John Deere strike imminent?

[khardbored]

Thread found on Twitter:

Not sure I trust that Jonah Furman guy. I don't know him, he may be right. But he pretty clearly has a 1 sided view.

For example, I'd like to see further down on that page he screen-shotted. I bet the company paid benefits (health, dental, life, disability) is easily another $10-15,000 of total compensation.

 

[khardbored]

Understood. The union could easily hire a third party to administer their program but In guessing you're correct and both parties have agreed its more cost efficient to have JD run the program.

Personally, I'd prefer to have my union operate the program.

The Washington (state) teamsters administers their union benefits though a TPA (3rd party administrator). So it is possible.

 

[JP4CY]

Not sure I trust that Jonah Furman guy. I don't know him, he may be right. But he pretty clearly has a 1 sided view.

For example, I'd like to see further down on that page he screen-shotted. I bet the company paid benefits (health, dental, life, disability) is easily another $10-15,000 of total compensation.

He's talking about wages though.

 

[Rabbuk]

Not sure I trust that Jonah Furman guy. I don't know him, he may be right. But he pretty clearly has a 1 sided view.

For example, I'd like to see further down on that page he screen-shotted. I bet the company paid benefits (health, dental, life, disability) is easily another $10-15,000 of total compensation.

Nor does that say it is a union workers pay info. I believe they provide a pension to non union workers as well, but someone please correct if wrong.

 

[Althetuna]

I don't disagree with you those sectors are massive on the lobbying front.

What are they lobbying for, though?

Various privileges and sinecures, sure, but is the preservation of the ESI system one of them?

I could see the end of ESI being to their benefit -- selling to individuals instead of to pools of thousands of workers represented through their employers would give the insurance companies more leverage.

One of the big worries when the ACA passed was that employers would "dump" their workers onto the exchanges and pay a relatively small penalty for it. Insurance companies were giddy -- it was their idea! -- because then they'd have more customers buying on individual markets instead of through larger pooled buys.

All of which was great for them. Remember, the insurance companies wrote ACA.

It's no secret the pharmaceutical industry has been fighting hard to stop any changes.

Democrats' high-stakes fight against pharma

Tackling drug prices may be key to enacting other popular health priorities.

www.axios.com

 

[mramseyISU]

Nor does that say it is a union workers pay info. I believe they provide a pension to non union workers as well, but someone please correct if wrong.

I got hired on the salary side 5 years ago and I have a pension and a 401k. Not sure if new hires still get that pension.

 

[Althetuna]

You are forgiven. But your unyielding faith in the "full faith and credit" of U.S. bonds is no less an educated guess than mine. Uncle Sam tends to pay his bills and the market tends to have solid returns in the long term. Both of these facts are true and assuming they will remain true is a supposition on your part and my part, as well.

We are using evidence of equal merit.



Neither of these (means testing or increasing the tax cap) do anything to better investment returns for poor workers forced to participate in the program. It does help the fiscal stability of an underfunded program, yes, but it does nothing to improve the returns or the retirement benefits of the poorest workers out there.



The Federal Reserve has more or less what you describe (making monetary policy with only minimal influence and oversight from Congress and the executive branch) and has its tendrils extremely deep in our financial system and increasingly in equity markets. The federal government is "in the market" through Railroad Retirement and the retirement system for federal employees, and so are the state pension funds.

Your concerns about the "independence" of the system are fair, but that did not prevent the creation of a slew of precedents like the Fed, existing federal/state pension programs, and those of our international peers. These are problems to manage, but if the Canadians and Japanese can do it, I think we could.

* * *​

I put together a little model giving the Social Security trust fund 2% than historical DJIA returns.

The 2% "penalty" is to account for this being net of the meager but present returns Social Security did return over time and for whatever higher operational costs would come from investing in the market instead of bonds.

It looks like this --

View attachment 90904

The main conclusions are --

2020 trust fund value without DJIA returns = $2.9 trillion
2020 trust fund value with DJIA returns minus 2% = $8.9 trillion
So we end up with approximately $6 trillion more in balance

That's a little more than 3x what we actually have right now.

The 2020 trust fund as it is has $8,826 per American in it. "Mine" has $27,018.

SS has the following unfunded obligations --

View attachment 90905

$6.0 trillion puts a nice dent in the $13.2 trillion unfunded through 2092 even before assuming the $6.0 trillion would continue accruing value from the market for the next 70 years. I could prove this mathematically for you if you wanted me to, but just "feeling" it would say my way has the program funded to at least 2100.

The current way is going to go broke in the 2030s or even the late 2020s and lead to some significant and painful tax increases on current workers to pay for the retirement of generally rich and white Boomers.

Love your system as much as you want, but we'd be in a much better spot right now with mine. I can pay what is promised without raising taxes beyond the 12.4% of our incomes already taken away from us.

I appriciate the work you did to put this together but the idea I can make heads or tails out this analysis isn't realistic.

 

[Sigmapolis]

It's no secret the pharmaceutical industry has been fighting hard to stop any changes.

Democrats' high-stakes fight against pharma

Tackling drug prices may be key to enacting other popular health priorities.

www.axios.com

There's nothing in that article about health insurance companies lobbying to preserve employer-sponsored insurance (and the system that supports it, most notably the IRS not considering ESI a type of taxable income).

I appriciate the work you did to put this together but the idea I can make heads or tails out this analysis isn't realistic.

Pretty simple really.

Give SS the same return as the DJIA minus 2% means you have $6 trillion more in the fund now.

That $6 trillion is probably easily enough to keep the fund solvent to the end of the century.

How? Compound interest is really powerful. I'm sure you know that.

I always find it odd people who say they like these programs are the most resistant to reasonable reforms that would make them stronger and ensure their financial stability for decades or centuries to come.

 

[deadeyededric]

I got hired on the salary side 5 years ago and I have a pension and a 401k. Not sure if new hires still get that pension.

I have the same type a deal at my job and I'd trade the SIS fund(100% employer funded 401k) for a bigger pension. You can't beat guaranteed money.

 

[CascadeClone]

You are forgiven. But your unyielding faith in the "full faith and credit" of U.S. bonds is no less an educated guess than mine. Uncle Sam tends to pay his bills and the market tends to have solid returns in the long term. Both of these facts are true and assuming they will remain true is a supposition on your part and my part, as well.

We are using evidence of equal merit.



Neither of these (means testing or increasing the tax cap) do anything to better investment returns for poor workers forced to participate in the program. It does help the fiscal stability of an underfunded program, yes, but it does nothing to improve the returns or the retirement benefits of the poorest workers out there.



The Federal Reserve has more or less what you describe (making monetary policy with only minimal influence and oversight from Congress and the executive branch) and has its tendrils extremely deep in our financial system and increasingly in equity markets. The federal government is "in the market" through Railroad Retirement and the retirement system for federal employees, and so are the state pension funds.

Your concerns about the "independence" of the system are fair, but that did not prevent the creation of a slew of precedents like the Fed, existing federal/state pension programs, and those of our international peers. These are problems to manage, but if the Canadians and Japanese can do it, I think we could.

* * *​

I put together a little model giving the Social Security trust fund 2% than historical DJIA returns.

The 2% "penalty" is to account for this being net of the meager but present returns Social Security did return over time and for whatever higher operational costs would come from investing in the market instead of bonds.

It looks like this --

View attachment 90904

The main conclusions are --

2020 trust fund value without DJIA returns = $2.9 trillion
2020 trust fund value with DJIA returns minus 2% = $8.9 trillion
So we end up with approximately $6 trillion more in balance

That's a little more than 3x what we actually have right now.

The 2020 trust fund as it is has $8,826 per American in it. "Mine" has $27,018.

SS has the following unfunded obligations --

View attachment 90905

$6.0 trillion puts a nice dent in the $13.2 trillion unfunded through 2092 even before assuming the $6.0 trillion would continue accruing value from the market for the next 70 years. I could prove this mathematically for you if you wanted me to, but just "feeling" it would say my way has the program funded to at least 2100.

The current way is going to go broke in the 2030s or even the late 2020s and lead to some significant and painful tax increases on current workers to pay for the retirement of generally rich and white Boomers.

Love your system as much as you want, but we'd be in a much better spot right now with mine. I can pay what is promised without raising taxes beyond the 12.4% of our incomes already taken away from us.

Just wanted to say- yes, the canadians and japanese can do it, but they are grown ups. We are not. We have to fight about control of everything, and good policy be damned.

You know the old consultancy saying," if you arent part of the solution, theres good money to be made in prolonging the problem." ? This is both of our political parties right now imho. Solving problems just gives them less with which to demonize the other side... so they dont.

Idk how to fix it. Or how to get this thread back on topic lol

 

[Sigmapolis]

Just wanted to say- yes, the canadians and japanese can do it, but they are grown ups. We are not. We have to fight about control of everything, and good policy be damned.

This is certainly painfully true.

But it's a democracy. The government reflects its people.

The Swiss are individualistic but community-minded and self-sufficient but law-abiding.

Therefore, they're extremely well-governed and extremely well-administered as a nation.

Americans? Well, fill in your own descriptions there.

We're the ornery ones that got kicked out of every decent country in the world.

 

[AuH2O]

I can see by your use of a % that you really don’t know what the dues rates are and you had to rely on projecting out some random figures from a google search in your UAW bashing.
A point of information though: Part of all dues goes into the UAW Strike Fund. While these guys are on strike they will receive a weekly benefit but more importantly the strike fund will pay continuation premiums for their healthcare so that won’t be
disrupted so they aren’t a total failure as you are trying to paint them.

So what are the dues then? How many millions have these workers paid to the UAW to negotiate these wages that are so low? Enlighten us.
My problem the same people stating how the workers are being exploited want to paint the UAW as some great organization standing up for the little guy. Looks to me like they are a lot better at cashing checks than negotiating. Let’s see what happens, but these are skilled workers in the biggest labor shortage in decades. They ought to be able to cash in.

 

[CascadeClone]

Not sure I trust that Jonah Furman guy. I don't know him, he may be right. But he pretty clearly has a 1 sided view.

For example, I'd like to see further down on that page he screen-shotted. I bet the company paid benefits (health, dental, life, disability) is easily another $10-15,000 of total compensation.

Fwiw, we cover 90% of good bcbs and its amounts to between 4k and 15k annual depending on age. Thats for each employee and each of their dependents. So a married 50yo guy w 2 kids is costs us abt 20k per year for health ins. But a 30yo single might only be like $5k.

Plus 401k contribs. Plus employer contribution to fica. General rule is add 50% of salary to get actual cost to employer. Varies a lot tho obviously.

 

[khardbored]

Just wanted to say- yes, the canadians and japanese can do it, but they are grown ups. We are not. We have to fight about control of everything, and good policy be damned.
...

Idk how to fix it. Or how to get this thread back on topic lol

This is certainly painfully true.

But it's a democracy. The government reflects its people.

 

[ripvdub]

Tell me what their monthly dues are.

Average pay of 2.5 average each month. Ex. $25 average = $62.5 a month in dues
Most people probably average $25 - 30 in Ankeny, but it's hard to say with the continuous improvement program.

 

[Clonehomer]

Not sure I trust that Jonah Furman guy. I don't know him, he may be right. But he pretty clearly has a 1 sided view.

For example, I'd like to see further down on that page he screen-shotted. I bet the company paid benefits (health, dental, life, disability) is easily another $10-15,000 of total compensation.

Yeah. I'd really like to see the hours worked to get to that $40,000 number. It's been a weird year with Covid and supply chain issues. Who knows how many hours were worked to get that total wages. I know it's not the employees' fault that the factories have been shut down due to supply issues, but that's unfortunately what you get as an hourly employee. You're only going to get paid for what you work.

That should be a pretty easy thing to show on a pay stub. Seems suspicious that they show a screen shot of a screen that only includes the total.

 

[keepngoal]

Unions (who negotiate those "Cadillac plans" for their members) are the main constituency holding us in the employer-based system. They don't want those Cadillac plans to be taxable for their membership.

That is, a class of customers -- unionized workers -- is why the system isn't going anywhere.

Not some sort of vague "the corporations!" notion.

Trust me, if major corporations could clear the cost of ESHI off their books, they'd be tickled pink.

Nope. Thats a talking point which I’m not surprised grabbed your approval.

 

[Sigmapolis]

Nope. Thats a talking point which I’m not surprised grabbed your approval.

"Nope" and then a sneer is hardly a refutation.

I've seen it first-hand. It's not a difficult chain to follow.

Unions want good insurance for their members (and good for them that they do!) and they don't want to see that good insurance be taxable because it would fall disproportionately on their membership.

This preserves the massive tax advantage of ESI, and therefore we're "stuck" in the system.

There's a reason essentially nobody goes around wanting to repeal that tax advantage. It's hugely popular despite its asinine nature, and it has some very high-leverage interest groups (again, unions) that like it.

So we're stuck with it.

No attempt to get away from ESI will work without ending the tax advantage. And we're never going to eliminate the tax advantage, so we're not getting to Step 2 if we're never getting past Step 1.

 

[Althetuna]

There's nothing in that article about health insurance companies lobbying to preserve employer-sponsored insurance (and the system that supports it, most notably the IRS not considering ESI a type of taxable income).



Pretty simple really.

Give SS the same return as the DJIA minus 2% means you have $6 trillion more in the fund now.

That $6 trillion is probably easily enough to keep the fund solvent to the end of the century.

How? Compound interest is really powerful. I'm sure you know that.

I always find it odd people who say they like these programs are the most resistant to reasonable reforms that would make them stronger and ensure their financial stability for decades or centuries to come.

I think you misunderstood my post. (Granted I was somewhat vague because I didn't want to be a jerk.)

Any serious statistical analysis of this topic is going to include assumptions, justification of those assumptions, explanation of statistical analysis, explaination regarding how changes in the program were addressed, etc. Right? Basically, you've presented your assumptions in different forms.

Its not a slight against you. This forum doesn't lend itself to indepth discussion. That's why it's why its better to link to a completed work product as opposed to developing it, on the fly, in a thread.

I'm 4 deep into vodka sours readying for the game so this will probably by last political post for the night.

 

[Sigmapolis]

I think you misunderstood my post. (Granted I was somewhat vague because I didn't want to be a jerk.)

Any serious statistical analysis of this topic is going to include assumptions, justification of those assumptions, explanation of statistical analysis, explaination regarding how changes in the program were addressed, etc. Right? Basically, you've presented your assumptions in different forms.

Its not a slight against you. This forum doesn't lend itself to indepth discussion. That's why it's why its better to link to a completed work product as opposed to developing it, on the fly, in a thread.

I'm 4 deep into vodka sours readying for the game so this will probably by last political post for the night.

These are all fair points. At least here is better than Twitter.

Not sure I agree with this kind of "analytical nihilism," however.

A meteor could just turn North America into a big crater in 2037. You don't know that one won't.

You're playing the odds. So am I. Using inputs, data, assumptions, and parameters in research isn't the problem.

It's how good those inputs, data, assumptions, and parameters are.