What is going on with pensions?

For years now companies have been finding ways to get out of pensions and recently the Pentagon has been complaining about pensions and rising healthcare costs. It is rare now for a company to even offer any kind of retirement plan other than the Russian roulette we call the 401K.

Back to the military.  I find it disingenuous for this country to use and abuse the people, and families, in uniform with all of our foreign adventures and then complain about the long term costs.  Didn't anyone think about that before we began our shenanigans in Afghanistan and Iraq?  Clearly a commitment was made to those people we have put in harms way, those that have been wounded (physically, mentally, and spiritually) knowing that there would be a cost down the road.  Rising health care is not some new phenomena that appeared all of a sudden taking us all by surprise.

All of a sudden decent pensions, good paying jobs, and good benefits are seen as luxury items.  Conversely, insanely expensive weapons systems, policing the whole world, tax breaks for the wealthy, and tax breaks/subsidies for business with a made to order congress to do its bidding are seen as necessities.

Life is not about profit.  It is not about power.  It is about people.  Yet, our political system ignores the plight of the average citizen while working overtime to create a system which is toxic morass for people, but  in which greed and hubris flourish like the noxious weeds they are.

Congressional Investment Geniuses

Evidently members of congress are investment geniuses as evidenced by this story that was covered by the Huffington Post:

Four university researchers examined 16,000 common stock transactions made by approximately 300 House representatives from 1985 to 2001, and found what they call "significant positive abnormal returns," with portfolios based on congressional trades beating the market by about 6 percent annually.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/24/members-of-congress-get-a_n_866387.html

Here is the citation for the article which was the source of the Huffinton Post story:

Ziobrowski, Alan J.; Boyd, James W.; Cheng, Ping; and Ziobrowski, Brigitte J. (2011) "Abnormal Returns From the Common Stock Investments of Members of the U.S. House of Representatives," Business and Politics: Vol. 13: Iss. 1, Article 4.

This article only added to my disgust of how power in this country has corrupted the political process and money is absolutely the king, or the god, to which we all now must bow. I read stories about people being charged with insider trading while congress has been doing this for years.  I thank the authors of the study for their painstaking work which documents just one of the many abuses

I want elected officials who:

Do not have fake tans
Do not wear cuff links
Are not millionaires
Do not have better healthcare or retirement benefits than I do
Do not show naughty pictures of themselves on social media
Do not cheat on their wife, and take part in raising their kids

We continue to have a political process that elects people who are completely  out of touch with the average citizen. The Tea Party folks are rightly upset at the current political process, but have hitched their wagon to the wrong star.   Also, their movement is one that is being turned against the citizenry rather than one that will liberate it.  Why is the middle class so enamored of cannibalism, so fond of fratricide, and so averse to seeing the truth of their situation?