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Bill Gates Worried About Public Pensions?
Robert Guth and Michael Corkery of the WSJ report, Gates Says High Pension Costs Hurt Education:
Billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates will step into the national debate over state budgets Thursday with a call for states to rethink their public-employee benefits systems, which he says stifle funding for the nation's public schools.
Mr. Gates in an interview said he will use a high-profile conference Thursday in Long Beach, Calif., to urge that more attention be paid to how states calculate their employee-pension funding and health-care obligations. "These budgets are way out of whack," Mr. Gates said. "They've used accounting gimmicks and lot things that are truly extreme."
The comments come after Mr. Gates spent more than a year studying the issue and enlisting the advice of leading academics and others.
The talk will be at a meeting of leading thinkers called the TED conference. Mr. Gates will outline how, as he sees it, rising state health-care costs and flawed pension accounting hamper the ability of states to pay for education. He said he'd use California as an example to illustrate his point.
"I'm just very worried about the investments we make for kids' education and what that means for the future," he said. "It's going to take voters to really look at that." Without that, he said, "The default course—where the health care costs are squeezing out education — is quite bleak."
Dennis Van Roekel, president of the National Education Association, which has 3.2 million members, said U.S teachers have been trying to make up funding shortfalls by raising their contributions to their pension plans. He added that pensions are one of the reasons schools can attract quality teachers.
"People within public services know they are not going to make a high salary but they know that you have some semblance of retirement security," Mr. Van Roekel said in an interview.
As co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation, Mr. Gates focuses most of his efforts on three areas: global health; overseas development; and U.S. education.
Yet he occasionally uses his stature in the service of other causes, and when he does, it's very deliberate. Two years ago, Mr. Gates used the same TED conference to outline his views on energy. That talk was the start of an increasingly higher profile by Mr. Gates in national discussion on the state of government investment into energy-related research and nuclear power. His involvement has stirred debate on streamlining the licensing process for U.S. nuclear-power facilities.
He said he is concerned that states' public employee-benefit costs could now stand in the way of broader changes. These include programs Mr. Gates's foundation backs that aspire to use technology (including cameras that monitor classrooms) and strengthened teacher evaluations to improve K-12 education.
"Those goals will never be met with the kinds of cuts that we're seeing right now" in education, he said.
One focus of Mr. Gates is public pension funds' use of a relatively high discount rate to calculate obligations. The discount rate is an assumed rate of return used to calculate the current value of a future liability.
The higher the rate, the smaller a fund's obligations appear—and the less that states need to contribute to their pension funds. Critics blame this accounting approach for contributing to state pension shortfalls, estimated nationwide to total more than $1 trillion.Pension funds say their discount rates are prudent when considering investing returns over several decades.
Mr. Gates downplayed any suggestion that his view on pensions will court controversy. "The only position I'm taking you could call a political position is that I wish education spending can go up," he said.
Over two days last September, Mr. Gates hosted experts in state pensions and health care at his office near Seattle. Several of the participants continue to advise Mr. Gates.
Among the participants in the meetings were Jeremy Gold, an independent actuary, who argues that state and local government accounting methods understate the true size of pension liabilities; Robert Clark, a North Carolina State University professor who has written a book on the history of public pension funds in the U.S.; and Alicia Munnell, director of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, whose research has focused lately on the cost of state and local pension plans.
Along with his comments Thursday, Mr. Gates will unveil a new set of tools to his personal Web site, "The Gates Notes." The tools allow visitors to click through U.S. maps that show state-by-state the funding status for pension obligations and retiree health-care benefits.
There is also a feature on Mr. Gates's site that ranks how much each state spends on programs such as higher education and prisons, as a percent of its total budget. "A lot of society's resources go into state budgets and yet it has been made complicated enough and the accounting is bad enough that people haven't had a sense of what's going on," Mr. Gates says in a video on the Web site.
I applaud Bill Gates for bringing this
issue out in the open and giving it the publicity it deserves. He's
absolutely right that US public pension funds need to use a more
realistic discount rate to gauge future pension obligations. It's silly
to use a discount rate based on rosy investment projections (typically
8%) when interests rates are at historic lows. But the assumed discount
rate isn't the only driver of pension shortfalls (see discussion below).
You should all go back and read the study released last February by The Pew Center on the States, The Trillion Dollar Gap.
On page 23 there is a discussion on "the roots of the problem" where
Pew examined four of the most significant: (1) the volatility of pension
plan investments; (2) states falling behind in their payments; (3)
ill-considered benefit increases; and (4) other structural issues. The study estimated $3 trillion in unfunded legacy liabilities from state-sponsored pension plans.
Another study ,“The
Crisis in Local Government Pensions in the United States,” by Joshua
Rauh of the Kellogg School and Robert Novy-Marx of the University of
Rochester, estimated an additional $574 billion in unfunded liabilities from pension plans at the city and county levels:
“This
new paper calculates the present value of local government employee
pension liabilities for about two-thirds of total local government
employees, and estimates the unfunded obligation for the remaining
one-third of workers covered by municipal plans not in our sample,”
said Rauh, associate professor of finance at the Kellogg School. “In
total, we estimate that municipal plans in the U.S. are carrying $574
billion in off-balance-sheet debt in the form of unfunded pension
obligations.”In many cities, these unfunded promises will be a
long-standing and substantial burden for municipal revenues. For
example, even if all other spending was shut down, the city of Chicago
would need to allocate about eight years of dedicated tax revenues to
cover pension promises it has already made.Six
major cities have current pension assets that can only pay for
promised benefits through 2020: Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago,
Cincinnati, Jacksonville and St. Paul. An additional 18 cities and
counties, including New York City, Detroit, Cook County in Illinois and
Orange County in California would be solvent through 2020 but not past
2025.“Philadelphia has the most immediate cause for
concern, as the city can pay existing promises with existing assets
only through 2015 — less than five years from now,” Rauh said.Rauh
and Novy-Marx estimate that each household already owes an average of
$14,165 to current and former municipal public employees in the 50
cities and counties they studied, only including the unfunded portion
of benefits that have already been promised based on work performed. In
New York City, San Francisco, and Boston, the total is more than
$30,000 per household. In Chicago, the total is more than $40,000 per
household.“The
situation is especially dire for taxpayers in these areas,” Rauh said.
“In addition to being exposed to the prospect of severe local
government tax increases and spending cuts, they also will be called
upon to pay for their share of the $3 trillion unfunded liabilities at
the state level.”According to
Rauh, it is clear that state and local governments in the U.S. are not
far from the point where these pension promises will impact their
ability to operate. Once the funds themselves are liquidated, the
extent to which promised pension payments are competing with other
local resources will skyrocket, eroding a large portion of many
municipal budgets.“The fact that there is such a large
burden of public employee pensions concentrated in urban metropolitan
areas threatens the long-run economic viability of these cities, as
residents can potentially move elsewhere to escape the situation,” he
explained.“What is yet to be seen is how this burden will be
distributed between state and local governments, and whether the
federal government will be called upon for bailouts. If these issues
are left unresolved, fiscal crises on the state and local levels may
translate into significant losses for municipal bondholders,” he
concluded.
Professor Rauh recently testified
before members of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee on the role of
public employee pensions and the risk of state bankruptcy from these
underfunded liabilities.“This
hidden debt will eventually force states and localities to choose among
the unpalatable options of cutting services, raising taxes, attempting
to reduce benefits owed to public employees, defaulting on other
obligations, or seeking a federal bailout,” Rauh testified.
But not everyone agrees with the findings of these studies. In early February, Kaitlin Meehan reported, Pension experts disagree on how states should calculate unfunded pension liabilities:
Some
experts peg the size of states’ unfunded pension liability at $3
trillion, while others value it at a much lower $700 billion. The
discrepancy is due to different opinions on the appropriate rate of
return on investments that states use to calculate their pension
contributions.One thing nearly everyone agrees on: There are dangerous policy implications for getting this figure wrong.
To
calculate how much to contribute to the pension funds of public
employees, states must assume a rate of return on their investments.
Most states currently use a so-called “discount rate” of between 8
percent and 8.5 percent. Some experts say that’s too optimistic. They
argue that states should be using a “riskless rate” that is a more
conservative 4 percent to 5 percent.The
$3 trillion figure is calculated using the lower rate of return.
Prominent advocates for the conservative approach include Joshua Rauh
of Northwestern University and Robert Novy-Marx of the University of
Rochester.Novy-Marx said the discount rate is so named
because states use the expected return on pension investments to lower
the amount they pay in contributions to the fund. In other words,
states calculate the amount they need to invest in pension funds based
on an assumed 8 percent rate of return. This is irresponsible
accounting, he argues.“The way states do the accounting is that
they think if they take a dollar out of the bank account and put it
into the stock market, they somehow owe a dollar less,” Novy-Marx said.
“That doesn’t make sense. Their debt is their debt.”The
riskless rate is so named because it eliminates the risk assumed by
investing in a diversified market basket and uses a rate comparable to
that on U.S. Treasury bonds. The rate of return on a 30-year Treasury
bond was 4.6 percent as of Feb. 2.Treasury bonds are considered
safe investments because they are guaranteed by “the full faith and
credit of the United States.” Likewise state pensions are usually
guaranteed to retirees by a state’s constitution. The Illinois
constitution, for example, calls its pension plans “an enforceable
contractual relationship.”“I’ve talked to lots and lots of
people and the only people who think discounting liabilities by the
expected return on assets is the right thing to do are pension
actuaries,” Novy-Marx said. “No one in business would let you do this.
No one in finance or economic academics would let you do this.”However,
others argue that overstated pension obligations could cause
unnecessary policy changes to state budgets at a time when they are
under extreme scrutiny.Elizabeth
McNichol, a state budget researcher with the Center on Budget and
Policy Priorities, thinks the $3 trillion liability figure for the
states is too high. According to her calculation, which uses an 8
percent return rate, the states’ pension liability is closer to $700
billion. Because public
pension managers invest in more risky vehicles than Treasury bonds, they
can reasonably expect a higher rate of return than 4 percent, McNichol
said.For example, the Teachers’ Retirement System, one
of Illinois’ five public pension programs, currently has an 8.5
percent target rate of return. In 2010, the fund had a 12.8 percent
rate of return after all fees had been subtracted, according to a TRS
spokesman.“I don’t think it makes sense to assume a rate that
you’re not likely to get,” McNichol said. “This means states would
think they have to put aside more money than they need to in order to
have enough money to fund their pension commitments.”The
downside of overstating pension obligations is that states may be
forced to cut spending to meet their actuarially required
contributions.In a Jan. 20 report that McNichol
co-authored, she said excess payments into state pension funds take
away money that would otherwise “support public services, resupply
reserve funds, invest in infrastructure or return to taxpayers in the
form of tax cuts.”Bukola Bello,
director of the Illinois Retirement Securities Initiative in Chicago,
said she thinks the discount rate is a safe assumption for the
Teachers' Retirement System, for example.“The
retirement systems are filled with experts and chief financial officers
and trustees who take their fiduciary responsibility very seriously,”
Bello said. “If they are comfortable with the rate of 8.5 percent, then
we really need to trust those numbers.”Novy-Marx
said it is not a matter of meeting or missing return expectations, but
a matter of the states being allowed to hide the actual size of their
pension debt.“This accounting is essentially letting
states take on a lot of off-balance sheet debt,” he said. “States want
to be able to do what the federal government does, which is run big
deficits and the way they’re doing that is by borrowing from their
pensioners.”Illinois currently
has $63.4 billion in unfunded pension liabilities, according to a
Reuters report. Experts agree that it is not the rate at which public
pension liabilities are calculated that has led to the Illinois’ major
shortfall, but the fact that the state has underfunded its pension
plans in recent years and had to borrow money meet its actuarial
requirements. In fact, the state has plans to sell $3.7 billion of
eight-year general obligation bonds this month to make contributions to
its pension funds for the 2011 fiscal year.“I think
the general assembly really needs to concentrate on No. 1, making sure
we meet our pension obligations again,” Bello said.
Illinois pension
plans are severely underfunded and it concerns me that they decided to
sell "general obligation bonds" to make contributions to pension funds
for FY2011. Pension bonds are not a long-term fix for chronically
underfunded state pension plans. Only meaningful pension reforms can
address this issue which include changing the whole governance structure
at state pension plans. Importantly, state pensions need more
accountability, transparency and they need to properly compensate
pension fund managers for delivering risk-adjusted returns.
As for Mr. Gates and the TED conference,
I look forward to hearing the discussion. I got my own ideas on how the
US and other developed nations should be addressing the pension crisis,
but Mr. Gates is right to be concerned about how public pension costs
will impact public education. No matter what discount rate you assume, the
pension tsunami is coming and it will impact the prosperity of the
United States and other countries for many years.
»
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Leo Kockupalotis
I'm sure you'll be interested in what Bill 'monopolist' Gates has to say because your strategy is one and the same. You both like to centralise into big stinking non-performing monopolies.... instead of divesting pensions into smaller plans and a competitive market which would out-perform your structurally incompetent centralised mega-monopoly.
You also want, "...more accountability, transparency and they need to properly compensate pension fund managers" better. So instead of a free (competitive) market mechanism you want lashings of regulations which in banking has shown you what a huge fuking failure that proves to be.
The free market works Kockupalotis, your plans will cock up a lot
Gates in a recent AJ interview was talking vaccines for African children and their parents. What amazed me is that one of the key motives was to improve health because according to the Bill in a healthy society people have fewer children.
here's the clip
http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/rizkhan/2011/02/2011211438324269...
my guess is that he would have a similar rationale re education.
Like Ted Turner, it would appear that some people want fewer people crowding the planet
http://michellemalkin.com/2010/12/09/ted-turner/
you can't make this crap up
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article63503...
Since when do boomers care about children?
They've already consumed their young, damning them to economic servitude through the next two generations.
Nice try, Bill.
Spend a couple hours and watch "Waiting For Superman". If your heart doesn't break as those childrens' hearts break as they lose out on a lottery for a great education then you might want to look in the mirror.
I would have paid more than $6 to buy that PPV. It's not fun. But it should be mandatory viewing. And for whatever reason Gates is involved with crushing these sloth, obese, greedy, selfish, uncaring and disgusting human beings called teacher union bosses I WELCOME IT!
And give Davis Guggenheim his due. FUCK TRUMKA!!!!!
What a joke. It's all about the Banejamins, not the childrens.
Read "Waiting for Superfraud":
http://ksdcitizens.org/2010/12/22/waiting-for-superfraud/
What would the world do without Good King Bill?
Maybe if Gates wants to help he should just give up the money.
Of course he wants education spending to go up. Schools buy Windows over and over and over because their IT staffs are incompetent. Don't learn how to do your damned job, just bill the taxpayers for the next update that'll magically fix everything the last one didn't.
Why does he want to talk about anything... it's not like he's smart ?
Is Bill trying to help ME?
A few minutes after posting on this article, I got a spammer's "Congratulations from Microsoft" email. I rarely get spam and I've never used the word "microsoft" in any form under google's watchful eyes.
Pay people up front. Bargain with the funds that are available now. Then if folks want to give their money to some slick salesman promising a rosy risk free future the fault is theirs. That won't happen because we prefer to live in an environment where no one is personally at fault and we can all hide behind an excuse of some kind.
"Mr. Gates's foundation backs that aspire to use technology (including cameras that monitor classroom.." - Big Brother in the classroom only the maker of Windows could have thought of that
Stand by for code word triggering affect in 3-2-1...
"I'm just very worried about the investments we make for kids' education and what that means for the future," he said. "It's going to take voters to really look at that." Without that, he said, "The default course—where the health care costs are squeezing out education — is quite bleak."
A bit of statist group think sophistry here Bill...a palate cleanser for the mentally handicapped perhaps?
Public education is not an "investment". It is a service, a very poorly delivered service at that, performed by the state. And children do not recieve "healthcare" through the public education system as my pay stub clearly shows. So he must be talking about teachers "healthcare" packages as a budgetary line item I suppose as ObamaCare "fixed" all issues with everyone elses "healthcare" but good...my costs went up 20%.
Now that we have established what he is talking about...
"Mr. Gates downplayed any suggestion that his view on pensions will court controversy. "The only position I'm taking you could call a political position is that I wish education spending can go up," he said."
Because how much is spent directly corresponds to the quality of service delivered to the children?
The facts, as presented before us, show the opposite to be true.
I would say that all other expenditures of any government (state, local, national) could be cut out...leaving all tax revenue to go only to education and Gates and every statist like him would say we are not "investing" enough on "education".
And then there's this;
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703749504576172942399165436.html?mod=rss_Politics_And_Policy
And this:
The Pentagon's Marauding Fraudsters
Pentagon contracting has been broken for decades. Former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld said -- on September 10, 2001 -- that "according to some estimates, we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions." The next day was 9/11, and counting Pentagon dollars was no longer a top priority.
http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2011/02/03/the-pentagons-marauding-fraudsters/#ixzz1FXbwkEtkNothing gets the populist bile boiling better than the notion that the next door neighbor is making out, however slim the margin, but you're comparing mole hills to mountains.
"Nothing gets the populist bile boiling better than the notion that the next door neighbor is making out, however slim the margin, but you're comparing mole hills to mountains."
Really?
What percentage of the federal budget is allocated for defense and what percentage is allocated for "entitlements".
Mole hills indeed, more like rat holes ;-)
Bill Gates doesn't care about education.
Years ago I tried to start a campaign for the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation to create books from K to beyond 12 to teach science, english, and mathematics since these are fundamental courses which will not change at least from K-12 - and not place a copyright on them so they could be duplicated by anybody that was interested in learning on their own.
The material would cover what was necessary to understand and do well in the standardized tests and beyond.
They weren't the least bit interested, neither was Soros. These people winge on about education, but how much would it cost to write a bunch of books on science and mathematics? A million dollars maybe per grade, per book? 3*12* 1 million = 36 million.
I've always found it odd that public education books are published by private corporations that hold a copyright on them, when tax payers pay for them. They all should be on the Internet.
First, "they all should be on the internet"...
Might they be, already?
But regardless, if they aren't it's because that is far too intelligent for the USA.
Second, regarding public "education" books (K-12), it's the old-boys-club system; the books are written by whomever...hacks, people who need easy money, those who would like to have been teachers, college teachers/profs who produce books whose facts are wrong, whose precepts are misstated, and that are generally unacceptable on any level. Those books are "vetted" (in at least some states) by "boards" at universities whose friends are the books' authors, and so it goes. No one really is looking out for the kids by seeing to it that the books from which the kids are taught are accurate, up to date, state actual facts rather than authors' opinions, and a multitude of other missing criteria.
This should be a scandal but isn't, proving how little Americans regard the education of their children as long as they are conviently out of the way daily so that parents are free to live their lives.
And therein lies the flaw in your model. It ain't about passing standardized tests, it is about teaching people how to learn.
Indoctrination is what it is about.
It is also about the scads of money made in the textbook industry, and the tie-ins to Microsoft products.
It is about affirmation, not education.
Nearly every country in the world is looking at these discount rates. Discussion and consultations are well under way or nearing completion in most countries. The exception of course is the US where it takes Bill Gates to push for a discussion. It kind of says something about US politics really.
perhaps RR was was right when he said "Government is the Problem not the solution"
You're just realizing this now?! Yikes.
Billderberger Gates is afraid of people eating the rich when the levee breaks. Now he can say that he really cared all along.
Public unions did this to themselves by overreaching. They union bosses and organizers could care less about the kids and educational outcomes.
"union bosses and organizers could care less about the kids and educational outcomes"
...yes, because they are CRIMINALS!!
FBI — Italian/Mafia
In 1986, the President's Council on Organized Crime reported that five major unions—including the Teamsters and the Laborers International Union of North ...
www.fbi.gov/about-us/investigate/organizedcrime/italian_mafia - Cached
?
Organized Crime and the Labor Unions - AmericanMafia.com
The information in this report is based upon reports made by the Federal Bureau or Investigation, Department of Labor and the Strike Forces.
www.americanmafia.com/Crime_And_Labor.html - Cached - Similar
Teamsters - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Infiltration by organized crime dominated the agenda of the Teamsters throughout ..... or control or influence" of any part of the Union by organized crime, ...
History - Political donations - Strikes - Organization
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teamsters - Cached - Similar
Obama Set to Enrich Corrupt Unions and Organized Crime | THE UNION ...
Dec 9, 2008 ... Obama Set to Enrich Corrupt Unions and Organized Crime. Over at legalinsurrection blog, William A. Jacobson has a great write up on how ...
theunionlabelblog.com/.../obama-set-to-enrich-corrupt-unions-and-organized -crime/ - Cached - Similar
Gee golly Mr. Gates, do you think that maybe those pensions were underfunded on purpose?
Shucks! Those Chicago and Washington politicians and Wall Street bankers wouldn't do that to Mom and Pop, would they?
Oh my heck! They must need some better "planners" to fix this whiz-bang humdinger of a bottleneck; maybe Lassie can help?
I just know if I work real hard and "pull myself up by my bootstraps" or "get some pluck" for another 20 years...then vote for someone and someting at that booth thing-a-ma-jigger...those boys and girls in Washington and Wall Street will take care of me and my precious little ones, gee willikers I just know they will.
I'm going to go out first thing tomorrow and hang up old glory while humming the stars and stripes and I just KNOW that will make it all better.
Thanks so much for caring Bill and rich friends.
Where do I send my check and do you know the price of a can of Dog Food at the local Kroger?
Thanks a heck of a lot you swell bunch of Americans!
Southpark didn't put up with his crap . http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ntr-pw_6C0
McNichol said because the pensions invest in riskier investments than riskless investments like the 4.6% return on a 30 year bond, they can use an 8.5% ror.
30 year bonds are not riskless. The more risk, the more volatile the ror (entire decade of 2000-2009 had a 0% world stock index rate of return). So now they lost a decade of any return, so they are assuming the next decade will be better.
And if the higher risk backfires.....do they just cancel the pension?
The 5 year TIPS yields -0.5%<<<maybe they should use this figure in their calculations.
by 10kby2k
on Thu, 03/03/2011 - 00:52
Of course they don't cancel; they whine and demonstrate and are allowed to put the hook in taxpayers' mouths.
he's also worried about the world's population and has a plan to reduce it by 10-15%. http://www.prisonplanet.com/bill-gates-use-vaccines-to-lower-population.html
OH yes....what a wonderful, brave, new world we are living in.
Again...FUCK BILL GATES!
hahahaha
They are underfunded by between $3-4trillion
and still using an 8% actuarial assumption for growth of assets.
But I get it, retiring at 50yo with a pension and full benefits is the new middle class.
That's reserved for state and muni employees. Even the feds don't get that cushy retirement. The oldtimers have to work 35 years to get full retirement. The newbees have to fund their own 401k like the rest of the slobs boohoohoo.
sun tzu
on Thu, 03/03/2011 - 00:32
Hm, sounds good but as someone observed way above, those starting to pay in now but who will be working 20 or 30 years... do they really expect the money they put away to be there for them? How stupid is that?
And PA state employees have to work 40 years for that full retirement. For the mathematically challenged, even someone walking out of college and into a state job is 62 years old before that applies to them.
And teachers have to work 30 years. Hey, I would agree we should back up the retirement age to 62 . . . but at the same time imagine going to work in a school classroom for more than 30 years without bringing an Uzi to class one day . . .
Good point have 50yo retired teachers protesting in WISC having worked 7 months a year being paid a pension and full benefits,
but that is the new normal.
labor is only 10% of the cost in the ultra modern government services dept according to posts at ZH.
Afterall imagine pricing oneself out of the market then blaming everything and anything but the actual price.
Government should attempt to provide the most services for the least cost. The goal of unions is to do the least work at the most cost.
Post some more about obscene exec pay as if two wrongs make a right in the drooling public union world.
7 months a year of work, unions are organized theft, wrongs can't be legitimately weighed against one another much less direct us to the real cause of the "crisis" . . .
Whatever.
The pension system being fucked aside...
Can I just make a quick point...
FUCK BILL GATES...
Who the fuck made this guy an expert on pensions?
And, do you really think this guy gives a fuck about our education system?
He does not hire any educated Americans anyway...as you all know, they cost too fucking much for this greedy piece of shit to hire.
Shit...I am so goddam sick of obscenely rich motherfuckers like this guy getting up on his soap box and giving out unsolicited "sage" wisdom about how we can fix our economic problems...
I have a simple philosophy...if a guy is worth a billion dollars or more...he is a fucking crook...that is too much money to have and not have fucked ALOT of people to get it...at least somewhere along the line.
So why the fuck do we constantly listen to, or even pretend that these piece of shit rich pigs like Gates, Buffet, Forbes, Trump, Paulson, etc, etc, etc have ANYTHING to contribute to society? One of these motherfuckers fart somewhere and within minutes, we have some mo-mo pumping fuckstick at Bloomberg or CNBc reporting about it....why?
shock and awful (love it):
"So why the fuck do we constantly listen to, or even pretend that these piece of shit rich pigs like Gates, Buffet, Forbes, Trump, Paulson, etc, etc, etc have ANYTHING to contribute to society?"
I'm sick of it all too, and am guessing that most here are also.
But we don't do what you say!!
Here, we laugh at, criticize, diss and collectively hate those who deserve it while enjoying each other's company... at least I enjoy the company here, and I hope that you do too. It's a way to blow off steam instead of killing ourselves or others.
Just saying...
FYI, Bill Gates did his homework on pensions. I track who visits my site and I'm sure he doesn't agree with all my views. As for the personal attacks on the man, I think some of you should relax a little and take a chill pill. Love him or hate him, Gates is part of the power elite and at least he and Buffet are more enlightened than most of the other billionaire buffoons!
It's not personal per-se...not on Bill Gates himself...but on the entire "billionaire" class.
I would say that one of the most telling symptoms of our dysfunctional society is how we put people like Gates, Buffett, Soro's etc up on a pedestal...as if fucking people over to become obscenely rich is the pinnicle of success.
My dad used to always say that a million times more money is stolen with a pen each day than is stolen with a gun - and as I have gotten older and paid more attention to the way our system operates...I think this is one of the more truthful and apropo observations I have ever heard...especially in our current society.
And what is even worse is that when a desperate person decides to rob a store or bank with a gun...and gets away with $10,000.00 he is considered a dangerous criminal, and everyone wants him to be punished (by sending him to one of many our profitable prisons in the U.S.)
However...if some fuckstick billionaire...or a corporation...or a hedge fund makes off with BILLIONS of dollars because they cheated, lied, or put out a product that they KNEW was bad and killed a bunch of people....they are NOT only NOT punished...most of the time they end up on the cover of "fortune" or Forbes or some shit-rag-magazine that is touting their "entrepreneurial" prowess
The FUCKING deck is stacked....
Personally....I think the personal attacks on these guys IS warranted...they should consider themselves lucky that the attacks are only coming in the form of words at this point. What I worry about is that the shit pot we are living in keeps simmering, hotter and hotter...and at some point the hatred and resentment of the cleptocratic class boils over into the streets...and then, that is when the personal attacks will really start happening.
I am personally surprised that we have not already seen assasinations of the wealthy....sorta like a modern-day French Revolution? (maybe without the guillotine this time???)
I hope it does not get to this point ...but it aint looking too promising right now...
Now there's a high compliment, Leo. How about you get out ahead of Gates with a critique and counter-argument that again names him in the title? The Kolivakis Blueprint for Public Pension Solvency.
You've been doing some great work on this subject, Leo!
No one can top Bob's invent, lie and distort solution for public unions.
and if that doesn't work just pity them for actually having to show up for the job for 30yrs.
Now there's a compelling and devastating argument!
If you have some substantive thoughts, perhaps Koch could approve some additional hours to allow you time to post them.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
And people pretend they're not talking their books! It's the celebrity mystique of Wealth--they must all be Da Vinci's to get that rich, right?
FUCK BILL GATES...bitchez
Double
If Kerry's a pig, he's a mighty cadaverous one. Besides, he at least served our county in uniform. Pigs tend not to do that.
++++ and let's not forget George Fucking Soros too, though he doesn't usually rant directly - has MANY tools to do it for him. Many on this site apparently :-O
This is the guy who, in the early days of Microsoft, successfully lobbied the state legislature to make it illegal for high-tech workers to unionize (in Washington State).