Thread: Don't Worry About the Mule, Just Load the Wagon

Lot of talk in the news about wars, rumors of wars, Russia, gasoline prices and Cuba. Not much interest in this here ;

Congressional leaders hammer out deal to allow pension plans to cut retiree benefits - The Washington Post

The old, 'don't worry about the mule, just load the wagon.'

Will that allow the cutting of their pension's by any chance?

Expect 2015 to be the year of "we can't manage pensions anymore, so Wall Street will manage them from now on".

Time to do things the way grandpa did and stuff the matress,

This could be a lead up to the attack on railroad retirement...which is alive and very healthy. It's set up so that my wife can draw 49% of my retirement. Say if I draw $100 a month, she will draw $49 a month. I pay for it, but the spouse's of railroaders deserve it for all the time we are away from home.

Similar things are happening this side of the border also with company pension plans. Right now the pension that pays me is underfunded and should it fail and be wound up my pension would be greatly reduced, no grandfathering there. The CPP, Canada Pension Plan, paid to you by the Federal Government from mandatory contributions you made while working has been altered too recently. Now if you were born after a certain year you will not be able to collect a full unreduced pension till you are 67 instead of 65. Yes, no pension is safe, private or public from the squeeze. Adding to that squeeze is a rapid move to defined contribution type retirement plans, DCPP, from defined benefits type pension plans, DBPP. Very shortly in Canada the DBPP type will almost totally disappear and those lucky enough to even have a non CPP plan will be on a DCPP type. This old mule is about swaybacked or will be shortly.

The same type of thing is happening in Europe too I am sure.

Bob

Yeah, and banks get to gamble with FDIC insured money again, anybody can donate 35k to political parties, birds that happen to live in lands suitable for drilling can't be regarded as endangered....

Bottom line is, when the vote tally is a reflection of the political ad money and more than of the self-interest of the voters, the resulting laws reflect the interests of those who foot the campaign bills and not of those who cast the votes. About the only way to change it is voting differently the next time around.

We'll have a brand new congress in a month, may be they'll be interested in fixing some of this?

That's democra$y.

James.

Originally Posted by gugi

We'll have a brand new congress in a month, may be they'll be interested in fixing some of this?

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Originally Posted by gugi

We'll have a brand new congress in a month, may be they'll be interested in fixing some of this?

Different world we live in now. There used to be, when I was growing up, a "social contract", but that is ancient history. Watch his short video of an example of that mindset from 1962 ;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWNhWANkq0Q