Its pension plan has a budget deficit that is officially listed as $86 billion. However, some estimates put the pension liability at $200 billion for both state and local government.

100-200 billion in underfunded pension ??
FFS
time to erase that debt and fark the people who let it happen in the first place

/yes, I know, poor retarded school teachers and trash collectors ...
/sorry farkem .... why do we continue to have pensions??? move 100% of all new employees into self-directed, independently controlled 401ks (completely out of any control of the government)
/sigh

namatad: 100-200 billion in underfunded pension ??
FFS
time to erase that debt and fark the people who let it happen in the first place

/yes, I know, poor retarded school teachers and trash collectors ...
/sorry farkem .... why do we continue to have pensions??? move 100% of all new employees into self-directed, independently controlled 401ks (completely out of any control of the government)
/sigh

The pensions were part of their compensation package, they aren't at fault for wanting what they worked for. Look at how many of our politicians are in jail and ask yourself why pensions were underfunded.

R.A.Danny: The pensions were part of their compensation package, they aren't at fault for wanting what they worked for. Look at how many of our politicians are in jail and ask yourself why pensions were underfunded.

who is responsible for electing the crooks?
who is responsible for letting the crooks rape and pillage the pensions?

in the end, the voters are the government and those voters elected crooks who were robbing the future blind.
do I think that we should punish those voters by not bailing out their pensions? hell yes

namatad: R.A.Danny: The pensions were part of their compensation package, they aren't at fault for wanting what they worked for. Look at how many of our politicians are in jail and ask yourself why pensions were underfunded.

who is responsible for electing the crooks?
who is responsible for letting the crooks rape and pillage the pensions?

in the end, the voters are the government and those voters elected crooks who were robbing the future blind.
do I think that we should punish those voters by not bailing out their pensions? hell yes

Ayn Rand died on the dole. Get over yourself.

R.A.Danny: Ayn Rand died on the dole. Get over yourself.

really???
that is funny
her books didnt sell until after she died?

namatad: really???

Really (new window)

R.A.Danny: Ayn Rand died on the dole. Get over yourself.

Who cares? I swear, the first people to ever bring up Ayn Rand in any friggin' debate about some policy are always the damn progressives who want to broad-brush their opposition as being hyper-objectivists who sleep with Atlas Shrugged under their pillows (I've read it before and am fairly familiar with basic objectivist thought; it's an incomplete philosophy with some holes in it that I'm sure every one of her critics is familiar with, not to mention the basic literary criticisms against the book being absolutely legitimate).

The analogous charge to level at you would be that you sleep with the Communist Manifesto on your nightstand because some of your intellectual allies are self-described, outright socialists. I'm sure you could see how this gets pretty damn annoying.

Hydra: The analogous charge to level at you would be that you sleep with the Communist Manifesto on your nightstand because some of your intellectual allies are self-described, outright socialists. I'm sure you could see how this gets pretty damn annoying.

You didn't take a gander at his profile, did you? Didn't catch the disbelief in Rand's demise either. Think before white knighting a little, will you?

.

R.A.Danny: Hydra: The analogous charge to level at you would be that you sleep with the Communist Manifesto on your nightstand because some of your intellectual allies are self-described, outright socialists. I'm sure you could see how this gets pretty damn annoying.

You didn't take a gander at his profile, did you? Didn't catch the disbelief in Rand's demise either. Think before white knighting a little, will you?

Didn't bother, but now that you mention it, all he did was have some quotation from some guy in some thread who mentioned "an Ayn Randite strike" in passing. Big whoop.

I also checked yours out and see that you've had that account since 2002, so you would know even better than me how often Ayn Rand's zombie creeps into political threads from time to time. My point is that the first people to bring her up in any thread are nearly always the progressives who use her as a strawman and to marginalize anyone who disagrees with them in a thread.

"You're a libertarian? Oh, you MUST agree with Ayn Rand on EVERYTHING!"

No I don't, and I never even mentioned her, so stop bringing her up.

WhyteRaven74: Untold tens of billions of dollars got wiped out from pension plans of all types across the country when the financial markets went in the toilet.

so the pension investments were in high risk stocks?
hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

are the remaining pension dollars still in the same high risk funds ??
lol

WhyteRaven74: Actually part of the problem with the pension plans now is what happened a few years ago. Untold tens of billions of dollars got wiped out from pension plans of all types across the country when the financial markets went in the toilet. Also a big part of the problem is 30 years of stagnant wages. If we didn't have that, we're not having this conversation right now.

You're half right; the financial crisis did wipe out a lot of paper wealth that these pension funds had in the MBSs they bought while they were fooled by the bubble into projecting more income than they were going to receive in the future and thus offering more generous benefits than they can now afford.

Now, they're being hurt because pension funds are some of the largest recipients of fixed income, and they're getting clobbered by the low interest rate policy set by the Fed. If interest rates were allowed to rise, they would become a bit more solvent since their income would increase (the Fed won't do this because all the banks they bailed out would be rendered insolvent again).

/wages have little to nothing to do with the problems facing pension funds

WhyteRaven74: namatad: so the pension investments were in high risk stocks?

They weren't, there are laws regulating what you can invest pension funds in. Very strict laws. However when the entire financial market goes in the shiatter, it doesn't much matter how you invest the money. And 401k plans were similarly affected.

Pension fund managers are restricted to investing in higher rated (ie: less risky) products. A big part of the problem with the crash in 2008 and MBS is that the cutting and tranching put an A rated whitewash on what was effectively a risky bucket o shiat. This brought a lot of institutional money into play, which further inflated the bubble.

Pension funds took a huge hit, and not just indirectly. Lots of them were directly invested. I think the fact that nobody has yet to see a single day of time behind bars for this heist speaks volumes.

Got a great idea! Tell everyone working for Illinois & all counties therein, NO PENSION FOR YOU! That should fix it.