And Frank, I want to tell you something that will make you happy. We visited rich friends in a gated community in Naples Florida. 4 people on their block were early retirees from General Motors. Their pension benefits were capped at $72K. (I know that's a lot, but it's a lot less than they were getting.) And the highest ranked among them has already sold and move back to Michigan. They were all drawing money from 'defered compensation plans', where GM held back some salary to pay them later at a lower tax rate. Guess what. In bankruptcy, all those funds go to the creditors. It puts a 6 figure crimp in their lifestyles... Regards, Bob S.
On Sun, Feb 27, 2011 at 8:56 AM, frank theriault <[email protected]> wrote: > On Sun, Feb 27, 2011 at 9:40 AM, Bob Sullivan <[email protected]> wrote: >> Boris, >> >> No armed revolts here, but many unhappy people. >> The perception is that public employees - teachers, police, & firemen >> are retiring at 2/3 or 3/4 of annual salary as paid by the state government. >> Most people are not covered by such pensions and have seen their >> retirement 'nest egg' fall by 50% or more in the financial crisis. >> (Falling home prices vs fixed mortgage loans have wiped out homes as assets.) >> So the 'have-nots' now resent the union deals and see pensions >> as something they will pay increased taxes to cover in the future. >> > <snip> > > These people (the unionized public employees) perform important > functions in our society, and for the most part deserve their salaries > and other benefits. They unionized and made their deals when times > were good, and one can't blame them for holding on to them as best > they can. > > I don't know about Chicago or elsewhere in the US, but here there has > been an ongoing attack on unionized public sector workers for some > time. Since government can't simply wipe out contracts already made, > they now have things like hiring freezes, hire loads of part time > employees (who aren't unionized) or contract out lots of work (which > studies show often don't save money in the long run). Services are > being trimmed and shut down to the detriment of those who can least > afford it. But hey, it saves tax payers' money, so that's okay, > right? > > Funny, but I don't see mass protests about how much CEOs and > executives at car companies or banks make - or what their pension > plans are worth. I'd bet it's a lot more than what the average cop or > teacher makes. How many billions of government dollars went into > bailing out those two industries? > > cheers, > frank > > > -- > "Sharpness is a bourgeois concept." -Henri Cartier-Bresson > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > [email protected] > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow > the directions. > -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
