The Thief of Wall Street Returns to Take Your North Dakota Pensions

By Charlie Barber
Staff Writer

“The retirement plan is not a retirement. Retirement plans are not guarantees, and retirement plans are not rights.”  - Rep. Betty Grande [R-Fargo]
“...401(k)s are working well in the private sector.” - Rep. Scott Louser [R-Minot]

“In 2009, some 50 million workers lost a total of at least $1 trillion in their 401(k) plans, according to the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. Even when (or if) the stock market returns to its 2007 levels, boomers will have lost years of gains they were counting on to boost their savings. These boomers must now save like mad.  Many will have to put off retirement, which means fewer opportunities for younger people looking for work.”- Robert Reich

“In a state that struggles to keep its young professionals here, do we want to add another reason for them to look elsewhere?” - Matt Quintus [Student-DSU]

Representatives BETTY GRANDE [R-Fargo] and SCOTT LOUSER [R-Minot], want to take away a current defined benefit plan and a guaranteed retirement plan for public employees that offsets their low salaries in North Dakota. House Bills 1228 and 1258 would take new public employees on a magical mystery tour to the so-called “free market.” Such bills will only benefit Wall Street and are bound to devastate the public employees Grande and Louser were elected to represent, but maybe that’s the point.

I wonder why Betty Grande hates teachers. Did some teacher long ago give her a “B” rather than an “A” in some course? Or maybe Betty Grande is like one of those angry parents who are taken in by their kids’ excuses.They don’t always appreciate it when teachers use the word “no” in a loving manner, and thereby do a better job of discipline than they do. Are low salaries the revenge too many fathers and mothers take as taxpayers on teachers for their highly developed parenting skills?

I wonder why Scott Louser hates city and county employees. Did he get a speeding ticket which caused him to hate cops and any other public official who has reminded him than he can’t do everything he darn pleases whenever he wants to do it? Most of us should be thankful for the speeding tickets we don’t get. They use radar, remember? Technology. The stuff that drives our real economy, minus the fancy financial fandangos that have put this country in such a hole. 

Freedom and a “free market” imply discipline and distribute responsibility among those who invest our money, but since the demise of responsible New Deal legislation in 1999 [Glass-Steagall], Wall Street has been a scarier place for 401(k)s than before. The brave new world of deregulation brought about the crash and “Great Recession” of 2008, and the collapse of the value of pension savings.
Wall Street, of course!

Grande and Louser don’t hate public employees so much as they love Wall Street. They worship its funny money and its illusions of power. Do Grande and Louser accept campaign contributions from Wall Street sources? Or do they just accept the same tired and discredited ideas of fat cats everywhere?

Grande and Louser are among those who defend the indefensible irresponsibility of greedy brokers by blaming their victims. They rely on the same litany of cheap clichés trotted out by so-called “smart guys” —that Americans don’t save enough or work hard enough. Current Public Service wages in North Dakota, for one thing, don’t allow for any savings.

The North Dakota Legislature has not yet explained to Public Employees the poor management of public pension funds under the Hoeven administration. They have been too busy “Rockin’ the Bakken,” I suppose. The white wash that was called an audit, did not even begin to get to the root of why public funds were so poorly invested in the private sector. Why repeat this fiasco with Public Pensions?

Wall Street protects only its fees, not Public Pension monies or private investors.
And now, with Wall Street wolves at the door in Bismarck, the Bismarck Tribune gives us tidbits in its Jan. 22, 2011 coverage that allows us to see the dangers to our friends and families in public service when it is too late for us to do anything about it at the polling place: “Testimony by those who run the retirement plans…showed the switch to a new system comes with its own problems…

...There’s also actuarial testimony that found both funds would run out of money faster if new members weren’t added to the main plan. That effect would be a direct result of having fewer working people pay into the system…

...Unless the state would want to contribute hundreds of millions to each plan to shore up the fund, contributions for both employees and employers would need to take a drastic spike. To offset the costs of having no new members, teachers and their employers, whether it be the district or the state, would have to raise contributions more than 38 percent of salary as opposed to the 16 percent now split between the two parties.”

I really hate it when State officials like Grande or Louser, who worship the Golden Calf, explain their motives in language of the New Testament or jargon of the Chamber of Commerce to justify Wall Street greed. Why is it that Wall Street-type campaign contributions are more important to these kind of Legislators than improving the quality of state service and the lives of their constituents?

Betty Grande and Scott Louser do not serve the people of North Dakota. They serve Wall Street. As soon as possible, we should retire them from public service.
Let Grande and Louser put their money, not Public Employees’ money, where their mouths are. Public Employee Pensions need protection, not exploitation.

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