A Forum for Grinches and Ho-Ho-Hoes

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
Ever clean the house and wax the car when you had a really hard research paper due the next day? its kinda like that.

Maybe you've noticed, but you ever see those articles about how we're sending 55 year olds to Iraq with the Guard? Well, problem solved.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
[W]ith lower taxes we'll grow our way out of the current deficit.

I don't know which is worse: That the ruling party spouts this crap, or that many of them believe it.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Bad_Rich_Chic
Adder has my proxy on this one, apparently, but - the simple answer is that the stock market isn't the economy as a whole. It would be surprising if the stock markets didn't grow faster than the general economy, because it makes sense that people with excess capital to invest would choose invest it in the more efficient segments of the economy.
I'm suggesting it. Fuck my parents. Compared to me, compared to our entire generation, they're rich bastards, with their pensions and their medicare. Fuck 'em. Why should the working poor - even the working sort-of-rich like us - continue to subsidize what is now the richest segment of the population? (If the money was actually going to the poor and assetless who are no longer able to work, that would be an entirely different story. But by and large, it isn't.)

And, in case you missed the memo - no other generation is gonna pay for us, boyo. Someone is getting the shaft in this mess, someone is paying twice, and, frankly, I think I've already paid out quite enough for others to get a benefit I'm never gonna see.

BR(leading the charge in the inter-generational wars to come)C

If parents are indeed "rich", then they have investments, SS will not be something they need to survive, but something that supplements their income. This money would presumably be saved now and inherited later or given to people of our generation as gifts, so its trickling down anyway. Besides, no matter how you slice it, it is their money. They earned it. If they want to use it to buy a gold wheelchair, hey, thats their gig. Its not public money.

And pensions are not synonymous with wealth. many lower middle class folks have pensions.

All that said, I do agree with the premise that pensions are absurd. Why govt employees should get them early and with fantastic lifetime perks is beyond me. Pension obligations have totally fucked up a lot of companies. They're almost like CEO compensation - there's just no reason for so much of it.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Maybe you've noticed, but you ever see those articles about how we're sending 55 year olds to Iraq with the Guard? Well, problem solved.

The story I saw today was about a retired 70-year-old man recalled to the Army to serve in Afghanistan. I was hoping it was part of a secret plan to build a case to reform Social Security benefits.

[Gattigap]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Maybe you've noticed, but you ever see those articles about how we're sending 55 year olds to Iraq with the Guard? Well, problem solved.

See, it's things like this that feed my sneaking suspicion that the seemingly contradictory and scatterbrained Bush Administration policies are really just part of an integrated whole, the outlines of which are only now becoming clear.

By the end of Bush's second term, for example, I expect we'll discover that the skills learned by the personnel at Gitmo really just laid the groundwork for subsequently overcoming the funding challenges of No Child Left Behind.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Gattigap
See, it's things like this that feed my sneaking suspicion that the seemingly contradictory and scatterbrained Bush Administration policies are really just part of an integrated whole, the outlines of which are only now becoming clear.

By the end of Bush's second term, for example, I expect we'll discover that the skills learned by the personnel at Gitmo really just laid the groundwork for subsequently overcoming the funding challenges of No Child Left Behind.

We also have a nice solution to hunger that really fits into the "high protein" fad, and (this part is sweet cuz it plays to the greenies) eliminates the need for lots of new cemetaries as these oldsters die out.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
Why govt employees should get them early and with fantastic lifetime perks is beyond me. Pension obligations have totally fucked up a lot of companies. They're almost like CEO compensation - there's just no reason for so much of it.

What government employees are you speaking of?

In the fed'l gov't, you get a pension that's (something like) high-three-years X years of service/30. Minimum of five years to qualify, and you can't take it until 62 (or 60). Provisions for an increase if you wait until 70; decrease if you take before 65. Basically, it's the same as many private sectors employers who give a defined benefit plan.

The scandal in pensions is not the benefits, but their routine underfunding by employers.

[SlaveNoMore]

Tyrone Slothrop
The story I saw today was about a retired 70-year-old man recalled to the Army to serve in Afghanistan. I was hoping it was part of a secret plan to build a case to reform Social Security benefits.

That's a magnificent idea.

So is raising mandatory retirement to 75.

But since the only thing retirees do is play bingo AND vote, whereas the younger generations do neither, I somehow doubt this will fly.

[greatwhitenorthchick]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
So is raising mandatory retirement to 75.

I thought mandatory retirement constituted age discrimination in this country. What is this mandatory retirement?

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
What government employees are you speaking of?

In the fed'l gov't, you get a pension that's (something like) high-three-years X years of service/30. Minimum of five years to qualify, and you can't take it until 62 (or 60). Provisions for an increase if you wait until 70; decrease if you take before 65. Basically, it's the same as many private sectors employers who give a defined benefit plan.

The scandal in pensions is not the benefits, but their routine underfunding by employers.

Funding levels in pension plans fall, obviously, when the market sucks. Unfortunately, this is a time when it is legitimately more difficult for companies to find money to put in.

They are prohibited from overfunding plans when times are good (the economy as a whole is riding high, so the pension plan is flush) -- so to some extent they are in a bind.

Right now, everyone is freaking out because the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC, federal entity that insures private defined benefit pension plans) is getting stuck with underfunded plans. People are forgetting that not 5 years ago, a hue and cry was being raised to lower PBGC premiums because it was "getting rich" off of the plans. [Note this insurance is mandatory, not optional.]

There really is not much of a scandal in underfunding of private employer defined benefit plans outside of a few financially distressed industries (steel, airlines).

But, you know, "the real scandal is underfunding by emploeyrs of pensions" makes a nice sound bite.

[Bad_Rich_Chic]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
This money would presumably be saved now and inherited later or given to people of our generation as gifts, so its trickling down anyway. Besides, no matter how you slice it, it is their money. They earned it. If they want to use it to buy a gold wheelchair, hey, thats their gig. Its not public money.

Careful, Regan is listening.

I agree - their wealth/savings/whatever is their money, and they should be able to spend it on whatever they wish. But they should not be able to claim financial support from the rest of us because they want to do something else with that money besides than support themselves (whether that something else is buy toys byond their means, blow it on coke & whores, or leave it to their children).

My parents will be able to leave me more money because they will receive (very nice) SS benefits instead of having to spend their own money. That is nice for me, but still pisses me off a lot in principle. Reforming SS along what I consider to be fair lines would harm me personally rather a lot. It says something about the extent of my outrage that I still think it should be so reformed.

And pensions are not synonymous with wealth. many lower middle class folks have pensions.

I usually think of "wealth" as "revenue producing capital assets." Having a lot of money, whatever the source, is being "rich." (I think this distinction in vocabulary may be more in my own mind than objective, but there it is.) People may have pensions and wealth, pensions that make them rich but not wealthy, pensions that just provide an adequate income, or pensions that don't. But whatever the source, if one has resources sufficient to make SS payments effectively a "lifestyle subsidy," it pisses me off. Basically, I'm of the opinion that if one can support oneself, whether the source is capital wealth, private pension income, earned income, or whatever, the G shouldn't be taking money earned by the rest of us to give it to you to subsidize either a ritzier lifestyle or wealth transfers to your offspring (though I don't think the G should be taking those, either, if you manage to create and/or preserve them). Not sure if that clears anything up, but there it is.

I believe I am relatively alone in drawing very clear distinctions between social class and economic class. Many "l-m-c" folks, pensions notwithstanding, earn a lot of money, not infrequently a lot more than "professionals" or people who are socially u-m-c. I know a manicurist with no HS diploma who made more than I did last year. In my opinion, one can be l-m-c and very rich indeed (even wealthy), and u-c but poor. I don't care what one's social class is, or the source of one's funds. If you have money, you shouldn't fucking get my money, too.

All that said, I do agree with the premise that pensions are absurd. Why govt employees should get them early and with fantastic lifetime perks is beyond me. Pension obligations have totally fucked up a lot of companies. They're almost like CEO compensation - there's just no reason for so much of it.

I am less pissed off about private pensions than I am about the public ones (very much including G employee pensions, but also SS). Lots of private companies fucked up bigtime promising big defined benefits, or running pension Ponzi schemes, just as they fucked up overpaying egomaniacs.* This is sad, but also their own damn fault. The G gives outrageous pensions because the bottomless well of our taxes fund them. That pisses me off because it's my money and there's fuck-all I can do about it (I can punish companies doing stupid things with my money by removing it and investing elsewhere).

I tend to disapprove, in principle, of most forms of government welfare, but if there is to be welfare it should bloody well go to the poor.

* eta: this is not related to ltl's point, which, as she points out, is not exactly the companies' fault. But it also gets into technicalities of private pension finance about which I know nothing at all.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by ltl/fb


But, you know, "the real scandal is underfunding by emploeyrs of pensions" makes a nice sound bite.

Take it to the NYT letters page, sweetie; scandal or not, they've been reporting on problems in defined benefit plans for much of the last year. Maybe it's limited to a few companies, but if the companies are GM, Ford, UAL, AMR, and others, there's more than a small problem.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by Bad_Rich_Chic
Basically, I'm of the opinion that if one can support oneself, whether the source is capital wealth, private pension income, earned income, or whatever, the G shouldn't be taking money earned by the rest of us to give it to you to subsidize either a ritzier lifestyle or wealth transfers to your offspring (though I don't think the G should be taking those, either, if you manage to create and/or preserve them). Not sure if that clears anything up, but there it is. .

Well it does clear up whether you'd prefer to be living pre-New Deal.

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
Take it to the NYT letters page, sweetie; scandal or not, they've been reporting on problems in defined benefit plans for much of the last year. Maybe it's limited to a few companies, but if the companies are GM, Ford, UAL, AMR, and others, there's more than a small problem.

Those entities have been financially distressed for fucking ever. They are basically obsolete and being propped up by the US gov't.

The plans are big enough that any significant upturn in the market makes what sounds like huge levels of underfunding disappear disappear overnight. HUGE, HUGE plans with a shitload of assets.

I am shocked that you of all people are taking that biased rag, the NYT, as gospel. Especially on an economic issue.

[SlaveNoMore]

greatwhitenorthchick
I thought mandatory retirement constituted age discrimination in this country. What is this mandatory retirement?

Strike that - I meant minimum age to receive retirement benefits.