Weekend Reading

Shopko Creditors: $117 Million In Dividends Paid To Owners 'Fraudulent,' 'Illegal'
401(K)s Versus 403(B)s
Sigh....No, Tax Cuts Won't Boost Growth
Supreme Court Sides With Union Giving Milwaukee County Employees $6.8 Million Pension Benefit
Make Corporations Pay For Green New Deal
The Rapid Decline Of The Natural World Is A Crisis Even Bigger Than Climate Change
Study Finds Racial Gap Between Who Causes Air Pollution And Who Breathes It
Here's What Republicans And Billionaires Really Mean When They Talk About 'Freedom'
Wisconsin Judge Blocks Republicans' Lame-Duck Power Grab
Study Cited In Wisconsin Debate On Expanding Medicaid And Taking Federal Money Called 'Garbage'
Make America Great Again By Raising The Minimum Wage

401Ks - Don't Believe The Hype

Weekend Reading

The Real Reason Germs Spread in the Winter
The Links Between Gut Microbes and the Brain
The Myth of Big, Bad Gluten
The Religious Right's Big Lie About the Founding of America
You're Not Irrational, You're Quantum Probabilistic
American Failure: The 401(K)
The 401(K) Crisis is Getting Worse
Inequality in Our Retirement Accounts
The Rage of the Bankers
Why Does Wall Street Want Higher Rates?
The Stock Market is Not the Economy
The Case Against Raising Interest Rates Before Wage Growth Picks Up
The Failed Reaganomics Experiment In Kansas Keeps Getting Worse
Red States Spent $2 Billion in 2015 to Screw the Poor

Weekend Reading

As Divider-In-Chief, Gov. Scott Walker Is A Roaring Success
Everything You Think You Know About The News Is Probably Wrong

Around the world, people have a pretty good sense of the life expectancy of their country’s inhabitants. 

When it comes to most other social statistics, they have no idea. 

That’s the conclusion to be drawn from a study of public perception in 14 countries by Ipsos MORI, a UK-based market research firm. Ipsos polled over 11,000 residents in total about a range of social factors—from immigration to teen pregnancy to religious demographics. Here is the overall “Index of Ignorance,” from least to most informed: 

1. Italy
2. US
3. South Korea
4. Poland
5. Hungary
6. France
7. Canada
8. Belgium
9. Australia
10. Great Britain
11. Spain
12. Japan
13. Germany
14. Sweden

Southwest Airlines Transforms Air Service In Milwaukee

The Blame The Teachers Game: Has Any One Heard Of The South
Tax Foundation Ranks Wisconsin's Tax Climate 43rd In U.S.

Increase Wisconsin's Minimum Wage
Is The Affordable Care Act Working?
State Moving Forward On Hill Farms Land Sale, Redevelopment
Hill Farms Redevelopment Called Potential 'Backroom Deal'
The 10 Most Expensive State Programs
Car Dealers Are Awful. It's Time To Kill The Dumb Law That Keep Them In Business
7 Mental Biases That Could Impact How You Invest
Are 401(K) Plans Setting Up Millennials For Pain?
Economists Say We Should Tax The Rich At 90 Percent
10 Facts You May Not Know About The Federal Budget

All The Wealth The Middle Class Accumulated After 1940 Is Gone

Exploding Wealth Inequality In United States
Obama Is A Republican

Sunday Reading

The Most Partisan Supreme Court Justice Of All
Two-Thirds Of States Still Haven't Recovered Jobs Lost In Recession
401(K)s Face 'Crisis,' Says Nobelist Merton
Gaming The Poor
The Trap In The Supreme Court's "Narrow" Decisions
Extreme Poverty Has Dropped In Half Since 1990
Americans Fared Better After Great Depression Than Today
5 Ways The American Health Care System Is Literally The Worst
Why Free Parking Is Bad For Everyone

Midweek Reading

Oops: The Texas Miracle That Isn't
Subsidizing The Corporate 1 Percent
The Baloney Detection Kit
The Shocking Numbers Behind Corporate Welfare
Formula For Measuring Poverty Dates To 1963
You Can't Lure Entrepreneurs With Tax Cuts
Fortune 500 Companies Receive $63 Billion In Subsidies
The Rent Seeker, Posing As Visionary
The Costs Of Bad 401(K) Plans
Obamacare Critics Still Just Tell One Side Of The Jobs Story
Whole Foods: America's Temple Of Pseudoscience
Here's How Much Your State Is Losing If It Didn't Expand Medicare
What's Good For American Corporations Isn't Necessarily Good For Americans

Weekend Reading

Corporate Welfare Grows $154 Billion In Midst Of Government Cuts
How The NFL Fleeces Taxpayers
The Craft Beer Movement
401(K)s Are Replacing Pensions. That's Making Inequality Worse
Why The Level Of Government Debt May Not Matter
Inequality Is A Choice

Weekend Reading

Myth & Reality: The Low-Wage Job Machine
How Corporate Giveaways Suck The Lifeblood From Your Community
How A Secretive Panel Used Data That Distort Doctors' Pay
Reagan's Million-Jobs Month Revisited
The Great American Do-It-Yourself Retirement Fraud
8 Ways Privatization Has Brought Pain & Misery To American Life
Manufacturing Tax Break Gone Wild
Many New Jobs Are Part-Time & Low-Paying
In Climbing Income Ladder, Location Matters
Tax Incentives: Costly For States, Drag On The Nation
15 Things Americans Would Know If There Were A Liberal Media

Weekend Reading

Choice Schools Not Outperforming MPS
House Bill Would Give Employers "Flexibility"
Infrastructure In America

Mapping Out Arguments Against Chained CPI
The Myth Of The Failing Bridge
A Pension Deficit Disorder
Why Do People Hate Deficits?
Why Republicans Are Wrong About Recalls
7 Chilling Facts About Retirement
The 401(K) Is A $240 Billion Waste

Weekend Reading

Austerity Kills Government Jobs As Cuts To Budgets Loom
Corporate Wellness Programs: Not Quite The Cost Savers
The Fanatic, Fraudulent Mother Teresa
Lost Decade Not Over For 401(k)s, IRAs 
Morning Joe's Accuracy Deficit
Shocked, Shocked, Over Hospital Bills
The U.S. Economy Really Needs A $ 2 Trillion Stimulus
U.S. Power Grid Is Getting Pricier, Less Reliable
Voucher Madness

Best State Pension System: Wisconsin

21 States' Pension Systems Not Fiscally Sound

Pundits, talking-heads, politicos, and other supposed experts warning about an impending Wisconsin pension crisis are merely using false information and scare tactics in an attempt to eviscerate the pension system. Plain and simple. This is another one of those "entitlements" (anything having to do with a fair society, the social contract, or shared prosperity - all of which, Republicans hate) the anti-government zealots complain about with the hope that some of the smears stick.

This situation is very similar to the debt ceiling theater (here, here, and here). Money has already been earmarked for a certain purpose - budgetary items/programs or employee compensation. Creating some phantom ceiling doesn't mean the liability goes away. Because varies entities may have taken pension money and spent it on other purposes, this does not absolve their responsibility to pay previously contracted pension obligations.

As David Cay Johnston explains, "The fact is that all of the money going into these plans belongs to the workers because it is part of the compensation of the state workers. The fact is that the state workers negotiate their total compensation, which they then divvy up between cash wages, paid vacations, health insurance and, yes, pensions. Since the Wisconsin government workers collectively bargained for their compensation, all of the compensation they have bargained for is part of their pay and thus only the workers contribute to the pension plan. This is an indisputable fact."

Some of these pundits and politicos don't want you to have a stable retirement. Well, that's implicating them too much. They really just want that money - in the form of tax cuts, subsidies, and giveaways - for themselves. As far as your retirement is concerned, they really don't care.

Pensions (public & private) are in trouble because slippery mayors, duplicitous governors, gluttonous politicians, and greedy business owners have diverted funds (compensation) away from pension accounts and into other uses - plugging budget holes, subsidizing business parks and sporting arenas, constructing more and more roadways, and even for new vacation homes.

You're going to see more articles and more pundits bloviating about this "we must transform the pension system to save it" talking-point in the near future, feel free to laugh at them, but make sure you're not swept up into their misguided rhetoric.

For Further Reading:
Deferred Wages
More Bad Pension Reporting
Pension Petulance
Politicking With Pensions
Recoiling Retirement
Retirement Revisionists
Scott Walker Is Coming For Your Pension

Weekend Reading

Challenges In Housing & Mortgage Markets
Climate Change Made Sandy Worse. Period.
Downtown's Are Booming
401Ks Creating Generation Of Workers Unable To Retire
Marijuana Helps Prevent Lung Cancer
Menard's Anti-Obama Content
Programs Outside Health Care To Decline As Share Of Economy
Scott Walker Rejects Health Care Reform
10 Things 401K Plans Won't Tell You

Weekend Reading

An Investor's Guide To Fees & Expenses
CEOs & The Pay-'Em-Or-Lose-'Em Myth
How Paul Ryan Would Decimate The New Deal
Labor's Declining Share Of Income & Rising Inequality
Radiating Death: How Walmart Displaces Nearby Small Businesses
Should The 401K Be Reformed Or Replaced?

Work Until You're Dead

Christian Schneider, of the Journal Sentinel and WPRI, advises, Take It Slow On Pension Changes. This isn't the first time the Journal has allowed right-wing hacks to vilify and lead the way toward making our retirements more volatile.

But this begs the question, why make changes at all?

Wisconsin has the best - most solvent - pension system in the country.

Rather than taking it slow, better yet, leave it alone.

For Further Reading:
Deferred Wages
More Bad Pension Reporting
Pension & Retirement Reading
Pension Petulance
Politicking With Pensions
Recoiling Retirement
Retirement Revisionists

Midweek Reading

Americans Like Federal Spending After All
Americas Long Slope Down
Declining Labor Share & The Global Rise Of Corporate Savings
The Hidden & Excessive Costs Of 401(K)s
Macroeconomics: What Is It Good For?
Private Equity: Heads We Win, Tails We Win
Real House Prices & Price-To-Rent Ratio
Scott Walker's Victory, Un-Sugar-Coated
The Scott Walker No Tax Increase Lie
Walkergate: The Russell Revelations

Republicans - Wrong About Everything

Republican policy prescriptions over the last four decades have been massive failures. Yet, the party continues to sell the same disproven silliness. And sadly, voters keep buying into this garbage.

The Democrats are partially to blame with their conciliatory and passive demeanor towards politicking. Sitting on the sidelines, saying and doing little until the last minute, when the issue is already heavily polluted and lost.

Citizens are also to blame for idly lapping up the Republican drivel, despite the abundant evidence of negative outcomes due to Republican policies.

But, at the end of the day, we can lay the majority of the blame on the cynical, selfish, power-hungry Republicans. No longer interested in governance, but merely "in it to win it." So they can continue their stranglehold on power, enabling their "vision," whatever that may be on that particular day.

Let's count the numerous failures pushed by Republicans:

Tax Cuts - Income and Capital Gains
GOP Blocks End Of Tax Breaks For Big Oil
GOP's Capital Gains Tax Cut Is Biggest Driver Of Income Inequality
GOP's Multiple-Decade Capital Gains Tax Cut Scheme
The GOP's Tax Cut Trick
Republicans Block Debate On Buffet Rule
Tax Breaks Can Reduce Economic Growth
Ten Things Republicans Don't Want You To Know About Taxes

401(K) - Defined Contribution rather than Defined Benefit
A Brief History Of The 401(K)
Model Retirement Savings
Pensions: The Next Casualty Of Wall Street
Retirement
Retirement Wreck
Traditional Pension System More Cost Effective
Why Its Time To Retire The 401(K)

Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) & Medical Groups
Go Ahead & Die, The Truth About HMOs
Health Services/HMOs
How To Kill HMO Reform
The Republican 10-Point Plan For Health Care

Public Transportation - Roads
The GOP Road To Nowhere
Highways Win, Transit Loses
House Transportation Bill Paves Way For Big Oil
A Lobbying Free-For-All
Mass Transit Takes A Hit In Walker's Budget
Peak Oil, GOP, And Transportation
Progressive Fast Lane Versus Conservative Dirt Road
Republicans Vote To Defund Mass Transit In America
Road To Nowhere
A Terrible transportation Bill
Why Do Conservative Hate Public Transit

Education - Charter, Choice, Voucher Schools
Charter School Riddles
The Myth Of Charter Schools
Quality Doesn't Follow Rise In Voucher School
Voucher School Experiment Is A Failure
Vouchers & Private Sector Accountability
Vouchers & Public School Performance
Vouching For Delusion
Voucher Villainy

Elections - Campaign Financing
Campaign Spending Topped $1 Billion Last Year
Citizens United
The GOP's Campaign Finance Sneak Attack
PACs Rise In Importance
Republicans, Billionaires, Corporations and Campaigns
SuperPACs & Republicans
Wall Street's Huge Bet On Romney
Why Republicans Love Citizens United

Scott Walker Is Coming For Your Pension

From the Daily Kos:

"I saw this post on a trusted person's wall on Facebook, and felt that due to the severity of the claims, the info should be made as public as can be. Down below the old piece of Christmas Candy.

The following is the context of the post:

I just had a call from a friend whose wife is a retired extension agent in St. Croix County and is now back there working in another kind of professional job. Anyway, spread the word - she just got back from a regional meeting and the word there was that Walker is saying that after he wins the recall election, he plans to push through the legislature a plan to abolish the state retirement system and convert everyone to 401k which will reduce our pensions by at least a third. And then he can have the rest of the money for whatever he wants.

This is not a rumor, he is openly talking about it in Madison, it just isn't being publicized. Remember how folks thought he was going to do anything to unions?"

For Further Reading:

The Failure Of The 401(K)

It's Time To Retire The 401(K)

Pension & Retirement Reading

Pension Petulance

Perilous Posturing

Recoiling Retirement

Walking Off A Cliff

Weekend Reading

Americans Brace For Next Wave Of Foreclosures
Bankruptcy Costs & America's Household Debt Crisis
The 401(K): American Not Prepared To Manage Their Own Retirement
Housing Scorecard Points To Stability In Market
The Impossibility Of Defense Cuts
MIT Predicting Global Economic Collapse By 2030
More Public Pension Scare Stories At The Post
U.S. Labor Market Increasingly Low-Wage Driven
Where America Needs Doctors
Where Do Our State Tax Dollars Go?
Will Foreclosures Drive Home Prices Lower?
Why A Housing Recovery Could Happen Sooner Than You Think

Recoiling Retirement

The Republicans seem hell-bent on a national plan to end collective bargaining, to shift away from pensions to 401Ks (even more so), and to kill mandated employer-provided health care. Specifically, regarding retirement, using the poor economy (as they've used in all of their "crisis" talk) as their springboard, we are told that pensions are antiquated and bankrupting states.

John Schmid, of The Journal Sentinel, gives the pension-killing details in Scott Walker's budget bill which helps move Wisconsin toward more 401Ks and less defined-benefit plans (pensions). The article is laden with dubious assertions and less-than credible quotations. But there are a few nuggets that can be extracted by discerning readers which reveal the stupidity of moving towards 401Ks and the falsity of the "crisis" argument.

One sentence gets to the heart of things, "But the recession and the ensuing government budget crisis have created upheaval of the sort that often leads to dramatic policy changes." This is a sweeping generalization and not really true. But it also get shows that Republicans have twisted a down economy into a "crisis" and are using it to push their ideological policies. We're in a recession. One would expect stocks, pensions, jobs, etc. to be down during such. As the economy recovers, so will retirement plans and stocks. To stretch this into a "pensions and collective bargaining caused this" mantra is demonstrably false.

I've have written previous posts explaining the mistake of moving toward defined contribution rather the defined benefit retirement plans. "The 401K originally came about as a 1978 congressional provision intended to offer tax breaks on deferred income; which tends to benefit wealthy individuals." So, not only was this originally initiated to primarily benefit wealthy people, 401Ks are especially volatile and subject to the business cycle. And, if you happen to want to retire during an economic downturn, think again. This also keeps more people in the labor pool, opening up less jobs, driving down wages, and increasing unemployment. But the Wall Street-types make fees off managing 401K accounts (lots of money), so Republicans - and their corporate masters - are happy, and not all that concerned with the stability of your retirement.

As Dallas Salisbury (of the Employee Benefit Research Institute) is quoted in Schmid's article,"If the market goes down, that's your problem. If it goes up you win. If it's enough to retire on, fine. If not, keep working." This is just what someone who has showed up to work everyday, been a loyal worker for 25 or 30 years, wants to hear right at the time they're ready to retire. This isn't a retirement plan, it's a game of craps.

We used to be in this together. We wanted to find ways to raise all boats. If one worker, or a group of workers, gained a right or benefit, we tried to expand this to all workers. Instead, led by Republicans, we are in a race to the bottom. Workers are forced to bicker amongst themselves and rally against other workers who have better benefits. If I can't have a pension, neither can you. If I can't make a living wage, neither can you. As Jonathan Cohn asked, "To what extent is the problem that retirement benefits for everybody else have become to stingy?"

As the National Association of State Retirement Administrators states, "The retirement security of working Americans presently appears shaky outside the public sector." Republicans want everyone's retirement to be shaky, rather than improving the stability - with pensions - of retirement for Americans.

This is yet another detail and example of why the fight occurring in Wisconsin, and many other states, right now is so important to the future of America and American workers.

Kevin Hall, at McClatchy, in an excellent article, details the absurdity and outright lies in the Republicans' assault on pension plans.

• The short answer is that there's simply no evidence that state pensions are the current burden to public finances that their critics claim.
• Pension contributions from state and local employers aren't blowing up budgets. They amount to just 2.9 percent of state spending, on average, according to the National Association of State Retirement Administrators. The Center for Retirement Research at Boston College puts the figure a bit higher at 3.8 percent.
• The nonpartisan Employee Benefit Research Institute estimates that retirement funding for private employers amounts to about 3.5 percent of employee compensation.
• In 1980, 84 percent of workers at medium and large companies in the U.S. had a defined-benefit plan like those still predominate in the public sector. By last year, just 30 percent of workers in these larger companies were covered under such plans.
• Two out of every three public-sector workers aren't union members.
• Wisconsin's public-sector pension plan still has enough assets today to cover more than 18 years of benefits.
• Since September 2008_ when state and local government employees numbered 19,385,000 and the economic crisis turned severe — the governments' payrolls shrunk by 407,000, to 18,978,000 this January, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. When calculating from December 2007 _ the month that the National Bureau of Economic Research determined was the start of the Great Recession _ state and local government employment has fallen by 703,000 jobs amid a downturn that cost the nation more than 8 million jobs overall.

For Further Reading:

Deferred Wages

An Overblown 'Crisis' For State Pension Funds

Retirement Revisionists

Selling Our Soul To The Company Store

Walking Off A Cliff

Pension & Retirement Reading

A Bad Deal for Taxpayers

The Collapse of Secure Retirement

Origins & Severity of the Pension Crisis

Retiring Boomers Find 401K Plans Fall Short

The Problem With Defined Contribution Plans