It's late Friday afternoon, during a blizzard, so Walker's henchman pick this time to announce...

[Scuba]

State agency announces cuts in some pension checks

Read more: http://host.madison.com/wsj/business/state-agency-announces-cuts-in-some-pension-checks/article_dbddb132-64b6-11e1-8d6b-001871e3ce6c.html#ixzz1o0B8FVDC

Retired public employees in Wisconsin could see their pension checks cut as much as 7 percent later this year.

That's the reduction for nearly 100,000 retirees whose payments come from the Wisconsin Retirement System's Core Trust Fund, the
Department of Employee Trust Funds said Friday.

But another 70,000 retirees in the Core Fund will see smaller reductions or no pension cut at all, the agency said.

New pension amounts will take effect May 1.

In unrelated news, a state-wide shortage of KY Jelly is being reported.

[mzteris]

1. all the more people to vote against them,

my dear. . .

He's shooting himself in the foot.

Older people tend to vote Republican - I don't think they're going to vote for him for dog catcher. It'd be abusive to the dogs!

Of course I'd be interested to see which group of retirees has their funds cut and which group does not. That would be interesting.

[dixiegrrrrl]

2. The reason there will be cuts is how the funds are invested

The pension ups and downs are based on the performance of the funds, managed by the State of Wisconsin Investment Board, and actuarial factors. In 2011, the diversified Core Fund had a return of 1.4 percent and a market value of $72 billion, while the return on the optional, all-stock Variable Fund declined 3 percent with a market value of $5.2 billion.

The Core Fund's gains and losses are smoothed over five years, so even though its returns have been positive for three years, the outcome is still marred by the $21 billion decrease in the Core Fund in 2008's financial market meltdown.

The problem is that so very many pension plans are invested in the market.
The worse problem is there are stories emerging of how the fund money has been "co-mingled" ala MF Global.

also, there is a potential problem down the pike:
"pension checks from the Core Fund cannot be reduced below their level when the employee retired. "

So what happens when the market goes down, and the funds earn much less than the required level of pension payments???

[midnight]

4. Dixiegrrrl do you know if any of the management groups are related to Koch... Seems to me last year

their was discussion about this..

[dixiegrrrrl]

5. Not off the top of my head. Google, perhaps?

If you post your question in the Economy group, I bet someone there will have the info.
they are a bunch of savvy folks who have been collecting/reading stuff like that for a long time.

[SWTORFanatic]

3. Walker really is shooting himself in the foot... he's not smart. Even if he

wanted to do that, wait until he is a lame duck or if god forbid he wins his recall.