How the public (and Government employees) are being played for useful idiots
The Gov Pension Fund / System Scam
by Walter Burien - CAFR1
05/16/15
The new GAP accounting implemented over the last 8 years established by GASB.org requires local government accounting to project all liability as if it is due today.
This means pension fund accounting (and other local government funds) are required to project out 35 years to satisfy ALL projected payments to participants with what they will be paid AT TIME OF RETIREMENT. They use max projections there. EXAMPLE: Employee making 50K today at retirement after pay increases, projected inflation, etc., will be making 185K. Additionally, THEY DO NOT account for the projected income for the fund out 35 years in full. They redact much.
So based on the new accounting, a pension fund that may have been 150% funded today, in the snap of the finger could now be adjusted to being 60% funded. (40% underfunded)
Motive? The larger the investment fund balance for that local government, the bigger the power base. Where those funds are invested domestic and international creates the biggest payola network globally times thousands of different local government funds/systems of the same.
Another point most employees and taxpayers are not aware of is: Most local government pension funds / systems are "Strictly Participatory". What that means is the employee does not own 1c of the fund, they just have in so many words a "Ticket to Ride" under contract terms.
The local government owns 100% of the fund balance. Now if the employees owned 100% of the balance, the accounting local governments are doing would be 100% fraud and an indictable offense under SEC law and fiduciary ethics guidelines.
Most fund balances are so large they do not require contributions from the employee or tax payer, rates of return are primarily meeting requirements. Plus if the employees owned the fund balance it would be required to give each a pro-rated value of each employees ownership in $$ terms each year. If that was the case and done my would those participating employees get a big surprise. Long-term participants, they would see their ownership value at on the low side $650,000 to on the high side $3,500,000.
But being that these funds are Strictly Participatory (similar to the Social Security fund) SEC laws and fiduciary fund management guidelines only require that those "Tickets to Ride" under contract are in line to be satisfied based on the GUIDELINES that local government is operating under.(and they create their own guidelines)
TREASON: "Treason doth never prosper; what's the reason? For if it prosper, none dare call it treason." Sir John Harrington, 1561-1612
Please share, publish, and post my comments with others (especially those government employees who are participating with these funds/systems)
Walter Burien - CAFR1.com
P. O. Box 2112
Saint Johns, AZ 85936
Tel. (928) 458-5854
PS: Federal groups like FBI agents have profit sharing pensions. They see each year the value of "their" share in the Pension they are enrolled as an "owner". Back in the 90's their eyes must have been bulging out of their head when they looked. They saw they would get 175% to 250% over what they were expecting to get at retirement based on fund performance.
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CAFR1's REPLY ABOVE TO THE ARTICLE THAT FOLLOWS:
How Illinois "Pension Debt Blew Up Chicago's Credit"
What happens when you've been kicking the fiscal can down the road for years, but the road suddenly hits a dead end? That's what Chicago "and the state of Illinois" are about to find out.
Chicago's immediate problem is yesterday's credit downgrade by Moody's Investors Services, which turned its debt to junk and could force the city to immediately come up with $2.2 billion to satisfy debts and other obligations.
It's not clear how "or if" the city could come up with that money.
When big cities have had debt crises such as Detroit's recent problems or New York City's epic problems in the 1970s states typically rode to the rescue in one way or another. But Illinois, which has the lowest credit rating of any state in the nation, says it can't help the stricken city.
The downgrade follows a Friday decision by the Illinois Supreme Court, which invalidated state limits on cost-of-living adjustments to state pensioners. The limits were part of a slate of reforms signed into law in 2013 by then-Gov. Pat Quinn, a Democrat, to deal with underfunded pensions.
Moody's said the court decision was key to its downgrade because the city has been hoping to dig out of its own financial hole by reducing cost-of-living adjustments, which typically raise the cost of pensions by close to 50 percent.
Chicago's predicament actually has its roots in a 2003 decision by Illinois to kick the pension can down the road by borrowing money to fund pensions rather than trying to get the benefits reduced or to stepping up payments to make them financially sound.
In the ultimate can kick, the state borrowed a whopping $10 billion "the biggest bond issue in its history" on the premise that investing the proceeds would earn more than the interest on
the bonds.
Unfortunately for Illinois taxpayers, the pension fund investments, hurt badly by the financial market meltdown of 2008-2009, have earned less than expected.
Even worse, the state gets to deduct interest and principal on the bonds "currently some $500 million to $600 million a year" from the contributions it makes to the pension funds.
The net effect: The funds are worse rather than better off as a result of the pension bonds. Unfunded liabilities swelled from $43 billion when the bonds were sold to $86 billion by 2010, state data show.
Despite that grim history, Illinois borrowed another $7.2 billion for pensions in 2010 and 2011. By the time Quinn signed reforms in 2013, the state was in major trouble, with unfunded liabilities of nearly $100 billion – about $7,500 per resident.
Illinois isn't alone in turning to pension bonds.
In 1997, New Jersey tried to borrow its way out of pension fund problems with debts that are still being repaid. The California city of San Bernardino sought bankruptcy protection in 2012 under the weight of its pension costs, pension obligation bonds and other debts.
"The borrowing is taking the pressure off politicians from actually facing the actual reforms that need to happen on these pension systems," said Ted Dabrowski, vice president of policy at the Illinois Policy Institute in Chicago. "You've got a situation where the system is no longer sustainable, whether it's New Jersey or Illinois."
But Chicago and Illinois are the biggest examples of what happens when you can no longer kick the pension-cost can down the road. They are unlikely to be the last examples.