When I worked as an employee benefits actuary, there were 3 occasions where my firm was hired by towns to see what the savings would be if (1) public employees switched from pensions to 401(k)'s, and (2) public employees paid the same percentage of their healthcare costs as the average taxpayer in the town.

They were very cool studies. In all 3 cases, we determined that those actions would save each household about $1600 per year in property taxes. Those changes were not implemented in any of the 3 towns, and by coincidence all 3 towns were run by Democrats.

What that means is this. The average family pays $1600 per year just for the portion of public benefits that go beyond what's available to everyone else.

I'd like someone, anyone, to tell me why public employees have the right to take $1600 away from my kids each year, just so they can cling to benefits that don't exist anywhere else. Why is their financial security more important to society that the security of my kids?

And as a side note, that $1600 annual surcharge was at existing property tax levels. Now that towns are realizing they can't come close to paying for what the unions demanded, taxes will go up, menaing that annual surcharge will be much more than $1600.

Anyone in a union out there, please tell me why you deserve that money and those benefits. I'm a rational, reasonable guy, alwaya willing to listen.

Chris Christie for president!!

Dad, as far as I'm concerned, a company in the private sector can do whatever they want. They can pay all employees $10 million a year for all I care. Because in the private scetor (unlike the public sector) no one is forced to pay that cost unless they decide it's a good deal for them. Private sector companies can't increase prices, and then say "pay these new higher prices or I'll seize your house".

Do you not see a big difference there? The private sector (in the vast majority of cases) cannot greedily screw their customers. Competition prohibits that.

OMG, I can't answer it, its impossible. I have been beaten by you, painted into a corner and trapped by your Superior Intellect and Amazing Internet Prowess....Kirk to Bridge, Get us out of here. :rolleyes:

You posted a question and people here are trying to give you there take on it....but everytime they post something you don't agree with you come back w/ the "Can't Anybody answer a simple question" argument.

I'll Answer them for you and then maybe we can move on.

Difference in What? I stated that Private Sector Employees receive time and a half for overtime worked also.....so in that case the answer is No....No difference at all. Overtime is Overtime

Yes.....but note that your "Simple Direct" Question is really 3 questions

Its Not....Ask Away. No law says you can't ask

They Could

They Could

There....now can we move on.

How about the fact you added the question AFTER I made that post

Ok, I concede that I asked you that question after you posted. Whoop-dee-do.

Now, how about the fact that not you, nor anyone else, tried to answer it. If someone directly addressed my question, I missed it, so please show me.

Dad, it gets tiresome when I make the attempt to directly respond to dozens of questions and points, and no one will respond to one of mine.

You say folks "gave their take" on it? Where? Where did someone directly address the question I asked about the fairness of forcing taxpayers to bear these costs?

Dad -

"OMG, I can't answer it, its impossible. I have been beaten by you, painted into a corner and trapped by your Superior Intellect"

You said it, not me. I make no claims to have any special intellect. What I have is common sense, intellectual curiosity, honesty, and the desire to debate other similar individuals, especuially those who disagree with me, since that's how you learn. Unfortunately, it only works if the other folks are as willing to answer direct questions as I am, and on this issue, they keep dodging.

"Overtime is Overtime"

In the private sctor, customers can easily and freely choose to refuse to pay the costs of employee overtime. In the public sector, if unions want overtime, they take it from taxpayers with force of law. You claim you see no difference between money that is voluntarily traded and money that is confiscasted with force of law? Those 2 things are identical to you?

You did answer part of my question, in that you admit there is no reason why they can't live with 401(k)s. So, given how burdensome current tax rates are, don't you think they SHOULD live with 401(k)s, given that you concede that they COULD? Seems to me that the only answer to that question is "yes", unless you believe that public employees are somehow more entitled to wealth than taxpayers.

Dad, I admit I'm asking tough questions, these are not softballs.

Yes, how about that fact? Why is that important?

Dad, you seem, at times, extyremely rational, so I was curious to see your answer to my question.

Do you only feel comfortable answering questions that have been asked before you join the discussion?

Because you asked me why I hadn't answered a question....That I didn't know was asked

as opposed to what.....answering questions that haven't been asked yet.

Dad, you read my posts thoroughly enough that you were quick to point out several flaws, which is fine. My point was, while you were dissecting every detail of my post looking for flaws, you might have also taken the time to answer the question I asked, which gets to the heart of the issue.

If you want to correct my grammar and punctuation, I have no problem with that. But how about you also take the time to answer the question I'm asking?

Again, I see you dodged my other, pertinent question, which was this...given that you concede that public employees "could" live with 401(k)s, don't you think they SHOULD be asked to live with 401(k)s?

My position is this...

- people in the private sector are surviving with 401(k}s
- pensions are much more expensive than 401(k}s
- public employees are public servents, they are supposed to serve the public
- taxes are pretty high right now

Given all these things, it seems morally obvious to me that public employees should, finally, have to accept benefits that reflect what's available to the public they serve, and benefits that the taxpayers can reasonably afford.

Where am I wrong?

you two should get a room :love:

Then go ahead and ask them....I'm not stopping you.

Jim, the bottom line is that you had an opprutunity at one time as we all did to apply for work with the city, state or feds, you being a vet would have started out with four weeks paid vacation for time served in the military and on your way to a pension, apparently you chose another path of employment. Get over it, build a houseboat(no property taxes) kiss a mailperson, fireperson, a female that is. :)

it's just going to be really ugly when the teats all run dry and the checks bounce and all of these entitlement recievers realize they've been Bernie Maidoff'ed :)....maybe we can just get some advanced Obama end of life counseling for a whole bunch of people to help bail out the ship, that may be one way to make Obamacare actually work...:uhuh: instead of offering early retirement we'll offer to RETIRE them early if ya know what I mean :):rotf2: "everyone needs to have a little skin in the game"

No, Fly Rod, that's not the bottom line. I'm pretty comfortable, never said I wasn't. I went into actuarial science for the $$ and so I'd be home every day at 4:30.

The botom line is this. The cost of those benefits is crippling state and local governments, and taxpayers who aren't as lucky as I am will soon be forced to make enormous sacrifices so that these unionized municipal employees can continue to cling to these insane benefits. There is a reason those benefits don't exist in the private sector anymore. Those union benefits literally destroyed the auto industry in this country. I don't want my town or your town to resemble Flint, Michigan, just so cops can retire at age 45 with a guaranteed pension for life. And that's where we are headed.

If you're OK with that scenario, i would be interested to know why. If you don't think those benefits are resulting in staggering debt, please show me data to support that. But stop trying to distract attention away from the issue at hand by posting that I'm jealous.

I hate everything about muncipal unions (I served time on my town's BOE, I know exactly how they operate, witgh tactics that would have impressed Vito Corleone. Every time I brought up the subject of 401(k)s, the union rep would claim that I hate children). I'm not jeaolous of them...I'm not jealous of anyone who greedily takes what belongs to others. I have nothing but contempt for those parasites, and the politicians who lay down for them.

Fly Rod, I'll "get over it" when my property taxes stop going up 10% a year. I'll get over it when public employees stop forcing taxpayers to choose between paying property taxes and buying food and medicine.

Public service is supposed to be for those who hear a call to serve, not for those looking for the surest path to wealth.

Nice dodge, coward. I asked you if you thought they should make the switch to 401(k)s. I'm sorry if that question points out how obviously flawed your personal agenda is. If your position on this issue is so weak that you cannot begin to answer a question that simple, perhaps you should ask yourself why you believe what you do?

You can keep pointing out all of the hypertechnical flaws in my posts. The logic is unassailable. Your refusal to answer my question makes that crystal clear.

I'm a #^&#^&#^&#^&.....Get over it

And a coward. Hell, you couldn't even man up to meet me for that music stand :eek::laugha::humpty:

-spence

and besides.....thats not what you asked.

This is what you asked

and I said Go ahead and ask them.....seems like I answered the question you asked.

When the Subject line of the PM you sent me said "To My Future Gimp"...I got a-scared

Maybe you are, maybe you aren't. I truly couldn't care less.

You have a habit, with me at least, of ignoring the issue at hand, and focusing instead on trivial (in my opinion) details. I want to be as accurate as possible, i think you'll see that I never got defensive to the corrections you made to my posts.

But along the way, you repeatedly dodged (or perhaps missed) my main point. So I'll ask it one last time, and you can choose whether or not to answer.

"Dad, pretend you are governor of Mass. Given the current economic climate, would you recommend that public employees switch from pensions to 401(k)'s? Or would you recommend leaving the pensions in place, and raising taxes significantly to pay for that?"

If I've made any typos or spelling mistakes, feel free to call me on them. But perhaps you could also give a yes or no answer to that question, with maybe a sentence or 2 of explanation as to why.

Answer it, don't answer it, ignore it and insult me instead...your choice.

Again, focusing on the details, instead of the main issue.

Dad, I didn't ask you if I had your permission to ask them. I asked if they "SHOULD" be asked...meaning, do you think switching from pensions to 401(k)s is the right thuing to do?

Dad, do you know the difference between "can" and "should"? If my question was "CAN I ask them", then your response (that no one is stopping me) would have been pertinent. But, as you see, what I posted was "SHOULD we ask them". The word "should", to most people, gets at whether or not something is the right thing to do, not whether or not you have permission to do something.



Is that clear enough?

1st I have and still do work in the private sector, in fact every job I have had has been in the private sector. Since High School I have worked for 4 different private companies, with the exception of 1 all offered 401k, and the current one offers a pension as well. So in all 4 private sector jobs, ot was offered to complete the days tasks as opposed to hiring more employees. It makes more sense because it cost less money, and the ot is not always consistant. My salary is probably less than yours, and when I work ot I have the chance to get into 6 figures. On some weeks it is not uncommon to work as many as 30 hours of ot. Now if you make say $100,000 a year and 50-60 hrs a week , how is it any differant than someone to make 60 or 70,000 a year and then work as many hours as you and turn it into 90-100,000. ? Most of the employees in that article probably make 60-70,000 as a base salary, they then work an enormous amount of extra hours like you do and they made more. Big friggin woop. Now if you got all of your work done within yourr 40 hours, you make out, no? The reasons givem for the Massport workers was that due to constuction and some other problems some employees worked more hours, but it was n, because it was a temporary thing to worth it to hire any new employees.

As fas as your benefits question goes, this posting had nothing to do with benefits, 401k's or pensions, it was about the amount of money some people made in one year. Are the costs out of control absolutely, should something be done, for sure but what I don't know.

I will also tell you this that my pension in know way will ever meet or exceed my salary. Those are the promplem pensions.

I thought that 401's should have been introduced several years ago. The energy spent here should be directed to your local city council or town selectmen. Not one thing would be solved here. The rant goes on.:)

Fly Rod, I don't expect issues to be solved here. What I hoped for, was good, rigorous, open debate. But when I ask a pointed question, one gyu accuses me of being jealous of public employees, one guy tells me to stop hating public employees, one guy tells me that people are only "safe" if cops get these benefits...

"So in all 4 private sector jobs, ot was offered to complete the days tasks as opposed to hiring more employees. It makes more sense because it cost less money"

If the pensions are fattened by the overtime (as they are in many cases), then that system does not cost less money. It makes cops rich and taxpayers poor. If the pensions do not reflect overtime, you have a point.

"Now if you make say $100,000 a year and 50-60 hrs a week , how is it any differant than someone to make 60 or 70,000 a year and then work as many hours as you and turn it into 90-100,000. ? "

First, I don't work 50 hours on average, though I do some weeks...In some cases, you are right. In the case of some police departments, where the overtime is so steady, it would in fact be cheaper to hire additional employees to do that work at base pay instead of 150% of pay. They could hire part-time officers to do the extra work. But the unions won't allow that, because they want those cops to get rich.

"this posting had nothing to do with benefits, 401k's or pensions, it was about the amount of money some people made in one year."

Granted. But my question (about benefits) is pretty closely tied to the issue of public employee compensation, it's an issue that effects us all, and it's an isue that provides a huge benefit to a small number of people, while asking a large number of people to make huge sacrifices.

"Are the costs out of control absolutely, should something be done, for sure but what I don't know"

It's not rocket science, there are 2 choices. Raise taxes or cut benefits. We need to decide which is more fair. If cutting benefits meant that cops/teachers would have to eat cat food, I'd say raise taxes. But if cutting benefits simply means that cops/teachers have to live like the rest of us, then I say cut benefits.

I have no problem with folks in the private sector getting rich, because they still have to make their customers want to pay for their product or service. But no one in public service should be rich, because taxpayers do not have the option of refusing to pay.

Good, thoughtful post. Thanks.

Because you, yourself, would never insult anybody in the context of a thread

I'll answer your question...


I would keep the pensions in place for those who were hired under that plan. These were the benefits packages that were offered them when they accepted the job, so they need to be honored. Going forward w/ new hires I would go to a 401k scenario.

Does that answer your question? You can throw out more questions or find flaws in this but I really don't care....you're not changing my view on this. You can't renege' on benefits offered...sorry that's just me.

Now here's a statement that I've been trying to strike from conversation. Seems like every time I say, "You know what, I could not f(*&ing care less," I always surprise myself in how much less caring there is to do. I get there eventually though.

I love the new civility...isn't it great? :buds:

Dad, after all that, and it turns out our positions are almost identical. The only difference is, I would require that younger workers (say under 35) hired under a pension, be forced to switch to a 401(k), of course keeping the portion of the benefit that they have earned. That's what the private sector did in the mid 1990s.

Yes, that answers my question. That was a direct answer, and I only needed to ask you 300 times to get it out of you.

I also agree with this, but I think that anyone already hired should be either left alone, or some form of buyout in the form of a lumpsum payment equal to the current value of their pension be place into the new 401k plan to get them started. Like I stated earlier this post was strictly about the amount of income these people earned.

Also you previously stated in the private sector the companies make the customer pay for services they want. As an intelligent person I assume you would agree, that we all have wants and needs. Seeing as basic needs are that potholes are repaired, traffic, and street lights work, water and sewer work, someone protects our property, and someone teaches our children, then we must pay for these services as well. If we did not there would be fewer public servants to provide these services, cause like you stated you did, they would go to the private sector for more money.

now ya did it....I'm weeping...

I wasn't going to get involved in this again, but in Massachusetts overtime does not add to police pensions. Not one dime. Detail pay does not count either. Base salary only counts toward retirement. For thirty seven years when the phone guy or the N Star/Edison crew went for coffee I had to pay for my own and they never took money from me for thiers. No coffee, no beer, and I worked with some pretty loose crews, but thier was never any quid pro uo, never. Everyone always wants to think the worse, no doubt thier are some #^&#^&#^&#^&#^&#^&#^&s out there who try make all of us look bad, but we only look bad as the #^&#^&#^&#^&#^&#^&#^&s, if we allow ourselves to be included in your and thier thought processes.

:btu:

Jim, the next time you need help call a friend or a stranger, and see if the can help you clean up your problems. Get in a crash, exchange papers with the other person, and dont bother the cop Fall flat on your face, unresponsive, at the post office and see who get there more quickly, cop or a firefighter. Cops do CPR really well. Remember, it is the first few minutes that count the most. Your relative that retired at 43 and is going to collect his retirement for 50 years is an anomaly. In Mass. the only way that would occur would be if he retired on a disability. To max out here you have to served 32 years and be 55 years of age. You can retire under 55 on a regular retirement, but the pay is reduced drastically for every year under 55 that that the person is who is retiring.

My wife has a grad degree in math and she cant stand it either when everyone (me) doesn't agree with her . You need something more to do in the winter. And stop calling people cowards here. That word shouldn't be used loosely.

Swimmer,

I can take it. I've been called worse by better. I have lots of ribbons and metals to prove him wrong. If you look at my early discussions I tried to be civil. Then, like others here, I realized it was like wrestling the proverbial pig in mud...so I started just poking into the corral to get teh bull mad. It worked.

You hit it right on the head. He needs more to do in the winter.

Bill

Hey Swimmer, thanks for getting involved in the post again. You are correct. Quinn Bill $ does count but OT & Details do not. I stand corrected. More importantly, I apologize if my post lumped all the good in with the bad. It wasn't my intention and I should have been more careful. Sorry for that. Thank you for posting and pointing that out. The reason I posted is that I know of very specific instances where this quid pro quo happens consistently in a particular town/city with a number (not all) of particular officers. I know this because I have some close friends/relatives that are on the force there (& no, not the town I live in). You are correct, the few bad eggs make everyone else look bad.

One thing I don't get is why does a 4 hour and 30 minute detail get rounded up to 8 hours?

can we see your "metals" ?


I'm noticing that cheap shots and reveling in prodding, insults... is OK if it goes one way(your way)...."do you fish""...that's a good one....proverbial pig...brilliant...just don't say "coward"...the thought/word police get mad and tell you what you may and may not do and say here(themselves excluded of course)....I think there's a word for that too but I wouldn't want to use it loosely...

Scott,

You are more than welcome to see both the ones I display in my shadow box (properly referred to as medals) and the ones I sling! Good catch. My bad for typing too fast. I can take a ribbing. I actually nejoy the good natured subtle humor that this board provides. There are many closet commedians here.

I have found that with the written word it is often difficult to tell when you have crossed that thin line from kidding into insults or accusations. Pardon me while I continue maintaining some reels for the upcoming season.

get on it man...spring is coming fast...building my collection of bucktails as we speak...good to have thick skin, particularly in here :)

Swimmer, let me see if I understand you, OK?

I am not saying cops don't deserve a fair wage. What I am saying is, I don't see why they deserve richer benefits (retirement and healthcare) than what's available to the public they claim to serve.

Instead of telling me what's wrong with that (because obviously there is nothing wrong with that), you tell me that I therefore don't deserve police protection?

I'll say this. If my town offered a private company-alternative to public police, and I got to choose which covered me, I would go private, because it would obviously be much cheaper.

You are another one of thise clowns who cannot attempt to respond to the merits of my argument, so you come up with some stupid response that's off point. Somehting that's designed to stop the debate.

Dad Fisherman also agreed with me that they should switch to 401(k)s, I guess he doesn't deserve that protection either.

"Your relative that retired at 43 and is going to collect his retirement for 50 years is an anomaly"

How would you know that? How could you possibky know how many guys do that? Here in CT, most towns have no age minimum, they only require 20 years of service.


"stop calling people cowards here. That word shouldn't be used loosely"

Last time I checked, I don't answer to you, I don't need your permission to state my opinion. I don't use that term loosely. I use it when it fits, for example, when someone like you refuses to answer a simple question, and instead hurls insults.

I asked many times why cops deserve pensions instead of 401(k)s. It's a simple, direct, fair question. Instead of answering, you went on a nonsensical rant about how, if I want some limits on public compensation, then I don't deserve those services. Believe me, if I could opt out o fthose services, and get my property taxes back, I would. Because every service provided by a public union, can be provided by a private entity for a fraction of the cost. Everyone knows this. That fact may not serve your personal agenda, but it's a fact nonetheless.

You didged my question completely. That's intellectually cowardly.

"You need something more to do in the winter."

Sorry if my questions make you uncomfortable. In the description of this forum, John R stated somehting to the effect of "if you don't want to hear what someone has to say, then do not enter".

I have no problem admitting when I'm wrong, I'm as flawed as anyone else. However, I apply a thoughtful, common sense thought process to these issues, and that makes it tough for someone like you to debate me, because you aren't able to articulate why you feel the way you do. If you could, you would have responded to my question instead of dodging and insulting.

I just cannot think of a reason why towns should face bankruptcy so cops should have pensions instead of 401(k)s. Obviously you disagree, but you will not tell me why. Can't you try?