Remember these?
The State Budget Swindle
Pigs at the State Trough
A Slow Saturday Special: Statehouse Slush Fund
Hollywood S***s on Massachusetts
Keep them in mind as you read another list of lying looters.
"106 retirees collect $100k or more in state worker retirement benefits" by Matt Carroll, Globe Staff | March 22, 2009
The number of state retirees who take home pensions of $100,000 or more has more than tripled over the past five years, adding to the pension system's financial stress.
Also see: The Boston Sunday Globe's Other Omissions: Pensions
One hundred six retirees, or their survivors, are paid six-figure pensions, up from 33 in 2003, according to state figures. The list is dominated by university and college officials and professors, doctors, and high-ranking State Police officers.
Topping the list are two University of Massachusetts Medical School doctors, Arthur M. Pappas, the former Red Sox medical director who retired a decade ago with a pension of more than $230,000, and Aldo Rossini, who receives slightly more than $200,000.
Third, at just under $200,000, is William M. Bulger, the former president of the University of Massachusetts and onetime state Senate president, who won a legal battle in 2006 to boost his pension an extra $17,000 by counting his university housing allowance.
A crook just like his brother.
More than 600 take home $75,000 or more. The list includes more than 45 people from the UMass system, most from Amherst, more than 25 State Police officers, and 15 from UMass Medical School. A small portion, about 1 in every 500 retirees of the 50,000 in the system, take home more than $100,000, but critics say the increase in high pensions and the various abuses reported recently fuel public outrage....
Pensions for UMass and UMass Medical School officials have escalated as a result of higher salaries paid because of competitive reasons during the 1980s and 1990s, said UMass spokesman Robert Connolly. The size of a state pension is determined partly by the average salary an employee earns over his or her last three years on the job.
That's their excuse for looting these days: competitive reasons!
The system conducted salary and peer analysis of other systems, he said. The idea was "attract and retain good people," he said....
The average state pension is about $24,000.... State workers receive what are known as defined benefit plans, which have rapidly lost popularity among private sector employers because of their expense.
How's that asshole doing, citizen?
In a defined benefit plan, the benefits to the retiree, such as monthly payments and healthcare costs, are often locked in for life, no matter how costs change later....
Yeah, the STATIES give themselves a WAY BETTER DEAL than YOU, taxpayers!!
And WHO do you think is PAYING for their retirements, huh?
We should retire them all to the harbor.
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And this is the guy to fix it!
.... Patrick's reformer role has come into question in recent weeks after actions that have spurred controversy, including his handing a $175,000-a-year agency job to Senator Marian Walsh, an early campaign supporter.
See: State Taxpayers and Special Elections
Last week he called several news stories "trivial," including those about Walsh's patronage hire and a Globe article that described how Transportation Secretary James A. Aloisi Jr.'s sister, whose $60,000-a-year title was "chief of staff," worked in an empty State House office for six months with no apparent duties....
See: The First Brother and Sister of Massachusetts
Oh, yeah, Patrick will fix everything!
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Meanwhile, what about your pension?
The stock market's decline has already ravaged your 401(k) plan. Now it could hurt your pension, too.
Under a law that took effect last year, underfunded pension plans may be forced to limit lump-sum payments and suspend cost-of-living increases for retirees. In addition, some plans could be frozen, preventing current employees from earning credit for additional years on the job.
But our LYING, LOOTING LEGISLATORS can take credit for a DAY and the RICH CEO ABOVE HERE can get GUARANTEED BENEFITS while YOUS IS TAPPED OUT!!!!!!!
Holy shit, AmeriKa!!!!!!!
HOW MANY FARTS can you SUCK ON without LOPPING OFF SOME HEADS, huh?
"Companies are going to have to make drastic decisions about their pension plans," said Peter Austin, executive director of BNY Mellon Pension Services, which advises businesses on retirement plans. Pension funds are typically invested in a mix of stocks, bonds, and other securities, most of which have fallen sharply. By some estimates, thousands of pension plans could be affected by the law because their funds have become so depleted....
What, NO BAILOUT?? ALL THAT $$$$ GONE to WAR LOOTERS and BANKS while YOUR PENSIONS were UNDERFUNDED and LOOTED by FINANCIERS???!!!!
Are YOU FEELING a MIGHT INSULTED, Amurka?!!!!!
The law has already started affecting some local employers. For instance, Boston book publisher Houghton-Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Co., notified its 5,000 employees last week that effective April 1 they no longer have the option of receiving a lump-sum payout at retirement. Now, they can only receive half the money, with the rest paid in traditional monthly payments.
How many shits in the face can you take, America? You gobbling it up?
Also see: The Textbook Industry
"We had no choice," said Houghton-Mifflin spokesman Josef Blumenfeld. "The law doesn't leave us with any latitude."
We had no choice, we had to retain talent, blah, blah, blah, blah!!! Pfffffttt!!!
Nortel Networks Corp., a telecommunications equipment maker that recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, said it was also required to stop making lump-sum payouts because its pension was underfunded. Nortel, based in Canada, has 30,000 employees, including about 680 in Massachusetts.
So WHERE does all this MONEY GO, anyway? Where the f*** does it go?
While the way retirees receive their pensions may be affected by funding problems, the plans themselves are not at risk. Even if a company files for bankruptcy, most traditional pensions are guaranteed by the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. - up to $54,000 annually for someone who retires at 65. The agency said it guarantees more than 29,000 private pension plans.
Yeah, YOU GOT IT, taxpayers!!! YOU ALREADY WAITING with a BAILOUT for these guys!!! Heck, you will be PICKING THEM UP from EVERYONE!!!!!
See: Corporate Pension Funds Next in Line for Bailout Loot
But the law does require companies to cut back on some benefits that employees may have counted on, said Robert D. Webb, a partner at the Boston law firm of Nutter McClennen & Fish. Webb said the restrictions are intended to act as a "safety valve" to ease pressure on underfunded plans.
Do you FEEL LIKE a DUPE YET, worker?
Specifically, when pensions are less than 80 percent funded, the law bars companies from disbursing more than 50 percent of a benefit in a single payment.
While retirees traditionally receive a pension as a lifetime monthly payment, roughly half of companies offer lump-sum payments, said Carrie Duarte, a principal at PricewaterhouseCoopers' human resources practice in Boston. Most workers who have the option take it, she said, so they can have more control over their money by investing in a tax-deferred retirement account.
You are REALLY GETTING the SHAFT in EVERY ORAFICE, aren't you, Amurkan worker? Where are you? Why are you not revolting?
The law also makes it more difficult for companies to sweeten pensions, such as by adding early-retirement benefits, cost of living increases, or faster vesting. The restrictions don't apply to public pension plans covering government workers.
Yeah, UNLESS you are a CEO of SOME FINANCIAL FIRM!!!!
And those government pukes? They cut themselves a good enough deal as is!!!!!
The law becomes even tougher when plans fall below 60 percent funding levels. Companies are then barred from making any lump-sum payments or providing "shutdown benefits" - accelerated pension payments - that some employees are promised if their offices close.
Is it OKAY that THEIR PROMISES are SHIT, readers? You went and worked hard every day (unless you are in government, save cops, firefighters and teachers) on a CONTRACTUAL PROMISE, and yet HERE the CONTRACT has CHANGED (but not for AIG guys, no, gotta adhere to those or the whole system will collapse, oh)!
WTF has HAPPENED to America?
That is why I SAY it is AmeriKa now, because THIS is OUTRAGEOUS!!!! This NATION has been LOOTED!!!!!!!!!!!!!
For pensions that cover union workers at more than one firm, the law requires restrictions on lump-sum benefits when they fall below the 65 percent funding threshold or suffer other liquidity problems. More than 100 such plans nationwide were critically underfunded last year, according to the US Department of Labor. That included the New Bedford Fish Lumpers Pension Plan, which notified the Labor Department in April 2008 that it faced a deficit and was considering trimming benefits, including early-retirement and disability payments....
Yeah, fuck the fishermen and their hardships, huh? I'm so god-damned disgusted by this, that is why you are getting the spew!!!!
Jerry Mingione, a principal at Towers Perrin, a Connecticut company that advises businesses on retirement benefits, estimated that nearly half of pension plans may have to limit disbursements unless they step up contributions or find other ways to avoid the restrictions....
Yeah, right; bankrupt businesses are going to plow money into pensions when they can fob it off on the government. Quit lying to us, will you, Globe?
Duarte of PricewaterhouseCoopers said she has spoken to executives at Massachusetts companies who are scrambling to ease the impact on workers. For example, she said, some are contributing more money to pension plans, while others are looking to trim benefits.
I'd like to see these "some" they keep talking about, as opposed to "others." Damn, that's a common theme that runs through the propaganda we call "newspapers" here in AmeriKa!!!!
"We are having many more discussions," Duarte said. "Companies are trying to do the right thing."
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