Dean Baker: Pinching Pensions to Keep Wall Street Fat and Happy

[marmar]

Pinching Pensions to Keep Wall Street Fat and Happy

Monday, 26 August 2013 09:45
By Dean Baker, Truthout | Op-Ed


The debate over public pensions shows clearly the contempt that the elites have for ordinary workers. While elites routinely preach the sanctity of contract when it works to benefit the rich and powerful, they are happy to treat the contracts that provide workers with pensions as worthless scraps of paper.

We see this attitude on display currently in the Detroit bankruptcy proceedings. It is even more clearly on display in efforts by Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel to default on the city's pension obligations.

The basic story in both cases is that the contracts that workers had labored under are being laughed at by the elites because they find it inconvenient to carry through with the terms. In the case of Detroit, public sector workers face the loss of much of their pension as a result of the city's effort to declare bankruptcy.

These workers could be forgiven for laboring under the illusion that they would see the pensions for which they worked. These obligations were actually guaranteed under the state's constitution. ......................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/18395-pinching-pensions-to-keep-wall-street-fat-and-happy

[Cal Carpenter]

1. K & R

Maybe this will help folks understand that the contempt some people (even here on DU) show for Detroit and its people is terribly misguided and is basically water-carrying for the 1%.

Thanks Marmar, I wish your excellent posts would get more play around here.