Should Detroit's municipal retirees lose their pensions?

[Claudette]

Lots of talk about doing that and i say go for it. These were all affirmative action hires and didn't deserve the job in the first place.

If there is no money to pay those pretty nifty retirement packages then they will lose em. Just like folks who lost retirment packages in the private sector when company's went bankrupt.

To bad. So Sad. Mayby they should kick those Dem's and their Union reps out for making those over the top retirment packages possible.

It all works great till you run out of other peoples money.

 

[Harry Dresden]

can you walk into an auto and work..... and NOT be a paying union member?

And steal the wage the union guys bargained for? yeah, if you're a stinkin SCAB you can do that. And remember this; the assembly-plants (not mfg plants) the japs have here were built with taxpayer dollars, not company money. And the non-union wages there are only good as long as the UAW gets a fair wage from Detroit. UAW goes under, those boys down in Arkansas and Alabama are gonna get cut big time....

You union-haters should remember if Henry Ford hadn't ordered his Pinkertons to shoot at striking auto-workers, the unions wouldn't have had to go to the Italians for protection. That had strings attached...it's the rackets boys who are behind the dirty unions, not the workers.

Steal what union wages ??
the wages the unions bargained for on behalf of their members from the company is a agreement between them and the company .

if i go to work for a auto maker and they offer me a wage (whether if be the same or more than the union dickheads get ) thats between me and the company not the unions business .
trouble with the unions is they think they own ..
i have a RIGHT to bargain for my own wage/ benefits

so if a company has 20,000 employees the company has to sit down with 20,000 individuals and have 20,000 individual contracts?....

 

[Harry Dresden]

It's not about taking away their pensions. The money is not there. So the issue is whether money should be taken from other taxpayers and given to these retirees.

if you did not do nothing about it in the 70's,80;s 90's or 10 years ago.....then the people that worked all those years in good faith deserve what was said they would get when they started 30-40 years ago...

Many of the people who made those promises are dead. It's no longer their problem. When private companies go bankrupt, pensions get lost. They were promised too, but if the money isn't there anymore, then the money isn't there. It sucks, but the fact remains there is no money to pay those pensions. Why should public employees get a better deal than their private counterparts?

i am not saying they should.....it just so happens we are talking about Detroit....not GM...and so those guys are dead?.....so are many of the workers.....and the reason there is no money?.....because we are spending Billions on shitholes over seas helping people who are going to spit in our faces......no matter how much we help them.....like Afghanistan.....

 

[Edgetho]

And steal the wage the union guys bargained for? yeah, if you're a stinkin SCAB you can do that. And remember this; the assembly-plants (not mfg plants) the japs have here were built with taxpayer dollars, not company money. And the non-union wages there are only good as long as the UAW gets a fair wage from Detroit. UAW goes under, those boys down in Arkansas and Alabama are gonna get cut big time....

You union-haters should remember if Henry Ford hadn't ordered his Pinkertons to shoot at striking auto-workers, the unions wouldn't have had to go to the Italians for protection. That had strings attached...it's the rackets boys who are behind the dirty unions, not the workers.

Steal what union wages ??
the wages the unions bargained for on behalf of their members from the company is a agreement between them and the company .

if i go to work for a auto maker and they offer me a wage (whether if be the same or more than the union dickheads get ) thats between me and the company not the unions business .
trouble with the unions is they think they own ..
i have a RIGHT to bargain for my own wage/ benefits

so if a company has 20,000 employees the company has to sit down with 20,000 individuals and have 20,000 individual contracts?....

I did.

But there was only Fifteen Thousand of us.

Five thousand others also had individual contracts. The other 60,000 employees didn't get contracts.

Engineers and other professionals at a Company like Ford likely have contracts.

If for no other reason than to protect themselves (the Company). Non-Compete clauses, non-disclosure agreements, etc.

And you can't have a unilateral contract. Wouldn't hold up in Court for ten seconds. IOW, if you wanna get, you gotta give.

You really aren't very aware of the 'real' world, are you?

 

[Harry Dresden]

Well, I see it this way. Detroit made promises to its retirees that it could not keep. So instead of telling them to tighten their belts and quit complaining, they caved in to their will. And, instead of funding the things they need to fund, instead of helping fund their first responders, and their men in blue, or something to improve their horrendous infrastructure (believe me, everyone's seen the pictures)... they funded the greed and avarice of its retirees. So, it's a circle of death basically.

the greed and avarice?.....lets see what you say templar when some kid your age tells you when you are in your 60's that you are a greedy **** and dont deserve what you just worked 30 years to get.....back 30 years ago when those guys were your age and was offered a govt job.....everyone said to them.....hey thats great, good pay, good benefits, job security .....good going.....now they are greedy *****.....

Hey, if they aren't willing to help their city out of the doldrums... what else do I call it Harry? If they are unwilling to make some sort of sacrifice to save the city they worked for, then what is it called? Greed and avarice. There is no other way to describe it. Okay, let me put it more succinctly.

My Grandmother is a retiree. She worked at UGA fron 1969 to 2003. Thirty-four years. She has a pension. BUT, she is and has made it clear that she would be willing to take a hit if the city she lived in were bankrupt and needed some way of recovering from it. I know, I know, a retiree should not have to pay for the mistakes of the city.

But something has to give correct? Either the city collapses under its own debt or you agree to take a cut in your pension check. Your city is $18 billion underwater. What about the other people who live there? Should they have to suffer for your unwillingness to compromise? Those are hard questions, and I know you have to live on that check. But the future of your home, your community, and your city depend on it (in this fictional scenario at least). Why such a terse reaction to such a sacrifice? Would you be willing to help pull your city out of the grave?

A man can take a bullet for his country, or for his family, but he he won't take a hit in his pension to save his hometown. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that is incredibly sad.

some retirees are finding it hard to survive now....so lets make it harder for them....and then they go get some kind of aide and you are paying for them anyway....so how are you saving money?.........and another question.....are the politicians losing their pension as well?....or did they put some kind of clause in that makes them immune to this kind of shit?......

 

[JoeBlam]

Once again, you can blame the blacks, you can blame the democrats, you can blame the unions until Hell freezes over but you better blame the companies who moved offshore and took our JOBS with them. Everything that was promised in Detroit and many other cities, was based on a continuing tax revenue from workers....with jobs. Is Detroit unique? Only in that the blacks burned down their own neighborhoods and ran thousands of whites out of town. Other than that, Detroit isn't unique at all. I read this morning CHICAGO is on the ropes. What kind of shape do you suppose Cleveleand is in? Pittsburgh moved away from steel and has apparently saved themselves by becoming a regional center for various services.....so good for them. LA is toast. Only overbearing tax-loads are saving the eastern cities. So like Thanatos144 says, don't do any victory jigs about Detroit.....there are several cities who made promises in good times made lousy by companies who abandoned the cities that made them great.

 

[Harry Dresden]

Steal what union wages ??
the wages the unions bargained for on behalf of their members from the company is a agreement between them and the company .

if i go to work for a auto maker and they offer me a wage (whether if be the same or more than the union dickheads get ) thats between me and the company not the unions business .
trouble with the unions is they think they own ..
i have a RIGHT to bargain for my own wage/ benefits

so if a company has 20,000 employees the company has to sit down with 20,000 individuals and have 20,000 individual contracts?....

I did.

But there was only Fifteen Thousand of us.

Five thousand others also had individual contracts. The other 60,000 employees didn't get contracts.

Engineers and other professionals at a Company like Ford likely have contracts.

If for no other reason than to protect themselves (the Company). Non-Compete clauses, non-disclosure agreements, etc.

And you can't have a unilateral contract. Wouldn't hold up in Court for ten seconds. IOW, if you wanna get, you gotta give.
You really aren't very aware of the 'real' world, are you?

oh **** you....you talk like your shit dont stink and everyone elses does.....hey i got news for you....your shit stinks just as bad as everyone elses...maybe its you who isnt aware of reality.....

 

[Edgetho]

the greed and avarice?.....lets see what you say templar when some kid your age tells you when you are in your 60's that you are a greedy **** and dont deserve what you just worked 30 years to get.....back 30 years ago when those guys were your age and was offered a govt job.....everyone said to them.....hey thats great, good pay, good benefits, job security .....good going.....now they are greedy *****.....

Hey, if they aren't willing to help their city out of the doldrums... what else do I call it Harry? If they are unwilling to make some sort of sacrifice to save the city they worked for, then what is it called? Greed and avarice. There is no other way to describe it. Okay, let me put it more succinctly.

My Grandmother is a retiree. She worked at UGA fron 1969 to 2003. Thirty-four years. She has a pension. BUT, she is and has made it clear that she would be willing to take a hit if the city she lived in were bankrupt and needed some way of recovering from it. I know, I know, a retiree should not have to pay for the mistakes of the city.

But something has to give correct? Either the city collapses under its own debt or you agree to take a cut in your pension check. Your city is $18 billion underwater. What about the other people who live there? Should they have to suffer for your unwillingness to compromise? Those are hard questions, and I know you have to live on that check. But the future of your home, your community, and your city depend on it (in this fictional scenario at least). Why such a terse reaction to such a sacrifice? Would you be willing to help pull your city out of the grave?

A man can take a bullet for his country, or for his family, but he he won't take a hit in his pension to save his hometown. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that is incredibly sad.

some retirees are finding it hard to survive now....so lets make it harder for them....and then they go get some kind of aide and you are paying for them anyway....so how are you saving money?.........and another question.....are the politicians losing their pension as well?....or did they put some kind of clause in that makes them immune to this kind of shit?......

Shit, the dimocrap corruptocrats have already stolen enough money to live on for a thousand years.

To be blunt about this, let the people who broke the system suffer. I'm not talking about putting them in the street with nothing, I'm talking about cutting their pensions and benefits down by -- A lot. Really a lot.

Like I've been saying all along.... These people, the gubmint employees? They aren't victims, they're accomplices, co-conspirators, active participants.

They drove the get-away car while the elected dimocrap scum and Union thugs were robbing the taxpayers of Detroit; and their cut was in the form of fat contracts with ridiculous benefits.

I have no sympathy for them and no pity either. But I think they should be compensated for their time.

At a much, much (MUCH) reduced rate.

Not so much for them, but for their families.

 

[Edgetho]

so if a company has 20,000 employees the company has to sit down with 20,000 individuals and have 20,000 individual contracts?....

I did.

But there was only Fifteen Thousand of us.

Five thousand others also had individual contracts. The other 60,000 employees didn't get contracts.

Engineers and other professionals at a Company like Ford likely have contracts.

If for no other reason than to protect themselves (the Company). Non-Compete clauses, non-disclosure agreements, etc.

And you can't have a unilateral contract. Wouldn't hold up in Court for ten seconds. IOW, if you wanna get, you gotta give.
You really aren't very aware of the 'real' world, are you?

oh **** you....you talk like your shit dont stink and everyone elses does.....hey i got news for you....your shit stinks just as bad as everyone elses...maybe its you who isnt aware of reality.....

 

[Katzndogz]

Once again, you can blame the blacks, you can blame the democrats, you can blame the unions until Hell freezes over but you better blame the companies who moved offshore and took our JOBS with them. Everything that was promised in Detroit and many other cities, was based on a continuing tax revenue from workers....with jobs. Is Detroit unique? Only in that the blacks burned down their own neighborhoods and ran thousands of whites out of town. Other than that, Detroit isn't unique at all. I read this morning CHICAGO is on the ropes. What kind of shape do you suppose Cleveleand is in? Pittsburgh moved away from steel and has apparently saved themselves by becoming a regional center for various services.....so good for them. LA is toast. Only overbearing tax-loads are saving the eastern cities. So like Thanatos144 says, don't do any victory jigs about Detroit.....there are several cities who made promises in good times made lousy by companies who abandoned the cities that made them great.

It has nothing to do with companies moving off shore. Detroit was losing population. It was getting smaller with a smaller tax base. Instead of dealing with the realities of a smaller population, Detroit's city budget got bigger. Much of the government expenditures were for legacy benefits. As the city got smaller, the pensions got bigger.

 

[JoeBlam]

Once again, you can blame the blacks, you can blame the democrats, you can blame the unions until Hell freezes over but you better blame the companies who moved offshore and took our JOBS with them. Everything that was promised in Detroit and many other cities, was based on a continuing tax revenue from workers....with jobs. Is Detroit unique? Only in that the blacks burned down their own neighborhoods and ran thousands of whites out of town. Other than that, Detroit isn't unique at all. I read this morning CHICAGO is on the ropes. What kind of shape do you suppose Cleveleand is in? Pittsburgh moved away from steel and has apparently saved themselves by becoming a regional center for various services.....so good for them. LA is toast. Only overbearing tax-loads are saving the eastern cities. So like Thanatos144 says, don't do any victory jigs about Detroit.....there are several cities who made promises in good times made lousy by companies who abandoned the cities that made them great.

It has nothing to do with companies moving off shore. Detroit was losing population. It was getting smaller with a smaller tax base. Instead of dealing with the realities of a smaller population, Detroit's city budget got bigger. Much of the government expenditures were for legacy benefits. As the city got smaller, the pensions got bigger.

I've heard about enough out of you....you're a humorless drone...you never laugh or make anybody laugh. You're a lawyer according to you which might explain why you're an anal-retentive who picks fights because you can't get along with anybody. I'm FROM Detroit...are you? If not, just STFU....you don't know your ass from up about Detroit.

 

[Edgetho]

The Claremont Institute - The Unheavenly City


The Unheavenly City
A review of Detroit: An American Autopsy, by Charlie LeDuff


Posted June 20, 2013

When people ask me why I moved from liberal to conservative, I have a one-word answer: Detroit. I grew up there, on a middle-class grid street in northwest Detroit and a curving street in affluent suburban Birmingham, and I got a job as an intern in the office of the mayor in the summer of 1967 when Detroit rioted. I was at the side of Mayor Jerome Cavanagh and occasionally Governor George Romney during the six days and nights in which 43 people, mostly innocent bystanders, died. I listened to the radio in the police commissioner's office as commanders announced, shortly after sundown, that they were abandoning one square mile after another. The riot ended only after federal troops were called in and restored order.

Cavanagh was bright, young, liberal, and charming. He had been elected in 1961 at age 33 with virtually unanimous support from blacks and with substantial support from white homeowners—then the majority of Detroit voters—and he was reelected by a wide margin in 1965. He and Martin Luther King, Jr., led a civil rights march of 100,000 down Woodward Avenue in June 1963. He was one of the first mayors to set up an antipoverty program and believed that city governments could do more than provide routine services; they could lift people, especially black people, out of poverty and into productive lives. Liberal policies promised to produce something like heaven. Instead they produced something more closely resembling hell. You can get an idea of what happened to Detroit by looking at some numbers. The Census counted 1,849,568 people in Detroit in 1950, including me. It counted 713,777 in 2010.

To get a feel for what this particular hell is like, you should read Charlie LeDuff's Detroit: An American Autopsy. LeDuff is a reporter who left the New York Times for the Detroit News and left the News when an editor took all the good stuff out of a story on a local judge. He's now a reporter for Fox 2 and you can get an idea of his personal style by watching his clips on YouTube. Detroit is a personal story for him: he grew up in the not-affluent suburb of Westland (named after a shopping center, as he notes) with a divorced mother who ran a florist shop on the east side of Detroit but who couldn't keep her children from dire fates. A daughter who became a streetwalker and died violently left behind her own daughter who would overdose on heroin. Three of LeDuff's brothers are working at just-above-minimum-wage jobs or not working at all (one pulled out a tooth with pliers). Charlie was lucky. He went into "the most natural thing for a man with no real talent. Journalism."

* * *

His book opens as he notices in the ice at the bottom of an elevator shaft in one of Detroit's many, many abandoned buildings the feet of a corpse. We see him having a drink with Council President Pro Tem Monica Conyers, the congressman's wife who later went to jail for bribery—and stopping off before to see the 13-year-old girl who, while attending a council session, criticized Conyers for calling the council president "Shrek." He makes the mistake of stopping for gas on the east side ("semi-lawless and crazy") and escapes being robbed by two goons when he pulls a gun from his glove compartment.

Edge:
Dee-Troit's a Pus Hole and it wasn't inevitable.

It was dimocraps. Both elected and voter.

dimocrap voters beget dimocrap politicians which begets loserdom.

Only the very wealthiest of Cities can survive dimocrapism. And even they will eventually succumb to the fate that is the only possible result of rule by dimocraps -- Loserdom.

Happens every time. Without fail.

 

[Ame®icano]

Work 35 years and have your pension pulled

Republican version of the American Dream

They shouldn't get preferred treatment at the first place.

They will still get Social Security.

 

[Katzndogz]

Once again, you can blame the blacks, you can blame the democrats, you can blame the unions until Hell freezes over but you better blame the companies who moved offshore and took our JOBS with them. Everything that was promised in Detroit and many other cities, was based on a continuing tax revenue from workers....with jobs. Is Detroit unique? Only in that the blacks burned down their own neighborhoods and ran thousands of whites out of town. Other than that, Detroit isn't unique at all. I read this morning CHICAGO is on the ropes. What kind of shape do you suppose Cleveleand is in? Pittsburgh moved away from steel and has apparently saved themselves by becoming a regional center for various services.....so good for them. LA is toast. Only overbearing tax-loads are saving the eastern cities. So like Thanatos144 says, don't do any victory jigs about Detroit.....there are several cities who made promises in good times made lousy by companies who abandoned the cities that made them great.

It has nothing to do with companies moving off shore. Detroit was losing population. It was getting smaller with a smaller tax base. Instead of dealing with the realities of a smaller population, Detroit's city budget got bigger. Much of the government expenditures were for legacy benefits. As the city got smaller, the pensions got bigger.

I've heard about enough out of you....you're a humorless drone...you never laugh or make anybody laugh. You're a lawyer according to you which might explain why you're an anal-retentive who picks fights because you can't get along with anybody. I'm FROM Detroit...are you? If not, just STFU....you don't know your ass from up about Detroit.

I won! Not a thing to refute what I said.

 

[Katzndogz]

Work 35 years and have your pension pulled

Republican version of the American Dream

They shouldn't get preferred treatment at the first place.

They will still get Social Security.

They will also get part of the pension. The pensioners have a secured debt, they are in the same position as all those people who bought Detroit's municipal bonds to keep it afloat.

 

[JoeBlam]

Some asshole from Birmingham, which is a very wealthy suburb, can say whatever he pleases....it's his version of what happened. Bring back the jobs from all over Dixie and Mehico....GM ran to cheap labor like all the rest of them after NAFTA and joining the WTO. Reopen the plants that are shuttered in every American city....it's blood simple. Tell the Fortune 500 to live up to the promises they made for the sweetheart deals they got from hundreds of cities, and then ran from. I'm one Con who is sick to my stomach from what I'm reading here....we all know what's happened to these cities....bring back the JOBS and things will get healed quick....otherwise it's just a clusterfuck of denials.

 

[JoeBlam]

It has nothing to do with companies moving off shore. Detroit was losing population. It was getting smaller with a smaller tax base. Instead of dealing with the realities of a smaller population, Detroit's city budget got bigger. Much of the government expenditures were for legacy benefits. As the city got smaller, the pensions got bigger.

I've heard about enough out of you....you're a humorless drone...you never laugh or make anybody laugh. You're a lawyer according to you which might explain why you're an anal-retentive who picks fights because you can't get along with anybody. I'm FROM Detroit...are you? If not, just STFU....you don't know your ass from up about Detroit.

I won! Not a thing to refute what I said.

No, you bored another "jury" in your mind with a lazy recitation of facts already in evidence while ignoring what really happened. Where did you get your law degree....Haiti?

 

[OldUSAFSniper]

Let me first say that I have no remorse, no sad momentary thoughts of how terrible it is that Detroit is bankrupt, both fiscally and morally. Detroit put ITSELF in this position. It has not had a fiscally responsible mayor since 1961. For the past 20 years, those with the knowledge have been warning of this occurrance like an oncoming train, yet the people who were in charge in Detroit did not want to listen, instead being concerned with 'getting their own'. Have you ever listened to some of the audio from Detroit city council meetings? Have you ever heard about how they talk about absolute CRAP (naming a tunnel) over and over and fail to even consider hard decisions? Does the name Kwame Kilpatrick ring a bell? John Conyers?

I heard a clip of a Detroit City Councilwoman talking about how the Federal Government should bail out Detroit. Let me absolutely clear about this: I have already contacted my Senators and Congressmen and advised that I would be VEHEMENTLY AGAINST bailing out Detroit in any fashion. Detroit made the bed it now has to lie in. Detroit, perhaps the State of Michigan, should be responsible for cleaning up the mess.

It was not the Automobile industry or any other business that left Detroit in the position that it finds itself currently facing. It was the lack of responsible leadership that tried to feather its own political bed with sweetheart deals for labor unions that they can now ill afford. It is the retired and union membership that will now pay for earlier collusion with city officials.

If you want to see what unopposed liberalism will get you, look at Detroit. Good job Democrats...

 

[Ame®icano]

No we should honor our debts. I am also not talking about a bail out. I am talking about selling off assets to honor their debts. Even still they will get pennies on the dollar. If this was you or me this is how it would go down.

and any pensions paid should also get pennies on the dollar.... if that at all.

Why? all pensions according to Michigan constitution should have already been paid for. If not and they get pennies on the dollar it means WE the people have committed fraud. It will be a sad day... It is gong to happen I know but it is a sad day.

"Michigan Constitution Article IX, Section 24

The accrued financial benefits of each pension plan and retirement system of the state and its political subdivisions shall be a contractual obligation thereof which shall not be diminished or impaired thereby.

Financial benefits arising on account of service rendered in each fiscal year shall be funded during that year and such funding shall not be used for financing unfunded accrued liabilities."

How many of you think that money is still there?

 

[ShootSpeeders]

Is Detroit unique? Only in that the blacks burned down their own neighborhoods and ran thousands of whites out of town. Other than that, Detroit isn't unique at all.

What do you mean "only?". Blacks are the whole problem in detroit. When a city is 90% blacks who can't read or do third grade arithmetic, collapse is inevitable.