Trump

[cannon_fodder]

I think you need to go re-read my post after calming down a bit. I wasnt speaking to the ability to bankrupt out of pensions or to give priorities to investors... I was speaking to the accounting rules that govern how companies (and governments) were required to keep track of how well funded their pension liabilities were. By being able to short the funds now, they could make their short-term books look better by under-funding them. When the bill started to come due the companies whined about the cost as if it was a massive surprise, which, in my opinion, was used as an excuse to screw new workers to pay the old.

I never said anything contrary to the notion that a pension was part of total compensation, or that it isn't a sweat deal. I'm not an idiot and have a background in accounting, financing, and working as a controller. As well as working for two different union shops and growing up in a union town. The company promised to pay $20 an hour, health insurance, and a pension. That was the deal, backing out of it is chicken crap. Raiding pension funds is crap. Favoring investors who are trying to profit over employees who have already worked for promised future benefit is crap. I'm on board with all that.

But I disagree with you on the 401K. While a defined benefits pension plan is a better deal for employees, we have the same problem with 401Ks we had with the pension... its a future benefit you are supposed to fund now. Just like the companies didn't want to fund their future liability when they could enjoy the money now, workers don't want to either. So most of us spend the money we have, and then some. 33% of Americans have saved ZERO for retirement. Same problem, new source.

As to professional money managers... there are options that make it simple. Betterment. Vangaurd. Low fees, broad index funds.  And more complex wasn't always better - big pension funds too frequently made big mistakes with other peoples money. But I understand your point.

[AquaMan]

Where does Trump come into this? He just went on Hannity touting his idea to use more profiling to stop terrorism which is odd considering that many of his supporters, spokesmen and staff would be detained for their remarks. Then announced his new leadership which is Breitbart for Gawd's sake? What have republican's wrought?

They've lost the executive race. And they've endangered their congressional dominance. All they can be sure of is the state governors and representatives in the Big 12. I can't believe I'm saying this, but republicans who respect their country need to show some integrity like Cruz, Kasich and others who simply won't bend over for the extremists in their party.

Every candidate in Oklahoma should be polled and reported on their support for this incompetent....group of extremists and their views. We deserve to know.

[heironymouspasparagus]

I think you need to go re-read my post after calming down a bit. I was speaking to the ability to bankrupt out of pensions or to give priorities to investors... I was speaking to the accounting rules that govern how companies (and governments) were required to keep track of how well funded their pension liabilities were. By being able to short the funds now, they could make their short-term books look better by under-funding them. When the bill started to come due the companies whined about the cost as if it was a massive surprise, which, in my opinion, was used as an excuse to screw new workers to pay the old.

I never said anything contrary to the notion that a pension was part of total compensation, or that it isn't a sweat deal. I'm not an idiot and have a background in accounting, financing, and working as a controller. As well as working for two different union shops and growing up in a union town. The company promised to pay $20 an hour, health insurance, and a pension. That was the deal, backing out of it is chicken crap. Raiding pension funds is crap. Favoring investors who are trying to profit over employees who have already worked for promised future benefit is crap. I'm on board with all that.

But I disagree with you on the 401K. While a defined benefits pension plan is a better deal for employees, we have the same problem with 401Ks we had with the pension... its a future benefit you are supposed to fund now. Just like the companies didn't want to fund their future liability when they could enjoy the money now, workers don't want to either. So most of us spend the money we have, and then some. 33% of Americans have saved ZERO for retirement. Same problem, new source.

As to professional money managers... there are options that make it simple. Betterment. Vangaurd. Low fees, broad index funds.  And more complex wasn't always better - big pension funds too frequently made big mistakes with other peoples money. But I understand your point.

I am calm!  I am always calm...like a cucumber!!  Calm is my middle name...don't you see that from my posts??

My first paragraph;
I wasn't arguing/disagreeing with you - I was just saying I thought you cut them way too much slack...
And that Congress allowed them to do that.


From "total compensation" on was expansion on the thoughts to date.

Vanguard is always a good choice.  Always the best choice...  The only place I deal with given a choice (have had 401k that didn't have a Vanguard choice for some ignorant reason).  But then I have never done anything with Betterment yet, either.


And the last part about the 40% drop on pay - the two tier system is a big part of that!  I probably should have split that into another reply...
I think we were actually agreeing to agree....   ( I think I was agreeing more....lol!)

[heironymouspasparagus]

Where does Trump come into this? He just went on Hannity touting his idea to use more profiling to stop terrorism which is odd considering that many of his supporters, spokesmen and staff would be detained for their remarks. Then announced his new leadership which is Breitbart for Gawd's sake? What have republican's wrought?

They've lost the executive race. And they've endangered their congressional dominance. All they can be sure of is the state governors and representatives in the Big 12. I can't believe I'm saying this, but republicans who respect their country need to show some integrity like Cruz, Kasich and others who simply won't bend over for the extremists in their party.

Every candidate in Oklahoma should be polled and reported on their support for this incompetent....group of extremists and their views. We deserve to know.

Mary Failin'

I bet Sally Kern!

Inhofe
Langford
Cole

Cole thinks Trump is good because of Pence.  Pence is the guy who says there is no medical evidence that smoking kills people.  Sound like another ignorant denier in this state lineup?

[erfalf]

So in regards to the whole pension/401k argument, I think I have it now.

Laws changed (written by big corporate interests) that allow pension funds to be raided before they are due. This hurts the common man (even though there are pension insurance programs that keep the vast majority of people whole) in a roundabout way because now companies are less inclined to offer pensions. 401ks set up for the common man allow individuals to raid their own pensions early, but this is not a problem, because it wasn't caused by a greedy corporation. Does that pretty much sum it up?

[heironymouspasparagus]

So in regards to the whole pension/401k argument, I think I have it now.

Laws changed (written by big corporate interests) that allow pension funds to be raided before they are due. This hurts the common man (even though there are pension insurance programs that keep the vast majority of people whole) in a roundabout way because now companies are less inclined to offer pensions. 401ks set up for the common man allow individuals to raid their own pensions early, but this is not a problem, because it wasn't caused by a greedy corporation. Does that pretty much sum it up?

You do realize that the pension insurance fund is upside down by at least hundreds of billions if not trillions....  Guess who is gonna get to pay that?  Either us, through taxes, or inflating the currency even more. 

[heironymouspasparagus]

Was doing some light reading and ran across a 'forward' from a book.  It's about a family who have a family home in England that goes back 800 years.  And is applicable today with people like Trump.  Paris Hilton.  The Kardashians....




 This extract from Bernard Falk's fascinating book "The Berkeleys of Berkeley Square", published by Hutchinson & co. London 1944, should place the following in its proper perspective.

For the majority of present day mankind, delight in the magnificence of chivalry is an acquired taste. Hence the achievement of the Lords of Berkeley, floodlit though it may be by the martial splendour of the Feudal ages, makes a strictly limited appeal to the imagination. At bottom there is little to distinguish them from their fellow Barons. They never seem to approach, much less touch, greatness. As we summon their unloved ghosts from the dim past, and reclothe them with flesh and blood, seeking the while to recapture the passions that were the mainsprings of their actions, the feeling of thrilled expectancy wholly eludes us. For so far from being the elect of the race, they are a commonplace people raised above the heads of their fellow-men purely by accident of birth; and privileged, not because of any outstanding merits of their own, but entirely owing to the unequal distribution of rights, to promote their sectional power and swell and consolidate their most unhallowed gains. The absence of the slightest evidence of a social conscience offends us, though scarcely so much as their dreary sense of values, the three things to count with them being, nobility of rank, keys of power and tangible wealth.

[TulsaMoon]

So in regards to the whole pension/401k argument, I think I have it now.

Laws changed (written by big corporate interests) that allow pension funds to be raided before they are due. This hurts the common man (even though there are pension insurance programs that keep the vast majority of people whole) in a roundabout way because now companies are less inclined to offer pensions. 401ks set up for the common man allow individuals to raid their own pensions early, but this is not a problem, because it wasn't caused by a greedy corporation. Does that pretty much sum it up?

When companies were forced to put pension obligations on the books is when this really took a turn for the worse. Insert executive pension plans, executive deferred-compensation plans into the employee pension plan and you have an even larger obligation. Cutting pensions reduced obligations and generated income.

401ks really are to little to late for the common man. By that I mean the common man saves to little and starts to late in life to do so. He also raids his 401k for different things such as a house purchase, medical bill payments and other items allowed by law.

Retirement Heist by Ellen Schultz details this.

[AquaMan]

Was doing some light reading and ran across a 'forward' from a book.  It's about a family who have a family home in England that goes back 800 years.  And is applicable today with people like Trump.  Paris Hilton.  The Kardashians....




 This extract from Bernard Falk's fascinating book "The Berkeleys of Berkeley Square", published by Hutchinson & co. London 1944, should place the following in its proper perspective.

For the majority of present day mankind, delight in the magnificence of chivalry is an acquired taste. Hence the achievement of the Lords of Berkeley, floodlit though it may be by the martial splendour of the Feudal ages, makes a strictly limited appeal to the imagination. At bottom there is little to distinguish them from their fellow Barons. They never seem to approach, much less touch, greatness. As we summon their unloved ghosts from the dim past, and reclothe them with flesh and blood, seeking the while to recapture the passions that were the mainsprings of their actions, the feeling of thrilled expectancy wholly eludes us. For so far from being the elect of the race, they are a commonplace people raised above the heads of their fellow-men purely by accident of birth; and privileged, not because of any outstanding merits of their own, but entirely owing to the unequal distribution of rights, to promote their sectional power and swell and consolidate their most unhallowed gains. The absence of the slightest evidence of a social conscience offends us, though scarcely so much as their dreary sense of values, the three things to count with them being, nobility of rank, keys of power and tangible wealth.

That's some damn fine writing.

[erfalf]

Was doing some light reading and ran across a 'forward' from a book.  It's about a family who have a family home in England that goes back 800 years.  And is applicable today with people like Trump.  Paris Hilton.  The Kardashians....




 This extract from Bernard Falk's fascinating book "The Berkeleys of Berkeley Square", published by Hutchinson & co. London 1944, should place the following in its proper perspective.

For the majority of present day mankind, delight in the magnificence of chivalry is an acquired taste. Hence the achievement of the Lords of Berkeley, floodlit though it may be by the martial splendour of the Feudal ages, makes a strictly limited appeal to the imagination. At bottom there is little to distinguish them from their fellow Barons. They never seem to approach, much less touch, greatness. As we summon their unloved ghosts from the dim past, and reclothe them with flesh and blood, seeking the while to recapture the passions that were the mainsprings of their actions, the feeling of thrilled expectancy wholly eludes us. For so far from being the elect of the race, they are a commonplace people raised above the heads of their fellow-men purely by accident of birth; and privileged, not because of any outstanding merits of their own, but entirely owing to the unequal distribution of rights, to promote their sectional power and swell and consolidate their most unhallowed gains. The absence of the slightest evidence of a social conscience offends us, though scarcely so much as their dreary sense of values, the three things to count with them being, nobility of rank, keys of power and tangible wealth.

Trump. Paris Hilton. The Kardashians. Hillary Clinton...

[heironymouspasparagus]

Trump. Paris Hilton. The Kardashians. Hillary Clinton...

Origins - very different.  The first came from a life of entitlement from the git-go.  They "earned" their money the old-fashioned way....they inherited it.

[heironymouspasparagus]

That's some damn fine writing.

Thought you might like it.  The source is an engineer who also digs into his history - not the author of that....interesting.  He is no longer in the inheritance path, apparently.

[erfalf]

Origins - very different.  The first came from a life of entitlement from the git-go.  They "earned" their money the old-fashioned way....they inherited it.

But she is not in the position she is in, if it wasn't for others "earning" it. If her husband isn't President, she is no where near sniffing a nomination.

[heironymouspasparagus]

But she is not in the position she is in, if it wasn't for others "earning" it. If her husband isn't President, she is no where near sniffing a nomination.

Maybe.  Maybe not.  Who would have ever thought Bernie would get as far as he did?   I literally could not believe it of this country!

[erfalf]

Maybe.  Maybe not.  Who would have ever thought Bernie would get as far as he did?   I literally could not believe it of this country!

I'm not sure what a sucessful Bernie run would have said about America.

Except for maybe Americans like free stuff and smoking weed.