Wednesday, October 12, 2011

"Insane" Even by Chicago and Illinois Standards: Pension Triple Dipping on Steroids at $500k/Year

Here's the first part of this amazing story from  MSNBC.com:

"A labor leader in Chicago is expected to receive pension payments of nearly $500,000 a year, while another could get about $438,000 a year. The Chicago Tribune and WGN-TV, which obtained information about union pension benefits during a joint investigation, said at least eight union officials in Chicago were eligible for what were described as inflated city pensions on top of union pensions for the same period of employment.

The Tribune said the official who was expected to get about $438,000 a year would do so from three pensions covering the same work period: a city laborers fund, a union district council fund and a national union fund.  It said an analysis showed that this 59-year-old union official, Liberato "Al" Naimoli, would get a total of about $9 million if he lived to his expected lifespan.  The Tribune said the joint investigation with WGN-TV found that Naimoli, president of Cement Workers Local 76, was receiving a city pension of about $158,000 a year. It said his city pension was based on his union salary.

Naimoli, who retired in 2010 from the $15,000-a-year city job, is also now eligible to receive a pension of about $60,000 a year, the paper said, from the Laborers' Pension Fund for Chicago and Vicinity. He also will become eligible for payments of about $220,000 a year from a third pension, provided by the national union, LIUNA, on his 60th birthday next year. The Tribune said he had not worked his $15,000-a-year job with the city for a quarter of a century.

Another official, Charles LoVerde III, a former trustee of the city laborers' pension fund, stood to receive three pensions for the same time period totaling nearly $500,000 a year, the investigation found. The Tribune said he took leave of absence in 1998 from a job with the city's water management department, which paid $44,000 a year, to work full time for the local."

Here's the second part, which is not surprising given the first part:

"Chicago and Illinois are facing financial trouble, in part due to pension shortfalls. On Tuesday, state Sen. Mark Kirk released a report on Illinois' debt that said it had the worst credit rating of any state and that its debt was rising. Kirk said the state was nearly insolvent and said he doubted there would be any help from Washington." 

MP: Where are the protestors, shouldn't they be out rallying against "excessive union pensions," "triple-dipping in the public sector," "labor leader greed," "union greed", etc.?   Thanks to Aorod in the comments for suggesting this.

HT: Bob Wright

25 Comments:

At 10/12/2011 8:50 PM, Blogger aorod said...

can we call this Union Greed or Government Greed?

 
At 10/12/2011 9:45 PM, Blogger BxCapricorn said...

It's actually called a "fraction" of CEO salaries and benefits. CEOs also skip through multiple companies, insuring themselves stock options and bonuses based on nothing more than a prearranged wink and a nod with fellow board members.

 
At 10/12/2011 10:32 PM, Blogger MattW said...

Union and public employee salary/benefit/pension packages this outrageous are so few and far between that I don't think it's really worth worrying about. It's straining at gnats. Let the unions decide how to dole out their own money (also, let firms decide how to dole out theirs without interference). Pointing out the inconsistency of the occupy-wall-street types is nice, but I don't want anyone to do anything about it.

 
At 10/12/2011 11:49 PM, Blogger juandos said...

"It's actually called a "fraction" of CEO salaries and benefits"...

So capricorn are you saying these guys didn't steal enough from the taxpayers or they were nice enough not to steal more?

 
At 10/13/2011 12:18 AM, Blogger PeakTrader said...

BxCapricorn says: "It's actually called a "fraction" of CEO salaries and benefits..."

CEOs normally don't cheat consumers-taxpayers, unless government is involved. If they did, their firms wouldn't be in business for long.

 
At 10/13/2011 12:30 AM, Blogger Willaim said...

Multiple Union pensions for the same work period are a common occurrence for union officials; here in NYC I know personally several such cases. In one case the President of a midsized International union will collect a pension from a maritime port council, a hotel council, a local union, and an international union; those are the ones I knew about. Until recent times such multiple pensions faced aggregation rules under section 415 of the IRS code but a Democratically controlled Congress removed these aggregation limits for their union official supporters. One hand washes the other.

 
At 10/13/2011 1:29 AM, Blogger Ron H. said...

"It's actually called a "fraction" of CEO salaries and benefits. CEOs also skip through multiple companies, insuring themselves stock options and bonuses based on nothing more than a prearranged wink and a nod with fellow board members."

Your comment is pure class envy BS.

There's a big difference between what private companies do, which is really none of your business, and government stupidity that spends our tax dollars.

 
At 10/13/2011 2:58 AM, Blogger Cabodog said...

True story: we are in Italy and met an American couple who'd just purchased a second home in the Tuscan region. Homes in Italy run about 2x the cost of homes in America.

The couple spends half their time in America and half their time in Tuscany.

About 55 years old. Occupation: "Retired California firefighter."

Nice people, but had to bite my tongue when I heard that.

 
At 10/13/2011 3:13 AM, Blogger Larry G said...

don't have much of this problem with social security, eh?

one payroll tax... one set of benefits..... no double/triple dipping.... doesn't matter if you work for a private employer or a public employer.

good system, eh?

if Unions are so good at squeezing money from the public sector how come they haven't been able to get special deals for social security?

you'd think the Dems would roll over backwards to give them extra special deals on social security.....

 
At 10/13/2011 4:33 AM, Blogger rjs said...

Options Group’s Karp said he met last month over tea at the Gramercy Park Hotel in New York with a trader who made $500,000 last year at one of the six largest U.S. banks. The trader, a 27-year-old Ivy League graduate, complained that he has worked harder this year and will be paid less. The headhunter told him to stay put and collect his bonus. “This is very demoralizing to people,” Karp said. “Especially young guys who have gone to college and wanted to come onto the Street, having dreams of becoming millionaires.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-12/wall-street-sees-no-exit-from-financial-woes-as-bankers-fret.html

 
At 10/13/2011 5:35 AM, Blogger ScottGA said...

Hey idiots. You know it's quite possible for some of us to see some problems unions have created while realizing that the worse problem is multi-billion dollar businesses buying our politicians and by removing or writing completely watered down regulations. While we point at each other to say who's worse, they are all laughing at us as that rape our government and ship more jobs overseas. Enjoy the blissful ignorance.

 
At 10/13/2011 5:39 AM, Blogger Tea Party at Perrysburg said...

Protesters? Oh, they're over at the colleges, protesting the exorbitant salaries paid to professors, the fabulous new buildings and the numerous perks paid to university personnel.

There's more than one reason educators don't want college students well educated.

 
At 10/13/2011 7:47 AM, Blogger Ed R said...

Ken Lewis got about $98mm when he was "retired" from B of A -- indirectly supported by $45billion of US bailouts. And he left his company as a basket case and possibly on continuing life support from the USG -- to say nothing of what he did to his shareholders.

Are you as outraged about those excesses??

 
At 10/13/2011 8:13 AM, Blogger morganovich said...

cabo-

that claim that homes in italy cost twice what they do in the US sounds pretty implausible to me.

do you have any data to back that up?

 
At 10/13/2011 8:29 AM, Blogger PeakTrader said...

ScottGA says: "Hey idiots. You know it's quite possible for some of us to see some problems unions have created while realizing that the worse problem is multi-billion dollar businesses buying our politicians..."

Scott, you know it's quite possible some people, like you, get their information from watching too many movies by liberals.

Mexico is much more corrupt than the U.S..

Yet, rich drug lords are getting killed by politicians, although they're able to buy protection from some of them.

American corporations have to protect themselves too from government.

Otherwise, everyone's cost of living would be even higher.

 
At 10/13/2011 8:50 AM, Blogger PeakTrader said...

Ed says: "Are you as outraged about those excesses?"

Ed, you should be outraged at overregulation.

 
At 10/13/2011 9:09 AM, Blogger morganovich said...

ed r-

precisely what "bailout" did b of a get?

they paid back TARP in it's entirety, with interest.

if b of a loaned you money for a mortgage and then you paid it off, did b of a give you a bailout?

how about if they loaned you money to support your struggling business which then recovered and paid back the loan in full with interest?

is that a "bailout"?

how is b of a borrowing money and doing the exact same thing a bailout?

wouldn't it be more accurate to say that the treasury made a successful and profitable loan to them?

a bailout is when you give money to a firm like GM that will obviously not be able to make taxpayers whole or throw good money after bad at solyndra.

i realize it's common to talk about "bank bailouts' but it's a media myth.

look at what actually happened and you can see how this is obviously that case.

the treasury MADE MONEY on b of a and on firms, like JP morgan that they forced to take tarp.

imagine if b of a could come to you and force you to take a loan you did not want then collect interest on it. you'd be outraged.

how is what was done to JPM any different?

that's not a bailout, that's racketeering.

 
At 10/13/2011 10:07 AM, Blogger Free2Choose said...

"Hey idiots. You know it's quite possible for some of us to see some problems unions have created while realizing that the worse [sic] problem is multi-billion dollar businesses buying our politicians and by removing or writing completely watered down regulations."

Remember the tough regulations that the government imposed on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to keep them from incentivizing risky mortgages? Yea. Me neither.

 
At 10/13/2011 10:23 AM, Blogger PeakTrader said...

Government forced lenders to help lower income Americans, which worked for a while.

Now what?

 
At 10/13/2011 11:24 AM, Blogger Cabodog said...

Italy homes: just what we've heard. We're presently staying in a home that is priced at a ratio of about 2x prices in America.

 
At 10/13/2011 11:29 AM, Blogger juandos said...

"if Unions are so good at squeezing money from the public sector how come they haven't been able to get special deals for social security?"...

Good one larry but if you'd done your homework you'd realize that many federal government sector union jobs aren't saddled with the Ponzi scheme...

 
At 10/13/2011 11:48 AM, Blogger morganovich said...

cabo-

i've heard the opposite. the wsj recently had an article about how cheap villa were in italy, greece, spain, and portugal.

italy had the worst economic growth in the EU for a decade. i just don;t see how that would lead to home prices twice those in the US.

best i can tell, even the really expensive italian property (rome, milan) only goes for eur4-5000 per square meter ($550-$700/ft) which is really cheap compared to the pricey US markets like NYC or SF where $1200-2000/ft still prevails.

i can't seem to find any median price data for italy, but based on a quick look at a couple of RE websites, it looks really cheap to me.

 
At 10/15/2011 6:57 PM, Blogger Don Culo said...

There's a big difference between what private companies do, which is really none of your business, and government stupidity that spends our tax dollars.

**************

If a private company saves money by by dumping it's toxic waste into the ocean it's none of your business !!!

 
At 10/17/2011 3:33 AM, Blogger Ian Random said...

Why hasn't anyone posted the employment by department of the government yet? :-)

There is a difference between public and private money. Private companies go bankrupt when they promise too much and deliver too little to customers and employees. I don't care one iota if someone gets a $100 million dollar salary privately and then the company goes under. I do care when it is public sector money since that is me. For some reason no really tries to negotiate with public sector unions or hold them accountable. If I were mayor Dumberg in New York City, I wouldn't have fired all the garbage folks after the snow storm and let anyone get into the carting service.

 
At 10/18/2011 9:21 AM, Blogger steve w said...

Wasn't Obama in the Illinois State senate during the time frame these agreements would have been negotiated/extorted? Would be interesting to go back and see how he voted.

 

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