Labor

Graves County Superintendent Kim Dublin in Kentucky is apparently concerned that forcing her teachers to accept the same retirement plans offered to almost every private sector employee in the country would literally "dismantle public education" as we know it.

Speaking to a local NBC affiliate in Kentucky, Dublin told reporters that she relies on the excessive generosity of Kentucky taxpayers to underwrite her state's lavish defined benefit plans that she uses as a recruiting tool to attract the 'best talent'.

Earlier today, Milliman released their 2017 Public Pension Funding Study which explores the funded status of the 100 largest U.S. public pension plans.  Not surprisingly, this study only served to confirm many of the rather alarming trends surrounding public pension ponzi's that we discuss on a regular basis.

In the latest sign that America’s looming pension crisis is inching closer to an all-our collapse that will inevitably end in a series of bailouts – or worse, the failure to pay out retiree’s coveted benefits - a handful of California cities are lashing out at CALPers after being forced to hike pension contributions to offset expectations for long-term returns that have been revised lower by the state pension system.

Via The Daily Bell

Just because a Ponzi scheme is run by a government doesn’t mean it won’t collapse.

The situation in Kentucky serves as a dire warning about larger pension systems including Social Security.

What Kentucky is currently facing in like a bank run. When people hear that a bank is failing, they all scramble to get their money out before it goes bust. This snowballs and the bank runs out of cash that much quicker.

When it comes to the US labor market, it's a tale of two extremes according to a recent report by Goldman Sachs.

At one end, the rate of short-term unemployment, defined as those unemployed fewer than 15 weeks, is lower than at any point since the Korean War and is already 0.4% below the bottom reached in the late 90s boom, with half of the gap likely due to demographic change. According to Goldman economists, "from the perspective of workers transitioning briefly between jobs whose attachment to employment is high, this is already a very tight labor market."