Public Employees Pensions Will Be To The 2nd Civil War What Slavery Was To The First

[Okeefenokee]

Kasich had an idea like that, but flipped around that would require teachers to work in the ‘real world’ as a sort of internship for part of their summer.

I’d love it if you guys could work for a semester or two in a local school on the other side of the desk and seeing what it’s like. Well, some of you.

Hell, I’d like to require it of legislators before they start opining on what ails education.

It is another reality from the private sector, but not necessarily in a bad way - it’s just a different world, with a host of different considerations. Recognizing that on both sides would be a big step forward.

I spent my second year of college working a part time tutoring job on campus. I know exactly what the hell goes on, and it's fucking robbery.

Can you elaborate? Genuinely curious.

I've laid this out here before, and it's not fresh in my mind anymore, but I'll give it a shot.

Entities teaching math,

• Math professors
  Math TAs
  Math emporium
  Tutoring center
  RAP
  Can't remember the acronym, but a federal math tutoring center
  Plato

Seven different employment groups all to teach math. Multiply that across five campuses.

That alone should be enough to show what kind of robbery is going on, but when you get up close and see that people running this racket have been collecting for fucking decades, and that they spend 9/10 of their time bulshitting online or playing games, there's no defense for it.

[Zero]

I spent my second year of college working a part time tutoring job on campus. I know exactly what the hell goes on, and it's fucking robbery.

Can you elaborate? Genuinely curious.

I've laid this out here before, and it's not fresh in my mind anymore, but I'll give it a shot.

Entities teaching math,

• Math professors
  Math TAs
  Math emporium
  Tutoring center
  RAP
  Can't remember the acronym, but a federal math tutoring center
  Plato

Seven different employment groups all to teach math. Multiply that across five campuses.

That alone should be enough to show what kind of robbery is going on, but when you get up close and see that people running this racket have been collecting for fucking decades, and that they spend 9/10 of their time bulshitting online or playing games, there's no defense for it.

Is that university level?

[Okeefenokee]

Nah, community.

From what I've seen of UT, they just make the grad students do all the tutoring work.

Most of it, anyway.

[Zero]

Community college? Yeah, I don’t know anything about all that. I’m just focused on making the local secondary community public school work for the community.

[Zero]

The whole idea of pensions is flawed. The only rule of economics is that production equals consumption, but pensions are based on the concept of storing production and consuming it in the future. Money is imaginary: if everyone saved up $billion so that they could consume-only in the future, what would they eat? It’s almost the same thing as printing $billion for everyone to consume in the future, which is what government pensions are. The entire premise of retirement is make-believe.

So, what is the solution in your mind?

[Martin Hash]

Truly socialized Social Security for everyone. If people want to speculate by saving money for their old age so they can continue to live like producers when they’re not, that would be a personal choice, good luck but don’t think anything is owed you. Predicting the future is perilous.

[Zero]

When the federal government has to take over the pensions, those pensions should be reduced to no more than what disabled veterans or social security recipients receive.

The idea that some school teacher deserves a pension more than twice what the government pays out to a man who lost most of his limbs in combat is not going to fly with the American people.

Government employees need to grow up on this.

Well, then I certainly look forward to continuing to work with my state government in this area then.

[Speaker to Animals]

When the federal government has to take over the pensions, those pensions should be reduced to no more than what disabled veterans or social security recipients receive.

The idea that some school teacher deserves a pension more than twice what the government pays out to a man who lost most of his limbs in combat is not going to fly with the American people.

Government employees need to grow up on this.

Well, then I certainly look forward to continuing to work with my state government in this area then.

That is the whole problem. You are supposed to work for the government, not with them.

Do you see private sector unions getting away with shit like this?

[Zero]

When the federal government has to take over the pensions, those pensions should be reduced to no more than what disabled veterans or social security recipients receive.

The idea that some school teacher deserves a pension more than twice what the government pays out to a man who lost most of his limbs in combat is not going to fly with the American people.

Government employees need to grow up on this.

Well, then I certainly look forward to continuing to work with my state government in this area then.

That is the whole problem. You are supposed to work for the government, not with them.

Do you see private sector unions getting away with shit like this?

Isn’t it part of the mechanism to keep annual pay lower to provide basic, essential services? I think Dan mentioned it once as the ‘deal’: you go private, make as much as you can with no safety net beyond contributing to and getting SS (after 1935). Go public and you have a much more fixed salary, you contribute to the pension investment pot, no SS, and you get a pension.

Maybe that was sustainable post WW2, but now it isn’t. I dunno - you want to rework the deal - the state is going to owe me what I’ve contributed in the last 18 years of teaching. Plus figure out what to do with the transition folks that are nearing retirement right now.

Whatever works and is sustainable, but don’t blame state employed teachers for veterans having shitty federal benefits. You don’t kick another profession in the nuts to fix the problems of another one.

I don’t really care what you do, the money is going to move one way or the other, I just don’t want old people having to choose between a can of cat food for dinner or heating oil for the furnace. Especially if they’ve put their lives on the line for the country.

[Speaker to Animals]

Martin has the right idea. Just expand social security a little bit and get rid of pensions altogether. If private firms want to offer it, fine, but the government can't bail them out of it.

If people want more than social security, then they should invest, save, or just keep working.

These public sector pensions are not going to be paid. You better believe that. When everybody is economically crushed, struggling, and public sector employees are retiring with huge pensions on the backs of struggling Americans, shit's going to get real for government employees real fast.

As it is, and like I said before, the minute it goes federal, there is no fucking way American tax payers are going to stomach paying retired teachers more than they pay totally disabled veterans. It's not going to happen.

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My main issue with social security is that we really need to implement a cut-off after which people get transitioned into a new system that pays for itself in the future and by law cannot be raided by Congress. The one we have now turned into a demographic pyramid scheme because of what Congress was able to get away with. Al Gore was right when he talked about making it a "lock box". People laughed at him back then, but not so much now.