This article was first published by TruthDig (truthdig.com).
In recent days, students have been rallying and barricading themselves inside buildings on University of California campuses to protest a 32 percent hike in tuition fees. Last Wednesday and Thursday, scuffles broke out between police and student protesters on UC campuses around the state, with dozens of students arrested and a few roughed up by eager cops. The protesters’ mood was combative, and they were boiling with anger that three days of protests had had little visible impact. But the students would be even angrier if they knew that the tuition increase, instead of funding essential services, was going toward securing cushy pensions for baby boomer university employees to the tune of $340 million a year.
Here’s the lead of a Nov. 19 news bulletin from the San Francisco Chronicle:
Rage at UC fee hike in L.A., Berkeley protests
LOS ANGELES—The UC regents are expected to put the final seal today on a hefty 32 percent tuition increase as students resume the protests that shut down their board meeting three times Wednesday and required campus police in riot gear to maintain calm.
Students, furious at the increase that will bring their yearly fees above $10,000 for the first time, rushed the UCLA building where the regents were meeting, throwing food, sticks and vinegar-soaked red bandannas meant to look like blood.
The students are right to be enraged. This must be the worst time for such a jarring surge in tuition, occurring along with news that real unemployment had reached levels unseen since the Great Depression. Many students say they will now need to get a second job in order to pay their way through school—that is, if they can manage to find one in this almost nonexistent job market. And the tuition increase means adding even more to the student debt that many will be paying off for the remainder of their lives. For a few, the situation is so dire that the fee increase might force them to drop out.
The kids are bewildered and skittish about their future, but there is a group of people in California living a lifestyle that’s as pleasant as can be: pensioners. While students pay more and get less of an educational bang for their buck, retired UC employees are enjoying ridiculously plush pension payments, and they are guaranteed to receive the same amount each month, no matter how little money the universities have or how much students will have to shell out in order to fund their golf getaways.
UC officials say they had no choice but to raise tuition to close a massive $500 million budget hole, but they remain vague on how that money is going to be distributed. That’s because they are ignoring the big, wrinkly elephant in the room: California’s pension funds and the highly questionable, high-risk investment strategies that tanked them.
Here’s a fun pension fund fact: Two of the top five highest California pensions are being paid out to former UCLA professors. One of them, Joaquin Fuster, makes $24,712.99 a month, or $296,555.88 a year. The other, John Schlag, gets $21,300.04 every month, or $255,600.48 per year.
The biggest reason for UC’s 32 percent tuition increase is staring right at you. Without it, the university can’t possibly keep paying out pensions to smug university retirees, who are guaranteed to receive them year in, year out despite the fact that their retirement fund is sliding into insolvency.
The UC retirement fund lost 30 percent of its value—$16 billion—since 2007. The pension plan, which pays out more than $1.5 billion a year to its 500,000 retirees, had been self-sufficient while the market soared through the boom years, with its investments providing a comfortable return to keep the machine going and the pension funds high. To keep it self-sufficient, UC’s fund managers had to get increasingly cockier, buying into more and more highly profitable, high-risk bets. That approach, of course, came crashing down in 2007. Now, in order to keep making payments on its obligations for the foreseeable future, the university system has to start depositing its own cash into the fund. In other words, the pension fund is collapsing and the university needs to bail it out with money taken out of tuition fees. This hasn’t happened in nearly two decades. It seems an economic crash was a contingency the UC didn’t plan for. And now students are paying for somebody else’s mistakes.
In 2010, the university will start depositing $360 million a year into the pension fund, increasing the deposit amount by about $100 million a year, according to the San Francisco Chronicle:
The University of California’s huge and once very healthy retirement fund lost a third of its worth in 2008, shedding about $16 billion in value primarily because investments plummeted due to the recession.
That could spell more bad news for many UC employees, who, beginning next year, will have to contribute 2 percent of their salaries to the pension plan. It also spells trouble for the UC system, which in April 2010 will begin contributing 4 percent of its roughly $9 billion payroll to the pension fund and a greater percentage in future years.
The question is, where will the increasingly cash-strapped UC system get all those hundreds of millions of dollars? Well, the 32 percent tuition hike—which is expected to bring in an additional $500 million in revenue—surely will help.
Student protesters may think they are simply battling a wasteful, callous government bureaucracy that is more concerned about bailing out Wall Street banks than supporting a frivolous thing like education. But really the fight is about something much more basic and widespread: It is a fight between the young and the old, between California’s baby boomer pensioners and everyone under 49. So far, the older set is winning, and the fleecing is bound to continue.
Yudof, the grinch who wealth-transferred
UC President Mark Yudof told the Associated Press that he could not guarantee that tuition would not be increased again next year if California did not come through with nearly $1 billion in aid. “I can’t make any … promises,” he said, which means that UC students can expect another massive increase because California isn’t going to valiantly rush to anyone’s economic rescue anytime soon. The Golden State has lost its Midas touch. It has a laundry list of economic catastrophes to work through, including the $50 billion hole in its pension fund that it is looking to plug with a taxpayer bailout. In the words of a key economics adviser to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, that means “less money for the University of California.”
So there you have it; that’s the way the game is rigged these days. It has been known by many different names—generational theft, wealth transfer, financial vampirism—but whatever you call it, California’s old are stealing from the young. And they seem to have no qualms about it. Baby boomers have taken everything their Greatest Generation parents fought for—public universities, Medicare, pensions and unions—and are leaving nothing for their children and grandchildren. Students aren’t being fleeced just by Wall Street con men, but by Grandma and Grandpa as well. It’s a realization that’s bound to make many young people downright uncomfortable.
This article was first published by TruthDig (truthdig.com).
Yasha Levine is a mobile home inhabitin’ editor of The eXiled. He is currently stationed in Victorville, CA. You can reach him at levine [at] exiledonline.com.
Read more: baby boomers, california, Class War, generational theft, tuition, uc, wealth transfer, Yasha Levine, Class War For Idiots
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45 Comments
Add your own1. anonymous | November 25th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
Fcking boomers! Death panels? BRING ‘EM ON!!!
2. aleke | November 25th, 2009 at 3:27 pm
Radicalize Dem Niggas
3. Jacob | November 25th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
Sorry, Yasha, but pensions have nothing to do with UC’s budget crisis.
UC’s white collar work force, specially professors, are not unionized. They get paid LESS than what they can be paid in the private sector. I know this. I used to work in a mid-level IT job at UC campus with a salary in the range $60-70K. In the private sector, I could have made $80-90K doing the same job. Generous pensions and other benefits are part of the perks that are necessary to attract a quality labor force from the private sector.
The case for waste because of a professor who gets paid $250K in pension does not sound very convincing to me. I bet this professor was making far more when teaching full time and spent decades working at UC. Such perks are part of the compensation package to prevent people from going into full-time consulting and such. Moreover, the vast majority of UC faculty do not get paid $200K salaries, much less pensions. Of course, there law schools, medical school, and business schools tend to pay “outrageous” salaries, but that’s what it takes to keep these people teaching. I know some professors who could be among the applicants for say the position of the president of the World Bank. Yet, they teach at UCB for about $200K/year salary. In the light of their opportunities, the compensation package sounds entirely reasonable to me.
4. aleke | November 25th, 2009 at 7:18 pm
Yeah this enormous salary to the detriment of everyone sounds perfectly reasonable because we pay our top sociopathic vampires even more! god bless america, we truly reached a golden age.
5. autonomy of the class | November 25th, 2009 at 8:14 pm
this article pits one segment of the proletariat against another, instead of recognizing the universal antagonism between the exploited and capital, ergo it is rubbish.
thats really all there is to say.
I guess its to much to expect some ironic trendster douchbag from vice magazine to have a class perspective.
6. Mike | November 25th, 2009 at 9:41 pm
Jacob:
If we need to pay profs more to keep them from taking private sector jobs that they are qualified for, than maybe the problem is that private sector jobs pay too much.
If the pension is for a quarter mil…than the job itself probably paid a mil at least, no?
Why should anyone make that much money!? At least in the USA where the true cost of living is very low (food is cheap), and housing and healthcare are only expensive because of artificial manipulation. I could see high pay like that in nations with high costs of living. Norway maybe, where a Big Mac could run over $25 and taxes are much higher. But not here.
There are people who make thousands of times as much as that! Billions a year!
Insanity!
At least the profs are researching and teaching. The administrators and speculators are the worst leaches.
7. Neil Baker | November 25th, 2009 at 9:48 pm
Prevailing power propped with pusillanimous propaganda prevents and prohibits proposals for prosperity.
Because UCSB is an unaccountable criminal mafia organization where I endured four years of near-constant hostility in the form of verbal and visual abuse, physical threats, an assault, bullying, mobbing, and finally getting unjustly fired followed by being sabotaged and libeled into permanent unemployment, I held little hope that I would be rehired by the UCSB crime family.
Although I guessed correctly that the unacceptable criminal UCSB mafia would refuse to even grant a telephone interview when I applied a few years ago for the newly created $100K/year executive position of Associate Vice Chancellor for Administrative Services, I applied anyway because the position was purposefully left mostly undefined and it provided a great opportunity to present my visionary ideas for how to rehabilitate and redeem the UCSB criminal mafia organization. I want the record to show that at least one good person correctly predicted the current crisis and attempted to head it off with an excellent visionary proposal. (I did the same thing for the State of California when I presented a detailed radical but workable engineering proposal for California that would have had us in the black instead of the economic degradation experienced under the Zionist mafia-installed Arnold)
It doesn’t take an MBA or a business genius to recognize that the key to UC prosperity is increased revenue via an increased enrollment of diverse satisfied customers willingly paying a reduced amount for a product of increased cutting-edge quality that results in greater overall income, endowments and prestige to the University. My proposal was to lead the experimental project to better utilize 21st Century communications technology to liberate undergrads from the bricks and mortar of a retarding unstimulating stationary campus that allowed the UCSB campus to be converted solely into a Grad School and revenue-generating business park while permitting UCSB undergrads to trek around the World between UCSB-owned or controlled hostels through the best places of the World while earning their degrees.
I proposed a variant combination of Netflix, Microtel, tourist hostels and MIT’s online university business models to provide superior, profitable, exciting and stimulating undergraduate educations to Californians, out-of-staters, international students and students of non-traditional age.
Instead of tuition increases, reductions in service, layoffs, furloughs, pay-cuts and the inevitable default of the retirement system, UCSB could be leading UC toward greater prosperity, greater support to graduate research programs and making a significant improvement in American student social awareness and ability to compete internationally.
Instead UCSB mafia hired Ron Cortez to supervise the UCSB campus food waste composting project. Hip, Hip, Hooray.
UCSB criminal mafia is, indeed, a mediocrity mill.
Where there is no vision, people perish.
Where vision is rejected, people perish.
8. Stephen | November 25th, 2009 at 10:16 pm
Legit. Look at the ’09 financial reports.
http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/finreports/index.php?file=08-09/pdf/fullreport_09.pdf
1.5 billion dollars goes to retiree benefits and 1.8 billion dollars goes to ‘other employee benefits’ This does not include employee salaries which comes in at 9.8 billion. Money for scholarships is 450 million. So, the workers get 4 times as many benis as the students do scholarship money. furthermore, the pension fund was worth about 50 billion until the financial crisis, or a 277,000k per each of the 180,000 UC employees. This does not include the healthcare stuff. So basically… working for the UC system…which I did for a year… is a gravy train with biscuit wheels! Choo-Choo!!!
9. Dr. Luny | November 26th, 2009 at 12:49 am
Ok first of all, Niel Baker, you’re a fucking loon. Alliteration is a gay gimic that your first grade english teacher should have told you to avoid if you didn’t want to sound like a fag.
Another huge problem with universities in this country, especially public universities, is the rapidly expanding administrative staff, and all of the secondary services provided on campuses these days that have nothing to do with education.
Then you have the decline in state aid over the past few years and the fact that wall street makes billions on student loans and controls our government.
10. theonlysaneone | November 26th, 2009 at 4:48 am
They’ll keep paying the bureaucrats, seniors, and union members every cent of their promised lavish benefits in perpetuity.
Absolutely no one has the guts to fight back, even if the few remaining workers have to live in poverty to afford their taxes.
11. brian | November 26th, 2009 at 7:41 am
On top of that the generous healthcare for life benefits offered to state employees after 20 years which is funded on a cash flow basis with no reserves ever established by legislature
Currently est. $5B a year and will grow to $21B a year when all the boomers retire
Need to eliminate basket weaving programs that do nothing to prepare students to compete in and be successful in the new world economy but leave them as marginally underemployed in low wage jobs with student loans and an attitude of permanent entitlement for government assistance
You dont need a BA in Ethnic Studies to work serving coffee at Peets Coffee
12. CocaCola | November 26th, 2009 at 7:56 am
Shoulda given Dolan tenure.
13. Carlito | November 26th, 2009 at 9:18 am
It`s always these damn Baby Boomers isn`t it? Well fook `em!
They should have made more babies to support them once they reach old age like their parents did. Either that or they should have saved money for their old days themselves.
But nooo, we can`t do that. We are hippies. We`ll just fuck with condoms whole day long instead of worry about the future. Well fuck you baby boomers, if you did not worry about your retirement why should I?!
14. internal exile | November 26th, 2009 at 7:38 pm
Waddya mean, condoms? I’m not gonna wear no glove on my member. Abortion, baby, abortion.
15. internal exile | November 26th, 2009 at 7:39 pm
Jacob, your reasoning refutes exactly zero about Yasha’s reporting. Even if you believe that the private sector pays more, that doesn’t make the public pensions any less, or mean that the tuition increase is isn’t going to the pensioners. But thanks for the red herring!
16. Ave, Dr. Luny | November 27th, 2009 at 6:36 am
I am delighted to see your return to the comments section of exiledonline, Dr. Luny. Though no longer ‘Baked’, you indubitably remain a nigger.
17. DarthFurious | November 27th, 2009 at 11:27 am
UC’s problem is only a symptom of California’s problem, which in turn is only a symptom of the country’s problem:
The U.S. is bankrupt. Period. Everyone knows the sordid details. The Fed is just trying to keep the old lady propped up and on her feet until she can go back to walking on her own. Except that this time around its a massive stroke and no one’s got the guts to tell the grandkids that gramma ain’t gonna be around much longer.
Despite official assurances to the contrary, we are not coming out of a recession. We are only now just beginning the greatest economic depression in human history. I wish there were some consolation to all this. But there isn’t. We’re stuck on this rail, and we’re in for a white-knuckle ride.
18. Watermelon Man | November 27th, 2009 at 11:44 am
@16
Say whaaa?
http://photos4.flickr.com/3952000_d8dd8add30.jpg Bringing you, the wanker, the very best.
19. RanDomino | November 27th, 2009 at 11:46 am
This article argued its way to concluding that the employee pension fund was stolen by the bourgeoisie, and then in the last paragraph ignored its own main point! “autonomy of the class” (comment #5) got it exactly right.
20. thoroughly_sits_on_face | November 27th, 2009 at 1:28 pm
When I was on a UC campus from ’87-’91 the fees were basically nominal. All you really had to pay was room and board. My family had no problem subsidizing the cost and I was free to study and play sports most of the time. Some of the years I was in school I had a job, but I was actually making too much for my student lifestyle and just ended up losing it in poker games and on stocks, so I quit. Those were the days, man. $10,000 a year plus expenses, and books are way more now too? I’m just glad I got through when I did.
21. jimbo | November 27th, 2009 at 1:30 pm
universities are obsolete anyway…they don’t really have anything to do with the reality of present day work environments…employers keep hiring college graduates because that’s what they do…so you gotta have a college degree no matter how pointless it is…
22. Frank McG | November 28th, 2009 at 12:53 am
This article is absolute rubbish. What percentage of UC pensioners make $200k? I’m willing to bet less than 1%.
So the Exile is pitting prol against prol now? You’re arguing against pensions in general? The evil den of hippie socialism UC is to blame for everything? This article is some grade A conservative crazy rubbish.
The real problem with higher education is a nasty cycle of depreciation. More people go to college and get degrees, more employers can demand degrees as a requirement. More employers demand degrees, more people are forced to get degrees and so on and so on. We’re at the point right now where BANK TELLERS are required to have a college degree. I’m sure a lot of the higher ups love the situation since debtors make for less picky workers.
23. Revrick | November 28th, 2009 at 12:09 pm
Why, oh why do Baby Boomers get blamed for everything? I researched the top ten pensioners and they are members of the Silent generation (1925-1945). The oldest Boomers are only 63! It’s the Silent generation that’s getting away with murder, probably because they’re sandwiched between the more visible GIs (almost gone) and the Boomers.
24. supertrukr | November 28th, 2009 at 2:14 pm
If there are no jobs why are these dumb fucks going into massive debt to fund a degree that qualifies them to be assitant manager at walmart?
25. zeke | November 28th, 2009 at 2:44 pm
At all levels, government pension plans are killing the system. Millions of military retired in their early forties and then were given preference for another government job. Couples drawing two to four pensions are not uncommon. The country is full of them. I know of several people who worked for the state of Minnesota for 25 yrs and retired with good pensions and full medical or in popular terms “socialized medicine”. I’m a bit older than the “boomers” but watched the boomers bleed the system dry. Saw what was coming 30 yrs ago. My son in law went in the Army and here’s his perks: Government paid off $45,000 in student loans, got his masters in computer technology and $300 a month for the rest of his life–get this–a broken finger while playing volley ball. All in four yrs of service. So get used to it folks!! He is now working for the Federal government.
I talked with a couple the other day that, between the two of them, including social security draw seven pensions. Course they were in the military, retired and were given preference for another government job. My brother in law has three pensions from the Fed (including social security).
26. jimbo | November 28th, 2009 at 9:17 pm
Cut back the pensions. Can’t get blood out of a turnip. The circumstances have changed. There are not iron clad guarantees in life, pensioners. You should have some concern for the young people, shame on you!
27. Different Clue | November 28th, 2009 at 10:39 pm
How many baby boomers are UC pensioners? One out of 10? One
out of 100? One out of 1,000? What do the rest of the baby boomers, including the millions still
working, have to do with a few ten thousand UC pensioners?
If the Californians want to make college affordable for their students again, let them repeal
Proposition 13 and institute the sensible property tax systems which sensible states have. Then
let the Californians repeal 3 Strikes and You’re Out and reduce the size and money-hunger of
their prison-industrial complex. Let them bust and decertify the Prison Guards Union if it objects to
having its lucrative revenue-streams thereby reduced. That would raise enough money to restore
funding to California’s Universities.
28. DarthFurious | November 29th, 2009 at 9:59 am
@Different Clue:
What the fuck are ya talkin’ about? Everyone in this fading republic knows that inmates in prison are far more valuable than teenagers at a university.
Just ask those union prison guards…
29. adolphhitler | November 29th, 2009 at 10:37 am
@27…repeal prop 13?…are you crazy? If the taxes go up my house i will lose it! And for what? I couldn’t care less about the uc college system. the only people who go there are foreigners! I am also sick of paying for california’s schools.Half the kids dont graduate and the ones that do cant read or write. All the fucking money goes to bureaucrats and their pensions.
the only fair taxes are the ones every one pays like sales or income taxes. Why should the burden be placed on homeowners? If prop 13 is repealed no one will be able to retire and keep their house.The have-nots will just keep raising the appraised value untill the owner is forced out. Its time to cut services so that they are in line with revenue. If that means closing schools or turning illegals away from the emergency room so be it!
You have a point about the prison guard industry. If a crime is serious enough to warrant a 20 year sentence, it is serious enough to warrant execution. As a taxpayer i am offended at what we spend to keep prisoners alive. We should build camps in the desert and make them live in tents and grow there own food.
30. twentyeight | November 29th, 2009 at 2:18 pm
Must not have gotten a high google ranking, since only #3 looks like a hired-gun retardofascist sock puppet.
31. Frank McG | November 29th, 2009 at 3:20 pm
Good to see at least one other person like #27 sees through the bullshit of this article. Working everyone into a frothing rage over pensions and ignoring the real problem of Prop 13 is the epitome of conservative garbage.
32. liberalMentald1s0rder | November 29th, 2009 at 9:49 pm
Talk about University pensions wait until public school teachers start drawing from the govt.
@27
the key word is UNIONS. F’ the Unions weather they be auto workers unions, or teachers unions, or prison guard unions.
The pig ignorant hicks don’t want to loose their high paying job to stand around with a shotgun all day watching over non-violent offenders for 80K a year, whom would otherwise not be in prison because of decorian laws.
CA’s f’ed up state constitution and voter initiatives will make it impossible for change to happen. Thank god there are states that have a Republican form of govt. instead of CA f’ed up direct democracy rule. Direct democracy rule is ruinous.
“Proposition 13 and institute the sensible property tax systems which sensible states have”
CA has the highest tax rate of all states and raising taxes will solve the problems? The richest 3% of state taxpayers paid approximately 60% of all state taxes and they are already being taxed the sheyt out of. The rich are actually leaving the state in droves and sooner or later there will be less tax revenue in the future and watch the people on the bottom pay more in taxes. The state relies on capital gains tax, of which the Democrats in control want to raise, which will result in a final death blow to the West Coast Republic. Businesses, big and small alike, are leaving the state in droves into midwestern states because the CA govt. taxes the sheyt out of them into non-profitability and gives govt. money to subsidize water, build more prisons, and to pay for a sh8ty public school system that ranks 47/50 of all the nation, because the teachers union is powerful just like the prison guards union.
Build alternative schools to govt. run schools so the kids can learn better. Philanthropist were willing to put down money to build non-govt. run schools and voucher programs. Oh wait, teachers union defeated that so they can sit on their lazy asses all day and be a crappy teacher. Oh well…the only choice is govt. run schools
fuwggin govuhmint.
33. liberalMentald1s0rder | November 29th, 2009 at 9:55 pm
fuwgin teachers, prison guards, and auto workers unions.
34. liberalMentald1s0rder | November 29th, 2009 at 10:00 pm
and f’ing teachers unions, prison guards unions, and auto workers unions too.
35. mogar | November 29th, 2009 at 11:45 pm
Sounds like we got a nice crop of commi socialist brats coming up. Waaaa why should anyone make that much money waaaa! The world doesn’t owe your generation any more then any other generation. Get over it, the sooner you do the sooner you will figure out what to do about it. Bitching about it will get you nothing but a sore throat.
36. Paranoid | November 30th, 2009 at 2:02 pm
Can you spell Whiiiiners? I left the Golden State over ten years ago. Saved me over $1000 per month in income taxes alone, All you people wanted free everything; for you and the Illegals too, well you got it. Now you got the bills, good luck suckers.
37. jayesouthworth | December 1st, 2009 at 8:30 am
LOL! Suck it up youngsters. We got our butts to work everyday. We subsidized yo momma’s food stamps, housing, and medical. We also subsidized your education long after our kiddies were raised and gone. The tax money has dried up, your elected government officials did this to you kids not us cradle to grave taxpayers. Work harder, use seniors are counting on you. Bawwwhahhahahhhhaaaa. How’s that Hope and Change working out your you? LOL!
38. Necronomic Justice | December 1st, 2009 at 3:59 pm
“use seniors are counting on you.” Que?
39. adolphhitler | December 1st, 2009 at 4:57 pm
@ 37..dear jay, i cant wait to flick the off switch when you are on life support…i hope it happens while you are still young!
40. liberalMentald1s0rder | December 1st, 2009 at 8:09 pm
The tax payer Social Security system and pension is WAAAY too expensive for society to bear the costs. We should privatize the pensions and social security instead of placing the burden on tax payers and the future, Oh way dip libs were against privatizing social security. Thanx alot dip libs.
41. az | December 2nd, 2009 at 9:59 am
#whatever: these are white kids, the kind you’ll maybe have someday. What they’re protesting is a lifetime in debt because then the choice for them is either a) being a 60-80 hour/week retail worker, b) being a 40hr/wk office slave with a BA and a lifetime of debt, or c) B except with the debt beaten out. If you’re too stupid to understand that… well just continue doing what you do and being angry at everyone who thinks different from you.
42. Margo Barnes | December 2nd, 2009 at 6:07 pm
RE #27: Then let California throw out the “undocumented immigrants” who attend university and clog the prison systems.
43. samuel clemens | December 3rd, 2009 at 3:45 pm
lol @ 14
It’s always seemed odd to me and maybe I’m being naive but if a university is a state institution, then shouldn’t it be free? Wouldn’t it make more sense for businesses that want well-educated employees to invest in these schools rather than forcing students to pay on an individual basis ensuring that a lot of gifted people are filtered out in the process?
Then again, I’m also inclined to agree with #21. Universities, if they’re not already, will be obsolete soon. Aside from hands on training which you don’t need 30k to acquire, the internet provides all the teaching material you need. The degree is really nothing more than a status symbol.
As for the budget, the solution seems obvious to me but then again, maybe I’m naive. Legalize all drugs (not just half ass’d medical pot) and anything else that goes on between consenting adults. Clear out the prisons and I have a feeling that red ink will clear out also.
44. Smackstein | December 5th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
Yasha,
Big fan of your writing. However, i dont get your point here. UC pensions/ retirees are robbing the youth. Pity. What is the alternative i ask? According to you, all of these UC employees should have taken care of their on post-retirement income, i.e. contributed to a retirement fund like some 401k… But wait, that would mean they would be all broke thanks to those fuckers form Wall st. we all adore. Any way you look at it bud, you are paying for your Grandpa’s diapers. Sorry.
45. aleke | December 27th, 2009 at 3:21 pm
Lookit all these rightwing suckers rolling in; on payroll at the Glenn Beck Mormon Institute, no doubt.
California is reaping its greedy fucking whirlwind, just like the entire American nation is. Old, racist, ignorant, and reactionary cooks living in perpetual cognitive dissonance, showering the world with speckles of their frothing hate via jackbooted underclass. Great. CIA controls the executive branch, coordinating with the oligarch military-industrial corporation, and not a damn Kenyan in the world can “reform” it.
May as well look forward to violently taking away that property, the idiots hardly know how to take care of it anyway. Or we can just wait for the superior Chinese peacekeepers to roll in a couple decades and take care of this generation on their own. That is, in the same ole imperialist style. God Bless America, refiner of imperialism, home of Dorritos.
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