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If you're not on the gravy train, you're flipping burgers at Jo Jo's Grease Pit!
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2018 Sep 1, 7:01am 2,392 views 8 comments
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1
FortWayne
2018 Sep 1, 7:12am
FortWayne
2018 Sep 1, 7:12am
You know CA is in the same boat. They cut services everywhere they could, and spending all the money on pensions, and it's not enough, already in the hole again.
And since Dem politicians are total dicksuckers, they don't do anything, but just lie and make more false promises. At the same time constantly asking for more taxes.
And since Dem politicians are total dicksuckers, they don't do anything, but just lie and make more false promises. At the same time constantly asking for more taxes.
2
FortWayne
2018 Sep 1, 8:04am
FortWayne
2018 Sep 1, 8:04am
CA teachers are going on strike for raises. They get 6 figure salaries and pensions by the way, while average taxpayer has no pension at all.
Like every socialist state, it turns quickly into government beats everyone into submission by taking away all of the money to pay it's own employees.
Like every socialist state, it turns quickly into government beats everyone into submission by taking away all of the money to pay it's own employees.
3
Ceffer
2018 Sep 1, 10:59am
Ceffer
2018 Sep 1, 10:59am
It's the taxpayer assfuck perpetual motion machine. Public Service Unions use taxpayer money harvested from their members to pay off politicians and re-elect them for more and better benefits from the taxpayers, detached from any taxpayer input. Cowardly, greedy pols and unions suck and suck until the tax well runs dry. Everybody keeps their head in the sand and act like there's no problem. The issues can only be resolved by cutting the gordian knot of quid pro quo corruption with bankruptcy. Even then, you have to keep them from perverting the bankruptcy process to maintain the pensions rather than provide public services.
I knew a guy who won a city council seat in Fremont, but he quit after a year because he couldn't stand the corrupt political interests. He was leaned on hot and heavy by the police union right away. He said the level of threat and intimidation directed at him was frightening.
In Stockton now, crooks just roll around in vans stealing everything that isn't nailed down, even in the gated neighborhoods. Anybody who wants security has to hire private security. A lady in one of my neighborhoods worked on the Stockton bankruptcy, and it was all about preserving the pensions and benefits as much as possible. I heard in San Bernardino, they have even pried the brass plaques off of public buildings.
However, cramming in illegals will solve all these problems. Thank you, Moonbeam, and the Great Socialist Paradise.
I knew a guy who won a city council seat in Fremont, but he quit after a year because he couldn't stand the corrupt political interests. He was leaned on hot and heavy by the police union right away. He said the level of threat and intimidation directed at him was frightening.
In Stockton now, crooks just roll around in vans stealing everything that isn't nailed down, even in the gated neighborhoods. Anybody who wants security has to hire private security. A lady in one of my neighborhoods worked on the Stockton bankruptcy, and it was all about preserving the pensions and benefits as much as possible. I heard in San Bernardino, they have even pried the brass plaques off of public buildings.
However, cramming in illegals will solve all these problems. Thank you, Moonbeam, and the Great Socialist Paradise.
4
mell
2018 Sep 1, 11:34am
This is fucking robbery. And you know it. Next CA. Just calculate how much yield you need to get out of your 401k to net 200k annually in pension. Leftoid states robbing their people blind.
5
lostand confused
2018 Sep 1, 12:08pm
lostand confused
2018 Sep 1, 12:08pm
IL is screwed. Proeprty taxes are anywhere from 6-25k a year for a house that is from 250-400k -yup. In one town they just fired a bunch of cops and firefighters-so they could continue paying pensions. The stupid state made enshrined in the constitution that once a promise is made to gubmnt pig-err worker- they can never be changed.
There was a town that tried to move away from right tow ork-democrat thugs almost passed a resolution threatening the town folks with arrest/jail. It almost got enough votes to override a repub governor veto.
The dem governor candidate is already running on raising taxes-not even hiding it-that is his position. What is wrong witht he people here? Except the winter, this is a nice state, pleasant people-if they get a grip on the tax situation -this could boom.
But they won't and the stupid people will keep voting dem and then when enough axpayers leave-wonder what they will do? Just go belly up? Cannibal anarchy??
Democrats always destroy everything they touch. What IL needs is a Trumpian figure.
There was a town that tried to move away from right tow ork-democrat thugs almost passed a resolution threatening the town folks with arrest/jail. It almost got enough votes to override a repub governor veto.
The dem governor candidate is already running on raising taxes-not even hiding it-that is his position. What is wrong witht he people here? Except the winter, this is a nice state, pleasant people-if they get a grip on the tax situation -this could boom.
But they won't and the stupid people will keep voting dem and then when enough axpayers leave-wonder what they will do? Just go belly up? Cannibal anarchy??
Democrats always destroy everything they touch. What IL needs is a Trumpian figure.
7
anonymous
2019 Mar 29, 6:11pm
The Pension Fund Problem Just Got Much Worse. A simple extrapolation of the recent trend lines suggest a crisis around 2023, as assets are wiped out even if returns rebound.
The 14 percent drop in the S&P 500 Index last quarter has big implications for state and local pension funds, which probably saw the value of their assets fall by about 7 percent. Investors with the benefit of a long-term horizon have the ability to ignore market dips, and pension funds are among the longest-term investors, but their problems are not long-term and further short-term declines could precipitate a crisis.
The table below shows pension fund assets and liabilities as compiled by Pew Charitable Trusts. There is a large and growing gap, but that’s not the primary problem. Although the value of those assets is known with reasonable accuracy, the liability figure is based on assumptions about the future. The actuarial and political assumptions are uncertain, but it is the investment assumptions – plans assume an average discount rate of 7 percent – that are the most problematic.
Average returns for pension-fund-like portfolios only generated returns of 7 percent or greater for 50-year periods twice since 1871,
1 for investors who started soon after World War I or World War II. Starting at a random time generated an average return of 5.30 percent, ranging from a low of 3.16 percent to a high of 7.99 percent.
The problem is worse for two reasons.
First, cumulative returns are lower than averages. A return of 7 percent grows $100 to $114.49 in two years. A 50 percent return in the first year and a loss of 36 percent in the second results in an average of 7 percent, but causes that $100 to decline to $96.
Second, an extended period of bad returns cannot be made up even with astronomical returns later. Suppose a fund has 50 years of level monthly payments and assets to support them assuming a 7 percent return. If the fund earns zero over the first 15 years, one might think the fund needs to average 10 percent over the final 35 years to meet its obligations. In fact, the fund is broke in less than 15 years, and it doesn’t matter what returns are afterwards.
More: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-01-13/pension-fund-crisis-has-a-start-date?srnd=premium
The 14 percent drop in the S&P 500 Index last quarter has big implications for state and local pension funds, which probably saw the value of their assets fall by about 7 percent. Investors with the benefit of a long-term horizon have the ability to ignore market dips, and pension funds are among the longest-term investors, but their problems are not long-term and further short-term declines could precipitate a crisis.
The table below shows pension fund assets and liabilities as compiled by Pew Charitable Trusts. There is a large and growing gap, but that’s not the primary problem. Although the value of those assets is known with reasonable accuracy, the liability figure is based on assumptions about the future. The actuarial and political assumptions are uncertain, but it is the investment assumptions – plans assume an average discount rate of 7 percent – that are the most problematic.
Average returns for pension-fund-like portfolios only generated returns of 7 percent or greater for 50-year periods twice since 1871,
1 for investors who started soon after World War I or World War II. Starting at a random time generated an average return of 5.30 percent, ranging from a low of 3.16 percent to a high of 7.99 percent.
The problem is worse for two reasons.
First, cumulative returns are lower than averages. A return of 7 percent grows $100 to $114.49 in two years. A 50 percent return in the first year and a loss of 36 percent in the second results in an average of 7 percent, but causes that $100 to decline to $96.
Second, an extended period of bad returns cannot be made up even with astronomical returns later. Suppose a fund has 50 years of level monthly payments and assets to support them assuming a 7 percent return. If the fund earns zero over the first 15 years, one might think the fund needs to average 10 percent over the final 35 years to meet its obligations. In fact, the fund is broke in less than 15 years, and it doesn’t matter what returns are afterwards.
More: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-01-13/pension-fund-crisis-has-a-start-date?srnd=premium
8
Al_Sharpton_for_President
2019 Mar 30, 4:37am
Al_Sharpton_for_President
2019 Mar 30, 4:37am
Hugolas_Madurez says
It'll become one giant Detroit.There are some really nice suburbs that were featured in the John Hughes movies near Chicago. One of my favorite anecdotes about Chicago illustrating one of its problems is when visiting dignitaries from a foreign country visited the city's public school administration building, struck by its size and grandeur, they asked if it was the US Department of Education building.
When the public pension contagion finally has consumed all 102 counties in Illinois, few public officials will be able to credibly ask the following questions: How and why?
That's because they will have been warned well in advance and chose to do nothing in the hope the problem would disappear.
Just a week or so ago, researchers from Wirepoints.com released a report documenting how increasingly unaffordable promises are wreaking financial havoc on public pensions systems and communities from coast to coast.
This week, the Illinois Policy Institute, a free-market think tank with offices in Chicago and Springfield, released a study documenting how the problem of public pension costs in Illinois is driving up property taxes while reducing property values.
"Families across Illinois have felt the pain of these (property tax) increases. But what many Illinoisans may not realize is that much of the rise in their property taxes can be attributed to spending on government-worker pensions far outpacing spending on state and local services," states the IPI study written by Orphe Divounguy, Bryce Hill and Joe Tabor.
Researchers examined state and local tax records and concluded that "most of the property tax increases between 1996 and 2016" were caused by:
— "state education funds being diverted to teachers' pensions."
— "growth in local government employee pensions and benefits"
— "expanded local government spending — which includes additional payroll, increased salaries and added services."
How do high pension costs play out in the real world of dollars and sense?
An examination of local recipients of Illinois Municipal Retirement System beneficiaries revealed that well-known and not-so-well-known retired local government employees are drawing generous pension benefits.
Further, four former employees at one particular local entity — the Champaign-Urbana Mass Transit District — are among the top eight for the largest pensions.
The top two pension recipients are former MTD Managing Director William Volk, who receives an annual pension of $237,474: and former MTD Assistant Managing Director Thomas Costello, who receives an annual pension of $133,641.
Two other retired MTD administrators, Rena Lenz and Rob Patton, receive annual pensions of $129,968 and $112,206, respectively.
Ex-Champaign City Manager Steve Carter took the No. 3 spot with a pension of $130,901, while former Champaign Police Chief R.T. Finney captured the No. 5 spot with a $127,604 pension.
Pensioners also receive annual 3 percent cost-of-living increases thanks to a decision by the Illinois General Assembly during the late 1980s. Emblematic of the Legislature's haphazard approach to pension spending is that legislators granted the 3 percent annual increases — compounded — while taking no action on how to pay for it.
The study reports that since 1996, "less than 50 cents of every additional dollar paid in property taxes went to pay for services."
At the state level, there is a similar phenomenon involving state education dollars. State legislators routinely brag, particularly in election years, about how much they have increased education appropriations for K-12 schools.
The IPI said the General Assembly increased K-12 appropriations by more than $5.4 billion between 1996 and 2017, an 87 percent hike. But of that $5.4 billion increase, $3.6 billion went to the Teachers Retirement System — that's 66 percent — with the balance going to supporting public schools.
Because of the diversion of state dollars to pension systems, school boards have been forced to increase their property taxes to make up the shortfall.
For Champaign County, the IPI said 95 cents of every new property tax dollar went for police pensions.
Municipal property taxes grew by $3,591,995 in 20 years, virtually all of it going to police pensions. Property taxes used for traditional police services accounts for $195,017 of the total.
Property tax levies for municipal fire service in Champaign County grew by $2.4 million, all but $104,000 going for pensions.
The IPI said "in total, Champaign County property taxes for pensions (excluding teacher pensions) grew by $8 million in 20 years or by 64 percent."
In Vermilion County, the IPI reported, "99 cents of every new property tax dollar" for police and fire went to pensions.
In Dewitt County, 99 cents of every new property tax dollar levied for police and fire went to pensions.
In Piatt County, "43 cents of every new property tax dollar for police departments went to police pensions." IPI reported "no information on fire departments.'
In Ford County, "100 cents of every new property tax dollar for police departments went to police safety, none went to pensions." IPI reports "no information on fire departments."
The two reports, Wirepoints and IPI, document financial bad news all the way across the board — pensions spending crowding out funding of other core services and accrued pensions liabilities that are so high they can never be erased.
http://www.news-gazette.com/opinion/columns/2018-07-29/jim-dey-state-local-pension-news-getting-worse.html