Social Issues

Authored by Andrew Karybko via Oriental Review,

Oriental Review is publishing the English original of Andrew Korybko’s interview with an Iranian newspaper from earlier this month.

We've written frequently of late about the pension crisis in Kentucky where pensioners are facing potentially catastrophic benefit cuts as their politicians finally admit that they've been sold a fantasy for decades (see: Pension Consultant Offers Dire Outlook For Kentucky: Freeze Pension And Slash Benefits Or Else).

Authored by Toni Airaksinen via CampusReform.org,

University of California, Los Angeles research professor recently slammed the impact of “excessive immigration” on the labor market in a message to the campus community.

Benjamin Zuckerman, professor of Astronomy and president of Californians for Population Stabilization, argued in an essay for The Daily Bruin that immigration, both legal and illegal, has a negative impact on native-born Americans.

We've spent a lot of time of late discussing the inevitable public pension crisis that will eventually wreak havoc on global financial markets.  And while the scale of the public pension underfunding is unprecedented, with estimates ranging from $3 - $8 trillion, there is another taxpayer-funded retirement benefit that has been promised to union workers over the years that puts pensions to shame...at least on a percentage funded basis.

Authored by John Mauldin via MauldinEconomics.com,

Total unfunded liabilities in state and local pensions have roughly quintupled in the last decade.

You read that right—not doubled, tripled, or quadrupled—quintupled. That’s nice when it happens on a slot machine, not so nice when it’s money you owe.

You will also notice in the chart that much of that change happened in 2008.

Why was that?