INCOMING!
Posted on 03/28/2015 7:22:38 AM PDT by Citizen Zed
A shocking chart released this week shows that nine of the top ten cities have more retirees collecting pensions than current employees contributing to the fund. It’s happening in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Scranton, and Harrisburg.
“It’s a major problem,” said Representative Seth Grove (R-York). “We have local governments that are on the verge of bankruptcy.”
Auditor General Eugene DePasquale has been raising alarms across the state about the fiscal frailty of municipal pensions.
“One-quarter of all the municipal pensions in the United States are in Pennsylvania,” DePasquale said.
That’s a lot of little communities managing pension plans and DePasquale says nearly half of them are underfunded.
Statewide, the unfunded liability is $8 billion. DePasquale says it’s inefficient for all those localities to have their own pension plans. He’d like to see the state bring them into one plan or at least merge many of them.
“Try to get economies of scale on the administrative side to get waste out of the system,” he said.
DePasquale would also like to see a consolidation of Wall Street investment fees. He says there also needs to be reform that would limit employees, nearing retirement, from gouging on overtime to increase their final salaries and the pensions that are bumped as a result.
(Excerpt) Read more at abc27.com ...
Voodoo economics is a valid term, it was just used in the wrong way.
The western world today is currently running on a vast system of voodoo economics.
The whole idea of a lifetime pension is ridiculous.
No one can afford to pay all its former employees a salary for the rest of their lives and still be expected to stay financially solvent competing against entities with no such obligations.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say “can’t afford”. It depends on who runs and how they run the plans, frankly. All too often, graft, greed, corruption and misuse of these plans are what causes them to fail.
Ultimately the operators of these plan fall back on the public as the guarantor of the commitment and throw caution to the wind and bathe in the excesses made affordable in their ‘management’.
In truth, the managers of the plans in question should be subject to the same travails as the elite of 1799 France.
INCOMING!
One of the best policy moves that could be made is the prohibition of defined benefit pension plans - they are extremely attractive as voter bait for those who negotiate them (such as teachers and municipal employees), but are ultimately deceptive and dishonest since they depend on the fiscal viability of government unit in question (and we know how that’s working out).
Only defined contribution plans should be allowed.
However, that whole policy change would be discouraged by the example from the very top - Social Security - the ultimate unsustainable defined benefit plan (and perhaps the ultimate misnomer).
Our public servants are now our masters. We in the private sector who must scramble to survive must pay ever increasing taxes and fees to the bloated bureaucrats to keep them in Fat City.
Just the tip of the iceberg of course. And fits right into the plan of convincing the sheeple that all retirement monies should be put into the ‘safe lockbox’ called US Treasuries.
Rest assured the msm will play along.
Veterans weigh in?
> Voodoo economics is a valid term, it was just used in the wrong way.
The western world today is currently running on a vast system of voodoo economics.
And the scheme will continue until the lenders demands their money or else. As it is lenders are robbing Peter who’s is robbing Paul who’s robbing Matthew, etc...No one’s really calling in the notes yet because they’re all financially blackmailed to each other. I think its possible lot of the bankers who’ve committed suicide were probably in charge of large portfolios that had ghost / fictitious collateral (fraud) involved and investors were not being paid the returns they were promised. Its also entirely possible they were induced to invest in fictitious funds that only existed on paper. I believe we will see even more bankers committing suicide as lenders and investors start figuring things out...
Other countries manage to maintain actual defined benefit pensions for retirees, some of which are fairly small countries with modest economies, Chile for instance. I’d assume they’re exercising fiduciary responsibility and do not permit gaming the system as is apparently so common with municipal and state pension systems.
Look, I am about to call some pensions in before I get swindled out of them.
Bottom line is if they agreed to give you this compensation for service, they owe it to you.
PS the military never gave me nothin but a job.
3 hots and cot sound s good but yer out there sleeping in the rocks.
All really got from them was pride.
What it turned into:
1. massive compensation equal to or greater than they made while actually working
2. qualified to earn the above after only a few years of work
3. getting the above, welfare and 2 other+ pensions from other jobs they also only worked at a few years.
4. receiving all the above for longer than the total time they ever worked because of lengthening life spans.
I am sorry, but that just is not a sustainable idea.
Call me mean spirited if you want, I call myself a realist.
The large print giveth and the small print taketh away....
Old Sarge wrote: Veterans weigh in?
I think you two are talking about different animals.
The "public service" defined-benefit pensions are the radioactive time bomb.
I wouldn't consider a military veteran's lifetime pension in the same category, unless the military is, or begins pulling the same sort of pension-pumping shenanigans that goes on in state & local gruberment.
Plus, I don't think you're required to get shot at if ordered when you're working for the local city water department.
California and New York are two of the states NOTORIOUS for public sector pension-pumping, but there are a number of other blue states doing it.
Here's an example from Michigan, which got rid of defined-benefit pensions years ago (but still has numerous grandfathered pension hogs lined up at the public trough):
(Michigan) Teacher Union President In Line for Six-Figure Government Pension
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/3271961/posts
I've seen it.
I'd like to see the cities and municipalities be compelled to fall back on solid assets as a means of compensation should they fail to honor their promises.
They have land and buildings, it should be sold off and used to compensate those they defrauded.
I disagree.
If some power hungry crook seeking office on the promise that everyone who votes for him will get a 2 billion dollar pension a year for the rest of their lives.
The tax payers are not obligated to keep such an absurd promise after the idiot is forcibly removed from office.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.