Fred Klonsky | Daily posts from a retired public school teacher who is just looking at the data.:
Fred All Week Klonsky | Daily posts from a retired public school teacher
IRTA pension suit names TRS board as a defendant which includes Cinda Klickna. What’s up with that? Glen Brown explains.
From my friend Glen Brown’s blog: “The lawsuit names Quinn, Illinois Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka and the Illinois Teachers’ Retirement System’s (TRS) board of trustees as defendants and seeks preliminary and permanent injunctive relief. It was filed as a class action, representing retired and active members of TRS, who are not currently members of any teachers’ labor union” (Reuters). It’s the
C’mon people, now. Smile on your brother. Everybody get together right now.
. Late yesterday the Illinois Retired Teachers Association (disclaimer: I am a member of both the IEA Retired and the Illinois Retired Teachers Association. I am the President of a local chapter of IEA Retired and the Vice President of a local unit of IRTA) filed suit in Cook County Court against the pension-busting SB1. This morning IEA Communications Director Charlie McBarron felt compelled to
Keeping retirement weird.
My grandson setting the holiday table. It is Saturday morning. Slowly the family leaves. Back to Brooklyn. Our little Logan Square house has been bulging with family for the last week. Ulysses is no more used to the sound of a five and ten-year old that I am. Showers and toilet-use must be carefully coordinated. The choreography of family members preparing meals would put Jerome Robbins to sham
Breaking: Illinois Retired Teachers Association goes to court for our pensions.
Crain’s Two groups representing educators today filed suit against the state’s new pension-reform law late today, contending that it violates provisions of the Illinois Constitution. In an action filed in Cook County Circuit Court, the Illinois Retired Teachers Association and the School Administrators Association contend that, by recently voting to reduce cost-of-living hikes and other benefits
Pension Thieves.
State Sen. William Cunningham, D-Chicago, whose district runs from Chicago’s Beverly community to Orland Park, voted for the bill but expressed strong sympathies with government employees. “I want to make it clear that I understand these people did nothing wrong,” Cunningham said. “They did everything right. They made their payments into the pension system, but the state did not, or made partia
Mayoral Tutorial. Our pensions situation is not a crisis.
Me, Don Washington and Chicago Newsroom’s Ken Davis. From my friend Don Washington, The Mayoral Tutorial: Our pension situation is not a crisis in the sense that pensions will suddenly run out of money or not be able to pay benefits. – Don Washington – Paul Krugman – Dean Baker – Richard Wolff – Joseph Stiglitz Good people as the year ends and various bankers, conservatives, libertarians and Si
DEC 26
We need a fair income tax in Illinois.
Ken Griffin, hedge fund manager and head of Citadel LLC, is Illinois’ richest person and is worth $4.4 billion. He pays the same state income tax rate as an associate at Walmart. Want to know why Illinois is broke? Maybe that’s why Representative Elaine Nekritz, Illinois’ leading pension bomber responded to me on Al Jazeera’s The Stream, by saying, “I have always made it my goal not to place bl
2013 pension quotes.
“We will sell our shoes.” IRTA’s Gary Elmen. “The bill kicks ordinary working people — secretaries, clerks, teachers and the like — in the teeth. Much of the bill’s $160 billion in savings comes from reducing the cost-of-living increases to their pensions and pushing back their retirement age.” – Chicago Sun-Times “Today, we have won. The people of Illinois have won. This landmark legislation i
DEC 25
A tribute to all the pension thieves.
- Dienne A tribute to all the pension thieves: You`re a mean one, Mr. Grinch You really are a heel, You`re as cuddly as a cactus, you`re as charming as an eel, Mr. Grinch, You`re a bad banana with a greasy black peel! You`re a monster, Mr. Grinch, Your heart`s an empty hole, Your brain is full of spiders, you`ve got garlic in your soul, Mr. Grinch, I wouldn`t touch you with a thirty-nine-and-a-hal
The fight for teacher pension justice is international. Puerto Rico. #RetirosMaestros.
Al Jazeera. Since December 19, members of Puerto Rico’s teachers union and their supporters have beenprotesting both inside the island’s Senate chamber and outside its Capitol against pension reform legislation advocated by governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla. The purpose of the action was to “ensure that the 150 designated [chamber] seats are occupied by teachers,” according to Eva Ayala, a protes
DEC 24
DEC 23
Ford CEO Alan Mulally. Stealing gold fillings from the mouths on pensioners.
Ford CEO, Alan Mulally. Every time a Ford employee receives their paycheck and looks at the state income tax deduction, they probably don’t know that those dollars are going into the pocket (figuratively) of FORD CEO Alan Mulally. Because of tax credits by the pension busting Illinois General Assembly Ford is one of nine giant corporations that get to keep the state income tax they collect from
Nine Illinois corporations get to collect employee income taxes and keep what they collect.
Crain’s graphic. Hyde Park Democrat Barbara Flynn Currie blames retirees for the pension crisis. We agreed to a benefit and then when she and her House colleagues didn’t pay the bill, we didn’t vote her out of office. Maybe she has a point. Here’s another reason to throw her out of the House. Nine Illinois Corporations get to collect – through payroll deduction – employee income taxes. And they
Pension thieves.
Illinois Democrat Barbara Flynn Currie represents Hyde Park in the Illinois House. In explaining her vote to cut pensions she wrote to her constituents, “How did we find ourselves in this pickle? Years of inaction by Governors and lawmakers of both parties, the worst recession in recent memory, and a willingness on the part of labor to accept benefit enhancements without demanding that the sta
Now that’s a pension. John Watson of Chevron.
John Watson, CEO of Chevron oil. “The world is upside down. The lead article shows that CEOs now make 200 times what the average worker makes as opposed to the old days when it was 18 times. And our pensions are exorbitant?” writes Gary Elmen of the Illinois Retired Teachers Association. He sends along this link. >2012 value: $6 million pension >CEO: John Watson >Company: Chevron John Watson be
The Illinois Charter Commission. The incestuous Michael Madigan.
Here’s how the Illinois Charter Commission works: If a private group gets turned down by a local school board in an attempt to establish a charter school, they can appeal to the Commission. If the Commission gives a thumb’s up, that decision trumps the local school board. But the local citizens foot the bill. Illinois democracy at its best. Who created the Commission? Democratic Party Chairman
DEC 22
Sunday reads. Think globally. Give locally.
Retired teacher and blogger John Dillon has a great post on the impact of corporate giving during the holidays and the rest of the year. Here’s a partial list of the 24 corporate Samaritans, and I’ll just highlight the companies with membership in the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago: Northern Trust, Illinois Tool Works, AT&T, UPS, Deloitte, Exelon, Bank of America, Ernst
DEC 21
Keeping retirement weird.
The problem now that the General Assembly of Illinois has joined the international movement to screw older people by passing pension destruction, there is a lot of discussion about what to do next. And by a lot, I mean me and some of my friends and colleagues. I doubt it is a question that the Logan Square hipsters up at New Wave are texting about. Which reminds me. Before I retired I thought mos