How much longer will Colorado taxpayers stand for this? (Denver: brokers, house)

[contiempo]

This really pisses me off. This is corruption plain and simple.

Rosen: Court ruling on PERA keeps taxpayers in the dark - The Denver Post

[davebarnes]

corrupt = guilty of dishonest practices, as bribery; lacking integrity; crooked

Not one bit of corruption has been uncovered with PERA.

Gaming the system, probably.
Poorly written eligibility rules, probably.

The legislature can fix all of this. Write your reps.

[contiempo]

Originally Posted by davebarnes

corrupt = guilty of dishonest practices, as bribery; lacking integrity; crooked

Not one bit of corruption has been uncovered with PERA.

Gaming the system, probably.
Poorly written eligibility rules, probably.

The legislature can fix all of this. Write your reps.

If you think this system doesn't lack integrity, then you and I have a different definition of integrity. $22 billion in the hole is a BIG lack of integrity in my opinion. They also are dishonest about their financial projections. This is more than just a poorly thought out system. This is a conscious effort to move money from those to earn it to those who abuse it.

Writing to your rep is a complete waste of time - they are PERA members too. The system will have to burn down, and I hope these PERA members are dumped on their ass broke.

[artisan4]

Rosen is a far-right extremist who has kept a constant drumbeat to destroy public pensions the way the corporate sector has. He and his pals at the Independence Institute constitute a local version of the political cancer from the right eating away at our democracy or what's left of it.

[contiempo]

Rosen is hardly a far-right extremist. He has a column in the Denver Post for God's sake, which is hardly a far-right publication. You must be a PERA member. Good for you. I hope you can retire at 55 and live off of a taxpayer subsidized pension for 30+ years.

And FYI, we have a Constitutional Republic - always have and hopefully always will. It was never a "democracy" and if you don't think out of control public spending is a problem then we will have to agree to disagree.

[Colorado Rambler]

This thread really pisses me off. So now it's Colorado's turn to step on the band wagon to frack over teachers and retired law enforcement?

My Mother retired on a PERA pension and she was barely able to get by. Her income was $1,300/month. My, my. My Mom couldn't even afford to put a new roof on her house and everytime it rained or snowed there was a leak right over her bed. By that point, I couldn't give her financial help, but an acquaintance who was a roofer finally came to her aid and did the work for free.

Mom had been employed as a para-librarian by a school district in the Pikes Peak region. Since WWII had rudely disrupted my European mother's education, she wasn't eligible for a higher paying teacher's wage - like teachers get paid a gazillion dollars anyhow - especially ones in stupid Colorado Springs, home of Doug Bruce. That school district got the bargain of the century when they hired her. She was wonderful. She learned everything a professional librarian is taught in graduate school all on her own. She was great with children and the kids loved her.

If folks are going to bring up fat cats retired on PERA, they ought to also bring up the many others like my Mom. Without her there would have been even more illiterates walking around in Colorado Springs than there are now. But yeah, let's just eff over dedicated teachers and all the rest since we've granted immunity to the REAL culprits in this situation - the Wall Street high rollers who gamed the system and brought on the recession while scampering away scot free themselves. State pension and retirement funds took a heavy hit while the REAL culprits guzzle drinks and snort cocaine on some beach in the Cayman Islands.

I used to be the head of reference at the East Library (Pikes Peak Library District) in Colorado Springs. Doug Bruce would cruise in there all the time so that he could use our extensive and very costly legal collection to research ever more clever ways to reduce funding for education, libraries and everthing else. That hypocrite. I used to long to hand him the $350,000/year bill that it cost to maintain our outstanding reference collection that he was using for free to attempt to make sure that those volumes would vanish for lack of library funding.

Whenever I saw that SOB walk in, I'd have important work to do in my office and I'd vanish. Be damned if I'd help that bastard figure out how to use those complicated legal materials.

Yeah, forget PERA. Let's just cut Colorado State government services completely and give the money to the tea party to put in their crack pipes. The children of Colorado can grow up wild and illiterate while the cities on the Front Range can be given over to gangs and drug dealers.

Your tax dollars NOT at work.

[contiempo]

Blah, blah, blah. This is not an argument for PERA, but an argument against captalism yet again. It is the fat cats' fault! Death to capitalism! My mother, brother, second cousin was sleeping in a ditch even with PERA! It is all BS. Don't like the stock market? Then don't invest in it. If you don't like corporations, then don't buy there stuff. I fail to see how that makes the state of Colorado responsible for footing the bill on these reckless pension plans. But why should I expect any less from COD - full of the radical, anti-capitilist, extreme left.

Classic strawman argument at the end - let's cut all state spending! Now I will knock that fake argument down and look like a populist champion! I am not an anarchist, but managing PERA the current way will leave nothing for anybody.

Who do you think makes the money to help pay for PERA? What exactly do you think PERA invests its money in to try and pay for these defined benefit plans? The evil stock market!

[Colorado Rambler]

Originally Posted by contiempo

Blah, blah, blah. This is not an argument for PERA, but an argument against captalism yet again. It is the fat cats' fault! Death to capitalism! My mother, brother, second cousin was sleeping in a ditch even with PERA! It is all BS. Don't like the stock market? Then don't invest in it. If you don't like corporations, then don't buy there stuff. I fail to see how that makes the state of Colorado responsible for footing the bill on these reckless pension plans. But why should I expect any less from COD - full of the radical, anti-capitilist, extreme left.

Classic strawman argument at the end - let's cut all state spending! Now I will knock that fake argument down and look like a populist champion! I am not an anarchist, but managing PERA the current way will leave nothing for anybody.

Who do you think makes the money to help pay for PERA? What exactly do you think PERA invests its money in to try and pay for these defined benefit plans? The evil stock market!

What's "COD"? My Mom was a republican, btw. I don't believe Colorado retiree's have any say on how PERA makes its investments - my Mom didn't anyhow.

If you love what Goldman Sachs and hot shot Wall Street Investment brokers did for the US economy, well, hey! Excuse me for stepping on your tail.

But pretending that every PERA recipient is bathing in riches is a bit over the top.

[contiempo]

COD is autocorrect for CDF as apparently there" is for "their". And I don't care about your saintly mother or her political affiliation. Wall Street is in NY. The issue is unfunded PERA liability that Colorado taxpayers have to bail out for you and mommy.

Also, Goldman Sachs is a huge DNC contributor. Why do you suppose that is? You simply can't make a good argument for PERA largesse. You just point to Wall Street as 2 wrongs making a right.

[phetaroi]

Originally Posted by contiempo

...And I don't care about your saintly mother...

Always love seeing that Christian attitude from the far right.

I have no idea what line of work you're in, but I hope you have a suitable pension, and social security, and Medicare when you retire.