patrick.net

Booger says

Why the fuck does anyone who is a taxpayer stay in California?

For me it's the weather and surf. But it is expensive.

Ironman says

So if they divert a higher percentage of the budget to the pensions, how do the rest of the bills get paid with a smaller remainder of funds?

Last time I checked every state politician has pet projects and there are infinite ways to spend money and nearly infinite places where cuts can be made. This whole problem was caused becasue politician kicked the can down the road for many years. As I mentioned, some did this gleefully in the hopes of destroying the pension system. I know it makes you sad when you hear that this will now be less likely to happen.

Ironman says

Except the data came from the California Policy Center.... oops... Are they propaganda too?

Quote me where in the California policy Center piece it refers to taxpayers (at the level of the taxpayer) being affected, as the zerohedge piece does, even in it's headline.

You don't even realize when you're being manipulated.

Yes, I'm sure some of those 20 counties where pension costs are over 10% may be affected with property tax increases or other tax increases. But that doesn't mean the generalization makes sense as anything more than red meat for right wingers.

marcus says

Most teacher pensions in California, including mine, are not part of CalPers.

You are in Calstrs, and that fund is a shit show too. San Diego is having to lay off hundreds of teachers because they can't afford the increased pension payments.
http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/education/sd-me-unified-reductions-20170222-story.html

marcus says

Amazing isn't it ? You get a democrat governor (Brown) in combination with a democrat state congress and they actually address the unfunded liabilities issue. Republicans would have gleefully allowed it to become so underfunded as to cause the entire pension system ruin. It's called starve the beast.

It's unfunded alright. Teachers and government workers haven't contributed anywhere near enough of their annual pay or time in the job to allow for the super generous pension benefits they expect to receive.

Hopefully the California State Supreme Court will do the right thing later this year and rule that government pensions can be renegotiated instead of simply raising taxes, shafting bond holders and reducing services.

EVERYONE needs to have skin in the game. That includes you. California already has some of the highest taxes in the country along with the highest poverty rate. Government workers should not be a protected class of workers that are immune to mathematical reality.

socal2 says

EVERYONE needs to have skin in the game. That includes you

The solutions that have been implemented since 2014 did include an increase in my contribution. The other increase were on the employer side, and the state kicks in too.

THankfully Brietbart os on top of this isssue.

http://www.breitbart.com/california/2016/03/18/10-of-taxes-now-go-to-pensions-in-5-cal-counties/

marcus says

socal2 says

EVERYONE needs to have skin in the game. That includes you

The solutions that have been implemented since 2014 did include an increase in my contribution. The other increase were on the employer side, and the state kicks in too.

Dear Marcus,
We, the taxpayer are your employers. Why should we pay more than 3%, which is the norm, pay more towards your pension?
You don't pay more for my retirement, why should I have to pay more for yours?

Yours Truly,
Strategist that gets screwed by all.

So let's say there are hundred of categories in a state budget. Is CIC saying that every time the spending in a category goes up, the taxpayers are getting an increase in their tax bill, and every time a category is decreased they get a tax cut ? IF this were the case, wouldn't it mean that every year you get dozens of tax increases and dozens of tax decreases ?

This is not the way that most intelligent people look at it.

Strategist says

You don't pay more for my retirement, why should I have to pay more for yours?

I don't pay your salary either, and yet you pay towards mine. IT's called a government job, and the pension is simply part of the salary. This was part of the salary offer I was offered when I went to work in this job. Do you not think the number and quality of applicants for a job is affected by the compensation ? And do you not think that the quality of the people ultimately hired is in turn affected by the number of quality candidates that apply ?

marcus says

Strategist says

You don't pay more for my retirement, why should I have to pay more for yours?

I don't pay your salary either, and yet you pay towards mine. IT's called a government job, and the pension is simply part of the salary. This was part of the salary offer I was offered when I went to work in this job.

Thanks to the extortionist Unions that blackmailed us.

marcus says

Do you not think the number and quality of applicants for a job is affected by the compensation ?

Yes, that's obvious.

marcus says

And do you not think that the quality of the people ultimately hired is in turn affected by the number of quality candidates that apply ?

No, I don't. It's who you know, not what you know.

Do you think think the unions make it hard to fire bad teachers?

Ironman says

See the quote "borne by the taxpayers throughout the county

Yes, that's why I made the concession that some taxpayers are probably affected (meaning - with increases - but I don't know)..

marcus says

Yes, I'm sure some of those 20 counties where pension costs are over 10% may be affected with property tax increases or other tax increases. But that doesn't mean the generalization makes sense as anything more than red meat for right wingers.

Everyone knows that taxpayers fund state and local governments. But when a budget item increases as a percentage of the budget this simply does not translate to a definitive increase in taxpayers tax bills. In fact, when we're talking about a pension fund - not paying sufficiently in to it, is a certain way to guarantee tax increases later - unless as someone mentioned the strategy can be used to get courts to help the state not honor its contractual commitments to workers.

I get it that right wingers think that type of thing is really nifty. Let's not look to not make promises we can't keep. Let's instead simply break promises. It's the new thing. I guess that's why we have Trump as President, the guy that doesn't pay contractors what he agreed to pay them before they did the work.

Strategist says

Thanks to the extortionist Unions that blackmailed us.

A lie.

Strategist says

Do you think think the unions make it hard to fire bad teachers?

I think that they make it harder than it would be, but that bad teachers are forced out. At the same time they are protecting far more good and great teachers. And yes, without union contracts, they would be figuring out ways to replace 50 year old teachers making 75K with teachers with young teachers making 40K. This would be a directive from the downtown administrative levels of people that spend all day in circle jerk meetings. The 40K teachers they would be getting would not be as good as the ones coming in now, becasue of the lack of upside and job security. IT would save even more money though, becasue so few would be around long enough to collect much of a pension.

Ironman says

marcus says

when we're talking about a pension fund - not paying sufficiently in to it, is a certain way to guarantee tax increases later

So, to offset your lack of understanding that taxes will need to be raised to pay these pensions, you go off in some unknown straw man:

It's not a straw man. According to you, not paying in to a pension fund for a year is a wonderful tax decrease to the taxpayers.

Ironman says

What the fuck does Trump have to do with the fact that the taxpayers in CA are going to get screwed paying for YOUR pension???

Unbelievable.....

Just remembering that Trump is famous for not honoring commitments he made to workers.

Big government just makes more government, to a point where it grows for it's own sake.

Strategist says

marcus says

And do you not think that the quality of the people ultimately hired is in turn affected by the number of quality candidates that apply ?

No, I don't. It's who you know, not what you know.

This is simply wrong in the education world. Sure, sometimes at a good school, an alumni has a little better chance of being hired, but that' often going to be a great hire. The type of person that wants to teach back at their school after going to college and a credentialing program is likely a great candidate. Otherwise teachers being hired becasue of connections is rare. In law enforcement too, I don't see how you can make the argument that the quality of the candidate pool is not highly affected by compensation.

It is true though, that if the compensation was lowered, you would eventually have way more crooked cops and way more bad teachers. This s what would happen if you took unions away and gradually lowered the compensation and job security for those jobs.

Lashkar_i_Trumpi says

Notice this is like the first 24-hour period where the MSM and GOPe isn't being critical of Trump.

Pretty amazing. Doesn't anyone realize trump is moving us into involvement in yet another unwinnable civil war with his intention being to fight against both sides? What could go wrong? Obama was a bonehead, but staying out of syria was one of his better moves. There simply is no winning play in syria.

Our cruise missile factories could go on strike...

bob2356 says

? What could go wrong?

Strategist says

You are OK with genocidal maniacs wiping out the Yazidis and selling their their women as slaves?

You are sick.

As long as it involves keeping secular leaders in power and on their side of tracks, it beats bringing in refugees from said countries

bob2356 ... Obama didn't stay out of Syria. He used immense political pressure as well as deployed special forces units, drones, supported rebel opposition once those actors where more known, etc. He also very much wanted to strike but congress and political will from US and U.K. wasn't forthcoming.

The difference here with Trump is he did a unilateral strike, without congressional approval. This is actually the strike Obama had planned, scaled back to one airfield. A smart call by the NSC due to how many Russians are sprinkled throughout military installations in Syria now.

Any nation who uses chemical weapons should fear intervention by the US ... and fear our absolute cluster F of an administration too. The UN really doesn't have the capability to intervene in Syria.

Ironman says

bob2356 says

Obama was a bonehead, but staying out of syria was one of his better moves.

Really?? Staying out??

ha ha ha
Obama did not stay out of Syria, and screwed up anyway. What a loser.

marcus says

get it that right wingers think that type of thing is really nifty. Let's not look to not make promises we can't keep. Let's instead simply break promises. It's the new thing. I guess that's why we have Trump as President, the guy that doesn't pay contractors what he agreed to pay them before they did the work.

Oh come off it! Right now "promises are being broken" to millions of people in California with reduced government services, higher taxes, and bond holders getting the shaft just to keep government pensions afloat. How about all the poor people in Stockton and San Bernardino who are seeing their cities crumble and increased crime because the City government can't keep up with basic services and pay into the pension fund?

Everyone is getting a shit sandwich except the protected government bureaucracy.

My retirement fund in the Private Sector is not protected or guaranteed by the tax payer. Why should a government worker's GENEROUS retirement be guaranteed when it is invested in the same stock market that my retirement fund is in?

Face it - if you want to have any kind of pension when you retire, you are probably going to have to work longer, contribute more to your retirement and accept a smaller benefit.

marcus says

No, I don't. It's who you know, not what you know.

This is simply wrong in the education world.

They hire teachers based on paper qualifications, not necessarily someone with teaching skills who love to teach.
The result.....You have teachers who don't want to teach, and students who don't want to learn. Unions make it impossible to reverse the mess. What a disaster.

Here's what Obama did. He tried to get Congress on board instead of unilaterally striking. Congress was Republican and might very well have impeached him. Congress balked, and he used the pressure to get a deal to get rid of a lot of chemical weapons. He got rid of all of the chemical weapons that we knew about, which was by definition more than we ever could have gotten rid of by bombing. He also managed to keep enough pressure on Assad and Russia so that they did not use illegal chemical weapons again while Obama was in power. If you care about chemical weapon proliferation and use of chemical weapons, then this record is pretty good. Obama also managed to not let the US get dragged into another all out war costing trillions and hundreds of thousands due to US intervention. This is very good. What he didn't do was stop Russia from helping Assad kill a shit load of people. The US also looked a bit unclear about our red lines, because our government could not agree on a military solution. On the other hand, the big chemical weapons attack that he did do led to the destruction of a lot of (probably most of) Assad's chemical weapons stockpile.

Here's what Trump has done. Not much yet. He sent $60M worth of weapons over to hit some military targets, but he telegraphed the assault, to give the enemy time to protect it's resources. Minimum damage was done, and Assad resumed bombing in a day. We'll have to wait and see.

I'm adding this story to my long list of reasons not to live in California.

zzyzzx says

I'm adding this story to my long list of reasons not to live in California.

Must be a damn long list by now.

Ironman says

But there's more.

We don't know that for a fact, because he could have gotten more from Putin or made some or bought some from elsewhere. But I would guess that he just didn't disclose some, either intentionally or not. I would bet that he intentionally hid some away.

Did Obama oversell it, by failing to state the obvious possibility that they did keep some? Yes. I'd say that was probably a lie. It it was definitely not correct. The bigger picture is that a huge quantity of chemical weapons was destroyed, it was destroyed safely without collateral damage, and the quantity of weapons was much more than we could have ever destroyed by bombing.

Ironman says

You can't have it both ways to support your WaPo narrative.

I don't need to have it both ways, because I'm not saying that Rice was 100% correct.

You are trying to have it both ways by constantly trotting out Obama's list of lies while ignoring the encyclopedia sized stack of lies that Trump has amassed during his short time as a candidate and president.

Here's Rice's quote from the weekly standard article:

We were able to find a solution that didn't necessitate the use of force that actually removed the chemical weapons that were known from Syria, in a way that the use of force would never have accomplished.

There is nothing wrong with this statement. It is 100% accurate. All of the chemical weapons that were known in Syria were destroyed. It also makes the very relevant point that that was a huge accomplishment if you actually care about these weapons finding their way into the hands of terrorists. So, it is correct and relevant. You should strive for such qualities.

Rew says

bob2356 ... Obama didn't stay out of Syria.

I was talking about sending in conventional forces. There is no upside to any action we can take in syria. We want to fight assad. We want to fight ISIS. Perfect, we are fighting both sides of a civil war. What is the objective? What is the goal? What is the plan? Other than floundering around accomplishing nothing or making things even worse .

The neocon's never seem to learn. The problem isn't getting someone out. That's really easy. The problem is getting someone in that can lead well enough to end the war. So who is that someone in syria once assad is out? We would be better off with assad than total chaos for the next 20 years breeding ever more violence and terrorism spilling even further over into surrounding countries.

Ironman says

bob2356 says

Rew says

bob2356 ... Obama didn't stay out of Syria.

I was talking about sending in conventional forces.

And I gave you examples that Obama DID...

You doubling down on being wrong again???

He did not send in conventional units of military troops. Putting 400 people in as advisers is not going into a country. For once don't be a moron. Or at least try.

bob2356 says

We would be better off with assad than total chaos for the next 20 years breeding ever more violence and terrorism spilling even further over into surrounding countries.

Remember right after 9/11 the West was blamed for "blowback" by supporting dictators over the majority population?

Good times.

Like Egypt and Iraq today, we should support the least crazy of the bunch and have some influence without throwing up our hands and letting a dictator like Assad turn his country into an abattoir with the help of Russia and Iran causing the radicalization of an entire population and massive refugee crisis.

At the end of the day, I think big chunks of the Syrian and Iraqi map will need to be redrawn to reflect the demographic reality. It will need to be carved up like the Balkans.

bob2356 says

There is no upside to any action we can take in Syria.

I think that very much depends on the 'actions'. Pure military action, by our own forces alone, you are right. There is not much upside. It will be Iraq again because we do not have the national will to country build, and we have proven time and again, we really have no plan to do it unless it is after a 'total war' situation.

Dissect the current action:
- Syria and Russia just found the US willing, and able, to destroy military assets it can paint as being outside the rule of international norms for current rules of war
- There is broad international and domestic support for the strike
- US is asserting itself back into a role of 'enforcer of expected international norms', and is 'watching' for places it can intervene if it feels it needs to
- China and N Korea see shades of a foreign interventionist policy, which they know from Presidents past
- Trump transitions beyond just being incompetent and is now also "unpredictable with the worlds best military at his command"

Does this one strike "solve Syria" ... no. Does it really even "make Syria" better. Not by much. But that is quite a LOT of upside in my book there for the US, and in part Syria. The real fight is this: if I watched 22 members of my immediate family go out the hard way, by gas, I'd likely be looking for the first best ticket to go get some payback. Doesn't;t matter if that is IS or another Sunni rebel group.

The civil war is breeding terrorism. So, if we can exert military action to force cease fires and bring peace, well, those actions in Syria very MUCH would be worth it. The trick is to have that as the goal, and not devolve into a proxy war pissing match with Russia/Syria a-la 80s style cold war proxy wars we can all point to (Vietnam, Afghanistan, and to a degree, Korean war).

Cannot wait for Trump to be moved by the plight of children again, and impulsively start taking in refugees. ;) He looks like someone who can change his mind on a dime, so maybe even conversion to Islam soon? (fishing for thumbs down)

bob2356 says

We would be better off with assad than total chaos for the next 20 years breeding ever more violence and terrorism spilling even further over into surrounding countries.

Prop up a dictator, in the pocket of Russia and Iran, for stability OR help the rebellion take over Syria altogether and gamble that we get something better. Either seems equally horrible, but pressure for a cease fire to figure out which way the wind blows seems good to me. That has to be what is coming next. Tillerson talk ongoing today.

In a way, it's too bad we no longer have the "Gulf War" option on the table anymore (first Iraq war, under Bush Senior, destroys the Iraqi military right below the point of Saddam being unable to maintain control). That seemed to be Obama's play and the case he was making in 2013: go take away as much military capacity as we can away from Syria, and let them sort out their internal conflict. Alas, U.K. parilment and then US congress, so it was not to be. That was +2 nationalism to our current +1 globalism move of last week.

I will say I am terrified by the fact that I am very much FOR Trump being unilateral here, and acting outside the dictated institutional norm, even if it is a norm (declaring war, military action) that we have eroded since the 60s.

socal2 says

At the end of the day, I think big chunks of the Syrian and Iraqi map will need to be redrawn to reflect the demographic reality. It will need to be carved up like the Balkans.

Probably very much so. To a degree we can influence the outcomes, but those borders are best left to be defined by those there. As you said above though, the chaos generating terrorist groups has to be squashed to a degree. Europe is getting destabilized by this madness, and that is past an acceptable level of free-reign for them to sort things out, in my book.

YesYNot says

Here's what Obama did. He tried to get Congress on board instead of unilaterally striking. Congress was Republican and might very well have impeached him. Congress balked, and he used the pressure to get a deal to get rid of a lot of chemical weapons. He got rid of all of the chemical weapons that we knew about, which was by definition more than we ever could have gotten rid of by bombing. He also managed to keep enough pressure on Assad and Russia so that they did not use illegal chemical weapons again while Obama was in power. If you care about chemical weapon proliferation and use of chemical weapons, then this record is pretty good. Obama also managed to not let the US get dragged into another all out war costing trillions and hundreds of thousands due to US intervention. This is very good. What he didn't do was stop Russia from helping Assad kill a shit load of people. The US also looked a bit unclear about our red lines, because our government could not agree on a mi...

Nice summary. Thanks

YesYNot says

He also managed to keep enough pressure on Assad and Russia so that they did not use illegal chemical weapons again while Obama was in power.

That's not true. According to this UN report below, Assad used chemical weapons several times after the 2014 deal with Russia. And since Obama was embarrassed to point these attacks out after claiming success with his deal, Assad, Russia and Iran was emboldened to keep using them resulting in one of the worst refugee crisis since WWII,

"The Leadership Panel concluded that, in the cases of Talmenes (21 April 2014) and Sarmin (16 March 2015), they had sufficient information to determine that the Syrian Armed Forces were responsible for the attack which released toxic substances."
https://www.un.org/press/en/2016/dc3651.doc.htm

YesYNot says

Did Obama oversell it, by failing to state the obvious possibility that they did keep some? Yes. I'd say that was probably a lie. It it was definitely not correct.

Makes you wonder what Obama and his foreign policy team like Ben Rhodes lied about with the Iran deal.

It's in the wapo. Fake news!

Just kidding. This is not good news for Trump. It doesn't prove his stupid tweet correct.

Ironman says

he spooks (and Obama) specifically and deliberately listened to and targeted Trump'

They targeted a guy who has lots of ties to Russia, was giving pro Russia speeches in Russia, and meeting with people close to Putin. And that's the part we know about. He wasn't that close to Trump, but was trying to get closer. That's not targeting Trump tower or Trump associates in general.

This is Neil Gorsucks America now. Lay back, and try to relax a bit. We're in for a serious reaming, the less you resist, the less it hurts

Cannot wait to hear what they continue to find. Go get em FBI!

If this is what Trump's was referring to and proof that he was right, why isn't he crowing about it on Fox News? Instead, he is bragging about shooting off missiles and blaming Obama for doing what Trump himself thought that Obama should do in 2013.

http://www.politicususa.com/2017/04/12/panicked-trump-carter-page-scandal-fox-obama-lies.html

Edit - my bad. I see that he did crow about this and I didn't see it earlier. Now, I have to eat some crow.

jazz music says

Air pollution causes 200,000 early deaths each year in the U.S.

And a hell of a lot more deaths worldwide. Our lungs were not designed to breathe exhaust fumes.
I did my part to reduce pollution, did you guys do yours?