This is the best analogy I have read in a very long time (taken from Monty on AoS): When I was a kid, my mom promised to take me to an amusement park on our summer vacation if I brought home nothing worse than a B on my report card, and performed some extra chores around the house. Weeks later, I fulfilled my part of the bargain, triumphantly presenting my mom with a report card with nothing but A’s and B’s on it. I pointed to the spotless yard and tidy bedroom. Visions of a fun day at the amusement park already filled my head. I told all my friends about my impending trip, and saved every nickel I could for toys and food at the park. However, as the big day came near, my mother sadly told me that the trip was off. Her hours at work had been cut back, and we could barely scrape up rent and gas money. We simply could not afford a day trip to the amusement park. I was devastated, and incandescently angry at my mother. She had promised, and I had fulfilled my part of the bargain. I don’t remember the details of my tantrum that day, but it wasn’t pretty, and it ended up with my mother blowing her stack and banishing me to my room for a couple of days. It was only in later years that I realized how sad and ashamed my mom must have been for breaking the promise she had made to me. She had no choice in the matter; there was simply no money to waste on that kind of entertainment. We were barely getting by as it was. She made the promise to me when times were relatively good and she was getting plenty of overtime, and she had made the mistake of assuming that the status quo would continue indefinitely. She was mistaken, but the mistake wasn’t malicious. Things just...didn’t turn out like we expected. But it was years before I really forgave my mom, and I never did get that day-trip to the amusement park. It remained a bitter seed in my heart for a long time afterward. The same dynamic is now playing out in towns and cities across America: promises were made to then-current public-sector workers -- years and even decades back -- that cannot now be met. The problem confronting politicians, city managers, bond issuers, bond buyers, and citizens of cities and towns across the nation is one of responsibility for those past promises. Who pays? Who’s responsible for making those promises good? Should those old promises be made good, especially if they were made in bad faith? nbcnews/business/pandemic-pension-woes-plaguing-nation-6C10825512
Posted on: Wed, 07 Aug 2013 19:23:30 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015