You can build a throne with bayonets, but you can't sit on it for long.
Boris Yeltsin
Congratulations, Nick Fradiani, 2015 American Idol!
Well, I'm on the record in yesterday's post supporting Clark Beckham, but to be honest, I thought Nick did a credible job and had the better song selections: his coronation song has an irresistable staccato arrangement. Nick's win snapped a 5-year winning streak (since I picked Adam Lambert over Kris Allen). I think Nick's winning single is probably the most marketable since Phillip Phillips' "Home" with over 5 million in sales and hit #6 on the Hot 100. (Still a big change since the first 5 seasons or so when the coronation singles went straight to #1.) Will Nick shake off the mediocre post-Idol slump of recent winners? For example. Lee DeWyze has not hit Top 40 since his remake of U2's "Beautiful Day" and his follow-up album sank to 3000 in sales from his Idol album 153,000. I think a lot depends on material and consistency. I have my doubts but am willing to be proven wrong.
Facebook Corner
(IPI). Illinois state officials predicted taxpayers would need to contribute $43 billion into the state’s pension systems between 1996 and 2015. But taxpayers actually contributed more than $59 billion to the pension system since then – $16 billion more than originally projected.
That’s because the state’s pension repayment plan completely missed the mark.
In 1994, then-Gov. Jim Edgar signed into law Public Act 88-0593 – commonly referred to as the “Edgar ramp” – which set up a 50-year payment schedule for the state’s pension liability. That plan outlined what the state needed to pay into the pension systems to bring the funding ratio to 90% by 2045.
According to the original estimates, Illinois’ pension payment for the current fiscal year was supposed to be $3.9 billion. But the state’s actual pension payment this year was $6.9 billion, $3 billion more than the Edgar ramp predicted.
No wonder CPS has such a hard time teaching math! The math teachers can't figure out how to fund their own pensions....
(IPI). Has it come to this? It would take three years of a complete government shutdown, during which the entire general fund went toward pensions, just to break even.
What I'm reading here are mostly self-serving ones from the crony unions. I have probably written dozens of comments on this topic, and people STILL don't get it. Bill Clinton notoriously said, "It's the economy, stupid." To rephase: "It's the distributions, stupid!" The government Ponzi schemes, like social security, always had a day of reckoning as the proportion of active workers to retirees declines. In pay-go schemes like social security, contributions are redirected to outflows to pensioners; any excess goes to reserves/investments, but if there are not enough funds for distributions, you have to draw down on your investment base. The latest numbers I've heard is that the SSA actuaries are overoptimistic, that the reseves, which have been drawing down since 2010, will be exhausted by 2031. Does that mean benefits go down to zero--no, assuming there are still active workers paying payroll taxes, roughly 3/4ths of the normal check amount will be funded.
The problem is, both public pension-eligible workers and the government haven't paid nearly enough to cover million-dollar-plus distributions, with both earlier eligibility and often bigger distributions. than social security: many recipients have benefits exceeding the median state household income, sometimes even into 6-figures. It's one thing to make that kind of money if you worked in the private sector where companies with lush pension plans have to compete against other companies (and the few companies with pension plans are looking to phase them out).
The political class, including government and its employees, thinks that it deserves a bailout. None of us taxpayers is responsibile for overpromising and underdelivering; as IPI has pointed out, Illinois trails the rest of states still with pension plans in terms of funding. No, it's not that the trust fund has caused the crisis, and it's not the occasional contribution holiday (which, obviously, wasn't helpful)--I saw a report that the average lifetime contribution is something like $180,000--which a number of early retirees will clear before they hit 65.
Make no mistake--the government and the unions were well-aware that businesses have been transitioning to defined contribution plans for decades, that the economics of the baby boomer tsunami were compelling grounds for reform. Now with up to a third of taxpayer money being confiscated to pay for not services or infrastructure but for public employee retirement; private sector workers, instead of saving money for their own retirements, are having to bankroll illegally deferred obligations from decades of underinvestment by political whores and their crony union supporters. Cry me a river, public union workers/retirees... You are the gullible ones for believing and supporting crooked politicians. A taxpayer backlash is coming, and corrupt Illinois judges can't replenish the treasury--and higher taxes will kill the tax base. The question is whether the employee unions will negotiate before taxpayers impose a more Draconian settlement on them.
Freedom of Speech
You are not responsible for other people's unjust actions. Just a minor incident to make the point: I moved to the Dallas area after the end of my academic career to take a job working at an IBM subsidiary as a contractor; one of my sisters lived in Garland (recently in the news--re: Pam Geller), and I was visiting at her house. My sister asked me to drill my oldest niece on her spelling list. She missed one of the words, and I casually corrected her. For reasons I don't understand, she responded by slapping me hard against my face. I was more surprised than hurt. This was a girl who used to count days before my next visit. (My sister, of course, immediately admonished her daughter.)
The point is, we cannot predict how others will respond to our messages, and it is not okay to use force unless it is commensurate or defensive in nature (to another's initiation of hostilities) I am clearly not justifying the Charlie Hebdo massacre.
However, in my book, hostile speech is a form of aggression that is unacceptable in the social context. Hostile words can be a precursor to violent behavior. It is not a part of the marketplace of ideas but preys upon emotion vs. reason. Contrary to this speaker, arguing morality of one's speech does not constitute appeasement. This does not mean I want the government micromanaging petty insults. But let's not use uncivil behavior as the litmus test of liberty.
Political Cartoon
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| Courtesy of Scott Stantis via IPI |
Olivia Newton-John, "Heart Attack"
