Richard Day's picture

    DEATH TO ALL WHO WOULD WHIMPER AND CRY

    The Sickness Unto Death   Sickness unto death princeton cover.gif
     

     

    If you see something that looks like a star
    And it's shooting up out of the ground
    And your head is spinning from a loud guitar
    And you just can't escape from the sound
    Don't worry too much, it'll happen to you
    We were children once, playing with toys
    The percentage you're paying is too high-priced
    While you're living beyond all your means
    And the man in the suit has just bought a new car
    From the profit he's made on your dreams
    But today you just read that the man was shot dead
    By a gun that didn't make any noise
    But it wasn't the bullet that laid him to rest
    Was the low spark of high-heeled boys
    

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mm2Fi3HNykU&NR=1

     

    Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh, the suburbs. Fresh grass (the kind you mow morons!), elm trees and oak trees, white picket fences, trellises, finished basements (up north anyway), straight streets and avenues (with the exception of cul de sacs ), newer schools……

    The suburbs were once a place to get away from the stink of the city as well as those minorities—if you know what I mean.

    Higher property values meant higher property taxes meant better schools and public libraries and such.

    Then came the surburban sprawl and a pretty soon we had exurbs so that we could build bigger houses on larger plots of land. And the exurbians could get even further away from the stink of the city and those pesky minorities—if you know what I mean.

    A pair of analyses by the nonprofit Brookings Institution paints a bleak economic picture for the 100 largest metropolitan areas over the past decade and in coming years, and finds that suburbs now are home to one-third of the nation's poor, and rising.

    The study of census data finds that since 2000, the number of poor people in the suburbs jumped by 37.4 percent to 13.7 million. The growth rate of suburban poverty is more than double that of cities and higher than the national rate of 26.5 percent.

    At the same time, social service providers are spread thin in many suburban areas, according to a detailed Brookings survey of groups in representative metropolitan areas of Chicago, Los Angeles and the District of Columbia. That has forced providers to turn away many poor people due to scarce aid that typically goes to cities first.

    "Millions of Americans at all income levels moved to the suburbs looking for better schools, better jobs, affordable housing, and a sense of security, but in recent years, as incomes have fallen, people had a harder and harder time making ends meet," said Scott Allard, a University of Chicago professor who co-wrote one of the reports.

    "As a result, Americans who never imagined becoming poor are now asking for assistance, and many are not getting the help they need."

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/17/poverty-suburbs-economy_n_765714.html

     

    Well, the Satanic snake has wriggled its way into paradise.

    But we have all these retirees living in beautiful suburbia. I mean these are the people who were awarded those upper middle class jobs both in the private sector as well as the public sector. And with those jobs came all these pensions and such.

    Okay, so some private pensions are in trouble and people have been reviewing balances in their 401k’s that look a lot like the balances they had twenty years ago.

    But surely those retirees with public pensions—da bastards—they get to look forward to living in the lap of luxury following thirty years of service?

    Well it turns out that many states view public pensions as ‘gratuities’ if you will. And no matter what these people were promised decades ago, they may not have what they think they have coming.

    A study released in March, authored by University of Minnesota professor Amy Monahan, compares the pension legalese in a variety of state constitutions. In at least two states, Indiana and Texas, pensions are called "gratuities." The Indiana Court of Appeals has called pensions "mere gratuities springing from the appreciation and graciousness of the state."

    Rauh called those states "outliers," and Monahan notes in the study that 2009 Texas pension legislation didn't touch current employee benefits. Where pensions don't have full and explicit constitutional protection, governments often protect them. But as municipalities look to balance their budgets, these conventional protections could be tested.

    "In a lot of states the question is open to judicial review," Snell, the NCSL state services division director, told HuffPost. "They are certainly open to judicial review, of which there has not been a lot over the years, and certainly not comprehensive in most states

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/14/pensions-legal-challenges_n_763292.html

    I wonder how many pensioners have received notice in the mail that their pension ‘rights’ may be open to judicial review?

    And, then again, if you have a city pension and that city goes bankrupt, or the pension fund goes bankrupt,  what then? http://www.orangejuiceblog.com/2010/03/bankrupt-city-of-vallejo-cuts-firefighter-pensions/

    http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FB081EFE355D13738DDDA80994D9405B848DF1D3

    http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/government/article_0418be36-1aa3-11df-840f-001cc4c03286.html

    And, of course, private companies go bankrupt all the time and might default as they say on their pension obligations.  http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-10-77

    Well there is trouble

    Right here in suburban paradise.

    And that trouble starts with a ‘t’

    And that rhymes with ‘p’

    And that stands for pension.

    If suburbia is beginning to feel the effects of the transfer of wealth in this country from the middle class to the wealthy one per-centers, maybe the middle class will begin to realize that the repubs have absolutely no answers to the real economic problems facing this nation.

    FOR CHRISSAKES, VOTE!!!

    Previous version published at:

    http://tpmaholics.blogspot.com/

     

    Comments

    Maybe they will learn not to be so conservative when conservatism reaches into their back pocket and people of their community refuses to increase taxes to the point that they lose a good chunk of their pention. 

    The younger generations and the increased population of minorities that are first and second generation of immigrants will push politicians to the left.   The era of cranky old white voters is going to be short lived.  Nature will thin out their ranks when medicare is cut by all the teabaggers they voted for. 

            

     


    The middle class is in trouble for a number of reasons.

    As you point out Momoe, those individuals who are hurt by the current system might get wise.

    We need a new grass roots movement that is not funded by the repubs.


    You bet, Richard.  Pensions should be sacrosanct, never to be touched, the contract never to be broken.  The pension agreement is a pact between employee and employer, declaring the intentions of both.  The employee promises to be loyal and hard-working and for that he/she will be rewarded years down the line with a retirement package agreed upon at hiring.  A portion of the employee's income will be held and applied toward retirement.

    The employer promises to hold up his/her end of the bargain by holding the deferred income and adding to it in the amounts previously agreed upon.  It can't get much clearer than that.  


    But what if the employer goes broke, out of business, or into Act 47 like Reading PA? Or what if the pensions are ridiculously high?

    As with the salaries in Bell CA, I expect that extreme pension agreements will be "discovered" by the media and will become the excuse to renegotiate a lot of pensions that are unremarkable.


    The excuse. Somebody should write a book with that title.

    Sixty people abuse SSD so we should abolish SSD.

    A few thousand people are ripping off their pensions, so lets abolish or reduce pensions for middle class retirees.

    Some unions have caused some real problems in the work place, so let us just abolish unions.

    The repubs are so damn good at this maneuver.

    Yeah. The excuse.

     


    There are, of course, state and federal laws covering pensions and how they are to be funded.

    Of course those who were appointed to regulate, to oversee, to protect the workers' rights have not followed through very well as far as I can tell.

    XYZ corporation goes bankrupt. Management has been raping the damn company for a decade and walks away in most cases, free and clear. And management just sets up a new corporation a few months later and performs as if nothing happened.

    And thousands of retirees, to say nothing of the thousands of former employees, are screwed.

    There are abuses as Donal points out. One of my links was just about millionaires who were part of management and walk away with huge sums in pension monies and they can afford attorneys to fight for their rights in bankruptcy court. Oh, and found all these advertisements from bankruptcy attorneys during my google search.

    Oh well.


    I used to manage municipal campaigns. The impact that municipal employees had on the outcome was overwhelming. Then they got benefits deals from the elected officials that were far beyond what a private company would (or could) do to recognize the value of its workers. What has gone on with police and firefighters and other municipal employees over the years, in some places, is unsustainable. 


    Well considering the investment opportunities for those pension funds the last four or five years, the pensions are unsustainable.

    And there is certainly a political aspect to all of this on the municipal, county and state levels.

    Pretty easy to get out the vote for government workers.

    There are a score of reasons for the dwindling middle classes in this country. I was just struck by the poverty levels in current suburbia.

     


    Jesus Christ what is wrong with you people? The fucking Republicans have carved yet another division into us, and all we do is argue about where to cut.

    So yeah, in one respect - pensions - public sector pay outruns private sector. So naturally, let's chop public pensions "down to size." It's fucking moronic.

    After the whole fucking world has had to listen endlessly to big mouth private owners go on for decades about how productive and wealth-creating they were, and how they needed the chance at the big upside win, the chance to rise and make big money? So it was THEM that we cut the upper bracket taxes for.

    People in the public sector never had that chance. But now, oh yes NOW the public guys have to be carved up. Because the private guys who didn't get rich lost ground, and the private guys who did get rich hate the public sector anyway. So let's complain that too many of them vote or are too close to Government.

    Meanwhile, the private sector has been able to buy the entire political machine off. And slash taxes and feed subsidies to these jerk off "entrepreneurs" and our new Gods the CEO's of the ONLY groups which create any wealth, the private sector.

    Jesus and Mary on the Cross, what is wrong with people?


    Masters of War and Masters of Industry.

    The unions representing as much as 38% of all workers in this country would stand in the way of the industrialists and scream:

    BETTER NOT FORGET OUR SHARE ARSEHOLES!!!

    Aint nobody in no position to really do that anymore.

    Three decades of this 'reform' and the pigs want more.

    But tube socks are pretty cheap Q.

    Thank the Lord Almighty and Walmart for small favors.


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