Michael Lewis Article on Public Pensions

I was hoping that the current economic crisis would be what it takes to shrink government to something that makes sense, is sustainable, etc.. but wow, the Libtards are not changing anything in their line of reasoning at all. They still are in fantasyland with regard to how all the things they have promised are going to be paid for... I'm guessing that they will die still thinking that it's Capitalism that is melting down and not Socialism.. it's pathetic really, I've given up on the idea of a rational world, it is not going to exist in the foreseeable future.

All these public pensioned union people and politicians should be the ones that squirm the most as we collapse as far as I'm concerned.. Lawyers [politicians] were destroyed en masse' when the Roman Empire melted down. Since nothing else in our current situation is any different than the situation with Rome was 2000 years ago i'm guessing that Warlords will hunt them down and kill them because they are the ones that are still amassing the loot even as the rest of us are facing very desperate times. Given that some terrible rounds of inflation are just up ahead, the times are going to get a lot worse for people on fixed and minimal incomes. By the time the inflation has ravaged that class of people the only ones still standing [economically] will be the politicians and maybe union workers that can renegotiate their pensions and stay in fat city by bleeding the starving... They will be prime targets for Warlords and volunteers for their armies should be ample... it's going to be very messy at some point..
 
Quote from MKTrader:

Well, if you got in the military after Vietnam, it was probably the best deal in town. 20 years, often in the U.S. cities of your choice (if they had a base/post) or in Europe, Japan or some garden spot of your choice. The worst that might happen is going to Grenada or the first Iraq war, and most avoided that.

Now there's a lot more of a chance you'll get sent to a hostile area. Even if you aren't in combat, you'll be spending ample time in the "sand box."

Having said that, we spend way too much on the military and I'm not opposed to revise some of their pay/benefits as well. For e.g., no pay increases or extra pay except for time in a true hazardous duty location. And we should start leaving all those hazardous locations (and foreign "garden spots") ASAP anyway. Let the Germans, et. al. take care of themselves.
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Fwiw the military is cutting soldiers and is in the process of reducing retirement benefits. After 7 years being self employed I decided I was on the wrong end of the tax system and enlisted. Were not rich but are paid pretty well I think. I don't feel overpaid considering that I am separated from my family for a year here and there plus other shorter trips.
 
I was hoping that the current economic crisis would be what it takes to shrink government to something that makes sense, is sustainable, etc.. but wow, the Libtards are not changing anything in their line of reasoning at all.

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I felt the same way, I don't see any signs of that happening. Hunker down, protect your assets. Today is probably as good as it gets.
 
BTW my pay after taxes is less than 40k plus healthcare. I used to pay cash for that so don't take it for granted. The deal really pays off if you have high need family members like I do. One year when self employed I paid 60k in health care.
 
Quote from Random.Capital:

Because people won't save.

More to the point, in a "well functioning" capitalist system where the President gets on TV to encourage people to shop more, people aren't even supposed to save.
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I'll take that one step further. The guaranteed defined benefit style pension enables these individuals to consume/spend more of their present salaries than an individual in the private sector with the same salary. It's been said many times before on these forums just how blatantly outrageous it is for the union members to receive a defined payout, especially in this ZIRP environment.

So when Union Joe gets his $75k per year pension payout, anybody want to do the math on what size portfolio is needed to generate $75k per year in dividends, interest, etc (granted still some risk involved).

The bottomline is that there IS NOT ONE PRIVATE COMPANY that would survive if they adopted to these union demands. The vast majority of companies shelved defined benefit plans over 25 years ago. They knew that it would be impossible to generate the types of returns embedded in those benefit projections. If there was a shortfall, the company would go bankrupt paying the legacy costs, nevermind the going concern of the business itself.

So why the F should we say it's ok for the state and local government to simply run itself into the ground, slash it's operating capacity, shut down libraries, neglect road work, etc...that it is COLLECTING taxes for in order to pay off these legacy costs that were built upon fraudulent pie in the sky benefits projections.
 
By 2014, Reed had calculated, a city of a million people, the 10th-largest city in the United States, would be serviced by 1,600 public workers. “There is no way to run a city with that level of staffing,” he said. “You start to ask: What is a city? Why do we bother to live together? But that’s just the start.” The problem was going to grow worse until, as he put it, “you get to one.” A single employee to service the entire city, presumably with a focus on paying pensions. “I don’t know how far out you have to go until you get to one,” said Reed, “but it isn’t all that far.”

"....At that point, if not before, the city would be nothing more than a vehicle to pay the retirement costs of its former workers."

Gee whiz, you know who else said somthing similiar? Rick Wagoner of GM. Something to the effect, I'm not in the auto business, I'm in the pension and health care business.


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“If we refuse to regulate ourselves, the only regulators are our environment,” says Whybrow, “and the way that environment deprives us.” For meaningful change to occur, in other words, we need the environment to administer the necessary level of pain."

Bingo!
 
Quote from denner:

The bottomline is that there IS NOT ONE PRIVATE COMPANY that would survive if they adopted to these union demands
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That may be true.

But it ignores the flip side of this story.

These benefit schemes are yet another mechanism of shifting tax dollars from the future into corporate profits of today. Put another way, they are another mechanism for socializing losses while privatizing gains.
 
Quote from nutmeg:

By 2014, Reed had calculated, a city of a million people, the 10th-largest city in the United States, would be serviced by 1,600 public workers. “There is no way to run a city with that level of staffing,” he said. “You start to ask: What is a city? Why do we bother to live together? But that’s just the start.” The problem was going to grow worse until, as he put it, “you get to one.” A single employee to service the entire city, presumably with a focus on paying pensions. “I don’t know how far out you have to go until you get to one,” said Reed, “but it isn’t all that far.”

"....At that point, if not before, the city would be nothing more than a vehicle to pay the retirement costs of its former workers."

Gee whiz, you know who else said somthing similiar? Rick Wagoner of GM. Something to the effect, I'm not in the auto business, I'm in the pension and health care business.


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“If we refuse to regulate ourselves, the only regulators are our environment,” says Whybrow, “and the way that environment deprives us.” For meaningful change to occur, in other words, we need the environment to administer the necessary level of pain."

Bingo!
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Plain and simple, this has to become another one of the "hot" issues that the bought and paid for candidates in the 2012 election will have to answer to.

Maybe I'm off, but I do get the sense that there are a growing number of people who don't fall into this contrived "either/or" camp (i.e. condemning outrageous public sector costs does not make one a defacto establishment bootlicker. Unfortunately, I still see alot of this mentality 3 years into this current recession/depression).
 
Anybody read any books on the Mafia.

Some totally incompetent mafia guy would take over a profitable restaurant or business and in spite of himself the place would make money, they'd put more people on the payroll, steal more goods out the back door, till they went bk, then torch the place for insurance money.

Any endeavor the state has run, which actually made money ends up with political appointee's on the payroll, (no qualifications necessary, making 6 figures), it's run into the ground until the Fed kicks in some money for the program or closes. There are success stories with state projects but generally ended with new and improved versions that have no chance in hell of working.
 
Quote from denner:

The bottomline is that there IS NOT ONE PRIVATE COMPANY that would survive if they adopted to these union demands. The vast majority of companies shelved defined benefit plans over 25 years ago. They knew that it would be impossible to generate the types of returns embedded in those benefit projections. If there was a shortfall, the company would go bankrupt paying the legacy costs, nevermind the going concern of the business itself.
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Sounds good but, you're wrong.

The only reason companies started to drop their defined benefit plans is because a 401K plan is cheaper for them, much cheaper.

Second, check into the PBGC, which takes over defined benefit plans that were terminated due to plan insolvency or corporate bankruptcy and be sure to check out the limits they impose on participant benefits when they do take over a plan -- it's not fun.

Private pensions, even the obscene ones that unions are involved in, are nothing compared to the time bomb that public sector pensions represent.
 
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