Public Pensions and Finance: I Like to Watch
by meep
While I am not at 100%, as mentioned in the prior post, I have figured out what I can do:
Watch.
(and yes, I am referring to Being There in my post title…love that movie)
USING THE INTERNET AS EXTERNAL MEMORY
Some of y’all come here from various locations, and those coming from the Actuarial Outpost are well familiar with what I am about to post: links to a lot of my watch threads.
I started this years ago, for a variety of reasons, but I have two in particular:
1. My memory isn’t great and the internet is full of crap. I need some organization to my thoughts, and I like putting them where all can see.
2. I have found overwhelming evidence, accumulated over many years, becomes unanswerable in debates. My first argument was against those who said: the pensions will always be paid. Government doesn’t go out of business.
Most of these threads have minimal comment by me, and over time I do the following things:
- a bunch of capitalized tags at the top to make it more searchable for me
- link to the story
- quoting key parts of the story
- and posting a graph, if there is a meaningful one.
Sometimes I have remarks, but usually my only remarks are that of questions.
I will list the key watch threads below for people’s reference. I will often update these threads even when I can’t blog in a substantive way. Some of the older threads have links to defunct blogs I posted on… sorry, I’m just going to move on at this point rather than try to dig up those old posts.
WATCH THREADS AT THE ACTUARIAL OUTPOST
First, the public pension related threads…. in reverse chronological order. These go back to 2008.
- Public Pensions Watch 2015
- Public Pensions Watch 2014
- Public Pensions Watch 2013
- Public Pensions Watch IV: the saga continues – the 2012 thread
- Public Plan Watch III: The reckoning – from 2011
- Public plans in trouble: part 2 – from 2010
- Public plans in trouble – my original thread, ran from Sept 2008 – Jan 2010.
I did multiple threads because that first one topped 1000 posts, and people started complaining. Having a new thread for each year helps. As I write, the 2015 thread runs 1485 posts.
Anyway, while I do google search for history on public pension trouble, I usually just search my threads. Because I’ve put a lot of stuff in there. Other people have also posted stories, and I recommend others adding as well.
My focus has been more of the news-related rather than editorial sort in these threads.
Public finance-related threads
Some of these are mostly quiescent at this point, but you never know.
- Puerto Rico Watch — my newest watch thread
- Muni Watch – since 2010
- Detroit bankruptcy watch – started July 2013
- Illinois Debt Watch – since 2010
- Sovereign debt watch – since 2010
- Eurozone watch
That last thread started in 2011, and this opening line to the thread cracks me up:
I know we’ve heard it several times before, but perhaps the endgame is near.
Oh, I’m so silly.
Other watch/trend threads
If you’re interested in the above topics, you might be interested in these:
- Multiemployer pension thread
- Non-Public Pensions Watch 2014-whenever — usually notable failures/stresses/trends
- Social Security-type programs — looking at non-U.S. countries’ social retirement systems.
- Retirement age changes — this is a general topic, including mandatory retirement age laws, not only eligibility tp take retirement. Covers global changes.
- The Future of Social Security – I didn’t create this thread, but it’s been ongoing since 2011. We keep track of proposals for changes to Social Security, and also have very actuarial discussions
- Treasury Rate Watch – ongoing since 2009
I also have threads on mortality trends, PPACA issues, etc. But I’ll let that go for now.
My copy/paste muscles are now tired.
THE WATCHER CONTINUES
I may just be copying over some of these stories, without comment, for a while. It doesn’t tax me much.
If you want a little more detail on my health situation, here is an explanation. Though not in that post, I got an even newer (to me) pain: sciatica. I just realized it doesn’t just hit old people and it wasn’t what I thought it was.
I am not seeking advice, but I will say that the following stretches have helped me: 6 Simple Moves to Ease Sciatica from Prevention magazine.
I will do what I can, when I can, but for now, the pain is telling me to shut up, so copy/paste it is.
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