patrick.net

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.

personal

marcus says

How do you spell clueless ?

F_O_R_T_W_A_Y_N_E

Can you kindly refute his ideas and give up the personal attacks?

marcus says

5% is a reasonable assumption

There are websites devoted to this. No reason to assume when there are online tools.

Onvacation says

Can you kindly refute his ideas

THe way it works has nothing to do with his ideas. He said 90% in 27 years. It takes 37.5 year to get 90%. The multiplier is 2.4.

AS for social security, I explained above. It gets substantially reduced unless you paid 30 years into it. I'm not sure how someone gets much more than 10 years in, if they teach from age 30 to age 67.

zzyzzx says

No reason to assume when there are online tools.

Maybe you don't understand, the online tools, if decent, require an assumption. If not, an assumption is being made for you. It's basically the reverse of the tools for calulating a mortgage payment. YOu have to choose an interest rate. If the tool doesn't ask you for an interest rate, it's becasue they assume you're too uniformed to come up with your own assumption.

marcus says

personal

Yeah, cut that out marcus.

personal

personal

Marcus, this is not a battle you will win. Stop with the personal attacks or you're going to get nuked.

Marcus you explain this to us then:

https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/all/ <-- millions earned a year, a lot of it is in education (probably main driver of the costs and debt). Students can't afford to pay tuition going into debt, and I see so many earn millions a year.

https://transparentcalifornia.com/pensions/all/ <-- millions in pay yearly which sure as hell doesn't add to to 37 years needed. Clearly there are ways to get around it. Let me remind you that people who pay taxes don't have even a fraction of those benefits and pay.

personal

personal

Government is for government. Period.

marcus says

www.youtube.com/embed/NjkNNDuAb9A

Wasn't trying to make you cry marcus. I apologize if I did. Just asked a simple question backed by data shown on transparentcalifornia.

marcus says

Maybe you don't understand, the online tools, if decent, require an assumption. If not, an assumption is being made for you. It's basically the reverse of the tools for calulating a mortgage payment. YOu have to choose an interest rate. If the tool doesn't ask you for an interest rate, it's becasue they assume you're too uniformed to come up with your own assumption.

I was looking at this one:
https://www.schwab.com/public/schwab/investing/accounts_products/investment/annuities/income_annuity/fixed_income_annuity_calculator
It doesn't allow you to put in an interest rate. But yes some of them do allow you to put in an interest rate. Actually the first one (I can't find it now) was an actual site where you can buy an annuity, so the rates were based on current annuity rates.

Right. AS I said, I'm really just trying to give a realistic estimate of what $5 million is actually worth in terms of a 30 year fixed income. But one where the people are managing it themselves rather than a guaranteed income stream of an annuity.

Arguably a pension should be compared to the latter. But, whatever. EVen over the next few decades, I would consider 5$ realistic for an actual annuity, but I'm sure not what you would get now.

MY estimate of 30 years was also obviously very high. The website annuity you showed is for a sort of life insurance annuity product, which is like a pension, in that the term is based on how long you live.

Fortwaynemobile says

Wasn't trying to make you cry marcus.

That's not me. It was a reference to our Fuehrer.

Marcus, you can "explain off" / rationalize, etc the gold plated benefits all you like, what-EVER.

This is the reality: many Californians will not agree to being tax donkeys for that stuff. Instead of arguing the merits, rationale, fairness, or whatever, we'll just leave for Nevada or some other such place. The Reno or Carson area is not so far away for us to visit the region or our relations who haven't yet followed us for Greener Pastures.

There have always been places with lower state taxes. That's nothing new.

I don't really think that California taxes are all that significant a part of the high cost of living in California. Housing is by far the biggest component, and I think we already knew that a lot of retiring boomers are going to have to sell - to take that equity for retirement and move somewhere where housing is cheaper. .

The sad thing about pensions is that more of us don't have good pensions. I don't really know. IF I had a job where my salary was 40% to 80% higher, with 401K options, and maybe even some matching on the part of my employer, would I complain about government workers pensions ? Perhaps. I think it's somewhat selfish and short short sighted.

Marcus, do you know what the typical salary for a college educated person (all ages groups, plus experience, not fresh out of college) is in the United States?

$65,000. Nor does it come with lifetime health insurance and a guaranteed pension with minimal contributions, usually just a 401k.

California Teachers are exceptionally WELL PAID and receive LAVISH BENEFITS that only Senior Executives have access to in the private sector.

The way to fix the problem is to increase the base pay 5% ONE_TIME_ONLY, then put all the responsibility for contributing to a pension on the Educator. ALL of it.