Month: March 2021

Controversy Still Follows CalPERS’ CIO Resignation

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.ai-cio.com/news/controversy-still-follows-calpers-cio-resignation/

Excerpt:

Now, a former CalPERS board member and investment officer has filed a lawsuit demanding that the pension system turn over transcripts, recordings, and notes from a closed-door board meeting held on August 17 allegedly to discuss the Meng affair. Meng resigned on August 5.

J.J. Jelincic’s lawsuit, filed on March 8 in Alameda County Superior Court in Northern California, said the board discussed Meng’s resignation at the meeting and violated the state’s open meetings law.

Meanwhile, on Tuesday, the CalPERS board’s Governance Committee is scheduled to discuss and possibly approve a plan that would require the full 13-member pension system board to be notified when a top system official is under internal investigation because of possible wrongdoing.

Author(s): Randy Diamond

Publication Date: 15 March 2021

Publication Site: ai-CIO

Pausing AstraZeneca COVID-19 Shots Is a Bad Risk/Benefit Call

Mary Pat Campbell
Pausing AstraZeneca COVID-19 Shots Is a Bad Risk/Benefit Call

Excerpt:

Last week Austria, Norway, Denmark, and Iceland all suspended the administration of the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, citing reports of blood clots occurring in a few folks who had been inoculated with it. Ireland, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Thailand, and the Netherlands have now joined them.

“There is no causal effect established or anything like that yet,” Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin told CNBC, “but as a precautionary move in line with the precautionary principle and in an abundance of caution, our clinical advice was to pause the program whilst the EMA does a review of this.”

The precautionary principle is an ideological construct that eschews risk-benefit evaluations and essentially requires that all new technologies be somehow proved entirely risk-free before they can be used.

Author(s): Ronald Bailey

Publication Date: 15 March 2021

Publication Site: Reason

Report Contrasts State Government and Private Sector Employment Changes During Pandemic

Mary Pat Campbell
Report Contrasts State Government and Private Sector Employment Changes During Pandemic

Excerpt:

Massachusetts state government employment has been virtually flat during COVID-19 even as employment in the state’s private sector workforce remains nearly 10 percent below pre-pandemic levels, according to a new study published by Pioneer Institute. The study, “Public vs. Private Employment in Massachusetts: A Tale of Two Pandemics,” questions whether it makes sense to shield public agencies from last year’s recession at the expense of taxpayers.

“Compared to restaurants, retailers and other businesses, there was very little pressure on state government to cut costs associated with COVID’s economic fallout,” said Serena Hajjar, who authored the study. “The private sector has felt the bulk of the pain of this contraction.”

At one point in April 2020, total employment in Massachusetts was 23 percent below pre-pandemic levels, while at the same time state-level government employment was higher than it was in February 2020.

Author(s): Editorial Staff (press release)

Publication Date: 15 March 2021

Publication Site: Pioneer Institute

MA State Workers Had More Job Security In Pandemic: Study

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://patch.com/massachusetts/boston/ma-state-workers-had-more-job-security-pandemic-study

Excerpt:

 Job losses during the coronavirus pandemic disproportionately hit the private sector workforce in Massachusetts, according to a Pioneer Institute report being released Monday.

The report found the state government payroll has been flat throughout the pandemic, while the private sector workforce remains 10 percent below its pre-pandemic level. At the peak of job cuts last April, the state’s overall unemployment rate was 23 percent, even as state government employment rose higher than it had been in February 2020.

“Compared to restaurants, retailers and other businesses, there was very little pressure on state government to cut costs associated with COVID’s economic fallout,” said Serena Hajjar, who authored the study for the conservative think tank. “The private sector has felt the bulk of the pain of this contraction.”

Author(s): Dave Copeland

Publication Date: 14 March 2021

Publication Site: Patch

The Tyranny of Experts

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://tinyletter.com/acs171/letters/known-unknowns-44

Excerpt:

It is a miracle anyone ever listens to us. Honestly, sometimes they shouldn’t. Other than the theory of comparative advantage, I can’t think of any correct economic insights that defy common sense. Economists, or experts in any field, are meant to offer a framework to weigh costs and benefits, help us see risks, and understand how the economy and people respond to shocks and policy. This helps people make choices that are right for them. If someone is pushing something totally counterintuitive, whether in economics or public health, we should be skeptical.
 
The same goes for debt. I heard someone say MMT has become an accepted theory – that is simply not true. And there is nothing new here. If you look at the history of debt cycles and financial crisis, they often featured some convoluted justification for why taking on tons of leverage isn’t so risky after all because this time was different – we are so much more clever now. Guess what, you might use some big words that tell you otherwise, but debt is always risky. Sure, some of the time it works out and juices higher growth, but when it doesn’t, things get really nasty. 

Author(s): Allison Schrager

Publication Date: 15 March 2021

Publication Site: Known Unknowns on TinyLetter

Semi-annual time changes are a pointless, disruptive, and expensive annual ritual

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.businessinsider.com/semi-annual-time-changes-are-a-pointless-disruptive-and-expensive-2021-3

Excerpt:

And this is why our semi-annual time changes need to end. It disrupts coordination, which is the whole point of keeping time. Most of the world does not observe DST. And countries that do adopt it do so on different days. 

This means for a few weeks each year there is total time chaos. People on the East Coast can’t remember if Europe is five or six hours ahead anymore. It wreaks havoc on the airline industry, costing them hundreds of millions of dollars a year in non-pandemic times. JP Morgan estimates consumer spending drops 3.5% every year we return to Standard Time. There are also more heart attacks, strokes, car accidents, and depression. 

And for what benefit? None I can think of. 

Author(s): Allison Schrager

Publication Date: 13 March 2021

Publication Site: Business Insider

Nudge Off: The pandemic has exposed the flaws in the belief that people need to be manipulated into making smarter choices.

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.city-journal.org/pandemic-has-undermined-our-sense-of-risk

Excerpt:

Perhaps most damaging, however, has been the idea arising in the last few years that people simply can’t be trusted to make sensible risk assessments—that they must be guided or even manipulated into making smarter choices. The idea that we need to be “tricked” into good behavior was pervasive throughout the pandemic. First, we were told masks weren’t effective, in what turned out to be an attempt to protect supplies for health-care workers. Last spring, we were told that coming into contact with others in just about any environment was unsafe, despite data showing the risk of outdoor transmission was very low. Over the holidays, rather than telling people that they should reduce their risks at holiday gatherings by taking steps like getting a test beforehand, public-health officials said that we should all just stay home, because tests can’t guarantee safety. Even today, the FDA refuses to approve cheap, at-home rapid tests without a prescription because the government doesn’t trust individuals to assess risks based on good, albeit imperfect, information.

The worst, most consequential failure in risk communication concerns the current vaccine rollout. The media constantly instruct us that, even weeks after receiving the second shot, it’s still not safe to socialize without masks. President Biden and Anthony Fauci have warned that we may not be able to resume “normal” life for another year. Fauci recently counseled against vaccinated people eating in indoor restaurants or playing mahjong together. Public-health officials today gave the green light for vaccinated people to gather together—but only after weeks of confusing and contradictory guidance.

Author(s): Allison Schrager

Publication Date: 8 March 2021

Publication Site: City Journal

New York’s vaccine czar called county officials to gauge their loyalty to Cuomo amid sexual harassment investigation

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/cuomo-schwartz-vaccine-calls/2021/03/14/18f2e320-8448-11eb-9ca6-54e187ee4939_story.html?fbclid=IwAR1_kucY6IuuqosArhyJ203JxSha3ZcmndHtvDX6URSZod-bqCmgxCZBB0k

Excerpt:

New York’s “vaccine czar” — a longtime adviser to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo — phoned county officials in the past two weeks in attempts to gauge their loyalty to the embattled governor amid an ongoing sexual harassment investigation, according to multiple officials.

One Democratic county executive was so unsettled by the outreach from Larry Schwartz, head of the state’s vaccine rollout, that the executive on Friday filed notice of an impending ethics complaint with the public integrity unit of the state attorney general’s office, the official told The Washington Post. The executive feared the county’s vaccine supply could suffer if Schwartz was not pleased with the executive’s response to his questions about support of the governor.

The executive said the conversation with Schwartz came in proximity to a separate conversation with another Cuomo administration official about vaccine distribution.

Author(s): Amy Brittain, Josh Dawsey

Publication Date: 14 March 2021

Publication Site: Washington Post

American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (4) 9704

Mary Pat Campbell
American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (4) 9704

Graphic:

Excerpt:

Going through the text of the stimulus bill, section 9704 is the meat of the bailout but those 10 pages might be a little hard going so I have added my emphasis.

What struck me on initial reading is that there does not seem to be any cap on those one-time lump sum assistance payments and applicants may be able to value future benefits too. That is, a union with the foresight to sponsor a pension that is almost broke could entice employers to enter their union with the offer of providing their employees with a good pension at a cost that taxpayers will subsidize. Sounds too stupid to be real except if the law were entirely drafted by lawyers for the unions.

Author(s): John Bury

Publication Date: 15 March 2021

Publication Site: Burypensions

Murphy administration has blocked some information from the public during COVID pandemic, AP finds

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.nj.com/politics/2021/03/murphy-administration-has-blocked-some-information-from-the-public-during-covid-pandemic-ap-finds.html

Excerpt:

Associated Press requests last year for written and electronic communications among officials about the coronavirus were denied as “overbroad,” a kind of catch-all under the state’s Open Public Records Act that permits officials to shield certain information.

The administration also cited emails among the governor’s staff as privileged under the law because they were “inter-agency” and “consultative or deliberative,” additional carve-outs that prevent the release of documents under the law.

The administration also denied public records requests seeking payment vouchers for personal protective equipment it bought, saying it would be disruptive. Asked about it late last year, Murphy said he wasn’t sure why the information was withheld and soon afterward, the state divulged a list of expenditures showing about $220 million in expenses.

Author(s): Associated Press

Publication Date: 14 March 2021

Publication Site: nj.com

Borenstein: Pension cuts for California public employee felons upheld

Mary Pat Campbell
Borenstein: Pension cuts for California public employee felons upheld

Excerpt:

No, California public employees can’t commit felonies on the job and then keep their pensions earned while they were perpetrating their crimes.

“When misconduct turns into outright criminality, it is beyond dispute that public service is not being faithfully performed,” the state Court of Appeal has concluded. “To give such a person a pension would further reward misconduct.”

The February ruling in a “felony forfeiture” case from Contra Costa and a similar December appellate court ruling in one from Los Angeles County correctly reject arguments from two firefighters that they are entitled to their full retirement pay despite their felonious conduct while working.

Author(s): Daniel Borenstein

Publication Date: 12 March 2021

Publication Site: Mercury News

Australia Pensions Ink Deal to Create $155 Billion Fund

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/australian-155-billion-pension-merger-222035563.html

Graphic:

Excerpt:

Two of Australia’s largest pension funds moved a step closer to creating a A$200 billion ($155 billion) giant as the world’s fourth-biggest pension pot consolidates.

QSuper and Sunsuper Pty. have signed a deal to merge, the two funds said in a joint statement Monday. The Brisbane-based funds will combine by September to create the country’s second-largest pension fund.

…..

QSuper has about A$120 billion in funds under administration and looks after the retirement savings for Queensland state government employees. Sunsuper has about A$80 billion in savings for employees of corporations including Unilever Plc and Virgin Australia.

Author(s): Matthew Burgess, Bloomberg

Publication Date: 14 March 2021

Publication Site: Yahoo Finance