"The real threat to pensions is Wall Street"

[applegrove]

The real threat to pensions is Wall Street

by Matthew Cunningham-Cook at al jazeera

http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/12/wall-street-unionspensioncrisis.html

"SNIP......................


What the obsession with unfunded liabilities misses, however, is the actual and current emergency facing pension funds: Wall Street grifting. Valued at more than $5.3 trillion, public pension funds have for decades been a cash cow for finance. Pensions buy up shares in private equity and hedge funds, complex derivatives and foreign currency at prices higher than what they are worth — earning Wall Street billions in profits, according to Edward Siedle, a leading expert on public pensions. Leading banks have recently been caught in scandal for manipulating foreign exchange prices for their pension fund clients.

The most underreported data point in this regard is a 2007 dispatch from the Governmental Accountability Office (GAO), Congress’ investigative arm. It examined 24 pension investment consultants, by far the most influential actors when it comes to where pension assets are invested.

The report found that 13 of the 24 — including the largest players in the business — had significant conflicts of interest, largely consisting of accepting fees and other considerations from investment firms the consultants recommended. Those 13 had, at the time, over $4.5 trillion in assets under advisement. The GAO found that the average return by the pension funds advised by conflicted consultants was 1.3 percent lower than other plans.

The report’s enduring salience prompted Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., the top Democrat on the House Education and Labor Committee, to request in June that the Department of Labor further investigate conflicts of interest among investment consultants.




......................SNIP"

[NaturalHigh]

1. Have you ever read any of Clive Barker's Books of Blood?

Specifically Babel's Children:

After breaking down in the middle of nowhere, a young woman happens across a secluded compound in which the world's greatest minds, a group of elderly scientists and scholars, are responsible for determining the outcome of major world events. They have lived in the complex for many years and by this point their decisions have degenerated to being made solely via games of chance.

I think some of our "leaders" have reached this point, playing games with our lives, gambling pensions and futures like they would play with quarters on slot machines.

[applegrove]

3. They need virgin territory to make money off of. So they

create it in financial markets. Most of America's markets at home and markets in Europe are mature. No easy money to be made there. And they already have maxed out their portfolios of foreign markets...with its inherent risks. It is easy money they crave. Cause working for it is a drag. And then they make easy money off of not increasing minimum wage. Cause they don't care that working for money is a drag for others. Hypocrites.

[RiverLover]

2. The Grifters, at it again. How do they get away with buying at prices higher than worth?

There's a pay off for someone on both sides of this I think.

And these derivatives again....grrr

The Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 (CFMA) is United States federal legislation that officially ensured modernized regulation[1] of financial products known as over-the-counter derivatives. It was signed into law on December 21, 2000 by President Bill Clinton. It clarified the law so that most over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives transactions between "sophisticated parties" would not be regulated as "futures" under the Commodity Exchange Act of 1936 (CEA) or as "securities" under the federal securities laws. Instead, the major dealers of those products (banks and securities firms) would continue to have their dealings in OTC derivatives supervised by their federal regulators under general "safety and soundness" standards. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission's (CFTC) desire to have "Functional regulation" of the market was also rejected. Instead, the CFTC would continue to do "entity-based supervision of OTC derivatives dealers." [2] These derivatives, including the credit default swap, are a few of the many causes of the financial crisis of 2008 and the subsequent 2008–2012 global recession.[3]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodity_Futures_Modernization_Act_of_2000

$5.3 trillion. gads.

Thanks for posting applegrove. So many reasons to hate Wall Street, so little time.

[applegrove]

4. Wall Street is useful. When it stops being useful and starts endangering

the country it should be properly regulated.

[SamKnause]

5. Bullshit !!!!

The U.S. government is the real threat to pensions.

Wall Street can only get away with what our elected officials allow them to get away with.

If they are too cowardly to govern, they should all be impeached.

To allow Wall Street to gamble with the global economy is insanity.

The government passed all the laws that allows Wall Street to continue stealing the wealth of the masses.

The government looked the other way when they knew Wall Street's activities were illegal.

The government admitted that the banks were too big to fail and too big to jail.

IT IS THE U.S. GOVERNMENTS FAULT !!!!!!!!!!!

[NewDeal_Dem]

10. Who works for who? Who has more power? Do we really know?

[moondust]

6. Stop feeding the beast!

[appalachiablue]

7. And the real threat to PEOPLE is Wall Street

[Man from Pickens]

8. WAS Wall Street

People need to start processing that the money is LONG GONE, replaced by debt obligations that cannot will not ever be repaid.

[Odin2005]

9. The parasitic octopus sees another source of money it can fleece from the 99%.

[Scuba]

11. Our public worker pensions are at risk largely because ...

... we lack the political will to tax the people who have all the money.