Cincinnati hires new fire chief

[doomonyou]

To put this into some sort of perspective:
My hometown Akron is 217,000 (wiki 2000)
They run 13 engines and 5 ladders.

Cinnci at 333,000 (wiki 2009) will have 19 engines and 8 ladders and still have over 100,000 more people than Akron has. What do you think is going to happen.

[paulromano]

The demise of the American City has been caused by a number of factors.  Box 2565 and FAO25 are right on the money.  To leave out mention of the fine American businesses that have given American jobs, manufacturing equipment, and knowledge to China and have handed the Chinese ownership of the USA without firing a shot.  Our fine government even gave these forward thinking companies tax benefits for sending American jobs overseas.  Of course these same fine, upstanding companies did the right thing---after making windfall profits with cheap Chinese labor, they passed along some of these savings to the American consumer (NOT!!!) and they have further helped out this country by keeping these excess profits in accounts out of the country so that they cannot be taxed, whining that "American taxes are too high for corporations".  I have a little difficulty in cranking up a lot of sympathy for them, especially because some of these companies have benefited from the famous bailout bill.

When I started in Public Safety in 1970, My classmates that were in the business world took great pleasure in explaining to me what a chump I was because my miserable little job had a very minimal pension associated with it.  Their corporate positions were laden with stock benefit plans and lucrative pensions linked to the value of their company.  Now that most of their pension systems have turned to dust, they have launched assaults on public employee pensions, complaining that they are too generous and should be greatly reduced to save the poor public's money.  The fact is that we have paid into the system for all years of employment and are further punished by the Federal Governments WEP provision (windfall elimination provision) that reduces any Social Security pension you are entitled to because you are receiving a generous municipal pension.

So now the unions are blamed for all the cities' woes.  Google the history of the mayor of Detroit (whose name I forgot) who was texting all of his illegal business on his city paid cell phone, forgetting about the public record laws.  See the real reasons that the cities are tanking.

After 9/11 we were heroes for a while.  Now we are overpaid, underworked, greedily feeding at the public trough.  I would like to see some of these complainers do the job of a city firefighter/EMT or a city police officer.  They would not last 5 minutes.

Enough venting.  Box 2565---did the ladder truck hit the box??

[Engine33Truck]

It's sad to say, but you summed up 21st Century United States Society in four neat paragraphs.  A society where one tries to gain the most, while doing the least and then complain about those that honestly work for every little bit they earn-and especially those that make their way in life by helping people.  Unfortunately, that lazy way of life is starting to affect all aspects of society.

[the nozzleman]

And yes that is the truth. I have two that I work with that are the same way. Then they complain about those of use that work hard and have been promoted because of the way we work everyday.