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From Thursday’s Page 6 in the NY Post –
http://www.nypost.com/p/pagesix/obama_donors_ZsyQXeYy1wmjgdlLKUYaNJ
NYC education folks may not like the budget, but you have to give Gov. Andrew Cuomo credit from a political point of view.
In only a few months in office, at least on the budget front, he has whipped Albany lawmakers into line.
You may not have chosen to believe me, when I pointed out that the retroactive pension enhancements for public employees, particularly for NYC teachers, would destroy public services, particularly the NYC schools, because so much more money would have to be spent on the pension plans and not the classroom. But now we have independent confirmation from both an independent actuary and the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College that the NYC Teacher pension plan is one of the handful of most desperately underfunded major pension plans in the country. Two sources with two points of view, neither of which is right wing anti-union anti-worker although that is the shrill excuse the unions are making.
And you may not have chosen to believe me when I showed that as a result of the pillaging of corporations by those who run them, lower interest rates, and lower inflation, the expected future rate of returns on pension assets is much lower than most public employee pension funds assume. But would you believe John C. Bogle, founder of investment giant Vanguard Funds and the last honest man in finance? I certainly have, which is why I haven’t believe the BS Wall Street has been putting out for 15 years.
Though I've sometimes had problems with Nettie Mayersohn’s record, her story is one of a kind.
In 1982, as a female leader, she defied her Co-Leader Donnie Manes, who was then at the height of his power as both Broough Preisdent and Queens democratic boss, and got their local club to dump Manes' handpicked Assemblyman (and virtually lock Donnie out for the summer), and then she cleaned his clock in the primary.
As an Assemblywoman Mayersohn continued her record of not going with the flow, often in ways that annoyed her conference and her leadership.
My home is within 20 miles of the Indian Point nuclear reactors well within the 50 mile exclusion zone advised by the United States for the destroyed Japanese reactors.
A friend of mine told me Indian Point was perfectly safe. He lives on Long Island outside the 50 mile zone. I’m the one who loses his home, health and life in the event of a meltdown.
I just got an e-mail from the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College touting this report. The Center takes a very pro-public employee, pro-senior citizen position: there is "no choice" but to cut benefits for future employees and defer needed funding from the past to burden future generations of taxpayers as public services melt away. No way anyone who benefitted from retroactively enhanced pensions should be asked to sacrifice. The title of the report is "Can State and Local Pension Plans Muddle Through."
Now I cited independent actuary John Bury's analysis of all state pension plans and major city plans that shows that the NYC Teacher pension plan is one of the most underfunded in the country. Now this from the CRR: assuming an 8.0% return (which is nonsense as I showed here), most plans have at least 15 years before running out of money under the termination concept and 30 years under the ongoing concept. "Notable" exceptions include eight plans mentioned, including the New York City Teacher's plan.
Worst of Both Worlds Department: Least surprising budget revelation: Given a choice between folding on funding cuts or LIFO, the Teacher's Union chose to save LIFO.
In an overview of the remaining options for the MTA, I suggested that the buses and the payroll tax/taxi surcharge revenues be transferred to New York City and the counties, and the subway and commuter rail systems be required to break even on an auto equivalent basis – covering the cost of buying, maintaining, and operating the rail cars and collecting fares. This left other operating expenses to be covered by other revenues.
I had forgotten to mention paratransit, but that service should also be transferred to NYC and the counties, along with the buses, and along with paratransit reimbursement revenues. I’m not sure they could do a better job than the MTA, given that NYC has very high school bus costs despite having a much lower than average share of its children take school buses to school, in part because a well organized industry makes lots of campaign contributions to the New York City Council. But I’m not sure they could do worse either, given the insane cost of NYC paratransit per ride and the soaring share of people who somehow qualify. This post is about the maintenance of the infrastructure, and the stations.
