Author: Mary Pat Campbell

Insurers Have Been Draining Funds from New Jersey’s Pensions for 15 Years

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.ai-cio.com/news/insurers-draining-funds-new-jerseys-pensions-15-years/

Excerpt:

Insurance firms have been siphoning off money from New Jersey’s pension funds for the past 15 years thanks to a policy decision that shifted financial obligations for employee injuries to pension funds, according to an investigation by acting state Comptroller Kevin Walsh.

A report on the investigation said that a 2006 policy adopted by the Division of Workers’ Compensation (DWC) encourages injured employees to accept continuing medical monitoring and coverage instead of cash settlements. The report said the approach, which puts the financial burden on pension funds to pay workers rather than on insurance firms, has provided “a windfall to insurers and financially harms the pension funds.”

At least 114 public employees received both an accidental disability pension and a medical monitoring settlement between 2016 and 2019, according to the report. However, it said the exact cost to the pension funds was unknown because there are no records or data on what insurers would have paid in the absence of medical monitoring settlements.

Author(s): Michael Katz

Publication Date: 8 February 2021

Publication Site: ai-CIO

Australia Pension Reforms Worth A$100,000 For Each Young Worker

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-09/australia-pension-reforms-worth-a-100-000-for-each-young-worker

Excerpt:

Shuttering failing Australian pension funds and stopping new accounts being opened when changing jobs will add almost A$100,000 ($77,160) to the retirement savings of young workers.

Minister for Superannuation Jane Hume is shepherding new laws through Australia’s parliament to revamp the industry to weed out under-performing funds and make pension accounts automatically follow workers when they change employers.

It’s designed to protect the retirement savings of the most disengaged Australians — one-in-five of whom have never contacted their fund. Hume estimates that a young person going into a super fund for the first time will be around A$98,000 better off at retirement after the reforms.

Author(s): Matthew Burgess, Shery Ahn, and Paul Allen

Publication Date: 8 February 2021

Publication Site: Bloomberg

Despite retired St. Louis teacher’s death, daughter collected $150k in pension

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/despite-retired-st-louis-teachers-death-daughter-collected-150k-in-pension/article_70f559eb-3a4e-5e2c-b080-bd3bbe06b6bd.html

Excerpt:

For more than seven years after the death of a retired St. Louis teacher in 2012, her daughter kept collecting nearly $150,000 in pension benefits, federal charging documents unsealed this month say.

The teacher’s daughter, Cheryl Ladner Kimbrough, has been arrested on five felony counts of wire fraud. She pleaded not guilty Monday in U.S. District Court in St. Louis.

The indictment says Kimbrough’s mother, who is identified only by the initials A.L., retired in 1999 and moved in with Kimbrough in southern Texas. After the death of Kimbrough’s mother on Sept. 16, 2012, pension payments continued to be deposited into the joint account she held with Kimbrough.

Author(s): Robert Patrick

Publication Date: 8 February 2021

Publication Site: St. Louis Post-Dispatch

NY pension fund sold off nearly 600K shares of GameStop in last 10 months

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.lohud.com/story/money/business/2021/01/28/gamestop-ny-state-pension-fund-sold-off-600-k-shares-last-10-months/4283205001/

Excerpt:

New York’s state retirement fund sold off nearly 600,000 shares of video game retailer GameStop since March, leaving it with about 53,000 shares when Reddit-frequenting investors sent its price skyrocketing this week.

After closing out 2020 at a share price nearing $18.85, GameStop closed on Wednesday at a price per share in excess of $347.50 before dropping to around $240 per share as of mid-Thursday.

…..

New York’s Common Retirement Fund, the third-largest public pension system in the country, had owned 647,000 shares at the end of March when the stock was worth $3.50, state records show.

But by Wednesday, the state pension fund owned just 52,900 shares, according to the state Comptroller’s Office, which manages the retirement system. That means the fund sold off more than 590,000 shares at some point in the last 10 months.

Author(s): Mario Marroquin

Publication Date: 31 January 2021

Publication Site: lohud

Lawmakers vote to revamp Kentucky Teachers pension plan

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.pionline.com/pension-funds/lawmakers-vote-revamp-kentucky-teachers-pension-plan

Excerpt:

The Kentucky House of Representatives voted to approve a bill that would move participants in the Kentucky Teachers’ Retirement System, Frankfort, to a hybrid plan.

The House voted 68-28 in favor of the bill, which creates a tier for teachers hired after Jan. 1, 2022.

Rep. C. Ed Massey sponsored the bill because the $21.6 billion pension fund “has a huge unfunded legacy,” he said in a telephone interview.

Author(s): ROB KOZLOWSKI

Publication Date: 8 February 2021

Publication Site: Pensions & Investments

Suicides in Japan dropped for a decade. Then the pandemic hit.

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2021/02/07/national/social-issues/suicides-rise-japan-pandemic/

Graphic:

Excerpt:

In Japan, a nation that has long struggled with one of the highest suicide rates in the world, the emotional strain is manifesting itself in a disturbing trend. For the first time in a little over a decade, the number of those who took their own lives last year exceeded the previous year, reversing years of work to curb a stubbornly high number of self-inflicted deaths.

According to the health ministry’s preliminary data, 20,919 people died by suicide in 2020, up 3.7% from 2019, compared with 3,459 coronavirus-related deaths in the same period.

While men in Japan are typically more likely to die by suicide, last year saw the number of women killing themselves grow by 885 to 6,976, while suicides among men fell slightly. Meanwhile, figures for those in their 20s and those age 19 or younger grew by 17% and 14%, respectively, according to a tally by the Nikkei business daily, providing insight into which groups are the most vulnerable.

Author(s): ALEX K.T. MARTIN

Publication Date: 7 February 2021

Publication Site: Japan Times

How the Police Bank Millions Through Their Union Contracts

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.propublica.org/article/new-jersey-police-contracts

Graphic:

Excerpt:

Despite attempts to rein in police union contracts in New Jersey, costly provisions remain common, an unprecedented analysis by the Asbury Park Press and ProPublica found. The news outlets identified contract clauses throughout the state that protect officer payouts that cost the public hundreds of millions of dollars.

In 2010, state lawmakers passed a law to stop huge retirement payouts for unused sick days, but taxpayers are still funding the largesse. North Bergen approved generous payments to four retiring officers in 2019, including a sergeant who got $75,330.32 for unused sick time. Some retirement payouts can be even higher. In 2017, a chief in Jersey City collected more than half a million dollars.

The debt for unused sick time and vacation time, which is largely dictated by the contracts, totaled at least $492.9 million for municipal police alone in 2019, according to a review of town budget records. The liability is primarily due to officers who were hired before the 2010 law passed.

Author(s): Andrew Ford, Asbury Park Press, and Agnes Chang, Jeff Kao and Agnel Philip

Publication Date: 8 February 2021

Publication Site: ProPublica

Connecticut Democrats Push Governor to Raise Taxes

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/connecticut-democrats-push-governor-to-raise-taxes-11612717200

Excerpt:

A group of progressive Democratic lawmakers last week called on the governor, also a Democrat, to declare a fiscal emergency, and proposed a $3 billion legislative package of new spending on education, property-tax relief, a one-time stimulus payment of $500 for people who lost their jobs during the pandemic, and other measures.

Lawmakers proposed paying for these new spending items by raising taxes on the wealthy and on corporations to produce more than $4 billion in new revenue annually. The proposal includes establishing a 5% surtax on capital gains for individuals making more than $500,000 annually and raising the state’s top income-tax bracket to 12.696%, the second highest in the nation after California.

Author(s): Joseph De Avila

Publication Date: 7 February 2021

Publication Site: Wall Street Journal

Covid-19’s Hit to State and Local Revenues Is Smaller Than Many Feared

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-19s-hit-to-state-and-local-revenues-is-smaller-than-many-feared-11612706030

Excerpt:

Immediately after the coronavirus outbreak last March, states slashed revenue projections by an average of about 8%, with some expecting shortfalls as high as 20%. Those projections were largely based on experiences during the 2007-09 recession.

In the end, state revenues fell 1.6% in fiscal year 2020 and were 3.4% lower than projected before the pandemic, according to the National Association of State Budget Officers. While states expect revenues to decline 4.4% in fiscal 2021, 18 states are seeing revenues come in above forecast.

Author(s): Kate Davidson

Publication Date: 7 February 2021

Publication Site: Wall Street Journal

GameStop Frenzy Is Tough Call for Regulators Focused on Transparency

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/gamestop-frenzy-is-tough-call-for-regulators-focused-on-transparency-11612693802

Excerpt:

One reason regulators might be stymied is a lack of political will to limit trading by small investors. When Robinhood temporarily blocked its customers from trading GameStop shares during the frenzy, a cry went up about market access. The big losses those little guys inflicted on some hedge funds by bidding up the stock was seen as a democratization of the market. Any effort to derail that could be criticized as protection for Wall Street.

“Most people believe that middle-class people, working people, should be able to take their chances on the stock market,” Rep. Maxine Waters (D., Calif.), who leads the House Financial Services Committee, said in an interview.

The consensus among regulators so far is that the episode didn’t expose major problems with the market’s plumbing. The Treasury Department said Thursday that regulators believe the market’s “core infrastructure was resilient.” The department said the SEC is reviewing “whether trading practices are consistent with investor protection and fair and efficient markets,” and is expected to release a report on the factors that influenced it.

Author(s): Paul Kiernan and Dave Michaels

Publication Date: 7 February 2021

Publication Site: Wall Street Journal

Mayberry v. KKR: Kentucky Attorney General Shows True Colors, Looks Over-Eager to Settle Pathbreaking Pension Case Rather Than Inconvenience Private Equity Kingpins Blackstone and KKR

Mary Pat Campbell
Mayberry v. KKR: Kentucky Attorney General Shows True Colors, Looks Over-Eager to Settle Pathbreaking Pension Case Rather Than Inconvenience Private Equity Kingpins Blackstone and KKR

Excerpt:

A key hearing next week, on February 8, ought to shed some light on how Judge Philip Shepherd intends to deal with Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, who is showing perilous little respect for the judge’s desire to move the landmark pension case, Mayberry v. KKR, along in a disciplined manner after it has languished for over three years. We’ve embedded Judge Shepherd’s order of December 28, the Attorney General’s request for an extension of time, and the Tier 3 Plaintiffs’ Motion of Opposition to the Attorney General’s extension of time. You can see the other major filings, including the complaint by the Tier 3 members that they hope to get leave to file, here.

We need to cover a lot of background before getting to the elephant in the room, that the timing of the Attorney General’s intervention looks suspect, particularly since he is a protege of Mitch McConnell and the suit he pulled from the jaws of apparent death by his intervention fingers heavyweight Republican donors Steve Schwarzman of Blackstone and Henry Kravis of KKR personally, along with their firms. Political insiders in Kentucky believe that Cameron needed some good headlines after getting considerable criticism in the national press for going easy on the cops that shot Brionna Taylor. One theory was that the revival of this lawsuit was also effectively a shakedown: Cameron would give the private equity firms a “cost of doing business” settlement, with no embarrassing discover, with an expected quid pro quo in dark money payments. Another theory is that Cameron might pursue the case a little but still enter into a cheapie settlement if he can use discovery to damage the Beshears, a Democratic party dynasty that had their fingers all over the Kentucky Retirement System mess.

Author(s): Yves Smith

Publication Date: 5 February 2021

Publication Site: naked capitalism

Mortality with Meep: On The Congressional Body of Old Folks and Deaths in Office

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://marypatcampbell.substack.com/p/mortality-with-meep-on-the-congressional

Graph:

Excerpt:

The next fact should tickle the interest of one of my friends who likes to keep stoopid stats (his term) about all sorts of things: with the death of John McCain, every state except Utah has had a senator die while in office.

Isn’t that exciting?

Author(s): Mary Pat Campbell

Publication Date: 8 February 2021

Publication Site: STUMP