San Diego Unseen: An Urban Portrait
Mike Aquirre
Correction
Dave Maass’ Oct. 12 story “Interest in conflicts” erroneously indicated that attorneys with the Stutz, Artiano, Shinoff and Holtz law firm are registered lobbyists for the southeastern Economic Development Corporation (SEDC). The firm represents the SEDC as general counsel, but not as lobbyists. As registered lobbyists, the firm lawyers Leslie Devaney and Prescilla Dugard represent EverFlow Resources, Staff Pro and western Towing.
Former city attorney’s view
Regarding your Sept. 21 editorial, “Don’t sign on the line”: The 401(k) plan for city employees is not a good idea for two reasons: (1) It will hurt San Diego’s ability to attract the high talent and skilled employees we need to dedicate their lives to our city government; (2) It does not solve the pension problem.
I want to warn the people of San Diego about the danger of not understanding the pension-debt problem. The key number we need to understand is the amount of the “Present Value of Future Benefits.” The Present Value of Future Benefits (PVB), according to SDCERS actuarial report for 2010 “represents the amount of money needed today to fully pay off all benefits to plan participants.
The PVB is $7,470,104,792. This is the amount we need in the bank today. The pension actuarial value of assets is $4,382,047,254, and it is assumed 7.75 percent will be earned on this number. Stanford researchers suggest this number be reduced to 4.14 percent. The market value of the pension’s assets is $4,177,242,150. No matter how you slice it, the pension is in the hole more than $2 billion. That is two-thousand million dollars. We are falling further and further behind. When the politicians tell you the pension is not sustainable, it is because they understand this horrific calculus.
Those who believe in an economic system that gets purchasing power into as many hands as possible recognize the danger of trying to keep the present system in its current form. They see reactionary forces exploiting the pension issue to destroy unions and collective bargaining.
The reason the present value of future benefits is so high is because more than $900 million worth of benefits were created with no funding. This decision has resulted in union leaders ignoring sound fiduciary management principals.
The 401(k) plan seeks to take an excessive amount from future employees to pay for an excessive amount for past employees. This is not fair. It’s also not fair to members in the pension system who did not get retroactive credits, credits they did not pay for, or the DROP program that allows some to take their money out of the pension before others.
The only way to solve the pension crisis is to attack the problem at the root. We have to reduce pension liabilities to current asset levels and adopt a more conservative assumed rate of return. I agree with the Stanford researchers that this number should be 4.14 percent. This would allow plan participants to receive a handsome pension, reduce the risks of pension management and make the 401(k) proposal unnecessary.
When San Diegans understand the problem, they will solve it. We need the media to understand the problem and then to use their writing skills to educate the public. We must make the people of San Diego see what they are up against.
Mike Aguirre, Hillcrest
Truthers for Krugman
Those of us in the 9/11 truth movement applaud and welcome Paul Krugman’s brave statement on 9/11 to remind us all of the war crimes committed after 9/11 [“Krugman 9/11 post: lame, not wrong,” Sept. 14].
We would go further and remind America that war crimes of the illegitimate neocon administration may include 9/11, as U.S. military explosives were found at the site, and the FBI says there is no evidence linking 9/11 to al Qaeda.
I hope you as a media outlet will refrain from referring to 9/11 as a terrorist event, as a majority of Americans suspect that it was at least facilitated by those interests now called the Tea Party who wished to go to war and bankrupt our social-service system.
Val Sanfilippo, Linda Vista
