CalPERS

Ben Meng said that “it’s important for me to focus on my health and on my family and move on to the next chapter in my life.”

Ben Meng, the Chinese government official picked to run CalPERS, worked as deputy investment chief for one of China’s predatory state wealth funds.

The pick of Ben Meng, an official at China’s foreign exchange regulator, is likely to attract the ire of the Trump administration’s China hawks.

California cities are being forced to spike taxes to pay for spiking public employee pension funding costs.

CalPERS—the retirement system for almost 2 million public employees in California—has announced that it is leading an effort to pull together a global investor alliance who will agree to Paris 2° with CalPERS representing the US by proxy in the newly-formed, UN-sponsored “Global Climate 100.”

The California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) is slashing pensions for retirees of government entities that elect to leave CalPERS without paying the hefty termination toll or “exit fee.”

Governor Brown’s May Revised Budget reveals that the State of California’s and the University of California’s unfunded pension liabilities have skyrocketed by 22 percent in the last year.

Moody’s Credit Rating Service warned last week that budgetary pressure on state and local governments is accelerating as public employee pension systems are forced to follow moves by CalPERS and CalSTRS to lower investment return expectations to 7 percent.

Environmental activists are demanding that CalPERS show leadership, as the nation’s largest public employee pension plan, by divesting from the Dakota Access Pipeline project. But staff have reportedly recommended against divestment.

Despite tax collection increasing by 50 percent in the last 9 years, California’s public pension insolvency is forcing Gov. Jerry Brown to propose a dangerously unpopular 42 percent increase in gasoline taxes and a 141 percent increase in vehicle registration fees.

Despite the rising panic over the solvency of California public pension plans, CalPERS’ annual report no longer prominently discloses what additional percentage of employee pay that each of its state, school and local clients pay each month for employee pensions.

As the #CalExit movement continues to draw favorable press — mostly in liberal publications bitter over Trump’s victory — its downfall just might be found in the fiscal realities facing CalPERS, the agency responsible for managing pensions and benefits for over 2 million California state employees.

The latest report from Stanford University’s “U.S. Pension Tracker” reveals that the 2016 California Public Employee Pension Plan liability is up 19.4 percent to $964.4 billion.

A new plan approved by the California legislature and sent to Gov. Jerry Brown for approval would force employees of most private companies and small businesses to save for their retirement, with automatic deductions from their paychecks sent to the “California Secure Choice Retirement Savings Program” if they do not have a 401(k) plan at work.

Often referred to as America’s Most Corrupt County, Cook County, Illinois — which includes Chicago — was just forced by its actuaries to restate its unfunded pension liability from $6 billion to $15.3 billion.

The California Public Employee Retirement System (CalPERS) is about to report the world’s largest public employee pension suffered an actuarial investment loss of $30.8 billion last year.

Then-Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton appears to have sought inside information on a potential European Union bailout as her son-in-law, Marc Mezvinsky, speculated on defaulting Greek bonds in 2012 with CalPERS’ public pension cash as his hedge fund was getting wiped out.

Fred Buenrostro, the former Chief Executive Officer of the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) was sentenced to 4.5 years in federal prison this week for what a U.S. District termed “a spectacular breach of trust.”

Despite a $10.2 million budget deficit, 12 percent unemployment, 17 percent poverty rate, and a $25,769 average annual income, Richmond, California’s fire chief made $560,000 in salary and benefits in 2014.

Stanford’s Board of Trustees announced April 25 that the university endowment voted to refuse to divest its holdings in oil and gas companies, despite threats from students and some alumni.

Government accounting rules have forced a California audit that has revealed an increase in the “debt” it owes for pension liability by 2,000 percent this year. The state could nearly double the debt again next year when it is forced to account for unfunded retiree health benefits.

Santa Barbara County, Kern County, Fresno County, San Mateo County and Ventura County now spend about 10 percent or more of their total revenue on pension contributions, according to a new study.

The CalPERS Board voted to refuse California Gov. Jerry Brown’s modest demand to decrease their expected pension investment returns by a tiny 0.2% year, because the impact would have increased pension contribution costs by about $1.2 billion across nearly 800,000 employees–about $125 per month, on average.

In a recent Los Angeles Times “Economy Hub” post on public-sector pensions, Michael Hiltzik took a shot at the California Policy Center for analyzing the average pensions of full-career Calpers retirees–those who work at least 30 years–in its pension analyses.

The Democrat controlled California State Assembly just passed a partisan first of its kind bill that orders CalPERS’ and CalSTRS’ pension plans to sell all of their coal investments.

The City of San Bernardino has voted to become the first participant to dump CalPERS after the state’s pension plan shocked participants by announcing contribution rates would rise by 61 percent over the next five years.

CalPERS, the Golden State’s public employee retirement system, is seeking to shift the cost and risk of pensions to taxpayers after a $5 billion shortfall in 2014.

Each new California legislative session starts with Republicans yakking about cutting state and local public pension benefits that are over $1 trillion underfunded. But as a minority party and with many of its loudest advocates hypocritically receiving a public pension, reform has just been about yakking. But with CalPERS’ actuaries demanding a pension funding increase from $3.7 billion to $7.25 billion by 2020, the state must either cut payroll by 30 percent or find a massive new tax source, like overturning Prop. 13.

California’s pension funds moved one step closer to divesting from coal on Wednesday, with an Assembly committee approving SB 185 bill by a 5-1 vote. The bill, which has passed the state Senate, moves to the floor for a vote. It is likely to pass, and Gov.Jerry Brown is likely to sign it into law, though he has opposed measures to ban fracking for oil in the state.

A bipartisan coalition of former and current elected officials, together with fiscal accountability groups, revealed much-anticipated plans Thursday for the newest installment in statewide ballot initiative efforts to combat the crushing burden of public employee pensions in California. The measure is slated to face California voters in November 2016.

The Port of Los Angeles has been best known for union labor strife over the last year, but the scandal that is blowing up over the arrest of Chief of Port Police Ronald Jerome Boyd on federal bribery, kickback, and tax fraud charges may set a new high for port turmoil.

California government entities and their unions are panicking because Obamacare’s punitive 40% “Cadillac Tax” beginning in 2018 will directly hit the low-deductible and broad-provider network type of “platinum” healthcare coverage that public employees have enjoyed under the California Public Employee Retirement System (CalPERS).

San Bernardino, which owed almost $10 million on its pension bond debt ever since it declared bankruptcy in 2012, has defaulted, according to Reuters. Since September, the city has avoided dealing with the bondholders, who have been left out in the cold.

Former San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed is trying to restore fiscal sanity to the state of California by taking on the Goliath CalPERS, America’s largest public pension fund, with a pension reform measure for the November 2016 ballot. Reed is

Investors celebrated the NASDAQ stock market topping the 5,000 level this week for the first time since March 2000. But there were no celebrations in Sacramento for the anniversary of the last time that California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) and the California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS) were over 100 percent funded.

The California Public Employee Retirement System (CalPERS) has announced that its solvency has improved and that it is only $89.7 billion underfunded. Unfortunately, CalPERS’s purported solvency of percentage of 77% assumes the fantasy that it can conservatively compound its annual earnings at 7.5% without any losses. But if CalPERS only earns 4.5% a year–a rate conservative private pensions often shoot for–the fund’s long-term liability is a staggering $290 billion.