Posted on 04/30/2020 3:31:23 AM PDT by SkyPilot
When Kentucky senior Senator and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said this week that he would be in favor of allowing states to use the bankruptcy route to deal with their underfunded public pensions amid the pandemic emergency, state workers and retirees—already struggling with the economic and health crisis—were rightfully alarmed. “Using the bankruptcy route” is code for slashing pension benefits promised to state workers. Under current law, only cities and other local governments can file for bankruptcy and only with permission of the state.
McConnell supposedly represents Kentuckians and Kentucky already had the worst-funded state pension system in the nation—only 16% funded—before the COVID-19 market meltdown. Chris Tobe, a former trustee of the Kentucky pension and SEC whistleblower, suspects when the pension reports fiscal-year-end performance July 1st, its funding level may fall into single-digits. (Full disclosure: I served as Independent Counsel to Mr. Tobe in connection with his SEC whistleblower complaint.)
Presumably Kentucky would be the first state to use McConnell’s bankruptcy plan to eliminate state worker retirement security. Kentucky has over half a million (514,000) current and future pensioners who are unlikely to support his reelection. A staggering percentage (94%) of the state’s 114,000 retirees still reside in Kentucky and pump over $1.9 billion a year into all 120 counties. Cutting pension benefits will undoubtedly depress the local economy.
To be clear, McConnell is not opposed to all federal bailouts of pensions. A few months ago, he joined a bipartisan group of senators in introducing a bill to secure the pensions for nearly 90,000 retired coal miners as a recent wave of coal company bankruptcies threatened the solvency of the federal pension fund.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
Oldest trick in the book, it is allowable fraud and abuse.
I would cut the pensions to under 100,000
In Calif the retirees are starting to get 100k pensions and can double dip with thousands more in the near future. In Chicago they already have thousands making 100k salaries and can double and triple dip.
The judge was ruling out of fear of losing his own state pension, thus his judgment as to the constitutionality of said pension law is itself questionable.
“Kentucky already had the worst-funded state pension system in the nation—only 16% funded—before the COVID-19 market meltdown”
Matt Bevin lost his reelection bid because he dared to try difficult measures to solve this problem and voters recoiled at it.
Oh well...
Love 401k's & like the idea of full matching funding, yes your employer could contribute up to the 19.5k, or some combo other than the 50 to 60% current match.
More importantly most options suck. Even when my better 1/2's employer had as their provider a large brokerage firm out of Boston who's logo is colored green, had 40 funds, but not all asset classes were covered. The new provider is worse, but I make it work.
Not investment advice, but I'd love to see a plan offering large, small, mid, value, blend & growth, bonds, & intl via ETF's. Given some of the large platforms have no trading commissions. Secondary, they need to offer Advisers. Schwab does it for $30 a month, Vanguard is 37 basis points of your assets, that is .037, do the math, that's $3700 / yr for a $1,000,000 401k for professional management, imho that's cheap $ for professional mgt of serious $. That's more reasonable than 1% a lot of firms charge. If employers want the best, darn it offer low cost funds and reasonably priced advice as a benefit or a partial benefit, imho....
Kevin Nohelty is 50 years old...
we would NOT be able to live here on SS alone....
I really want a law saying that if you get a NYS pension or a Cali pension from the govt you must LIVE in that state and pay property and sales tax, if not income tax....
make them live in the squalor of their making....
if I had to do it all over again, I would have gotten into a nice govt job....
but somebody's got to do the real work in this country....
There aren't too many pluses for this COVID disaster. But one thing has been made clearer: we know which professions are valuable, and which ones are not.
The nation has discovered it desperately needs doctors, nurses, truck drivers, grocery store workers, and tradesmen.
We don't need YouTube Influencers, professional athletes, Hollywood actors, and 98% of our political class.
Yes, it is the latter category who make millions, while those who are truly essential make only a living wage.
It's been like that for a long time, and things need to change.
I get pretty close to the max SS benefit and my wife, about half that. And thanks to a pretty contentious divorce that happened 23 years ago, I went a little crazy. That is, I don’t save money in any “normal” way. Because I’ve been an IT contractor, there is no 401k (I would only do it if there were matching funds contributed by my employer), and I have a “use it or lose it” attitude about money. But I also see everything I own as a “tool”. I have so many ways to make “some” money that I’ll always be able to “earn” as long as I can walk upright and don’t have dementia. I could even raise a few head of cattle, like a lot of my neighbors do. And all sorts of stuff I can do in my new garage/shop, inlcuding eBay sales, if I really had to.
But the reason I’m still working a real job is because it is the golden goose, paying IT wages, and the goal is to fully pay off the house. And because of the cost of living here and our SS income, we could live on it alone. Our total cost of living (absolute necessities like power, food, insurance, taxes and internet/phone access) would be about 1/4 of our SS income.
In Seattle, where we used to live. Half of our SS would be real estate taxes. People don’t own property in US cities. They rent it from the government. It’s pathetic. People just accept that.
Just like a lot of people just accept the government telling them to stay home because of the flu. Pathetic. As a culture, we seriously deserve a total collapse.
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