Of course nothing is risk free–even pensions. Detroit and Stockton retirees lost their COLAs and health care benefits. Greek pensioners are getting one fifth of their usual monthly pensions because the ATM’s have run out of money.

Pack and Ship!

Move with the Fair and Balanced shippers-

I’m a boomer and a doomer and a gloomer and a birther and a truther and a denyer and a slaver, but not a midnight DemoNcrat space cowboy…

There once was a time in this great land of ours, a long time ago, when the returns on a ‘defined benefit pension’ were tied to an archaic thing called the ‘actuarial rate of interest’. The actuarial rate of interest was the safe return you could get on cash in the bank, and although it did fluctuate, it was conservatively pegged at 8%, for the purpose of performing routine pension calculations, such as required contributions, levels of payouts, etc. Now to the casual reader the actuarial rate of interest may be as relevant as Morse Code, steam trains and women’s clothing made of black taffeta silk, but guess what kids, the 8% actuarial rate of interest LIVES!. Where does it live in this hyper-modern age, you ask? It lives in the compounding assumptions that are built into public employee defined benefit retirement plans! That’s right: in an age of real world ZIRP and even NIRP, guilded, cosseted and oh-so-beloved public servants get to assume a constant 8% return on their retirement funds every year! So where do these yields come from? Tax increases! Right again! Dang you guys are smart…..

Well actually that’s not true. Remember the student demonstrations over tuition increases and the students who got pepper sprayed at a UC campus? How about all that’s been reported about $1.3 trillion of student loan debt in the U. S.? How about the discussions if college is worth it? What about Cooper Union in NYC charging tuition (as much as $20,000) for the first time? It’s all partly an offshoot of bloated pensions given to college employees.

This slaver is buying a roll of Brawny Paper Towels to support Koch PAC’s.

The state doesn’t have to and probably won’t “pick-up” that 19.1%. It’s money that could be going to classrooms but is instead going to pensions. That’s fine with me because that will result in education budget cuts and not tax increases. And I assume you won’t mind paying your kid’s tuition of $4500 per quarter if he wants to go to UC. UC has big pension bills too.

There will be no middle class. Get used to beet soup!

Those midnight space cowboy DemoNcrats are gonna give you some of that gangster love…right up the….