THIS WAS FROM MIDDLE OF LAST YEAR:
So, just divide the total outstanding debt by 38 Million ( which is California's population )
Posted on 12/11/2014 7:15:28 AM PST by SeekAndFind
When the November election was still a long way off, Sacramento-area streets were already plastered with campaign signs for a little-noticed political race: candidates are running to serve on the board of the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, better known as CalPERS. While not as high-profile as the statewide and congressional races, these seats are arguably of equal importance to Golden State taxpayers. CalPERS, the largest state pension fund in the country, not only manages more than $257 billion in assets, but also loves to use its political muscle to prod corporate America into “socially responsible” (read: leftist-friendly) investing.
Sacramento, as the state capital, is Public Employee Central, so the race has become heated and costly. The campaign signs that caught my eye promised “pension security” and were paid for by the Service Employees International Union. This election is a touchstone for the entire pension issue in California—and, per usual, it doesn’t look good for the taxpayer.
In short, the people who benefit from CalPERS have complete control over it. Those who pay the tab have little if any say. Six of the board seats are set aside for various groups of CalPERS “members”—for example, one for retirees who receive pensions, one for eligible current state employees, and so on. Then there are three members appointed by the governor and the legislature, both of which are wholly owned subsidiaries of California’s public-sector unions.
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
California’s entire public-sector compensation system is absurdly generous.
Consider this folks:
* The median pension for a recent state Highway Patrol retiree is $98,000 a year—available at age 50, and paid for the life of the retiree and that retiree’s spouse.
* The median pay and benefit package for a California firefighter is more than $175,000 a year.
* As the Orange County Register reported in 2011, the city of Newport Beach had fourteen full-time lifeguards, with thirteen of them earning more than $120,000 a year in total compensation. “More than half the lifeguards collected more than $150,000 for 2010 with the two highest-paid collecting $211,451 and $203,481 in total compensation respectively,” according to the report. These are not aberrations.
* California salary schedules are filled with city managers earning $300,000 or more a year
* Low-level administrative employees earn around $100,000 a year.
* The San Joaquin Valley city of Stockton paid its workers at 125 percent of the California state average—and gave them a “Lamborghini-style” health-care plan that provided lifetime benefits after working for the city for as little as two months ( Stockton now is in bankruptcy court. SURPRISE !! ).
Here’s how you folks in California are gonna pay for the government retirees...
Most so-called “public-safety” employees—police, firefighters, prison guards, billboard inspectors, school security guards, cooks at prisons, etc.—are eligible for the “3 percent at 50” plan.
That means they receive 3 percent of their final pay times the number of years worked, and it is available to them at age 50.
(It’s usually calculated on base pay and not overtime, but overtime counts in some jurisdictions.)
So, if a Newport Beach lifeguard earns $150,000 a year, after thirty years he receives 90 percent of that pay—or $135,000 a year—for the rest of his life and his spouse’s life. The retirement ages are so low that in some cities taxpayers are paying for an entire second ghost workforce behind the one that’s actually doing the job.
If there’s any comfort to you guys in the Golden State, We who work in New York City know that it is already past that tipping point, as taxpayers there pay more retired cops than active ones.
And this article is in the Spectator, not appearing in any CA paper or on any local newscast.
Your average uninformed but decent voter doesn’t even KNOW this.
This is not American. Middle class Californianas, a very endangered species, cannot afford their own retirements, but pay they must for these government employees, because the government employees said they must.
Sheer insanity.
More like death from invasion.
Shame on me for going to college. I shoulda become a garbage man in San Pedro.
Let’s see...
How about you come work for me and I take money from you every month for your pension, and I SPEND IT, but I promise I will pay your pension out of my pocket when you retire...
Would you be OK with that?
Or even worse, I don’t even take any money from you- I don’t even pretend to set any money aside for you, I just promise the pension, and promise that a whole bunch of other people will pay you when you retire.
We might as well just write ourselves a loan payable in the year 3000. who cares what THOSE people think
let’s hope the collapse comes soon.
Not sure what the number is for Cali, but read yesterday the combined state/local govt debt per resident in Illinois is $25 grand.
Next door here in Indiana it’s $5 grand.
RE: How about you come work for me and I take money from you every month for your pension, and I SPEND IT, but I promise I will pay your pension out of my pocket when you retire...
Would you be OK with that?
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Yeah, but in the case of California, we all know that someone will be paying you for it. Someone who can PRINT money, which you have no choice but to accept.
Isn’t that where the municipal bond problem is going to come from? Muni-bonds being floated all over the place to cover pensions and city projects but the populace living in those areas aren’t making enough to cover the bonds as they are coming due?
The collapse (no other way to deny it at this point) is going to kill off millions of Americans. When that is going to occur is subject to debate but I can’t honestly see “us” as a nation keeping up at this rate for another decade.
Sheer insanity.”
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This is simply because government employees have “evolved” from being civil servants to being our overlords. At this point, it might make sense for voting in California to be limited to ONLY government employees. Except for illegal aliens who should be allowed to vote in California because they are victims of “Gringo Privilege”.
I was hoping it would just be limited to California!
So how much should we pay a firefighter ?
“Half” the cited $175k per year would be generous, and better than 80-90% of all people working in this country.
Actually we know they can’t.
We know that nation wide the problem is so big as to topple any money printing solution.
Collapse of the currency and default on the pensions is what will happen.
This analysis was covered ad nauseum in the papers (at least in the Tulsa Tribune) back in the sixties. Voters chose to do this crap anyway, and unmitigated idiots worked for them.
It’s been good for people who got their time in and retired long ago.
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