Navigator

You are absolutely correct, Illinois teachers got 80% of the average of their last 3 years salary AFTER WORKING FOR 36.4 YEARS, NOT AFTER 20 YEARS.

Navigator

Apparently you can't read English. How do you interpret "Years of permissive service credit: .853" to mean any thing except years of permissive service credit; it absolutely DOES NOT MEAN % to multiply 3 year average or pension multiplier or anything other than a number of years to add to total teaching years for pension purposes. I don't know what you do at work but, since you have been doing it for 20 years your obviously do it well. What is also obvious is that doing you job well absolutely does not depend upon your correctly understanding what information these pension statements convey about the relationship between number of years and the % those years are multiplied by b/c you do not have that understanding. I don't know if it is possible for you to do your job any better but if you look over those statements with what I have said in mind I can't believe the increased understanding you will gain will not help you somewhat.
As a by the way, I have read many of your posts and you usually respond in a logical, realistic manner so I was surprised that you somehow believe the Illinois Teachers retirement system would intentionally publish false information about previous pension plans on their website. You can't really believe that? I think you never actually used the link I posted to go to the TRS website. Although this is not a very interesting topic for most which leads me to believe that you and I are the only ones on this thread I would ask anyone who might be reading this to go to the Illinois TRS website at https://www.trsil.org/members/retired/guide/chapter-eight-retirement-benefits and let debeda know what you have found there.

CounterRevolutionary

Do you believe in merit pay? Do you think it right to pay all workers equally, even if they don't produce the same amount of goods and services? That's what labor unions insist upon: equal pay for unequal work.

Some workers are innovative, some really knock themselves out to do a good job beyond what has been asked, some shoulder much more responsibility than others. some are more helpful to other coworkers, customers, and managers, some are more reliable and show up to work consistently.

80% of Americans refuse to join a labor union. Why is that?

I will ask once again: Who is to blame for the widening gap between rich and poor:

1) The Big Bad Corporations hoarding all the money?
2) The Big Bad IRS taxing all the money?
3) The Big Bad Federal Reserve Bank's INFLATION?

The answer is #3, the Fed's endless secret bailouts of international government central banks, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Student Loans, Wall Street but not main Street, corporate globalists, labor union pension funds, dictators and despots, Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, the Ayatollahs of Iran, for over 100 years, printing trillions of extra dollars out of thin air, devaluing the buying power of our dollar to 3 Cents.

To this day, I have never heard of one single labor union leader demand we AUDIT THE FEDERAL RESERVE BANK. Why is that, Mr. Navigator?

Even more puzzling, is that the labor unions and galloping corporate globalists all back the Democrat Party: open borders, global warming, and One World Government and communism, and socialized medicine. Your body first, navigator.

Navigator

I do belive in merit pay as long as there is some valid subjective criteria to determine how it is awarded. The other questions you ask are unanswerable by me as they ask about the secret motivations of various people or organizations and I am not privy to those.

CounterRevolutionary

Navigator, please educate yourself on the history of the Federal Reserve System.

It was intended to be a Marxist government central bank, but it did not become fully controlled by the government until FDR's 1933 Emergency Banking Act (Glass Steagal) and the 1935 FDIC. It was created in 1913 by a Progressive Democrat President Woodrow Wilson, backed by the KKK.

If you read all of Karl Marx's personal letters, newspaper "The Rhenish Gazette" and his Goth Report advising the German National Socialist Workers Party (NAZI) you will fully understand that the socialists biggest fear was the rise of the mixed races under the prosperity of capitalism

Marx's plan to destroy capitalism with a government central bank and progressive tax has succeeded, virtually making it impossible for the poor to work their way out of poverty by the Fed systematically devaluing the currency.

The Democrats created the monster of their own misery.

Navigator

Sounds like a bunch of gibberish to me. My father grew up in poverty; he lived in a cold water flat with 1 pair of shoes with a hole in the sole for a year, two pairs of pants, two shirts; he often didn't go to school b/c he was embarrassed how he looked and smelled. He worked his way out of it. Although most of his life he was barely getting by, my brothers and I always had a roof over our heads, food in our bellies and we had heat. I have improved my lot considerably and, although still not even close to wealthy, my four kids always had more than they needed. I really don't feel people in the US are victims of the Federal Reserve; if you want to better yourself it only takes the right attitude, an ability to sacrifice and the desire to work hard.

GmanTerry

My background was similar. Poverty in my early childhood because my father dropped out of high school. Fortunately for us he found someone who taught my father to be a machinist and ultimately, he became a sought after tool and die maker. We joined the middle class when I was about 10. I have everything I need and more. House is paid for. The American dream. All it took was a work ethic and me taking responsibility for myself. Don't tell anyone but, that is the secret to success.

Semper Fi

debeda

CounterRevolutionary

Navigator,
I am glad that your family was able to work its way out of poverty. This is good news. but I cn tell that you and I are about the same age, our parents were part of the "Greatest Generation" who experienced WWII.

We need to consider this widening gap between rich and poor as a math question, using compound interest and "The Rule of 72" to make calculations easier than logarithms and a slide rule.

Just as calculating the cost of a bank mortgage on an amortization table depending upon the interest rate of your loan, the Rule of 72 makes the work even more simple.

72/mortgage interest rate = number of years for the value of the house to double.

72/ 3% = 24 years for the value of your house to have doubled.

(A $100,000 house mortgage taken out in 1997 at 3% interest will compound to $200,000 mortgage payment bank by 2020)

The same formula, "the Rule of 72" works in reverse for the Federal Reserve bank's devaluing our currency by 3%. Within 24 years, the purchasing power of the dollar is cut in half, reduced to 50 Cents. Under President Obama, the dollar was reduced to 60 Cents purchasing power within 8 years because of all the bailouts. The secret bailouts by the Fed over the past 106 year has never been audited.

Government central banks all over the world are over printing too much money beyond the value of their Gross National Production. China does it bigtime. North Korea has some of our original Federal Reserve engraving plates whipping out $4 trillion dollars in funny money annually. (None dare call it counterfeit.)

As time goes bye, the compounded interest grows and grows as nobody can beat the inflation mach9ine, the gap between rich and poor grows and grows. by this time, the monopolies own all the customers and the little competitors vanish through mergers and acquisitions. This is a rip off, baby. Labor unions like monopolies and big government, much easier to organize than a myriad of little companies. Each generation has to jump through higher and higher hoops. Your grand kids are stuck in a rut where hard honest work does not pay off unless they make an instant fortune and beat the Fed's inflation rate.

Meanwhile, the very designers of Creeping Fabian Socialism are peddling Socialized Medicine, Universal Care, Medicare For All, you name it.

Here's the problem:

The government is not made up of ANGELS, it is made up of IDIOTS.

The government does not love us, it calls us the "deplorables."

The government is bankrupt both financially and morally.

The government finds it cheaper to kill us than cure us.

Please don't tell me that the big Bad Insurance companies that make a measly 4% profit are capitalist; they have been socialist pawns of government regulators since they were placed under the Constitution's Interstate comer clause after the passage of the 1945 McCarran-Ferguson Act." In return, the unions and the politicians regulate the insurance prices and policies artificially high and wide for fat campaign contributions. All should be prosecuted for racketeering under the RICO laws.

If you want to talk about campaign finance reform an insurance companies being reclassed as "non-profits" then I'm all for it and auditing the Federal Reserve Bank to end this Creeping Fabian Socialism, let's start here on OPP.

Free people and free markets work.

promilitary

The country is booming NOW, WITH the right to work laws.

Michael Rich Loc: Lapine Oregon

This, I know here in Oregon.

The "right to work philosophy" has kept minimum wage as a staple income.

Especially in lesser populated areas.

Years back, I knew a woman who worked for U.S. Bank...here in Lapine.

After a year she was due a raise and received .10 cents.

Navigator

I still don't know what you're crying about; do you think w/o the Federal Reserve everyone would be a millionaire? My point is hard work, dedication and loyalty pays off and results in a good living in the US unless you want to spend your life whining and moaning that you coulda been a contender but for the Federal Reserve.

CounterRevolutionary

That's ridiculous. The three major Marxist moves to destroy capitalism are, property taxes, progressive income taxes, and a government central bank incessantly devaluing the currency. This has destroyed the morale of our nation. Hard honest work does not pay off under socialism.

RKO radio-movies made a fantastic gangster film "Cry Danger" back in 1951 griping about President Truman's cutting the value of the dollar in half with currency manipulation. Watch it on YouTube.

Seth

Oregon sounds like a paradox: usually, states with left-leaning governments are buried in union activity, and I was under the impression that Oregon (I haven't spent more than a day or two there at one time since the 1970s, so I'm going by what I read and hear about Portland) is a bastion of "Progressivism."

-- "Wassup wit dat?"

Michael Rich Loc: Lapine Oregon

This state is beautiful, but when I got here in the 80's it was infested with Oregonians.

The I-5 corridor controls the whole state and is littered with liberal indoctrination centers.

There is just under 100 colleges and universities in the state, lots of prominent demoprogs send their kids here from all over.

We know that most any circumstance can be unraveled by following the money.

Ashland Ore. just north of California, has S.O University.

S.O. is considered as the 4th most liberal ideals college in the U.S.

It's also known that a huge portion if Oregon is organized crime.

Most rural areas have been in a stranglehold by the city seats.

One woman who's family has been here in Lapine since the1890's told me that they have kept business and light industry out, because it was hard on her family, and should be hard on everyone else too.

Many of the parents who I know, raised their kids under difficult circumstances.

Both parents worked minimum wage to survive, and never made enough to save and move from here.

If a person can figure it out, it's pretty good after that.

People who work construction are able to thrive if they can schedule work through the winters.

I've met many native Oregonians who are some of the biggest hypocrites, litterers of garbage, environmentally destructive.

I moved from here once, when I found out the suppression by locals.

But..before I moved, I stood out on the main drag flipping people the bird and talking to them.

As far as wide open woods and country, it's amazing.

Kind of a rant...but minimum wage has been a tool to control growth and keep people from simple success.

Oregon has changed a tad bit though.

The old guard is losing its footing from working people's necks.

I would say overall, Ore can be likened to any liberally controlled city.

There is a saying in Lapine..."Poverty with a view"..