And, imo, Human Rights Watch can go screw themselves. Go investigate China, Iran, Egypt or Syria or something.
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And, imo, Human Rights Watch can go screw themselves. Go investigate China, Iran, Egypt or Syria or something.
Good job, but they can still go screw themselves. :) Seriously, once these guys go to military tribunals, if they disappeared or something, it would be like a nuclear bomb going off. Obama will make sure, as Bush did, that the military doesn't overstep itself in these military trials.Quote:
Originally Posted by geerussell
Looks like we lost the "What's next for Granholm?" thread, so here goes.
Politico.com: Granholm will head to California to teach at Berkeley, write book
I didn't think they'd sold their home in Northville.Quote:
She said they will buy a home in Michigan; she has been renting a home in Lansing since leaving the governor's mansion.
More Union thuggery...Protesting a developers private home but putting a target on the flyer. Then someone is shot outside a Walmart in Wash state.
Hopefully Obama will call his thugs off one of these days...but prolly not till after 2012 election.
Rahm booted off ticket allegedly
We'll see what the Illinois SC has to say.
It was going to go there in any event.
Who knows how the court is loaded with Dems...I would suspect that it would be, but a candidate needs to live in the state, or is it city, the year prior to running.
Pretty amazing the shift in opinions on abortion.
NJ State pensions cost the NJ taxpayers 11BILLION dollars a year. Absolutely incredible.
How much should they cost? Why?Quote:
Originally Posted by Tahoe
Reportedly, there's 780,000 people in the NJ pension system. So, if your $11 billion is right and my 780000 people is right, that's ~$14k/person/year.
Keep in mind that the alternative would be Social Security, which has a non-trivial employer-side cost to it.
Is the real issue about cost, or about payout?
I'd suggest doing the math and not just putting BILLION in all caps.
Bah! Stupid facts!Quote:
Originally Posted by Uncle Mxy
lolQuote:
Originally Posted by Uncle Mxy
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...816252348.html
Quote:
Average annual pensions for new retirees as of July 2009 were roughly $39,500 for state workers, $46,400 for teachers, $73,500 for police officers and firefighters, and $105,600 for judges.
The problem is the union leaders make sweet deals with politicians who knew they wouldn't be in office when it came time to pay up. Then the union leader thugs take a slush fund to give back to the politicians to get reelected. Then more deals are made and on and on.
I know you are lib D. But some day you will be old enough to understand that the Govt's money is taxpayer money. They made deals that are unsustainable.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DrRay11
New deficit number for this year is almost 1.5T.
^ 1 frickin year. Unbelievable.
I know! And he had such a clean slate when he came in, too!Quote:
Originally Posted by Tahoe
Congress spends the money.
As much as its fun(?) to look back at who did what, this really is a big enough crisis to just look forward to see if anyone is going to do anything about it...Dems or Repubs or Tea Part.
I hate to use the buzz words out there but we seriously will get swallowed by our debt. Hopefully other countries will continue to invest in the country or we are screwed.
Have you checked out www.endofamerica15.com?
No, not yet. I'll get to it later. lol
Pay-out isn't the same as pay-in. If the state pays in $14k/year per head, invests for a bunch of years, and gets a number a lot higher when it comes time to pay out, that's cool. If they can't afford to because they fucked up (overcommitting to people who paid in, underperforming investments, lack of sane provisioning), THEN it's a problem. You need to have some basic understanding of what you're doing before you get all exclamatory over "11 BILLION".Quote:
Originally Posted by Tahoe
Many of the pension problems result from actuarial mistakes of the past and the difficulty in recalibrating after the fact. It's difficult to know how bad the actuaries goofed up on life span misunderestimating until people have lived out their lives, by which time the damage is done. For pension plans that pay out now, it's safe to assume that 40-year old actuarial data was involved in their crafting. The average age when a man died in 1970 was 67, and there were a lot more shorter-lived men as a % of the workforce than there are now. Most did not factor the medical and social revolutions that have happened in their bottom-line estimates, even before the "evil" unions and politicians and backroom deals add fuck-age.
Its that they fucked up and a fair amount of that is unfunded.Quote:
Originally Posted by Uncle Mxy
If you want to see more unfunded state liabilities...just look to other liberal states with liberal policies...e.g., CA, NY, NJ et al.
Pension funds were right there with the rest of the 'sophisticated investor' crowd at the top of the bubble dishing out massive fees to investment banks to chase returns on products they didn't understand.Quote:
Originally Posted by Uncle Mxy
"Underperforming investments" is a cover word they use now. Its really that they knew these investments couldn't perform that way, but drew it up anyway.
I saw a pension fund out here where they were looking for 12%??? I think it was 12. That is crazy.
It almost seems criminal.
All they knew was that everyone else was getting 12% and they wanted in on the action. The rest, as their highly paid investment bankers undoubtedly assured them, didn't matter.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tahoe
Pension funds along with a lot of banks, sovereign wealth funds, university endowment funds and a host of others who people assumed would know better were no more savvy than the rubes throwing money at Madoff because their buddy said it was a sure thing.
The other player here is the Fed, which herded investors towards ever greater risk with years of loose money at rock-bottom interest rates that destroyed the returns on anything resembling savings or conservative investments.
If I wasn't continually beating the 'smaller Gov't' drum, I'd ask for some Gov't regulation. :)
Seriously, just do away with pensions for public employess; do 401k's like the majority of the private sector gets and be done with it.
oh and make sure they are funded with more than the employee contribution.
I miss a dem prez like Clinton. He would stay an answer questions. Obama can't think on his feet. I guess thats what we get when we elect a community organizer.
What incident are you talking about?
Obama isn't good at quick off-the-cuff quips.
I take it you want a president who can say things like "Ahll be back"?
The filmmakers that did the sting on Planned Parenthood are now getting death threats. So civil.
Political correctness gone awry. This is the case where Barry said to "Don't rush to judgement" or something, but "We'll get to the bottom of this" when he thought it was a Tea Party peep that shot 'our' Gabby.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011...roops-ft-hood/
Why lead the article like that? As though the Commander and Chief shouldn't be more cautious about situations involving the military rather than random wacko's. Pubs had a conniption when he wasn't more reserved about the cop thing even though that was clearly harassment.
Anyway, I thought this editorial about the Supreme Court ruling that corporations are equally protected under the 1st amendment, making restrictions on their campaign contributions is unconstitutional. I don't like the outcome but its a good article.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/08/us/08bar.html?_r=1&hp
Yes, the outcome sucks.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fool
Lawyer on the sports rag says the editorial is wrong when it claims restricting 1st amendment rights from corporations is the "liberal objection". Says the main argument has been Congress' right to impose laws on elections under article 1 section 4.
Quote:
"The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing [sic] Senators."