I'll be damned. Harry Brighouse at CT let my comment get through moderation. Crossposted.
"To estimate, then, the significance of the idea of the general strike, all the methods of discussion which are current among politicians, sociologists, or people with pretensions to political science, must be abandoned. Every-thing which its opponents endeavour to establish may be conceded to them, without reducing in any way the value of the theory which they think they have refuted. The question whether the general strike is a partial reality, or only a product of popular imagination, is of little importance. All that it is necessary to know is, whether the general strike contains everything that the Socialist doctrine expects of the revolutionary proletariat." ...Georges Sorel
"It is not, of course, a question of the merging of the trade-union organisation in the party, but of the restoration of the unity of social democracy and the trade-unions which corresponds to the actual relation between the labour movement as a whole and its partial trade-union expression. Such a revolution will inevitably call forth a vigorous opposition from a part of the trade-union leadership. But it is high time for the working masses of social democracy to learn how to express their capacity for decision and action, and therewith to demonstrate their ripeness for that time of great struggles and great tasks in which they, the masses, will be the actual chorus and the directing bodies will merely act the "speaking parts," that is, will only be the interpreters of the will of the masses." ...Rosa Luxemburg
Thinking 'bout Revolution, y/all
In an article on Aljazeera a few days ago (What Makes a Revolution Succeed?), Roxanna Farmanfarmeian compares the current uprisings to the Iranian revolution in 1979, and notes 1) revolutions take time; 2) emtrenched regimes don't leave quietly; 3) the military is not reliable; 4) strikes, not just demonstrations, are key to success; 5) watch for a shift of position in state-run media to the side of the revolution.
General Strikes are as illegal as pot and fucking upside down. Let's make Obama very publicly choose whether to deploy the National Guard to Wisconsin or break the fucking law. I honestly don't care which he does. Sometimes it's all good.
What do polls say about this? I don't think I've seen one about events in this year's Glorious Workers' Paradise,* but whenever there's a strike of national significance there are claims from both sides about public support that seem wishful, at best.
* Better luck next year, rapidly-depopulating Rust Belt.
To NPR's credit, they've repeated often that the workers have offered to give all financial concessions and are only protesting being stripped of the collective bargaining rights.
4: People seem awfully opposed to the plans of a governor whom they just voted into office. Did the Wisconsin Democrats nominate a shoebox full of old pencil shavings or something?*
* Comes to mind a mordant, slightly racist quote from Moshe Dayan about how to become a successful general, which I won't repeat.
that the workers have offered to give all financial concessions
They shouldn't have, they don't need to, they should walk this back now. Gotta be some rich fucks in Wisconsin, get the Walker and Fitzgerald Koch money.
We shouldn't ever discuss worker concessions as if they are a good thing. This country is not fucking broke.
We shouldn't ever discuss worker concessions as if they are a good thing. This country is not fucking broke.
Oh, I agree. I was commending NPR for portraying the workers accurately and therefore sympathetically.
6. As a general rule, most people who vote for candidates who use the rhetoric of psychopathic bastardry in campaigning don't actually expect them to behave like psychopathic bastards once they're in office*. Nine times out of ten, this expectation holds good. But there's always the tenth time.
*Don't ask me why they do vote for them. Beats me.
3
There is a Rasmussen poll showing national support for Walker but Nate Silver doesn't like its methodology .
I haven't finished the last thread yet, but I have to say that Lawrence O'Donnell had excellent coverage of the issue last night on MSNBC. I love him.
It was even more striking after Chris Matthews paean to Bill Clinton, "President for the World: the Bill Clinton phenomenon," which I only watched, because I'm staying at my uncle's house, and he wanted to watch it.
Yeah, I was struck, and annoyed, by that article, too -- on the front page, no less (though it's a smallish headline). Give me an effing break, NYT.
Hmm. Do you think this good news about the Taliban might also reflect the point-of-view of someone other than the "Taliban members" it purportedly represents?
Best sign at last night's solidarity rally in Austin (held by a 8-ish year old): "Hands Off Cheeseland."
I'll put a photo in the Flickr pool later on.
Do you think this good news about the Taliban might also reflect the point-of-view of someone other than the "Taliban members" it purportedly represents?
As the Duke of Wellington remarked on the eve of Waterloo, when Thomas Creevey asked him if he expected any French defections, "We might pick up a Marshal or two, but nothing to signify."
BTW, if the new commenter who was liveblogging from Madison yesterday is around (or Tia, who seems to know such things) is there any way to get money to the Unions internationally?
re: 9
If this column is even fractionally right, we are in deep fucking shit:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/feb/21/nhs-turmoil-tory-ideology-run-wild
re: 18
Yes, although I'd guess more than one in ten are actually evil bastards. Someone buys the Mail, after all. But this move has the potential to get very fucking nasty indeed.
I for one welcome the UK's race to the bottom. It will make the US's public sector look down right sane in comparison.
Sorry 18 was pointless, didn't read.
WWII buffs will be pleased to hear that Tobruk has fallen.
19. I foresee very bad times. What are the chances Scotland will declare independence if they actually try to do this?
17:
Opposing the plan risks wearing the cap of "old-fashioned, top-down" anti-reformers defending the unions' self-interest. Besides, Tony Blair began all this
We are in Revolution, and we didn't start it. Krugman foresaw it in 2002, even if he doesn't want to be reminded of his analysis.
The only question for the left is Counter-Revolution as in Wisconsin, or something new, if we really have that choice.
Newberry is trying to see what the New" could be, although he is not hopeful.
But we have to stop the fuckers, because with modern social technologies, a thousand-year reich or a looting before the deluge and near-species death, is very possible.
17: Jesus christ. That's so breathtakingly stupid -- is there anyone on the planet who actually believes that would be likely to provide the same services for the same or less money?
re: 22
Quite high, I'd guess. Although devolution may stop it having any effect in Scotland anyway. I don't imagine Westminster has powers over this sort of thing north of the border anyway.
re: 21
Heh, my late grandfather would have been pleased. He spent part of WWII driving around the Libyan desert with a bunch of Sikhs finding and cutting German field telephone lines.
re: 24
Some Tories and libertarians, probably. In this case, though, it's just bastardry, I'd guess.
17:It is not stupid. They're evil.
Just like Walker and the Fitzgeralds, Cameron will get a check a payoff somewhere down the line. Soon.
Locusts have descended on us.
How likely is it that that will become law (and in what time frame)? And what are the chances the US will learn from the resultant disaster?
re: 29
Genuinely no idea, but looking at the Cameron editorial in the Telegraph it does seem like Toynbee's understanding of their intentions is correct. Whether it will come to pass is another matter. Certainly this government is proving much more radically nasty than their manifesto promises led people to believe.
17: Good lord. On the bright side, maybe we can convince our Tea Partiers to just move to England.
Ya know, I simply don't understand people who look at the African mercenaries in Libya shooting women and children from trucks and Cameron Berlusconi and Obama and think that somehow education and breeding make them different type human beings.
They are the same. Mass murder for profit. If the money is there they will go for it. Capitalism creates the money, liberalism the means.
Locusts have descended on us.
In fairness, they might be cicadas. People often confuse the two.
Insects are good, cheap sources of protein and nutrition. Just saying.
Don't cicadas ascend, from the burrows where they've been waiting for seventeen years?
One of the creepiest things I ever read was an article from the last cicada year in DC (I think) which mentioned a parking lot that had been paved sometime in the last seventeen year period. If you listened, you could hear the cicadas scratching at the underside of the asphalt, trying to emerge.
Sulzberger also had the byline on the Sunday article comparing the union and Tea Party rallies. While he did use the word "far smaller" there was no suggestion that they were gatherings of two completely different orders of magnitude -- 70,000 to 500 was Harry Brighouse's guess.
34: Locusts are also kosher, I believe.
I should have mentioned it in the post, but Wisconsin coverage is great on CT -- Harry Brighouse teaches at UW, and his teenager is involved in the protests.
Has this Sulzburger got a nickname yet? "Ponch" is available.
I really don't understand how people can see "privatization" of essential services as anything other than creating a new layer of bureaucracy. And it's a layer different from the existing layers in that it is constantly looking for profits and has no interest in the long term, too.
I nominate myself for the most unnecessary ", too" of 2011.
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo, too.
If there's ever a notably fat Sulzburger, they could call him "Paunch".
re: 41
And it's insulated from any semblance of democratic control. I don't think anyone involved really thinks it'll save money, as such. I expect all of them, barring a few useful idiots, see it is a further step in the 'let's squeeze all of the money out of the system and reverse 100 years of social and economic progress' project that they are engaged in.
You know, this sort of thing is why I still read Kevin Drum:
This [a belief that defined benefit pensions are unworkable] is a pretty common reaction, but in fact, the arithmetic of decent pensions actually works out just fine. Corporations didn't give up on defined benefit pensions because they couldn't afford them any longer, they gave up on them because that allowed them to spend more money on executive salaries. After all, if overseas competition were really the big problem here, then you'd expect to have seen a long, steady decline in corporate profits and corporate compensation. But we haven't seen that.
There's something about seeing obvious, sensible commentary expressing ideas that just don't get said in mainstream outlets, coming from a stodgy centrist guy. It's not that I might not have seen the same thing from a dozen people I read, but it's nice hearing it from the voice of moderate liberalism.
It's a bit cruel, but I wonder if somebody's hit Drum with some serious bills recently. He does seem to have come a long way towards rejoining the human race in the last few months.
46. It's much easier to understand when you bear in mind that every Tory member of the cabinet, except for the token person of colour, is a millionaire. I don't think this has been the case since the Great War (and I don't think all the members of the Useful Idiot Party are), but their brains aren't wired to look at the world the same as the rest of us. 'Let's squeeze all of the money out of the system and reverse 100 years of social and economic progress' has no downside for them.
It may be significant that this turned up in the Telegraph (in case the USians don't realise this, the Telegraph is the Tories' house rag. The base reads the Mail and the Sun, but the cadres read the Telegraph.) He may be partly flying a kite semi-internally, to see how far he can get away with going. We shall find out in September, when they present their next legislative programme.
That's a very useful article, I had been baffled by the smokescreen about "GP control" too.
So what's the pathway for this NHS plan? Is it one of those things where Parliament passes it more or less easily but it gets bogged down in implementation, eventually becoming a new, not very revolutionary layer of bureaucracy, like Thatcher's internal-competition thing?
re: 48
It's much easier to understand when you bear in mind that every Tory member of the cabinet, except for the token person of colour, is a millionaire.
Yes. And not just millionaires but largely inherited-wealth Eton-educated parasites, the lot of them.
49. Who knows. The point about the British Government is that they're a bunch of rank amateurs. Very few of them have any government experience, even at local level. They demand legislation to do stuff which transparently won't work, so the civil servants do their best to generate something at least coherent, but they really have no idea what they're doing.
(Frex. The minister responsible for non-academic education and training is obsessed by the idea of Guilds - that's right, Worshipful Companies with liveries and coats of arms, and he want to concentrate workplace training in guild apprenticeships, largely funded by the firms whose directors would presumably provide the guild masters. Has he consulted the key industries and got them on side? Has he persuaded all the different firms in the key industries that they want to pony up the cost of guildhalls? Has he done a cost analysis for the start ups? Has he found a pot of money to enable it? Has he fuck, any of it. But it's going ahead because he wants it to - he likes the fancy dress and big dinners.)
Sorry, where I was going with 51 is that nobody has a clue where the NHS restructure is going to end up, because the people driving it don't know where they're going themselves. This whole government make life a bit like getting into a taxi and slowly realising, as you join the main highway going in the opposite direction to the one you wanted, that the driver is stoned out of his head and probably doesn't have a driving license.
Driving license? I thought we privatised those.
51, 52: Imagine how much fun it would be if the upper levels of the civil service were all political appointees who were replaced every time the government changed. It's amazing everyone in the US hasn't been murdered by rogue paving robots accidentally created as a Department of Transportation public/private partnership gone wrong.
It's amazing everyone in the US hasn't been murdered by rogue paving robots
First they came for the cicadas, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a cicada...
... and/or I wasn't due to speak up for another 11 years.
56. Ah, but when you do... Well burrowed, old cicada!
There were some links yesterday about how to, e.g., buy pizza for the demonstrators in WI. Anyone here from WI know if that works? Anyone try it? I feel motivated to do something.
58: There's also this: http://helpdefendwisconsin.org/
It's amazing everyone in the US hasn't been murdered by rogue paving robots
Hang on, I'm still trying to come up with something funny using "Pogue raving "
It's like a line drawn to a chicken's nose.
Bobots. mobots.
I just kicked down via the link in 59.
Me too. Best part: "This transaction will appear on your bill as "TEACHINGASS."
It's amazing everyone in the US hasn't been murdered by rogue paving robots accidentally created as a Department of Transportation public/private partnership gone wrong.
It's pretty common practice nowadays to include in the concession terms covenants against the use of human-hunting killbots. We've learned our lesson.
When I was growing up, I used to marvel at the signs for the Skyway, imagining it as some super-awesome road through the clouds with magical unicorns and junk. If only I had known the truth...
Also, useful list of Koch owned brands to avoid. I wish I knew what brand names they use here.
67: Lycra? Does this mean I'm going to have to go through every stretchy item of clothing in the house to see if it is made out of the wrong stretchy stuff?
I knew that Lycra was Satan's work!
I'm going to have to throw out a whole closet full of tube tops.
68: Only if you agreed to pay the Koch brothers royalties every time you wear a specific article.
On the OP: Plenty of teamsters, steelworkers, electricians, plumbers, and building trades demonstrating today.
Sent some money to the Wisconsin workers. Man I hate Paypall. Sometimes they let me just pay like any online store. Sometimes they say "hey you have an account with us that you created 5 years ago and forgot about and we demand that you sign in with us and if you've forgotten your password, we can send it to your old email address which no longer exists."
OT: I have conflicting feelings about this.
Isn't Paypal run by a social darwinist to the right of Ayn Rand? I don't see any way his principles would allow you to donate to these people instead of just taking your money himself.
Isn't Paypal run by a social darwinist to the right of Ayn Rand?
Elon Musk? No, he's a decent enough guy I think; fond of solar energy and giving money to paediatric units. Also wants to go to Mars, but who doesn't?
Also wants to go to Mars
To visit Dr. Manhattan? Someone should tell him that was just a movie.
Sometimes they say "hey you have an account with us that you created 5 years ago and forgot about and we demand that you sign in with us and if you've forgotten your password, we can send it to your old email address which no longer exists."
Paypal infallibility...
72: May I be the first to say: Tia! I'd forgotten you were in Wisconsin, if that is where you are.
fond of solar energy and giving money to paediatric units.
Also electric cars that go really fast.
The whole thing is owned by eBay now anyway.
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Has anyone posted a link to the greatest memo of all time yet?
|>
81: "Oh and jeepers, the Palistinian situation. Can you get me a solution to that by noon Friday?"
76: No, Peter Thiel.
Seasteading should have started last year!
"Of course, one major role of government is to provide security, which would seem to be an issue on the open sea. But Friedman's not worried about defense beyond simple firearms because he thinks pirates will lack the financial incentive to attack the seasteads.
"More sophisticated pirates will take entire container ships that have tens of millions of dollars of cargo and 10 crew [members]," he said. "On a seastead, there's a much different crew-to-movable assets ratio."
What if the container ships get tired of being pirated and start having more crew members?
What trouble could unsophisticated pirates cause?
Thiel was a founder, but sold it to eBay in 2002.
48: It's just a sign of increasing right-wing radicalism that Drum sounds so left these days. It reminds me of a memoir I once skimmed of a socialist college professor who lived through the Sixties. He stayed in the same place ideologically, but his students started well to his right, but then zoomed past him to the left. His reaction to the Weathermen was "are these people nuts?"
Drum seems like a thoughtful middle-aged guy who formed his political opinions through experience in the workplace (as opposed to someone like Yglesias, who sounds like he read about moderate liberalism in a book, and just thought it sounded cool). The current crop of Republicans are a bigger threat to moderate liberal policies than the left has ever been.
84: I briefly corresponded with Patri Friedman a few years ago about some of the technical issues with seasteading. I gave up when it became clear that he was unable or unwilling to separate technical issues from ideological ones. I hope they raise enough money to give it a go, if for no other reason than to see what happens. Also money spent on floating libertopias is money not spent trying to crush unions and gut the social safety net.
74: White, female, blonde, didn't kill a white man. Her chances are good on appeal.
Maybe one day someone will describe me as "white, female, brunette, didn't kill a man."
It's just a sign of increasing right-wing radicalism that Drum sounds so left these days.
I wonder if I'm alone in perceiving a rightward drift by Yglesias. (I mean, everybody has always bitched about Yglesias and his crypto-fascism and whatnot, but I get a sense that he's actually shifting a bit.)
89: Sorry. You can evade the law by outlasting the statute of limitations, but your personal history is always there.
I wonder if I'm alone in perceiving a rightward drift by Yglesias.
Nope.
You can be, of course.
I'm considering dying my hair grey, just because I'm driving myself batty looking at the accumulating grey hairs and wondering when they're going to be numerous enough to be easily visible to the casual observer. I figure there's a tipping point somewhere, but I thought I was going to hit it years and years ago.
But of course, dying my hair grey would be insane, so I won't.
90 -- No. Though I think he started off as a hippie-puncher, was driven left by seeing how crazy the Bush war on Iraq really was, and is now drifting back right.
My big problem with him, though, is that when he writes about any topic about which I actually know something, he gets things totally wrong and does so in a super-annoying way of arrogantly mechanically applying theory (usually, Econ 101) without bothering to learn any actual details. Which makes me suspicious of the whole enterprise in areas where I know less. And the problem isn't unique to him, of course, but means that he's just a bullshit-spouting pundit, albeit a pretty smart one.
89: That would make a great online dating profile.
89: but you're open to killing a woman? Scary.
Yglesias mostly redeems himself by appreciating the control that the rich have over politicians, and expressing that in a way that indicates we should be angry about it.
That's the part that I like about Yglesias. That he calls things "good" or "bad", and specific politians "dumb."
re: 94
Heh. I have just a few grey hairs over one ear -- visible if my hair is cropped short, but otherwise not at all -- so I'm waiting for the time when I have distinguished temples; Reed Richards-style. But at this rate I'll be bald as shit before that happens.
re: 94
I thought dye-ing the hair grey was an occasional fashion 'thing', also? I seem to recall reading it recently.
81: Personally, I'm fond of this letter, from our current Governor's younger and more colorful days.
Chris Y and others:
http://potlatch.typepad.com/weblog/2011/02/the-advantage-of-nihilism.html
95: I really don't get the complaint that sausagelY "doesn't see beyond Econ 101." He's constantly hedging his statements with "this is a big simplification" or "other effects may cancel out the one we're thinking of" or "at least that the direction of this incentive."
54: rogue paving robots
"The Great Moveway Jam" -- Omni Magazine 1979.
"For months they waited to be rescued from the mammoth traffic jam. Then the copters came!"
He may be partly flying a kite semi-internally, to see how far he can get away with going.shift the Overton Window.
81, 102: Another all-time great letter. Two letters, actually - the first in the spirit of cluelessness of the Rumsfeld memo, the second in the tradition of witty rejoinder exemplified by the link in 102.
A similar one, although with wit from both parties:
http://www.lettersofnote.com/2011/02/you-were-of-course-outstanding.html
No such discussion is complete without a mention of the reply given in the case Arkell v Presdram
Re: 17, the Cameron privatisation scheme, the US is not far behind, at least at the state level. I saw this a few days ago: Governor of Wisconsin Scott Walker included a similar proposal in his recent budget (the one that also limits collective bargaining rights).
Perhaps the USians are already aware of this. (I suspect I've just missed any mention here.)
Check this Out ...David Dayen from California who understands what this means. You gotta be shitting me, is the mood from dday and digby.
Madison - Today, Governor Scott Walker signed Special Session Assembly Bill 5 which requires a 2/3s vote to pass tax rate increases on the income, sales or franchise taxes.
The demonstrations are a joke, unless Wisconsinites go full revolution. You don't have any money, Tia, and you never will now. Bargain for fucking what? Nothing left to bargain for. Of course you'll get screwed.
Should have hit the streets to stop this bill. Too late now. Rights are nothing without money. This is what identity politics does to us, like abortions for the rich and coarhangers for the poor.
Regarding the TEACHINGASS, thanks for the donations above, imaginary friends. I myself drank a free Gatorade Perform 02 courtesy of Ian's this afternoon outside the capitol, and the TAA's war room inside seemed well-provisioned when I stopped in. I'm still suffering the aftereffects of the flu that's been ripping through everybody who put in a lot of time in the building last week, so I only managed five hours up there. I did spend an hour in the chamber where the Assembly is debating various Dem-proposed amendments meant to stall the bill. The reps can hear the drumming and chanting from outside, which is a nice touch.
47
"This [a belief that defined benefit pensions are unworkable] is a pretty common reaction, but in fact, the arithmetic of decent pensions actually works out just fine. Corporations didn't give up on defined benefit pensions because they couldn't afford them any longer, they gave up on them because that allowed them to spend more money on executive salaries. After all, if overseas competition were really the big problem here, then you'd expect to have seen a long, steady decline in corporate profits and corporate compensation. But we haven't seen that."
There's something about seeing obvious, sensible commentary expressing ideas that just don't get said in mainstream outlets, coming from a stodgy centrist guy. It's not that I might not have seen the same thing from a dozen people I read, but it's nice hearing it from the voice of moderate liberalism.
Drum is basically wrong. The arithmetic of defined benefit pensions is terrible. And they have proven to be very risky for the employer (kind of like teaser rate mortgages are dangerous for home buyers). Nor are they such a great deal for the worker (just as teaser rate mortgages often turned out to a bad deal for lenders also). I believe a defined contribution plan of the same actuarial value would be much preferred by the typical employee. And for good reasons.
Ah, Bob has cleverly rendered my comment trivial. That Bill 5 is horrifying news.
111: Can a simple act of the legislature bind future legislatures? Though I'm ignorant of the specifics, I'm sceptical. California's supermajority requirements were enacted by referendum and cannot be overridden by a simple majority vote of the legislature. I'd bet SB5 can be.
Knecht makes a good point. It does seem, though, that Walker's stealth agenda is at least as important as his union-busting tactics. One is moved to say: Christ, what an asshole.
Surely this bill makes obvious the fundamental unseriousness of Walker's fiscal arguments. He's going out of his way to prevent Wisconsin's having money in the future.
It's amazing what a determined executive can do, fundamental unseriousness and all.
Well, yes.
One hopes that the unions who were willing to accept cuts on financial grounds quickly, and loudly, rescind that willingness, pointing to this action as all the reason anyone could need.
I also drank two Gatorades today courtesy of donations, which I friggin' needed since I was protesting as a Runner Against Walker and I lost track of time and accidentally ran 6.5 miles. I also enjoyed a delicious macaroni and cheese slice from Ian's the other day. So thanks so much! Sending money through the Help Defend Wisconsin site is probably the best bet overall -- the TAA will know how best to direct resources.
macaroni and cheese slice from Ian's
This must number among the wonders of the world.
115:Probably right. Gotta turn the Assembly from 60-39 Repubs to what 51 Dems? Doable, and maybe the sustained demonstrations will help, and maybe union rights are the right cause. But I don't like it, we will never get the taxes til we talk about them.
There are some details and discussion from people who know (Wisconsinites?) in that FDL comment thread at 111. Breakdown of property taxes for instance. Apparently the Republicans intend to get revenue from user fees.
And something else. This is one of the few FDL threads I have ever seen get infested by right-wing trolls.
Taxes are the whole ballgame.
Oh, and I don't wanna talk about Texas. Neener-neener fingers in my ears. God what a sewer.
Via the Ethical Werewolf's cob logger, a reminder how much we depend on our public employees.
Defined benefit really seem like a good way to get leverage on your midlevel employees. The ones who know enough to compete with you if they left.
I think they went defined contribution because of profinacialisation ideology. They really believe capital markets discovery information and all that.
although the benefit of convincing someone he's management because you have a dress code and a 401k works out well, too. You might just be smarter than all your lazy coworkers, and make it up into management. don't rock the boat.
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Blame Kotsko for Mayor Rahm. And not even heightening the contradictions.
I'm depressed, and need a Japanese movie.
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Drum is basically wrong. The arithmetic of defined benefit pensions is terrible. And they have proven to be very risky for the employer (kind of like teaser rate mortgages are dangerous for home buyers). Nor are they such a great deal for the worker (just as teaser rate mortgages often turned out to a bad deal for lenders also).
It does provide some security when we're told that you'll be taken care of in retirement, instead of having to rely on our own theoretical "investing" "ability", but as you say, that is false security, no matter how many contracts supposedly ensure it.
I believe a defined contribution plan of the same actuarial value would be much preferred by the typical employee. And for good reasons.
Well, yeah, "of the same actuarial value". Good luck finding that. The "good reasons" of course being that they can't trust the employer to keep promises.
instead of having to rely on our own theoretical "investing" "ability"
Damn straight. It was not fun but still okay when my retirement account lost 70% of its value in 2007, as I was 25 at the time. It would have been less okay had I been 65 and actually counting that as real money.
127
Well, yeah, "of the same actuarial value". Good luck finding that. ...
The point is that if for any given level of cost to the employer workers prefer defined contribution plans then defined benefit plans have no reason to exist.
... The "good reasons" of course being that they can't trust the employer to keep promises.
That is one of reasons. Others are that they may wish to change employers and that the value of the benefit is easier to evaluate.
128
Damn straight. It was not fun but still okay when my retirement account lost 70% of its value in 2007, as I was 25 at the time. It would have been less okay had I been 65 and actually counting that as real money.
Presumeably if you were 65 you would have chosen a safer mix.
Presumably not each individual should be spending his or her time coming up with the perfect mix of investments for his or her retirement.
The point is that if for any given level of cost to the employer workers prefer defined contribution plans then defined benefit plans have no reason to exist
...unless, for some strange reason, it turns out that employees aren't as financially sophisticated as employers, or are in a weaker bargaining postion than employers, or are otherwise unable to ensure that they receive defined contribution plans that are actuarially equivalent when defined benefit plans go away.
131: And even those who followed the best financial advice available to the general population would have ended up royally boned in 2007.
Remember when the Republican's next Big Idea was injecting hundreds of millions of naive investors into the stock market? Two years before the big crash. I think it's important to remind people of that. Not just two botched wars and major financial disaster, but a serious attempt to fuck things up to an extent that is almost incomprehensible.
131
Presumably not each individual should be spending his or her time coming up with the perfect mix of investments for his or her retirement.
It isn't that hard, you can just put it all in US government bonds.
133
And even those who followed the best financial advice available to the general population would have ended up royally boned in 2007.
This isn't really true.
132
...unless, for some strange reason, it turns out that employees aren't as financially sophisticated as employers, or are in a weaker bargaining postion than employers, or are otherwise unable to ensure that they receive defined contribution plans that are actuarially equivalent when defined benefit plans go away.
Why shouldn't employees receive whatever compensation they are able to bargain for in the forms they prefer?
re: 136
Are you taking the fucking piss? What they've bargained for, collectively, is what you believe should be taken away from them.
Sometimes they say "hey you have an account with us that you created 5 years ago and forgot about and we demand that you sign in with us and if you've forgotten your password, we can send it to your old email address which no longer exists."
This. I'm quite willing to believe that paypal is run by tea party ultras, because they pulled this on me yeasterday and it took me 20 minutes to send TEACHASS a small sum which should have taken 20 seconds. Next time I'll mail a cheque.
103. I like the ideas in that article, but I don't actually agree. The Tories know exactly what their agenda is, and why, and if you or I read the right shite it's probably out there somewhere. If you remember Ken Clark was rumbling on about the middle class not having a clue what they were about to get hit with. Well, now we do. It was the same in 1980, except that Thatcher couldn't and probably didn't want to go so far.
OTOH I'm betting this is as much news to the Useful Idiot Party as it is to us, at least those of them who aren't in the cabinet. One thing that may slow them down is the calculation of how long it'll take enough of them to adapt their consciences to this, so that they don't make an embarrassing scene in public. My guess is it'll be drip fed over the next four years.
One more and I'll do some work read another site.
137 gets it exactly right.
re: 139
I don't think he thinks the Tories don't have any idea; I think he thinks they have chosen obfuscation and/or total lack of explanation as a strategy. Although I agree, the article is fairly ambiguous, but he does come back to it in a comment.
Hmmm... It's a nice idea, but I still don't totally buy it. Legislation is a very complicated process and the bit that gets bundled through parliament is only the tip of the iceberg. If that's actually what they're doing it'll be extremely inefficient in practice.
By the way, in case you're tempted to feel nostalgic. get a load of this. The links in Chris Williams comment are golden too (the first one seems to be broken, but the others).
re: 142
Yes, I remember the Blair/Libya thing came up before, a couple of times. Both when al-Megrahi turned out to be not quite as near death's door as promised, and when the complicated nature of Blair's tax affairs* first became public. IIRC at the time Libya and his Morgan Stanley work came up then, too.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/dec/01/mystery-tony-blair-finances
[No mention of Libya there, but I'm sure it came up in blogs at the time]
*viz his various trusts that funnel the money that he's getting from various malefactors of great wealth in ways that prevent us from finding out who it's coming from, and what the quid pro quo is.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/dec/17/mystery-tony-blairs-money-solved
I count it as one of the signs of how debased we are that that cunt isn't in jail, yet.
It isn't that hard, you can just put it all in US government bonds.
Shearer, I swear, the only reason you are still alive is that you must subscribe to a premium mobile phone service that sends you reminder SMS every twelve seconds saying "INHALE" and "EXHALE".
This is your big plan? Everybody saves up and puts the money in government bonds? Funny, because that's exactly what Social Security is, and your side of the asylum has spent the last decade telling everyone that they're worthless IOUs.
It isn't that hard, you can just put it all in US government bonds
Which US government bonds? Managing the interest rate and longevity risk of a long-dated retirement benefit obligation is just about the most difficult task in fixed income investment. You can get your fucking face ripped off trading these "risk free" instruments.
It's much easier to understand when you bear in mind that every Tory member of the cabinet, except for the token person of colour, is a millionaire.
Baroness Warsi really can't be considered a "token person of colour", and she is a millionaire (in her own right as a lawyer; when she inherits her father's bed manufacturing company she will be a multimillionaire).
#113 is really quite hilariously wrong. The UK actually did have an experience with this, when employees opted out en masse from defined benefit schemes into defined contribution. It is referred to as "The Great Pensions Mis-selling Scandal". The pensions industry paid out tens of billions in compensation and admitted that a) the defined benefit schemes were much better, b) that the only way to persuade people to opt out was to systematically deceive them about returns and c) that this is what their sales force actually did.
"The arithmetic of defined benefit pensions is terrible", please, you're killing me. At least buy a pair of floppy shoes and a wig if you're going to say things like that. The arithmetic of defined pension schemes is the arithmetic of risk pooling. Big pools are better than small pools, are better than individual risks.
I beg Baroness Warsi's pardon. Shocking that I should have doubted her millionairitude.
I'm personally quite grateful to "The Great Pensions Mis-selling Scandal", as I believe it gave rise to the Pension Protection Fund, which is currently rescuing 90% of my pension from the (legal) malfeasance of the fund trustees who have bankrupted it.
146 also makes an important point. Risk pooling is one of the many, many economic concepts that right-wingers have trouble understanding. (Along with "externalities" and "incentives". And, for that matter, "money" - see the maniacal goldbug tendency.)
the maniacal goldbug tendency. What a coincidence! "The Maniacal Goldbug Tendency" is my new band name! (Rand band name?)
150. You should tour rural Libya after the revolution in solidarity (sand Rand band name?)
135: Unless you were listening to the right people (and how the hell is Joe Schmoe supposed to know who they are?) and managed to get everything into the absolute safest possible investments, you took a beating. Modify it a bit to "taking the advice most widely available" if you wish. The voices of caution were few and were drowned out by the voices of reckless optimism. The general public had no way of knowing who was bullshitting them without investing more time and energy than most have available.
I thought that the reason there's been a shift in some places from defined benefit to defined contribution is that defined benefit requires the accumulation of big piles of money, and any time a big pile of money accumulates, hard-working business people will find any way they can to siphon it off for their own purposes.
If the U.S. health care system currently created big pools of money, instead of being the cause of a significant part of what budget problems do exist, I bet hard working business people would be behind whatever kind of health care reform drained the pool of health care money. Instead, they go after social security, because it's fiscally responsible to take money from poor people and put it into your mansion.
I thought that the reason there's been a shift in some places from defined benefit to defined contribution is that defined benefit requires the accumulation of big piles of money, and any time a big pile of money accumulates, hard-working business people will find any way they can to siphon it off for their own purposes.
see 148.2.
In this country, we use our watchdogs to announce that mismanagement has hurt the ability of governments to meet pension obligations, therefore, we must no longer offer decent pensions to public employees. It's called accountability.
The whole point of a watchdog is for it to maul outsiders.
145
This is your big plan? Everybody saves up and puts the money in government bonds? Funny, because that's exactly what Social Security is, and your side of the asylum has spent the last decade telling everyone that they're worthless IOUs.
I don't have a side as both sides are nuts in different ways. I was and am against privitazation. Also social security is largely a pay as you go system and I haven't been telling people that its bonds are worthless.
149
146 also makes an important point. Risk pooling is one of the many, many economic concepts that right-wingers have trouble understanding. (Along with "externalities" and "incentives". And, for that matter, "money" - see the maniacal goldbug tendency.)
Actually it is leftwingers who tend to think that risk pooling is some sort of magic portion that makes risks go away.
I will admit I like having a defined contribution plan because after watching the state legislature for several years I want those fuckers as far from the management of my pension as I can get them. I would fully expect them to royally screw it up and then shaft the employees.
147
"The arithmetic of defined benefit pensions is terrible", please, you're killing me. At least buy a pair of floppy shoes and a wig if you're going to say things like that. The arithmetic of defined pension schemes is the arithmetic of risk pooling. Big pools are better than small pools, are better than individual risks.
See my comments 104 and 123 in the previous thread (Allow me ...). The main risk is that the pension fund will be unable to meet its assumed rate of return (and will take excessive risks trying). These rates are generally unrealistically high (7.8% in Wisconsin's case ). Pooling does nothing to mitigate this risk.
BTW what do you think is a reasonable rate of return for a US pension fund to assume?
137
Are you taking the fucking piss? What they've bargained for, collectively, is what you believe should be taken away from them
Not exactly. I think such plans should not be offered going forward. I don't think existing obligations should be honered at all costs but I expect it would be feasible to largely honor them in most cases.
Allowing employees to bargain for benefits that have a proven tendency to bankrupt their employer does not serve the interests of employees in the long run. And in the case of public pensions in many cases the unions and management were basically conspiring to hide the true costs of these obligations from the public. I expect the public employees if given the choice would have preferred defined contribution plans of the same value but these were unavailable because it is not as easy to hide their true cost and swindle the public.
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Completely off topic, this must be the oddest comment spam I've yet seen. Post a comment which makes you look plausibly like a drive by troll of the worst kind, and hope people will click the link? Why?
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So what you want, James, is the immiseration of a vast swath of the middle class while the rich continue to grow richer? Good for you, then. You can take comfort from knowing that you're in perfect lockstep with the Republican Party. Now if we can only get a few more bold visionaries like Governors Kasich, Daniels, and Walker to spread the gospel, maybe the American people will finally realize what's going on.
150. You should tour rural Libya after the revolution in solidarity (sand Rand band name?)
Or tour the deserts of South Africa (and be a Rand sand Rand band). Make sure to play "Midnight at the Oasis" (and be a bland Rand sand Rand band).
Stanley, where are you? We're trying to force it, but it's just not working.
I expect the public employees if given the choice would have preferred defined contribution plans of the same value but these were unavailable because it is not as easy to hide their true cost and swindle the public.
Erm. I expect they'd prefer to have larger upfront compensation, but that's not politically as rewarding for management. So, like any rational being, they expect compensation in the future to take into account the whole time value thing. Jeez, stop being so rational, public employees!
Actually it is leftwingers who tend to think that risk pooling is some sort of magic portion that makes risks go away.
Hmm. Risk-pooling, more or less by definition, lessens downside risk for individuals. Can you point to a leftist misunderstanding of this principle? (I trust you are familiar with the recent market troubles, and therefore are aware of rightwing confusion about risk-pooling.)
Make sure to play "Midnight at the Oasis" (and be a bland Rand sand Rand band).
...and, having recorded this performance, sell it to a supermarket to use as ambient music (a canned bland Rand sand Rand band).
167
Hmm. Risk-pooling, more or less by definition, lessens downside risk for individuals. Can you point to a leftist misunderstanding of this principle? (I trust you are familiar with the recent market troubles, and therefore are aware of rightwing confusion about risk-pooling.)
Risk-pooling doesn't reduce the expected cost it just smooths it out over the pool. In the case of medical insurance a lot of lefties seemed to believe that pooling a bunch of high risks would somehow diminish these expected costs.
150, 165: Boring. That violin-playing 5-year old* that heebie everybody was mean to has already been there, done that**.
*Archives are fucking worthless if I can't find what I want in them. Never mind. Here.
**For those who never click the links:
...the most exciting moment being her concert in the Sahara. She rode in on a camel and played for 60 Berber kids that have no running water and have never seen a violin.
170: Are talking about the lefties an "their" individual mandate, James?
James in 162:
Allowing employees to bargain for benefits that have a proven tendency to bankrupt their employer does not serve the interests of employees in the long run.
I give you James in 132:
Why shouldn't employees receive whatever compensation they are able to bargain for in the forms they prefer?
166
Erm. I expect they'd prefer to have larger upfront compensation, but that's not politically as rewarding for management. So, like any rational being, they expect compensation in the future to take into account the whole time value thing. Jeez, stop being so rational, public employees!
I said actuarily equivalent which takes the time value of money into account. The reason managers in public entities liked defined benefit pensions is that they could make expensive promises while pretending they were cheap and let someone else deal with the ensuing trainwreck 20 or 30 years down the road.
Risk-pooling doesn't reduce the expected cost it just smooths it out over the pool.
Risk pooling does that, and it does something else, too: it allocates the undiversifiable risk component onto a party that can bear it more efficiently (the costs of financial distress to individuals being inordinately greater than the cost to a large polity -- in pure economic terms, even before you get to the moral case).
In the case of medical insurance a lot of lefties seemed to believe that pooling a bunch of high risks would somehow diminish these expected costs.
No, that's not what we expect. We expect a large pool to be able to bargain more effectively with providers, to think more about preventive and chronic care (higher odds that the patient will be with you when the benefits kick in), and to have administrative efficiencies. The apotheosis of this would be single payer. Single payer (or a public option) would have the further benefits of not needing to make a profit for equity holders and of putting some democratic accountability around decisions to fund or not fund specific treatments.
Risk-pooling doesn't reduce the expected cost it just smooths it out over the pool.
Just as I said. Liberals find this smoothing desirable. To say that liberals have a policy preference grounded in reality is more-or-less the opposite of what you said.
In the case of medical insurance a lot of lefties seemed to believe that pooling a bunch of high risks would somehow diminish these expected costs.
I know they don't say this. What makes you think that they believe it?
I expect they'd prefer to have larger upfront compensation, but that's not politically as rewarding for management.
Wasn't an argument between defined benefit and defined contribution pensions. Rather, a tradeoff between wages and deferred compensation. Because of time value the deferred compensation needs to ultimately have a large value.
The political upside for management to set up the public employees and the public at the same time is just part of the problem, Shearer. The other part is the necessary sacred fund held by the public: your fellow-travelers would say "bah! a slush fund for unions! take it back and put them in defined contribution plans that are privately managed! efficency!"
173
So I am answering my own question. Some products like teaser rate mortgages should be restricted because they have a proven tendency to blow up. Defined benefit pensions have a possible theoretical benefit if you believe the money in them will be managed better than employees will manage on their own. Actually I would be curious as to how returns of pension funds and self-managed 401k funds compare. In any case defined benefit pensions have the proven fault that employers seem to almost invariably underfund them.
[Shorter James] There may be men who through their natural abilities, talents and circumstances are better able to achieve a successful financial outcome through management of the entirety of their retirement funds. Why should they be denied the full triumph of their faculties in this regard?
176
I know they don't say this. What makes you think that they believe it?
Because they seem to believe larger pools have some magical cost reduction property. Also there is a related issue in that lefties often say risk pooling when they mean risk shifting (from high risk to low risk individuals).
In any case defined benefit pensions have the proven fault that employers seem to almost invariably underfund them.
Individuals also have a proven fault that they under-save relative to future need. It's more practical for the state to correct the fault on the part of the employers, e.g. through ERISA rules and a PBGC backstop, than for the nanny state to enforce savings on the part of the individual.
To enforce individual saving, the state has to rely on carrots rather than sticks (cf. the individual mandate debate for reasons why), so they end up inefficiently overrewarding savings by the well off and still failing to adequately promote saving by those whose retirement is least secure.
Allowing employees to bargain for benefits that have a proven tendency to bankrupt their employer does not serve the interests of employees in the long run.
"My ideas about recent US industrial history are largely free from the ballast of reality."
Risk-pooling doesn't reduce the expected cost it just smooths it out over the pool.
"I am easily confused by the concepts of 'downside risk' and 'expected cost' and thus should not be trusted with decisions involving money or people."
I said actuarily equivalent which takes the time value of money into account.
"Understand the concept of actuarially equivalent value? Good lord, man, I can't even spell it!"
Because they seem to believe larger pools have some magical cost reduction property.
Curiously, insurance companies (not known for their leftist tendencies) share the same magical belief, largely for the reasons cited in 175.
lefties often say risk pooling when they mean risk shifting (from high risk to low risk individuals)
What's that even supposed to mean?
178: hat employers seem to almost invariably underfund them.
Not always, sometimes they get "overfunded" and then they're pissed that they can't raid them (). And some of the current "underfunding" may indeed be an unintended result of legislation clamping down on that possibility. (Unintended because it does not fully anticipate that people are basically dicks, and that the powerful people who run companies are self-selected to be on slimy end of the dick spectrum.)
183.last: What's that even supposed to mean?
I think it means 179 writ large for every aspect of life; remember, what happens to other people doesn't matter to *you*, you potential winner in the human race.
179
[Shorter James] There may be men who through their natural abilities, talents and circumstances are better able to achieve a successful financial outcome through management of the entirety of their retirement funds. Why should they be denied the full triumph of their faculties in this regard?
Whereas you all believe people should be encourage to rely on promises that have a substantial chance of not being kept. And for the most part you all oppose measures that would increase the chances that the promises will be kept such as laws requiring honest accounting, adequate funding and investment restrictions because such measures would decrease the chances that these expensive obligations would be undertaken in the first place. You want to continue to trick the public into assuming obligations they don't understand while relying on the public to honor them.
And for the most part you all oppose measures that would increase the chances that the promises will be kept such as laws requiring honest accounting, adequate funding and investment restrictions because such measures would decrease the chances that these expensive obligations would be undertaken in the first place.
Assumes facts not in evidence.
I am choosing to believe that 186 is directed to these mysterious "leftists" who tell Shearer all the odd and economically dodgy things they believe. (see 170, 180) These leftists, like Gliese 581c, are not themselves directly detectable, but their existence can be inferred from the eccentric wobbles they induce in the larger, redder, more gaseous entities nearby.
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New baking project for LizardBreath (H/T Fleur).
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181
Individuals also have a proven fault that they under-save relative to future need. It's more practical for the state to correct the fault on the part of the employers, e.g. through ERISA rules and a PBGC backstop, than for the nanny state to enforce savings on the part of the individual.
These rules inadequate as they are don't apply to public entities. Lefties generally oppose extending them to public entities as making the true costs more apparent would prompt efforts to reduce them as has happened with private companies.
183
What's that even supposed to mean?
That lefties tend to want everybody to be charged the same insurance rate rather than base rates on risk. Risk pooling just reduces your variance your expected loss is the same. Risk shifting moves expected losses around.
187
Assumes facts not in evidence.
Ok, what is your position on these issues? Do you believe public pension funds are mostly in fine shape and the reports of large unfunded obligations are just rightwing scaremongering?
I would be curious as to how returns of pension funds and self-managed 401k funds compare
Marketwatch:
"The median household headed by a person aged 60 to 62 with a 401(k) account has less than one-quarter of what is needed in that account to maintain its standard of living in retirement, according to data compiled by the Federal Reserve and analyzed by the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College for The Wall Street Journal. Even counting Social Security and any pensions or other savings, most 401(k) participants appear to have insufficient savings. Data from other sources also show big gaps between savings and what people need, and the financial crisis has made things worse."
lefties tend to want everybody to be charged the same insurance rate rather than base rates on risk
This is an out-and-out lie, whether we're talking about health care or Social Security.
Ah 184 formatting messed up. From the first link (from ~2000):
As happened in the mid-1980s, the rapid appreciation in the value of equity investments in the late 1990s has pushed many defined benefit (DB) pension plans into a position of substantial overfunding. Unlike the mid-1980s, however, a pension plan sponsor cannot tap these excess assets for other corporate assets. Or can it?
Attorneys who specialize in pension plans and fiduciary issues have devised a variety of creative methods to use ecess pension plan assets. Recent case rulings have blessed some of these methds.
Because they seem to believe larger pools have some magical cost reduction property.
No, they actually don't. In fact, it's precisely to address this point that we have the concept of risk "pooling." Otherwise, we'd call it "risk reduction."
Of course, single-payer health insurance does always seem to be less expensive overall. Larger entities are better able to negotiate - hence the value of having a union rather than bargaining individually. Heck, buying in bulk can have a "magical cost reduction property."
There are other reasons why single payer systems are able to provide care less expensively. These reasons are unrelated, or tangentially related, to risk pooling. To say that single-payer insurance would a.)pool risk and b.)cut costs is not to say that a directly causes b. And nobody says that.
There seem to be some uncharitable readings of JBS, here. Of course, he is also guilty of overgeneralizing about liberals. PLAY ON!
Well he's pretty much wrong about the mechanical aspects, but he's pretty much right about (one half of) the political aspects: management, i.e., elected officials or ceo-types, have a great incentive to self-deal w/r/t funding deferred compensation benefits for their rank-and-file employees (you'll note that Golden Parachutes never seem to actually be brass).
This is an out-and-out lie
Not really. Not for me, anyway. I'd like everyone to pay the same rates for health insurance. I'd like to shift risk in the sense that James describes. I'm comfortable with the distinction that James makes between "risk shifting" and "risk pooling," though I don't think it's very meaningful for most purposes.
The concept of "risk pooling" requires that we shift benefits from the healthy to the sick, which is fine with me. And, for similar reasons, I don't mind shifting financial risk from the more-likely-to-get-sick from the less-likely-to-get-sick.
200: We broke the site. "Error establishing a database connection"
In 202 last, the second "from" should be a "to".
I'd like everyone to pay the same rates for health insurance.
Really? $3,000 per head, or whatever it works out at? For the poor, the unemployed, the old, the bankers and baristas alike? That's basically a health poll tax. Doesn't sound like a very leftist position.
196: A notorious example is United Airlines.
1985: The deal comes at a time of high corporate expectations for UAL, which is counting on United's new Pacific routes to bring in substantial revenue. In addition, UAL has freed $962 million of excess employee pension funds for use in corporate expansion.
2005: By the time the airline turned over its plan to the pension agency, the shortfall was $10.2 billion.
The second linked article is all about investing issues, and does not note the much earlier corporate raid. I am not an actuary, but it would seem that there must be some basic logical fallacy in a scheme which allows profit-taking from a pool of money at arbitrary times--even though the remaining money still meets actuarial standards to cover the obligation. For a one-time event it seems "paradoxical" because if you were truly starting fresh you would put the same amount of money in, but it is in fact *not* a randomly-chosen time, so I think in that context the standard actuarial analysis will be overly optimistic.
203: It's a partial transcript and recording of a prank call they did to Walker in the guise of David Koch.
Ah. Well, until they get their site back up, here's the call.
Ok, what is your position on these issues? Do you believe public pension funds are mostly in fine shape and the reports of large unfunded obligations are just rightwing scaremongering?
Some are in fine shape, some are in lousy shape, some are in the middle. (Not so different from individual retirement accounts in that respect.) But it's a truism that pension reserves always look worse in a down market, so right-wing scare-mongering is easily accomplished in this environment.
I will cheerfully concede the existence pension rules that are too vulnerable to gaming (e.g. the overtime in the final year phenomenon), the built-in incentives for politicians to favor deferred compensation over current compensation, and the existence of rules that permit excessively rosy funding projections. We live in a flawed world, and there is plenty of room for technocratic reform.
I would not automatically draw the conclusion that the rules for public employers should be the same as for private employers. The bankruptcy risk is manifestly lower, as states and municipalities retain the power to tax. I gather that this is the reason you don't like public sector pensions, so we'll just have to agree to disagree.
I will grant you the point about the merits of pension portability. However, there are solutions to that which don't require a wholesale conversion to defined contribution.
In my (second-hand) experience, the Australian Suerannuation program is the one that seems to work and strikes the best balance. The portability being a benefit to both companies and workers.
I have been uncharitably reading James because of 1) the alignment of this with the totality of his other positions and 2) per KR his jumping on the Shock Doctrinesque bandwagon of Republican concern trolls during a down market that was the result in large part of their previous policies.
It might be worth pointing out that moving from defined benefit to defined contribution doesn't eliminate the risk of insiders stealing from the vast pool of money, it just changes who the corrupt insider needs to be. A good friend of mine lost what was to him a great deal of money when the company contracted to manage HSAs for the teachers in his private school was found to have stolen all of it.
Distracting and delaying with details and sublime wonkery is one of the things Republicans do, you know.
Holy shit are wein a strange place in this country right now.
On Saturday night, when Mother Jones staffers tweeted a report that riot police might soon sweep demonstrators out of the Wisconsin capitol building--something that didn't end up happening--one Twitter user sent out a chilling public response: "Use live ammunition."...
Only later did we realize that JCCentCom [the Twitter user above] was a deputy attorney general for the state of Indiana.
Hey Bob, did you see that Rahms Al Guul was elected mayor of Chicago?
And he's a gem.
In his nonpolitical tweets and blog posts, Cox displays a keen litigator's mind, writing sharply and often wittily on military history and professional basketball. But he evinces contempt for political opponents--from labeling President Obama an "incompetent and treasonous" enemy of the nation to comparing "enviro-Nazis" to Osama bin Laden, likening ex-Labor Secretary Robert Reich and Service Employees International Union members to Nazi "brownshirts" on multiple occasions, and referring to an Indianapolis teen as "a black teenage thug who was (deservedly) beaten up" by local police. A "sensible policy for handling Afghanistan," he offered, could be summed up as: "KILL! KILL! ANNIHILATE!"
214, 216: Oops. I got it via Steve Benen at Washington Monthly.
One of the unintended consequences of the Tea Party-style rhetoric: it seems to to make public officials feel like it's okay to air their absurd opinions. Which is actually kind of convenient, if only because it makes it easier to spot the wingnuts.
Of course, it's a double-edged sword, though, because wingnut rhetoric fosters new wingnuts.
3: Better luck next year, rapidly-depopulating Rust Belt.
Oh, and this is way old but it is quite wrong. Growing-more-slowly Rust Belt, maybe.
And while I'm sweeping up old comments.
174: The reason managers in public entities liked defined benefit pensions is that they could make expensive promises while pretending they were cheap and let someone else deal with the ensuing trainwreck 20 or 30 years down the road.
And it is the one-sidedness of who James and brethren think should pay for this that is the tell. How about the voters or society as a whole (i.e. taxes)?
Apparently that phone call is real.
225: It's on the internet.
I'm having a bit of trouble believing this detail on how he got through: He talked to Walker's chief of staff, Keith Gilkes, and said he couldn't leave a return number because, "My goddamn maid, Maria, put my phone in the washer. I'd have her deported, but she works for next to nothing."
Really? $3,000 per head, or whatever it works out at?
We had a different understanding of James's remark:
lefties tend to want everybody to be charged the same insurance rate rather than base rates on risk
I was thinking about heavy tax subsidization in a system of progressive taxation. So more like $0 per person out-of-pocket.
But your reading might be more plausible.
In any event, I don't think risk should have much or anything to do with rates - and of course it doesn't in my current arrangement, in which my employer foots much of the bill. I wonder how James feels about the employer-based system.
Put another way: I think people with pre-existing conditions shouldn't be bankrupted either by illness or by insurance. Which makes me a bit of a liberal in this shitty country.
NMM to the Indiana deputy AG's job.
ajay has been incredibly fucking funny on this thread.
1) I approve of 157.
2) Shearer can fuck off. Seriously. Just fuck off. Faster.
3) Bob: they're occupying the fucking state capitol in your own fucking country and you have nothing better to offer than lecturing the only person here who's in the field? Contribute.
4) Meet Matthew Yglesias's intern. Intern! He needs help to attain that pitch of conventional vacuousity!
I endorse 234.2. 135 was the point at which I considered myself truly trolled. McManus and Shearer could totally be in cahoots with some sort of good cop/bad cop revolution-incitement act.
234.3:Yeah, I felt guilty immediately after writing it and want to apologize to Tia. I did qualify it a little later.
This is how it is done. The bosses buy the legislature, write bunches of diabolical and sneaky laws to oppress the people; the people reach their limits and just burn it all down.
The people can't, and shouldn't be expected to understand the intricacies of policy. Mostly they go to work; sometimes they come out to play.
I endorse 232. Ajay has been on a roll.
194
"The median household headed by a person aged 60 to 62 with a 401(k) account has less than one-quarter of what is needed in that account to maintain its standard of living in retirement, according to data compiled by the Federal Reserve and analyzed by the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College for The Wall Street Journal. Even counting Social Security and any pensions or other savings, most 401(k) participants appear to have insufficient savings. Data from other sources also show big gaps between savings and what people need, and the financial crisis has made things worse."
This is not answering my question which was about investment performance. Do people managing their own retirement funds (401ks, IRAs etc.) do better or worse than large pension funds in terms of investment return. And by how much?
Btw the amount people you need to save for retirement is often over stated especially for high income people.
206
The second linked article is all about investing issues, and does not note the much earlier corporate raid. I am not an actuary, but it would seem that there must be some basic logical fallacy in a scheme which allows profit-taking from a pool of money at arbitrary times--even though the remaining money still meets actuarial standards to cover the obligation. For a one-time event it seems "paradoxical" because if you were truly starting fresh you would put the same amount of money in, but it is in fact *not* a randomly-chosen time, so I think in that context the standard actuarial analysis will be overly optimistic.
Yes this is an issue. For private companies part of the problem is that the IRS is very paranoid about companies stashing excess money in pension funds allowing it to grow tax free and then taking it out again. So it is difficult to provide a margin of safety to allow for the chance of bad investment returns.
With public funds if they get lucky and achieve good investment returns so that they appear over funded the politicians tend to increase benefits and use up the surplus (which in many cases I doubt actually exists with honest accounting). Of course when returns are bad and the fund is underfunded they don't cut benefits. Heads I win, tails you lose.
209
But it's a truism that pension reserves always look worse in a down market, so right-wing scare-mongering is easily accomplished in this environment.
We are not currently in a down market.
I would not automatically draw the conclusion that the rules for public employers should be the same as for private employers. The bankruptcy risk is manifestly lower, as states and municipalities retain the power to tax. I gather that this is the reason you don't like public sector pensions, so we'll just have to agree to disagree.
What useful purpose is served by allowing public employers to misrepresent the status of their pension funds?
211
It might be worth pointing out that moving from defined benefit to defined contribution doesn't eliminate the risk of insiders stealing from the vast pool of money, it just changes who the corrupt insider needs to be. A good friend of mine lost what was to him a great deal of money when the company contracted to manage HSAs for the teachers in his private school was found to have stolen all of it.
As far as I know this has not been a major problem for defined contribution plans and seems relatively easy to guard against.
223
And it is the one-sidedness of who James and brethren think should pay for this that is the tell. How about the voters or society as a whole (i.e. taxes)?
I have said I think existing obligations should be honored to the extent reasonably possible. I would start by increasing the amount public employees contribute to these funds. I oppose allowing public employers to continue making unfunded promises.
197
There are other reasons why single payer systems are able to provide care less expensively. These reasons are unrelated, or tangentially related, to risk pooling. To say that single-payer insurance would a.)pool risk and b.)cut costs is not to say that a directly causes b. And nobody says that.
Single payer is a bit of red herring since that is not what you all just passed. For an insurance based system like Obamacare it is better that rates match actuarial risk as much as possible. For example rates should rise with age. I don't really see why the young should subsidize the old but liberals generally wanted them to do so.
In MA, a state where pretty much every hospital was non-profit (though not necessarily "not for profit"), the struggling Catholic hospital chain was bought out by a for-profit hedge fund group.
The AG approved it, because the situation was so dire; they're covering unfunded pension obligations and have agreed to upgrade their equipment. People are claiming that they'll be able to provide better care and make money by buying up smaller hospitals in better-off parts of the state with better-insured (read: higher rate paying) patients, and by becoming an accountable care organization responsible for all care for a patient from primary to specialty for a global payment. I don't really get it.
However, social workers I know have said that Car/ney could hardly be worse....It always can be, but this is so dumb. It's not like they're about to upgrade their psychiatric services, since those always lose money.
246
Look at the bright side, maybe they will start providing birth control for women who been raped now.
I don't really see why the young should subsidize the old but liberals generally wanted them to do so.
Because we hope to be old someday, and would like to receive health care even if financial misfortune strikes us in the interim.
Risk pooling just reduces your variance your expected loss is the same.
Hence, my well-being is higher. Have you taken even economics 101? Or bothered to observe that people are willing to pay for insurance?
James is being unusually ridiculous in this thread, not even bothering to support his contentions. But I sense more emotion from him too. Maybe a defined benefit pension beat him up when he was a kid?
249.1 is spot on. Other the economic concepts that the right has difficulty understanding are a) cost of risk and b) loss aversion. I will not be prepared to swap my current salary of $3k a month for a deal in which, every month, I either get $6k or lose $3k, even though the expected value is the same.
I don't really see why the young should subsidize the old but liberals generally wanted them to do so.
Well, you don't really see why anyone should help anyone else at all, you precious little Randian you.
249
Hence, my well-being is higher. Have you taken even economics 101? Or bothered to observe that people are willing to pay for insurance?
I didn't say anything to the contrary, I was just explaining the difference between pooling risk and shifting risk.
James is being unusually ridiculous in this thread, not even bothering to support his contentions. But I sense more emotion from him too. Maybe a defined benefit pension beat him up when he was a kid?
I tend to get emotional about dishonest accounting (which defined benefit pensions often to rely on). I realize that caring about accounting rules is kind of odd but they are actually important.
I am receiving a defined benefit pension from IBM. While working at IBM I had little idea how much it was worth and basically ignored it when considering my pay. It actually turned out to be worth quite a lot but I can understand why the company didn't like providing an expensive benefit that its employees didn't appreciate and switched to defined contribution plans.
250
249.1 is spot on. Other the economic concepts that the right has difficulty understanding are a) cost of risk and b) loss aversion. I will not be prepared to swap my current salary of $3k a month for a deal in which, every month, I either get $6k or lose $3k, even though the expected value is the same.
If you have some evidence that employees prefer defined benefit plans to defined contribution plans of the same actuarial value I would like to see it. In my case I had an option at one point. I chose to continue in a defined benefit plan but only because its actuarial value was much greater, if the values had been comparable I would have been happy to switch.
250
Well, you don't really see why anyone should help anyone else at all, you precious little Randian you.
This is a ridiculous straw man. Modern civilization depends on many people working together. Even Randians understand this although they have a blinkered idea of how to motivate people.