Social Issues

Earlier today the Kersten Institute for Governance and Public Policy highlighted an updated pension study, released by the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, which revealed some fairly startling realities about California's public pension underfunding levels.  After averaging $77,700 per household in 2014, the amount of public pension underfunding for the state of California jumped to a staggering $92,748 per household in 2015.  But don't worry, we're sure pension managers can grow their way out of the problem...hedge fund returns have been stellar recently, r

Disaffected Hillary snowflakes at colleges and universities all around the country, many of whom surely cried themselves to sleep last night, woke up this morning to some of the best news they've received in weeks.  According to a new study by the University of New Hampshire Carsey School of Public Policy, white people are dying off faster than ever in the U.S.  Moreover, the biggest declines are coming in key swing states like FL and PA.  Even better, the study expects the "natural decrease" of whites to accelerate in the future.

Child trafficking victims and unaccompanied children are going missing from UK local authority care homes at an “alarming high” rate according to a new report According to research published last month by ECPAT UK and Missing People, of the nearly 760 trafficked or unaccompanied children who disappeared from care homes across the UK last year, over 200 have not been found.

Police chiefs have said that around 350 victims have reported child sexual abuse within UK football clubs, deepening the scandal that is currently rocking British football. The National Police Chiefs’ Council said on Thursday that a “significant number of calls” had been received after several former players reported sex abuse by coaches when they were children. According to the NSPCC, a hotline that was set up to help victims report the abuse had received 860 calls in its first week.

We've written several times over the past couple of months about the epic meltdown of the the Dallas Police and Firefighters Pension (DPFP) (see here, here and here for background).  It all started when the Pension Board discovered that one of their real estate managers had been consistently overmarking illiquid real estate investments.  That discovery resulted in an FBI investigation of the manager and a $1BN write down for the DPFP.  In the wake of the writedowns, Dallas policemen and firefighters rushed for the exits and withdrew over $500mm in assets.