If kids can’t get a break on college loans NEITHER should Pension plans

originally posted by: JAGStorm
a reply to: eluryh22

When someone is part of a defined pension plan, they pay into it for x-years. They have little (if any) control over how that is invested. They would get penalized for something essentially 100% out of their control.

They need to take it up with those in control of the pension. They choose to work for that job and depend on that single income for retirement. Your retirement is never 100% out of your control, that is a fact. Diversify. This is going to be a hard lesson for those that want to rely 100% on Social Security in the future.
——————————————-
I don’t think you are entirely wrong when it comes to the pensions. I think there may be a difference to be made between public and private pensions though…. but that may be a different discussion altogether.

I will say for private pensions, if a bailout is needed and given, that particular system needs to be closed out so it doesn’t become a “rinse and repeat” scenario.

As far as social security, this is something that people are FORCED to pay into, so I’m not sure how it can be justified to not pay it back to the people who were compelled to contribute.

Someone taking a loan has complete control over how much to take out, compare different rates at times, and ultimately decide whether or not to go ahead with it. No surprises there.

I'll agree with that, at the same time, I feel these systems take advantage of young people and their lack of knowledge of finances.
————————————————-
I think about this sometimes but I always end up at the same place…… The student loan issues are upfront and center all over the place. It’s up to the borrower (and hopefully the parents if they have any sense at all).

Now, if you’re making a general complaint about government exceeding their authority to take from one group and give to another (often arbitrarily),
I’d probably agree with you more often than not. However, that is not how you framed the OP.

huh, I said "If it were me, NOBODY would be getting bailed out, not the Banks, not the College Students, not the Pensioners."



Sorry…. I must have messed up something with the quotes

originally posted by: JAGStorm
a reply to: network dude

regardless of how you feel about the difference between the two, the issue is and remains to be, that Biden can't just sign an EO and spend billions of dollars. It has to go through congress. That's why his rich kid loan forgiveness plan didn't work. Well, it did work for Biden, he just wanted to get those midterm votes, but it didn't work for the kids thinking they could spend that loan payment on beer.

I have a sneaking suspicion that some of those kids acted in haste and probably did things thinking the forgiveness was a done deal. It sucks. My husband and I have taught our kids, it's not done, until the ink is dry.

in this case, not until the check is cashed.

My grandson got his doctorate in physics a little over a year ago and has student loan debt in the neighborhood of $60,000.00.
During college he earned a substantial amount as a student professor, and every summer went to Antarctica for a month, earning nearly $40,00.00 for his time there.
Within weeks of graduation he accepted an job with a starting wage of $160,000.00 and a sign-on bonus of $60,000.00.

My son had co-signed his loans, and was contacted by the loan company with information on how to file for loan forgiveness. He told them he was just the co-signer, and they replied that it doesn't matter; if they loan were to be defaulted on, he would have to pay.

Grandson is now making a quarter million dollars a year and his loan qualifies forgiveness because his father is nowhere near that income bracket.

My grandson could well afford to pay his student loan debt, but why should he when the government is practically begging him to let the taxpayers do it for him?

As with most problems the government presents for us to argue and divide over, they're not addressing the heart of the issue, and instead of fixing the problem they're trying to put a billion dollar band-aid on the symptoms.

Billions and billions are spent by universities on their sports programs and beautification projects. The more they spend on their non-academic ventures, the more tuition increases.

During the Madoff fiasco two family members lost everything, including the money the earned and contributed over the course of 30 years employment.

Comparing retirement plans where on contributes their own money to a loan forgiveness plan where one has contributed zero money is the difference between night and day.

originally posted by: SRPrime

originally posted by: JAGStorm
www.illinoispolicy.org...

BIDEN PROMISES NEARLY $36 BILLION FOR NATIONAL PENSION BAILOUTS

The Biden administration promised nearly $36 billion to stabilize pension plans for Teamsters nationwide after forecasts predicted the system’s default by 2026. Union members would have seen their retirement benefits slashed by 60% if the system defaulted.

The proposed “hold harmless” pension reform developed by the Illinois Policy Institute would tie all pension cost-of-living adjustments to inflation rather than a fixed rate of annual growth, saving more than $50 billion by 2045. It would also increase required government contributions to fund 100% of promised pensions rather than the current 90% target.

All the same things said about the College loan forgiveness can be said for this.

-I don’t benefit from this
-I didn’t choose to work here
-My state isn’t responsible
-It is their problem if their fund was responsible
-I didn’t vote for this
-Pensioners should have known this was a possibility and planned better and not put all their eggs in one basket
-Pensioners should have been more savvy with their finances and have seen this has happened to other retirement plans.
-If there is a problem with the plan/financials the pensioners should take it up with the program and not expect Americans to BAIL them out.
-This isn’t a problem that happened overnight, it was predicted and could have been prevented


See how that works? But it doesn’t work that way. When it comes to some people they get “rescued” when it comes to others, you’re just out of luck.

I’m old enough to see the game. I’m old enough to know the whole college loan forgiveness was a probably a giant sham to get young people into even more debt to be debt slaves for the rest of their lives. Nothing is FREE, remember that. The only way you can escape this is to not play the game!

If it were me, NOBODY would be getting bailed out, not the Banks, not the College Students, not the Pensioners.
We are rewarding irresponsibility over and over in this country and wonder why we have such problems and division. This is not a liberal thing either, I’ve seen it happen on both side pretty regularly.

IF we ARE going to bail people out, we need to spread that equally, give the young people a bone too. Just my 2 cents.

Huge difference between a pension that was worked for and a loan we took out on purpose.

If you can't see that I dunno what to tell you -- these are not the same thing at all.

Well if that’s your opinion, then the taxpayers are on the hook for everyone’s retirement because my 401k took a major hit this year. I was told if I contributed to my 401k my entire career, I’ll have a very comfortable retirement. How about you and everyone else that wants people like me to pay for your crap choices go get a bagger job at Walmart and quit looking for handouts.

After throwing the energy trades under the environmental bus, then telling railroads they WILL accept the contract they voted against, a big handout to say Democrats are “still pro union” is no surprise.

a reply to: Middleoftheroad

Excellent points.

These people knew their pensions were underfunded for years/decades yet still nothing happened to correct it, yet now the taxpayers are on the hook again.

New workers went into the job knowing it was underfunded.

AND as someone else pointed out, WHY Illinois but not Detroit?

originally posted by: JAGStorm

originally posted by: Edumakated
Pension plans shouldn't get squat. Half the states are broke due to overly generous pension obligations. The plans have been mismanaged.

Just a little sidebar,

How the heck can you stand staying in that state?
It pains me to even visit lately. The "fees" costs and all the added taxes remind me very quickly of why
we left.

If I weren't married, I'd leave. We actually like where we live even if the village is batsh!t liberal though. We like out village due to the amenities and schools. Just an easy place to raise a family. The taxes and blue politics are definitely getting on my last nerve though. No where is perfect.

But... if it weren't that, I'd have a small cabin in North GA mountains, Tenn, or Western NC. The wife isn't a fan of rural living though.

The issue with pensions is that the unions force the state politicians to grant them these lucrative retirement deals. The problem is the tax payer isn't really represented at the negotiating table. The politicians want to get re elected so they bend to the will of the state unions during negotiations. Even left Democrats back in the day had an issue with govt workers being unionized for this very reason.

The pension funds are then mismanaged and the workers aren't putting in nearly enough funds relative to their benefit.

The rest of the tax payers should not be on the hook.

Here in IL it is a running joke that the state govt retirees head to Florida while bankrupting the state.

a reply to: Edumakated

It seems all the retirees on those pensions head straight to Florida.
They take all the retirement money with them compounding the problems.

The working middle class is left holding the bag. Now that Illinois doesn’t have enough of those middle class working people they want the rest of us to help. Screw that.

I’m sick of too big to fail. We need to let some of these things fail so there are repercussions for it not happening again.

So my question, Will you see states suing like they did with the college forgiveness. My guess is no.

Again. this is a bailout of the corrupt banks and markets that irresponsibly crime the entire financial system. they are rigged and these people , By MAKING BILLIONS, have put all of these pension plans at risk. THEY WERE JUST RELEASED to use pension plan funds as a backstop and now they are already in trouble. they steal and then the GOVT KNOWINGLY bails you out with your OWN MONEY.( our taxes). They take their cut with all the "donations" and kikbacks and we carry on. Look at 401Ks...they are a scam.a reply to: JAGStorm

This is one of those "knee-jerk" posts I warn people not to do... I'm probably going to say something that was already said; or maybe accidentally cause angst... sorry in advance.

Among the most important "blocks" of constituents for the Democratic Party is Union Labor. They are one of the few voting groups that will sublimate their potential costs in support of the group and hence the party. I won't get into their own parasitical infestations, as most every group has them.

The Biden administration ruffled important feathers in the Teamsters collective mindset by not compelling a resolution to their long-standing issues (the strike that never happened.) But magically, $36 billion is promised to be added to the tax-payers debt burden ... to make "nice" with the Teamsters... somehow their fiscal pain supersedes all others...

Funny thing..., if you make a list of who is "all in" with this plan, you might learn something about "party" designations...

a reply to: Maxmars

Funny thing..., if you make a list of who is "all in" with this plan, you might learn something about "party" designations...

I didn’t go there but know exactly what you are talking about….

a reply to: JAGStorm

It's all politics though.
Years ago,
While Detroit bankrupted, CalPERS was saved.

originally posted by: JAGStorm

originally posted by: Edumakated
Pension plans shouldn't get squat. Half the states are broke due to overly generous pension obligations. The plans have been mismanaged.

They were talking about this 15 years ago! You are telling me in 15 years they couldn’t come up with anything?
Crazy!

They could have kept Trump in office so Putin would have stayed home and then paid all the taxpayers back with the 100's of billions we are giving the Ukraine.


The democrat party never has money to help the American taxpayers and poor , but they have no problem laundering money overseas by the 100's of Billions and converting kids into transgender non binary trees.

The Republican party never has money to help the American taxpayers and poor, but they have no problem becoming full commies deciding the winners and loser of the market by bailing out private corporate Oligarchs.

Conclusion: neither the kids with student debt or the ukraine people will get the majority of that money as both party will launder and embezzle it. Only the middle and upperclass w2 workers that pay taxes will get fkd.

You have to be some kind of stupid to want the gov't to get involved in trying to fix the same things they intentionally fked up in the first place and are benefiting from. Yet, year after year people are shocked the gov't does stupid and wasteful things and yet congress keeps getting richer and richer.

/rant

originally posted by: zachsquatch1
I agree.

The government shouldn't mitigate risks with your collective gamble. They taxpayers shouldn't be on the hook for poor choices or bad luck.

I'll take it a step further and say that Social Security should be made optional. That's easier on the ears than to say "abolish it", even though the system would collapse in a year of it being made optional.

I disagree with you that Social Security should be optional. Social Security is backed up by the words and honor of the politicians in DC, and if they don't want to be verbally assassinated, they will NEVER let Social Security be optional.

a reply to: Tarzan the apeman.

Lmao...I am a union member and my union typically works alongside the teamsters. Best and brightest my ass...the have to borrow bodies from other unions because they can't even fill their calls. Half the guys I see are alcoholics and crack heads or tweakers. # even in my local there is a huge portion of people who are worthless beyond being a body to fill a call. This is ridiculous...

Just like Detroit was left to wither on the vine during the Obama years.
Contentious bankruptcy, mainly to to Detroit being corrupt, mismanaged and not paying their bills.
Detroit came through it though....

a reply to: DontTreadOnMe

and the mayor of Detroit went to prison. Did you support the bailout of the "too big to fail" banks? I have a feeling you did.

Did you support the trillion dollar tax cut for the rich? I have a feeling you did

Social security is a ponzi scheme. If any financial services company tried to offer a product like social security and run the fund like our politicians, they'd be in jail...

My retirement portfolio would be twice as big if I were allowed to invest my social security contributions I've made over the years. Not only that, I can't even pass my social security on to my kids...so much for generational wealth building.

a reply to: franklen

And his mother was a member of Congress.
The fact remains a democratic POTUS refused to intercede on one of the MOST democratic cities in the USA---at the time.
The fact remains other entities did get bailed.

I'm not saying whether they should or should not have been bailed.
After all, they owed hundreds of thousands to BCBS of Michigan and IIRC other health insurers, leaving the retirees out to dry.

Perhaps...be careful declaring the feelings of others on anonymous internet forums.

a reply to: Edumakated

Truth be told, I think Social Security [retired] and Social Security Disability should be two separate pots of money.
And it would be nice if raiding SS was no longer allowed.

I wish I could have invested my pension individually.
Pretty damn sure I could have done a lot better with my own financial adviser.