Jolly_Rancher

Pension Underfunding: The Next Earnings Shock?

Actually, state guard can quit. And none were forced to join. I'd say that service men who did active duty get full pension, but the rest are considered in the same category as government bureaucrats. How many active troops are in Iraq and Afghanistan, compared to the total forces? And so how is our military stretched thin? That's a joke. Most of the military today are paper pushers. First thing Obama should do is cut the Pentagon budget by half and tell the brass to stuff it. The guys on the front line get no support from them. This from a retired marine.


On Mar 07 06:13 PM bigmoney wrote:

> >> Of course, in tried fashion, nobody is willing to acknowledge
> the problem, and all involved parties are pushing hard to postpone
> judgment day.
>
> The first rule of Pension Club is that nobody talks about Pension
> Club ~ Tyler Durden. Haha
>
> I'd like to see some charts of the S&P500 that has frozen their
> pension. My company, one of the above listed, froze theirs a few
> years ago.
>
> Another thing I would like to see is Pension total value over time
> / vesting. I believe the typical curve is exponential
>
> A frozen pension means that many baby-boomers working at these S&P500
> corps will have their pension frozen just as they enter the power
> curve of vesting. Talk about a rude awakening.
>
> Anyway, I think its about time the public sector start taking pension
> haircuts like everyone else. The only government sector that should
> get special protection is military, because once those guys sign
> a contract, they cannot quit. Politicians, administrators, social
> workers, IRS tax collectors can easily do with less. If they don't
> like pension haircut, they are free to quit, and get a job in the
> private sector. I don't think we'd be the less for it.

Why 'Buy American' Hurts America

Free trade is ideal. But we don't have free trade right now. What we have are corporations searching for lowest cost to produce. There's no way the US can compete against slave labor and no environmental or other government regulation. Do you really believe in a world where corporations pay the least cost at the expense of all other things? At the same time other countries have huge barriers to the import of our goods that compete with their goods. The economic theory works great! The economic practice stinks. As stated above, the US should provide huge tax incentives to corporations to invest and produce good here.


On Feb 13 01:30 PM pearl2k wrote:

> If there's a a PROFESSIONAL economist out there please chime in.
> I seem to remember the models I studied in International Trade were
> very simple, bi-lateral models, the results of which were entirely
> quantitative. Free trade means a bigger chocolate chip cookie for
> everyone to share, and more is better. That's it.
>
> How about a free trader describe what America's piece of the cookie
> should like, according to the theory, and what it looks like in reality.
> To me it now seems smaller than promised, and that all the chocolate
> chips are in someone else's piece.
>
>

Why 'Buy American' Hurts America

"Buy American" is a misguided effort. Even Walmart tried that in the 80s and it went nowhere. HOWEVER, I firmly believe "Invest in America" is a great idea whose day is long over due. Our government should provide huge tax incentives to corporations to invest here in the 50 states rather than abroad, enough of an incentive to out-weigh the advantages of investing abroad. Abroad corporations are tantalized by nearly free labor, no environmental concerns, and zero government regulations. Our government should tally the costs of investing abroad and wipe out that advantage with tax breaks. It would not require as much money as one might think because corporations must also contend with the instability and arbitrary nature of foreign governments and huge corruption in the way of bribery to get anything done.