The Right Side of the News

I don't remember the fourth city from the video, sorry. Pensions came up in the video as I recall.ABE: Report on the cities starts at 12:24. Only two cities have been mentioned to this point, but the loss of pensions is mentioned.ABE: Ah, now about 13:40 two other cities are mentioned: Vallejo and Compton.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

From the Forum Guidelines:

5. Bare links with no supporting discussion should be avoided. Make the argument in your own words and use links as supporting references.

If you know facts supporting your claim that public employees of bankrupt California cities lost their pensions, please state those facts in a post and provide your video as a supporting reference. Is there even anything in your video about pensions? There most certainly is nothing about pensions in the first three minutes (You: "The first three minutes are probably enough to make the point..."). Those are three minutes I'll never get back. My instincts told me I was wasting my time, I should have listened.Your video is 30 minutes long, and as I have told others, the information density in videos is low, the presentation of information is slow, and you can't skim or scan for the information you want. I don't have time to watch a lot of programs I do want to watch, I am certainly not watching a 30 minute video that given your propensity for false claims is very unlikely to contain the relevant information. I'll be glad to watch a couple minutes of video if you can tell me where in the video to start, but first you must bring the facts from your video forward into a message.I have nothing against you personally, just lies and ignorance and hostility. You don't seem to realize that insults (in the case of your video, insults about California) are not facts. They aren't even valid arguments. They're just empty ad hominem.You're wasting everyone's time with your content-free posts. We understand that there's a huge stable of right-wing pundits out there saying all kinds of nasty things about liberals, but it isn't news or facts or anything even close. It's all designed to rile up conservatives against liberals, and it's very successful at doing that, but that's just a sad commentary on the gullibility of the American electorate, and especially of a certain brand of conservative that can't let go of a past that no longer exists while a changing world passes them by.--Percy

As you have been shown repeatedly that this is not true, I am going to have to call it for what it is. It is a lie and you are a liar.

I watched from 12:24 to 13:59. Compton never went bankrupt. There are not only no facts presented about pensions being lost, there aren't even any statements that pensions were lost. Stossel says that retirees were promised pensions for as long as they lived and then for their surviving spouses but that the money just isn't there. But Stossel is obviously lying because the money is absolutely there. Vallejo, Stockton and San Bernardino (which went bankrupt in 2008, 2012 and 2013) all use CalSTRS and CalPERS, which are obviously still solvent and paying out pensions.Stop listening to your right-wing echo chamber. They are misleading you, lying to you even. Be a staunch conservative and a Trump supporter all you like, but do it for things that are true. Go find true information. Stop just uncritically sopping up all the garbage from the right-wing pundits. Listen to actual news for a change.--Percy

Your sources are at least 6 years old. Do a search. Tell me where you find evidence that Compton filed bankruptcy. They have had financial issues, but they never filed bankruptcy."It cannot be overstated that Compton is fiscally solvent and is at no risk of a financial breakdown or bankruptcy,” city officials said.Compton officials overpaid themselves, charged questionable trips on city-issued credit cards and failed to safeguard taxpayer money, resulting in a staffer stealing millions of dollars over years, according to a state audit.

You said the first three minutes would be enough. I watched the first three minutes. The only fact presented was that California is losing some population, and no hint of why.

Proven false a day or two ago. At least make some some effort to keep up.E.g. Hillary's campaign purchasing the non-debunked dossier is legal.

yes the majority of California's cities declaring bankruptcy would be a problem. But you haven't shown that, you've listed 4 cities with no pensions being lost. You're moving the goalposts, like you did when you brought up municipal bankruptcies in response to being told that the state has a budget surplus.

That's right. Can't have that PC socialist liberal nanny-state big-brotherism slopping down into local affairs.

Without a pianist? Heartless conservative!

According to this site, the surplus is nothing compared to the debt: California Doesn’t Have a Budget Surplus

Your silence about your claims of lost pensions in bankrupt California municipalities must indicate that you now realize that you were wrong because you were misinformed and lied to by your right-wing sources.Your article is lying to you when it says California doesn't have a budget surplus. In years when California takes in more money than it has budgeted to pay out, then that's a surplus. It's definitional. It can't be disputed.The article is telling the truth that California has debt and pension obligations that are substantial and that could act as a drag on its economy as state and local taxes are raised to address the situation.I don't pay attention to California politics, but if your article is correct that state government is using the budget surplus to distract attention away from the financial problems then that is deplorable, but I don't think that's true. California is attempting to pay down the debt using the budget surplus resulting from the state's economic boom, for example see California's Gavin Newsom Uses Boom to Pay Down a $256 Billion Debt:

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In the spending plan for the fiscal year beginning in July, he proposed making an extra $3 billion payment to the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) to pay down what the state owes to the fund -- a debt that grows each year. That’s on top of the $6.8 billion contribution California is required to make to the nation’s largest public pension, according to the budget plan released Thursday.

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In addition, Newsom would give an extra $2.9 billion over four years to the California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS), on top of the $3.3 billion payment required for next year. By trying to pay off as much of the unfunded liabilities up front, the state could collectively save about $14.6 billion over 30 years.

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This is precisely what I and others have told you multiple times. The truth doesn't change. California has burdensome future debt obligations, and they're trying to use the budget surplus responsibly by paying down some of these obligations.--Percy

THEN BRING WORKERS IN LEGALLY, and if they plan to stay make them learn English and pass the tests for citizenship. Sheesh.Oh, and put a big tax on the money they send to their families back home.I still think if you pay Americans enough they will do that work. In one of your examples the Americans discovered that the conditions were so bad they quit. You talk about immigration reform which would improve conditions, which should happen, but it shouldn't be illegals, it should be legals doing it, OR Americans who might accept the improved conditions. You talk a lot about illegals making money for the state but I don't know what to believe about that. It all depends on what's being taken into account and who's doing the study. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

If you paid people 100k/year to work in orchards and on farms I'm sure they could find Americans to fill those spots. However, I don't think you will like your grocery bill.

THAT'S WHAT WE ARE TRYING TO DO! Sheesh!From the 1940's to 1964, we had the Bracero program (the A-TEAM experiment was formed to take up the slack when that program was cancelled). There was no option for them to stay, but rather they had to return home when the work was done. Not only did they have to endure bad living conditions, but many of them were cheated out of pay and savings by their employers; lawsuits to recover that lost money are still working their way through the courts.Now we have the non-immigrant H-2B visa which is capped at a 66,000 quota. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-2B_visa:

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The H-2B visa nonimmigrant program permits employers to hire foreign workers to come temporarily to the United States and perform temporary nonagricultural services or labor on a one-time, seasonal, peakload or intermittent basis.

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There's also the non-immigrant H-2A visa for seasonal agricultural work (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-2A_visa). In this program, the employers are audited more closely because of concerns for worker exploitation like we saw in the Bracero program. Again, to my knowledge there's no option to stay.The non-immigrant H-1B visa (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-1B_visa) is a slightly different beast. It's for foreign workers in specialized occupations like engineering, basically half-way to what Trump wants to see coming into the country (disregarding ethnicity). The difference here is that this non-immigrant visa can be converted into an immigrant visa, giving the foreign worker an option to stay.There are also the non-immigrant F visas, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F_visa), AKA "student visas".Finally, there are the non-immigrant travel visas for foreigners visiting the US, often as tourists.Few illegal immigrants entered the country illegally, but rather most of them entered legally with one of those visas, then overstayed that visa. No wall is ever going to stop them, since they entered legally through the front door. To a point, though working conditions would also be a factor. But employers don't want to do that -- even Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations (my recent reading) made a point that masters will want to pay their laborers as little as they can get away with. Many businesses depend on cheap labor, which is what illegal immigrants provide. On top of that, if they cheat their workers (which is a common practice in the restaurant trade) then those workers can't fight back for fear of being deported. A talk show video reported a recent conference of CEOs who are very unhappy with Trump for scaring away their illegal workers, without whom they say that they'll go out of business. If they opened up to American workers who would demand decent pay, then their profits would shrink, plus they couldn't cheat their American workers. Finally, they'll have to take their operations to where there's cheap labor, like overseas or to some shithole Republican-run state.None of this is black-and-white, but rather there are many factors at work and interacting with each other.Despite all that, we do need to eliminate illegal immigration and make it all legal. That has to include DACA, since the people affected have been educated here and have started lives with families and homes and working in professions that contribute to society. For example, I know a man who entered illegally decades ago, who started a family, started a successful business, and owns a house. Deport him and a family loses support, the business has nobody to run it so it folds and its employees are now unemployed, and the house gets repossessed. We need to find a sane way to resolve all this. No, it has to be Congress that does it! And it's a sure bet that it won't be the Republicans. Well, we're getting those figures from the offices and agencies of the states themselves. You know, the ones actually working with the actual data.