It may not be viable. But that’s the way the state structured it.

—Ed Stolzenberg, former CEO of Westchester Medical Center, a public benefit corporation, remarking on the plight of public pensions. Stolzenberg draws $222,143 a year in pension benefits, among the biggest annual payouts from the NY State pension fund: via NYT

I concede, I have a very good pension, but what’s that pension going to be worth when I’m 70 years old?…I don’t understand how the working guy that held up their end of the bargain became the problem

—Hugo Tassone, a Yonkers Police officer who retired at 44 with a pension of $101,333 a year: via NYT

Is there any poetry to the fact that Dow 36,000 was not only published in 1999, but it was written by a fellow and a resident scholar of the American Enterprise Institute? The central argument claimed that the “conventional model for valuing stocks has been rendered obsolete,” and the authors used their soap-box to outline a radically new way to determine what stocks are really worth. Like Lenny “Nails” Dykstra, events proved otherwise of acumen of their claims and showered them in embarrassment and humiliation. Unlike Nails, however, AEI is still in the business of providing economic advice.