"State Employee Salaries and Welfare" written by Paul on estrip.org

05/31/09 10:22 - 49ºF - ID#48807

State Employee Salaries and Welfare

I wrote about this before but I want to discuss it some more. It is interesting that you can see the names and salaries of all state workers

They are a little behind, its not real time number but last year's numbers - still interesting.

I understand why people want this - the public pays the salary - the public wants to know where the money is going.

I like this kind of transparency and think we should take it one step further.

I think we should also publish the names and amount that people reap in social welfare benefits, and how about unemployment too? Seems only fair.

What do you guys think?

metalpeter writes at 08:27:36 06/01/09 - Comment #48860: I have to say no one's salary should be public. I would say you could publish a department and give averages. But here is why, it is a private matter. Yes if you are an elected position then that is different but the mayor pretty much makes the same for the time that the last guy got. Knowing what someone makes just causes problems. Say I work for the state If I can look up what everyone else makes and I see that lazy ass hole who just surfs online all day mostly makes the same amount as me a year there is going to be a problem. What about the fact that kids could look up how much their parents make or even parents (assuming they are state workers or public sector jobs) of kids they are in school with. I understand that people want accountabilty but it shouldn't be to everyone that has internet access.

paul writes at 02:25:57 06/01/09 - Comment #48839: Just to be clear, I don't feel victimized at all by the salaries being public information. I think it should all be public. I am thrilled that they made the information public and I think all tax spending should be documented. I am also not comparing the two, being a state employee and using social services. Just saying both are publically funded.

As I said before, there should be no social stigma associated with using social services temporarily to help you through difficult times. That is what it is there for, and that is why we all pay into it, so that it happens to us - the safety net is there.

I really don't care if people are embarrassed about being on social services. Shouldn't they just be happy that they have social services? Isn't it a miracle in itself? In any other era they would have just been in shanty towns or bread lines.

If you really aren't abusing it, you would show up really low on the list. What about just a list of the top payees?

joshua writes at 02:02:14 06/01/09 - Comment #48837: All of this is predicated on the idea that people on public assistance are the same as people who work for the state. That is an obvious fallacy - both may be "drains" on the public tax dollar, but that is where the similarities end. I can't believe that anybody would equivocate the two.

If you work in the public sector, the fact that your salary is public information is simply one of the prices you pay for working in the public sector. This is an interesting example of a major difference between the public and private sectors that few people consider until it is their name that they see on a state fact sheet on a web site. This sort of thing is a fact of public sector life that you have to understand and accept, then move on. No public worker should feel victimized by that web site - they should have known anyway, in my view at least.

Bleeding Heart Joshua agrees with (e:libertad) on this one, at least partially. I don't buy that such an idea would hurt a person's job prospects necessarily, but I think it is compelling to suggest that the net effect of this would be to humiliate people who are otherwise amongst our most disadvantaged. To me that isn't just wrong, but obscene.

If it were done in a general way, in order to illustrate on average the degree of waste in the social welfare system, I'd be all for that. To what degree our system is wasteful should absolutely be public information.

I think there is an aspect out there of people wishing to humiliate the serial abusers, which is a sentiment I completely understand. More statistics should be available to disseminate welfare statistics, but it should be done a general way. Comparing a welfare recipient to a state worker is apples and oranges.

james writes at 01:56:06 06/01/09 - Comment #48835: Salaries and benefits of public employees should absolutely be made public knowledge. That is an excellent way to help track patronage and corruption which you otherwise could not track. Salaries are paid for from a variety of sources, including city taxes, state taxes, federal money, grants, and others.

But welfare, What is the point?

We already know how much we spend on these services because it is in the budget every year. Even if the revenue source come from multiple places, it is all placed in the budget.

As Jim said, it is a minority of people who abuse the system. They should be investigated and punished. But punishing everyone by making this information public will only lead to humiliation and discrimination.

That said, I understand where your frustration is coming from and I hope Tony moves in.

jim writes at 01:44:08 06/01/09 - Comment #48834: My mom hated that we had to go on food stamps for a little while after my dad left us. There's no way she wouldn't have been embarrassed if it was public, she was plenty enough embarrassed as it was. Most people who use these services use them for brief periods of time - I know there are some who stay on forever, but most don't abuse and don't stay on.

If my mom were here today, and were going for a job interview, and they googled her name and found out she was on food stamps, mightn't that serve as stigma branding her as poor forever? Nothing on the Internet goes away.

If it was made public back then, she probably wouldn't have taken it and we'd have been much worse off. The people that would least abuse the system are the ones too proud to have their names released.

So count me totally against this, doesn't seem to do any good except to gawk. I also dislike having every government official's salary released, too. Most people get tax credits, so by this logic everyone's tax returns should be public - yuck. No thanks.

ajay writes at 12:37:09 06/01/09 - Comment #48833: Making the pay/benefits of State Employees public is a great idea.

Correlate this list with, for example, the professors in UB and see how some of the shittiest profs are making top salaries; whereas the really good ones are severely underpaid because they don't play the system.

As for people on welfare? I know where (e:paul) is coming from (given the tenants in his property). When I drive by some of the projects here in SF, I'm surprised to see BMWs and Audis parked on the street (of course not _every_ car is such, and there are lots of crappy ones too). I met a guy in Burning Man who spends his entire year partying, doing BM, Coachella, Rainbow, etc. because he's on "disability" since he injured his back. Ignore the fact that he was lifting heavy stuff into/out of his truck when there. So yeah, there's a lot of abuse too.

I am all for openness where **tax-payer funded** things are concerned. I don't care what the top executives at Apple make. But if it's my tax dollars, I want to know, dammit!

tinypliny writes at 10:38:57 06/01/09 - Comment #48825: We don't have even the first layer of transparency in India, which is one of the many reasons I admire your country. At least your government is making an effort. :(

jenks writes at 09:57:40 06/01/09 - Comment #48824: i'm with Paul.

paul writes at 09:46:26 06/01/09 - Comment #48822: If people are truly in a predicament which results in then needing public assistance they should not be embarassed. Only people who abuse it should be embarassed.

What I was trying to say is that seeing as many people want to know where are extremely high taxes are going, they should have the right to know.

Same with all those other programs for heat assistance, food stanps, etc. Maybe instead of breaking down what the person was paid for, they just break it down to total amount per person with no details involved until you apply in writing for that info.

In general see through government expenditure should be encouraged.

theecarey writes at 08:40:07 06/01/09 - Comment #48818: Interesting idea. I get what you are saying. However, my opinion is that I dont think salaries or benefits (or anything) should be public knowledge; but I am pretty private and don't really think it is anyone's business to know who makes what- even state paid employees. A grade range for a position, maybe, but not down to the pennies. I'd be fine with not even having immediate access to that either.
For all else, I agree with (e:libertad) entirely. I dont need to see who is receiving what benefits and in what amount. The impact, the stigma- it would hurt those it is really trying to help, and not make a difference for those that "abuse" it. As for unemployment, those same people have paid into it at some point and no one needs the added public exposure to a trying time in their life.

lilho writes at 11:53:47 05/31/09 - Comment #48817: i'm all for that idea.

libertad writes at 11:43:11 05/31/09 - Comment #48816: I don't think that is a good idea. Social welfare is and should be intended to helping people who are in a bad spot. They should not make a public list of people who are receiving government benefits because that could adversely affect their prospects for employment and also serve as public humiliation. It reminds me of that school that was pulling kids out of lunch lines because their parents did not give them any lunch money and serve them a cheese sandwich while everyone else ate hot meals.

Permalink: State_Employee_Salaries_and_Welfare.html
Words: 123
Location: Buffalo, NY

05/31/09 08:16 - ID#48806

Finally got to the pipe in question

That diagnal pipe coming out of the tub going into the main toilet
drain is where the problem lies. Next step is to replace it. My arms
are so freakin tired.

Permalink: Finally_got_to_the_pipe_in_question.html
Words: 36
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: housing

05/31/09 01:20 - ID#48802

Hex tile at buffalo reuse

We went over to Buffalo reuse to find more hex tile for the bathroom
floor and we got a whole bag for $4 but that was all they had.

Permalink: Hex_tile_at_buffalo_reuse.html
Words: 34
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: awards

05/31/09 12:46 - ID#48801

Mike's garage sale

I bought this award for (e:terry) at (e:mike)'s garage sale. For those of
you that missed it, it is still going till 3ish and you can buy the
high school musical board game.

Permalink: Mike_s_garage_sale.html
Words: 41
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: linwood

05/31/09 12:42 - ID#48800

The porch

Not that I don't think the bench has some awesome craftsmanship but I
am ready for some comfortable porch furniture.

Permalink: The_porch.html
Words: 27
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: linwood

05/31/09 12:36 - ID#48799

So sick of this bathroom

I feel like the more I dig the worse it gets.

Permalink: So_sick_of_this_bathroom.html
Words: 25
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: computers

05/29/09 08:40 - 58ºF - ID#48790

Socks Proxy Magic - Using SSH for proxy

If this makes no sense to you, then you don't need it - I don't plan on helping anyone with it. However, if it does make sense it might be very useful.

What I am going to demonstrate allows you to secure you internet connection on your laptop when you are a coffee shop or when you are somewhere where they are blocking your favorite site and you want to get around that by piping all your laptop traffic through you home computer or external server, encrypted over SSH.

This assumes both machines have SSH and are *nix flavor (mac,unix,linux). If you are using windows I think you can still do this somehow but I don't care and you can figure it out yourself.

Its really just a few simple steps. The first step is to connect to your server/home computer from from the laptop:

ssh -p SSH_PORT -D LOCAL_PORT USERNAME@SERVER

SSH_PORT = The addres you communicate over ssh with. You can leave off the -p SSH_PORT if you are using ssh on the vanilla port 22.

LOCAL_PORT - The local port you want to use for the SOCKS proxy. I would suggest something like 8080 but it really doesn't matter. Just make sure its one you are not using.

USERNAME@SERVER - The normal username@server you use to connect to your home machine or server over ssh. e.g. myuser@mysite.com. It can also be the IP address if you don't have a domain name.

Once you have connected open up a SOCKS proxy complaint app. A common one is Firefox and great because its a web browser, so that is the kind of traffic you want to secure when surfing somewhere sketchy.

In your firefox prefs, choose the network tab.

Then set up the proxy settings to point to localhost 127.0.0.1 and the LOCAL_PORT port you choose above.

You should be set to go. To test and make sure open you /etc/hosts files and add an entry for:
0.0.0.0 google.com

Now open up another browser. When you go to google it should be site not found as you are redirecting google to 0.0.0.0 for your comp. However, when you use firefox with the SOCKS proxy it should still work when you go to google.com because the traffic is being piped through SSH to your server or home machine.

Once you are done with this test remember to take the google.com entry out of /etc/hosts and also remember all you traffic is only encrypted and piped via firefox.

Another simple test is to check your IP from your browser. Visit

in firefox. The IP should be the same as your home computer/server.

To shut down the proxy just kill the process for the ssh connection to the server.

You can also set you entire system to use the proxy but that is for another day. Well here is a clue on a mac. This is in the system network preferences. Safari should be proxied afterwards.

Permalink: Socks_Proxy_Magic_Using_SSH_for_proxy.html
Words: 518
Location: Buffalo, NY

05/29/09 06:31 - ID#48788

One more pic from zoar

(E:southernyankee) sent me this pic she took of me at zoar. I wish I
could have got this pic a month ago when I was much buffer but it's
better than no pic.

Permalink: One_more_pic_from_zoar.html
Words: 38
Location: Buffalo, NY

05/29/09 03:45 - ID#48784

Not heeding warnings

Despite (e:jon)'s tale of friend gone dead on rocks I decided to go climbing today and brought (e:southernyakee) with me.

It's done and I survived this time.