patrick.net

MrMagic says

marcus says

All jobs should have pensions as part of the pay, to help protect people from themselves, and to force them to save for their retirement.

Why the fuck does the government need to protect you from yourself? Oh, that's right. it's the Democrats way of control.

Why the fuck can't you save for yourself, why does the government have to do it for you.

marcus says

By the way, fun fact: I was middle aged when I started teaching and my pension won't be more than half of my salary.

Just think if YOU started saving for retirement for yourself back in your 30's (like us responsible people did). Then you wouldn't need the government to bail your ass out.

How is it fair the taxpayers have to pay for your retirement when YOU screwed up and didn't plan for it?

Sadly, fair has nothing to do with it. It's power baby!!! Power to get what you want when the opportunity presents itself. And that happens to be when the union contract is up and the tax donkeys are hard at work, raising kids and wanting to be left alone.

Wake up tax donkeys.

marcus says

What I will say about government pensions is the same thing I've always said.

Pensions are a form of compensation. Nothing more or less. If you want to look at how teachers, or cops, firemen, or judges, or public defenders, or clerks in govt offices are paid on an annual basis, then by all means go ahead and include the annual cost of the pension in your analysis of their pay. If you think it's too high, and that paying people in government jobs substantially less is going to be good for the job market or for the economy (not to mention the public good), then hey,...have at it.

Yup, you always say that, but not what you need to say.......Why should government pensions be higher than what SS would provide?

marcus says

By the way, fun fact: I was middle aged when I started teaching and my pension won't be more than half of my salary. If I work in to my seventies, then it will be ever so slightly more than half of my ending salary ( I won't be doing that - I'll probably work full time until 68 or so, a little over 20 total years - with a pension less than half of my ending pay). So you need not envy me.

I'm going to give your a raise Marcus. Approx. 10.25% of your pay goes to CalSTRs so you never see it while working. So final pension (20 years of service) pay is:
48/89.75 = 53..5% take home pay (salary - retirement contribution).
And this also means a wannabe teacher can fritter their twenties away, start teaching at 30 and still retire with "max" take home salary after ~37 years of service (89.75/2.4). FICA is for suckers.

MrMagic says

marcus says

By the way, fun fact: I was middle aged when I started teaching and my pension won't be more than half of my salary.

Just think if YOU started saving for retirement for yourself back in your 30's (like us responsible people did). Then you wouldn't need the government to bail your ass out.

How is it fair the taxpayers have to pay for your retirement when YOU screwed up and didn't plan for it?

Actually, clever Marcus planned it pretty well. He will collect SS because he worked till his late 40's, and half his salary from pension as a teacher.
Marcus knows his 2+2.

EBGuy says

marcus says

By the way, fun fact: I was middle aged when I started teaching and my pension won't be more than half of my salary. If I work in to my seventies, then it will be ever so slightly more than half of my ending salary ( I won't be doing that - I'll probably work full time until 68 or so, a little over 20 total years - with a pension less than half of my ending pay). So you need not envy me.

I'm going to give your a raise Marcus. Approx. 10.25% of your pay goes to CalSTRs so you never see it while working. So final pension (20 years of service) pay is:
48/89.75 = 53..5% take home pay (salary - retirement contribution).
And this also means a wannabe teacher can fritter their twenties away, start teaching at 30 and still retire with "max" take home salary after ~37 years of service (89.75/2.4). FICA is for suckers.

I've been a sucker all my life.

marcus says

Is breaking promises, and ruining the lives of people that spent their lives working in service jobs really the solution ?

Yes, it is the solution.

Strategist says

He will collect SS

You would think, but no. THey ended that in about 1983. See SS WEP.

Strategist says

Yes, it is the solution.

I can see your true colors coming through.

marcus says

Strategist says

Yes, it is the solution.

I can see your true colors coming through.

My colors are very fair. Government workers who don't do much to begin with, have no right to retire 10 years earlier with full pay for the rest of their lives, while the citizens they should be serving have to keep working to pay for government pensions.
It's disgraceful.

marcus says

and ruining the lives of people that spent their lives working in service jobs really the solution ?

There isn’t much life left so not much to ruin! Anyway it’s hard to say your life has been “ruined“ because you’re making $80,000 a year instead of $120,000 a year for doing absolutely nothing.

I think California is a great place to open up the first boomer concentration-retirement camps. Start prototyping now before the rush. Get some voice-of-the-customer feedback then iterate the design.

just_dregalicious says

I think California is a great place to open up the first boomer concentration-retirement camps. Start prototyping now before the rush. Get some voice-of-the-customer feedback then iterate the design.

they already got those.

marcus says

I was middle aged when I started teaching

during the fallout from the dot.com collapse, I read an article in the SF Chronicle about teachers who started in middle age, and how their social security got messed up.

I did not know this, but California teachers are opted out of social security. It means, they don't pay into it, nor do their employers. They do the pension instead. The teachers who started late, would receive a low social security based on contributions before going into teaching. But, because they started late, nor would they accrue a large pension benefit.

I know one guy who was in the military for 20 years. He is elderly, but has been collecting a pension for 40 years now, and has taken advantage of every program, loan, subsidy, transportation, base privileges, degree program etc. on the basis of his service, and will probably live for another ten years.

The coupla cops in Cali that I have known all have gamed the system when they turned 50. It is a formula they all cynically follow in lock step. Once one of them has blazed the trail, they all fall in and consider it entitlement even if it is massively corrupted and based on bullshit.

One things about cops, though, I don't think I have encountered one who was not suffering from some degree of PTSD.

marcus says

You might only be aware of the recent coming to a head of a couple issues in the California supreme court. You don't see the progress much, from the other reforms becasue both calpers, and calstrs have lowered their assumptions about returns. But contributions to the funds have gone way up, and many of the the tricks for spiking or using accumulated vacation days have ended.

Getting rid of the pension spiking gimmicks like "air-time" was the lowest hanging fruit. I think the unions overplayed their hand fighting for that benefit as it has come back to bite them and opened up the whole "California Rule" issue putting the rest of the pension benefits in question.

Contributions have gone up now that CALPERS/CSLSTRS has reduced the discount rate to something more reasonable (it's still too high IMO) and the majority of the increased contributions are coming from the tax payers as Cities are diverting more and more of their General Fund money to keep up with their minimum pension contributions.

Again, we need EVERYONE chipping in so Cities don't go bankrupt during the next recession. If tax payers have to accept higher taxes and reduced government services to fund these pensions, it is not unreasonable or unfair to expect the government workers to do their part too..........and there is more to do.

B.A.C.A.H. says

The teachers who started late, would receive a low social security based on contributions before going into teaching.

No, it's much worse than that. They take the amount you would get based on what you've paid in, and they discount that by several hundred dollars a month.

https://www.ssa.gov/planners/retire/wep.html

Ceffer says

I don't think I have encountered one who was not suffering from some degree of PTSD.

I did not know that writing traffic tickets, sitting on your ass in office, sleeping in police cruiser for hours at a time, and frequenting Dunkin Donuts would give anyone PTSD.

Quigley says

for doing absolutely nothing.

Right. I've done a lot of different kinds of work. The work I do now is by far the hardest. And the longest hours too.

Strategist says

Government workers who don't do much to begin with, have no right to retire 10 years earlier with full pay for the rest of their lives, while the citizens they should be serving have to keep working to pay for government pensions.
It's disgraceful.

Again it's compensation. It's simply the deal they got going in. It's only the so called saftey workers that can retire early, although I guess some teachers can retire at 62 if they started at 22.,

If you think being a cop or a fireman for 30 to 35 years is such a sweet deal, you should have done it yourself, instead of being envious of those that did.

It's disgraceful

What's disgraceful is how many petty, pathetic and self centered assholes there are in America, that gave us Trump.

d6rB says

Ceffer says

I don't think I have encountered one who was not suffering from some degree of PTSD.

I did not know that writing traffic tickets, sitting on your ass in office, sleeping in police cruiser for hours at a time, and frequenting Dunkin Donuts would give anyone PTSD.

They get PTSD the moment they figure out how much it pays.

The PTSD comes from paradigm collapse when they see how brutish, mean, violent, depraved, petty, greedy, short sighted, idiotic, vicious and disgusting real human beings are. And that's just the lawyers and politicians.

Ceffer says

One things about cops, though, I don't think I have encountered one who was not suffering from some degree of PTSD.

Truth. Have a family friend who was shot in the shoulder in the line of duty and is now on permanent disability. Not only that, but his knees are totally fucked up from taking down/tackling/cuffing resistive perps. Constantly on painkillers, basically he's addicted to codeine and miserable. But hey, that pension!

marcus says

Pensions are a form of compensation. Nothing more or less. If you want to look at how teachers, or cops, firemen, or judges, or public defenders, or clerks in govt offices are paid on an annual basis, then by all means go ahead and include the annual cost of the pension in your analysis of their pay.

When I add in the value of their pensions, and I do, public employees are compensated vastly greater than private company employees.

tovarichpeter says

If you think being a cop or a fireman for 30 to 35 years is such a sweet deal, you should have done it yourself, instead of being envious of those that did.

Evan F. says

Truth. Have a family friend who was shot in the shoulder in the line of duty and is now on permanent disability. Not only that, but his knees are totally fucked up from taking down/tackling/cuffing resistive perps. Constantly on painkillers, basically he's addicted to codeine and miserable. But hey, that pension!

Please cry me a river about cops. According to this graph, they should be at the bottom of occupations deserving early retirement and lucrative pensions.
Loggers and fishermen are more than 10 times deserving of everything.

zzyzzx says

When I add in the value of their pensions, and I do, public employees are compensated vastly greater than private company employees.

That perception is a relatively recent phenomenon. It's funny really.

Consider a retiring cop, who started in 1985. Do you think anyone thought they were so much better paid, when he committed his life to that job ?

Sure, after several decades of "trickledown" ass rape, now even having a pension seems unfair to far too many people.

First off, I would argue that your perception of "vastly greater" doesn't take into account the pay in early years in those jobs, and that many don't stick with it, and move to the private sector. Especially teachers. If you think teachers are over compensated, then you are simply uninformed.

Secondly, if you have any sense at all, then you know that cutting public sector compensation ultimatley hurts the private sector workers. It takes money out of our consumption driven economy, and it lowers the market price of labor.

How is that a good thing, other than the pleasure you get from seeing others suffer ?

you know that cutting public sector compensation ultimatley hurts the private sector workers. It takes money out of our consumption driven economy, and it lowers the market price of labor.

yet you are for illegal immigration....

marcus says

then you know that cutting public sector compensation ultimatley hurts the private sector workers

Only if all those LA Teachers are retiring in LA. Otherwise, they cash their checks, go to the doctor, go grocery shopping, and buy homes in... Arizona.

But LA businesses and workers, not Arizona companies and employees, pay for it.

TwoScoopsOfSpaceForce says

marcus says

then you know that cutting public sector compensation ultimatley hurts the private sector workers

Only if all those LA Teachers are retiring in LA. Otherwise, they cash their checks, go to the doctor, go grocery shopping, and buy homes in... Arizona.

But LA businesses and workers, not Arizona companies and employees, pay for it.

Everyone who gets CA pension retires outside of it, pays no taxes. call it winning?

Logging kind of makes sense as a dangerous job but I'm a little confused about refuse and recycling collectors... isn't that what bums do all the time for free?

AARP says to have 10-15 times your annual salary in your retirement nest egg.

If you make $100k then have $1m. How exactly do teachers and police officers make the $500k/year which would equate to $5m nest egg?

Yeah. Public service runs us, we are the donkeys. It must end. It’s disgraceful. It incentivizes people to suckle a public service job which does little benefit instead of making real economic impact. Brain drain leaving private sector to go for a public boon doggle.

FortWayneIndiana says

they already got those

Not the kind I'm talking about.

Fortwaynemobile says

Everyone who gets CA pension retires outside of it, pays no taxes. call it winning?

Ah, that's another big angle!

"Pay big taxes to support me, your excellent civil servant"
"Thanks for the big retirement pension! Now I'm moving to spend the income you give me in a low tax state"

whitewater says

How exactly do teachers and police officers make the $500k/year which would equate to $5m nest egg?

Pulled your numbers out of where ?

$5 million annuitized at 5% is 250K a year for 30 years. How many retired teachers do you think get even a 4th of that ?

They and their employers pay into the fund for 35 to 40 years if they are getting a pension close to their ending salary, and their take home during the early and middle years in, is less (than comparable jobs with comparable years in) since their benefits are higher. They simply get part of their pay in the form of contributions to their pensions. OR they are supposed to anyway. Govt, seem to love postponing contributions.

whitewater says

It incentivizes people to suckle a public service job which does little benefit

Sure. Good teachers and cops provide little benefit. Wtf ? What;s wrong with you people ?

You're going to take issue with the fact that I said "good teachers and good cops." Okay, then explain how markets give us relatively better cops and teachers for less money. The economic laws (supply and demand) apparently simply don't apply when it comes to the public sector, which by the way is a significant part of the job market ?

marcus says

$5 million annuitized at 5% is 250K a year for 30 years. How many retired teachers do you think get even a 4th of that ?

Does that include medical insurance?

I've never had a public leech job, maybe you can answer.

marcus says

Pulled your numbers out of where ?

$5 million annuitized at 5% is 250K a year for 30 years. How many retired teachers do you think get even a 4th of that ?

https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/2017/university-of-california/

Sure not everyone is at the top, but man some people are collecting millions, while others are making 50k (plus 50k pension) = 100k salary.

Here are pensions:
https://transparentcalifornia.com/pensions/all/

It's not like it's a secret where money is going. Education is where some collect millions annually. Fucking theft.

I don't think double dipping pensions should be allowed, I don't see why cops and firefighters should collect double pension through DROP program, etc... this is just theft at this point, and is the reason why we are broke every year.

$5m comes from the article cited in the original post.

That limit rises with inflation and is generous — someone without a pension would have to save about $5 million in their retirement account to have a similar guaranteed income.

Ceffer says

One things about cops, though, I don't think I have encountered one who was not suffering from some degree of PTSD.

I have a retired cop living behind me. Finicky fuck, if any of my trees grow a branch over the wall he flips a fit. Not friendly, has a sign in his front yard warning away pretty much anyone. If I had a few grand to throw away I’d build that wall ten feet higher!

Chicago too:
http://patrick.net/post/1320983/2018-12-19-pay-up-you-fucks

marcus says

$5 million annuitized at 5% is 250K a year for 30 years

Is 5% the current annuity rate?

Booger says

Is 5% the current annuity rate?

I didn't mean to use the word as representing an annuity investment product. But when you do a financial calculation (i used a calculator function) to find out what payment you could get monthly or annually on an amount of money that starts in this case at $5 million and goes to zero over a period of time, with equal payments paid out over that time (basically an annuity) I chose 30 years for the time frame and 5% for the interest rate (or internal rate of return).

5% is a reasonable assumption. You can do better than that in the stock market. A bit worse with bonds. A person would probably have a portfolio and not an annuity for the whole thing, paying out fixed payments. But the annuity calculation I described is the way to do it, and it requires an interest rate assumption. 5% is fairly conservative.

B.A.C.A.H. says

marcus says

I was middle aged when I started teaching

during the fallout from the dot.com collapse, I read an article in the SF Chronicle about teachers who started in middle age, and how their social security got messed up.

I did not know this, but California teachers are opted out of social security. It means, they don't pay into it, nor do their employers. They do the pension instead. The teachers who started late, would receive a low social security based on contributions before going into teaching. But, because they started late, nor would they accrue a large pension benefit.

27 years = 90% of last salary plus benefits (average of last 2 years, something like that). Starting at 30, they can work will 57 and get full pension. then get another job and get a second pension. or just retire and not wait till social security which kicks in at 65-70 depending on your retirement age.