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Guest Post: Snapback - Stockton, Calif. And All The Cities To Follow
Submitted by Charles Hugh Smith from Of Two Minds
Snapback: Stockton, Calif. and All the Cities to Follow
Government promises to public employees have created "zero-risk" Wonderlands protected from the market forces of risk and consequence. These islands of privilege are snapping back to join the real economy.
Every government entity that reckoned it was moated from the market economy will be snapped back to "discover" risk and consequence. Let's lay out the dynamic:
1. Every government can only spend what its economy generates in surplus.
2. Every government transfers risk and consequence from itself, its employees and its favored vested interests to the citizenry and taxpayers.
3. Every government collects and distributes the surplus of its private sector to its employees, favored constituencies and vested interests.
4. Since the government (State) promises guaranteed salaries, benefits and entitlements to its employees and favored constituencies, these individuals believe they are living in a risk-free Wonderland that is completely protected from the market economy.
5. Risk cannot be repealed or eliminated, it can only be masked or transferred to others.
6. The Federal government and the Federal Reserve have pursued a policy of inflating serial speculative credit-based bubbles.
7. These bubbles inflated assets, profits and taxes, creating the illusion that blow-off speculative tops were "the new normal."
8. Speculative credit-based bubbles misallocate capital and incentivize malinvestment on a spectacular scale.
9. Once the bubble deflates, the capital is lost or trapped in illiquid malinvestments.
10. As a direct result of the dot-com bubble, Stockton's tax revenues (general fund) leaped to $139 million in 2001. As a direct consequence of the housing bubble, it jumped to $186 million in 2007.
11. This "new normal" encouraged the belief that the stock market would double or triple every decade into the future, generating 8%+ annual returns for public union employee pension funds.
12. The city government granted employees open-ended guarantees of lifetime healthcare coverage.
13. This meant that there was no limit on the cost of each employee's benefits.
14. As noted here many times, healthcare costs rise by 7%-10% every year, even as the economy which supports healthcare grows by 2% on average.
15. Healthcare alone will bankrupt the nation, and the bankruptcy of entities that promised open-ended healthcare is merely one manifestation of the coming bankruptcy of the entire sickcare/entitlement Status Quo.
16. Once the stock market reverts to the mean and is revalued to the "new normal" of global recession and low earnings growth, it will decline by 40% or more and yields will remain around 2%.
17. Pension funds earning 2% at best based on expectations of permanent 8% returns cannot sustainably pay the benefits promised.
18. If the city attempts to make up the shortfall annually, the services provided to the citizenry will be gutted. The risk and consequence of malinvestment and favoritism has been offloaded onto the citizens while those protected by the government moat live "risk-free" lives of guaranteed pensions and benefits.
19. The public-employee pension and healthcare benefits were separated from the market economy with this government guarantee: regardless of what happens in the real economy, you will be paid pensions and benefits that have zero exposure to the market economy and private-sector pensions/benefits.
20. In effect, the government has placed its employees and vested interests in a moated "risk-free" zone outside the market economy. The risk that is distributed to all participants in an open market (i.e. a democracy) is transferred to the citizens and taxpayers.
21. Any government that siphons off an increasing share of its taxpayers' disposable income (to distribute to the privileged few) in return for declining services will eventually be overthrown by the citizenry and taxpayers who must bear the full consequences of the city's mismanagement of their capital and income.
22. Every city, county and state in the U.S. which has secured a risk-free wonderland for its favored few will "snap back" into the real economy and face the discipline of the credit market and the "discovery" of price and value.
23. Risk cannot be eliminated by government mandate, it can only be transferred to others. No government entity can maintain a "risk-free" fortress outside the market forever. The moat around Wonderland will be drained or filled, regardless of what promises were made.
24. Government has no mechanism to transparently price risk, value and return on investment. The market will "discover" all these and re-set government services and salaries accordingly.
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I live 20 min from Stockton, what a S*** hole that place has become. theres a rule in our area, dont get gas in stockton unless you want to get jumped.
It's all about "public-private" initiatives. This is the compromise that we're all looking for. Successful public-private initiatives include:
1. The emergency financing of AIG and General Motors
2. Government financing of green technologies
3. Public hiring of construction contractors to build roads and bridges
4. Congress working with health insurance companies to make sure that everyone gets good quality healthcare
5. The CIA working with companies like GOOGLE to track and monitor potential domestic terrorists
The thing I love about 'PP' initiatives is they appeal to people from all parts of the political spectrum. Let's stop arguing and AGREE on something for once. What kind of public-private schemes do YOU want to see? I want to hear YOUR ideas.
Marc Faber: http://www.moneynews.com/StreetTalk/Faber-100chance-recession/2012/05/31/id/440837?PROMO_CODE=F144-1
dated May '12 even more relevant in July '12
Let's see what's possible.... fees for every single service..., increase and collect fines like crazy....add new enforcement e.g. red light cameras, parking meters .... raise property taxes (for the children) .... increase asset seizures ... frack for gas ..... increase water and sewer fees ....help me out here, I still haven't balanced the budget.
Everybody can and will do what Scranton, Pa just did. The mayor just cut over 400 city employees down to $7.25 per hour ( minimum wage) . Thats police, firefighters, public works and even himself.
And what happens next you ask?
Scranton's police, fire, DPW unions file lawsuit against salary cuts: http://thetimes-tribune.com/news/scranton-s-police-fire-dpw-unions-file-...
I am not advocating that this is right or wrong but in my opinion they just need to go bankrupt write off the debt and start over. I have mixed feelings on this.
Fucking LOL, one of your better ones imo. I especially like
MDB did a wonderful job of listing absolute failures of PP, otherwise known as fascism.
I can hardly await the embarrassed silence of Joe Weisenthal, wanna-be-professional-fertilzer-spreader and proxist mouthpiece of TPTB, just like his hero, Paul Krugman, when Meredith Whitney proves to be correct but merely early on her call (just as Michael Burry was on his 'Big Short' on MBS) regarding the mass bankrupties of cities, townships and villages from coast to coast (their revenue is still plunging even after 5.2 trillion in fiat conjuring in just 4 years, and another 7 trillion in fiatski pledges to back the loans of others to whom they may actully belong; grand total thus far in direct conjuring creation of fiat = 12+ trillion in 4 years).
The arrogance of Joe and Peter Schiff in a debate would make for interesting times. Keiser has had Printing Pants Joe on his show, but I don't recall Joe and Schiff ever chatting in a forum.
Agreed. Joe Weisenthal is one of the more pathetic weasels on the web. Someone, somewhere apparently convinced him he was a professional journalist and not low paid employee of a cheesy, sensationalist clickbait blog. Love the shades though, duuuude.
If you're going to suck up to TPTB at least do it for the money. What's his excuse exactly?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=Dnwjb226q9Y#t=114s
Extra Big-Ass Friesvery nice
6. regulatory, criminal, and financial industries working together to mend and discipline the financial industry
7. petroleum and military agencies cooperating to discover new, affordable, and peaceful energy
8. inteligence and psychological agencies harmonizing constitutional and accurate methods of extracting information
I would like to see some sort of robot Al Gore that would monitor us for planet abuse.
Fleets of these Gorebots could be made in idled factories (Perhaps where the Chevy Volt is supposed to be made?) stimulating the economy.
Given TSA-like powers, every citizen will demand their own Gorebot, to ensure their safety from, well whoevver it is that is trying to get us, and save GAIA in the process.
It would be win-win-win-win-win.
I want to see a public flogging of a private troll.
I'd like to see a public trust fund started so that I may obtain private lap dances from Katie Holmes whenever the mood strikes me...
Thanks, L. Ron.
Tom is Xenu!
John Travolta is Xenu,
Tom is a Body Thetan.
Oh, and Paul is the Walrus...
Can we see Krugman and Tom Cruise flogged at the same time as Al Gore?
I believe Paul Krugman is a scientologist.
That's probably how his proposed 177 trillion USD Hostile Alien Invasion Earth Defense Network Stimulus Plan was hatched, with visions of Xenu and all that...
LOL
How does "none-of-the-above" sound?
Private entities that merge with Government arms (BTW, it's called Socialism, which always leads to Communism) have a serious problem. These entities have a Devil as their partners, one that is guaranteed to devour them eventually.
You can play around with a tame wild bear or swim with a great white shark for awhile, but eventually they get hungry and you get eaten, law of the jungle. The Government is force, nothing less.
Private entities that merge with Government arms (BTW, it's called Socialism, which always leads to Communism) have a serious problem.
Our "private entities" which manufacture weapons merged with Government back in the 40s, but it hasn't led to Communism yet. Are you suggesting government should stop propping up Boeing/Grumman/Xe/etc?
MDB=Iowahawk?
6. Cities partnering with companies like synagro (CG subsiderary) to spread human sh!t on unsuspecting rural folk
http://eponline.com/articles/2010/02/25/public-justice-joins-lawsuit-against-synagro-in-pennsylvania.aspx
Yip - a proxy transfer of risk from muncipality sewage to a local farm field where your food is grown.
Risk will be reflected back when rural folk get smart and sue, just as these folks have done.
PP arrangements can backfire - this is one example.
You can always have faith that eventually, we will do the right thing...after we've attempted and tried everything else.
Holy fuck. Was not previously aware of the existence of this. Holy fuck.
indeed, and the article is over 2 years old. . .
once again, incentive for growing your own food.
this made me smile,
'cause everything's bigger in Texas. . .
+1 Million Dollar Sarcasm! Nice work again MDB. I don't know how you were able to limit the list to just these few examples.
Silver, lead and brass (not that I own any guns trolls).
no shit.
Kinda like the west side here in Chicago....
ya, sh!t
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sludge
http://michigancitizen.com/carlyle-and-synagro-escape-charges-p8829-1.htm
Corporate America, hard at work.
oooh, the plot/sludge thickens!
spreadin' that "Texas gold" all over the place. . .welfare queens, eh?
Thanks for the tip, I'll be sure to avoid that city on my way out of Cali in a couple of weeks.
My condolences.
when i was living in CA, some thugs from stockon came to my town 30 miles away to jack my honda civic...fuck you stockton!
Well it was either that or make meth, they only have two home ec classes.
Was your Honda Civic the best they could find? /sarc
Municipal bankruptcy has been Meredith Whitney's admonitory theme for several years now. Stockton may provide some vindication for her aging call.
There isn't anything within 20 min of Stockton that isn't a shithole.
Kinda like Detroit and Dearbornistan
Ah...my hometown. Big loss of pride with losing the murder capital designation to Bal'mer (or was it Oakland).
Chicago, hands down.
East St. Louis & The Big Squeezy are murders all the time, too.
Every night is like the 4th of July.
It's not about Stockton.
It's about corporate bonuses being at all-time highs, and them cutting our Soc. Sec. and pensions.
Eh?
Been here over 30 years and I still maintain Stockton's a great place to be from. We're adjacent to some of the most fertile soil on the earth and at sea level, have paradise conditions for agriculture. Dopey politicos forget the connection food has on maintaining life and if our bankruptcy can shed the light back on the necessary basic structures, i.e. sound currency, prudent lending/borrowing and trust used to build a vibrant society on once again, then so be it.
Bankruptcy is not the problem. It is the solution. It's nothing more than fulfilling legal obligations in a lawful and systematic fashion that draws an end to the control fraud conducted by the unholy alliance of politicians, financiers and their henchmen.
Between Austrian business cycle and "There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch," bitchez.
Think stockton will get a refund on the overpaid amount of their bonds that were manipulated by the libor scam?
Hell no
There aint no justice in the financial, judicial or political world.....
Apply the rico laws and fill those fema camps with banksters already -
Freaking crooks allowed to continue to plunder - i might as well do the same i guess since the rule of law is dead ....
And wait til TPP passs then we are all freakng screwed!
For christ sakes many of you will STILL vote for one of the 2 named corporate parties plundering the world and THEN saying "its the poor peolle fault - Austerity is the Only way'
I say Hanging is another preferred way..... It caused these cockroches to scurry back into the walls for a few generations.......
Why not try it again?
bingo....why wouldn't they be compensated for the fraud that's be used.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraud That's why we have laws.
Stockton should be compensated for the fraud that has happened. A corporate clawback, then the fraudsters at the top who've received billions in compensation and bonuses should have asset ceased pending trial.
Sounds like a payday for lawyers and no one else.
Not if it's handled in the way they deal with us plebes. It's an easy play book. Arrest them, freeze their assests, give them shitty public defender who has 7,000 cases, find them guilty, seize frozen assets.
One word - Corzine
Woody...I like ur style...
We need more to take off their shackles though b4 we can get it crackin....
DEATH TO THE BANKERS AND THEIR BITCH OWNED POLITICIANS......
Only socialists and those who depend on the gov't for their daily bread will rate this article less than 5 stars.
It's like a statist's wet dream and a true capitalist's version of Dante's 9 Circles of Hell:
Government wants more people on food stampsCNNMoney - Jun 25, 2012
It's just astonishing watching the two political parties kick the fucking can down the road. We all know how it ends; Ron Paul has told us, among others, as did Hayek. Eventually, the checks stop being underwritten and bankruptcy occurs.
What were they thinking when they thought the Iraq War, Part D Medicare and Obamacare were Neat Ideas?
Oh wait, "Serfdom for the Masses".
The Question answers itself.
Another quote out of context? The Department of Agriculture is trying to help people who are entitled to food stamps but don't know they are.
"Research has shown that many people -- particularly underserved seniors, working poor, and legal immigrants -- do not understand the requirements of the program,"
Or maybe you think if they don't understand it they shouldn't get it?
You're naive enough to believe there aren't deep, dark ulterior motives involved in getting as many sheeple on the dole, huh?
JP Morgan, which as just one cog in the wheel of government cheese programs, pockets a cool 5 billion USD worth of cheddar administering SWIPE YO EBT IT'S FREE, BITCHEZ.
These adverts are aimed at sheeple who ARE ALREADY ON THE DOLE. Can you not see that?
Actually don't bother answering that, you can't or won't.
Good luck in your robber baron, dickesian utopia where government is too small to do anything against the barons.
You don't get it.
Most of the "robber barons" you speak of in modern times are the result of BIG GOVERNMENT PROGRAMS FUNDED BY A LOT OF TAXES.
Think guns....and butter. See the players? Big Ag, Big Pharma, Big Defense - they're all lined up at the trough, and they're very, very HUNGRY.
,,,,and big Education, and Big Construction (the recipients of a flood of zero ROI construction projects)
You got that right. Most of the Tax giveaways are now to corporations, not the people. Our community just gave Apple 85 million in tax abatements for 10 years with the option to extend the abatements to infinity.
Got to love these CEO's, capitalism is for the unwashed masses, not for the mega corporations.
The problem for the Left, of course, is that it never had an answer for what happens when the money runs out. Che Guevara once preached that Imperialism would be undone by "A Thousand Vietnams". He was wrong.
The Left and the Right in this country are in a Death Embrace and are burying a once great country. It has turned into a Bankster's State with a Poodle President and Bought Legislators who perform pet tricks for their masters on Wall Street. Red Team and Blue Team, for what they are worth, will be undone by A Thousand Stocktons.
Ron Paul was right all along.
There is no such thing as a Free Lunch.
Afraid of taking responsibility for yourself?
Good luck embracing current government, the biggest robber baron of all.
As opposed to now where the barons own the government so nothing happens to the barons and the barons can then sic their big government on the sheeple for plunder?
Bring it!
the deleveraging continues, and bernanke is at the front lines with his cb henchmen, waiting for just the right moment to impale the deflationary horsemen with his qe3 sharpened poles...............
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tr8bZ25uo1U
for all those unfamiliar with william wallace, the whole clip is a must watch.....
it always starts in california..be afraid public employees..
As cities go bankrupt, their response will be to annex adjacent non-bankrupt areas.
It's how parasites work, drain one host, get another.
That, plus all sorts of other initiatives which a) does nothing to resolve the problem, b) create massive banker fees.
Yes, but you get a free toaster for opening up a new account!
Shit! All I got was this lousy Spiderman towel.
My village has a sign up that normally posts the upcoming meetings. I should have taken a picture of what was on there today, but they changed the sign to read, "Donations Accepted".
Public "pleas" for private donations [ to municipalities ] are certain to proliferate. It's for The Children, you know.
Yup.
But they don't necessarily succeed.
Philly has tried to glean taxpayer money from the state of PA to support the failing budgets of the Phila. public schools. This hasn't worked out very well, so now schools are closing in Phila. (The city government is dominated by Demos., the state legislature is dominated by Repubs.)
most cities don't have the military that would require.
They have an army of voters. That's all they need.
What happens to a leech that can't find a host?
Runs for office.
What happens to a SuperPac that can't find a host?
Pulls one out of the collective proletariat arse, then champions/demonizes it, as required.
Isn't that for the best, though? As cities disincorporate, police power will diminish, and liberty and freedom for all will increase.
Just as the libertarians prefer it, the only people living in any physical security will be those with the wealth to construct their own fortresses and hire their own armies.
Don't worry, nothing changes... The Po-Po can't protect you from the demons under your bed, anyway. Sorry if that was meant to be /sarc.
No demons under my bed, bro, I'm poor and they know I have nothing to steal. I get along very well in my 'hood by simply not being an asshole to my neighbors.
Yup. I tell folks that I started with nuthin' and still have most of that left. Don't underestimate the value of asshole-ery though. I thought you were snipin' at libertarians- maybe I mis-read ya' :)
If a bad guy breaks into your house tonight and you don't have the means to defend yourself, you're f-ed even with the glorious physical security from the police. Sure, they'll respond to the 911 call, and if you're really lucky, be there in 10-minutes, where they'll conduct a comprehensive crime-scene investigation and call the coroner.
That's why they exist...to deter crime (at best) and to respond after-the-fact to crime instances for investigation and possibly punish crime via arrest. If you have been lied to by the public education system into believing they were meant to provide you 24/7 personal security, sorry for busting you're soft-fluffy worldview.
-----------------------------------
Aside from that, I am sick of this BS "false choice analogy" logic fallacy being thrown about that if you want bankers, TPTB, and their political whores thrown from the top of the Empire State building, then you have to embrace public sector employees who have worked out sweetheart deals with their political allies for ridiculous benefits like 95-percent pensions on their last (highest paid) year of salary (including heavy overtime use). Both examples are of the same variety, with the only difference being scale. Both remind me of the Sophists from Plato's Republic who despise and reject morality and instead seek advantage at all costs. Both deserve scorn and punishment, with scale being the only difference (say, painful death for the former, and a public spanking and financial haircut for the latter).
Both examples are of the same variety, with the only difference being scale.
Scale is a critical factor, though, it's not reasonable to pretend it should be ignored.
A professional firefighter or cop, or EMT, or anyone who puts themselves at significant risk in effort to provide some kind of needed public service can make a reasonable argument for why they deserve DECENT wages and fairly robust insurance and protection from hazards of the job. These aren't people demanding multi-million dollar bonuses for selling bad securities all over the world.
Regarding retirement packages, OBVIOUSLY that's a completely corrupted system, but to act like bad decisions made by lawmakers based on the lies from the financiers is anything like our "CEO class" is just nonsense. There's NOTHING that a guy like Dimon or Blankfein does that makes him worth tens of millions a year, and they're the guys who set up the system to collapse and fuck over the municipalities in the first place.
This is an important point. The reason the pension funds are fucked isn't due to the pensioners themselves, it's due to the "external management consultants" (yes, all our favorite "wealth advisor" banksters/financiers are represented), who charge fees typically 4-5x the rate of Vanguard and in most cases due much much worse with the money. It's a bit like blaming the people who put their money in a 401K trusting that it would be handled well, for losing half their retirement money. The difference of course is that the pensioners are still legally due the same amount regardless of whether the underlying invested money is actually doing well, so you run into a case like Wisconsin where their budget is suddenly fucked because the main govt. pension fund lost a shitload of money. Pretending the pension money is seperately allocated is like pretending gold allocations with your bank are seperately allocated, it's a silly thought and it directly affects the budget. That said, Wisconsin's budget shortfall that led to the fairly extreme actions against public employees was about $450 million dollars. Guess how much they pay in "external management fees" per year? $475 million dollars.
I agree with some of what you said, but what about calPERS and it's batshit crazy 8% per annum return that they've baked into their Unicorn & Skittles projections for each and every of the following 118.5 years? Jeremy Siegel is a ginormous douchebag and turd, because even though EVEN he would laugh at such a lofty-insane projected rate of returns, his proclaimed historical rate of return of equity investing is DRAMATICALLY INFLATED (survivorship bias, rejiggering of indexes constantly, adverse tax consequences - especially in actively managed funds, etc. all reduce Siegel's equity market historical rate of return claims into raw sewage).
And what about the government pensioners? In municipalities around the area where I live, COPS & FIREFIGHTERS have 100k+ pensions along with lifetime medical insurance, life insurance and other benefits, for themselves and their spouses, can retire and collect said pensions at the ripe old age of 56, and they game the system by rigging the last 3 years of one's "career" so that they rack up tons of overtime (to thus boost their pension).
I'm not even talking about top brass.
There's a county administrator in the next county over from where I live who has had 2 prior government jobs, both of which he has retired from and is collecting a full pension for each job, and he is currently employed in his 3rd government job (he was appointed by the county exectutive and approved by the commissioners) making $134,000 per year - and this guy has a bachelor of arts degree in political science. That's two full pensions with full benefits, being paid to him yearly, while he is now sucking the taxpayers dry for another $134k per year plus benefits, and he'll certainly retire with a 3rd pension.
You can't make this shit up.
23 million government workers (full time, mostly unionized) are just one more critical component contributing to the rot and decay of this nation's economic and social illness.
Have you ever spent time in that paradise of federal government worker-dom that is the corridor running from D.C. through Virginia and Maryland? Go spend some time there and look at the malls, restaurants, neighborhoods where an incredibly high % of the people that are working are either full time federal employees or contractors who wouldn't be employed with the massively bloated and porky pig government we have. Look at the cars parked everywhere and the type of stores there. It's sickening.
Still a false choice though. By all means, go after the big CEO and financier fish with vigor. Even with murderous glee. But it still isn't making granny eat dog food to say to those paid on the public dime that some reasonable level of pension will be adjusted to a level the tax-payers can reasonably absorb. The whole basing pensions on the last year of "public service" at rates above say, 50-percent, have to go. And no adding overtime from the last year either. Otherwise, they're just the new oligarchs in the system once the Dimons are hanging from lamposts.
There's nothing about forcing any "choice" in my post, you're just drawing an unreasonable equivalence, and I'm calling you on it.
The bankers demanded money despite having been incredibly profitable for decades. The state/local governments never ran huge profits by robbing the taxpayers, although the payscale gradually became inflated to roughly twice what's appropriate. I think I also stated pretty clearly that the retirement mechanics are corrupt. It seems you're arguing with me about stuff you think I believe, and you're probably mistaken.
That retirement ploy is not going to go on much longer, because retirement funds are all going broke. Do you know why that is?
The Scranton story is a good one to check out. The idea that everyone's wages can be unilaterally cut is not going to fly. Either they're going to lose the workers (would you be a cop in Scranton for $7.25/hr and the promise they'll pay you "when the crisis is over"?) or someone's going to offer 'em a bailout.
The thing that I find really impressive is that many public-sector employees actually still believe they aren't paid as well as the private-sector folks. Talk about a demonstration of how effectively the public is deceived about the USian economy. Hell, for a laugh, go to one of the job-pay websites and look up the "going rate" for your position and experience and ask yourself how well it represents the reality.
The muni default tsunami is coming its been stalled by easing and the subsequent can kicking that always follows more emergency easing in whichever of the many forms easing can come these days. Everything is slowly rotting in America you can already see the beginning stages of the storm to come, lots of defered maitenence. Its going to get MUCH worse. here we go.
Note that this is likely going to cause a temporary flood of investment money into US Treasuries and state general obligation bonds. Yes, yes it is stupid, but this will happen.
whitney was a yr late.
she's a year late on the $JPM downgrade too...
With pensions forecasting 5-9% annual returns and interest rates being kept low there is no way these pensions are going to be able to meet the goals they set when money was easy and everything was going up.
Ah yes, the constipated skittle-shitting unicorn.
Sure they can. I know a good dice game that Bob Diamond runs out of the city...
This is what the finance educational complex is teaching its business majors.
Command and control economies only will till they fail.
I would take exception to this statement:
"3. Every government collects and distributes the surplus of its private sector to its employees, favored constituencies and vested interests."
Let me make it perfectly clear that the money the state takes from me via taxes is not surplus. It's money I would use to do something to further the ability of my family to survive the coming collapse.
In addition, I don't blame gov't workers for having to deal with this insane monetary system we were all essentially born into. I do blame them for greedily grabbing every fricking dime they could wrangle out of the taxpayers they supposedly were serving via threats of stikes, etc.
With that said, I guarantee I'll be voting for every pay cut and benefit cut to gov't employees any time I'm afforded the opportunity. If they are worth so much let them go out into the private sector and see what they can get for pay/benefits.
It's surplus. It showed up on your paycheck simply because it was taxed at 100% on the first go-round. Remember those proposals for a new short form 1040?
Line 1: How much did you make last year?
Line 2: Send it in.
Why do you insist on making this more complicated?
You have to divert ALL avail. funds in these broke cities to FUNDING the PENSIONS of the people who ran it into the ground....top priority!!!
Job well done...mission accomplished!
thank you sir, may I have another!
I want a job where I can run the organization into the ground, completely destroyed and get paid large to do it!
Pension is 2 or 3 times your over-paid salaries already? cant remember
Kinda like the Cubs....get paid to lose....
You need an IVY league MBA for that dude. Your ambition requires that level of education to get connected and fuck up bad.
indeed!
"former CEO of Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center Michael Anderson made $4.2 million when he retired at the end of 2009"
(this is a NON-PROFIT hospital)
"the next CEO of Parkland Memorial will make $950,000 per year" ( in Dallas)
sign right up!
The organizations may be "non-profit", but that doesn't mean the people that run it are.
What?!? You want to be Jon Corzine?
I wouldn't worry about point 18 (services gutted).
If (14.) is true (costs rising 7%-10%/yr) it wouldn't last for long. See PIIGS.
I used to live in that socialist/welfare state. I'll make a prediction on which cities are next:
Fresno, Oakland, Modesto, Fremont, Visalia, Bakersfield.
http://www.sacbee.com/2009/03/19/1698037/interactive-graphic-the-califor...
Pretty much anywhere in the Red or Purple (ouch) areas...(for humor, overlay with congressional districts leaning Republican)
Mammoth Lakes is up next. Between losing money to a developer and being on the losing end to Los Angeles over water deals, it is going away.
Here's part of the story: http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Mammoth-Lakes-Town-Council-votes-to-file-3684756.php
These charts show the depth of the recent employment recession - worse than any other post-war recession - and the relatively slow recovery due to the lingering effects of the housing bust and financial crisis.
http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2012/07/june-employment-report-80000-jobs-82.html
How are home prices going to go up if there aren't any Government employees to buy them (or rent them)?
Everyone will have to get real.
Way back when ... When bush meat was no longer available you had to rely on agricultural surplus to put food on YOUR table.
If you are not involved in the pipeline to make surplus food, you are a NON PRODUCTIVE mouth to feed.
Get real. Your functions might not be as essential as you think.
You are probably a non productive mouth to feed.
Modern monster agribusiness needs millions of non-productive mouths to feed or it goes broke. Have you ever wondered why food, especially grain and its derivatives like pork and chicken, is so cheap in America? Have you ever wondered who would buy that shit if there weren't so many "useless eaters"?
and of course corporate GMO-chemical additive "fud" is now being given away via JPM "snap" - guaranteed to put you on the treadmill to corporate pharma-ville. . . closed loop system designed for maximum extraction as they push the "money pixels" round & round. . .
feedlot amrka.
No. 21 is problematic.
I'd like to believe there is a mechanism for taxpayers to retaliate against unfair levels of government spending on favored client groups, but I'm not sure I can see it.
Prolly a limit of some sort will be reached, but it's also likely that by that time too much damage will have already been done to the balance sheet of the taxpayers. They tend to be a way too tolerant lot of sheeple. And the non-sheeple never seem to have sufficient political critical mass to overcome the political inertia necessary to get anything done in time.
My instinct is that government at any level is powerful enough to drag the tax base into the toilet along with it; like a drowning man.
move or vote other idiots into office... vote against any tax increases and help campaign against them...
Easier said than done.
I already live in the most conservative county in the state. But these morons (Republicans; of which I am one) are just as drunk on the stupid idea that economic growth will support almost any level of spending as the Democrats.
Send the mayor a copy of "A Short History of Financial Euphoria" by John Kenneth Galbraith...
I've often wondered why when municipalities get into dire financial straights that they dump police and fire first, rather than useless things like the Office of Diversity and Inclusion or the Department of Urban Renewal. But, then I discovered that most of those "offices" must be there by force of law, and they cannot just eliminate them. States mandate that cities over a certain size have XYZ department, and the Federal government does the same if the city wants Federal funds. They have become trapped. They should seek relief from all of these required offices if they are serious about saving their cities (which I doubt in most cases).
It's so much easier to divide and conquer the peasants into first arguing for and then accepting tax increases by threatening them with losing services they expect from the city, than by threatening to take services the citizens either don't know about or don't support if they do.
In DC it's called "The Washington Monument Game." If your budget is threatened you propose to economize by...shutting down the Washington Monument or an equivalent.
In my county, the guy that is charge of the entire county public school system of 160,000 K-12 students gets paid $410K annual salary plus another $114K annual benefits. For the five guys that report directly to him, each gets paid $250K annual salary plus additional huge benefits.
Yup.
This is exactly the kind of shit I'm talkin' bout. It's very difficult to fight privileged groups, and education is one of the most privileged groups of all thanks to the teacher's unions.
Forgot to mention that the $410K guy needs to report to four other guys, and each of the other four guys each pulls in $700K a year.
right on folks...BUT THEY HAVE TO GIVE YOUR KID SOME CHATCH-KA(sp) TO SELL DOOR TO DOOR TO AFFORD SCHOOL SUPPLIES!!! yet another fundraiser!
HOW MUCH SHIT DO WE HAVE TO BUY FROM OUR KIDS THESE DAYS?? Nobody else will buy this shit.....PAY ME NOW AND IT WILL COME IN 6 WEEKS!!! oh-kay!
Back in my day we had to sell cheese and sausage door to door for a chance to win a stuffed animal that cost 2 bucks from China. And we loved it......you pay me now, and in 6 weeks you get a summer sausage that you paid 4x as much for!!! Thanks!
the pensions....that is what is destroying us!
And what is wrong with ketchup?
After all, it is a tasty and nutritious vegetable!
If you think that this salary is egregious, check out how much the "Head of Diversity" earns in a large publicly traded company. Hint - quite a bit more than the President of the United States.
Many cities (and suburbs) are turning into slums...you can almost predict where these slums are (and will be)....just look at all the new neighborhoods with zero down mortgages.
Is your suburb the next slum?http://realestate.msn.com/article.aspx?cp-documentid=21179977
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The Suburban Slum Era Has Arrivedhttp://gawker.com/5853251/the-suburban-slum-era-has-arrived
...and many more articles on the subject.
My cousin sold his house on the golf course...now it is being rented out to Section 8 folks....few neighborhoods will survive these powerful financial and demographic forces. Those who buy now better use ultra-due-diligence cause in a year or two you may be driving down the street seeing lots of jobless people sitting on their steps sipping a six pack watching your nice car as it drives by--those new tires and hubcaps sure do look nice.....
What is scary is that they still haven't figured out what went wrong. Even after guys who ran ran the city into the ground skipped out with loaded pockets the suckers are still scratching their heads.
they know exactly what the problem is, its the cost of health insurance, that is the one driving cost that is hurting every local govt. Imagine that, a for profit healthcare system and insurnance system run amok causing the problem.
Health insurance is a key thing....but...SKIMMING....
There is this two-bit whore in Dixon Illinois who stole 20 million from a car dealership.....The dealership to their credit did quite well DESPITE being taken for 20mm!!!!
So in this small town you got this cunt with 3-4 Benzes, horses, a farm, trips to see the pope.....but she was an accountant for a car dealership!!! right!
Small town, big talk....
You cannot tell me they are NOT grabbing with both hands!!!
Then again, people see GOVT and think EXPLOIT....they are synonymous, no?
make the books public! all of them! let's see how many bugs and rats scurry.....
human nature never changes.
She was the treasurer of Dixon and stole the funds from the city.
There are many here commenting naively that no government is the best option. Yeah, it will all go well until your kid needs some expensive surgery, or you get robbed or local big company screws you or it start to get real hard to educate your kids by yourself, while trying to take care of the farm. People take all sorts of things granted without realizing YOU have to do all those things after possible all-out government collapse.
I agree, there are plenty of anarchy is countries in africa, yet I see none of these loudmouths headed there. Just a bunch loudmouth know-nothings respewing propaganda they heard.
"loudmouth know-nothings" dont be so hard on yourself.
Just another educationally challenged nitwit posting ignorant bias. Corporations and banking my friend is where the problems lie in this country. Not some fireman making 50k a year willing to risk his life to save your worthless life.
It's unbelievable the mindfuck corp propaganda has done on people. Somehow a CEO making 13,000 bucks an hour isnt the problem, its the cop/teacher making 25 bucks an hour.
crawl another big gov union thug poster, i would answer your uneducated view on "the problem" but it would be useless..as you obviously have not read ZH for content.
bullshit, you have no comeback. Go back to listening to your know-nothing college dropout drug addict and get your next piece of propaganda to respew.
You are an embarrassment.
FYI- Myself and noone in my immediate family is in a union, Im just informed, imagine that.
here in my home town usa the tax base is decimated..only gov.org have expanded and guess what? they do not pay tax!! so we must build a middle school $12 million with a state grant/loan/bond..vote out every one of the pols every stinkn one.
NWO criteria of off shoring jobs and no tariff protection somehow is not adding jobs in the USA but adding to the fall of employment ..what a surprise, who coulda known!!
NWO..yep I knew your were an idiot just wasnt sure how large of one, now I know. NWO LOL
"We are not going to achieve a new world order without paying for it in blood as well as in words and money." --Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., in Foreign Affairs (July/August 1995)
The above 'rules' do not apply when the system is run by criminal bankers & politicians who change the laws to meet their needs. The people of the system have become way too corrupt to fix the mess by voting. At this point the only thing that will fix the mess is a revolution.
What’s so dangerous about leaving out of public financing equations the immigration invasion quotient? In Stockton, California, for example, heavy pressure on public services such as schools, police, streets, housing, etc., came from substantial increases in population fueled by great increases in immigration, much of it illegal.
In California, a single Federal judge can stop voter initiatives to rein in immigration and as the Arizona law problem shows, the federal authorities have no interest in seriously policing the borders. But they have every wish to make sure public services, such as Obamacare/teachers’ salaries/police and fire support. are maintained. This is an untenable dilemma and it’s wrong to do articles about public financing problems and ignore this factor.
In 1994, California voters voted 59 to 41 percent to approve Proposition 187, the “Save Our State” Initiative that said California residents were not responsible for the schooling and health care of illegal aliens. It also stepped up labor law and border enforcement.
A single federal judge blocked its implementation on the basis of “a balance of hardship” and constitutionality. Only the sections that imposed penalties for making or using false documents were not blocked.
Now, the Piper has presented his bill and in California, 18 years later, there no longer is a “59 percent” majority vote to pass a “Save Our State” initiative.
Exactly
The hell-holes many cities have become are NOT due to the supposedly extravagant benefits city clerks and librarians receive.
Look to immigration policies, Prohibition II, outsourcing job loss, ZIRP, bankster real estate sprawl, misdirection of the economy to wasteful militarism and failure to invest in the public infrastructure.