PPT…Where are you?

6 Comments

1. The PPT is there everyday holding back Gold and Silver and propping up the Dow and Snp. “Working group on financial markets, counterparty risk management group. GATA GATA GATA GATA GATA GATA GATA GATA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2. I don’t know how a smiley face got into the mix. That should read 8%.

3. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aww3FJ3Nhf1Q

   “The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, which backs the private pensions of almost 44 million Americans, told the House Committee on Education and Labor it had almost $4.8 billion in losses tied to stocks and $678 million in fixed-income assets. The investments lost almost 7 percent of their value, with the equity portion of the portfolio down 23 percent, the agency said.

   The agency has come under fire for adopting this year a more aggressive investment strategy, boosting the share of assets in stocks to 45 percent from 28 percent, the most since 1990. The agency said it plans to devote an additional 10 percent to private equity and real estate investments.

   Millard defended the plan, saying it would eventually generate higher returns to help the agency reduce a budget deficit that now totals $11 billion. He said this year’s losses are largely due to the old investment plan, saying the agency has only begun to implement the new strategy.”

   This does not make sense. How can the old investment strategy which was more conservative account for most of the losses when the new strategy of rebalancing to 45% equity and RE is down 23% and whole is down 7%. 66 B represents the current assets, with 5.5 billion in losses, and is closer to 8% than the quoted 7%. If the total before the decline was 71.5 billion, adding current evaluation to quoted total losses, and the riskier portion accounted for 45% and was down 23%, that would be 7.4 billion. 7% (quoted figure) of 71.5 is 5 billion.

   55% of 71.5 is 39 billion. 678 million loss is less than a 2% loss.
   45% of 71.5 is 32 billion. 4.8 billion loss is 15%

   the total loss was reported as 7% (closer to 8) and now the value is 66 billion. 66 billion represents 92% of the former total.

   The figures don’t add up. The deficit is now 11 billion and essentially, that has doubled in the last year from 5.5 billion if the total losses for the year are accurate. As a percentage of the total, it is underfunded by over 14%. Premiums have to match current payouts or they are eating into capital. This was reported in October of last year.

   Ford and GM said that they were overfunded at the end of 2007 for their funds in total. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=ax4Pld1C5Afw

   Seems that GM had 104 billion at the end of 2007 with 20 billion in overfunding. Ford had 45.8 billion with 1.3 in overfunding. That could have all changed dramatically with lay-offs and severance and fewer people paying into the plans.

   It hasn’t gotten any better.. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/24/business/24pensions.html?ref=your-money. The retirees and laid off workers should be scared.. especially the younger workers as their guaranteed amount is fixed lower and lower by age.

4. Siphoning the Treasury. But somebody is really watching… amazing!

   http://oversight.house.gov/documents/20090407100835.pdf

   Best line in the last year came from Kucinich asking a Hank Paulson appointee at the Treasury, “We know you are working hard, but we want to know who you are working for.” Considering that AIG was bankrupt, paying their counterparties 100% was unbelievable. It is hard to swallow that these CDS were actual indebtedness and not just window dressing to cook the books.

5. I find itinteresting that Mr. Millard was just yesterday ( 4/24/09 )interviewed on a Bloomberg TV’s market watch program…and curious that he never mentioned that “most” of the PBGC funds were invested in derivative instruments while he was tenured as agency head….I’m starting to come around and believe that as alex jones likes to say: we are in an ongoing eugenics war….and that we, the outspoken minority, are being marginalized as potential terrorists rather than an acceptable vocal dissenting though “minority” (?) opinion. The control of our language has always been a pet subject for me ever since becoming a graduate from the English Department at Rutgers ( Class of 1972 ). I realized some time ago that our spoken/written language was becoming a tool of the select elite ( through their control of the MSM ) with examples such as…”peacemaker rockets”….”collateral damage”….and other George Orwell( ian ) hidden meanings and innuendos that create havoc with the language we speak/write….From my vantage point it appears that we as a global financial community are not returning to some fond recent past where we could understand the laws of economics ( be they Austrian or Keynesian or Friedmanesque or whatever economic school has surfaced )…the top down system is so overbearing that it might collapse all on it’s own with maybe a little nudge from the “outspoken” few….so I insist that the readers of Catherine’s blog continue to make preparations for the worst and educate those who will listen. I for one did not come this far to live in a society where some militarized young out-of-work-Obamaite-AmeraCorp-jack boot could tell me how to speak, walk, talk, or otherwise live my life….I actually remember what freedom means… and I remember and have lived the pioneer spirit that is the foundation of this nation…it is not enough to become a wage slave and obey orders just in order to have a meal and a place to rest one’s head….Coming to America was reverred throughout the world as the place to go; where opportunity poured from the cracks in the sidewalks( or was it that gold lined the streets? )… I guess I am saddened to see the Empire grow to it’s pinnacle and now watch as it comes crashing to it’s demise all in one generation…The old adage “Might is Right” still prevails. The military and law enforcement are taught to protect that segment of society above all others–as some of them might hold to righteous fundamental ideals, that becomes a grand illusion when they are faced with siding with the dissenters or the side that pays their salary…that becomes a no-brainer. I found it curious that Catherine included a David Icke interview on her blog…the separation of pure consciouness from the thinking mind…very relevant!!I guess I always believed it was a revolution of the mind….hold on to your higher purpose and let truth shine through every pore of you body…enuf said, Richard

6. The missing PPT may be part of the giant Ponzi scheme described by Pam Martens here: http://unitas.wordpress.com/2008/11/16/are-your-retirement-savings-invested-in-a-ponzi-scheme/

   and before they left one of Bush’s appointees did this.

   http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/03/genius_federal_pension_guarantor_switched_from_bon.php

   Millard tried to make up the deficit by taking more risk, so now the PBGC is in worse shape. Not only are SS benefits unfunded, now retirement benefits for 44 million Americans have taken a severe hit.

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pension_Benefit_Guaranty_Corporation

   “Just months before the start of last year’s stock market collapse, the federal agency that insures the retirement funds of 44 million Americans departed from its conservative investment strategy and decided to put much of its $64 billion insurance fund into stocks.

   Switching from a heavy reliance on bonds, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation decided to pour billions of dollars into speculative investments such as stocks in emerging foreign markets, real estate, and private equity funds.

   Who was responsible for the switch? Meet Charles Millard, a former Lehman exec (great pedigree there) who ran the agency from 2007 until the end of the Bush administration. Millard told the Globe: “The new investment policy is not riskier than the old one,” and added that a riskier strategy was justified to give the agency a chance to raise enough money to eliminate its deficit.

   It appears to have had the opposite effect though. The agency’s stock-related investments were down 23 percent since the end of last September. But as the Globe notes, that was before the major downturn in the market triggered by the financial crisis. So the losses now are probably considerably higher. “This could be huge,” Zvi Bodie, a finance professor who in 2002 advised the agency to rely on bonds, told the Globe. “This has the potential to be another several hundred billion dollars.”

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