Rubicon: A river in Wisconsin

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Originally Posted by DarrinS

Reason is libertarian.

What's this VRWC acronym you are constantly spewing?

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Very Right Wing Conspiracy

Vast.

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Originally Posted by ChumpDumper

He wants to take away collective bargaining rights from some unions but not others.

Why is that, Darrin?

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That is a question that you will probably not get Darrin to answer.

He does surprise one on occasion with a fit of honesty, tho', so he gets the benefit of "probably".

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Originally Posted by RandomGuy

Doing it the hard way yields, at a modest 3% return over inflation of 3%:
$1,083,098.62
If you distributed this amount in 360 equal payments of 4555 (+inflation over time), it would total this starting number.

To achieve that amount, the city would have to reserve much less than this figure over the 33 years of service.

To achieve this amount of reserve required for 33 years, would be about $875 per month.

Assuming a 6% return, this would mean an investment of some $208,000 in present day money over the course of 33 years.

Not entirely a "break the bank" scenario to me.

Time.
Value.
Of.
Money.

(edit)
The above calculation is what the City of San Antonio would have to set aside to save up for their fireman's pensions.
Assumptions:
22 year old firefighter works for 33 years and retires at age 55, living to age 85.
3% inflation, 6% investment yield for city reserving fund over the entire 68 year span

Cosmic Cowboy, using "simple math" came up with $2.5M future dollars spent on the fireman's pension.

I came up with $1.6M, to be arrived at by setting aside $875/month over the course of the firefighters working years. I assume this is mostly done by the city, with some possible matching done by the firefighter himself.

Now, I ask again:

Is this an unreasonable amount of money to pay a firefighter?

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You forgot health care. I specifically said benefits and not pension.

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Originally Posted by CosmicCowboy

You forgot health care. I specifically said benefits and not pension.

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aaah.

That changes things a bit.

The amount to reserve for health benefits is MUCH harder to estimate, given the uncertainty of health cost inflation, copays, etc.

$2.5M over the course of 30 years between the health insurance and pension does seem to be reasonable then.

That would make the set-aside closer to $1200-$1300 per month over the course of his working life, *if* you chose to have the fund 100% ready by then.

Here is where accounting rules will come back to bite you in the ass:

That isn't the way a lot of government's account for their pensions.

They dont' set aside anything, and hide the costs of their future promises, i.e. "underfunded". Retirement costs come out of present funds a lot of the time.

If you want some scary reading, google:

unfunded government pension liabilities

or soemthing similar.

Here is a good starter from the Americans for Tax Reform
http://www.atr.org/unfunded-pension-...-credit-a5805#

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Originally Posted by RandomGuy

If you want some scary reading, google:

unfunded government pension liabilities

or soemthing similar.

Here is a good starter from the Americans for Tax Reform
http://www.atr.org/unfunded-pension-...-credit-a5805#

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Thanks. This is disturbing. Everyone, of course, says it is, but when it comes down to doing something about it (tax collection increases & benefit reductions) then we're back to standard political posturing.

At this point it's going to take an external shock to force the obvious solutions to happen.

Unfunded government pension liabilities are a huge problem.

They used to be a huge problem in the private sector. Because they were such a problem there, GAAP forced the private corporations to start showing the unfunded or underfunded pensions as a liability. The result was changes in pensions, as well as changes in how they were funded.

The people who were NOT forced to go along with GAAP accounting for unfunded pensions were governments.

So, is the answer to screw the government workers, or is the answer to force governments at the state and local levels to show the same sort of accounting for unfunded liabilities that private enterprise is using, so that their municipal bond offerings can be more reasonably assessed?

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Originally Posted by Marcus Bryant

Thanks. This is disturbing. Everyone, of course, says it is, but when it comes down to doing something about it (tax collection increases & benefit reductions) then we're back to standard political posturing.

At this point it's going to take an external shock to force the obvious solutions to happen.

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It will build up and get worse every year, until the problem hits some tipping point where the problem is big enough to scare people into doing what needed to have been done years ago.

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Originally Posted by RandomGuy

Very Right Wing Conspiracy

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Ok, it all makes sense now.

VAST Right Wing Conspiracy

If y'all want articles describing its history, the players, the instruments ...

(I'm holding my breath)

also

http://www.acronymfinder.com/

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Originally Posted by RandomGuy

That would make the set-aside closer to $1200-$1300 per month over the course of his working life, *if* you chose to have the fund 100% ready by then.

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The problem is that state and federal agencies don't set it aside. Very few invest it, but most who have used investors that lose their money. It's future tax payers that pay for it. The whole government employee benifit thing generally becomes a ponzie scheme.

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Originally Posted by Wild Cobra

The problem is that state and federal agencies don't set it aside. Very few invest it, but most who have used investors that lose their money.

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More invest and set aside than you seem to indicate here.

The state of California employee pension fund is one of the largest pools of invested money in the US, to my understanding. They make fair returns.

I don't know exactly what you base your "most have lost their money investing" statement on though.

CalPERS took a large hit in '08 (of course, not the only institutional investor to suffer then).

Actually, it was in '09 (their FY ends 6/30):

http://www.businessweek.com/news/201...ree-years.html

OH Repugs sneak a hate provision, legislating their "stern fatherly" imposition of their backward morals:

http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/...11/03/hate.jpg

Sec. 3101.01 of S.B. 5: … A marriage may only be entered into by one man and one woman. Any marriage between persons of the same sex is against the strong public policy of this state. Any marriage between persons of the same sex shall have no legal force or effect in this state and, if attempted to be entered into in this state, is void ab initio and shall not be recognized by this state. The recognition or extension by the state of the specific statutory benefits of a legal marriage to non-marital relationships between persons of the same sex or different sexes is against the strong public policy of this state. Any public act, record or judicial proceeding of this state, as defined in section 9.82 of the Revised Code, that extends the specific statutory benefits of legal marriage to non-marital relationships between persons of the same sex or different sexes is void.

http://thinkprogress.org/2011/03/03/...n-gay-couples/