Pension Pulse

Not a day goes by where I don't hear or read something on the U.S. dollar's demise. Today I received an email from Penguin Group promoting Charles Goyette's new book, The Dollar Meltdown . Mr. Goyette also wrote an article for The Street.com, They're Destroying the Dollar . Now, I have not read Mr. Goyette's book, but this isn't the first book predicting the doom of the U.S. dollar, nor will it be the last. One of my favorite books on the U.S. dollar was written by Richard Duncan back in 2003, The Dollar Crisis . He might have been a little early, but Mr. Duncan described the economic ills plaguing the U.S. economy and how it will impact the greenback. More recently, William Engdahl wrote an article on his site, Collapse of the Greenback? Will the Dollar get an "Arab oil Shock"? : Ever since Washington tore up the Bretton Woods treaty in August 1971 and went onto a “dollar paper reserve system” instead of a dollar backed by gold, the United States, as...

I wanted to follow-up an an earlier post on curbing your enthusiasm . But first, let me go back and retrace my thoughts as briefly as possible. Some have accused me of being a "perma-bull". However, if you go back to my comments in June 2008 and July 2008 when I started my blog, you would have labeled me a "perma-bear". I saw deflation, an imploding securitization/hedge fund/ private equity/ commercial real estate bubble. I also saw the end of the great pension con job in alternative investments. Then came August 2008 , where I predicted that AIG's disastrous results spelled trouble for pension funds and that the global Ponzi scheme in alternative investments was unraveling fast. Sure enough, when September 20o8 rolled along, we all thought the end of the world had arrived. Operation "AIG" swung into full force, capitalists of this world united, and we narrowly escaped "the Apocalypse". In January 2009 , I started talking about post-delev...

CTV reports that Nortel pensioners protest bankruptcy laws in Ottawa : Former Nortel employees gathered on Parliament Hill to ask for government help to ensure they continue receiving pension and disability payments - regardless of what happens to the beleaguered telecommunications firm. Organizers said ex-Nortel employees were bussed in from Montreal and Belleville to attend the demonstration, which took place at noon on Wednesday. They were accompanied by Canadian Auto Workers union members and leaders from several federal opposition parties. The protesters are seeking amendments to national bankruptcy laws. Their goal is "to give pensioners and people affected by the Nortel insolvency a higher priority ranking in the bankruptcy courts," Don Sproule, chairman of the national committee for Nortel pension plan members, told CTV News Channel on Wednesday. Nortel filed for bankruptcy protection in January. Since then it's been selling off assets. And in June, the compan...

Eric Dash of the NYT reports State Street Bank Accused of Fraud by California : The California attorney general’s office has charged the State Street Corporation with fraud, accusing the company of cheating the state’s two largest pension funds of at least $56.6 million by overcharging them for a series of foreign exchange trades. The lawsuit , unsealed on Tuesday by a Sacramento Superior Court judge, contends that State Street currency traders consistently overcharged the two state pension funds, Calpers and Calstrs, for the costs of managing their accounts since 2001, and then concealed the charges. The California attorney general is seeking to recover $200 million in overcharges and penalties. “State Street bankers committed unconscionable fraud by misappropriating millions of dollars that rightfully belonged to California’s public pension funds,” said Jerry Brown , the California attorney general. “This is just the latest example of how clever financial traders violate laws and...

Yale economist Robert Shiller was interviewed on Tech Ticker saying that the current market boom can't be trusted : With the stock market up more than 50% since March and the Standard & Poor's Case/Shiller Index on the rise for the last three months, it's a worry, says Yale Professor Robert Shiller. "Somehow we got into this really speculative mentality and I don't think we're out of it yet." Given the current economic environment, "these booms [in the housing and stock markets] that we're seeing now can't be trusted to continue," Shiller tells Tech Ticker in the accompanying video, taped at last week's Buttonwood Gathering. (Click here for part one of the interview.) The author of Irrational Exuberance and Animal Spirits characterizes the stock market rally as an "amazing rebound" without much historic precedence, "you have to go back to the Great Depression to see such a turnaround in the stock market." Ac...

The Globe and Mail reports on Beyond the illusion of security (hat tip Diane Urquhart): C anadians can no longer assume they will retire with security. Many are seeking increasingly scarce work while others flail as their once-flush retirement accounts hemorrhage. A Globe and Mail series beginning today shows that the crisis in Canadian pensions is not looming; it is here, and has been for some time. A concerted national effort, involving changes in policy, behaviour and mindset from governments, businesses, unions, pension overseers and individual Canadians, is needed to repel the crisis. The financial crisis is just the public face of the pension crisis. Stock market plunges have devalued everyone's savings in the short term, draining retirement accounts by $50-billion, according to one estimate. When companies started toppling, apparently secure pensions were thrown into bankruptcy court (where they were put at the back of the creditors' queue, as with Nortel); or they we...

A couple of days ago, Dan Denning of the Australian Daily Reckoning wrote on Dr. Michael Hudson on landlords and bankers in charge of the economy : About the Author Dan Denning is the author of 2005's best-selling The Bull Hunter (John Wiley & Sons). Dan draws on his network of global contacts from his base in Melbourne. He’s the managing editor of resource newsletter Diggers and Drillers and the editor of The Daily Reckoning Australia. See All Articles by This Author The Bonner Family Are Taking a Month Off to Paint Window Shutters Australian Housing Market Getting Stronger Despite Fear of Inflation US Dollar As Reserve Currency Not Working Very Well What Inflation Means to Central Bankers, Investors and the Consumer US Economy Still on Runway as Recovery Won’t Fly Filed Under: Featured • Market Tags: asset bubble • bear market rally • de-i...