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You Should Have Been a Lifeguard

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You should have been a lifeguard. Like the handful in Newport Beach, California, who are pulling swimmers from the water and in some cases making $200,000 a year in salary and benefits. “It was reasonable at the time,” says city manager David Kiff. “When we were negotiating, people were making such ridiculous amounts of money on the real estate market and we don’t get those big jumps in salary that the private sector does.”

Reasonable public employee pension reform is about as reasonable as the union leaders in Rhode Island who are being asked to accept changes in their collective bargaining agreements. Take Middletown, Rhode Island, where legislation to eliminate pensions and replace them with 401(k)s (457b in the public sector) for new hires hit a roadblock. “We just negotiated our contract,” said firefighters union president Steve Rodrigues. “To have this now takes a back-door route to undermine that [agreement].”

In Newport, Rhode Island, the police chief and fire chief both tendered their resignations last week, claiming that the timing was just a “coincidence.” One is 48, and the other is 57. Both are eligible for full pensions based on years of service. With all this talk about “change,” why stick around? And all the taxpayer money paid to train them is now gone.

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E.J. Smith - Your Survival Guy

Preparing your investments and family for when disaster strikes.
E.J. Smith is the Founder of YourSurvivalGuy.com, Managing Director at Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd., a Managing Editor of Richardcyoung.com, and Editor-in-Chief of Youngresearch.com. E.J. graduated from Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, with a B.S. in finance and investments. In 1995, E.J. began his investment career at Fidelity Investments in Boston before joining Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd. in 1998. E.J. has trained at Sig Sauer Academy in Epping, NH, where he completed course-work in Practical and Defensive Handgun, Conceal Carry Pistol, Shotguns, Precision Scope Rifle and Kidnapping Prevention. E.J. plays a Yamaha Recording Custom drum set with Zilldjian cymbals. His first drum set was a 5-piece Slingerland with Zilldjians. He grew-up worshiping Neil Peart of the band Rush, and loves the song Tom Sawyer—the name of his family’s boat, a Grady-White Canyon 306. He grew up in Mattapoisett, MA, an idyllic small town on the water near Cape Cod. He spends time in Newport, RI and Bartlett, NH—both as far away from Wall Street as one could mentally get. The Newport office is on a quiet, tree lined street not far from the harbor and the log cabin in Bartlett, NH, the “Live Free or Die” state, sits on the edge of the White Mountain National Forest. He enjoys spending time in Key West and Paris. Please get in touch with E.J. at ejsmith@youngresearch.com. Sign up here to receive all the best content from Richardcyoung.com each week.