Well known thief Bruce Rauner tries to steal a $400 million from Teacher's Pensions

Governor Bruce Rauner made an attempt to swindle a $400 million from the TRS pension system. Currently, the TRS is funded by member contributions, investment dividends, and state controbutions. If investment returns don't perform up to expecrations the State of Illinois has to make up the difference by law. Accutarial scientists have advised revising the rate of return downward from 7.5% to 7%. The TRS board was set to accept the accutarial change, which according to the Chicago Tribune would mean;

If the board voted for the 7 percent figure, state government would be on the hook to make up the difference, estimated to cost an extra $400 million to $500 million a year, an expense that would come due starting in July. The governor and lawmakers would have to find that extra money, worsening a state budget that's already in free fall amid a budget impasse that's lasted more than a year. 

If the board voted for the 7.5 percent figure, the state would not have had to pay all of that extra money right away. But if investments failed to hit the benchmark, the shortfall would have been tacked on to the pension fund's $65 billion debt. Taxpayers would be hit either way; the question was whether it would be in the short term or long term.

So, Rauner's "solution" was to request the TRS board delay. Just like every other Illinois Governor,  Rauner wanted to kick the can down the road. Because delay long enough and when the bill comes due, Rauner knows he won't be in office and it'll be someone else's problem.

It's ironic and sick to see Rauner mess around with the TRS pensions. Rauner's fortune, he once I'm refered to himself as the 1% of the 1%, came from clipping money from the TRS pension system. Rauner's hedge fund GTCR "managed" the TRS pension for two decades. Consequently, he managed to amass billions of dollars by taking some of the pension money for himself, while the pension itself has been "nickeled and dimed" and has been pushed into debt.

Of course, Bruce Rauner doesn't care. Rauner got rich off of other people's labor. Rauner is a Rentier, he doesn't make money from producing anything, or from refining an existing product, or from inventing a new device, or from discovering something. No, Rauner's money comes from charging rent, extracting fees, and siphoning off of other people's money. 

Government by the Plutocracy for the Plutocracy and of the Plutocracy

Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires – John Steinbeck. 

 "The federal government was never intended to be everything for everyone." - Chicken Hammer commented on my blog and oft repeated by conservatives everywhere.

This is correct, the Federal Government was created to Protect and Serve the Rich and Powerful.

Government was envisioned as a Tool of the Plutocracy in quelling Domestic problems and expanding Foreign Markets for exploitation.

All of Sudden Republicans in Congress are concerned about NSA cyber-snooping? Where was Jim Sensenbrenner's concern when he crafted the Patriot Act in 2001? Where was John Boehner's concern about wiretaps when he voted time after time to reapprove them? This level of out-right surveillance of the American People goes back further than the NSA whistleblower stating in 2006 the NSA has a Massive database of Americans' phone calls or in 2004 when President Bush declared, "a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way."

But, let's leave aside the Surveillance State for today. The Government is not the Problem; they are but the Hitmen and Trigger Pullers for the True Evil in our Society the Class of Moochers known as the Rich.

The last 30 years has been the Reactionary Attempt by the Mooching Rich to reclaim the Power of Government for their sole use. Everyday brings further evidence that Austerity is but another name for Trickle Down Economics and is little more than the abject destruction of the Middle Class in order to create a Wage Slavery State in America.

Outright lying by Harvard economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff was for at the behest of the Rich to further destroying a Government which aids the Poor and Middle Class.

But, even amongst the Founding Fathers they knew that the Massive Income Inequality and the Ownership of the Federal Government by Corporations and the Rich would lead to Civil Strife.

The Richest 1% of this Nation doesn't make Anything or Do Anything, all they do is occupy the Rentiers position extracting a little financial gain from the toil of the 99% and the Billions of Economic Transactions that occur daily.

Yet, despite their complete and total destruction of the US Economy in 2007 Wall Street Banksters have regained their footing and are exerting their domination of the Economy again.

Between 2005 to 2007, Banksters issued $1.5 Trillion in Collateralized Debt Obligations. Synthetic CDOs, instead of the bonds themselves, are insurance-like derivative contracts on the bonds. "CDOs give investors a chance to bet on the creditworthiness of a basket of companies." (from Katy Burne of the Wall Street Journal) Those monies aren't anything other than gambling. Synthetic CDOs are back as Wall Street fights to defeat all controls on their recklessness.

Banksters, Hedge Fund Managers and Vulture Capitalists aren't creating anything. They aren't investing in anything. They are placing Bets on-top-of Wagers on-top-of Gambles... They are the computer virus and bad code from the movies Office Space and Superman III, siphoning off money they have no right to.

The Rich Never Had It So Good

Yet they still complain. And about whom do they complain? The Poor who have nothing.

"[W]e're not going to give up on destroying the health care system for the American people." Paul Ryan.  

"It just keeps getting worse. I am scheduling a vote for next week on the full repeal of #Obamacare." Eric Cantor 

The Republican Party, lapdogs of the Rich are eager to oppress the Poor at every opportunity. The Republicans and their Rich Masters absolutely loathe healthcare for the poor, sick and old. Republican Healthcare is predicated on the Rich sucking every single dollar from you and letting you die quickly after they've drained you of all your money.

But, the Plutocracy won't stop at merely stealing your life savings at the end of your life; they want you to be a pauper before that.

David Simon was on Real Time with Bill Maher last year and stated,

"What we need is a political culture where somebody plants a fuckin’ olive tree, which doesn’t even give you an olive for seven years. That’s how you fix an economy…When that olive tree becomes an orchard."

What Simon doesn't understand is the Republicans in 1980 did plant Olive Trees, except it was a privatized, deregulated, deferred income, out-scoured grove designed to provide Billions of Olives to the very, very rich while they told Us a few olives would trickle down. But, in fact, all we got were the pits.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average topped 15,000 this month an all time high, while at the same time half the jobs in the country pay less than $35,000.

Everything the Republicans do is predicated on expanding Income Inequality. Since, the Republican Recession, the economy's recovery has meant a recovery for the Very Rich.

From 1966 to 2011, the bottom 90 percent of Americans’ average income, as reported on tax returns, went up by $59 showing complete stagnation. If that $59 increase for the majority of Americans equals one inch, then on the same scale, the incomes of those in the top 10 percent went up by 168 feet. The top one percent, 888 feet. The Plutocrats income, the top one percent of the top one percent, rose by almost five miles relative to that one inch.

The Bush Presidency and Tax Cuts were nothing more than the destruction of the Middle Class and an acceleration of the Wealth Transfer Upwards.

According to research published by Emmanuel Saez, Professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley:

From 2009 to 2011, average real income per family grew modestly by 1.7% but the gains were very uneven. Top 1% incomes grew by 11.2% while bottom 99% incomes shrunk by 0.4%. Hence, the top 1% captured 121% of the income gains in the first two years of the recovery. From 2009 to 2010, top 1% grew fast and then stagnated from 2010 to 2011. Bottom 99% stagnated both from 2009 to 2010 and from 2010 to 2011. In 2012, top 1% income will likely surge, due to booming stock-prices, as well as re-timing of income to avoid the higher 2013 top tax rates. Bottom 99% will likely grow much more modestly than top 1% incomes from 2011 to 2012.

This is precisely the desired effect of the Republican Crafted and Conservative Inspired Recession. The Rich are prepared to lose money in the short-term knowing that their wholly owned and operated Republican Party will attempt to jam through Austerity Legislation to dismantle the Social Safety Net and designed to permanently solidify the Rigidly enforced Class System we have in this Country.

Every fiscal crisis is an opportunity for the Republican Party and their Right-Wing Stooges to advance the Plutocracy's schemes of deregulation of financial markets, selling off public lands for private exploitation, diminishing the power of Unions and Collective Bargaining and providing Hundreds of Billions in tax payer dollars extorted from the middle and working class as welfare to the Very Rich.