Since Heller offered such a simplistic perspective on pensions, I thought I'd do some calculating. If I put $50K in a pension and invested it (as all pension money is invested) at 10 percent tax free, I'd end up with $336K when the time came to collect. Of course, with inflation, the present value would be less than that. However, no one then collects all $336k on day one. The pension fund doles it out in small sums over many years. Some retirees naturally die right away and whatever their pension money earned now becomes available to all other retirees. They then continue to collect portions so long as they continue to live, meaning the residue is still invested still earning. I calculated once that I could build up a pension account that NEVER would run out. It would slowly deplete but it would outlive me. The trick is to guess where the life line and the lowering balance line intersect. But that is work for complex mathematics. It cannot be summarized with Heller's ultra-simple $50,000/$500,000 example. In fact, I'd say that the claim that any pension fund is "underfunded" is the outcome of a series of ASSUMPTIONS, about what money will earn in the future, about longevity in the future, about living costs in the future. And the rub is that NO ONE KNOWS for sure any of these items. In any case, pensions are assuredly NOT welfare unless you consider a paycheck welfare, because pensions are simply another item of compensation for WORKING, not for being unemployed.
Suing
"Let's sue ourselves!" Boy, that'll help beef up police protection, get the roads fixed, etc,etc. What Heller and Graham seem not to grasp is that you don't sue BECAUSE the city has broken the law. You sue to voice your OPINION that the law has been broken. Court procedures test whether that OPINION is something a reasonable person can agree with. Before you get that decision, YOU AND THE CITY spend money they could better use elsewhere. Then if you lose, the city goes on, both of you are out money, and nothing has been accomplished but to reinforce what seems obvious beforehand, that you are wrong but querulous. And the really funny part: Both sums of money come out of YOUR pocket, not the pocket of the people with whom you have your quarrel. It may not be city-specific, but the fact is that Americans have learned to reach for the lawsuit about as unthinkingly as they reach for fatty foods. It is part of the misery of this society, and if you aint parto of the SOLUTION, then you ARE the problem, buddy. Heller says: "Get the picture? Throwing good money after bad never solves a
problem -- it just drags it out and makes it worse in the long run." Yeh, so let's drop this lawsuit nonsense which is precisely a case of that.
Pennies from Heaven
The only difference from the way business takes money and government takes money is that we elect officials collectively. So if you think they take money for the wrong purposes or for the wrong amounts, you have to get your neighbors' agreement. Which means you can't lecture, you have to persuiade. That definitely hits some people in their weak spot. But, face it, every government service you use is paid for the same way. If you don't want money taken in the way government takes it, then you really want to live in Checknya or Afghanistan or some other place with no effective government at all. Believe in the Constitution. Well, guess what, it states plainly that the PEOPLE have accepted government funding methods as just and lawful.
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Jim Mork
Cooper Neighborhood
"whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness"----Declaration of Independence
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