This Detroit story on the retirees losing there pensions is fucked up

[bigdarryl]

These retirees didn't pay into Social Security and have nothing to live on but there pensions.http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/12/03/1259824/-Breaking-Judge-Rules-Detroit-Pension-Benefits-Subject-to-Theft-by-Bankruptcy

[KansDem]

1. I spoke recently with a former high-school teacher...

We've kept in contact over the last 40 years.

He didn't pay (very much) into SS either. He worked all his life in California and has a good pension through his teachers' union. The only SS he receives, which is only a few hundred $$ a month, he paid into teaching summer school, other employment outside of teaching (he is a musician who performed in professional ensembles), and other non-teaching/non-music jobs.

His monthly pension provides him with what he needs to live on. If he lost his pension, he'd be in dire straits.

One can only imagine what the pensioners of Detroit must be feeling...

[joeglow3]

2. Should the city sell assets like art work to help fund this?

[rug]

3. No. Default on and discharge all unsecured bonds.

[loli phabay]

4. yup, the retirees are more important than the artwork

Its not as if they would be destroyed.

[KansDem]

6. Good question...

Selling works of art to One Percenters looking for an "investment" who should have been paying higher taxes in the first place seems illogical.

But then, "trickle down" was a lie...

[frazzled]

5. There's no plan yet as to what will be done

So let's reserve judgment on what will happen. What is clear is that no pensioner is going to lose their pension entirely, so let's not pretend their pensions are being wiped out. Here's an article from the Detroit Free Press that outlines the possibilities

http://www.freep.com/article/20131203/NEWS01/312030138/Detroit-bankruptcy-Orr-pensions-cuts-plan-of-adjustment

The first details will come in the so-called “plan of adjustment” that Orr will present in bankruptcy court by the first of the year. Orr declined to say Tuesday how he plans to spread cuts over more than 20,000 City of Detroit retirees and their beneficiaries. But here are some possible scenarios:

■ Orr might shield the city’s oldest and poorest retirees and cut deeper into the pensions of younger, somewhat better off retirees.

■ He might impose the cuts equally across the board but phase them in over a number of years, in effect offering a measure of protection for older retirees.

■ He might cap pension payments at some basic amount, requiring cuts only to those getting the biggest retirement checks.

■ Orr could leave pensions for current retirees relatively intact but impose deeper cuts on the active workers who remain years short of retirement age.

■ He might impose smaller cuts on the city’s retired police and firelighters because their pension fund, the Police & Fire Retirement System, is in somewhat better shape than the General Retirement System fund for the city’s non-uniformed retirees.

[lonestarnot]

7. Yes and dictators running it. Fucked up!