Sweet Gig If You Could Get It…

California county administrator to get $423,644 a year — after retirement

Yes, California’s broke and this is another reason why…

When local California official Susan Muranishi retires from her job in a couple of years, she’s going to be walking away with a fat paycheck — $423,664 a year – for the rest of her life.

Muranishi, an Alameda County administrator, makes $301,000 in annual base pay. But in addition to that, the San Francisco Chronicle reports she’ll also receive:

• $24,000 in “equity pay” to make sure she makes at least 10 percent more than anyone else in the county, even in retirement.
• An annual performance bonus of $24,000, even in retirement.
• Another $9,000 a year for serving on the county’s three-member Surplus Property Authority, even in retirement.
• $54,000 a year in “longevity” pay for having stayed with the county for more than 30 years, even in retirement.

Like other county executives, she’ll also get an $8,292-a-year car allowance. According to the county auditor’s office, her pension would be equal to her annual pay package now.

The Pension Fund That Ate California

CityJournal

After spending years dogged by unpaid debts, California labor leader Charles Valdes filed for bankruptcy in the 1990s—twice. At the same time, he held one of the most influential positions in the American financial system: chair of the investment committee for the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, or CalPERS, the nation’s largest pension fund for government workers. Valdes left the board in 2010 and now faces scrutiny for accepting gifts from another former board member, Alfred Villalobos—who, the state alleges, spent tens of thousands of dollars trying to influence how the fund invested its assets. Questioned by investigators about his dealings with Villalobos, Valdes invoked the Fifth Amendment 126 times.

CalPERS’s corruption, insider dealing, and politicized investments have overwhelmed taxpayers with debt.

The New Abolitionism: Why Education Emancipation is the Moral Imperative of our Time

TheObjectiveStandard

Twenty-first century Abolitionists are confronted, however, by a paradoxical fact: Most Americans recognize that something is deeply wrong with the country’s elementary and secondary schools, yet they support them like no other institution. Mention the possibility of abolishing the public schools, and most people look at you as though you are crazy. And, of course, no politician would ever dare cut spending to our schools and to the “kids.”

For those who take seriously the idea that our public schools are broken and need to be fixed, the most common solutions include spending more money, raising standards, reducing class size, issuing vouchers, and establishing charter schools. And yet, despite decades of such reforms, our schools only get worse.

The solution is not further reforms. The solution is abolition.

Love those Unions!

Chrysler workers canned for drinking on the job reinstated

MyFoxDetroit first aired the footage of the Chrysler workers in September 2010. Video showed them in a park during the work day, drinking alcohol from bottles covered in brown paper bags and smoking what appeared to be marijuana.

With the auto giant having recently received a federal taxpayer bailout, and President Obama having visited the plant where the employees worked just months earlier, Chrysler appeared to take a zero-tolerance attitude. The company fired 13 workers, and suspended two.

But MyFoxDetroit reports that following a union-backed arbitration process, the employees were reinstated. This week, they came back to work.

Chrysler said in a statement that it does not support the decision to bring back the workers but would like to move on.

Business as usual…

Manhandling Hostess, Big Labor Costs 18,500 Workers Their Jobs

Unions=Sucking the creamy filling out of life.

“Teamster Hostess members and all Hostess employees should know this is not an empty threat or a negotiating tactic, but the certain outcome if members of the BCTGM continue to strike. This is based on conversations with our financial experts, who, because the Teamsters were involved in the legal process, had access to financial information about the company.”

That didn’t matter to the striking union, whose 5,000 members pull in as much as $22 an hour plus medical benefits, get nine weeks of paid leave and a company pension. It ignored the warning and Nov. 15 deadline and now will take 100% losses on salaries and benefits instead of the 8% requested by management. Some union brotherhood — the bakers’ action took their fellow workers down with them.

Stay classy, Unions.

Read More At IBD: http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/111612-633816-hostess-workers-fall-victim-to-big-labor.htm#ixzz2CW4Nd5V6

Look for the Union Label…

Paramus-based union leaders arrested on embezzlement charges

An eight-count indictment charged the two officials with conspiring to embezzle funds from the Paramus-based local, which represents about 2,900 electrical workers in Bergen, Hudson and Essex counties, and its Joint Apprentice Training Fund, for the benefit of Kathleen Libonati, Dressel’s second wife, and, indirectly, for Dressel himself.

TRS earned less than 1 percent on its investments last year

IllinoisPolicyInstitute

On Thursday, the Teachers’ Retirement System announced its annual investment returns for fiscal year 2012. You may recall that it was predicting 8.5 percent returns.

So what kind of returns did it actually get? A meager 0.76 percent. For comparison, the S&P 500 grew 7.39 percent during fiscal year 2012, while the Dow Jones Industrial average grew 7.92 percent.

Of course, this isn’t the first time TRS investments have come in below expectations. Even before this year, the 5-year average rate of return was only 4.1 percent, and the 10-year average was just 6 percent. Even its long-term averages are below its projections.

And when investment returns come in under projections, it falls on taxpayers to make up the shortfall.

Ultimately, there are only two numbers that matter: the amount of money the pension fund will pay out for earned benefits, and the amount of money it has on hand. Between now and 2045, TRS will pay $376.5 billion to retired teachers. It has just $36.3 billion on hand. In order for these assets to cover future payouts, TRS would need to see average investment returns of more than 18.5 percent per year.

The simple fact is that TRS is broke. Under new accounting rules, TRS has less than 23 percent of the money it should have in the bank today in order to make its pension payments. The system doesn’t even have enough money on hand to pay out benefits to the people who have already retired. Pension experts and TRS’s own actuaries agree: the fund could soon be insolvent.

Without real reform, pensions will continue to crowd out funding for core government services, like education. And the longer lawmakers delay action, the worse our pension debt crisis will become. Legislators can’t ignore the math any longer. Only major reforms, like those heavily-centered on a defined-contribution plans and those tackling the automatic cost-of-living adjustment, can get the problem under control.

Audit: Green jobs stimulus program wastes cash

WashingtonTimes

President Obama’s green jobs training program, which was part of his stimulus, has failed on most key jobs measures, according to a new internal audit that found it was training workers who already had jobs that didn’t need green energy skills, and was failing to place new enrollees in jobs once they finished the training.

The Labor Department’s inspector general also said grantees who received the green jobs-training money did a poor job of reporting their results.

Only 38 percent of those who have completed training got jobs based on it, and only 16 percent kept jobs for at least six months — the key measure of success for the program.

“Outcomes for participants were far less than originally proposed,” the auditors said.

The government earmarked more than $400 million for green jobs training programs, and $328.5 million has been spent so far.

About half were already working in the energy sector and wanted retraining, and half were potential new energy workers.

Of those workers who already had energy-sector jobs, the auditors said they were retrained, even though they didn’t need it.

“We found no evidence that the incumbent workers in our sample required services or training to keep their job or obtain a new one,” the investigators said in their report.

The Labor Department challenged the findings, saying that auditors didn’t consider the full progress of those who got training. The department said some of those who got training found jobs before their training was completed and said they should have been counted.

Jane Oates, assistant secretary for employment and training, also said as the rest of the training is completed, they expect the numbers to improve.

The audit was released by House oversight committee Chairman Darrell E. Issa, who requested the update.

Mr. Issa said in addition to poor performance records, the green jobs money “served as a slush fund” for the Obama administration to dole out payments to allies “like the National Council of La Raza, the Blue Green alliance and the U.S. Steelworkers Union.”

10 Dates to Remember from Barack Obama’s Amazing First Term

My question is, where is his Nobel Peace Prize listed? Oh wait…he didn’t earn that…

TownHall

“The issue here is not gonna be a list of accomplishments. As you said yourself, Steve, you know, I would put our legislative and foreign policy accomplishments in our first two years against any president — with the possible exceptions of Johnson, F.D.R., and Lincoln.” — Barack Obama

As future generations of Americans look back at the Obama years, perhaps as they search for some sort of explanation for why so many of them are living in huts and paying a 70% income tax rate when the country used to be so rich, they’ll be looking for some key dates and facts. So, in an effort to help future generations, here is a straightforward, entirely factual account of some of the most important moments of the Obama years.

1) Barack Obama Inaugurated (January 20, 2009): Oh, it was such a hopeful, glorious, unified moment. Cats and dogs, Fox and MSNBC, Republicans and Democrats — we were all in it together and rooting Obama on towards victory……….which brings up some obvious questions like: How did Barack Obama squander so much goodwill and what did he do to make so many Americans hate him?

2) Barack Obama throws out the first pitch at the All-Star game (July 14, 2009): On this date, the hippest man ever to occupy the White House revolutionized fashion in America at Major League Baseball’s All-Star game. Ever heard of mom jeans? Well, Barack Obama wore them to the All-Star game and that, combined with his girlish throwing motion, caused moms across America to copy the mom-in-chief – and that is how Barack Obama created mom jeans!

3) Obamacare passes (March 21, 2010): In one fell swoop, Barack Obama managed to cripple American healthcare, put the medical insurance industry on suicide watch, stall the economy, and empower the IRS and unelected death panels to get involved in your health care. If you were looking for comparable bad decisions from other world leaders, you’d probably need to go back to Napoleon’s decision to invade Russia during the winter or Nero’s decision to play the lyre on his balcony while Rome was burning instead of organizing a fire brigade. (In all fairness to Nero, that may be a rumor. For any future generations that are wondering what went so wrong with healthcare, contrary to what your liberal schoolteachers are telling you, George W. Bush was not responsible for “Obamacare.” It really was Obama.)

4) Osama Bin Laden was killed (May 2, 2011): In what undoubtedly was Barack Obama’s greatest moment, a bunch of scared, wimpy SEALs came to him and said, “We’ve figured out where Osama Bin Laden is, but we think we shouldn’t go get him because we’re afraid!” That was undoubtedly how most other Americans would have felt as well because as Obama’s team has told us constantly, he made a “gutsy call” to kill Osama. So obviously, those SEAL pansies had to be pushed into killing him, a wimp like John McCain wouldn’t have done it, and hundreds of millions of Americans who were angry about 9/11 wouldn’t have had cojones as big as President Mom-Jeans since he made such an incredibly “gutsy call.”

5) NASA had its last manned space flight (July 21, 2011): America’s “science President” moved America “forward” by cancelling our manned space program, which actually takes us all the way “backward” to 1960, the year before this country had its first crewed spaceflight. Hooray! We’ve gone backwards fifty years under Obama which takes us “forward”…or something.

6) America loses its AAA credit rating (August 5, 2011): For the first time since 1917, America had its credit rating downgraded from AAA by Standard & Poor’s. Despite Barack Obama’s call telling S&P that Tea Partiers must have spent all those trillions of dollars while he was out of the White House golfing and his promise that “We’ll pay it all back when our next paycheck comes in, we swear”, S&P refused to take Obama’s record-breaking deficit numbers off the books.

7) Barack Obama increases the national debt more in 3 years and 2 months than George Bush did in two terms (March 18, 2012): Despite delivering the “feeblest economic recovery since the Great Depression,” Barack Obama managed to rack up more debt in 38 months than George W. Bush did in 96 months. That’s sort of like putting down enough money to buy a Lamborghini and getting a used Dukes of Hazzard remote control toy car in return.

8) “You didn’t build that.” (July 13, 2012): In a revolutionary speech — well, for the President of a capitalistic country anyway — Barack Obama explained how the markets work. Apparently, the government provides roads, street signs, and regulations and in response, small businesses spring up to provide jobs and tax revenue without any individual effort, sort of like mushrooms after a night of hard rain.

9) Barack Obama had a Las Vegas Fundraiser (September 12, 2012): One day after Libyan Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans died because the Obama Administration ignored numerous warnings that they were in danger, Barack Obama jetted off to a fundraiser in Las Vegas. There were fears that four Americans dying because of Obama’s incompetence might spoil the mood, but all reports seem to indicate that a good time was had by all.

10) Barack Obama gets demolished in his first head-to-head debate with Mitt Romney (October 3, 2012): Surprisingly, Barack Obama, whom the mainstream media has christened as the most warm, charismatic, cool, confident, competent and good looking President in American history, was soundly defeated (as in Genghis Khan’s forces managed to soundly defeat the unarmed farmers who opposed him) by Mitt Romney, who is often fondly described as “robotic, but in a good way” by his supporters. The explanations for this inexplicable defeat ranged from “The air in Denver was too thin for him,” to “Jim Lehrer didn’t ask Obama enough questions about how wonderful he is,” to “Do you think he’s high again? I mean, I wouldn’t put it past him – and, wow, would it explain a LOT OF THINGS about his presidency.”

Obama’s second-term agenda will prove devastating to U.S.

AaronKlein

Americans may think they know what President Obama would do if he wins four more years. But, in reality, they have no idea just how radical and far-reaching his agenda would be.

Obama himself has been clear about using another term to “reform” our financial sector and ensure the implementation of ObamaCare. The president also has said he would attempt progressive-style immigration reform, with the presumption of amnesty for illegal aliens.

Many figure Obama would continue his relentless expansion of federal government power; increasing even further his crushing, multitrillion-dollar intergenerational debt; and pursue a weak foreign policy coupled with the evisceration of America’s military.

These generalized ambitions, however, do not scratch the surface of the specific, transformative assault that is planned upon our country.

Months of painstaking research into thousands of documents have enabled Brenda J. Elliott and me to expose the detailed template for Obama’s next four years — the one actually created by Obama’s own top advisers, strategists and associated progressive groups.

This second-term blueprint is laid bare in our upcoming book, “Fool Me Twice: Obama’s Shocking Plans for the Next Four Years Exposed.”

We found that, just as in 2008, when Obama concealed his true presidential plans behind bland rhetoric of ending partisan differences and cutting the federal deficit, his 2012 re-election theme of creating jobs conceals far more than it reveals about his true agenda for a second term.

 

Here are some of the second-term plans we uncovered:

• The re-creation of a 21st-century version of FDR’s Works Progress Administration program within the Department of Labor that would oversee a massive new bureaucracy and millions of new federal jobs;

• An additional government-funded jobs program that provides “good jobs” capable of supporting a family with a “decent standard of living.”

• A new government mandate to force businesses to provide twelve weeks of paid benefits to employees who need time off to care for a new child, a sick family member, or their own illness. Plus, a higher, required minimum wage that would raise the floor for all employees.

•       An expansive, de facto amnesty program for illegal aliens via both executive order and interagency directives linked with a reduction in the capabilities of the U.S. Border Patrol.

•     Plans to bring in untold numbers of new immigrants with the removal of caps on H-1B visas and green cards.

•     Government-funded, neighborhood-based programs to better integrate the newly amnestied immigrants into society, including education centers and health care centers. A “federal solution” to ensure that the amnestied immigrants are treated “equitably” across the United States.

•     A National Infrastructure Bank that would evaluate and finance infrastructure projects of substantial regional and national importance” and would finance “transportation infrastructure, housing, energy, telecommunications, drinking water, wastewater, and other infrastructures.”

•     The wresting of control of the military budget from Congress by placing an ”independent panel” in charge of military spending while slashing  the defense budget in shocking ways.

•      Spreading the vastly reduced resources of the U.S. Armed Forces even thinner by using them to combat “global warming,” fight global  poverty, remedy “injustice,” bolster the United Nations and step up use of  “peacekeeping” deployments;

•     A new “green” stimulus program and the founding of a federal “green” bank or “Energy Independence Trust,” which would borrow from the federal treasury to provide low-cost financing to private-sector investments in “clean energy. “

•  A “green Manufacturing” revolving loan fund to create 680,000 manufacturing jobs and 1,972,000 additional jobs over five years

•     Detailed plans to enact single-payer health care legislation controlled by the federal government.

 

How did we obtain this expansive blueprint? By investigating the policy papers and legislative proposals of the same progressive shadow groups that crafted Obama’s first term.

Obama’s first-term strategy did not materialize out of thin air. The president’s signature policies, including the “stimulus,” defense initiatives and even ObamaCare, were crafted over years by key progressive think tanks and activists, usually first promoted in extensive research and policy papers. Some first-term plans were even recycled and modified from older legislative attempts that had previously been pushed by progressive Democrats.

Many of these same progressive groups and activists have been hard at work planning Obama’s second-term strategy: jobs, wages, health care, immigration, defense, even electoral reform.

One joke going around the capital after the rare Washington earthquake of August 2011 was that Obama had proclaimed it: “Bush’s fault.” Yet it was Bush who must be credited with dusting off an old American saw that well applies to his White House successor: “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”

Will we, the American people, allow ourselves to be fooled again?