Greeks Bearing Gifts....

[JayB]

Mean New York public pension benefit paid in 2010: $18300. That's the reality, not the public employee punching you seem to enjoy.

 

That's the average pension benefit for all living retirees and their widows/widowers. That includes people who stopped working *decades* ago.

 

If you want a number that accurately reflects the dollar value of the pensions that recent and future retirees are entitled to, you need to get the data and determine the dollar value of pensions being paid to recent retirees.

 

For a quick and dirty estimate of future liabilities, multiply that number times the compounded (n = number of years in the future) average wage growth in NY's public sector.

 

Here's the stats San Jose:

 

"Police and firefighters who retired in 2009-10 after at least 26 years of service collected an average starting pension of $119,000 a year. For other workers with similar service, the average was $63,500. The pensions come with a guaranteed 3 percent annual cost-of-living adjustment."

 

That dollar value doesn't include retiree health insurance benefits.

 

Just for fun, price out immediate annuities that feature survivor benefits and inflation protection at 3% and report back. Then you'll start to understand why the folks that are running the numbers (computing the total projected value of public employee contributions plus earning vs the value of pension obligations) are ringing the alarm bells. Here's a hint: the first value is significantly lower than the second.

 

There's not enough money to fund the existing level of public services and pensions. Cutting services to fund pensions will only take you so far, because as in San Jose is projected to, you will arrive at the endpoint where pension payouts exceed all tax revenues. E.g. you cut all employees and the delivery of all services and there's still not enough money.

 

Public employees should be *thankful* that people are pointing this out so they don't wind up the folks from Pritchard:

 

http://www.cnbc.com/id/40791768/Alabama_Town_s_Failed_Pension_Is_a_Warning

[j_b]

The Non-Existent Public Pension Funding Crisis

 

For years, right-wing groups have been beating the drums to roll back decent pensions and retirement benefits for American workers. At the federal level, Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan, ranking member on the U.S. House Budget Committee, proposed a "Road Map" plan to privatize social security, cut payments and slash Medicare benefits for all seniors.

 

Similarly, state-based conservative groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) have called for cutting public employee pension and health care benefits and replacing them with less secure 401k-style plans that would inevitably leave many retirees in poverty.

 

Yet despite these attacks and in the midst of financial meltdowns in the private sector, state public pensions are largely a success story, riding out the economic storm, delivering benefits to families, helping drive economic demand in state economies, and projecting solvency for decades to come.

 

As this Dispatch will emphasize, there is no crisis in most state retirement systems, even according to the numbers of the researchers demanding state leaders take unneeded action to cut the incomes of retirees. And despite the hype from a few carefully selected anecdotes of retirees gaming pension systems, the reality is that the overwhelming number of public employees receive pretty bare-bones benefits, in some cases not enough even to keep them out of poverty.

 

We do need a debate on public pensions, but one that sees protecting them as part of a broader campaign to restore retirement security for all American workers, especially in the wake of a stock market collapse that has revealed the empty promises of Wall Street in hyping 401k-style private accounts as a substitute for the guaranteed retirement income of social security and defined-benefit pensions. Public pensions are actually a key tool for driving economic growth in the states, both through the purchasing power of retirees themselves and through the direct investments of pension assets in job creation. Any reforms undertaken should be done to both enhance the positive economic role of retirement systems in our state economies and to increase equity among retirees to raise living standards for low-income retirees.

http://www.progressivestates.org/news/dispatch/no-crisis-in-public-retirement-systems-debunking-the-hype-and-the-attacks-on-employee-

[j_b]

Currently, most state and local government pension plans have enough invested resources set aside to pay for the benefits they are scheduled to pay over the next several decades

GAO Report to the Committee on Finance, U.S. Senate.

[j_b]

Cutting services to fund pensions will only take you so far

 

Nobody but you and other regressives want to cut services.

[j_b]

The Post Decides to Scare Readers About the Finances of Public Pensions

 

Tuesday, 06 September 2011 05:05

 

The Washington Post used a front page story to scare readers about public sector pensions, implying that they faced an enormous unfunded liability. It refers to "states facing, by one estimate, a combined $3 trillion in unfunded pension liabilities."

 

It is unlikely that readers are able to assess the meaning of this $3 trillion figure in any meaningful way. It is worth noting first that it assumes that the stock market will provide a return that is approximately half of its historic average over the next three decades. If the economy and profits grow as projected, it would be necessary for stock prices to fall so much that they would have to be negative before the end of the 30-year period over which pensions are typically evaluated.

 

If we take the more typical figure of $1 trillion and compare it to future GDP, it is equal to approximately 0.2 percent of projected GDP over the 30 year planning period. By comparison, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have added approximately 1.6 percentage points of GDP to the military budget. This means that the unfunded liability of state and local pensions is approximately one eighth as large as the costs of these wars. This sort of context might have been helpful to readers.

 

http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/the-post-decides-to-scare-readers-about-the-finances-of-public-pensions

[j_b]

Paul Krugman on public pensions:

 

The Truth About Pensions

 

Dean Baker has a deeply enlightening analysis of state pension shortfalls, containing a lot of stuff I didn’t know. The basic moral is that the official story these days — of years and years of huge giveaways to unions, resulting in gigantic, unpayable debts — is just wrong: to a very large extent, the pension shortfall has emerged just since 2007, thanks to the financial crisis, and even then it’s not nearly as big relative to future state incomes as widely imagined.

 

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/the-truth-about-pensions/

[JayB]

Cutting services to fund pensions will only take you so far

 

Nobody but you and other regressives want to cut services.

 

Evidently nobody but other regressives and I understand why you can't use the average pension payment for all living retirees when figuring out how to fund the obligations for recent and future retirees, either.

 

Keep pay and benefits unreformed in the public sector and the default is a pay-and-benefits provider with a sideline in providing public services.

 

Legally obliged to meet these costs, the city can respond only by cutting elsewhere. As a result, San Jose, once run by 7,450 city workers, was now being run by 5,400 city workers. The city was back to staffing levels of 1988, when it had a quarter of a million fewer residents. The remaining workers had taken a 10 percent pay cut; yet even that was not enough to offset the increase in the city’s pension liability. The city had closed its libraries three days a week. It had cut back servicing its parks. It had refrained from opening a brand-new community center, built before the housing bust, because it couldn’t pay to staff the place. For the first time in history it had laid off police officers and firefighters.

 

By 2014, Reed had calculated, a city of a million people, the 10th-largest city in the United States, would be serviced by 1,600 public workers. “There is no way to run a city with that level of staffing,” he said. “You start to ask: What is a city? Why do we bother to live together? But that’s just the start.” The problem was going to grow worse until, as he put it, “you get to one.” A single employee to service the entire city, presumably with a focus on paying pensions. “I don’t know how far out you have to go until you get to one,” said Reed, “but it isn’t all that far.” At that point, if not before, the city would be nothing more than a vehicle to pay the retirement costs of its former workers

http://www.vanityfair.com/business/features/2011/11/michael-lewis-201111#gotopage1

 

[j_b]

Cutting services to fund pensions will only take you so far

 

Nobody but you and other regressives want to cut services.

 

Evidently nobody but other regressives and I understand why you can't use the average pension payment for all living retirees when figuring out how to fund the obligations for recent and future retirees, either.

 

I did no such thing. The Government Accountability Office found that public pension funds were almost fully funded according to the most up to date accounting practices.

 

Lo and behold:

 

Pensionscare

 

Via Andrew Leonard, the rise in stocks since the financial crisis has made the financial position of public employee pension funds much better:

 

“Public pension funds are experiencing a robust recovery from the historic market downturn of 2008-2009 — reporting strong investment returns, growing assets and funding levels on track to meet obligations,” said the National Conference of Public Employee Retirement Systems.

 

The group, the largest trade association for public sector pensions, surveyed state and local systems representing 7.6 million people and assets exceeding $900 billion.

 

It found that over the last year, funds have achieved an annual investment return of 13.5 percent, nearly double the 7.7 percent rate most assume.

 

On average, said NCPERS, pension systems are 76.1 percent funded, meaning they can cover more than three-quarters of liabilities. Typically, pensions are considered fully funded when they surpass 80 percent.

 

Things aren’t perfect, by a long shot. But that crushing pension deficit, which everyone knew was going to bankrupt all state and local governments? Mainly a creation of right-wing propaganda. Are you surprised?

 

Leonard draws a wider conclusion:

 

But the changed financial outlook does underscore an important point that defenders of public sector unions have been making for several years: Judging the financial prospects of a pension fund in the middle of a historic economic crash is a dumb thing to do. As the economy improves so too will fund performance.

 

The lesson can be extrapolated to the larger challenges facing the federal government. The best deficit-reducing strategy is a growing economy that generates increased tax revenues. A misguided pivot to austerity, on the other hand, runs the clear risk of inducing slower economic growth, lower tax revenues and higher deficits.

 

But the bleeding must continue until the patient recovers!

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/10/pensionscare/

Edited November 23, 2011 by j_b

[Jim]

Mean New York public pension benefit paid in 2010: $18300. That's the reality, not the public employee punching you seem to enjoy.

 

That's the average pension benefit for all living retirees and their widows/widowers. That includes people who stopped working *decades* ago.

 

If you want a number that accurately reflects the dollar value of the pensions that recent and future retirees are entitled to, you need to get the data and determine the dollar value of pensions being paid to recent retirees.

 

For a quick and dirty estimate of future liabilities, multiply that number times the compounded (n = number of years in the future) average wage growth in NY's public sector.

 

Here's the stats San Jose:

 

"Police and firefighters who retired in 2009-10 after at least 26 years of service collected an average starting pension of $119,000 a year. For other workers with similar service, the average was $63,500. The pensions come with a guaranteed 3 percent annual cost-of-living adjustment."

 

That dollar value doesn't include retiree health insurance benefits.

 

Just for fun, price out immediate annuities that feature survivor benefits and inflation protection at 3% and report back. Then you'll start to understand why the folks that are running the numbers (computing the total projected value of public employee contributions plus earning vs the value of pension obligations) are ringing the alarm bells. Here's a hint: the first value is significantly lower than the second.

 

There's not enough money to fund the existing level of public services and pensions. Cutting services to fund pensions will only take you so far, because as in San Jose is projected to, you will arrive at the endpoint where pension payouts exceed all tax revenues. E.g. you cut all employees and the delivery of all services and there's still not enough money.

 

Public employees should be *thankful* that people are pointing this out so they don't wind up the folks from Pritchard:

 

http://www.cnbc.com/id/40791768/Alabama_Town_s_Failed_Pension_Is_a_Warning

 

This is the heart of the issue. Do a little straight forward math and get labeled a regressive. With a little common sense here it could be made solvent and bring service levels (and jobs) up to a sustainable level.

[j_b]

Evidently nobody but other regressives and I understand ...

 

Are you trying to suggest that your policies tending to provide living wage level retirement only for upper tax brackets aren't regressive. Try to remember that pension benefits were intended to be insurance against poverty for those who couldn't work, many of whom are elderly (mean public pension payout in WA is $18,150)

[j_b]

This is the heart of the issue. Do a little straight forward math and get labeled a regressive. With a little common sense here it could be made solvent and bring service levels (and jobs) up to a sustainable level.

 

right, GAO doesn't do math, nor does Krugman, or Baker, etc

[JayB]

Cutting services to fund pensions will only take you so far

 

Nobody but you and other regressives want to cut services.

 

Evidently nobody but other regressives and I understand why you can't use the average pension payment for all living retirees when figuring out how to fund the obligations for recent and future retirees, either.

 

I did no such thing. The Government Accountability Office found that public pension funds were almost fully funded according to the most up to date accounting practices.

 

Lo and behold:

 

Pensionscare

 

Via Andrew Leonard, the rise in stocks since the financial crisis has made the financial position of public employee pension funds much better:

 

“Public pension funds are experiencing a robust recovery from the historic market downturn of 2008-2009 — reporting strong investment returns, growing assets and funding levels on track to meet obligations,” said the National Conference of Public Employee Retirement Systems.

 

The group, the largest trade association for public sector pensions, surveyed state and local systems representing 7.6 million people and assets exceeding $900 billion.

 

It found that over the last year, funds have achieved an annual investment return of 13.5 percent, nearly double the 7.7 percent rate most assume.

 

On average, said NCPERS, pension systems are 76.1 percent funded, meaning they can cover more than three-quarters of liabilities. Typically, pensions are considered fully funded when they surpass 80 percent.

 

Things aren’t perfect, by a long shot. But that crushing pension deficit, which everyone knew was going to bankrupt all state and local governments? Mainly a creation of right-wing propaganda. Are you surprised?

 

Leonard draws a wider conclusion:

 

But the changed financial outlook does underscore an important point that defenders of public sector unions have been making for several years: Judging the financial prospects of a pension fund in the middle of a historic economic crash is a dumb thing to do. As the economy improves so too will fund performance.

 

The lesson can be extrapolated to the larger challenges facing the federal government. The best deficit-reducing strategy is a growing economy that generates increased tax revenues. A misguided pivot to austerity, on the other hand, runs the clear risk of inducing slower economic growth, lower tax revenues and higher deficits.

 

But the bleeding must continue until the patient recovers!

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/10/pensionscare/

 

All of these analyses uncritically accept the projections calculated using rates of return that are in the 7.75 to 8.5% range. Most pension funds haven't averaged anything close to that over the course of the past ten years, and there's absolutely no guarantee that they'll get anything like that in the future - particularly since they're heavily (~70% on average) invested in stocks.

 

The fact that you can't predict the future is why private pension funds are required fund stuff that they're going to have to pay for in the future on assets that are going to be worth a specific amount in the future - like US Treasuries. The only reason that public pension funds are allowed to base their funding levels on returns that may or may not materialize is that they're allowed to plug the gap with tax revenues, and private pension funds aren't.

 

It's likely that nearly every public pension fund in the country would be insolvent if they had to follow the same rules as private sector pensions - which is why they're all lobbying to prevent that from happening. If they did - the public would see the magnitude of the tab they're potentially on the hook for. Can't imagine why the folks who stand to be on the receiving end of that asset transfer don't want those figures circulating.

 

Unfortunately for taxpayers, the gap between projected returns and actual returns can be massive, and in the likely event that there aren't enough assets in public sector pension funds to pay for all of the public pension benefits no one is going to come out unscathed.

 

None of this would be a problem if public employees funded their own retirements with their contributions plus earnings like everyone else in the private sector. The fact that public employee unions everywhere are fighting the introduction of 401(K) style plans like it's a death threat shows that they're aware of the massive gap between the retirement benefits they're getting and the benefits they'd actually be willing to pay for....which shows that they're much better at math than they're letting on.

[JayB]

Mean New York public pension benefit paid in 2010: $18300. That's the reality, not the public employee punching you seem to enjoy.

 

That's the average pension benefit for all living retirees and their widows/widowers. That includes people who stopped working *decades* ago.

 

If you want a number that accurately reflects the dollar value of the pensions that recent and future retirees are entitled to, you need to get the data and determine the dollar value of pensions being paid to recent retirees.

 

For a quick and dirty estimate of future liabilities, multiply that number times the compounded (n = number of years in the future) average wage growth in NY's public sector.

 

Here's the stats San Jose:

 

"Police and firefighters who retired in 2009-10 after at least 26 years of service collected an average starting pension of $119,000 a year. For other workers with similar service, the average was $63,500. The pensions come with a guaranteed 3 percent annual cost-of-living adjustment."

 

That dollar value doesn't include retiree health insurance benefits.

 

Just for fun, price out immediate annuities that feature survivor benefits and inflation protection at 3% and report back. Then you'll start to understand why the folks that are running the numbers (computing the total projected value of public employee contributions plus earning vs the value of pension obligations) are ringing the alarm bells. Here's a hint: the first value is significantly lower than the second.

 

There's not enough money to fund the existing level of public services and pensions. Cutting services to fund pensions will only take you so far, because as in San Jose is projected to, you will arrive at the endpoint where pension payouts exceed all tax revenues. E.g. you cut all employees and the delivery of all services and there's still not enough money.

 

Public employees should be *thankful* that people are pointing this out so they don't wind up the folks from Pritchard:

 

http://www.cnbc.com/id/40791768/Alabama_Town_s_Failed_Pension_Is_a_Warning

 

This is the heart of the issue. Do a little straight forward math and get labeled a regressive. With a little common sense here it could be made solvent and bring service levels (and jobs) up to a sustainable level.

 

Like I said - the fact that they're fighting the adoption of 401(k)'s shows that they're much better at math than they're letting on.

 

I suspect that their own internal calculations of what they stand to lose is roughly consistent with the calculations done by the warmongering right-wing shills at the Pew Institute:

 

At the heart of the debate surrounding the appropriate discount rate assumption is whether states should calculate the current value of these long-term promises using an expected rate of return. In other words, if investment returns are disappointing and do not meet expectations, states are still required to pay retirees the benefits they have earned. Therefore, some experts recommend that states employ a “riskless rate” that might be analogous to a 30-year Treasury bond when valuing their future pension liabilities, arguing that pension obligations are legally binding and guaranteed to recipients. Based on the Treasury bond’s rate of 4.38 percent as of mid-March 2011, the states’ cumulative liability for pension benefits would grow to $4.6 trillion, with an unfunded liability of $2.4 trillion.

 

Another benchmark suggested by some experts is the investment return required by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB), a private counterpart to the Government Accounting Standards Board. FASB requires that private sector defined benefit plans use investment return assumptions based on the rate on corporate bonds: 5.22 percent as of mid-March 2011. Based on this assumption, states’ pension benefit liabilities would grow to $4.1 trillion, $1.8 trillion of which would be unfunded.

 

 

http://www.pewcenteronthestates.org/uploadedFiles/Pew_pensions_retiree_benefits.pdf

[j_b]

All of these analyses uncritically accept the projections calculated using rates of return that are in the 7.75 to 8.5% range. Most pension funds haven't averaged anything close to that over the course of the past ten years, and there's absolutely no guarantee that they'll get anything like that in the future - particularly since they're heavily (~70% on average) invested in stocks.

 

S&P averaged 6.5% growth over the last 20 years plus compounded dividends averaged ~3%. Shall I also do the addition for you? Over 30 and more years total returns averaged ~10%.

 

The fact that you can't predict the future is why private pension funds are required fund stuff that they're going to have to pay for in the future on assets that are going to be worth a specific amount in the future - like US Treasuries. The only reason that public pension funds are allowed to base their funding levels on returns that may or may not materialize is that they're allowed to plug the gap with tax revenues, and private pension funds aren't.

 

You forget the part when markets perform significantly better than 8% and individual pensions aren’t credited for more than 8% in returns. Plus, the ability to better weather market fluctuations is an asset of programs like social security and public pension plans, which is why they are so much better than individual plans. Unfortunate that your ideology prevents you from seeing it since it has some obvious applications in other domains.

[Jim]

Except - when you look at return on investment numbers more closely the difference between assumed and acutual returns is a bitch.

 

From the Pew report:

 

Still, some observers, including renowned financier and investor Warren Buffett,argue that current assumptions are too optimistic. From 1990 to 2009, states had a median investment return of 8.1

percent. But in the most recent decade,

from 2000 to 2009, that figure was 3.9 percent - while assumptions were still 8 percent or higher. The stakes of this debate are high because when a state lowers its investment return assumptions, the projected value of its liabilities and the annual contributions required to meet them increase dramatically. This, in turn, expands the gap between liabilities and assets.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

Unfortunate that your ideology prevents you from seeing it since it has some obvious applications in other domains.

 

:lmao:

[prole]

:lmao:

 

Are these your man boobs?

[JayB]

All of these analyses uncritically accept the projections calculated using rates of return that are in the 7.75 to 8.5% range. Most pension funds haven't averaged anything close to that over the course of the past ten years, and there's absolutely no guarantee that they'll get anything like that in the future - particularly since they're heavily (~70% on average) invested in stocks.

 

S&P averaged 6.5% growth over the last 20 years plus compounded dividends averaged ~3%. Shall I also do the addition for you? Over 30 and more years total returns averaged ~10%.

 

The fact that you can't predict the future is why private pension funds are required fund stuff that they're going to have to pay for in the future on assets that are going to be worth a specific amount in the future - like US Treasuries. The only reason that public pension funds are allowed to base their funding levels on returns that may or may not materialize is that they're allowed to plug the gap with tax revenues, and private pension funds aren't.

 

You forget the part when markets perform significantly better than 8% and individual pensions aren’t credited for more than 8% in returns. Plus, the ability to better weather market fluctuations is an asset of programs like social security and public pension plans, which is why they are so much better than individual plans. Unfortunate that your ideology prevents you from seeing it since it has some obvious applications in other domains.

 

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

 

-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.

 

When those shortfalls materialize, the money has got to come from somewhere, and thus far it has primarily come from service cuts. You can only take the "all service cut, no reform" model so far. So much for "progressive" priorities like basic health, the disability lifeline, etc, etc, etc.

 

All of that can burn to the ground before public sector unions will even consider revising future benefit accruals. Nice.

 

 

[JayB]

Germany failed to place 40% of 10 year bonds at an auction today. That's even worse news than I was expecting, which is saying something.

 

THE bad news out of Europe is coming fast and thick now. Markets were still digesting news of Spain's terrible bond auction yesterday, in which the yield on its 3-month debt more than doubled, from 2.3% to over 5%. That was but an appetizer, however; in an auction of 10-year debt today, Germany failed to place some 40% of the issuance. The lack of appetite for German debt has come as a shock to many, and the language being used to describe matters is increasingly apocalyptic. "It is a complete and utter disaster", Reuters has one strategist saying. On the secondary market, German bond yields have finally joined those of its neighbours on their upward march. The German 10-year yield is up over 7 percentage points today, and back above 2%. It still has a ways to go to catch France and Austria (approaching 4%), Belgium (over 5%), and Spain and Italy (back near 7%).

 

Trouble at big European banks is growing; the euro-zone banking system is increasingly reliant on the European Central Bank for funding. The prospect of bank failures is a troubling one given the fiscal strain on European sovereigns; no one wants to find itself in Ireland's position, squarely in bond vigilantes' crosshairs having assumed the obligations of sinking banks. Uncontrolled collapses are too awful to contemplate, however, and so the pressure on the ECB will grow. Meanwhile, trouble is growing around the eastern periphery of the euro zone. Poland's zloty is under pressure, and there are signs of bank runs in the Baltics.

 

Perhaps worst of all, the financial strain in the euro zone is increasingly apparent in the real economy. New data indicate that euro-zone industrial orders plummeted in September, falling 6.4%. Orders dropped 4.4% in Germany, 6.2% in France, and 9.2% in Italy. Predictions that the euro zone will face little more than a shallow recession oin 2012 increasingly seem to be wildly optimistic. That's a scary thought. The impact of a serious euro-zone downturn on the finances of banks and governments, not to mention on the sentiment among voters facing high and rising unemployment, is tough to contemplate.

 

http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2011/11/euro-crisis-17

[prole]

[Jim]

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

 

-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.

 

When those shortfalls materialize, the money has got to come from somewhere, and thus far it has primarily come from service cuts. You can only take the "all service cut, no reform" model so far. So much for "progressive" priorities like basic health, the disability lifeline, etc, etc, etc.

 

All of that can burn to the ground before public sector unions will even consider revising future benefit accruals. Nice.

 

Thanks. This is exactly what my concern is. We'll back the dumptruck of taxpayer revenue to backfill the hole rather than spend it on worthy programs - schools, medical care for the needy, and general social safety net programs. What - change anything?

[KaskadskyjKozak]

:lmao:

 

Are these your man boobs?

 

Poor Prole - sporting the figure of a prepubescent teenage girl, he longs for pec's... or breasts... anything to evolve out of his hermaphroditic physique.

 

 

[tvashtarkatena]

Its safe to say that Prole's was a reference to your unflagging focus on the phenomena. Apparently, that went a bit over your head.

 

 

[KaskadskyjKozak]

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

 

-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.

 

When those shortfalls materialize, the money has got to come from somewhere, and thus far it has primarily come from service cuts. You can only take the "all service cut, no reform" model so far. So much for "progressive" priorities like basic health, the disability lifeline, etc, etc, etc.

 

All of that can burn to the ground before public sector unions will even consider revising future benefit accruals. Nice.

 

Thanks. This is exactly what my concern is. We'll back the dumptruck of taxpayer revenue to backfill the hole rather than spend it on worthy programs - schools, medical care for the needy, and general social safety net programs. What - change anything?

 

j_bot prefers the Greek model. And he'll play his lyre as it all burns to the ground.

 

[KaskadskyjKozak]

Its safe to say that Prole's was a reference to your unflagging focus on the phenomena. Apparently, that went a bit over your head.

 

 

My reply went over yours. But hey, that's no surprise with your obsession about yourself, you fail to notice a lot.