Politics & Current Events
vlagrl29
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
First Major City to go Bankrupt
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-stockton-bankrupt-20130401,0,7979388.story
STOCKTON -- A federal judge ruled Monday that Stockton is eligible for bankruptcy protection, over the objection of creditors who argued the city could come up with more money. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Klein said Stockton can move forward with a plan to reorganize debt. He twice stated that the creditors had acted in bad faith and had refused to pay their share of the costs for negotiations."The creditors got a big black eye today," said Karol Denniston, an attorney who helped draft the legislation that guided Stockton's mandated mediation before filing for bankruptcy protection. "Now the stage is set for the real dogfight."In late June, Stockton became the nation's largest city to fail financially. At that time, all eyes were on the port city of 300,000 as experts warned the action could set off a string of similar filings among cash-strapped municipalities. Since then, a half-dozen cities have filed for Chapter 9 protection under the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, including the city of San Bernardino.During the 90-day mediation period, Stockton's creditors refused to negotiate unless the city cut payments to the state pension plan, CalPERS.By law, the negotiations were confidential, but that detail emerged during the three-day trial that concluded last week.Klein said the creditors could not legally walk away from the table, but he left the door open for CalPERS obligations to be part of negotiations in the coming phases of the bankruptcy.At issue will be whether U.S. bankruptcy law trumps California law, which says the pension plan must be funded. The $900 million Stockton owes to the California Public Employees Retirement System to cover pensions is its biggest debt -? as is the case with many cities in California. Stockton slashed its police and fire departments, halted bond payments, cut employee benefits and adopted an emergency spending plan that cut many city services. But the city continues to pay into the state pension.Stockton's bankruptcy is expected to be closely watched for precedent, and could be appealed as high as the U.S. Supreme Court.
Re: First Major City to go Bankrupt
I will personally benefit from a defined benefit pension, provided that it is still around when I retire. However, the current payouts are not feasible. You're paying too much money to people who are no longer working.
The difference