WiFi was down - Lets talk pensions

Sorry for not posting, my wifi went down. Okay, now lets talk pensions a bit more. Public pensions versus private pensions. Lets talk about why the public pensions are in trouble. Firstly, they were not funded. Each year the state and local governments were supposed to put money in the pension funds, they did not put in the promised amounts because they counted on the existing investments to keep growing.

Over the past two decades bubbles in the stock market and housing market created big returns on investments. The state and local governments were flush with money because of the tax revenues they received. Rather than put in their promised investments and matching funds, the governments expanded services. The pension funds had so much more than they needed that the governments gave increases in the promised payouts.

There was a time in California where Orange County and San Diego were considered the best investors because they sold assets and invested in high return instruments. When the markets crashed, the two were ready to go into bankruptcy. I remember a highly placed local official saying that "We shouldn't sit on our assets", he thought he was so amusing. He wanted to sell all City assets and invest. Why use prudent investment in secure holdings if you can make money off the market? BECAUSE MARKETS FLUCTUATE AND YOU NEVER RISK YOUR HOME OR RETIREMENT.

Shortcuts, ponzi schemes and easy money. Hey, they could have invested in Berkshire Hathaway and not had a pension problem. Public pension funds anticipated returns of 8% a year. That is insanity when inflation has historically been at 5% a year, it assumes you will not make any bad investments of have wild fluctuations in the market. You don't make those assumptions with pensions. Berkshire Hathaway has averaged a 25% increase for forty years or so.

Let us look at what the public pension funds did invest in. CIM Group, for one. The pension funds invested in political investments and many of them failed. Politicians and their friends sat on the pension boards along with union leaders. A cozy group that I have previously shown. The union leaders wanted pay increases and earlier, more lucrative retirements for their members. The politicians wanted union support for their elections. Third parties were used to choose the investments, frequently staffed by friends of the politicians and the unions.

Everything went well enough while the market bubbles grew; but, as with every fairy tale there must be a bad guy. The bad guy was reality, bubbles burst. When the housing bubble burst it took every scheme with it. Fear of the bubble bursting led pension boards to invest in groups doing business with their own organizations, a form of insider trading. Nobody said anything because it was the most likely way to save the pensions and hide the impropriety. It didn't work.

Currently the Federal government is investigating these transactions. It will not be pretty, how could it. Because it was all conducted by buddies and friends, well, things were allowed to happen. Your average teacher, cop, government worker had no idea what his union and the politicians were doing. The middle men for all of this were paid tens of millions, more for being quiet than anything else. The people on the pension boards were given things, over a million dollars in bribes by one of them in New York alone.

Why aren't the unions screaming about Elliot Broidy and Villalobos, why aren't the politicians screaming about the insider investments. It is simple, they were all involved. How come the newpapers are not talking about the connection, how come they are not talking about the underfunding of the past two decades by state and local governments?

In the immortal words of Johnny Rotten, "Ah-ha-ha. Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?" Well kids, we all have. Corruption happens incrementally, it starts small and like an "I Love Lucy" show ends up escalating because you need to lie more and more to make the first lie sound true.

It has been well documented that CIM Group was funded by public pension funds. It has been well documented that they invested in projects which the governments, whose pension funds invested in them, had influence over the projects. Community Redevelopment Agencies were quick to authorize projects for CIM and happy to give them grants and loans. Why did the City of Los Angeles loan $30 million to Cirque De Soleil when it couldn't pay it's own bills. Maybe because CIM Group owned the venue where they were to play. It is possible is it not.

For those new to the blog, read the previous articles on pensions and you will see that I have linked to original documents and reports by traditional media with all of the pieces proving the above. Now, the question is what do we do.

I will start with some simple things. Union members did not keep a good enough eye on their leadership, I am equally guilty of this. Non-involvement allows these things to occur. It is our unions, not the leaderships and we pay the price. Next, we cannot look for shortcuts ourselves, we have to get back to basics. Our unions should not support politicians merely because they will support us, they will not, they are politicians and when the hard times come will give us up in a second.

IBEW is being sold out by the politicians it promoted. Then again, it shouldn't have sought to control them, it should have sought politicians who would do the right thing. Same for the other unions. Unions have a place it is not in politics. We need to get back to basics. We need to look to do an honest days work for an honest dollar. We need to seek to have politicians who truly care about their responsibilities. If we allow the system to be corrupt we guarantee failure eventually. The time is here.

As I sit here those involved are busy trying to hide what occurred, it is too late. They should be buying luggage and updating their passports. The proof is out there and as the pensions are audited the questions will arise. The politicians think the answer is to take away the pensions and reduce them, this has a consequence. If we put the penalty on new hires, they will not come to government. Government should have the best and the brightest, with no reward for success and humiliation for every mistake, why would they join the government for long?

Someone said that public pensions should invest in government bonds, not a bad idea. It leads the employees to want to see projects come in under budget and on time, it means our retirements will be as solid as our work. The person who said this to me is a really smart analyst. Probably better than me; but, I haven't been at my best.

The advantage of 401k plans for employees is that you can switch companies. You do not want people like me switching and going into private industry, you do not want me advising private companies on how to make money from local governments. Government is run by lifers, people who understand how to make the crazy work. When I get home at night I am researching my industry, someone has to.

We need to return to a time when companies were loyal to employees and employees were loyal to companies. It was what made America great, the Japanese imitated it and succeeded, now everyone is out for themselves and nothing works. It can't. If only one dog can win that means everything fails.

The best thing to fix the pensions is to stop the craziness and get back to sound investment in us, invest in ourselves, in our work, in our own institutions. I have posted on the car companies and raised the same questions. Be well.

Before I go. Here is the CIM Group website. Go to the part that says "Case Studies" and see what they did. Downtown Los Angeles and Hollywood are particularly interesting. Remember they did this with funding from CalPers and Lacers, your public pension funds. Hollywood is interesting because CIM purchased properties prior to the adaptive reuse ordinance. What good guessers they were.

This little article will help you to see. Elliot Broidy sat on both CalPers and the City of Los Angeles Police and Fire Pension Board. Mr. Broidy was put on the Los Angeles Board by Antonio Villaraigosa, our Mayor. Mr. Broidy voted to invest $30 million the Police and Fire Pension Fund in the CIM Group which was an investor in Markstone, his own company.

Now for you kiddies who have some fun, find out how many of the old buildings that were converted into lofts had proper asbestos removal, find the permits. Now ask yourself what happened to the head of Building and Safety. Oh, and the supergraphics in Hollywood that caused such a stink, they were put up by, go on guess, CIM Group.

I make no money from this blog, I have absolutely no economic interest in anything, ex cleaned me out and left me the debt. I do however have an interest in seeing things get back on track. We cannot fix the pensions with more of the same, it won't work. Ron Kaye has a website lacleansweep. As far as I know, I never the man. I disagree with some of his suggestions; however, I like the title. We need to start over and get back to basics.

If he really wishes to improve things, their group might consider involving the people who will have to do the work, the City employees. Rather than treating them as the enemy, he might consider working with them and holding those who were decision makers accountable. And to the unions, same thing, should be working with the community not just for our interests, for the City's interest. Hey, I am happy to annoy anyone even the devil himself.

Don't jump to conclusions

An article about Bell City politicians, thievery and the Jewish mob. There will be more of these stories. Other cities including Los Angeles. Do not blame the jews for all of our problems. Mafia is mafia and the mafia in Los Angeles was always the jewish mafia, never the Italians.

Surreal Fire

Dear readers, I can see the red sun, I can smell the smoke. The Crown Valley Fire is just south of me. I left this morning to go a few hours away to meet with a business associate, when I left the fire was further away. When I returned the whole sky was orange with smoke.

I have been through fires before. I stood on a roof during the Simi Valley one block away from the fire and managed to help get some horses out of the area. I have driven through a fire in the hills around Los Angeles. This fire is different somehow. I didn't expect it to make it to where it did.

I gassed up my car when I got back today. I figure if the smoke becomes too hard on me I will just go to Palm Springs or Las Vegas. Our fire fighters are doing a good job and we do appreciate them. Let us pray that none of them gets hurt.

DRAT, another article

Okay, so someone data mined Facebook and posted all the information where it could be seen and linked to other personal information. To develop relationships of trust, ones in which we speak freely, people must respect your trust. Facebook is a whore because they made changes to your privacy without telling you in advance, they did not respect their relationship with you.

Part of the issue is unilateral versus consent. Informed consent. The ex gave her boyfriend my personal e-mails and then told me nothing I said was private. She used my trust in her against me. She told me that our conversations were private and then made them public, actually worse, she gave them to her boyfriend.

I hired someone from another department, he is dead now; but, never forgotten. I hired a second person from another department. I told them both the same thing. I will never ask for information about your department that was given in confidence and I expect that you will never give confidential information about my department to others.

People tell me things, some in confidence and some in the hope that I will release the information. I try to find out what their intent is. I try and act as a filter with integrity. I am imperfect; but, I try. There are many things that I have not posted. There are many secrets that were given in confidence that I have not posted. I respect that trust I was given and that mine was respected, it is about mutuality. Even though my ex-wife treats nothing I have said with privacy (her words), I still respect hers. I may get angry at times; but, I will not post her name, nor mine.

Facebook does not respect it's relationship with you. It does not consider anything you post as private. Someone recently stalked the founder of Facebook and attempted to say that because he did not respect privacy they wanted to see how he felt about disrespecting his privacy. I disagree, we cannot promote privacy by violating privacy. Pretty much my problem with Assange and Wikileaks.

God has other plans

I had not intended to write again tonight because of the bronchitis. Problem is, there is a great article about Wikileaks and it dovetails with my last post. The article discusses how Wikileaks publication of certain government documents regarding the war was criminal.

Wikileaks left the names of hundreds of informants on some documents. There is a very real chance that these people will be killed. The documents were leaked to Mr. Assange or stripped from the web. If they had been leaked to the Afghans we are fighting then that would be traitorous for an American. Mr. Assange is not an American. The release of the documents may make him an enemy. If I release a foreign nations secret documents it is spying.

Somethings are private and somethings are state protected. If I beat my child and break a bone, it should be known. What is rightfully private and what it means to release such information is the line we must understand. The ex gave her boyfriend some of my e-mails to her, they were private and she knew they were just meant for her. She informed me that nothing I ever said to her was private although together 27 years.

The issue is the same in both examples. When do we have a duty to keep things private and when do we have a duty to investigate and possibly report? I believe it depends on the level of trust and the intimacy or risk of harm. I would respect Mr. Assange more if he had either left out the names or took a position in favor of the Afghans insurgents. I can respect releasing our information if he is willing to be treated as the enemy. If he wished to be a reporter then he should have erased ALL the names excluding the President of other elected officials. We have a right to know their decisions.

We have done some bad things in Iraq and Afghanistan, these things should be known; but, not the names. Our need to know and our right to know is so that we can decide as a nation if we want to be in these wars and if we are doing things in the right manner. We don't need the names of the informants to make these decisions unless they are officials.

Blogger Suits

Here is the story. A black woman who was in the Department of Agriculture, specifically the Director of Rural Development in Georgia, had been filmed talking about how she had not helped someone as much as she should have because he was white. The video was shown by a blogger. She then was let go by the Obama Administration very quickly.

A few days pass and she states how her speech was taken out of context because she was talking about how she was wrong to have done what she did and that she eventually ended up friends with the farmer and saved his farm. A few more days pass and she is offered a different and better job; but, she doesn't take it yet. A few more days pass and she decides to sue the blogger.

You are being led, the media is being used to manipulate you. The complaint she is making is that bloggers are dangerous, that we don't give all the facts and should be regulated. I have been talking about these issues because it is an attack on free speech.

Firstly, free speech means people will not give all the facts it is impossible. Secondly, she gave the speech in public and he showed part of it, the news always only shows clips. Thirdly, she admitted to having misused her position, it does not matter that they kept their farm. It also does not matter that she changed. Those things may speak well of her willingness to grow and learn, heck I hope we learn and grow cause we don't start out knowing it all. It is admirable that she had the courage to admit that she had been unfair in the past, she did not have to. The issue the blogger, it says, was addressing was that racisim exists on all sides and within the NAACP. The blogger should have shown the whole video and explained that she had changed; but, it is not a requirement and should not be.

I intentionally do not edit my source documents, I intentionally tell people to read the source documents and provide links. I then attempt to discuss aspects of what I have read. I am more interested in getting people to consider things than in leading people to a conclusion. By providing source documents the reader is encouraged to investigate for themselves. That does not mean that I should not be allowed to take positions and just show the parts that favor my position. My approach is my approach, others should have the freedom to approach things differently, nobody is all knowing or perfect and the truth is not owned by the mass media, we are all entitled to our opinion.

We must be careful not to slander others in public. IN PUBLIC. I do not cuss on my blog because it is public. It is not a question of privacy versus control, we do not have to choose between the two. Yes, because the internet is anonymous we do see people write some very false and obscene things. We should not regulate what is said on the net anymore than in the newspapers. This creates a problem, children do not know what appropriate limits are. Neither do many adults because they never had to address the issues before. Newspapers did have to worry about libel.

If people are allowed to publish anything, and the internet is publishing, they can seriously harm others. It is one thing to tell a friend that your ex is a whore, it is quite another to tell their boss (no my ex is not a prostitute, not about my ex) or to publish it. The possible consequences are vastly different. In casual conversation we do not choose our words precisely and people have a tendency to use the internet the same way. Many people who do not write for a living do not understand the difference. Yet, anyone can publish on the internet.

People get mad, we get angry and say things in private with people we know that are not meant to go beyond them. We do say things that are venting. Not long ago my "son in law" posted a comment on this blog. He said some very hurtful things even though I have done more for him than he recognizes. He posted to me, he did not plan for the world to view it, at least I do not think so. I removed my post and everybody's comments. I removed it because it was too public, I had wished that he had spoken to me directly so that we could have a complete conversation, the blog was not the place for it.

On a few occasions one of my friends has commented on posts and left names, when I notice this I remove the comments and post. I don't want to identify people, I moderate the comments because I care about privacy. If somebody chooses to use their real name as their screen name, that is their choice. I want people to speak freely, within the legal bounds and have privacy at the same time. If people choose not to be anonymous, that is their choice and I respect it. But I want us to have choices. And I have the choice of how I manage my blog.

On a side note, I was needed somewhere and had to stop in the middle of this post, actually towards the end. I have had pneumonia twice, both times I failed to take care of it in a timely manner. I sometimes suffer from bronchitis as a consequence. Today the sky is filled with smoke and ash, the ash dusted my car. I had a short episode of bronchitis and had to finish this quickly. My apologies, I am sure privacy and blogging will be in the news again and I will comment.

Manipulation

Machiavelli was very good at explaining things. Manipulation of the masses is very old. The City of Bell is being used to manipulate you. The salaries of the City Manager, Council members and Police Chief were ridiculously high for a small city. Having said that, people knew before now. The real intent in having allowed it and exposing it now is to cap pensions and pay for civil servants. Consider the timing.