Reinke Faces Life

http://www.testosteronepit.com/home/2014/6/11/public-pension-plans-boom-and-bubble-forever-or-bust.html

Public Pension Plans: Boom And Bubble Forever Or Bust
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 11, 2014 AT 1:28AM

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Public pension plans of states and cities have been in a heap of trouble for years. Promises of juicy pensions after a relatively short time on the job, with many decades of life expectancy remaining, are easy for politicians to make and buy votes with, and for unions to demand to please their membership. But they’re a tad expensive to live up to. Some have been involved in bankruptcies of their municipalities, including those of Detroit. Others are headed that way.

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The best-case scenario, which is also the base scenario, assumes return on investment is 7.7% for all plan assets combined, for all years to come.

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Assuming the unlikely scenario of an eternal return of 7.7% annually, some of these pension funds are in worse trouble than others. A small coterie, like the Louisiana State Parochial Employees fund, is funded over 100%. But most plans are in trouble. Some of the worst sinners: Alaska Teachers with a funded ratio of 47.9%, Connecticut SERS (41.2%), Illinois Teachers (40.6%), Chicago Municipal employees (37.0%), Illinois SERS (34.2%), Chicago Police (30.9%), or Kentucky ERS (25.8%). Some of the sinners are relatively small plans, but several are large, such as the Illinois SERS, Illinois Teachers, and Connecticut SERS. If markets were allowed to swoon, these babies would be wiped out.

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And even that miracle, combined with the other miracle, a 7.7% return for all years to come, won’t be enough: it would still leave plans $1.1 trillion underfunded. Alas, if the rate of return drops to 5%, the hole will increase to $3.0 trillion, and plans would only be 50% funded. And at a rate of return of 4.0%, unfunded liabilities would jump to $3.8 trillion, and numerous plans would simply….

Reality is too ugly to contemplate. So now the hope is that the new rules – accounting for stock market surges in the year in which they occur – will trigger big gains immediately and drive up the funded ratios. Better not even think about the possibility that the stock market might stumble from current bubble highs or that a soupçon of chaos in the bond market would slam junk bonds and trigger a wave of defaults.

What these pension plans need in order to be there in the future, the report suggests, is a booming economy year after year and endlessly inflating asset bubbles. Otherwise, forget it.

Wiping out in one fell swoop six years of carefully orchestrated propaganda, St. Louis Fed President James Bullard admitted that the Fed had dropped the ball during the prior bubble that blew up the financial system, and that it’s dropping the ball again during the current bubble. 

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So what does the average schmoe do?

Plan for pension defaults. Save in commodities. 

Does anyone really believe in 7+% returns forever?

In war movies, you always hear “get small in your hole”. I think that advice is good for fiscal crisis.

Always live modestly. Save in commodities. No “bad” debt; very little “good” debt.

I’m not sure that IRA / 401k is a panacea. I’m in it big time, but the politicians and bureaucrats must be looking at that pot of wealth longingly.

Argh!

YMMV

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http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2014/06/09/hillary_clinton_we_came_out_of_the_white_house_dead_broke.html

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DIANE SAWYER, ABC NEWS: It has been reported you’ve made $5 million making speeches, the president’s made more than $100 million.

HILLARY CLINTON: Well, if you — you have no reason to remember, but we came out of the White House not only dead broke, but in debt. We had no money when we got there and we struggled to, you know, piece together the resources for mortgages for houses, for Chelsea’s education, you know, it was not easy. Bill has worked really hard and it’s been amazing to me. He’s worked very hard, first of all, we had to pay off all our debts which was, you know, we had to make double the money because of obviously taxes, and pay you have at debts, and get us houses and take care of family members.

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Are you kidding me?

What about the famous book advance?

Argh!

And never mind the whine about she was responsible for security? She just hired the people who did it. Guess she didn’t do such a good job!

And the response about Monica; “I am not going to comment on what I said back in the 90’s”. How does she get off with that response.

Also, don’t get me started on “What difference does it make?”

Argh!

I don’t understand the Liberal’s “Love Affair” with this woman.

We can also roll back the clock to Whitewater — when the Clinton’s defrauded poor black retirees out of their retirement dreams!

Argh! to the n-th power.

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http://dailyreckoning.com/how-gold-helped-iran-avoid-defeat-by-the-u-s/

How Gold Helped Iran Avoid Defeat by the U.S.
by Addison Wiggin.
Posted May 22, 2014. 

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By July 2013, the U.S. Treasury had figured that out… and so began stepping up enforcement of a ban on gold sales to Iran — “a tacit recognition by the United States that gold is money,” Rickards adds dryly.

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By late last year, Iran and the United States agreed to resume negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program. As part of that tentative agreement, President Obama removed the sanctions on gold purchases by Iran — one of the few ways he could ease Iranian sanctions without the say-so of Congress.

“For the time being,” Rickards concludes, “Iran had fought the United States to a standstill in its financial war, despite enormous disruption to the Iranian economy. The U.S.-Iranian financial war of 2012–13 illustrates how nations that could not stand up to the United States militarily could prove a tough match when the battlefield is financial or electronic.”

“Iran,” Rickards writes, “also demonstrated how financial warfare and cyberwarfare could be combined in a hybrid asymmetric attack.”

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Not so, says former Ambassador William Miller, who was stationed in Iran during the 1960s and is in contact with the current regime. “Sanctions only made them more defiant,” he tells the Los Angeles Times.

Want proof? Iran put the same offer on the table in 2003 — only to be spurned by the United States. Actually, it was a better offer from Washington’s perspective. Back then, Iran had only 164 nuclear centrifuges; by 2013, it had 19,000. That’s a heck of a lot more bargaining chips to hold once negotiations begin in earnest.

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It’s well know that Sadam wanted to paid for “his” oil in gold just before the USA took over.

Now, Iran exposes that the dollar monopoly could be broken. 

I’m sure this lesson will not go unnoticed around the world.

And China is buying gold by the “dump truck”.

No secret — “stuff” is better than Washington’s paper IOUs.

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http://termlimits.org/

About Term Limits

Term Limits is still known as the largest grassroots movement in American history, and US Term Limits (USTL) was, and still is, the leader of that …

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Overdue! 

One thing the Dead Old White Guys got wrong.

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http://nutritionfacts.org/video/taxpayer-subsidies-for-unhealthy-foods/

Taxpayer Subsidies for Unhealthy Foods
What if billions in tax dollars were invested in healthier options rather than given to corporations to subsidize the very foods that are making us sick?

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I was especially shocked (“I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!” Captain Renault in Casablanca) that the Gooferment has give “hundreds of billions” to subsidize junk food.

Argh!

I’m not a fan of any taxing of anything. So, I’ll respectfully disagree with the idea of taxing the junk food. (Too much like Michael Bloomberg!)

But removing all subsidies is an idea I can support vigorously.

I never understood “parity payments”, “minimum price”, and other Corporate Welfare payoffs.

Argh!

Matter of fact, they could have stopped after “Taxpayer Subsidies”. I don’t want anything “subsidized”!

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http://us7.campaign-archive1.com/?u=a62f6d3a19ffbd4c6852a4c85&id=0eaf58a7dc&e=da6c31a530

We proudly filed a brief in the Supreme Court’s McCutcheon case. The Court ruled in favor of McCutcheon on Wednesday, a victory you helped secure.

In fact, it’s the latest in a string of victories in the area of campaign finance.

You’re going to hear a lot of misreporting and bad analysis about McCutcheon. I’ve already seen it. You’d think raping babies was just legalized, given all the hysterical shrieking.

Like Citizens United before it, the shrieking needs to be misleading to work. The exaggeration and outright lying has already begun. The ever-shrill Common Cause alleged that, The Supreme Court just…

gaveled in a new era of political corruption
made it easier to bribe politicians

The truth is, the McCutcheon decision was actually pretty mundane.

Before McCutcheon, an individual could donate only…

$2,600 to individual candidates
$32,400 to national party committees
$5,000 to political action committees

After McCutcheon, that same person could donate only…

$2,600 to individual candidates
$32,400 to national party committees
$5,000 to political action committees

Oh the humanity!

What ACTUALLY changed is the total amount that an individual could contribute in a political season. Before McCutcheon those caps were…

$48,600 to all candidates
$74,600 to all PACs and parties
For a total of $123,200

After McCutcheon, there is no cap.

The hysterical bawling about this decision is that now the rich will have more influence over elections… As if they didn’t have this influence already, under the silly, incumbent-protecting laws we’ve had since 1972!

But this Common Cause led bluster doesn’t make sense…

The individual contribution limits remain the same! Does anyone honestly believe that a mere $2,600 contribution is going to swing a federal election?

If not, then how much more “king-making” power has been granted to wealthy individual donors, now capable of giving to 20 or more candidates, when before this week, they could only give to 18 1/2?

Some will argue that there’s too much money in politics, and that these additional donations make that problem worse. To them, I recommend the article below.

As for the McCutcheon decision, this was a 5-4 victory. It was another step forward in a fight we’ve been waging for 14 years!

Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a concurring opinion with the majority. For years, he’s been the leading voice in defense of the First Amendment. He argued that the Buckley v Valeo distinction, between expenditures and contributions, should be overturned. And that’s what we argued in the brief you funded.

But since our loss in McConnell decision (2003), we’ve had victories in Wisconsin Right to Life I and II, Citizens United, Van Hollen, and now McCutcheon that are unraveling these establishment protection schemes. And that’s why we consider this a victory.

We will, with your support, remain in the fight.

You can read the brief we filed here: http://www.downsizedc.org/blog-content/mccutcheon-ddcf-amicus-brief.pdf

You can read the decision here: http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/12-536_e1pf.pdf (corrected)

And you can support our continued efforts in the Courts here:
https://secure.downsizedcfoundation.org/contribute/

Jim Babka
President
Downsize DC Foundation

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http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/04/suit-challenging-drone-strikes-that-killed-americans-16-year-old-boy-is-tossed/#p3

Suit challenging drone strikes that killed Americans, 16-year-old boy is tossed [Updated]
Judge says drone killings are US military and president’s prerogative.
by David Kravets – Apr 4 2014, 7:00pm EDT

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“The court’s view that it cannot provide a remedy for extrajudicial killings when the government claims to be at war, even far from any battlefield, is profoundly at odds with the Constitution,” Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU’s National Security Project, said in an e-mail. “It is precisely when individual liberties are under such grave threat that we need the courts to act to defend them. In holding that violations of U.S. citizens’ right to life cannot be heard in a federal courtroom, the court abdicated its constitutional role.”

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This is tough one.

Basically the Gooferment can do what it wants.

But then couldn’t it always?

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The Supreme Court has decided the McCutcheon case. If you haven’t heard yet, it’s a disaster.

Few were surprised with the result. The Court has held that aggregate limits on contributions — the total amount you can give to all candidates, not the amount you can give to any one candidate — are unconstitutional. The inevitable result of this decision will be to reduce the number of relevant funders of campaigns. We’re on our way from Lesterland to Sheldon City — from a democracy where about 150,000 Americans are the relevant funders of campaigns (the same as are named “Lester”) to a world where about 40,000 Americans are the relevant funders of campaigns (the same as are named “Sheldon”).

I’ve written a short piece about the mistake in the Supreme Court’s decision. But as I’ve long insisted, the real problem in American democracy is not the Court. Or at least, not only the Court. The real corruption is the way we fund elections. This decision makes our fight against that corruption even more urgent.

Now is the time to add your name and support the Government by the People Act.

This Act is an opportunity to take our elections back from the handful of funders whose grip on our democracy tightens by the day. And only by adding your name to the call for reform will we be able to compete with the Lesters or Sheldons of this country.

They say the darkest hour is just before the dawn. If so, then the dawn is not that far away.

Act now to fight back and voice your support for the Government by the People Act.

-Lessig and the entire Rootstrikers/Demand Progress Team

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This is an understandable decision. I’m not so sure it’s good or bad. 

Secession!

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http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/can-boy-s-life-be-saved_784914.html#

Can This Boy’s Life Be Saved?
The answer may depend on President Obama.
MAR 24, 2014, VOL. 19, NO. 27 • BY MICHAEL ASTRUE

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The January 31, 2014, Boston Globe front page included two life-and-death stories. One announced that the U.S. Department of Justice would seek the death penalty for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who is facing trial for the Boston Marathon bombing. Animated debate about the proper penalty for Tsarnaev continues around Boston.

The other story snapped my head back because it involved a death penalty for Jack Fowler, a 6-year-old boy dying of the more virulent form of Hunter syndrome (also known as MPS-II). The drug he needs to survive, which he is being denied, is one that I had first proposed in 2003 when I was CEO of a small biotech company focused on rare diseases. In 2005, after two years of developing this drug, Shire Pharmaceuticals bought my company over my objections, and I lost touch with the program. Jack’s situation is particularly compelling, but hardly unique.

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As everyone knows the Gooferment is immoral, ineffective, and inefficient. 

What’s surprising about this is that BHO44 hasn’t jumped on it.

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http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304914904579435171004763740?mod=djemalertNEWS

BUSINESS
GM Now Says It Detected Ignition Switch Problem Back in 2001
GM Says Problem Occurred In Pre-Production of Saturn Ion

By JEFF BENNETT CONNECT
Updated March 12, 2014 8:11 p.m. ET
General Motors Co. now says it may have known about problems with its ignition switches dating back to 2001 when it was developing but had not yet launched the Saturn Ion.

In documents disclosed to federal regulators, GM said it had found some sort of issue contributing to the ignition’s inner workings which have now been linked to a recall of 1.6 million vehicles and 12 deaths.

The auto maker said an ignition switch design…

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So how much is this going to cost the Sheeple (aka taxpayers)?

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