Tag Archives: public pensions

Another Way Of Looking At The Pension Crisis, As “A Stealth Mortgage on Your House”, by John Rubino

Posted on August 11, 2018 | Leave a comment

Public pensions are an average of $75,000 for each household. From John Rubino at dollarcollapse.com:

Money manager Rob Arnott and finance professor Lisa Meulbroek have run the numbers on underfunded pension plans and come up with an interesting – and highly concerning – new angle: That they impose a “stealth mortgage” on homeowners. Here’s how the Wall Street Journal reported it today:

The Stealth Pension Mortgage on Your House

Most cities, counties and states have committed taxpayers to significant future unfunded spending. This mostly takes the form of pension and postretirement health-care obligations for public employees, a burden that averages $75,000 per household but exceeds $100,000 per household in some states. Many states protect public pensions in their constitutions, meaning they cannot be renegotiated. Future pension obligations simply must be paid, either through higher taxes or cuts to public services.

Is there a way out for taxpayers in states that are deep in the red? Milton Friedman famously observed that the only thing more mobile than the wealthy is their capital. Some residents may hope that they can avoid the pension crash by decamping to a more fiscally sound state.

But this escape may be illusory. State taxes are collected on four economic activities: consumption (sales tax), labor and investment (income tax) and real-estate ownership (property tax). The affluent can escape sales and income taxes by moving to a new state—but real estate stays behind. Property values must ultimately support the obligations that politicians have promised, even if those obligations aren’t properly funded, because real estate is the only source of state and local revenue that can’t pick up and move elsewhere. Whether or not unfunded obligations are paid with property taxes, it’s the property that backs the obligations in the end.

To continue reading: Another Way Of Looking At The Pension Crisis, As “A Stealth Mortgage on Your House”

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The War between Public Pensioners and Tax Donkeys Is Heating Up, by Charles Hugh Smith

Posted on April 21, 2018 | 12 comments

The tax donkeys win this battle by withdrawing from it, a la Atlas Shrugged. From Charles Hugh Smith at oftwominds.com:

The migration is only beginning, but that’s only half the story.

You know it’s serious when the newspaper of record finally reports it: A $76,000 Monthly Pension: Why States and Cities Are Short on Cash (New York Times).

It’s a long article but the summary is brief: corrupt politicos promised the moon to public employees, and now the fiscal chickens of insolvency are coming home to roost.

Public pension obligations are rising so fast that even repeated tax increases can’t keep up.

This is setting up a second front in the war between entitled Baby Boomersand younger taxpayers who pay most of the federal and local taxes. Public pensioners are a subset of the entitled Baby Boomers, but their pensions can’t be paid with borrowed money like Social Security and Medicare; public pension obligations come out of local and state taxes, and as those obligations soar then public services must be slashed and taxes jacked up by annual double-digit increases.

So there is a war brewing between public pensioners and the Tax Donkeys: the Unprotected who pay local property taxes on their homes, state and local taxes on their incomes, sales taxes on their purchases, junk fees on local government services, and so on.

Corrupt politicos created the war by over-promising benefits to public employees and ignoring fiscal realities. By the time the bill comes due, the politicos who rubber-stamped the unaffordable promises are themselves gorging at the public-pension retiree trough.

Not every public employee is receiving gold-plated pensions and benefits, of course, but that doesn’t negate the reality that nationally, public pensions are increasing faster than government revenues and the returns earned by the pension programs.

If the stock and bond markets suffer multi-year declines, even modest declines, the pension war will move from skirmishes to open political combat.The 2008-09 Global Financial Meltdown was a taste of the reality facing public pension programs: once annual returns slip from +7% annually to -7% annually, the pension plans are soon insolvent.

Like virtually all wars, there are asymmetries between the two combatants: in the war between public pensioners and the Tax Donkeys, the pensioners can’t switch pension programs, but the Tax Donkeys can move to lower-tax states.

To continue reading: The War between Public Pensioners and Tax Donkeys Is Heating Up

 

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More Absolutely Crazy Pension News, by John Rubino

Posted on April 17, 2018 | 13 comments

One government employee in Oregon receives a pension of $76,111…per month! From John Rubino at dollarcollapse.com:

“War” and “pensions” are conceptually about as different as it’s possible to be. But – in a measure of how far into Crazy Town we’ve wandered – they’re both taking the world in the same direction.

If a Middle East (or Asian!) war doesn’t spike oil prices and push the global economy into recession, then pensions will probably produce the same end result. Here’s an excerpt from a much longer New York Times article that should be read in its entirety for a sense of what public finance has become:

A $76,000 Monthly Pension: Why States and Cities Are Short on Cash

A public university president in Oregon gives new meaning to the idea of a pensioner.

Joseph Robertson, an eye surgeon who retired as head of the Oregon Health & Science University last fall, receives the state’s largest government pension.

It is $76,111.

Per month.

That is considerably more than the average Oregon family earns in a year.

Oregon — like many other states and cities, including New Jersey, Kentucky and Connecticut — is caught in a fiscal squeeze of its own making. Its economy is growing, but the cost of its state-run pension system is growing faster. More government workers are retiring, including more than 2,000, like Dr. Robertson, who get pensions exceeding $100,000 a year.

The state is not the most profligate pension payer in America, but its spiraling costs are notable in part because Oregon enjoys a reputation for fiscal discipline. Its experience shows how faulty financial decisions by states can eventually swamp local communities.

Oregon’s costs are inflated by the way in which it calculates pension benefits for public employees. Some of the pensions include income that employees earned on the side. Other retirees benefit from long-ago stock market rallies that inflated the current value of their payouts.

For example, the pension for Mike Bellotti, the University of Oregon’s head football coach from 1995 to 2008, includes not just his salary but also money from licensing deals and endorsements that the Ducks’ athletic program generated. Mr. Bellotti’s pension is more than $46,000 a month.

The bill is borne by taxpayers. Oregon’s Public Employees Retirement System has told cities, counties, school districts and other local entities to contribute more to keep the system afloat. They can neither negotiate nor raise local taxes fast enough to keep up. As a result, pensions are crowding out other spending. Essential services are slashed.

To continue reading: More Absolutely Crazy Pension News

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Harvey, the first domino in Illinois: Data shows 400 other pension funds could trigger garnishment – Wirepoints Special Report by Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner

Posted on April 17, 2018 | 4 comments

A little town in Illinois can’t make payments to its police pension fund and the state is garnishing the town’s tax revenues. It’s the shape of things to come; call it pension musical chairs and the game has begun in Illinois. From Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner at wirepoints.com:

Harvey, the first domino in Illinois: Data shows 400 other pension funds could trigger garnishment

You’d be mistaken to think Harvey, Illinois has a unique pension crisis. It may be the first, and its problems may be the most severe, but the reality is the mess is everywhere, from East St. Louis to Rockford and from Quincy to Danville. A review of Illinois Department of Insurance pension data shows that Harvey could be just the start of a flood of garnishments across the state (click here to see the list).

Harvey made the news last year when an Illinois court ordered the municipality to hike its property taxes (already at an effective rate of 5.7 percent – six times more than the average in Indiana) to properly fund the Harvey firefighter pension fund, which is just 22 percent funded.

Now, the state has stepped in on behalf of Harvey’s police pension fund. The state comptroller has begun garnishing the city’s tax revenues to make up what the municipality failed to contribute. In response, the city has announced that 40 public safety employees will be laid off.

Under state law, pensions that don’t receive required funding may demand the Illinois Comptroller intercept their municipality’s tax revenues. More than 400 police and fire pension funds, or 63 percent of Illinois’ 651 total downstate public safety funds, received less funding than what was required from their cities in 2016 – the most recent year for which statewide datais available.

Two-thirds of Illinois’ 355 police pension funds failed to receive their full required contribution in 2016. And 60 percent of Illinois’ 296 firefighter pension funds suffered the same fate.

If those same numbers continue to hold true, all those cities face the risk of having their revenues intercepted by the comptroller.

To continue reading: Harvey, the first domino in Illinois: Data shows 400 other pension funds could trigger garnishment – Wirepoints Special Report

 

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Stanford Says Soaring Public Pension Costs Devastating Budgets For Education And Social Services, by Tyler Durden

Posted on October 5, 2017 | Leave a comment

In 15 years, public pensions share of California’s budget has tripled. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:

A new study from Joe Nation of Stanford’s Institute for Economic Policy Research entitled “Pension Math: Public Pension Spending and Service Crowd Out in California, 2003-2030,” says that the devastating consequences of the ill-advised, Cadillac pensions doled out to America’s public employees over the past several decades are only getting started. 

Looking back at taxpayer contributions to public pensions in California, Nation found that they’ve increased by 5 times since 2002-2003 and are very likely to double again by 2029-2030.  Not surprisingly, that kind of hyper-inflationary growth has massively outstripped increases in tax revenue, even in the great progressive state of California (shocking, we know), meaning that pension contributions now account for 11.4% of California’s operating budget, up 3x from the 3.9% it consumed in 2002-2003.

For more than a decade, public pension costs have been rising sharply in California. There is contentious debate about what is driving these cost increases—significant retroactive benefit increases, unrealistic assumptions about investment earnings, operational practices that mask or delay recognition of true system costs, poor governance, 1 to name the most commonly cited. But there is agreement on one fact: public pension costs are making it harder to provide services that have traditionally been considered part of government’s core mission.
  • Employer pension contributions (i.e., pension contributions plus debt service on any Pension Obligation Bonds) from 2002-03 to 2017-18 expanded on average 400%, i.e., contributions in nominal dollars are now five times greater.
  • Employer contributions are projected to rise an additional 76% on average from 2017-18 to 2029-30 in the baseline projection and 117%, i.e., more than double, in the alternative projection.
  • Employer pension contributions from 2002-03 to 2017-18 have increased at a much faster rate than operating expenditures. As noted, pension contributions increased an average of 400%; operating expenditures grew 46%. As a result, pension contributions now consume on average 11.4% of all operating expenditures, more than three times their 3.9% share in 2002-03.
  • The pension share of operating expenditures is projected to increase further by 2029-30: to 14.0% under the baseline projection—that is, even if all system assumptions, including assumed investment rates of return, are met—or to 17.5% under the alternative projection.
  • The average employer funding amount expressed as a percent of active member payroll, i.e., the employer contribution rate,5 has increased from 17.7% in 2008-09 to 30.8% in 2017-18. By 2029-30, it reaches 35.2% under the baseline projection and 44.2% under the alternative projection.
  • On a market basis, the average funded ratio fell from 58.5% in 2008 to 43.0% in 2015. By 2029 it improves to 48.2% in the baseline projection, but falls to 39.0% in the alternative projection. The unfunded liability per jurisdiction household on an actuarial basis also rose from an average $1,682 in 2008 to $5,071 in 2015; the unfunded liability per household on a market basis is $21,491, up from $9,127 in 2008.

To continue reading: Stanford Says Soaring Public Pension Costs Devastating Budgets For Education And Social Services

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America’s Pension Bomb: Illinois Is Just the Start, by Tyler Durden

Posted on July 2, 2017 | 1 comment

There are a lot of pension promises out there that aren’t going to be kept. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:

We’ve written quite a bit over the past couple of months about the pending financial crisis in Illinois which will inevitability result in the state’s debt being downgraded to “junk” at some point in the near future (here is our latest from just this morning: “From Horrific To Catastrophic”: Court Ruling Sends Illinois Into Financial Abyss).

Unfortunately, the state of Illinois doesn’t have a monopoly on ignorant politicians…they’re everywhere.  And, since the end of World War II, those ignorant politicians have been promising American Baby Boomers more and more entitlements while never collecting nearly enough money to cover them all…it’s all been a massive state-sponsored scam.

As we’ve noted frequently before, some of the largest of the many entitlement ‘scams’ in this country are America’s public pension funds.  Up until now, these public pension have been covered by stealing money set aside for future generations to cover current claims…it’s a ponzi scheme of epic proportions…$5-$8 trillion to be exact.

Of course, the problem with ponzi schemes is that eventually you get to the point where the ponzi is so large that you can’t possibly steal enough money from new entrants to cover redemptions from those trying to exit…and, with a tidal wave of baby boomers about to pass into their retirement years, we suspect that America’s epic ponzi is on the verge of being exposed for the world to see.

And when the ponzi dominoes start to fall, Bloomberg has provided this helpful map to illustrate who will succumb first…

To continue reading: America’s Pension Bomb: Illinois Is Just the Start

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An Unsolvable Math Problem: Public Pensions Are Underfunded By As Much As $8 Trillion, by Tyler Durden

Posted on August 10, 2016 | Leave a comment

Nobody really wants to delve too deeply into public pension underfunding, and nobody wants to use realistic rate of return assumptions. Municipalities and states will go bankrupt, it’s just a question of when. Until they do, let’s all play let’s pretend. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:

Defined Benefit Pension Plans are, in many cases, a ponzi scheme. Current assets are used to pay current claims in full in spite of insufficient funding to pay future liabilities… classic Ponzi. But unlike wall street and corporate ponzi schemes no one goes to jail here because the establishment is complicit. Everyone from government officials to union bosses are incentivized to maintain the status quo…public employees get to sleep better at night thinking they have a “retirement plan,” public legislators get to be re-elected by union membership while pretending their states are solvent and union bosses get to keep their jobs while hiding the truth from employees.

We even published a note several days ago entitled “Establishment Tries To Suppress “Dissident Actuaries” Explosive Report On Public Pensions,” which pointed out that the American Academy of Actuaries and the Society of Actuaries killed a report that would have warned about the implications of lowering long-term expected returns on pension assets. Apparently the truth was just too scary.

Bill Gross has been warning of the unintended consequences of low interest rates for years, and reiterated his concerns to Bloomberg recently:

Fund managers that have been counting on returns of 7 percent to 8 percent may need to adjust that to around 4 percent, Gross, who runs the $1.5 billion Janus Global Unconstrained Bond Fund, said during an Aug. 5 interview on Bloomberg TV. Public pensions, including the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, the largest in the U.S., are reporting gains of less than 1 percent for the fiscal year ended June 30.

To our great surprise, certain pension funds are finally taking notice. Richard Ingram of Illinois’s largest pension fund recently announced that he would be taking another look at long-term return expectations noting that “anybody that doesn’t consider revisiting what their assumed rate of return is would be ignoring reality.” Ingram’s Illinois Teachers’ Retirement System is only 41.5% funded and currently assumes annual returns of 7.5%, down from 8% in 2014.

We decided to take a look at what would happen if all federal, state and local pension plans decided to heed the advice of Mr. Gross. As one might suspect, the results are not pleasant. We conservatively assume that public pensions are currently $2.0 trillion underfunded ($4.5 trillion of assets for $6.5 trillion of liabilities) even though we’ve seen estimates that suggest $3.5 trillion or more might be more appropriate. We then adjusted the return on asset assumption down from the 7.5% used by most pensions to the 4.0% suggested by Mr. Gross and found that true public pension underfunding could be closer to $5.5 trillion, or over 2.5x more than current estimates. Others have suggested that returns should be closer to risk-free rates which would imply an even more draconian $8.4 trillion underfunding.

While it should be a substantial overhang for the economy, no one seems to care for now, and thus, we don’t expect this issue to be addressed anytime in the near future. Certainly legislators have no incentive to address this issue now… the country’s 15 million union employees may not be so happy about supporting their political candidates if they knew their retirement plans were insolvent… much better to let the system break in 20 years then fix it with a massive tax increase and subsequent taxpayer bailout after convincing the electorate that the problem was somehow created by top earners not paying “their fair share.” After all, it’s only $23,000 per man, woman and child.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-08-09/public-pension-ponzi-are-public-pensions-short-8-trillion

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