Posted on 12/29/2022 7:22:26 AM PST by Bon of Babble
Three high-profile Democratic governors are struggling to stabilize their states’ retirement programs due to a falling stock market and may have difficulties paying out benefits in the coming years.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailycaller.com ...
States who did not pay Cadillac wages and give platinum retirements will pay to bail out states that did.
I hear some say this could never happen. They are not paying attention. Yes, the “student loan forgiveness” is currently tied up by the courts, but the intent is there.
We bailed out the big banks when the housing bubble crashed. Those banks still had massive assets and wealth, but the taxpayers took the loss - not those who made the loans. In fact, our “leaders” preceded to give them interest free money for over a decade pumping up the market and wages. Our leaders also liquidated other institutions at pennies on the dollar for their donors - the big banks.
When you compare the pension liabilities to our unfunded liabilities as a nation it is peanuts. I expect the state pension systems to fold first, but it will only be a small glimpse of what lies on the horizon. Government has made all kind of promises at every level that they cannot keep. The end is inevitable.
Red states that lived within their means will be pissed just like those who were/are pissed about the student loan forgiveness plan only a few months ago, but they don’t have the delegations (power) that CA, NY, and IL have in the congress.
And unfortunately states can’t print money. And on top of this, California - broke already and never a slave state - is seeking to pay reparations.
I read a report yesterday that said “high income earners” are moving into the state of California. I find that difficult to believe just by looking around - the state is overrun by destitute illegals and homeless - and you can be sure they don’t pay taxes (illegals work for CASH).
I expect my pension fund is already depleted - but I diversified for exactly that reason.
I’ll be the last taxpayer to leave - and I won’t turn off the lights - but by then there won’t be any lights to turn off.
The whole system is corrupted. The same people who mismanaged the housing bubble causing the crash were the same ones bailed out and paid for over a decade by the Fed “to save the economy”. The Fed is now having to fight inflation so the spigot of free money that has propped up the “investments” by pensions is now suffering on Wall Street.
Yes, shaving the pensions would be a logical place to start but that will come with political pain. Just as I wrote above, the congressional delegations from these states are very large and as we just saw with the latest spending spree from congress they will be able to divert national money to these pensions.
The end is obvious. As bad as the “pension shortfalls” are in some states it is small when compared to our unfunded entitlement promises as a nation.
Don’t know about NJ or CA but in Illinois, state pension obligations are baked into the state’s constitution.
Then there’s the story of the ed union rep who got a full teachers pension after substituting one day.
They’ve discovered they can raid the federal treasury and fund their pensions with digitally printed money.
Pension liabilities are a form of deferred payment. Unwise and overly generous pensions may have been negotiated, in return for union political support, but the individuals who accepted government jobs did so with the understanding that they would receive agreed-to payments.
All this stems from the unionization of government workers. It used to be illegal for government employees to unionize. As is most evident in the case of teacher unions, they get in bed with school boards and politicians and place the wishes of the union members far, far, above public interest.
Unions for government employees need to outlawed again. Period. Civil service protections are more than adequate.
Since 1992 (when actual proposals to save Social Security were being nixxed by AARP) I’ve been saying it: “When the takers outnumber the givers, the system will collapse; and it will begin in California.”
“....replaced OUR money ....”
It was never your money!
That money you paid in went out the door to pay the benefits of those retired when you were working. As long as the is a high worker to beneficiary ration the system sort of works (1940 there were 159.4 workers paying into the system for every beneficiary receiving. As of 2013 there were 2.8 payers to those receiving! It’s a Ponzi Scheme!
As far as it being your money, there have been several federal court decisions (Two USSC!) that say you have no property rights in the money. If you did you could count it as part of your estate and leave it to your heirs. You can’t!
You can also take out far more then you put in! The USG didn’t count on people living as long as they do now. For example, the first one to get a SS check - Ida Mae Fuller paid $24.75 into the system but collected in retirement a total of $22,888.92 in Social Security benefits.
There have been 10s if not 100s of thousands of Ida Mae Fullers!
For those who don’t believe me here are the SSA & Wiki links.
worker to beneficiary ratios
https://www.ssa.gov/history/ratios.html
Ida May Fuller
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ida_May_Fuller
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ida_May_Fuller#cite_note-Contributions-15
https://www.ssa.gov/history/idapayroll.html
Property Rights & Social Security - Is it Yours?
It has long been law that
there is no legal right to Social Security. In two
important cases, Helvering v. Davis and
Flemming v. Nestor, the U.S. Supreme Court
ruled that Social Security taxes are simply taxes
and convey no property or contractual rights to
Social Security benefits.
Public Employees aren’t known to be productive.
And raise taxes.
It doesn’t matter who his predecessors were or what they did. The problem is that California is run by Democrats and dominated by public employee unions. City, county and the state governments continue to reward public employees with ever increasing salaries / wages, benefits and retirement packages that are untenable. It is a Ponzi scheme and must collapse eventually.
In most states, government employees are paid much more money than private sector employees. Public sector employees need to fund their own retirements with a modest 401k-like match program.
Make them responsible for when they can retire. The private sector has been doing that for decades.
All that the 3 govs need to do is implement the wealth tax. All wealth held by any family (politicians excepted) valued at over $100K is taxed at 50% per year until there is less than $100K value. All of the extra tax collected could be given to all those poor people who won’t work OR the excess could always be sent to Zelinsky to salt away for a rainy day!
I agree. However, the fact remains that the baby boom generation contributed far, far more than the SS needs of the prior generation. The government "should have" placed the real surplus dollars in trust for when the baby boom generation retired. They didn't. They raided the SS trust fund and put IOUs in place of the money they spent.
About The Raid of Our Social Security Trust Fund
A few excerpts from:https://theseniors.center/people-are-talking-about-the-social-security-trust-fund/
“The government has lied to you, and they have stolen from you. They told you that your Social Security money is in a trust fund. All that’s in that trust fund is a pile of IOUs from money they spent on something else a long time ago. And they stole it from you because now they know they cannot pay these benefits, and Social Security is going to be insolvent in seven to eight years” - —NJ Governor Chris Christie, October 29, 2015
“Congress needs to stop raiding the Social Security trust fund to pay for unrelated government spending. The American people are right to demand an end to this shameful practice… For over 30 years, Congress has spent the Social Security surplus on other government programs, and it’s a safe bet that this will continue unless we can enact legislation that requires a change.” - Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, July 7, 2005
This is why they want to kill off the old folks in nursing homes.
don’t worry, big daddy fedgov will back fill whatever the dem states need.
of course, that just means they’ll be taking money from the other states that weren’t spending recklessly and give it to the states that were.
in the meantime, those dems getting the inflated pensions will go into retirement with huge payouts in comparison to red states.
this is total bs
Pretty much agree!
However, the USG raiding of it (since LBJ days) is a much smaller hole in the SS bucket compared to the semi-infinite amount you can take out compared to what you put it. Its particularly true when you count the numbers of Ida May Fullers doing it!
Anyway, there were already IOUs in there. IOUs from you, me and others to the next generations of workers paying in!
AND IT WAS DELIBERATELY SET UP THAT WAYT!
Not so easy with the Public Employee Unions. They own the democrat politicians, so they will raise taxes and/or get a bailout from the federal government.
And they don't get that if you work and pay taxes, you are automatically taking care of MANY other people because of all the taxes you are made to pay for ‘others’, who don't/won't work.
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