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Comment by wonnage | Hacker News Reader

I think you're projecting, this was cut in the name of balancing the budget by decreasing costs (albeit to help meet a massive budget deficit) if you read the article.

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I'm working off the rumors [0] that California has a massive long term problem which is generally being ignored by successive governments. I don't see how they can sustain an emergency preparedness program if they have that sort of business-as-usual preparedness problem. Step 1 to me is always be prepared for the most-likely future case, then step 2 is prepare for progressively less likely scenarios.

[0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/patrickgleason/2019/04/16/no-ca...

I guess if you get your California economic outlook from Grover Norquist's spokesman, you might get an incomplete picture. May I recommend a second source, such as the Bureau of Labor Statistics or other reputable agency?

That article was written during a booming stock market, too. CalPERS (the retirement fund in question) projects something like 7-8% stock returns to stay even nominally solvent.

If the market doesn't (pretty much fully) recover within the next six months, the entire CA pension system is going to be catastrophically insolvent.

The sad part is that the pension system is already walking dead. They’re going to need a bailout, it’s only now people are starting to have real conversations about it.

Should the CA tax payer pick up the bill for promises made to state employees that were never expected to be payable? We’ll see how that goes. Either way the tax payer and the pensioners lose.

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