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June 20, 2012 at 5:08 am #760979
redblackParticipantkootch: cites? i gotta see whence your bloviations derive.
and, once again, meg, for posterity:
http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/pensions-2011-02.pdf
damn it, we’re talking about real, live, working people’s old-age benefits – most of which were paid for by the pensioners themselves – unlike my gold-plated cadillac fringe benefits.
you can claim that those pensioners were begging to be dragged into the stock market, but you’d be wrong. most people with pensions aren’t trying to get rich. that’s wall street’s bag. (and they did a good sell job getting people out of defined benefit plans and into defined contribution plans: less payment from the employer, more risk and less exposure for the investor. brilliant!)
but who do those pension funds hire for the administration of those funds?
wall street bankers… who now have large blocks of retirement investments to skim interest from.
so what do they do with all of that money?
they take risks in order to maximize their interest and fees.
anyone who dares to blame the pensioners or the unions who negotiated the terms of their retirements is blaming the victim. just clarifying a matter of semantics. you can’t equate pensions with their hired administrators; most pensioners don’t have a clue who runs their funds or where they’re invested, and, furthermore, they have no say in the matter.
and, by the way, taxpayers are wall street’s victims here, as well.
June 20, 2012 at 3:01 pm #760980
JoBParticipanttaxpayers are definately wall street’s victims here..
whether we had a personal dollar in the greed fest pot or not…
the god of profitability has United Airlines and other corporations flying strong while their employees are getting by on the pension security fund that taxpayers funded instead of the pensions they earned …
we the taxpayers picked up the tab on their pension benefit defaults…
just another example of the corporate welfare some will claim doesn’t exist.
June 20, 2012 at 8:28 pm #760981
kootchmanMemberAnother federally backed program! Yep… that’s what happens when you ask the federal government to assume risk. Take Fannie, Freddie, Federal Pension Guaranty, Student loans… and get the taxpayer off the hook. Pensions funds are not risk free. They are investments like any other. For gods sake you are investing… that means risk…Some pension funds work great, some aren’t worth a damn. If UA was a profitable company.. why is it dipping it’s beak into the ink well? would that United was a profitable compnay… but it isn’t. You also pay flood insurance for multi-million dollar homes who build on shorelines… ??!!! Now you are getting it JoB…. get the federal government out of private business. They are too smart for government. we will see redblack… just how that cadillac plan looks if we stay on this trajectory. Ever see the pictures of the lifeboats still lashed to the Titanic? when the ship goes down baby… all hands in the water.
June 21, 2012 at 12:11 am #760982
megMemberI wonder why my public educators taught: “Make your money grow” and “Your money should work for you”. Last I checked, money doesn’t “grow”, and it certainly does NOT “work”. I work. My squash and beans grow. Not money. The $10 I put on the kitchen counter last week is still only $10 this week and next year it won’t be a penny more than $10. And, it doesn’t work. I can go shopping with it, and get shit. It work good fer dat.
So you got some dough for your ‘future’, but you got no risk tolerance? Then, You got no odds of a retirement yield, so make your plans accordingly. You wanna make sure your ‘nut’ is there for you? Then don’t let someone put it on the casino table – change jobs if you need to. And don’t envy the guy that put on and won, and don’t try to emulate him. You could lose. That’s okay, most of us are watchers, not players. That’s what every public school educator should have been teaching. The nanny state didn’t give us the education that mattered most, huh? I think I’ll sue them.
Everybody right now is dying for a free lunch. A free lunch that’s gonna give them a comfy retirement plan. I’m gonna call it and say we already have the casino winners: the blue hairs won the free lunch. They retired into plans that paid off beautifully. They got SS & Medicare, nice pensions and annuities, homes purchased in the mid-20th century and sold at the peak, the promised wealth effect. Grandma and Gramps got ‘theirs’ and got it in the nick of time, and prolly will be dead shortly or before they see much of the train wreck ahead. Well, good for them. After all, they were born around the last depression and seeing another one so soon might be too shocking – esp. when it scars their youngest relatives who did nothing to bring this on.
June 21, 2012 at 1:57 am #760983
DBPMembermeg: Righteous!
Earlier, you asked what we thought should be done about the current situation. Well, here’s my opinion:
Â
Congress/President Obama:
1) Apologize to the American people for being so damn dumb and cowardly. Offer to resign. (We’ll think about accepting your offer, but we’ll probably forgive you in the end.)
2) Send Jamie Dimon and Chase a bill for the difference between what they paid for the Washington Mutual and what it was actually worth and return that money to Washington Mutual investors. Do likewise with other fat cats who made out big in the crash.
3) Call in any outstanding TARP repayments. Anyone who doesn’t pay up goes into receivership. Even auto companies.
4) No more bailouts. No more “too big to fail.”
5) Reinstitute Glass-Steagall and quit kowtowing to Wall Street. Shame!
6) Stop using the Federal Reserve to encourage people to play the stock market while discouraging them from saving their money. (Right now, CDs are at artificial and obscenely low rates. That’s by design. They want people to save less and play the stock market more.)
7) Raise the income tax on capital gains to discourage parasites who make a living off stock speculation and other non-productive activities.
Â
Americans:
1) Think.
2) Live simply. Live within your means.
3) Save your money. Don’t waste it on frivolities or get-rich-quick schemes and then look to the government to provide for you.
4) Understand that the stock market is a crapshoot; don’t bet any more than you could afford to lose at the craps table.
Â
There. Anything I’ve left out?
June 21, 2012 at 3:48 am #760984
kootchmanMemberYea one thing…. capital gains is the “gamble” money. If you have the appetite for it. All of you seem to forget, that capital gains was money invested after tax. The money put into speculation was already taxed. The Fed is also doing worse… they are adding inflation … the notion that “buy it now” cause it only gets more expensive is a rational way to consume. That would cover it.
meg I hate to see it… but we screwed the millennials to the floor boards… yet … they gave Obama this term. In sheer number you now out vote the blue hairs.. yet, they emulate the very ones that did them in. Next time you hear “liberal college education”… that’s what we were talking about. They don’t want the gravy train to stop… what better way than to train the future debt payers in ” the way” of the entitlement state.
You’ve got the votes… do unto them as they did unto you… vote for the party that will dismantle the apparatus. Actually we soon to be dead… did not see the depression… that was around 1930… it was the depression generation that created all that huge wealth and passed it along… we are creating hugh debts and that is what we are passing along. while we deserve it… please don’t burn us at the stake… some of us are very sorrowful.
June 21, 2012 at 2:13 pm #760985
JoBParticipantkootch..
nope.. that’s what happens when you change the law so that corporations can default on employee contracts in a bankruptcy reorganization..
when the pension guarantee was put in place it was backed by law that made employee obligations primary creditors…
when the law was changed to allow reorganization bankruptcy to avoid obligations to employees…
the taxpayer picked up the tab.
it’s nothing more than corporate subsidies..
engineered by the folks that you think should take over again…
June 21, 2012 at 2:14 pm #760986
JoBParticipantmeg..
“I’m gonna call it and say we already have the casino winners: the blue hairs won the free lunch. They retired into plans that paid off beautifully. They got SS & Medicare, nice pensions and annuities, homes purchased in the mid-20th century and sold at the peak, the promised wealth effect.”
do you understand how hard they worked for that “free lunch”?
June 21, 2012 at 2:18 pm #760987
JoBParticipantkootch..
there is only one problem with this argument
“You’ve got the votes… do unto them as they did unto you… vote for the party that will dismantle the apparatus.”
you want millenials to vote for the party that figured out how to game the apparatus to their own benefit…
meg.. take a look at the middle class standard of living when the apparatus was actually in effect …
and then that after Reagan started the process of dismantling it.
which outcome would you want for yourself and your kids?
don’t let them sell your their incredibly profitable pile of crap
June 21, 2012 at 2:48 pm #760988
kootchmanMemberYou should have the wealth the RR years brought upon us. He
WAS from the depression era. Tis a comfortable throne upon which we sit… because in part we were given opportunity, not 20,000 pages per year of new regulations… when we wanted to start a business. It’s not “the” party, it was the “parties” that pandered at our behest the massive entitlement state, debt ridden until we can pass if off to the next generation, Democrats have stolen as much as republicans could dare dream about… that 16 trillion in debt is a mighty big whopper… and 1/3 of it was piled on in the last three years. Yea. some worked hard for the free lunch… but then came the desert cart, the after dinner apertiffs, the limo ride home, the 50% tip to the wait staff… and on an on it went. .. and as time went on relatively fewer and fewer actually did the work… the rest were along for the ride.
Too bad thought the data doesn’t support such a silly conclusion…. half the airlines flying today and the hundreds of thousands of jobs still in existence are there because of reorganization under bankruptcy, what do you think will happend when I;; and CA have to pull the plug? You can bet their number one legacy cost… pensions and benefits will be trimmed,,, it’s all part of the deal. Course’… I would go for just shutting SS down entirely… letting the millenials off the ponzi scheme.. and keeping the bottom 10 per cent in a forced retirement savings plans. Medicare is broke in 12 years… so says the CBO… and SS for all intents and purposes is just a 14% income tax surcharge. e tool a system where 30 paid the benefits for one… to a system where the millenials will have 2 or 3 paying for 30 years for each retiree… wadda deal for them eh?
June 21, 2012 at 2:54 pm #760989
JoBParticipantkootch..
you are right.
i and my fellow citizens should have the wealth the RR years brought upon us.
but we don’t.
there was no trickle down
but it appears there was substantial trickle up ;->
June 21, 2012 at 2:58 pm #760990
kootchmanMemberIf you didn’t get some…. you were standing at the train station wondering what is that thing everyone else is boarding? There was lots of trickle down.. you spent it! The personal savings and investment rates fell tot heir lowest levels and debt rose faster during the years of the best personal gain. Binge drinking at the public well…. RR followed Jimmy Carter… and Romney will follow The Messiah… a little salt on the leeches and the host may yet survive. It needs some time to get the color back and build up the blood reserves again, The full flavored brand of government addiiction will have to go. God how dies it feel to be a millenial, and have over 120K in debt to service before you can even begin to think about yourself and your family… it must be so discouraging.
June 21, 2012 at 4:33 pm #760991
JoBParticipantkootch..
take a good look at the income stats since 1970 kootch…
the middle class is worse off now than it was then
and that was the point of trickle down.. wasn’t it?
what was tickling down was the middle class standard of living
but some Americans are doing ever so much better
that con job that they called trickle down
really enriched their bank accounts
“God how dies it feel to be a millenial, and have over 120K in debt to service before you can even begin to think about yourself and your family… it must be so discouraging.”
and to think..
they have good republicans like you to thank for that..
that must warm the cockles of your heart kootch
June 22, 2012 at 12:49 pm #760992
redblackParticipantmeg: did you read the article i linked in 51?
the reason why all of the old-timers got better benefits in old age was government bonds. their pensions were balanced with lower-return investments that were also lower risk.
now everyone is strutting around like dudes at the las vegas poker tables hoping to hit the next inside straight. and government bonds ain’t paying for [expletive deleted] because wall street can’t handle honest competition, and they got the fed to fix it for them.
June 22, 2012 at 12:51 pm #760993
redblackParticipantDP: when it comes to the financial meltdown, just what is it you think obama has to apologize for? or did you mean congress should apologize for abdicating their authority and leadership over the banks?
(i’m not asking you, kootch. i already know the drill.)
other than that, i largely agree with your seven theses.
June 22, 2012 at 7:49 pm #760994
kootchmanMemberYou just went on a tirade about lazy ass rich people getting tax breaks by buying low yield government bonds… which is it redblack… do you want to have low yield bonds taxed at normal income rates or not? Or, do want to keep tax free munis?
June 22, 2012 at 7:55 pm #760995
kootchmanMemberJob… in real dollars.. the middle class has more purchasing power per hour worked than ever in our history. That’s the good news. The bad news is they are eyeballs deep in debt and can’t take advantage of it. A country with the lowest savings rate of all the G-8’s and the highest personal debt… has no valid argument that they are diminished other than by personal choices. These are great times to be a buyer,… if your credit score isn;t sub 700..and better still you saved instead of borrowing,
June 22, 2012 at 8:05 pm #760996
kootchmanMemberJob
US Census Buereau
1969 median family income, $9, 430
2007 $31,100
and the average family size was in 1970 3.14
2009 2. 63
Soo… in four decades a 300 per cent increase and….then factor in the reduced size per household… and the rate is… 320 per cent increase.
Now compare the cost of government growth, taxes…in the same period have fun. Now you know what happened to most of that increase.. sucked up by taxes and government
wanna go back to 1970 government? No Department of Education would be one blessing.
June 22, 2012 at 11:59 pm #760997
WorldCitizenParticipantWhat does inflation have to do with anything?
June 23, 2012 at 12:16 am #760998
kootchmanMemberI rest my case. Inflation is the heart and soul of economics. How you live is the financial relationship between what things costs and what you earn. It’s also a trick of sorts, it’s calle monetary policy..it controls every aspect of your financial life and well being. At times, inflation has taken down empires. It is so sorrowful to hear that.. “what does inflation have to do with anything”…. and discouraging.
If you WANT to know.. most liberals prefer to ignore it… it’s inconvenient… but it has actually driven empires to war… and is the root cause of WW! and WW2…. the later being the final quarter of the first.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation_in_the_Weimar_Republic
When Germany couldn’t pay it’s war debts ( this is a famous banana republic trick..) the opposing powers GB and France accused Germany of paying them in worthless currentcy… made worthless by intentional inflation…unfortunately it took a full wheelbarrow of money for the German citizen to buy a loaf of bread… and the rest was the rise of the social democracy movement..
when we can’t pay our debts… we print money too… about 8 trillion in the last 3 years. So each dollar we spend is worth less than the dollar we borrowed. Our creditors get jumpy, your core necessities rise in price, your SS dollars buy less, … “s–t happens all over the place. Add inflation and stagnant wages and it get grimmer still…. things cost more and you don’t make more. Taxes go up up up up… but you still don’t make more. In fact what you do make goes down in value. Sooo the choice is spend your $10 today if you have it,,, cause it will only buy $8 worth of crap tomorrow even though the price tag is now $12
June 23, 2012 at 12:19 am #760999
DBPMemberJune 23, 2012 at 12:39 am #761000
kootchmanMemberFunny..! Now is that a banker or IRS agent or McSchwinn raising some stadium money? I guess it is universal.
June 23, 2012 at 1:22 am #761001
miwsParticipantJune 23, 2012 at 1:30 am #761002
Genesee HillParticipantYup, miws. That is a banker. Seattle style. I read some article, somewhere, that stated Kerry Killinger was the smartest guy in the room. Kootch must not have been in that room…
June 23, 2012 at 2:17 am #761003
kootchmanMemberSilly wabbit is back….
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