Unfailed: California's budget outlook best in years...

[poindexter]

Look up three posts.

Hedley Lamarr: Qualifications?
Applicant: Rape, murder, arson, and rape.
Hedley Lamarr: You said rape twice.
Applicant: I like rape.

 

[qtlaw]

Look up three posts.

Hedley Lamarr: Qualifications?
Applicant: Rape, murder, arson, and rape.
Hedley Lamarr: You said rape twice.
Applicant: I like rape.

Still my No. 1 movie on my iPhone/iPad.

 

[poindexter]

So, the fact that California is looking at a reserve of $2.4 billion by the end of the fiscal year gets crickets from the board's Googleconomists?

Its looking at a deficit of $71 billion alone from the teacher's pension.

The second-largest public pension fund in the country, after California's primary pension system for public employees, it faces a $71-billion shortfall that worsens by $22 million every day, according to pension officials.

That's just the teacher pension, not the big Kahuna, the firefighter/cop/pencil pusher pension.

http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-teacher-pensions-20140221,0,3987312.story#ixzz2u062RUpC

 

[britwrit]

So, you get rid of traditional pensions. You get rid of Social Security and Medicare (or severely trim them back until they're useless) because they're entitlement programs sucking this great nation dry. Does anyone believe that 401(k)s are going to pick up the slack?

I know the nuclear option is only favored by a few. But really, how much do you cut until retirement for most people becomes like it was in the 1900s, grim and cheerless and if you were lucky, the kids let you hole up in the basement?

 

[The Big Ragu]

So, you get rid of traditional pensions. You get rid of Social Security and Medicare (or severely trim them back until they're useless) because they're entitlement programs sucking this great nation dry. Does anyone believe that 401(k)s are going to pick up the slack?

I know the nuclear option is only favored by a few. But really, how much do you cut until retirement for most people becomes like it was in the 1900s, grim and cheerless and if you were lucky, the kids let you hole up in the basement?

Not sure how you got here from this thread. ... But essentially what you posted is that most people are too stupid to know how to manage their own money and save for their future, based on what they are capable of producing. So they need others to take those decisions out of their hands (along with their economic freedom), and centrally plan their lives for them.

It wouldn't be such a big deal if the schemes and promises that were made in the past were ever sound. But social security is a slow leak -- exacerbated by the fact that we have trillions of other dollars today that have been promised to various other special interest and we have racked up a massive amount of debt to support all of the glad handing. So social security is pretty much on its own. We are running out of room to issue more debt and you can only tax current workers so much to pay for others. The problem of course is that there is not enough money coming in to support future promises, and without a reduction of benefits or a dramatic increase in revenue, it is on a path toward a crash. With regard to pensions, Poin's post referred to the second-biggest pension system in the country, which made BS promises that NEVER added up (and now that the day of reckoning is here, it is suddenly a surprise to anyone?) -- politicians boosting pension benefits to a constituency that got them into office, at the same time that they were not taxing the state (which wouldn't have stood for it) to pay for those benefits.

But the argument is that we need these corrupt messes to save people from themselves? How about we start letting people keep what they have earned in their own pockets and leave them the responsibility of managing their own lives. They will likely do a better job of it, and if they don't, at least it wasn't because of someone else screwing them with these generational ponzi-like schemes that are now collapsing under their own weight.

 

[DanOregon]

For all the crud Jerry Brown has taken over his career, he's probably the best mayor Oakland has had in 50 years and the best governor since his dad.
So why does some pinhead want to break it up into six states?

 

[TrooperBari]

So why does some pinhead want to break it up into six states?

It's just the next step in gerrymandering's logical progression -- one more way for Right-Thinking People (feel free to apply your own definition) to avoid the indignity of having to deal with Others Who Aren't Like Them.

 

[DanOregon]

For all the talk of succession - I wish there was a mechanism where a state could be voted out. Let's face it, there are some states that just aren't pulling their weight.

 

[poindexter]

LA City firemen made an average of $142,000 last year. Average.

That's salary, not including the Cadillac pension or benefits.

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-firefighter-overtime-20140225,0,5653449.story#axzz2uTIAER00

Prop 13 problem

 

[Football_Bat]

The "completion date" -- when it's supposed to be all done -- moved from 2020 to 2033. I think the first rider is scheduled for something like 2022, between Fresno and Madera, two towns where nobody could possibly want to go.

It's a gem.

I have family on my dad's side in the Central Valley and have visited there. If California is a giant ass, Madera is the dirt button.

(I just wanted to say "dirt button" again.)