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Pension Bill Irks Experts: No Bonds Without Federal Oversight

The bill ... would require state and local governments to submit annual reports to the Treasury Department disclosing detailed information about their pension plans, including unfunded liabilities determined on the basis of a Treasury rate, rather than the more commonly used rate of return on investments, which is higher.

Defense Offered for Illinois Pension Reforms

"Article VIII provides that the state budget shall be balanced and appropriations for any fiscal year shall be no greater than the estimate of funds available and that the appropriations for a fiscal year shall not exceed the funds estimated by the General Assembly to be available for that year. 'These provisions of the constitution cannot be ignored in favor of the Pension Clause. The terms of the constitution must be interpreted to give meaning to each provision,' [said municipal restructuring expert James Spiotto]."

Analysis Determines Detroit Pension Funds in Better Shape Than Orr Says

"Kevyn Orr, the city's emergency manager, has estimated the underfunding of the city's two pension funds at $3.5 billion. The pension fund managers disagree, saying the funds are more than 90% funded, meaning that there are adequate resources to pay almost all future liabilities. The Bond Buyer reported Friday that Morningstar, a major investment adviser, found that the actuarial assumptions made by the two pension funds to come up with their more optimistic assessment were in line with industry practice."

Report Says Some Pension Funding Deeply Flawed; Federal Role Needed

"The report, by the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government, makes recommendations about how to fix the defined-benefit public pension system so that benefits are funded more securely. These include ensuring that pension funds and governments value liabilities using a discount rate that assumes a low risk that obligations will not be paid and pay realistic actuarially determined contributions."

California Group Pushes for Pension Reforms

Excerpt: A group of California taxpayer advocates is aiming to turn a bad run of news for public retirement plans into a pension reform movement in the nation's biggest state. They're pushing a ballot measure that would scale back defined-benefit pension plans for new public workers at both the state and local level. They say their plan would save California governments $500 billion over 30 years.

Are Public Pension Obligations Debt, or Are They Values?

"'I don't think pension benefits are a debt,' said [Richard] Brodsky, a former New York State Assemblyman.... '[A distinction has to be made] between debt and social and legal obligations we have to fill.... Who are you going to hit and who's going to suffer?' [but a stark reality is that] New York City and others face soaring pension, Medicaid and retiree health care costs. Yonkers is teetering. Suffolk County just declared a fiscal emergency. Its Long Island neighbor, Nassau County, is under a fiscal control board."

Japan's Government Pension Investment Fund Cutting Back on Japanese Bond Allocation

"The fund needs to raise about 8.87 trillion yen this fiscal year to pay pension benefits ... As part of its effort to diversify assets and generate higher returns, [the Government Pension Investment Fund (GPIF)] recently started investing in emerging markets stocks. GPIF is historically one of the biggest buyers of Japanese debt and held 71.9 trillion yen, or 63% of its assets, in domestic bonds as of March, according to the fund's financial statement for the 2011 fiscal year. That compares with 13% in domestic stocks, 8.7% in foreign bonds and 11% in overseas equities."

Senator Hatch Offers Pension Reform Bill But Some Say It Wouldn't Work

"Hank Kim, executive director of the National Conference on Public Employees Retirement Systems, was left scratching his head. 'Public pension plans are already self-annuitized,' he said. 'To say the private sector would do it more efficiently, I just don't understand that rationale.' ... 'No pension plan has ever gone bankrupt, but there are a slew of private insurance companies that have gone bankrupt,' he said."

Why Moody's Changed Its Pension Analysis (Video)

"Tim Blake of Moody's Investors Service discusses why the firm changed the way it determines pension liabilities and how cities and states are handling pension issues."

2015 Investment Company Fact Book (PDF)

312 pages. "[A]fter nearly a decade of strong inflows to bond funds, some regulators, researchers, and commentators are once again raising concerns about how fund investors will react when interest rates begin to rise and bond funds report losses ... [O]utflows from bond funds, even at the height of a market downturn, amount to only 1 or 2 percent of bond fund assets in a month. And even when bond funds have net outflows, investors do not all move for the exits. As some investors sell shares in bond funds, others continue to buy; a substantial portion of individual funds have net inflows; and fund managers are both buyers and sellers of securities. All of this means that funds continue to operate on both sides of the markets, rather than engaging in the one-sided trading that is often predicted."