I was alerted to this post by a friend on Facebook. It points to a New York Times article on pension robbing.
Public Pension Ponzi Scheme; New York Cities Borrow From Pension Plan to Make Contributions.
The definition of Financial Repression:
Several measures that governments employ to channel funds to themselves, that, in a deregulated market, would go elsewhere.
Elsewhere indeed. I feel for the public sector employees who made calculated decisions to take less pay in their careers in return for early retirement opportunities and generous retirement benefits. Of Course that pay disadvantage was pre-2008, because today government employees make more than average private sector employees according to the CBO. But, these were promises made by politicians that could not possibly be kept.
Homeowners have no one to blame for their predicament if they drained the equity out of their houses during the bubble via bank loans and used the cash to buy cars and TVs of ephemeral value and now find their house is worth less than their loan balance. Sadly, public pensioners should also have seen this coming. Grey swan number 8 may be closer than we think.
http://amarginofsafety.com/2012/02/24/a-herd-of-grey-swans/
