Our computer has issues. This will be short and sweet, y'all.

I shook my head in disbelief when I read this article in yesterday's paper:

Reyes: Govt's retirement share will still go up (click on the link to read the article)

The government employs a HUGE amount of the local population. I don't know the exact figures but it seems that everyone works in some branch of island government or another.

So, if I am understanding this correctly, the government contribution to the employees retirement fund is currently at 24% and is going to go up to 29%?

Are you freaking kidding me?

Do you want to know how much the United States Coast Guard contributes to their employees retirement fund?

Zero, zilch, nada. Which is why we stopped contributing to DH's retirement through the USCG. Our money is better served in our Roth IRA's and a couple of other funds. Thank you Suze Orman for that tip.

This just floors me.

****************

Yesterday, I wrote about how the crying to Washington, D.C. for money would soon begin. Well, it did as I was typing my little blurb.

Feds' aid sought for CUC

The more I thought about the whole situation, it seems that it boils down to this:

1. The CUC (Commonwealth Utilities Corp, a government run business) has no money for backup.

2. Therefore, it relies on customers to make timely payments so that it can then turn around and hand over the money to big oil for more fuel to run the power engines.

3. Customers aren't paying their bills on time for whatever reason...maybe they can't afford it and only make minimum wage (which by the way is $3.05/hr).

4. The CUC is going to raise rates so that they don't continue to lose money because it actually takes more money to produce the power than what they are charging since oil prices have been going up.

Ya think that the people that can't afford to pay their bills on time now are going to find their money trees blossoming in their yards any time soon so that they can afford to pay the higher rates? It will only get worse. Maybe they should hire more government employees for the CUC since I think that their collections department is going to be very busy in the future.

And another round of the blame game begins. The island government needs to run CUC like a business. They need to realize that they screwed up and should have been adjusting the rates all along as they watched oil prices climb to over $70/barrel.

Seriously.

Peace