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Unions: 'Will that Be Cash, Credit or Corruption?'
Townhall.com ^ | March 17, 2014 | John Ransom

Posted on 03/17/2014 4:41:21 AM PDT by Kaslin

While it’s a truism that for every finger you point at someone else you’ve got three pointed right back at you, for liberals it’s part of their laws of physics.

It would be impossible for the laws of liberals to govern without this binding hypocrisy that keeps them in orbit.

That’s why it shouldn’t surprise you that for all the leftist rhetoric about corporations and greed contributing the decline of the country, there’s one corporate outfit that’s really screwing up this country- and it’s a creation and a creature of the left.

Like most Big Left organizations it is a corporate body that is funded by you and I, but serves only the holy trinity of liberals, leftists and liars.

That corporation is, of course, Union, Inc.

Some call it Big Labor, but that’s an insult to the dignity of labor.

And if you want to see examples of corporate personhood gone bad you needn’t look to Wall Street. No; the stakes there are too high and the disclosures too transparent for mere corporation law to shield corporations from poor governance.

The laws of economics- the real laws, not the theories- usually take care of things in the private, corporate marketplace.

Instead- like many things in the country- you need to look farther left for real-life examples of rogue corporate personhood.

Union domination of the Democrat Party has become so entrenched- and so full of government money- that it’s impossible to tell if Union, Inc. is the parent corporation of the Democrats, or if the Democrats control the unions. And the symbiotic and sybaritic relationships between the unions and the Democrats have helped screw up corporations, municipalities and public policy in this country for too many decades.

Even as the so-called recovery notches another year, and state revenues begin to stabilize, municipalities and school districts are increasingly filing for bankruptcy in order to containing the rising cost of benefits demanded by unionized public workers.

In California, the greedy, union-benefits outfit working for public employees, called Calpers, is treated with kid gloves in both law and in practice. Law says that when municipalities file for bankruptcy, Calpers must be paid even if the benefits paid to Calpers are causing the bankruptcy. Police can be fired, private vendors stiffed, teachers laid off, investors in public debt can get zero pennies on the dollar, but union benefits must be paid.

The city of San Bernardino however is challenging union dominance over their balance sheet. The city is $17 million behind in pension payments, “the city simply says it's broke,” reported the San Francisco Chronicle. But “San Bernardino is treating CalPERS like any other creditor that's not getting paid.”

Of course the Chronicle is livid over union benefits being treated “like any other creditor that's not getting paid.”

“We urge San Bernardino to come to a solution with CalPERS that doesn't involve shorting the fund and its own retirees - or dumping its burdens on California's other taxpayers,” says the Chronicle.

But that’s exactly what Calpers already does.

Calpers is under-funded by anywhere from 55 percent to 75 percent in large part because Calpers uses math that would land private pension managers in jail. Calpers uses annualized growth rates of 7.5 percent when in fact the pension system only returned one percent last year. A 30-year Treasury right now only returns 3.59 percent.

"Pension systems across the country continue to behave as if the days of soaring stock and real estate prices will return and continue unabated," writes Daniel Borenstein of the Contra Costa Times. "Most public sector pension plans still assume investment returns of about 7.5 percent to 8 percent annually."

And really, under the law, a private sector pension manager would go to jail for using a 7.5 percent assumption to manage their pension fund.

That’s because someone will have to pay the difference between the assumption and the real rate of return. In both the Calpers and the private cases it will be the taxpayers who will pick up the tab.

Why should the city have to lay off workers because previously-elected officials entered into unsustainable retirement programs with unions who bankrolled their candidacies? Or because unions don’t have to use generally accepted accounting practices?

Cities -and states- shouldn’t have to choose between public safety and other necessities so that liberal council members and legislators can have an adequate supply of yard signs and bumpers stickers during an election year.

And taxpayers shouldn’t have to bailout union bad behavior again, just because they bought the Democrats with cash, credit and corruption.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: bankruptingamerica; calpers; johnransom; pensions; unions

1 posted on 03/17/2014 4:41:21 AM PDT by Kaslin
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To: All
Calpers? Underfunded? Won't come clean w/ the details?
Might be time to mobilize the Bank Secrecy Act.

The Bank Secrecy Act passed by Congress, requires banks to establish, implement and maintain programs designed to detect and report suspicious activity indicative of tax evasion, money laundering, govt fraud, and other financial crimes.

“The Bank Secrecy Act was enacted to specifically protect the tax-paying public from harm by identifying and detecting money laundering from criminal enterprises, govt fraud, tax evasion, and other unlawful activities."

Taxpayers should demand copies of (1) Calpers checks, (2) wire transfers, (3) bank account statements, (4) invoices, (5) bills, (6) delivery tickets, (7) correspondence including e-mail, employment contracts, loan agreements, and, (8) any other financial books or records.

Scrutinize Calpers bank accounts for suspicious activites: (A) large deposits, (B) funds transferred from one account into another, (C) request for withdrawals.

CONTACT
enforcement@SEC.gov
FBI TIPS PAGE https://tips.fbi.gov/

SAMPLE LETTER:

SUBJECT: Collusion, conspiracy, and bribery
IN RE: financial irregularities
REFERENCE: govt fraud, ID theft, bank fraud, falsified public documents, illegal wire transfers,

NARRATIVE Taxpayers demand to know the scope and dimension of multiple conspiracies by Calpers insiders to collude in sub rosa deals to personally profit and/or to facilitate money laundering, financial fraud and tax evasion.

OF INTEREST TO LAW ENFORCEMENTTaxpayers should demand the FBI investigate evidence of multiple schemes to falsify public documents.......and whether illegal wire transfers were employed to deposit Calpers monies offshore.

Crimes might include---fraud, financial conspiracies, collusion, falsifying official public documents, ID theft, money laundering, illegal wire transfers, tax evasion, extorting taxpayers, theft of public monies, misuse of public office, misuse of public positions.

=============================================

“Falsifying Public Documents” involves altering, changing, or modifying a document for the purpose of deception.......can also involve forgery and/or passing copies of false documents. Falsifying documents is usually done in connection with broader criminal aims, such as extortion, financial fraud, tax evasion, money laundering, financing personal expenses.......

Types of documents commonly falsified may include:
◾Tax returns and income statements
◾Personal checks
◾Bank account records
◾Business record keeping books
◾Immigration documents (such as visas, passports, etc.)
◾Identification cards and birth certificates.

Many different types of acts can be considered as falsifying a public document, including:
◾Altering or misrepresenting factual information such as prices or monetary amounts
◾Stating false information when requested to provide truthful statements
◾Forging a signature
◾Using official letterheads without authorization
◾Concealing assets or property WRT obtaining federal/state monies
◾Knowingly using or distributing a fake document

A person can only be held criminally liable if they are deliberately acting with the intention of deceiving or defrauding another party.

Falsifying documents is a very serious offense and is generally classified as a felony. This means that a person charged with falsifying documents may be subject to the following legal penalties:
◾Having to pay a monetary fine
◾Incarceration in a prison facility

Depending on the gravity of the offense, as well as individual state laws, falsifying public documents can result in a prison sentence of 5-10 years. Also, if public documents or public agencies or authorities were involved, the legal penalties may be more severe. ..... legal penalties may increase with repeat offenses.

The penalty for falsifying public documents is outlined in the Crimes Act of 1958.

2 posted on 03/17/2014 4:59:54 AM PDT by Liz
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To: All

Fraudulent adjustments and fraudulent conduct may have been used to made it appear that Calpers had either increased revenue, decreased expenses, or limited distributions. Some of the fraudulent adjustments and acts could include:

a. Reversing disbursement write-offs; improperly reversing millions of dollars of disbursement write-offs;

b. Reclassifying disbursement payments; improperly reclassifying millions of dollars of payments that had been applied to disbursements during the fiscal year; falsely applying payments instead to other outstanding categories.

c. Reclassifying Of payments WRT millions of dollars of compensation to Calpers insiders;

d. Reversing credit card write-offs; fraudulently reversing this write-off and hiding the amount in the books as an unbilled disbursement receivable, then reversing the write-off at year’s-end.

e. Reclassifying salaried expense; millions in compensation paid to isiders, amortized as benefits; reclassification has the effect of reducing Calpers expenses. Not disclosing this change in treatment to auditors nor disclosing on public financial statements.

f. Seeking backdated checks to falsely post to the prior year to hide the date on which checks were received; this scheme minimizes the risk that auditors would discover (that December checks received in January, including backdated checks, were being posted to the prior year).

g. Falsifying revenue statements by fraudulently claiming revenue that Calpers did not have and pushing expenses and financial obligations off into the future; fraudulently structuring transactions to appear to increase annual revenue.


3 posted on 03/17/2014 5:24:23 AM PDT by Liz
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To: All
DID MUNICIPALITIES MAKE MISLEADING PUBLIC BOND OFFERINGS (bond offerings are taxpayer debt) The SEC should investigate ...and file a complaint if California towns defrauded investors by misleading them about its finances and used falsified marketing materials for bond offerings....... revenue raised was used to payoff the demanding Calpers.

NOTIFY: enforcement@SEC.gov

4 posted on 03/17/2014 5:28:30 AM PDT by Liz
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To: Kaslin

Democrat Party = OWNED


5 posted on 03/17/2014 5:54:02 AM PDT by Vaduz
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To: Liz

Looking at what the Natl Chamber of Commerce lobbys for, pretty much opposite the Tea Party Stance - Chamber Mngt appears to mirror Union Mngt.


6 posted on 03/17/2014 6:08:59 AM PDT by sbark
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To: sbark

Strange but true.


7 posted on 03/17/2014 6:13:26 AM PDT by Liz
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To: Liz

Unions cannot take taxpayer money. Period.

Do that one thing and most states problems will go away.


8 posted on 03/17/2014 9:36:47 AM PDT by EQAndyBuzz (Insurgent Conservative)
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