[quote=CA renter]For one thing, phaster, while you’ve been obsessing about what other people’s benefits are costing, there are people who’ve been actively working on solutions to these problems. One part of the solution began about 20 years ago when public employers started to get rid of retiree healthcare…which will begin affecting retirement ages (causing them to go up) within the next 10 years as employees without retiree healthcare stay on longer in order to retain their medical coverage. This is something that is not yet being calculated in the actuarial data, and may never be included, even though it will have a fairly significant effect, especially WRT public safety workers. In 2013, PEPRA was enacted, and many employees are receiving lower benefits and paying more toward their retirement. Over the past few years, employers have also been renegotiating contracts, and employees have been paying more toward their retirement and healthcare costs — even longer-term employees are being affected.
More solutions are being worked on at this very moment, and we’ll begin to see a combination of changes within the next 2-3 years, IMO, as benefit formulas are reevaluated and contribution requirements are updated.
All that being said, I still can’t help but wonder if you like to focus so much on the benefits that have been **earned** by public employees in order to distract people’s attention from the multi-billion dollar annual giveaway to property owners such as yourself in the form of Prop 13 subsidies. Most people favor Prop 13 protection for a single primary residence, but they strongly dislike subsidizing the profits of wealthy commercial and residential landlords, wealthy owners of large tracts of land, and entitled heirs of expensive California properties who did absolutely nothing to deserve these billions of dollars in tax subsidies every year.
If you truly care about the heath of our state and local economies, they you should be willing to take the first step yourself. We can discuss the costs of those who’ve earned their benefits AFTER those who have not earned their tax subsidies refuse/refund this money first. Go ahead…prove to everyone how much you care about the financial health of our governmental agencies by paying back your unearned subsidy first (thousands of dollars per year). After you’ve done that, then you can come back and talk to us about reducing the compensation that other people have actually worked for and earned.
BTW, you’re not educating or informing anyone of anything. The pension issue was beaten to death LONG before you ever came into the picture.[/quote]
Yes, phaster please go off and argue with CAR about public pensions.
I don’t know why you continue to drag me into this discussion.
Yes, I recognize there is a longer term problem. But it’s not on my radar of important things that I care about. I was dragged into this only because on one thread I brought up CA municipal bonds, and only because on that thread someone asked about a vanguard fund performance, which BTW YTD, again wasn’t bad at all. I might end up selling some in December if the Fed raises rates anyway, and if there are better things out there. And if I do, it will take exactly 1 day for the transaction to complete, which again, is contrary to your belief that a crisis will financially impact me holding this tiny percentage in my portfolio.
Why you keep bringing me into this pension issue is beyond me. Talk and argue with CAR please. CAR is very opinionated on public pensions and the public sector.
And you will get much more response in any fights you try to pick over public pensions. I don’t care about this topic. If you want to talk about peak oil, and what a joke it is, let me know. 🙂
Meanwhile, please use your free Obamacare and seek medical care for your drug addiction.
