Comments on: CA Court Rejects Pension Reform

By: Reasonable county employee

Reasonable county employee — Sun, 22 May 2011 15:28:51 +0000

If looking at pensions try looking at the sworn personnels final pension. There are some in Orange County that have retired at more than there final salary. Thats where some of the unfunded liabilities are the other is audit the counties contributions from the 90’s when the dot com boom where they were allowed to suspend there contributions but the employees didn’t get that option maybe people should look at the whole picture not just the media scaring them about it. Most Orange County employees don’t put into or will get social security

By: SeeSaw

SeeSaw — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 18:09:31 +0000

You don’t need to change your handle in order to keep spouting the same old, “I’ve met the enemy, and its me”, rhetoric.

By: RexIII

RexIII — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 01:47:42 +0000

You pension parasites keep throwing fuel on the fire and you’ll get burned maybe way worse than if you would have kept you mouths shut. Your pissing off the people that are paying for your pensions. Simple Math will prevail! When the money is gone it’s gone. When the pensions funds that are under funded are not funded anymore! Keep it up, it keeps the light on the subject and brings more public awareness! Thank you for that!

By: SeeSaw

SeeSaw — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 01:51:26 +0000

Rex, I believe that one must be a multimillionaire, to be in the top 5%. Government employees, even PS, are not mostly multi-millionaires. You cannot add up all the benefits a retiree receives for twenty years and call them a millionaire. Benefits are spent for living expenses along the way. I would like to see a study, clarifying the categories where all citizens fit, on the economic totem pole. To guess, I would place rank and file public sector workers at the top of the bottom third.

By: Rex ther Wonder Dog!

Rex ther Wonder Dog! — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 21:07:02 +0000

Seesaw, I said they may not be in the top 1%, but MANY gov employees are easily in the top 3%-5%, virtually ALL FF, cops and prison guards are in the top 5%.

By: SeeSaw

SeeSaw — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 19:39:30 +0000

Not even close, Rex. In my mind, the top 1% layer includes Meg Whitman, Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and the rest of that ilk. Then you go down another layer to the multi-millionaires like all of the CEO’s who haven’t made it to billionaire status yet. Keep going down layer by layer, and you will find government employees, rank and file like me, on the bottom rung of the middle class. The $100,000+ guys don’t even make it to the top rung of that middle class, where you have those who live in the mansions of Bel Air, San Marino, Newport Beach, etc. Then, going on down you have the poor and the very destitute. The attempted manufacture of an economic civil war, between the middle class private and public sectors, is what I aim to see does not continue.

By: Rex ther Wonder Dog!

Rex ther Wonder Dog! — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 16:30:30 +0000

Seesaw, I think the author would include a large % of gov employees in that group-they may not be in the top 1%, but there are substantial numbers of gov employees in the top 3-5%

By: SeeSaw

SeeSaw — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 23:43:51 +0000

Read it. It just strengthens my belief that we are all peons, unless we are in the top 1%–all the more reason why we should support each other, and not be divided into separate categories–public sector and private sector.

By: SeeSaw

SeeSaw — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 17:58:35 +0000

CalPERS was a very big victim of the Wall Street real estate fraud. Most people did not realize, and would never suspect, that WS would be selling those derivitives, that they knew were no good, before they sold them. I believe that the mistakes made in the pension planning, were made by managers, due to a too-rosy view of what waited in the future–not due to knowledge that all would soon collapse. (I will have to find time to access the link.)

By: Rex ther Wonder Dog!

Rex ther Wonder Dog! — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 16:22:47 +0000

Well, Rex, I understand that this is the longest depression in our lifetimes, and it is true that it is not going to change, anytime soon. That is because we are all prisoners of the Wall Street financial system, and there is no way to get out, because the congressional representatives are all rich,
====================
Seesaw, public pension funds should have NEVER had more than a SMALL minority of their funds in the stock market-and nothing in hedge funds or real etsate which is where the HUGE losses that CalTRDS realized came from.15% MAX in the market and the rest in safe & secure T-bills.

If they followed those simple rules for safety they woudl have never faced the downside of Wall Street fraud.

BTW, have you read this-good stuff;

http://www.vanityfair.com/society/features/2011/05/top-one-percent-201105