Posted on 08/05/2019 6:51:45 PM PDT by artichokegrower
But taxpayers now on the hook for 26,000 government pensions over $100,000, a 13-fold increase from 2005
(Excerpt) Read more at santacruzsentinel.com ...
California is reverting to the feudal system. Got the retired state employees being the lords, dukes and such while we private sector workers are the serfs.
Dudes, the checks from your Union fund are not even rubber any more, they are toilet paper. States can’t print money...
“California is reverting to the feudal system. Got the retired state employees being the lords, dukes and such while we private sector workers are the serfs.”
I think that’s pretty much the idea.
Socialism/Communism is great when you’ve got a seat at the table with the ruling class. The commoners, not so much.
Woo-hoo!!
$15/hr for me; $100K for the DMV guy!
He’s so productive, useful and hard to replace. He’s worth EVERY hour I have to work!
Vote fraud on the proposition to repeal the gas tax has benefits to a bunch of lazy bureaucrats living the good life
I used to think that too.
But a major bailout is coming, some $6 trillion by some estimates.
That was once unthinkable until this current two year Federal ‘budget’ has no upper limit.
Not only won’t the union bosses and government officials be hung out to dry, they will be rewarded for their years of irresponsibility.
That’s a difficult choice fo the Dems, pay their pensions or pay for all the services to illegals....
So hard to decide...
I’m hoping the next financial and stock crisis is going to wipe CalPERS off the map.
13-fold increase from 2005
So a doubling would be a 100% increase. What’s a 13 fold increase?
This is really important for people to understand how this works, as MANY government retiree benefits in school districts, cities and counties across the country follow CalPERS models:
When the dot com bust happened, 'subscribers' (taxpayers) were on the hook for 100% of the losses AND 100% of the 14% return on investment that CalPERS promised. There are many cities and towns across the state that are still on the hook for billions from that.
CalPERS even reached out and helped - rather than pay back the losses today, you can JUST pay what the ROI was supposed to be on that lost money for 15 years, then pay for both (in other words, stick a future board member or councilman with the bill...) If you look at the bond issues across California, tens of billions were supposed to go to rebuilding schools, roads, etc, and in actuality 100% of those bonds were for refinancing CalPERS debt from the 2000's.
If we have another large correction in the market, it is estimated that municipalities and special districts will have to raise nearly 100 billion dollars within 5 years.
Opening the floodgates for unskilled, low payed illegal aliens just needs a few more years to yield its full potential. Meanwhile, I’ll be laughing my ass off in Costa Rica while trying to figure out how to register to vote in one of the few sane states left.
California’s budget is totally propped up by Google, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and Apple. When those companies bomb the state budget will crater. Can’t wait to watch the screaming, the hysterics, and the histrionics when Democrats start eating each other.
The time is fast approaching here when those who do pay the taxes (and it’s a very small percentage of the population) will say no more money! Those people will either refuse to pay or move out of state. It doesn’t much matter which way it goes. The money will stop coming in soon, and Gavin and the RATs are busily engaged in legislation that will make it happen sooner than it might otherwise have occurred.
I am waiting to see the CalPers “pension haircuts!”
“California’s budget is totally propped up by Google, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and Apple.”
Trump needs to get on with a bunch of anti-trust lawsuits on these companies. Hurt their ability to make gobs of money, and California goes bust.
They will try. And that should be a watershed moment.
You would need to make it illegal to offer guaranteed benefits unless they are fully funded in advance. It is fraud and a ponzi scheme in any other instance to do what they are doing - to guarantee 7% annual returns and a guaranteed payout into the future. That would force all the pensions to default, or to raise the contributions massively.
I am not against pensions; but that government employees should get a pension guaranteed at 90% of their highest annual income, guaranteed for life of the longest surviving spouse, with COLA increases, and able to be drawn upon after just 2 or 3 decades of work when the typical worker gets a meager social security check and has to work twice as long to get it just isn’t right - and I’m not saying this from a “fairness” perspective, it just isn’t sound policy and puts everyone at risk. It is especially wrong if the taxpayers - the 90% of people on the short end of the stick - are going to be asked to bail out the rich pensions for that 10% who work for government.
So it will be a time for the 90% to stand up and demand major reforms. If we were leftists, we would demand that pension income be taxed at a high rate to “equalize” it with social security income. Really though the pensions they should be forced to default. But there might be a grand political deal to be had that involves a change in tax, changes including perhaps privatizing social security, increasing deductions and credits for pension contributions for individuals, and forcing the public pensions to renegotiate and reset in return for some reprieve from the wolves.
Don’t let a good crisis to go to waste. It would be a time to ask for everything.
A friend’s wife retired as a middle school principal. Her last salary was $144K/yr. She is under 65 and gets that for the rest of her life, indexed for inflation too. The two of them are living high on the hog, taking cruises, buying a second retirement home. Plus, she gets the same rate flying around and subbing as an interim principal here and there. So she grosses, IN RETIREMENT, $200K including Social Security. All courtesy of the taxpaying public.
This is how the Greek Government fell apart. Politicians and government employees greedily taking care of each other. When the house of cards collapses, it will be ugly.
There are many creative ways to sock them; some of which would not be good from a political philosophical point of view but would get the job done. Since these companies keep all their profits offshore, they hardly pay anything in taxes.
So create a new payroll tax. Say, 30% of all payrolls must be paid in “social services tax”. But you get a 100% tax credit if 50% or more of your gross income is derived from the manufacture, distribution, sale, or refinement of physical goods; or, if 50% your income is derived entirely from a financial transaction services (e.g. online brokerages, visa/mastercard, banks etc). In other words if you are just generating cash from online advertising or membership to a website you will be socked. Everyone else would have no change in taxes.
>>California’s budget is totally propped up by Google, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and Apple. When those companies bomb the state budget will crater. Can’t wait to watch the screaming, the hysterics, and the histrionics when Democrats start eating each other.
<<
We are seeing it in slow motion in Puerto Rico, but there are some big differences between a protectorate/territory and a State.
“Those people will either refuse to pay or move out of state.”
it occurs to me that it’s likely a YUGE chunk of those 100K Club retirees will move out of state to a state that has no income tax, that much of that money will leave the state rather than remain in the CA economy ...
Corrupt system in the extreme
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