Public Pension Millionaires

[DSpencer]

Re: Public Pension Millionaires

You get the picture?

I'm not interested in changing anyone's mind, Spence but I apologize for being such a jerk. I was wrong to allow myself to indulge in cheap cruelty. I'm embarrassed by it and I'm sorry I did it, Spence. I was an @sshole here. Earlier someone said they were tired of the fight and I seem to be running out of steam myself. It's no excuse for the dickishness and has no bearing on the facts either way, but it's where my head was at the time.

I get what you're saying and appreciate the de-escalation. In my mind there is a lot of discontent and the one silver lining might be that if we're all unhappy about where things are moving there must be some common ground somewhere.

[vinoveri]

Re: Public Pension Millionaires

if you think of corporate interests as essentially representing capital rather than labor in the distribution of revenues to different input factors, then congress has obviously been captured by the right.

This is a key observation imo (although I don't know if I'd call it the "right" but certainly corporate interests). In my view this could not have happened so readily without the transition to pure fiat capital which opened the flood gates to almost unlimited leverage and it benefitted BOTH the government AND the corporate interests and screws everyone else (and still does).

Prior to abandoning the gold standard entirely, there was a check on how rapidly government could expand - it would either have to tax the population/corporations or deplete its gold reserves to nothing if it wanted to inflate much faster than real growth. There is no check anymore and so no check on government power (e.g., we need another $50B for the new NSA initiative ... no problem, just print/borrow it).

Corporations have been able to clean up under the current debt-based money system with backstops from the gov. Leveraged buy-outs are the poster child for and very easy to understand example of what went wrong with the system.
When I first learned about leverage buy-outs, I thought what's the big deal, but that was because I did not understand the concept of fiat capital - that is, the "money" borrowed to do the buy out was pure fiat and did not represent savings; heck a child could understand this - hey, I'm going to take over your company b/c my friend the banker, backstopped by the Fed will lend me a few $billion to do so, and then I'm going to loot the business. And this continues today.

Minimum wage hikes, increasing union and all the other "sound-good" tiny incremental improvements sought by labor will never work; it may satisfy some, but the Corptocracy will be every so happy to grant the masses a 3% raise as it vacuums up all the assets and power with ability to control regulation and special access to unlimited fiat capital.

I have not seen solutions proposed by the left which address this as they all appear to be die-hard Keynesians - it is as if they believe the only solution can come from the government, so they don't want to limit the gov ability to print, and the "right" the corporate interest know this to well and now there is this symbiotic parasitic relationship of big bus and big gov which is destroying the working/middle classes and the culture.

[BadJuju]

Re: Public Pension Millionaires

My only agenda in saying we could do without that debate was simply that the site is full of "your side is OBVIOUSLY the one ruining the country" rhetoric that never changes anyone's mind. I thought maybe more of that could be avoided...I should have known better.

I really don't understand some of the party rhetoric that occurs on this site. By reading this site, it should be pretty damn apparent to anyone that neither the Democrats nor the Republicans have the interests of their constituents in mind.

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: Public Pension Millionaires

I really don't understand some of the party rhetoric that occurs on this site. By reading this site, it should be pretty damn apparent to anyone that neither the Democrats nor the Republicans have the interests of their constituents in mind.

Our gang affiliations run strong. It's hard to totally discard a lifetime of psychological conditioning.
The good news is that most of our members seem to be trying to do so, and keep the partisan stuff to a minimum.

[BadJuju]

Re: Public Pension Millionaires

Perhaps so. I'm younger than most here, so I grew up being disillusioned with both parties.

[santafe2]

Re: Public Pension Millionaires

I really don't understand some of the party rhetoric that occurs on this site. By reading this site, it should be pretty damn apparent to anyone that neither the Democrats nor the Republicans have the interests of their constituents in mind.

Both parties have their constituents interests very clearly in mind. Problem is, some people not worth $100M+ may think they are a constituent. There are a handful of honest brokers on both the right and the left but you can count them on one hand. This situation is like people watching TV and thinking they are the customer watching a product when they are the product watching the customer.

[santafe2]

Re: Public Pension Millionaires

both parties are bought and paid for. look at billy tauzin, elected first as a democrat then switching to the republican party, chairmain of the committee which wrote medicare part d including a provision FORBIDDING medicare from negotiating lower fees for drugs, then resigning his seat 3 months later to become president and ceo of the Phrma- the drug companies' lobbying outfit. if you think of corporate interests as essentially representing capital rather than labor in the distribution of revenues to different input factors, then congress has obviously been captured by the right. if you think of the repeal or limitation of the estate tax as an interest of the plutocracy, then the country has moved to the right. [6 of the 10 wealthiest americans INHERITED their money: they're not "job creators," they're royalty]. the share of profits allocated to capital and to the wealthiest is higher than ever; sounds like a victory for the right. union membership is at the lowest level in how long? the mass of amercans' incomes have been driven lower by the global labor arbitrage. the data go on and on. "fair and balanced" is b.s. let's call a spade a spade and not make a false equivalence in order to be "balanced."

Thanks jk, it's not often you opt to be the plain spoken orator. Enjoyed your comments.

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: Public Pension Millionaires

...like people watching TV and thinking they are the customer watching a product when they are the product watching the customer.

+1
That one is going into my quote collection.

[jk]

Re: Public Pension Millionaires

This all depends upon how you view the various changes.

If one looks at moral and social issues the country has moved Left over the past thirty years.
If one looks at the role and size of government the country has moved sideways to left over the past thirty years.
If one looks at corporatist capital vs. American labor as "conservative" vs. "liberal" then we have clearly moved to the "right" over the past thirty years.

I would describe it as the fruit of moral decadence ("I've got mine") and the crypto-criminalization of the government ("We bought ours").

I'm a Paleoconservative and know that I have biases, therefore I appreciate the needed "balance" of dcarrigg, because I am not so greedy and foolish to think this level of distortion in the current socioeconomic order is either just or sustainable. It most certainly is not.
But I don't believe it can be solved by simply raising taxes or the minimum wage - it's going to require a structural shift in the whole enchilada - the DOWNSIZING of FIRE among other things, regardless of the screaming of the pigs.

Where I differ with the Left AND the Neocons is their proposed solutions.

Joe Queenan, humorist and social critic, explains [only slightly dated]:

The way our society works is this. Leftist intellectuals with harebrained Marxist ideas get to control Stanford, M.I.T., Yale and the American studies department at the University of Vermont. In return the right gets I.B.M., D.E.C., Honeywell, Disney World and the New York Stock Exchange. Leftist academics get to try out their stupid ideas on impressionable youths between 17 and 21 who don't have any money or power. The right gets to try out its ideas on North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Australia, and parts of Africa, most of which take Mastercard. The left gets Harvard, Oberlin, Twyla Tharp's dance company and Madison, Wisconsin. The right gets Nasdaq, Boeing, General Motors, Apple, McDonnell Douglas, Washington, D.C., Citicorp, Texas, Coca-Cola, General Electric, Japan and outer space. This seems like a fair arrangement.

[Forrest]

Re: Public Pension Millionaires

Starting salary in Apache Junction Unified School District in the Phoenix Metro East Valley is $33,227 for a BA. Highest possible salary for 7+ years teaching with a Ph.D is a whopping $43,797.

Pay is for the year, every two weeks for 9-1/2 months, then a lump sum at the beginning of the summer break to carry over until the next term begins. The lump sum payment is taxed at a higher rate because it's considered a high rate of pay for a two-week pay period. Yay.

Teachers at AJUSD get 1/2 of their health plan paid by the district. Coverage for spouse and children is offered but not paid by the district. It gets deducted from the teacher's paycheck.

Working for nine months while being paid for twelve sounds like a great deal, but doesn't take into account all the extra unpaid hours worked after school and on weekends grading papers, doing lesson plans, filling out excessive documentation for administrators, supervising extracurricular activities such as school clubs and athletic events...

It doesn't take into account the money teachers pay for mandatory continuing education and accreditation renewals, either.

I don't know any teachers who love the teacher's unions or attend union meetings. They are union members because the unions provide them lawsuit protection.

My Mom too, and even with a Masters gotten after hours, and Teacher of the Year awards, she never made it above 50K, and that was in SoCal, in a nice area! Her pension was a whopping $1074, and when she died a few years after retiring, my Dad got a great $774 per month.

The insurance was very good, but she paid for half of hers, and all my Dad's.

And I recall never getting any new clothes for back-to-school, because she wasn't paid for June, July, and September, and didn't get her first check each fall until the end of October...and she was paid monthly to boot, which with CA taxes killed her.

Yeah...I know that new clothes don't matter much...except when you've grown over the summer, and you have nothing that fits!

And most weeknights, she put in a good 3-4 hours, just to keep up with the paperwork.

The big money didn't get voted in until the late nineties...just after she retired.

One of my friends is a Special Ed aide...she does all the teaching one on one, and gets a wonderful $400/week, and health benefits, with no payment in the summers. With Obamacare, I don't think the schools will be getting too many volunteer educators...it is a heart breaking, nerve wracking job to work with autistic kids, ADD victims that simply Can Not focus, and the paralyzed, and the sick, without even having the medical you were mostly working for.

Yeah...soooo overpaid!

Now, the Administrators and School Board...that's quite a bit different.

[BK]

Re: Public Pension Millionaires

Forrest ,
You friend needs to look into moving lots of better paid special needs jobs in other districts.

Perhaps the lower paying Districts are in areas where the City/Town/County is actually paying what it can afford to pay teachers and Not paying what they FEEL teaching is worth. Teachers are the dominated labor force for cities and towns - this is why so many cities end up in bankruptcy.

regards

[Woodsman]

Re: Public Pension Millionaires

Forrest ,
You friend needs to look into moving lots of better paid special needs jobs in other districts.

Perhaps the lower paying Districts are in areas where the City/Town/County is actually paying what it can afford to pay teachers and Not paying what they FEEL teaching is worth. Teachers are the dominated labor force for cities and towns - this is why so many cities end up in bankruptcy.

regards

That's not correct. So many cities DO NOT end up in bankruptcy. It is a rare event in this country. Governing magazine reports a total of 38 municipal bankruptcies since 2010 and most of these were not exclusively due to labor costs.




Of the 38,917 governments within the US, only one of every 1,668 eligible localities (0.06 percent) filed for bankruptcy protection over the past five years. If we exclude the filings later dismissed, only one of every 2,710 localities has successfully filed since 2008. The Tax Foundation has similar numbers going back to 1988.

To put the estimates into perspective, there were 389,278 commercial bankruptcy filings over the same period. Note also that the largest municipal filing to date had everything to do with the corrupting influence of FIRE dollars in the form of JPM and nothing to do with teacher's pay and benefits.

It's simply not the sky is falling, end of the world issue the Koch divide and conquer propaganda machine will have us believe.

[BK]

Re: Public Pension Millionaires

Detroit - “Detroit got into a trap of doing a lot of borrowing for cash flow purposes and then trying to figure out how to push costs (out) as much as possible,” said Bettie Buss, a former city budget staffer who spent years analyzing city finances for the nonpartisan Citizens Research Council of Michigan. “That was the whole culture — how do we get what we want and not pay for it until tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow?”

Ultimately, Detroit ended up with $18 billion to $20 billion in debt and unfunded pension and health care liabilities. Gov. Rick Snyder appointed bankruptcy attorney Kevyn Orr as the city’s emergency manager, and Orr filed for Chapter 9 on July 18.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/...0HM05C20131001

Can you document this. Keep in mind in many towns the School District is a separate entity.

Woodsman - we should agree to disagree. You have a gift for presenting rhetoric without data and I'm sure you feel the same about me. Thankfully we don't all agree as a world where we all have to agree is an awful place to live.

kind regards.

[Woodsman]

Re: Public Pension Millionaires

Detroit - “Detroit got into a trap of doing a lot of borrowing for cash flow purposes and then trying to figure out how to push costs (out) as much as possible,” said Bettie Buss, a former city budget staffer who spent years analyzing city finances for the nonpartisan Citizens Research Council of Michigan. “That was the whole culture — how do we get what we want and not pay for it until tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow?”

Ultimately, Detroit ended up with $18 billion to $20 billion in debt and unfunded pension and health care liabilities. Gov. Rick Snyder appointed bankruptcy attorney Kevyn Orr as the city’s emergency manager, and Orr filed for Chapter 9 on July 18.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/...0HM05C20131001

Can you document this. Keep in mind in many towns the School District is a separate entity.

Woodsman - we should agree to disagree. You have a gift for presenting rhetoric without data and I'm sure you feel the same about me. Thankfully we don't all agree as a world where we all have to agree is an awful place to live.

kind regards.

Err, thanks for the compliment?

The "drown it in the bathtub" austerity camp has won the argument anyway, BK, so we can at least agree that it's probably pointless for the two of us carry on like this.

[santafe2]

Re: Public Pension Millionaires

That's not correct. So many cities DO NOT end up in bankruptcy. It is a rare event in this country. Governing magazine reports a total of 38 municipal bankruptcies since 2010 and most of these were not exclusively due to labor costs.

Thanks Woodsman, that's a useful link.