zero hedge - on a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero Wed 2010-08-25 10:47 EDT

Illinois Teachers' Retirement System Enters The Death Spiral: AIG Wannabe's Go-For-Broke Strategy Fails As Pension Fund Begins Liquidations

Two few months ago we disclosed how the Illinois Teachers' Retirement System (TRS) was doing all it can to become the next AIG. In addition to, or maybe precisely due to, its deplorable fundamental condition, which can be summarized as being 61% underfunded on its $33.7 billion in assets, with a performance record of down $4.4 billion in 2009 and 5% in 2008, the fund, courtesy of a detailed analysis by Alexandra Harris of the Medill Journalism school at Northwestern, was found to be on its way to trying to become a veritable self-made TBTF: as was described then, "TRS is largely on the risky side of the contracts, selling and writing OTC derivatives, including credit default swaps,..."

AIG Wannabe's Go; Broke Strategy Fails; Death Spiral; dropped; Illinois teacher; long; Pension Fund Begins Liquidations; Retirement System Enters; survival rate; Timeline; zero; Zero Hedge.

Sat 2010-05-22 20:00 EDT

"Drop Dead Economics": The Financial Crisis in Greece and the European Union

Michael Hudson

Financial lobbyists are using the Greek crisis as an object lesson to warn about the need to cut back public spending on Social Security and Medicare. This is the opposite of what the Greek demonstrators are demanding: to reverse the global tax shift off property and finance onto labor, and to give labor's financial claims for retirement pensions priority over claims by the banks to get fully paid on hundreds of billions of dollars of recklessly bad loans recently reduced to junk status. The Greek bailout should be thought of as a TARP for German and other European bankers and global currency speculators. Almost $1 trillion is being provided by governments (mainly Germany, at the cost of its own domestic spending) into a kind of escrow account for the Greek government to pay foreign bondholders who bought up these securities at plunging prices over the past few weeks. They will make a killing, as will buyers of hundreds of billions of dollars of credit-default swaps on the Greek government bonds, speculators in euro-swaps and other casino-capitalist gamblers. (Parties on the losing side of these swaps now will need to be bailed out as well, and so on ad infinitum.) This windfall is to be paid by taxpayers -- ultimately those of Greece (in effect labor, because the wealthy have been untaxed) -- to reimburse Euro-governments, the IMF and even the U.S. Treasury for its commitment to predatory finance. The ³sanctity of debt -- sacrificing the economy to pay bondholders -- is to be used as an excuse to slash Greek public services, pensions and other government spending...

Drop Dead Economics; European Union; Financial Crisis; Greece.

Sun 2010-05-16 15:59 EDT

billy blog >> Blog Archive >> Doublethink

Yesterday I read an article by Noam Chomsky -- Rustbelt rage -- which documents the decline of the American dream and extends the malaise to Chinese workers. The hypothesis is that the workers in each country signed up for what they thought was a social contract where if they worked hard they would enjoy secure retirements. Then the meltdown undermines their jobs and they are forced to live on pitiful pensions. And while they watch the top-end-of-town enjoying the benefits of billions of bailout money from government the beneficiaries of these bailouts are leading the charge to take the pensions of the workers and turn them into ``financial products'' (privatised social security). This raises the concept of doublethink (a term coined by George Orwell) -- which ``means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them''...I see a lot of that in the mainstream economics debate...whatever suits their political agenda on any particular day. There is no consistency in their attacks -- they shift and slither and creep as facts get in the way.

Billy Blog; blogs Archive; Doublethink.

Thu 2010-05-13 13:39 EDT

The People v. the Bankers

Michael Hudson

Financial lobbyists here in the U.S. are using the Greek crisis as an object lesson to warn about the need to cut back public spending on Social Security and Medicare. This is the opposite of what the Greek demonstrators are demanding: to reverse the global tax shift off property and finance onto labor, and to give labor's financial claims for retirement pensions priority over claims by the banks to get fully paid on hundreds of billions of dollars of recklessly bad loans recently reduced to junk status. Let's call the ``Greek bailout'' what it is: a TARP for German and other European bankers and global currency speculators. The money is being provided by other governments (mainly the German Treasury, cutting back its domestic spending) into a kind of escrow account for the Greek government to pay foreign bondholders who bought up these securities at plunging prices over the past few weeks...This windfall is to be paid by taxpayers -- ultimately those of Greece (in effect labor, because the wealthy have been untaxed) -- to reimburse Euro-governments, the IMF and even the U.S. Treasury for its commitment to predatory finance. The payment to bondholders is to be used as an excuse to slash Greek public services, pensions and other government spending. It will be a model for other countries to impose similar economic austerity...

bankers; people.

Electric Politics Mon 2010-03-22 14:06 EDT

False Consciousness

Werther

...Barry Lynn of the New America Foundation has written an interesting refutation of...an almost universal popular assumption in the United States that this country is much more entrepreneurial and individualistic than the purportedly lazy, pension-sponging socialists of Old Europe. Yet U.S. small business development is at the bottom of the heap of the OECD countries. Once again, our flattering self image is so wildly at variance with reality it verges on schizophrenia...Lynn argues that a key inflection point in government policy towards small business came in 1981, when the Reagan administration essentially stopped enforcing anti-monopoly and small business-protection statutes....

Electric Politics; false consciousness.

zero hedge Mon 2009-12-28 15:05 EST

Guest Post: Deficit Doubles for Government's Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp.

TraderMark

...let's take a look at the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp - another Ponzi scheme in a country now running a series of them, full tilt, concurrently. Also known as "prosperity". The PBGC bailout will just be a pebble versus what could be faced in the greater pension system as a whole... $1 trillion?

deficit double; Government's Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp; Guest Post; Zero Hedge.

Jesse's Café Américain Fri 2009-09-04 19:42 EDT

"Let's Just Whack the Oil"

Jesse

``The markets used to be about capital formation,'' said Mr. Quast, the consultant. ``Now 80 percent of trading is driven by some form of statistical arbitrage. We are buying into a statistical house of cards that could unravel very quickly.'' ...this manipulation is getting so blatant and widespread and regular that it is crippling daily market operation, not to mention robbing the general public of millions of dollars every day in their 401K's, pensions, and investment accounts. It has more of the appearance of organized crime than it does of a financial system.

Jesse's Café Américain; Let's Just Whack; Oil.

Tue 2009-06-16 00:00 EDT

naked capitalism: Guest Post: The Imminent Disinformation Schism

``naive, easily-manipulated, small-time mom and pop investors, who only care about looking at their daily yahoo finance screens and 401(k) statements...and the forward looking taxpayers, who see the upcoming budget deficit fiasco, the social security ponzi scheme, the Medicare/Medicaid debacle, the ridiculous underfunding in public and corporate pension funds, the rising city and state taxes, the shuttering factories, the rising unemployment, the plummeting American production base, the "seasonally" upward-adjusted economic data coupled with consistently downward revised prior economic releases, the increasing savings rate and the multi trillion discrepancy in consumer purchasing power.'' Time contributing author Douglas McIntyre declares end to 2008 banking crisis

Guest Post; Imminent Disinformation Schism; naked capitalism.

Tue 2009-06-16 00:00 EDT

naked capitalism: Guest Post: Public Pension Shakedown?

Steven Rattner

Guest Post; naked capitalism; Public Pension Shakedown.

Tue 2009-06-16 00:00 EDT

naked capitalism: Guest Post: Pensions Facing a Cash Flow Collapse?

Cash Flow Collapse; Guest Post; naked capitalism; Pensions face.

Tue 2009-06-16 00:00 EDT

naked capitalism: Guest Post: Checkmate for Pensions?

by Leo Kolivakis

checkmate; Guest Post; naked capitalism; pension.

Wed 2009-05-20 00:00 EDT

naked capitalism: Guest Post: Exxon Pension Fund Sues Northern Trust Alleging "Reckless, Massive Losses"

Exxon Pension Fund Sues Northern Trust Alleging; Guest Post; massive losses; naked capitalism; reckless.

Tue 2009-04-21 00:00 EDT

naked capitalism: Black Hole Alert: The Last Sucker into the Stock Market Was the Pension Guaranty Corporation

Black Hole Alert; naked capitalism; Pension Guaranty Corporation; stock market; suckers.

Tue 2009-04-21 00:00 EDT

naked capitalism: Guest Post: Mother of All Stealth Scams?

pension fund scam involved ``alternative investments, allowing private funds to collect exorbitant fees and senior pension fund managers to collect huge bonuses based on bogus benchmarks''

Guest Post; mother; naked capitalism; Stealth Scams.

Tue 2009-04-21 00:00 EDT

naked capitalism: Guest Post: What Do Pensions Have in Common with AIG?

by Leo Kolivakis; ``Both were claiming to run a core business when in reality they were fueling a Ponzi scheme using "sophisticated instruments" or "alternative investments" that threaten the security of the global financial system''

AIG; common; Guest Post; naked capitalism; pension.

Wed 2009-04-01 00:00 EDT

Jesse's Café Américain: The Next Bailout: Pension Funds Imploding

Jesse's Café Américain: The Next Bailout: Pension Funds Imploding

Bailout; Jesse's Café Américain; Pension Funds Imploding.

Wed 2009-04-01 00:00 EDT

naked capitalism: Guest Post: Have Pensions Succumbed to Casino Capitalism?

Casino Capitalism; Guest Post; naked capitalism; Pensions Succumbed.

Fri 2008-11-07 00:00 EST

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis: Pension Time Bomb Explodes In US and Canada

Canada; Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis; Pension Time Bomb Explodes.

Thu 2008-07-03 00:00 EDT

Forbes.com - Magazine Article

The Other Real Estate Disaster, by Stephane Fitch, Forbes.com; private equity real estate funds lost billions of pension fund capital

com; Forbes; Magazine article.