The State Of The State Hass Left Hrff In, Well, A "state"&#3

[BAREister]

This subject is so important/pregnant w dire consequence that HRFF is devoting an LOB thread to the entire? afFUR:

 

http://www.frontlinethoughts.com/printarti...sp?id=mwo032103

 

But first, a few comments about last week's letter on the crisis with under-funded state public pensions. A study by Wilshire Associates showed a significant deterioration in the assets of state funded public pension funds over the past few years. My calculations show Wilshire assumed a growth rate approaching 10% for the stock market over the next ten years. I wrote last week that under my secular bear market scenario, which suggests little stock market growth over ten years, that the 123 stated funded pension plans in the study could be under-funded by as much as $1 trillion dollars.

 

 

and...

 

 

"If you throw in other state, municipal and county funds, the numbers could easily approach double my suggested $1 trillion. In an economy expected to have a GDP of $150 trillion over the next ten years, that may not be the end of the world. But if we wait until the wolf is at the door, taxes will rise significantly as we run to play "catch up." It is very realistic to think the rise in new local taxes could approach 1% of annual GDP (only about $150 billion) in ten years. But if you couple this with other rising costs, especially medical costs, along with the need for increased savings by Boomers wanting to retire, it would represent a seismic shift in funds available for consumer purchases. This will be a serious drag on the economy.

 

 

Well, The BARE wonders if you throw CORPORATE underfunding with or without a bear market on top of all THAT and add into the brew the DERIVATIVES mix and corporate debt that WEISS talks of and the UDDER types of leverage waiting in Buffet-like fASShion to detonate, it becomes a bit mind-boggling, really.

[Goldmember]

I'll have to check the details of my own industry pension plan, which is actually administered by the union, if you can believe that, however it's true, even though every penny was contributed 100% by the employers, consisting of multiple corporations within the industry. I worked in a Kraft process pulp mill for 10 years, and my excess yearly hours continued to rack up earned pension years where I have 12 years of eligible service for the pension plan. Today it would equate to about somewhere between $550 and $600 per month. Whoopdedoo....but at least it's something.

 

I extracated myself from the incredibly toxic environment, oh, about 12 years ago now. I have been self-employed ever since. I lost track of pension statements as I moved at one point and failed to update my address with them, so I will have to check on the state of the pension plan financials, and of course, give them a current address.

 

Through the bull market returns were averaging better than 20% per annum, compounded by the fact that retired pulp mill workers didn't really live very long to deplete the overall pension doolars by very much. Many workers neglected to opt for spouse survivor benefits option, thus leaving the pension plan hardly paying out benefits at all in comparison to the leaps and bounds the investment advisors managed to parlay the ever growing principal into.

 

Now, I am damned curious as to the current state of the pension plan financials after three years of this bear market. Tomorrow, Monday, I will proceed to update my address with them and get an update, along with a request for annual reports of the last 4 years or so, if possible. However, based on questions I have asked ex-co-workers, who are still there [poor wretched souls], and whom I remain good friends with, the pension plan has at least held its own gained principal, thus losing none of the gains aquired during the bull market run. I do believe, though have yet to confirm, that a large portion was diverted to various government bonds at the height of the bubble, and other significant adjustments were made. I fail at this moment to recall just who manages this pension plan, but my hat is off to them if the financials BEAR out as my ex-co-workers attest. This should be interesting!

 

Good thread BARE, as now I shall get off my derriere and update all my pension crap out of mere curiosity, and of course, the financially prudent thing to do anyhoo.

[Goldmember]

Well, how about dem apples, for a little over a decade my gainful employment was producing the primary ingredient of TOILET PAPER!

 

I could give fellow stoolies all kinds of interesting statistics and facts as to just how wood fibres are chemically dissolved into pulp fibres, the various different specious fibrous qualities, what blends produce what type of pulp, the strength, or intrinsic viscosity of the fibres and their pertinent uses, and oh, God, this is all crap I really never really thought I would use or find useful at all after I left the clouds of chlorine gas, chlorine dioxide gas [my favourite gas, ugh, also used to bleach wheat flour by the way, so remember stoolies, ONLY BUY UNBLEACHED FLOUR!!!!!], methyl mercaptan gas [that is in The Guiness World Book of Records TO THIS DAY as the world's smelliest substance, also used in propane gas as the odorifous quality to detect the prescence of propane gas, should it be leaking hazardly out into the atmosphere, and accidentally make things go BOOM!] sulphur dioxide gas, ugh, another one of my favourites, used of all things, to neutralize the chlorine dioxide after that particular horrid step in the bleaching process, and of course, the ubiquitious DIOXIN byproduct created when chlorine, the fully concentrated stuff that expands a couple of thousand fold after exposure to oxygen atmospheres [ask WW1 veterans about that one], is initially exposed to trace elements of the BLACK LIQUOR that is left after its role in dissolving the wood fibres into pulp fibres, and is NEVER 100% washed out of the pulp slurry before the bleaching process commences. Ah, take a breath now, though how I am still able to take breaths at all after a decade of self-imposed agents of mass destruction were a daily part of my work day.

 

The tiddlywink crap that Al Queda could throw my way would be inhaled and digested with nothing more than a particularly odorous fart! Perhaps only myself and Beardrech would be the ultimate survivors, Charleton Heston style, warding off the Anthony Zerbs of the new millenia calamities.

 

Anyhoo, one can conclude from this diatribe one thing, and one thing only, if nothing else, and that is:

 

I AM THE KING OF TOILET PAPER!

 

Now ask yourselves this:

 

Was it not my DESTINY to find STOOLVILLE after all? LOL!

[Guest BEARDRECH]

Well, how about dem apples, for a little over a decade my gainful employment was producing the primary ingredient of TOILET PAPER!

 

I could give fellow stoolies all kinds of interesting statistics and facts as to just how wood fibres are chemically dissolved into pulp fibres, the various different specious fibrous qualities, what blends produce what type of pulp, the strength, or intrinsic viscosity of the fibres and their pertinent uses, and oh, God, this is all crap I really never really thought I would use or find useful at all after I left the clouds of chlorine gas, chlorine dioxide gas [my favourite gas, ugh, also used to bleach wheat flour by the way, so remember stoolies, ONLY BUY UNBLEACHED FLOUR!!!!!], methyl mercaptan gas [that is in The Guiness World Book of Records TO THIS DAY as the world's smelliest substance, also used in propane gas as the odorifous quality to detect the prescence of propane gas, should it be leaking hazardly out into the atmosphere, and accidentally make things go BOOM!] sulphur dioxide gas, ugh, another one of my favourites, used of all things, to neutralize the chlorine dioxide after that particular horrid step in the bleaching process, and of course, the ubiquitious DIOXIN byproduct created when chlorine, the fully concentrated stuff that expands a couple of thousand fold after exposure to oxygen atmospheres [ask WW1 veterans about that one], is initially exposed to trace elements of the BLACK LIQUOR that is left after its role in dissolving the wood fibres into pulp fibres, and is NEVER 100% washed out of the pulp slurry before the bleaching process commences. Ah, take a breath now, though how I am still able to take breaths at all after a decade of self-imposed agents of mass destruction were a daily part of my work day.

 

The tiddlywink crap that Al Queda could throw my way would be inhaled and digested with nothing more than a particularly odorous fart! Perhaps only myself and Beardrech would be the ultimate survivors, Charleton Heston style, warding off the Anthony Zerbs of the new millenia calamities.

 

Anyhoo, one can conclude from this diatribe one thing, and one thing only, if nothing else, and that is:

 

I AM THE KING OF TOILET PAPER!

 

Now ask yourselves this:

 

Was it not my DESTINY to find STOOLVILLE after all? LOL!

hey Goldie

You give me the impression that every time i wipe my ass i'm in gross violation of the laws of the Geneva convention..

bdrech

[ApresMoi]

Doom and Gloom. Doom and Gloom.

 

Try this one -- http://www.ebri.org/ibex/ib254.htm

 

And anyway, we've all been through these panYucks before. S&L crisis anyone?

[Jorma]

You mean Bear that you thought most pensions were actually going to pay off in the future? And here you are, the master of doom. Well on the doom scale pensions are right at the front of the line, to be taken out and shot.

 

Obviously the tax sheltered plans, all those IRA's and 401's have been given a real haircut. Now the defined benefit plans are going to be hit. Uncle Sams Pension Benefit Guarantee Corp. , PBGC, the child of the last pension crisis of the early 80's, is showing big losses as bankruptsy throws under funded plans into his lap. United or US Air, not sure which, has asked the court to let them drop the plan. Steel is an old basket case. Wait till the auto companies start to abondon ship. And on and on.

 

The state and other governmental body plans are not under PBGC as far as I know. Bubye.

 

Then of course there is SS. A dead man walking now. It could have been saved in part without too much pain till 2030 or so, till Bush. Now it's dead by 2010, for sure. In return we do get this boffo war show, so it isn't a total loss.

 

One wonders how the body politic will stand for this? Don't ask, don't tell.

 

To give an indication on how this is kept a non issue. The House just passed a budget calling for a $15 billion cut in veterans benefits, mostly health I think, over the next several years. Yes, the party which worships the soldier is going to cut their benefits and nobody says boo. Obviously all the old rules of what is an issue and what drives politics has been thrown out the window. Veterans groups are the administrations most slavish devotees. Cheney had a love fest with one just last week. Go figure.

 

One of the purposes of the bull market by the way was to rob peoples savings. A rousing success.

[Goldmember]

hey Goldie

You give me the impression that every time i wipe my ass i'm in gross violation of the laws of the Geneva convention..

bdrech

 

Well, yes....though video cameras and microphones should be left out of the picture.

 

Let me expand on another wondrous modern day product:

 

Take those aforementioned sparkling white pulp fibres, make TAMPONS [and other assorted feminine hygene products] and give them the additional appeal of a blast of cobalt 4 radiation. TOXIC SHOCK anyone?

 

On a pension note re the above, I also have a built in COLA clause [cost of living allowance] should Bernanke's dream inflationary or hyperinflationary scenarios cuase THINGS to get, well, expensive. By the time I am eligible to collect, my industry pension could amount to a couple of wheelbarrows full of cash every month, which would be nice if DEFLATION follows that hyperinflation, because once COLA gains are achieved, they can NEVER be reduced should deflation rear its ugly head.

 

Sweet! :grin:

[Guest sigmoidoscope]

[QuantumOnion]

Damn sigmoid, replace the glasses with black hornrims, and add a bit of hair, and i'll be sussed if greeny isn't the spitten image of woody (or vice versa)...

 

 

Hey, wait, Alan Greenspan... Woody Allen. How weird is THAT????

 

qo

[Guest sigmoidoscope]

AND they both play the clarinet in jazz bands.

[threadbare]

Goldmember, Damn...Was that you? About twenty years ago, I was on a chairlift up at Whistler with a guy who worked in your field, and he told me the most interesting thing I'd ever heard. He said that the "cellulose" ingredient in many processed foods is pulverized wood product, or essentially saw dust. He told me one of their biggest customers was the soft ice cream industry, as the cellulose gave their product bulk. Do you remember this conversation? If if was you, thanks. Its a great opening line, a real ice breaker in social situations that demand trivia.

 

Bareister, If the pensions are underfunded and they default, are they not guaranteed by the govt.? If the govt steps in, it'll still have awful consequences. What do you think the govt would/could do?

[Goldmember]

Threadbare, may well have been. I seem to recall a similar conversation, perhaps a few of them, on those long tedious chair-lift rides before high speed quad chairs were put in. At the time, that was probably the old Red Chair, from mid-station up to the Roundhouse, a slow, rickety old double chairlift with wooden slat seats, so slow that if ya got caught on it during a raging January or February blizzard that usually the only salvation was to melt the icycles of one's moustache by seeking immediate refuge in the Roundhouse after the chair-lift ride. Brrr, if one suffered the ultimate horror of having the chair-lift break down for a bit, usually right after cresting into the most weather exposed section near the top, well, an immediate thawing was essential for basic survival.

 

I would have been 20ish, blonde hair, and definately talkative. Non stop yap probably. I'm like that! I may have also mentioned that pulp was sold to orange juice companies, which were a customer at the time. I don't even want to think about what they were doing with it. Let's hope it was for the paper cartons! and not the "extra pulp" variety!

[BAREister]

Govt guarantees have been a joke FUR years to The BARE, Thread.

Not a very funny joke, either.

Govt based guarantee systems - you've got 'em in securities (SPIC?) in bonking (FDIC) in insurance (state based guarantee mechanisms intended to handle co. failures) and in pensions (PBGC) - all of 'em are, at best, woefully underfunded, and intended, really, to handle the occasional failure. Even one large failure can threaten the entire system as Executive Life or Mutual Benefit did in the life insurance sector about 14 years or so ago. Crisis was only averted at the lASSt min by FUReign buyers/white knights coming to the rescue.

 

The scale of failure looming is going to be cosmic if Martin Weiss is anywhere close to being correct, or if this article linked is, either.

 

We are in terra incognita/inFURma. When the sheeple ass some of ya call 'em wake up to the fact they will HAVE no futures, there may be HELL to pay. Maybe they'll be mute, like dumb cattle, led to the slaughter in the face of their employer's perfidy - a la ENRON, and Global Crossing, etc.

 

Govt at that point may be helpless. This war is going to set a lot of things loose from their moorings, including, once again, respect FUR government.

 

It is a daunting prospect we all face. It will affect all of us, all these broken dreams....and PROMISES.

[threadbare]

Goldmember, Twentyish, blonde and yappy? Me too, back then. Could have been you, but if I remember correctly it was an old guy, you know, late thirties! There's a lot of you old forest products guys milling around, you read about them in pulp fiction. Hardy har.

 

 

Have many memories of the old lift and the roundhouse. You weren't one of those poser dudes were you? You know the type, macho guys who'd lean back on the bar, trying to look cool? Ugh...

 

Bareister, Yeah, history hasn't prepared us for the shiite storm ahead, speaking of war and what it will unleash. Very well put, by the way.

[Goldmember]

Me? Poser dude? LOL! Good God no! The bars and the "scene" were never my thing. I was probably in the basement by the free laundry dryers and the jukebox, rolling up assorted, "apertifs" for the afternoon runs. LOL!