[gandalf]

The financial industry caused pension insolvency by a wide margin.

How come the people who demonize public employees and pension insolvency aren’t protesting fraud on Wall Street with Occupy?

Was that whole Tea Party thing just for show?

Another Republican-run scheme?

What are you ‘selling’ next?

[gandalf]

Okay, not sure who made the comment about hypocrites and 401k’s but it makes ZERO sense whatsoever. It’s a stupid remark.

Objecting to fraud on Wall Street does not equal living on a commune.

[gandalf]

I don’t understand.

It’s pot calling kettle black to demonize public employee pensions and benefits when you’re a public employee collecting pension and benefits.

But it’s not that big a deal.

Overall, my main issue is with GOP faux-conservatives who demonize public employee unions and pensions as causing the economic malaise.

Responsibility for this mess starts with Wall Street executives and the financial industry, assisted by the Fed, rating agencies and corrupt politicians who engineered deregulation, fraud and loose credit. Bigger problem than federal/state/muni pensions by orders of magnitude.

[gandalf]

bearishgurl,

The issue with EconProf isn’t public employees and benefits.

The issue is criticizing public employees and benefits when you worked in the public sector, retire early to start a second career and then collect about $15K/year for the rest of your life from those exact benefit programs.

I’ve already said, I don’t care that much. If not for Wall Street, EconProf’s $15K/year would be affordable to the state of CA. I support our educational system, and overall, I think it’s worth the cost. On this note, I was interested in EconProf’s experiences and insights as SDSU adjunct faculty and found his comments interesting.

At this point, I’m okay to leave the hypocrisy thing alone. EconProf can sift through the gap between his viewpoints and his actions. They are the definition of hypocrisy, but alas, human beings are complicated and filled with contradictions.

For what it’s worth, EconProf (of 2011) is right. The accounts of the State of California are out of balance and he may, as many others are in the process of finding out, end up having to forego those benefits involuntarily.

By orders of magnitude, the root cause of this whole problem is not average public sector employees (and their corrupt unions), but Wall Street and the financial industry.

[gandalf]

Mostly respectable answers, EconProf.

Except that you’re collecting a public employee pension and free healthcare for life on the public’s dime.

It’s okay with me though.

I can look past it because our largest problem actually isn’t public unions. It’s the financial industry — by a wide margin. The insolvencies from financial deregulation, bubbles and fraud are orders of magnitude larger. They created pension insolvency. Your benefits are affordable were it not for Wall Street.

* * *

How come you didn’t get involved in campus administration?

Helping run a large organization more efficiently is a laboratory in applied microeconomics.

In your view, what changes could be made to higher education help improve the way universities operate?

[gandalf]

[quote=EconProf]If we just had High-Speed Rail everything would be all right. And higher pay for government employees so they would spend more. And more environmental protection to attract people and businesses back to California.[/quote]

EconProf, did you really teach/research at a CA public university? Do you collect a pension?

Curious, what is your stance on funding levels for CA public higher education? Where do you stand on continued budget cuts for SDSU and The CSU? For UC?

In your view, what role does education play in a modern economy? How would you characterize the contributions SDSU and UCSD make to the San Diego region?

[gandalf]

This includes public safety for a change. I like that it’s consistent.

Usually there’s some carve-out exception for police/fire.

[gandalf]

Interestingly enough, Ron Paul is upside down on his house in Galveston.

He bought into the housing bubble expecting to flip and sell, but now he’s underwater and fucked like all the rest of you chimps.

[gandalf]

[quote=urbanrealtor][quote=markmax33][quote=urbanrealtor]
Not exactly a ringing endorsement of de-nationalizing education.

Good catch SK[/quote]

Too bad he was wrong 100% wrong.[/quote]

Apparently Rich agrees with you.
As proven by this quote I have carefully extracted from my rectum.
[quote=Rich Toscano]

See, Markmax is my very favoritist troll on this board. I heart his misattributions so.
Everything he says is right.

Also, Dan the Urbanrealtor is very very handsome.
His farts smell like fresh biscuits.
I hope someday to do ballet as beautifully as him.

I am hoping that these two will pull me into a new, incredibly shallow, political slugfest.

Its the reason I wake up in the morning.

Also, Allan is a socialist and I am a turnip.

And I am the secret identity of Doug Henning.Rich-turnip[img_assist|nid=15559|title=Rich-turnip|desc=|link=node|align=left|width=384|height=288]
[/quote][/quote]

Best evar, Dan’o…

You are the hippest shark in the ocean.

[gandalf]

I like Ron Paul for his consistency, and strongly agree with some of his positions. But he’s completely unfit to serve as President.

His persistent gadfly presence in the Repuglican tent is awesome though. Pisses off the establishment when he wins the straw polls. It’s great.

[gandalf]

Hedgecock interviewing Abramoff on corruption?

Is this for real?

Send them both back to jail.

[gandalf]

Michael Lewis is great. Liar’s Poker is my favorite. The whole fucking book is pretty much spot-on accurate. Back in the day, I worked with a couple of the guys from Salomon, one of them from the book. They were at DLJ when I was there.

One thing Lewis fails to point out in the VF article is how deeply Wall Street is responsible for the pension shortfalls.

[gandalf]

Paramount, c’mon.

You were on a good track with the ECRI post, leading indicators, direction of the economy, then you had to go all ‘Nobama’ on us.

It’s played out, dude. Let it go.

[gandalf]

That’s interesting. Thank you for posting, Paramount.

Nice comments, Rich. That’s kind of what I see too, sluggish, uneven, jobless recovery, unexpectedly long and extended ‘flight to quality’, eventually leading to some sort of event, maybe a funding crisis, currency crisis, or possibly some larger geopolitical event.

Lakshman is super smart, and I thought it was interesting he mentioned the 2008 recession, how indicators were signaling a severe downturn prior to the Lehman event, then Lehman failed and all of the models had to be recalibrated.

[gandalf]

Agree. Good article. Misleading post. Smells like a talking point…

By the way, you can always tell a Republican in the room because they lie about their farts.

“Oh, it wasn’t me…”

[Author]

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