OT: Illinois fair tax: yes or no?

[League Circles]

If you want defined benefit you have to accept the fact that that will yield lower benefits than defined contribution and that companies will pocket the average difference. And they should. Unless someone has an idea of where to get the money magically. Defined benefit is simply a form of insurance. In the case of pensions, one that people are asking employers (or the government) to pay for.

[2018C3]

The unions have, in part, been very successful at taking care of their people. But it's come at a cost, and now these roles many times are set for a better life after their career ends, often early (many firefighters can retire at 55 for instance). As the population grows, we require more of these which only adds to our burden.

If I remember right, the last big pension that I remember being cancelled was United Airlines. The cost of these things at scale grows above and beyond. When United grew and grew its employee base it could no longer keep up with a pension system. And it is understandable. Without a hard cap on pension benefits (i.e. a maximum salary that they can receive), with guaranteed raises that others don't get, etc., it's spiraled. And there are currently around 150k teachers state wide. That doesn't go with how many are retired, that's active (it was about 136k in 2013). That's just not sustainable without taxing and taxing and taxing.

It used to be that teachers weren't paid as much and that was the reason for the pension. But that isn't the case in a lot of areas. You've got a lot of teachers/admins making in the 6 figure range that a lot of workers aren't getting to. And they're not having to fund their pensions themselves.

It's kind of like a blank check. I just don't know how we continue to let it go.

Was the benefit just too rich, or is a defined benefit plan (verse a defined contribution) plan really the only feasible plan? Defined contributions most of the time are crap in the private sector. You can have a defined benefit plan with things like out of control growth that aren't sustainable...or you can have ones with realistic growth/promises that are well funded in advance. IL worked the worst case on both - unrealistic growth and awful funding in advance.

As for teacher pay, I think this pandemic should be showing how much value there is in the economic benefit/security that a functional education pays out. Without it, the strain on the workforce of child-aged parents is immense. So if teachers lose their pension perk, I believe the pay/benefit trade off should be big - their value is huge to our economy now, to say nothing that they're helping build the economic workforce of the future. There is also a large value in the defined benefit plan that they have contributed towards and need to be compensated for.

My grandparents generation benefited from defined benefit plans. Corporate profits are immense. Can we not afford retirement stability, or we just don't want to? My parents generation may have gotten enough of a start that even with switch from defined benefit to defined contribution they'll be mostly okay in retirement.

My generation (millennial or younger Gen Xers)... we are working behind in wealth generation compared to a generation or two generations ago. And that's including the fact that we've delayed having kids (i.e. we're probably headed towards European-like slow birth rates and a huge portion of the country that's xenophobic and doesn't want to grow via immigration).

The problem with defined benefit isn't underfunding, it's the impossibility of predicting life expectancies. Our generation could easily outlive our parents by decades on average.

Our generation is behind in wealth generation in large part due to overspending on lifestyle IMO (myself included for sure). It's common for our generation to spend on everything in a way that dwarfs what our parents spent. It's probably a byproduct of the obsessive consumer marketing culture and the exposé of extravagant lifestyles. In seemingly a generation, it feels like most people went from seeing how little they could spend to trying to max out what they could spend. Travel, clothing, electronics, entertainment, etc are all big ones.

"in large part due to overspending on lifestyle"

That is definitely true. My parents were very tight with there money. 40 years later they have never once remolded there house, other than new carpet. Things only got replaced when they needed too, and any named brand designer cloths for the children were out of budget. We shopped at Kmart, and once a year took a trip to the mall right before Christmas to pick up a new suit at Montgomery Ward, so the kids could look nice at a family party.

My dad drove his cars to the ground, and did not replace them until completely rusted out and dead.

I have since personally remodeled two of there bathrooms, but there kitchen, living room, bedrooms, and basement is still original 1970's, minus being re-painted a few times.

[League Circles]

Was the benefit just too rich, or is a defined benefit plan (verse a defined contribution) plan really the only feasible plan? Defined contributions most of the time are crap in the private sector. You can have a defined benefit plan with things like out of control growth that aren't sustainable...or you can have ones with realistic growth/promises that are well funded in advance. IL worked the worst case on both - unrealistic growth and awful funding in advance.

As for teacher pay, I think this pandemic should be showing how much value there is in the economic benefit/security that a functional education pays out. Without it, the strain on the workforce of child-aged parents is immense. So if teachers lose their pension perk, I believe the pay/benefit trade off should be big - their value is huge to our economy now, to say nothing that they're helping build the economic workforce of the future. There is also a large value in the defined benefit plan that they have contributed towards and need to be compensated for.

My grandparents generation benefited from defined benefit plans. Corporate profits are immense. Can we not afford retirement stability, or we just don't want to? My parents generation may have gotten enough of a start that even with switch from defined benefit to defined contribution they'll be mostly okay in retirement.

My generation (millennial or younger Gen Xers)... we are working behind in wealth generation compared to a generation or two generations ago. And that's including the fact that we've delayed having kids (i.e. we're probably headed towards European-like slow birth rates and a huge portion of the country that's xenophobic and doesn't want to grow via immigration).

The problem with defined benefit isn't underfunding, it's the impossibility of predicting life expectancies. Our generation could easily outlive our parents by decades on average.

Our generation is behind in wealth generation in large part due to overspending on lifestyle IMO (myself included for sure). It's common for our generation to spend on everything in a way that dwarfs what our parents spent. It's probably a byproduct of the obsessive consumer marketing culture and the exposé of extravagant lifestyles. In seemingly a generation, it feels like most people went from seeing how little they could spend to trying to max out what they could spend. Travel, clothing, electronics, entertainment, etc are all big ones.

That is definitely true. My parents were very tight with there money. 40 years later they have never once remolded there house, other than new carpet. Things only got replaced when they needed too, and any named brand designer cloths for the children were out of budget.

I have since personally remodeled two of there bathrooms, but there kitchen is still original 1970's.

Yep. I make a lot more money adjusted for inflation than my parents did. I've been living a better (material) standard of living than them basically since I was a young adult. I have some equity but basically live paycheck to paycheck and retirement is a figment of my imagination until further notice, while they've retired in their early 60s without a financial stress in the world.

[Almost Retired]

No question globalization is a dynamic that today's laborers have to compete against like our grandparents when we had the greatest middle class work force ever.

I don't believe just cutting off unions at the knees is the solution though.

I don't think the ridiculous benefits public servants get because they have unionized is good for society either though. Especially when they have negotiated a path that incentivizes people to be awful at their jobs.

I do agree we need more money to labor and less to capital though, and unions do help accomplish that. They just need to do it in a way that isn't so harmful.

While unions are a beneficial thing in certain industries I think the unionization of government workers has resulted in too much abuse. You cannot have a legitimate negotiation when you have both sides on the same side essentially. The taxpayers don't have a voice. It's two wolves (the politicians and the government unions) and a sheep (the taxpayers) voting to see what's for dinner. The politicians need the government workers to vote for them and work on their campaigns. The politicians and the unions are both feeding from the same trough so it's in both their interests to maximize benefits and salaries and the taxpayers be damned. I've looked at some of the high salaries too many our "public servants" have been awarded. In the education sector some of the salaries are blatantly outrageous. You have Principals and Administrators making more than the Governor.

The other problem Illinois is that it has over 7,000 separate governmental entities. Water Districts,Townships, Cities, Towns, Counties, Forest Preserve Districts...all have Administrators, assistant Administrators, and down the line. It's inefficient and too costly to the taxpayers. They should have streamlined things years ago. Now it's too late. Illinois government is going to shrink significantly, only it isn't going to be orderly and planned. It's going to result from the State's insolvency which is unavoidable now. With it's pensions only 38% funded and a stock market crash coming in 2021 it will find its pensions only 20-25% funded by 2022. And as the State bonds get downgraded to Junk status (also inevitable) the borrowing costs will bring the whole State's financial house of cards down.

I take no pleasure in watching these things unfold. But I saw the handwriting on the wall over a decade ago. When Rauner's attempt to curtail the pensions was overturned by the State Supreme Court that was the last straw. Only default can bring about the necessary bloodletting needed to get the State back heading toward solvency. If Covid had not hit they might have been able to kick the can down the road a few more years. But the virus has accelerated the crisis. Too many businesses have gone under as a result of the lockdowns. Money is not being made so much less is being spent. Tax receipts are way down on multiple levels. Meanwhile State spending has had to rise to meet the myriad of problems caused by the virus. Unfortunately Illinois will not be alone among the many States that end up insolvent. It's going to be a huge problem, one that is going to be extremely difficult to solve. The change to a graduated tax will make no difference to the outcome. Prepare yourselves.

[TheStig]

The problem with defined benefit isn't underfunding, it's the impossibility of predicting life expectancies. Our generation could easily outlive our parents by decades on average.

Our generation is behind in wealth generation in large part due to overspending on lifestyle IMO (myself included for sure). It's common for our generation to spend on everything in a way that dwarfs what our parents spent. It's probably a byproduct of the obsessive consumer marketing culture and the exposé of extravagant lifestyles. In seemingly a generation, it feels like most people went from seeing how little they could spend to trying to max out what they could spend. Travel, clothing, electronics, entertainment, etc are all big ones.

That is definitely true. My parents were very tight with there money. 40 years later they have never once remolded there house, other than new carpet. Things only got replaced when they needed too, and any named brand designer cloths for the children were out of budget.

I have since personally remodeled two of there bathrooms, but there kitchen is still original 1970's.

Yep. I make a lot more money adjusted for inflation than my parents did. I've been living a better (material) standard of living than them basically since I was a young adult. I have some equity but basically live paycheck to paycheck and retirement is a figment of my imagination until further notice, while they've retired in their early 60s without a financial stress in the world.

The economic system is designed to make it easy to overspend. People didn't have as many credit cards or financing options. Financing itself was very unattractive with high interests rates. Now you can get a new Iphone for $20 a month. You used to have to save up and buy things in cash. Now everything is financed and it's easy to get. So while your parents had 1 or 2 payments on things, people now have 10. Cars, phones, appliances, mortgages or rent, digital services. It all adds up. Not only do new cars have payments but even used cars do too.

[Friend_Of_Haley]

If you want defined benefit you have to accept the fact that that will yield lower benefits than defined contribution and that companies will pocket the average difference. And they should. Unless someone has an idea of where to get the money magically. Defined benefit is simply a form of insurance. In the case of pensions, one that people are asking employers (or the government) to pay for.

I can't speak to every pension, but in the case of the two I'm familiar with (public employee pensions in IL) , the contributions to pensions is shared responsibility between the employee employer (state or local). They are not free ride benefits, and that's my understanding of most in IL at least (were talking a 9-10% contribution) The issue has a lot to do with promises the state agreed to in negotiations that dealt with unsustainable growth and then not funding the portion they promised fully. And in some cases they allowed the system to be "gamed", although in not sure how much that adds to the total shortfall despite being quite egregious in some cases.

The benefit of the 401k verse pension can vary. There's tradeoffs to be sure. If I was going to generalize it, pensions and their steady stream are better for lower income earners and as you move up the wage scale and can afford to invest greater sums to build wealth, the 401k is better, which you may want to sell out of the stock market over time and put towards a more annuity based plan as you enter retirement (which is basically how a pension should be ran). But if a unionized body wants to negotiate for it and the other side (state or local govt) don't make mere paper promises, they're doable. The lifespan thing is not an unsolvable issue.

[Friend_Of_Haley]

The problem with defined benefit isn't underfunding, it's the impossibility of predicting life expectancies. Our generation could easily outlive our parents by decades on average.

Our generation is behind in wealth generation in large part due to overspending on lifestyle IMO (myself included for sure). It's common for our generation to spend on everything in a way that dwarfs what our parents spent. It's probably a byproduct of the obsessive consumer marketing culture and the exposé of extravagant lifestyles. In seemingly a generation, it feels like most people went from seeing how little they could spend to trying to max out what they could spend. Travel, clothing, electronics, entertainment, etc are all big ones.

That is definitely true. My parents were very tight with there money. 40 years later they have never once remolded there house, other than new carpet. Things only got replaced when they needed too, and any named brand designer cloths for the children were out of budget.

I have since personally remodeled two of there bathrooms, but there kitchen is still original 1970's.

Yep. I make a lot more money adjusted for inflation than my parents did. I've been living a better (material) standard of living than them basically since I was a young adult. I have some equity but basically live paycheck to paycheck and retirement is a figment of my imagination until further notice, while they've retired in their early 60s without a financial stress in the world.

Thats similar to me, but these are very antectodal stories. At a cumulative level, real wages haven't grown, health care costs have skyrocketed, education cost has skyrocketed, good paying jobs more often require high levels of education. We're not buying homes as early. We're delaying having kids. There's something missing than just base consumerism here and if you rely on just antectodal stories like mine or yours it's easy to trick ourselves into thinking thats it.

[2018C3]

That is definitely true. My parents were very tight with there money. 40 years later they have never once remolded there house, other than new carpet. Things only got replaced when they needed too, and any named brand designer cloths for the children were out of budget.

I have since personally remodeled two of there bathrooms, but there kitchen is still original 1970's.

Yep. I make a lot more money adjusted for inflation than my parents did. I've been living a better (material) standard of living than them basically since I was a young adult. I have some equity but basically live paycheck to paycheck and retirement is a figment of my imagination until further notice, while they've retired in their early 60s without a financial stress in the world.

The economic system is designed to make it easy to overspend. People didn't have as many credit cards or financing options. Financing itself was very unattractive with high interests rates. Now you can get a new Iphone for $20 a month. You used to have to save up and buy things in cash. Now everything is financed and it's easy to get. So while your parents had 1 or 2 payments on things, people now have 10. Cars, phones, appliances, mortgages or rent, digital services. It all adds up. Not only do new cars have payments but even used cars do too.

That is true, but can still be avoided. I have only gone into debt three times in my life. (The first being college, the second time on a house, and once I made the stupid decision to buy a new car).

Both College and the long gone fancy car have been payed off. Every car after that was purchased used, and for cash.

On that first car loan, when it was all said and done I payed almost double what it was worth to bankers, and said never again. But at the time I thought it was what I needed.

My current daily driver is 14 years old "rust free", and was purchased with cash. I have had it for I think three years now, and whenever I sell it, I will only loose a few thousand. I plan to keep it several more years,

[Friend_Of_Haley]

That is definitely true. My parents were very tight with there money. 40 years later they have never once remolded there house, other than new carpet. Things only got replaced when they needed too, and any named brand designer cloths for the children were out of budget.

I have since personally remodeled two of there bathrooms, but there kitchen is still original 1970's.

Yep. I make a lot more money adjusted for inflation than my parents did. I've been living a better (material) standard of living than them basically since I was a young adult. I have some equity but basically live paycheck to paycheck and retirement is a figment of my imagination until further notice, while they've retired in their early 60s without a financial stress in the world.

The economic system is designed to make it easy to overspend. People didn't have as many credit cards or financing options. Financing itself was very unattractive with high interests rates. Now you can get a new Iphone for $20 a month. You used to have to save up and buy things in cash. Now everything is financed and it's easy to get. So while your parents had 1 or 2 payments on things, people now have 10. Cars, phones, appliances, mortgages or rent, digital services. It all adds up. Not only do new cars have payments but even used cars do too.

Yea the access to easy credit definitely I think masks some differences between the generations. The easy flow of money does drive prices in some markets. And the flip side is what savings could once be flipped into a savings account or treasury bond and make real earnings, is a joke now. Now you need to access the stock market to make money, and that only recently became available to the common person at an accessible/affordable level and is a much riskier bet at low investment amounts - a true nest egg its not.

[Friend_Of_Haley]

Also regarding consumerism, globalization is a huge wrench in comparing generations again. The cheap labor supply of foreign developing markets has driven down prices hugely in certain areas, so we are able to consumer more of certain things. So it's not all bad from quality of life perspective I guess, but it's not a wealth builder and the difference between a young person making the jump into home ownership, say probably isn't cheap foreign made clothes and avacado toast at brunch or whatever other consumer decisions we make.

[2018C3]

"The easy flow of money does drive prices in some markets."

That's a interesting point I never thought of. The easy availability of credit drives what would be normal prices higher for everyone. But at the same time is using the people who buy on credit to artificially raise the market price.

Then to slap them in face once again for the artificial inflation they created, Banks then charge those credit buyers a good chunk in interest for there services.

Wow, Consumers need to stop paying these predators, and learn how to not be tricked.

In grade school they will teach you basic math. but its not until later that they will teach you how destructive interest rates can actually be. No one in fiance will ever tell you strait up this car is only worth $30,000, and if you take the loan you will eventually pay us this much "$ XXXXXX"?. They just say your payments will only be this much "$ XXX" a month, your approved!

[Friend_Of_Haley]

"The easy flow of money does drive prices in some markets."

That's a interesting point I never thought of. The easy availability of credit drives what would be normal prices higher for everyone. But at the same time is using the people who buy on credit to artificially raise the market price.

Then to slap them in face once again for the artificial inflation they created, Banks then charge those credit card buyers a good chunk in interest for there services.

Wow, Consumers need to stop paying these predators, and learn how to not be tricked.

In grade school they will teach you basic math. but its not until later that will teach you how destructive interest rates can actually be.
No one in fiance will ever strait up tell this car is only worth $30,000, and if you take the loan you will pay us this much "XXXXXX"?. They just say your payments will only be this much "XXX" a month.

Oh a great direct example of "free credit" is when my wife and I were buying a new AC unit. There were "interest free" plans but the sales guy flat out told us they'd cost more in actual dollar terms because he was charged more from the manufacturer for it and he passed that along. They were basically a middle man and it didn't necessarily make a difference to him, he made his living off his labor and passed through the credit costs and equipment costs from the manufacturer.

But it also plays out in indirect ways too. I actually think for example that the federal governments easy availability to money for education loans (through parent plus loans primarily) has helped fuel education costs. At relatively low rates and the love of parents who will finance whatever for their child's future, what's another 3-4 grand per year that they can tack on for tuition+fees? (times thousands of students) The limit on supply of money isn't enough to actually adversely affect their business (yes higher ed is a business).

Probably plays out in Real estate (monthly interest verse monthly principal doesn't make a huge difference if you're maxing out what would otherwise be rent expense)

And yea, the rates are low but they're based on underlying prime rates so the financial institution can still tack on their margin and collect fees, so really, lots of low cost credit at lower rates is just fine for financial institutions too.

[2018C3]

"I actually think for example that the federal governments easy availability to money for education loans (through parent plus loans primarily) has helped fuel education costs. At relatively low rates and the love of parents who will finance whatever for their child's future, what's another 3-4 grand per year that they can tack on for tuition+fees? (times thousands of students)"

Luckily school in my day was not as expensive as it is today. I took out government loans to finance my education, and although the payments were not to much of a burden each month. I did the math and got the entire loan payed off within a few years by overpaying each month. I charged my roommates less than they would pay anywhere else, and they got free utilities, cable tv and internet.

I still see at as a good investment, because by taking those loans it increased my salary. And allowed me to purchase a home. After I purchased my first home, my two roommates rent pretty much payed off my school loans and then some.

If I never took advantage of the loans, I would not be in the same place today.

While I had roommates living with me, my first home also increased substantially in price as I hit the bubble at a "lucky" time, and then moved out of a high priced area, to a lower priced area.

I have been pretty lucky in life, just being in the right place at the right time.

[Friend_Of_Haley]

"I actually think for example that the federal governments easy availability to money for education loans (through parent plus loans primarily) has helped fuel education costs. At relatively low rates and the love of parents who will finance whatever for their child's future, what's another 3-4 grand per year that they can tack on for tuition+fees? (times thousands of students)"

Luckily school in my day was not as expensive as it is today. I took out government loans to finance my education, and although the payments were not to much of a burden each month. I did the math and got the entire loan payed off within a few years by overpaying each month. I charged my roommates less than they would pay anywhere else, and they got free utilities, cable tv and internet.

I still see at as a good investment, because by taking those loans it increased my salary. And allowed me to purchase a home. After I purchased my first home, my two roommates rent pretty much payed off my school loans and then some.

If I never took advantage of the loans, I would not be in the same place today.

While I had roommates living with me, my first home also increased substantially in price as I hit the bubble at a "lucky" time, and then moved out of a high priced area, to a lower priced area.

I have been pretty lucky in life, just being in the right place at the right time.

I'm not going to complain, because I've ended up in a good spot and consider myself fortunate, but many in my generation are not.

My student loans were at a time when the rates hit a relative high at around 5-7% (my older siblings had sub 3% rates). And then I graduated and hit the job market right at the outset of the great recession. Oof.

Luckily I was able to pay off the loans in my name a few years early of the 10 year term. Still working on helping my parents pay back the parent plus loans (I'm taking about 70% of that tab). They refinanced to extend it out 20.. I would have never been able to make the full payment if they kept theirs at a 10 year plan early in my career. I'm hopeful I'll be done with theirs before that 20 year mark, but now I also have 2 kids and the bills are tighter than they were 2 years ago when I was able to pay down a lot of debt. I also could have made different choices like gone to a cheaper state university, or even do the first 2 years community college. I could have tried harder to work during college and pay down a little bit of the principal before graduating. So there's options available to people who don't want to end up in too big of a hole, but each year the costs grow more and more. Even in the 10 years since I graduated, I'm sure its grown even that much more expensive.

[2018C3]

Even when I was in college, the government loan and grant program would sometimes give surplus amounts to students to pay for expenses. I remember at least once a year I would I would receive a check for maybe a grand or so.

Since I was also working at the time, I would just drop the money strait back to them to help pay off my loans. Some other guys I went to school with spent it differently. By the time I graduated, I think I only owed about 15 grand. But I was also working multiple jobs throughout that whole time. (At one point I had three). At noon I left campus to set up and clean custom marine aquariums. Then left that job to work a evening shift at UPS loading trucks, and on weekends worked for a friends fathers construction company.

It was a tuff stretch, but I was bringing in decent money from all the jobs. Then as a junior in college I went to work full time at IBM. I dropped out of my semester of college, and finished up over the next couple years utilizing evening courses just taking one at a time.

My sister is 5-6 years younger than me, "5 and 6 months to be exact", and we both graduated the same year. I already had my first house at about 25/26. I signed the deal a 25, and moved in right after birthday/ It was purchased a year or so before graduating.

I went from being kicked out and cut off completely and on my own to home ownership in just a few years. My parents helped pay for one year at a state school, I blew it and got cut off. After that I got my act together really fast.

This is why I have little sympathy for others who are unwilling to do the same.

[dice]

That is definitely true. My parents were very tight with there money. 40 years later they have never once remolded there house, other than new carpet. Things only got replaced when they needed too, and any named brand designer cloths for the children were out of budget.

I have since personally remodeled two of there bathrooms, but there kitchen is still original 1970's.

Yep. I make a lot more money adjusted for inflation than my parents did. I've been living a better (material) standard of living than them basically since I was a young adult. I have some equity but basically live paycheck to paycheck and retirement is a figment of my imagination until further notice, while they've retired in their early 60s without a financial stress in the world.

The economic system is designed to make it easy to overspend. People didn't have as many credit cards or financing options. Financing itself was very unattractive with high interests rates. Now you can get a new Iphone for $20 a month. You used to have to save up and buy things in cash. Now everything is financed and it's easy to get. So while your parents had 1 or 2 payments on things, people now have 10. Cars, phones, appliances, mortgages or rent, digital services. It all adds up. Not only do new cars have payments but even used cars do too.

the high interest rates of old that you are talking about (buying stuff) went hand in hand with high interest rates on savings accounts. saving money was incentivized. now investing and spending is

[CashConsider]

Was the benefit just too rich, or is a defined benefit plan (verse a defined contribution) plan really the only feasible plan? Defined contributions most of the time are crap in the private sector. You can have a defined benefit plan with things like out of control growth that aren't sustainable...or you can have ones with realistic growth/promises that are well funded in advance. IL worked the worst case on both - unrealistic growth and awful funding in advance.

As for teacher pay, I think this pandemic should be showing how much value there is in the economic benefit/security that a functional education pays out. Without it, the strain on the workforce of child-aged parents is immense. So if teachers lose their pension perk, I believe the pay/benefit trade off should be big - their value is huge to our economy now, to say nothing that they're helping build the economic workforce of the future. There is also a large value in the defined benefit plan that they have contributed towards and need to be compensated for.

My grandparents generation benefited from defined benefit plans. Corporate profits are immense. Can we not afford retirement stability, or we just don't want to? My parents generation may have gotten enough of a start that even with switch from defined benefit to defined contribution they'll be mostly okay in retirement.

My generation (millennial or younger Gen Xers)... we are working behind in wealth generation compared to a generation or two generations ago. And that's including the fact that we've delayed having kids (i.e. we're probably headed towards European-like slow birth rates and a huge portion of the country that's xenophobic and doesn't want to grow via immigration).

There are two issues at play here.
1. These pension based systems continually make services more expensive at a time when consumers for all things are demanding lower prices. All it does is continually add to expense year over year. Every new employee means more pension and higher level expense. This is true with our government/teachers/police/fire. It creates a situation where taxes must always rise to cover these costs.

2. These public companies are all tied to profitability. Because the stock market is the most important thing, they all have to tightly manage their expenses or fear that their stock will lose value and executives get pushed out. They need to be profitable or Wall Street kills them.

Teachers are for sure important. But getting guaranteed pensions at 150k/year plus that you haven't fully funded and the tax payer has means that I now have to fund my own retirement as well as other peoples. That's not right. And yes, if you look at many school districts the pay for teachers is higher than a lot of private workers. While working (on average) about 185 days a year. There is already HUGE benefit to their jobs, getting a guaranteed pension is just too rich for us.

[Almost Retired]

Trump is heading for reelection, possibly by a greater margin than in 2016. He's probably not going to sign legislation next year that would make the taxpayers of Nebraska, and Wisconsin, and North Carolina and the other states that lived within their means bail out the profligate State Pension Plans (Illinois, New Jersey, Kentucky, Connecticut, California etc.) So those Pension Plans are going to remain the problem of the States that awarded them. They can raise taxes (a lot) or cut those pensions payments significantly through negotiation or default. A State like Illinois which is so severely underfunded that it would be impossible to raise taxes sufficiently to fully fund its promises. The State still has $8 Billion in unpaid invoices separate from it's Pension problem. Within the next 5 years some severe bloodletting is going to happen. Those Pension Plans are going to rendered insolvent. Some degree of cram down is going to happen. How severe it is will depend on how broke the State is. Illinois won't be alone. They are among the worst funded states but there are others in the same sinking boat. In Detroit for example some Retirees have only gotten 35 cents on the Dollar...The same, ow worse, could happen here.

[dice]

Trump is heading for reelection, possibly by a greater margin than in 2016...

when you start a post with this, you're asking for the remainder not to be taken seriously, no matter how well-reasoned. trump got 304 electoral college votes in 2016. his chances of topping that this year are remote. the gold standard in election forecasting (note the electoral probability graph):

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-election-forecast/

trump could certainly pull another upset (a significantly bigger one than last time), but if there's a landslide coming, it'll be for biden

even a betting public with PTSD from 2016 and skittish about trump legal shenanigans sees biden as a significant favorite:

https://electionbettingodds.com/President2020.html#chart

[Michael Jackson]

Trump is heading for reelection, possibly by a greater margin than in 2016...

when you start a post with this, you're asking for the remainder not to be taken seriously, no matter how well-reasoned. trump got 304 electoral college votes in 2016. his chances of topping that this year are remote. the gold standard in election forecasting (note the electoral probability graph):

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-election-forecast/

trump could certainly pull another upset (a significantly bigger one than last time), but if there's a landslide coming, it'll be for biden

even a betting public with PTSD from 2016 and skittish about trump legal shenanigans sees biden as a significant favorite:

https://electionbettingodds.com/President2020.html#chart

I think it’s so hard to tell though because Trump voters are mostly tight lipped still. Who knows. In March I thought for sure it was a landslide for the DNC, now I’m not so confident in that, which is once again as you mentioned, a fool me once type reaction.