The Public-Pension Crisis

“May be worse than we think.”

I’d say is almost certainly worse than we think, or at least it’s lot worse than public officials want to pretend it is.

We have a personal stake in this, because Patricia is in CalPERS, for health and pension. Needless to say, we’re not counting on it. And reminder: If California gets a bail out from Uncle Sugar, it should only be on condition that it become a territory, and not be allowed back into the union until it gets its fiscal act together, and not as a single state.

15 thoughts on “The Public-Pension Crisis”

  1. A sustainable fix to America’s public pensions will likely require intensive reforms to state and local governance, including the replacement of defined-benefit plans with 401(k)s and robust checks on the lobbying and political power of public sector unions. But the first step toward implementing these changes is for public administrators to come clean with taxpayers about the extent of the mess they are in.

    Any plan which depends on public officials to admit problems is not sustainable.

  2. When you have the unholy alliance of public unions and government, you’re bound to have corruption and collusion. There is no city in America that isn’t suffering from this problem. When interest rates on bonds have been declining for over 30 years, it was always easier to borrow than be fiscally responsible. As a city accountant of a healthy midwestern city once said: “I have no idea how much our city owes.”

    It astounds me that certain people never see a problem with government spending (unless it’s for defense.) Thus I conclude that anybody averting their eyes to this catastrophe is merely another hack trying to loot the treasury before it collapses. There are republican cities in this mess, but not nearly as bad as the democrats. Democrats are thieves, pure and simple.

  3. We need a “Right to Self Determination” amendment that gives states a right to exit at any time. It would be a deterrent.
    Rather than kick out California, punish Texas instead and kick us out!

  4. I was just talking with my ex the other day. She’s also in CalPERS. Being a Russian, she has plan A, B & C. Plan C is looking more and more likely.

  5. Rand, the discussion on this thread is just so pre-2016.

    Until your recent epiphany where I guess Mr. Trump is OK considering the alternative, your were steadfastly opposed to Mr. Trump but somehow, automagically, he won the Republican nomination. So what was that all about and how did that happen?

    Not too long ago, people could work in the private sector, and if they worked hard to acquire education and skills and worked hard at their job, they could have some measure of job security along with benefits such as healthcare and pensions. Well, such job security and pensions have gone out the window in the private sector, and if you have healthcare benefits, that may be paid for with a big chunk taken out of your before-tax paystub.

    A lot of people in the private sector “get by” because they may be married to a Patricia who has a public sector job that still has some measure of job security and benefits to help the family “square the circle”, and instead of considering the factors behind the Incredible Shrinking Middle Class, you want to take that away too?

    If you reflect on this situation, Mr. Obama, and by extension, those who are reflexive apologists for Mr. Obama, has openly expressed contempt for anyone who things that a person or a family that is not in a Federally Defined minority group has any kind of problem on that score.

    By public sector job, we are still talking about someone — a teacher, firefighter, police, prison guard, healthcare worker — who is making some meaningful contribution. Maybe they have this “really sweet deal”, but it is only sweet in relation to a private sector that has largely melted down, and a lot of private sector employees are like the farmer who has a spouse with a public sector “day job” with those sweet benefits?

    Rand, you are “virtue signaling” that your spouse contributes to your family in that way but that you are “willing to give up” how her job benefits contribute to your family, and by extension, question anyone else in the same boat not willing to do the same thing? Rand, that is just so pre-Trump Republican Party.

    What about the Deficit, what about the Public Pensions Liability, what about Obamacare? Well what about them? Mr. Trump doesn’t seem to be mentioning any of this. Rand, I guess you too have identified a Basket of Deplorables among Trump supporters, that is, his many supporters who are not worrying about these things, had ample opportunity in the primaries to rally behind a candidate who did worry about such things but didn’t?

    But, but, but, you and others are going to say, what is Mr. Trump going to do about this looming crisis? Yeah, yeah, it is not like the pension crisis isn’t real, and it is not like public employees are not going to have to “take a haircut” like everyone else, it is the ‘tude that is being expressed here.

    Trump is like the notorious game poacher who takes the game warden out in a boat, lights a stick of dynamite, and hands it to the warden. “But, but, but” sputters the warden to which the poacher scolds, “Are you going to ‘fish’ or are you just goin’ to talk?”

    Do you want to build a governing coalition, or do you want to see the first woman elected President?

    1. The problem isn’t the government workers get a retirement but rather how that retirement is funded.

      Pay as you go, 401k, is much easier to plan for and fund than making promises about economic conditions in the future. Pension funds have built in inefficiencies that prevent them from being a pay as you go system.

      Who is making money off of running these pension funds? Why can’t the money go directly to the worker with every paycheck to put in a 401k plan that they choose?

  6. Paul, it’s worth noting that if most pensioners had expressed the same sort of concern as Rand has and acted on it, a fair portion of the pension problems probably wouldn’t have happened in the first place. But instead there is a remarkably silence concerning the solvency of public pensions from the pensioners themselves. There’s a lot of people who just aren’t questioning things, nor doing anything about the leadership and direction of these pension funds.

    In that vacuum, the labor unions and the pension funds themselves are exploiting the situation. I don’t think it’ll matter at this point who Rand votes for. I doubt there’s much room for a president to fix things with the various institutional obstacles in the way (plus the fact that most pensions will be way out of reach of a US president).

  7. Mr. Trump doesn’t seem to be mentioning any of this.

    Are you for real Paul. 2/3rds of those topics are mainstays of Trump’s stump speech. I haven’t heard him talk about pensions, but with the shotgun of trash they’re throwing at him he barely has the time to talk about what he does. What is the pension situation with his own employees? Does he pay them enough to finance their own retirements? Because at the end of the day, it’s still about personal responsibility.

    1. What Mr. Trump is talking about is bigger picture issues — a “once-through” immigrant labor pool that incurs a high human cost, to the immigrants, their progeny, and to the low-skilled/minority/disadvantaged who are being displaced, along with the associated high government expenditure cost, exporting (yes, skilled and high-education) jobs overseas, whether through trade deals, abuse of H1B, or whatever means, job creation-stifling regulation, an off-the-rails environmental/energy policy that has not met a hydrocarbon energy source it doesn’t like, and a foreign policy where the current Administration is doing their best to get us into an atomic war with Russia.

      And you mean to tell me that Mr. Trump takes your side on public employee benefits and pensions, that is, were he able to get a word in edgewise on this? No, I don’t think so, because he was selected over other candidates (cough, the Wisconsin and Ohio Governors, cough) for whom this was their signature issue.

      But why are we talking about this? Are we hammering away at the Libertarian/Austerity/share-the-suffering-the-private-sector-has-endured-on-account-of-all-the-things-Trump-is-talking-about-with-the-public-sector? We are still stuck on Mitt Romney’s “47 percent of the people will never be with us because they benefit from the government in some way”?

      It’s true that 47 percent of the people will never be with us, as the “us” is expressed here because they indeed derive some direct benefit from government. And how are you going to build a governing coalition from that fraction of the remaining 53 percent (and it is certainly not the entire 53 percent) whom you can reach?

      1. Paul you are a smart guy. Run some scenarios with companies paying pensions for 30 years. Look at revenues and labor costs and how those labor costs grow with retirees and without those costs leading to the production of goods and services to offset those costs. They are unsustainable in the private sector and they would be in the public sector if the government didn’t have access to other people’s money.

        Should we be angry with a public that doesn’t want to bail out public sector workers or with the public sector unions and politicians who mismanaged pension funds and promised things they couldn’t deliver?

        The public sector, and unions, should be transitioning to 401k pay as you go and the real questions are why haven’t they and how best to do so while still living up to past agreements?

    2. Yes, I am very much “for real” and very serious about what I am saying — see me above TLDR comment.

    3. Am I for real?

      Are you going to fish, are you going to just talk? What compromises are you willing to make to achieve a governing coalition at a national level? Who are you going to “read out of the movement” for not being “real”?

      Have you read anything considered to be “Alt-Right” to have an inkling of what I am talking about?

  8. The Teamster’s Central States fund is bankrupt. I didn’t hear of any Teamsters complaining about the impossible goals they were promised for the past twenty years. Now of course, they are whining up a storm. The Teamsters are lying through their teeth why they have to slash pensions:

    “To put this into perspective, for every $3.46 that the Fund pays out in pension benefits, only $1 is collected from contributing employers, which results in a $2 billion annual shortfall. Clearly, that math will never work,” the letter said.

    Also note that the Teamsters used government to screw over their own members:

    The Teamsters pension fund has spent close to $6 million dollars on lobbying and political contributions in part to push for the passage of a pension reform law that allows underfunded pensions to slash benefits.

    Again, democrat leaders are thieves who use their lumpenproletariat as fodder for their personal gains. Any democrat who doesn’t see that they have been used is a fool.

  9. That’s a lot of interconnected issues Paul, which I tried to unravel with my comment about personal responsibility. When Trump talks about good paying jobs, you don’t need pensions. Pensions are a gimmick to avoid personal responsibility which we should not be falling for. At best, matching payments in a savings plan is as far down that road we should go. The biggest problem today is the lack of adult responsibility we encourage in people with stupid policies.

    As for coalitions, if we stop allowing people to be children, they might grow up making better choices. We’ve always had childish adults but we never promoted them like we do today.

    With govt. less is much, much more.

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