Why are UC Berkeley students upset? Why will everyone "UC" be upset

[truedelphi]

Now I do not want to dismiss all the various reasons that the Occupy Movement is flourishing on the UC Berkeley campus. I am sure that given the hefty grade point average that most students there need to meet in order to even become students, they are outraged at economic inequality, the wholesale sell off of our Democracy to the Lobbyists and the Big Industries, and all that those things entail.

But here is something else that those who live outside of California may not know: their tuition costs are going to be accelerated over the next few years.

And these costs will rapidly rise so that various select groups of people can have accelerated bonuses and retirement monies. So if you are a tenured UC professor or on the Administration level of things, you win. If you are a student, you lose.

When you follow how this folly became the law of the School System, you realize how much the Uber Elite control on a daily basis. Please read to the end, as my solution is in the final 3 paragraphs of this OP.

Let us focus for a moment on who one of the most Elite Players in this mess happens to be. It is a man named:

Richard Blum

Blum is married to California US Senator Diane Feinstein. Once Diane rearranged the laws regarding ethics for the Senate, she was able to vote for the Iraqi Resolution in the Fall of 2002 with a straight face, then go home to her lil Snookie Poo and tell him the good news.

As a result, it was not much of a surprise for some of us to find out that within six weeks of the launch of the Spring 2003 "Shock and Awe" campaign, upon the people of the nation of Iraq, Blum had netted some 27 million dollars worth of major contracts related to the war.

Did it matter to Blum that this war was built on a stack of lies? I don't know, but my gut tells me that the 16 million dollar house that he and Di Fi purchased inside the Presidio, with a view that the S.F. Chronicle described as being 'To Die For," something tells me that any guilt that his conscience may have held was assauged. Mainly because he doesn't have a conscience to assauge.

Then during the winter of 2010, Blum surfaced in the headline news once again. While the state of California is facing a disastrous time, with our county, city and state budgets shredded to the bone, Richard Blum was sitting pretty. After all, in December of 2010, he was the head regent over the UC University system.

Back in September 2010, the regents imposed by unanimous vote an increase in the amount that UC and its employees would contribute to the pension plan, taking an important step (or so they declared) towards "putting it on solid financial footing."

Beginning in July 2011, employee members of the UC Retirement Plan (UCRP) will begin contributing 3.5 percent of salary into the plan; UC will contribute 7 percent. The amount will increase again in July 2012, with employees paying 5 percent and UC paying 10 percent.

But this is not all. While the cashier at the cafeteria faces this uptick in her payments into the Retirement Plan, Blum and the rest of the regents want to see an enforcement of a 2007 provision of the California legislature: to whit, that the Elite of the professors and the Administration at UC system receive immediate increases in the pension amounts that they receive per year and other benefits. If this is not done, then our fine Mr Blum suggests that the regents will have no other recourse than to sue the school, or the state or both.

My attitude on this is quite firm: since the regents can legally mandate this pension and other benefit hikes, fine, just give it to them. Avoid the threat of the law suit. But since their salaries could be undone the first time the California legislature met in 2011, give them all a one dollar a year salary stipulation, and then even if the regents manage to get a pension that is 100% of their salary, the last laugh will be on them!

However, several people have emailed me and stated that this is not possible - that the UC system is independent of the state of California. If that is true, then the state could still, should it want to, simply enact legislation declaring that any increases the the select group of people receive as a result of the regents fiddling with these affairs be taxed at 200% and all the funding captured by this tax would revert back into ta plan to pay for the students tuition!

Though I have to admit it would be quite tragic for Richard and Di Fi to have to live on only the provisions of her Senate pension, and his war contract profits which now have probably been re-invested profitably a dozen times over.