Here's a sobering look at why pensions (at least in the private sector) are becoming a thing of the past. Calculating pensions to include income from side jobs and endorsements? And you say there's a problem?

Link

For the 76,000 a month eye surgeon, I would want to know how it was calculated relative to his pay and years. Maybe eye surgeons make enough to justify the pension.

The problem I see is that no money is being set aside from the current budget to pay for future pensions. I understand it’s impossible if the current budget can’t even cover the current pension payouts but that’s the kernel of the problem.

It's Just another example of Government Not being responsible with Tax Payers Money.

Don't blame the pensioner blame the system that let it happen. This is just the tip of the iceberg.

There is so much wrong in that article, I could spend an hour cutting, pasting, and addressing the comments.

These two stood out for me:

quote:

Because Evergreen cannot afford a physical education teacher, Tiffany Bonney’s first-grade class uses a video program called GoNoodle to exercise.

A PE teacher? In the first grade?

When I was in the first grade, physical education was called recess. Running, jumping, playing on the slide, monkey bars, merry-go-rounds, and swings, playing dodge ball, smear the queer, etc....

quote:

In San Francisco, the school board wants voters to approve a $298 “parcel tax” on real estate, ostensibly to raise $50 million to pay teachers a living wage.

A "living wage"? For teachers?

Deal! Give them all $15/hr and let's move on.

Liberals are perhaps finally learning what we all knew all along. Sooner or later, you run out of other people's money.

quote:

Originally posted by Gustofer:
There is so much wrong in that article, I could spend an hour cutting, pasting, and addressing the comments.

These two stood out for me:

quote:

Because Evergreen cannot afford a physical education teacher, Tiffany Bonney’s first-grade class uses a video program called GoNoodle to exercise.

A PE teacher? In the first grade?

When I was in the first grade, physical education was called recess. Running, jumping, playing on the slide, monkey bars, merry-go-rounds, and swings, playing dodge ball, smear the queer, etc....


.

First and Second grade we had a playground, and a storage room,

if we were good , as a class, and the weather was nice, the teacher would open the storage room and we would get to use the balls, jumprope, tricycles etc that were in there,


we didn't have a PE teacher till much later , maybe 5th grade

New Jersey’s pension fund is $124 BILLION in debt.

That fucking blows my mind.

quote:

Originally posted by braillediver:
Don't blame the pensioner blame the system that let it happen. This is just the tip of the iceberg.

No, they get some of the blame too. Government has never been conscientious with anything, so when unions continue to negotiate bigger and bigger pensions for their members, while pension funds go un or under funded, and government revenues either stagnate or fall, the pensioners should know better.

This is why in my book, 'all' pensions should be privately held and managed by the individual, not the unions, and not the government. You know, like most of private industry.

It's ridiculous that some of the jobs highlighted in the article are even eligible for a public pension, like the U of O head football coach. These guys are under contract making millions a year, with massive perks. That should not be a "state job" eligible for a pension.

quote:

Originally posted by bigwagon:
It's ridiculous that some of the jobs highlighted in the article are even eligible for a public pension, like the U of O head football coach. These guys are under contract making millions a year, with massive perks. That should not be a "state job" eligible for a pension.

I can see a contract for a football coach like that, but it ought to come from football/athletic department funds, not state pension money, or perhaps the athletic department pays into the pension fund to cover it.

As Kentucky was mentioned in the article, I'll offer this. What a fucking mess. And it isn't one that just happened yesterday, and doesn't lay completely at the feet of those in the system, nor those who negotiated retirements.

The standard state package retirement was really good prior to 2003, and even at that time it was 90 percent funded. Then they started "grandfathering" and selling people out. The retirement has gotten worse, and worse since. The prior governors have raided the pension system for decades, robbing the money coming in to fund pork and special projects. Always promising to put the money back at a later date, but they never did.

Now, it is going dry, and will be out of money soon. So, the current governor has tried to tackle it. Each "fix" he has tried to implement has been shot down because everyone wants something done, as long as it nothing is done to their piece of the pie. They all want cuts made to someone else's piece of the pie, who statistically want someone else's piece of the pie.

He finally got a fix through, and the state Attorney General (son of the former governor) has filed a law suit to stop it claiming "We made a promise to those in the system" (which includes me) but the dipshit doesn't seem to want to understand or admit that the money each month will soon stop coming if we don't do something now. The ones that are crying the most are teachers. They are the most upset because they have a 1.5 percent COLA raise factored in. Part of this new bill cut their raise to 1.0 percent. It should be noted that no one else in state government has gotten a COLA raise in 8 years, but the teachers are upset over losing .5 percent, to the point that none of these tactical fucking genius' can figure out that .5 percent of the nothing that will eventually come is still fucking nothing. Apparently, there are no math teachers involved in these protests, and walk outs state wide.

I want them to keep the promise that they made to me. But, the money is going to stop coming if something isn't done. There is no magical fix other than to drastically raise taxes. You aren't getting the money back from the politicians that used the pension system as a personal checking account for all of those years. There is no more money. No place to "take it from" to make the system whole. Any fix such as the teachers are demanding will only come off the backs of tax payers in the form of higher taxes. They seem not to either want to understand it, or they are simpletons that repeat the cool chants that their handlers tell them to at protests and walk outs.

quote:

For example, the pension for Mike Bellotti, the University of Oregon’s head football coach from 1995 to 2008, includes not just his salary but also money from licensing deals and endorsements that the Ducks’ athletic program generated. Mr. Bellotti’s pension is more than $46,000 a month.

The bill is borne by taxpayers. Oregon’s Public Employees Retirement System has told cities, counties, school districts and other local entities to contribute more to keep the system afloat. They can neither negotiate nor raise local taxes fast enough to keep up. As a result, pensions are crowding out other spending. Essential services are slashed.

“You get to the point where you can no longer do more with less — you just have to do less with less,” said Nathan Cherpeski, the manager of Klamath Falls, a city of about 21,000 in south-central Oregon.

There's the problem in a nutshell:
You promise more in retirement than you are willing to currently fund and everyone in the community suffers.
"As a result, pensions are crowding out other spending. Essential services are slashed."

I always tire of hearing about how schools don't have enough money. We always get to hear about how taxes need to be raised "for the good of the school." yet they let this other nonsense go on.

The Oregon governor and legislature won't address the pension crisis. They instead focus on gun control, and investigating themselves over a "me too" incident among the legislatures.

I've never met a more worthless group of people.

quote:

I always tire of hearing about how schools don't have enough money. We always get to hear about how taxes need to be raised "for the good of the school."

The answer for education, as well as health care, is the same as for groceries.
It's the market economy. The free market matches buyers and sellers of goods and services and keeps prices down to what people are willing to pay.
Privatize our socialist education system.

You can bet this guy was a reliable big $$ donor and fundraiser. His reward for helping his political friends is a cushy job with lush benefits and pension. All paid for by the taxpayers.

Same deal with the public employee's pensions. Democrats told them to vote the "D" and pay and pensions would improve. The Pol profits privately while the pals flourish publically on the taxpayer.

So now we have I don't know how many public salaries in the 6 figures, but plenty of them. And million dollar public pensions while the gift givers shit on the people who pay for it all.

Actually, Oregon should be able to cover all the pensions from the millions and millions promised from the taxing of so-called "legal" cannabis.

At least that's what we were lead to believe. What happened?

The root of socialism is the belief that I have the right to eat from my neighbors garden. The end result of all socialism is that I will overeat and get fat. And I will lose the ability/desire to grow my own garden. I become a parsite that will eventually kill the host.

quote:

Originally posted by radioman:
Actually, Oregon should be able to cover all the pensions from the millions and millions promised from the taxing of so-called "legal" cannabis....

What all the dopers in Oregon protest, and buy all of their weed from California?

I too believe that the schools should be privatized.
Around here we get a yearly tax levy for the schools for one thing or another, it never ceases and always passes.
Here in Ohio, they were going to fix the school money problem if we passed a state lotto. We did.

Then we were gonna fix the school money problem as well as State money problems if we passed a 1% state income tax. We did. That since has increased.
They found in Ohio that using property taxes to support the schools was unconstitutional. But they have no resolution so they still use it.
And our property taxes just continue to go up, every year more and more school taxes.
Part of the problem is that there are more and more people getting a living off the rest of us and do not pay their share for schooling or anything else. They take everything off the top and we foot the bill. It has gotten so bad that educating all the kids with only some paying is getting almost impossible.

quote:

Originally posted by radioman:
Actually, Oregon should be able to cover all the pensions from the millions and millions promised from the taxing of so-called "legal" cannabis.

At least that's what we were lead to believe. What happened?

They're spending it on coddling the homeless and other leeches on society. At least this guy "worked".

quote:

Originally posted by Rey HRH:
For the 76,000 a month eye surgeon, I would want to know how it was calculated relative to his pay and years. Maybe eye surgeons make enough to justify the pension.

Fascinating article. I don't usually read the NYT, but was stuck at an airport last night with a flight delay and was looking for things to read.

IMO, the big problem with pensions is all the creative accounting. Oregon included unrelated compensation in calculating the football coach's pension. So, when he got a cut of merchandise and licensing fees, that got included in his pension.

Here in IL, teachers and school administrators are infamous for gaming the system. One trick is to not take any sick or vacation leave in their last year. This leave gets paid as a lump sum when they retire, is then considered compensation, and so is included in their pension calculation.

Another trick is for the school district to promote an administrator to a higher paying job just before they retire. Their pension is then calculated at the salary of the new job even if they only worked in the new role for a couple of weeks.