Home » Posts tagged 'pension'

Tag Archives: pension

Olduvai
Click on image to purchase

Olduvai III: Catacylsm
Click on image to purchase

Post categories

Post Archives by Category

Chicago Hopes To “Solve” Record Pension Deficit With Creative Solution: More Debt

August 23, 2018

Chicago Hopes To “Solve” Record Pension Deficit With Creative Solution: More Debt

John Maynard Keynes would be thrilled to hear about the brilliant solution Chicago has come up with to help solve its pension deficit: issue a $10 billion bond and take on more debt.

Chicago’s pension deficit has been a problem that we’ve been covering at length. The stunning funding gap, which comes in at about $28 billion, is an issue that Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel campaigned on fixing, along with the rest of the city’s finances.  “It’ll be a big test for sure,” said Vikram Rai, head of municipal strategy at  Citigroup Inc. “But if it works it’ll set a good precedent for the other cities and states that have pension problems.”

It won’t work.

Absent dramatic haircuts to pension promises, it’s simply impossible to resolve the third largest US city’s pension crisis: as we noted last month when looking at the broader pension problems faced by Illinois, in 1987, pension promises made to active workers and retirees in the state’s five state-run pension plans totaled just $18 billion. By 2016, they had ballooned to $208 billion. That’s a cumulative 1,067 percent increase.

Contrast that to the state’s budget (general fund revenues) which was up just 236 percent over the same time period. Or household incomes, which were up just 127 percent. Or inflation, up just 111 percent. Promised pension benefits have blown past any ability of the state, the economy or taxpayers to pay for them.

Which leaves only debt as the “solution”, one which reportedly came after Chicago leaders gave up on actual long-term economic solutions such as budget cuts, reductions in benefits and tax increases. With those pesky old “traditional” ways to shore up in the city’s finances seemingly causing too much austerity for America’s third largest city, they have instead embraced the new school of economics in the form of considering a $10 billion bond issuance, one which would push pension obligation bond issuance in Chicago to a 15 year high.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Collapse of Socialism – End of Pensions

February 23, 2018

Collapse of Socialism – End of Pensions

 

I have been warning that we are in the midst of (1) collapse in democracy as the bureaucracy attempts to ensure they get their’s, (2) the collapse of socialism, which is the implosion of social programs, and (3) the collapse of pensions set in motion by the artificially low-interest rates for the past 10 years.

Once we entered this Private Wave in 1985, we have begun the Crisis in Democracy where career politicians are the hallmark of how empires, nations, and city-states come to a dramatic end.

With each passing day, we read about another pension crisis in some municipal government or system. Now across the UK teacher/lectures began a month of student disruptions over the proposed changes in their pensions plans. The strikes have even produced refund claims by students over missing tuition time. This is the collapse not of Capitalism, but Socialism as all the promised benefits cannot be provided.

The pension system has a £6bn deficit and thus there is no choice but to cut. Some 61 universities are being affected with many teachers/lecturers simply walking-out leaving the students with no education. The teachers/lecturers voted to strike and now it has gone on for some two weeks. The assumed they would strike and the money would fall from heaven. That has not been the case.

Individually, universities pay into a pool called the Universities Superannuation Scheme. That fund is then managed by a professional Fund Management team that produces a return annually. The investment returns, future contributions, and management costs should then be calculated and projections given at every management meeting between the two (Fund Managers and the administrators of the USS).

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Pension Crisis Coming to a Boil

September 29, 2017

The Pension Crisis Coming to a Boil

The BBC has come out and reported that three million savers in Britain in what is known as final-salary pension schemes only have a 50/50 chance of receiving the payouts they were promised, a study has concluded. We issued a special report on the rising Pension Crisis and it has been unfolding on schedule. The odds of those in government receiving what they were promised is probably less than 50/50 worldwide with few exceptions.

This year’s WEC we will look at how to survive this crisis now that the Year from Political Hell is coming to an eventful end as Spain sends in 16,500 troops to invade Barcelona and subjugate Catalonia proving that it is still a fascist state. The last on the list will be the Italian election and the way Germany has gone, expect more of the same.

We will address this issue in a special report for many people asking how to survive this crisis when what you thought your future would be comes crashing down. This is the crisis we face in Democracy. Government will become more Draconian as we see in Spain to retain power. To hell with human rights or even what is moral. Government will only act in its own self-interest.

They’re Using Bernie Madoff Math to Hide a Crisis

August 23, 2017

They’re Using Bernie Madoff Math to Hide a Crisis

They’re Using Bernie Madoff Math to Hide a Crisis

Politicians are always generous with other people’s money… until it runs out.

Near the peak of the late-’90s tech bubble, California’s legislature passed the largest pension increase in its history.

Today, with as much as $750 billion in unfunded public pension debt, California has one of the worst pension situations in the country. But it’s far from alone.

Illinois has a staggering $250 billion in unfunded pension obligations. State pension plans in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and many other states are taking on water, too.

Unfunded public pension liabilities in the US have surpassed $5 trillion.

Taxpayers Are Stuck With the Bill

There used to be a simple formula for a secure retirement. American workers would work for a big company for decades. Then, at a certain age, they were eligible for a monthly pension check… for life.

Once common, pensions have virtually disappeared from the private sector. Today, less than 4% of companies offer them. It’s another vector in the devalued standard of living of the average American.

Essentially, only government employees get pensions now.

The government isn’t subject to the same constraints as the private sector. So it has no problem promising benefits it can’t afford to pay.

That’s because government revenue doesn’t come from the voluntary exchange of goods or services. It comes from taxes, which it extracts via coercion.

Politicians only care about the next election. So there’s no way to hold them accountable in the long term.

They automatically do the most expedient thing in the short term, like promising extravagant pension benefits. In the long term, their successors have to deal with the consequences.

Naturally, not one of the politicians who voted for California’s record pension increase is still in office.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Ticking Time Bomb That Will Wipe Out Virtually Every Pension Fund In America

March 31, 2017

The Ticking Time Bomb That Will Wipe Out Virtually Every Pension Fund In America

Are millions of Americans about to see the big, juicy pensions that they were counting on to fund their golden years go up in flames in the biggest financial disaster in U.S. history? When Bloomberg published an editorial entitled “Pension Crisis Too Big for Markets to Ignore“, it simply confirmed what a lot of people already knew to be true.  Pension funds all over America are woefully underfunded, and they have been pouring mind boggling amounts of money into very risky investments such as Internet stocks and commercial mortgages.  Just like with subprime mortgages in 2008, this is a crisis that everyone can see coming well in advance, and yet nothing is being done about it.

On a day to day basis, Americans generally don’t think very much about pensions.  Most of those that have been promised pensions simply have faith that they will be there when they need them.

Unfortunately, the truth is that pension plans all over the country are severely underfunded, and this has already resulted in local fiascos such as the one that we just witnessed in Dallas.

But what happened in Dallas is just the very small tip of a very large iceberg.  According to Bloomberg, unfunded pension obligations on a national basis “have risen to $1.9 trillion from $292 billion since 2007″…

As was the case with the subprime crisis, the writing appears to be on the wall. And yet calamity has yet to strike. How so? Call it the triumvirate of conspirators – the actuaries, accountants and their accomplices in office. Throw in the law of big numbers, very big numbers, and you get to a disaster in a seemingly permanent state of making. Unfunded pension obligations have risen to $1.9 trillion from $292 billion since 2007.

And of course that $1.9 trillion number is not actually the real number.

 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

What Makes Brussels More Equal Than Others

April 28, 2015

What Makes Brussels More Equal Than Others

Dutch daily Algemeen Dagblad ran a little article recently that we’re surprised no other news organization picked up. It concerned a proposal in the European Parliament in which the parliamentarians got to vote on raising their own paycheck (always a good idea). The best thing about the story is that not everyone voted in favor.

Most did though. It much amused me to see that apparently it was Angela Merkel’s party, the German Christian Democrats, which was behind the proposal. Initially, they had even wanted double what they actually got. Here’s some numbers and details – and please forgive me for not being a math wizard -.

A Member of the European Parliament (MEP), according to the article, receives the following for their valiant and entirely selfless efforts at public service:

• Salary: €8000+
• Expenses: €4300
• A per diem allowance of €300 for every day a meeting is attended.

Per year that adds up to: €147.600 + €30,000 if 100 meetings are attended. Let’s say €180,000.

On top of that, the Parliament pays into MEPs pension funds, but we’ll leave that alone for now.

There are 751 MEPs, so total ‘salary’ costs are €135,180,000. But that’s just the start.

And we’re not yet adding translation costs, which apparently can add up to over €120,000 per day (!), or perhaps some €30-40 million per year.

 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Olduvai IV: Courage
Click on image to read excerpts

Olduvai II: Exodus
Click on image to purchase

Click on image to purchase @ FriesenPress