World Nut Daily has joined the right-wing pogrom against public employees by railing about public employees' "outrageous" pension plans. At which point I say to the folks whining about these "outrageous" pension plans, "are you going to give up your Social Security?"
The deal is that public employees, with the exception of federal employees hired in the past 25 years, do not get Social Security. Their pension from their state or local government is all they get. And the reason the pension funds are underfunded is because they got looted -- the money in them got "invested" into worthless securities that scammers assured them were as good as cash (said scammers being called "credit rating agencies" -- S&P, Moody's, and Fitch being the Big Three and still in business, still pulling the same scam with no repercussions). So let me get this straight. The pension funds got looted because the politicians let scammers steal all the funds out of them, and the employees should pay for that?! That ain't right.
So what's the deal with the right wing attacking public employee pensions? Well, it's part of their ongoing anarchist project to destroy the effectiveness of government so that corporations can further loot the country by taking on the former functions of government (setting up hydraulic empires in major sections of the economy to assert control over the people). And they get a lot of the white trash "spite vote" to go along with this because the white trash lost their pensions when all the good-paying industrial jobs left the country, and rather than ask "Why don't we get pensions at our place of employment?" they instead attack anybody who has more than them because, well, just because they're mean spiteful people, I guess. If not, they'd be going after the politicians who've allowed our good-paying jobs to be outsourced overseas... but, y'know, attacking the people who really did you harm is no fun, especially if you're too stupid to understand what those people have done to you. Far easier to just attack anybody who has more than you, to try to bring everybody else down to your level...
-- Badtux the Unspiteful Penguin
Not only did pension funds get looted, State goverments, frex - an NJ is a particularly egregious example - failed to fund them adequately over the past 15 or so years.
ReplyDeleteThen the financial melt down happened and everything went to hell.
The canard about public employees' rich pension payments is a vicious and destructive lie, coming from those who are intent on destroying the middle class.
There really is no other legitimate way to look at it.
JzB
The deal is that public employees, with the exception of federal employees hired in the past 25 years, do not get Social Security.
ReplyDeleteI beg to differ with you on that point, at least as it pertains to Mrs. Bukko. She worked for more than 15 years as a programmer for the University of California system, so she got a public employee pension. We didn't foresee the coming laws that allow state governments to declare bankruptcy so they can screw workers out of the pensions, but when we moved to Australia, we still did an early cash-out of her UC state pension. It was a gamble, but we had an inkling that the "guaranteed monthly payoff for as long as you live" would not be there later. The gamble paid.
We also have an inkling that Social Security will also be gypped away. That's why as soon as she was eligible, Mrs. Bukko signed up to get S.S. cheques, even though it's at a reduced rate from what she could get if she waited until age 65. Being deposited in one of our U.S. accounts, heh-heh -- no need bothering the Canajun tax man with TMI, eh?
Anyhow, in our case, a public employee is dipping into both pots. Until the kkkapitalists kick them over. We don't gloat or feel spiteful toward the people who won't be so fortunate -- even though we warned them that something like this would come. We feel sorrowful, because several UC friends of ours in Berkeley are gonna get screwed.
There's a lot of death from starvation, exposure or suicide that's coming to the older cohort. That'll suit the aims of the maggots at the top. Remember the saying "The only good Injun is a dead Injun"? For the top-maggots, the only good non-workserf is a dead one...
Look for an upswing in deaths from "natural causes".
ReplyDeleteActually, it has already happened in parts of the country...
-- Badtux the "Starvation is natural!" Penguin
In my home state of Kentucky, state employee retirement benefits were cut significantly for new hires a few years ago. Now, however, our Republican Senate wants to switch the state employee pension plans over to 401(k) type plans, including a 5% match for non-hazardous-duty employees and 8% for hazardous-duty employees, again for new hires. Given that they've failed to adequately fund the existing pension plans for years, only a fool would expect our legislators to make the proposed matching contributions, thus creating yet another retirement crisis and hordes of bankrupt state retirees. Mission accomplished?
ReplyDelete