Finally, some mainstream in-depth analysis of how the public pension legacy costs are literally the cancer consuming the host. Services are cut across the board to simply pay for the retirees taking in hefty pensions, oftentimes over six figures a year. Meanwhile, to pay for this excess, you have to shut down a whole bunch of services for the residents of the city. This nonsense is being repeated in all of these pro-Union states and it's no coincidence that these are the very same states that are so mired in red ink that there is literally no way to fix them. At its core, it's this EXACT SAME PROBLEM. The escalating costs of legacy public benefits are destroying each and every city, state that has a legal obligation to account for them. http://www.vanityfair.com/business/features/2011/11/michael-lewis-201111#gotopage5
That's the nature of the Socialized nanny state, in general. At some point the parasites overwhelm the hosts... then both die. The Greedy and Politicians all act as though they never heard about "The Goose That Laid The Golden Egg".
Roger Lowenstein (another outstanding financial author) saw this coming several years ago, and wrote this fine book - While America Aged: http://www.amazon.com/While-America...=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1317905646&sr=1-1
Even in Alabama (definitely not pro-union), state employees had a hissy fit when it was suggested their very low health insurance premiums be raised like $10/month. (I forget the exact amount, but that's close). Do they have any idea what self-employed pay? Yeah, Lewis has written everything from Liar's Poker to The Blind Side to Moneyball. He's mainstream, non-partisan and has no ax to grind. It's good to see someone like him catch on to this...
it would be better if the american public caught on. obama's goal is to enlarge the gov't and buttress the big unions thereby making most people dependent on the largess of gov't for their survival aka peronism. the private sector under his philosophy exists only to serve the gov't sector.
Thanks for posting, I'll read later. ------------- My understanding at least in NY, so many pension formula's are an act of law, changing them would require legislative action.
Did a tax return last year for a retired Chicago firefighter. His annual pension was 72k per year. Most people don't get up to that level during their working lifetime yet public employees reach that level well before they retire and receive a very handsome pension after they retire. Who is paying for it? Lewis definitely has the answer. Great Article!
Just imagine if he got on a school board or did some other high-pay, low-workload double-dip job after retiring as a firefighter.