Monterey Bay Forum » Government

Aptos Psychologist: 20 million public sector retirees – the true “1%”

jaj48 — Sun, 20 May 2012 20:48:32 +0000

government union pays $65 K a year compared to $15 K for private sector Social Security

The average public sector retiree gets $65 K a year compared to the average private sector social security benefit of $15 K. It’s an accurate statement to say that taxpayers are enslaved to the public sector unions and why collective bargaining by government employees must be limited. See article that appeared on the web site.

Government Employees – The True “1%”
By Wayne Allen Root, on March 6th, 2012

Editor’s Note: The claims made in this commentary by Wayne Allen Root are incendiary. But they are true. We are on track in the United States to pay more money to 20 million public sector retirees – at an average pension of $65,000 we will pay these retirees $1.3 trillion per year, then we will be paying in social security to 80 million private sector retirees – at an average social security benefit of $15,000 per year that will cost less, about $1.2 trillion per year. Providing a level of retirement security to government workers that only the wealthiest 1% can enjoy in the private sector is not “protecting the middle class,” it is economic enslavement by government unions over the taxpayer. This article originally appeared on FoxNews.com and is republished with permission by the author.

How did America become broke and insolvent? How did we build up an unimaginable $115 trillion in debt and unfunded liabilities? How did we allow the American Dream to become a nightmare?

All we need do is look at the primary demand the Eurozone and IMF are placing on hopelessly bankrupt Greece to get their new $170 Billion bailout — Greece has agreed to cut 150,000 government employees. Even Cuba’s leader Raul Castro recognizes too many government employees are at the root of economic destruction, as he is cutting over 2 million of them to save Cuba from bankruptcy.

The truth is that government employees are the true 1%. We have far too many of them (21 million), many of them are paid too much, and their union demands are straining taxpayers to the breaking point.

They have become a privileged class that expects to be treated superior to the taxpayers — the same folks who pay their salaries and pensions. But it is their obscene pensions that are the big problem moving forward for America.

How would you like to retire with $6 million? $8 million? $10 million? All you have to do is become a government employee to hit the jackpot.

You don’t believe me? Do the math.

I recently talked with a retired New York City toll taker. His salary averaged about $70,000 per year over 20 years. But in his last few years he worked loads of overtime and added in accumulated sick days to get his salary in those final years up to $150,000.

His pension is based on his final years’ salary. This is a common pension-padding ploy.

He bragged that he will now get a taxpayer funded pension of $120,000 a year for the rest of his life. He’s only 50 years old.

The average 50-year old male has a life expectancy of almost 80. With automatic cost of living increases, that’s a bill to taxpayers of $5 million for the next 30 years –for not working. THREE TIMES WHAT HE EARNED WHILE WORKING.

And, of course, we’re also paying his medical bills.

No country, no budget, and no taxpayers anywhere in the world can afford this. Ask Greece.

But here’s a frightening question- what if he lives to 90? Or 100? His pension could rise to $8 million or higher.

Multiply this times 21 million government employees (on the federal, state and local level) and you now get a sense of what is bankrupting America.

Are these stories the exception, rather than the rule? Over 77,000 federal government employees earned more than the governor of their state.

On the federal level, it was just reported by USA Today that the average federal civil servant compensation is $123,049 per year.

That’s more than double what private sector workers earn (average of $61,051). Since 2000, federal government employee compensation has grown by 36.9% versus 8.8% for private sector employees.

In Las Vegas (Clark County) the average firefighter earns $199,678 per year.

When he retires at age 45 or 50, we owe his pension based on that obscene salary. But here’s the clincher –when he finally dies, the taxpayer has to continue paying the pension to his spouse. Add up the damage to the economy. It is catastrophic. Talk about a 1 per center — a single firefighter could retire with $8 to $10 million for not working for the rest of his life.

This is madness.

Now it’s true that policemen and firefighters are heroes. But they make up a small portion of government employees.

Recent studies prove the average janitor that works for government makes over $600,000 more in his career than a private sector janitor. Are janitors heroes too?

Again, this is madness.

Three stories on the same day in this past Sunday’s Las Vegas newspapers sum up this national outrage.

Let’s start with the Las Vegas teachers union. It was reported that more than a third of the union’s entire $4.1 million annual budget went to pay just nine union leaders.

The Teachers Union Executive Director received $632,546, while the CEO of the union-created Teachers Health Trust was paid $546,133.

So next time you hear educators scream that we must spend more money on education, because “it’s for the kids,” you’ll know the truth. It’s for the unions.

It’s always been for the unions.

Bernie Madoff has nothing on the government employee union scam.

Article number two in Sunday’s Las Vegas Review Journal was about those highly paid Las Vegas firefighters.

It turns out they weren’t satisfied with making almost $200,000 per year. They also abused sick leave, rigged work schedules to pump up their pensions, and appear to have engaged in widespread disability fraud.

About half of all Clark County firefighters retired with work-related injuries in recent years- garnering bonus payments averaging $320,000 apiece. That’s in addition to their obscene pensions for life.

Is this also “for the kids?”

Article number three in Sunday’s paper was about a now retired Las Vegas homicide detective and possible police brutality. It had nothing to do with pensions. But interestingly, the retired homicide detective they quote in the story is 47 years old.

He’s 47 and already retired?

Want to bet that you and I are on the hook for $5 to $10 million in pension and health benefits from now until the day he dies- for not working. Is this also “for the kids?”

I’ll say it one more time… this is madness.

These aren’t CEO types. These are average government employees retiring with the equivalent of $5 to $10 million. These are the true 1% privileged class that are bankrupting our country and destroying the once great U.S. economy.

Something is very wrong here.

No one has a right to complain about the high incomes of business owners in the private sector (the 1%). We rarely have pensions and our compensation doesn’t cost taxpayers a dime. We risk our own money to start our businesses and often work 16 hour days, weekends and holidays.

Yet for all that risk and hard work, do you know any small business owners who retire with $5 to $10 million? They are few and far between. But that’s exactly what a private sector employee would need in the bank on the day of his or her retirement to match the $100,000 per year pensions (plus health care benefits and cost of living increases) of government employees paid out over 30 to 50 years.

Keep in mind that government employees never risk a dollar of their own money. They have lifetime job security. And they rarely work beyond 9 to 5, let alone weekends or holidays.

Yet government employees are paid millions by taxpayers to retire early, often on pensions fattened by gaming the corrupt system.

They are the true 1%.

This is a national disgrace that is bankrupting America. The gall of this scam would make Bernie Madoff blush.

But hey…”It’s for the kids!”

Wayne Allyn Root is a former Libertarian Vice Presidential nominee. He now serves as Chairman of the Libertarian National Congressional Committee. He is the best-selling author of “The Conscience of a Libertarian: Empowering the Citizen Revolution with God, Guns, Gold & Tax Cuts.” His web site: www.ROOTforAmerica.com. This article originally appeared on FoxNews.com and is republished with permission from the author.

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Firenze Sage: You cannot fail in Florida [teacher unions oppose standardized testing]

jaj48 — Sat, 19 May 2012 22:40:45 +0000

Florida teacher unions oppose standardized tests

The Board of Education decided in an emergency meeting Tuesday to lower the passing grade on the writing portion of Florida’s standardized test after preliminary results showed a drastic drop in student passing scores.

The results indicated only about a third of students would pass this year’s tougher Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test exam, compared with a passing rate of 80 percent or more last year.

“They’ve asked students to do more, but that’s pretty dramatic,” said Florida Education Association spokesman Mark Pudlow. “We need to examine what led to this, not just paper over the problem.”

The results provide another opening to critics of high-stakes testing. The statewide teachers union has opposed Florida’s use of standardized tests to evaluate teachers and grade schools.

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The teacher’s union is for the teachers, not the students who really don’t matter to the union.

JAJ48@aol.com http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/109312

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Firenze Sage: $15,000 soda pop [federal fine to school]

jaj48 — Sat, 19 May 2012 22:17:52 +0000

$15 K federal fine to school for soda bought after lunch makes no sense

Soda pop OK if bought before lunch but a huge federal fine if purchased after lunch. This makes no sense except harassment sense.

Davis High School has been fined $15,000 after they were caught selling soda pop during lunch hour, which is a violation of federal law.

The federally mandated law prohibits the sale of carbonated beverages after lunch is served. The program is an effort to help fight childhood obesity and to have young students make better food choices.

The mandate allows for carbonated beverages to be sold before lunch, but restricts students from buying lunch, then purchasing carbonated drinks afterward.

“Before lunch you can come and buy a carbonated beverage. You can take it into the cafeteria and eat your lunch, but you can’t first go buy school lunch then come out in the hallway and buy a drink,” said Davis High Principal Dee Burton.

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“He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.”

The Declaration of Independence has it spot on!!

JAJ48@aol.com http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/109312

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Firenze Sage: David Letterman’s whinge [on Obama's accomplishments] is answered

jaj48 — Sat, 19 May 2012 00:13:03 +0000

Obama's meager record on the economy

About Obama’s meager record defended mightily by talk show host Letterman.

In an interview with NBC News anchor Brian Williams, Letterman asked, “What more do we want this man [Obama] to do for us, honest to God?”

Here’s how the folks at Commentary answered Letterman’s question:

For starters, something better than the weakest economic recovery in the modern era,

the worst jobs record of any president in the modern era,

the highest sustained unemployment rate since the Great Depression,

a housing crisis worse than the Great Depression,

unprecedented deficits and debt,

a standard of living that’s fallen longer and more steeply during the past three years than at any time since the government began recording it five decades ago,

a downgrade in the United States’ credit rating for the first time in history,

and a record number of people in poverty.
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None of this means anything to Letterman, the overpaid,ignoramus who pontificates nightly.

JAJ48@aol.com http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/109312
jaj48@aol.com

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Firenze Sage: Behold the Biden hovel

jaj48 — Fri, 18 May 2012 23:51:49 +0000

Biden has middle class digs? Nope. $172,000 is the medium price for a home in America. Joe Biden’s home is worth $2.8 million -and that’s not counting the “cottage” [home] the government rents from Biden for $12 K to provide him protection.

Yet, he calls himself middle class Joe (Biden).

While it’s not clear who actually calls the vice president that, it is clear that his house and finances tell a different story. Here’s a picture of his home:

one car in front of Joe Biden's middle class home

Zillow.com, a reliable real estate web site, estimates the worth of Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware, home (pictured above) to be a cool $2,856,950. (This does not appear to include the cottage on the Biden estate, which the vice president rents out to the Secret Service for more than $12,000 per year.)

“The vice president and his wife, Jill Biden, reported assets of between $239,000 and $866,000,” according to Bloomberg.

Biden added: “What do they think we think? What do they think we think in our houses? We’re like the rich guys — we have dreams, we have aspirations.” Indeed.

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And Joe Biden gave $380 to charity.

JAJ48@aol.com http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/109312

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Firenze Sage: Cherokee cheater again [Elizabeth Warren]

jaj48 — Fri, 18 May 2012 22:32:49 +0000

Elizabeth Warren plagiarized recipes from expensive, French restaurant Le Pavilion and published them as passed down from her Cherokee relatives?

The credibility of Massachusetts Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren took another hit today as Boston radio talk show host Howie Carr released evidence that appears to confirm Ms. Warren may have plagiarized at least three of the five recipes she submitted to the 1984 Pow Wow Chow cookbook edited by her cousin Candy Rowsey.

Two of the possibly plagiarized recipes, said in the Pow Wow Chow cookbook to have been passed down through generations of Oklahoma Native American members of the Cherokee tribe, are described in a New York Times News Service story as originating at Le Pavilion, a fabulously expensive French restaurant in Manhattan. The dishes were said to be particular favorites of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and Cole Porter.

crab & cognac in Elizabeth Warren's Cherokee recipe

The two recipes, “Cold Omelets with Crab Meat” and “Crab with Tomato Mayonnaise Dressing,” appear in an article titled “Cold Omelets with Crab Meat,” written by Pierre Franey of the New York Times News Service that was published in the August 22, 1979 edition of the Virgin Islands Daily News, a copy of which can be seen here.

Ms. Warren’s 1984 recipe for Crab with Tomato Mayonnaise Dressing is a word-for-word copy of Mr. Franey’s 1979 recipe.

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This phoney is the woman who Obama would have had running our lives [via the Consumer Financial Protection Agency]. Connecticut has its lying senator. Is Mass. far behind?

JAJ48@aol.com http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/109312

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Aptos Psychologist: individual conscience and service (Romney) or a proletarian struggle (Obama)

jaj48 — Fri, 18 May 2012 00:41:47 +0000

Obama's proletarian struggle

Individual conscience and service or a proletarian struggle?
personal conscience of each individual

What makes the individual matter?

For Obama it is the collective force that individuals can exert through mass action such as the Occupy Wall Street movement. Not the individual but the collectivity of individuals subsumed to some greater goal that causes important change according to Obama. Life is a proletarian struggle.

For Romney, “the call of service is one of the fundamental elements of our national character. It has motivated every great movement of conscience that this hopeful, fair-minded country of ours has ever seen.”

Recently, Gov. Romney told graduates of Liberty College that “the great drama is always personal, individual, unfolding in one’s own life… and that Men and women of every faith — and good people with none at all — sincerely strive to do right and lead a purpose-driven life.”

Life is politics says Obama. Obama tells college graduates at Banard College that the road ahead is a fairly grim proletarian struggle and that they need to be ready to occupy everything. Mass political action is the way to make significant change says Obama.

The contrasting world views of Romney and Obama as to how change occurs through individual actions could not be starker.

What say you as to why individuals matter?

DrCameronJackson@gmail.com

See Opinion piece in WSJ A Tale of Two Commencements below

“Two days after Mitt Romney delivered the commencement speech at Liberty University, the big evangelical Christian school founded by Jerry Falwell, Barack Obama tutored graduates at Barnard College, the intensely liberal all-women’s school adjacent to Columbia University. As you might guess, the wisdom these two political elders imparted to the Class of 2012 was not the same.

Of course the first purpose for both men was to turn young graduates into believers. Mr. Romney, a Mormon, needs to win over ambivalent evangelical voters. Mr. Obama, a liberal Democrat, expects to have the 22-year-old college graduate vote locked up—if they vote.

Yes, of course, they pandered.
Related Video

Columnist Daniel Henninger on what Mitt Romney and President Obama’s commencement speeches say about their world view. Photo: Associated Press

Barack Obama, by now a master at faux self-deflation, admitted he was pandering: “Now I recognize that’s a cheap applause line when you’re giving a commencement at Barnard.” (Laughter.) He had said the women of this generation will help lead the way. (Applause.)

Mitt Romney solved his more problematic pandering assignment by piling praise onto the university’s late founder, the Rev. Jerry Falwell—”a cheerful, confident champion for Christ.”

But even amid pandering one may find truths about candidates revealed, and so it was in New York City and Lynchburg, Va.

The world that Barack Obama conveyed to the women at Barnard is totally, overwhelmingly political. To be sure, there were references to parental joy at the success of children completing college, but virtually every thought in the Obama commencement address—on the accomplishments of the past or a graduate’s goals—was defined by political activity.

He said they are about to grapple with unique challenges, “like whether you’ll be able to earn equal pay for equal work” or “fully control decisions about your own health.”
Related Media

Read a transcript of Barack Obama’s commencement speech at Barnard College

Read a transcript of Mitt Romney’s commencement speech at Liberty University

The role of the citizen in “our democracy” began 225 years ago at the Convention in Philadelphia, which had “flaws,” to wit: “Questions of race and gender were unresolved.” Nonetheless, it “allowed for protest and movements.”

And so: “Don’t accept somebody else’s construction of the way things ought to be. It’s up to you to right wrongs. It’s up to you to point out injustice. It’s up to you to hold the system accountable and sometimes upend it entirely. It’s up to you to stand up and to be heard, to write and to lobby, to march, to organize, to vote.”

Mr. Obama described his own early job as a community organizer: “I wanted to do my part to shape a better world.” He cited the accomplishments of previous generations of young people who “stood up and sat in from Seneca Falls to Selma to Stonewall.” This, Mr. Obama said, is how “we achieved” women’s rights, voting rights, workers’ rights and gay rights.

Barack Obama seems to inhabit a world of history and personal experience in which good people at every turn are held back by individuals or oppressive forces that one only overcomes by personal or public resistance.

Someone in high school told Labor Secretary Hilda Solis she wasn’t college material. Mr. Obama’s grandmother worked for a bank but hit the glass ceiling. And today there are “those who oppose change, those who benefit from an unjust status quo [and] have always bet on the public’s cynicism or the public’s complacency.” He predicts they will lose “this time as well.”

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The president giving remarks at Barnard College, May 14

Fair enough. That’s how the world works for Barack Obama, though it strikes me he is telling America’s 22-year-olds that the road ahead is a fairly grim proletarian struggle. Be ready to occupy everything. Where’s the joy in that?

There was less tooth and claw in the Romney speech at Liberty University. In a discussion of the uses of religious freedom, one passage in particular separated Mr. Romney from Barack Obama’s default to mass action. “The great drama of Christianity,” Gov. Romney said, “is not a crowd shot, following the movements of collectives or even nations. The drama is always personal, individual, unfolding in one’s own life.” Out of this, he said, “Men and women of every faith, and good people with none at all, sincerely strive to do right and lead a purpose-driven life.”

Progress, he argued, emerges through “conscience in action,” for him “the nation’s greatest force for good.” Mr. Romney referred several times to the idea of personal service. “The call to service,” he said “is one of the fundamental elements of our national character. It has motivated every great movement of conscience that this hopeful, fair-minded country of ours has ever seen.”

For Barack Obama, life is politics. For Mitt Romney, life includes politics; politics, he said, does not define us.

To wage a presidential campaign in our nonstop media age, the man who sees politics as a battering ram may have an edge. But Mitt Romney, with his politics of optimism and personal conscience, could be onto something that will serve him well.

Write to henninger@wsj.com

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Aptos Psychologist: A terrorist is a terrorist & deal with them the same whether caught in a Yemon cave or in CA

jaj48 — Thu, 17 May 2012 23:05:18 +0000

treat all terrorists alike -- whether captured in a cave or shopping mall

Tell Adam Smith and Justin Amash that they are ‘losing it’ to seek to remove the legal authority granted by Congress after 9/11 to fight terrorists on every front.

If you live in Adam Smith’s district it is easy to contact him. He is on Facebook so you can leave him a note there. Adam Smith’s FAX is 202 225-5893 and voice is 202 225-8901.

Smith and Amash have proposed an amendment to next year’s defense authorization bill that more or less revokes the legal authority granted by Congress to fight terrorists on every front.

Let’s not reward terrorists with better treatment for having the wits to get out of their caves and sneak in to America to blow up civilians in shopping malls. Whether discovered in a cave in Yemon or Time Square New York all terrorists must be dealt with through legally approved military methods.

Obama refuses to transfer terrorists to Gitmo. Obama gave the protections that criminals have — Miranda rights — to terrorists. Obama has treated terrorists as though they were common criminals.

Obama is wrong. Terrorists are terrorists and not simply criminals. And that’s why the military must have the freedom to use military methods to deal with terrorists.

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Aptos Psychologist: Make SEIU union dues a voluntary choice a win-win for political free speech? Yes.

jaj48 — Thu, 17 May 2012 22:19:39 +0000

no more forced SEIU union dues win-win for political free speech

Let’s take the wind out of sails of the SEIU?

How? Through state legislation, stop automatic deductions of union dues from SEIU workers pay checks.

Let workers be free to choose yes or no whether to pay union dues. Many government union workers will opt out of automatic dues removed from their checks. No automatic dues flowing into the SEIU results in less political clout that they can exert.

Why should any worker just to hold a job have to pay SEIU union dues so that the SEIU can use dues to flow into other organizations like Change to Win which seeks to intimidate private companies such as Wellpoint from making political contributions?

Look at who runs Change to Win. The President of SEIU, the Vice President of the SEIU and the Treasurer/Secretary of the SEIU are all key players of Change to Win.

Union front organization such as Change to Win seek to know and limit the political donations made by private corporations. Why? So that the unions are the only big players in who make large donations.

The unions such as SEIU want to control the political free speech exercised by of private corporations.

The SEIU seeks to grow government unions to grow their power.

Recently, in Michigan the SEIU suffered a setback to their political clout. In states including Michigan and California home health care workers were forced to pay union dues.

Persons with developmental disabilities are frequently cared for life long by family members.

It is good news that developmentally disabled persons can stay in their homes thanks to health care provided by parents and relatives. Those who best know and love a relative with disabilities provides care at a fraction of the cost if the person had to be placed in a government run facility.

To deem home health care workers as “government employees” and force them to pay SEIU union wrongfully categorizes people and allows the SEIU to skim off millions of dollars. Home health care workers seek to care for their loved ones — not to do a government job. Recently Michigan has changed their laws. No more taking of union dues from Michigan home health care workers.

Can California wake up and follow Michigan’s lead? Let’s hope so. The necessary labor and employment laws are already in place to protect jobs.

written by drcameronjackson@gmail.com

By: Chase Ingersoll
Home Health Care Aides not longer required to pay SEIU union dues

Posted: Apr 11, 2012

MIDLAND — Michigan’s 60,000 home health care aides will no longer be deemed government employees — meaning they cannot be forced into a government employee union and have dues withheld — as a result of legislation signed today by Gov. Rick Snyder. The next step is for the Michigan Department of Community Health to immediately stop the collection of dues from subsidy payments intended to assist developmentally disabled adults and the diversion of those funds to the Service Employees International Union, said Patrick J. Wright, director of the Mackinac Center Legal Foundation.

“Ending this lucrative charade is terrific news for Michigan’s home health care providers who have seen nearly $30 million skimmed from their payments over the last six years,” said Wright. “The designation of these private contractors and family members as government employees was illegal from the beginning. Michigan’s Constitution explicitly states that only the Legislature can define government employees. No political arrangement or interlocal agreement can change that.

“Now that the law has been clarified, the dues skim must end,” he added.

The arrangement that allowed the SEIU to skim from Medicaid payments to some of the state’s most vulnerable residents was concocted during the administration of Gov. Jennifer Granholm. An interlocal agreement between DCH and the Tri-County Aging Consortium allowed for the creation of the Michigan Quality Community Care Council, which served as the “employer” for what were really self-employed independent contractors or, overwhelmingly, family members caring for loved ones.

Despite the fact that there was no real employer with whom to engage in collective bargaining, the SEIU conducted a union representation vote in 2007. Out of the 44,000 home health care providers in Michigan at the time, only 7,900 voted; 6,900 cast ballots for the union. Although many providers were unaware that a vote was taking place, they nonetheless were forced into the union.

Government-sector unions recently proposed a constitutional amendment to circumvent this legislative fix and restore the flow of the so-called dues. Wright noted that if passed, this proposed amendment would violate the U.S. Constitution since private employee unionization is purely a matter of federal law.

This is the third time in 14 months that an illegal unionization arrangement has been brought to an end. On March 1, 2011, Gov. Snyder issued an executive order ending the illegal dues confiscation affecting tens of thousands of home-based day care providers who had been forced into a government-employee union through a similar scheme. The Mackinac Center Legal Foundation fought an 18-month court battle on behalf of day care owners.

On March 13, Gov. Snyder signed into law a bill clarifying that graduate student research assistants are not government employees subject to forced unionization. The MCLFrepresented more than 370 such students from the University of Michigan who objected to the illegal unionization effort.

“Government-sector unions are clearly trying to expand the definition of government employees in order to grow their membership and direct taxpayer money into their coffers,” said Wright. “If business owners, the self-employed, family members and students can be roped into such schemes, then grocers, doctors, landlords and anyone else who receives a direct or indirect payment from the government can’t be far behind.”

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Firenze Sage: Free money to the undeserving [100 K principal reductions for CA homes]

jaj48 — Thu, 10 May 2012 22:57:35 +0000

free money to the undeserving

In a big change, the state-run Keep Your Home California program will use federal money to reduce an eligible homeowner’s mortgage balance by up to $100,000 without requiring a matching reduction by the bank servicing the loan.

Many more underwater California homeowners will get principal reductions when the change takes effect in early June, but there’s a catch: The reduction is structured as a forgivable loan. If they sell their house within five years, any profit will go toward repaying the principal reduction. After five years, there is no repayment requirement. Under current rules, the loan is forgiven after three years.

Loans backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are potentially eligible for principal reduction under this program.

The money is coming from a $2 billion grant the state was awarded in 2010 from the U.S. Treasury Department’s Hardest Hit Fund. The grant provides four types of assistance to low- and moderate-income homeowners who can document a financial hardship.

To qualify under the new rules, homeowners must use the home as their primary residence, owe more than it’s worth, fall below the income limit for their county, demonstrate a financial hardship and owe no more than $729,750 on a first mortgage originated on or before Jan. 1, 2010. (The previous cutoff date was Jan. 1, 2009.)

In San Francisco the household income limit is $121,900. For other counties see keepyourhomecalifornia.org/files/income.pdf.

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This is simply outrageous. If in San Francisco you make $121,901, you have the privilege and honor to pay taxes so the federal government can turn money over to the state government(forget all the carrying charges here and there) to give your neighbor who overextended himself or lied on his loan application a gift of $100,000. This is fair?

JAJ48@aol.com http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/109312

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