FedUpUSA

No, really.

Springfield, Ill. – More than 40,000 unionized state workers got a pay raise last Thursday, bringing to 7 percent the amount they’re gotten since last year. These same state employees are in line for another 7 percent by next July 1st, all at a cost of a half-billion tax dollars a year.

May I ask when the citizens of the State of Illinois decide they’re not going to pay – period?

May I ask when the citizens of the State of Illinois decide that all public-sector unions shall be de-certified and barred from the state?

Oh, they can’t do that, right?

Really?

You sure?

How will the State compel those citizens to go to work? 

See, the citizens have the absolute right to strike.  To refuse to work.  To refuse to pay bills, including to The State.  To, simply put, refuse.

There is no law that says you can be compelled to labor. 

And whether these unions like it or not, whether these corrupt and evil politicians like it or not, without tax revenues the state cannot pay them irrespective of any so-called “demand” or “obligation” to do so.

So here’s my answer to this sort of crap: GO ON STRIKE.

The unions think it’s just fine to do such a thing.

So, America, for the 49.5% of you, when you reach between your legs, do you feel two round things down there?  Is that a wee little sausage down there too, or do you find things that clang like church bells and a big hairy stick?

For the other 50.5% of the population, yours are not so visible, but they’re just as important.  Do you have shriveled up raisins in there or a big honking pair of estrogen-producing ovaries?  Is that a uterus in your belly or is it is a vestigal ornament to claimed womanhood?

YOU, the citizens, are the final arbitrator of government’s propriety and profligacy. 

YOU, the citizens, hold the final veto.

Always.

YOU, the citizens, may express that veto in peaceful and lawful refusal to fund the insanity of these institutions and scammers any time you decide you’ve had enough.

That is, if you actually have a pair of balls.

So far, all I see are raisins.

The Market-Ticker

Seriously:

But when shown a seven-page list of derivatives positions held by the Illinois Teachers Retirement System as of March 31, obtained by Medill News Service through a Freedom of Information Act request, the University of Illinois-Chicago assistant professor of finance expressed disbelief.

Yes, derivatives.  In teacher pension funds.  How bad is it?

After losing $4.4 billion on investments in fiscal year 2009, and 5 percent on investments in fiscal 2008, the teachers’ pension is now underfunded by $44.5 billion, or 60.9 percent, according to the Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability’s March 2010 report.

They have 40 cents of every dollar they need.

So what does someone who has no accountability – that is, who won’t be jailed if they make it worse rather than better, do?

Why they go to Vegas and bet it all on Red with a crooked croupier in a crooked casino!

Seriously.

The teachers’ fund denies it’s currently losing money on its derivatives, and in a statement said its investment strategy, which has included OTC derivatives for the past 27 years, is up 9.7 percent during that same time period. That’s better than the fund’s 8.5 percent target return rate

Lehman was doing really well too.  Right up until they blew up.

A target 8.5% return rate eh?  That’s suspiciously close to the 8.3% debt growth numbers from 2000 onward in the general economy!

That won’t work when the average economic growth rate over the same period is about 5.2%.  Indeed, it is that idiocy that led to the collapse.

We doubled systemic debt from 2000 to 2010, roughly.  That’s clearly what they’re trying to do with their “target”, but it will fail unless we can double outstanding credit again in the next ten years, and we can’t cover the debt payments at their present level.

But right now, TRS is largely on the risky side of the contracts, selling and writing OTC derivatives, including credit default swaps, insurance-like contracts that guarantee payment in the event of a default, that were blamed in part for the 2008 collapse of Lehman Bros. and bailout of insurance giant American International Group Inc., or AIG.

Writing uncovered derivatives?  Oh yeah, that’s real smart.  They’re effectively short volatility, which is a grand thing to be while the financial stability of nations is in question.

Tell me again how they get to do this?  What their capital base is for it? 

Oh yeah, it’s you, the Illinois taxpayer, who will be required to make up the shortfalls when (not if) this blows up in their face.

Get the hell out of Ill-noise folks.  Right now.

Oh, if you’re an Illinois teacher? 

Your pension is toast.

Mark my words.

The Market Ticker