Leo Kolivakis's blog

Turning 60 stinks, and the joy of 65 appears to be slipping away...

With a 25% increase in poverty among Canadians 65-plus, there is no pension conundrum...

Ireland's new austerity measures are cutting into everything, including public pensions and Hungary is moving one step closer to nationalizing pensions...

The prospect of major hedge funds and mutual funds getting redemption notices makes traders on Wall Street very nervous. This is the type of stuff that makes me nervous too because you don't know how it's going to play out. It might turn out to be nothing, and blow over, or it might snowball and wreak havoc in financial markets.

UK public-sector pension reform has already cut the value of employees’ prospective pensions by a quarter, even if no further changes are undertaken, the Financial Times reported, citing a study by the Pensions Policy Institute to be published on Tuesday.

It's been exactly one year since I wrote about an exciting but controversial treatment for Multiple Sclerosis (MS), called the Liberation treatment. A lot has happened in a year, and I think it's important to share some of my thoughts with you. Please feel free to relay the information back to anyone you know who has MS.

"Take a position. Do the right thing. Pass Bill C-216. It is the right thing to do. By doing nothing, by leaving us hanging, in my opinion, they are effectively giving their blessing to the court judge and lawyers we are dealing with to bury us alive. I do not know why. I do not understand what I and 400 other sick people did wrong to be treated like this."

- Jackie Bodie, Nortel disabled employee

New York City may reduce the assumed return on its $100.5 billion of pension investments from the current 8%, Comptroller John Liu said. Welcome to the new normal...

A Canadian policy think tank believes increasing retirement eligibility by two years may fix an impending demographic crunch.

Last November it was Dubai, this November it's Ireland. And the fear mongering continues, allowing the big banks and top hedge funds to set themselves up for the next leg up...

Speaking at the Bank of England on Monday, Ros Altmann, director-general of the Saga Group, warned that historically low interest rates could lead to another financial crash that would leave pension pots “decimated”. And it's not just a UK problem...

Nope...just some normal profit taking and another opportunity to load up on stocks...

According to the C.D. Howe Institute, Canadian government pensions are grossly underestimating their pension shortfalls and so are European and US governments. Will pension shortfalls trigger the next sovereign debt crisis?

Did CPPIB just overtake the Caisse as Canada's largest pension fund?

While QE2 stirs up passions, the truth is nobody really knows how this is going to end. It might turn out to be a disaster, or it might turn out to be a stroke of genius...