I moved out of that apartment about a year ago now I think?

Thank you, its literally just evaporated water, i see the plant every day and if you really look into nuclear energy it is waayyy more practical for the environment than other conventional methods of power production

When? Rents have more than doubled in my rural town in the last 3 years, and substitutes haven't had any increase in pay.

You can get high quality flower thats not just stems and seeds and still have a more balanced cannabinoid profile. It looks and smells and tastes just like good quality bud but doesnt get you destroyed off two hits

Truth, medical and recreational shops should absolutely be separate entities

The DC number you site is projected, and again is made of employee contributions 4.5-5.5% based on

9.00% (DB: 6.25% + DC: 2.75%) 1.25x with state 2.25% DC
8.25% (DB: 5.25% + DC: 3.00%) 1.00x with state 2.00% DC

> an imaginary 7% return

can you find a 35 year time period that the stock market returned less than that?

> and a 2-2.5% employer contribution. It is smoke and mirrors.

thats all most people get from their employers.

The hybrid design of half pension and half 401k balances the risk of stock market crash or state insolvency.

> The majority of the money in that 403b/TSA will be THEIR OWN contributions, not a windfall.

I never said it wasn't their own money. Before 2011, their own contribution was 6.25%. After 2011, to get the 2.5x you have to put in 9% of your salary. After 2017 2.5% of that goes to the 401k and the 2.25% state contribution mostly makes up for the lower 1.25x multiplier
> All of which teachers were free to do before the reform w/ a 403b/TSA. No matter how you frame it, teachers will have a less secure retirement.

"Less secure" is a clever way to say they still get a lot more money than nearly any other occupation for retirement. Im not disputing 2017 changes were a cut in benefits. Im just saying they were necessary to avoid larger cuts in the future.
> The law was signed be Wolf. He could have vetoed, proposed less drastic changes.

That would have been kicking the can down the road. And if a republican trifecta of assembly senate and governor get elected, pensions will be abolished.

Teachers aren't doing themselves any favor with voters when they cry that they can't retire on a 45K pension with social security and a 401k on top. my opinion is the union stance going forward should be "no more cuts" and if their battle cry is go back to the old days of 2.5x, voters will laugh in their face and support that we abolish pensions all together.

Thankyou, yeah look at prohibition and how bootleg liquor sometimes contained methanol which can cause blindness when the alcohol isnt distilled properly and methanol has a lower evaporating point and thus is one of the first products of the process that makes it to the end of the process. Other things like lead solder used in the copper fittings when building it and using things like car radiators as the condenser and the mash containers being left to ferment in the woods with mice and other animals falling into the barrels and dying. So yeah in terms of regulation it definitely helps to have laws in place for companies who give two shits about having a legit business

My gawd I am so glad the majority of responses to the question are from sane people

Bahahaha

Im not saying your wrong but its an isomer of D9 and is found in the plant naturally and when you eat D8 it metabolizes into 11-hydroxy-thc which is exactly what D9 also metabolizes into when ingested orally. So it seems like the child probably had a preexisting condition and the D8 only exasperated whatever underlying condition, not necessarily meaning it was just D8 that was the sole cause of the death. Its a shame but no child should ever be consuming a product like that in the first place

This is the dumbest thing I've heard today.

An article about a similar occurrence, in another state, was shared a few weeks back on Facebook. I was stunned by the number of comments in defence of the owner. How dare he be punished for giving children the ability to work and earn money! Mind blowing.

Go to Russia. It will give you more serious shite to complain about.

We are literally going backwards day by day.

[deleted]

Not much more. It’s the shape of a pyramid with only a few at the top.

Some principals and most superintendents and some other central office admin hit the max benefit. If they were capped, there would be money to go around.

The DC number you site is projected, and again is made of employee contributions 4.5-5.5% based on, an imaginary 7% return, and a 2-2.5% employer contribution. It is smoke and mirrors.

The majority of the money in that 403b/TSA will be THEIR OWN contributions, not a windfall.

All of which teachers were free to do before the reform w/ a 403b/TSA.

No matter how you frame it, teachers will have a less secure retirement.

The law was signed be Wolf. He could have vetoed, proposed less drastic changes.

I think they mean because "smoke from a nuclear power plant" is water vapor.

So I was laid off because I could no longer perform my duties from being sick if that makes sense

they should raise starting salaries and let teachers have their money immediately instead of locking it up for years. Teachers don’t even pay the maximum social security benefit cap. The more people that rely on social security the better support it will get. When teachers and mailmen and other government employees carve themselves out with special pensions, that creates a division in the working class that makes it harder to mount a unified fight against special interests and big business

I am not sure how easy it is. I have a fairly serious mental illness that is well treated with medication, therapy, self care, etc. However to get approved for mawd my therapist had to write a letter stating I was literally at risk of death via suicide without medication. That's a lot to ask of a provider and a lot for someone with a mental illness to be willing to face/admit with the associated stigma.

> Some will use the saved DC funds (403b) wisely, most will blow through it very quickly, and be left w/ a pension that is HALF what their predecessors got.

That’s the lamest point you’ve made. More flexibility comes with risks and benefits. If teachers can’t manage money maybe they aren’t smart enough to be teachers

> Yes, Wolf screwed the teachers pension wise, and he didn’t have to. The state workers also got screwed. Some of my colleagues know this but many have no clue this change occurred, or the finical implications of this long term.

It he didn’t do something it would be kicking the can down the road to insolvency or worse, abolishing pensions all together in a Republican governor got elected. The PESA and wolf made a strategic decision to fix things now in hopes of protecting the system in the long run.

> Corbet attempted to do the same, but he never signed off on pension reform because democrats would have lost their minds. Wolf was a useful idiot for the Republicans.

>They could have done the following:

They changed form 3 to five years in 2017.

> It should be noted that state legislators can join SERS or PSERS and I bet as the junior legislators age and they start to realize what they did to themselves, there will be some pension reforms again, that is better for members. The 2.5 multiplier legislation was a result of politicians writing themselves into the PSERs system.

I doubt it. The 2017 reform is probably not the last of the cuts. The state budget isn’t looking solvent in the future and wolf’s 2017 law was an attempt to avoid a catastrophe down the road. You seem intent on making perfect the enemy of good.

>SNAP is maxed out I believe like $281 a month.

Just wanted to point out that literally everyone's SNAP benefits have been maxed out since COVID started. This February (right now) is the last month for these extra payments. According to this article every SNAP household will lose a minimum of $95 a month in SNAP benefits. Personally, my benefits are dropping to the minimum, either $16 or $20 a month. I'll be fine, but it's certainly a big adjustment I'd rather be prepared for than not.

>The 401k is the slight of hand part that attracts the bugs to the bug zapper. It sure does look attractive. Unless you are retired for 10+ years.

40 years of service still gets a pension+401k that is a lot better than what you would get in the private sector. New teachers who work 40 years just like most taxpayers, will have $45k annual pension and an $850k retirement account which has an actuarial value of $35k a year. That’s a 90k total retirement package in addition to the 30k in ssocial security they earn. When teachers cry poverty, no one believes them anymore because they have cried “wolf” too many times. Maybe the low starting salary is a conspiracy to make it look like teachers are poorly paid but most voters are on to that trick. Could you stop and think for a minute about why even democrats don’t support such high pensions?

> A 7% market assumption was part of what created this problem.

No it wasn’t.

> Let us not forget that the politicians created this funding problem by decreasing state/employer contributions because of higher market returns. When the market tanked, and the employer/state contribution did not return to previous levels. They literally kicked the can down the road for a decade+.

I don’t dispute that.

> At the very least, they could have returned the multiplier to 2.0, or left the multiplier at 2.0 w/ a target of 25 years.

25 years at 2.0x would be a bad idea. That’s probably the same statistical value as the 2001 30 year 2.5 multipliers.

> I see Pittsburg SD is offering a $5,000 signing bonus w/ around 170+ vacancies.

Is that teachers or support staff? They furloughed teachers last year because the district has shrinking enrollment. They should Increase the starting salary because nobody trusts the pension system is sustainable.