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An accountant discovered the discrepancy while reviewing the budget for new train platforms under Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan.
The budget showed that 900 workers were being paid to dig caverns for the platforms as part of a 3.5-mile tunnel connecting the historic station to the Long Island Rail Road.  But the accountant could … identify [only] about 700 jobs that needed to be done, according to three project supervisors.  Officials could not find any reason for the other 200 people to be there.

The likely explanation is that there are managers who have hired people that exist only on paper, and are redirecting the pay for those virtual employees to their own bank accounts. The Unions in New York guarantee that there will be employment for plenty of union workers, even if there are no jobs:

The estimated cost of the Long Island Rail Road project, known as “East Side Access,” has ballooned to $12 billion, or nearly $3.5 billion for each new mile of track – seven times the average elsewhere in the world.
Along with interviews with contractors, the documents reveal a dizzying maze of jobs, many of which do not exist on projects elsewhere.
There are “nippers” to watch material being moved around and “hog house tenders” to supervise the break room.  Each crane must have an “oiler,” a relic of a time when they needed frequent lubrication.  Generators and elevators must have their own operators, even though they are automatic….One part of Local 147’s deal entitles the union to $450,000 for each tunnel-boring machine used.  That is to make up for job losses from “technological advancement,” even though equipment has been standard for decades.

Then there are the token clerks in the ticket booths who earn an average of about $112,000 a year, even though 83% of all subway fares are sold by machines and workers in ticket booths have nothing to do most of the time and are prevented, by union rules, from helping out in any other part of the station. You see, the ticket booths are run by the station department, and the platforms and trains are run by the transit department. Employees of one department are not permitted to work in another department’s area.

The state of New York pays some of the highest taxes in the United States. They then were able, under the previous tax rules, to write off those taxes and reduce their Federal tax burden. In other words, you pay more in Federal taxes so that New Yorkers can pay people six figures to sit on their asses and do nothing all day. Now people in New York are upset at the Trump tax plan, because they say it is unfair to them.

I had problems with the Trump tax plan, because the original plan added tens of thousands of dollars to my tax bill. That appears to have been fixed in the final plan, with the final plan appearing to cut my taxes by about $15,000. We will see next year when it is time to file.

For years, we have been told how dangerous militias are, and how the founders never intended militias to be armed groups of citizens who were outside of government control.

Until Donald Trump was elected.

Now the mainstream media loves them some armed citizens. Now MSM outlets like the New York daily news and the Independent are busy extolling the virtues of armed citizens forming militias. We are setting ourselves up for Civil War, part 2.

The part that concerns me is that the leftist militias are better at winning the hearts and minds of the people because they are out doing things for the community by feeding the poor and doing more PR activity.

Wars are won by convincing the people of a nation to see your side as the good guys. When all you are doing is complaining and shooting, you lose the people, and you lose the war. Something that the right should keep in mind.

A 12 year old boy was shot in the face by another 12 year old, because they were playing with a gun.

If your guns are not on your person, they need to be locked up. When it is just my wife and I, guns can be unsecured in the house (they are secured by the house itself). If anyone else is staying with us, the guns that aren’t being carried are locked in the safe.

Today is the beginning of my least favorite time of year: I begin working on my taxes. I have an upcoming appointment with my accountant to discuss my 2017 filings, and plan ahead for 2018. I will spend the day putting away Christmas decorations, gathering receipts, and preparing for tax season.

The wife has learned to avoid me while I am doing this, as planning to send large amounts of cash to the government always puts me in a foul mood, especially once I add up all of the money that I have had to pay to the government in the past year while thinking about how much of it has been wasted.

Every treaty that has to do with controlling pollution seems to require that the US limit emissions, pay money, or some other economic penalty. It turns out that the US is responsible for a tiny fraction of the world’s pollution.

For example, the LA Times did a piece earlier this year where the US and Europe were blamed for plastic polluting the North Atlantic and Arctic oceans. The only problem is that plastic polluting the world’s oceans aren’t coming from the Americas or from Europe. In fact, there are ten rivers in the word that are responsible for 90% of the plastic that winds up in the world’s oceans. Eight of those rivers are in Asia. Two are in Africa.

Of the estimated 13 million tons of plastic that winds up in the ocean each year, the US is responsible for only 280,000 tons of it. That is about 2 percent of the world’s total. So why is the US always the nation that has to pay through the nose for these pollution accords?

The large push by Liberals to punish the west for pollution that they aren’t generating has nothing to do with ecology and everything to do with destroying the US and replacing it with a communist nation. These pollution treaties are designed to punish the US for daring to be successful.

We just got back from a 7 day cruise to the Caribbean with my wife’s side of the family. My brother in law and his girlfriend flew in to the Tampa airport from New York the day before the cruise. We drove to Tampa, a 90 minute drive, to pick them up. When they arrived at the airport, we tried for two hours to recover their luggage, only to find out that it was still sitting in the airport in New York.

The airline blamed TSA, and TSA blamed the airline. The airline said that they would have the bags to them the next day at 7 pm. That was unacceptable, because our cruise was due to leave the dock at 4. We then asked if they would send the bags to Orlando on flight arriving there at 11 am. No problem, they said.

No matter whose fault it was: the airline or TSA, what happened next was all airline. The next morning, we called the New York baggage office at 6 am to make sure the bags made it on to the flight. They told us they were busy, put us on hold, and then the call was disconnected. Repeat calls went unanswered.

We stopped at the Orlando airport on the way to the cruise terminal, and the bags were not on the flight. We made a rush trip to the mall to buy clothes and other necessities for two people to be able to go on a 7 day cruise. Everything from toothbrushes to swimsuits, an from shampoo to formal wear was needed.

Repeated phone calls got a promise to have the bags forwarded to Jamaica, and one employee told my brother in law that his missing bags weren’t her problem.

At any rate, we got back from our seven day cruise and the bags are still in limbo. This is why I try not to ever fly.

I hope all of you are enjoying this holiday with friends and family.

Sleep tight, enjoy family, and forget the worries of the world for a couple of days.

We think of campaigns in terms of people, but they’re often decided by circumstances. The American voters follow their wallets into the voting booth. The bigger the increase in real disposable income from the year before, the more likely voters are to vote for the incumbent party.

Changes in real disposable income correlate with seats gained and lost by the incumbent party going back to 1950. If disposable income when adjusted for inflation goes down, the incumbents lose seats. When it goes up, they gain. This is why the Democrats have fought the tax reform plan, and why they continue to try and paint it as being only for the rich. If real disposable income rises by more than 3 percent, the Republicans will likely keep their majority in the house, and if the growth in disposable income is greater than 6 percent, they will likely keep the Senate. 


This is why Trump and the GOP wanted to get this bill done and signed as soon as possible. The IRS will need time to change the tax tables, and getting larger paychecks to employees is the key to the GOP winning the next election.

Here are two documents that have been sent to teachers in my area in recent days. (pdf alert) I disagree with the premise:

Consider two scenarios: A principal is late on a report and the boss says, “You
didn’t do it on time, so you don’t have to do it.” It’s April 16, your income taxes
haven’t been submitted, and you receive an e-mail from the IRS stating, “Your taxes
are late so you don’t have to pay them this year.” Neither scenario is realistic, yet in
schools many educators have policies that if a student doesn’t complete work on
time, the student earns a zero and the work cannot be completed for credit. Thus,
the student doesn’t do it. It is just the opposite that should be true: Students should
be required to do the work and not permitted to take the easy way out by accepting
the zero grade.

This is ridiculous. The student either meets the learning objective, or doesn’t. You can’t grade what isn’t turned in. When a student doesn’t do the work, what then? The author says that you assign them to an after school “homework club,” and if that doesn’t work, assign them to “Saturday school.” Many of my students don’t even come to regular school. What makes you think that they will come in on Saturday?

Let’s being this to the real world: You boss tells you that he wants a particular project completed by Friday, so it can be completed for an important client. You don’t do it. The boss tells you that you need to come in on Saturday. You don’t. What will the boss do? Fire you. If he doesn’t, he will still be forced to fire you when all of his clients find other ways of getting what they need.

This constant mollycoddling of students is why they are all graduating with expectations of being paid for not really doing anything.