The San Francisco Chronicle informs us that the University of California’s new president has pledged that his office’s employees won’t be allowed to collect full severance checks and then be rehired at other UC locations. The great double dip has been curtailed, it seems.
He went so far as to say “this may appear to the public as an objectionable use of resources…” Is it possible reality is seeping into the inner sanctums of public employment?
The paper reports that the UC buyout program has included a top aide granted a $100,202 buyout from the university’s Oakland headquarters who then took a six-figure job on the Cal campus a few miles away.
The university identified 15 additional employees from the president’s office, who received severance pay and then went to work at UC Berkeley and other campuses. Severance payments for all 16 came to $682,431.
Half of the 16 were re-hired by UC Berkeley, two got jobs at UC Davis, another at UCSF and the others at Irvine, Merced, Santa Barbara, Riverside and Santa Cruz campuses.
As we used to say, “Nice work if you can get it.” But maybe now they can’t get it. What next? Limits on tenure?
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What’s up with these people? Most who take government jobs like the nice salary, great benefits, bullet-proof job security and relatively easy workload. You would think that would give them what they want. But no. Once they crack that egg now it’s time to scam the system. At least Yudof ‘gets it’. But ‘getting it’ and doing something about it are world’s apart. Did all these employees collect their severances and start their new jobs prior to the implementation of this program in June? Well, better late than never I suppose. Yudof must have the employee unions furious over this one. Good for him. I might even write him a letter and thank him for having the guts to act like a real leader. Afterall, there are so few of them in public service.
Sigh.
“Yudof must have the employee unions furious over this one.”
If you’ll take the trouble to actually read the Chrocicle article, you’ll see that none of the people involved in this little scam was in a classification that came under any union agreement, or was in any way a member of a union. These were management types - directors of government realtions, aides, and so on.
This raises two issues. The first is the common nasty presumption, exemplified by ocobserver’s post above, that financial waste in employee salaries is a union-generated phenomenon - that everything is the unions’ fault. Labor organizations are a favorite whipping boy of the Right, for whom no company or management can be wrong, and no union can be right. In that mindset, we might as well go back to syndicalism laws of the nineteenth century that precluded worker organization at all. That sort of prostration before the foot of corporate management is idiotic, of course, but especially so i nthis era when corporate managements across the board have and continue top reveal themselves as venal, self-centered, greedy, short sighted and ultimately destructive not only of their own companies but of the larger economy. They aren’t just pulling, say, Ford or GM, down, but the entire mrket system. With friends like that, the market system hardly needs enemies. If labor organizations can provide some counterbalance to protect the rights and wages of workers, more power to them - not to the extent of overweening power (that would be as potentially destructive as untrammelled corporate power), but to counter the avarice of business.
The second is the notion I’m sure I’ll hear about how this then is an example of public employees’ dastardly-ness. Well, folks like Mr. Landsbaum will likely argue, if it’s not public unions’ venality, it’s that of public employees in general. Wrong again. The quickest look at similar positions in the private sector will show that greed is hardly confined to those employed by government, and that the negative effects of that greed are hardly confined to those who exploit the public trough. Corporate executives and higher-ups have grown sadly used to, and to feeling entitled to continue, looting their companies’ treasuries annually (if not more often) to pay for their lifestyles - through absurd compensation plans, “performance” bonuses, stock options that dilute shareholder equity, and so on. Greed isn’t a public or private employee employee concern. It’s a human failing, and our outrage over what UC’s people did shouldn;t blind us to the fact that such scamming goes on even in the sainted “free” market - and with even less chance of ever being called to account.
Ocobserver’s notion that Yudof is exceptional in cracking down on such scams may be true, but his companion implicit claim that such exceptionalism is limited to “public” employment is, frankly, nonsense. Poor management knows no bounds, greed is no one’s stranger, and private companies routinely allow waste and reprehensible self-enrichment by their executives that make this incodent pale by comparison.
rlf:
Whatever the positions of these scam artists I have no doubt that they are not subject to the whims of ‘at will’ employment in the private sector which allow employers to fire a worker FOR NO REASON WHATSOEVER! Compare the dismissal rates of public executives and private executives if you have any doubt!
Trust me. I am no apologists for the wall street crooks who made out like bandits with the dirty mortgage-backed investment products that have caused irreparable harm to our nation. Many should be behind bars! They should be forced to be transparent, expose ALL bad debt and default all that must be defaulted to clear the books! But who’s giving them the pass? Well, government workers, of course! The ones who should apply the law and dish out the justice are failing to carry out their obligations under the law! So we’ve come full circle now, haven’t we? Another government worker problem!
Don’t tell me that public unions are not the problem when a county or state secretary can retire at 55 with 80-85% of her paycheck for the rest of her life. NOWHERE would you find that in the private sector! The public employee unions are outlived their usefulness. They were created to bring working conditions and benefits up to par with the private sector. Not only have they done that, they have increased mainstream government salaries far higher than their private sector counterparts with similar education and skill sets, they have boosted their retirement benefits through the roof and beyond what ANY mainstream worker has in the private sector, and they have arranged for bullet-proof job security for government workers who don’t know the meaning of ‘at will’ employment! The amount of money we taxpayers spend to fund government employees salaries, benefits and retirement packages is ENORMOUS! It is literally bankrupting our state! The time has come for a major reversal. And it will happen one way of the other. Either the trough feeders will return to the bargaining table and agree to voluntary cutbacks, or the economy will force it upon them which will be MUCH MORE SEVERE! So pick your poison. Like the midas man says ‘pay me now or pay me later’. We leave that up to you.
Come to your senses before it’s too late!
First, you missed my point. You claimed, at least implicitly, that the people involved were in some union, or that the union would regard this as taking away some benefit to their menbers. I pointed out that they weren’t. In fact if you look at the Chronicle article, you’ll see that the policy involved was specifically for managers, senior professionals, and their support staff (who as part of central management are virtually never union folks, in any setting public or private).
As for their at-will status, my guess (having worked in higher education on public and private universities) is that they were in fact at will. The trouble with rising in the administrative side to the level where these folks were is that you lose job security as you gain prestige. The highest rungs lack civil service or other Sinderman/Roth type protections for their jobs, and are in fact as vulnerable to being axed as any private worker - frankly, more so, given the tendency of new administrations to put their own people into those positions (as contrasted to the private sector, where new executive management tends to be more evolutionary and so less inclined to make wholesale replacements at the top of the org chart).
Your claim that public employee unions are “the” problem with state and local government finances - not one problem, or a problem, but “the” problem, is revealing. I wish life were that simple. I could write volumes on this, but pointing out the monomania and scapegoating involved in such a statement is, I think, enough. If you think that’s the entirety of the problem, well, I have bridges to sell you.
And blaming government workers for the Wall Street and other corporate problems is a breathtaking bit of legerdemain, not to mention utterly nonsensical. Financial instruents such as credit default swaps and other derivatives were affirmatively and specifically exempted from all Federal regulation by our fine old Republican Congress, under a rider slipped into an omnibus bill by Phil Gramm of Texas (about which whom volumes of contumely could be written on matters financial, but that’s for another day). And of course the entire political philosophy of the past eight years has been to wink at regulation or control of the “free” markets, in the ideological belief that those markets could do no wrong and we’d all wind up impossibly rich and vacationing in the Hamptons if we just let them be (symbolic example: Chrisopher Cox as head of the SEC).
That overarching governmental philosophy hasn’t worked out too well, has it?.
So let’s see, the government regulators were specifically forbidden to regulate, the corporate (for lack of a better term) culture was to take a hands off approach, and therefore it’s the fault of government workers that the instruments they couldn’t regulate, and were told to let pass to the extent they had authority, blew up? They’re to blame???
Wow.
rlh:
This comes straight from the ACLU:
“Government employees: Federal, state and local government workers are protected by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, which prohibit the government from depriving any person of “life, liberty or property” without due process of law. These employees are considered to have a property interest in their jobs, and the right to due process places significant restrictions on arbitrary dismissals unrelated to job performance. Some additional protection is provided by federal, state and local civil service laws”
Unless you can show me where this additional protection does not apply to positions in government related to this blog I cannot accept your ‘guess’ that it does not.
The public unions have created a huge problem by inflating salaries, benefits, retirement plans and job protection of public workers well above those in the private sector with commensurate education and skills. The taxpayers are obligated fund those premium salaries and benefits. It contributes greatly to public bankrupcies. Don’t believe me? Read about Vallejo, CA. That is a microcosm of what is happening throughout our state, federal and local governments! If you want to remain in denial, that’s your business. If you want to ignore the train and stay on the middle of the tracks, be my guest. I am simply telling you what ‘is’. Not my opinion. Simple reality.
You made my argument about government. It failed to reign in wall street. It allowed a casino atmosphere to occur within our public and private financial arenas. Government set us up for the fall. Crooks are crooks. The ones who purported to be our leaders in the financial world would steal you blind and call it ‘free market capitalism’. That’s one purpose of government. To keep them in check. They failed miserably. Miserably! Had they done their jobs we wouldn’t be in this mess! Chris Cox, Paulson, et. al. gave them the keys to the people’s bank and a free pass! You’re preaching to the choir, rlh.
you said:
“the government regulators were specifically forbidden to regulate”
Did you read the OCR piece on Washington Mutual and their mortgate loan practices? They were giving $500k home loans to illegal foreigners with abysmal fico scores who were employed as gardeners. There is no regulation against that? These practices were rampant! Mortgage lenders were making their own rules as they went along! There were laws in place against that! This is what began the snowball rolling! So stop with you’re “the government regulators were specifically forbidden to regulate”. Balderdash! Accept reality!
1. Re Wamu [ “is there no regulation against that?” Actually, no, there wasn’t - That’s the blessing (and bane) of free markets. If it’s their money, they could do what they wanted, especially under ghe outgoing administration. That’s the wages of our politics of de-regulation, ideologically based, wilfully ignorant of reality, and stubborn in its insistence even to this day that we shoul;dn’t regulate the blessed free market. You accuse government of failing us in the Wall Street breakdown. I would suggest a subtlely but majorly different thesis: that politics betrayed us. Not the mass of government workers (the union member types you so excoriate), but the political leadership. Big difference.
I worked in a public university at a high level position of the sort described in the article. Believe me, those positions were at will, as was I (as I found out when a new president came in and eecided he wanmted all his own staff, drawn mostly from his former institution). The ACLU’s generalities are just that - generalities, and as I said the notion of vested property/liberty interests in employment isn’t applied in the same fashion to major senior officials in universities (which are sort of sui generis institutions anyway as government agencies go). Similar factors apply to senior management of most other agencies - you can fire a deputy director of a state agency a lot easier than that person’s secretary.
As for your continued attack on public employee unons, I never said they did nothing but wonderful thingsd. But your positing them as the sole source of the problem with local government finances is just wrong - simplistic, based on a priori bias, overinclusive, and blind to larger realities.
rlh Says:
December 5th, 2008 at 10:38 am
Sigh.
“Yudof must have the employee unions furious over this one.”
If you’ll take the trouble to actually read the Chrocicle article, you’ll see that none of the people involved in this little scam was in a classification that came under any union agreement, or was in any way a member of a union. These were management types - directors of government realtions, aides, and so on.
==================================
The unions make MORE thsn these low lifes do-so who cares if these are not the uion employees????
.
.
.
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rlh with another nugget of gold;
“Corporate executives and higher-ups have grown sadly used to, and to feeling entitled to continue, looting their companies’ treasuries annually (if not more often) to pay for their lifestyles - through absurd compensation plans, “performance” bonuses, stock options that dilute shareholder equity, and so on. Greed isn’t a public or private employee employee concern.”
===============================
Can anyone please tell me why public employee union welfare queens think because a handful of corporate CEO’s (totaling maybe a few hundred) rip off their companies that this somehow makes it ALRIGHT for the public employees to rip off the taxpayers??????
Why do these welfare queens say that because GM’s CEO rips off GM that it is OK for every single GED educated public employee to rip off taxpayers???
I just don’t seem to get that argument.
Don’t tell me that public unions are not the problem when a county or state secretary can retire at 55 with 80-85% of her paycheck for the rest of her life. NOWHERE would you find that in the private sector! The public employee unions are outlived their usefulness. They were created to bring working conditions and benefits up to par with the private sector. Not only have they done that, they have increased mainstream government salaries far higher than their private sector counterparts with similar education and skill sets, they have boosted their retirement benefits through the roof and beyond what ANY mainstream worker has in the private sector, and they have arranged for bullet-proof job security for government workers who don’t know the meaning of ‘at will’ employment!
==================
Bingo! We have our winner.
Public employment had 3 prongs in the past by which to measure the value against the private sector-, 1) pay, 2) benefits, 3) job security.
They took less in pay so they could enjoy job security and better benefits, now that have all 3 and usually get their jobs through connections.
They took less in pay so they could enjoy job security and better benefits, now that have all 3 and usually get their jobs through connections.
Yes. Like the private sector is well known to be a meritocracy.
Johnny, the UAW offers 30 and Out. UPS offers 25-at-57.
OC Dem Says:
December 6th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
They took less in pay so they could enjoy job security and better benefits, now that have all 3 and usually get their jobs through connections.
Yes. Like the private sector is well known to be a meritocracy.
=========================
Yep, that’s right, the private sector is a meritocracy.
Because unlike the PUBLIC SECTOR-the private sector goes bankrupt if they hire incomptent friends and family.
Chris Says:
December 6th, 2008 at 6:36 pm
Johnny, the UAW offers 30 and Out. UPS offers 25-at-57.
=============
Chris, the UAW do not have a 90%@50 like hundreds of thousands of CA cops, FFs and prison guards have and the UAW have bankrupted their companies in case you have not seen a newspaper during the past 10 years.
I do not know what UPS has, but it does NOT have a 90% of highest years pay at age 50 pension, which again every cop, FF and prison guard in this state has AT AGE 50! They also do not have lifetime healthcare.
You can try to spin the facts all ypu want, but the facts are that making more in a pension than when you worked 1 with more than half a lifetime of a work life left to live is BKing the public coffers.
Gravy train is over-the pensions wrecked it.
Take a look at this;
http://policepay.blogspot.com/2008/12/ron-delord-public-policing-is-seeing.html
rlf:
If you read the banking investigation in the OCR you would know that they were giving loans to criminals convicted of real estate fraud. And there certainly are laws against LYING to get mortgage applications processed through the system. Several of the loan officers said that they were pressured by the higher ups to kick through the loan applications through EVEN THOUGH THEY KNEW THE APPLICANTS WERE LYING THROUGH THEIR TEETH. That is a violation of the law, dear. I know you hate to accept the truth. The longer you stay in denial the harder it will be for you when the house of cards comes tumbling down.
The public jobs referred to in this blog are not ‘at will’ positions. You will note in the ACLU paragraph that government employees have two tier protection: First, by the fifth and fourteenth Amendments (which private sector workers do not have) and secondly, by virtue of their local civil service laws. Even if the 2nd form of protection is not afforded to a few executive public officials, the 1st one always is! So you are wrong. I gave you my proof source. If you are so certain about what you say show me yours. Your word is not enough.
Where did I say that public employees were the sole source of financial havoc in the government? Please find that quote to refresh my memory. I stated that public employee salaries and benefits are a huge problem. Calpers has lost over $50 BILLION in their retirement fund THIS YEAR ALONE due to the economic meltdown. That number will continue to grow since we are only in about the 3rd inning of the downslide. Who has to make that up? Yep, the taxpayer. You think John Q. Taxpayer is going to dig deeper into his pocket to fund your 85% retirement at 55 when he lost his job and has watched his 401-k investment obliterated? Sorry, dear. The game is up. I suggest you all return to the bargaining table forthwith and voluntarily give back some of your pork. Otherwise you are in for a big, big surprise.
Johnny, I’m not going to defend every police, FF or prison guard contract. Look at Vallejo, CA. They’re bankrupting the city. But that extremely bad example doesn’t extend to every public union or worker.
Your example of a secretary retiring at 55 with an 80% pension is not so off the mark of what the UAW and UPS offer. Teamsters/UPS offers an 80 and Out (service+age).
Lastly, the private sector is no more or less of a meritocracy than the military, the Catholic Church, the government or al Qaeda. Well, actually I don’t have any direct experience with al Qaeda. But human nature is the same everywhere. In particular, a meritorious worker often threatens a useless middle manager, and I do have direct experience with that.
Yep, that’s right, the private sector is a meritocracy.
Because unlike the PUBLIC SECTOR-the private sector goes bankrupt if they hire incomptent friends and family.
That’s not true either. There are many private sector companies who thrive and flourish under those conditions.
After I left government I did a brief stint for a couple of defense firms. Incompetents were routinely hired and promoted due to the executive connections. Guess what? They’re are still in business.
I could list several industries where the compensation far outweighs the pay levels in the private sector and no one reports it. The CEO of Lockheed Martin (the largest defense contractor) makes far more than any police chief or fire chief and no one says a word since they are considered “private enterprise.” Their contributions to the end product are debatable and for another thread.
Your argument is specious at best.
Chris:
Ocer’s is only about 70% funded. The county admits that’s a problem. The reason? Public safety retirement packages. The healthcare portion is extremely onerous. If you knew anything about the county’s business you would know that.
With regard to UAW and UPS, I think we should bust those unions too! Only about 5% of the private sector workforce falls under union-driven benefits while 95% of the public sector has civil service protection and union benefits.
Finally, about 70% of the private sector in america consist of small businesses. How with a straight face could you campare those small enterprises with the military or the catholic church?
Let’s return this discussion to some semblance of reality.
ocdem:
Nepotism and the hiring of incompetents in the public sector far outdistances such practices in the private sector. The obvious reason is that a private company would go bankrupt if it were run by incompetents who hired other idiots. It’s nearly impossible for the government to go bankrupt since it prints the money and has the power to tax!
70% of our economy is fueled by small business. Those companies cannot afford to hire incompetents. It would result in their quick demise.
When the CEO of Lockheed Martin is paid from directly from the treasury we’ll watch him like a hawk. Unlike the government, he has competitors that he must deal with. If the competitors steal his business he’s gone. The chief of police has no competition. He runs a monopoly. Unless he commits a crime he pretty much has lifetime job security. The CEO of LM is responsible for a profit/loss statement and a budget in the multi-billions. With more responsibility and less job security comes more pay. That’s the way it’s supposed to work in america.
I too have worked for the government and private business. If you can’t see the difference take your blinders off!
This is so wearying.
I’ve put facts in my posts - read them.
As for your not saying unions are the sole source of “financial havoc in the government,” this is from your first post on this thread:
“Don’t tell me that public unions are not the problem . . . ”
My original response to you noted that you used the term, “the problem” - not “a problem” , or “one of” - “the problem.” That, in my English comprehension class, means the entirety of the problem. Your words. So spare me the outrage.
The people involved in the Berkeley incident were not civil service, nor were they “regular” government employees by virtue of the seniority and status as executive staff. They were at will. You may not like me saying that, but it’s a fact. That’s life in the big city. You can stamp your feet all you want but it doesn’t change that. Go call up Yudof’s chief aide Monday and ask him if he gets a hearing before he gets fied if Yudof doesn’t like him any more, see what your answer is.
And as for Wamu, people lying on their loan applications may be a felony as far as the district attorney is concerned, but a bank dumb enough to loan to them based on transparent lies - whether through incompetence or pressure from management - is hoist by its own petard. It doesn’t need government sanctions, quite aside from the fact that none exist (so long, as I said earlier, as they aren’t loaning government money).
The loss of funds in CALPERS is hardly the fault of any union - it’s the effect of a meltdown, Obviously that has ramifications for retirement benefits, but blaming the union for poorly performing investments is really a reach. Guess what? I’m not a great fan of high public union pensions either, but making them the sole boogeyman is just plain dishonest, just as blaming public employee unions for all the state’s problems is. Harvard alone lost more than CALPERS ever dreamed of in the last six months - which union shall we blame for that? They, like a lot of institutional investors, got too aggressive in pursuing short term returns, and went into commodities like foodstuffs and (especially) oil over the past year as stocks, conventional financial instruments, and mortgage based securities - the profit margin darlings from most of the decade - started to go south. The result was a huge speculative boom (again, abetted by politically based unwillingness to regulate the market or step in - remember how we were being told six months ago, in paternalistic scoldings, that the cost of gas was all our fault?) that finally broke of its own accord - as such booms inevitably do.
I really don’t know why this is so vitriolic - it’s pretty straightforward, really. You don’t like public employee unions. You tried to blame them for something that wasn’t any of their doing, then you blamed them generally for everything else. On both counts, you’re just wrong. relax, have a nice long beer, and exhale.
rlh:
You are playing the semantics game to promote your empty rhetoric. We both know that inflated salaries, inflated benefits (ie. retirement) and outdated job security for public employees have placed enormous pressure on limited government budgets. Everyone knows that. Even the governor. It’s not a secret. As a public employee you defend and honor the status quo. Not a surprise to any of us. And there are thousands of trough feeders lined up behind you.
Once again, you failed to provide a proof source that the public executive employees addressed in this blog are ‘at will’ employees and do not have special added employment protections over private sector workers. Your opinion or word falls way short of fact. This strengthens my belief that you are blowing smoke. You made the original claim, I didn’t. You call Yudof. Don’t ask us to do your work for you. Part and parcel of being a public employee I guess.
It is, in fact, a crime for a loan officer to knowingly approve a loan document that contains false information. Helping someone obtain a home loan based on falsified financial information is a crime. It’s called fraud. Look it up. Fraud or the furtherance of fraud is not a optional business practice left to the discretion of the lender. You know that. Why are you being so obstinate?
My point is that Calpers is a public obligation. When I lose money in my 401-k you don’t have to make up the difference when it’s time for me to retire. Why should I have to fund your retirement if you come up short? If you invested poorly then you should have to work longer. Period. If you don’t like to take risks, don’t invest. But don’t ask me to take that risk for you. Grow up and be an adult.
Time for the trough feeders to take responsibility for their own lives. The game is up. The train is racing down the tracks. Move or live with the consequences.
Lastly, the private sector is no more or less of a meritocracy than the military, the Catholic Church, the government or al Qaeda.
=====================
To Chris and OC Commie-
Again, I have said it and so has OC Observer-a private company goes BK if they hire incompentents-while the government never does.
Public Employes retiring at age 50, employees with nothing more than GED’s and HS diplomas, making over $100K in pay and getting just as much in retirement-is not sustainable. It is a structual flaw and it is ending-if not by legislation then by bankruptcy.
The loss of funds in CALPERS is hardly the fault of any union - it’s the effect of a meltdown, Obviously that has ramifications for retirement benefits, but blaming the union for poorly performing investments is really a reach.
===========================
rlh is about to get yet another spanking.
YES< it is the fault of the public employee unions, they habe BRIBED, through campaign contributions, a small elected number of government officials to raise their pay and pensions to levels NOT sustainable (also illegal retroactive raises I might add).
So rlh, the notions thta it is not the public unions fault is absolute nonsense, but that baloney is to be expected from welfare queens living at the public trough.
The jig is up. This train wreck is simply not going to work out for you welfare queens any longer, living off the taxpayers back.
JV,
I’ve cited an example of companies that don’t go broke. I could cite many others who have government enforced monopolies.
Your comments are more of the same. Nothing new.
Um, ocobserver, I’m not a public employee. I was until about ten years ago, for a total period of about six years, in a thirty year career (so far). You keep making these presumptions . . .
I also find it amusing that you demand I call Yudof’s office ot support what I’ve said, based on my personal experience, while you also throw it out that I shouldl ook up things to support your point about approving false loan applications is a crime. It must be nice to have it both ways.
You get nastier and nastier, but you don’t really go anywhere, except deeper into your own rather sordid hole og dislike.
rlh:
You worked for the government for 30 years? That raises my doubt about your claims even moreso. Why not just show us a proof source that supports your assertion that the public executives addressed in this blog are ‘at will’ employees with the same job protection (which is basically none) as a private sector worker. Doesn’t the public employee union that guarantees your monthly retirement transfer payment from the government list employee protections on their website? Again, your word is not proof. How many times do I have to tell you that?
Do I have to list the state and federal code sections that prohibits financial institutions and loan officers from participating in the furtherance of real estate fraud? Does the ‘fiduciary obligation to the shareholders’ ring a bell?
I noticed that you did not address any of the points in my last post. Looks like this thread is beginning to wind down. Thanks for the victory.
No, observer, I worked at a public university for six years out of a thirty year career, and that part of my life ended a decade ago. The rest of my work life has been, as it is now, in the privcate sector. That’s what I wrote last time, and I’ll reiterate it now. Please read before attacking.
As for the at-will, side issue, I’m telling you my experience. I guess my living the situation I write about isn’t good enough proof for you - oh well.
You still don’t seem to want to address my original point about your claim that public employee unions are the sole source of the “financial havoc” facing state and local government, so I guess that’s kind of embarrassing for you. Sorry to quote your own word back at you to make my point - I know that’s never fun.
The whole Wamu thing is also a side issue, but I’ll simply note that the bank is a victim of the fraud when its employees do illegal things, and that fraud itself requires knowledge of the falsity of the representations you’re putting out. And that fraud and violating fiduciary obligations to shareholders (another new idea, which should deserve a whole lengthy response in its turn, but why bother) are very different things. You keep conflating the political leadership failures of the past eight years with supposed sins of the mass of (unionized, in your rather nasty mindset) government workers. As I’ve suggested before, the two are far from the same.
I really don’t know what points you’ve made in any of your recent posts, aside from being really intemperate, so if you think that’s some sort of victory for you, congratulations. You’re the best hothead in the room. I never regarded this as a win lose situation, but a discussion. Guess I don’t see discussion the same way you do. Oh well, At any rate, I decline to join your screaming.
OC Dem Says:
December 7th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
JV,
I’ve cited an example of companies that don’t go broke.
===========
if they are NOT ging broke then they are OBVIOUSLY not hiring incompetent cronies……that’s the difference-the gov hires incompetents-it is LOADED with incompetents.
BTW-one last thing-private companies have the right to hire cronies because it is THEIR company that THEY built with their own money and risks-which is about as far from gov employment as you can get.
rlh:
you said:
“At any rate, I decline to join your screaming”
Another exaggeration on your part. Point to the ’screaming’, please. Otherwise try to be truthful.
You didn’t address this:
“My point is that Calpers is a public obligation. When I lose money in my 401-k you don’t have to make up the difference when it’s time for me to retire. Why should I have to fund your retirement if you come up short? If you invested poorly then you should have to work longer. Period. If you don’t like to take risks, don’t invest. But don’t ask me to take that risk for you. Grow up and be an adult”
Is it fair that we (the taxpayers) must bailout the plush public retirement funds in hard times so the trough feeders get their 85-90% @ 50 or 55 when those of us with 401-k’s decimated by the investment markets must simply forego retirement and work longer
to make ends meet? Is that a fair and just eqalitarian society? Don’t you feel morally obligated to bail out our 401-k’s if we help you? Please don’t dodge this question.
It’s interesting how your argument keeps shifting to new and (I guess you think) more fertile fields.
Let’s review: This thread started with your claiming the unions were or had been responsible for the perceived double dipping of certain senior UC execs, which I pointed out was untrue and an example of mindless union bashing. We then proceeded to your claim that those unions were the sole cause of the state’s financial woes, which i again pointed out was silly.
Then we got into long exegeses on at will employment, how the government (or, more precisely, in your view, presumably unionized government workers) were responsible for the current financial crisis, and Wamu, still without your addressing or denying my original points. Now we’ve moved on to the paper losses that Calpers has sustained in the current financial situation.
Oh, and along the way you keep insisting (as you appear to do in your latest post) that I’m part of the problem - a career government worker who’s feeding at the nasty trough. I keep telling you how small a part of my overall career was spent working for a public university, but either that hasn’t sunk in or you prefer to bash the straw man that I’m the embodiment of your resentments on this subject.
And you wonder why I refer to your screaming?
So, anyway, even though it’s completely off point, let’s look at Calpers. Your concern reminds me of the fretting we were going through over oil prices last summer. That fretting presumed that those conditions were permanent. I didn’t think they were then. I believed, as i said in here at the time that oil prices were the subject of a massive and fairly unscrupulous speculative boom that was hurting the overall economy. Now we’re seeing the bust half of that cycle, with prices artificially low and going lower, bfore they rise again to some point of relative stability.
The same logic structure applies to the present values of portfolios and stock prices. We were in a major boom cycle, fed on flame and air, which had values artificially inflated well beyond reality. Right now those values are just as artificially depressed below realistic levels, due to the overall panic and pessimism we’re going through. But, like oil prices, those values too will eventually rise back to a reasonable value - probably in 2010 mostly, as next year will be a lot of limping along and consolidation.
That has direct bearing on the long term value of Calpers’ portfolio, as you can see. The point is that its portfolio isn’t as bad off, in the long run (and what’s a pension fund but an investment for the long run?) as the current camera shot would have you believe. If it had to fund everything right now we’d have problems, but rest its soul (and ours), it doesn’t.
Note that this doesn;t address issues of underfunding pensions, which is simple thievery - you have an obligation to fulfill, and you don’t. That’s a separate issue, and I hope for another day - though the way this discussion keeps shifting like an amoeba, I’m not so sure. I’m trying to stay on one subject.
You complain that private folks with 401k’s have to work longer etc while the public must “bail out” Calpers. First, I’m unaware that there’s any move afoot to bail out Calpers - that the fund is in any immediate danger of collapse. So I don’t see the real world relevance of the issue right now, except as a proverbial stone in your shoe, which appears to bug you no end but which none of us has any issue with - for now, at least.
More basically, though, if Calpers were to come into problems, you’re esseentially demanding to know what to do about it - what would be fair? I’ll ignore the “fait and just egalitarian society” stuff, because as conservatives have been bleating for a generation, no society guarantees equality of result - just equality of opportunity.
You posit public employees in general as “trough feeders” - a nice epithet, but more revealing of your biases than anything else. In fact, they’re working folks, just like you and me (remember - not a government worker?). Like you and me, some have better pensions systems than others. That’s a consequence of the jobs we took and the industry we went into. Some opt for security, others for more enrtreprenurial type risks.
Bailing out a large fund like Calpers, if necessary (and recall I don;t concede or believe it is), would be little morevthan validating promises made to the workers receiving its benefits. if you believe in the sancity of contract, then you have a moral obligation to live up to your agreements. That’s not to say I’d enter some of the agreements that some of our localities have entered (you also assume I’m a uniform defender of anything uinions o, which is likewise simplistic, false, and more indicative of your way of mischaracterizing anyone who questions anything you say than it is of the overall problem). It is to say, however, that if you have a conteactual obligation, you fulfill it.
That’s not to say that help shouldn;t also be given to individual 401k-type retirement investors, however. The form of that assistance, however, has to be different. for one thing, it’s easy to identify a potential Calpers problem and address it - you have one entity to analyze and extend a hand to. With massive numbers of individuals, of course, you have massive numbers of different situations. The guy who invested his retirement money in, say, snotragsforsudan.com, is to my mind a little less entitled to aid than the fellow who invested solidly in AAA rated financial instruments that are being dragged down.
Assistantce to individual investors, I think, is best delivered by bringing the overall market out of its slump, incrwasing the value of their portfolios again - perhaps not to the hyperinflated levels we had a year or so ago (they were, as I’ve said, as unrealistic as the present hyperdeflated levels are), but to a good solid and sustainable level and rate of return. that’s really all any ivestor can ask for anyway. Marco fixes, in this case, help lots of micro solutions.
You posit Calpers receipients as ifv they had control over their investments in a manner similar to those using 401k’s, which is false - they sit back and rely on the entity they gave investment authority to when they singed up. In this they’re no different from those who give their retireemnt funds, say, to TIAA-CREF, or Morgan Stanley, or any other investment house, so it won’t work to excoriate them for being dumb public employees on this point.
It would also help Calpers - again, presuming it’s in some difficulty. Any “bailiut” of Calpers, if it became necessary, would likely be in a form similar to what the auto makers are currently asking - short term lans, gioven in exchange for increased scrutiny over operations to ensure repayment. Given proper such conditions, such a program would have some validity (again, hypothetically).
So my moral obligations flow to everyone - including myself.
And I don’t think I’ve dodged anything - which, frankly, is more than I can say for you (see the recap of our discussions above). .
You still failed to answer my question with your long-winded diatribe.
Here, let me ask you again.
If John Q. Citizen’s taxes are used to bail-out a public retirement fund so that public employee’s are able to retire at 50 or 55 with 80-90% of their salary should taxpayer funds also be used to bailout John Q. Public if his 401-k is depleted due to poor investment markets so that he could retire on schedule too?
Please keep your answer to 40 words or less. Long-winded answers to simple questions are always looked upon with suspicion.
If you don’t think I answered you, you really can’t or won’t read.
There, short enough?
rlh:
This was your response:
“You complain that private folks with 401k’s have to work longer etc while the public must “bail out” Calpers. First, I’m unaware that there’s any move afoot to bail out Calpers - that the fund is in any immediate danger of collapse. So I don’t see the real world relevance of the issue right now, except as a proverbial stone in your shoe, which appears to bug you no end but which none of us has any issue with - for now, at least”
That was not an answer. It was a dodge. Answer the question or go away.
Keep reading, you’ll find it.
rlh:
I read it. I don’t have the time to read it again. If you can’t answer a simple question in less than 2000 words its a sign of a cluttered and disorganized mind. Maybe a new year’s resolution to consider.
I’m frankly tired of reiterating the same stuff to you over and over, explaining my position, and getting the same nonsense back over and over again. I’ve written loads trying to explain things to you. If you can’t figure it out, too bad. At some point the new and renewed crap becomes ridiculous, and we’re way past that. Bye.
good riddance.