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Around the Web-O-Sphere: Meep Enjoying Herself Too Much

by meep

1 December 2017, 03:40

It’s so untoward to laugh about one’s own jokes but….

While my friends are arguing about sexual harassment and similar things on twitter… I have arguments about use of alternative asset classes in public pensions and chat about William Blake. I prefer my twitter. :)
— Mary Pat Campbell (@meepbobeep) November 29, 2017

Hedge funds, hedge funds, burning bright
in the portfolios of pensions in a fright;
What manager picked you out to see
if you would yield more than bonds risk-free?
— Mary Pat Campbell (@meepbobeep) November 29, 2017

…I have no shame.

There is also this, which is much better than what I came up with:

I heard there was a set of words
That the kids memed and confused the olds
But you don't really care for poems, do you?
Well it goes like this: the plums, the box,
The sweet cold taste, and the breakfast lost,
The baffling tweets reworking Carlos Williams
— michaela joffe (@joffeorama) November 29, 2017

To be sure, it doesn’t involve public pensions, but it does involve William Carlos Williams, one of my favorite poets… partly because he has such memorizable poems.

Also, I like the song being spoofed.

POINT, COUNTERPOINT, COUNTERCOUNTERPOINT…LOOK GUYS, YOU’RE ALL PRETTY

I was thinking of doing a post on this, but eh. I’m not going to even quote any of this (right now). The only reason this caught my attention was the petulant Calpers post, which was too funny. You know, you could just ignore these guys. After all, it’s not like you really were addressing why a supposed 100% ARC payer had a fairly low funded ratio.

Steven Greenhut: Losing your pension? CalPERS wants to shift blame to cities
Dan Pellisier: How did CalPERS dig a $153 billion pension hole?
Calpers: Critics Pick Their Facts but Ignore the Truth
Steven Greenhut: CalPERS is shocked – just shocked – to find cities reeling under the burden of growing pension debt

Obviously, I’m on Steven & Dan’s side.

Look, neither of them are part of a system that tells towns that have made 100% contributions for years that it counts for only 30% of accrued benefits. Because when you want to leave, amazingly, the pensions get magically more expensive: Much Ado About Discount Rates: Welcome to the Pension California

We’ll keep pretending the pensions cost less, as long as you stay part of the ~~Ponzi~~ pension scheme (as the UK actuaries like to say).

But if you leave, we’ll recognize the full cost. You know, the cost we should have been using to reflect how expensive these promises are.

Do they not realize that it doesn’t look good when you admit that you need younger members to keep the plan going along? To keep pretending you can pay less than what the promises are worth? Because there’s always a new ~~sucker~~ participant whose contributions will pay for the older ones… and as long as you keep having new people it never fails.

Yes, it’s always ugly when the scam gets exposed.