Wisconsin style hope in CA?

yabut,

"San Jose redevelopment board has $4B in debt and only $60M worth of property on the books"

eeek!

And the Tuesday Wisconsin vote will be a big
indicator.

Jack, the 1% is really 8%, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics. And I question that low percentage, being that it's a government agency.

"Critics say a big part of the problem is a fundamental conflict of interest in the way the pension plans are governed.

Pension fund boards are dominated by beneficiaries - workers and retirees."

Seems we have the same conflicts here. So, who is going to try to cure our problems??

Nobody since Oregon keeps voting the same old people back in office. On the occasions we do get somebody new they are carbon copis of whoever they replaced. Makes it a bit tough to get change.

the 1% is really 8%

Sorry for the ambiguity. I meant the 1% wealthiest people and the government employees as two separate groups. Then there's us peasants.

The pension problems many governments are experiencing are a direct result of government employees being allowed to unionize.
The fox ends up guarding the hen house.

Good luck to Mayor Reed, but if the unions get their way, this guy may have trouble getting elected to his homeowner's association after this fight - just ask Greg McPherson (sp?). The day of reckoning for these plans is coming, as we simply don't have the economy or demographics to support them.

Reed won his last election with something like 77% of the vote. He'll survive, if he wants to keep it up in politics.

All we need are more politicians that aren't thinking about a second term. Do the right thing. Sort of like Obama. Huh?

Why is Dr. Kitz having three terms as governor wanting a fourth? He should do the right thing and save the State from government employee benefit debt insolvency, like Mayor Reed.

"As California goes, so goes the nation." And if you want to keep tabs on where California's going, http://PensionTsunami.com
is a good place to bookmark. The faint of heart should avoid it.

As I believe Jack recently observed:

If you don't think the next American revolution is going to be the government employee class vs. everyone else, you're not paying attention.

I'm guessing semi-retired law professors are doing pretty well also. Sure, stock market returns have been near zero for the last 13 years or so. With reversion to the mean, returns over the next 20-25 year are more likely than not to exceed 8%. In short, the Tier 2 and Tier 3 PERS people could end up doing even better than the Tier 1 people. Except that they won't because the .01% will win the triangulation game, setting up the "public employee" bogeyman against the rest of us to divert it all into there coffers. Why we can't have a german/swedish/dutch/danish/french etc. type of system where most everyone is in a union and gets a pension is beyond me. American's just enjoy their hate-filled rants against socialism, public employees, etc. too much to let go, I guess.

I guess we get to see how many votes the union can get out. SOrry, folks, Oregon is past tipping point - Public employees will always outvote the people who pay their salaries.

No hate filled rant about unions here.
For private enterprise I think it's perfectly fine for employees to form a union, if they want to.
That does not mean some bunch of SEIU thugs showing up and terrorizing employees so they sign the card to consider a vote.

Public employee unions are not a good idea, even FDR knew this.

When the union can spend millions to elect the persons who then approve the union contracts we end up with situation like Portland or San Jose, cities with millions/billions of unfunded pensions.

Tankfixer, thank you for proving my point with your anti-public employee union rant. Enjoy your Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan approved, high fee Goldman Sachs managed public/private style zero return 401K Social Security substitute come 2030. It will go quite well with the catfood.

Portland67: TF didn't rant; he stated the obvious - which as he mentioned, even FDR understood. Public employee unions, by the way, got their start in Wisconsin, and now they're completely flipping out. 54% of public employee union members in the state have opted to leave the union since Walker's reforms. Not to put too fine a point on it, but they didn't want to be union members.

And Walker has turned a $1+ billion deficit into a $150 million surplus - which is why despite the best efforts of the unionistas, he's likely to retain office.

"Why we can't have a german/swedish/dutch/danish/french etc. type of system where most everyone is in a union and gets a pension is beyond me."

Because OR can barely afford the public employee unions the way it is now. They had to take an EXTRA $1.1B out of $15B general funds last biennium for employee beens and will probably have to do it again next biennium.

Think about that next time you hear govt doesn't have enough money for basic services.

Max - I said "American's just enjoy their hate-filled rants against socialism, public employees, etc. too much to let go, I guess"

Tankfixer said (selected quotes)

"SEIU thugs. . ."

"public employee unions are not a good idea"

You say "despite the best efforts of the unionistas . .

Call it what you will, I call it a ranting.

You also imply that it is "obvious" that public employee unions are bad because public employees in Wisconsin are, according to your unsubstantiated claim, leaving their unions in droves. From this am I to conclude that you believe the greedy public employees in Wisconsin are no longer covetous of the bloated pensions their greedy union bosses have attained for them?

Clearly, neither you nor Tankfixer can let it go.
So thank you Max, for proving my point again. I will, as a mature adult, now let go of the issue.

To understand San Jose and California in general, read this http://www.google.com/#sclient=tablet-gws&hl=en&tbo=d&q=michael+lewis+vallejo+vanity+fair&oq=michael+lewis+vall&aq=1K&aqi=g1g-K2&aql=&gs_l=tablet-gws.1.1.0j0i30l2.3716.23471.0.25247.34.21.8.5.6.0.816.5345.0j16j2j6-3.21.0...0.0.7hbZQLnH6bY&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.,cf.osb&fp=fe08b2fc32304434&biw=1024&bih=646

http://www.vanityfair.com/business/features/2011/11/michael-lewis-201111#

You're a "mature adult"? So you frequent sex-shops (after all, that is how they peddle themselves). Couldn't resist. Very selective in your quotations, I see.

Your posts have been longer than TF's or mine, yet you refer to ours as "rants". What does that make yours?

As for substantiation: it's right out there on the web - or are you one of those folks that has to be spoon-fed? I know the drill: you make claims, somebody counters, and all of a sudden you "demand" links or other proof. Typical Lefty approach. Do, by all means, let it go.

Note: I stated that 54% of union employees, given the choice to leave in Wisconsin, have done so. I did not state that they were "leaving in droves". To reiterate, I noted that they didn't want to be union members. If they did, then obviously, they would have remained as good "brothers and sisters". Given a choice, they voted with their feet.

That you don't like it doesn't invalidate the fact.

I think Mayor Reed's law school classmate should run for Mayor of Portland in four years. Sorry, Jack, but Portland will really need you by then.

Alright Max, I'm breaking my word and I am back. I just did the google fact check you asked for and, as suspected, the top hits for your Wisconsin union story were Fox News, Newsmax, National Review, Wall Street Journal, breitbart, etc. In short, all the .01 percent propaganda mouthpieces. These sources do not substantiate your contention to my satisfaction. But let me be clear, I'm not sayin' your union story isn't true, I'm only sayin' that if it is true, what does it prove? it seems to put a real wrench in your greedy lefty public employee union member theory. I mean if none of the public employees wants to be in the union then what are we to conclude? That they don't want a pension? That they aren't greedy? That they don't want to pay the union dues? That they don't like unions? I thought your whole schtick was about the greedy teachers and their unions trying to screw the rest of us over. Bleed us dry as it were. I think, Max, that you have failed as a rhetorician and have, in fact, let your blind, fanatical hatred of public employee unions cause you to misfire and shoot yourself in the foot.

Thanks, I will now return to my mature adult activities.

We'll be watching this issue play out for the next decade. Eventually all of the crazy pension payouts will have to be terminated in one way or another. There just isn't enough money to go around. People are not going to struggle to put food on the table for their families while the PERS guy down the street is making $100K per year sitting by the pool. Eventually enough people will get angry and something will happen that forces a change. Oregon might be late to the party, but eventually even Oregonians will get tired of watching the place fall apart while the PERS crowd continues to rake in big pensions.

"I just did the google fact check you asked for and, as suspected, the top hits for your Wisconsin union story were Fox News, Newsmax, National Review, Wall Street Journal, breitbart, etc. In short, all the .01 percent propaganda mouthpieces. These sources do not substantiate your contention to my satisfaction."

By all means just ignore the facts. I noticed you didn't cite any sources that states anything different. Why not? Where you on the O.J. jury?