Comments for Fareed Zakaria Is Really Mad About Public Pensions! at http://www.cepr.net , comment 1 to 5 out of 5 comments http://www.cepr.net Wed, 19 Jun 2013 23:38:30 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/fareed-zakaria-is-really-mad-about-public-pensions#comment-16882 Fareed's (very Wallstreet) position is, wallet protection. His comparison to "deficit" results in a number that pleases his owners. Don't forget nearly 100% of Americans don't know or care beyond the nonsenses, flipping a coin or asking their buddies what to think. Fareed knows this. He could care less. We can progress or start getting together on weekends to build neighborhood mud walls, raise a few goats ,,,,, - ffloydd Thu, 14 Jun 2012 15:41:40 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/fareed-zakaria-is-really-mad-about-public-pensions#comment-16881 Dean: Read Fareed's statement again. He says the liabilities are 30x the CA budget deficit (estimated at $15.7 billion), which is $471 billion - so he actually underestimates that factor. Now, don't ask me why Zakaria compares the liabilities to the budget deficit, instead of to the revenues. - RS Thu, 14 Jun 2012 14:18:20 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/fareed-zakaria-is-really-mad-about-public-pensions#comment-16880 Unless I am reading the (FRED) numbers wrong, local government employment is almost three times as large as state and about twice as large as state and federal combined. The job losses in the current recession have been mostly at the local level. So how are those pensions doing? Why does nobody care about them - just because the data are harder to collect? I don't think they are all in state-collected systems. - skeptonomist Thu, 14 Jun 2012 13:50:13 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/fareed-zakaria-is-really-mad-about-public-pensions#comment-16879 The California liability numbers are even less staggering than you suggest. Only about one-third of CalPERS members are state employees; the remainder are local government workers and non-certificated school employees. CalSTRS covers teachers, with most of the funding coming from school district employers and employees, and the state responsible for a small share. So the proper denominator is not state general tax revenue, the number you use, but total state and local revenue, including the fee revenue governments collect for enterprise services (garbage, electricity, sewers, airports, etc.) that employ many of the people covered by the CalPERS system. In 2009, that total revenue was roughly $250 billion in California [url]http://taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=507[/url] . Not all of this can be laid against the CalPERS and CalSTRS liabilities, since some local governments still run independent pension systems. But the ratio of liabilities to revenue is much smaller than 6 to 1. - Mark Paul Thu, 14 Jun 2012 13:29:00 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/fareed-zakaria-is-really-mad-about-public-pensions#comment-16878 Hi Dean, As always you make very good points. If I remember correctly California, Ohio and Illinois are among the states whose employees do not participate in Social Security. If that is the case then Fareed is even further off base because the states must provide comparable benefits to Social Security by federal law. It is hard to imagine how they could reduce benefits or go to defined contribution system and pay Social Security taxes and save any money. - Ben Tafoya Thu, 14 Jun 2012 13:27:58 +0100