According to this article, former Oregon football coach Mike Belloti (1995 - 2008 as HC, 21 years total) is drawing a state pension of $46,000*.

Seems like over-generous pension costs are squeezing budgets in many states, which in turn is squeezing university budgets, including for athletics:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/14/busin...regon.html

* per MONTH.

(04-23-2018 12:15 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  According to this article, former Oregon football coach Mike Belloti (1995 - 2008 as HC, 21 years total) is drawing a pension of $46,000*.

Seems like over-generous pension costs are squeezing budgets in many states, which in turn is squeezing university budgets, including for athletics:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/14/busin...regon.html

* per MONTH.

1. Young people will likely never see a pension. Most of the state jobs are shifting to 401K's for the newer employees and are phasing out pensions.

2. Those who stayed employed for 30 to 35 years in jobs that traditionally pay less than than their corporate counterparts made a lifelong decision that was a trade off. They traded higher earning potential for end of life security. That needs to be honored.

3. The problem will die out. Boomers started retiring in large numbers in 2010. The last of the boomers will be retiring in 2028 but the tail end of the boom is not the bulge in the snake. Most of the bulge were born prior to '55 and will be retired by 2020. So by 2035 natural causes will have taken care of the largest % of this fiscal liability. And that's a very cautious estimate because it lumps the average life expectancy of men and women at 80 years which of course it isn't that high.

4. The short term attention on pension plans is in the news because it is in many states a protected fund that has not been raided to support bureaucratic wasteful programs or provide raises for current state workers at the expense of the retired.

So I don't fall for a lot of this hype. Does it create a budgetary crunch? Yes. But in many cases that yes is qualified because outflow to pay pensions comes out of funded account so it really doesn't create a "budget" crunch because the funds are earmarked. However in states, like Kentucky, where the pension plan has already been raided to pay for other state projects then heck yeah, honoring those commitments is coming at the expense of the current budget, but then that's not the fault of the retirees, but of rather it is the fault of crooked politicians who raided a long term fund for short term political gains.

So while it might affect what states can appropriate for higher education, in states where this is critical the reason is almost always traceable back to some hack political move to buy short term support at the expense of those who would serve well past the terms of those who passed them and robbed the fund in the first place.

What we should do is confiscate all of the personal property of those who were serving when the funds were raided. That would be justice.

Stupid people get you killed. This is why you should never elect shortsighted feel good types to public office. They are inherently self serving and therefore stupid.

(04-23-2018 12:50 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(04-23-2018 12:15 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  According to this article, former Oregon football coach Mike Belloti (1995 - 2008 as HC, 21 years total) is drawing a pension of $46,000*.

Seems like over-generous pension costs are squeezing budgets in many states, which in turn is squeezing university budgets, including for athletics:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/14/busin...regon.html

* per MONTH.

1. Young people will likely never see a pension. Most of the state jobs are shifting to 401K's for the newer employees and are phasing out pensions.

2. Those who stayed employed for 30 to 35 years in jobs that traditionally pay less than than their corporate counterparts made a lifelong decision that was a trade off. They traded higher earning potential for end of life security. That needs to be honored.

3. The problem will die out. Boomers started retiring in large numbers in 2010. The last of the boomers will be retiring in 2028 but the tail end of the boom is not the bulge in the snake. Most of the bulge were born prior to '55 and will be retired by 2020. So by 2035 natural causes will have taken care of the largest % of this fiscal liability. And that's a very cautious estimate because it lumps the average life expectancy of men and women at 80 years which of course it isn't that high.

4. The short term attention on pension plans is in the news because it is in many states a protected fund that has not been raided to support bureaucratic wasteful programs or provide raises for current state workers at the expense of the retired.

So I don't fall for a lot of this hype. Does it create a budgetary crunch? Yes. But in many cases that yes is qualified because outflow to pay pensions comes out of funded account so it really doesn't create a "budget" crunch because the funds are earmarked. However in states, like Kentucky, where the pension plan has already been raided to pay for other state projects then heck yeah, honoring those commitments is coming at the expense of the current budget, but then that's not the fault of the retirees, but of rather it is the fault of crooked politicians who raided a long term fund for short term political gains.

So while it might affect what states can appropriate for higher education, in states where this is critical the reason is almost always traceable back to some hack political move to buy short term support at the expense of those who would serve well past the terms of those who passed them and robbed the fund in the first place.

What we should do is confiscate all of the personal property of those who were serving when the funds were raided. That would be justice.

Stupid people get you killed. This is why you should never elect shortsighted feel good types to public office. They are inherently self serving and therefore stupid.

Those pension costs are putting a squeeze on entire states, not just state universities.

It's a tricky situation. On one hand, it isn't the retirees fault crooked politicians stole from their fund. At the same time, it isn't the fault of the hardworking taxpayer who paid in good faith every year.

It's going to have to come down to a choice. Either, in the case of someplace like Illinois, stick it to the taxpayer to the tune of another few BILLION or cut back on the pensions that were promised. My vote? You HAVE to cut back on pensions. It's no different than people who lost their proverbial backsides when the market crashed in 2007. Wasn't their fault others were crooked, yet they lost. Same level should apply to pensioners.

I do like your idea about going after the politicians, but I'd add let's also go after people who benefited from stealing from pensions funds. Any programs/agencies who's funding came from those shady dealings and those who took advantage of said programs/agencies.

Normally the answer to a headline with a question is always "no." It's known as Betteridge's Law of Headlines and is used sneakily to plant an idea even with a lack of hard evidence.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge..._headlines

However, the response to the OP is certainly "yes" and Betteridge's law is not applicable.

UMass and the state in general killed pensions a while back I think, but it still puts pressure on the budget, not to be mean, but waiting them to die off. Plus UMass has the problem of somebody collecting a pension is the brother of an FBI's most wanted - Billy Bulger, so it makes the papers or news now and then.

There should be some sort of monthly cap in these pension, say 10k a month. That would only affect the very highest of earners, but some of the totals in that article are ridiculous.

Just for myself personally, I'm only 27 but I certainly count on receiving a monthly pension as a main pillar of my retirement. Currently I pay 8.75% of my gross pay towards the fund and if I work with the state until retirement age I should receive roughly 60% of the average of my 3 highest earning years.

I suspect the payout and amount I contribute each paycheck to change as the years go on, but much like Social Security it will still be there. Fortunately the state of SC's fund if mostly solvent right now and hasn't been too badly abused by legislators.

(04-23-2018 01:13 PM)BadgerMJ Wrote:  Those pension costs are putting a squeeze on entire states, not just state universities.

It's a tricky situation. On one hand, it isn't the retirees fault crooked politicians stole from their fund.

The problem with the "politicians raided the pension fund" concept is that even if politicians never raided the fund, these plans would still be in deep trouble. That's because the fundamental problem is that the promised pensions did not bear any relation to the return on the contributions that the employee/employer made over the years. The promised benefit is simply much greater than the investment made by the employee via his/her contributions over the years can bear.

That's the basic problem with a "defined benefit" contribution plan: It seeks to do the impossible, guarantee something that by nature cannot be guaranteed, namely the future performance of the economy and market. But it is guaranteed anyway, so somebody has to pay.

E.g., if I work for the state, and the state says, "if you contribute $500 a month for 20 years, and your employer matches, when you retire, we will pay you a $3,000 a month pension, guaranteed", and it turns out that when i retire, the amount I contributed (and was matched by my employer) is only enough to pay out a $2,500 pension per month, because the stocks and bonds and funds the state plan invested in didn't grow as much as expected over those 20 years, then because my pension is "guaranteed", the taxpayer has to kick in enough to cover that $500 shortfall.

Now, one way to mitigate that is to not promise me so much. If 20 years ago i was promised a $2,500 pension on retirement, then the taxpayer wouldn't have to kick in, the pension plan would be self-supporting.

But, that's not often what happens, because the pension amount is often negotiated by a union, and the union of course wants the state to promise a lot, to be very generous. In the private sector, the union's desire for a high benefit is balanced by the company's desire to minimize its costs, so the bargain is usual a reasonable one (not always, see General Motors, but usually).

But in the public sector, the state negotiator has no such incentive, he's bargaining with taxpayer money not his own, AND, his boss is often a politician who wants the votes of union workers, and who may be receiving big campaign checks from the union, so the benefits promised tend to be generous, thus creating the problem described above.

This is why Franklin Roosevelt argued that public employees - including federal -should not be unionized. There is a basic conflict of interest there.

That's the real issue here. E.g., in California, there was a time that the state government tried to raid the state pension fund to pay for current spending, but the state courts quickly slapped that effort down and forced the state to repay the amount, plus interest. So in California, such raids have never effectively happened.

Nevertheless, the state plan currently has a $168 B unfunded obligation, and pension payments make up almost $7 Billion in this year's state budget, and growing, because the pension benefits promised were simply too much compared to what employees have paid in to it.

(04-23-2018 01:13 PM)BadgerMJ Wrote:  

(04-23-2018 12:50 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(04-23-2018 12:15 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  According to this article, former Oregon football coach Mike Belloti (1995 - 2008 as HC, 21 years total) is drawing a pension of $46,000*.

Seems like over-generous pension costs are squeezing budgets in many states, which in turn is squeezing university budgets, including for athletics:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/14/busin...regon.html

* per MONTH.

1. Young people will likely never see a pension. Most of the state jobs are shifting to 401K's for the newer employees and are phasing out pensions.

2. Those who stayed employed for 30 to 35 years in jobs that traditionally pay less than than their corporate counterparts made a lifelong decision that was a trade off. They traded higher earning potential for end of life security. That needs to be honored.

3. The problem will die out. Boomers started retiring in large numbers in 2010. The last of the boomers will be retiring in 2028 but the tail end of the boom is not the bulge in the snake. Most of the bulge were born prior to '55 and will be retired by 2020. So by 2035 natural causes will have taken care of the largest % of this fiscal liability. And that's a very cautious estimate because it lumps the average life expectancy of men and women at 80 years which of course it isn't that high.

4. The short term attention on pension plans is in the news because it is in many states a protected fund that has not been raided to support bureaucratic wasteful programs or provide raises for current state workers at the expense of the retired.

So I don't fall for a lot of this hype. Does it create a budgetary crunch? Yes. But in many cases that yes is qualified because outflow to pay pensions comes out of funded account so it really doesn't create a "budget" crunch because the funds are earmarked. However in states, like Kentucky, where the pension plan has already been raided to pay for other state projects then heck yeah, honoring those commitments is coming at the expense of the current budget, but then that's not the fault of the retirees, but of rather it is the fault of crooked politicians who raided a long term fund for short term political gains.

So while it might affect what states can appropriate for higher education, in states where this is critical the reason is almost always traceable back to some hack political move to buy short term support at the expense of those who would serve well past the terms of those who passed them and robbed the fund in the first place.

What we should do is confiscate all of the personal property of those who were serving when the funds were raided. That would be justice.

Stupid people get you killed. This is why you should never elect shortsighted feel good types to public office. They are inherently self serving and therefore stupid.

Those pension costs are putting a squeeze on entire states, not just state universities.

It's a tricky situation. On one hand, it isn't the retirees fault crooked politicians stole from their fund. At the same time, it isn't the fault of the hardworking taxpayer who paid in good faith every year.

It's going to have to come down to a choice. Either, in the case of someplace like Illinois, stick it to the taxpayer to the tune of another few BILLION or cut back on the pensions that were promised. My vote? You HAVE to cut back on pensions. It's no different than people who lost their proverbial backsides when the market crashed in 2007. Wasn't their fault others were crooked, yet they lost. Same level should apply to pensioners.

I do like your idea about going after the politicians, but I'd add let's also go after people who benefited from stealing from pensions funds. Any programs/agencies who's funding came from those shady dealings and those who took advantage of said programs/agencies.

There is a huge difference (see your bolded statement).

1. People delegated their right to manage their own portfolios in the crash of '07. Pensioners have money set aside for their retirement and never had the option to manage their own portfolios.

2. Most of those who lost money in '07 were also people who were still working age. Pensioners are not.

3. If a company mismanages your 401k you can change companies. You can't change your state government.

Most states gave you no choice but to contribute and then they control the funding and you can't switch. These are major differences. I lost 35% in equities in '07. But I managed my own risk fund which was in commodities. Therefore my net loss in '07 was less than 5%.

Had I been in retired in '07 it would have been ruinous. The added cost of health care at retirement is significant.

You need to do some serious evaluation here. What states should do when they run in the red is freeze wages, freeze hiring (except where crucial), and cut back utilizing a % of proration. All states waste way too much on crony job perks, and lack of oversight within the budget. The last place you should cut back is on those whose service length was 30 plus years of their lives and who have reached an age where in most cases work is no longer a feasible option.

I will place this curse upon you however. If you choose to cut out the earned benefits of a lifetime on those too old to replenish them by other means, then may the same fate befall your household when you are at that age. It's called karma.

(04-23-2018 12:50 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(04-23-2018 12:15 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  According to this article, former Oregon football coach Mike Belloti (1995 - 2008 as HC, 21 years total) is drawing a pension of $46,000*.

Seems like over-generous pension costs are squeezing budgets in many states, which in turn is squeezing university budgets, including for athletics:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/14/busin...regon.html

* per MONTH.

1. Young people will likely never see a pension. Most of the state jobs are shifting to 401K's for the newer employees and are phasing out pensions.

2. Those who stayed employed for 30 to 35 years in jobs that traditionally pay less than than their corporate counterparts made a lifelong decision that was a trade off. They traded higher earning potential for end of life security. That needs to be honored.

3. The problem will die out. Boomers started retiring in large numbers in 2010. The last of the boomers will be retiring in 2028 but the tail end of the boom is not the bulge in the snake. Most of the bulge were born prior to '55 and will be retired by 2020. So by 2035 natural causes will have taken care of the largest % of this fiscal liability. And that's a very cautious estimate because it lumps the average life expectancy of men and women at 80 years which of course it isn't that high.

4. The short term attention on pension plans is in the news because it is in many states a protected fund that has not been raided to support bureaucratic wasteful programs or provide raises for current state workers at the expense of the retired.

So I don't fall for a lot of this hype. Does it create a budgetary crunch? Yes. But in many cases that yes is qualified because outflow to pay pensions comes out of funded account so it really doesn't create a "budget" crunch because the funds are earmarked. However in states, like Kentucky, where the pension plan has already been raided to pay for other state projects then heck yeah, honoring those commitments is coming at the expense of the current budget, but then that's not the fault of the retirees, but of rather it is the fault of crooked politicians who raided a long term fund for short term political gains.

So while it might affect what states can appropriate for higher education, in states where this is critical the reason is almost always traceable back to some hack political move to buy short term support at the expense of those who would serve well past the terms of those who passed them and robbed the fund in the first place.

What we should do is confiscate all of the personal property of those who were serving when the funds were raided. That would be justice.

Stupid people get you killed. This is why you should never elect shortsighted feel good types to public office. They are inherently self serving and therefore stupid.

Pensions have had a set of problems. The concept isn't as awful as made out to be by some.

Problem 1. Temporary issue. Workers who spend most of their time with their employer but retire shortly after a period of high inflation with traditional pensions end up under-funded. Joe works 20 years making $8000 then retires making $30,000 because of an inflationary period, not enough was socked away to cover his liability. In the US, most people in this category have since died.

Problem 2. Ongoing but fading. Many pension plans were undone not by the liability for the income payment but because the plans were created when health care was cheap and health insurance was cheap. Those plans included health benefits, many did not even require retirees to sign-up for Medicare at age 65 to restrain expenses. Such plans are pretty much gone away though we still have a decent population of retirees covered by them. Big financial hits.

Problem 3. Starting to appear temporary. Actuaries in many cases failed to assess lifespan increases effectively. The slowing of lifespan increases, if it holds to be a trend, will negate this.

Problem 4. Ongoing. Corporate leaders and legislators seeing the big pots of money being held in reserve to fund pension liabilities who at worst getting friendly actuarial assessments to declare a pension over-funded to raid it or less severe, like an embezzling employee who thinks they can just pay it back without anyone noticing, issue IOU's to the pension plans for low/no interest loans, in the worst cases, they default on the IOUs.

(04-23-2018 01:13 PM)BadgerMJ Wrote:  

(04-23-2018 12:50 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(04-23-2018 12:15 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  According to this article, former Oregon football coach Mike Belloti (1995 - 2008 as HC, 21 years total) is drawing a pension of $46,000*.

Seems like over-generous pension costs are squeezing budgets in many states, which in turn is squeezing university budgets, including for athletics:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/14/busin...regon.html

* per MONTH.

1. Young people will likely never see a pension. Most of the state jobs are shifting to 401K's for the newer employees and are phasing out pensions.

2. Those who stayed employed for 30 to 35 years in jobs that traditionally pay less than than their corporate counterparts made a lifelong decision that was a trade off. They traded higher earning potential for end of life security. That needs to be honored.

3. The problem will die out. Boomers started retiring in large numbers in 2010. The last of the boomers will be retiring in 2028 but the tail end of the boom is not the bulge in the snake. Most of the bulge were born prior to '55 and will be retired by 2020. So by 2035 natural causes will have taken care of the largest % of this fiscal liability. And that's a very cautious estimate because it lumps the average life expectancy of men and women at 80 years which of course it isn't that high.

4. The short term attention on pension plans is in the news because it is in many states a protected fund that has not been raided to support bureaucratic wasteful programs or provide raises for current state workers at the expense of the retired.

So I don't fall for a lot of this hype. Does it create a budgetary crunch? Yes. But in many cases that yes is qualified because outflow to pay pensions comes out of funded account so it really doesn't create a "budget" crunch because the funds are earmarked. However in states, like Kentucky, where the pension plan has already been raided to pay for other state projects then heck yeah, honoring those commitments is coming at the expense of the current budget, but then that's not the fault of the retirees, but of rather it is the fault of crooked politicians who raided a long term fund for short term political gains.

So while it might affect what states can appropriate for higher education, in states where this is critical the reason is almost always traceable back to some hack political move to buy short term support at the expense of those who would serve well past the terms of those who passed them and robbed the fund in the first place.

What we should do is confiscate all of the personal property of those who were serving when the funds were raided. That would be justice.

Stupid people get you killed. This is why you should never elect shortsighted feel good types to public office. They are inherently self serving and therefore stupid.

Those pension costs are putting a squeeze on entire states, not just state universities.

It's a tricky situation. On one hand, it isn't the retirees fault crooked politicians stole from their fund. At the same time, it isn't the fault of the hardworking taxpayer who paid in good faith every year.

It's going to have to come down to a choice. Either, in the case of someplace like Illinois, stick it to the taxpayer to the tune of another few BILLION or cut back on the pensions that were promised. My vote? You HAVE to cut back on pensions. It's no different than people who lost their proverbial backsides when the market crashed in 2007. Wasn't their fault others were crooked, yet they lost. Same level should apply to pensioners.

I do like your idea about going after the politicians, but I'd add let's also go after people who benefited from stealing from pensions funds. Any programs/agencies who's funding came from those shady dealings and those who took advantage of said programs/agencies.

There is a VAST difference between Joe Worker putting his eggs in a retirement basket of investment opportunities and choosing to take more risk to gain more return and betting wrong, and Joe Worker putting his eggs in the basket of choosing to work for an employer that offers a safe GUARANTEED pension and have it taken away because the corporation CHOOSES to default on the pension rather than on other debt or a government entity CHOOSING to default on the pension liability instead of bonds.

(04-23-2018 02:00 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(04-23-2018 01:13 PM)BadgerMJ Wrote:  

(04-23-2018 12:50 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(04-23-2018 12:15 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  According to this article, former Oregon football coach Mike Belloti (1995 - 2008 as HC, 21 years total) is drawing a pension of $46,000*.

Seems like over-generous pension costs are squeezing budgets in many states, which in turn is squeezing university budgets, including for athletics:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/14/busin...regon.html

* per MONTH.

1. Young people will likely never see a pension. Most of the state jobs are shifting to 401K's for the newer employees and are phasing out pensions.

2. Those who stayed employed for 30 to 35 years in jobs that traditionally pay less than than their corporate counterparts made a lifelong decision that was a trade off. They traded higher earning potential for end of life security. That needs to be honored.

3. The problem will die out. Boomers started retiring in large numbers in 2010. The last of the boomers will be retiring in 2028 but the tail end of the boom is not the bulge in the snake. Most of the bulge were born prior to '55 and will be retired by 2020. So by 2035 natural causes will have taken care of the largest % of this fiscal liability. And that's a very cautious estimate because it lumps the average life expectancy of men and women at 80 years which of course it isn't that high.

4. The short term attention on pension plans is in the news because it is in many states a protected fund that has not been raided to support bureaucratic wasteful programs or provide raises for current state workers at the expense of the retired.

So I don't fall for a lot of this hype. Does it create a budgetary crunch? Yes. But in many cases that yes is qualified because outflow to pay pensions comes out of funded account so it really doesn't create a "budget" crunch because the funds are earmarked. However in states, like Kentucky, where the pension plan has already been raided to pay for other state projects then heck yeah, honoring those commitments is coming at the expense of the current budget, but then that's not the fault of the retirees, but of rather it is the fault of crooked politicians who raided a long term fund for short term political gains.

So while it might affect what states can appropriate for higher education, in states where this is critical the reason is almost always traceable back to some hack political move to buy short term support at the expense of those who would serve well past the terms of those who passed them and robbed the fund in the first place.

What we should do is confiscate all of the personal property of those who were serving when the funds were raided. That would be justice.

Stupid people get you killed. This is why you should never elect shortsighted feel good types to public office. They are inherently self serving and therefore stupid.

Those pension costs are putting a squeeze on entire states, not just state universities.

It's a tricky situation. On one hand, it isn't the retirees fault crooked politicians stole from their fund. At the same time, it isn't the fault of the hardworking taxpayer who paid in good faith every year.

It's going to have to come down to a choice. Either, in the case of someplace like Illinois, stick it to the taxpayer to the tune of another few BILLION or cut back on the pensions that were promised. My vote? You HAVE to cut back on pensions. It's no different than people who lost their proverbial backsides when the market crashed in 2007. Wasn't their fault others were crooked, yet they lost. Same level should apply to pensioners.

I do like your idea about going after the politicians, but I'd add let's also go after people who benefited from stealing from pensions funds. Any programs/agencies who's funding came from those shady dealings and those who took advantage of said programs/agencies.

There is a huge difference (see your bolded statement).

1. People delegated their right to manage their own portfolios in the crash of '07. Pensioners have money set aside for their retirement and never had the option to manage their own portfolios.

2. Most of those who lost money in '07 were also people who were still working age. Pensioners are not.

3. If a company mismanages your 401k you can change companies. You can't change your state government.

Most states gave you no choice but to contribute and then they control the funding and you can't switch. These are major differences. I lost 35% in equities in '07. But I managed my own risk fund which was in commodities. Therefore my net loss in '07 was less than 5%.

Had I been in retired in '07 it would have been ruinous. The added cost of health care at retirement is significant.

You need to do some serious evaluation here. What states should do when they run in the red is freeze wages, freeze hiring (except where crucial), and cut back utilizing a % of proration. All states waste way too much on crony job perks, and lack of oversight within the budget. The last place you should cut back is on those whose service length was 30 plus years of their lives and who have reached an age where in most cases work is no longer a feasible option.

I will place this curse upon you however. If you choose to cut out the earned benefits of a lifetime on those too old to replenish them by other means, then may the same fate befall your household when you are at that age. It's called karma.

People may have relegated the management of their portfolios to an investment company, but that didn't agree to allowing the entire financial system to be mismanaged by a few divisions of large institutions. It would be one thing if they ignored their fund and it lost money, it's a completely different story when ALL funds were devastated. There were MANY people who were only a few years away from retirement that had their entire savings destroyed. A person at 62 can't make that up quickly, unless you're OK with them basically having to work until they die.

The answers going forward are simple. One would be to take an Elastrator to the public unions. Once that's done, states can transition employees to 401ks. Another step would be to take a page from SS and raise the minimum age. Many states allow retirement as young as 55. That means that some would be able to collect for as long or longer than than paid in. Raise it to at least 62, go from there.

To answer your question, I'd turn the curse back upon you. The piper will need to be paid regardless. Sounds to me like you're advocating that those funds be guaranteed as well as payouts. The only way to make that happen in many places would be for taxes to skyrocket. You can only raise income taxes so much so the next step would be property taxes or sales taxes. I can't in good conscious ask people who paid taxes for years in good faith and managed to save enough for something like a home to lose said home because they can no longer afford the increased property taxes. Sorry, I won't kick people out of their homes to pay pensions. I won't force people to sell because they can no longer afford to stay in their family home. I won't make people choose to forsake some of life's pleasures because they can't afford to pay the sales tax on top of their purchase. People shouldn't have to live to pay the government.

My hope is that you never have to experience the karma of a family member losing a home, being kicked off their property, or forced to sell a business because their state decided to choose pensions over regular people who've done nothing wrong besides save for a house or start a business.

(04-23-2018 01:31 PM)Gamecock Wrote:  There should be some sort of monthly cap in these pension, say 10k a month. That would only affect the very highest of earners, but some of the totals in that article are ridiculous.

Just for myself personally, I'm only 27 but I certainly count on receiving a monthly pension as a main pillar of my retirement. Currently I pay 8.75% of my gross pay towards the fund and if I work with the state until retirement age I should receive roughly 60% of the average of my 3 highest earning years.

I suspect the payout and amount I contribute each paycheck to change as the years go on, but much like Social Security it will still be there. Fortunately the state of SC's fund if mostly solvent right now and hasn't been too badly abused by legislators.

A number entities are choosing a blended retirement system.
A defined benefit pension that is in theory "risk free" but pays a smaller defined benefit than the pensions of old coupled with an investment account that may or may not include an employer match.

It makes for a healthier system because the defined benefit makes it safer to accept a bit more risk.

Don't have links handy but I've read studies that show the typical worker ends up working about five years less than they planned to, typically because of issues of their own health or a close family member.

If you plan to work to age 70 and your spouse is diagnosed with Alzheimer's when you are 61 you are extremely unlikely to be able to remain employed to age 70 for example.

(04-23-2018 01:33 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(04-23-2018 01:13 PM)BadgerMJ Wrote:  Those pension costs are putting a squeeze on entire states, not just state universities.

It's a tricky situation. On one hand, it isn't the retirees fault crooked politicians stole from their fund.

The problem with the "politicians raided the pension fund" concept is that even if politicians never raided the fund, these plans would still be in deep trouble. That's because the fundamental problem is that the promised pensions did not bear any relation to the return on the contributions that the employee/employer made over the years. The promised benefit is simply much greater than the investment made by the employee via his/her contributions over the years can bear.

That's the basic problem with a "defined benefit" contribution plan: It seeks to do the impossible, guarantee something that by nature cannot be guaranteed, namely the future performance of the economy and market. But it is guaranteed anyway, so somebody has to pay.

E.g., if I work for the state, and the state says, "if you contribute $500 a month for 20 years, and your employer matches, when you retire, we will pay you a $3,000 a month pension, guaranteed", and it turns out that when i retire, the amount I contributed (and was matched by my employer) is only enough to pay out a $2,500 pension per month, because the stocks and bonds and funds the state plan invested in didn't grow as much as expected over those 20 years, then because my pension is "guaranteed", the taxpayer has to kick in enough to cover that $500 shortfall.

Now, one way to mitigate that is to not promise me so much. If 20 years ago i was promised a $2,500 pension on retirement, then the taxpayer wouldn't have to kick in, the pension plan would be self-supporting.

But, that's not often what happens, because the pension amount is often negotiated by a union, and the union of course wants the state to promise a lot, to be very generous. In the private sector, the union's desire for a high benefit is balanced by the company's desire to minimize its costs, so the bargain is usual a reasonable one (not always, see General Motors, but usually).

But in the public sector, the state negotiator has no such incentive, he's bargaining with taxpayer money not his own, AND, his boss is often a politician who wants the votes of union workers, and who may be receiving big campaign checks from the union, so the benefits promised tend to be generous, thus creating the problem described above.

This is why Franklin Roosevelt argued that public employees - including federal -should not be unionized. There is a basic conflict of interest there.

That's the real issue here. E.g., in California, there was a time that the state government tried to raid the state pension fund to pay for current spending, but the state courts quickly slapped that effort down and forced the state to repay the amount, plus interest. So in California, such raids have never effectively happened.

Nevertheless, the state plan currently has a $168 B unfunded obligation, and pension payments make up almost $7 Billion in this year's state budget, and growing, because the pension benefits promised were simply too much compared to what employees have paid in to it.

That's only partly true Quo. Had the funds been invested in even relatively low yielding funds the return over 30 years would have been enough to fund another 15 at a wage which is usually around 75% of the highest 5 earning years of the retiree's former wages.

The problem begins and ends with the management of the funds, period.

We're fortunate in that the State of Alabama enforces proration and the pension fund has not yet been touched, although those wishing to pander to younger voters in the state can't wait to get their hands on it. So far David Bronner has kept them at bay.

In every state where there are pension problems the issue is/or has been the oversight of the government with regards to the pension fund.

The same thing happened to Social Security in '65. Until Lyndon Johnson and his Federal Reserve backers who profited off of the national debt the SS fund had restricted access. So from Roosevelt until Johnson the fund was not only solvent but accrued at a rate to fund participants fully. Under Johnson he needed funding for the Great Society program and laws were changed to enable the borrowing against the SS Fund. To put this into perspective the national debt at the time of the Kennedy assassination was around 205 million dollars which was more than backed by what was then a stagnant economy. Not to mention we paid no interest on the debt because when we didn't have silver in reserve to back the dollar (blue seal) we issued U.S. Bank notes (Red Seal) which were non interest bearing promissory notes the government issued to itself. When the Fed under Johnson was free to run loose they lobbied Congress to increase the debt levels and issued Federal Reserve Notes to back it which came then at an interest rate of 3% to the taxpayer. The larger the debt grew, particularly on the war in Viet Nam (since many of the Fed backers in the U.S. were arms industries companies) they found a way to profit off of the backs of the people by lobbying for increases in war funds where they made 3%, in the purchasing of the planes, tanks, ships, and ordinance where they made more than 30%, and finally in exchanging their green sealed bills for rolls of U.S. silver coins which they shipped to overseas banks and sold the silver content at a profit. That led to a defensive move by the U.S. Treasury called the Federal Coinage Act which removed silver from the circulating U.S. Coins (except for the half dollar which was converted from 72% silver to 40% silver for the years 1965-70 before the silver was completely removed).

In all the years Since Kennedy was killed there have been 3 president who were not aligned with the Fed: Carter, Reagan, & Trump. All were attacked as buffoons by members of Congress from their own party. Why? Money.

From Johnson through Nixon the national debt grew from 205 million into the 10's of billions. From there it has grown into the 20 Trillion range today. The FED backers have made money hand over fist and paid out huge sums in lobbying to the Congress that does their backing. It is what Eisenhower meant when upon leaving office was asked what he feared most for America and Ike said the rise of the military industrial complex (the backers of the FED). In 1962 RFK started pushing JFK to disband the Federal Reserve system and return solely to backing the debt through the U.S. Bank Notes. He pointed out how the DNC was losing control of its representatives due to the money and influence of Fed backed lobbyists and pointed out to his brother how that was affecting the budgetary process of the Federal Government and creating a world in which the voter would have little to no influence in their own government because collectively they were being outspent by these growing behemoths of industry and their ability to buy influence.

Now what happens in the states, and in some cities are must microscopic models of what has happened in the Federal Government. Through the Federal Reserve we are draining our public funds into private hands. The same is true of the ECB. It will probably be the main reason the next World War is fought. The theft is colossal. But the root cause in every case is that at some point (1965 here) government officials became more subservient to entities than to the people they were formed to serve. And everywhere a nation has borrowed from those entities it has lost control over its own processes.

I don't care if it is Detroit, Birmingham, or Podunk municipality in Outback County. The process is the same.

Now ultimately the taxpayers are responsible, and we supposedly elect the officials who do this, only their campaigns are financed much more effectively by major business entities than they are by us.

Want to rezone some property to your advantage? Contribute heavily to the mayor's election. Want some sweet state road contracts? Contribute heavily to the governor and to key state House candidates. Want to bankrupt a massive super power nation? Loan them money.

So Quo while nothing i new about this, right now pension funds are fat, and these bastards are no different than Milken, or the fictitious Gordon Gekko. Where does the money go when the pension funds are raided? It's spent on projects that the backers of the lenders profit from.

I consider this to be treason of the highest order and simply marvel how the laws of the land have been manipulated to prevent the legal redress of the people.

(04-23-2018 02:24 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  

(04-23-2018 01:13 PM)BadgerMJ Wrote:  

(04-23-2018 12:50 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(04-23-2018 12:15 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  According to this article, former Oregon football coach Mike Belloti (1995 - 2008 as HC, 21 years total) is drawing a pension of $46,000*.

Seems like over-generous pension costs are squeezing budgets in many states, which in turn is squeezing university budgets, including for athletics:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/14/busin...regon.html

* per MONTH.

1. Young people will likely never see a pension. Most of the state jobs are shifting to 401K's for the newer employees and are phasing out pensions.

2. Those who stayed employed for 30 to 35 years in jobs that traditionally pay less than than their corporate counterparts made a lifelong decision that was a trade off. They traded higher earning potential for end of life security. That needs to be honored.

3. The problem will die out. Boomers started retiring in large numbers in 2010. The last of the boomers will be retiring in 2028 but the tail end of the boom is not the bulge in the snake. Most of the bulge were born prior to '55 and will be retired by 2020. So by 2035 natural causes will have taken care of the largest % of this fiscal liability. And that's a very cautious estimate because it lumps the average life expectancy of men and women at 80 years which of course it isn't that high.

4. The short term attention on pension plans is in the news because it is in many states a protected fund that has not been raided to support bureaucratic wasteful programs or provide raises for current state workers at the expense of the retired.

So I don't fall for a lot of this hype. Does it create a budgetary crunch? Yes. But in many cases that yes is qualified because outflow to pay pensions comes out of funded account so it really doesn't create a "budget" crunch because the funds are earmarked. However in states, like Kentucky, where the pension plan has already been raided to pay for other state projects then heck yeah, honoring those commitments is coming at the expense of the current budget, but then that's not the fault of the retirees, but of rather it is the fault of crooked politicians who raided a long term fund for short term political gains.

So while it might affect what states can appropriate for higher education, in states where this is critical the reason is almost always traceable back to some hack political move to buy short term support at the expense of those who would serve well past the terms of those who passed them and robbed the fund in the first place.

What we should do is confiscate all of the personal property of those who were serving when the funds were raided. That would be justice.

Stupid people get you killed. This is why you should never elect shortsighted feel good types to public office. They are inherently self serving and therefore stupid.

Those pension costs are putting a squeeze on entire states, not just state universities.

It's a tricky situation. On one hand, it isn't the retirees fault crooked politicians stole from their fund. At the same time, it isn't the fault of the hardworking taxpayer who paid in good faith every year.

It's going to have to come down to a choice. Either, in the case of someplace like Illinois, stick it to the taxpayer to the tune of another few BILLION or cut back on the pensions that were promised. My vote? You HAVE to cut back on pensions. It's no different than people who lost their proverbial backsides when the market crashed in 2007. Wasn't their fault others were crooked, yet they lost. Same level should apply to pensioners.

I do like your idea about going after the politicians, but I'd add let's also go after people who benefited from stealing from pensions funds. Any programs/agencies who's funding came from those shady dealings and those who took advantage of said programs/agencies.

There is a VAST difference between Joe Worker putting his eggs in a retirement basket of investment opportunities and choosing to take more risk to gain more return and betting wrong, and Joe Worker putting his eggs in the basket of choosing to work for an employer that offers a safe GUARANTEED pension and have it taken away because the corporation CHOOSES to default on the pension rather than on other debt or a government entity CHOOSING to default on the pension liability instead of bonds.

There is nothing guaranteed, ever. As Ben Franklin said "in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes."

We aren't talking about private pensions here, it's government pensions. Unfortunately, nothing can be done to change the past. It's what to do in the future and I can't condone bankrupting half the population to pay for pensions.

As another old saying goes "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”

(04-23-2018 02:27 PM)BadgerMJ Wrote:  

(04-23-2018 02:00 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(04-23-2018 01:13 PM)BadgerMJ Wrote:  

(04-23-2018 12:50 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(04-23-2018 12:15 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  According to this article, former Oregon football coach Mike Belloti (1995 - 2008 as HC, 21 years total) is drawing a pension of $46,000*.

Seems like over-generous pension costs are squeezing budgets in many states, which in turn is squeezing university budgets, including for athletics:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/14/busin...regon.html

* per MONTH.

1. Young people will likely never see a pension. Most of the state jobs are shifting to 401K's for the newer employees and are phasing out pensions.

2. Those who stayed employed for 30 to 35 years in jobs that traditionally pay less than than their corporate counterparts made a lifelong decision that was a trade off. They traded higher earning potential for end of life security. That needs to be honored.

3. The problem will die out. Boomers started retiring in large numbers in 2010. The last of the boomers will be retiring in 2028 but the tail end of the boom is not the bulge in the snake. Most of the bulge were born prior to '55 and will be retired by 2020. So by 2035 natural causes will have taken care of the largest % of this fiscal liability. And that's a very cautious estimate because it lumps the average life expectancy of men and women at 80 years which of course it isn't that high.

4. The short term attention on pension plans is in the news because it is in many states a protected fund that has not been raided to support bureaucratic wasteful programs or provide raises for current state workers at the expense of the retired.

So I don't fall for a lot of this hype. Does it create a budgetary crunch? Yes. But in many cases that yes is qualified because outflow to pay pensions comes out of funded account so it really doesn't create a "budget" crunch because the funds are earmarked. However in states, like Kentucky, where the pension plan has already been raided to pay for other state projects then heck yeah, honoring those commitments is coming at the expense of the current budget, but then that's not the fault of the retirees, but of rather it is the fault of crooked politicians who raided a long term fund for short term political gains.

So while it might affect what states can appropriate for higher education, in states where this is critical the reason is almost always traceable back to some hack political move to buy short term support at the expense of those who would serve well past the terms of those who passed them and robbed the fund in the first place.

What we should do is confiscate all of the personal property of those who were serving when the funds were raided. That would be justice.

Stupid people get you killed. This is why you should never elect shortsighted feel good types to public office. They are inherently self serving and therefore stupid.

Those pension costs are putting a squeeze on entire states, not just state universities.

It's a tricky situation. On one hand, it isn't the retirees fault crooked politicians stole from their fund. At the same time, it isn't the fault of the hardworking taxpayer who paid in good faith every year.

It's going to have to come down to a choice. Either, in the case of someplace like Illinois, stick it to the taxpayer to the tune of another few BILLION or cut back on the pensions that were promised. My vote? You HAVE to cut back on pensions. It's no different than people who lost their proverbial backsides when the market crashed in 2007. Wasn't their fault others were crooked, yet they lost. Same level should apply to pensioners.

I do like your idea about going after the politicians, but I'd add let's also go after people who benefited from stealing from pensions funds. Any programs/agencies who's funding came from those shady dealings and those who took advantage of said programs/agencies.

There is a huge difference (see your bolded statement).

1. People delegated their right to manage their own portfolios in the crash of '07. Pensioners have money set aside for their retirement and never had the option to manage their own portfolios.

2. Most of those who lost money in '07 were also people who were still working age. Pensioners are not.

3. If a company mismanages your 401k you can change companies. You can't change your state government.

Most states gave you no choice but to contribute and then they control the funding and you can't switch. These are major differences. I lost 35% in equities in '07. But I managed my own risk fund which was in commodities. Therefore my net loss in '07 was less than 5%.

Had I been in retired in '07 it would have been ruinous. The added cost of health care at retirement is significant.

You need to do some serious evaluation here. What states should do when they run in the red is freeze wages, freeze hiring (except where crucial), and cut back utilizing a % of proration. All states waste way too much on crony job perks, and lack of oversight within the budget. The last place you should cut back is on those whose service length was 30 plus years of their lives and who have reached an age where in most cases work is no longer a feasible option.

I will place this curse upon you however. If you choose to cut out the earned benefits of a lifetime on those too old to replenish them by other means, then may the same fate befall your household when you are at that age. It's called karma.

People may have relegated the management of their portfolios to an investment company, but that didn't agree to allowing the entire financial system to be mismanaged by a few divisions of large institutions. It would be one thing if they ignored their fund and it lost money, it's a completely different story when ALL funds were devastated. There were MANY people who were only a few years away from retirement that had their entire savings destroyed. A person at 62 can't make that up quickly, unless you're OK with them basically having to work until they die.

The answers going forward are simple. One would be to take an Elastrator to the public unions. Once that's done, states can transition employees to 401ks. Another step would be to take a page from SS and raise the minimum age. Many states allow retirement as young as 55. That means that some would be able to collect for as long or longer than than paid in. Raise it to at least 62, go from there.

To answer your question, I'd turn the curse back upon you. The piper will need to be paid regardless. Sounds to me like you're advocating that those funds be guaranteed as well as payouts. The only way to make that happen in many places would be for taxes to skyrocket. You can only raise income taxes so much so the next step would be property taxes or sales taxes. I can't in good conscious ask people who paid taxes for years in good faith and managed to save enough for something like a home to lose said home because they can no longer afford the increased property taxes. Sorry, I won't kick people out of their homes to pay pensions. I won't force people to sell because they can no longer afford to stay in their family home. I won't make people choose to forsake some of life's pleasures because they can't afford to pay the sales tax on top of their purchase. People shouldn't have to live to pay the government.

My hope is that you never have to experience the karma of a family member losing a home, being kicked off their property, or forced to sell a business because their state decided to choose pensions over regular people who've done nothing wrong besides save for a house or start a business.

Just a few miles from there is a major retailer where your pension plan is a mandatory contribution to a retirement account that invests SOLELY in stock of the corporation.

So Joe Worker puts in 35 years with the company and a year before being eligible for file for Social Security what happens if Amazon has driven that company to bankruptcy?

He's SOL. His mandatory salary deductions for 35 years have gone up in smoke.

Some years ago in a community a couple hours away, the largest bank in the area had an employee pension plan that held a great deal of the bank's stock. The CEO and largest shareholder approached the managers of the pension plan, all of whom worked for him as at will employees. He demanded that the pension plan sell him all of the stock at market value so he would have a majority of shares. The managers of the fund initially voted to not sell, things get tense, the stock bumps up in price a bit so they cave converting the stock to cash. Shortly after the sale, there is a press conference. The CEO is selling his now majority of shares to a competing bank at a 15% premium over the current share price. The employees sued and ended up taking a settlement of about an extra 3%.

Telling someone who is too old or too ill to work that that **** is just the breaks isn't a road I'm willing to go down, especially when that person has been out of the job market for a half a decade because they retired. There's no coming back.

States, counties and cities aren't being forced to screw their retired workers, they choose to. They could default on their bonds but if they did that it would be harder to spend out of general revenue.

(04-23-2018 02:37 PM)BadgerMJ Wrote:  

(04-23-2018 02:24 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  

(04-23-2018 01:13 PM)BadgerMJ Wrote:  

(04-23-2018 12:50 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(04-23-2018 12:15 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  According to this article, former Oregon football coach Mike Belloti (1995 - 2008 as HC, 21 years total) is drawing a pension of $46,000*.

Seems like over-generous pension costs are squeezing budgets in many states, which in turn is squeezing university budgets, including for athletics:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/14/busin...regon.html

* per MONTH.

1. Young people will likely never see a pension. Most of the state jobs are shifting to 401K's for the newer employees and are phasing out pensions.

2. Those who stayed employed for 30 to 35 years in jobs that traditionally pay less than than their corporate counterparts made a lifelong decision that was a trade off. They traded higher earning potential for end of life security. That needs to be honored.

3. The problem will die out. Boomers started retiring in large numbers in 2010. The last of the boomers will be retiring in 2028 but the tail end of the boom is not the bulge in the snake. Most of the bulge were born prior to '55 and will be retired by 2020. So by 2035 natural causes will have taken care of the largest % of this fiscal liability. And that's a very cautious estimate because it lumps the average life expectancy of men and women at 80 years which of course it isn't that high.

4. The short term attention on pension plans is in the news because it is in many states a protected fund that has not been raided to support bureaucratic wasteful programs or provide raises for current state workers at the expense of the retired.

So I don't fall for a lot of this hype. Does it create a budgetary crunch? Yes. But in many cases that yes is qualified because outflow to pay pensions comes out of funded account so it really doesn't create a "budget" crunch because the funds are earmarked. However in states, like Kentucky, where the pension plan has already been raided to pay for other state projects then heck yeah, honoring those commitments is coming at the expense of the current budget, but then that's not the fault of the retirees, but of rather it is the fault of crooked politicians who raided a long term fund for short term political gains.

So while it might affect what states can appropriate for higher education, in states where this is critical the reason is almost always traceable back to some hack political move to buy short term support at the expense of those who would serve well past the terms of those who passed them and robbed the fund in the first place.

What we should do is confiscate all of the personal property of those who were serving when the funds were raided. That would be justice.

Stupid people get you killed. This is why you should never elect shortsighted feel good types to public office. They are inherently self serving and therefore stupid.

Those pension costs are putting a squeeze on entire states, not just state universities.

It's a tricky situation. On one hand, it isn't the retirees fault crooked politicians stole from their fund. At the same time, it isn't the fault of the hardworking taxpayer who paid in good faith every year.

It's going to have to come down to a choice. Either, in the case of someplace like Illinois, stick it to the taxpayer to the tune of another few BILLION or cut back on the pensions that were promised. My vote? You HAVE to cut back on pensions. It's no different than people who lost their proverbial backsides when the market crashed in 2007. Wasn't their fault others were crooked, yet they lost. Same level should apply to pensioners.

I do like your idea about going after the politicians, but I'd add let's also go after people who benefited from stealing from pensions funds. Any programs/agencies who's funding came from those shady dealings and those who took advantage of said programs/agencies.

There is a VAST difference between Joe Worker putting his eggs in a retirement basket of investment opportunities and choosing to take more risk to gain more return and betting wrong, and Joe Worker putting his eggs in the basket of choosing to work for an employer that offers a safe GUARANTEED pension and have it taken away because the corporation CHOOSES to default on the pension rather than on other debt or a government entity CHOOSING to default on the pension liability instead of bonds.

There is nothing guaranteed, ever. As Ben Franklin said "in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes."

We aren't talking about private pensions here, it's government pensions. Unfortunately, nothing can be done to change the past. It's what to do in the future and I can't condone bankrupting half the population to pay for pensions.

As another old saying goes "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”

Fascinating choice of quote. Pun intended. Because one of the hold-ups to passing the constitution was the lack of a bill of rights that would protect the few vs the many.

Here in Arkansas our public pensions have done well despite the fact that the state pension fund has taken some serious hits financing or outright buying property owned by politically connected people.

(04-23-2018 02:56 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  

(04-23-2018 02:37 PM)BadgerMJ Wrote:  

(04-23-2018 02:24 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  

(04-23-2018 01:13 PM)BadgerMJ Wrote:  

(04-23-2018 12:50 PM)JRsec Wrote:  1. Young people will likely never see a pension. Most of the state jobs are shifting to 401K's for the newer employees and are phasing out pensions.

2. Those who stayed employed for 30 to 35 years in jobs that traditionally pay less than than their corporate counterparts made a lifelong decision that was a trade off. They traded higher earning potential for end of life security. That needs to be honored.

3. The problem will die out. Boomers started retiring in large numbers in 2010. The last of the boomers will be retiring in 2028 but the tail end of the boom is not the bulge in the snake. Most of the bulge were born prior to '55 and will be retired by 2020. So by 2035 natural causes will have taken care of the largest % of this fiscal liability. And that's a very cautious estimate because it lumps the average life expectancy of men and women at 80 years which of course it isn't that high.

4. The short term attention on pension plans is in the news because it is in many states a protected fund that has not been raided to support bureaucratic wasteful programs or provide raises for current state workers at the expense of the retired.

So I don't fall for a lot of this hype. Does it create a budgetary crunch? Yes. But in many cases that yes is qualified because outflow to pay pensions comes out of funded account so it really doesn't create a "budget" crunch because the funds are earmarked. However in states, like Kentucky, where the pension plan has already been raided to pay for other state projects then heck yeah, honoring those commitments is coming at the expense of the current budget, but then that's not the fault of the retirees, but of rather it is the fault of crooked politicians who raided a long term fund for short term political gains.

So while it might affect what states can appropriate for higher education, in states where this is critical the reason is almost always traceable back to some hack political move to buy short term support at the expense of those who would serve well past the terms of those who passed them and robbed the fund in the first place.

What we should do is confiscate all of the personal property of those who were serving when the funds were raided. That would be justice.

Stupid people get you killed. This is why you should never elect shortsighted feel good types to public office. They are inherently self serving and therefore stupid.

Those pension costs are putting a squeeze on entire states, not just state universities.

It's a tricky situation. On one hand, it isn't the retirees fault crooked politicians stole from their fund. At the same time, it isn't the fault of the hardworking taxpayer who paid in good faith every year.

It's going to have to come down to a choice. Either, in the case of someplace like Illinois, stick it to the taxpayer to the tune of another few BILLION or cut back on the pensions that were promised. My vote? You HAVE to cut back on pensions. It's no different than people who lost their proverbial backsides when the market crashed in 2007. Wasn't their fault others were crooked, yet they lost. Same level should apply to pensioners.

I do like your idea about going after the politicians, but I'd add let's also go after people who benefited from stealing from pensions funds. Any programs/agencies who's funding came from those shady dealings and those who took advantage of said programs/agencies.

There is a VAST difference between Joe Worker putting his eggs in a retirement basket of investment opportunities and choosing to take more risk to gain more return and betting wrong, and Joe Worker putting his eggs in the basket of choosing to work for an employer that offers a safe GUARANTEED pension and have it taken away because the corporation CHOOSES to default on the pension rather than on other debt or a government entity CHOOSING to default on the pension liability instead of bonds.

There is nothing guaranteed, ever. As Ben Franklin said "in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes."

We aren't talking about private pensions here, it's government pensions. Unfortunately, nothing can be done to change the past. It's what to do in the future and I can't condone bankrupting half the population to pay for pensions.

As another old saying goes "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”

Fascinating choice of quote. Pun intended. Because one of the hold-ups to passing the constitution was the lack of a bill of rights that would protect the few vs the many.

Here in Arkansas our public pensions have done well despite the fact that the state pension fund has taken some serious hits financing or outright buying property owned by politically connected people.

Well a quote from a fictitious member of another species is not exactly going to do it for me. What this really represents is the larger and stronger feeding off of the weaker. Is that what our government exists to propagate? If so then as Jefferson would say, "a little revolution is a good thing now and then."

And I'll add a corollary, "If you don't respect the rights of the one, you will never have respect for the rights of the many."

A whole lot of posts about a problem that's being extremely overblown considering the shelf-life of most college coaches. I mean Dabo is starting his 16th year at Clemson and under SC State Retirement he's just over halfway to earning his full retirement.

Mike Bellotti is literally getting one of the highest paid pensions in Oregon. This is because he worked at a very high paying job (Mike Bellotti's latest salary at UO was over a million dollars) for a long time (between being Offensive Coordinator, Head Coach, and athletic director, he was at Oregon for 21 years). That would be like saying that most people in the company is overpaid, because the highest-paid worker makes $5,000,000 a year.

Here are some actual statistics from the Oregon PERS. You can read them here: http://www.oregon.gov/PERS/Documents/Gen...umbers.pdf

The last report was done in May of 2017.

Average pension (monthly) for someone on PERS: $2,342 (or $28,109 per year)
For people retiring in 2015 (last year they have the statistics for): $2692 per month (or $32,300 annually)

The average replacement for people in PERS (means how much of their Final Average Salary they get) is 54% (meaning that the PERS system covered about 54% of their highest three years salary.
For 2015 retirees, the average replacement is about 44%.

If you're going to denegrate the hard-working public employees based upon the pension of one person, then at least read what people are going through. I'd hardly call $32,300 an exhorbant salary at retirement, especially when they'd had been making about $77,000 on average before retirement.

(04-23-2018 04:29 PM)Kaplony Wrote:  A whole lot of posts about a problem that's being extremely overblown considering the shelf-life of most college coaches. I mean Dabo is starting his 16th year at Clemson and under SC State Retirement he's just over halfway to earning his full retirement.

FWIW, the thread is about the squeeze being put on state budgets, and hence on athletic budgets at state universities, by the pension issue, not by the pensions of individual coaches.

I only mentioned Belloti's pension because the NY Times article did.

The real point here is that self-generated revenue is going to be at even more of a premium. As schools have to kick in more money in pension payments, and as pension payments squeeze state spending, athletic departments will be even more on their own than they are now.

Not a problem for a school like Clemson, with a large and supportive alumni base, but for G5, it will likely be an even bigger squeeze going forward.