Social Security In An (Empty) Nut Shell

| January 13, 2013

10,000 Boomers turn 65 years old every day. Here is how it looks on a chart.  Empty nut shells piled high for the old folks…. These costs will be exceeding $1 trillion per year in the near future. Meanwhile, the number of workers per retiree will continue to fall as it has for decades. In 1945 there were […]

Many Pension Plans Are Buried In A Constant State Of Unrealistic Optimisom – But Now They Need To Get Real!

| April 10, 2012

So…the real question is how do we fix this?  As an example, Safeway faces shortfalls larger than its entire market cap, and they’re not alone in this mess. The latest data, from 2009, from the PBGC showed that these multi-employer plans were 48% underfunded with $331bn of assets to support $686bn of liabilities – and it […]

CalPERS Paid Six-figure Bonuses Back In 2008-2009 As It’s Fund Lost Almost A Third Of Its Value In One Year. New Bonuses For 2011 Check In At $4.5 Million

| October 9, 2011

What a joke….Read my lips…There should be no bonuses until the losses are all made up.  Period. No exceptions. None. Capice! CalPERS, the California state  pension fund, which serves more than 1.6 million public employees, retirees and their families, estimated its unfunded liabilities at $38.6 billion on July 1, 2008, it’s bigger now!  CalPERS currently has […]

Bondholders Win A Big One… Beat Up On The Little Guy

| August 3, 2011

The rules have just changed.  The little guy gets screwed again.  Tiny Central Falls, R.I. filed for bankruptcy on Monday, but a new state law in Rhode Island places bondholders ahead of other creditors. It may turn out to be a bondholder’s dream as the real winners end up being the large municipalities located across the country as they target similar […]

So Easy Even A Caveman Can Do It!

| June 9, 2011

About a year ago Zero Hedge posted an article…..”Record Number Of Americans Using Retirement Funds As Source Of Immediate Cash” after a report by Fidelity uncovered that “plan participants with loans outstanding against their 401(k) accounts had reached 22 percent versus 20 percent a year earlier.”  Well guess what?  The new number is now 30% […]

Retirement Income? A Tough Place To Be In A Low Interest Rate Envirenment

| April 30, 2011

From The Wall Street Journal….Retirement annuities, may not be such a good idea after all, especially now.  Read on! Turmoil in the stock market. Paltry interest rates at the bank. What are the newly retired to do? Many are taking a look at buying a fixed annuity instead.  These products let you swap a lump […]

From Dr Joe Duarte….Pensions, Budgets, Municipal Bonds, And Property Taxes Are The Key Combination For Municipalities

| January 18, 2011

Dr Joe Duarte has a good feel for this…..With states cutting budgets across the board, where is the growth going to come from? In San Diego an interesting fight between the city and its unions is developing that could set the stage for how things work out in other places with similar problems. According to […]

The “New Tammany Hall”

| January 2, 2011

Here in lies the problem….Fred Siegel, a historian at the conservative-leaning Manhattan Institute, has written of the “New Tammany Hall,” which he describes as the alliance between public officials and labor.  “Public unions have had no natural adversary; they give politicians political support and get good contracts back,” “It’s uniquely dysfunctional.” In California, pension costs […]

Pensions: The Lump-Sum Gamble (Fleecing)

| November 27, 2010

More than 90% of employees opt for a lump-sum payout from their pension plan when given the choice.  So the Pension Protection Act was signed in August of 2006 by President George W. Bush.  But who does it protect.  Well certainly not the employee!  Interestingly, the current change has received so little notice that most people aren’t […]

Pension Shortfall Widens Even With The S&P Rising

| November 25, 2010

Inquiring minds want to know….how do we ever close this gap! Corporate pensions in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index with about $1 trillion in assets are now 77 percent funded this year, down from 82 percent at the end of 2009.  The $380 billion pension shortfall is the biggest since at least 1994, according to […]

Protests Rage In France Over Pension Cuts

| October 21, 2010

French unions to the government….you can’t do this to us or it will end an entire network of welfare benefits that make France an enviable place to work and live.  Are they kidding?    No they’re not! PARIS (AP) – Protesters blockaded Marseille’s airport, Lady Gaga canceled concerts in Paris and rioting youths attacked police in Lyon […]

Consequences Every Place In The New World Normal

| September 23, 2010

Sorry, But The Answer Of Too Much Debt Is Not More Debt In Price Is Knowledge If you told Rip van Bondtrader that gold had risen to a record during his decade-long slumber, he’d want to know what the inflation outlook was, and how badly he’d gotten killed on his bond investments. He’d be astonished to […]

Pension Deficit Disorder

| September 15, 2010

The funded status of the 100 largest corporate defined benefit pension plans dropped by $108 billion during August 2010 as measured by the Milliman 100 Pension Funding Index (PFI). The funded status decrease was primarily due to a significant decrease in corporate bond interest rates that are the benchmarks used to value pension liabilities. Though […]

Corporate Pension Underfunding Hits Record $460 Billion Deficit

| September 14, 2010

A $108 Billion Deterioration In ONE MONTH www.zerohedge.com      09-14-2010 According to actuarial and consulting firm Miliman, in August 2010, the funded status of the 100 largest defined benefit pension plans sponsored by U.S. companies dropped by $108 billion to a 10-year low of 70.1%. Yes, that’s a $100 billion + deterioration in one month!  The […]

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