Commentary Valentine’s Day, Feb. 14, closed out a state and municipal pension plan accounting regime that allowed plan managers—who are overwhelmingly politicians—to obfuscate the funding levels of their pension plans by making actuarial assumptions about anticipated rates of returns that are  largely illusory. A revision to the Actuarial Standards of Practice (ASOP) No. 4 at least…

Commentary When a million people protest on the streets of Paris and most major French cities, you know there is a serious problem in French society. The protests, which had been going on for four days, culminated on Feb. 11 in Paris, where reportedly half a million people participated. The vitriol directed at the president…

PARIS—France’s prime minister insisted Sunday that the government’s plan to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 is “no longer negotiable,” further angering parliamentary opponents and unions who plan new mass protests and disruptive strikes this week. Raising the pension age is one part of a broad bill that is the flagship measure of…

By Sandra Block From Kiplinger’s Personal Finance Many employers that provide defined-benefit pensions offer employees the ability to take their pension as a lump sum instead of an annuity. Employers like this option because it gets the pension liability off their books, and some retirees prefer the flexibility a lump sum provides. If you’re considering…

Beijing announced its pilot scheme of private retirement plans, with the participation of four large, state-owned banks, that will be launched in November in five cities. Chinese netizens expressed their distrust of the Chinese banks, and an economist said the plan is a way to cover up the failing economy. The officials claimed the new…

A federal judge has named Ohio the lead plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit that seeks to represent all Facebook investors who lost money  in the wake of revelations about the company. Filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, the suit accuses Facebook of violating federal securities laws by publicly misrepresenting its…

According to a recent report by the American Legislative Exchange Council, California’s unfunded pension liabilities are estimated to be at $1.5 trillion—about $38,000 of debt for each Californian. What are unfunded pension liabilities, and why do we have so much of it? We guarantee that our government employees will receive a set income at the…

We often talk about retirement and pensions as though they’re the same thing. When we retire, we receive a pension, and we become pensioners. But a pension has a specific meaning. It refers to a particularly kind of retirement plan. An employer makes contributions to a pool of funds. It invests the funds for the…

As the ratio of working Canadians to seniors continues to shrink, it will strain government spending earmarked for older folks in the years ahead due to fewer working taxpayers, a new study finds. “Workers pay the bulk of taxes, which governments need to fund important services, including health care and income transfers to seniors,” said…

Quebec’s provincial government and the City of Montreal are taking over a controversial rapid transit project from Quebec’s pension fund manager. Premier François Legault said today it’s clear there’s no public support for an elevated railway in downtown Montreal. Legault says that without the downtown section of the rail line, the Caisse de dépôt et…