Market Currents
Something like this may be coming soon to a state near you (or perhaps your own): Gov. Chris...
-
Wednesday, June 8, 2011, 6:15 PM ETSomething like this may be coming soon to a state near you (or perhaps your own): Gov. Chris Christie strikes a deal with New Jersey's senate cutting pensions and benefits for state employees. New Jersey's pension system was $53.9B underfunded as of the latest fiscal year.
Other date
Latest Macro Articles
This news story has 66 comments:
You must be using a budgetary calculator...
This is great news, we are seeing REAL cuts and LONG term reforms put by Christie....
Long-term the economy of New Jersey is going to be excellent....
This is a great example to other states...
"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not."-Thomas Jefferson
Both yourself and others at SA, would likely be better seved by you finding perhaps a "Children's Site" for you to post your silly comments.
They are not willing to work now because it is summer break!
Apparently the schools and students did not need them. Life has gone on. The world is still spinning.
fascinating combo. but I think the Chairman would be bored as VP.
and the Governor while admirable is stil a new commodity. this deal is a feather in his cap.
Bernanke for Preseident. He is on track to be best Fed President and right now the only cogent voice on the world monetary policy stage.
E
Oh, so you graduated from a fly-fishing school, and with 'honers', whatever that means. Do you have your own fishing boat? Where's the best fly-fishing?
But I do wish he'd lose at least 100lbs. He won't be around very long without some serious changes in his diet.
Bless their hearts, but they always park their carts RIGHT IN FRONT of what I need to get to.... And then perform complex calculus equations in their heads, or something.
It is a shame Christie and the NJ government did not go farther and take back 40% all current promises due and jack up health premium deductions for all workers (current and new) to 30%.
These leeches on society in all 50 states needs massive pension give backs and massive hikes in health insurance premiums to bring them all in line with what non- union workers and professional people have been paying for for decades already. You know those workers and professional that actually contribute something to the real GDP of this country and do not force Americans to pay for them from pure taxation.
Did you know that even if the majority of these unions all had a 100% increase in health premiums they had to pay every month that for the most part they would still not even be paying for 15% of their real health insurance premiums, yet be crying like babies that had to pay anything at all?
How do you know liberals are a half witted group? Because they can't argue without resorting to personal attacks.....
Government workers should share equal burden as all working Americans do...
Government workers should be reminded, from where comes the money they receive as a salary.....
Government workers are the most unproductive, and still are given better pay and benefits packages than working Americans....
And if people want the same freeloading at the expense of the middle class, vote again for Obama....That should do wonders for the US...(sarcasm intended)
The truth to the matter is that the politicians have been bribed with campaign contributions and political cronyism to spend away tax revenue and bond debt and now want to ignore the retirement debt they owe to the people of their own state.
Sad really...reading Jefferson's quote:
"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not."
This is exactly what the state governements are doing and what the political pay masters have done [nothing].
Let me follow your math........he fired teachers and put them on welfare which if true is more like subsistence pay and if NJ hired them back they would probably pay about twice as much as welfare costs or more.
But by your calculation he would save NJ money by bringing them back. There must be a job waiting for you in government. I am sure the Chinese and the Russians thought they were good at math the past 50 to 60 years as they ran their economies in the ditch. They had an abacus how could they miss?
I would give up pay for a promise to pay me a big fat check every month for a lifetime and I get to retire early.
Wheeee!!!!
Yes, I really want to be one of those leeches.
Regrettably, those leeches wouldn't do what I would do in those situations. They would do their duty and you, well, you probably wouldn't even thank them.
I am talking about donuts. He should stop eating donuts that will save lot of money to state to hire these teachers back.
In a previous era public sector pay was about 10% less than the same jobs in the private sector. That was the justification for better benefits for public sector. Since then public sector pay has gone up to where it now pays 15-20% more than the private sector, and the benefits are 75% better than the private sector.
So my conclusion is that your government is vastly overpaying for labor, and judging from the quality of education, they are not getting a very good deal. Productivity has gone down, so pay should have gone down - why didn't it?
Most of the laid off teachers have nobody to blame other than their own Union "Brotherhood," as it was them that threw the teachers with less seniority than themselves under the bus.
It's called Greed. And it's not exclusive to people in business.
Rather than make concessions to where they would perhaps pay 10% towards their medical insurance (less than the Private sector that feeds them) they opted for selfishness.
Hypocricy, some Union Brotherhood, Huh?
www.youtube.com/watch?...
sorry i mssed the joke.
Unlike politicians in the past, Christie has in fact done what he promised in his campaign, one of the reasons people elected him, and will likely re-elect him.
If you can cap the health care cost for average Americans.
It doesn't matter, the gender, race(this is the card that liberals play) color, weight of the people, what it matters is the actions and the value they contribute to society....what Christie is doing is repairing the finances of the state, so if can be inferred that is creating a better future to the next
generations to come, thereby improving subsequent lives.
That for me defines a person, and in this case a good one.
The reality is that all government pension and health care benefits, including states are under funded and need to be cut. You cannot raise taxes enough to solve the problem.
Because given the P-O-S that was recently elected governor in CT, such a thing will NEVER happen under his watch.
What a powerful man he could become by using his own weight and set an example if he'd only was able transforms in his lean self...
'And now you State'!
I am not sure why everyone keeps looking for that magical exit door. It does not exist.
Could be, our Governor in Colorado is looking at resolutions to add another Dollar per Gallon tax to fuels to support new infrastructure again.Basically admitting that unless private enterprise can step up to the plate - we will be buying all the plates and wishing for another for ourselves.