Free Republic

As Hillary Clinton and her surrogates scour the country for mega-donors, the one left-leaning billionaire they are not approaching is the one who knows the first couple more intimately than any of the others. Ron Burkle figures that over the years, he's raised about $10 million for the Clintons at his sprawling Beverly Hills estate. After Bill Clinton left the White House, he and Burkle jetted around the world in an unconventional partnership that netted the former president about $15 million and Burkle entree into the palaces and offices of world dignitaries. For years, when Clinton dropped into Los Angeles,...

Why Pensions Are A (Big) Black Swan – Chicago’s Unfunded Liabilities Are 10 Times Its Revenues, 50% Of Their Cash That Will Have Go To Pensions. [ Full title ]. ... When talk turns to what might derail today’s debt-driven “recovery,” the big names and easy stories get most of the attention: China with its soaring debt, volatile equities and heavy-handed intervention; Japan with its stratospheric debt and science fictiony demographics; Greece, which needs no explanation; the developing countries with their weak currencies and mountain of dollar-denominated debt. And of course America’s triple bubble of stocks, bonds and derivatives. Underfunded...

This city’s Spanish name recalls grassy, spring-fed meadows that nourished the first farms here and gave laborers relief from desert heat. Now Las Vegas draws a new generation of settlers epitomized by California transplant Joe Beck: CalPERS pensioners who have made Sin City their No. 1 destination for retirement outside California. Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/the-state-worker/article20702106.html#storylink=cpy

To the outsider, CalPERS — the largest U.S. pension fund, created by California state law and run by an arm of the state of California — may seem like the champion of the working man, fighting for the rights of municipal employees and pensioners. But that perception may be undeserved, per the Chapter 9 bankruptcy of Stockton, Calif., where CalPERS sought to shift to taxpayers (an even larger and more sympathetic party than CalPERS) the financial burden to support what some consider CalPERS' outrageous costs. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Klein openly opined, "CalPERS has bullied its way about in this...

First in Detroit, then in Stockton, Calif., and now in New Jersey, judges and other top officials are challenging the widespread belief that public pensions are untouchable. Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey delivered the latest blow on Tuesday, when he proposed to freeze that state’s public pension plans and move workers into new ones intended not to overwhelm future budgets or impose open-ended demands on taxpayers. The first crack came in Detroit, where a judge ruled that public pensions could, in fact, be reduced, at least in bankruptcy. Then, just a few weeks ago, an opinion by the bankruptcy...

In what will be a devastating blow to California public employee unions, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Klein ruled in the Chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy of the City of Stockton that pensions managed by the California Public Employee Retirement System, known as CalPERS, can be cut in bankruptcy “like any other garden variety” unsecured debt. He rejected the unions’ argument that the world’s largest pension fund is an “arm of the state” and that public employee pensions are protected by federal and state laws. Stockton city employees and city council members, who are all CalPERS pension beneficiaries, received retirement benefit enhancements...

When government employees buy the California legislature with huge campaign contributions, one of the benefits they expect in return is absolute protection of the lush pensions they are promised, even when their employer goes into bankruptcy. Thus, California law insists that Calpers, the state-backed agency used to provide many government employees with their pensions, is granted very special powers, including the right to seize assets and liquidate them to provide for full payment of pensions, even when other creditors are paid a penny on the dollar.But yesterday, a federal bankruptcy judge in California issued a preliminary ruling indicating that once...

In a potentially groundbreaking decision, a federal bankruptcy judge today struck down the sanctity of government pensions in California, saying the city of Stockton has the right to sever its contract with CalPERS. The verbal ruling from U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Klein, two years after Stockton filed for bankruptcy, was the decision CalPERS longed to avoid.

Half a Billion Dollars. That’s how much the California Teachers Association and the powerful Service Employees International Union have spent on California politics since 2000. The unions’ return on that “investment”? A legislature totally beholden to them for political support and campaign contributions. Here’s another mind-boggling number: Half a Trillion Dollars. That’s an estimate of the unfunded public pension liabilities racked up by California’s state and municipal governments due to overly generous pay and defined benefit pension plans lavished on unionized government employees. If you thought the bankruptcies of Stockton, San Bernardino, and Vallejo were entertaining, break out the popcorn...

The ex-CEO of CalPERS, Fred Buenrostro, has just pleaded guilty to accepting doucers, cash bribes and fees for placing investment business with a specific firm. The economic point that this helps us elucidate is why bankers and fund managers make such vast incomes normally. It’s a concept called “efficiency wages”. Essentially, when stripped right down, if people are handling or responsible for a large amount of money then pay them very well. So that it’s not actually worth their trying to do anything naughty, the risk of losing that high income is greater than what they can gain by being...

While it’s a truism that for every finger you point at someone else you’ve got three pointed right back at you, for liberals it’s part of their laws of physics. It would be impossible for the laws of liberals to govern without this binding hypocrisy that keeps them in orbit. That’s why it shouldn’t surprise you that for all the leftist rhetoric about corporations and greed contributing the decline of the country, there’s one corporate outfit that’s really screwing up this country- and it’s a creation and a creature of the left. Like most Big Left organizations it is...

(Reuters) - Residents of bankrupt San Bernardino, California on Tuesday voted to complete a rout of the city's pro-union old guard, electing business-friendly pragmatists who have pledged to try to reduce pension costs and take on vested interests. As San Bernardino enters into a fourth month of mediation with its creditors, the biggest of which is Calpers, California's giant retirement system, voters on Tuesday elected Carey Davis as the crisis-hit city's new mayor. Davis, a businessman and political novice, ran in part on a campaign to reduce the city's pension obligations. In an interview in November, when he became one...

LOS ANGELES — A federal bankruptcy court judge granted the city of San Bernardino eligibility for bankruptcy protection Wednesday, raising the possibility that the city will propose a plan to dig itself out of debt by cutting money promised to the public pension system. The ruling by Judge Meredith Jury came despite opposition from the powerful California Public Employees’ Retirement System, more commonly known as CalPERS. San Bernardino, a working-class city of 240,000 about 60 miles east of Los Angeles, declared Chapter 9 bankruptcy last summer, saying it had effectively run out of money to pay for day-to-day operations, in...

When it comes to public employee pension politics, the Eagles got it right with Hotel California: “You can check-out any time you like, but you can never leave!” The San Jose City Council, facing huge budget deficits tried to honor the will of the people by terminating life-time pension benefits for Council members. But they just learned ending wildly expensive retirement benefits may be wildly more expensive than staying in the plan. The California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS), which manages most public employee retirement benefits in California raised San Jose’s cost of checking-out of the pension plan by 584%.

As Bill Clinton might put it, it’s in the math. In the lead up to the November 6 election last fall, CalWatchDog.com ran several articles on Proposition 30 and pensions. We warned that the $7 billion tax increase would go not to schools, as advertised by Gov. Jerry Brown and others in TV ads, but to teacher pensions and other spending. I’ll quote some below. The news now is that this is exactly what is happening. David Crane, a Democrat who was a budget adviser to Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, has the facts in a Bloomberg article: “Most Californians would...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Bankrupt San Bernardino will resume paying into the state pension fund on July 1, but the California city will continue to renege on other debts including payments to bondholders, according to a new budget released late Thursday. Nearly a year after it halted contributions to America's biggest pension fund, San Bernardino will resume payments to Calpers at the start of the new fiscal year - but continue to not pay other creditors, according to the budget. San Bernardino will not make interest and principal payments on $50 million in pension bonds issued in 2005, according to...

At end of the week, California's State Auditor released its annual financial report for the state. The report, compiled by Auditor Elaine Howle, found the state has a net worth of -$127.2 billion. If the state were a business, it would be a candidate for liquidation. CA's financial situation deteriorated this year, largely because the state spent $1.7 Billion more than it collected in revenue. This over-spending worsened the state's debt picture. "Expenses that exceeded revenues and increased long-term obligations resulted in an 81.4 percent decrease in the total net assets for governmental and business-type activities from the 20-10-11 fiscal...

SAN FRANCISCO -- Federal officials on Monday charged the former head of the nation's largest pension fund and one of his business associates with falsifying documents and other charges in a long-running influence peddling and bribery investigation. A grand jury in San Francisco charged Federico Buenrostro Jr. and Alfred Villalobos, and they were booked and released on bond Monday after briefly appearing in court. Buenrostro, 64, served as CEO of the California Public Employees' Retirement System from late 2002 until June 2008. Villalobos, 69, served on the CalPERS board and is a former vice mayor of Los Angeles. The indictment...

After spending years dogged by unpaid debts, California labor leader Charles Valdes filed for bankruptcy in the 1990s—twice. At the same time, he held one of the most influential positions in the American financial system: chair of the investment committee for the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, or CalPERS, the nation’s largest pension fund for government workers. Valdes left the board in 2010 and now faces scrutiny for accepting gifts from another former board member, Alfred Villalobos—who, the state alleges, spent tens of thousands of dollars trying to influence how the fund invested its assets. Questioned by investigators about his...

A high-stakes legal battle has intensified as the largest U.S. pension fund filed court papers denouncing the financially troubled city of San Bernardino for what it called a "sham" bankruptcy and accused the city of "criminal behavior" in withholding payments to the pension plan. The filing on Friday by the California Public Employees' Retirement System, or CalPERS, came 10 days after San Bernardino officials traveled to Sacramento to plead with top CalPERS executives for more time to make payments. At issue is whether the pensions of government workers take precedence over other payments in a municipal bankruptcy - which could...