Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation - Bad Investments?

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Turns out the Federal agency/corporation that insures 44 million American pensions made some bad choices in handling their portfolio last year.

"WASHINGTON - Just months before the start of last year's stock market collapse, the federal agency that insures the retirement funds of 44 million Americans departed from its conservative investment strategy and decided to put much of its $64 billion insurance fund into stocks.

Switching from a heavy reliance on bonds, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation decided to pour billions of dollars into speculative investments such as stocks in emerging foreign markets, real estate, and private equity funds.

The agency refused to say how much of the new investment strategy has been implemented or how the fund has fared during the downturn. The agency would only say that its fund was down 6.5 percent - and all of its stock-related investments were down 23 percent - as of last Sept. 30, the end of its fiscal year. But that was before most of the recent stock market decline and just before the investment switch was scheduled to begin in earnest."

The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) is responsible for making pension payments should the pension fund that an eligible person receives default. If there isn't enough money, they won't be able to make the payouts.

Press Release from the PBGC regarding the investment strategy which was voted on on Feb 12, 2008, under the new Republican Director Charles E.F. Millard.
http://www.pbgc.gov/docs/bna-investment-policy-summary.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_E.F._Millard
Director Millard was formerly a managing Director at Lehman Brothers and was part of Giuliani's cabinet.

An overview of PBGC:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pension_Benefit_Guaranty_Corporation

The PBGC is a corporation that has as it's board of Directors the Secretarys of Labor, Commerce and Treasury. That would make the people who voted on the investment strategy Elaine Chao, Carlos Gutierrez, and everyone's favorite Hank Paulson.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elaine_Chao
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Gutierrez
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Paulson

So does this bear further investigation? Most likely. Will it be exposed? Probably not.

Historical Figure for the day - 3/27/2009 - Miyamoto Musashi

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miyamoto_Musashi

The Book of Five Rings is probably the 2nd most well known Asian literature relating to war and battle, the first being The Art of War by Sun Tzu over 2200 years ago. BoFR (Book of Five Rings) was written in around 1645. Miyamoto's life is somewhat of an enigma. One of the most well known facts is that he spent his life dueling, quite successfully. A fascinating film called "Miyamoto Musashi" was released in 1954 - this movie portrayed him as a young and wild, undisciplined man who eventually grows into the master that history remembers him as.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Five_Rings
The Book of Five Rings is a treatise on not just the art of battle and swordsmanship, but of the other arts that complete a man - poetry, calligraphy, religion and music. A complete warrior is complete in his life as well as his grasp of the martial arts. Regardless of the reality of the man Miyamoto, the Book is definitely a must read for any philosopher or wanna-be Samurai. Good insightful thinking.



Further study:
Miyamoto Musashi (1954)


Buy a copy of The Book of Five Rings:

Historical Figure for the day - 3/26/2009 - James Forrestal

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Forrestal

Forrestal got his start in the military in the Navy, and ended up as a navial aviator. He later entered the political arena and ended up as the Secretary of the Navy, and in 1947 became the 1st Secretary of Defense under Truman.


"During private cabinet meetings with President Truman in 1946 and 1947, Forrestal had argued against partition of Palestine on the grounds it would infuriate Arab countries who supplied oil needed for the U.S. economy and national defense. Instead, Forrestal favored a federalization plan for Palestine. Outside the White House, response to Truman's continued silence on the issue was immediate. President Truman received threats to cut off campaign contributions from wealthy donors, as well as hate mail, including a letter accusing him of "preferring fascist and Arab elements to the democracy-loving Jewish people of Palestine."[5] Appalled by the intensity and implied threats over the partition question, Forrestal appealed to Truman in two separate cabinet meetings not to base his decision on partition, whatever the outcome, on the basis of political pressure.[6] In his only known public comment on the issue, Forrestal stated to J. Howard McGrath, Senator from Rhode Island:

"...no group in this country should be permitted to influence our policy to the point it could endanger our national security."

Forrestal was responsible for some racial integration in the Navy. He also had an aircraft carrier class named after him ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Forrestal_(CV-59) ).

Historical Figure for the day - 3/25/2009 - Charles Guiteau

There have been 4 Presidents of the USA assassinated in office - Abraham Lincoln, James A. Garfield, William McKinley, and John F. Kennedy. There have been numerous other attempts, but these 4 were the only successes. Two of the assassins are quite famous, John Wilkes Booth (Lincoln) and Lee Harvey Oswald (JFK). The other two, like the presidents they assassinated, are more obscure references.

Charles Guiteau is one of the obscure assassins, and in some ways he is considered to not be the actual assassin - he just shot the President. The doctors who tended to Garfield were clumsy, and did horrible work at trying to help the shot President. Guiteau himself said "The doctors killed Garfield, I just shot him".

Guiteau was an unstable sort from Illinois, although he had a lot of exposure to a religious sect in Oneida, NY through his father's involvement. The instability led him to over imagine his own sense of importance, and believed that some political work he had done had helped win Garfield the election in 1880. When Guiteau was turned down for a cabinet post or an ambassadorship, his instability led him to shoot Garfield in revenge.

Garfield was shot on July 2, 1881 but did not die until September 19th of that year. Guiteau was tried and found guilty, and was hung on June 30, 1882.

Historical Figure for the day - 3/24/2009 - Jacque de Molay

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_de_Molay

The (?) last Grand Master of the Knights Templar. Put to death in 1314 by King Philip of France for heresy. There are varying beliefs about what really prompted the disbanding of the Knights Templar, but what is known for sure is that Jacque de Molay confessed to many heinous crimes against God and Church. He later recanted his confessions, claiming they were tortured out of him.

King Philip owed the Knights Templar a lot of money. They (the Order) are considered to be the first true "bankers" of the modern age. They amassed so much wealth in their protection of pilgrims in the Holy Land, and their conquests over infidels, that they began lending money and developed Letters of Credit to easily transport wealth from one region to another (by transporting the claim to ownership of a certain amount of money/gold, rather than transporting the gold itself).

The end of the Templars is a fascinating read, even more so than the origins.

Uncle Sam

Uncle Sam is a well known image in United States culture. He is the embodiment of what we hold dear - Truth, Liberty, and the American Way. He gained the most popularity in recent history during World War II, as a way of helping convince people to do their patriotic duty and sign up with the military. But, his origin goes even further back.

General folklore holds that one Samuel Wilson, a meat packer from New York, would stamp his boxes of supplies destined for the U.S. Army during the War of 1812. The soldiers joked that rather than standing for "United States", it really stood for "Uncle Sam" Wilson.

As an image, Uncle Sam first appeared in 1852. There were numerous uses of the name and image throughout the rest of the 1800s, and Uncle Sam was used as a recruiter also during WWI. Use seems to have dropped off as patriotism waned throughout the 20th century, though. Some posters were used during the VietNam war, but recent history shows a large amount of parody versions of Uncle Sam (Mad Magazine, Donald Duck, etc).

Now it appears that Uncle Sam is being used more and more as a negative image - pointing a gun instead of his finger at the viewer. Being depicted as dead album covers by Ice Cube and as anti-war imagery against the Iraq War.

The latest and greatest being a black Uncle Sam, most likely in reference to President Barack Obama. So does that mean the iconic image of the US should now be referred to as "Uncle Bam"?

Executive Order 13489 - Barack Obama

Executive Order 13489

Revokes EO 13233 (George w. Bush)
which replaced EO 12667 (Ronald Reagan)

The lowdown:
EO 12667 defaulted to the Attorney General or Counsel to Incumbent President if records could be held secret by Executive Privilege from the Former President. Former President could sue to keep the records secret by final court order. EO 13233 defaulted to the Former President if records could be held secret by Executive Privilege from the Former President. The Incumbent President could sue to get the records released. It also extended the length of time the Former President had to peruse the records being requested from 30 days to 90 days.

EO 13489 defaults to the Attorney General or Counsel to Incumbent President if records can be held secret by Executive Privilege from the Former President. Shortens the time back to 30 days review by the Former President. Former President can sue to keep the records secret.

There is a great article here about the topic of this Executive Order.

So what does this mean? On the surface, it looks like George Bush was attempting to extend the privileges of the Executive Office after the tenure was up, thus taking a measure of power away from the Sitting President. And, meaning that any information that might be viewed unfavorably could be hidden against the wishes of the current administration. What is interesting to me about this is Barack basically rolls back to the order that Reagan issued.

It also brings up the question, how much secrecy is necessary? Is 12 years too much time to allow records to be hidden from the public? Or is it not enough time? What do they really have to hide?