Capt. Al Haynes sorta OT.

"G.R. Patterson III" wrote in message
...


Jay Honeck wrote:

Of course, "retirement pay" comes out of a different bucket of cash in
the
state's budget then "teacher's salary", so ON PAPER they LOOK like they
"saved the taxpayers some money"...

Typically, retirement pay doesn't come out of current taxes at all. The
employer
sets a certain amount of money aside every year as a retirement account.
Typically,
this money is invested in stock and bond accounts and will grow at the
rate of
between 5% and 15% a year. Some government and education system pensions
are keyed
to the market even after retirement - my mother's pension payments go up
and down
with the stock market, and she has not tired of complaining about it for
the last
three years.

Government retirement DOES come out of current revenue. They wanted to buy
stocks and bonds, but that would have given government strong control over
corporations. That was Jessie Jackson's idea...to buy up "socially
responsible" companies.



In any case, salaries and benefits for those still working are paid for
out of
tax revenue. This includes payments into the retirement account from which
their
pensions will eventually come. Pension payments for retired people are
not - they
are paid out of withdrawals from the pension funds. In part, they are
pre-paid by
taxes that were paid during their period of employment, but the majority
comes
from interest on the account.

It seems you are using "revenue" and "tax revenue" interchangeably between
private and civil service pension funds. Can you clarify?

Tom Sixkiller wrote:

Government retirement DOES come out of current revenue.

At the Federal level. Teachers are typically State or local employees, and these
pensions are frequently funded by investment in the markets. Although not a teacher,
my mother was an employee of the University of Tennessee. Her pension comes from
the proceeds of stock/bond accounts, and the amount of the monthly payments varies
with the performance of the market. The financial crisis in California has impacted
Tennessee State pensions because a large portion of the funds are invested in
California State bonds.

It seems you are using "revenue" and "tax revenue" interchangeably between
private and civil service pension funds. Can you clarify?

I was speaking exclusively of personal experience with pensions in the education
system. In the systems with which I am familiar, tax revenues fund the salaries
and pension plans of current employees. If the system were to close tomorrow,
retired employees would still receive their pensions - the payments do not come
from taxes being levied today.

George Patterson
Great discoveries are not announced with "Eureka!". What's usually said is
"Hummmmm... That's interesting...."