Author Archives: Leo Kolivakis

Submitted by Leo Kolivakis, publisher of Pension Pulse. In late November, I stated that Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (OTPP) was heading for a fall: Looking at that picture above from their 2006 annual report, I can’t help thinking that Teachers may be juggling more than it can handle and they are now going to stumble […]

Submitted by Leo Kolivakis, publisher of Pension Pulse. Reuters reports that the OECD sees a bleak global outlook and soaring job losses: The world economy will shrink at a far faster pace than originally expected this year, sending unemployment soaring and highlighting the need for extra steps to halt the crisis, the OECD said on […]

Submitted by Leo Kolivakis, publisher of Pension Pulse. A follow-up to yesterday’s comment on the giant experiment, someone sent me a WSJ blog article stating that Cerberus’s equity stake in Chrysler’s auto company to be eliminated: Cerberus Capital Management will lose its equity stake in Chrysler LLC’s struggling automotive company as a condition of the […]

Submitted by Leo Kolivakis, publisher of Pension Pulse. There is a lot to cover today, so let’s begin with U.S. automakers. President Obama gave General Motors and Chrysler deadlines to “fundamentally restructure” or lose government aid that has kept them alive. The steps to force a restructuring by U.S. automakers drew a mixed reaction from […]

Submitted by Leo Kolivakis, publisher of Pension Pulse. Before getting into this weekend’s food for thought topic, I think you should all watch Secretary of the Treasury Tim Geithner’s interview on ABC’s This Week and the roundtable discussion where Paul Krugman expressed his concerns with the plan. Interestingly, Krugman thinks the U.S. government is not […]

Submitted by Leo Kolivakis, publisher of Pension Pulse. A buddy of mine emailed me urging me to write about CEO pensions. So how good are CEO pensions? I found a Forbes article from July 2007 stating that CEO pensions continue to soar: Maybe “pension” isn’t the right word anymore to call what the world’s top […]

Submitted by Leo Kolivakis, publisher of Pension Pulse. Pension funds for companies in Standard & Poor’s 1500 Index met 74% of future obligations in February, down from 89% before the market crashed, Bloomberg reports: The amount by which U.S. pensions are underfunded has almost doubled since October to $373 billion, increasing pressure on companies to […]

Submitted by Leo Kolivakis, publisher of Pension Pulse. President Obama presented a sober assessment of the state of the economy in a prime time news conference Tuesday, but he insisted his administration has a strategy in place to “attack this crisis on all fronts.” I listened to the news conference and I was not impressed […]

Submitted by Leo Kolivakis, publisher of Pension Pulse. Wall Street got the news it wanted on the economy’s biggest problems — banks and housing — and celebrated by hurtling the Dow Jones industrials up nearly 500 points: Investors added rocket fuel Monday to a two-week-old advance, cheering the government’s plan to help banks remove bad […]

Submitted by Leo Kolivakis, publisher of Pension Pulse. I want to follow-up on my last post, the Mother of all stealth scams?. In that post, I argued that the AIG bonus bonanza and the upcoming bank bailouts are distracting people from the bigger problem coming down the road, namely, the bailouts of public and private […]

Submitted by Leo Kolivakis, publisher of Pension Pulse. Earlier this week, Michael Hudson wrote an excellent comment in counterpunch, The Real AIG Conspiracy: It may seem odd, but the public outrage against $135 million in AIG bonuses is a godsend to Wall Street, AIG scoundrels included. How can the media be so preoccupied with the […]

Submitted by Leo Kolivakis, publisher of Pension Pulse. Before delving into tonight’s topic, a few words about the AIG bonus blunder. The New York Times reports that many in government knew weeks ago about AIG bonuses: The question was direct and prescient. Representative Joseph Crowley, Democrat of New York, asked the Treasury secretary in an […]

Submitted by Leo Kolivakis, publisher of Pension Pulse. After rallying for four days, stocks gave up early gains and the rally fizzled this afternoon: Analysts said Monday’s pullback after a four-session surge didn’t necessarily signal that traders were reconsidering their newfound optimism about financial stocks, a main driver behind last week’s advance. In fact some […]

Submitted by Leo Kolivakis, publisher of Pension Pulse. Ed Mendel of Capitol Weekly writes that public pension funds’ rosy forecasts pose problems: Pension funds have been hit hard by the stock market crash, losing about a third of their value in some cases, and there may be another problem. Before the crash, some financial experts […]

Submitted by Leo Kolivakis, publisher of Pension Pulse. According to Watson Wyatt, U.S. pension plan funding plunged by more than$300 billion in 2008: As news of the economic crisis continues to unfold, the first look at actual 2008 disclosures reveals substantial investment losses for the largest U.S. corporate pension plan sponsors, according to a new […]