[quote=FlyerInHi]CAr, what you say is so irrelevant.
You can calculate an amount today that equates to a stream of future payments. The only reason that pension funds are underfunded is because past and present contributions are too low in relation to future promises.
[/quote]
then there is an inconvenient truth of the basic concept of the disclaimer that states: “Past performance does not guarantee future returns!”
Seems CalPERS like some mutual fund firms use past performance to distract investors
Like it or not the world evolves and (economically speaking) there cannot be a status quo (that favors specific sectors like the CEOs and the shareholders of “Big Tobacco” or the “Fossil-fuel industry”)
Actually if you think about it CEOs and the shareholders of “Big Tobacco” and/or the “Fossil-fuel industry” along with “believers” of public pensions share much in common in that there is an interest in keeping the economic status quo AND perpetuating the “DELUSION!”
In other words, “Big Tobacco” ignores the math/science that their product causes cancer, the “Fossil-fuel industry” ignores the math/science that their product contributes to the danger of climate change AND “believers” of public pensions say its benefits are a sacred cow that should not be changed (even with changing “global” economic conditions, fund corruption/mis-management, etc.)
Consider the trait “Big Tobacco” and/or the “Fossil-fuel industry” and/or “believers” of public pensions have in common, WHICH is the need to keep up the PR media “NEWS DELUSION/DENIAL!”
for example w/ “Big Tobacco” you’ll see:
for example w/ the “Fossil-fuel industry” you’ll see:
with “believers” of public pensions we see the need to spin the corruption, fund mis-management w/in “news media”
recall what happened when the SD public pension fund was in the “news” last year:
[quote=bearishgurl]
Uh, well, I don’t think our fact-skimming newbie, Phaster, had a chance to see this recent piece from the UT (hint: google SDCERA and it comes up first :)):
…. For the past decade, San Diego County and its employees paid 100 percent or more of their annually required contribution to the SDCERA retirement fund. Consistent employee and employer contributions over the years have laid a foundation for investment gains and asset growth. SDCERA’s investment strategy helps the employer’s budgeting process and stabilizes employer costs by reducing the volatility of returns and steadily achieving the rate of return needed to fund the benefit.
At $10 billion, the SDCERA fund is able to pursue certain investment strategies that larger plans like CalPERS cannot access and smaller plans do not have the resources to deploy. SDCERA’s investment strategy is purposely designed to be no riskier than traditional pension fund asset allocation strategies. Risk-parity and trend strategies, which utilize leverage, are limited to 25 percent of the SDCERA portfolio, not the entire set of portfolio assets. The other 75 percent of the portfolio is managed using traditional asset allocation and rebalancing approaches…
eventually the fundamental nature of math/science prevails and the un-sustainable facade “DELUSION!” can not be kept up/masked over:
[quote=Wall Street Journal] San Diego County Pension Chief to Resign
By Dan Fitzpatrick
March 19, 2015 6:22 p.m. ET
The chief executive of San Diego County’s pension system announced he would resign at the end of the month, bringing fresh turmoil for the $10.4 billion fund.
San Diego County Employees Retirement Association said in a statement that CEO Brian White and the board had “amicably agreed” that Mr. White’s tenure of nearly two decades would end March 30. David Wescoe, former head of the city of San Diego’s pension fund, will take over as CEO while the board searches for a permanent replacement.
A Sdcera spokesman said Mr. White made the decision to resign and that he and the board had been discussing the move “over the course of several months.” Mr. White said in a statement that “Sdcera has enjoyed great success, which I expect will continue” and that “serving as Sdcera’s CEO has been an incredibly rewarding professional experience.”
The exit of the system’s longtime leader caps a period of strife for a fund that manages money on behalf of more than 39,657 active and former public employees.
Board members and staff members spent much of the past year wrangling over an outside firm’s investment strategy that involved the use of derivatives to boost performance. The controversial approach was the subject of a front-page article in The Wall Street Journal.
The board voted in November to find a new internal investment chief rather than rely on an outside manager for that role.
IMHO the back and forth dance between the news media and pension board “managers” is the same spin/bull$hit playbook response we saw locally (and its just a matter of time till CalPERS will have to give up the DELUSION that its possible to manage the portfolio and grow it to cover all the public pension promises made long ago)
Just watched a NatGeo documentary that kinda shows why there is “Denial and “Anger” from parties interested in keeping up the “DELUSION/economic status quo” WRT the “Fossil-fuel industry” and the concept of danger involving climate change
The way I see things the same idea(s) could be applied to “believers” of public pensions, and wonder if they ever bother to look in the mirror WRT their own DELUSION/POV
[quote=CA renter]
There is a very real war going on against working/middle-class people in developed countries. Don’t be a a useful idiot. If you’re not being paid, you should definitely demand payment from the Privatization Movement for your services. They expect to reap great rewards from the work of people like yourself; make sure to get your piece of the pie.
one last thing for all to ponder is a news wire report:
[quote=REUTERS] Calpers vote to lower investment return target draws governor’s ire
California Public Employees’ Retirement System on Wednesday adopted a policy to gradually reduce the amount that the pension fund expects from its investments, a decision that came under fire from California’s governor for not going far enough.
The move by the nation’s largest public pension fund is controversial because lower investment returns must be offset by higher contributions from the state’s cities and public workers.
Calpers will reduce its expected rate of investment returns in years after the fund outperforms its 7.5 percent target by 4 percentage points. The goal is to ultimately reduce the rate to 6.5 percent, although that could take decades under the new policy.
Rob Feckner, president of the Calpers board of administration, said the policy “makes significant strides in lowering risk and volatility in the system, and helps lessen the impacts of another financial downturn.”
But Governor Jerry Brown, a proponent of a sharper reduction in the expected rate of return, was quick to criticize the move, arguing the pension fund should move faster to cut risk from its portfolio.
“I am deeply disappointed that the CalPERS Board reversed course and adopted an irresponsible plan that will only keep the system dependent on unrealistic investment returns,” Brown said in a statement on Wednesday. “This approach will expose the fund to an unacceptable level of risk in the coming years.”
Let me guess what happens next election, now that Gov Brown acknowledges the danger of “public pension math” he no longer can be assured of the the moonbeam vote 😉
