Karl wrote..

Many argue that the recession "made the problem worse." This is a lie; the fact is that pension systems at the state level tend to claim 8% returns as "normal." This, however, means that they are counting on assets doubling every 9 years. ...

The recession did make "the problem worse" -- if by "made it worse" you mean "exposed the lies which the erroneous math had been hiding, because the growth in the economy made the lies about continuous growth forever seem credible".

An alternative interpretation is that "the recession 'made the problem worse'" in that the inevitable detonations occurred while the speaker/writer was in office, when s/he had hoped to hand the ticking time bomb off to some other sucker (hopefully wearing the uniform of the other team).

Tully

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I was looking at some photos of the sculptures in Homewood cemetery here in Pittsburgh and was reminded that the one-time skills of our population are gone forever. We're like the people of the Dark Ages encountering the old architecture, infrastructure and inventions of the Roman era that could no longer be reproduced.

But they're getting 376,894 points on their Xbox version of COD Black Ops! Isn't that an accomplishment?

I think Karl misses the point here, though he is entirely correct. There is nothng wrong with assuming 8% returns, as long as the security is priced to return 8%. You can get 8% out of stocks. In fact, you can get 20% out of stocks, the broad market. You just can't get 8% out of stocks under the current prices. Another way to get 8% is to get the rate of inflation up, but that would also produce a price/wage spiral or is it a wage/price spiral? So the secret has to be excessive returns, minimal inflation and the model can work.

Figure 2% real growth, 3% inflation and a 3% dividend, you can get 8% all day long. 2% though, over time has never happened. Seems I figured around 1%, unless you use the Wall Street tricks that screw with the indexes. But, maybe if they started paying dividends instead of buying back stock, the dividend rate would increase another percentage. Clearly 2% government bonds aren't going to return 8% and that is clearly the rub, because the liquidation phase of retirement funds is just as important as the accumulation phase. What we really have is funds for gambling and the pay as you go system would have made more sense than having pools.

The real problem is we are faced with constant drain on the productive people of the United States. Though there are productive people in the medical industry, it is forced confiscation on the rest of society and those in the medical industry end up buying stuff not made in the US because the cost of medical care and the cost of state pensions are too high in America. The government pensions are definitely a debt levied against the other working people in the US and a direct cost against production. Obama was right in the sense that government built the roads, but he was wrong in the sense that government got the resources to build the roads out of the public sector, plus this was merely a smoke screen to cover up the bull**** government has funded at the cost of the productive sector of the country.

This idea was what Thomas Jefferson opposed to the new US government. Our founding fathers, not necessarily Jefferson, Adams and Washington, but other set up a scam when they set up the US. The scam was to extract income from the productive sources and people of the US in favor of passive capital, basically the bad debt of the Continental Congress, bought for pennies on the dollar and valued as they saw fit. Here we are again with a massive debt. Think the bloodsuckers of government are going to be called on to collateralize that debt? No, it will be the working people and the productive capital of the American people. The medical scam, the pension scam are nothing more than unfunded liabilities that will be paid by the same groups. They are the redirection of capital and savings by government forces in the economy. We are dealing with cartels and political thieves and little else.

There is much wisdom and good reading in this thread.

Porkchop,

Maryland did the same exact thing with pensions. Threw them back to the counties and up will go property taxes. The democratic parties SOP on how to quietly **** all their constituents.

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Maryland did the same exact thing with pensions. Threw them back to the counties and up will go property taxes. The democratic parties SOP on how to quietly **** all their constituents.

Very sad.

My father owns a farm in Illinois, paid for by his working a full-time swing shift for 30 years along with the farming. I always thought I would buy it from him and keep it in the family as well as provide a decent investment, but now I'm too concerned that if land IS reasonably valuable, the state of Illinois will just suck out all the value from us.

Pay_lay-ale: My BOTE calculation puts that ball of gold at around 0.3 AU in diameter. However, it mass would be almost 500,000 times that of the solar system. I'm assuming somewhat low prices for gold, YMMV...

Crzymorse wrote..

Maryland did the same exact thing with pensions. Threw them back to the counties and up will go property taxes. The democratic parties SOP on how to quietly **** all their constituents.

Yeah, but their constituents were asking for it! (And they like it, to boot.)

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Maryland did the same exact thing with pensions. Threw them back to the counties and up will go property taxes. The democratic parties SOP on how to quietly **** all their constituents.

At least Maryland counties are limited by the assessments every 3 years, and the limit on the percent increase.

Hey, you got to pay for all those running trails in Columbia!

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I was looking at some photos of the sculptures in Homewood cemetery here in Pittsburgh and was reminded that the one-time skills of our population are gone forever. We're like the people of the Dark Ages encountering the old architecture, infrastructure and inventions of the Roman era that could no longer be reproduced.

But they're getting 376,894 points on their Xbox version of COD Black Ops! Isn't that an accomplishment?

And many of them have well over 100 friends on Facebook. How much more can you ask of someone???????

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Yeah, but their constituents were asking for it! (And they like it, to boot.)

I hope you are being facetious. This state is overwhelmed with yellow dog Democrats, the FSA, and a whole bunch of .gov tit-suckers. I think those sheeple are just stupid. The Boy Governor is incapable of honesty and budget cuts so this was an easy way for the state to shed millions and millions of dollars.

Then said *******, excuse me, Boy Governor prattles on about how much the state is saving its citizens. Dumb**** forgets that the dollars are still flowing out of our wallets. doesn't matter to me one iota where the ****ing money goes, all that matters to me is that the government has its hands all over my wallet.