Critics - THE RIDGEWOOD BLOG.

Posted July 26, 2015 12:54 pm by WirePoints

By: Mark Glennon*

Nobel Prize winning economists aren’t the hyperbolic type. They usually speak in measured tones, careful to protect the precision of their academic viewpoints. Two of them have spoken openly about public pensions, including one about Illinois pensions. They are uncharacteristically harsh.

First, there’s William F. Sharpe, a Stanford professor who won 1990 Nobel Prize for Economics for his work in developing models to aid investment decisions. The Financial Analysts Journal interviewed him last year. Here’s what he said:

Is this a disaster? You bet…. It’s a crisis of epic proportions…. [Pensions] value liabilities at 7.5% or 8% on the grounds that they are pretty sure they’ll earn that in the long run. This is crazy. It gets even worse. Because they want to minimize the reported value of the liabilities, they want to use a high discount rate, and in order to justify it, they have to build really risky portfolios. Consequently, they believe that one of the great hings to do is put money in private equity, or maybe a hedge fund, because then they can assume an extra 300 or 400 bps of expected return for an iliquidity premium (or just because hedge fund managers are so smart). So, the tail wags the dog.

Idiotic accounting drives even worse investment decisions. This is the classic case of an organization that borrowed money while issuing purportedly guaranteed payment and then used the money to invest in risky securities. Where have we recently heard that this is not a good thing?

Of course, you can point to the politics to see why politicians might give benefits that are very large to employees, especially those who may be
able to influence elections in various ways. By making sure the benefits are mostly in the future, politicians can pretend that they cost a lot less than they’re going to cost. It’s a very bad situation. [Emphasis added.]

https://www.wirepoints.com/harshest-critics-of-public-pensions-are-nobel-prize-winning-economists-wp-original/

N.J. Senate President Sweeney calls for $1 trillion in US loans to save pensions

JULY 29, 2015, 11:24 AM LAST UPDATED: WEDNESDAY, JULY 29, 2015, 3:14 PM
ASSOCIATED PRESS
https://www.northjersey.com/news/n-j-senate-president-sweeney-calls-for-1-trillion-in-us-loans-to-save-pensions-1.1382539

Critics hate ‘The Interview’

As we had long speculated , the Interview is a bad movie with great PR , in now looks like Sony concocted the whole North Korea nonsense to deflect form the second serious Hacker breach in as many years , PJ Blogger

Movie critics say the controversy surrounding “The Interview” is much more interesting than the movie itself

The movie is scoring just a 50 percent positive review from critics on the Rotten Tomatoes website.

It’s fairing even more poorly with top critics, who give it a measly 32 percent positive rating.

The film is doing better with regular fans, however. It gets a 73 percent “liked it” audience score from Rotten Tomatoes.

Critics say the satire about a television host and producer asked by the CIA to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jung-un doesn’t deliver the goods.

“Characterizing it as satire elevates the creative execution of the film’s very silly faux assassination of North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un far beyond what it merits,” writes Betsy Sharkey in the Lost Angeles Times.

https://thehill.com/homenews/news/228085-critics-hate-the-interview