Thread: Twinkies

Has the state cut the benefits you're receiving or will receive based on the $30B? I have no pension, remember?

I have a couple of questions from your comments:
1) if everyone pays 6.2% into social security, why are you paying 8%? 7.65% is the total tax burden for social security + medicare. Payments to medicare don't count toward social security.
2) I have seen the comment about police officer life expectancy. It's false, and anyone who has ever published that fact has falsely (intentionally? I don't know) attributed life expectancy to a study that was never done. You should know enough retired policemen to know that even on an anecdotal basis, it makes no sense.

Calpers (california's retirement system) DID actually do a study with real data and found that on average, a police officer retiring at age 55 lived to age 81. 26 years.

Oregon studied the same thing, and found officers retiring at age 60 lived an average of 22 years (individuals going 55 to 81 and 60 to 82 is fairly similar experience given the different starting points).

Mortality experience for police is the same as everyone else after retirement. It didn't take me long to find truthful information based on actual studies of real data. There is another truth, and that is that if you start to receive your payments at age 55 instead of 65 like most of the working public, the overall cost to the fund is about twice as much at your retirement date vs. what it would've been for an age 65 retirement. So when you compare your pension benefits, even before a promised cost of living, to a private plan, on a dollar for dollar basis, yours cost twice as much to provide.

Studies don't agree on law enforcement's mortality rate : Knoxville News Sentinel

As far as the labor laws go, we don't work remotely as hard as people had to in terms of hours in the mid to late 1800s, and we have far more disposable income, live longer, and retire earlier as a share of our lifetimes. The fact that we have the disposable income is a factor of productivity, not because of won labor rights. It's occurred in every organized economy in the world, due to productivity. It wouldn't have mattered how many colliers, millers, blacksmiths, farriers, etc unionized in 1820 because there was not enough economic productivity for them to do anything but work their entire lives and barely scrape by.

I'm still failing to find any articles about $30B being taken out of pension funds in NJ. I am finding articles that say the state suspended contributions to the pensions because they didn't have any money. What should they do? Stop paving? Stop repairing bridges? The tax burden there appears to be high enough already.

I haven't yet seen anything to suggest your benefit will be cut. The police fund you're talking about appears to have gone from $103 million (before the asset drop, not after) to $71 million in 2010. Most of the funds I work with lost about 30% in 2008. It appears that most of the problems are due to lost asset returns, and the problem that you have when values drop and you are continuing to make large payments to retirees (which is that the assets can't recover as well if and when the markets go back up).

I can't find information, though on how much wasn't contributed to the pensions at this point, was it $10B? Was it $2B? It doesn't look as clear. It looks to be muddied by reductions when the asset values were falsely flying high in the late 90s.

Who didn't contribute, the state? Local governments?

It appears to be an intensely political issue with gobs of letters linked on google to different locals written to politicians or as an open letter to the public, but I'm still seeing the truth not what you're telling us.

Were there benefit improvements made in the late 1990s? I don't know what the situation is there, but in our state system in PA, the benefit levels were increased when the market was high, but not decreased when they were low. The point of pre-funding is so that you don't have to go back and make up ground for old poorly funding benefits, but it seems to have been lost in political bargaining. Everyone wants the benefits to be high - the participants, the governments (so they don't have to deal with the participants), but participants want to point fingers when there's not enough money to pay them and the politicians run away from the issue.

I have no problem on being "in different worlds", remember, I don't even have a pension, but there should be no reason that the facts between your world and my world are different.

Originally Posted by HNSB

That's a right every worker should have. Along with the right to not withdraw their labor at the wishes of the majority, and the right to bargain wage increases on their own behalf.

I haven't experienced the restriction that you can't bargain on your own behalf. In my department of 20 employees I know 2 for sure and think a 3rd that are making over scale. I haven't seen anything in our contract that limits the highest amount you can make, only the minimum.

Originally Posted by DaveW

Has the state cut the benefits you're receiving or will receive based on the $30B? I have no pension, remember?

I have a couple of questions from your comments:
1) if everyone pays 6.2% into social security, why are you paying 8%? 7.65% is the total tax burden for social security + medicare. Payments to medicare don't count toward social security.
2) I have seen the comment about police officer life expectancy. It's false, and anyone who has ever published that fact has falsely (intentionally? I don't know) attributed life expectancy to a study that was never done. You should know enough retired policemen to know that even on an anecdotal basis, it makes no sense.

Calpers (california's retirement system) DID actually do a study with real data and found that on average, a police officer retiring at age 55 lived to age 81. 26 years.

Oregon studied the same thing, and found officers retiring at age 60 lived an average of 22 years (individuals going 55 to 81 and 60 to 82 is fairly similar experience given the different starting points).

Mortality experience for police is the same as everyone else after retirement. It didn't take me long to find truthful information based on actual studies of real data. There is another truth, and that is that if you start to receive your payments at age 55 instead of 65 like most of the working public, the overall cost to the fund is about twice as much at your retirement date vs. what it would've been for an age 65 retirement. So when you compare your pension benefits, even before a promised cost of living, to a private plan, on a dollar for dollar basis, yours cost twice as much to provide.

Studies don't agree on law enforcement's mortality rate : Knoxville News Sentinel

As far as the labor laws go, we don't work remotely as hard as people had to in terms of hours in the mid to late 1800s, and we have far more disposable income, live longer, and retire earlier as a share of our lifetimes. The fact that we have the disposable income is a factor of productivity, not because of won labor rights. It's occurred in every organized economy in the world, due to productivity. It wouldn't have mattered how many colliers, millers, blacksmiths, farriers, etc unionized in 1820 because there was not enough economic productivity for them to do anything but work their entire lives and barely scrape by.

I'm still failing to find any articles about $30B being taken out of pension funds in NJ. I am finding articles that say the state suspended contributions to the pensions because they didn't have any money. What should they do? Stop paving? Stop repairing bridges? The tax burden there appears to be high enough already.

I haven't yet seen anything to suggest your benefit will be cut. The police fund you're talking about appears to have gone from $103 million (before the asset drop, not after) to $71 million in 2010. Most of the funds I work with lost about 30% in 2008. It appears that most of the problems are due to lost asset returns, and the problem that you have when values drop and you are continuing to make large payments to retirees (which is that the assets can't recover as well if and when the markets go back up).

I can't find information, though on how much wasn't contributed to the pensions at this point, was it $10B? Was it $2B? It doesn't look as clear. It looks to be muddied by reductions when the asset values were falsely flying high in the late 90s.

Who didn't contribute, the state? Local governments?

It appears to be an intensely political issue with gobs of letters linked on google to different locals written to politicians or as an open letter to the public, but I'm still seeing the truth not what you're telling us.

Were there benefit improvements made in the late 1990s? I don't know what the situation is there, but in our state system in PA, the benefit levels were increased when the market was high, but not decreased when they were low. The point of pre-funding is so that you don't have to go back and make up ground for old poorly funding benefits, but it seems to have been lost in political bargaining. Everyone wants the benefits to be high - the participants, the governments (so they don't have to deal with the participants), but participants want to point fingers when there's not enough money to pay them and the politicians run away from the issue.

I have no problem on being "in different worlds", remember, I don't even have a pension, but there should be no reason that the facts between your world and my world are different.

I'll not beat the dead horse. For every study you find that says cops and firemen live forever, I'll find one that says they don't.

Originally Posted by Crotalus

Let's get down to what the real issue is here, money. The Democrats support the unions because 90% of the money the unions spend on politics, advertising and contributions, goes straight to the Democrats.

If the unions can't force people to join and pay dues, the Democrats get less money.

I just heard a report that right to work states have higher wages and higher employment than states without right to work.

Southern states right now are gaining in population while Northern states are declining. Dallas is the #1 place for population growth right now.

I have an Aunt that was a lifetime employee of the phone company. She was promoted steadily over the years and retired as a Purchasing agent. She was as dumb as a sack of rocks. "Let the other people do the work. I'm just going to sit back and collect my paycheck."

The truth is she was too stupid to even begin to do the job even after training, but was promoted purely on seniority. This makes sense? This is the problem with unions.

yes, and we have a justice system based on the principle that 100 guilty people go free so 1 innocent person doesn't go to jail or get executed. Does that mean the system is bad? In every system you have cheats and fraud. Just look at all the private outfits that cheat the Govt (us) with charges. Probably hundreds of billions of dollars or more.

The reason things look rosy in the south and west is because companies are moving there because there are no unions and they can pay way less and have less benefits. If you want to believe non union employees do better than union ones you've been out in the sun way too long.

As far as the union-democrat thing yes your correct. That's exactly why republicans are so anti union. By getting rid of unions you cut off a major funding source for the democrats. Of course the republicans get all their money from the little people five bucks at a time.

You may have promotion by seniority in union shops and on the company side you have promotion by, well lets just say if the boss stopped short there would be a lot of feet hanging out of his posterior. Neither of those suppositions are 100% correct as occasionally some very competent individuals rise in the ranks on merit. Those individuals are,IMHO, definitely swimming against the stream unfortunately.

Bob

Originally Posted by Mvcrash

I'll not beat the dead horse. For every study you find that says cops and firemen live forever, I'll find one that says they don't.

You might be right about the reduced contributions, but facts are not on your side to state that police live materially less long than anyone else. You won't find any study that was actually done based on real data that supports your point, but you might find explanation that mailers or local newsletters said DOL or DOJ studies were done, when both of those agencies say that the statements are fraudulent. So you can say you'll find a study that says police live until age 59, but you absolutely will not. You'll find false and fraudulent claims designed to dupe people into repeating bad information, but no study.

If police lived that much less long, I would know it. Everyone who works on pensions or insurance would know it, but yet I've never heard it or seen anything about it in any literature. One thing that you will have to do before you and everyone else in new jersey solves anything is detach yourself from repeating false information to the point that some people actually believe it, or to the point that you think you can stretch things so far that you might be able to alter reality. It just perpetuates problems when you can't even deal with facts, let alone deal with possible solutions once you know the facts.

As DPM said, "You are entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts"

Originally Posted by DaveW

You might be right about the reduced contributions, but facts are not on your side to state that police live materially less long than anyone else. You won't find any study that was actually done based on real data that supports your point, but you might find explanation that mailers or local newsletters said DOL or DOJ studies were done, when both of those agencies say that the statements are fraudulent. So you can say you'll find a study that says police live until age 59, but you absolutely will not. You'll find false and fraudulent claims designed to dupe people into repeating bad information, but no study.

If police lived that much less long, I would know it. Everyone who works on pensions or insurance would know it, but yet I've never heard it or seen anything about it in any literature. One thing that you will have to do before you and everyone else in new jersey solves anything is detach yourself from repeating false information to the point that some people actually believe it, or to the point that you think you can stretch things so far that you might be able to alter reality. It just perpetuates problems when you can't even deal with facts, let alone deal with possible solutions once you know the facts.

As DPM said, "You are entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts"

OK, I will live to 80....I hope so. Here is a FACT: I paid into my pension system for a specific return which was written into law. After thirty years the state changed the law and changed my benefits. They did not give me my money back.

Those are the facts. It Sucks.....anything else?

Originally Posted by Mvcrash

OK, I will live to 80....I hope so. Here is a FACT: I paid into my pension system for a specific return which was written into law. After thirty years the state changed the law and changed my benefits. They did not give me my money back.

Those are the facts. It Sucks.....anything else?

Hopefully, they only changed benefits based on future contributions. IF they didn't, that sucks. You're absolutely right. No clue how long you'll live, but I could give you a distribution for the *average* person. There is a chance you might not be around tomorrow (me, too), and a chance you might live past 100 (I sure hope I don't). There's a much greater chance that you'll end up somewhere close to 80 than either of those.

The post changed a little bit, but for anyone who saw the post before edit, the union pension guy and the company/state pension guy will get the same answer with the same assumptions. It's fairly tightly controlled. Where it gets in the weeds is when non-professionals (legislators, etc) and politicians get involved and decide to manipulate what came from the actuary, or to withhold parts of the information given to them.

And yes, I'm pretty pissed about hostess, too. I guarantee I was eating hostess donuts 2 times per week, a whole little baggie of them (the 10 ounce bag, not the little tiny snack pack). All I see at the convenience store these days is an empty rack.

Originally Posted by DaveW

And yes, I'm pretty pissed about hostess, too. I guarantee I was eating hostess donuts 2 times per week, a whole little baggie of them (the 10 ounce bag, not the little tiny snack pack). All I see at the convenience store these days is an empty rack.

Hostess going under may have added years to your life ........

Originally Posted by Mvcrash

OK, I will live to 80....I hope so. Here is a FACT: I paid into my pension system for a specific return which was written into law. After thirty years the state changed the law and changed my benefits. They did not give me my money back.

Those are the facts. It Sucks.....anything else?

There is and has always been an accepted notion law enforcement people tended to die a few years after retirement. I think people heard about a few who did and that coupled with the irregular hours and high divorce rate and stress and substance abuse led people to this idea. It's kind of like an old wives tale but most still believe it.