[quote=AN]CAR, you fail to see the main point, which is a $100k yearly pension payout is equivalent yo a $2.4-$3M 401k, assuming 30 years of retirement. How many people do you know making less than $150k have a nest egg of $2.4-$3m?[/quote]
The retirees earning $100,000 are an incredibly small portion of those receiving benefits from the govt pension programs. Like I’ve said many times before, the MSM (propaganda machine for the PTB) always uses the outliers to rile up the ignorant masses.
“Pension Benefits Over $100,000 Per Year. A small percentage of CalPERS and CalSTRS retirees and beneficiaries currently receive pension benefits totaling over $100,000 per year. About 2 percent of CalPERS and CalSTRS retirees currently receive such payments.”
For the people in the private sector who have comparable jobs, many of them can indeed amass $1MM-$3MM in their retirement portfolios and/or have pension benefits that meet or exceed those earned in the public sector.
What too many people fail to understand is that these pension benefits are a form of deferred compensation. Employees make concessions on salaries and other benefits in exchange for the pension benefits. You cannot view them in the same way that one would view Social Security (an insurance program that employees and employers pay less into than they would a DB pension plan), or as DC pension plans.
If private sector employees want the same benefits, they need to fight for them. They have been apathetic and uninformed about our tax and trade policies for far too long. Instead of trying to pull other workers down, they should be organizing and fighting the tax and trade policies that have decimated the working middle class in the U.S.
All of the “private sector vs. public sector” propaganda is intentionally designed to divert everyone’s attention away from the people and policies that have been systematically destroying our economy and our country. The divide is and has always been **capital vs. labor.** We need to stay highly focused on those who are trying to destroy the American middle class. Take note of how the movements that tried to address these grievances were co-opted — both the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street were initially trying to address the problems, and both were taken down by well-funded corporate/financial interests. We need to stop the infighting and start attacking the **root** of our problems.
