[BartSimpson]

I just got back from a working lunch (meaning a meeting) where the discussion was ostensibly about California's looming pension crisis.

Seems that the state and its various municipalities, counties, districts, and etc. have overpromised and underfunded pensions for retired government workers and the mathematical shitstorm is going to start impacting in FY2018-2019. Which is sooner than analysts had predicted because the state's primary pension agencies (Cal-PERS and Cal-STRS) were telling the Legislature that everything was just rosy.

The problem is that the 'rosy' part was based upon assumptions of 7% investment growth from 2009 to current when the actual growth has been around 2% the whole time.

The state is quite seriously contemplating a default of its pension obligations.

So what is being planned to deal with the problem?

Adjusting pension schedules to figures that will be sustainable? Nope.

Raising taxes? Yeah, that's been tried and it's not working as wealthy people and companies flee the state. Revenue projections for FY2018-2019 are flat.

Nope, the plan being bandied about is to create severe tax penalties for people and companies who try to leave the state.

One idea was that when people sell their homes the state will take control of their funds and if the people buy a home out of state then the state can easily slice off as much as half of the proceeds as a penalty.

One serious proposal was for the state to seize fleeing businesses under eminent domain in order to keep critical revenues and jobs in the state. No shit.

A proposal that may well make it to law before July 1 is to impose a 'carbon tax' on the rental of moving vans and trailers with the most severe penalties on those who leave the state. Of course, this would be sold as offsetting a carbon footprint when in fact the purpose is to frustrate anyone trying to leave the state.

I suggested that we build a wall to keep people in.

[martin14]

One of your team has been spending too much time at Lenin's tomb,
huffing the formaldehyde.

Got any kids who live out of state ? Sell them everything right now !

If not, time for a few shell companies.

In Texas.

[xerxes]

Riaisint taxes would be the obvious solution. But correct me if I’m wrong Bartman, but there’s a weird legislative quirk in Cali that makes it hard to do that right?

[BartSimpson]

xerxes xerxes:

Riaisint taxes would be the obvious solution. But correct me if I’m wrong Bartman, but there’s a weird legislative quirk in Cali that makes it hard to do that right?

The people passed a state constitutional amendment known as 'Proposition 13' back in the 1970's that puts a lid on how much property tax can rise in any given year.

This was due to the fact of people literally being taxed out of their homes due to rising assessments and property values.

They can raise other taxes as they want.

[xerxes]

That’s what I was thinking of. Thanks.

[BartSimpson]

Yw.

[rickc]

https://www.hg.org/article.asp?id=5410

California never learns. This business owner moved from California to Nevada back in 1991. California stalked and harassed him for over 10 years, even hiring private eyes to spy on him. He caught them going through his garbage. Not only did he not give in to their shake down he sued them for 388 million dollars, and won.

[BartSimpson]

rickc rickc:

https://www.hg.org/article.asp?id=5410

California never learns. This business owner moved from California to Nevada back in 1991. California stalked and harassed him for over 10 years, even hiring private eyes to spy on him. He caught them going through his garbage. Not only did he not give in to their shake down he sued them for 388 million dollars, and won.

Yup. What's not mentioned in this article is that a California judge gave the California Franchise Tax Board a search warrant for Gilbert Hyatt's home in Nevada.

The FTB then not only acted outside of their jurisdiction they executed an illegal warrant. Several accounts of the illegal raid include Carson City officers responding to the reports of the FTB at Hyatt's home and the FTB drawing their guns and threatening the Carson City cops.

Nevada State SWAT troopers then responded and the FTB backed off.

The FTB is not a very nice agency.

A friend of mine who moved to Wyoming from California had FTB jerks show up armed on her property looking to search their home and intimidate them and Park County Sheriff's Department responded and essentially told the FTB people to leave and that if they came back the homeowners had a right to defend themselves.

FTB also sends tax bills to out of state companies and persons who do not owe any taxes to California. A man I used to know who did exactly this job at FTB told me they do it because about 20% of the people pay the bill and another 20% negotiate a settlement.

[DrCaleb]

Ahh, they tyranny of the State. Smells like old leather and desperation.

Run, Bartman! Run fast, don't look back.

[BeaverFever]

Chronic underfunding of pension plans im both the public and private sector has been a core value of the right and centre-right in North America for decades.

The business and market idolatrists admires by the right and so-called centrists like most Democrats and Martin-Chretien Liberals hate pension plans and are always trying to undermine them. It interferes with their vision of an impoverished peasant population toiling away for the greater benefit of the business community.

Businesses, financial advisors, and other supposed experts and worshippers of financial markets have successfully lobbied pension regulators over the past several years if not decades to allow pension plans to make increasingly aggressive and overly generous assumptions about future investment returns in order to reduce funding obligations. And when those assumptions prove to be false, employers have an overly generous amount of time to make up the difference.

In Ontario for example an employer under certain circumstances can go for up to 3 years without conducting a valuation of its pension plan and when that valuation occurs, if the valuation reveals that the plan has been underfunded and is not on track to make future pension payments to retirees and future retirees, the employer has up to FIFTEEN YEARS to make the catch-up payments. So naturally businesses always wanting to pay as little as possible are always making catch up payments.

There is another rule that says if a plan is insolvent, i.e. doesn’t have enough assets to pay out the entitlements that “current” retirees and active employees have already earned then it must do a valuation every year and make up the shortfall over 5 years. But it’s being proposed to eliminate this rule because employers find it burdensome so expect a lot more employees to have the Nortel and Sears Canada experience of the magical disappearing pension that evaporates the minute the company decides to declare bankruptcy.

These provisions are the same or similar across Canada

[BartSimpson]

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

Chronic underfunding of pension plans im both the public and private sector has been a core value of the right and centre-right in North America for decades.

-5 for being a mindlessly partisan hack. California has been run by the Democrats for the past forty years and the pension problem here is squarely on the shoulders of the left. I only wish the Republicans could shoulder some blame but that would mean they'd have to have some actual power in the state and for all of this decade they haven't controlled even one single statewide office.

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

The business and market idolatrists admires by the right and so-called centrists like most Democrats and Martin-Chretien Liberals hate pension plans and are always trying to undermine them. It interferes with their vision of an impoverished peasant population toiling away for the greater benefit of the business community.

Businesses, financial advisors, and other supposed experts and worshippers of financial markets have successfully lobbied pension regulators over the past several years if not decades to allow pension plans to make increasingly aggressive and overly generous assumptions about future investment returns in order to reduce funding obligations. And when those assumptions prove to be false, employers have an overly generous amount of time to make up the difference.

In Ontario for example an employer under certain circumstances can go for up to 3 years without conducting a valuation of its pension plan and when that valuation occurs, if the valuation reveals that the plan has been underfunded and is not on track to make future pension payments to retirees and future retirees, the employer has up to FIFTEEN YEARS to make the catch-up payments. So naturally businesses always wanting to pay as little as possible are always making catch up payments.

There is another rule that says if a plan is insolvent, i.e. doesn’t have enough assets to pay out the entitlements that “current” retirees and active employees have already earned then it must do a valuation every year and make up the shortfall over 5 years. But it’s being proposed to eliminate this rule because employers find it burdensome so expect a lot more employees to have the Nortel and Sears Canada experience of the magical disappearing pension that evaporates the minute the company decides to declare bankruptcy.

These provisions are the same or similar across Canada

Mathematics simply isn't your forte.

[BartSimpson]

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

Ahh, they tyranny of the State. Smells like old leather and desperation.

Run, Bartman! Run fast, don't look back.

Exactly. This is why I am not counting on the pension at all. I fully expect the state to bankrupt itself out of the obligation and, honestly, that's the right thing to do if the state is going to be able to pay for schools, roads, and emergency services.

[BeaverFever]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

Chronic underfunding of pension plans im both the public and private sector has been a core value of the right and centre-right in North America for decades.

-5 for being a mindlessly partisan hack. California has been run by the Democrats for the past forty years and the pension problem here is squarely on the shoulders of the left. I only wish the Republicans could shoulder some blame but that would mean they'd have to have some actual power in the state and for all of this decade they haven't controlled even one single statewide office.

Democrats are not the Left. They are (mostly) centre-right and they take their marching orders from Wall Street and the business community just like everyone else.

Like read the very next paragraph down in your quote for fucks sake and stop being such a dense knee-jerk reactionary

$1:

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

The business and market idolatrists admires by the right and so-called centrists like most Democrats and Martin-Chretien Liberals hate pension plans and are always trying to undermine them. It interferes with their vision of an impoverished peasant population toiling away for the greater benefit of the business community.

Businesses, financial advisors, and other supposed experts and worshippers of financial markets have successfully lobbied pension regulators over the past several years if not decades to allow pension plans to make increasingly aggressive and overly generous assumptions about future investment returns in order to reduce funding obligations. And when those assumptions prove to be false, employers have an overly generous amount of time to make up the difference.

In Ontario for example an employer under certain circumstances can go for up to 3 years without conducting a valuation of its pension plan and when that valuation occurs, if the valuation reveals that the plan has been underfunded and is not on track to make future pension payments to retirees and future retirees, the employer has up to FIFTEEN YEARS to make the catch-up payments. So naturally businesses always wanting to pay as little as possible are always making catch up payments.

There is another rule that says if a plan is insolvent, i.e. doesn’t have enough assets to pay out the entitlements that “current” retirees and active employees have already earned then it must do a valuation every year and make up the shortfall over 5 years. But it’s being proposed to eliminate this rule because employers find it burdensome so expect a lot more employees to have the Nortel and Sears Canada experience of the magical disappearing pension that evaporates the minute the company decides to declare bankruptcy.

These provisions are the same or similar across Canada

Mathematics simply isn't your forte.

. What are you talking about?

[shockedcanadian]

Ontario was proposing something similar for graduates who left for California. Go figure. Both socialist jurisdictions who don't know how to balance a chequebook.

[BartSimpson]

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

Democrats are not the Left.

In California not only are Democrats the left, they're proud of it.