Comment by patio11 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by patio11 | Hacker News Reader

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some low-hours guys there taking care of the equipment

Come on, this is Berkeley we're talking about. These are municipal employees who, in return for their clockpunching, are likely going to have gold-plated pensions in 30 years, paid for by citizens of Berkeley and California who never needed a rotor tiller in their entire life.

I might sound like a crazy Republican for saying that. OK, let's go to the City of Berkeley website and pick a low-status occupation. Hmm, I like Parking Meter Maintenance Worker, that sounds roughly comparable.

http://agency.governmentjobs.com/berkeley/default.cfm?action...

Salary: $49,464.00 - $52,464.00 Annually (Patrick notes: where did I go wrong!)

Pension: "City employees are included in the California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS). Retirement formula is 2.7% at age 55. The City pays both the employer and employee’s share (8%) of the retirement contribution."

Now, you use that retirement formula to look up their salary at retirement based on years of service. Here's the chart:

http://www.calpers.ca.gov/eip-docs/member/retirement/service...

If after thirty years of doing the important work of keeping parking meters operating you desire to rest your laurels and retire from civic service, you can then draw 81% of your salary in your last year (including any overtime pay worked) FOR LIFE.

[Edited to add:

DOH! I erred in my supposition that Tool Lending Specialists make about as much as Parking Meter Maintenance Workers! My apologies, Tool Lending Specialists! I should have noted that your salary goes up to SIXTY THOUSAND DOLLARS A YEAR.

http://agency.governmentjobs.com/berkeley/default.cfm?action...

]

Is $50k/year that much in Berkeley?

Personally, I wish the government would do away with the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time, a.k.a Social Security, and simply have some required retirement contribution (401k is still ok after the crash, no?), but until they do, what do you think this guy should be getting for his retirement? Surely you aren't of the opinion that one should trade the majority of their young waking life for money to have a decent standard of living, and then the moment they are finally freed from having to "earn" a living they immediately must ratchet back their standard of living to poverty levels?

Surely you aren't of the opinion that one should trade the majority of their young waking life for money to have a decent standard of living, and then the moment they are finally freed from having to "earn" a living they immediately must ratchet back their standard of living to poverty levels?

Absolutely. Excepting, of course, the expedients of planning for your own future instead of relying on the government, saving and the miracle of compound interest.

Absolutely you are of that opinion? People should slave away their youth dreaming of the day they can retire and when that day comes they can't do anything because they're living on a fraction of what they had before? That sounds like an absolutely awful life.

As I said, I would like to see SS go away in favor of just mandating that people invest in some fund that is heavily regulated (regulating the risk, to minimize the risk of people losing their retirement money), but savings must be mandated in some form. If you don't then people simply wont do it. Then you're left with the choice of just saying "I told you so" while you watch them starve to death, or financially supporting them. Both of those are very bad options.

It sounds like you think that, absent government intervention, after receiving a $50K salary for 30 years, it is an inevitable outcome that a Berkeley resident working as a tool lender will live the rest of his non-working life in poverty.

You are right that some people will choose to live as grasshoppers and not ants. But it hardly seems reasonable that society's empathy for their lack of planning should extend to assuring them the retirement of their dreams rather than a minimal one.

It's not inevitable for everyone, just the majority. And guess what: you will support them one way or another. Either by providing a retirement they can live on or by paying for their housing/food stamps.

You could try making household economics an education focus, but countries with a much higher average IQ still have Social Security-like systems, so it seems that people simply wont do this for themselves, on average.

Why must a tool lending specialist live in Berkeley? Many people (like myself) live in one (cheap) city and work in another. $50k/year is probably plenty in Oakland (which, if I recall correctly, is adjacent to Berkeley).

Incidentally, most people who retire at age 50 will face a lower standard of living than if they worked until age 65. Not "Tool Lending Specialists", however, who get to retire after 30 years of service (rather than the typical 45).

Once again: disagreement doesn't equal down vote people. The orange Y at the top should tip you off that you're not on reddit.

You're trying to say that your fellow citizens who have a job should get less than a living wage?

What would would you do with the extra few bucks that comes back if their salaries fall? Buy another chocolate bar or something? Fuck me. You're arguing against helping another human being out by giving them a good salary. You want to give them a shitty salary and them have them "leech" off of you through welfare or other shit?

Please stop.

I think you need to make a choice between having political articles (which this is, essentially) and polite, rational discussions. I have seen very few examples of both coexisting for long on the internet. They're not that bad here, yet, but how long will it be?

I think there are a enough programming articles here that it will keep most of the mouth-foaming politics-fans away.

At least I hope.

It's a diary entry by somebody with political opinions, not a political article.

The difference is that nobody is espousing a certain point of view, trying to convince me to do something-or-another, telling me how one party is good/bad, telling me how some policy is great or awful, or convincing me that some political change must take place.

Keep up the crusade against political articles if you must, but let's not throw away the fact that normal people have opinions, okay? I like people with opinions, even those I don't agree with.

Whether it is a "political article" or an article that talks mostly about politics is not a relevant distinction to davidw's point.

Everyone has opinions on politics, and the internet is full of people expressing them. There are relatively fewer sites with people expressing their opinions on startups and hacking.

If he's not 'espousing a certain point of view', I have some Paul Krugman columns to sell you;-)

My fellow citizens include a lot of people who a) make less than the guy who watches a toolshed and b) will have most of their wages confiscated to pay him for having watched a toolshed forty years ago.

Your groups A and B do not overlap and your retired toolshed watcher was and still is paying taxes too.

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