The Youth Unemployment Bomb

[Stravo]

My father's pension after 30 years of working in this country amounts to $98.00 a month. Fuck you if I think someone like him needs to give ANYTHING up.

Holy crap. It would be considered unconstitutional in Germany to give anybody that small a pension.

Just to be clear that is the pension he receives from his union, he receives his Social Security benefits as well which are significantly more generous. But this still highlights the inherent unfairness of a system asking its lowest level workers, those who have had to unionize to make sure they are treated half way decent to give something up while the management and business owners whistle their way to a nice retirement.

I'm seeing a growing not so subtle talking point concerning unions, pensions, and benefits being attacked and whittled away on Sunday talk shows and from some governmental officials. That is frankly shameful.

[aerius]

I'm seeing a growing not so subtle talking point concerning unions, pensions, and benefits being attacked and whittled away on Sunday talk shows and from some governmental officials. That is frankly shameful.

When people can pull up charts like this on public sector union workers' salaries & compensations, they tend to get kinda pissed. Yet for whatever reason they don't seem to give a shit that banker bonuses came out to something like $150 billion, all of which was paid for by taxing the people. Go figure.

[Samuel]

I'm seeing a growing not so subtle talking point concerning unions, pensions, and benefits being attacked and whittled away on Sunday talk shows and from some governmental officials. That is frankly shameful.

When people can pull up charts like this on public sector union workers' salaries & compensations, they tend to get kinda pissed. Yet for whatever reason they don't seem to give a shit that banker bonuses came out to something like $150 billion, all of which was paid for by taxing the people. Go figure.

Hey! That is my city! So why the high salaries? I can get why the chiefs are paid alot, but aren't Lt.s alot lower down in the hierachy? From what I can see you can work your vacation times and get paid alot more, but the top earners on the page are retired. The city is spending about 2.7 million dollars due to these guys use of sick and vacation payouts.

[lance]

My father's pension after 30 years of working in this country amounts to $98.00 a month. Fuck you if I think someone like him needs to give ANYTHING up.

Holy crap. It would be considered unconstitutional in Germany to give anybody that small a pension.

Does he also get social security or something?

[Thanas]

^3 posts up.

[Akumz Razor]

I'm a videographer for the local news channel and today attended a small protest held by the local rich old white people in opposition to a contractual pay raise for county workers. Much of the rhetoric was anti-union and anti-pension. They are smart enough not to brand themselves with the Tea Party moniker but quickly resorted to schoolyard insults when a coffee drinking longhair in the press crowd dared to lob a hardball question their way. It turned out the guy was actually a 15 year county employee making around 50 grand a year.

The video is currently the top story at www.keyt.com. I can't embed it here because of our shitty website. I also apologize for the advertisement.

We couldn't include most of the heckling footage because the people were such embarrassments to themselves that any more of it would make it obvious that our slanted liberal reporting was heavily biased against their cause

[The Kernel]

When people can pull up charts like this on public sector union workers' salaries & compensations, they tend to get kinda pissed. Yet for whatever reason they don't seem to give a shit that banker bonuses came out to something like $150 billion, all of which was paid for by taxing the people. Go figure.

You know there are actually a lot of people in between the pensioners and the billionares in this country. I hope people realize that there are plenty of people like me who work in industries where we don't get pensions (we are responsible for our own retirement savings).

Sure I get a 4% 401k match from my employer but that's a relative pittance. I have to budget and make my own 401k deposits and plan my own retirement, so forgive me for not giving a shit about whining over overly generous pensions.

[aerius]

You know there are actually a lot of people in between the pensioners and the billionares in this country. I hope people realize that there are plenty of people like me who work in industries where we don't get pensions (we are responsible for our own retirement savings).

Sure I get a 4% 401k match from my employer but that's a relative pittance. I have to budget and make my own 401k deposits and plan my own retirement, so forgive me for not giving a shit about whining over overly generous pensions.

No doubt, I used to work in the electronics industry where it was mostly contract work with no pensions, no dental, no frills at all period. The only thing I could count on was whatever I managed to save plus the CPP & old age security, assuming either one of them is still around when I retire. Then I look at my dad whose net pension income is greater than his net pay was when he was working, and all I can do is go "what the fuck?" followed shortly by "thank god I got into the government union racket"

[The Kernel]

No doubt, I used to work in the electronics industry where it was mostly contract work with no pensions, no dental, no frills at all period. The only thing I could count on was whatever I managed to save plus the CPP & old age security, assuming either one of them is still around when I retire. Then I look at my dad whose net pension income is greater than his net pay was when he was working, and all I can do is go "what the fuck?" followed shortly by "thank god I got into the government union racket"

Well the software industry is a bit better. We've got great health and dental, we get decent sized performance bonuses and all that. But pensions are COMPLETELY unheard of so I'm not going to cry for people who are upset that they can't get guaranteed fat pensions on top of SS.

[Zed]

I got confused quite a bit by the discussion above due to its terminology. Apparently, you Americans don't consider social security benefits to retirees to be pensions?

[Todeswind]

No, we use the words "Pension" and "Social Security" differently.

[darkjedi521]

Up until the '90s, a common state of affairs is what is known as a "Defined Benefit" retirement plan. You paid in a certain percentage of your wages/salary a received a predetermined amount as a pension based on years worked and wage/salary at time of retirement. These are now very rare outside of public sector jobs.

The current state of affairs is known as a "Defined Contribution" retirement plan. You pay in a certain percentage of your income to what is generally a 3rd party investment account, and your employer will match at a defined rate, in my case I pay in 1% of my gross and my job pays in 8% of my gross. There is no guarantee that this money will increase nor is they any guarantee that the money will not decrease. If you leave before a certain amount of time has passed, the employer may withdraw their contribution in its entirety, leaving you with just what you set aside. This is a 401k in a nutshell. You are not guaranteed anything for retirement except Social Security which is a separate payroll deduction.

[Akhlut]

I don't get Kernel's comments about not giving a shit about other people's pensions when he's not getting one; it strikes me more as sour grapes and something like "if I suffer, other people should to," yet he doesn't seem to care about his managers and the executives of the companies he works for certainly getting enormous pension plans of their own, as well as hundreds of other benefits.

Basically, I don't see any reason to get pissed at people trying to get some sort of livable pension for their retirement, especially when pretty much any financial explosions like what the economy experienced recently is entirely the fault of the top quintile (who own over 70% of the wealth). It's like bitching about the paint on the house lowering property values when the lumber's ridden with termites.

[The Kernel]

I don't get Kernel's comments about not giving a shit about other people's pensions when he's not getting one; it strikes me more as sour grapes and something like "if I suffer, other people should to," yet he doesn't seem to care about his managers and the executives of the companies he works for certainly getting enormous pension plans of their own, as well as hundreds of other benefits.

Bzzzt...wrong my boss (VP level) and his boss (the CEO) certainly do not have a defined benefits pension plan, they have the same 401k I do. Sure they get a lot of stock compensation, but that's not the saem--if the stock were to go to hell tomorrow they would end up broke.

Basically, I don't see any reason to get pissed at people trying to get some sort of livable pension for their retirement, especially when pretty much any financial explosions like what the economy experienced recently is entirely the fault of the top quintile (who own over 70% of the wealth). It's like bitching about the paint on the house lowering property values when the lumber's ridden with termites.

You clearly do not understand the problem with a defined benefits pension. Essentially these are commitments (often unfunded or underfunded) which provides fixed benefits until death for retired employees. They have several problems:

1) They put zero risk on the receiver. If the economy takes a dive, the value of whatever is in the pension fund goes to hell. But the pensioner never has to worry, they still get the same check.

2) They are underfunded or unfunded. I shouldn't have to explain what is wrong with that.

3) They don't have a specified end point. As life expectancies go up, the benefits keep rolling in.

Social Security handles these problems relatively responsibly since it is fully funded and we can adjust the inputs and outputs (via raising the retirement age and adjusting payroll taxes) fairly easily. They also share the risk around since everyone gets them. However most of the other pension schemes out there are not nearly as responsible.

[aerius]

Yup, the problem with lots of pension plans including public sector plans is that the math just doesn't add up when you take a look at them. For the plans to be sustainable over the long run, the employee & company contributions have to go up a fair bit and/or the annual growth rate from pension plan investments has to be at an unrealistically high level, meaning leveraged investments and stocks have to make up an unacceptably high proportion of the fund. You're basically running the pension plan as a goddamn hedge fund instead of a highly conservative fund where 90% of it is collecting interest off government bonds. And that's why most pension plans have been blown to shreds and become seriously underfunded these days. We have pension plans dumping large chunks of their assets into commodities speculation and mortgage backed securities for fuck's sake, and they're still gambling in the markets after all the shit that's gone down in the past few years.

Fact is the money ain't there, the contributions were never high enough in the first place to pay for the benefits, then add the mis-management and it's a clusterfuck.

[The Kernel]

Yup, the problem with lots of pension plans including public sector plans is that the math just doesn't add up when you take a look at them. For the plans to be sustainable over the long run, the employee & company contributions have to go up a fair bit and/or the annual growth rate from pension plan investments has to be at an unrealistically high level, meaning leveraged investments and stocks have to make up an unacceptably high proportion of the fund. You're basically running the pension plan as a goddamn hedge fund instead of a highly conservative fund where 90% of it is collecting interest off government bonds. And that's why most pension plans have been blown to shreds and become seriously underfunded these days. We have pension plans dumping large chunks of their assets into commodities speculation and mortgage backed securities for fuck's sake, and they're still gambling in the markets after all the shit that's gone down in the past few years.

Fact is the money ain't there, the contributions were never high enough in the first place to pay for the benefits, then add the mis-management and it's a clusterfuck.

Yep, by this example Social Security is a beacon of fiscal responsibility. The vast majority of SS funds are in T-Bills (they hold 50% of them, a truly staggering amount and roughly 5 times what China holds) and adjusting the payroll tax is not in itself that big of a hurdle. Compare this to private pensions which are, as you say, essentially giant hedge funds and you begin to see the problem. Worse still, if the hedge funds implode (which you know, tends to happen when the stock market takes a hit) the pension recipients don't see or care, the onus becomes on the owners (in the case of public pensions that means the taxpayer) to foot the bill for the delta of lost funds.

Social Security doesn't have this problem because all of its funds are in relatively low risk investments (T-Bills) and we don't need 7% constant growth or worse in order to make the thing fiscally sounds. If pensions were just extensions of this philosophy I wouldn't give a shit but pensions that are getting equity investment returns without risk are obviously a huge pile of bullshit.

To be clear for those who don't understand this: I get equity like returns on my 401k ONLY BECAUSE I AM WILLING TO SHOULDER THE RISK OF DOING SO. If it gets wiped out that is MY problem and no one elses. If your pension gets wiped out for the same reason, people defending pensions are essentially saying that it should be someone elses problem when the exact same thing happens.

[K. A. Pital]

Why should pensioners, e.g. the elderly, bear any risk whatsoever unless they actively sign up for it (like choose a 401k instead of a government-funded fixed pension, if there is a choice)? There can be no moral argument in that favor. If they are actively risking (e.g. wealthy pensioneers) sure. If they are not willing to take risks, the elderly should not be forced to take them.

[The Kernel]

Why should pensioners, e.g. the elderly, bear any risk whatsoever unless they actively sign up for it (like choose a 401k instead of a government-funded fixed pension, if there is a choice)? There can be no moral argument in that favor. If they are actively risking (e.g. wealthy pensioneers) sure. If they are not willing to take risks, the elderly should not be forced to take them.

They already took risks by buying into an unsustainable pension agreement. To put it another way, why should I have to take risks with my retirement but they get completely shielded from it and then the person who took risks (me and the rest of the country without a pension) then has to foot the bill for that?

Everyone should have to take risks with their retirement, it's just the reality of the situation. We have Social Security as a safety net (which is something I fully support) but the idea that you can have a fully funded risk free retirement where you can live in relative luxury simply does not hold up to scrutiny. The money simply isn't there unless you are willing to contribute a hell of a lot more.

If people really want more risk free retirement, then we can give them that by putting optional increases into Social Security for greater payouts. But that's the rub here--people want to have their cake and eat it too. They want equity like returns on their retirement accounts without any of the risk associated with doing so. Sorry but that dog won't hunt.

[K. A. Pital]

The money simply isn't there unless you are willing to contribute a hell of a lot more.

Maybe they should, eh?

If people really want more risk free retirement, then we can give them that by putting optional increases into Social Security for greater payouts. But that's the rub here--people want to have their cake and eat it too. They want equity like returns on their retirement accounts without any of the risk associated with doing so. Sorry but that dog won't hunt.

Oh, I see. In that case, you do have a point - it smells of hypocrisy. After all, government indexation on pension accounts can do enough to cover inflation, but having equity returns and no risks associated with that is not a good idea.

[Uraniun235]

They already took risks by buying into an unsustainable pension agreement. To put it another way, why should I have to take risks with my retirement but they get completely shielded from it and then the person who took risks (me and the rest of the country without a pension) then has to foot the bill for that?

I don't have any choice in the matter; my pay is automatically, mandatorily deducted to go into the state public employee retirement system.

That said, responsibility flows both ways. The people setting up the pension system should have been qualified professionals able to judge sustainability and risk of a program much better than an untrained person such as myself or the majority of other prospective pension members who would presumably be voting on whether or not to accept the plan in their collective bargaining process.

And, to be blunt, the funding source is secure - the state can always raise taxes. So when you argue that the currently-paying pensions should be slashed, that's effectively crying about how the state should be allowed to just brush off agreements and commitments they made because it's no longer politically convenient for them to do so. This is doubly offensive since in some areas these more-generous pension plans were created under the explicit understanding of "take a pay hit now, and we'll take care of you later".

Do you want to be able to bargain with your public workers in good faith? Do you want to expect them to abide by the agreements they make with their public employers? Why should they, if they cannot trust you to honor your commitments?


I'm not saying that the state can't change the pension plan for current employees - hell, it probably should, if it didn't already - but to whine and cry about risk leads me to think that not all of the selfishness lies with the pensioners.

[The Kernel]

I don't have any choice in the matter; my pay is automatically, mandatorily deducted to go into the state public employee retirement system.

Yes you do have a choice. When I look for an employer, examining the details of their benefits package is an important consideration.

To give you an example, I automatically get stock grants from my employer as part of my benefits package. If my employer makes bad decisions, those options become worthless. I don't get a taxpayer funded bailout if that were to occur, I just lose a lot of money.

That said, responsibility flows both ways. The people setting up the pension system should have been qualified professionals able to judge sustainability and risk of a program much better than an untrained person such as myself or the majority of other prospective pension members who would presumably be voting on whether or not to accept the plan in their collective bargaining process.

Sorry but that doesn't fly. When people invested with Bernie Madoff and were getting huge returns and then got out before the Ponzie scheme collapsed, they pocketed huge gains. Immediately afterwards they were subject to "clawback" lawsuits to return the money even though they had no knowledge of the schemes.

Know why? Because they had a responsibility (even if they weren't trained in investments) to know that the returns they were getting didn't match the market. In fact, not only could the government confiscate their gains, but they actually had the initial PRINCIPALS seized.

And, to be blunt, the funding source is secure - the state can always raise taxes.

In other words, you want to steal money from everyone else to pay for your unfunded retirement.

So when you argue that the currently-paying pensions should be slashed, that's effectively crying about how the state should be allowed to just brush off agreements and commitments they made because it's no longer politically convenient for them to do so. This is doubly offensive since in some areas these more-generous pension plans were created under the explicit understanding of "take a pay hit now, and we'll take care of you later".

If a private company goes belly up what do you think happens? What do you think happened to the retirement portfolios of all the Enron and Worldcom workers when their company went to hell? They didn't get taxpayer bailouts for their retirement, so why the fuck are you entitled to one just because you work for a branch of the government?

Do you want to be able to bargain with your public workers in good faith? Do you want to expect them to abide by the agreements they make with their public employers? Why should they, if they cannot trust you to honor your commitments?

I'll repeat what I said before: you people want equity returns on your pensions without paying for them. This is totally unacceptable and the fact that you can bully the government into doing so by running deficits at the taxpayer expense is unconscionable.

If you want such generous pensions here's a though: USE YOUR COLLECTIVE BARGAINING TO MAKE SURE THEY ARE FUCKING PAID FOR! Oh but that means your paychecks will take more of a hit...awww, that would be so awful wouldn't it?

I'm not saying that the state can't change the pension plan for current employees - hell, it probably should, if it didn't already - but to whine and cry about risk leads me to think that not all of the selfishness lies with the pensioners.

Oh? And how am I being selfish here? By expecting you to have a fiscally responsible retirement package that doesn't rely on the government printing money for you? If Social Security can manage it so can you.

[The Kernel]

Oh, I see. In that case, you do have a point - it smells of hypocrisy. After all, government indexation on pension accounts can do enough to cover inflation, but having equity returns and no risks associated with that is not a good idea.

Which is exactly what Social Security is about. It's actually a remarkably well put together program despite everyone bitching about it. The real problem with Social Security is not that it is unsustainable (it is perfectly sustainable as long as payroll taxes are minorly adjusted) but that the government likes to overstate the liabilities of Social Security because it holds most of its assets in T-Bills. That's not a problem with the Social Security model, that's a problem with the government deciding it needs to carry so much debt in the first place.

But of course Social Security only provides the safest kinds of returns, the equivalent of a low-risk investment. That's why it is best supplemented by a retirement portfolio consisting of more long-term, higher risk investments like stocks. My portfolio for example is almost all equity--but I'm 29 and it's a good policy to keep your equity mix high when you are young, then slowly diversify into lower risk investments as you age. I'm still taking risk and I COULD lose everything, but I have a safety net (in the form of Social Security) and I don't need to make withdraws for decades so I'm relatively safe.

[Uraniun235]

a huge bunch of line-by-line shit

First, thanks for doing the SDN "break a whole post into a bunch of quotes" thing. It's such a great style and does wonders for readability. I'm a terrible mentally-handicapped shitposter though, so I'm afraid I cannot respond in kind.

Before I get into the meat of your post, we'll clear this one up:

no you do have a choice in employment

Alright, your point, although changing jobs right now would be considerably harder.


Now, let's look at your big contentions:

People should have known better because it couldn't have matched the market

In Oregon, the pension system for current employees was overhauled several years ago so I don't know how exactly the earlier defined-benefits system was originally sold (although I do think Oregon was one of the areas in which the "take a pay cut/freeze now, we'll take care of you later" schtick was used), but I have no knowledge that the pension was at any point promised to be purely the product of investments and employee contributions. There is no natural law that states that the retirements of the old cannot be paid out of the labor of the young, although the latter may find it distasteful.

In other words, I find no reference in the definition of the word "pension" that states that it must be derived from market investments made by the pensioner, whether directly or on his behalf; nor that pensions cannot be in part (or even in full!) derived from tax revenue, whether by accident or even by design. I therefore find little relevance in drawing analogies to failed market schemes and constantly bemoaning the "unfunded" nature of said pensions.


Stealing the balance for YOUR retirement from taxpayers is literally theft IRL because people lose out when private companies go bust

So, first, it's not my retirement. The current PERS that I contribute to is only a defined-contributions plan, and my pension won't be nearly so generous, and I'm only 25 so for all I know public education will be abolished by the time I'm ready to retire (or I might die before then, who knows?). I do appreciate the characterization though, as I dream nightly of pillaging the noble taxpayers to gild my loins... or something. Does it totally baffle you that I would argue in favor for a policy I would not directly benefit from, and in fact could ultimately pay additional tax money towards? (I imagine the response will be something along the lines of 'nuhh, you're just stupid!', but I could be mistaken.)

Anyway, I don't know how you think the bankruptcy claim can be legitimately applied to the government. A business goes bankrupt because it is no longer able to generate sufficient revenue to meet its financial obligations - because there are no further actions it can take to get money to the people it owes. The government is entirely capable of raising additional revenue by raising taxes or cutting spending on other areas, but it chooses not to. This is (very) roughly analogous to saying that you no longer wish to pay the full amount of rent on an apartment because it's cutting into your coke habit - you're skipping out on a debt not because you're unable to pay but because you'd rather not.

Why should "the taxpayers" pay up? Because their representative government entered into an agreement on "their" behalf (including mine). That's how this whole "public employee paid for by tax dollars" thing works; presumably the ultimate "customer" of my labor is society itself. What good is a population - as represented by its elected officials - who cannot be trusted to honor its agreements? Would you loan money to such a government? (I sure hope someone will continue to do so! ) As long as the population is able to meet that commitment, they should do so.

If you seriously cannot abide by the agreements that your government entered into on your behalf - and there truly are a lot of them, not just with your fellow citizens, but also with *gasp* foreign governments (see that whole "treaties become the law of the land" part in the Constitution) - then your recourse is, bluntly, revolution. Overthrow the government and declare that the new republic will only honor those agreements made with the past government that it sees fit to. Otherwise, it's just another campaign to destroy the middle-class welshing.

[aerius]

In every job I've ever held the pension plan info is available before I sign my name on the papers. It's my responsibility to look at it to see if the math works, and if it doesn't, how far off the numbers are. Based on that I then need to decide whether I'm going to take the job and if I do, how much I'll need to set aside in addition to the plan so I can have a decent retirement. When a pension plan assumes 6-8% compounded annual growth in its assets as a requirement to meet future payouts, I'm gonna be doing my own investments on the side cause I know it's going to go bust at some point.

With regards to public sector pension plans, the problem is there's a huge incentive to cheat since the government knows it can make up any shortfalls by taxing the shit out of citizens. The government will almost always underfund the plan so it can spend more money on its pet projects and some will even raid their pension funds to close budget shortfalls, they know they can rape the people later on so who cares? Worker contributions are too low as well for the most part, don't know why but that's the way it is. So effectively you have a system where public sector workers get a free ride from the rest of the taxpayers, got a shortfall cause we spent all the pension money on something else and mis-managed the shit out of the funds? Who cares, we'll just make it up by taxing the shit out of everyone else! It's a hell of a racket, thank god I'm part of it.

[The Kernel]

Aerius covered most of this but I'll respond to a couple of points:

In Oregon, the pension system for current employees was overhauled several years ago so I don't know how exactly the earlier defined-benefits system was originally sold (although I do think Oregon was one of the areas in which the "take a pay cut/freeze now, we'll take care of you later" schtick was used), but I have no knowledge that the pension was at any point promised to be purely the product of investments and employee contributions. There is no natural law that states that the retirements of the old cannot be paid out of the labor of the young, although the latter may find it distasteful.

Irrelevant, I'm not talking about how it is tactically financed, I'm talking about sustainability. As Aerius stated, you cannot have a defined benefits model that assumes 6-8% growth with zero risk.

In other words, I find no reference in the definition of the word "pension" that states that it must be derived from market investments made by the pensioner, whether directly or on his behalf; nor that pensions cannot be in part (or even in full!) derived from tax revenue, whether by accident or even by design. I therefore find little relevance in drawing analogies to failed market schemes and constantly bemoaning the "unfunded" nature of said pensions.

Way to miss the point, this is a total red herring. Social Security is financed the way you are saying and I have zero problem with it because it is only indexed to inflation.

Stealing the balance for YOUR retirement from taxpayers is literally theft IRL because people lose out when private companies go bust

So, first, it's not my retirement. The current PERS that I contribute to is only a defined-contributions plan, and my pension won't be nearly so generous, and I'm only 25 so for all I know public education will be abolished by the time I'm ready to retire (or I might die before then, who knows?). I do appreciate the characterization though, as I dream nightly of pillaging the noble taxpayers to gild my loins... or something. Does it totally baffle you that I would argue in favor for a policy I would not directly benefit from, and in fact could ultimately pay additional tax money towards? (I imagine the response will be something along the lines of 'nuhh, you're just stupid!', but I could be mistaken.)

If you aren't personally benefiting from it then you are even stupider then I assumed for arguing for it.

Anyway, I don't know how you think the bankruptcy claim can be legitimately applied to the government. A business goes bankrupt because it is no longer able to generate sufficient revenue to meet its financial obligations - because there are no further actions it can take to get money to the people it owes. The government is entirely capable of raising additional revenue by raising taxes or cutting spending on other areas, but it chooses not to. This is (very) roughly analogous to saying that you no longer wish to pay the full amount of rent on an apartment because it's cutting into your coke habit - you're skipping out on a debt not because you're unable to pay but because you'd rather not.

The government is not one single financial entity jackass. If a certain department is making unsustainable promises then it needs to stand on its own, it should not expect a bailout from the Fed just because it is a part of the government.

Why should "the taxpayers" pay up? Because their representative government entered into an agreement on "their" behalf (including mine). That's how this whole "public employee paid for by tax dollars" thing works; presumably the ultimate "customer" of my labor is society itself. What good is a population - as represented by its elected officials - who cannot be trusted to honor its agreements? Would you loan money to such a government? (I sure hope someone will continue to do so! ) As long as the population is able to meet that commitment, they should do so.

Sorry to break this to you but the government breaks promises all the fucking time. Pick up a history book.

If you seriously cannot abide by the agreements that your government entered into on your behalf - and there truly are a lot of them, not just with your fellow citizens, but also with *gasp* foreign governments (see that whole "treaties become the law of the land" part in the Constitution) - then your recourse is, bluntly, revolution. Overthrow the government and declare that the new republic will only honor those agreements made with the past government that it sees fit to. Otherwise, it's just another campaign to destroy the middle-class welshing.

Cry me a fucking river you whiny bitch. Some of us are actually capable of paying our taxes and not expecting other taxpayers to finance totally ridiculous pension schemes.