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Lerach: Don't Blame Public Union Members. Blame Wall Street

economist Dean Baker concludes, "Most of the pension shortfall using the current methodology is attributable to the plunge in the stock market in the years 2007-2009. ============= That is totally, 100% false, the pension funds were on a course for insolvency before the crsh, the crash just sped up the day or reckoning. The Northwestern and Stanford studies have laid out these facts in precise detail. . . . "The average Wisconsin pension is $24,500 a year, which is hardly lavish. But what is stunning is that 15% of the money contributed to the fund each year is going to Wall Street in fees," ... ===================== LOL..the exact same line CalPers uses, except Calpers claism it is only "$24K", and they say the same thing, it is "hardly lavish"! What they don't tell you is that the "average" is not for FULL CAREER employees, they lump in all the employees who worked for just 5, 6 or 7 years, and they also include the one who retired in the 1960's and 1970's before the public uniosn were formed. The "average" state pension for an employee that put in 30 years or more is $67K, the average for local muni's is $85K, and those are for people who retired in their 50's. That is 2 and 3 times the MEDIAN SALARY in this state; "CalPERS data shows the average career public employee, who put in at least 30 years of service and retired in the 2008-09 fiscal year, collected a starting pension of $67,000 a year, or 2.5 times the advertised figure. The higher number is buried deep in the retirement system's financial statement and never makes it to the promotional material CalPERS hands out." "The pension numbers are even higher for the separate local retirement systems that cover employees of the two East Bay county governments. The average was $85,500 for career workers who retired in 2009 from the Contra Costa system, and $83,000 from Alameda County."
— March 6, 2011 7:02 p.m.

Lerach: Don't Blame Public Union Members. Blame Wall Street

Compare unions with their main nemesis, the corporations ============= I disagree as to PUBLIC unions, the main nemesis of the public union today is the poor and middle class who are getting destroyed by heavy, broad based taxation to support grossly over compensated, narrow group of public sector employees. . . . . The SCOTUS has now given corporations largely unlimited rights to attempt to elect who they choose, and some on the court seem to believe that the pool of money that is a corporation has the same rights as an individual. =============== You're referring to the Citizens United case, by far the Most unpopular decision from the SCOTUS in recent memory. That decision was not limited to corps though-it applied to unions also. . . . . Unions must have every right the corporations have. ================== Do you also include public uniosn? That operate in a monopoly? . . . Those that nod approvingly at this argument, often go on to argue that unions, which are pools of citizens, not money, have no absolute right to exist. ======================= Public unions spend MORE MONEY in this state than any other special interest group. Any. In fact public unions account for 7 out of the top 10 largest campaign contributors in the state. To say they do not have or spend moeny is false. Private unions and public unions have every right to exist-but public unions (not private) should NOT have collective bargaining rights because they operate in a monopoly and there is no real bargaining with the officials they spend millions of $$ on to get elected- and it has proven to be a financial disaster. I have said many times here that when a GED educated, 20.5 year old can make more as a cop or FF than a doctor who has spent 10-15 years in school, are the very best and brightest in this country as to intelligence and have spent in excess of half a million dollars on education, not to mention the loss of 10-15 years of income, then we have big problems. I am pro union, in the private sector. I hate Wall Street, I hate corps that outsource manufacturing jobs, the backbone of this country. As to the Ross Perot comment, I don't follow the comment. Ross Perot, who worked for IBM, went to his employer with a new technology, IBM passed and did not want to develope it so Ross Perot started his company. Did he do work for the gov that the gov could do for itself?? I don't know, but if that is true then whose fault is it, that??? Not Perot's. EDS had many customers, but I have no idea how much business they did with the gov. My experience with gov is they do almost nothing effeciently, the more money they get and spend the more spectacular the failure and cost over runs. There is a great multi-story/day article that has run this past week in the LA Times outlining the hundreds of millions the LA Community College District squandered in their $5 billion bond upgrade of the district's facilities, the fraud and the mismanagement.
— March 6, 2011 6:43 p.m.

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