Tag "CalSTRS"
Back to homepageWhy is CalSTRS’ version of corporate skulduggery tolerated?
Beginning in the late 1990s and for about a decade afterward, corporate accounting scandals unfolded one after the other. Bipartisan outrage over CEOs and CFOs cooking the books gave way to mostly Democratic initiatives to impose much more sweeping rules
Read MoreCalSTRS hearing underscores Mac Taylor’s destructive happy talk
An Assembly committee hearing Wednesday on the immense underfunding problems facing the California State Teachers’ Retirement System also illuminated another strange problem in Sacramento: the emergence of Legislative Analyst Mac Taylor as a civic arsonist. As John Myers reported, one
Read MoreBrown: No teachers' pension fix until after November election
Gov. Jerry Brown has a basic problem when it comes to the California State Teachers' Retirement System: the most powerful forces in state politics oppose the standard fix for an underfunded pension system, even if it is now enshrined in
Read MoreState finances: LAO’s own report on CalSTRS demolishes LAO’s happy talk
I’m still struggling to make sense of Legislative Analyst Mac Taylor’s bizarrely upbeat report last month on state finances that predicted budget surpluses for years to come — but barely mentioned the state’s huge unfunded liabilities for retiree pensions and
Read MoreLAO’s cheerfully nutty budget report: Pension crisis? What pension crisis?
The Legislative Analyst’s Office has among the best reputations of any state agency. But after the release of Wednesday’s bizarre LAO budget analysis and accompanying press conference by Legislative Analyst Mac Taylor, I don’t know why. I groused about it
Read MoreCA auditor demolishes Jerry-Brown-saved-state narrative
The eagnerness of national media to lionize Gov. Jerry Brown as the guy who saved California amounts to an extreme form of cherry-picking. In some ways, Brown has done a better job than his two immediate predecessors in forcing some
Read MoreGov. Brown’s May budget revision still kicks the can
May 14, 2013 By John Seiler Gov. Jerry Brown’s May Revision to his January budget certainly was a happier occasion than for any budget in a decade. Thanks to money pouring in from the tax increases, especially $7 billion from
Read MoreCalSTRS ‘baby’ owes $29,632 already
May 8, 2013 By John Seiler As Ed Ring notes today, the state of California has run up a “Wall of Debt” of $1.126 trillion. That’s $1,126,000,000,000,000.00. There are 38 million Californians. So it comes to $29,632 per person, including
Read MoreCrazifornia: CalPERS Death Star looming nearer still
May 3, 2013 By Laer Pearce I have a financial planner friend who often includes tax-free municipal bonds in his customers’ portfolios and therefore closely tracks matters like the Stockton bankruptcy’s potential impact on municipal bond rates. He definitely did
Read MoreLAO: CalSTRS massively underfunded
March 26, 2013 By Katy Grimes SACRAMENTO — The state’s Legislative Analyst released another stinging report last week showing the California State Teachers’ Retirement System suffers $73 billion of unfunded pension debt. But CalSTRS is using doubtful figures to minimize the
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