The Christie Mills Retirement Village

Chris Christie - "Telling It Like It Isn't"

Ms. Sizmore's analysis leaves much to be desired. Does she think the first dollar that was contributed to the pension by teachers 30 years ago was the same dollar of today? Over $3 today is needed to buy what $1 bought in 1980! Additionally what happened to the 72 rule? Shouldn't have the $186,000 dollars grown substantially over a 30 year period? (That is of course assuming it wasn't stolen or mismanaged by the State).

Also where does that $2.5 M come from for the "average" member? Over how many years is that paid? Must I live to be 100 in order to claim that amount in retirement?? I personally know of numerous members that never collected a dime! They died on the job!!

And to continue, our Supreme Leader called pension members "greedy and selfish". Well just read on and you decide if the pot is calling the kettle black? (Keep in mind that his wife was employed by one to the NJ Pension Fund managing corporations with a salary of $400K+) 

A Man of the People (His People)

A Race to the Bottom for NJ Retirees

I noticed both of these articles in the same Ledger addition last week. I wonder how many of the households led by persons 65 and older are in the State Pension Plan? Will "The Governor's" attacks on the pension fund reduce that $45,092 to even lower levels in coming years? 

How about the second article, the map of real estate values. How could all the rich be fleeing the state (as "The Gov." suggests) and still have property values in the state remain at the magnitudes shown? Does anyone really think that a millionaires tax would drive people from these lavish abodes?

I don't think "The Gov." actually believes that it would either. He just wants to make sure that his rich buds and donors don't have to contribute any more support to those that help them to maintain their opulent life style in New Jersey.

God forbid one of them might have to down grade from the Rolls Phantom Coupe ($476K) to the lowly old Phantom Sedan ($410K) next year!

Monkeys and Dartboards

 What the graphs below show is that a monkey with a dartboard could have done better than our fund managers over the past few years.
BTW - the monkey would not work for peanuts but I'm sure bananas would do and certainly not $400M worth! 

A Deal is a Deal ? Oh Really "

Have a Nice Trip!

Pensions & Patronage - "Perfect Together"

Does anyone actually believe that New Jersey politicians would ever even think of "reforming" their "patronage bottomless well"?

If you believe that you probably believe the "Mastro Report" too -                      

"The Governor's" million dollar excuse note that we bought for him!

PS

Again, more fiddling with the New Jersey Public Employee's Pensions! The people in Trenton seem to think that the Pension Plan is the State's asset. In reality it should be viewed as an asset of the employees who have faithfully contributed to it year in and year out for decades.

Maybe if we changed the name to the Public Employees of New Jersey Escrow Account (PEBIA for short - everybody likes acronyms) it would make it clearer as to who owns those funds. 

Now the plan to balance the New Jersey State budget is to put off the legally required pension payment for this fiscal year until July (the "pension reform" law which was so greatly heralded by "The Governor" requires it to be funded during the current fiscal year - before the end of June). Paying the bill in July will simply put it in next year's budget and hopefully avoid another credit rating reduction by Fitch and S&P. (There had been five already under "The Governor's" leadership!

Here's we go again - more Pension Fund tomfoolery. The next cry from Trenton will be a plan of "pension re-reform" when they decide not to make the legally required payments once again during the next fiscal year! Pretty soon the pension with be reformed out of business! It's only a matter of time!!

Find Me a Millstone and a Pit !

         The lack of integrity on the part of “The Governor” is astonishing!!But his deceitfulness isn’t!
 He signs a bill to “reform” the pension plan and praises it far and wide as a major accomplishment and now wants to renege on its primary component – funding the pension!
       I can’t believe that this wasn’t his intent right from the get go. By agreeing to fund the pension as he did he was merely using it to get “his foot in the door” on his way to eliminating tenure and privatizing public education. And believe me folks tenure has not been “reformed” it has been eliminated! If teachers can now be fired without tenure charges being filed and a hearing but merely on the basis of two consecutive “poor evaluations”; how can this be considered a tenure system?

        Now we see “The Governor” decrying his $10M cut to cancer research and blaming it on pension costs to which he himself agreed! He not only agreed he extolled himself as being the first governor in years who pledged to make full payments. 

In order to get public sympathy for his reneging on his promise (and now a law) he is citing it to be the causative factor for cuts to cancer research. The whole thing is kind of like drowning a puppy and then saying ‘It really wasn’t my fault– the Devil made me do it!’

      If he wanted to point the finger at factors that forced him to make those cuts might he have chosen some of these instead?

- Special election costs of $12M designed to serve his political aspirations

- A botched Fed Ed grant of  $400M which he then blamed on Schindler and then fired him as a sacrificial lamb for his own poor oversight

- Bridgegate legal expenses $1M+ paid to his pal Mistro to write him an excuse.

- Nineteen directors at charter schools who were paid the maximum allowed salary — $225,734 — to oversee schools with anywhere from 30 to 327 students a day. And 52 people at these schools took home more than $175,000, the most superintendents are allowed to earn in public schools with up to 10,000 students.

- Corporations which (or should I say ‘who’ because as we all now know – corporations are people!) received over $2.6 billion in wasteful corporate tax breaks.

- Pension double dipping by cronies

- Politicians collecting pensions while still working the same job

- The myriad of companies supplying testing services to the State (about $23M worth last year)

- The companies supplying teaching programs and schemes to public schools

     But then again why should I expect “The Governor” to suggest any of these reasons as a basis for cutting cancer research? Any of them might help to expose the man behind the curtain as the hypocrite he is!

P.S.

Since we have just celebrated Easter let me add that which Christ said about hypocrites-

“It better be that  millstones be tied around their necks and they be thrown into a pit where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth”

Can anybody tell me where can I get a millstone and pit?

Christie's New Pension Plan (For Lawyers)

This letter reminds of a quote from one of my favorite writers. 
"All pigs are equal but some pigs are more equal than others".
Additionally, wait until you see the final bill because this thing will be dragged out forever and essentially provide a pension plan for all the lawyers involved.
I know this from my experience on the BOE . A suit regarding construction was lodged against the  Board. That was ten years ago. As of today a settlement has still not been reached and legal fees exceed $600K! That's a lot of public money that could have bought mucho pencils and paper.
When it comes to extracting money from public entities, lawyers surely know how to siphon the last drop of blood from taxpayer coffers.

A Pension for Shamelessness

Public workers - set up to be screwed again!
Our government has plenty of money for Iraq and Afghanistan (until 2024) but not for our own cities and states.
Money for $300M jets that not even the military wants, money for troops in Germany, Japan, South Korea, etc.(for over fifty years), all of it pouring out of Washington in a deluge.
Billions of dollars for banks and insurance companies flood from the Capitol while cities and states are left poor and humbled. (And as an aside government officials continually talk of cutting "entitlements" to save money!)
To make matters even more disgusting, judges who qualify for super generous pensions get to decide if others may have their meager pensions eliminated !
PS
If bankruptcy is invoked, I can't wait see the salaries and fees of those who preside over it and which "in bed" law firms and cronies are assigned to it.