The public pension problem

[laughing dog]

Lavish pension benefits are because the unions extorted the money from their employers in the past.

Typical rhetorical anti-labor nonsense. And please do not even try the "strikes are extortion" horseshit, because
1) most labor agreements are not the result of strikes or threats of strikes, and
2) a strike is no more extortion than "take my offer or starve".

 

[Tom Sawyer]

So what? It was still part of their compensation package. Taking away a pension is no different than saying "We were paying you too much in salary than we now think we should have for the past ten years. Give us a $10,000 refund on what we paid you".

What part of "extorted" did you miss?

Because that's what a strike is--extortion.

Riiiight ....

 

[Bronzeage]

It's a rhetorical question. The point is, a pension is deferred compensation. Anyone who threatens a pension is stealing money from working people. It's easy to obscure the issue by making noise about unions, but the crux of the matter is this is money already earned for work already done.

Is there any city or state where people would agree to a retroactive tax hike, going back years? I don't know of any. Would it be any different?

Lavish pension benefits are because the unions extorted the money from their employers in the past.

How does a union extort money from an employer. Are you claiming they held the employers children for ransom?

Do you know this really happened?

 

[untermensche]

There is nothing more cooked than the US stock exchange.

Corporate earth is running on cooked books.

But union books were openly negotiated and transparent. They could not be cooked.

Once again if we just believe the opposite of what you say we will know the truth.

1) It wasn't the union books I was referring to, but the city books making the pensions look tolerable.

2) Where's your evidence the union books are open?

You don't seem to have a clue what a union is and how they operate.

Corporations act in secret and activity is hidden.

Unions act in the open and activity is transparent.

 

[arkirk]

1) It wasn't the union books I was referring to, but the city books making the pensions look tolerable.

2) Where's your evidence the union books are open?

You don't seem to have a clue what a union is and how they operate.

Corporations act in secret and activity is hidden.

Unions act in the open and activity is transparent.

This hating of unions...and then blaming them for the status quo. You crush an institution like a union, everybody's pay and job security goes DOWN. Then some red headed comb-over bastard blames the plight of working people on the unions. I know unions are not perfect but corporations have degenerated into what amounts to hate the little guy for profits machines. It has to do with milking the working man of his labor and mal-nourishing him with his wages. The corporations parallel the ants and the poor working bastards parallel the aphids. Unions do have the problem of near non existence in today's world.....thanks to Reagan and company.

 

[untermensche]

You don't seem to have a clue what a union is and how they operate.

Corporations act in secret and activity is hidden.

Unions act in the open and activity is transparent.

This hating of unions...and then blaming them for the status quo. You crush an institution like a union, everybody's pay and job security goes DOWN. Then some red headed comb-over bastard blames the plight of working people on the unions. I know unions are not perfect but corporations have degenerated into what amounts to hate the little guy for profits machines. It has to do with milking the working man of his labor and mal-nourishing him with his wages. The corporations parallel the ants and the poor working bastards parallel the aphids. Unions do have the problem of near non existence in today's world.....thanks to Reagan and company.

The problem with unions is they are fighting something so evil they many times become evil as well.

 

[fromderinside]

This hating of unions...and then blaming them for the status quo. You crush an institution like a union, everybody's pay and job security goes DOWN. Then some red headed comb-over bastard blames the plight of working people on the unions. I know unions are not perfect but corporations have degenerated into what amounts to hate the little guy for profits machines. It has to do with milking the working man of his labor and mal-nourishing him with his wages. The corporations parallel the ants and the poor working bastards parallel the aphids. Unions do have the problem of near non existence in today's world.....thanks to Reagan and company.

The problem with unions is they are fighting something so evil they many times become evil as well.

whatayagonnadooooo

I'm gonna blame our education system for not teaching human nature to students. Sure, some are going to capitalize, but, most are going to become more sensitive to tendencies for power to actually corrupt rather than they becoming chanters that power corrupts. Several of those who become sensitive to that truth will actually look into finding ways to minimize prospects of corruption, perhaps even finding ways for organizations of like minded people to thwart corruption. That would be good.

Otherwise we may come back here in ten or 100 years and find the same chants, whines, and grousing to the same conditions, perhaps even worse conditions. Not good.

 

[Axulus]

Public employees should treat their city and state pension promises like what they really are: funding 100% of your retirement with junk bonds. Any financial planner would tell you that is an extremely poor strategy. The union leaders who negotiated such should be criminally liable for gross negligence.

 

[laughing dog]

Public employees should treat their city and state pension promises like what they really are: funding 100% of your retirement with junk bonds. Any financial planner would tell you that is an extremely poor strategy. The union leaders who negotiated such should be criminally liable for gross negligence.

Then shouldn't the employer's negotiators be held criminally liable for fraud?

 

[ksen]

Believe it or not, wage theft is a crime.

 

[Axulus]

Believe it or not, wage theft is a crime.

Believe it or not, but bankruptcy isn't a crime.

 

[Axulus]

Public employees should treat their city and state pension promises like what they really are: funding 100% of your retirement with junk bonds. Any financial planner would tell you that is an extremely poor strategy. The union leaders who negotiated such should be criminally liable for gross negligence.

Then shouldn't the employer's negotiators be held criminally liable for fraud?

Junk bonds do sometimes pay off. Some city and state governments will be able to honor these pensions. Therefore, it shouldn't be construed as fraud. A seller of junk bonds is not guilty of fraud. It is simply a demonstrably poor strategy to rely on them 100% and investing entirely in a single entity. I put the bulk of the blame on the side accepting a strategy that essentially amounts to investing entirely in junk bonds in a single entity.

A small, sustainable pension funded by the public is fair to offer if desired, plus private diversified retirement accounts with both employee and employer contributions for anything larger than a basic stipend.

 

[untermensche]

The problem with unions is they are fighting something so evil they many times become evil as well.

whatayagonnadooooo

I'm gonna blame our education system for not teaching human nature to students. Sure, some are going to capitalize, but, most are going to become more sensitive to tendencies for power to actually corrupt rather than they becoming chanters that power corrupts. Several of those who become sensitive to that truth will actually look into finding ways to minimize prospects of corruption, perhaps even finding ways for organizations of like minded people to thwart corruption. That would be good.

Otherwise we may come back here in ten or 100 years and find the same chants, whines, and grousing to the same conditions, perhaps even worse conditions. Not good.

Human nature is that humans are malleable.

They adapt to the conditions they find themselves in.

Within capitalist systems they adapt and become the scumbags the system rewards. Or they fail to adapt adequately and become an exploitable commodity.

 

[ksen]

Then shouldn't the employer's negotiators be held criminally liable for fraud?

Junk bonds do sometimes pay off. Some city and state governments will be able to honor these pensions. Therefore, it shouldn't be construed as fraud. A seller of junk bonds is not guilty of fraud. It is simply a demonstrably poor strategy to rely on them 100% and investing entirely in a single entity. I put the bulk of the blame on the side accepting a strategy that essentially amounts to investing entirely in junk bonds in a single entity.

A small, sustainable pension funded by the public is fair to offer if desired, plus private diversified retirement accounts with both employee and employer contributions for anything larger than a basic stipend.

Why should pensions be financed by bonds, junk or not, instead of through collected taxes? Wouldn't the fiscally responsible thing for municipalities be to figure out what your obligations are and then adjust the tax rate accordingly so you bring in enough to fund your obligations?

The problem isn't pensions. The problem is when politicians under the thrall of Grover Norquist decide to start deferring payments instead of requesting an appropriate level of funding that will meet the city's obligations.

Cities like Detroit never seem to have a problem finding money to pay for stadiums and other multimillion dollar business tax concessions. You'd think they'd be able to handle pension funding they had a had in negotiating.

 

[untermensche]

Junk bonds do sometimes pay off. Some city and state governments will be able to honor these pensions. Therefore, it shouldn't be construed as fraud. A seller of junk bonds is not guilty of fraud. It is simply a demonstrably poor strategy to rely on them 100% and investing entirely in a single entity. I put the bulk of the blame on the side accepting a strategy that essentially amounts to investing entirely in junk bonds in a single entity.

A small, sustainable pension funded by the public is fair to offer if desired, plus private diversified retirement accounts with both employee and employer contributions for anything larger than a basic stipend.

Why should pensions be financed by bonds, junk or not, instead of through collected taxes? Wouldn't the fiscally responsible thing for municipalities be to figure out what your obligations are and then adjust the tax rate accordingly so you bring in enough to fund your obligations?

The problem isn't pensions. The problem is when politicians under the thrall of Grover Norquist decide to start deferring payments instead of requesting an appropriate level of funding that will meet the city's obligations.

Cities like Detroit never seem to have a problem finding money to pay for stadiums and other multimillion dollar business tax concessions. You'd think they'd be able to handle pension funding they had a had in negotiating.

It's the same damn thing with Medicare and Social Security.

First you underfund the program, spend money like it is going out of style on foreign wars, then you complain the program is no good because projections are bad.

It is pure insanity but people actually buy it.

 

[ksen]

ayup

 

[ronburgundy]

Blaming the workers for the pension problem is equal to blaming them if their boss gambled away half the company revenue and spent the other half on drugs and hookers for himself, and now much go into massive debt to pay the workers for the work they already did and were promised payment.

 

[fromderinside]

Blaming the workers for the pension problem is equal to blaming them if their boss gambled away half the company revenue and spent the other half on drugs and hookers for himself, and now much go into massive debt to pay the workers for the work they already did and were promised payment.

Immature as the other side.

People just don't like doing government. American actual motto is "don't fuck with me" and that holds for whatever position one has in society.

We're supposed to have a universal public education system, one that is designed to make good citizens. Yet we do it by eliminating what makes citizens good, understanding citizenship and diversity of choice and calling. How about a little civics in school, say for about 12 years, while kids are growing up. Three R's are great for business and chatter but for living are of little use without context.

 

[Horatio Parker]

I

Blaming the workers for the pension problem is equal to blaming them if their boss gambled away half the company revenue and spent the other half on drugs and hookers for himself, and now much go into massive debt to pay the workers for the work they already did and were promised payment.

Immature as the other side.

People just don't like doing government. American actual motto is "don't fuck with me" and that holds for whatever position one has in society.

We're supposed to have a universal public education system, one that is designed to make good citizens. Yet we do it by eliminating what makes citizens good, understanding citizenship and diversity of choice and calling. How about a little civics in school, say for about 12 years, while kids are growing up. Three R's are great for business and chatter but for living are of little use without context.

Citizen? What's that, a customer or a contractor?

 

[ronburgundy]

Blaming the workers for the pension problem is equal to blaming them if their boss gambled away half the company revenue and spent the other half on drugs and hookers for himself, and now much go into massive debt to pay the workers for the work they already did and were promised payment.

Immature as the other side.

People just don't like doing government. American actual motto is "don't fuck with me" and that holds for whatever position one has in society.

We're supposed to have a universal public education system, one that is designed to make good citizens. Yet we do it by eliminating what makes citizens good, understanding citizenship and diversity of choice and calling. How about a little civics in school, say for about 12 years, while kids are growing up. Three R's are great for business and chatter but for living are of little use without context.

Is there something in this incomprehensible nonsense that is supposed to be relevant to my post?