{"id":24844,"date":"2017-08-23T15:36:54","date_gmt":"2017-08-23T20:36:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=24844"},"modified":"2017-08-23T15:36:54","modified_gmt":"2017-08-23T20:36:54","slug":"theyre-using-bernie-madoff-math-to-hide-a-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=24844","title":{"rendered":"They\u2019re Using Bernie Madoff Math to Hide a Crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><a href=\"http:\/\/www.internationalman.com\/\/articles\/theyre-using-bernie-madoff-math-to-hide-a-crisis\">They\u2019re Using Bernie Madoff Math to Hide a Crisis<\/a><\/h3>\n<div class=\"im-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/d24g2nq85gnwal.cloudfront.net\/images\/authors\/Madoff.jpg\" alt=\"They\u2019re Using Bernie Madoff Math to Hide a Crisis\" \/><\/div>\n<div class=\"addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style\"><\/div>\n<div id=\"article-body\" class=\"margin_top_25\">\n<p>Politicians are always generous with other people\u2019s money\u2026 until it runs out.<\/p>\n<p>Near the peak of the late-\u201990s tech bubble, California\u2019s legislature passed the largest pension increase in its history.<\/p>\n<p>Today, with as much as <strong>$750 billion in unfunded public pension debt<\/strong>, California has one of the worst pension situations in the country. But it\u2019s far from alone.<\/p>\n<p>Illinois has a staggering $250 billion in unfunded pension obligations. State pension plans in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and many other states are taking on water, too.<\/p>\n<p>Unfunded public pension liabilities in the US have surpassed <strong><u>$5 trillion<\/u><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Taxpayers Are Stuck With the Bill<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>There used to be a simple formula for a secure retirement. American workers would work for a big company for decades. Then, at a certain age, they were eligible for a monthly pension check\u2026 for life.<\/p>\n<p>Once common, pensions have virtually disappeared from the private sector. Today, less than 4% of companies offer them. It\u2019s another vector in the devalued standard of living of the average American.<\/p>\n<p><u>Essentially, only government employees get pensions now.<\/u><\/p>\n<p>The government isn\u2019t subject to the same constraints as the private sector. So it has no problem promising benefits it can\u2019t afford to pay.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s because government revenue doesn\u2019t come from the voluntary exchange of goods or services. It comes from taxes, which it extracts via coercion.<\/p>\n<p>Politicians only care about the next election. So there\u2019s no way to hold them accountable in the long term.<\/p>\n<p>They automatically do the most expedient thing in the short term, like promising extravagant pension benefits. In the long term, their successors have to deal with the consequences.<\/p>\n<p>Naturally, not one of the politicians who voted for California\u2019s record pension increase is still in office.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>They\u2019re Using Bernie Madoff Math to Hide a Crisis Politicians are always generous with other people\u2019s money\u2026 until it runs out. Near the peak of the late-\u201990s tech bubble, California\u2019s legislature passed the largest pension increase in its history. Today, with as much as $750 billion in unfunded public pension debt, California has one of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[15704,6228,11725,4987,15705],"class_list":["post-24844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","tag-bernie-madoff","tag-international-man","tag-nick-giambruno","tag-pension","tag-unfunded-liability"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24844"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24844\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24845,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24844\/revisions\/24845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}