Rick Hess summons the ghosts of Bernie Madoff to illustrate the obscene? ?deal? that? the United Federation of Teachers negotiated with New York City:? a tax-deferred annuity retirement that guarantees ?teachers an 8.25 percent rate of return on investments, regardless of what the market says.
?Hell,? says Hess, ?Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff went to jail because he made promises like that and then couldn't deliver.?
Hess points out that the S&P 500 Index?actually lost value on an annualized basis over the past decade.?But the teachers got the City to turn over??precious dollars that could otherwise have gone into schools and classrooms.?
Ah, but who cares.
?When school children start paying union dues,? as Albert Shanker once put it,??that's when I'll start representing the interests of school children.?
Teachers unions. Gotta love ?em.
?Peter Meyer, Bernard Lee Schwartz Policy Fellow
