Greeks Bearing Gifts....

[sobo]

Just posting in this important thread again to tag my second

[olyclimber]

[video:youtube]bdob6QRLRJU

[j_b]

-Past performance is one thing, future performance is another. Retrodiction is easy, prediction is hard.

 

Nobody is asking you to forecast what the markets will do next year. Returns have averaged ~10% for over 50 years and by your own business as usual logic (i.e no resource-ecosystem services limit) that is pretty much all that you need to know to estimate asset growth over the long term.

 

-The ability to weather market fluctuations is solely a function of asset allocation. The only intrinsic advantage that people with public sector pensions funds have is that they can force other people to cover the shortfall between what they take out and what they put in.

 

Quit lying. As GAO says most pensions funds have pretty much sufficient assets to cover pay out for decades. Funds that are in trouble today are mostly those that didn't get funded adequately.

 

When those shortfalls materialize, the money has got to come from somewhere, and thus far it has primarily come from service cuts.

 

BS. Revenue shortfalls are due to the economic crisis your Laissez Faire policies created. The money pension funds need to cover less than average returns comes from those years when returns exceed 8%. You appear to be either tone deaf or your ideological blinders prevent you from understanding what you read.

 

You can only take the "all service cut, no reform" model so far.

 

Liar. "All service cut" is your model not mine. Where are your arguments toward increasing revenue by taxing the wealthy and corporations, slashing the military budget, for universal health care that only can solve cost increases (the real future deficit crisis we should worry about), etc ...

[tvashtarkatena]

Happy Thanksgiving Righty Tighties and Lefty Loosies.

 

Bread doughs rising. On the menu: Roast Steroid Pumped Bird, Sweet Potatoes n Onions, Brussel Sprouts, Mashed Potatoes, Roasted Winter Veggies, French Bread, Punkin Pie + Whipped Cream.

 

Totes Trad, Myan.

 

Worry about the EEEE!conomy manana. It'll still be a smoldering pile.

[sobo]

What happened to the free-range raccoon?? I was so looking forward to leftovers. WTF...??

[tvashtarkatena]

Well, there I was, all duct taped up in stale french bread and...then I got kinda hungry.

[sobo]

Figgerz... NEVER shoulda put YOU in charge of the main course... Hmfff!

[tvashtarkatena]

We have a 19 lb bird for 4 people. LOL.

[tvashtarkatena]

That's what happens when you shop the night before, you get stuck with what is essentially an ostrich carcass.

[prole]

What would you do as govenor to stem the coming $50B hole in the state budget? Particularly give our recent loss in services from pervious cuts. Or does that just derail the "vision" discussion?

 

Ask for a no-strings-attached bailout and use Thanksgiving as an opportunity to announce the beginning of a hunger strike to call attention to the need for a national single payer health care program to stem rising health care costs, the single biggest cause of deficit crises.

 

Our crisis is systemic and global, the notion that our problems can/will be solved at the state level without exacerbating them is pure fantasy. It's a framework that privatizers and redistributionists (to the top, of course) are happy to play in. It's only a "simple math problem" in SimCity, on cocktail napkins, or any other hermetically sealed, consequence-free environment. A fact that borderless, globalized capital has known for quite some time, but liberals have been slow to catch on to. Think bigger.

[tvashtarkatena]

Reduce, Recycle, Re-use.

 

I'm fixing a heating element on a 1941 Toastmaster toaster I picked up for a buck ninety nine last week. Airstream design, brown deco bakelite trim/handles. Asbestos insulation on the wires, mica sheet insulation. The kinda toaster that could burn your house down if you left it plugged in, or give you fibrosis even if you don't. The toast lever feels like your closing the door to a Packard. It always burns the toast, too (fix for that in process as well). A real man toaster.

 

 

[prole]

[video:youtube]

[Jim]

Ask for a no-strings-attached bailout and use Thanksgiving as an opportunity to announce the beginning of a hunger strike to call attention to the need for a national single payer health care program to stem rising health care costs, the single biggest cause of deficit crises.

 

Excellent! Problem solved with the usual rhetorical flourish.

[prole]

"L'audace, l'audace, toujours l'audace!"

[prole]

Jim, the system is deeply broken. Even those still trying to save it, like Steve Keen in the video above, are proposing far more radical solutions than you're willing to entertain. What does that mean?

[Jim]

Jim, the system is deeply broken. Even those still trying to save it, like Steve Keen in the video above, are proposing far more radical solutions than you're willing to entertain. What does that mean?

 

Oh, I'm ok with entertaining those issues. But they do little to help with a strained state budget today. The lack of any practical advice in dealing with real world governance says plenty. Seems like you don't like getting your hands dirty with any reality based solutions to address current state issues.

 

In Decemeber the state legislature is going to meet again. I'm all for the sales tax increase the govenor has put forward. But she doesn't have the two-thirds vote she needs. I think the Tim Eiman rule is stupid - but it was democratically voted on and we have to work with it.

 

So - next up will be the usual suspects for cuts - DSHS for starts, whose budget has been decimated. Next - the state health program for the poor - looks like that will be just eliminated.

 

So rather that making some changes to the benefits and pension program we'll hack away at important social programs. And yes - we would have directly more money for these programs immediately if we made some changes to state worker benefits. So yea - go with the big ideas, but they are not going to aid WA any time soon, and decision have to be made in about 3 weeks.

[tvashtarkatena]

Systems that are deeply broken are also opportunities for substantive change.

 

Just thought I'd muddy up a real conversation with an inspirational soundbyte, to keep it modern.

[Jim]

Systems that are deeply broken are also opportunities for substantive change.

 

Just thought I'd muddy up a real conversation with an inspirational soundbyte, to keep it modern.

 

Nah. No reason to consider alternatives.

 

A budget proposal released last Monday by Gregoire suggested cutting more than $500 million from K-12 and higher education, including reducing the K-12 school year by four days; cutting more than $690 million from health and human services, including eliminating Basic Health Plan coverage for 35,000 people; and cutting off state-funded food stamps for low-income people, among myriad other cuts.

 

 

 

[prole]

Hurry, let's find a convenient scapegoat!

[Jim]

Pithy. But nonresponsive.

[prole]

It's impossible to give an answer when you don't accept the premise of the question.

[Jim]

Meanwhile, for those of us burdened with the less esoteric questions and answers.

 

The Olympian: As part of her budget reduction package, Gov. Chris Gregoire asked state employee union leaders to reopen their collective bargaining contracts so the state could reduce the amount it spends on monthly health care premiums.

 

The state currently allocates $850 monthly per employee. Reducing that to $807 would boost the employee’s contribution from 15 to 25 percent of the total premium cost and save the state $28 million.

 

 

We were disheartened that leaders for the Washington Federation of State Employees rejected the request out of hand. Union leaders missed an opportunity to engender public support for state workers. By refusing to renegotiate, union leaders have fostered the false criticism that state workers are not sharing in the sacrifices that the recession has forced upon other Washington residents.

 

 

Without the reduction in employee benefit contributions, state lawmakers will likely look elsewhere to reduce employee costs. Ideas already on the table include an additional 10 furlough days ($38 million in savings); a 1 percent salary cut for K-12 teachers ($37 million in savings); and a 1 percent salary reduction for public employees ($32.7 million in savings). There’s also the distinct possibility lawmakers will order additional reductions in staffing levels – eliminating vacant positions and sending more state workers to the unemployment line.

 

 

We understand the union’s reluctance to reopen the contract. While cutting the state’s employee benefit contributions from $850 a month to $807 would save the state $28 million, it would require state workers to pay more out of their pocket each month. It’s a takeaway, clearly, and that’s why union officials declined the governor’s invitation to reopen contract negotiations.

 

 

“We’re looking at every way in the world to cut costs,” said state budget director Marty Brown. “In some cases it’s to save services. In some it’s to save jobs. There is no stone that has been unturned. Our first step here is to look at everything we can at the spending side – what is acceptable and what is unacceptable.”

 

 

The federation found the request to reopen the contract unacceptable. Union spokesman Tim Welch said, “We can’t speak for the coalition (of state employee unions). As far as the federation is concerned, we are not interested in that tactic.”

 

 

The federation represents about 40,000 state workers.

 

 

It seems to us that the alternatives – wage reductions and/or more public employees in the unemployment line – would be equally distasteful to union leaders. Perhaps they are hoping that the public workforce can emerge from the upcoming $2 billion budget adjustment unharmed.

 

 

But that seems highly unlikely.

 

 

But the sad reality is, the economic downturn continues and everyone – public and private employees – must continue to share in the pain. State employees could have won points with the public if union leaders had agreed to reopen the contract and gotten concessions in other areas.

 

 

A recent report from the Office of Financial Management shows the total state outlay for labor costs including benefits has increased from $2.3 billion in 2002 to $2.7 billion in fiscal year 2011.

 

The OFM data show that the cost of employee benefits such as pensions and medical coverage grew from 3.8 percent in 2002 to 4.5 percent in 2011.

 

By refusing to reopen the contract on health care costs, union officials have disappointed the public and some state employees. Union leaders have left open the possibility that lawmakers will order additional cuts in staffing and/or pay cuts for all state workers.

 

 

[ivan]

if they're like my union i can appreciate their view - every year for a good long while now we've been giving up something and taking on more and more of health care costs - there's no goddamn fat left it feels like, and so of course the knife hurts more now...

[sobo]

every year for a good long while now we've been giving up something and taking on more and more of health care costs - there's no goddamn fat left it feels like, and so of course the knife hurts more now...

Hate to be the one sayin' it to ya, ivan, cuz I like ya an' all, but "cry me a river." Ever since the mid 90s, I've been paying more and more of my own benefit package every year. For the first 6 or 7 years out of college (in 1988), my employers paid 100% of my benefit package costs. Then, beginning sometime around 1995 or 1996, a program started wherein the employee was required to pay a small portion to help offset costs. That first year it was like 2 or 3% of the total package cost. Every year since then that employee-paid portion has gone up at the rate of anywhere between 3 to 10% (with 2008 being the worst, IIRC). I have come to expect this increase every year, so much so that I have a line item in my personal budget for "Increased HC costs" at the beginning of each calendar year. This past January (2011) that line item increased ~5.5% over January 2010's number. So I don't have much sympathy for these WA State unions and/or labor federations that are intractable in their "bargaining" position regarding having their members pick up a share of their own health care benefit costs.

 

FTR, I pay ~$2,550/year towards my family medical benefits (Employee+2), $600/year towards my family dental coverage (Employee+2), $200 into a FSA that my employer double-matches ($400), and $217 for VSP vision coverage (Employee+1). That's over $3,500/year.

[prole]

That sucks, bro.