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November 16, 2011 at 5:07 PM in reply to: Excellent Economist Mag. article on CA’s Gov. retiree Pension problems #733071
gandalf
Participantdel
November 16, 2011 at 3:24 PM in reply to: Excellent Economist Mag. article on CA’s Gov. retiree Pension problems #733072Participant[quote=sdduuuude]
Why force administrators to meet a certain level of growth ?
…
Nobody is entitled to a 15% return and certainly the taxpayers shouldn’t be making up for the shortfall.[/quote]Yeah, I actually agree. These are good points, sdude.
The taxpayer is footing the bill, both directly and through stealth inflation.
Compensation / pensions need to be reformed. I just don’t think it’s the root of the problem.
The root of the problem is THE REASON this board exists — bullshit asset bubbles and the aftermath we’re all living through.
November 15, 2011 at 10:01 PM in reply to: Excellent Economist Mag. article on CA’s Gov. retiree Pension problems #733033Participant[quote=pri_dk]
Setting aside the complete lack of credible source[/quote]You’re uninformed.
[quote=pri_dk]
The money that the State of California has promised them is THE problem.[/quote]No. You’re wrong again.
It is not THE problem. It is part of the problem, and as a matter of proportion, it is a smaller issue than financial industry misconduct, which led to the underfunding in the first place.
November 14, 2011 at 9:32 PM in reply to: Excellent Economist Mag. article on CA’s Gov. retiree Pension problems #732988Participant[quote=pri_dk]So the Mexican drug cartels have all the pension funds.[/quote]
Setting aside the sarcasm, we have this thing called a ‘Drug War’ and law enforcement routinely seizes assets from drug busts. The FBI runs an investigation a couple of years ago and learns there’s nearly $400 billion dollars worth of cartel drug money getting laundered through Wachovia Bank in the United States. As it turns out, the drug money is the only thing keeping Wachovia solvent. Holy fuck, huh? So the Obama Administration’s DOJ buries the case and settles out of court with a minor fine and no admission of wrongdoing.
In other words, keeping Wachovia afloat is more important than shutting down an insolvent bank — a criminal enterprise no less, jailing its management, confiscating drug cartel assets and using the bank’s ill-gotten funds to safeguard the deposits of average Americans and offset losses to ordinary investments and pensions. There was an immense amount of fraud, incidentally, associated with Wachovia’s mortgage lending operations.
By my calculation, that’s $30B right off the top from the drug cartels. Probably another $70B could have been squeezed out of the bank and sent back to depositors and ordinary American investors through bankruptcy and restructuring — “Sorry, China. Sorry, Goldman-Sachs. Sorry, Sheik Ali Dick Wad (funding Islamic terrorism). Get in line. Oregon Municipal Employees are getting paid first.” The rest of the bank’s operations and assets would work their way through bankruptcy proceedings. On top of all this, Wachovia executives would likely be rotting in jail.
Average local public employees union is the least of our problems.
November 14, 2011 at 8:19 PM in reply to: Excellent Economist Mag. article on CA’s Gov. retiree Pension problems #732984ParticipantReally good comments, pr.
November 14, 2011 at 2:39 PM in reply to: Excellent Economist Mag. article on CA’s Gov. retiree Pension problems #732922ParticipantIf not for federal policy, TARP, etc. — there would be no Bank of America, Citi, Chase, Wachovia, etc. “Too Big to Fail” institutions should have been broken up and restructured. Deposits and transactions could have been guaranteed for less than existing outlays. Bankruptcy proceedings would have resulted in trillions of dollars in restitution to counter-parties — money that would be paid before shareholder losses. $500 billion is a drop in the bucket.
Instead, we got a taxpayer financed, currency-floated bailout. We saved the 1%, preserved giant Wall Street banks, guaranteeing Goldman and the like, made good on Chinese investments, European counter-parties, Saudi royalty, hedge funds — almost everybody is getting paid except for ordinary American people, and now that includes average people paying into their pensions.
Criminal conduct? Are you joking? Laws were broken. Madoff was a token. Frauds were committed. CitiBank is the most recent example of fraud to settle for a slap on the wrist and no admission of wrong-doing. The proof there was airtight and would have resulted in jail time if prosecutors had chosen to pursue. Enforcement and prosecution has been non-existent. Obama sucks, but Republicans are way worse.
In one of the most obscene cases of criminal activity, the FBI was on the verge of annoncing a major case against Wachovia in 2010 for laundering $378 BILLION DOLLARS in Mexican drug cartel money over the past decade. Intervention from above, the case was dropped and settled with a slap-on-the-wrist fine, no admission of criminal wrong-doing, propping up the system and its criminals once again.
There is way more than $500 billion out there. Trillions of dollars have been fleeced from the American economy and financial system over the past 10-15 years. It is now in the accounts of the 1%. That is why ordinary people are fucking angry. If not for the financial industry of the past decade, there would be no great financial crisis of 2008, pensions would be solvent.
November 14, 2011 at 1:40 PM in reply to: Excellent Economist Mag. article on CA’s Gov. retiree Pension problems #732914Participant[quote=pri_dk]The question moving forward really isn’t “Public sector employee or Wall Street?”
The question is “Public sector employee or Taxpayer or Public services?”
Some combination of the latter three are going to have to bear the cost of the generous promises that have been made.[/quote]
That’s a false premise. You are presenting false choices. Nobody is saying EITHER Wall Street OR public employees. That’s also false.
How many false things can you say in one post?
I SAID: People who are outraged about public pensions should FIRST direct their outrage at the financial industry. FOLLOW THE MONEY.
The average public employee is a minor part of the problem. Enough of the right-wing talking point bullshit.
November 14, 2011 at 1:29 PM in reply to: Excellent Economist Mag. article on CA’s Gov. retiree Pension problems #732909ParticipantI know what you mean about ‘California Democrats’, and honestly, I don’t like them very much either. My sympathies are also with the middle class. Average people had little to do with important boardroom and backroom decisions that brought everything down.
So, what I don’t get is why conservatives and libertarians aren’t all outraged about Wall Street and aligned with the Occupy people? The Tea Party was originally all about ‘Bailouts’, remember? If ever there was common ground…
But that’s not what we see. That’s why bitching about public-sector unions isn’t for real. It’s manufactured outrage. GOP activists going around like parrots repeating stupid cliches they hear on talk radio and Fox News. Nothing they say means shit anymore. The Republican Party has degenerated into a clown show.
November 14, 2011 at 12:02 PM in reply to: CA Revenue comes in 6.5% lower than expected (and some common sense solutions) #732904ParticipantGreat post, shadowfax.
You summarize things very well.
November 14, 2011 at 9:04 AM in reply to: Excellent Economist Mag. article on CA’s Gov. retiree Pension problems #732889ParticipantThat doesn’t make sense. The average employee contributing a portion of their paycheck to pension for 25 years had very little to do with the investing decisions between CitiBank and the State and County Employees of Wherever.
Investment bankers, investment officers on the pension side, rating agencies and the Fed, corrupt politicians bought by deregulating lobbies, the originators of fraudulent crap undocumented loans like Countrywide, the appraisers of crap loans — and don’t forget all the douchebag get-rich-quick in real estate millionaires from the past 15 years…
These parties are primarily responsible for the worst financial crash in our lifetime. The parties on Wall Street made the majority of the profits off what they knew to be a swindle. That is why my ire is directed at ‘Wall Street’. Because the sophisticated parties in this arrangement knew the system was ultimately a leveraged fraud. They should go to jail.
Hardly any of people whining about Joe Carpenter’s pension benefits are outraged about the primary cause of this debacle — Wall Street investment bankers, bank lobbies and GOP deregulation, fraudulent originator banks, rating agencies riddled with conflicts of interest, irresponsible federal reserve policies. These people were sophisticated parties and 99% of them knew it was a bubble and knew it going to crash at some point.
That’s why I think most of the outrage over penion benefits is just more GOP-sponsored outrage-of-the-week talking point crap.
Do I think public employee compensation needs reform? Yes.
AFTER financial industry executives go to jail for running a fraud scheme, gambling away money that wasn’t theirs and tanking the U.S. economy. Were it not for the Wall Street, there would be no pension insolvency. ‘Financial engineering’ (what the fuck is that?!) ENABLED pensions to underfund in the first place.
November 13, 2011 at 11:56 PM in reply to: Excellent Economist Mag. article on CA’s Gov. retiree Pension problems #732879Participant[quote=paramount][quote=gandalf]I don’t like public employee unions or their benefit programs. They are a fraction of the problem.[/quote]
Yah, about 9/10’s.[/quote]
Some of the pressure is attributable to under-funding and benefit packages, healthcare costs, etc. Wall Street and their toxic-shit investment products are responsible for most of it though.
November 13, 2011 at 11:37 PM in reply to: CA Revenue comes in 6.5% lower than expected (and some common sense solutions) #732883Participant[quote=Allan from Fallbrook]
Gandalf: You’re exactly right. But, much like referring to someone as a racist, drawing that sort of false equivalence immediately derails any attempt at serious discussion. The radicalized elements on both the Left and the Right are excellent at this.[/quote]Good point. Shades of grey. We are all human. From this point on, I will refer to them as ‘Turnip Sharks’.
November 13, 2011 at 11:12 PM in reply to: Excellent Economist Mag. article on CA’s Gov. retiree Pension problems #732878ParticipantYeah, I saw you updated your status on Facebook:
“Pining for Clinton…”
Can’t believe it.
November 13, 2011 at 10:52 PM in reply to: Excellent Economist Mag. article on CA’s Gov. retiree Pension problems #732875ParticipantI don’t like public employee unions or their benefit programs. They are a fraction of the problem.
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