Lockdowns Have Pushed Government Pensions Over the Edge


COMMENT: Facing a vicious circle of conflicting demands and priorities, the California Public Employees Retirement System is turning to debt – a risky scheme to borrow billions of dollars in hopes of juicing its investment returns.

The California Public Employees Retirement System, the nation’s largest pension trust, benefited greatly from the runup in stocks and other investments during the last few years, topping $400 billion early this year.

CalPERS needed it because it was still reeling from a $100 billion decline in its investment portfolio during the previous decade’s Great Recession and was tapping state and local governments for ever-increasing, mandatory “contributions” to keep pensions flowing and reduce its immense “unfunded liability.” But it faced a backlash from local officials who said vital services were being cut to make their CalPERS payments.

Just when CalPERS appeared to be climbing out of its hole, the COVID-19 pandemic erupted early this year, sending the economy into a tailspin. Virtually overnight, the fund saw its value take a $69 billion hit as the stock market — CalPERS’ biggest investment sector — tanked. Stocks have since recovered, but CalPERS is still down about $13 billion from its high early this year.

Further investment erosions would, almost automatically, trigger even greater CalPERS demands for contributions from government employers, but the recession is also eating into their tax revenues, creating substantial budget deficits.

It underscores CalPERS’ vulnerability to capital market gyrations. Investments more immune to fluctuations would be safer but they offer very low returns and CalPERS could not safely meet its lofty earnings goal — an average of 7% a year.

It’s a vicious circle of conflicting demands and priorities, driven by an official policy of providing generous, inflation-adjusted pensions for government workers, bolstered by the political clout of public employee unions.

CalPERS desperately needs an escape route and has chosen the perilous path of debt.

It plans to borrow billions of dollars — as much as $80 billion — to fatten its investment portfolio in fingers-crossed hopes that earnings gains will outstrip borrowing costs. It mirrors the recent and risky practice of local governments borrowing heavily to pay their pension bills via “pension obligation bonds.”

“More assets refers to a plan to use leverage, or borrowing, to increase the base of the assets generating returns in the portfolio,” the system’s chief investment officer, Ben Meng, wrote in the Wall Street Journal recently. “Leverage allows CalPERS to take advantage of low-interest rates by borrowing and using those funds to acquire assets with potentially higher returns.”

What could possibly go wrong?

The new scheme is an implicit admission that CalPERS can’t meet its 7% mark without increasing its exposure to the vagaries of the market. “There are only a few asset classes with a long-term expected return clearing the 7% hurdle,” Meng wrote.

Perhaps, then, the real problem is the 7% goal, much higher than those of private industry pension plans.

CalPERS and other public systems use higher earnings projections because they need them to pay for the expensive pensions that politicians have awarded. Inferentially, if they fall short of the mark, they can tap employers — i.e. taxpayers — to close the gap. However, that option is pretty much maxed out, which may explain why the very risky borrow-and-invest approach is being adopted.

This is serious stuff, so risky that the Legislature should dump its informal hands-off policy toward CalPERS and order up a comprehensive and independent examination of the system’s assets, liabilities, and long-term prospects of meeting its pension obligations.

SB

REPLY: We are looking at state and local pension funds collapsing. There is not much they can do. This is the collapse of socialism of which I am referring to. This is why the 2020 election will be so critical. The left is determined to overthrow Trump because they are looking to raise taxes dramatically. The World Economic Forum is already suggesting a 400% increase in taxation in Europe. These people are insane. We have states raising property taxes between 30-40% because the lockdowns have deprived them of revenues that are pushing pension funds over the edge. They are brain dead, for so many people live hand-to-mouth and cannot afford such drastic increases in taxation. The Democrats are really hoping to draft Hillary for they believe that is their best shot to beat Trump. This is the entire objective for career politicians who have no real business to return to and they will always exempt trusts and themselves. Trump would never agree to the agenda and this is the battle to the death here in 2020.

Guaranteed Basic Income & Marxists


COMMENT: Dear Mr. Armstrong,
Thank you!!! for opening our eyes to the scary new world in which we live in. Are there more Socialist/Marxist to other political groups?

Our neighbor is a professor at a major university in South Florida with a Doctorate in Nursing. She recently shared with us her strong ideologies and political views which caught us a little off guard. We started off talking about COVID 19. She definitely refuted anything we had to say regarding the virus and any information we provided (which of course we learned from your blog and the many videos from Drs working on the frontline). She said, that we should be following the WHO, the NIH, and not so much the CDC. We are sad because she conveyed to us, “ let’s leave the leadership of the future to the youth, of course, this is where she has direct influence. Well, here are some of her responses to our questions. She is 100% on board with disbanding the police. And in mentioning the economy, She feels just leave it to artificial intelligence/robotics. We suddenly had a flashback of the robots you showed in an earlier video on your blog and their capabilities, and how they could be used to police our country. We then said, What about jobs? She blatantly expressed that she was for a guaranteed basic income for all. She said, Europe is more socialistic than the United States, as though that was the way it should be. She came out and literally said, she was a “Marxist”. We were shocked. We were always democrats as many of our friends are still. Thanks to you and your blog that we stumbled upon one day. She ended by stating there are “more of her than us”. We are assuming that she means Marxist/Socialist.

We are no longer leaning left or consider ourselves Democrats. Most of our friends consider us “trump lovers” and they will not accept any of our thoughts or reasoning. And when they reveal their point of view, it’s always an example of one person and how they were so unjustly treated. Never do they provide the big picture. We forwarded Michael Moore’s new movie to one of our friends and their email response was “what happened to Michael Moore….he use to make great movies.

Keep up the good work. There are many people who are listening.

Cheers,
Mj

REPLY: The greatest mistake these people make is they have no respect for human nature. Some people are thieves while others are honest. Some women have no problem selling their bodies to the highest bidder and others will not wear even a two-piece bathing suit. One thing is certain: not everyone will be willing to stay home and just watch TV and never work. They assume if they hand out guaranteed basic income that everyone will be happy. They are judging everyone by themselves. We are all NOT the same. Some people hate work and others are addicted to it. I could never sit home, not work, and just watch TV.

I am probably more Libertarian. I respect that there are many versions of human nature. The object is FREEDOM, and I strongly disagree with those who always want to seize politics to FORCE their view upon the rest of society, as Bill Gates and his crew are doing right now. Trump gave the WHO 30 days to explain their false forecasts or he would cut off all funding. They REFUSE to reply. Just ask a simple question — why did they refuse to respond if they are so perfect?

Guaranteed Basic Income & Marxists


COMMENT: Dear Mr. Armstrong,
Thank you!!! for opening our eyes to the scary new world in which we live in. Are there more Socialist/Marxist to other political groups?

Our neighbor is a professor at a major university in South Florida with a Doctorate in Nursing. She recently shared with us her strong ideologies and political views which caught us a little off guard. We started off talking about COVID 19. She definitely refuted anything we had to say regarding the virus and any information we provided (which of course we learned from your blog and the many videos from Drs working on the frontline). She said, that we should be following the WHO, the NIH, and not so much the CDC. We are sad because she conveyed to us, “ let’s leave the leadership of the future to the youth, of course, this is where she has direct influence. Well, here are some of her responses to our questions. She is 100% on board with disbanding the police. And in mentioning the economy, She feels just leave it to artificial intelligence/robotics. We suddenly had a flashback of the robots you showed in an earlier video on your blog and their capabilities, and how they could be used to police our country. We then said, What about jobs? She blatantly expressed that she was for a guaranteed basic income for all. She said, Europe is more socialistic than the United States, as though that was the way it should be. She came out and literally said, she was a “Marxist”. We were shocked. We were always democrats as many of our friends are still. Thanks to you and your blog that we stumbled upon one day. She ended by stating there are “more of her than us”. We are assuming that she means Marxist/Socialist.

We are no longer leaning left or consider ourselves Democrats. Most of our friends consider us “trump lovers” and they will not accept any of our thoughts or reasoning. And when they reveal their point of view, it’s always an example of one person and how they were so unjustly treated. Never do they provide the big picture. We forwarded Michael Moore’s new movie to one of our friends and their email response was “what happened to Michael Moore….he use to make great movies.

Keep up the good work. There are many people who are listening.

Cheers,
Mj

REPLY: The greatest mistake these people make is they have no respect for human nature. Some people are thieves while others are honest. Some women have no problem selling their bodies to the highest bidder and others will not wear even a two-piece bathing suit. One thing is certain: not everyone will be willing to stay home and just watch TV and never work. They assume if they hand out guaranteed basic income that everyone will be happy. They are judging everyone by themselves. We are all NOT the same. Some people hate work and others are addicted to it. I could never sit home, not work, and just watch TV.

I am probably more Libertarian. I respect that there are many versions of human nature. The object is FREEDOM, and I strongly disagree with those who always want to seize politics to FORCE their view upon the rest of society, as Bill Gates and his crew are doing right now. Trump gave the WHO 30 days to explain their false forecasts or he would cut off all funding. They REFUSE to reply. Just ask a simple question — why did they refuse to respond if they are so perfect?

Kennedy Assassination Files Delayed until 2021 Again


 

Rumors Still Abound that Hillary Will Emerge in August


Hillary Clinton and friends are still plotting to have her drafted at the Convention now scheduled for August 17-20. The rumors remain that Joe Biden is “seriously senile” or has dementia. It’s not really “sleepy Joe” as Trump politely calls him, they keep him off the road because they are scared to death what he will say next. He just said 130 million Americans died from COVID. He is losing it – plain and simple.

The interesting thing is the computer is already targeting the week of the Democratic Convention – August 17th. It seems strange that the computer is targeting that week if this is a shoo-in for Biden. The Republican Convention is the next week – August 24th. That will be no surprise as to who is the candidate. This is interesting, to say the least. The Democrats can manipulate the polls, but they know Biden would make a fool of himself in any debate and the people will see he is not all there nor is he fit to be president. This is a socialist agenda and to win, they know they need Hillary.

Rubicon Crossed – DNC Official 2020 Position: Celebrating July 4th Equals White Supremacy….


Under normal conditions one might expect to identify this moment as the official moment the rubicon of DNC insanity has been crossed.  However, it’s 2020;… therefore as soon as you think the boundaries of DNC stupidity have been reached, the DNC will bring out their stupid boundary stretchers.

In a tweet earlier tonight the DNC takes the official position that celebrating the fourth of July is the equivalent of celebrating white supremacy: [Archived]

Anyone who identifies as a party Democrat will now have to rebuke the fourth of July to retain their party position.   Additionally, any democrat caught celebrating the Fourth of July holiday will now be joining a celebration of white supremacy.

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Soros Funded St. Louis Circuit Attorney Threatens Legal Action Against Property Owners Who Defended Themselves Against Rampaging Mob…


This is a great example why law-abiding citizens need to be very involved in local elections.  The husband and wife who defended themselves and protected their property from looters/protestors are now being threatened by a Soros funded STL Circuit Attorney.

Ms. Kimberly M Gardner is an activist within the legal profession who has an expressed purpose to destroy property rights, advance the cause of a socialist society, and collapse the legal system that allows citizens to protect themselves from the rampaging mob.

ST. Louis Dispatch […] The McCloskeys had been at home and heard a loud commotion coming from the street; they went to investigate and saw “a large group of subjects forcefully break an iron gate marked with ‘No Trespassing’ and ‘Private Street’ signs,” police said.

“The group began yelling obscenities and threats of harm to both victims,” police said. “When the victims observed multiple subjects who were armed, they then armed themselves and contacted police.”

Police are continuing the investigate the incident on Portland Place but are labeling it as a case of trespassing and fourth-degree assault by intimidation.

Meanwhile, were the couple, as they stood on their own property, within their rights to point weapons at protesters? Gun rights advocates say yes. A police spokesperson said to ask “the courts.”

Anders Walker, a constitutional law professor at St. Louis University, said that although it’s “very dangerous” to engage protesters with guns, the homeowners broke no laws by brandishing or pointing weapons at them because Portland Place is a private street. He said the McCloskeys are protected by Missouri’s Castle Doctrine, which allows people to use deadly force to defend private property.

“At any point that you enter the property, they can then, in Missouri, use deadly force to get you off the lawn,” Walker said, calling the state’s Castle Doctrine a “force field” that “indemnifies you, and you can even pull the trigger in Missouri.”

Luckily, Walker said, no one got shot.

“There’s no right to protest on those streets,” Walker said. “The protesters thought they had a right to protest, but as a technical matter, they were not allowed to be there. … It’s essentially a private estate. If anyone was violating the law, it was the protesters. In fact, if (the McCloskeys) have photos of the protesters, they could go after them for trespassing.”

St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kimberly M. Gardner appeared to take a different view, releasing a statement Monday that said she’s “alarmed at the events that occurred over the weekend where peaceful protestors (sic) were met by guns and a violent assault.”

Gardner said her office is investigating. (read more)

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Mitch McConnell Joins Nancy Pelosi – The UniParty is Alive and Thriving…


I often wonder when will the majority of Americans wake up to the concept of the UniParty.  There is only one political ideology within the institutional construct of Washington DC.   We did not have two parties until President Donald Trump showed up.

Mitch McConnell joins in Uniparty alignment with Nancy Pelosi.

(Tweet Link)

Other than President Trump, approximately half of America doesn’t have a representative voice in Washington DC.  It is very frustrating.

We cannot say we were not warned [ SEE HERE ] it was obvious immediately after the Democrats won the House in 2018 that McConnell was breathing a sigh of relief.  [Also a reminder: the SSCI doesn’t run an operation against the President and the Leader of the Senate not know about it.]

Through his power structure McConnell directly controls about 8 to 15 republican senators; we have called them “The Decepticons” for years. [Cornyn, Thune, Porter, Blunt, Portman, Burr, Barasso, Crapo, Murkowski, Gardner, Roberts, Sasse, Tillis, Rubio, Graham and now Romney]

McConnell has a well-used playbook he deploys to retain power at all costs and select candidates that will be indebted to his Senate schemes. Senate candidate Doug Collins is up against the same Mitch McConnell machine readers here are very familiar with.

To remind ourselves how Minority and Majority Senator McConnell took down the threat of the Tea Party revisit these old articles CNN Part I and CNN Part II  both showcase how McConnell works.   Then do some research on how McConnell worked with Haley Barbour in Mississippi [SEE HERE].

Remember October last year?

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announcee his resolution warning President Trump not to remove troops from Syria or Afghanistan.  [Not coincidentally the two countries visited by Speaker Pelosi and Adam Schiff the prior weekend.]

(Source)

Of course the obvious, albeit unwritten “or else” part, was McConnell threatening to join with with Senator Lindsey Graham and support President Trump’s impeachment.

Of course this comes on the heels of Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announcing he was  “especially proud” of passage for his amendments requiring the U.S. military to continue operations in Afghanistan and Syria:

(Tweet Link)

The bill passed 77-yea, 23-nea.  [Vote Tally Here] The only Republican who voted against perpetual war in the middle east and supported President Trump was Rand Paul.

Every time this happens victims of battered conservative syndrome start a process of reconciling the reason for their abuse by excusing and justifying their abuser, Mitch McConnell.

There are massive numbers of Republicans who view Senate Majority Mitch McConnell as a brilliant strategist and staunch supporter of President Trump. Unfortunately, those voices once again have to reconcile McConnell’s comprehensive failure on any President Trump priority action.  McConnell even negotiated for less border security.

For those who follow the deep weeds of politics, McConnnell’s schemes are brutally transparent. For the remaining 97% of the voting electorate, they still don’t understand how the UniParty works. Decepticon leader McConnell doesn’t want the American electorate to see purchased senate republicans voting NO on border security.

Consider Senator Mitch McConnell telling the President of the United States that he had “excessive expectations” because President Trump doesn’t understand how things are done around here:

“A Congress goes on for two years. Part of the reason I think that the storyline is that we haven’t done much is because, in part, the president and others have set these early timelines about things need to be done by a certain point.”

“Our new president, of course, has not been in this line of work before, and I think had excessive expectations about how quickly things happen in the Democratic process.”

Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell

That rebuke irked President Trump, as it should.  President Trump responded via twitter: “I don’t think so”…

McConnell must preserve the trough – Corporations (special interest group) write the legislation. Lobbyists take the law and go find politician(s) to support it. Politicians get support from their peers using tenure and status etc. Eventually, if things go according to norm, the legislation gets a vote.

Within every step of the process there are expense account lunches, dinners, trips, venue tickets and a host of other customary financial way-points to generate/leverage a successful outcome. The amount of money spent is proportional to the benefit derived from the outcome.

When a House or Senate member becomes educated on the intent of the legislation, they have attended the sales pitch; and when they find out the likelihood of support for that legislation; they can then position their own (or their families) financial interests to benefit from the consequence of passage. It is a process similar to insider trading on Wall Street, except the trading is based on knowing who will benefit from a legislative passage.

The legislative construct passes from K-Street into the halls of congress through congressional committees. The law originates from the committee to the full House or Senate. Committee seats which vote on these bills are therefore more valuable to the lobbyists. Chairs of these committees are exponentially more valuable.

Now, think about this reality against the backdrop of the 2016 Presidential Election. Legislation is passed based on ideology. In the aftermath of the 2016 election the system within DC was not structurally set-up to receive a Donald Trump presidency.

If Hillary Clinton had won the election, her Oval Office desk would be filled with legislation passed by congress which she would have been signing. Heck, she’d have writer’s cramp from all of the special interest legislation, driven by special interest groups that supported her campaign, that would be flowing to her desk.

Why?

Simply because the authors of the legislation, the originating special interest and lobbying groups, were spending millions to fund her campaign. Hillary Clinton would be signing K-Street constructed special interest legislation to repay all of those donors/investors.

Congress would be fast-tracking the passage because the same interest groups also fund the members of congress.

President Donald Trump winning the election threw a monkey wrench into the entire DC system…. In early 2017 the modern legislative machine was frozen in place.

The “America First” policies represented by candidate Donald Trump were not within the legislative constructs coming from the K-Street authors of the legislation. There were no MAGA lobbyists waiting on Trump ideology to advance legislation based on America First objectives.

As a result of an empty feeder system, in early 2017 congress had no bills to advance because all of the myriad of bills and briefs written were not in line with President Trump policy. There was simply no entity within DC writing legislation that was in-line with President Trump’s America-First’ economic and foreign policy agenda.

McConnell has a history of getting caught in his schemes. However, fortunately for him people also have a tendency to forget [see McConnell’s scheme in the Mississippi 2014Cochran race as an example].  Almost no-one remembers that U.S. Senator Jim DeMint, the founder of the Senate Conservative Fund, quit the Senate specifically because of the schemes and internal Machiavellian power moves of Mitch McConnell.

Senate Leader Mitch McConnell has one major career alliance that has been unbroken and unchanged for well over two decades.  That alliance is with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and specifically with CoC President Tom Donohue.  [SEE HERE and SEE HERE].

If the president continues to remain focused exclusively on what is in the U.S. best interests, he must be stopped. Politicians in DC cannot just sit-by and allow the U.S. economy to be based on the interests of Americans; it would mean the destruction of years of central planning by DC Lobbyists, multinational banks, Wall Street and multinational corporations.

Familiar faces, perhaps faces you previously thought were decent, are now revealing their alignment with larger entities that are our abusers.  The ‘America First’ economy and Trump-trade doctrine upsets the entire construct of this multinational export/control dynamic. Team Trump focus exclusively on bilateral trade deals, with specific trade agreements targeted toward individual nations (not national corporations).

‘America-First’ is also specific policy at a granular product level looking out for the national interests of the United States, U.S. workers, U.S. companies and U.S. consumers.

Additionally, under President Trump’s Trade positions, balanced and fair trade with strong regulatory control over national assets, exfiltration of U.S. national wealth is essentially stopped.  This approach put many current multinational corporations, globalists who previously took a stake-hold in the U.S. economy with intention to export the wealth, in a position of paying for interest of an asset they can no longer exploit.

Perhaps now we understand better how massive multi-billion multinational corporations and institutions are aligned against President Trump. Congress does not write laws or legislation, special interest groups do. Lobbyists are paid, some very well paid, to get politicians to go along with the need of the legislative group.

When we are voting for a Congressional Rep or a U.S. Senator we are not voting for a person who will write laws. Our rep only votes on legislation to approve or disapprove of constructs that are written by outside groups and sold to them through lobbyists who work for those outside groups.

While all of this is happening the same outside groups who write the laws are providing money for the campaigns of the politicians they need to pass them. This construct sets up the quid-pro-quo of influence, although much of it is fraught with plausible deniability.

Politicians like Mitch McConnell are not happy without their indulgences, but the issue is actually bigger.  Less K-Street expenditure also means less personal benefit; and worse still, no opportunity to advance financial wealth from the insider trading system.

His primary worry has passed.  There’s no reason to play nice.  Mitch McConnell will now undermine President Trump with greater visibility.  It has nothing to do with the wearing of a mask per se’, the issue is much more foundational.

The Thought Police are Here in Full Force!


Defund the thought police

Since when did social media become the ‘Thought Police?’

It started after Trump was elected president. The Deep State had become accustomed to brainwashing people through their lying mass media. They figured their pre-approved candidate, Hillary Clinton, was a shoe-in. After all, Trump had never held office and we were told ‘historic’ Hillary was far ahead in the polls. She thought everything had been rigged in her favor, but she didn’t count on the fact that many were getting their news from independent media and social media posts. She didn’t understand memes and underestimated their effectiveness. Hillary dismissed the conservative meme masters as ‘deplorables.’

One of those deplorables, Carpe Donktum, was particularly effective at creating memes and videos that helped get Trump elected. In fact, the president recently retweeted one of Donktum’s videos. Not only was it taken down, but Carpe Donktum was also banned from Facebook and Twitter–and he might even get sued. The Deep State is now attacking conservative meme makers ahead of the next election. They are cracking down on Trump supporters by means of blatant censorship.

As social media became public platforms for communication, less people were watching the legacy media liars. The Deep State figured out we weren’t being properly brainwashed. So they trotted out the virus to create fear while also cracking down on free speech. Conservative speech is now smeared by social media as something dangerous. They lump it in with ‘hate speech.’ Conservative posts and satire can get a person banned! They are training us to be politically correct. Only leftist, New World Order approved material is safe. Hillary is getting her revenge.

Kamala Harris is considered the front-runner for Basement Joe. Harris mentioned once Trump is out, they would go after his supporters with a vengeance. I thought it sounded like something Hillary would say and then I realized Hillary probably did say it. Harris is Hillary’s puppet. Biden is bumbling, corrupt, and demented—a figurehead. Harris will be in charge, which means crooked Hillary will be the real president, even if she has to run things from behind the scenes.

This is the kind of conspiracy theory that attracts the attention of the Thought Police. I wanted Hillary locked up. Instead, she’s making sure our free speech is locked up.

—Ben Garrison

Just an Average Joe!


Why a certain American flag was abused.