I want to talk about retiring. Actually I’ve been talking about retiring for years now, but I’d likely run out of money unless I don’t live very long, and that wouldn’t be much fun either way. I don’t want to retire to the rocking chair, you understand; I just want to stop doing the things I do for a paycheck and do a lot more of the things I do just because I want to do them. They’re the same things I’ve been doing all my life, and no one has paid me much for them yet, so I have no reason to believe anyone will pay me to do them in the future.

I know people like me who have vested interests in retirement funds, but I also know people who have worked just as long and hard as I have, but have nothing much to carry them when they can’t work anymore. I also know people who have never had much paid employment in their entire lives and gotten by just fine, so there’s no reason to believe they can’t do the same until the day they die. If, however, you want to make the house payment, keep the old car running and make the scene at SPD once in a while, you have to wonder where those greenbacks are coming from when you decide you’re not going down to the mine, the factory, the shop or the office every morning anymore.

If you are expecting your golden years to be funded by money over which any elected officials have any control, you should be feeling a little uneasy right now. Several decades ago, the Social Security Administration was created so we all might have at least a little something in the hole when we couldn’t answer the call anymore. Now the Bushwhacker wants to take your money and bet it on the stock market. That little New York casino has done pretty well over the years, but it has it’s ups and downs, and some of its downs have been pretty dramatic. At any given time, the bang for your buck might be completely inaudible. All in all, I think I’d be just as comfortable taking my retirement nest egg and throwing it on the come line at some craps table in Las Vegas. Double or nothing.

Even more disturbing are the Governator’s ideas about PERS, the Public Employees Retirement System. What Arnold is proposing is, essentially, shutting it down. PERS, like most public employees’ retirement plans, has "defined" benefits. That means that when you retire, you receive the same amount every month, whether you die next week or live to be 120. You can’t run out of money. Theoretically, the contributions of the people who die next week compensate for those of the people who live longer. But the state’s taxpayers contribute to those benefits, so the longer you live, the more money the state spends for you to pay your bills after your days as a good wage slave are over. Arnold says, "Screw you. Buy your own rocking chair."

It’s true that a lot of people who work in the private sector get no contributions from their employers for retirement. They’re on their own. Bigger employers, however, often are even more generous than the state. I’ve known people who have become wealthy from the stock options given to them as retirement benefits. Arnold isn’t proposing, yet, that retirement benefits be taken away from anyone who is already buying into PERS, but he wants to stop or dramatically reduce the state’s contributions to employee retirement funds. This has a couple of potential negative effects. First, you create a two-tier workforce. The new employees are working side-by-side with people who are getting more compensation for doing the same work. Bad for morale. Second, the retirement deal is part of the pay. Take that away, and the good people will go to work somewhere else where the pay is better. When all the first tier of workers has retired, you’re left with the people who couldn’t get a job anywhere else. Arnold wants to dumb down the workforce because he thinks it’ll save a buck.

Arnold also wants to save a buck by slashing Medicaid and stopping cost of living raises in other welfare benefits. Arnold may be right that the state needs to spend an amount a little closer to what it takes in, but I can’t help but think there are some other places where the state could spend a little less. I’d prefer to cut corporate welfare before I cut welfare to families. I’d prefer to cut drug manufacturers’ profits before I cut the benefits to the people who need those drugs. I just can’t get behind a filthy rich Hollywood actor coming up to Sacramento and trying to balance the state budget by ripping off the poor and the middle class. Arnold could just about balance the state’s budget out of h is own pocket, so I’d just as soon keep him out of mine.

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Did you hear the story last week about new federal government guidelines about diet and nutrition and so forth? If you want to let the federal government tell you how to eat, it probably won’t kill you any faster than anything else you do, but I heard it in the context of a story on NPR which told me how many lives would be saved each year if these guidelines were followed. I’m all for eating right, living well and living longer, but in the long run, nothing you can do will save any lives.