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Let's talk corruption

News Shooter

News Shooter

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I'm from Chicago and I always figured that had to be the most corrupt modern city in America, but having lived here for the last six years I believe Chicago doesn't even compare to the deep institutional corruption that exists in Boston/MA.

With the exception of New Orleans, would anyone dispute that assertion?
 
What about Washington DC? There are more politicians per square foot there than anywhere else on the globe. That or NYC, because that's where UN Headquarters are... [rolleyes]
 
No argument about DC

But I'm talking about local government. The UN is a whole different story.
There was a time when I would say NY was the most corrupt, but somehow I think they managed to clean a lot of it up. Given the political reality of MA I just don't see that ever happening. The turnpike authority is a classic example. It is unbelievable that we sit back and keep electing these crooks
 
The very fact (with very few exceptions) that a person seeks office and has the backing to get it is almost an indication that someone's palm is greased somewhere. Its sad, but it's now a government for the corrupt, by the corrupt and of the corrupt as the few honest ones in the mix have so little power to make a difference.
 
Well it's not like some of us don't try to get them out of office. Seems that end of the state prefers these idiots. Trust me they do nothing for our end of the state.[thinking]
 
With the exception of New Orleans, would anyone dispute that assertion?
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Yes, I would. I grew up in Chicago. The corruption in Chicago city government was (and still is) legendary. Boston government are pikers in comparison.

New Orleans government is also corrupt, but the most striking quality of New Orleans government is not its corruption but its incompetence.

I know consultants who have recently worked for the city of Boston and there was absolutely no corruption involved in them getting the contracts or fulfilling them. In addition, they were not politically connected in any way. They were also able to get similar contracts with state agencies.
 
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News Shooter said:
I'm from Chicago and I always figured that had to be the most corrupt modern city in America, but having lived here for the last six years I believe Chicago doesn't even compare to the deep institutional corruption that exists in Boston/MA.

With the exception of New Orleans, would anyone dispute that assertion?
Click to expand...

Chicago is pretty bad. Daley is an american equivalent of saddam hussein, minus the nerve gas and genocide. But they're all
pretty much the same ball of wax, at differing levels. Philadelphia is also endemically corrupt- mayor street is the same
league of douchebag that tom reilly or any of these other hacks is.

Just track the gun banning pricks- wherever there is a gun banning prick, there is usually severe corruption.

MA of course, has a downright retarded and endemic amount of corruption, and most of it occurs in the middle ranks,
with some of it at the higher end. One of the key differences in this state is the liberals/bureaucrats here have mastered
the art of "soft corruption"- eg, they do dubious things, but nothing they can get in serious trouble for,
or at least not without having some level of padding in place. There's often little or no oversight, and even when there
is, it doesn't matter much because the oversight is often running schemes of its own.

A prime example of this is the turnpike authority. I was reading an article in the herald or something about the swearing
in of the new commissioner- and it mentioned the term "nervous employees". Why the hell should they
be nervous, unless they're trying to hide something? They're worried that the hack festival there might implode in on
itself, and that the "get my friend's loser kid a job that pays too much money" merry go round might actually stop. The
sole reason Mitt failed to destroy the authority when he tried to before is because the "hack network" there is so
hardwired into MA's political subsystem that the pressure on him not to just became too extreme for him to push any further.
Basically the political hacks can all join backscratchers together and become a "Death Star" political laser which can vaporize
anyone trying to stop them.

Of course some of this is all subjective- One of the problems that occurs in america is that often times much corruption is
simply ignored in the media unless it involves money or sex. Various political favors, on the other hand, are easily hidden
and covered up because there's no paper trail involved. Greasing someone with cash, off the record, is also pretty
undetectable.... but that tends to not be the MO up here... the MO in the northeast is all about "who you know", and how
you can play the shell game to do something.

Now, I'm not going to say that there is NOT corruption in other parts of the country.... that certainly isnt the case... it's
just not as widespread and endemic as it seems to be in the communist strongholds. Corruption in non communist
locales seems to be a lot more simplistic and direct- and I think thats because the percentage of non-corrupt individuals is far
lower in normal places. There are actually people who will blow the whistle on corruption, without
requiring a political incentive/motive to do so.

-Mike
 
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There's a difference between overpaid, underperforming politically connected hacks at the top level of the Turnpike (and many state agencies) and corruption. Corruption is trucking companies paying off city of Chicago officials in order to get contracts. Corruption is contractors working on Gov. Rowland's cottage for free and in exchange getting lucrative state contracts. That's corruption. Incompetence is different from corruption.
Why the hell should they be nervous, unless they're trying to hide something?
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Oh come on. Take one look at today's Globe and you'll see exactly why they were nervous:
Cogliano also fired six top managers yesterday, including the authority's director of human resources, the chief information officer, and the manager of facilities operations, who was just three months shy of retirement. They were offered no severance or sick pay.
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http://www.boston.com/news/traffic/bigdig/articles/2006/08/18/big_payday_for_exiting_pike_officials/

Wouldn't you be worried if you knew that the top management of your company was changing and that the new management was coming in with a hatchet and an axe to grind? And the higher level jobs in the state are not civil service protected, so they are free to be fired for political purposes.

People who work for the government generally don't work hard. They also generally don't get paid that well. What they do get is a great pension. The problem is that if they get tossed out, they may not be able to collect that pension. So when the administration changes, they are at very great risk.
 
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New Jersey is also bad at every level. The AG just resigned after requesting a special favor for a companion who was stopped by police for driving with a suspended license. The police let this person go without towing the car at the request of the AG.[thinking]
 
M1911 said:
People who work for the government generally don't work hard. They also generally don't get paid that well. What they do get is a great pension. The problem is that if they get tossed out, they may not be able to collect that pension. So when the administration changes, they are at very great risk.
Click to expand...

I would beg to differ with you on the pay issue relative to Massachusetts. This
used to be the issue a long time ago. Current pay for Mass employees is very
competitive with "the dreaded private sector". Retirement for regular employees
when reaching whatever the correct age or years is 80% of your regular
salary and free excellent health care. Not bad, I could live with that. As for
working hard, that is an employee specific issue. There are a lot of Mass
employees that put in a day work for a days pay. Of course the tolerance
for those that don't is rather high as well.

(Disclaimer: I am not now, nor ever have been, a state or government
employee, except for being in the Army, where I was paid shit to risk
life and limb if need be.)

TBP
 
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There are a lot of Mass employees that put in a day work for a days pay. Of course the tolerance for those that don't is rather high as well.
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Agreed. My statements were overly broad. There are plenty of good state employees. And some not so good ones.

Believe it or not, the engineering staff at the Turnpike is actually pretty highly regarded. Far better than the Mass Highway staff.
 
reinbeau said:
We,, it's right up there, but I still think the bubbas in Louisiana have us beat - by a hair! [shocked]
Click to expand...

Louisiana is a political sewer. As far as Chicago is concerned, Dade County in
Florida is the biggest political sewer in the US, bar none and Chicago could be
a distant second. Massachusetts differs from the other areas in that the
entire state government is corrupt, from east to west, not just the cities.
State, County, and Municipal government is as corrupt and disfunctional
as it gets, from one end of the state to the other. The sad part is that the
sheeple are so used to it that it is accepted as the norm in this state and
we live with it. I have come to believe that for a lot of residents, they are
actually afraid to make a stand against it in the belief that the devil you know
is better than the devil you don't. Can things get worse, absolutely. Vote for
Reilly (or another democrat or republicrat) and we will go back to the dark
days of Dukakis for sure. Am I jaded or what? Its hard not to be when you
have lived here all your life.

TBP
 
News Shooter said:
M1911 about Chicago. I grew up there as well. The difference I would draw between Chicago and Boston is that in Chicago things work. It's all greased, but the streets get plowed, tunnels don't collapse, etc.
Click to expand...

Yeh right. There are no planes skidding off well built runways into interstate?

image1110716g.jpg


There is corruption all over. Nature of the beast be it Boston, NJ, Chicago, New York, DC, NO, LA, San Fran, etc.
 
senorFrog said:
Yeh right. There are no planes skidding off well built runways into interstate?

image1110716g.jpg
Click to expand...

The difference here in Mass is that they skid off the runways into the ocean, or
worse they get hijacked and get crashed into the WTC. Mass can outdo most
places for screwups. We just are better at it than most of the rest of the
country. [smile]

TBP
 
M1911 said:
That's corruption. Incompetence is different from corruption.
Click to expand...

The attitudes and mindset behind those that work to manipulate the system
for their own ends is strikingly similar. The only real difference is that one is
blatantly illegal and one is not. (Well, not always). The state worker that
cheats on their timecard, for instance, is still a corrupt individual, as is the
supervisor that knows all about it and does nothing. Just because they
can't get sent to jail for it, doesn't mean it isn't corruption. It's still
concious, intentional abuse of a system, not someone simply sucking at
their job. A person who shows up at work, and makes an attempt to do
his/her job and follows the rules, but sucks at their actual duties, well,
that's a better description of incompetence. In the case of the "hacks"
mentioned above, it's a lot deeper than that.

Wouldn't you be worried if you knew that the top management of your company was changing and that the new management was coming in with a hatchet and an axe to grind? And the higher level jobs in the state are not civil service protected, so they are free to be fired for political purposes.
Click to expand...

Yeah, well, in the aforementioned case, if I was a corrupt ass
dragger, and all the people that I worked around were the same state, then
yeah, I'd be worrying.

People who work for the government generally don't work hard. They also generally don't get paid that well. What they do get is a great pension. The problem is that if they get tossed out, they may not be able to collect that pension. So when the administration changes, they are at very great risk.
Click to expand...

I'd say theres a mix of people who do and don't do their government
jobs very well, not all of them are ass draggers. And "pay" is a
relative term, especially given the longevity of some of these
jobs. There amount of places where one can get more than 5-10
years out of a job post, without sweating it much, are pretty minimal.
Compare that to the private sector, where there are tons of jobs where
people are always thinking "Well, by next year I might not have a job.".
Not to mention, some state jobs require minimal brainpower (eg, toll collectors)
and get paid a princely sum in comparison to what workers at other low-end,
private sector jobs get. The benneis are also usually full house, where as
in many other private sector jobs only partial coverage exists. So after all
is said and done, the toll collector has a "better overall deal" than the guy
that works at mcdonalds 40 hrs a week.

Additionally, public/federal jobs have a certain level of immunity from
economic factors. Even when the economy implodes as it is want to do
every so often, these employees are insulated from those effects, at least
for awhile.

-Mike
 
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Yeah, well, in the aforementioned case, if I was a corrupt ass dragger, and all the people that I worked around were the same state, then yeah, I'd be worrying.
Click to expand...
Sorry, but I guess I wasn't clear. At the higher level of management jobs in MA government, the people are basically political appointees. They do not have civil service protection. They can and often are hired and fired for purely political reasons, not for performance or lack of performance. That's the way it is. So when the administration changes, every one of those managers is at risk, even if they were doing their job quite well.

Lower level state employees have civil service protection and are thus harder to fire, even when they are slackers.

The same thing often happens in the private sector. A new boss is hired and he wants his "team" with him. He wants his managers to be beholden to him. So the first thing he does is to fire the old managers and brings in his cronies. I've seen it happen before. Being a hard worker doesn't necessarily protect you in such circumstances.

Romney has been talking about cleaning house at the Turnpike for years. For political reasons, he wanted to have some scalps to display (not just Fat Matt's). So now he's got them. Did they deserve to be fired? I don't know. Maybe yes. Maybe not. But what we're seeing now is a political show.

As for the toll takers, yup, they are way overpaid for what they do. But I don't think their pay-scale is typical of those in municipal, state, or federal government. As for the job security, that's a matter of whether they are civil service or not. Those employees who are civil service do, indeed, have better job security than the rest of us. The higher level managers, however, do not have civil service protection.

As for the pension, that's a double-edged sword. If you can stay long enough to retire, then you get a great pension. But if you get canned before you are eligible for the pension, then you get screwed because you can't take it with you. With a 401k at least you take it with you when you leave. Of course, mine are more like 200.5k's these days. Sigh.
 
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How is an airport not maintaining their runways comparable to highway plowing?
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I can't say that I blame that particular incident on the airport authority. Snow builds up on runways during a storm. They do their best to keep them plowed, but unless they close the airport entirely, there will be snow on the runways during a storm.

The Southwest crew should not have attempted that landing. Even if they had landed perfectly, the available runway distance was very marginal for the conditions (Midway runways are very, very short). The pilots then blew the landing, touched down long, and didn't get the spoilers deployed in time. That said, I believe that Boeing has changed some recommended procedures for estimating landing length on contaminated runways as a result of this incident.

The main thing that the Midway airport authority is to blame for is that they have not installed a concrete aircraft arresting system: http://durbin.senate.gov/record.cfm?id=256491

That said, I suspect there are quite a few other old airports with similarly short runways and poor runoff areas that don't have an arresting system.

Logan's runways, by the way, are much, much longer than Midway's. Logan's longest is over 10,000 feet. Midway's longest is 6500 (and I think they were using a shorter runway that day, due to wind direction).
 
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M1911 said:
As for the toll takers, yup, they are way overpaid for what they do.
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Just to play devil's advocate here...

How much would you want to stand in a little booth for 8 hours, breathe exhaust fumes and make change for the great unwashed?

Just wondering.
 
How much would you want to stand in a little booth for 8 hours, breathe exhaust fumes and make change for the great unwashed?
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You think the folks at the McDonald's drive-thru make $50,000 per year? Which job do you think takes more training, toll collector or McDonald's cashier?
 
Judging by how many times they've gotten my order screwed up, I'd guess McDonalds. But at least they get fed on the job. And I suspect that the ventilation is better at the MickeyD's than in a tollbooth in the middle of the Mass Pike at rush hour.
 
M1911 said:
You think the folks at the McDonald's drive-thru make $50,000 per year? Which job do you think takes more training, toll collector or McDonald's cashier?
Click to expand...

Perhaps toll collector . . . they might have to actually calculate the change.

It's a well known fact that most "cashiers" at McD's can't add or subtract! That's why they have the color screen register with pictures of products to punch in instead of prices!

But with salaries of almost $80K/year for the Turnpike toll collectors, I wasted my time getting an education and trying to work for a living!
 

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