[LINK] the Telstra TruJerko Trio

[Greg Taylor]

On Wed, Sep 13, 2006 at 11:34:14AM +1000, Marghanita da Cruz
wrote:
>...
> In my view, there was no choice but to sell off the rest
of Telstra.
> Whether the analysts are talking the price up or down is
for investors
> in T3 to decide. There are a large chunk of public
servants (and
> politicians?), whose super is in the future fund, who are
pondering
> this very issue.

Why would they ponder that?  The government's (i.e.
taxpayers') liability to pay public servants' and
politicians' pensions exists whether or not the future fund
produces an adequate return.  In the past, government has
ignored this liability and paid "defined benefit" pensions
out of current budget.  It's only recently that the
government put new public servants on accumulation schemes
like the private sector is required to have.  But there is
still a huge liability, currently standing at $100 billion,
and it's growing because the military is still on a defined
benefits scheme.  

This liability is conveniently ignored in the government's
claims to be debt-free.

Scary graphs here:
http://www.treasury.gov.au/documents/1156/HTML/docshell.asp?URL=02_Future_Fund.asp


Greg