Interesting article today in the SF Chronicle about Oakland's PFRS pension obligation.
My opinion is that Oakland should essentially go bankrupt as soon as possible. At this point, only a couple cities in California have taken this step. That mean's there is still an opportunity to get a fairly good deal out of a bankruptcy.
Later, that's going to change. You can be sure that unions will do their level best to prevent cities from right-sizing their expenses for things like benefits and pensions.
One thing I really enjoyed about the article was that it quoted someone -- Nita Balousek -- who is 55 and whose husband retired as a cop something like 17 years ago, after working 27 years.
That's preposterous! That means this lady was 38 years old when her husband retired. And I guess she was 11 when he started working as a cop?
So let's say she lives to age 88. We have to pay her for 50 years of retirement for a guy who worked here for 27 years? How is that sustainable.
Time to declare bankruptcy and move on.
