Let me ask you Piggs calling EconProf a “hypocrite” if YOU would give back the benes you “earned” and not avail yourself of them if you were in his place. It appears he COULD have stayed longer and thus got way more pension but decided instead to get the fvck out and take early retirement.
I can tell you from personal experience that vocal employees working in government can be ostracized by the powers that be. It doesn’t matter if they’re “right” or not.
I, too am a “local” govm’t “retiree” but will never avail myself of their health benefits as, in my case, they are priced at (expensive) COBRA rates. Half of my health-plan offerings are higher than my monthly pension! Our “health care allowance” is between about $220 and $280 mo (about 1/3 to 1/4 of the mo premium). If you retired after 3/02 (I didn’t) under an “enhanced plan,” you are not eligible for the “health care allowance.”
It’s worthless to me, anyway.
Shadowfax, correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t you a Federal worker? I agree with you in that Prop 13 will NOT “repeal itself” due to all the reasons you mentioned. In CA, there is no reason whatsoever to let a “Prop 13” property slip out of family ownership unless there are no heirs or those heirs are now dead. It would be STUPID for even a group of heirs to not let at least one of them take title to the family home, get a mortgage and pay the rest of them their share. Property taxes can absolutely eat up most modest-retirees’ pensions and SS if not protected by Prop 13.
Unless partially or completely repealed by the legislature, we are stuck with Prop 13.
Why should we assume EconProf didn’t buy his “investment properties” with 20%+ down with a mtg of a MUCH higher interest rate than is available today? Properties didn’t start really skyrocketing in value until the “easy lending stds” were common (around 2004). I’m sure Econprof just held on and collected rents even when the values of his properties dipped (1983, 1993, etc). He probably never even thought about “short sale!” Why should we automatically think EconProf was a “bubble purchaser” or “bubble seller.” If you ask him, he might tell you he sat out the “millenium bubble,” lol.
Why don’t some of you non-govm’t employees take a few days off work and “shadow” a govm’t employee for those days? You have no idea what they go thru on a daily basis under the “framework of supervision” and “working conditions” that they are subject to until you see it for yourself.
If you find after your “shadowing experience” that you think you can “hang with the program” long-term, then go for it! Put in a lengthy application, sign releases for your (very thorough) background checks and go on interviews! Serve your (often lengthy) “probationary period” and your first 10 years or so to “get vested” in that “cushy pension.” And for each promotion, you will serve probation all over again!
Everything looks incredibly easy to an “outsider” looking in … :=0
