03-05-2011, 06:11 PM
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#97 (permalink)
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warrior bodhisattva
Super Moderator
Location: East-central Canada
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Quote:
Originally Posted by flstf
[Funny but misleading comic.]
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As much as 34% of companies with 100 or more employees have a traditional pension plan.
Jobs That Still Offer Traditional Pensions - US News and World Report
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The biggest myth is that our pensions are overly generous. Teachers pay about 90 percent of their own pension costs. Like other public employees, we do not participate in Social Security, saving taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars a year because the state doesn’t contribute 6.2 percent of our salaries into that system.
On average, we pay 10 percent of our salaries toward our own pensions, the state pays 2 percent, and municipalities pay nothing. That’s a bargain for taxpayers. What’s more, our pensions are not extravagant, averaging $38,637 a year for teachers and school administrators.
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The myths about unions - The Boston Globe
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Out of every dollar that funds Wisconsin's pension and health insurance plans for state workers, 100 cents comes from the state workers.
How can that be? Because the "contributions" consist of money that employees chose to take as deferred wages – as pensions when they retire – rather than take immediately in cash. The same is true with the health care plan. If this were not so a serious crime would be taking place, the gift of public funds rather than payment for services.
Thus, state workers are not being asked to simply "contribute more" to Wisconsin' s retirement system (or as the argument goes, "pay their fair share" of retirement costs as do employees in Wisconsin' s private sector who still have pensions and health insurance). They are being asked to accept a cut in their salaries so that the state of Wisconsin can use the money to fill the hole left by tax cuts and reduced audits of corporations in Wisconsin.
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.
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The Big Myth in Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's Union-Busting Crusade - Robert Schlesinger (usnews.com)
Generally speaking, though, the comic does point out that perhaps the problem is that there aren't enough unions.
U.S. Corporate Profits Hit Record in Third Quarter - NYTimes.com
Wealth And Inequality In America
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Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön
Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot
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