Your Survival Guy

Preparing your investments and family for when disaster strikes.

Disclosure

  • Home
  • Your Survival
    • EMP Threat
    • Tucker Explains
    • Newport Gas Outage
    • Water
      • Emergency Water Storage
      • Let There Be Water
    • Get Your Gun and Your Training Now
    • Satellite Phones
    • Navy SEAL Survival Kit
  • Your Money
    • Coronavirus Infects Stock Market
    • Looking for a Better America
    • You Invest, They Win
    • Where to Keep Your Cash
    • Paris
    • How to Buy a Boat
    • Dead or Alive? The Future of Long-Term Investing
    • Is Vanguard too Big?
    • Cryptocosm and Life After Google
    • The Last Intelligence Report
    • The Truth Behind the S&P 500
    • RAGE Gauge
    • How Many “Retirees” Will Keep Working?
    • Your Retirement Life
    • You’ll Love This if You’re Dreaming of an Active Retirement Life
  • Weapons
    • Self Defense
    • Every Family Should Own at Least One Shotgun: Here Are Three
  • About Me
    • Preparing for Times Like These
    • My Videos/Pics
    • Music
      • RIP Neil Peart: You Will Always Be Remembered as a “Modern-Day Warrior”
  • You
    • Our Cabin on Kodiak, Alaska
    • If You Are in Pain, this May Help. It Helped Me.
    • How to Save for a Grandchild
    • FIRE! Financial Independence, Retire Early
    • Compound Interest
    • Arithmetic of Portfolio Losses
    • Maximum Portfolio Withdrawal Rate
    • An Efficient Frontier
    • Retirement Compounders
    • Counterbalanced Total Returns
  • Survive & Thrive
    • January 2021
    • December 2020
    • November 2020
    • October 2020
    • September 2020
    • August 2020
    • July 2020
    • June 2020
    • May 2020
    • April 2020
    • March 2020
    • February 2020
    • January 2020
    • December 2019
    • November 2019
    • October 2019
    • September 2019
    • August 2019
    • July 2019
    • June 2019
    • May 2019
    • April 2019
    • March 2019
    • February 2019
    • January 2019
    • December 2018
    • November 2018
    • October 2018
    • September 2018
    • August 2018
    • July 2018
    • June 2018
    • May 2018
    • April 2018
    • March 2018
    • February 2018
    • Welcome

Fuzzy Math Can’t Hide This State’s Pension Trouble Anymore

September 1, 2017 By E.J. Smith - Your Survival Guy

For years I have warned against over optimistic return expectations on pension funds (See here, here, here, here, here, and here for starters). States like Illinois are known to have unrealistic pension expectations, but new rules forcing states into more rational calculations for their pension fund returns have outed Minnesota as another pension fund risk taker.

At Bloomberg, Martin Z. Braun reports that Minnesota’s pension fund liabilities have increased by $16.7 billion dollars using the new calculation. It’s amazing what fuzzy math can hide for so many years.

Thanks to more realistic return expectations, Minnesotans can now see that their politicians have left the state’s pension fund 53% funded, rather than the 80% they had claimed.

Perhaps scariest of all for America’s pensioners and taxpayers is that this phenomenon is not isolated to Minnesota. Braun writes:

The worsening outlook for Minnesota is in line with what happened nationally. Pension-funding ratios declined in 43 states in the 2016 fiscal year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. New Jersey had the worst-funded system, with about 31 percent of the assets it needs, followed by Kentucky with 31.4 percent. The median state pension had a 71 percent funding ratio, down from 74.5 percent in 2015.

While record-setting stock prices boosted the median public pension return to 12.4 percent in 2017, the most in three years, that won’t be enough to dig them out of the hole.

Only eight state pension plans, in Minnesota, New Jersey, Kentucky and Texas, used a discount rate “significantly lower” than their traditional discount rate to value liabilities, according to July report by the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College.

“Because of that huge drop in the discount rate under GASB reporting, their liabilities skyrocket,” said Todd Tauzer, an S&P Global Ratings analyst. “That’s why you see that huge change compared to other states.”

Read more here.

The following two tabs change content below.
  • Bio
  • Latest Posts
My Twitter profileMy Facebook profileMy Instagram profile

E.J. Smith - Your Survival Guy

E.J. Smith is Founder of YourSurvivalGuy.com, Managing Director at Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd., a Managing Editor of Richardcyoung.com, and Editor-in-Chief of Youngresearch.com. His focus at all times is on preparing clients and readers for “Times Like These.” E.J. graduated from Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, with a B.S. in finance and investments. In 1995, E.J. began his investment career at Fidelity Investments in Boston before joining Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd. in 1998. E.J. has trained at Sig Sauer Academy in Epping, NH. His first drum set was a 5-piece Slingerland with Zilldjians. He grew-up worshiping Neil Peart (RIP) of the band Rush, and loves the song Tom Sawyer—the name of his family’s boat, a Grady-White Canyon 306. He grew up in Mattapoisett, MA, an idyllic small town on the water near Cape Cod. He spends time in Newport, RI and Bartlett, NH—both as far away from Wall Street as one could mentally get. The Newport office is on a quiet, tree lined street not far from the harbor and the log cabin in Bartlett, NH, the “Live Free or Die” state, sits on the edge of the White Mountain National Forest. He enjoys spending time in Key West and Paris. Please get in touch with E.J. at ejsmith@yoursurvivalguy.com
My Twitter profileMy Facebook profileMy Instagram profile

Latest posts by E.J. Smith - Your Survival Guy (see all)

  • Are $2,000 Checks Going to Rebuild NYC? - January 15, 2021
  • The Fed is Sacrificing Retirees to Save the Banks - January 15, 2021
  • How Are You Doing on a Local Level? - January 14, 2021
  • February RAGE Gauge: Americans Focusing on What’s In Front of Them - January 14, 2021
  • There’s Always a Way Forward for Americans Like YOU - January 13, 2021

If you enjoyed this post, email it to a friend:

  • Email
  • Print
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • WhatsApp

Related Posts

Trending

  • H2O, Skiing, Hiding A$$ET$, Bitcoin, Ammo & More
  • What Living in Two Americas Looks Like Today
  • America 2022: Time to Take Back What's Ours
  • You Can Be a F.I.R.E. Starter
  • The Great Reset: Meet the Climate Czar and His War: Part III
  • Great Reset, Swiss Way, and Living YOUR WAY
  • Why Buying Bonds Matters in Times Like These
  • Be Prepared for Another Great Lockdown, Recession, or Reset
  • For You, I Want Generational Wealth as Big as Yellowstone
  • Stocks: Are You Sticking Your Neck Out Too Far?

YOUR SURVIVAL GUY MUST READS

  • Biden Seeking to Turn 401(k)s Into a Wealth Redistribution Scheme
  • A Lesson from Legends: “Don’t Confuse Activity with Achievement”
  • It’s the COVID Stupid: Don’t Stop BELIEVIN’
  • Fidelity Investments: Why it’s #1
  • Here’s Why You Should Treat Your Disaster Cash like Gold
  • For You, I Want Generational Wealth as Big as Yellowstone
  • Biden Town Hall: Stay in the Ring Joe
  • Every Family Should Own at Least One Shotgun: Here Are Three
  • Be a Shepherd. You’ll Be Happier. Greed Kills
  • Your Retirement Survival Checklist: Move to an Island
Only if You’re Serious
Only if You’re Serious
Only if You’re Serious
Escape the City
Only if You’re Serious
Why Vanguard is Too Big for YOU
See Who's Missing the Boat
You Invest, They Win
Emergency Water Storage
Emergency Water Storage
Emergency Water Storage
Why Fidelity is Number One

Copyright © 2021 | Terms & Conditions

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.