying to hold out until a strong recovery comes-but the upside down muni financies are going to crash before we have even a small uptick....... DJIA 8-19-10= 10,271 DJIA 5-13-99= 11,100 Then again Big Ben Bernanke and Tim Geitner said "the recession is over".....who knows.— August 19, 2010 9:45 p.m.
Pinpoint Forecasting, San Diego Style
surfpuppy, no need to get your panties in a bunch, because you misunderstood my comment. ==== Oh, my panties are not bunched........jsut telling my story.— August 19, 2010 9:37 p.m.
Gay Paper Suspended, but Sends Money for Back Taxes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQLMuEXeGeI ==================== Funny!!!! . . . . the district attorney is going after Gay and Lesbian Times, apparently for misstating its circulation =========== You have to be kidding me!!!! If she is going after the GLT over an issue like that she needs to go....the UT inflates it's circulation-is she going after the UT???— August 19, 2010 9:34 p.m.
Pinpoint Forecasting, San Diego Style
unions do support part time workers. The ILWU at the Port of LA/Long Beach and the Teamsters and UPS are to that come to mind. ======================= No, the unions do not support PT employees. I have posted this before, don't know if you read or saw it. I worked at UPS during college in 84 and 85 and made $9.54 an hour-that was 26 years ago. UPS this past year were paying the exact same position $8.50 an hour. Using a COLA of 3%, the current pay would have had to go up 78%, NOT compounding the COLA's, to keep up. That would be a wage of well more than $16.98 today to keep pace. Someone here knew the story on this and said it was because the F/T employees got major raises and tossed the PT employees under the bus, but I cannot vouch for that b/c I don't know. I do know that the UPS job is paying 11% LESS today than it did 26 years ago for those PT jobs.— August 19, 2010 6:31 p.m.
Pinpoint Forecasting, San Diego Style
I've seen you through out that line about all PD/FF $150k-$200k comp for at least of couple of years. I personally think you're over generalizing a bit, but that's neither her nor there. But this I wonder about. You keep throwing out that "60% of budget line". And I do have a problem with that. But you just aid "general fund revenue" which is the first time I've seen that. Since you've made a couple of difference references here, let me be clear. When you refer to "60 % of the budget" are you making that reference as compared to the cities annual budget as a whole or just as it specifically relates to General Fund Revenues? ====================== The full comp of a cop or FF in CA is in the $200K range BEFORE any OT is factored in. If you use a realistic investment factor of 4-5% instead of the 7.75-8.5% the gov uses, you can add another $100K onto that. For every 1 point a pension fund under performs on a 3%@50 pension you have to add 25% of the salary to make up for that one point loss. From 98-08 Calpers ROI was 2.41%. That does not include the meltdown from 9/08 forward. FF/Cop pay in this state has, on average, gone up 87% in the last 10 years. You cannot fund pensions when the COLA's are averaging 8%-9% a year. The cost to fund a 3%@50 pension, according to Calpers is 40% of SALARY-that is the PENSION alone. You start adding on the 5-7 weeks of vacation, the 12 sick days, the 14 paid holidays, the free or almost free healthcare, it is a tremendous cost. San Diego is comped slightly less than most muni's. As to the funding, all the funding for general gov services comes from the general fund-Libraries, Parks, Roads, Seniors, Pools-it all comes from the same source, the general fund. Here is a link to the City of Bell SALARIES ONLY, please look at what the SALARY alone is for the cops; http://www.bellcityclerk.org/pdfs/bell_salaries.p… So you tell me, you think those numbers don't add up to 60% o rmore of the funding??? And then tell me if you think that kind of comp is fair for a city where the median income is $27K per year. Bell is not San Diego, but it is still happening here, just to a lessor extent.— August 19, 2010 6:22 p.m.
Gay Paper Suspended, but Sends Money for Back Taxes
some miserable people make themselves feeling better by dishing out names, publishing personal records, hell I say everyone release their financial records so that we can all know everyones life and how "interesting" it truly is. ================ EEEEerrr...Perry Mason Jr., Tax liens are NOT "personal records" they are PUBLIC records. You don't want to be listed in public records as a deadbeat tax scofflaw then pay your taxes. And stop whining like a 2 year old, it is annoying.— August 19, 2010 5:41 p.m.
Pinpoint Forecasting, San Diego Style
How do you arrive at your calculation that FF/PD total compensation is 60% of San Diego's budget ===================== This is a standard expense for all muni's. They all must provide fire and police protection. Fire and police are by far the biggest expenditure in virtually all muni's, and always account for over 50% of the budget. Always. The costs are not identical in all muni's, but all fall into a fairly standard range, 60% is the average for most muni's who are not in the red. The ones in the red spend from 60%+ up to well over 75%. Vallejo was spending over 75% of theire entire general fund on just police and fire, and the reason they were forced to file BK. I am guestimating San Diego is spending 60% of general fund revenue on police and fire-but considering how upside down the city is budget wise it could be more. In addition to the stated budget costs/payments, there is also the problem of the pension fund not performing up to it's stated returns, which I believe is 8% for the City. If the pension fund does not hit the 8% mark the 60% number would obviously have to be increased to meet the pension fund estimates (of course not just police and fire are in the pension fund, but those two groups account for the majority of pension fund costs-just like payroll which is what the pensions are based upon). Why do you have another number???????— August 19, 2010 12:48 p.m.
Gay Paper Suspended, but Sends Money for Back Taxes
No reason for "Daniel2" to flip out-it is a simple story about some unpaid taxes, and a comment from Daniel2 that it "hardly belongs at the top of today’s local stories". I don't know if Don's blog updates count as the top of the LOCAL STORIES, but Don spoke to Mike, who said it was an oversight, the $2K was sent in, and the paper will be reinstated. I would certainly not call this a slam or hit piece on the GLT-just something of interest since there was a previous blog about the conflict with the competing paper and subsequent lawsuit. I think when you make a big deal out of such a little story then you draw far more attention to the little story-making it a big story, and for all the wrong reasons.— August 19, 2010 12:37 p.m.
Get Used to Unemployment
Based on square-foot prices, listings are about the same or more than they were in 2005, around four or five hundred, at least in my neighborhood, which is lower-middle-class. ============ Believe it or not, during the last downturn, I bought a 1 bedroom condo in City Heights (not the best area of town) for $17 a sq ft!— August 19, 2010 8:40 a.m.