Month: March 2021

Wisconsin Teamsters happy with pension funds in virus bill

Mary Pat Campbell
Wisconsin Teamsters happy with pension funds in virus bill

Excerpt:

Thousands of Wisconsin Teamsters are celebrating after President Joe Biden signed the coronavirus relief bill into law.

That’s because the move ensures that the workers no longer have to worry about their pensions being cut in half.

The American Rescue Plan includes the Butch Lewis Emergency Pension Plan Relief Act of 2021. The act directs the Pension Guaranty Benefit Corp. to allocate billions of dollars to avoid the drastic cuts.

Author(s): Associated Press

Publication Date: 14 March 2021

Publication Site: KBJR6

Murphy’s promise of full public-worker pension payment breaks 25 years of underfunding

Mary Pat Campbell
Murphy’s promise of full public-worker pension payment breaks 25 years of underfunding

Excerpt:

In addition to helping improve the long-term health of the pension system, Treasury officials are also projecting some significant budget savings can be generated by getting to full funding a year ahead of schedule.

Those savings, which will total an estimated $860 million over the next three decades, are based on the way the state’s unfunded liability accrues over the long term, the officials said.

Murphy’s administration should also be in a good position to manage the initial step up to full pension funding, thanks to a combination of factors, including money the state borrowed last year when it was expecting significant revenue losses would be triggered by the pandemic.

Author(s): John Reitmeyer

Publication Date: 15 March 2021

Publication Site: NJ Spotlight News

CalPERS and SBA Florida Vote FOR Effissimo’s Proposal to Toshiba

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210314005038/en/CalPERS-and-SBA-Florida-Vote-FOR-Effissimo%E2%80%99s-Proposal-to-Toshiba

Excerpt:

California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS)1 and State Board of Administration (SBA) of Florida2, the largest and fifth-largest public pension funds in the US, have publicly disclosed that they have voted FOR Effissimo Capital Management’s shareholder proposal to conduct an independent investigation of Toshiba Corporation’s (TYO: 6502) 2020 Annual General Meeting (AGM).

SBA Florida cited three reasons for its supportive vote: “Conflicted review process; Insufficient resolution of outstanding concerns; Reasonably proportionate request.”

The votes by prominent institutional shareholders of Toshiba follow earlier disclosure by California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS), the second-largest public pension fund in the US, that it was voting FOR Effissimo’s proposal.

Author(s): Effissimo Capital Management

Publication Date: 14 March 2021

Publication Site: Businesswire

How The American Rescue Plan Act Will Help More Than A Million Retirees And Workers

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.forbes.com/sites/nextavenue/2021/03/12/how-the-american-rescue-plan-act-will-help-more-than-a-million-retirees-and-workers/

Excerpt:

Good news on the retirement-income front. Some 1.5 million workers and retirees faced the real risk that their pension incomes would be slashed over the next 20 years or significantly sooner. But the American Rescue Plan Act just signed by President Joe Biden will prevent that from happening.

That’s because the massive legislative package includes the Butch Lewis Emergency Pension Plan Relief Act of 2021. It restores to financial health more than 100 failing pension plans known as multiemployer plans (they covered more than one company’s employees) for union workers. Most notably, the Teamster’s storied Central States, Southeast & Southwest CSWC +0.3% pension, covering some 400,000 workers and their families.

Author(s): Next Avenue

Publication Date: 12 March 2021

Publication Site: Forbes

Former Board Member JJ Jelincic Sues CalPERS Over Illegal Secret Board Discussion After CIO Ben Meng’s Abrupt Departure and Hiding of Records Related to $583 Million Overstatement of Real Estate Assets

Mary Pat Campbell
Former Board Member JJ Jelincic Sues CalPERS Over Illegal Secret Board Discussion After CIO Ben Meng’s Abrupt Departure and Hiding of Records Related to $583 Million Overstatement of Real Estate Assets

Excerpt:

We seem to be returning to a semblance of the old normal, including CalPERS getting well-deserved public attention for its bad behavior, highlighted in a new lawsuit filed by former board member JJ Jelicic, which we’ve embedded at the end of this post. It’s short and very readable; slightly more than half the pages of the PDF are exhibits.

CalPERS under its general counsel Matt Jacobs has more and more openly been taking the position that it is above the law. A slapdown is long overdue.

Both of the matters the lawsuit targets are strong on legal and public interest grounds. We’ll get into a bit more detail below. The short overview is that they come out of sweeping and highly dubious denials of two different Public Records Act requests that Jelinicic submitted. One focuses on to impermissible secret board discussions shortly after then Chief Investment Officer Ben Meng’s sudden resignation last August. The second involves CalPERS’ continuing efforts to hide records showing how it came to overvalue real estate assets by $583 million. Yet CalPERS not only has said nary a peep about bogus valuations are larger than the total amount it was slotted to invest in a mothballed solo development project, 301 Capitol Mall, but it continues to publish balance sheets that include the inflated results.

Author(s): Yves Smith

Publication Date: 10 March 2021

Publication Site: naked capitalism

Mayberry v. KKR: Pitched Battle as Attorney General and Defendants Try to Block “Tier 3 Plaintiffs” Pursuing Claims Aggressively

Mary Pat Campbell
Mayberry v. KKR: Pitched Battle as Attorney General and Defendants Try to Block “Tier 3 Plaintiffs” Pursuing Claims Aggressively

Excerpt:

One noteworthy feature of these filings is that they are regularly shrill, ranging from pissy to screechy (the Attorney General’s filing is a bit different in instead adopting the tone of royalty having to stoop to dismiss an annoying subject).

And the reason for the all too evident frustration among the various opponents is that the legal team targeting the hedge fund abuses was supposed to have gone away by now.

As the Background describes in more detail, they were supposed to be over after their initial case was dismissed by the Kentucky Supreme Court on standing grounds. Recall that the defeat came as a result of rulings in Kentucky and by the US Supreme Court that found that Federal Article 3 standing rules (which Kentucky has adopted but not other states such as California) means that defined benefit plan participants have to have suffered an actual (“particularlized”) loss, as in not be getting benefits or only be receiving reduced benefits, to be able to lodge a claim. Since the Kentucky Retirement System, even at its stunningly depleted 13% funding level, is still anticipated to pay out until 2027 (and we are supposed to believe the State of Kentucky will step up and make good on the pensions until it turns out otherwise), the defined benefit pensioners can take no action until then.

Author(s): Yves Smith

Publication Date: 12 March 2021

Publication Site: naked capitalism

WalletHub, Tax Foundation confirm what Illinoisans already know: they’re overtaxed – Wirepoints

Mary Pat Campbell
WalletHub, Tax Foundation confirm what Illinoisans already know: they’re overtaxed – Wirepoints

Graphic:

Excerpt:

Two separate 50-state comparisons of state and local tax burdens released this week confirm Illinoisans pay some of the nation’s highest taxes. 

WalletHub, the personal finance company, calculated that Illinoisans pay the highest effective tax rates in the country. A more comprehensive study by the Tax Foundation, a non-partisan think-tank, says Illinoisans pay the nation’s 10th-highest tax burden.

Either way, their findings validate what Illinoisans instinctively know: they’re overtaxed.

Author(s): Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner

Publication Date: 12 March 2021

Publication Site: Wirepoints

Near-Junk Illinois Set to Sell Bonds With Stimulus as ‘Tailwind’

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/near-junk-illinois-set-to-sell-bonds-with-stimulus-as-e2-80-98tailwind-e2-80-99/

Excerpt:

Illinois plans to tap the municipal-bond market next week, just days after passage of President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion stimulus plan promises to help the lowest-rated state with some near-term financial stress.

The state is expected to sell $1.26 billion tax-exempt bonds on March 17. That follows S&P Global Ratings’s decision to pull Illinois back from the brink of a junk rating by lifting the outlook on the state’s BBB- rating to stable from negative on Tuesday, citing more federal aid and the start of an economic recovery. The proceeds from the sale will be for capital projects, accelerated pension payments and refunding.

Author(s): Shruti Date Singh

Publication Date: 10 March 2021

Publication Site: MSN (Bloomberg)

State Revenue Is ‘Virtually Flat.’ Local Government Revenue Is Up Slightly. Congress Wants To Give Them $350 Billion Anyway.

Mary Pat Campbell
State Revenue Is ‘Virtually Flat.’ Local Government Revenue Is Up Slightly. Congress Wants To Give Them $350 Billion Anyway.

Excerpt:

Indeed, an analysis from the National Taxpayers Union’s Andrew Lautz has found that when accounting for states’ rainy day funds and steady revenues, only about $6 to $16 billion (not the proposed $195 billion) would be needed to make those governments whole.

Lautz also argues it’s inappropriate to divvy up money to states based only on their number of unemployed residents, given that the jobless are already receiving targeted benefits and that those benefits are themselves helping to prop up states’ tax revenues.

“Individuals who want a job and don’t have one are certainly struggling right now, but the [$900 billion] December bill and the proposed COVID-19 relief package support them with a $300 or $400 per week boost to their regular unemployment benefits,” writes Lautz. “The $600-per-week benefit from the CARES Act helped prevent major state revenue dropoffs in part because it allowed unemployed people to continue spending at rates similar to before they lost their jobs.”

Author(s): CHRISTIAN BRITSCHGI

Publication Date: 8 March 2021

Publication Site: Reason

Exclusive: Cuomo created disabled group home deathtraps, whistleblower says

Mary Pat Campbell

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s nursing home deathtraps have silent partners — a network of some 7,000 group homes where thousands of disabled COVID-19-positive residents languished with little foresight or intervention by the state, a whistleblower has told the Washington Examiner.

Some 552 developmentally disabled individuals died from COVID-19 in the past year living in small residential group homes, while an additional 6,382 residents and workers were infected, according to the New York State Office for People With Developmental Disabilities. No comprehensive protocol existed to combat the disease as infected individuals were purposely mixed with clean households, said care worker Jeff Monsour.

Link: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/cuomo-created-disabled-group-home-deathtraps-whistleblower

Excerpt:

Author(s): Carly Roman, Tori Richards

Publication Date: 11 March 2021

Publication Site: Washington Examiner

The American Rescue Plan Act Greatly Expands Benefits through the Tax Code in 2021

Mary Pat Campbell
The American Rescue Plan Act Greatly Expands Benefits through the Tax Code in 2021

Graphic:

Excerpt:

The United States has provided about $6 trillion in total economic relief to the American people during the coronavirus pandemic, including the $1.9 trillion that was approved when President Biden signed the American Rescue Plan (ARP) Act into law on Thursday, amounting to about 27 percent of gross domestic product (GDP).  Much of the economic relief in the American Rescue Plan is administered through the tax code in the form of direct payments (stimulus checks) and expanded Child Tax Credit (CTC) in 2021. The size and method of relief will revive debates over the proper role of spending in the tax code and whether the temporary benefits should become permanent after the economy has recovered.

Policymakers will need to determine if the tax code is the proper vehicle to disburse such cash benefits and if the IRS can handle the additional responsibilities. Over the course of many years, the IRS has been tasked with an ever-growing list of administrative duties that go well beyond simple revenue collection—everything from poverty alleviation to education, housing, and health-care benefits. The American Rescue Plan, in addition to other pandemic response measures, would now require the IRS to administer additional benefits on a recurring monthly basis, much as a traditional spending agency, all while processing upwards of 160 million tax returns.

Author(s): Erica York, Garrett Watson

Publication Date: 12 March 2021

Publication Site: Tax Foundation

The COVID-19 Pandemic – One Year In

Mary Pat Campbell
The COVID-19 Pandemic – One Year In

Graphic:

Excerpt:

Exactly one year ago today, the World Health Organization (WHO) officially declared COVID-19 to be a global pandemic. 

In the days that followed, the ripple effects would be felt across society, impacting almost every aspect of everyday life. Although rising case and death counts, lockdowns, job losses, and crashing markets have been at the forefront of the news cycle, the full breadth and scale of events taking place over the last year are worth reflecting on in more detail.

To commemorate the one-year anniversary of the onset of COVID-19, we’ve compiled a number of original visual resources to help put the pandemic in perspective. This includes our mega COVID-19 timeline as well as many other interesting visualizations we link to below. 

Author(s): Jeff Desjardins

Publication Date: 11 March 2021

Publication Site: Visual Capitalist