First of all, I don't know about you, but I don't come to HN and try to have a somewhat intelligent conversation just to be called stupid for expressing an opinion.
Secondly and to your point, I am only speaking of defined-benefit "If you work here for x years you get y% of your salary." This is to say nothing of the health care (which is generally better than the private sector), the hours (which if you don't work for a legislator are generally better than the private sector), the guaranteed pay raise every year, the access to jobs you can only apply to if you already have a state job, and various small perks like free or cheap parking, food, etc. These are all benefits of the job and I had to take a serious look at the health care and hours for a state job when deciding between that and a corporate offer.
I'm not here to argue whether or not defined-benefit retirement plans are inherently good or bad. I'm saying it's irresponsible and dangerous for a state to guarantee by law that they'll pay anyone a fixed amount of money for decades at some distant point in the future. This is why it's most dangerous. If the state gets bankrupted by some unforeseen catastrophe 30 years from now, it can't suspend, eliminate or trim pension payouts. Not even $0.01. By definition the fact that pensions offer better retirement income than defined-contribution plans like a 401k should be a giant red flag. The system implodes if you can't at least break even off of it, and if it was possible to make money off of them the private sector would still be using them.
"First of all, I don't know about you, but I don't come to HN and try to have a somewhat intelligent conversation just to be called stupid for expressing an opinion."
He didn't call you stupid for expressing an opinion, he called that particular view stupid.
Saying that a particular view is stupid without offering any additional information or another viewpoint is... well...
This isn't 7th grade — come up with another word that really means what you want to say. There are a lot of ways to disagree with someone and/or an idea without the derogatory language.
Why is it not a good idea? Given that he and I both don't understand why public sector jobs inherently require defined-benefit retirement plans when the vast majority of workers don't have them, it's apparently not obvious that it's a bad idea.
Secondly and to your point, I am only speaking of defined-benefit "If you work here for x years you get y% of your salary." This is to say nothing of the health care (which is generally better than the private sector), the hours (which if you don't work for a legislator are generally better than the private sector), the guaranteed pay raise every year, the access to jobs you can only apply to if you already have a state job, and various small perks like free or cheap parking, food, etc. These are all benefits of the job and I had to take a serious look at the health care and hours for a state job when deciding between that and a corporate offer.
I'm not here to argue whether or not defined-benefit retirement plans are inherently good or bad. I'm saying it's irresponsible and dangerous for a state to guarantee by law that they'll pay anyone a fixed amount of money for decades at some distant point in the future. This is why it's most dangerous. If the state gets bankrupted by some unforeseen catastrophe 30 years from now, it can't suspend, eliminate or trim pension payouts. Not even $0.01. By definition the fact that pensions offer better retirement income than defined-contribution plans like a 401k should be a giant red flag. The system implodes if you can't at least break even off of it, and if it was possible to make money off of them the private sector would still be using them.