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McConnell says Let the States file bankruptcy for under funded Pension Plans

serfserf Member Posts: 9,217 ✭✭✭✭
 Well there is your answer to how The Governments make promises and then wash their hands of it when the system fails to deliver, it's just the  beginning for the downhill slide of American's  Status as a prosperous nation. The federal reserve can't bail out everybody without hyper inflation kicking in and they know it.
                                                                                       serf
   https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/mcconnell-says-he-favors-allowing-states-to-declare-bankruptcy/ar-BB1336bq

His statements set up a conflict with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who said on Bloomberg Television Wednesday a “major package” of aid for state and local government will be in the next stimulus legislation considered by Congress.

McConnell may also find himself in conflict with President Donald Trump. The president said Tuesday after meeting with New York Governor Andrew Cuomo that states will need assistance. “And I think most Republicans agree too, and Democrats,” Trump said. “And that’s part of phase four.”

McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, noted he blocked additional state and local aid in the latest relief package, which passed the Senate Tuesday and is set for a vote Thursday in the House.




Comments

  • BobJudyBobJudy Member Posts: 6,445 ✭✭✭✭
    The pension problems that the state's have are not related to the virus pandemic. They are the result of greedy unions and politicians attempting to buy votes with golden parachute programs. The underfunding of state pension plans and misuse of funds by States should have nothing to do with the federal government. It is real easy to spend other people's money if there are no penalties for not spending it properly or wisely. Illinois is probably the best, or actually the worst example I can think of. Bob
  • serfserf Member Posts: 9,217 ✭✭✭✭
    edited April 2020
    BobJudy said:
    The pension problems that the state's have are not related to the virus pandemic. They are the result of greedy unions and politicians attempting to buy votes with golden parachute programs. The underfunding of state pension plans and misuse of funds by States should have nothing to do with the federal government. It is real easy to spend other people's money if there are no penalties for not spending it properly or wisely. Illinois is probably the best, or actually the worst example I can think of. Bob
       The virus may not be the cause but it certainly drained all the resources along with Trump's tax cuts overhaul for Big Business the last two years. Now it's time to pick and choose who gets what crumbs that is left before it all comes crashing down on we the people.  The system is nothing but a corrupt shell game.
                     The U.S.post office has been broke for years yet the politicians propped it up  while it gave away billons for AIG
     in 2009.The whole system is riddled with cash buyouts and payoffs to capitalist cronies. This is the new repeat rape going on now in 2020 that will be the last straw that breaks the camel's back,just watch.
                                     serf
       

    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-aig/who-got-aigs-bailout-billions-idUSTRE52624P20090308

    The U.S. Federal eserve has refused to publicize a list of AIG’s derivative counterparties and what they have been paid since the bailout, riling the U.S. Senate Banking Committee.

    Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Donald Kohn testified before that committee on Thursday that revealing names risked jeopardizing AIG’s continuing business. Kohn said there were millions of counterparties around the globe, including pension funds and U.S. households.

      https://www.reuters.com/article/us-aig/who-got-aigs-bailout-billions-idUSTRE52624P20090308

    Representative Paul Kanjorski told Reuters on Thursday that he had been informed that a large number of AIG’s counterparties were European.

    “That’s why we could not allow AIG to fail as we allowed Lehman to fail, because that would have precipitated the failure of the European banking system,” said Kanjorski, a Democrat from Pennsylvania who chairs the House Insurance Subcommittee.







  • mark christianmark christian Forums Admins, Member, Moderator Posts: 24,456 ******
    edited April 2020
    There were several cities in California that has had this problem long before the virus. It is a tricky situation because many county and municipal employees are not eligible for Social Security and as public employees,  they have no 401k benefits. The promised pensions are all that they have.  I have a couple of friends back in California in that situation. They paid their portion of the pension, but the agency they worked for either did not, or underfunded their portion of the contribution based on the high earnings of the pension fund. Bailing out state pension funds would be a staggering amount of money. 
  • BobJudyBobJudy Member Posts: 6,445 ✭✭✭✭
    serf said:
    BobJudy said:
    The pension problems that the state's have are not related to the virus pandemic. They are the result of greedy unions and politicians attempting to buy votes with golden parachute programs. The underfunding of state pension plans and misuse of funds by States should have nothing to do with the federal government. It is real easy to spend other people's money if there are no penalties for not spending it properly or wisely. Illinois is probably the best, or actually the worst example I can think of. Bob
       The virus may not be the cause but it certainly drained all the resources along with Trump's tax cuts overhaul for Big Business the last two years. Now it's time to pick and choose who gets what crumbs that is left before it all comes crashing down on we the people.  The system is nothing but a corrupt shell game.
                     The U.S.post office has been broke for years yet the politicians propped it up  while it gave away billons for AIG
     in 2009.The whole system is riddled with cash buyouts and payoffs to capitalist cronies. This is the new repeat rape going on now in 2020 that will be the last straw that breaks the camel's back,just watch.
                                     serf
       

    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-aig/who-got-aigs-bailout-billions-idUSTRE52624P20090308

    The U.S. Federal eserve has refused to publicize a list of AIG’s derivative counterparties and what they have been paid since the bailout, riling the U.S. Senate Banking Committee.

    Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Donald Kohn testified before that committee on Thursday that revealing names risked jeopardizing AIG’s continuing business. Kohn said there were millions of counterparties around the globe, including pension funds and U.S. households.

      https://www.reuters.com/article/us-aig/who-got-aigs-bailout-billions-idUSTRE52624P20090308

    Representative Paul Kanjorski told Reuters on Thursday that he had been informed that a large number of AIG’s counterparties were European.

    “That’s why we could not allow AIG to fail as we allowed Lehman to fail, because that would have precipitated the failure of the European banking system,” said Kanjorski, a Democrat from Pennsylvania who chairs the House Insurance Subcommittee.




    Most state pension funds have been in the red for decades. The virus spending may have added a couple of percent to the deficit in their plans but now they are looking for the feds to bail them out for decades of mismanagement. As far as the post office, if the politicians hadn't forced them to fund their pension plan so far into the future (80 years) that some who may eventually collect haven't been born yet, they would be solvent. The Postal Service is just that - a service provided by your tax dollars. None of us mail as much as we used to but if they go away have fun paying FedEx or Ups 20x what the post office charges to deliver a letter. Bob



  • serfserf Member Posts: 9,217 ✭✭✭✭

     Just a couple of percentages points? They have a total package of over 6 trillion dollars! Get a clue!
                                     serf
     https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/04/06/wall-street-wins-again-bailouts-time-coronavirus

    The Fed, the Casino, and Trillions on the Line

    In total, the CARES Act that Congress passed offers about $2.2 trillion in government relief. As President Trump noted while signing the bill into law, however, total government coronavirus aid could, in the end, reach $6.2 trillion. That’s a staggering sum. Unfortunately, you won’t be surprised to learn that, given both the Trump administration and the Fed, the story hardly ends there.

    More than $4 trillion of that estimate is predicated on using $454 billion of CARES Act money to back Federal Reserve-based corporate loans. The Fed has the magical power to leverage, or multiply, money it receives from the Treasury up to 10 times over. In the end, according to the president, that could mean $4.5 trillion in support for big banks and corporate entities versus something like $1.4 trillion for regular Americans, small businesses, hospitals, and local and state governments. That 3.5 to 1 ratio signals that, as in 2008, the Treasury and the Fed are focused on big banks and large corporations, not everyday Americans.

    In addition to slashing interest rates to zero, the Fed announced a slew of initiatives to pump money ("liquidity") into the system. In total, its life-support programs are aimed primarily at banks, large companies, and markets, with some spillage into small businesses and municipalities.

    Its arsenal consists of $1.5 trillion in short-term loans to banks and an alphabet soup of other perks and programs. On March 15th, for instance, the Fed announced that it would restart its quantitative easing, or QE, program. In this way, the U.S. central bank creates money electronically that it can use to buy bonds from banks. In an effort to keep Wall Street buzzing, its initial QE revamp will enable it to buy up to $500 billion in Treasury bonds and $200 billion in mortgage-backed securities -- and that was just a beginning.

    Two days later, the Fed created a Commercial Paper Funding Facility through which it will provide yet more short-term loans for banks and corporations, while also dusting off its Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF) to allow it to buy securities backed by student loans, auto loans, and credit-card loans. TALF will receive $10 billion in initial funding from the Treasury Department’s Emergency Stabilization Fund (ESF).

    And there’s more. The Fed has selected asset-management goliath BlackRock to manage its buying programs (for a fee, of course), including its commercial mortgage and two corporate bond-buying ones (each of which is to get $10 billion in seed money from the Treasury Department’s ESF). BlackRock will also be able to purchase corporate bonds through various Exchange Traded Funds, of which that company just happens to be the biggest provider.

    Surpassing measures used in the 2008 crisis, on March 23rd, the Fed said it would continue buying Treasury securities and mortgage-backed securities "in the amounts needed to support smooth market functioning.” In other words, unlimited quantitative easing. As its chairman, Jerome Powell, told the Today Show, “When it comes to this lending, we’re not going to run out of ammunition, that doesn’t happen.” In other words, the Fed will be dishing out money like it’s going out of style -- but not to real people. 

    By March 25th, the Fed’s balance sheet had already surged to $5.25 trillion, larger than at its height -- $4.5 trillion -- in the aftermath of the global financial crisis and it won't stop there. In other words, the 2008 playbook is unfolding again, just more quickly and on an even larger scale, distributing a disproportionate amount of money to the top tiers of the business world and using government funds to make that money stretch even further.




  • BobJudyBobJudy Member Posts: 6,445 ✭✭✭✭
    I said the state pension funds not the fed deficit. Perhaps you should read more carefully before telling me to get a clue. The fed has already bailed out the states with the stimulus package to keep their tax base solvent. The only increase to the states pension deficit is the individual states reallocating funds to fight the virus and not meeting their fiscal obligations to fund the plans. But why should this crisis be any different than all the other ways they direct funds instead of meeting obligations to their retirees? Perhaps you should do some research as to why the state pension funds are so much in arrears and why nothing has been done about it. In other words "get a clue" about what I posted. Bob
  • serfserf Member Posts: 9,217 ✭✭✭✭


       The corrupt unions and the local pension planners down at the union headquarters is a side story issue to the bigger issues of Central banks buying all the junk bonds from the corrupt International  Bankers to get bailed out for their bad loans so they can lobby the corrupt Congress again to stick it the Tax payers and call it rule of law and it's just legal robbery of the tax payers.
       The Unions are just wanting to get free money like all the others players that are too big to fail. The pandemic just push the time table up on the con game and the Banks junk bonds should fold just like union's pensions. In my opinion.
    The whole system of the banking wealth of the economy is a lie and the  Debt is put on we the people as a crime against humanity.

                                           serf
  • BobJudyBobJudy Member Posts: 6,445 ✭✭✭✭
    Serf you are kind of all over the place with your postings. I thought the issue was with the feds bailing out state and local government pensions. The main reasons for these plans being in the red were unrealistic promises made to employees and diverting promised funds to other projects. Now with the virus bringing the pension crisis to a head they want the fed to bail out the state's problems. Caifornia, Illinois and New York thumb their nose at federal rules and laws and spend resources on sanctuary cities and illegal immigrants. The same resources they could have been using to fund their pension plans. Now that it is time to pay the piper they stick their hands out and want the rest of the country to bail them out. Must be nice to be a politician that can flout federal law and expect a reward for doing so. I have never been a fan of government unions but if we have to put up with them why are there still pension plans? Most of the private sector has gone to 401K plans because businesses can no longer afford old style pensions. Why do people think govt. pensions are any more affordable? Maybe because they are using someone else's money. Bob

  • SW0320SW0320 Member Posts: 2,386 ✭✭✭✭
    There were several cities in California that has had this problem long before the virus. It is a tricky situation because many county and municipal employees are not eligible for Social Security and as public employees,  they have no 401k benefits. The promised pensions are all that they have.  I have a couple of friends back in California in that situation. They paid their portion of the pension, but the agency they worked for either did not, or underfunded their portion of the contribution based on the high earnings of the pension fund. Bailing out state pension funds would be a staggering amount of money. 
    The problem that is plaguing many states is the amount that was paid in by the employess does not correspond to the amount paid out.  In our state and town as an employee it was always supposed to be that you could retire after 20 years regardless of your age and you got 80% of your highest three years of salary.  At that time most employees were only having 5% taken out of their pay.  The reason for this arrangement was that almost exclusively state and local govt. wages were signficantly lower than private sector wages

    Then what comes along but the employees want the same wages as the private sector and keep the same benefits.  When I was on our town Finance Committee, the committee argued that if the employees wanted private sector wages they should have private sector retirement i.e SS and 401K.  The employees were outraged they were going to strike, bring a lawsuit etc. 

    Well the town select board caved and the employees got the private sector wages and keep the public sector benefits.   Now those employees are retired getting 80% of their three highest years of increased wages for longer.  No system can sustain that type of payout. 

    So an employeee who made $50,000 gets $40,000 or 3,333 per month, many are paid way over this 50K illustration. 
    A SS beneficiary retiring at age 70 with the max paid in over 35 years of SS will get $3,790 per month.  

    I would certainly like to get $3,333 per month even at age 70 let along starting at age 45 or 50.

    So I think it is going to be inevitable that some state and local employees are going to have to get a haircut or the systems are going to collapse completely with the lack of contributions by the participants and the govt over the years, along with the amount and longevity of the payouts.
  • mjrfd99mjrfd99 Member Posts: 4,556 ✭✭✭
    Can't claim bankruptcy when you "have the ability to pay"  
    States HAVE the ability to pay:
    Raise taxes.  I know you and I don't like the answer but the d-rats do and will be another excuse for them to tax rape the country.
    Heard the mayor of * Newark say basically  his city will revolt if the extra checks don't keep coming. 
    d-rat extortion 101.   
    "feeds me or we riot" 

  • serfserf Member Posts: 9,217 ✭✭✭✭
    edited April 2020
    BobJudy said:
    Serf you are kind of all over the place with your postings. I thought the issue was with the feds bailing out state and local government pensions.

          The corruption is all over the place thus my posts reflect this.The Chaos is coming in this country with inflation,rising taxes and politicians who are incompetent and ignorant.. After two major corrections which wipe out invested 401K's 
    in the Stock market,who would even think of getting on the fiat money Ponzi schemes of debt induced system of The Federal Reserve as the main driver of prosperity now? Pension plans are just another promise they can't keep one way or another.

                                                             serf
  • BobJudyBobJudy Member Posts: 6,445 ✭✭✭✭
     serf said:
    BobJudy said:
    Serf you are kind of all over the place with your postings. I thought the issue was with the feds bailing out state and local government pensions.

          The corruption is all over the place thus my posts reflect this.The Chaos is coming in this country with inflation,rising taxes and politicians who are incompetent and ignorant.. After two major corrections which wipe out invested 401K's 
    in the Stock market,who would even think of getting on the fiat money Ponzi schemes of debt induced system of The Federal Reserve as the main driver of prosperity now? Pension plans are just another promise they can't keep one way or another.

                                                             serf
    Even Don Quixote only tried to go after one windmill at a time. The message becomes so diluted with multiple warnings that no action is taken as no one knows where to start. Bob

    Oh before I forget, my 401K still has a whole lot more than I ever put in it even after 2 major corrections, ie. mini crashes.
  • serfserf Member Posts: 9,217 ✭✭✭✭
     The big picture never dilutes the image."Is The not the whole greater than the sum of its parts" I suspect so. Win the battle but lose the war comes to mind. This is not about a comical novel.
                                                    serf
     However, as governments and central banks weigh their options, they might just decide to create a country-wide central bank account for every citizen and replicate their holdings from private banks onto that government system. Fast-forward a few months and as everyone gets their bailout money (issued on fresh central bank accounts), supposed capitalists will find themselves in a situation that looks more like neo-feudalism or communism than a free market.


  • BobJudyBobJudy Member Posts: 6,445 ✭✭✭✭
    Cervantes wrote probably the most influential novel of all time. Part satire, part romance, part comedy and not what I would dismiss as a comic novel. The link you have takes you to an article by a person whose business is helping to develop crypto currency businesses. Do you think his dire warnings just may have some self interest involved? Sort of like starting a fire and then selling you the water to put it out. While I have my doubts about how the financial bailouts have been handled, I have yet to see anyone come up with a better solution. Way to much pork and special interest spending but some of the funding should help insure there will be an economy healthy enough to get us back somewhere close to normalcy. Never let the " big" picture blind you to the individual jobs that need to be done. If you do then the vehicle may have new tires but is kind of dangerous if you forget the lug nuts. Bob
  • serfserf Member Posts: 9,217 ✭✭✭✭
     Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease. In this case the disease was just the thing to push it all over the cliff and the cure is just going to hit the bottom like the disease.
    China is running a crypto- currency now so it's just another electronic device that is going mainstream soon. In fact The Feds already do it. It's the reserve currency that The Federal Reserve is worried about the most however.
                                         serf
     And yet, as Ben Broadbent of the Bank of England points out, central banks do issue digital currencies – but to banks, not to everyone.Bank reserves are electronic, and they are used as a final means of settlement between banks. They are, in effect, the banks’ digital currency. And they are used for global payments. An international wire transfer in dollars between a bank in the U.S. and a bank in India is settled via Fedwire using electronic bank reserves held at the Federal Reserve.
     

     

    Going further, if all central banks issued digital currency directly to households and businesses, it would also be possible for major central banks to intermediate global payments in multiple currencies, without the need for correspondent banks. Such a central bank network is already to some extent in existence, since FX conversion among the world’s reserve currencies can already be seamlessly handled using the currency swap lines established in 2008 to ensure that the world’s premier central banks could provide unlimited dollar liquidity to their country’s commercial banks in the financial crisis.These swap lines were made permanent in 2013.

    ************************************************************************************************************************************
    Soon the Magic between the central banks will run out on their grand exchange rates and pooling supplies. Basically all central banks collective debt between themselves will kill all values of all currencies. After all a central bank is just a Ponzi scheme run by The institutions that are fed it from a so called reserve currency for exchanges that are seemly have value to the overall illusion of digital wealth. It's all base on a false faith of security. It's just a shell game in the end. The bigger it grows the more  weaker it becomes. It won't be long.

    The Federal Reserve provides U.S. dollars to a foreign central bank. At the same time, the foreign central bank provides the equivalent amount of funds in its currency to the Federal Reserve, based on the market exchange rate at the time of the transaction. The parties agreed to swap back these quantities of their two currencies at a specified date in the future, which is the next day or as far ahead as three months, using the same exchange rate as in the first transaction. Because the terms of this second transaction are set in advance, fluctuations in exchange rates during the interim do not alter the eventual payments. Accordingly, these swap operations carry no exchange rate or other market risks.

    Is the Federal Reserve exposed to foreign exchange or private bank risk in extending these lines?
    No. Dollars provided through the U.S. dollar liquidity swaps are provided by the Federal Reserve to foreign central banks, not to the institutions obtaining the funding in these operations. The foreign central bank receiving U.S. dollars determines the terms on which it will lend these dollars onward to institutions in its jurisdiction, including how the foreign central bank will allocate dollar funds to financial institutions, which institutions are eligible to borrow, and what types of collateral they may borrow against. The terms governing these loans of dollars are in all cases released to the public by the foreign central banks. As the Federal Reserve's contractual relationship is exclusively with the foreign central bank and not with the institutions obtaining dollar funding in these operations, the Federal Reserve does not assume the credit risk associated with lending to financial institutions based in these foreign jurisdictions. The provision of dollars and receipt of foreign currency, and the receipt of dollars and return of foreign currency at the swap's maturity date, both occur at the same foreign exchange rate so that the Federal Reserve is not exposed to movements in foreign exchange rates.




  • BobJudyBobJudy Member Posts: 6,445 ✭✭✭✭
    Can you give the source of this article? Some conclusions drawn seem to make sense but others seem to have weak evidence to justify them. One thing crypto currency proponents ignore is faith in the value of the currency and the security of the currency in the real world. Crypto currency is nothing but fiat currency of the future. No better, no worse than we have now, just different. Going to it would be no different than making the dollar or yen the universal currency. To do so would take us closer to that one world order situation that you keep warning us about. Bob
  • chiefrchiefr Member Posts: 13,718 ✭✭✭✭
    us55840 said:
    BobJudy said:
    The pension problems that the state's have are not related to the virus pandemic. They are the result of greedy unions and politicians attempting to buy votes with golden parachute programs. The underfunding of state pension plans and misuse of funds by States should have nothing to do with the federal government. It is real easy to spend other people's money if there are no penalties for not spending it properly or wisely. Illinois is probably the best, or actually the worst example I can think of. Bob
      SPOT ON!

    Yep and double yep
    Shumer actually got it right when he said, it was the blue states that have this problem. Illinois, NJ and NY have the highest taxes and people fleeing as a result. DEMOCRATs have a long history of killing taxing the goose that lays golden eggs.  
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