When one looks at his dozens of truly impressive books and papers, no matter what he is supposedly writing about, the message is always the same: “We have to redistribute the wealth; take from the haves and give it to the have nots.” One rationale or another, the message is always the same. How to fix our criminal justice system? No problem. We just need to recognize that the real criminals are the wealthy, and those who allow them to remain wealthy, not the ones who go around shooting at each other, and us. What to order for dinner tonight? No problem. It’ll be fine, so long as we first redistribute the wealth.

Dr. Barak has done it again. Supposedly evaluating my July 4, 2010 blog about the very real threat of public pension obligations to our economic viability, and therefore (Professor), also to our economic stability, Dr. Barak first trivializes, and then superficially altogether dismisses, my underlying twofold premise, that the threat posed by public pension obligations (i) is very serious in and of itself and (ii) is made all the more serious because of the undue influence the sponsoring unions have on far too many of our political representatives–only to return, once again, to his universal cure all for the common cold and whatever else ails you: Just redistribute the wealth, baby, and all will be fine.

Remember, I conceded up front, in my July 4 blog, http://nopoli.org/2010/07/public-pension-obligation/, that there are many competing threats to our economy, and that the unions and their public pension obligations are just one of them. Remember also the context and purpose of NoPoli.org–to expose and root out corrupt politicians. NoPoli is not trying to remake the world, just a few of its politicians. It’s hardly surprising that we take some liberties and license to serve our mission, and hopefully to entertain our readers in the course of doing so.

So, in at least two ways, designed of course to protect his precious have nots, Professor Barak makes light of the growing burden of the public pensions on our state and local governments:

1. First, he says that the media publicized pension excesses are actually few in number, that most of those benefits are very “reasonable.” Dr. Barak completely misses the point. It is not the few reported instances of abusive retirement amounts that are important, but rather the multibillion dollar aggregate public pension obligations that, in spite of the alleged reasonable amounts given to most of the beneficiaries, are irrefutably growing like weeds and choking to death both the economic viability and therefore also the economic stability of our state and local governments, from one end of the country to the other. The reported numerous instances of this adverse impact are beyond dispute, whether by Professor Barak or anyone else.

2. Second, Dr. Barak tries to make light of this insignificant multibillion dollar problem by raising the trillion dollar housing losses attributable to Wall Street misdeeds and the like, complex bogus securities of one kind or another, securities fraud, etc. This is like comparing apples to oranges. The public pension obligations are governmental burdens. The trillion dollar drops in stock market and real estate values fall to the total population and not just to local governments trying to discharge their public service duties. Moreover, these supposed trillion dollar declines in asset values are paper losses only of values that never realistically existed to begin with.

Professor Barak also slides by still another important distinction between public pension obligations and the alternative candidates for threats to the viability and stability of our state and local economies that he suggests. These excessive public pension obligations are insidious in and of themselves. Our political representatives created them and they can correct them. Regulation versus deregulation can be debated from here to eternity. That’s a matter of philosophical preference. The problem is not too much or too little regulation, but rather the fundamental underlying nature of man. Our political representatives didn’t create that problem and there is no legislative cure for that either.

Dr. Barak wants to redistribute the wealth–and to make over the very nature of man. That’s indeed a noble social experiment to which Dr. Barak has devoted much of his laudatory career, but one that is way too grand and complex for me, and for NoPoli.org. We just want to stop the unions and public pensions from drowning our state and local governments in a sea of red ink:)