Looting the Pension Funds All across America,

[hvactec]

Wall Street is grabbing money meant for public workers


By Matt Taibbi
September 26, 2013 7:00 AM ET

In the final months of 2011, almost two years before the city of Detroit would shock America by declaring bankruptcy in the face of what it claimed were insurmountable pension costs, the state of Rhode Island took bold action to avert what it called its own looming pension crisis. Led by its newly elected treasurer, Gina Raimondo – an ostentatiously ambitious 42-year-old Rhodes scholar and former venture capitalist – the state declared war on public pensions, ramming through an ingenious new law slashing benefits of state employees with a speed and ferocity seldom before seen by any local government.

Detroit's Debt Crisis: Everything Must Go

Called the Rhode Island Retirement Security Act of 2011, her plan would later be hailed as the most comprehensive pension reform ever implemented. The rap was so convincing at first that the overwhelmed local burghers of her little petri-dish state didn't even know how to react. "She's Yale, Harvard, Oxford – she worked on Wall Street," says Paul Doughty, the current president of the Providence firefighters union. "Nobody wanted to be the first to raise his hand and admit he didn't know what the fuck she was talking about."

Read more: Looting the Pension Funds: How Wall Street Robs Public Workers | Politics News | Rolling Stone

 

[Moonglow]

They are just taking corporates lead in pension raiding and investment, why not, the Fed govt. is backing the pension loss.
Mittens made millions off of the practice.

 

[dilloduck]

Then it must be OK.

 

[Mustang]

They are just taking corporates lead in pension raiding and investment, why not, the Fed govt. is backing the pension loss.
Mittens made millions off of the practice.

The GOP has a word for this: It's freedom.


Here's an example of freedom, GOP style:

They'll offer questionable products to the general public which they'll advertise in such a way as to get you to buy it. It may not live up to what's advertised, and they may use gov't to exclude competition (like cable companies, and health insurance companies, for example) And they will almost certainly charge you a higher rate because you don't really have a choice. And then if you complain, well that's too damn bad. If you expect the gov't to step in to offer some kind of consumer protection, why then you're just some taker who's for big gov't intervention (even though they routinely give large campaign contributions to get tax breaks and preferential treatment from Congress) and you're probably against capitalism, as well. You probably even engage in class warfare too.

Yeah, you're the kind of person who hates freedom and the American way. Why do you hate America? And more blah, Blah, BLAH nonsense such as that.

 

[Toro]

Wall Street is grabbing money meant for public workers


By Matt Taibbi
September 26, 2013 7:00 AM ET

In the final months of 2011, almost two years before the city of Detroit would shock America by declaring bankruptcy in the face of what it claimed were insurmountable pension costs, the state of Rhode Island took bold action to avert what it called its own looming pension crisis. Led by its newly elected treasurer, Gina Raimondo – an ostentatiously ambitious 42-year-old Rhodes scholar and former venture capitalist – the state declared war on public pensions, ramming through an ingenious new law slashing benefits of state employees with a speed and ferocity seldom before seen by any local government.

Detroit's Debt Crisis: Everything Must Go

Called the Rhode Island Retirement Security Act of 2011, her plan would later be hailed as the most comprehensive pension reform ever implemented. The rap was so convincing at first that the overwhelmed local burghers of her little petri-dish state didn't even know how to react. "She's Yale, Harvard, Oxford – she worked on Wall Street," says Paul Doughty, the current president of the Providence firefighters union. "Nobody wanted to be the first to raise his hand and admit he didn't know what the fuck she was talking about."

Read more: Looting the Pension Funds: How Wall Street Robs Public Workers | Politics News | Rolling Stone

Taibbi is a douchebag.

I'll read this later.

 

[boilermaker55]

Of course he is a douche bag, to someone like you. Why? Because he does some investigation and has quite a bit of truth involved in the article.
Something someone like you ignores. Why? Because you didn't get it off rushie or faux noise or liar oreilly.
Enjoy all your delusional ways.

Wall Street is grabbing money meant for public workers


By Matt Taibbi
September 26, 2013 7:00 AM ET

In the final months of 2011, almost two years before the city of Detroit would shock America by declaring bankruptcy in the face of what it claimed were insurmountable pension costs, the state of Rhode Island took bold action to avert what it called its own looming pension crisis. Led by its newly elected treasurer, Gina Raimondo – an ostentatiously ambitious 42-year-old Rhodes scholar and former venture capitalist – the state declared war on public pensions, ramming through an ingenious new law slashing benefits of state employees with a speed and ferocity seldom before seen by any local government.

Detroit's Debt Crisis: Everything Must Go

Called the Rhode Island Retirement Security Act of 2011, her plan would later be hailed as the most comprehensive pension reform ever implemented. The rap was so convincing at first that the overwhelmed local burghers of her little petri-dish state didn't even know how to react. "She's Yale, Harvard, Oxford – she worked on Wall Street," says Paul Doughty, the current president of the Providence firefighters union. "Nobody wanted to be the first to raise his hand and admit he didn't know what the fuck she was talking about."

Read more: Looting the Pension Funds: How Wall Street Robs Public Workers | Politics News | Rolling Stone

Taibbi is a douchebag.

I'll read this later.

 

[georgephillip]

Wall Street looters would find it much harder to win the Class War without the government's (or is it private?) Federal Reserve Zero Interest Rate Policy (ZIRP)

"The Federal Reserve presently lends money at a lower rate than anytime in history. In fact, the rate at which the Fed lends money is more than a full percentage point below the current rate of inflation. That means the Fed is subsidizing borrowing. Naturally, zero rates create price distortions which are greatly amplified by the Fed’s asset purchase program called Quantitative Easing.

"During its three rounds of QE, the Fed has ballooned its balance sheet by more than $2.8 trillion inflating the prices of financial assets across-the-board while establishing itself as the world’s biggest buyer of US Treasuries, the benchmark asset class upon which every financial asset in the world is priced. Those prices are now grossly distorted due to the Fed’s presence in the market."

In his article Crushing the Middle Class, Mike Whitney makes the argument that if stimulating consumer borrowing was in fact the purpose of QE and ZIRP then when the Fed lowered interest rates from 6% to ~0% the banks receiving that subsidy should have passed it on by slashing credit card rates from 18% to 12%.

"To pretend that the objectives of ZIRP and QE are different than the results they’ve produced (ie–greater concentration of wealth and political power, and the crushing of the middle class) is laughable given the fact that they’ve been in place for more than 5 years without any significant change.

"This suggests that the Fed’s policies are doing what they were designed to do, shift more wealth upwards to the uber-rich while political leaders dismantle vital safteynet programs which protect ordinary working people from the ravages of unregulated capitalism.

"The Central Bank and the political establishment in Washington are working hand-in-hand to restructure the economy along the same lines as they would any third world banana republic. And that’s the real goal of the current policy."

 

[Toro]

Of course he is a douche bag, to someone like you. Why? Because he does some investigation and has quite a bit of truth involved in the article.
Something someone like you ignores. Why? Because you didn't get it off rushie or faux noise or liar oreilly.
Enjoy all your delusional ways.

Wall Street is grabbing money meant for public workers


By Matt Taibbi
September 26, 2013 7:00 AM ET

In the final months of 2011, almost two years before the city of Detroit would shock America by declaring bankruptcy in the face of what it claimed were insurmountable pension costs, the state of Rhode Island took bold action to avert what it called its own looming pension crisis. Led by its newly elected treasurer, Gina Raimondo – an ostentatiously ambitious 42-year-old Rhodes scholar and former venture capitalist – the state declared war on public pensions, ramming through an ingenious new law slashing benefits of state employees with a speed and ferocity seldom before seen by any local government.

Detroit's Debt Crisis: Everything Must Go

Called the Rhode Island Retirement Security Act of 2011, her plan would later be hailed as the most comprehensive pension reform ever implemented. The rap was so convincing at first that the overwhelmed local burghers of her little petri-dish state didn't even know how to react. "She's Yale, Harvard, Oxford – she worked on Wall Street," says Paul Doughty, the current president of the Providence firefighters union. "Nobody wanted to be the first to raise his hand and admit he didn't know what the fuck she was talking about."

Read more: Looting the Pension Funds: How Wall Street Robs Public Workers | Politics News | Rolling Stone

Taibbi is a douchebag.

I'll read this later.

You're an idiot.

 

[R.C. Christian]

BTW liberals, Obama has been raiding federal employees pension funds for some time now. Eventually that will spill over to the private sector.

 

[georgephillip]

BTW liberals, Obama has been raiding federal employees pension funds for some time now. Eventually that will spill over to the private sector.

"Five years ago this fall, an epidemic of fraud and thievery in the financial-services industry triggered the collapse of our economy.

"The resultant loss of tax revenue plunged states everywhere into spiraling fiscal crises, and local governments suffered huge losses in their retirement portfolios – remember, these public pension funds were some of the most frequently targeted suckers upon whom Wall Street dumped its fraud-riddled mortgage-backed securities in the pre-crash years.

"Today, the same Wall Street crowd that caused the crash is not merely rolling in money again but aggressively counterattacking on the public-relations front. The battle increasingly centers around public funds like state and municipal pensions.

"This war isn't just about money.

"Crucially, in ways invisible to most Americans, it's also about blame.

"In state after state, politicians are following the Rhode Island playbook, using scare tactics and lavishly funded PR campaigns to cast teachers, firefighters and cops – not bankers – as the budget-devouring boogeymen responsible for the mounting fiscal problems of America's states and cities.

Looting the Pension Funds: How Wall Street Robs Public Workers | Politics News | Rolling Stone

Wouldn't it be much cheaper to jail the bankers instead of all those damn cops, firefighters, and teachers?