From the WSJ:
Philip Falcone Sets NYC Record With Nearly $80 Million Townhouse Sale
Former hedge-fund manager Philip Falcone has sold a New York townhouse for close to $80 million, making it the most expensive residential townhouse ever sold in the city, according to people familiar with the deal.
…
The larger double-wide townhouse is well known as the former home of “Penthouse” magazine founder Bob Guccione. The Falcones bought it for $49 million in 2008 and have invested millions in a multi-year renovation, Mr. Falcone told The Wall Street Journal in March 2018. He said they expanded the property to almost 30,000 square feet and added a pool and a movie theater below ground level.
The house was built as two buildings in 1879, according to city records.
…
It’s the most expensive townhouse ever sold in New York City, according to appraiser Jonathan Miller. The current record was set in 2006, when financier J. Christopher Flowers paid $53 million for the Harkness mansion on East 75th Street.
…
Mr. Falcone, a former high-yield bond trader on Wall Street and the founder of Harbinger Capital, is chairman and CEO of Hc2 Holdings , a publicly traded company that owns majority stakes in firms such as DBM Global, a structural and steel construction services company, and Global Marine Group, which installs, maintains and repairs submarine communications cable.
His smaller home came on the market for $39 million in 2018, but its price has been slashed several times since. The Falcones bought that property for $10.375 million in 2004, records show.
From MarketWatch:
Home prices accelerate for the first time in 12 months
National home prices notched a stronger annual gain in April than in March, marking the first time in over a year that prices have accelerated from one month to the next.
That data comes from a report out Tuesday from CoreLogic, a national real estate information services provider. Prices were up 3.6% for the year and 1% for the month in March.
Annual price gains in CoreLogic’s national index have been flat or declined every month since April 2018. The company believes that “the pickup in sales between March and April” helped soften some of the slower growth in prices.
But sales as reported by the National Association of Realtors were slower in April than in March: they ran at a 5.19 million seasonally adjusted annual pace in April, down from a 5.21 million pace in March.
CoreLogic expects home prices to keep powering higher, and forecasts a 4.7% rise over the coming 12 months. The company also analyzes housing stock in major metro areas for their values compared to their “long-term, sustainable level.” By these measurements, markets including Las Vegas were overvalued, while San Francisco was undervalued.
He said that anyone with basic tech knowledge was commanding 6 figures and management eventually gained knowledge in tech and realized they were overpaying out of ignorance.
PumpkinFace says:
June 4, 2019 at 8:40 pm
You wonder why everyone, and I mean everyone, thinks you’re a f!cking idiot? When did Bystander ever say something like overpaid? He and others here have said it was a well coordinated effort to this day by big business and government. Aren’t you supposed to be against that?
Very weak ADP jobs, only up 27,000.
‘Murphy backed’ progressive Democrats crushed in South Jersey.
https://newjerseyglobe.com/local/norcross-camden-dems-easily-win-primary-against-progressive-rebels/
Dufus,
That was a brief period, going on 25 years ago where people thought you were a magical excel wizard and venture capital was dumping boatloads of money into any startup. Lots of lying people got overpaid but there was also heavy demand for MS skills. We are now almost two decades into offshoring and outsourcing model and a full decade into wage suppression in the field. Hiring time is very elastic onshore and they can wait months to get cheap candidate. I have 7 open roles that we can’t fill with two providers in India. There is zero talk about hiring in US. We will simply wait it out and give back money. Doing less work is the preferred option over expanding perm or US contractors. The issue with finance industry is absent great money to be made or major regulatory fines to avoid, board will twiddle their thumbs thinking of ways to save on bottom line. Since Dodd Frank and FATCA, it has been 5 years of this attitude and getting worse.
Were you expecting anything less? Can’t stand south jersey voters who keep these guys in control of our state. Such bs.
D-FENS says:
June 5, 2019 at 8:28 am
‘Murphy backed’ progressive Democrats crushed in South Jersey.
https://newjerseyglobe.com/local/norcross-camden-dems-easily-win-primary-against-progressive-rebels/
So what’s the answer here? I don’t get their perspective on the issue. Do anything to reward shareholders even if it means destroying America? I just don’t get it. Who cares if an American company stays alive if it mostly employs foreign workers? How is this company even considered American anymore when the majority of its workforce is foreign? I’ll pay the higher price, throw tariffs on these scumbags and force them to take risks and get creative in order to profit, stop profiting off the labor for god’s sake. Enough already….it’s disgusting how much the profit margin on labor is.
Bystander says:
June 5, 2019 at 8:48 am
Dufus,
That was a brief period, going on 25 years ago where people thought you were a magical excel wizard and venture capital was dumping boatloads of money into any startup. Lots of lying people got overpaid but there was also heavy demand for MS skills. We are now almost two decades into offshoring and outsourcing model and a full decade into wage suppression in the field. Hiring time is very elastic onshore and they can wait months to get cheap candidate. I have 7 open roles that we can’t fill with two providers in India. There is zero talk about hiring in US. We will simply wait it out and give back money. Doing less work is the preferred option over expanding perm or US contractors. The issue with finance industry is absent great money to be made or major regulatory fines to avoid, board will twiddle their thumbs thinking of ways to save on bottom line. Since Dodd Frank and FATCA, it has been 5 years of this attitude and getting worse.
“Do anything to reward shareholders even if it means destroying America? I just don’t get it.”
You actually do “get it”, your first sentence explains it perfectly. C-Suite and Board’s exist to increase value to their owners (shareholders). The concept of the greater good is so far down the list of priorities it doesn’t register. If you want to indulge your altruistic desires, go work for a non-profit and dedicate your life to the mission.
Let’s be honest – you work at a financial firm right? What do you think is your firm’s mission?
Homeboken,
Clearly altruism is a priority for the trolls company.
They pay him regularly after all to sit on this board and post feel-good drivel so che hange the world, one post at a time.
Significant…more voters in Camden county now “vote by mail” than in person.
Do you blame them? No one knows where the schools are to vote!
I can only imagine the voter fraud happening down there…
D-FENS says:
June 5, 2019 at 9:37 am
Significant…more voters in Camden county now “vote by mail” than in person.
It doesn’t have to be this way, that’s all I’m saying.
I just wonder what a society would look like that is focused on doing the right thing. Imagine people helping people, instead of harming them. Just imagine a whole population focused on doing good as opposed to making money. Imagine good behavior is rewarded?
Our society does none of this. We embrace the crooks. We celebrate the individuals shipping our jobs and making our lives harder than it really needs to be. The bible was dead on when it stated it’s harder for a wealthy individual to make it into heaven than the poor….I wonder why? Two thousand years later and the same bs happens with the rich feeding on the poor. It will never change, hence, I don’t feel bad at all about taxing the billionaires just like they don’t feel bad about shipping our jobs.
“I just wonder what a society would look like that is focused on doing the right thing. Imagine people helping people, instead of harming them. Just imagine a whole population focused on doing good as opposed to making money. Imagine good behavior is rewarded?”
Read Animal Farm
He raised the rent again?? I hear his granny gave him this house. If only he had some moral compass and do right thing attitude instead of profit…what a wonderful world it could be.
Pumps, the answer is quite simple. The visa abuse needs to end. If that orange turd and the clowns in the clowngress wanted to fix it they could. Until they really make H1 and L1 visas for their original purposes, wages will be suppressed. Companies like TCS, Cognizant, EPAM, etc should not be getting any visas whatsoever, wages for people on visa should exceed what US workers are paid(I’m thinking 140k minimum annual salary on visa). Companies are always lured by the cheap offshore rates but it is usually onshore people who are moving the work forward. I have 30 people in India and 5 in the US, we pay our US people shipped from overseas on visas 60 cents on the dollar. A few years ago I had to layoff my entire US team, now we have decided it is too difficult for us to work directly offshore and have begun to use the vendors(body shops, they are the worst).
Banks, et al are shooting themselves in the foot. Technology is a strategic advantage and is only becoming more important. Not having a technical organization internally will be a liability and it is only getting harder to hire quality tech talent. Quality technologists are many times more productive than the filler most teams are comprised of.
I only do what I have to do. I don’t take advantage of anyone. I do not go into a situation and think to myself…how can I make out on this individual. I give them a fair market price that’s fair to me and to them. Simple as that. If I was like these scumbags at the top, I would be a slumlord, but I have ethics and a moral compass. Trying to milk every penny of profit that I can from my tenants….not me.
I’m not the billionaire, I don’t get to make the rules of the game. I have to play by the rules that they make. Simple as that.
Blumpy’s Renter says:
June 5, 2019 at 10:54 am
He raised the rent again?? I hear his granny gave him this house. If only he had some moral compass and do right thing attitude instead of profit…what a wonderful world it could be
Did you ask your renters how they feel?
Think you nail it here….short term thought process is killing their future. When it comes to technology, why would you want to teach your foreign competition? Really can’t make this stuff up…
Are the guys at the top really that smart? They just threw away our technological advantage(how much technology did China gain by our offshoring?) by chasing short term profits through offshoring…. how exactly is this smart? Why are they worth billions? The only thing they did was make a company more profitable by offshoring labor and taking advantage of some foreign wage slavery labor force. There is nothing smart about this, all it requires is no ethics and no moral compass. Nothing smart about it…and the benefits are short term. Pure stupidity.
“Banks, et al are shooting themselves in the foot. Technology is a strategic advantage and is only becoming more important. Not having a technical organization internally will be a liability and it is only getting harder to hire quality tech talent. Quality technologists are many times more productive than the filler most teams are comprised of.”
JCer,
I think you are missing the point. The Banks and other big businesses will continue to shoot themselves on the foot on a quarterly basis. The issue is that they will take down the country unless their power is severely curtailed.
Look at China’s Communist Party going after Fedex, Ford and other US businesses. Look at AMLO in Mexico planning to retaliate against US businesses. Both China and Mexico can see that this country is a corporate state. Therefore to hurt it and make it move one way or another you go after US Corporations.
The goals of US Corporate State are not the same of US citizens. But they run the show, just hear McConnell scream bloody murder about the Mexican tariffs. Even if Trump is right on both Mexico and China, he’s stepping on toes of the true rulers of the country.
This is the big one, where divergence in goals and its benefits and harms are so vast between the rulers and subjects that will push for a big change. That is why Trump will likely get re-elected. He’s pushing in an moronic way the populist buttons (some call it fascist). The problem is the Democrats are so bought out by the same Corporate State (see Obama’s 8 yrs) that they are not able to do what needs to be done and bring the Corporate State (neo-liberal fascist aka neo-feudal) to heel.
My renters almost never leave….try finding a renter that did not appreciate my services.
Blumpy’s Smurf Village says:
June 5, 2019 at 11:17 am
Did you ask your renters how they feel?
Read Animal Farm
Is there a description on Amazon with user comments? That’s all someone needs. Simple as that.
Animal Farm might be one of my favorite books of all time. So good….
JCer,
Don’t worry, you are going to have so much work and money thrown at you in the near future that you wish you have cloned yourself.
It is simply that when the kinetic war starts whether the ME, NK or China. All internet access points physically outside of the US and many within, will come under severe attack and make any offshoring work and communication useless. You should expect to see bank branch people pulled to do phone duties, and you want to talk to your team in India, well get a Satellite phone or an old short wave radio and an old dial up modem transmitting at 14.4k, back to old analog to digital to analog world.
You sure as sh!t didn’t learn anything from
notreading it. Be honest, you watched the cartoon movie.I did learn. Those corrupt greedy individuals will always rise to the top over good hard working individuals.
The people that value family and doing right will always be taken advantage by these greedy pigs.
Proof of what I was talking about the other day with that house fast eddie showed in Wayne.
The same exact neighborhood yet sells for 50,000 over asking price. Now, why? This sold for 850k. The other can’t even sell for 644…
https://www.zillow.com/homes/fsbo/Wayne-NJ/39793131_zpid/27808_rid/40.952514,-74.269249,40.950581,-74.272682_rect/17_zm/
Having a turn key home with desirable finishes will sell no problem. There is almost no inventory of this type of house available.
Observer, you nailed it in the first sentence of paragraph 2. “Kinetic”. I think the end game is to try to make us self sufficient. That would make us isolationist at least for a bit of time. History says that has its issues too. Either way, things as they were would not have been sustainable. Not comfortable with the road we are on either. Concerned, very concerned.
Do you blame them? No one knows where the schools are to vote!
I just pissed myself.
All internet access points physically outside of the US and many within, will come under severe attack and make any offshoring work and communication useless. You should expect to see bank branch people pulled to do phone duties, and you want to talk to your team in India, well get a Satellite phone or an old short wave radio and an old dial up modem transmitting at 14.4k, back to old analog to digital to analog world.
Undersea cables. We’ll have Navy submarines protecting the cables.
Another one term democrat for nj…
https://www.nj.com/politics/2019/06/murphys-top-staff-failed-katie-brennan-every-step-of-the-way-after-rape-allegation-scathing-report-finds.html
While an earlier report commissioned by Murphy cleared top aides of wrongdoing and blamed the ordeal on a on a failed system, the state Legislature’s report painted a starker picture that their response was at best, sloppy, and at worst, indifferent.
“The system did not fail Ms. Brennan; the people who were entrusted with properly and responsibly handling Ms. Brennan’s complaint failed her at every step of the way,” according to the report.
And their lack of urgency leaves the impression that senior Murphy officials were “more concerned with avoiding negative publicity than following proper protocols and getting to the truth of the matter,” the report said.
I know the media is left leaning in blue jersey. But the complete lack of negative coverage for Murphy’s blunder after blunder is unnerving.
Traffic cones are more dangerous than rape allegations.
“If tourism is a capitalist phenomenon, overtourism is its demented late-capitalist cousin: selfie-stick deaths, all-you-can-eat ships docking at historic ports, stag nights that end in property crimes, the live-streaming of the ruination of fragile natural habitats, et cetera. There are just too many people thronging popular destinations—30 million visitors a year to Barcelona, population 1.6 million; 20 million visitors to Venice, population 50,000. La Rambla and the Piazza San Marco fit only so many people, and the summertime now seems like a test to find out just how many that is.”
https://apple.news/A2kU8PlX_R6eh5RzoIzBNpA
Reports are just words on paper. No one in NJ government really cares. There will be zero consequences.
grim says:
June 5, 2019 at 4:18 pm
Another one term democrat for nj…
https://www.nj.com/politics/2019/06/murphys-top-staff-failed-katie-brennan-every-step-of-the-way-after-rape-allegation-scathing-report-finds.html
While an earlier report commissioned by Murphy cleared top aides of wrongdoing and blamed the ordeal on a on a failed system, the state Legislature’s report painted a starker picture that their response was at best, sloppy, and at worst, indifferent.
It should be very clear to everyone that the advancement of progressive agendas is far more important than accountability in NJ.
But Murphy is such a nice man!
Murphy no longer has an agenda, a platform, or widespread support, not even sure he’s a welcome member of the Democratic Party.
It’s all about redirecting blame at this point, and running out the clock.
Another one term democrat governor. Shocker.
His campaign message is going to be “just give me a little bit more time, and I promise that I’ll deliver what I promised you before.” Oh, and it’s all Christie’s fault.
He’ll likely distract everyone by beating up on legal gun owners in the state some more.
Democrats and their supporters are second-handers.
Yet the populace in these parts are still completely sold on the DNC identity platform. It’s maddening. It’s shameful to me that most of the Millennials actually get the anti-corporate thang, but are simultaneous lost on the climate and identity sh1t. I still feel Bernie’s platform is the best. Pro gun. Pro choice. Anti-Corporatocracy. No PACs. Nary a mention of climate change or gender or sanctuary cities. Just a leveling of the playing field mainly through corporate taxation. As for the free college thing? Much of Europe does it with great success. Much better than offering predatory loans, backed by the US Government to near high school drop outs. He’s hard on H1-Bs. Has most of the same protectionist policies as Trump (believe it or not) for trade. If people just realized the difference between Democratic Soc1alism and being a soc1al Democrat, he would win hands down. Sadly, he has no chance. Shame though, because his positions throughout his entire senatorial career have been correct. Heck, he even called for Hillary to close her foundation long before the 2016 elections. Back to the salt mines.
Perhaps Biden will open his mouth opening the path wide for Sanders. Even Trump admitted last time around that Sander’s would be much tougher to beat than any of the other DNC cronies.
Anyone hear Biden say a word yet in his campaign?
Murphy is fine with me. I like his ideas. I like that he is taking on the establishment. I like that he isn’t attacking govt workers to gain political votes.
People like some of the members of this blog love that stuff…hammer the teachers and govt workers, they have too much, but leave the poor millionaires alone…they have it so bad. Run on this, and you have my vote. Look at how pathetic that ticket is…. That was all Christie did. Oh yeah, forgot about the rants about lowering taxes. How could I ever forget that? This stuff never gets old. This is the republican calling card in nj, this is the only platform they run on. Any new ideas? Nope, just same old tired bs that doesn’t work because society costs money to maintain…
Except that Christie was the first governor in my lifetime to get a stranglehold on property taxes. By far the #1 issue among NJ voters.
I mean, if we could eliminate all govt workers, our problems would be solved right? We would have low taxes and zero problems, right?
Dream on… would a Republican come up with a real solution?
Small govt only helps the rich at the expense of everyone else. That’s a fact. How’s the little guy going to pay for education for their kids? How’s joe public going to pay for their healthcare and retirement? Small govt is a pipe dream from people that are already doing great and want a reduced tax bill….facts. They have no answer to the problems above. They think they will magically go away once the govt is not responsible for addressing the problem…dream on.
Yes, govts only purpose should be to enforce the law and protect private property. Think about this, who would take this position? A rich landowner does not want to help the rest of society, he got his, and only cares about protecting that.
Your bias is showing big time pumps.
Let’s play a little game. Without googling, give me ten Murphy accomplishments. I’ll give you 10 Christie accomplishments.
Ready, set, go!
1. 2% property tax cap
2. Superintendent salary cap
3. Binding arbitration cap for fire/police
4. Payed more into teacher’s pension fund than any governor before or after
5. Saved NJ from the sure overruns of The Tunnel (should be a federal project)
6. Cut the sales tax
7. Did a fantastic job getting federal dollars after Sandy
8. Didn’t fcuk around with dumb homestead rebate (election year gimmick)
9. Achieved a sh1tload even though assembly and POTUS were blue
10. Of course, Pension Reform
You might also praise him for limiting gas tax increase until the very, very end of his tenure.
You could also add, that he was correct in backing Trump during the Trump presidential campaign. That was a ballsy move when nearly everyone else was sure he would lose.
Won’t that $125 check solve the property tax issue in the state….
I can’t wait to see your list. I’ll help.
1. Raised the sales tax.
2. Lowered incoming revenue by raising the gas tax.
3. Lowered incoming revenue by raising income tax rates on the wealthy.
4. Raised the actuary calculations to reduce his guaranteed pension payments.
5. Wants to raise the millionaire tax to fund homestead rebate (gimmick).
6. Fcked up royally over handling of Alvarez rape.
7. Fcked up royally over SDA (now bankrupt, but loaded with nepotism).
8. Made it so my nanny will call in sick regularly.
9. No legal weed, no state bank, no pension solution, no anything of substance which he promised.
10. He can’t even get buy in from the blues of blue NJ Assembly on anything.
And he wants to be president now too. Welcome to what happens when you elect a spoiled brat governor. Heck, I heard his womans soccer club is a gargantuan POS too and the players are all about to quit on him. He’s one giant facade. He’s done a wonderful job working with the Federal gov’t too. How is everyone liking their new taxes and loss of deductions.
Worst governor ever.
https://www.nj.com/politics/2019/02/murphy-admits-his-nj-soccer-team-had-a-bad-year-both-on-field-and-off-thats-why-the-first-lady-is-now-in-charge.html
Gov. Phil Murphy admitted Friday that 2018 wasn’t a banner year — on the field or off — for Sky Blue FC, the New Jersey pro women’s soccer team that he co-owns.
Actually, the exact word he used was “bad.”
“We had a bad year,” Murphy said during an unrelated news conference in Paterson.
Yes, the team finished with a record of 1-17-6 — the worst finish in the history of its league.
But there’s more. Murphy, who said he bought the club to provide a place for young girls to realize dreams of playing professional soccer, came under scrutiny after multiple reports cited former players saying the team’s playing and housing facilities were dismal. That included practice fields without showers or laundry service, and rental houses with “plastic bags for windows.”
Still waiting Pumps. No googling.
I’ll help you some more.
He sold the state lottery and is looking to sell other state assets to unlock their current value in exchange for future value.
See how easy this is?
Lib,
We didn’t pay into the pension for 20 years? And you think the answer to this is to lower taxes? I’m glad Murphy is the only adult in the room with the balls to run on what had to be done….taxes had to be raised. You can’t cut your way out of this, you kicked the ball down the road for too long, and now grown up pants must be put on.
Blaming the workers is not the answer either. These people were not killing it with bonuses in the 90’s and 2000’s, like the private sector. So it’s easy now to attack their pension when the costs come due, they earned it! Stop trying to rip them off, come up with real ideas like Murphy is trying to do, but getting blocked every step of the way by his own party because he beat them to the position of governor.
The millionaire tax is common f’ing sense. What is the worst thing that can happen? They move to avoid the tax and drive up costs in another area while lowering ours. Do we need this large of a population….why so afraid of people moving? Let them leave, who cares….
Let the people that actually care about this state stay, and let all the selfish pricks only focused on themselves go to another state. Go ask another state to lower your taxes, this state can’t afford to.
Pumps, on over-tourism, I blame a few things. First the Chinese, China has a huge population and they are appearing in large numbers in Europe so much so that we’ve had tour guides both apologize for and complain about the Chinese tourists who are totally unaware of western European standards of etiquette.
Next people are a bunch of sheep all pouring into the same places. Cruises to Venice or Barcelona aren’t a problem but when all the people on the boat are going to the same places it is. I would personally avoid Barcelona and Venice in peak tourist season, both are best seen in February, too hot and crowded in the summer, spring and fall are also good times. I take European cruises all the time, in a place like Venice you go away from Piazza San Marco to the other islands if you are going to stay in Venice and the best thing to do is to get out. Rent a car go to the Dolomites or take a boat to lido to go to the beach, take a train to verona, there are some great wineries, the problem is 4ooo people on a cruise boat all wanting to go to the Doge’s palace. Avoid Barcelona when it’s busy and check out Costa Brava. The real truth is the complaints about the cruises are all about adding tourist taxes because the cheap people on the cruises aren’t spending enough in the local economy and I think it’s fair add a small tax per head to make sure the infrastructure can handle the tourists.
At least he is coming up with a PLAN to address it.
Libturd, can’t say I didn’t warn you. says:
June 6, 2019 at 10:31 am
I’ll help you some more.
He sold the state lottery and is looking to sell other state assets to unlock their current value in exchange for future value.
See how easy this is?
Did we forget Murphy can’t plow snow?
And his face is all f.ucked up.
Well…that’s true for most politicians honestly…
Especially his teeth.
I used to follow Governor Murphy’s teeth on twitter but that account was banned pretty quickly.
Pumps, can’t really raise taxes to pay for pensions, which fundamentally were too generous and part of a political quid pro quo arrangement that has been going on for the last 30 years or so.
On the millionaires tax it doesn’t make sense, they can leave and take their tax dollars with them, they already are paying a disproportionate amount of the states taxes. Progressive income tax at the state level doesn’t work, narrowing the tax base doesn’t work, and providing a more generous social safety net than your neighbors doesn’t work. Nobody wants to hear it but that’s the reality, the lowest bracket in the state’s tax scheme needs to be increased which raises taxes on literally everyone, the lowest bracket should be 3% and aid to cities like Newark needs to be cut we’ve allowed a failed city to exist in one of the most dynamic markets in the country.
The policies of Phil Murphy are failed policies and really only fuel a continued cycle of poverty, we need to create jobs for the people not give handouts.
Christie never blamed the teachers for their pension woes. He blamed their union for striking unaffordable deals. Big difference. You simply can’t pay 50K in to your pension over 25 years and expect it to pay out 50K per year until you die. There’s compounding and then there’s insanity. This is insanity. I can’t believe the police and fire pensions are still in decent shape. Of course, the binding arbitration cap helped immensely. Now it’s gone, so I expect the same thing to happen over there. At the detriment of the schools. Because when an arbitrator gives the cops a 5% raise annually, and there is a 2.5% cap on the municipal budget. Well where is that money going to come from? The municipal budgets are pretty tight. The school budget will be taking the brunt of the cuts.
Of course YOUR solution is to tax the rich. But the rich already pay the lion’s share of the budget. They ARE leaving. It’s not the poor immigrant family that hires giant moving trucks to leave. It’s the upper class. So once they are gone, then where does the money come from?
I’m still waiting on your list of achievements too. So far, all you’ve got is that he’s a progressive Dem. That’s some accomplishment. Why do rich guys feel the need to spend everyone else’s money? Why don’t they just waste their own?
Rain tax. Forgot about that one…
The pension problem is bad from both sides. Public workers were promised way too much on too little. The state ceased contributing to it without ever changing the payout. The state’s raided it. Beyond that, it’s been financially mismanaged to a disgusting degree. It’s going to go broke and the only true way out is for everyone to take a major haircut on what they think they are going to get. Meanwhile, they still haven’t ever addressed double dippers. The pension payouts on the higher ups are sickening and never made any sense to begin with. There’s no solution here because nobody is willing to budge.
Teaching is made up of professionals. What professional in a managerial position (a teacher is also a manager on top of other things) gets paid under 6 figures with 15 years of experience anywhere in the private sector? NO WHERE.
LIb, since they are under-compensated in pay, where was all the other money going that was supposed to go to the pension fund? That was the agreement, make less, in return for a pension. Now you want to take that away from them? Who the hell in their right mind would sign up for teaching without a pension? It’s suicide for a white collar professional without that pension.
At the end of the day, if it’s so unsustainable, how the hell is the police pension fine? They make way more than teachers, retire earlier, and also receive a high percentage of their pay in their pension payments. Somehow that one is still standing, yet the teacher’s pension is funded at 40%. How? They don’t receive high % of pay in their pension. So how do you account for this? Riddle me this…
“Christie never blamed the teachers for their pension woes. He blamed their union for striking unaffordable deals. Big difference. You simply can’t pay 50K in to your pension over 25 years and expect it to pay out 50K per year until you die. There’s compounding and then there’s insanity. This is insanity. I can’t believe the police and fire pensions are still in decent shape. Of course, the binding arbitration cap helped immensely.”
You do understand the financial alchemy that Murphy achieved by selling the lottery?
It works like this. By valuing the lottery, it actually lowers the amount the state has to contribute to the pension plan, though, it does guarantee a steady source of income (kind of a pittance) at one billion a year for the next thirty years. Of course, it all makes little difference as the state continues to underpay which will continue to make matters worse. For example, even with the extra billion, Murphy is only paying 60% of the 100% required amount to keep the pension from being damaged further. To heal the damage, we have to pay over 100%. So it really needs to be 140% or so. This past year, the contribution was $3.2 billion. So that’s 60%. The full payment would be $4.5. The healing payment would be $6.25. So to make the pensions not become further damaged, you need to find ANOTHER 3 BILLION. Want to know how hard that is? The millionaires tax would raise .75 of a billion (750 million). And this is earmarked to the gimmick $125 homestead rebate (or fund to get reelected). Even the sales tax restoration back to 7% only raises half a billion. Marijuana tax revenue? 80 million. So where’s it going to come from? No answer again.
Yup.
Murphy next will convince us he is going to plant money trees.
I also forgot to mention how Murphy was going to fix NJTransit which is now WORSE THAN EVER. Gator’s rush hour train from HOBOKEN (not Penn since Penn is no longer a rush hour option on our line this Summer) is cancelled every other day.
I know teachers that have been teaching for 12 years and make only 59,000. How can you attack these people and take away their pension? People are horrible and need a moral compass.
Lib,
Answer this one question. Had the govt made the payments required, would the payments be unaffordable right now? Yes, the payments become pretty damn large when you don’t pay for 20 years. It’s like not paying your mortage for 20 years, and then trying to pay it all back at once….come on, now! The worker should not be blamed for this crap. Just because they are receiving the pension doesn’t mean they should take on the entire cost of robbery on their own, which is exactly what you and others are advocating for….the payments have now become too large, therefore, the worker should take the hit…what bs.
Not one word from the blog on this….bias is strong…..
The Great Pumpkin says:
June 5, 2019 at 11:44 am
Proof of what I was talking about the other day with that house fast eddie showed in Wayne.
The same exact neighborhood yet sells for 50,000 over asking price. Now, why? This sold for 850k. The other can’t even sell for 644…
https://www.zillow.com/homes/fsbo/Wayne-NJ/39793131_zpid/27808_rid/40.952514,-74.269249,40.950581,-74.272682_rect/17_zm/
The teachers weren’t promised lofty pensions since they were underpaid. They were promised lofty pensions so their unions would keep the Dems in power. Never forget that because THIS is the main problem with the formula. Yes, there was some raiding and the double dippers still exist (which is equally as bad). But the Unions keep endorsing these double dippers. Plus, even if the double dippers were reduced to single dip, it would make little no difference to the pension hole.
I’m with Blue. All side must chip in. New teachers do a 401K plan. Align benefits to what it standard in the private sector. Take the Union payments and use them to fund the pension. Lord knows that 117 million would do a lot better in teachers’ pockets than it does in the hands of the union leaders.
“I know teachers that have been teaching for 12 years and make only 59,000.”
First. Show me one. Their compensation is public. You are a liar!
Second. It sounds so nice, had the state made their payments, we would not be in this hole. What you ignore is that the state is dying economically. This is width the state NOT making their payments. How would making the pension whole have helped the state. It would be an even bigger sh1thole than it already is. Why not pay teachers 200 million a year in retirement. Had the state just made their payments, it would have been fine. Not the teacher’s fault here, no. I mean, they did contribute their 5.5%! So they deserve their 200 million a year. DOLT!
And I def want a reply for this….if the pension is so unsustainable, how is the pension fund that pays out almost 100% of salary fine, yet the crappier pension for teachers is dead. Explain that, please. You made the argument that the pension is too generous, yet the police fund is fine, and the teachers fund almost bankrupt. Explain that.
“At the end of the day, if it’s so unsustainable, how the hell is the police pension fine? They make way more than teachers, retire earlier, and also receive a high percentage of their pay in their pension payments. Somehow that one is still standing, yet the teacher’s pension is funded at 40%. How? They don’t receive high % of pay in their pension. So how do you account for this? Riddle me this…”
Barcelona is beautiful in the Fall we went last year and loved it. I wanted Bernie too he would have scared the bought and paid for corrupted establishment on both sides! And something positive might have actually been done. As for NJ and taxes well the residents bear a lot of the blame by passing every spending referendum. Now the old feckers want out and want their big bucks too!!
Meanwhile Trump is making a fool of himself over in Europe. The madness continues!
Bs, it’s the truth. How do you think the avg compensation of teachers is at 68000/69000(have to look it up)? What’s funny, you wouldn’t sign up for this, yet you are bashing these individuals and telling them how good they have it….that they have to take a cut on their retirement that was promised in contract to them….
Let me see you take on college loans and only be making 59,000 after 12 years.
Libturd, can’t say I didn’t warn you. says:
June 6, 2019 at 11:38 am
“I know teachers that have been teaching for 12 years and make only 59,000.”
First. Show me one. Their compensation is public. You are a liar!
Second. It sounds so nice, had the state made their payments, we would not be in this hole. What you ignore is that the state is dying economically. This is width the state NOT making their payments. How would making the pension whole have helped the state. It would be an even bigger sh1thole than it already is. Why not pay teachers 200 million a year in retirement. Had the state just made their payments, it would have been fine. Not the teacher’s fault here, no. I mean, they did contribute their 5.5%! So they deserve their 200 million a year. DOLT!
Say what? Did you just see the gains in the revenue? Stop the nonsense.
How exactly is this state dying economically?
“What you ignore is that the state is dying economically.”
First. Show me one. Their compensation is public. You are a liar!
I actually know a few who are in that boat. They worked in crappy districts that underwent a 3 year step freeze. South of Morris County/Middlesex County, teacher compensation is horrendous
At the end of the day, if it’s so unsustainable, how the hell is the police pension fine?
The police pension doesn’t do stupid crap like invest $100 million into Lehman a few days before it fails.
Defined benefit pensions only work because they are predicated on growth of pension members.
The minute growth stops, it’s all over. Contributions will never fund benefits.
This is why defined benefit should be illegal.
“And I def want a reply for this….if the pension is so unsustainable, how is the pension fund that pays out almost 100% of salary fine, yet the crappier pension for teachers is dead.”
First, there are a sh1tload less members in their pension fund. Second, they have contributed to their pension at almost double the rate teachers do. Third, it’s so much smaller, the government doesn’t f around with it. Fourth, and perhaps the most important (and the real zinger). Dems don’t need their powerless endorsement or votes. Most firefighters, police vote red anyhow. Therefore, there are no impossible to pay promises bartered between corrupt politicians and even more corrupt public unions. GET IT? (nope)
Now go back under the rock you slithered out from under.
Still waiting to see this 12 year old teacher that is making sub 60K. Also waiting for your 10 Murphy achievements.
You are a kool-aid drinking bag of empty air.
Yes. It’s a ponzi scheme to say the least Grim.
And BRT. There are a few unlucky one’s. I try not to generalize an extreme outlier to the larger sample. Though I agree teachers are underpaid. Overbenefitted (though this is changing) but underpaid.
The police have always contributed something into their pension; it wasn’t enough but it was something. Plus, their pension plan was on it’s own and not commingled with all other public employees/politicians.
Blue Ribbon Teacher says:
June 6, 2019 at 11:47 am
At the end of the day, if it’s so unsustainable, how the hell is the police pension fine?
The police pension doesn’t do stupid crap like invest $100 million into Lehman a few days before it fails.
I love arguing the pensions. The hole is so big now that there is NO solution. It had to be fixed back in the Whitman days. Yet everyone after her chose not to. At least Christie tried to fix it. Murphy will sell the future of NJ to try to make himself look good today. It’s really, how we got there in the first place.
NJ PFRS is 69-76% funded (depending on assumed rate of return)… only in retardville is that considered fine.
True.
Do you understand that police retire much earlier and receive almost double the percentage of pay that teachers get? Yet their pension is fine. How does this make any sense? Is it not obvious that the other pension fund was robbed blind by wall st and politicians? It’s blatantly obvious.
What’s your problem with teachers? Guess since police vote red…..I get it.
PumpkinFace says:
June 6, 2019 at 11:53 am
The police have always contributed something into their pension; it wasn’t enough but it was something. Plus, their pension plan was on it’s own and not commingled with all other public employees/politicians.
How is New York’s pension that is more generous than nj in good shape? How?
You guys can say whatever you want to say about unsustainable, but this is simply not the truth. There are examples that prove you wrong…..like NY’s pension fund which increased from 192 billion to 207 billion in the past year. Yes, it INCREASED by billions in a given year….
Just wait until the market correction my friend.
Christie didn’t try to solve the problem. He forced the contributions to go higher to delay the insolvency. Now, they are attacking benefits of retirees as a means of delaying insolvency.
You still haven’t answered my two questions. I will not answer any more until you do what I ask. Otherwise, this pumpkin is really just a jack-o without a face.
Read this and understand it…
“The beleaguered condition of state and local pension plans is one of those ongoing disaster stories that crops up about once a week somewhere. The explanation usually goes something like this: Irresponsible politicians and greedy public employee unions created over-generous benefit schemes, leading to pension plans which aren’t “fully-funded” and eventual fiscal crisis. That in turn necessitates benefit cuts, contribution hikes, or perhaps even abolishment of the pension scheme.
But a fascinating new paper from Tom Sgouros at UC Berkeley’s Haas Institute makes a compelling argument that the crisis in public pensions is to a large degree the result of terrible accounting practices. (Stay with me, this is actually interesting.) He argues that the typical debate around public pensions revolves around accounting rules which were designed for the private sector — and their specific mechanics both overstate some dangers faced by public pensions and understate others.
To understand Sgouros’ argument, it’s perhaps best to start with what “fully-funded” means. This originally comes from the private sector, and it means that a pension plan has piled up enough assets to pay 100 percent of its existing obligations if the underlying business vanishes tomorrow. Thus if existing pensioners are estimated to collect $100 million in benefits before they die, but the fund only has $75 million, it has an “unfunded liability” of $25 million.
This approach makes reasonably good sense for a private company, because it really might go out of business and be liquidated at any moment, necessitating the pension fund to be spun off into a separate entity to make payouts to the former employees. But the Government Accounting Standards Board (GASB), a private group that sets standards for pension accounting, has applied this same logic to public pension funds as well, decreeing that they all should be 100 percent funded.
This makes far less sense for governments, because they are virtually never liquidated. Governments can and do suffer fiscal problems or even bankruptcy on occasion. But they are not businesses — you simply can’t dissolve, say, Arkansas and sell its remaining assets to creditors because it’s in financial difficulties. That gives governments a permanence and therefore a stability that private companies cannot possibly have.
The GASB insists that it only wants to set standards for measuring pension fund solvency. But its analytical framework has tremendous political influence. When people see “unfunded liability,” they tend to assume that this is a direct hole in the pension funding scheme that will require some combination of benefit cuts or more funding. Governments across the nation have twisted themselves into knots trying to meet the 100-percent benchmark.
While all pensions have contributions coming in from workers, the permanence of those contributions is far more secure for public pensions. Plus, those contributions can be used to pay a substantial fraction of benefits.
Indeed, one could easily run a pension scheme on a pay-as-you-go basis, without any fund at all (this used be common). That might not be a perfect setup, since it wouldn’t leave much room for error, but practically speaking, public pension funds can and do cruise along indefinitely only 70 percent or so funded.
This ties into a second objection: How misleading the calculation for future pension liabilities is.
A future pension liability is determined by calculating the “present value” of all future benefit payments, with a discount rate to account for inflation and interest rates. But this single number makes no distinction between liabilities that are due tomorrow, and those that are due gradually over, say, decades.
Fundamentally, a public pension is a method by which retirees are supported by current workers and financial returns, and one of its great strengths is its long time horizon and large pool of mutual supporters. It gives great leeway to muddle through problems that only crop up very slowly over time. If huge problems really will pile up, but only over 70 years, there is no reason to lose our minds now — small changes, regularly adjusted, will do the trick.
Finally, a 100-percent funding level — the supposed best possible state for a responsible pension manager — can actually be dangerous. It means that current contributions are not very necessary to pay benefits, sorely tempting politicians to cut back contributions or increase benefits. And because asset values tend to fluctuate a lot, this can leave pension funds seriously overextended if there is a market boom — creating the appearance of full funding — followed by a collapse. Numerous state and local public pensions were devastated by just this process during the dot-com and housing bubbles.
I have skipped past several more technical objections from Sgouros (whose paper is really worth reading). But the fundamental point here is fairly simple. Accounting conventions are supposed to help people think clearly about their financial health. But in the case of public pensions, they have warned of partly imaginary danger, pushing governments to stockpile vast asset hoards that are much larger than is necessary, and created a goal which is itself rather dangerous. The next time you see someone complaining about a pension funding shortfall, check the details carefully.”
https://theweek.com/articles/682082/public-pensions-are-better-shape-than-think
Every single one of you pension fear mongers read what I just posted and stop spewing bs that the debt is so large it can never be paid….stop it. I’ve said it numerous times on here, but you keep doing it. So read that article and understand it, since you won’t believe it when it comes out of my mouth. That debt has to be paid over decades…..it’s not so scary…it’s really not.
Send this article to the first public retiree who receives an IOU.
I don’t know why I bother.
The article ignores the acceleration of growth necessary to keep that ponzi scheme going. NJ stopped growing.
Lib and others are so guilty of this… team red uses this to get political power by playing off their fears. Then it’s so easy to get votes, just say you are attacing workers pensions and they all vote for you like you are some type of savior…queue every politician on team red. Talk about manipulating their based with fear.
“The GASB insists that it only wants to set standards for measuring pension fund solvency. But its analytical framework has tremendous political influence. When people see “unfunded liability,” they tend to assume that this is a direct hole in the pension funding scheme that will require some combination of benefit cuts or more funding. Governments across the nation have twisted themselves into knots trying to meet the 100-percent benchmark.”
Pumpkin = https://images.app.goo.gl/5RNgBTqHE7tymz7Y9
Nonsense….so ny state isn’t encountering the same population flight as nj? Come, on man! Their fund is fine, try again.
Libturd, can’t say I didn’t warn you. says:
June 6, 2019 at 1:05 pm
I don’t know why I bother.
The article ignores the acceleration of growth necessary to keep that ponzi scheme going. NJ stopped growing.
That’s you. I’m just here giving the real story as opposed to fear mongering bs.
PumpkinFace says:
June 6, 2019 at 1:07 pm
Pumpkin = https://images.app.goo.gl/5RNgBTqHE7tymz7Y9
Oh you are soooooooooooooooooooooooooooo lost!
At what percentage of solvency are allowed to call a future shortfall a problem? Ask Tom Sgouros? I dare ya to.
The article is saying among other things:
-GASB standards are too strict. Laughable. just laughable.
-It’s okay to run up huge long-term liabilities with only a short term plan (pay as you go).
Libturd, can’t say I didn’t warn you. says:
June 6, 2019 at 1:05 pm
I don’t know why I bother.
The article ignores the acceleration of growth necessary to keep that ponzi scheme going. NJ stopped growing.
And I couldn’t help but notice that the article was funded by a far-far-far left think tank (can anyone say – super profitable, not-for-profit) that preys off of idiots like Pumps who eat this bullsh1t up?
If NJ has serious financial problems and it does very serious as in dire than that will impact property prices negatively and that is why a certain wisp of a fella is in denial.
Read this article written by someone making a dishonest living who writes for Bond Buyer magazine. It’s a fair critique on the money-tree economic theory of underfunded pensions.
“A close look at the Detroit bankruptcy shows that it really had far more to do with the politics of Michigan’s suburbs and the Governor Rick Snyder’s feelings about the city than it did with the mathematical reality of the city finances,” he wrote. “The narrative of runaway pension obligations sinking an ailing city’s finances is simply not supported by the facts, which had much more to do with a sudden loss of state support and ill-advised interest-rate swaps.”
The accounting rules created by the Governmental Accounting Standards Board inappropriately mirror private sector standards, Sgouros further asserts, insulating governments financially against risks they don’t really face. For example, governments will not be liquidated and cease to exist the way businesses do.
“The GASB rules do a good job of answering, ‘How much money will this plan need to pay off its debts if it is closed tomorrow?”‘ Sgouros wrote. “But most plans are not going to be closed tomorrow, so this is usually not very useful information. A more useful question might be along the lines of ‘How are we doing?’ or ‘How much volatility will we suffer as we go along paying our bills?’ The GASB rules provide those answers only in an oblique manner, for those willing to read past the headline numbers, just as a household’s solvency must be ascertained by looking beyond their bank balance.
“In other words, the clarity provided by the GASB rules comes at the expense of making the situation seem much more dire than necessary,” wrote Sgouros.
Sgouros posited that pension plans could be better served by alternate accounting techniques.
“For example, instead of estimating a funding ratio, the Social Security trustees predict the year in which that fund will run out of money, given current trends,” he wrote. “If each year the date advances, the system is in good shape. If it does not, there is cause for concern.
This is simply another way to do the accounting for a pension plan, with advantages and disadvantages compared to the traditional method. It is worse at allocating the cost to any individual plan member, but it is arguably much better at respecting the fundamental philosophy of aggregated security behind a traditional pension plan.”
The report failed to win over Reed of RSI. While cities might not be “liquidated” the way private sector entities might be, Reed said, they will stop paying their obligations if the funds aren’t availa ble.
“They apparently have forgotten the great depression when states actually defaulted on their bonds,” Reed cont inued . “When cities run out of money they stop paying their obligat ions.”
Many pension plans are now undertaking reforms, including reducing their assumed rates of investment return. Reed said there is still much to be done.
Okay, let me try to explain it this way.
Based on the GASB model of 100%, how the hell did the pension plan pay out 100% for 20 years without payment from the state? Yet, it’s still somehow functioning. So don’t tell me that we can’t take another 20-40 years to pay down this debt on a yearly basis. WE SHOULD NOT BE FORCING HUGE PENSION PAYMENTS AT THIS POINT. Instead, you figure out what you need to maintain full benefit payout, and then come up with a yearly plan over 30 years to pay it off.
And not for one second should we be targeting 100% payout when that day will never come. WE WILL NEVER HAVE TO PAY THAT OBLIGATION ALL AT ONCE. IF YOU DISAGREE, PLEASE EXPLAIN WHY WE WILL BE IN A SITUATION WHERE NJ HAS TO PAYOUT 100% IN A GIVEN YEAR.
100% funded pensions are going to create huge surpluses and for what reason? Who came up with this 100% model for state pension funds, let me guess, some wall st guy that wants even more money from pension funds. I get it…
Why don’t you ask the pensioners of the cities that have gone bankrupt if they wished their plans were better funded
Who is forcing huge payments? The hole is so big in NJ that we are simply trying to secure the sides of it so it grows more slowly. Who are you kidding? Do you even understand math? And this wall strengthening is occurring in the most prosperous of times. If you don’t start backfilling the hole now, what are you going to do during the recessions when the hole widens even quicker? You are truly a dolt.
Just use logic.
Why should it be based on full funding of state pensions as opposed to funding what needs to be paid on a given year? That’s the issue here. If you aren’t paying out 100% in a given year, wtf would you force the taxpayer to fund at 100%? Why?
What difference does it make if the fund is at 80% or 100% if it can pay out current obligations? Why force the state after not paying the mortgage on their house for 20 years to pay it back all at once. Why? It took years to take and it will now take years to pay it back. Paying it back all at once is madness and pure fear mongering.
At what percent do the IOUs come out smart guy? What if the next downturn is greater than the great recession? I suppose it doesn’t matter. We’ll just throw fertilizer around the base of the old money tree.
Let the pensions run dry. One day, the checks will stop coming. Oh well. What’s fat Jimmy down in Carolina going to do, sue the state? The pension fund? Go ahead, hire a lawyer and take on the state. NJ will tell all those entitled to go f.uck themselves. A 401k is the only way now. Live meagerly. Stop leasing German cars and eat less. That’ll save you lots of money. Most are really fat f.ucks anyway and need to drop 40 lbs. Get a 2nd job, save, invest, be your own provider. Stop looking to be a 2nd rate person. Stop voting for democrats, they’re useless. Stop crying, shut your mouth and go to work.
All you normal folk around here owe me one. It’s not easy arguing with a sloth all day.
If the next downturn is worst than the great recession….than hit the reset button because everything is finished.
Pension funds….how about corporate debt? Yes, the private sector is better at managing money than the govt….one and the same. F them!
Libturd, seen crazy things done with ping pong balls. says:
June 6, 2019 at 1:52 pm
At what percent do the IOUs come out smart guy? What if the next downturn is greater than the great recession? I suppose it doesn’t matter. We’ll just throw fertilizer around the base of the old money tree.
Who is arguing that we need to pay $100B into the fund right now this year? Who are you arguing with?
Libturd and others are saying the math doesn’t work long-term.
The Great Pumpkin says:
June 6, 2019 at 1:50 pm
Paying it back all at once is madness and pure fear mongering.
Libturd,
Simple enough plan. 1) Don’t plan for the future 2) If bad things happen, give up.
Simple as that.
The Great Pumpkin says:
June 6, 2019 at 1:57 pm
If the next downturn is worst than the great recession….than hit the reset button because everything is finished.
Sounds like Millennial Finance 101.
I’m pretty sure I understand why Pumpkin is never going to be promoted from his “financial analyst” title. He seems to not understand the basics of pension accounting.
The whole point of pension accounting is to not run these things on a cash basis.
On the liabilities side they have to get actuaries in to estimate what all of the pension promises are going to require in terms of future payments. But to use finance terms, the pension liability isn’t the straight sum of those promises, it’s those forecasted cash flows converted into a present value (PV) by applying a discount rate to them. Thus cash flows a year from now might today show up as 95% of what will be paid, and cash flows 50 years from now show up as less than 1/10th of what will be paid, in terms of PV.
Pensions also have pension assets, typically invested in securities and other investment asset classes. It’s relatively easy to count up what they are worth, though their values fluctuate over time. For pension accounting, they have to estimate what returns these assets will produce, which they put in as a return assumption. A higher return assumption allows the pension analysts determine whether these assets will be enough to balance the liabilities of the future.
One cheap trick of pension budgeters is to assume unrealistically high future returns. Shop around for consultants that can give them the high return number they are looking for today, to make it look like the assets today will take care of the pensioners tomorrow. I wouldn’t be surprised if the same game might be played in terms of actuarially underestimating future pension obligations.
To Grim’s point about whether defined benefit pensions should be illegal. On one hand, any pension promises are essentially like issuing debt. The ability to issue public debt should be tightly controlled, that’s for sure. What risks should pensioners bear, versus what risks should taxpayers bear? If returns don’t live up to expectations, do pensioners participate at all in the downside? It seems like it’s a political juggle.
Alternatively, maybe if government outsourced the pension promises by essentially hiring an insurance company like Berkshire Hathaway to pay the future liability, who in return would demand full payment to compensate for those future liabilities, that would at least provide transparency to the annual cost of every employee’s benefits. If pension accounting were accurate, the annual costs would approximate such an outsourced provision of pensions – “what assets do I need to put aside today in order to pay these liabilities tomorrow and beyond?”
This bond buyer author guy seems to assume that debt is infinitely expandable without consequences. Maybe he’s one of those MMT guys.
Pumpkinface,
Do you understand Lib and others consistently point out the total debt of the pension fund. They then throw out how much is owed by each individual in the state. They then draw the conclusion that we are f’ed and the debt can’t be paid. Next play is then to claim that the benefits are too rich, and the state can’t afford it. The govt workers than pay an extra tax because they work for the state govt in the name of saving their benefits. It’s called playing people out…
How can you not see this? They throw out a bunch of propaganda to fulfill their political ideology of small govt. They are using the pension debt to scare joe public into privatizing the govt and lowering their tax bill.
Govt jobs are middle-class jobs, just pound away at the middle class so you can save on taxes. This is no different than shipping jobs in the name of profit. How that work out? More inequality and one step closer to revolution.
Whether you realize it or not, capitalism requires a redistributive measure, or it falls on its face every single time. So let the top have it all, and let’s play the game of revolution once again. Taking away these pensions might be the nail in the coffin in term of political revolution….these people will want blood after being forced to take it in the a$$. I don’t blame them, when you are being robbed, you have to do something about it.
No one,
You are a smart guy. How the hell do the pension funds not generate a ton of profit? If you take 100 billion dollars, it should be able to pay for itself in the long term if its invested correctly. Over time, people should not even have to contribute as the compounding takes over. So who the hell robbed these pension funds over and over? Wall St and their bought politicians should be fed to a wild pack of dogs for doing this to workers. Robbed them f’ing blind. It’s disgusting. They then have the nerve to blame them for this…that their benefits are too rich, that they must contribute more now while also being payed out less. F’ing straight up robbery.
Watch this dolt.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/the-pension-gamble/
It’s on youtube.
Then tell me who is to blame?
Two ways the pensions mess up:
1)However much money they have in assets, it’s easy for government to spend and promise more benefits than it can cover.
2) It’s easy to get a bad ROI, especially when government officials can enrich themselves by sending assets to third rate operations and fool around with quota-based investment firms.
One thing I have heard through the grapevine is that the government entities inexplicably allocate investments to firms that aren’t good performers first and foremost. Lots of ways. “Pay to play” is officially illegal but how well is it policed. My firm is in NJ, has over a 20 year track record of outperformance within our asset class globally, and we have sought NJ pension business, but these jerks never give us the time of day. Unexplainable. Other than understanding we have ethics rules that make it difficult for us to donate to politicians. Instead funds get sent to somebody’s brother in law or something. Or an ESG invesment firm run by LGBT+ non-binary handicapable people of color or something. Or it just gets sent to asset managers most willing to promise an unrealistically high expected return, and government dimwits and their consultants follow it. Or they just chase past performance, without being able to identify future performers.
Murphy is a nice man from Goldman Sachs. He can fix it!
logic! it’s kinda like magic! poof!
No one,
Yes, the workers were straight up robbed. Criminal, it truly is. Just blows my mind…
‘Just blows my mind…”
Splatter about size of a ping pong ball.
They’re sexy, they’re seniors — and they’re going bareback. Sex is all the rage among older New Yorkers, but most sensuous seniors don’t use condoms when getting down and dirty, according to a city Health Department released Thursday. Thirty-seven percent of city residents 65 years or older said they’ve had oral, anal or vaginal sex in the past year, an agency survey found. Older men were twice as likely as older women to report being sexually active. Just 10% of seniors having sex said they used rubbers the last time they got busy – with older white New Yorkers less likely cop to using condoms than black or Latino over 65 in the city. Linda Marks, 73, a retired social worker from Manhattan, said the lack of protection troubled her. “I’m surprised people don’t use condoms no matter what their ages. Especially woman, everybody now knows about AIDS,” she said.
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Pumpkin – You should abandon the argument that teachers are underpaid. It is totally wrong. Sure it sounds compassionate “Oh it’s the toughest job there is!!”
I’ll grant you that there are going to be handful of teachers underpaid but likely about the same % of the one’s that are overpaid. But here is the real simplicity and why I know I am right.
There is no teacher shortage. ZERO. In fact, getting a job in good district is IMPOSSIBLE because the lazy 70 year PE teacher is never gonna give up the job.
Basic economics – teachers are paid exactly the correct amount. I’d argue they might even be overpaid. If they were truly underpaid, people would not take the job. Again, you may try to cite an anecdotal example of 1 teacher in such and such a district. But in the aggregate, there is no shortage of teachers in this state. In fact, you could probably cut teachers salary by 15% and still have every classroom positioned assigned by September.
The employment market is great at figuring this all out for us. Pay too little, teachers quit and you can’t find their replacement. Raise salary.
Teachers in abundance, lower salary, fill in with the next cheapest alternative. Repeat until you find equilibrium.
But this shouldn’t be a fill the jobs at the lowest salary problem. You are not going to attract talented individuals to the field with that approach. It’s part of the reason why most Physics teachers in this country suck ass.
Blue, said it best, you pay for what you get.
I’m sorry, the American education system is attracting losers….but hey, it’s cheap!!
What losers!!
Who would sign up for this?
Essex, please chime in..
Pumpkin is just shifting the argument again, pay isn’t the issue here. Yes teacher’s pay isn’t wonderful, it isn’t the easiest job, you have to altruistic and really interested in educating children to want to become a teacher. The issue is teacher salaries could be raised. The problem is the pension, lets face it teacher pensions be it NJ’s or Calpers are run like sh*t, investing by straight up criminals and in asset classes they have no business been in. Problem one they often fail to meet their actuarial estimation. Next problem you can’t have teachers retiring at 55, after 30 years in collecting a pension for the next 30-35 years. It’s just not reality, Pumps NY doesn’t have the pension problem because their income taxes are higher.
Much MUCH higher.
Bad news is good news.
UPDATE: Stocks rise as disappointing jobs report fuels hopes of a Fed rate cut
Today
9:39 AM ET (MarketWatch)
By Chris Matthews and Mark DeCambre, MarketWatch
The U.S. added just 75,000 new jobs in May
U.S. stocks rose modestly Friday, following a weaker-than-expected jobs report, which supports the case for the Federal Reserve to ease interest rates in the near future, amid fears that the U.S. economy is decelerating as trade tensions between the U.S. and counterparts Mexico and China persist.