Pension Tsunami's Jack Dean on the Growing Wave of Public Pension Debt

At his website PensionTsunami, Jack Dean and his staff chronicle the ever-growing wave of public pension debt. "The whole idea of the pension was to provide public servants with a decent retirement," says Dean. "It wasn't to make them wealthy, to allow them to retire younger and with more money and be able to go off and play golf while the rest of us supported them."

Reason.tv's Ted Balaker spoke with Dean about a fiscal mess so large that even prominent liberals like former California Assembly Speaker Willie Brown are sounding the alarm.

Interview shot by Alex Manning and Paul Detrick. Edited by Manning. Approximately 9.47 minutes.

Go to http://reason.tv for downloadable versions of this and all our videos, and subscribe to Reason.tv's YouTube channel to receive automatic notification when new material goes live.

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• debt

[MagnusIan]

Socialism works until you run out of other people's money.

[Surhotchaperchlorome]

Solution: abolish government.

[verysmartdude]

OCERS has to project into the future so the unfunded liablity would be if every County employee worked 30 years and collected a pension, there may be a problem. It's like buying a new house and you put 10 percent down, you can still make the payments easily but your bank account would have to funded to be able to pay the house off in full. Only 10 percent retire, OCERS still has to fund as all of them make a 30 year career, that were the unfunded liability comes from it's not really there.

[swamimans]

@MrLuvmykidz no i blame public safety because they benefits and their unions promote these ridiculous salaries and pensions. you must be a govt worker

[sonoki82]

@sonoki82 And the response to each:

1.The contracts are the product of collusion, not negotiation. Unions controlled both sides of the table.

2.We use market criteria to set comp, not subjective self-serving praise.

3.Let's deal with both Wall St. thievery and yours. Walk and chew gum at the same time.

4.Only when you average in part-time workers and people who left the payroll after a few years.

5. This is a lie. Cops and firefighters live longer than the average taxpayer that supports them.

[sonoki82]

Here are the top 5 tactics that public employees use when defending their obscene pensions. You will always see some variation of these:

1. These are contractual obligations. If you don't like it, blame your legislators, not us.

2. I work really hard/provide a valuable service.

3. 100K/yr is nothing compared to those Wall St. thieves. You should focus your anger on them.

4. The average pension is just 25K.

5. Cops/firefighters die young, so a 6-figure pension is no big deal.

[sonoki82]

@MrLuvmykidz There is no difference b/t the "public safety" unions and the people who approved it. The former has bribed and bought the latter. You have coopted your bosses and as a result, there are no arms-length negotiations on these important issues. Instead, there is collusion to come up with the most obscene heist possible. Early retirement is a luxury, not an entitlement. Only the very wealthy and public employees with their taxpayer-financed trust funds count on quitting at 50.

[SaroDarksbane]

@MrLuvmykidz

They talk about 3% at 50 specifically.  If you start working at 20 and retire at 50, that's 90%.

[Surhotchaperchlorome]

@Aeronomer

Explained by Stefan Molyneux in his book, "Practical Anarchy".

[Aeronomer]

@Surhotchaperchlorome And replace it with what Einstein?

[yougiberishtube]

thumbs up

[MrLuvmykidz]

Misinformation again... You don't get 90% of your salary at age 50. The formula is 3% at 50. Which means if you start working at 25 you would get 3% times the years of service at 50 years old. Thus you would get 75% not 90% which this guys repeats over and over. This retirement was intially for Public Safety only approved by City counsel members everywhere. Now everyone, state and county workers jumped on board. Blame those who approved it, not public safety.