City workers protest Mayor Dave Bing’s earlier move to take over pension systems.
By Ian Suite
August 1, 2013
Opinion
U.S. Pres. Barack Obama, AG Eric Holder, head of the Justice Department
DETROIT — [Regarding the attack on Detroit’s retirees], where are [U.S. Reps and Senators] Peters, Conyers, Dingell, Levin, Stabenow et. al. in this ?? And you would think the President and the Justice Department would be looking into this and have something of meaning to say to protect these retirants.
Does anyone realize the disastrous socio-economic effect that not keeping whole the current retirees would have on society as a whole ?? Many retirees would lose their homes, maybe their vehicles, have to move in with their children who probably have families of their own, causing them stress and financial burdens they did not expect and should not have. Then there are those retirees who are still caring for and/or raising minor children of their own; and believe me there are more than you think in this position. That has a generational effect too.
City workers and kids at AFSCME picnic on Belle Isle in 2012
And while we are on it, this whole news coverage of the plight of our uniformed employees and retirees is squelching the fact that many other retirees are out here who were civilians belonging to the General System. They are damn important too !!
Let us NOT forget that attendant issues involving the plight of current affairs rest with some other statutes – first is P.A. 312 , the 1969 addendum to the Public Employment Relations Act of 1965 for public employees; which historically until the mid-2000’s has given public safety personnel close to everything they demanded at the bargaining table from an economic perspective. As an example, they didn’t begin paying co-pays for their health insurance until about 2005-6, while the civilian employees started this practice in 1987 !! Astounding!
Ernst & Young, a City of Detroit consultant in the bankruptcy, did the books for Lehman Brothers, whose collapse triggered the 2000 economic meltdown. They are being sued by the states of New York and New Jersey for their role.
And let’s not vilify the pension boards for this mess ; these bodies were hamstrung in many instances by the statute which governs investment criteria for ALL public pension systems in Michigan, P.A. 314. This statute is arcane and has not kept up with the ‘real-world’ of invetments. And let me add that throughout this statute the State is “exempt” from the stated limitations set forth in the act for particular investment types.
And, then there are the losses connected to the “Market-Crash” of 2007-2008, manipulated as it was , which caused the funds to lose a bit over 1 billion in assets because of Wall St mischief. Where is that money ? Particularly since many of these same money-manipulators were “Bailed-Out” and were major participants in the Global-Crash.
Protest against PA 4 in Lansing April, 2011. Ten thousand participated.
Many of these same entities have recently been involved in International Money Laundering, fixing the LIBOR rates, untold insider trading and God knows what else.
Any attempt to alter retirees’ income would be criminal and societally unacceptable.
P.S. I was around in 1963 when the State Constitution was amended and Article IX Section 24 was put in there, and as a further piece of FACT this provision , along a few others , was written by Theodore Sachs , a pre-eminent Constitutional authority. Unfortunately, he passed away many years ago.
This was written in response to a Detroit Free Press editorial at http://www.freep.com/article/20130801/OPINION01/308010019/.
