- Local-government control: a campaign issue ignored while the federal government grows and grows and grows. (And yes, you could take this to a local level beyond all government.) (H/T PT)
- Reminds me of flap over the word “niggardly” a few years back. Ignorami can’t even use a dictionary before embarrassing themselves.
- A tiny pension plan hints at bigger problems in California’s government pension systems.
- Kit Perez, whose views on resistance have been evolving, is leaving the III%. Much more could and should be said about this. So many considerations and ramifications.
- The weird story of how communion wine became communion grape juice. Only in America.
- Johannesburg gets a libertarian mayor. We shall see how that works out in a world of corruption and coercion.
- The writing style makes me wonder what Taleb was smoking when he wrote “Intellectual Yet Idiot.” But his points are spot on, as they so often are.
- So, you think you can fake your own death? (There’s a book if you want to learn more about what — and what not — to do.)
- Good news: pit bull-ish pup whose big smile went viral gets to stay home after all, despite bigoted anti-breed ordinance
- Twenty-eight cats who’ve found the best spot and aren’t about to give it up.
The grape juice article lost me immediately when the moron asserted that can openers didn’t exist until 1870 and door knobs were invented in 1878.
The wheel-type can opener was invented in 1870. Before that, can openers were just specialized knives.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Can_opener
The author is wrong about door knobs.
http://unlock.schlage.com/blog/d35cd546-cee4-4257-aed3-5e9ef69fcd3d/did-you-know-door-knobs-through-history
The article’s meant to be more humorous than rigorously factual, IMHO.
I’ve seen reports that nationwide, retirement funds are underfunded to the tune of several trillion dollars. Aside from stupidly optimistic plans, ZIRP has been a killer.
Hey Claire, Thank you for posting the Kit Perez reality check. I understand where he is coming from and I agree with most of what he wrote.
It was also nice to read about the libertarian mayor getting elected in Johannesburg. That just made my morning. I really, really hope it works out because those guys need all the help they can get.
Hate to say it, but Kit Perez’s comments could equally apply to some libertarians in general. There’s too much not understanding what freedom is all about. Those who need a leader are not ready to be free.
Worthy of repeating, she nailed it here:
“I don’t know about you; I cannot speak for you. But this is what I know:
1. I do not need or want a king—“liberty minded” or otherwise, and I will not be part of a group of people that wants one.
2. I do not need a leader to tell me how to live according to principles and self-discipline.
3. I will not be party to violations of those principles, whether on a macro or micro basis; I will not affiliate with those who violate them.
4. I will make a difference in my own neighborhood, my own community. I do not need a label or group affiliation to do so.
5. I will continue to think for myself, to collect facts and make decisions based on those facts instead of my emotions.”
Ah, the P-38. I remember it well from Vietnam. Also taught several Grand Island, Neb. neighbors how to use one after a tornado, when the power went out and the only can openers they had were electric.
And here I thought it was, “Lies, damn lies and statistics.” Not “Lies, damn lies and accepted accounting principals.”
You still live around Grand Island Larry? I grew up in Kearney…
I was in Grand Island for a project at the VA Hospital in 1980-82. Now I’m back in Texas.
Nebraska was one of the few states, out of those I’ve lived in, that I’d move back to. If I had to move out of Texas.
Government pensions have been a serious problem for years, mostly because they were hidden from the public. Such as Calpers two sets of books.
My state is known for having the worst funded pension in the nation…with the caveat that KY has been the most open with its books in the nation. The way it got into this problem was classic.
Two main reasons for the underfunding, first was contracts with the employees often traded lower wages for better pensions. The Firefighters in the 90’s gave up 4% cost of living increases when inflation was 3 to 5% in exchange for a pension of 60% of your top three years average earnings after 20 years. This kept taxes low in a time that paying the raises would have cost the local gov a lot of money and pushed the cost 20 years down the line.
Same thing for teachers, water works employees, police, ems etc. [should point out that Firefighters in KY do not pay FICA for social security, and are not going to get SS when they retire.]
This 20 year retirement in the 90’s made sense since the average FF lived 10 to 15 years beyond retirement on average. (protective equipment was still a new thing, most FF’s died of cancer and other work related issues). In the 2010’s, these guys are looking at retirement and another 30 to 40 years of life. And with the “top three average” this has lead to workers doing the logical thing – “spiking their pay”. Volunteering for every single Over Time shift, taking vacation and coming in and working, selling sick time to the retirement fund, etc. This has the possibility of making their retirement pay 90% of what their base pay was.
The second thing that added to this problem was the governments that were suppose to pay into the funds also (workers pay 4 to 10% based on contract) but instead did “delayed payment credit” and “assumed growth”, or just did not make them.
For example, the City of Shively, several times paid the fund its share but took it back with the promise to pay later before the end of the fiscal year. This credited them with having made the payment but denied the fund managers the money to invest and grow that year. Other years in down turns, they would make lower payments than they should but stated in the budget that they expected X% growth which would make up the difference. (meaning the market is growing at 3% a year average, but this money will grow at 8% and make up the difference between the fully funded amount and 3% growth and the lower amount.) And of course like most of the state, they would just not make payments.
Two years ago the numbers started catching up. The current fund has enough cash to cover all payments for the next three years, and if the state keeps following the new law that requires local and state government to make full payments on time, will push that out to 8 more years. The effort now is to figure out how to cover the money that was not put in since the late 90’s.
People who made plans based on the idea they would get a pension (and many times not get social security) suddenly are being called parasites and greedy for not wanting their pension changed from what the contracts said. Worse is the accusations that they should have planned on not getting a pension and they were stupid for thinking they would.
KY is $10 billion (B, not M) short to fund the current life span of retired workers who paid into the pensions. It has a $63 billion two year budget.
Thank you for that, BusyPoorMedic.
It’s easy to imagine similar scenarios all across the nation.
I proudly wear a ring everyday that’s says lll 1776;
When tyranny becomes law
Rebellion becomes duty
To me that is what the lll% means and it also means this IMHO;
….We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.-….
Having met both Kit and Mike (the first meeting was at the same time BTW) I respect & respected them both, I also try to live under Mike’s Three Percent Catechism:
These four principles — moral strength, physical readiness, no first use of force and no targeting of innocents — are the hallmarks of the Three Percent ideal. Anyone who cannot accept them as a self-imposed discipline in the fight to restore the Founders’ Republic should find something else to do and cease calling themselves a “Three Percenter.”
However I do believe lll% can mean different things to different people and to me one of the biggest problems we have today are the people who want to tell other people what to think and do (which I don’t see Kit doing, she is only speaking for herself from what i see) when it is none of their business.
Live and let live; if someone want to call themselves lll% it’s cool by me and if they don’t that’s cool; it’s not about what you say or call yourself but moreso about what you do and behave like IMHO.
Also as for me as Patrick Henry once said;
“…Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!”
To me that will never include bowing to a King/Queen or someone who thinks he/she is no matter where that King/Queen reign may be.