Seesaw — You touched in a critical point when in discussing your supposedly modest pension you admit that you “retired a long time ago.” A long time ago, California state and local government salaries and pensions were not nearly as generous as they are today. And it’s TODAY’s pensions (and tomorrow’s) that are at issue.

Two other problems with your post:

1. You are anonymous, yet you post your SUPPOSED experience as the the typical government employee. Those of us on the other side try to use cited facts from studies. Frankly, we have no reason to trust such anonymous posting.

2. We don’t know of you worked 10, 20, 30 or more years to get your pension. The amount of the pension varies dramatically with longevity (as if you didn’t know that). And no, posting some arbitrary number of years as “your experience” simply is not credible.

And what did you accomplish of significance in your 20+ year career with the government, seesaw? lol. IOW’s, if your gov job never existed would the State be any worse off? Did anyone (other than you) really benefit from whatever slot you filled in the bureaucracy? My guess is “no”. Half the gov jobs in the country could be discarded and the citizens wouldn’t know the difference. lol. I find your pride in government work amusing. 🙂

And now my generation has grown up and it is the most selfish generation in the history of the nation, not giving a damn about the house of cards that they’re building for the young people. That is so repulsive. So selfish. So immoral. They are piling debt upon the young people that they will NEVER be able to survive. I apologize to young people routinely for what my generation has done to them and is doing to them. I see them graduate from college with worthless degrees holding $50,000 in student debt (non- dischargeable in bankrupcy court) at the age of 23. We’ve turned them into debt slaves. Most will not be able to find jobs paying more than $15/hr. How can they possibly afford to live in California and expect to lead normal lives? And then with the pension debt hanging over their heads their taxes will continue to soar. As we’ve seen, the government will have to steal their scholarship funds to pay the massive public pensions.

God help this nation. Even animals treat their young with more respect!!! 🙁

So says the real capitalist who travels the world! As long as you are sustainable, Donkey, you would prefer that those who served you are all socialists.

I suspect that you were the mediocre one, LIC. If you had been doing your job, you would not have had time to rag on those around you.

I sure wish that were true Donkey. My CalPERS pension only supplies half of our gross income. I do have a spouse with SS and a very tiny DB pension. I have the proceeds from my government 457 DC plan so that I can buy our groceries and pay the utility bills. Yes, I saved and saved while I was working. I am your standard lower, middle-class citizen. I cannot afford to live at the beach like you do. My private-sector counterpart was paid a lot more than I was–I was not born yesterday Donkey and LIC. The only difference between you and me is that I do not hate other people on the basis of what they lawfully did for a living. I am a private sector citizen at this time–retired from the public sector a long time ago. I am willing to pay tax increases that are necessary. You should be living in some of these third-world countries–it would serve you right.

Why do you chubby, greedy doomers pick on someone doing the right things as a productive, caring member of society.

Shame on you old trolls!