How about a big dose of Fuck You?

[Guest]

My heart breaks for you all.

Pay for federal judges is so inadequate that it threatens to undermine the judiciary's independence, Chief Justice John Roberts says in a year-end report critical of Congress.

Son, the only thing that will keep up your integrity is if you get more pay. hrmf~

Low paid Judges http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2006-5/1182471/judges.gif

 

[rgraham666]

I'm having a real hard time feeling your pain, Justice Roberts.

My disability amounts to $8,052 Cdn annually. I seem to do OK on that.

 

[minsue]

How can you expect them to be able to think on such a low salary, Vella-la. I mean, really. Have a heart!

 

[Guest]

How can you expect them to be able to think on such a low salary, Vella-la. I mean, really. Have a heart!

yes, i understand what you mean. honestly, i do.

look at how hard it must be to sustain life on such meager salaries! its got to be difficult to live like that. maybe they should apply for food stamps or state assisted medical. that might take the edge off a bit.

Rob~ you're my hero.

 

[rgraham666]

yes, i understand what you mean. honestly, i do.

look at how hard it must be to sustain life on such meager salaries! its got to be difficult to live like that. maybe they should apply for food stamps or state assisted medical. that might take the edge off a bit.

Rob~ you're my hero.

Thanks vella.

But you have to remember, in the portion of the political spectrum that Justice Roberts inhabits, Avarice is not a sin. It's a virtue.

As another person who inhabits that area, and who posts here puts it, "Your only goal is your own happiness."

 

[Guest]

Thanks vella.

But you have to remember, in the portion of the political spectrum that Justice Roberts inhabits, Avarice is not a sin. It's a virtue.

As another person who inhabits that area, and who posts here puts it, "Your only goal is your own happiness."

i hate selfish people. i really do.

however, some people here who post such things think they are such hard asses but i beg to differ. i dont really know that they can truly believe such things if they love another person, be it spouse or child. this you can NOT control.

 

[lucky-E-leven]

I wonder what he would consider adequate pay, and just out of curiosity, where was this concern before his appointment?

 

[ABSTRUSE]

I beleive that should be "Fuck you sideways with your gavel."

 

[Zeb_Carter]

With the crap descions coming out of the SC and lower courts lately I think they should get a pay cut. About two-thirds should do nicely, let them live like the people they make descions about.

 

[OhMissScarlett]

Well, doesn't the president only make $400,000 a year? That's not much more and he's "The Decider" for heavens sake.

 

[Lisa Denton]

We should help them out before they start accepting bribes(?)


http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b11/LisaDenton/Untitled-vel.jpg

 

[R. Richard]

I think that all of the poster to this thread have been ignoring a very important item. In the UK, judges wear wigs. I mean, we are talking theater here. If the US judges want more money, they gonna' have to show some style!

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

In all fairness, though, and as a democratic response to the people mocking the idea of what judges are getting paid, there is more to the story than just what has been posted.

Labor wages have increased nearly twenty-percent since the seventies, but federal judicial pay has backslid about twenty-five percent. At one point, federal judges made more than the top law professors and administrators, now they make about half of that. The market has evolved faster than the judiciary has and what Robertst is talking about isn't "they can't live on what they make" and arguments lambasting him or the judges to that effect are aggressively ignorant and poorly concieved bias...

...what the proposal is about is the legal market is positioned in such a way as to have certain kinds of judged in the federal posts. Part of that is pay that attracts the very best in the field (that is absolutely NO different than other fields, mind you), and pay sufficient to lend security to their lives such that it reduces the likelihood of corruption.

If the private sector has advanced sufficiently beyond the federal judiciary (and it /has/, both sides of the aisle in Congress agree on that), it does threaten the intended positions of federal judges. It's not about "they can't live off of X", its more about "this is behind the times, financially".

 

[rgraham666]

In all fairness, though, and as a democratic response to the people mocking the idea of what judges are getting paid, there is more to the story than just what has been posted.

Labor wages have increased nearly twenty-percent since the seventies, but federal judicial pay has backslid about twenty-five percent. At one point, federal judges made more than the top law professors and administrators, now they make about half of that. The market has evolved faster than the judiciary has and what Robertst is talking about isn't "they can't live on what they make" and arguments lambasting him or the judges to that effect are aggressively ignorant and poorly concieved bias...

...what the proposal is about is the legal market is positioned in such a way as to have certain kinds of judged in the federal posts. Part of that is pay that attracts the very best in the field (that is absolutely NO different than other fields, mind you), and pay sufficient to lend security to their lives such that it reduces the likelihood of corruption.

If the private sector has advanced sufficiently beyond the federal judiciary (and it /has/, both sides of the aisle in Congress agree on that), it does threaten the intended positions of federal judges. It's not about "they can't live off of X", its more about "this is behind the times, financially".

My income was cut 23% a decade ago. I did get a 3% raise earlier this year. With cost of living increases my disability is probably half what it was worth ten years ago.

And my understanding is that the median family income in the U.S., in adjusted dollars, went from $41,400 in 1979 to $45,100 in 1998. Which is a nine percent increase. In the same period the income of families in the top 1 percent went from $420,200 to $1.016 million, a 140 percent increase. These figures come from the Congressional Budget Office.

I don't have figures on the last eight years but I've seen little to indicate that has changed.

So that twenty percent you mention, Joe, was not evenly distributed.

Anyway, if a person can't live comfortably on $212,000 a year they're not poor, they're greedy.

 

[Bishonen]

Oh, the things I could buy for $165.000/year... *dreamy sigh*

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

Oh, it wasn't going to be evenly destributed at all. But, it doesn't have to be for the point to matter. The market for employment went up. We can say "but some parts didn't go up much", but then I can just say "other parts went up DRAMATICALLY in the face of those small rises"... its the same story at the end of the day, the market went up.

There are first and second year lawyers making more than Federal judges right now. There are clerks making more than federal judges. There are plenty of lawyers making more and there are a lot of federal judges leaving the bench (in dramtically increasing numbers in recent years) to take privae sector positions.

Either we can accept that talent is a part of the market drive, and the top talent will want to be paid the top pay... or we can't. If we can, it makes perfect sense that federal judges need a pay increase (especially after being barred from so many other forms of income); if we can't, then we need to generate a new theory of employment economics because I'll be damned if I know how else to reliably and realistically put the most qualified persons in the most authoritative positions.

It's just not about comparing their pay to people outside their market... for that matter, 8k a year is a wealthy sum to a lot of people. What I make in a year is a wealthy sum to a lot of people. What my favorite professor makes is a wealthy sum to me. But cross comparisons like that dodge the issue, which is what does the sum, currently and in its market, mean.

I can say that a writer that makes more than cost of living is a glutton. Or an artist who gets paid at all is getting paid too much. Or a doctor who performs neurosurgery for more than 45k a year is living beyond what's necessary. Or I can say that the President should be a position open to only the voluntary. Or computer programmers that make more than 24k a year are overpaid... but it's about what those positions in their own market yield. If the computer programmer is capped at 24k a year, it is unlikely the best and the brightest will be moving into that career--a detriment to position's future.

 

[English Lady]

My income was cut 23% a decade ago. I did get a 3% raise earlier this year. With cost of living increases my disability is probably half what it was worth ten years ago.

And my understanding is that the median family income in the U.S., in adjusted dollars, went from $41,400 in 1979 to $45,100 in 1998. Which is a nine percent increase. In the same period the income of families in the top 1 percent went from $420,200 to $1.016 million, a 140 percent increase. These figures come from the Congressional Budget Office.

I don't have figures on the last eight years but I've seen little to indicate that has changed.

So that twenty percent you mention, Joe, was not evenly distributed.

Anyway, if a person can't live comfortably on $212,000 a year they're not poor, they're greedy.

I don't think Joe's disagreeing with that, I don't think he's saying Judges are badly paid, just that others are better paid (Lawyers and administrators, taken from his post) which, I guess means less people want to be judges (He says it makes the position less attractive for the cream of the legal crop or words to that effect) and so you're getting less than the best into the positions and the fact that lawyers etc are better paid makes bribery far more likely.

Or maybe he didn't say that, but that's what I got out of it

 

[rgraham666]

And I'm saying as public servants the Justices have a higher calling than making money.

They also, as I've tried to point out, are not poor. Not by a long shot.

Money was supposed to be a way of making commerce easier, not a method of deciding how valuable a person is. By that standard, Jesus Christ, Socrates and many others weren't worth much at all.

 

[English Lady]

And I'm saying as public servants the Justices have a higher calling than making money.

They also, as I've tried to point out, are not poor. Not by a long shot.

Money was supposed to be a way of making commerce easier, not a method of deciding how valuable a person is. By that standard, Jesus Christ, Socrates and many others weren't worth much at all.

It's a greedy world, Rob. Higher calling just isn't enough for the majority of people...that's a sad truth, but it doesn't stop it being true.

How many judges would be judges if all they got was a feeling of satisfaction?

I guess not many.

It really is sad, and I wish it weren't so but wishing isn't going to solve the problem in hand.

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

And I'm saying as public servants the Justices have a higher calling than making money.

But, as a free market society (or a close approximation of one), money /is/ a calling. And either we address that realistically and minimize its influence (paying federal judges more than the private market minimizes the effect of money on their actual /work/, freeing them up for "calling higher") or we ignore it in favor of idealisms that aren't going to actually /produce/ anything.

They also, as I've tried to point out, are not poor. Not by a long shot.

They're also not being paid enough. That's evident by the increased leaving of the position over the last few years.

Money was supposed to be a way of making commerce easier, not a method of deciding how valuable a person is. By that standard, Jesus Christ, Socrates and many others weren't worth much at all.

I disagree entirely. First, talking about "money was supposed to" implies that we have direct understanding of the intentions of something that was developed across many /different/ cultures in very different ways, sometimes. It's assumptive. Purely guesswork.

Just as easily, we can say "money was supposed to be a way of attributing value to people, places, events, actions, things, ideas, etc. in a more objective way". That seems to fit what we understand to be money somewhat better.

 

[cloudy]

In all fairness, though, and as a democratic response to the people mocking the idea of what judges are getting paid, there is more to the story than just what has been posted.

Labor wages have increased nearly twenty-percent since the seventies, but federal judicial pay has backslid about twenty-five percent. At one point, federal judges made more than the top law professors and administrators, now they make about half of that. The market has evolved faster than the judiciary has and what Robertst is talking about isn't "they can't live on what they make" and arguments lambasting him or the judges to that effect are aggressively ignorant and poorly concieved bias...

...what the proposal is about is the legal market is positioned in such a way as to have certain kinds of judged in the federal posts. Part of that is pay that attracts the very best in the field (that is absolutely NO different than other fields, mind you), and pay sufficient to lend security to their lives such that it reduces the likelihood of corruption.

If the private sector has advanced sufficiently beyond the federal judiciary (and it /has/, both sides of the aisle in Congress agree on that), it does threaten the intended positions of federal judges. It's not about "they can't live off of X", its more about "this is behind the times, financially".

Gee, thanks for explaining that. I feel so bad for them now.

 

[Liar]

Well, doesn't the president only make $400,000 a year? That's not much more and he's "The Decider" for heavens sake.

Well, you got the president you payed for.

 

[starrkers]

$200,000 isn't "enough"? For what?
Suffering Jesus H tap dancing Christ. This keeping up with the Joneses bullshit has gone too far already. When the hell will the world realise?

Oh, and yeah, maybe I am just a tad jaundiced. I feed, clothe and home a family of 5 (and assorted animals) on $25,000 a year.

 

[Tom Collins]

Unbelieveable! I practically orgasm when I get a $.30 an hour pay raise and this fuckin' mook is bitching about $30,000 pay raise over an 8 year period?

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

*sigh*