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Wall Street Journal and Credit Suisse 'Union Pension Bomb' Is Long on Drama, Short on Insight (PDF)

"The May 15, 2012 Wall Street Journal editorial entitled 'The Union Pension Bomb' and the Credit Suisse report to which it refers may provide an eye-catching headline, but it contains numerous factual inaccuracies and misleading statements regarding multiemployer plans.... Rather than acknowledging the long-term nature of pension obligations and the market fluctuations that will produce periodic and transitory periods of over- or underfunding, [the editorial] chose to capitalize on the anomalies produced by artificially low interest rates, overly influenced by monetary policies intended to stimulate low-cost borrowing, at the expense of those institutions and individuals whose long-term financial survival is dependent on savings and historically dependable fixed income instruments. The sensationalism of these conclusions may play well to those whose interests are served by eliminating any sense of corporate responsibility to the workers whose efforts are as much a contributing factor to the companies' success as those who provide the capital, but no one should be fooled by this shameless and opportunistic characterization of the current rates as market driven 'risk-free' rates, appropriate for such conclusions."

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Wall Street Journal v. The Facts on Money Market Funds: Response to Wall Street Journal Feb. 3 Editorial

Excerpt: ICI President and CEO Paul Schott Stevens sent the following Letter to the Editor to the Wall Street Journal on February 3, 2010. Your editorial, 'The SEC v. Investors' (Feb. 3), got it wrong. Wrong on the facts, wrong on the analysis, wrong on the strength of the SEC's rules, and wrong on the mutual fund industry's commitment to its investors.

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Overview of The Wall Street Journal's Retirement-Planning Guide

Excerpt: This guidebook is ... a blueprint for building a successful retirement. We'll show you how the various pieces -- retirement savings, Social Security, relocation, new careers, volunteer work, estate planning, health care, leisure and more -- come together as you create your plan for a personally fulfilling retirement.

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ERIC Letter to the Wall Street Journal in Response to Cash Balance Article of August 15, 2006

Excerpt: ERIC submitted the ... letter to the Wall Street Journal for inclusion on August 15. The Journal subsequently declined to publish the letter.  MORE >>

Wall Street Journal Interviews Experts on Solutions to the 'Nest-Egg Blues'

Excerpt: For tips on how to regain financial and emotional equilibrium in scary economic times, The Wall Street Journal convened a panel at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. The participants were: John L. McKeever III, a chartered financial consultant ... Olivia S. Mitchell, professor of insurance and risk management at the Wharton School [and] Jack L. VanDerhei, associate professor at the Fox School of Business and Management at Temple University...

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On Money Market Funds, False Promises and Faulty Premises from The Wall Street Journal

"There's little evidence to support the Journal's claims that its favored proposal for money market funds -- forcing them to float their per-share price -- would enhance financial stability. As the financial crisis demonstrated, floating-value funds are not immune to runs. Instead, this 'solution' would deprive investors and the economy of an efficient, diversified, well-regulated, and transparent tool for cash management, and a crucial channel for financing businesses, state and local governments, and nonprofit institutions."  MORE >>

The Wall Street Journal's Contribution to the Fiduciary Argument

"[I] was particularly dismayed to read the August 12 WSJ editorial entitled 'The Borzi Savings Bomb,' with the tagline: 'An Obama appointee concocts a fictional crisis that will have real costs.' Apparently, in today's highly charged political environment, even the Journal editorial staff is unable to look beyond partisanship to examine an important issue on its merits, alone. As the title and tagline suggest, WSJ editors are upset with Assistant Labor Secretary Phyllis Borzi's attempt to provide IRA investors with the same protections that other retirement savers have in pension plans including defined benefit plans, 401(k)s, and 403(b)s."  MORE >>

Wall Street Journal Columnist Takes Aim at Target Date Funds

"Author Mark Hulbert's gripe is that glidepaths consider too few variables, something reflected in the research.... While not perfect, some critics countered target-date funds are adequate for most savers and better than the do-it-yourself allocation and rebalancing alternative. Others claimed the criticism stems from a desire on the part of advisors to use more expensive managed accounts."

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NCEO Responds to Wall Street Journal ESOP Article

"According to data from the EBSA, ESOPs have both higher average return and lower volatility than 401(k) plans. Contributions to the ESOP come overwhelmingly not from employees but from companies, and those company contributions to ESOPs are on average 75% larger than to non-ESOP plans. Perhaps most persuasively, people who work for ESOP companies have between 2 and 2.5 times as much asset value in employer plans versus people in comparable non-ESOP companies."

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Wall Street Journal is Wrong About Public Pensions

"[CalPERS] relied on IMPLAN, the most widely employed and accepted regional economic analysis software for predicting economic impacts.... [They input] total benefits paid in California (more than $12.7 billion) into IMPLAN to arrive at a 2.39 economic multiplier and the 113,664 jobs created.... CalPERS benefits (retirees spending their pensions) returned $10.85 in economic activity to California for each taxpayer dollar (public funds) contributed to the system. The total economic revenue generated by CalPERS benefits was more than $30.4 billion."

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Letter to the Editor of the Wall Street Journal from NCTR's Executive Director (PDF)

1 page. The letter is written in response to New York City school's Chancellor Joe Klein's Essay on Pension Funds.

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Overview of Wall Street Journal Article Entitled 'Pension Tension: Figuring Out When to Lump It'

Excerpt: [T]he author says more Americans are facing a critical question as they reach retirement -- whether to take pension benefits as a single one-time cash payout or as a lifetime stream of monthly payments. Private companies are increasingly giving retiring employees that choice, and pension consultants say that most retirees take the lump sum when they can.  MORE >>

American Academy of Actuaries' Letter to the Wall Street Journal on Recent Pension Article (PDF)

1 page. Excerpt: The article 'Tracking the Numbers,' by Ellen Schultz on Nov. 4, could have left your readers with an incorrect understanding of the cash balance plan pension plan being discussed. When Bank of America employees were given the option to transfer money from their 401(k) plans to the bank's new cash balance retirement plan, their principal became guaranteed. While most stock investors lost money over the past few years, Bank of America employees lost none of the principal in[.]  MORE >>

Wall Street Bonuses: Where's the Outrage?

Excerpt: So institutional shareholders are upset at the bonuses Goldman Sachs Group is planning to shell out, as we read in today's WSJ. But what about investors at other financial institutions? Where is the outrage there? The complaint of Goldman shareholders is simple: Despite record net income, Goldman's per-share earnings will be 22% lower this year than in 2007 and roughly equal to its 2006 earnings, according to Thomson Financial. Goldman is, of course, the whipping boy of the moment. Whether the criticism is fair or not, Goldman has come to symbolize the perceived inequity between Wall Street and Main Street. And while the government bailed out Wall Street, unemployment stands above 10%, while Goldman's per-employee compensation reaches $717,000.  MORE >>

DOL Proceding with Plans to Expand Oversight of Retirement Plans Despite Wall Street Resistance

[Assistant Labor Secretary Borzi said in an email] that it is 'hard to believe that a rule designed to protect employers and workers from conflicted investment advice would cause the entire financial industry to voluntarily walk away from a multitrillion-dollar market.'  MORE >>

Some Consumers Say Wall Street Failed Them

Excerpt: With retirement accounts tumbling and millions of homeowners struggling to pay their mortgages, a realization is dawning on many Americans: The banks, brokerage firms, insurance companies and other players in the financial-services industry have failed them.... risks previously borne by big banks and employers have been placed squarely on the shoulders of consumers. Individuals increasingly bear the risk of interest-rate fluctuations, rising health-care costs, stock-market gyrations and outliving their retirement savings.

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Wall Street Lays Egg With Its Nest Eggs: Retirement Lessons of Dumb Moves by 'Smart Money'

Excerpt: In the past week, Merrill Lynch's Web site still displayed an article, 'Understanding Your Entire Portfolio,' full of sensible advice. If shares in your employer's stock are 'a significant portion of your investments,' it said, 'you'll want to consider the potential impact of a falling stock price on your portfolio.' Physician, heal thyself. At the end of 2006, Merrill employees had 27% of all their retirement money in Merrill shares. In 2007, Merrill employees lost $669.8 million on their holdings of Merrill, and so far this year, probably at least $400 million.

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The DOL's Fiduciary Rule Is Really a Gift to Wall Street -- and a Trap for Plan Sponsors

"The [DOL] is selling its new fiduciary rule as protection. Protection from lawsuits. Protection through process. Protection via a checklist. But strip away the language, and the reality is far more troubling: This rule is not about reducing litigation. It is about unlocking new revenue streams for Wall Street and the insurance industry -- while leaving plan sponsors holding the liability."  MORE >>

Public Employee Unions Are Indirectly Some of Wall Street's Biggest Customers

"On June 30, 2011, the Maryland State Retirement and Pension System ('the System') reported net assets of $37.6 billion.... During the fiscal year ending June 30, 2011, the System spent $221 million on Wall Street money management fees, though fund management appears to have yielded subpar results. There is substantial evidence that Wall Street managers are unable to beat passive equity index funds that cost much less in fees.... The ratio of the System's Wall Street fees equaled 0.693 percent in FY 2011, above the 0.409 percent of similar state systems nationwide."  MORE >>

Government Worker Pensions ARE Wall Street

"In an editorial posted in January 2011 entitled 'Wall Street & Public Sector Unions,' we identified an irony still lost on the occupy movement's rank and file -- Wall Street is financed by the pension funds of unionized government workers. Every year, taxpayer funded government agencies pour hundreds of billions of dollars into Wall Street investment funds."  MORE >>