Detroit's Pensioners Screwed Themselves (And So Are All Other Public Pensioners)

Public sector union members thoughtfully
and politely discuss the possible reduction
of their pension benefits with the taxpayers
footing the outsized and ever-growing bill.

Detroit’s public sector unions are squealing like stuck Irish pigs about their pensions being treated as just another unsecured obligation of a bankrupt employer. ‘Puter wrote about bankruptcy judge Steven W. Rhodes’ decision hereyesterday.

‘Puter’s written extensively on public sector pension obligations and bankruptcy law. ‘Puter’s always believed public pension benefits are properly treated as unsecured claims in bankruptcy, regardless of any contrary state law. And that’s exactly what Judge Rhodes held as a matter of law. While it’s satisfying to see his longstanding position vindicated, ‘Puter’d rather focus on the incoherence in the unions’ new claims.

Faced with the likelihood union members’ pensions will be crammed down in Detroit’s bankruptcy, unions immediately switched tactics, claiming union pensioners are blameless victims of heartless politicians. Unions are telling anyone who will listen that public workers are hardworking middle class men and women who through no fault of their own have been wrongfully stripped of their meager retirement savings.

Here’s a sampling of some of ‘Puter’s favorite quotes from unions and unionistas regarding Judge Rhodes’ decision.

The New York Times quotes AFSCME president Lee Saunders claiming: “[Judge Rhodes’ ruling] sets a bad precedent for cities that are under economic distress to look at doing the easy thing: to attack the workers and attack the retirees.”

The Wall Street Journal reports retired Detroit librarian and union member Gwendolyn Beasley said: “I am very angry. I believed [the judge] would approve the bankruptcy but I can’t understand that we have state law that I thought secured my pension and now he says he won’t.”

Not to be outdone, the Sacramento Bee found Steve Maviglio, a spokesman for public employee unions, who whined: “In California, teachers, firefighters, police officers and other public employees are fully prepared to resist being scapegoated for the financial mismanagement of elected officials.”

The Sacramento Bee also found an unnamed CalPERS (California’s public pension system) drone to parrot the union line, unbelievably claiming: “The ruling is short-sighted and does not take into account the promises made in exchange for the financial and physical investments that public employees and retirees make in our communities.”

Reporters may uncritically print interested parties’ remarks, but not ‘Puter. ‘Puter calls bullshit. Each of the quoted individuals is lying, deluded or both.

‘Puter doesn’t give two figs about the corrupt pension bargains union bullies struck with greedy politicians. Anyone not riding the short bus knew damn well at the time the pension promises were made that they would not be kept.

Unions didn’t give a damn because it kept the union dues rolling in, allowing them outsized power.

Politicians didn’t care because their union masters paid them off richly in campaign contributions, not to mention that they wouldn’t be around when the house of cards came tumbling down.

Pensioners didn’t give a crap because they were getting paid a gold plated lifetime pension for 20 years of inept and intermittent “service” in a no-fire job. Nice work, if you can get it.

Unions bitch and moan that evil, greedy politicians have short-changed the pensions for years, not putting in funds as required by law. Maybe so. But what unions won’t say is that the taxpayer money politicians didn’t pour into public pension systems they poured into public workers’ current year paychecks.

Study after study after study shows that after norming for education and competence, and when including all forms of compensation (e.g., salary, pensions, health care, vacation, etc.), public workers are offensively overpaid.

To come up with the blackmail payments funds to increase workers’ salaries, politicians shortchanged pension systems. Either way, unionized public sector workers got fat off taxpayers’ “contributions.” ‘Puter’ll be damned if he sits idly by as unions now cry “Woe is me!”

Current pensioners ripped off taxpayers for the length of their active “service” and their years on the dole pension. Current workers’ ripped off taxpayers by receiving undeserved benefits, which are particularly galling as many private workers lost their jobs and homes thanks to liberal Democrat policies.

If unions and their sob-story pensioners are looking for someone to blame for their current predicament, they need go no further than the nearest mirror. That face staring back at you, get angry at him.

It wasn’t politicians who screwed unionistas. And it sure as Hell wasn’t the taxpayers footing the bill for unionistas’ benefits. It was unionistas themselves. Their greed and willful ignorance of basic economics led them astray.

To hear unions complain after living high on the taxpayer hog for the last 70 years is rich. Unions are the child who murders his parents then throws himself on the mercy of the court because he’s an orphan.

Unions, like Czar, can suck it.

'Puter

Always right, unless he isn’t, the infallible Ghettoputer F. X. Gormogons claims to be an in-law of the Volgi, although no one really believes this.

’Puter carefully follows economic and financial trends, legal affairs, and serves as the Gormogons’ financial and legal advisor. He successfully defended us against a lawsuit from a liquor distributor worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid deliveries of bootleg shandies.

The Geep has an IQ so high it is untestable and attempts to measure it have resulted in dangerously unstable results as well as injuries to researchers. Coincidentally, he publishes intelligence tests as a side gig.

His sarcasm is so highly developed it borders on the psychic, and he is often able to insult a person even before meeting them. ’Puter enjoys hunting small game with 000 slugs and punt guns, correcting homilies in real time at Mass, and undermining unions. ’Puter likes to wear a hockey mask and carry an axe into public campgrounds, where he bursts into people’s tents and screams. As you might expect, he has been shot several times but remains completely undeterred.

He assures us that his obsessive fawning over news stories involving women teachers sleeping with young students is not Freudian in any way, although he admits something similar once happened to him. Uniquely, ’Puter is unable to speak, read, or write Russian, but he is able to sing it fluently.

Geep joined the order in the mid-1980s. He arrived at the Castle door with dozens of steamer trunks and an inarticulate hissing creature of astonishingly low intelligence he calls “Sleestak.” Ghettoputer appears to make his wishes known to Sleestak, although no one is sure whether this is the result of complex sign language, expert body posture reading, or simply beating Sleestak with a rubber mallet.

‘Puter suggests the Czar suck it.

The Gormogons

Detroit’s Pensioners Screwed Themselves (And So Are All Other Public Pensioners)