I was watching some new sitcom last night that takes place in a NYC bar. A bunch of NYFD dudes came into the bar and women swarmed around these heroes. One of the skeptical characters in the show walked up to them and pointed out the number of fires in this country were 85% lower than 50 years ago. He told them he had likely put out as many fires as they had in the last year. They got bent out of shape by him using facts to pop their hero balloon. Later in the show he told them rain could do their job.
The episode made me curious and lo and behold checkout this chart. Thirty five years ago we needed 225,000 career fire fighters to handle 2.4 million fires. Today, with much better equipment and technology, we somehow need 340,000 career fire fighters to handle 1.37 million fires. That’s 50% more firefighters for 40% less fires. I smell something and it’s not smoke. It’s the stench of another government union scam.
Stucky
March 31, 2015 8:33 am
Regarding the second graph …
When firefighters do their job, it means someone’s house, business, property is burning. Duh!!! Right?
Would you want a firefighter to do his job every day?
Not me. Ideally, I’d be happy if a firefighter NEVER “did his job” even once in his life.
Now … if the beef against firefighters is their Gold Plated Pensions …. well, that’s another story altogether.
Why would we need 50% more government paid firefighters when the number of fires has declined by 40%?
Yeah. It’s about their gold plated pensions and status as heroes. It’s a job. They chose the job and get paid to do the job. Enough with the hero bullshit.
Stucky
March 31, 2015 8:54 am
No disagreement whatsoever regarding the number of firefighters … or their equipment.
Our town has TWO of those enormous hook and ladder trucks. In addition to the fleet already in service. Yet, last year in a parade they showed off yet another brand new hulking truck … a yellow one this time. I looked at Ms Freud and said “And you wonder why our property taxes are so insane?” Not to mention they have almost as many Administrative-fuks as they do actual firefighters!!
But, if your house is on fire and a fireman literally risks his life to save Avalon, will you say he just “doing his job” … or will you consider him a hero?
Nothing like spending 99% of your career siting around a firehouse playing cards and eating lobster and steak on the taxpayer, while getting paid $190,000 per year, retiring at 50 years old at full salary, and acting like you deserve it. This is the kind of shit that will not continue. There will be no tears shed when greedy government union drones lose their sweet salaries, benefits and pensions. The unsustainable will not be sustainable.
dc.sunsets
March 31, 2015 9:40 am
I’m a moron.
Had I skipped college 36 years ago and instead worked to become a municipal fireman, I’d be RETIRED NOW. With a FAT PENSION. LIFELONG MEDICAL CARE PAID.
Know any retired firefighters or cops?
Notice they live in a nicer home than you? Have a $40,000 bass boat and a $60,000 truck to tow it?
Did you notice their lifestyle in general? Beats yours to death, doesn’t it?
As an outside salesman (who drives A LOT for work) my occupation rated several steps higher in death/disability rate than either cops or firefighters. Yet we’re told that, as our HEROES of 9/11, they are entitled to (often) SIX FIGURE per year pensions that begin when they retire in their mid-to-early-50’s and continue for decade after decade of golfing, fishing, and what-have-you.
Only high end Corporate officers and University Administrators do better. Even highly-paid surgeons often work themselves to death compared to our HEROES.
Did I mention that communities that experimented with FOR PROFIT fire-fighting services not only cut their costs a mile, they also experienced lower fire losses?
That dirty little statistic is difficult to find, because it conflicts with our “HERO” narrative.
Public pensions (even my wife’s) deserve to crash and burn, but while the lowly teacher’s pension might be modest, the pensions of cops and firefighters (and prison guards, let’s not forget them) are often Platinum-Plated.
I’m no fan of “there ought to be a law,” but to me, there should be two legislated caps: An annual cap on ALL public pensions at, say, 120% of the annual median family income, and a lifetime cap of, say, 25 times the annual median family income. No more retiring at 53 and living like a Brahmin for the next 40 years on the taxpayer’s dime. No more games where some asshole takes a job for a day and qualifies for an ADDITIONAL $30,000 in annual pension payments. No more cops retiring from one job and taking another job to begin accruing a SECOND pension.
dc.sunsets
March 31, 2015 9:55 am
+1 administrator. No, make that +1*infinity.
I am SICK of being told that people living as parasites (anyone who earns more than what the private sector, competitive market would pay to deliver even an essential service is a parasite) are my betters.
Cops.
Firefighters.
Soldiers, marines, aviators and sailors.
EVERYONE who works in a branch of the government at all levels.
They don’t make the world run. They don’t keep the lights on. It is the people PAYING THE TRIBUTE, the taxpayers, who keep the lights on (and government employees don’t pay taxes; money is fungible, and their “tax payments” are simply a return of some of their taxpayer-paid compensation to the entity that employs them.)
My wife is a teacher. She’d be a teacher if the public schools closed today. She’s exactly the person you want helping guide your child toward greater understanding of math, reading and writing. Her job is now HELL because the schools are in the final death spiral where she can no longer do her REAL job quietly…her REAL job (teaching reading, writing and arithmetic) is no longer part of the school’s plan and the level of top-down control has grown to the point where doing the RIGHT thing is no longer possible. You would not BELIEVE the stupid stuff that is now part of the PLAN, or the slavish, detailed, do-not-deviate-from-our-curriculum-and-pacing folly now instituted.
When the schools collapse, if she’s still young enough to work, she’ll still be a teacher, because few people are constituted to “home school” all that well. There really are people who are naturally good at what they do, who have a “calling,” and attempt to serve in that capacity even when the statist-run
Would today’s cops and firefighters be the same, if the PUBLIC sector jobs ended and PRIVATE sector substitutes flourished (with lower pay and bene’s)?
Stucky
March 31, 2015 10:15 am
I’m getting my ass kicked here. Fuckit. I got no skin in the game … other than the out-fucking-rageous taxes …
Firemen Eat Shit !!!
Hollow man
March 31, 2015 11:02 am
How much should a new fireman make and how much should a 20 year fireman make. Like maybe 2000 month new and maybe 4000 after 20 years. So a rage from 24000 to somewhere around 50 a year. Thinking a volunteer department is the way to go. It encourages sacerfice for both individuals and business. Sets a better example for the rest of society also. Just a thought.
robert h siddell jr
March 31, 2015 3:23 pm
DC Sunsets: Public teaching is Hell; they can never reform within so let people have vouchers and put their kids into a good school of their choice. Unions suck. I was a strikebreaker for the FEC and got shot at but loved the job and money. I had to cough up dues for the Savannah Ga Carpenters Union (I’d already paid in Jacksonville Fl and that covered me) while building the THIOKOL Plant there; the union ass just pocked my cash. I refused to join the teachers unions and the Florida State employees union. Give me Right To Work Laws or Death. And the Federal (Bluebelly) Union sucks the worst.
ASIG
March 31, 2015 3:35 pm
Sometime in 1996 I worked with a designer who was also a FULL TIME firefighter with the San Francisco Fire Dept. He worked some type of 24hr on 48hr off schedule at the fire station. And he worked a full time (40hr) job as a designer. He was making good money as a Designer (no pension on the design job) and working full time as a SF Firefighter gaining eligibility for a firefighter’s pension.
Ok so how did that work? Well let’s say Sunday he works a 24hr shift at SFFD. Then Monday and tue he comes into work and at his design job and works a 10hr shifts both days. Wed back to the SFFD for another 24hr shift there. Thur and Fri another two 10hr days at the design job. Then every third week he works one Saturday 24h shift at the SFFD.
Today he’s retired and lives in a high end country club gated community.
IndenturedServant
March 31, 2015 4:55 pm
admin, I don’t rule out your reason for the increase in the numbers of firefighters but part of the reason is due to urban sprawl. Around here the population has spread out enormously from where it was 35 years ago. Just in the last 20 years they have added at least 4 new fire districts. That means new firefighters, equipment and station houses. In some areas the simply relocated the stations to accommodate the sprawl.
Re your second chart, if you add in the time they spend hanging out at the station watching premium cable with every option, eating food cooked on the most high end kitchen equipment I’ve ever seen**, and playing all of the latest video games on new versions of every conceivable platform available while waiting for a call, the amount of actual work they do is pretty fucking low.
**My wife was involved in a car accident that firefighters responded to and to thank them we made some Spanish “comfort” foods and took them over to the station that responded. They had us bring it into their kitchen. Fuckers had a giant stainless steel 10 burner stove with three ovens under it. There was the biggest side by side fridge I’d ever seen and the place was stocked with All-Clad pots and pans hanging from big copper ceiling mounted racks. I’ve been in lots of restaurant kitchens, institutional kitchens and military kitchens and never saw shit that nice. The firehouse probably only had 6-10 guys per watch and they had a 10 burner commercial range? Fuck them!
dc sunsets has it exactly right. When I worked as a concrete finisher, many of our customers were run of the mill firefighters. They owned huge houses on acreage and had massive shops, multiple Harleys, RV’s, multiple high end cars and trucks, boats, every kind of off-road vehicle, jet skis, sport courts, pools and loads of other nice shit. Cops were much more modest by comparison.
I have not voted for a single police, fire or school bond measure in the last 20 years and I never will.
Westcoaster
March 31, 2015 7:29 pm
I’ve often wondered why the FD has to roll a ten-ton truck that gets about 1 mpg in order to service a medical call? Seems wasteful to me, but maybe they get bored.
TE
March 31, 2015 8:05 pm
@Westcoaster, lawsuits and union work rules, I would guess. Actually, only partially guess as my sister’s ex brother-in-law was the Fire Chief in my former hometown.
The number of fires has gone down by half, but the number of accidents the FD shows up for has quadrupled.
The problem is, as with so many of our issues, unions, lawyers and idiots.
Idiots are easily scared and led and will vote to be “safer,” lawyers have made the blame game worth trillions, and unions have assured the taxpayer is always paying three guys to do the job of one. Plus retirees.
Everyone of our major issues are onions, layer upon layer of real problems, with no one layer being the only problem, or fix.
The entire country is insane. And being sane in a world of delusion and psychopathy is not only tiring, it is becoming more dangerous.
Use fire fighting equipment for FIGHTING fires, not “in case.”
For cripe’s sake, there is not enough money in the world to pay a government agent to be at every place, every space, every moment, that some idiot might get hurt or hurt someone else.
Fix that and then quit allowing lawyers and victims to use courts to hit the lottery.
We are offshoring, tech’ing, regulating, fining, taxing and suing our jobs out of existence.
Until we ADMIT the problems, there will be no “fixing” them, as we only focus on symptoms (exactly like what passes for “health” care).
So, this problem will eventually rectify itself, as the only people that will be able to pay will also be the ones first burnt out for their stuff. And when the public trough dries up, so will our “heroes.”
Billy
March 31, 2015 8:21 pm
Know any retired firefighters or cops?
Notice they live in a nicer home than you? Have a $40,000 bass boat and a $60,000 truck to tow it?
Did you notice their lifestyle in general? Beats yours to death, doesn’t it?
I am SICK of being told that people living as parasites (anyone who earns more than what the private sector, competitive market would pay to deliver even an essential service is a parasite) are my betters.
Cops.
Firefighters.
Soldiers, marines, aviators and sailors.
EVERYONE who works in a branch of the government at all levels. – dc.suckass
I don’t have a bass boat.
I don’t have a $60,000 truck, either.
In point of fact, I was blown out of the fucking military in one shot. One day everything’s fine. The next, welp, adios Sarge! Been nice knowing ya!
I spent 9 years dicking with the VA before they would listen to reason.
During that time, I underwent various operations, chemo, etc. All of which have left a mark – either physically or psychologically (to this day, I have to be knocked unconscious just to go to the dentist… even for a cleaning) – while simultaneously raising a family and attending a school so that I could obtain other skills that would allow me to provide for me and mine.
And it’s still not over. Come next week, I have to go back yet again to have the nerves in my back fried so that I can have a measure of peace and mobility.
And all for a stipend that is so laughably small, I can make better money working at Home Depot as a box monkey.
I don’t see a bass boat. I look in the driveway and see what we could afford – a 73 Ford and a 87 Chevy Blazer with over 250K on the clock.
We’re not getting any new livestock this year, because last year, a Spring storm knocked a 40 foot hole in the barn roof. Insurance would only pay for the damaged part. In other words – one half a roof. So, we had to burn the money we were saving for livestock and spend it on the other half of the barn roof because really, what the fuck am I gonna do with only one half a roof?
I’m wanting to use the skills I’ve earned, but the fucking Feds changed up the rules again, so now I have to build a goddamn dedicated shop just to do the job I want to do, and I don’t have that kind of fucking money… (maybe if I sell the Gulfstream G550 I have buried in the backyard?). I’m even seriously contemplating borrowing the funds from my widowed mother – the money she has left over from Daddy passing on last year, but it’s all she’s got left… but I’m not that big a rat bastard. Yet.
All’s I ever wanted was to serve my Republic. I didn’t ask for this, though it certainly was a possibility. I’d gladly do without the frying of nerves with microwaves, the medications, the physical therapy, the chemo, blah, blah, blah, just to have my health back. To go back to the Old Me. I’d trade every red cent back – plus interest – for that. With a big fucking bow on top, just for YOU, dc…
You can eat my shit and choke, motherfucker…. I’m not living some luxury lifestyle on your dime. I’m trying to scratch a living out of the fucking dirt, just like everyone else.
So fucking FELLATE ME.
That’s all I got.
Out.
Zarathustra
March 31, 2015 8:39 pm
I have said it for years. Public employee unions should be abolished. Collective bargaining is a fucking joke when the employer (taxpayers) are left out of it.
Anonymous
March 31, 2015 8:45 pm
Billy – once again you see what you want, not necessarily what is there. DC clearly said he is opposed to public servants being seen as his betters, and he called them parasites. Public servants include the military.
Of course they are. They survive off the private citizens. That defines parasites. There are far too many parasites, and that includes people in the military. And they get paid too much.
I seriously doubt he begrudges you compensation for your injury. He begrudges the pensions that military get after what, 20 years? That is truly bullshit. A 38 year old drawing a pension for LIFE? That defines bullshit.
My cousin retired at 50 as a captain in a Calif. Fire Department. He will get around $150,000 per year indexed for life, or until the city goes bankrupt, whichever comes first. He lives in a 2 million dollar house on the cliffs in Malibu. And boy does he gloat about it, and laugh at all the ignorant motherfuckers out there paying his way. He thinks it is hilarious.
That is fucked up and bullshit. There should be no public servant pensions. They need to provide for themselves, off a fair salary, just like everyone else.
Not only do the motherfuckers get paid totally out of proportion to the real market, they do next to nothing. And they cannot generally be fired.
Fucked up and bullshit.
Sorry for your circumstances. But DC did not direct his comment at you. Had you retired at 20 years in good health, then yes, you would have been a fair game target.
Billy
March 31, 2015 9:00 pm
Sorry for your circumstances.
I wasn’t fishing for sympathy. Just stating the way shit is, is all.
But DC did not direct his comment at you. Had you retired at 20 years in good health, then yes, you would have been a fair game target.
Yeah, well he didn’t fucking SAY that, now did he?
No offense, Anon, but I don’t need you to tell me what dc said, when it’s right there for everyone to see.
I was a solider. I draw a pension because I got wrecked, not because I retired – but it IS a pension paid by the US Government to me, including medical care, and taken from the taxpayers (of which I am also one).
If he didn’t intend to include disabled vets, then he should have stepped up and said so. He laid down a righteous bitch, but that bitch also included me under the bigass blanket he threw.
If it’s all the same to you, I’ll just wait for him to come along and clarify things instead of having you infer stuff.
Thanks.
Stucky
March 31, 2015 9:00 pm
“They survive off the private citizens. That defines parasites. There are far too many parasites, and that includes people in the military.” ————— Anonymous
There are at least 10 – 20 times as many CIVILIANS who SUPPORT the military; all those factories which make tanks, ships, planes, and munitions, and thousands of contractors (building, road, food, etc etc) ……. ALL living off the military. So, pray tell, who exactly is the parasite?
And why did you post under Anonymous, instead of Llpoh? Your writing style is well known. Thought you could fool us?
llpoh
March 31, 2015 9:08 pm
Stuck – I do not hide from my comments. Don’t be a dick. Sometimes shit happens.
Umm, and yes, those folks are parasites, too. They are directly being paid from the public purse.
Billy – as I said, I think you misinterpreted. You are wont to do so. You shoot first, ask questions later as a general modus operandi.
And if it is all the same to you, I will post whatever the fuck I want.
Billy
March 31, 2015 9:34 pm
Llpoh,
I went with what he wrote. I didn’t infer shit, like you did.
Post whatever you want, I gives a fuck.
But I don’t need you interpreting for me what someone plainly wrote.
Shoot first ask questions later? Yeah? Fuckin’ so what? If that’s all you got, then…
llpoh
March 31, 2015 9:38 pm
It’s all I got.
Billy
March 31, 2015 9:46 pm
Well alrighty then…
Stucky
March 31, 2015 9:55 pm
“Stuck – I do not hide from my comments. Don’t be a dick.” ——- Llpoh
Don’t be a dick? Don’t be a dick?????
It would be easier if you asked me to lose my moobs. Or, not try to make funny comments. Or, that I should like bb.
Admin
Why you no likey firefighters?
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I was watching some new sitcom last night that takes place in a NYC bar. A bunch of NYFD dudes came into the bar and women swarmed around these heroes. One of the skeptical characters in the show walked up to them and pointed out the number of fires in this country were 85% lower than 50 years ago. He told them he had likely put out as many fires as they had in the last year. They got bent out of shape by him using facts to pop their hero balloon. Later in the show he told them rain could do their job.
The episode made me curious and lo and behold checkout this chart. Thirty five years ago we needed 225,000 career fire fighters to handle 2.4 million fires. Today, with much better equipment and technology, we somehow need 340,000 career fire fighters to handle 1.37 million fires. That’s 50% more firefighters for 40% less fires. I smell something and it’s not smoke. It’s the stench of another government union scam.
Regarding the second graph …
When firefighters do their job, it means someone’s house, business, property is burning. Duh!!! Right?
Would you want a firefighter to do his job every day?
Not me. Ideally, I’d be happy if a firefighter NEVER “did his job” even once in his life.
Now … if the beef against firefighters is their Gold Plated Pensions …. well, that’s another story altogether.
Stuck
Why would we need 50% more government paid firefighters when the number of fires has declined by 40%?
Yeah. It’s about their gold plated pensions and status as heroes. It’s a job. They chose the job and get paid to do the job. Enough with the hero bullshit.
No disagreement whatsoever regarding the number of firefighters … or their equipment.
Our town has TWO of those enormous hook and ladder trucks. In addition to the fleet already in service. Yet, last year in a parade they showed off yet another brand new hulking truck … a yellow one this time. I looked at Ms Freud and said “And you wonder why our property taxes are so insane?” Not to mention they have almost as many Administrative-fuks as they do actual firefighters!!
But, if your house is on fire and a fireman literally risks his life to save Avalon, will you say he just “doing his job” … or will you consider him a hero?
How many people are rescued by firefighters from burning buildings on an annual basis?
We know 3,000 people die in fires per year. That is .001% of the population.
Maybe they save 10,000 people. That is .003% of the population.
I can guarantee you that far more people are saved from fires by civilians than firefighters.
I declare all civilians to be heroes. Let’s have a parade and pay all civilians gold plated pensions for 30 years.
Nothing like spending 99% of your career siting around a firehouse playing cards and eating lobster and steak on the taxpayer, while getting paid $190,000 per year, retiring at 50 years old at full salary, and acting like you deserve it. This is the kind of shit that will not continue. There will be no tears shed when greedy government union drones lose their sweet salaries, benefits and pensions. The unsustainable will not be sustainable.
I’m a moron.
Had I skipped college 36 years ago and instead worked to become a municipal fireman, I’d be RETIRED NOW. With a FAT PENSION. LIFELONG MEDICAL CARE PAID.
Know any retired firefighters or cops?
Notice they live in a nicer home than you? Have a $40,000 bass boat and a $60,000 truck to tow it?
Did you notice their lifestyle in general? Beats yours to death, doesn’t it?
As an outside salesman (who drives A LOT for work) my occupation rated several steps higher in death/disability rate than either cops or firefighters. Yet we’re told that, as our HEROES of 9/11, they are entitled to (often) SIX FIGURE per year pensions that begin when they retire in their mid-to-early-50’s and continue for decade after decade of golfing, fishing, and what-have-you.
Only high end Corporate officers and University Administrators do better. Even highly-paid surgeons often work themselves to death compared to our HEROES.
Did I mention that communities that experimented with FOR PROFIT fire-fighting services not only cut their costs a mile, they also experienced lower fire losses?
That dirty little statistic is difficult to find, because it conflicts with our “HERO” narrative.
Public pensions (even my wife’s) deserve to crash and burn, but while the lowly teacher’s pension might be modest, the pensions of cops and firefighters (and prison guards, let’s not forget them) are often Platinum-Plated.
I’m no fan of “there ought to be a law,” but to me, there should be two legislated caps: An annual cap on ALL public pensions at, say, 120% of the annual median family income, and a lifetime cap of, say, 25 times the annual median family income. No more retiring at 53 and living like a Brahmin for the next 40 years on the taxpayer’s dime. No more games where some asshole takes a job for a day and qualifies for an ADDITIONAL $30,000 in annual pension payments. No more cops retiring from one job and taking another job to begin accruing a SECOND pension.
+1 administrator. No, make that +1*infinity.
I am SICK of being told that people living as parasites (anyone who earns more than what the private sector, competitive market would pay to deliver even an essential service is a parasite) are my betters.
Cops.
Firefighters.
Soldiers, marines, aviators and sailors.
EVERYONE who works in a branch of the government at all levels.
They don’t make the world run. They don’t keep the lights on. It is the people PAYING THE TRIBUTE, the taxpayers, who keep the lights on (and government employees don’t pay taxes; money is fungible, and their “tax payments” are simply a return of some of their taxpayer-paid compensation to the entity that employs them.)
My wife is a teacher. She’d be a teacher if the public schools closed today. She’s exactly the person you want helping guide your child toward greater understanding of math, reading and writing. Her job is now HELL because the schools are in the final death spiral where she can no longer do her REAL job quietly…her REAL job (teaching reading, writing and arithmetic) is no longer part of the school’s plan and the level of top-down control has grown to the point where doing the RIGHT thing is no longer possible. You would not BELIEVE the stupid stuff that is now part of the PLAN, or the slavish, detailed, do-not-deviate-from-our-curriculum-and-pacing folly now instituted.
When the schools collapse, if she’s still young enough to work, she’ll still be a teacher, because few people are constituted to “home school” all that well. There really are people who are naturally good at what they do, who have a “calling,” and attempt to serve in that capacity even when the statist-run
Would today’s cops and firefighters be the same, if the PUBLIC sector jobs ended and PRIVATE sector substitutes flourished (with lower pay and bene’s)?
I’m getting my ass kicked here. Fuckit. I got no skin in the game … other than the out-fucking-rageous taxes …
Firemen Eat Shit !!!
How much should a new fireman make and how much should a 20 year fireman make. Like maybe 2000 month new and maybe 4000 after 20 years. So a rage from 24000 to somewhere around 50 a year. Thinking a volunteer department is the way to go. It encourages sacerfice for both individuals and business. Sets a better example for the rest of society also. Just a thought.
DC Sunsets: Public teaching is Hell; they can never reform within so let people have vouchers and put their kids into a good school of their choice. Unions suck. I was a strikebreaker for the FEC and got shot at but loved the job and money. I had to cough up dues for the Savannah Ga Carpenters Union (I’d already paid in Jacksonville Fl and that covered me) while building the THIOKOL Plant there; the union ass just pocked my cash. I refused to join the teachers unions and the Florida State employees union. Give me Right To Work Laws or Death. And the Federal (Bluebelly) Union sucks the worst.
Sometime in 1996 I worked with a designer who was also a FULL TIME firefighter with the San Francisco Fire Dept. He worked some type of 24hr on 48hr off schedule at the fire station. And he worked a full time (40hr) job as a designer. He was making good money as a Designer (no pension on the design job) and working full time as a SF Firefighter gaining eligibility for a firefighter’s pension.
Ok so how did that work? Well let’s say Sunday he works a 24hr shift at SFFD. Then Monday and tue he comes into work and at his design job and works a 10hr shifts both days. Wed back to the SFFD for another 24hr shift there. Thur and Fri another two 10hr days at the design job. Then every third week he works one Saturday 24h shift at the SFFD.
Today he’s retired and lives in a high end country club gated community.
admin, I don’t rule out your reason for the increase in the numbers of firefighters but part of the reason is due to urban sprawl. Around here the population has spread out enormously from where it was 35 years ago. Just in the last 20 years they have added at least 4 new fire districts. That means new firefighters, equipment and station houses. In some areas the simply relocated the stations to accommodate the sprawl.
Re your second chart, if you add in the time they spend hanging out at the station watching premium cable with every option, eating food cooked on the most high end kitchen equipment I’ve ever seen**, and playing all of the latest video games on new versions of every conceivable platform available while waiting for a call, the amount of actual work they do is pretty fucking low.
**My wife was involved in a car accident that firefighters responded to and to thank them we made some Spanish “comfort” foods and took them over to the station that responded. They had us bring it into their kitchen. Fuckers had a giant stainless steel 10 burner stove with three ovens under it. There was the biggest side by side fridge I’d ever seen and the place was stocked with All-Clad pots and pans hanging from big copper ceiling mounted racks. I’ve been in lots of restaurant kitchens, institutional kitchens and military kitchens and never saw shit that nice. The firehouse probably only had 6-10 guys per watch and they had a 10 burner commercial range? Fuck them!
dc sunsets has it exactly right. When I worked as a concrete finisher, many of our customers were run of the mill firefighters. They owned huge houses on acreage and had massive shops, multiple Harleys, RV’s, multiple high end cars and trucks, boats, every kind of off-road vehicle, jet skis, sport courts, pools and loads of other nice shit. Cops were much more modest by comparison.
I have not voted for a single police, fire or school bond measure in the last 20 years and I never will.
I’ve often wondered why the FD has to roll a ten-ton truck that gets about 1 mpg in order to service a medical call? Seems wasteful to me, but maybe they get bored.
@Westcoaster, lawsuits and union work rules, I would guess. Actually, only partially guess as my sister’s ex brother-in-law was the Fire Chief in my former hometown.
The number of fires has gone down by half, but the number of accidents the FD shows up for has quadrupled.
The problem is, as with so many of our issues, unions, lawyers and idiots.
Idiots are easily scared and led and will vote to be “safer,” lawyers have made the blame game worth trillions, and unions have assured the taxpayer is always paying three guys to do the job of one. Plus retirees.
Everyone of our major issues are onions, layer upon layer of real problems, with no one layer being the only problem, or fix.
The entire country is insane. And being sane in a world of delusion and psychopathy is not only tiring, it is becoming more dangerous.
Use fire fighting equipment for FIGHTING fires, not “in case.”
For cripe’s sake, there is not enough money in the world to pay a government agent to be at every place, every space, every moment, that some idiot might get hurt or hurt someone else.
Fix that and then quit allowing lawyers and victims to use courts to hit the lottery.
We are offshoring, tech’ing, regulating, fining, taxing and suing our jobs out of existence.
Until we ADMIT the problems, there will be no “fixing” them, as we only focus on symptoms (exactly like what passes for “health” care).
So, this problem will eventually rectify itself, as the only people that will be able to pay will also be the ones first burnt out for their stuff. And when the public trough dries up, so will our “heroes.”
Know any retired firefighters or cops?
Notice they live in a nicer home than you? Have a $40,000 bass boat and a $60,000 truck to tow it?
Did you notice their lifestyle in general? Beats yours to death, doesn’t it?
I am SICK of being told that people living as parasites (anyone who earns more than what the private sector, competitive market would pay to deliver even an essential service is a parasite) are my betters.
Cops.
Firefighters.
Soldiers, marines, aviators and sailors.
EVERYONE who works in a branch of the government at all levels. – dc.suckass
I don’t have a bass boat.
I don’t have a $60,000 truck, either.
In point of fact, I was blown out of the fucking military in one shot. One day everything’s fine. The next, welp, adios Sarge! Been nice knowing ya!
I spent 9 years dicking with the VA before they would listen to reason.
During that time, I underwent various operations, chemo, etc. All of which have left a mark – either physically or psychologically (to this day, I have to be knocked unconscious just to go to the dentist… even for a cleaning) – while simultaneously raising a family and attending a school so that I could obtain other skills that would allow me to provide for me and mine.
And it’s still not over. Come next week, I have to go back yet again to have the nerves in my back fried so that I can have a measure of peace and mobility.
And all for a stipend that is so laughably small, I can make better money working at Home Depot as a box monkey.
I don’t see a bass boat. I look in the driveway and see what we could afford – a 73 Ford and a 87 Chevy Blazer with over 250K on the clock.
We’re not getting any new livestock this year, because last year, a Spring storm knocked a 40 foot hole in the barn roof. Insurance would only pay for the damaged part. In other words – one half a roof. So, we had to burn the money we were saving for livestock and spend it on the other half of the barn roof because really, what the fuck am I gonna do with only one half a roof?
I’m wanting to use the skills I’ve earned, but the fucking Feds changed up the rules again, so now I have to build a goddamn dedicated shop just to do the job I want to do, and I don’t have that kind of fucking money… (maybe if I sell the Gulfstream G550 I have buried in the backyard?). I’m even seriously contemplating borrowing the funds from my widowed mother – the money she has left over from Daddy passing on last year, but it’s all she’s got left… but I’m not that big a rat bastard. Yet.
All’s I ever wanted was to serve my Republic. I didn’t ask for this, though it certainly was a possibility. I’d gladly do without the frying of nerves with microwaves, the medications, the physical therapy, the chemo, blah, blah, blah, just to have my health back. To go back to the Old Me. I’d trade every red cent back – plus interest – for that. With a big fucking bow on top, just for YOU, dc…
You can eat my shit and choke, motherfucker…. I’m not living some luxury lifestyle on your dime. I’m trying to scratch a living out of the fucking dirt, just like everyone else.
So fucking FELLATE ME.
That’s all I got.
Out.
I have said it for years. Public employee unions should be abolished. Collective bargaining is a fucking joke when the employer (taxpayers) are left out of it.
Billy – once again you see what you want, not necessarily what is there. DC clearly said he is opposed to public servants being seen as his betters, and he called them parasites. Public servants include the military.
Of course they are. They survive off the private citizens. That defines parasites. There are far too many parasites, and that includes people in the military. And they get paid too much.
I seriously doubt he begrudges you compensation for your injury. He begrudges the pensions that military get after what, 20 years? That is truly bullshit. A 38 year old drawing a pension for LIFE? That defines bullshit.
My cousin retired at 50 as a captain in a Calif. Fire Department. He will get around $150,000 per year indexed for life, or until the city goes bankrupt, whichever comes first. He lives in a 2 million dollar house on the cliffs in Malibu. And boy does he gloat about it, and laugh at all the ignorant motherfuckers out there paying his way. He thinks it is hilarious.
That is fucked up and bullshit. There should be no public servant pensions. They need to provide for themselves, off a fair salary, just like everyone else.
Not only do the motherfuckers get paid totally out of proportion to the real market, they do next to nothing. And they cannot generally be fired.
Fucked up and bullshit.
Sorry for your circumstances. But DC did not direct his comment at you. Had you retired at 20 years in good health, then yes, you would have been a fair game target.
Sorry for your circumstances.
I wasn’t fishing for sympathy. Just stating the way shit is, is all.
But DC did not direct his comment at you. Had you retired at 20 years in good health, then yes, you would have been a fair game target.
Yeah, well he didn’t fucking SAY that, now did he?
No offense, Anon, but I don’t need you to tell me what dc said, when it’s right there for everyone to see.
I was a solider. I draw a pension because I got wrecked, not because I retired – but it IS a pension paid by the US Government to me, including medical care, and taken from the taxpayers (of which I am also one).
If he didn’t intend to include disabled vets, then he should have stepped up and said so. He laid down a righteous bitch, but that bitch also included me under the bigass blanket he threw.
If it’s all the same to you, I’ll just wait for him to come along and clarify things instead of having you infer stuff.
Thanks.
“They survive off the private citizens. That defines parasites. There are far too many parasites, and that includes people in the military.” ————— Anonymous
There are at least 10 – 20 times as many CIVILIANS who SUPPORT the military; all those factories which make tanks, ships, planes, and munitions, and thousands of contractors (building, road, food, etc etc) ……. ALL living off the military. So, pray tell, who exactly is the parasite?
And why did you post under Anonymous, instead of Llpoh? Your writing style is well known. Thought you could fool us?
Stuck – I do not hide from my comments. Don’t be a dick. Sometimes shit happens.
Umm, and yes, those folks are parasites, too. They are directly being paid from the public purse.
Billy – as I said, I think you misinterpreted. You are wont to do so. You shoot first, ask questions later as a general modus operandi.
And if it is all the same to you, I will post whatever the fuck I want.
Llpoh,
I went with what he wrote. I didn’t infer shit, like you did.
Post whatever you want, I gives a fuck.
But I don’t need you interpreting for me what someone plainly wrote.
Shoot first ask questions later? Yeah? Fuckin’ so what? If that’s all you got, then…
It’s all I got.
Well alrighty then…
“Stuck – I do not hide from my comments. Don’t be a dick.” ——- Llpoh
Don’t be a dick? Don’t be a dick?????
It would be easier if you asked me to lose my moobs. Or, not try to make funny comments. Or, that I should like bb.
Jeebus, gimme something I can work with!!