[DeadHitchhiker]

It's fantastic how articles like these trot out figures like '$80k a year!' as if we're all supposed to be shocked and appalled that someone is making around what it costs to have a decent home and raise a family. I guess we really do need to pay our greedy firemen and teachers less, they have had it too good for too long making a decent wage and deserve to go right on the scrapheap with the rest of the trash in this country that we've already convinced to work for peanuts. Not that they had a choice.

[bruceb]

Should you get paid near $80k a year for the next 26 years when you are not working?

I also think it should be adjustable depending where you are living. Do you live in the area and so plowing some of that money back in to the local economy? If not there should be a reduction.

England is reducing some benefits for those who live abroad and thus not spending money in the country.

[DeadHitchhiker]

> Should you get paid near $80k a year for the next 26 years when you are not working?

Yes. Why not? Because that offends your sensibilities about work? Because you feel that people should work until they're 65~70 to retire, if they ever manage to? Right now a number of school teachers are working until their late 60s to make a pittance upon retirement, trading down from houses to mobile homes to even make their retirement manageable. Do you feel these people aren't as worthy as others making obscene amounts of money as they essentially raise the nation's children for them?

Your entire supposition either buys into the myth that there isn't enough to go around or worse, that you simply believe because we treat the majority of our labor pool like shit that anyone daring not to is in the wrong.

[adventured]

Why not? Because the math doesn't work out in the end. Never has, never will. You can't raise taxes high enough to make it all work, and you can't force people to stay in those munis and pay the taxes. It's a utopian government fantasy that is collapsing and taking municipal well-being down with it.

[zo1]

"> Should you get paid near $80k a year for the next 26 years when you are not working? Yes. Why not?"

They got paid a salary their entire working career, which they should have been taking out of to save up for retirement. You know, like the rest of society does.

[joshAg]

you do realize that the workers negotiated a pension with the city in exchange for lower salaries during the years in which they work, right? This pension is their retirement savings.

The city's benefit is that they don't have to pay as high salary as they otherwise would (without a pension); that means the city can take the money they save on salary each year, invest it, and hopefully get a high enough return that they save money compared to paying a full salary without the pension. Essentially, the city wants to borrow money from the workers at A% interest and then go invest it (maybe in itself, maybe in more traditional investments) and hopefully get an ROI of B%, where B > A.

The workers' benefit is that they get a "guaranteed" retirement fund (ie less risk) that they don't have to manage or worry about and depending on the circumstances, a higher total compensation than they would without the pension (ie the city pays them interest for essentially loaning the city money) (ie better returns).

If the city's investments of the saved salary money returns more than what is needed to fund the pensions, the city gets to keep that extra money.

[zo1]

So the politicians wanted to have their cake and eat it, no I get that perfectly. On the one hand they promise large future payouts to gullible public servants. And on the other hand they get to pander to the general public about how they've reduced the budget (or not increased it). Ridiculous.

For that matter, why is the city in the business of trying to make a profit out of peoples' pensions? And even then there was no accountability or repercussions for politicians that decided to dip their fingers into the pension investment pools.

And the last thing that I'd like to add in response. I think the reason why most people are shocked at this article, is because they've been conditioned and drilled with the thought that public servants are under-paid. But as you say, the public servants did this on "purpose" as a risk-mitigating process. If that's the case, then they need to stop yapping incessantly in the public sphere about how they're paid less in comparison to their private counterparts.

[joshAg]

> So the politicians wanted to have their cake and eat it, no I get that perfectly.

That's how capitalism works (under ideal conditions). Everyone tries to make the best possible deal for themselves, not just politicians.

> For that matter, why is the city in the business of trying to make a profit out of peoples' pensions?

For a multitude of possible reasons. Because the profit there can be used to reduce the tax rates. Because the profit can be used to pay for something that the city couldn't otherwise afford. Because the benefits plan allows them to more accurately plan future liabilities (compared to paying employees a market rate salary (that's not otherwise lowered by a pension) that floats up and down with inflation and the economy).

> And even then there was no accountability or repercussions for politicians that decided to dip their fingers into the pension investment pools.

Are you talking about embezzlement or about the city borrowing money from the pension fund? The first is illegal and an enforcement problem that's pretty unrelated to where the money was embezzled from. The second may or may not actually be a problem depending on the terms at which the city borrows the money. Regardless, that's also not related to pensions specifically, since the city can borrow money at stupid terms from anyone, not just the pension fund.

> I think the reason why most people are shocked at this article, is because they've been conditioned and drilled with the thought that public servants are under-paid.

That's because the public workers actually were underpaid compared to private industry workers when the deals were originally negotiated (even including the expected value of the pension). Over the years since then, private corporations have lowered the salaries they pay (usually by not keeping up with inflation as opposed to actual pay cuts, though that happens, too) most of their workers, so public sector jobs have become much more competitive.

> If [the public servants did this on "purpose" as a risk-mitigating process]'s the case, then they need to stop yapping incessantly in the public sphere about how they're paid less in comparison to their private counterparts.

I have a few problems with many of the implicit assumptions in this statement; specifically that there is an agreed upon way to value a pension, that there is an agreed upon way to value the value of the risk-mitigation of a pension plan, that there is little variation in the ratio of the total compensation public workers earn to a market rate salary across all government workers, that all government workers are yapping incessantly about being paid less than market rate when using total compensation instead of just salary (combined with the previous assumption: as opposed to just the ones that are currently underpaid), and that only the workers are benefiting (or that they benefit much more than the city) from such a deal.

On a side note, it's disappointing to see people want to drag the public sector workers down to a their (possibly only just perceived) lower level instead of wanting to drag themselves up to the public sector workers' level.

[bruceb]

Clearly I suggested they be banished to the poor houses so that the ghosts of rich monocle wearing robbery barons could fling quarters at them and watch the teachers scramble.

[iterationx]

You're so boldly wrong. I admire the boldness.

[melling]

The real question is can we afford it. Public pensions are not fully funded while the employee is working. In many cases there won't be enough people paying their benefits in the future so taxes will need to be increased or benefits cut.

[bsder]

We can afford it if the people in charge of the pensions would put the money away when they're supposed to aka NOW.

Instead, everybody treated pension funds like piggy banks, looted them, and now want to run away with the money with the "Oh they're so greedy."

[ars]

That doesn't make it affordable.

That just makes it unaffordable much earlier - which is useful granted, but doesn't actually solve the problem.

[zo1]

You can afford it, of course! Assuming you take debt out against your unborn children, and grandchildrens' future labor. If you're fine with that then keep repeating: "Yes we can!"

Some of the stats I've seen claim that the US has trillions in unfunded liabilities such as these pension funds. Anyone have any concrete stats we can reference?

[declan]

I don't think the article was trotting out $80K/year as the shock figure. That was supposed to be the $2 million number. (It's also in the headline.)