Friday, August 28, 2015

BeCos(play) It's Friday

 More not safe to file non-legal briefs with below the break, and as always bonus nerd points if you recognize any characters.

Saturday, August 22, 2015

Where Johnny Jihadi Least Expects It.

You could come within inches of feeling sorry for this islamotard one moment he's anticipating a nice slaughter of petrified Western Europeans, the next he's getting tackled, curb-stomped, and beaten with is his own gun, by off duty US Military.......good work lads I'm sure that your fellow service members will appreciate the sudden steep discount on European public transportation.

Friday, August 21, 2015

BeCos(play) It's Friday

 More not safe to lecherously shake hands with below the break, and as always bonus nerd points for recognizing characters.

Thursday, August 20, 2015

Beware: Sirens

 It has come to my attention that some of you aren't treating these nautical hazards seriously, more not safe for seamen below the break.

Saturday, August 15, 2015

Friday, August 14, 2015

BeCos(play) It's Friday

 More reasons it's not safe to invade Atlantis while Aquaman is out of with the Justice League below the break, and as always bonus nerd points if you recognize Characters.

Thursday, August 13, 2015

Random Hotness


Still working out the new schedule so thing are going to be a bit unsorted, more below the break.

Friday, August 7, 2015

Tight Blogging

I'll do more non scheduled posts when I have more room to breath.

BeCos(play) It's Friday

 More not safe for science below the break and as always bonus nerd points if you recognize characters.

The Moral Hazards of Pensions

Since a few more thoughts on this have rattled lose I'll put them up. Defined Benefit Pensions inherently have several moral hazards among which are:

1. The Projected Benefit Obligation is the liability carried on the books that should represent the Present Value of what you have agreed to owe your pensioners. So say you are either an executive or an elected official what looks better on your books high liability or low? So you put your thumb on the estimates to assume low inflation and low life expectancy, suddenly you don't seem to need as much to fund your promises. Insurance annuities have a similar accounting but since their business depends on accuracy of estimates and the same entities that play similar games with their own pensions would prosecute them for the same degree of chicanery theirs are probably a whole lot closer to true.



2. Projected vs Actual plan growth. Since you need to estimate how much fund assets will grow to know how much money you need to set aside against assumed obligations you estimate the assets appreciation(the first of the Khan Academy videos goes over this a bit) The problem is that when actual performance doesn't match projected performance excesses are often treated as windfalls to be used in the present day, the most recently infamous was Detroit's public pension fund would send "surplus" checks to current workers. Shortfalls in projected vs actual growth however are merely shoveled into the Projected Benefit Obligation and are supposed to be actualized in future years before workers retire.



3. Ownership since Defined Benefit Pensions are an assumed obligation instead of an asset ownership of what assets a plan has are never transferred to the beneficiaries. Put simply you don't have a nest egg you have an IOU, one that is only as good any other bond issued by an organization. This leaves us with the great moral hazard of Other People's Money where risks aren't as daunting and corruption is almost inevitable.

All of these reasons are also combined with a horrendously more difficult accounting job explain why anybody in a marginally competitive industry has moved to Defined Contribution Plans where inputs and not results are promised.



Thursday, August 6, 2015

Quick Defined Benefit Explanation

I promised Pioneer Preppy that I would try to explain Defined Benefit Pension accounting but I'm going to start by embedding a couple of lectures that explain the basic concepts and the moral hazards inherent with Defined Benefit Pension Plans.



I'll explain more inside baseball if you folks want, but this stuff is not only mind-bending but asinine.

Random Hotness


 More that doesn't fit into neat categories below the break.

Sunday, August 2, 2015

News to Make You Wish You Drank.

Navy Officer who returned fire in Chattanooga shooting to face charges.

And since if your head is already going to explode I might as well link to this.

Assailant in Garland, Texas, attack bought gun in 2010 under Fast and Furious operation

Sometimes it kind of hurts to be someone who personally chooses not to imbibe alcohol, so ya'all have one for me.