Forum… Or Against ’em

By Count Friedrich von Olsen
I am getting so old and my memory so inexact, that I may be misrecollecting the exact words of a popular witticism from a while back. It was something to the effect that first rate people act. Right now I can’t remember if the punch line was “Second rate people teach” or “Second rate people write.” It either put down teachers or writers, suggesting neither set actually does anything…
A few years [actually more like a few decades] ago, when I heard that witticism for the first time, I think I can remember liking it. After all, at that time I was neither a teacher nor a writer. I was a doer, running my modest $5 billion shipping empire. I did things, moving cargo – hundreds of thousands of tons of it per year – across the Atlantic Ocean, the Mediterranean and the Caribbean and lesser amounts of cargo – in the tens of thousands of tons – to various spots around the Pacific or Indian oceans. I had a few teachers when I was younger and I read things from time to time. I was not disrespectful, particularly, toward my teachers, although I might have qualified as mischievous. I would not have suggested that they didn’t do anything. After all, they did educate me. I was not inclined then nor now to be dismissive of writers. It is true that some things are more easily said than done and by the same token, it is probably easier to write about doing something than to actually do it. Far be it from me to be critical of writers just for being writers. And besides, I am now following my avocation, so I am a writer myself…
As a writer, of course, I am a mere amateur, particularly in comparison to the true masters of the craft in the particular genre in which I participate, which is that of political commentary and opinion, most often with regard to California or San Bernardino County. I have no illusions that I am in the same class of true professionals like Thomas Elias, Daniel Borenstein or Dan Walters. Truth be known, I am not qualified to carry either of their typewriters…
Writers are valuable because they are social trip wires. They see trends before others. If all citizens were as aware as writers are, we would have an informed electorate. An informed electorate is key to democracy working…
An example of how writers serve in the role of a societal and political periscope is a recent piece by Daniel Borenstein, a columnist for newspapers in the San Francisco Bay Area. He took a hard and penetrating look at the long term financial prospects for the California Public Employees Retirement System, which is known by its acronym, CalPERS. Mr. Borenstein’s analysis coincided with CalPERS reporting a very disappointing 0.61 percent return on its $300 billion investment portfolio, making it the second year in a row that the system missed – and really missed – its goal of seeing a 7.5 percent annual return. The thing is, the state employees’ pension system is guaranteed by the state and the individual municipal entities whose employees are vested in the system. That means the taxpayers, at both the state and local levels, are backing up the pension system. If the system misses its earnings goal, taxpayer money that would have gone to the provision of public services is diverted to backfill the gap.
Mr. Borenstein bemoaned, rightfully, that the California Public Employees Retirement System is now beset with “a record $139 billion shortfall” to cover the guaranteed pension payments to public workers. Mr. Borenstein pointed out that this fiscal responsibility is growing and growing and taxpayers are falling further and further behind the eight ball. The shortfall is, Mr. Borenstein wrote, “$46 billion more than just two years ago.”
And things look to be getting worse. CalPERS officials and financial advisers, who a few years ago imprudently claimed the state and local governments need not concern themselves with the burden the pensions represent because the invested money would keep growing as if by magic, are now being far more sober in their assessment. They say that the pension investment fund will experience far more modest earnings, maybe three, four or five percent less than the overly optimistic 7.5 percent. Mr. Borenstein was scathingly harsh in sizing up the performance and candor of the retirement trust fund’s managers as well as the politicians who for years have ignored the looming problem. He observed that believing the system is just temporarily in the financial doldrums and will soon right itself through a return to consistent yearly 7.5 percent returns on investments is a pipe dream…
For years now, writers like Mr. Borenstein and Mr. Elias and Mr. Walters have been trying to warn their readers that this absurd and unnecessary generosity to retired public officials is layering, year after year, future generations with a staggering burden that they may never shake off and which will consume and monopolize tax money that would otherwise be available for standard government services…
Unfortunately, Mr. Boernstein, Mr. Elias and Mr. Walters do not have enough readers to force their political leaders to come to terms with this long term problem. I am reminded of the image of Paul Revere, galloping from town to town to warn of the imminent threat of the British. Today, these intrepid columnists are not on horseback, but nonetheless their hue and cry is going out, “Awaken California! You are in long term financial peril! Bankruptcy is coming! You are being betrayed from within by your own public employees and the officials you have elected! Awaken before it is too late!”

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