Mamdani’s Budget Balanced on the Backs of Union Pensions

Ekosj (View Post):

How’s that free stuff working out for you NYC Union folks?

I don't think they've even gotten any free stuff yet, and may not at all . . .

My first thought was that the pension shortfall will eventually be picked up by Uncle Sam. It will be paid for by increasing the federal debt.

Terence Smith (View Comment):

My first thought was that the pension shortfall will eventually be picked up by Uncle Sam. It will be paid for by increasing the federal debt.

If not by them then by NY State.

There is a great old Soviet-era joke they used to tell in Poland. Party officials in Gdansk become aware that Stash - who has a well-paying job in the shipyards there - doesn't have a bank account. He cashes his check, takes the money and goes home. What is he doing with it? IS he a drug addict? IS he financing some subversive anti-social group? They send an apparatchik round to Stash's flat to see what's up. He asks Stash directly why he doesn't have a bank account. Stash explains that is nothing nefarious. But he knows those idiots at the Bank of Gdansk. Went to school with them. They are morons. There is no way he's going to let them have control of a single zloty. He's happier with the bills tucked under his mattress.

The apparatchik explains that there is no reason to fear. True, the people at the Bank of Gdansk might be idiots ... but if anything goes wrong the Bank of Warsaw will bail them out and Stash's money will be safe. Stash counters ... You think the people in Warsaw are any better than the Gdansk guys? Haaa! I see them at the soccer matches ... they are just as dumb as the guys in Gdansk! Again the apparatchik explains ... maybe so but if the Bank of Warsaw fails the Bank of Poland will bail them out. Stash isn't convinced. Yeah ... And if the Bank of Poland fails ... What then? The apparatchik counters that if that unlikely event occurred their fraternal socialist brothers at the Bank of Moscow would bail them out. And if THEY failed the Central Bank of the Soviet Union would take care of things. Stash shakes his head ... And what if the Soviet Union went bankrupt ... what then smart guy ?!?!?!

The apparatchik pauses and carefully examines the room making sure they are well and truly alone then replies "Wouldn't it be worth it?!?!?"

Professional beggar gets a sugar daddy (the state taxpayers) to pay the bills

Terence Smith (View Comment):

My first thought was that the pension shortfall will eventually be picked up by Uncle Sam.

That is one of the strategies of the currently predominant branch of the socialist movement in America, which favors a mostly-peaceful, gradual collapse of the American system by co-opting its own political institutions and processes to subvert it. It has worked before and it might work in this case, too. There is no longer a very powerful institutional resistance to it in America.

Terence Smith (View Comment):

It will be paid for by increasing the federal debt.

We can agree that that is not false*.

* * *

*Note:

This is not the place to debate whether

1. it is true, which necessarily implies that money is not fungible, or
2. money is fungible, which necessarily implies it is not false, but also not true, since it is statement without any meaning: Treasury’s checking account doesn’t have little boxes in it with dollar bills marked “Hi, I came from Goldman Sachs last August when they bought a T-Bill, and now I am going to the NYC Treasury checking account!”