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14th April 2020, 09:48 AM | #41 |
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14th April 2020, 10:52 AM | #42 |
Penultimate Amazing
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14th April 2020, 11:19 AM | #43 |
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My understanding is that when a pension fund is tied to market investments, the benefits paid out to pensioners would normally have to fluctuate with the market. Pensions then run into trouble when the contract with the employees promises a constant payout requiring consistent better-than-market performance. Which can only be done by increasing contributions to the fund, which in turn can end up being unsustainable.
One solution is to change the terms of the contract, but naturally employees tend to be against this. |
14th April 2020, 12:39 PM | #44 |
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14th April 2020, 01:04 PM | #45 |
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"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law |
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14th April 2020, 01:54 PM | #46 |
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1. He'd never do that. 2. Okay but he's not currently doing it. 3. Okay but he's not currently technically doing it. 4. Okay but everyone does it. 5. He's doing it, we can't stop him, no point in complaining about it. 6. We all knew he was going to do it which... makes it okay somehow. 7. It's perfectly fine that's he's doing it. |
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15th April 2020, 08:07 AM | #47 |
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15th April 2020, 08:25 AM | #48 |
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You added nothing to that conversation, Barbara. |
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15th April 2020, 08:29 AM | #49 |
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1. He'd never do that. 2. Okay but he's not currently doing it. 3. Okay but he's not currently technically doing it. 4. Okay but everyone does it. 5. He's doing it, we can't stop him, no point in complaining about it. 6. We all knew he was going to do it which... makes it okay somehow. 7. It's perfectly fine that's he's doing it. |
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15th April 2020, 08:34 AM | #50 |
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15th April 2020, 08:35 AM | #51 |
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15th April 2020, 10:27 AM | #52 |
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The problem is that politicians often use this to not only retain employees but also earn votes, while deferring costs to future decades when paying for it will be some other politician's problem. That's one of the reasons that public employees in particular should be under defined contribution plans and NOT defined benefit plans.
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"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law |
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15th April 2020, 10:28 AM | #53 |
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"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law |
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15th April 2020, 10:51 AM | #54 |
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You added nothing to that conversation, Barbara. |
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15th April 2020, 10:58 AM | #55 |
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Trump tweeted his thanks to UPS for their work delivering through the crisis.
No thanks for USPS though "Thanks For Delivering @UPS!" |
15th April 2020, 11:03 AM | #56 |
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15th April 2020, 11:06 AM | #57 |
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That's a management/policy issue. If a plan's benefits are too generous or fund contributions too small, or the fund isn't invested responsibly, those are flaws in that particular contract. There's nothing inherently wrong with the concept of earning a pension after a lifetime of work.
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15th April 2020, 11:13 AM | #58 |
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Indeed. There are significant advantages to having a guaranteed pension: it would eliminate a great deal of economic anxiety about the future. Free from having to save so much for the future we'd be able to spend much more today, thereby growing the economy. I'm in my forties and save as much as I can because I worry about my retirement; if I knew for certain I'd be able to live well on a pension I could go ahead and spend much more money in the present.
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15th April 2020, 11:15 AM | #59 |
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The nation has several million federal, state and local government employees. That kind of broad generalization is hard to prove. I think you might find that government professionals -- doctors, lawyers, engineers etc. -- probably earn less pay than they would in the private sector, but they trade that for stronger job security and the opportunity to serve their community. Some government jobs don't have direct private sector equivalents: police officer, firefighter, intelligence analyst, etc. Many government professionals are able to find higher-paying jobs after they leave government, like military officers going to work for defense contractors. And a lot of lower-level "government" work is actually outsourced to private contractors, whose employees work for them, not the government. So once again, cite your source.
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15th April 2020, 11:21 AM | #60 |
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I don't know if I would go too far down that road. A pension never (or very rarely, anyway) fully replaces your work income. We still need to save, and most of us don't save enough. Another problem with pensions is that they reward people who spend most of their careers at one employer. In the modern economy, that will become increasingly rare. And there are all kinds of stories about pension plans going bankrupt before employees can collect, or people getting fired months before they qualify. Pensions aren't perfect, but again, there's nothing wrong with the concept. |
15th April 2020, 11:50 AM | #61 |
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Agreed.
My in-laws were both public employees and both have pensions. One is large and run by a state organization. It performs OK and has never been on the brink of disaster, but the rules have changed about every five to ten years for new employees, such that anyone taking the job now is not even considering the pension. It is near on unobtainable. The other is small and run by a board of the employees and retirees covered by the pension. It is so well run that politicians constantly try to take it over and fold it into a larger pension plan to keep that plan afloat. Through conservative management they have grown quite large and it has worked out quite well for that in-law. New employees are largely signing up for that job with their eyes firmly on the pension. |
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Suffering is not a punishment not a fruit of sin, it is a gift of God. He allows us to share in His suffering and to make up for the sins of the world. -Mother Teresa If I had a pet panda I would name it Snowflake. |
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15th April 2020, 12:02 PM | #62 |
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Nobody is saying pensions are wrong.
Some people are saying that promising pensions that the employer cannot afford or sustain is wrong. And at least one person (me) is saying that employees holding employers to pension agreements that they can't afford or sustain is probably counter-productive. Summary: - Pensions = awesome - Defined contribution pensions = awesome - Defined benefit pensions = not awesome - Insisting that the USPS bankrupt itself on a defined benefit pension plan it can't sustain = super not awesome It would be interesting to see what the postal workers' unions have to say about this. Switching from a defined benefit to a defined contribution would probably require a contract renegotiation. Are the unions up for that? It would also mean a substantial reduction in benefits for (at least future) pensioners. Are the unions up for that? |
15th April 2020, 12:11 PM | #63 |
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You don't understand the issue. Congress, as part of its continuing efforts to kill the USPS, required it to fund its pension and benefits in advance in a way that isn't required of any other government department or private corporation. Treating those plans according to normal accounting standards would, by itself, put the USPS in the black.
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15th April 2020, 12:26 PM | #64 |
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My sister is a retired RN who worked at a Veterans' Hospital for 30 years. She said they used to be paid more than the local non-Veteran hospitals but that changed years ago. They are now paid the average salary of comparable nurses (experience, years on job, etc) of non-Veteran hospitals in the area. They cannot be the highest paid or the lowest paid.
She retired with a very nice pension. That, coupled with her Social Security, gives her a retirement income only slightly less than she earned working full time as an RN. |
15th April 2020, 12:28 PM | #65 |
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15th April 2020, 02:05 PM | #66 |
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All US companies are required to fund their pensions in advance.
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15th April 2020, 02:48 PM | #67 |
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The USPS really can't help but fail, when every profitable aspect is stripped away and given to for-profit establishments. People used to move money around by buying money orders, so we have banks. Packages are big business, so UPS and DPS and Fed-Ex exist and USPS isn't allowed to compete. Government-is-bad types tar the USPS with government-is-bad and try to destroy it, but it's desperately needed by the very people who vote for government-is-bad types because those for-profit businesses don't go where they lose money---but the USPS goes everywhere.
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15th April 2020, 03:22 PM | #68 |
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15th April 2020, 04:49 PM | #69 |
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"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law |
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16th April 2020, 04:09 AM | #70 |
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Will this impending Financial collapse last as long as Passing Peak Trump? If so, then we have many years to work on this.
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16th April 2020, 12:54 PM | #71 |
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16th April 2020, 01:03 PM | #72 |
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Please do your part to control the feral Conservative population. Make sure to always spay or neuter your Republican. |
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16th April 2020, 01:08 PM | #73 |
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"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law |
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16th April 2020, 01:33 PM | #74 |
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18th April 2020, 02:53 AM | #75 |
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How long has passing peak Trump taken so far?
I'm thinking less than 3 months isn't that many years. |
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19th April 2020, 06:42 AM | #76 |
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1. He'd never do that. 2. Okay but he's not currently doing it. 3. Okay but he's not currently technically doing it. 4. Okay but everyone does it. 5. He's doing it, we can't stop him, no point in complaining about it. 6. We all knew he was going to do it which... makes it okay somehow. 7. It's perfectly fine that's he's doing it. |
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19th April 2020, 11:35 AM | #77 |
a flimsy character...perfidious and despised
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Being the victim of genocidal atrocities does not give you free reign to commit your own genocidal atrocities. When Republican politicians were young, they were the kids who watched James Bond movies and said "I want to grow up to be just like [insert name of villain here]." |
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19th April 2020, 11:50 AM | #78 |
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1. He'd never do that. 2. Okay but he's not currently doing it. 3. Okay but he's not currently technically doing it. 4. Okay but everyone does it. 5. He's doing it, we can't stop him, no point in complaining about it. 6. We all knew he was going to do it which... makes it okay somehow. 7. It's perfectly fine that's he's doing it. |
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8th May 2020, 01:42 PM | #79 |
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A detailed account of how the USPS went off the rails. (Hint: Congress helped.)
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/...y-trouble.html |
11th May 2020, 07:58 AM | #80 | |||
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Last Week Tonight just posted a new episode covering this.
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