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Cities, States Shun Moody's For Blowing The Whistle On Pension Liabilities
A little over a month ago, Moody’s downgraded the city of Chicago to junk, triggering over $2 billion in accelerated payment rights for creditors and complicating an effort by Mayor Rahm Emanuel to refinance some $900 million in floating rate debt and borrow another $200 million to pay off the related swaps.
The decision by Moody’s came on the heels of an Illinois Supreme Court decision that struck down a pension reform bid. Although not binding on other states, that verdict effectively set a precedent as it relates to ‘implicit contracts’ between employers and employees, meaning state and local officials across the country will need to find creative ways to fill budget gaps.
When it comes to underfunded pension liabilities one major concern is that in a world characterized by ZIRP and NIRP, it’s not entirely clear that public pension funds are using realistic investment return assumptions. As you can see from the table below, the assumed rates of return for Chicago’s pension funds are nowhere near the risk-free rate, meaning one of two things must be true: 1) fund managers are taking greater risks to hit the targets, or 2) the targets won’t be hit. If the latter is true, then the present value of the funds’ liabilities is likely much larger than reported.
After 2008, Moody’s stopped relying on the investment return assumptions of cities and states opting instead to use its own models. Unsurprisingly, this led the ratings agency to adopt a much less favorable view of state and local government finances and as WSJ reports, rather than admit that their return assumptions are indeed unrealistic, local governments have opted to drop Moody’s instead. Here’s more:
More than a year before Moody’s Investors Service downgraded Chicago’s bonds to junk status, one of its senior analysts asked top city officials to explain why the third-largest U.S. city was healthier than a troubled island commonwealth flirting with insolvency, according to people familiar with the conversation.
“Help me understand why Chicago is different than Puerto Rico?” said the Moody’s analyst, Rachel Cortez, during a February 2014 meeting that Mayor Rahm Emanuel attended, two of these people said. A spokesman for Moody’s and Ms. Cortez said the firm doesn’t discuss “private meetings with issuers or other capital-market participants.”
The exchange inside City Hall came to embody a more aggressive stance by the world’s second-largest ratings firm as Moody’s cut Chicago’s credit rating by seven notches over a two-year period. City officials were taken aback by the Puerto Rico comment and then angered by Moody’s final move to junk in May 2015, a stance that differed from more optimistic conclusions made by other ratings firms. Since last summer, the city has left the Moody’s Corp. unit off four bond deals..
Tim Blake, a Moody’s managing director who heads its public pension task force, said the firm is “rationally applying” its ratings models. “Our job is to make judgments on credit risk as we see it,” said Mr. Blake, noting some issuers with improved pension situations have been upgraded.
Other cities and counties from California to Florida are reconsidering their relationship with Moody’s as it expands its stricter ratings approach around the U.S., threatening a seal of approval that for decades was all but a necessity in the municipal-bond world..
Moody’s metamorphosis began after the 2008 crisis as ratings firms drew criticism in Congress and from regulators for their rosy grades on mortgage bonds that went sour. For local governments, the key change came in 2013 when Moody’s decided it would no longer rely on cities’ and states’ targets for investment returns when it calculates pension liabilities—one of the biggest costs shouldered by local governments. Moody’s own estimates are more conservative, meaning holes in pension funds look bigger.
As Moody’s adopted the stricter ratings methodology, it diverged from rivals Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services and Fitch Ratings in its assessment of problems facing local governments across the U.S. From 2002 to 2007, Moody’s and S&P upgraded issuers at about the same rate. But from 2008 to 2014, S&P had seven upgrades for every one of Moody’s, according to a recent Nuveen Asset Management LLC report.
Santa Clara County, Calif., omitted Moody’s from its past two deals because of the firm’s disagreement over how some property-tax revenues were to be distributed. “We became convinced that Moody’s was not being responsible and so therefore we moved away from them,” said Jeff Smith, who oversees the operations of the county, which includes San Jose. “We don’t think it has had, or will have, any effect on our ability to sell bonds.”
The latest government to back away from Moody’s is Miami-Dade County, which last week decided to hire Kroll Bond Rating Agency Inc. instead of Moody’s for its $534 million sale of airport bonds. Kroll’s rating is two notches higher than Moody’s.
“We wanted a fresh set of eyes,” said Anne Lee, chief financial officer of the Miami-Dade aviation department, of the decision to not hire Moody’s, which she adds charges “30% to 40%” more than other rivals.
Yes, a "fresh set of eyes," and preferably a set that will not take a realistic look at pension fund return assumptions.
Perhaps the most unnerving thing about the above is that state and local governments across the country are already facing huge pension funding gaps using their own unrealistically high return assumptions.
If they were to adopt Moody's standards, they would likely find that the holes are orders of magnitude larger and rather than face reality, officials have apparently opted to go with the Wall Street approach to dealing with people who try to spoil the fun: namely, when someone blows the whistle, you simply fire them.
Pray for the pensioners.
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Rahm Israel Emanuel son of a terrorist jew... His father (Benjamin M. Emanuel) was a member of one jewish terrorist organization IRGUN. Irgun is best known for the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem on 22 July 1946 and the Deir Yassin massacre, carried out together with Lehi on 9 April 1948. ** from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irgun
Someone at Moody's better be careful. People don't take kindly to being downgraded.
"Pray for the pensioners."
Is that a serious comment? Pray for parasites?
I have no idea if that's a serious comment or not, but prayer won't change the math for pensioners in MANY cities and municipalities across the US. Their benefits will eventually be cut to what current revenues can support (once services have been cut to the bone and taxes raised to the point the population just starts leaving). Chicago is a glaring example, but there are MANY in the same boat. Not all are poor communities.
what? the power of prayer can't overcome math?
pensioners will learn what happens when you trust a government the hard way. Try talking to one, especially a military person, and telling them that they will end up getting shafted. Try explaining that they better save money, a lot of it, if they want to be able to really retire. I know a few teachers and a good many military personnel, and NONE of them have any doubt in their minds that the government will honor their pension obligations. Telling them otherwise is about as productive as taking a boulder out to lunch. The funniest part of it is that, at least amongst some of the more aware, especially the younger military personnel, I have gotten a lot of agreement that they won't get jack shit out of social security. Its funny that they think their pension will be paid in full, but not SS, as if they come from different places.
And it's gone. The "money" they save had better be Au and Au. If you think "saving" with stocks, bonds, or cash is going to provide a retirement they will also be just as surprised as counting on a pension or social security.
just in principles of industry solidarity, the act of shunning moodys should result in losing a notch on other credit agency's books
Bleak future due to pensions disaster
This is great news for S&P. their marketing people simply call clients with a fee schedule corresponding your rating with their fee. Long live the new and improved "Markets"
Moody's does exacrly what TPTB tell them. This is predictive programming intended to signal to pensioners that their pensions could be severely downgraded or vanish at the stroke of a pen..
the mind rebels at the notion TPTB could insist on the truth for their own evil purposes...
Perhaps but if that happens it means inflation is not being practiced and debt is not being paid.
My bet is on inflation being practiced, debt being paid (and grown at the same time) while a hamburger eventually costs $100.
But at least they will get their pensions. Until it all collapses.
Pension Catastrophe In The Making: Shift to Stocks and Hedge Funds
Hope is not a plan. Get...a...plan.
Parasites? They worked decades for that BENEFIT. Now , the real parasites are taking that benefit away.
Government employees????????
I would have to believe that if a .gov entity (muni / state / etc) deliberately didn't use a particular ratings agency and the bond issue went south (aka default) then those holding the bonds would have some leverage in court since it appears as though the .gov purposefully mislead the potential buyers.
Then again why would any sane person buy their junk bonds anyway? If it isn't junk now it will be...
Correct. However, those being sued will be a completely different administration/group of people than those who made this decision. In short, they don't give a crap about some future liability exposure since it won't be THEIR liability and who really gives a crap who sues who when the money is all gone anyway.
yep... by then, you can't get blood from a rock so who gives a shit...
Any bond not rated by a major bond rating agency is usually just automatically rated as a junk muni bond by traders. And Krolls is NOT a major rating agency.
So the cities pay a much higher rate on their bonds. But what do they care it's really the TAXPAYER'S money after all. And they are really showing those meanies at Moodys.
But your survival depends on the Joooo. If you aren't off the grid, growing your own, and are self employed, you're the most pathetic bitch of a dog for spouting your tired banal drivel. You'd think that even a mildly activated BrainStem would recognize the obvious.
I gottah to see how much Jews San Francisco Cocksucker got.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rGU2xwSsFs
Wait, FF - is it Benjamin M. Emanuel was not a terrorist, or is it that saying so is "tired banal drivel"?
Or is it that when the terrorism was done by Jews against Arabs as part of an ethnic cleansing campaign to create a colonialist ethnarchy, it isn't terrorism?
It's just that you weren't as clear as you usually are.
Next year in Jerusalem - once we clear it of the rest of the natives!
Hail Hydra.
Get back to cleaning those Kosher toilets you weak simp. Israelis have a right to displace every single Fauxlestinian in Samara and Judea. Hopefully the US and the world central banks will crash, and the time will be ripe for Israel to reclaim all of the stolen lands from TransJordan to the Arabian Peninsula. :)
you sound like internet flypaper - or troll if you prefer.
please say the word so hasbara's law can be invoked forthwith
.
You can type a few words like ethnic cleansing, but some of us actually know the meaning of the term and can surmize that you're just another impotent hatched nothing looking for the reasons for your life of failures. Go suck off Abbas or Putin.
AAABB
As Margaret Thatcher once famously siad "The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other peoples' money". And that applies to pensioners also....
The problem in this case for a lot of pensioners it isn't other people's money, but what they paid into the system that .gov was supposed to look after.
How many pension funds were raided or short changed because money went for other things.
They literally steal and promise and steal and make more promises and then it catches up, old people go hungry and without and so do the young.
They got to cut spending on frivolous or none necessary things and start paying attention to basics. Cities don't need to be building arenas and stadiums for the benefit of private teams so the teams can make coin and the cities lose. That is only one example of frivolous spending. Let the teams finance and build their own play houses.
If oil and real estate prices roll over good luck guaranteeing that six-eight percent.
Most folks have lost money in this bull market not made any...to the extent folks were even in the market at all.
So many "tax abatements" really is hard to be a Government in this economy.
Just ask GREECE.
I challenge you to show me a single public employee pension arrangement where the employees paid in enough money _by themselves_ to properly fund it... good luck with that, they're all subsidized heavily on taxpayer backs, with the assumption that tax rates and tax bases can never go down and will always go up...
"they took our pensions, we paid our own way, waah waah"... bull fucking shit you did, that line of argument doesn't hold any water at all...
Awwww come on. Most every private 401k has the companies matching dollar for dollar or at least 50%. The older pension plans had employers making contributions. That all went to shit after the government allowed them to legally raid the plans.The 401k plans started out okay but now are shit as you have people unknown to you placing bets with your money mostly in stocks.
The government plans would have been okay if it hadn't decided to divy up the revenue between their MIC friends and all the wars.
No pension plan ever has the employee paying the full amount,,, private or government. That was why it was called a benefit.
and, you would be wrong... speaking anecdotally, I've never had a 401k that matched... ever... not once... all the contributions are mine and mine alone...
Their salaries are paid by taxpayers, so what they paid into the system was also paid by the taxpayers.
I agree. Which is why the biggest welfare program in history (QE) benefitting the homeowners and wall street needs to end. Time to cut off the top 1% welfare queens.
Fuck the public service pensioners. They made their money much earlier and if they didn't keep it they can rot in hell.
Me, however, had to pay for my grandparents, parents and public service parasites over the last fifty years and I already know my payments will bring me nothing for my retirement. I have no objection to continue paying social security to pay my parents, but anyone else can kiss my ass.
Misinformed. Public service pensions are not part of social security. Public service pensions are part of wage packages paid from taxes, same as daily take-home, same as you would want for yourself.
Spoken like a modern Merikan. May I remind you that I also paid for many grandparents and parents of mine and others. Didn't complain then, not complaining now. At almost 66 I am still paying, and not drawing and not bitching.
Though Public Parasites are under a different plan they still get the funding from We the Marks. On that you are correct and I am as angry as you.
If you worked 20 years and were told you would receive a pension when you retired, then would you be pissed off if they took it away from you at the last minute? Of course you would. Pay your fucking taxes like the rest of us and quit bitching. It's part of the cost of keeping your roads flat, trash taken away, police protection, schools, snow removal, etc. Or would you rather do it all yourself?
and the name of your public employee union is?
Didn't the British Teach Terrorism and working with Bomb to the Jews so that the Jews could fight the Palestinians?
When they bombed the Hotel, the Jews effectively chased out the British from Palestine.
So when the British denounce Terrorists, everyone knows they are full of shit.
Or did I forget the Episode.
Poor tiny dancer Rahm, makes it back to Chicago and his credit goes limp.
Must suck ;-)
(All puns intended)
Pray for the pensioners.
Fuck that, I am going to pray for the youth who had no hand in getting us into this mess.
In the end, that's what it's going to come down to. Either keep the outsized promises to the retirees or have a viable community for the younger generations. Retirees vote like crazy, but that influence has it's limits (and they eventually die of old age). Note what happened to pensioners in bankrupt Detroit. They got a haircut that didn't leave anything above about shoulder level.
It has always been the same old story.....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCQVnSOFqfM
I'll See your Song, and Raise you this one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNId6M4SSNk&list=RDgLG91tOLPdQ&index=11 (Miles from Nowhere, seems to be about making your own rules, the ones that I chose)
Thank you. You just made my day What talent and passion the world used to have. I suppose it is still there. Maybe I am just getting to old to find where it is.
The yootz will learn at some point later that socialism (whether socialized government pensions, healthcare, banking or EBT) only works until someone elses money runs out.
Then its on them to provide the backing for a promise they never made. Thats when they learn.
Yes, lets all think of the cheeeeldrun ;-)
Your comment is age-based divide and conquer, designed to promote antagonism among age groups without any positive suggestion for resolving usury and mismanagement. Whom will it help by turning old against young, young against old? What is your purpose here?
No, they voted Obama for a second term hoping for moar free shit. Got Obamacare and a mandatory one year (or more) federal service requirement coming down the pike.
Obamacare alone outshines anything the boomers are accused of.
Much of the 'borrowed' monies went into housing and feeding the boomers poor yout's while now they want grandma to die already.
And when the final chapter befalls it'll be the elderly and infirm that will take the biggest hit, just like they are in Greece.
Millennials have been at voting age for 15 years now,,, where's the change?.... other than your beloved Obama
Thats right.. the youth won't have pensions. They'll just work until they drop dead in the office. Wall street likes that scenario.
I´m going to start a ratings firm. I´m going to call it:
Winston Smith, Inc.--"Where Your Rating Is Always What You Desire It to Be."
Liberty is a demand. Tyranny is submission.
Re-post from another post:
What's USA's pension payments compared to our GDP? What's our real unemployment numbers, how much is each state behind in pension promises? How much does each State give to food stamps? Disability?
Name me one State that's not in the Red because of pensions, lack of work or just plain mis-management? Don't forget about Puerto Rico,, they are truly screwed.
Trying to put lipstick on a pig only works for so long. Eventually the pig eats some more making the city's and states poorer and poorer.
I say, kill the pig and have a BBQ. Only people invited are the ones not in debt or not living off the Give-me-more-Government.
I hate to say it, but that includes our military as well. As a veteran of 8 years I can say that if kids had a choice to go to college or have a job, the military would be last on anyone's list out of high school. I say all recruiters should be tarred and feathered.
The military prays on our poor, our unskilled, our uneducated.
Let West Point and Annapolis create leaders with nobody to lead.
A real solution now will be better than the real solution later. Because things are just getting worse. Everyone knows we're stuck in 'extend and pretend.'
This is very akin to the Community Re-Investment act and the resulting outcome.
The government basically said to banks that they had to lend to minority borrowers to make housing more accessible to blacks even though blacks couldn't afford homes. If banks refused to comply they were going to get slammed with fines and regulated out of business. So what happened? Banks loosened their lending standards and provided mortgages to blacks that couldn't afford to pay them back. What happened? We got a fantastic bubble in housing and blacks got their mortgages like they wanted. What was the outcome? The financial crisis of 2008 where housing melted down lead by the sub-prime sector which was primarily composed of black borrowers. And guess what the outcome was? Banks got fined for providing loans to black people because black people defaulted at a much higher rate and that was "predatory lending".
So this situation is similar. If Moody's gives the municipalities the ratings that they think they are entitled to and end up defaulting they can turn around and say Moody's was being reckless by offering ratings on bonds that shouldn't have been rated as high. This would all eventually come to a head with investor lawsuits, government bailouts, and congressional hearings.
It's literally damned if you do damned if you don't.
The loan issuers only gave out most of the loans cause they could sell them off to other suckers ... mostly foreign at that. With the help of the ratings agencies.
If they had done the bare minimum legally required and kept them on their own books there would have been no "crisis". Of course the US wouldn't have repatriated a massive amount of dollars either (which happens in every bubble the US blows, money comes back ... bubble bursts, money stays, for a while before the trade deficit sleuces it right back).
What I learned about public office is a rule called CYA (cover your ass). They want Moody's to say it's good even if it isn't, and even if they KNOW it isn't, because it then conforms to the CYA rule of public office.
moody's ratings are for shit anyway
all the ratings agencies work for the bankers to sell garbage or work for the maggots as a total tool in the looting toolshed. they should all be in jail, not telling people policy or selling them junk. while i'm at it go fuck yourself fitch(ez).
@buzz. I guess they're telling Moody's their work isn't shitty enough.
I couldn't agree more Buzz. The ratings agencies are a large part of the problem, and when they try to publish legitimate ratings and figures that are poor, they're dismissed as false or sued by the entity.
Look Tony, dees scumbags at Moodys don’t seem to understand how tings work anymore. We pays em for results, not opinions. They’re screwing tings up for da whole family too, from California to Florida. I think its time we refused their offer, and if dat don’t work, we’re gonna make em an offer dey can’t refuse.
Rahm Emanuel
i'll stamp that shit with the good housekeeping seal of approval a hell of a lot cheaper than those maggots and it wouldn't change a damn thing. they even tell you up front they aren't responsible, they don't guarantee anything, that in fact their ratings are fucking worthless.
Everybody talks like Rahm is some tough guy. He's a fucking fairy. Talks tough but a real nancyboy. Chicago is dead and even the magic negro ain't gonna fix it
I guess the only things more slimy than ratings agencies are the cities and corporations they rate.
Chicago = Greece
US = Greece
We will soon see a stock and bond market collapse wiping out a HUGE portion of pension fund assets...making the hole much larger.
Despite the fed's efforts via QE4 (5? 6?), rates will back up at some point and the target alpha may end up being more achievable when US government debt is yielding 10%, 15%, 20%.
The not-so-silver lining is that, by that time, we will also be experiencing rampant inflation and the pension dollars that could have previously paid for housing, food, and healthcare will barely be enough for a carton of eggs, a roll of toilet paper and a bootleg bottle of moonshine.
Tick tock...tick tock...
Martin Armstrong seems to do a kind of Audit of US Economics.
He seems to agree that Bond Values, Denominated Amounts, are 10 times the value of the whole Stuck Market (If I remember Correctly). He says it is Bond that will cause the Next Huge Depression/Recession/Crash like 1931 (He says check Herbert Hoover Memoirs for 1931).
Oh the other hand I was told by some older people in Government that we will never see 7% on a government Savings Bond Again. There was one series maybe from the Vietnam Era that was well known for being very Great for the Holder while being a tremendous drain on the Federal.gov
Might have been Series E
http://www.savingsbonds.com/bond_basics/series-e-savings-bonds.cfm "The guaranteed minimum investment yield for Series E bonds is 4 percent, compounded semiannually, beginning with extended maturity periods starting on or after March 1, 1993,..."
Edit: But if our TBTF & other Treasury Holders get a high interest rate... WTH why can't citizens get the same high rate? Is it because Banks are Royalty & Citizens are shit?
The fact that the actuarial modeling used for municipalities across the country was flawed from the get go does not bother me so much as the fact that it has taken this long for the forcasted returns to be acknowledged as bogus. I am of average intellect and I could see the trainwreck being created by the rediculous growth forcasts over two decades ago. I knew the dishonest forecasting was deliberate too!
Until a couple years ago we had mark to market pension funds here ... then the fuckers introduced UFR (ie. mark to fantasy, a relatively modest 4.2% long term interest rate fantasy ... but still a fantasy).
the math on this is so simple, and the conclusions you could draw from it so obvious, that even a caveman could do it...
these fucksticks truly thought that the pensions could go through a doubling process every 8 to 10 years, with no end in sight, over a 50 to 70 year period... because demographics and tax bases never ever change over that long of a time frame, oh no... they're fucking constants of the universe...
personally, I think they should make it a test... if you're in line for running government accounting, and you can't describe how the rule of 72 works, then you're not qualified for the job get the fuck out...
The only way out is for cities like Chicago to go bankrupt and default on the outragious pension obligations.
In the meantime, I think the workers deserve a 6% raise...
Clear. In the US the bringer of bad news is the bad news. It has fostered a culture of denial.
That is the trouble with socialism and political handouts... eventually you do run out of other peoples money.
It has been said Obama and dead fish suck cocks together at Mans Country.
Federal Program (SS), they can print up bonds and have them monitized by their partner (FR) via the commercial banks, so inflation can work well on the frogs in the heated water. For states to get the federal printing press help, all they will need to do is convince the federal gov't that they are needed anti-riot payments like food stamps, housing assistance, medicare for kids that people can't afford, etc. They have to convince the fed gov't that teachers, fire, and police will cause social disruption like the rest of citizens if they don't get their payments, and then the printing press will flow for the states:
Senator Reed asked the sitting Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan if he still believed that we should maintain the fundamental principles of Social Security?
“I believe that we should maintain the principles of Social Security, but I think the existing structure is not working. Until we construct a system that creates the savings that are required to build the REAL assets, so that the retirees have REAL goods and services. We don’t have a system that is working.
We have one that basically moves cash around and we can guarantee cash benefits as far out and whatever size you like, but we cannot guarantee their purchasing power. Do we have the material goods and services that people will need to consume, not whether or not we pass some hurdle with respect to how legal financing occurs. Financing is a secondary issue and it is a means to create the REAL wealth, not an end into itself.” -Alan Greenspan 2005
Brian Williams will now keep us informed of pension performance.
In light of this situation how can anyone continue to think that the dollar is not overvalued, and that we must experience a period of rapid inflation in the future?
The only way that unfunded public pension liabilities and the myriad of other dollar denominated liabilities of our governments can ever be repaid is with devalued dollars. There is simply not enough real earning capacity in our society to repay these unrealistic obligations.
Since it will be politically impossible to reduce the obligation as stated by law in nominal dollars, the only reasonable political solution is to devalue the dollar - it is a mathematical certainty. The recipients will be paid less in real terms, but this is inevitable anyway.
However, our current system which creates more currency by issuing debt, run by a private central bank (the Fed), is not the way to proceed. A better way is to dissolve the Fed and return to the system that we had before the formation of the Fed in 1913 - which returns the responsibility for money creation (without interest) to the federal government.
The dollar is not overvalued.
When these pension funds say “We can’t pay, they lied to you forty years ago.” Any granny needs a script to live….
The reverse multiplier will kick-in. At the bottom of the deflation you should be able to buy a house for 5/10 grand.
However, in order for a house to cost 5/10 grand, people will have spent their entire mattress fortune and coins and heirlooms long before.
"In light of this situation how can anyone continue to think that the dollar is not overvalued, and that we must experience a period of rapid inflation in the future?"
An inflation/deflation cycle ends in deflation. In 1928, the 1970's were many decades in the future.
Detroit has gone broke.
Now the County Detroit resides in has gone broke.
Michigan is spending the savings from the Detroit BK on new stadiums. LOL
So do you apparatchiks still think you are so smart and smug to have a .gov pension?
States will get a bail out eventually.
Back in 1976, in a Joint Economic Committee hearing, Senator William Proxmire was engaged in a question and answer session with then-Commissioner of Social Security James Cardwell. This was the conversation:
Senator William Proxmire: "...there are 37 million people, is that right, that get Social Security benefits?"
Social Security Commissioner James Cardwell: "Today between 32 and 34 million."
Proxmire: "I am a little high; 32 to 34 million people.
Almost all of them, or many of them, are voters. In my state, I figure there are 600,000 voters that receive Social Security. Can you imagine a senator or congressman under those circumstances saying, 'We are going to repudiate that high a proportion of the electorate?' No. "Furthermore, we have the capacity under the Constitution, the Congress does, to coin money, as well as to regulate the value thereof. And therefore we have the power to provide that money. And we are going to do it. It may not be worth anything when the recipient gets it, but he is going to get his benefits paid."
Cardwell: "I tend to agree."
Reality? What? Fuck them. Someone get us back into fantasyland, NOW, or we'll shoot!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azaI92vXN-s
If young people are unhappy with the system of socialism or Greed or Cronyism or Systemic Corruption in all our systems, Laws, Income Tax Rules, Health Care, Education, Housing, Bonds, and Derivatives... Well Maybe we will Start a War...
And Draft them into Service to give them something else to think about.
Don't want them to think about the US Constitution, Federal Reforms, Tea Party, Occupy Wall Street, G20 Protests.
http://www.nationaljournal.com/politics/how-to-defeat-isis-with-millenni...
Apparently part of the Press Establishment and Neo-CONs are thinking about a New US Draft/Military Commitment to compliment it's Strategy of Tension (Domestic) to pull Political Sentiment toward the Right and toward the Hawks.
ZioCons just have no shame now that they own the White House, the Pentagon, the Political Process, and the US Congress.
"Our job is to make judgements on credit risk as we see it, said Mr. Blake".
Really? So approving $3 trillion worth of loans to homebuyers with bad credit and undocumented incomes throughout 2007 and rating them with AAA-rating puts you where exactly?
I am sure you are doing a great job now with the economies around the world deteriorating every second. In other words, it can't be too hard to make the "right" decision. Which is to keep cutting.
It didn't set a precedent. It merely confirmed that the Illinois constitution doesn't allow pension benefits for public employees to be reduced. It has no bearing on private pensions, and that provision can be repealed by sending the constitution.
More proof Democrats don't know economics, science or the law.
Damn, who @ Moody's is actually on the "good guys'" side?
Do we have a handful of Rogue Goyim in that institution actually telling the truth when it comes to ratings?
Yeah that's it. Keep ranting and raving about public employees vs private sector employees all the while wall street, banksters and the politicians rob ALL of those employees blind.
They love it.
Starve, you worthless public union fucks!
"When it comes to underfunded pension liabilities one major concern is that in a world characterized by ZIRP and NIRP, it’s not entirely clear that public pension funds are using realistic investment return assumptions."
Clearly they are not realistic assumptions. 100% of bubbles burst and deflate. The FED has engineered one bubble after another. That which cannot continue, won't.
"We wanted a fresh set of eyes,” said Anne Lee, chief financial officer of the Miami-Dade aviation department, of the decision to not hire Moody’s, which she adds charges “30% to 40%” more than other rivals.
Sounds like before the 2008 housing bubble where if you wanted a better appraisal on your home, you could just slip the appraiser a little cash and all of a sudden your home was worth $60k more. For 30%-40% more you can now increase your credit rating.
Fixing an underfunded pension system is like the 3rd rail of state politics. Politicians have over-promised to get elected, with the full expectation they would be long since retired when the system failed. Seems to me at the very least all legislators and governors deemed to have served during a time when their state pension system lost ground, should lose all pension benefits for life. Of course, this in itself won't balance the system by any stretch but it would completely alter the politics in granting ever more generous benefits while doing nothing to fix the system.
Fuck you Rahm you bathhouse queen. Your city is already dead you just don't know it yet
+1000 Berspankme. Not just him though. 99.9% of politicians deserve a FUCK YOU to along with the tar and feathers.
Who you gonna call?
Arthur Anderson?