Pension funds are insolvent. 401Ks and IRAs are joined at the hip to the stock market.
The incredibly overvalued markets today are based on lies and manipulation.
Posted on 08/05/2016 6:19:53 PM PDT by reaganaut1
Bernie Sanders isn’t going to be the next president, but one of the bills he has sponsored, the Keep Our Pension Promises Act (KOPPA)could become law during the next president’s term. That ought to worry anyone who knows that the collectivistic instincts of Bernie Sanders mean spreading the costs of bad policies to the entire population.
Here’s the background.
The Central States Pension Fund (CSPF) of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters has a troubled history going back to its founding in 1955 by long-time Teamsters president Jimmy Hoffa. (Carl Horowitz of the Organized Labor Accountability Project looks into that history in this Capital Research study.) It is a multi-employer pension fund. Some 1,500 companies with Teamster contracts from states mostly but not exclusively in the Midwest pay into the fund, which in turn pays defined pension amounts to a huge number of retirees.
For years, however, the fund has been paying out money at a much faster rate than it comes in. Currently, $3.46 goes out for every $1.00 paid in, and that ratio is certain to worsen. It has less than half of the money needed for financial stability, underfunded by some $18 billion. Projections are that the fund will be insolvent in ten to fifteen years.
At that point, as this CNN Money article notes, 407,000 Teamsters pensioners will find their pensions reduced to “virtually nothing.”
Congress has known about the problem of underfunded pension plans for a long time, but has never been able to resist the urge to meddle in a problem that properly belongs to “the states or the people” under the Tenth Amendment. (I would say that pensions are not a matter for government at any level, but entirely a private concern subject to general common law principles.)
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
Mmmmmm.... taxpayers?
That would be my guess.
I have some sympathy for the retirees that are going to get screwed over this. But they are at least partly responsible for the situation by who they voted or allowed to to represent them in the unions.
Step one in the solution should be to confiscate all the wealth of the union officials that didn’t manage these funds well. Step two would be to send them to jail.
I can see, as much as I don’t like the idea, of merging union pensions into a single Federal program that would (In theory) keep the funds from being used to line the pockets of union fat cats, mob bosses and political activist.
How about getting the super rich liberals like Buffet and Gates to each donate 5 Billion to top up these funds?
Yes, I pay taxes, so I answered the question, “ME!!”
Pension funds are insolvent. 401Ks and IRAs are joined at the hip to the stock market.
The incredibly overvalued markets today are based on lies and manipulation.
The PBGC. But who’ll bail out the PBGC?
Most unions are in the hands of organized crime. Despite all the talk about how the FBI has "broken the back of the mafia" - they haven't done a thing to go after mob control of the unions.
The unions give almost all of their political contributions to Democrats. The DNC is a criminal enterprise, aided and funded by criminals.
The money market funds are guaranteed not to “break the buck.” But interestingly that all changes this fall.
Three words: RETIREMENT FAIRNESS ACT.
This is where some creative political jujitsu can set Democratic constituencies against each other. For example, provide for a bailout that requires any participating state to sell off all publicly owned utility systems and put a large share of the proceeds into public pension fund obligations. Then raid the over-stuffed endowments of the Ivy League for additional funds. Be blunt that the goal is wealth redistribution from the Ivy League to save the pensions of ordinary people. Even if Bernie Sanders resisted, his supporters would find such proposals to be political catnip. Act surprised that any Ivy League university might oppose such measures.
that is why it is so important who you elect in your state, especially the governor. Unions members must also realize it is their community also....never strike when it penalizes your children's education or hospitalization....a good retirement means saving for years.
“It’s not a responsibility of the government to cover underfunded retirement funds. “
Actually, I believe that there is a law that says it is, at least for unionized government workers at all levels. I think the same law says it can reorganize private unions’ retirement funds if they go belly up.
It is also not the responsibility of the government to pay for the murder of children in the womb, to pay for the "sex change" operations for homosexual perverts in prison, or to pay for the health care, rent, groceries, and prenatal care for Illegal Invaders who are not even citizens of this nation.
But it is happening.
“The money market funds are guaranteed not to “break the buck.” But interestingly that all changes this fall.”
Please expand.
Amen.
I like your thinking...
Need look no further than Chicago and Rahmbo’s solution to the crisis of $3.45 being paid out in pension benefits for every $1.00 coming in. Onerous taxes. 30% property tax increase wasn’t even close to cutting it. Now, Rahmbo is proposing a huge increase (over 4 years) in water rates. WATER! When a government can tax a majority of people out of the basic essentials of life (food, water, shelter) to benefit a minority of people (civil service workers - teachers, cops, fire, and all manner of government wogs) revolution/civil war cannot be far behind. Watch Chicago carefully. As it goes, so goes the nation. And, to those privileged pensioners living fat off the struggle and sweat of everyone else, I say, “Be afraid. Be very, very afraid.”
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