Wednesday, May 11, 2016

The Pension Story

Last night, I sat and watched a brief piece on ZDF (Channel One, ARD, public-run TV).....from the news magazine that they run....Frontal 21.

The emphasis of the ten-minute piece was the unfair nature of retirement pensions for state employees.  In particular.....mayors.  Some guy had retired as mayor for a town (around ten years as mayor from what I could see) and was going to collect a pension in his mid-50's of 4,200 Euro a month.  This is roughly $5,000 American.

The unfairness slant to this is that the guy only did this ten-year period of work for the government, and that he exploited a loop-hole to collect the pension early in life.

They repeated the accusation against some gal who had briefly served as city treasurer and was walking away from the government job at age 46, with a monthly pension of 2,500 Euro (roughly $3,000 American).  In this case, she'd served 16 days as the city treasurer, but noted at least two decades in the department at various functions.  The early retirement deal was again part of some loop-hole, as the Frontal 21 folks talked up this issue.

By the end of this entire report.....I sat and had this one question.  From the people who run ZDF (the state-run channel).....do they have such a loophole, and what do they retire with pensions with?  Of course, no political figure was quick on the draw to ask this question and put the news idiots into the proper prospective.

To be honest, I have no idea what ZDF TV employees make, or how much they draw on pensions....although I can't imagine ZDF existing without the same loop-holes that they suggest the government uses.

One other brief note.....after watching this brief news report....I got this same impression as last night.  People disturbed over other people having too much money....jealousy.

1 comment:

Claudia said...

The real reason is that they do not have that pension themselves but they need to pay for it with their tax money.