Battle Looms Over Huge Costs of Public Pensions (Class warfare is on the way!)

NY Times ^ | 8/06/10 | RON LIEBER

[Libloather]

Battle Looms Over Huge Costs of Public Pensions
By RON LIEBER
Published: August 6, 2010

There’s a class war coming to the world of government pensions.

The haves are retirees who were once state or municipal workers. Their seemingly guaranteed and ever-escalating monthly pension benefits are breaking budgets nationwide.

The have-nots are taxpayers who don’t have generous pensions. Their 401(k)s or individual retirement accounts have taken a real beating in recent years and are not guaranteed. And soon, many of those people will be paying higher taxes or getting fewer state services as their states put more money aside to cover those pension checks.

At stake is at least $1 trillion. That’s trillion, with a “t,” as in titanic and terrifying.

The figure comes from a study by the Pew Center on the States that came out in February. Pew estimated a $1 trillion gap as of fiscal 2008 between what states had promised workers in the way of retiree pension, health care and other benefits and the money they currently had to pay for it all. And some economists say that Pew is too conservative and the problem is two or three times as large.

So a question of extraordinary financial, political, legal and moral complexity emerges, something that every one of us will be taking into town meetings and voting booths for years to come: Given how wrong past pension projections were, who should pay to fill the 13-figure financing gap?

Consider what’s going on in Colorado — and what is likely to unfold in other states and municipalities around the country.

[SkyPilot]

Ppppppffft.

Well, it just goes to show you, just because someone is Conservative doesn't mean they can't be a jerk.

[Jacquerie]

Well, it just goes to show you, just because someone is Conservative doesn't mean they listened to their 6th grade English teacher and learned the difference between your and you're.

[Antoninus]

LOL. This idiot at the NY Times is just discovering this problem now? How stupid are these people?

[houeto]

Well, it just goes to show you, just because someone is Conservative doesn't mean they listened to their 6th grade English teacher and learned the difference between your and you're.

Found three grammatical errors on your brief home page in a matter of seconds. SkyPilot didn't make the poster. You did create the home page.

[Jacquerie]

Never accept financial advice from someone who confuses “you’re” with “your.”

[SkyPilot]

Never accept financial advice from someone who confuses “you’re” with “your.”

I have suspected all along that your obsessive compulsive focus on a third parties use of a contraction and a possessive adjective were throwaway complaints to a much much bigger nerve that was touched.

I am right about the fallacy of shoveling piles of your hard earned cash into "investments" these days.

They are taking your money, and laughing. T-bills are even worse. It will take some painful reckoning, but people will eventually catch on.

Seven Reasons Not to Invest in the Stock Market in 2010

Earnings are way down, and stock have not been this unprofitable in 80 years. Our national debt is a logarithmic chart that looks like the Richter scale.

Expand this chart to $13 Trillion (not 9 Trillion as shown from just a few short years ago), and you get the idea.

And yet, despite all of this evidence of gathering storm clouds, I know of people who hold onto their investments like a meth smoker who just found his lost pipe.

[Jacquerie]

Financial advisors are a dime a dozen. No thanks.

[RFEngineer]

“For example, local businesses were handing out 8-10% raises one year and we got 3%-5.”

You worked in government far to long if you think any business, other than government “hands out” raises and that somehow you were deprived.

I am sorry you are having financial difficulties - but many people work very hard and do not have a pension, yet must pay taxes that are about to get a lot higher to pay the municipal pension that you receive.

Taxpayers will not pay taxes for pensions in return for no, or severely degraded municipal services.

Good luck.

[RFEngineer]

“Now, because of the crap that is happening I’m supposed to feel guilty because the whiners didn’t plan as well as I did 30 years ago?”

No, but your check may well eventually be a lot smaller than you and your “plan” figured.

“Screw all you aholes!!!”

You should be nicer to the folks that will decide whether you will get to enjoy the largess of the taxpayer in the future.

[SkyPilot]

Jacquerie, I am not a financial advisor, nor am I offering you services as such.

I have to ask you this: what is troubling you so much? What did I do to make you so upset with me? It can't be because of a picture where "you're and "your" were misused - and a picture that I didn't even make! Were you angry before?

I will admit, I was not in the best of moods when I posted some of my replies. So, I hope you forgive me about that.

If there is something you need to talk or pray about, let me know in a private reply, and I will keep that confidential. I will also pray to Christ for both of us.

I am sorry if I was a jerk myself at any time during this thread. The Lord knows I can be one.

Night.

[detritus]

Now, because of the crap that is happening I’m supposed to feel guilty because the whiners didn’t plan as well as I did 30 years ago?

Down with the kulak ants! Long live the Grasshopper Revolution!

[detritus]

The people are pissed off.

The ants cannot withstand the righteous indignation of the grasshopper people!