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Comment by e40 | Hacker News Reader

I'm very liberal, but I don't see this as screwing the retirees. I think they got a better than they should have deal. The unions over-reached and they got rates of return that were unsustainable. We haven't even talked about the gaming of the system that happens (punching up salary for the last year, so their retirement benefit goes up).

The police chief in a town near mine retired on something like $300-400K and it was discovered that he had taken a job at another city, several hundred miles away.

There is so much corruption and abuse of the municipal retirement plans that I think a reboot is in order.

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In California the police can pre-retire and collect their retirement while they are still working at their same job. So you have the San Luis Obispo sheriff making upwards of $600,000.

If you're ever living in San Francisco making $130K as a programmer yet still wondering if you've made the right career choice, browse the public salary databases in the area to confirm the fact that you indeed did not.

If you make $130k in California as a programmer, plus maybe $10k in employer health insurance contribution and another $10k in 401k matching ($150k total comp), you're in the same overall pay bracket as a "sewers supervisor" in San Rafael or a BART train operator: http://www.mercurynews.com/salaries/bay-area?appSession=8741....

In Oregon, the highest paid state retiree is a former football coach that was paid millions[1] during his career. Agreed, the system is broken.

[1] http://www.statesmanjournal.com/article/20111122/NEWS/111220...

I particularly like the idea of promising firefighters a too-good pension, make them run into burning buildings to save people, and then reneging on the promise now that they won't be running into buildings any more. Serves them right for trusting a promise, the fools.

I wonder what effect that will have on future muni workers?

In general, firefighters are very well paid, so there is that consolation price. Yes, it does suck, but the result is the rest of us pick up the tab. I was just in the news today that unfunded state pensions are at the $1T mark.

Also, there's the issue of how we got here. When the police and firefighters say "we need this, or else" it's a little hard to turn them down. I don't think they are completely without blame.

Could you post the numbers that lead you to believe that most or all of the specific people here have unjust or unreasonable pensions? Because I'm pretty sure those numbers don't exist.

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