Very little pension reform

It is being hailed as a giant step forward for the taxpayers. But the pension reform act Corzine signed indicates how serious about reform he and this Legislature are. Retirement is raised from 60 to 62. Big woop. Local government employees have to work at least 20 hours to qualify for health benefits — benefits paid for by many working twice that many hours who don’t have benefits themselves. State employees will no longer get President’s Day and Lincoln’s Birthday (which is celebrated on President’s Day) off but this won’t take affect until after the current contracts expire. Since pension system liabilities exceed assets by more than $28 billion real reform is needed to save the pensions for the people who worked for and deserve them.



About Bob Ingle

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15 Responses to Very little pension reform

  1. Anonymous says:

    looking foward to when it all comes crashing down on each and every public employee…


  2. Anonymous says:

    Get out your wallet, because if you think the unions and special interests are going to take the hit, you’re wrong. The taxpayer will have to make it good, according to the commitments in place, isn’t that true, Bob?

    Entitlements and corruption have ruined us, and I’m using the past tense because we’re past the point of no return. One by one, the engines will flame out, and we’ll crash into the sea of oblivion that is inhabited by so many civilizations who trusted the lazy, greedy and dim-witted to make decisions about their “leadership”.

  3. Anonymous says:


    Have they taken away your house yet?

  4. Anonymous says:

    THIS IS BALDERDASH The pension reform act Corzine signed indicates how serious about reform he and this Legislature are.

    THE REAL REASON Corzine is scared ****less he and his Wall Street buddies are gonna be nailed for looting the pension fund.

    The Aug 08, 2006 Jersey Treasury Dept website shows state pension account down a whopping 3.1% (preliminary FY report–could be much higher). Means $5 Billion pension funds have disappeared.

    Can you say buddy bail-out? Can you say offshore wire transfer?

    Corzine “invested” $100 million of his own money to buy the governorship (and a US Senate seat before that)—buying up voting blocs like they were potato chips.
    Corzine spread his money around to make sure “The Right” voters got to the polls.

    Like a practiced con artist, Corzine gained the confidence of voters, gulling naive color/ethnic/gender voters into believing he was a “financial genius” who would solve Jersey’s economic problems.

    Once Corzine got into office, several government funds went bankrupt; billions of government funds have just “disappeared.” The $8 billion SCC went bankrupt. The Transportation Fund went bankrupt. The UI fund went bankrupt. The pension fund is $28 billion in arrears (and is under federal investigation for fraudulently diverting funds to “other uses.”) $5 billion disappeared from the state pension fund alone.

    Corzine then famously attempted to gain total control of $900 Billion annual toll revenue (without public scrutiny), and pmanned to dump endless billion dollar bonding debt onto Jerseyans.

    In Aug 2007, Corzine named Erika Irish Brown, a senior VP at (tah dah) Lehman Bros—to the State Investment Council (SIC).

    The SIC makes “alternative investments” (read looting) of $82B state pension funds. Jon’s several hand-picked Wall Street pals at the SIC (aka The Div of Looting) stunned the financial world—putting $400M pension funds in shaky Citigroup, $300M in iffy Merrill Lynch—as banking giant Bear Stearns collapsed. $180M pension funds went to sinking Lehman Brothers (now bankrupt)

    Corzine also bankrolled The New Jersey Directed Investment Fund, with $100 million tax dollars to “work with Wall Street to identify investments.”

    “Investing New Jersey’s money in New Jersey companies is a sound business decision that will help to encourage job creation, and is consistent with Gov Corzine’s economic growth strategy,” said Gary Rose, chief of Corzine’s State Office of Economic Growth.

    Note that specific investments for the $100 million were not identified. Can you guess why?

    IT AINT OVER Jon and his W/S buddies sta$shed in strategic Jer$ey government agencie$ are now rigging our laws to increase their (ahem) “investment” kitty from 18% to 28%.

  5. Anonymous says:

    Anon 7:54,
    I think Corzine might have actually bailed out the taxpayers by mistake when he invested pension funds in hedge funds. By choosing such a risky investment vehicle, the taxpayers are no longer bound by the contract.

  6. Anonymous says:

    Now Corzine will claim that he enacted “sweeping pension reform”.

    The voters will believe it.

  7. Anonymous says:

    AON 7;54 so what your saying is that to make up the difference of the loss somebody could be paying 20k? 30k? in taxes a year …that’s absurd ,the legislature knows it ! you want to talk revolt ,most people I know pay 11K to 16 K now, and they don’t even have a pension ,NO way will they pay for someone else’s mistakes like that !

  8. Anonymous says:

    In a never ending, ever accelerating pandering to BUY votes with the tax-payer’s dollar for the sole purpose of enriching themselves and feeding their own hunger for ego satisfying power a succession of morally bankrupt individuals have lead NJ to the fiscally unsustainable position we find ourselves in today.

    It is nothing short of astonishing that in the last CENTURY there has not been ONE Governor in NJ who has put the interests of the general population ahead of his/her own.

    Whether or not they actually get caught breaking the letter of the law they all have been as corrupt as any person who has ever lived.

    Watching out for the population at large IS NOT DIFFICULT. To have done it so poorly over such a long time speaks very poorly of the quality of not only the elected but those doing the electing as well.

    A society bereft of moral footings soon succumbs to the equivocating of those promising to scratch their lust and greed. The irresponsible political class pandering to the irresponsible yearnings of those that feel they are entitled to that which they have not earned can only lead to the position we find ourselves in today.

    When you have a bunch of PIGS feeding a bunch of PIGS the only thing you can expect to end up with is a PIG STY.

    Welcome to NJ, PIG STY of America.

  9. Anonymous says:

    We need to get rid of this damn govenrment !!! All of it, every crooked agency. But of course, this will not happen.

    It’s time to get your stuff into a moving van, and get the hell out of this insanity as fast as you can. I realize many people are waiting for one reason or another, but there is an increasing urgency as the government steps up it’s screwing of anyone and everyone not in the system. There is no justice. There is no fairness. Only a bunch of thieves and liars looking to plunder EVERYTHING!

  10. Anonymous says:

    Off topic but…Interesting article in the New York Times, September 30, 1999

    Fannie Mae Eases Credit To Aid Mortgage Lending

  11. Anonymous says:

    Pensions are protected by court rulings. Whatever state workers have earned can not be taken away. The Taxpayer will always foot the bill if there is a shortfall. However, there is enough money that in the pension funds to pay out for many years if there were no new contributions added. Bob is kind of like Charles Schumer and the pension funds are like Indymac.

  12. Anonymous says:

    From Thomas Sowell’s column today –

    ” The roots of this problem go back many years, but since the crisis to which all this led happened on George W. Bush’s watch, that is enough for those who think in terms of talking points, without wanting to be confused by the facts.

    In reality, President Bush tried unsuccessfully, years ago, to get Congress to create some regulatory agency to oversee Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

    N. Gregory Mankiw, his Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, warned in February 2004 that expecting a government bailout if things go wrong “creates an incentive for a company to take on risk and enjoy the associated increase in return.”

    Since risky investments usually pay more than safer investments, the incentive is for a government-supported enterprise to take bigger risks, since they get more profit if the risks pay off and the taxpayers get stuck with the losses if not.”

  13. Anonymous says:


  14. Anonymous says:

    Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac c-span clips on youtube:

    Sorry for the poor link yesterday…correct link is:

    It’s 8 minutes long, but tells the story of how we got into today’s national financial mess. It’s a must-see.

  15. Anonymous says:

    Circa December 2004

    RAINING MONEY – Franklin Raines fired for cooking the Fannie Mae’s books—walks away w/ $90 million tax dollars

    Proving you can fool most of the people most of the time until you get caught, Franklin Raines, who reigned for 5 years following Clinton’s appointing him as CEO of
    Fannie Mae, the US’ quasi-governmental mortgage house, has been ousted.

    There are several ongoing investigations of Fannie Mae’s operations and accounting practices covering the last 5 years in order to determine when accounting irregularities started and the magnitude of the financial shortfalls. Current estimates indicate that there was a $9 billion misstatement of earnings and accounting irregularities between 2000-2004.

    (POSTER’S NOTE: Can you say offshore wire transfer?)

    As he cooked the books—then-chief executive Franklin Raines received more than $40 million in bonuses and other pay as a result of his falsely inflated earnings at the US’ largest mortgage finance company. This is according to a supplement of a lawsuit filed by Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro.

    Fannie Mae added “tens of millions of false revenue” to meet “Raines’ 1999 publicly announced goal to double” earnings over the next five years, Petro’s November 23, US District Court in Washington alleges. The filing alleges that, “Raines personally profited by over $40 million by this false earnings history.

    CIRCA 2006 Former US Senator Warren Rudman's team of investigators and auditors from his law firm, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, and from Huron Consulting Group presented their 600-page report calling Fannie Mae's accounting systems "grossly inadequate." It is based on a review of millions of documents.

    The Rudman report found that accounting obfuscations were intended to increase stock valuations, thus increasing executive bonuses.

    The report states, "We did find, that Raines contributed to a culture that improperly stressed stable earnings growth and that… he was ultimately responsible for the failures that occurred on his watch".

    Raines will continue to live well being supported by Fannie Mae’s shareholders. Some relevant facts include:

    — Raines and his wife will be paid $114,393 A MONTH as long as they live.

    — Stock options: Raines holds vested stock options worth roughly $5.7 million.

    — Stock bonuses: Raines was granted awards, payable
    in stock, for reaching performance goals. Under the program, he got 69,577 shares… half of what Fannie determined he should receive in January. It is unclear if he will receive the rest.

    — Deferred pay: For tax planning while employed by the company, Raines was allowed to put off the receipt of payment. These deferred past payments total $8.7 million

    — Future salary: Although Fannie Mae says Raines’ retirement was effective December 21, 2004, he is seeking to have it effective as of June 22, 2005, and thereby receive $600,000 more in pay.

    Mr. Raines followed a well-worn path in the United States during the later half of the 20th century. His humble beginnings were in Seattle. He won a scholarship to Harvard and was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford. He worked on Wall Street for over a decade in the prestigious firm Lazard Freres. He was a member of President Clinton’s cabinet and director of his Office of Management and Budget. In 1999, Clinton selected him for the position of Fannie Mae CEO.

    Following revelations of the financial scandal, Mr. Raines took early retirement from Fannie Mae so that he could collect a compensation package including $1 million per year for life and $11 million in vested stock. In 2003 Mr. Raines was paid $20 million in salary and bonus (payments that are being investigated for government fraud).

    Fannie Mae is facing criminal investigations by the Justice Department, operational investigations by the SEC, and various Congressional investigations. There are questions regarding earnings statements being incorrectly inflated. In 2003, if derivative and other losses had been included, no bonuses would have been paid to top executives. However, deferral of the losses allowed declared earnings to reach a level which triggered maximum executive bonuses.

    It is a far stretch to imagine that Franklin Raines actually was capable of satisfying the requirements of the positions he held from Harvard to Director of the White House Office of Management and Budget. If he had been competent enough to hold those positions, how could he have been Fannie Mae’s CEO for 5 years and allowed, not known about, or not understood that $9,000,000,000 was being mishandled.