Pensions

STATE DEFICITS – $1 Trillion and Counting

Posted on by Helena

Well, the shitake is hitting the fan and all the idiotic Barney Fiefs in positions of power as governors and mayors think that raising every conceivable tax is going to magically produce their necessary revenue after tanking their economies.   Of course, state employee pensions would be first in line… Because unions support liberal candidates.

One such idiotic move was attempted by the mayor of Nashville wherein he thought he could slip thru a 32.6% property tax hike while his entire entourage was still vacationing at home amidst the pandemic epidemic flu virus.

As of 2016, the funding gap between state pension liabilities and assets was determined to be $1.4 trillion. According to Moody’s that gap increased by $1 trillion during the CoVid 19 selloff.   That gap widens every day that state and local revenue flattens.

The average pension across the country is roughly $28,000 compared to New York’s average of $53,000 representing 1.14 million members and current beneficiaries of 482,000.

So who are these Comptrollers in charge of managing state finances? Because they would not appear to be doing a great jon!

Tom DiNapoli has served New York State for 13 years in the capacity of Comptroller having achieved a degree in history and subsequently a masters in human resources.    His entire career has been in politics. He has absolutely no education in finance or economics .

California’s Controller is Betty Yee. Her bio states that – growing up she handled the books of her family’s dry cleaning business.   In college she went on to obtain degrees in Sociology and Public Administration. She has worked in politics her entire life.

What are the duties of state Comptrollers?

  • Conducting performance and financial audits of all City agencies;
  • Serving as a fiduciary to the City’s five public pension funds
  • Providing comprehensive oversight of the City’s budget and fiscal condition;
  • Reviewing City contracts for integrity, accountability and fiscal compliance;
  • Resolving claims both on behalf of and against the City;
  • Ensuring transparency and accountability in setting prevailing wage and vigorously enforcing prevailing wage and living wage laws; and
  • Promoting policies that enhance City government’s commitment to efficiency, integrity and performance for all New Yorkers.

I passed the CPA exam years ago and conducting financial audits, managing billions in assets, preparing budgets, etc… were highly specialized tasks reserved for the most competent in education and experience.   Degrees in history and sociology would hardly track that level of competence.

But that is who is managing state budgets.

New York is quickly approaching a deficit of $60 billion and California is climbing the ladder at $43 billion. I’d say the state governments had ridiculously ‘failed’ in their duties and responsibilities to manage.

And now they want President Trump to just give them all the money they lost – which is effectively money from you and I. Cryin’ the blues…

As of 2019, New York State was already in trouble facing a deficit of $6.1 billion as a result of rising Medicaid costs. Roughly one third of NY residents are on Medicaid representing a cost of $70 billion annually.

While Cuomo has recently stated that nursing homes represented the crisis in NY for CoVid 19, it was the state government that ‘ordered’ nursing homes to take in CoVid residents.   73% of all deaths in New York state claimed to be caused by CoVid 19 were residents of NYC. Twenty six other counties within New York report death rates of 5 and under, yet the lockdown applies to every county.   A number of counties have -0- deaths, but must adhere to the same lockdown restrictions as NYC.   The absurdity seems lost on Health commissioners, Comptrollers, Governors and Mayors who are irate that their deficit is not being wiped clean by President Trump and OUR Dollars!

A damning video of Cuomo’s response to the CoVid 19 virus reveals an arrogant, we are the best in the world, timeline response dating from February 2, 2020.   While claiming New York could handle it better than any other state, claiming New York had the best hospitals and most up to date equipment ‘in the world’ – to cryin’ the blues…

March 20th, Cuomo issued an Executive Order lockdown which remains in effect today.

Further dementia would have Pelosi brightly smiling while announcing that state and local governments require $1 trillion to stay in business and a new package is being assembled with Maxine Waters at the helm of distribution???  

https://www.cnbc.com/video/2020/03/30/cuomo-on-coronavirus-watch-a-timeline-of-his-comments-since-february.html

US Student Debt: Ask Bill Gates and New America Foundation – A Ponzi Scheme

Posted on by Helena

Student debt now stands at $1.41 trillion. 70% of college students are in significant debt, 44 million students and graduates. 33% of people over the age of 25 have a bachelors degree or higher.   While it sounds impressive, the percentage is actually lower than it was before student debt was initiated in 1958, before the debt was a federal obligation.   21% of public university’s revenue is made up from tuition and fees, the rest is subsidized.   90% of revenue of private universities is funded through tuition and fees.   The government spends over $80 billion on college students annually which is higher as a factor of GDP than Germany, France, Canada, Japan, Spain, and Italy who provide instate free education.  

What Happened?

Primary education in the US, on average, tops at roughly $13,500 per student per year, funded by taxpayers.   So where is all the money going?   40% pays for pensions. Another 10% is applied to administration, and of course now we have interest on school debt, purchase of buildings, outside services, etc…  How much is actually spent educating?   Pennies.

Blame Betsy Devos… Inane.   She inherited the entire broken system that took 60 years to create!

As of 2018, outstanding education debt had tripled over the previous 10 years!   That would be aka – Obama.   And it would seem interestingly coincidental.   If you want to control the youth – enrage and enwrap them in debt while indoctrinating them into a Socialist agenda of free everything.   I think it is called A Perfect Storm.

While many pundits would cite Germany’s model of free college, they dutifully forget that in Germany, college is a privilege for a select few based on whether the government determines you qualify for college or should instead benefit from ‘trade school’.

While I believe the notion of a trade school is beneficial, when the government makes the determination where you go, it, the government, owns your life.   That is called Communism.

It all fell apart under the Eisenhower introduction of the National Defense Education Act of 1958 which was launched to increase the number of science and math graduates.   Richard Cornuelle saw an opportunity and created United Student Aid Funds.   Private industry would back bank loans on behalf of college students after they exhibited rigorous potential for repayment based on guaranteed jobs upon graduation.   The model was a success! Student loan delinquency was 20 times lower, and job placement was $22.50 per student under the private plan.   Comparatively, the Federal Jobs Corps spent nearly $6700 per student during the same time period. And today that cost is $76,000 per actual placement.

In 1965, despite the success of Cornuelle, President Johnson signed the Higher Education Act, as part of his Great Society Agenda.   As a result, the government began a ferocious scheme to hijack the private institutions student loan programs and in 2000 under Bill Clinton Cornuelle’s vision was bought out by Sallie Mae for the sum of $770 million whereby the Federal government took over a successful private endeavor.

In 1999, the total outstanding student debt stood at $90 billion.   Ten years later, student debt grew by 511%. And the percentage of students graduating with a degree in math or sciences was roughly 20%.  Give it to the government to fail a successful private endeavor.

Today we offer degrees that have absolutely no benefit whatsoever in the job market, that cost the student in loans, that absolve any necessity in obtaining the degree, and further no value.   But hey, colleges want students and will offer whatever it takes to mobilize the thought that without a degree you are nothing… even if the degree is in dog watching.

Even if that degree is in – nothingness.

And still we wonder how it is that a person can graduate with a college degree in ‘communications’ and not be able to find a job outside of hamburger flipper at McDonalds while balancing a loan debt of $100,000?

Once again, the brain drain of this stigma can be found as a perpetual head thump – ‘if you don’t go to college you will make no money – and if you do, you can be a millionaire’.   Of course, many of the brain thumpers – never went to college, but that is rarely observed.

So what is the real point?

Money.   Control. Indoctrination.   And universities are all too eager to Swamp their pockets with this scheme funded – by taxpayers. Ultimately, WE pay for the defaulted loans, WE pay for the scholarships, WE pay the liberal arts degrees that have no inherent value!

Unfortunately today, even our esteemed private foundations that support foundations, that support NGO’s that support government funding of private enterprise – are mired in a clandestine middleman phenomena that basically redirects funds from the cause they claim to support, to the various councils and committees, and board members therein ultimately creating a Ponzi scheme within a Ponzi scheme within a Ponzi scheme so as to divert funds from the actual cause to a host of people with degrees and money from the poor they despair!  WHEW!

All within the pretext that ‘The Government” is helping the disadvantaged.

Lumina Foundation is the successor of Cornuelle’s vision, albeit within a somewhat distorted version of the initial schematic. You see, Lumina’s largest grant to support college education for the needy went to the OECD to fund an ‘analysis of the labor market’. They gave money to the Rockefeller Advisors!   And they have given massive amounts of money to New America Foundation whose executive Chairman includes Google’s Schmidt.

In essence, Foundations are giving the funding to each other, benefiting no one other than themselves, while receiving a non-profit status of NO TAXATION.

So where is our Education money going?

It is lining the pockets of the super wealthy who create Foundations funding their own Foundations. Want to know who is under cup number 1?   Gates.   Clinton.   And once upon a time – the US Department of State.

US Education: A Broke Back Mountain

Posted on by Helena

When one thinks the daft couldn’t get more daft, one might be rather daft….   In light of the tee-shirt slogan worn by a majority of college liberals which states “I don’t have time for hate, racism, misogyny, albeism, homophobia, Islamophobia, transphobia, bigoty” – segregation is required.   (Full disclosure I had to look up albeism).

As a result of their intolerance of the intolerable, and the need to have safe spaces, students now require segregated graduation ceremonies and segregated dormitories based on ethnicity, religion, identity, race, etc..

And a full 72% of colleges are apparently willing to comply.

It will be interesting to see how this lavishly daft intolerance survives in the work environment when these self obsessed students can’t whine and cry and demand the world conform to their ‘safe place’.

With titles such as Lavender Commencement, Gesta Latina Commencement, American Indian Indigenous Commencement, Don the Kente, etc… Virginia Tech boasts 10 different diversity ceremonies which are technically illegal under Discrimination laws.

Within this vein, Georgetown students have voted to increase tuition in order to create a pool of money to pay for ‘reparations’. The catch? The increased tuition is for ‘future students’, not them. And the extent of this generation of selfish self-consumed whiners is not just a product of a failed education system, but of a failed parent system.

Who is minding the children?

Over the last two decades, the number of children in full time daycare under the age of 5 hovers at 86%.   Four and under is 66%.   Daycare employee qualifications vary by state although most require a high school diploma or equivalent. The average entry pay is $10.50 per hour. In Washington DC a parent can expect to pay $36,000 per year per child for daycare. On the low end, in Mississippi, daycare runs about $8,000 per year per child.

For a family of four including 2 children, daycare can run from $16,000 to $72,000 annually or a mean of $44,000. That would be breakeven. With a mean salary in the US at $43,000 per year, there obviously comes a point where daycare is simply ludicrous. Aside from the financial cost is the social cost. The generation raised by an institution is coming of age. Their morality, ethics, values, and virtues have been impregnated by strangers who come and go within these institutions, and we are now witnessing the end product.

After paying a mean cost for daycare for 12 years – a total of $528,000, parents haven’t the funds to pay for college.   In 2009 when Obama reigned, student loan debt was $675 billion, today it has risen to $1.465 trillion representing 44 million borrowers, 10% of whom are 90 days past due. The debt has become so untenable that suicide is contemplated as the answer.

It has been likened to the concept of Socialism for the wealthy and Capitalism for the middle class and poor.   In other words, the next generation will wholly squeeze out all but the wealthy for a college education.  And there is no solution…

As we have recently been made aware, wealthy does not align with intellect. Bribes would seem to be the mainstream means of attaining a degree for the party lovers whose parents indulge the system. As such, some pundits point to Germany as a prime example of how an education system should work – free.

But of course, that isn’t the entire story.

When reviewing the percentage of college graduate rates around the world, Germany does not even make the top ten.   Canada is number one, Japan, Israel, Korea, UK, US, Australia, Finland, Norway, then Luxembourg rank highest in that order   All these countries are subject to a college cost, although it is somewhat lower than the US.

In Denmark where college is free, and a $1000 per month living stipend is available, they have found that students take advantage of the system and spend 6 years completing a 4 year degree because – well – it is free!   In addition, only 12% of the population actually attained a bachelor’s degree or higher, while 14% attained a technical or vocational degree, far below the graduation rate in the US which is roughly 48%.

Obviously, free is not the answer.

Pensions. In Canada, teachers pay 11.5% into their pension plan. In the US it is as low as 2% for a lifetime benefit.   The average teacher pension in Canada is $49,000, while the average teacher pension in the US is now $75,000.   That translates to reveal that a teacher’s average pension is 74% higher than the average salary.   In addition, teachers in 35 states also collect Social Security benefits. In Israel, the average pension for all retirees is roughly $33,000 per year.  The discrepancy is huge!

In essence, the pension system, the US labor unions, are the crux of the education cost problem given the average lifetime for receipt of a pension far exceeds the value of those dollars invested causing the cost of tuition to continually spiral.

The education system begins at the beginning – daycare.

As the cost of daycare continues to implode, the crisis of working parents scrambling to meet the cost while relegating their children to be raised by institutional high schoolers, is a cruel alternative. Free child care is hardly the answer. It will simply become a free-loaders babysitter, and a service that is already indoctrinating your children, will become the Communist agenda.

Retraining parents to have a sense of worth in raising their own children, in having a physical and emotional hand and foot in their elementary education will ultimately curb the cost of social daftness.  Overhauling the entire government pension system will help make US university graduates walk away with considerably less debt.  And a solid parental involvement just might create a healthier intellect, and thus subject their children to grants and scholarships…