We harp on the massive, unsustainable, yet largely unnoticed, debt burdens of American cities, counties and states fairly regularly because, well, it's a frightening issue if you spend just a little time to understand the math and ultimate consequences. Here is some of our recent posts on the topic:
A new study from Joe Nation of Stanford's Institute for Economic Policy Research entitled "Pension Math: Public Pension Spending and Service Crowd Out in California, 2003-2030," says that the devastating consequences of the ill-advised, Cadillac pensions doled out to America's public employees over the past several decades are only getting started.
A new study of public pension returns by Cliffwater LLC has found that the median U.S. state pension plan returned just 5.9% annually over the 10 years ended June 30, 2016. Meanwhile, as Pension and Investments notes, the top performing state pension, the $15.6 billion Oklahoma Teachers' Retirement System, was the only fund that managed to eek out a return over 7% during the same period.
As various institutions continue to publish very detailed estimates of how Trump's tax plan will impact the federal budget, which is somewhat amazing since income brackets haven't even been assigned yet, Moody's published a note today threatening to finally strip the U.S. of its AAA credit rating if the tax plan is ultimately passed as currently contemplated.
President Donald Trump’s tax proposal would probably weigh on the U.S. government’s credit outlook, on concerns that it would cause the federal deficit to swell, according to Moody’s Investors Service.
Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,
Do the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page editors read their own newspaper?
The frontpage headline story for the Labor Day weekend was “Low Wage Growth Challenges Fed.” Despite an alleged 4.4% unemployment rate, which is full employment, there is no real growth in wages. The front page story pointed out correctly that an economy alleged to be expanding at full employment, but absent any wage growth or inflation, is “a puzzle that complicates Federal Reserve policy decisions.”