There will be a war over this. Pensioners vs producers.
We already have a pretty good inkling about how that will turn out. The treatment of the "secured" creditors of General Motors is the best example. There are more RAT pension votes than RAT bold holder votes.
What a mess these people have gotten themselves into. And the mindset of “kick’in the can down the road” until it’s no longer the incumbents problem has led to all of this.
I don’t know what will happen in the future but I do hope that borrowing by governments to pay for projects today will someday end. Of all of the reforms I could imagine, “Cash on the Barrel-head”, is the second one I would most like to see.
The first of course would be, no more taxes on Property. That one tax system has nearly destroyed the concept of “private property” here in the U.S. of A. How can someone truly own their property if the Government can take it away for not paying taxes on it?
If I was a California government employee and had a choice between a pension and a one-time distribution in the near future, I’d take the distribution.
Here’s an idea.... employees paying into their own retirement fund...
I imagine one of the first thoughts that will cross their mind is to both expand and encourage euthanasia for those over the age of 60.
Like in Britain, tell hospitals that for the elderly, euthanasia is “opt out”. So unless they put in writing that they *don’t* want to be euthanized, it’s automatic.
San Bernardino’s next step in bankruptcy is to move to an “end-in-place” of all existing pension obligations (meaning the present value of existing pension accounts are what they are but will not grow by additional contributions), and establish all pension obligations going forward under outside pension fund managers, outside of Calpers. It could use TIACref for instance.
Calpers is a state-run near monopoloy outfit, not a private company. It is not deserving of any sympathy for pension contributions not yet paid-in to it. It needs to be working with towns to help devise solutions. Why? The local government bankruptcy situation in California is going to grow, not recede. Calpers needs to admit it’s own promises on returns were too rosy, too rosy on benefits that were too generous; and it needs to help with solutions, not simply demand that past agreements have to be honored “in toto”. It has to use some of its own massive earnings to (a) help bridge the gap, by (b) lowering expected returns to pension account holders, and (c) using some portion to help minimize short falls in pension contributions in the near term.
If Calpers were not the government near-monopoly that it is, I might feel differenly about what should now be expected of it.
So, tell me this, if the City Of San Bernardino is not making biweekly pension fund payments to CalPers as agreed, then pension coverage for current and future pensioners of the City Of San Bernardino is in jeopardy because it is not being funded, correct?
Or, does everybody pretend that the pension plan continues on as planned with no interruption, despite the City Of San Bernardino failing to fund it?
If there are no consequences for failing to fund, then they’ll continue failing to fund.
Government agencies are so stupid when it comes to money. You’d think it wasn’t theirs or something. /s