February 2018

23Feb

Retirees protest across Spain to call for higher pensions

Retirees are demonstrating across Spain, calling for higher pensions and urging authorities to ensure funding for social security. The biggest protests are in cities including Bilbao, Barcelona and the capital, Madrid, where thousands screamed "Thieves, thieves!" at the gates of the national parliament, blocking traffic and facing off with rows of police. Protesters held signs calling the 0.25 percent increase in pensions this year "miserable," saying it's not enough to keep up with inflation. Read More: ABC News

February 23, 2018
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23Feb

UK. The solution to university pensions? Better fund managers

Never have university pensions been so firmly in the media spotlight as this week. But why are the changes to the universities superannuation scheme (USS) so controversial? Views diverge wildly: vice-chancellors and their representatives say future pensions are unsustainable, while staff see a strongly performing scheme. With an estimated cost of £200,000 to the average member of staff over their retirement at stake, something had to give. Pensions are complex. To try to understand them, we need to go back...

February 23, 2018
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23Feb

Uncovering the profound effects that pension and health care reforms have had in post-crisis Greece

Not long after the onset of the global financial crisis, Greece came into the European spotlight. Heavy public indebtedness became apparent after a revision of fiscal data in 2009 by the (then) newly elected socialist government led to an increase in the deficit figures from 3.7 per cent of GDP to 13.6 per cent, and an increase in the national debt from 99.6 per cent of GDP to 115.1 per cent, leaving the country vulnerable to the crisis. The...

February 23, 2018
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22Feb

Trump Public-Works Plan Gets Nudge From $2 Trillion Pension Pool

President Donald Trump’s pledge to fix America’s ailing roads, bridges and airports may get an unlikely boost from retirement savers some 10,000 miles away in Australia. In face-to-face talks at the White House this week, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull will propose using a chunk of Australia’s A$2.53 trillion ($1.99 trillion) pension savings pool to help unlock funding for Trump’s infrastructure push. He’s being joined on the trip by local money managers who help control the world’s fourth-largest pot of retirement...

February 22, 2018
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22Feb

Florida workers’ pension fund invested in gun manufacturers

Florida's main pension fund for state workers and teachers has a half-million-dollar stake in the company that makes the rifle used in the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. The Florida Retirement System had more than 41,000 shares in American Outdoor Brands Co. with a market value of $528,000, according to a Dec. 31 securities filing posted on its website. American Outdoor Brands is the Massachusetts-based parent company of Smith & Wesson. Federal law enforcement officials say Nikolas Cruz used...

February 22, 2018
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22Feb

UK. University lecturers begin strike action over pensions

Tens of thousands of university lecturers in dispute over changes to their pensions have walked out on strike in the first of 14 days of industrial action that threatens to bring widespread disruption to campuses across the UK. The University and College Union (UC), which represents the striking lecturers, estimates that more than a million students in 64 universities will be affected by the walkouts, which are spread over a month, with the loss of of more than half a...

February 22, 2018
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21Feb

Whose Retirement Crisis? Household Savings or Public Financing?

So interesting that the conception of a retirement crisis among the financial industry and policy makers is so different from what ordinary people in working households think the retirement crisis is. To the finance and policy elites, the “retirement” crisis is that state and local government entities may have to raise taxes to pay for their pension obligations. Closer to what ordinary people view as the retirement crisis is the World Economic Forum’s analysis (I was on the advisory board committee)....

February 21, 2018
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21Feb

Pensions In Spain: A Bleak Outlook

Why does the State not allow future pensioners who save and invest on their own behalf to have the same tax advantages as funds? I had the feeling they were ripping me off. And now I am certain. In the period from December 2002–December 2017, the Ibex 35 provided a return of 226% (annual average of 8.19%). The return on the 15-year goverment bond was 97% (annual average of 4.61%). The average return on pension funds was 60% (annual average of...

February 21, 2018
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21Feb

Principal Completes the Purchase of MetLife Afore in Mexico

Today, Principal Financial Group® (“Principal”) announced it has completed its acquisition of MetLife Afore, S.A. de C.V. (“MetLife Afore”), MetLife, Inc.’s pension fund management business in Mexico, attaining full regulatory approval for the deal. The purchase and integration will position its Principal Afore, S.A. de C.V. (“Principal Afore”) as the fifth largest Afore in Mexico with more than 7 percent market share*. “Mexico is a growing and important market for Principal,” said Luis Valdes, president of Principal International, the global...

February 21, 2018
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21Feb

Temer’s failure on Brazil pension reform leaves tricky task to successor

President Michel Temer’s decision to throw in the towel on reforming Brazil’s loss-making pension system leaves the unpopular measure as a campaign issue for October’s elections and a major headache for his successor. Monday’s announcement that Temer was abandoning an overhaul of the social security system - billed as the centerpiece of his efforts at fiscal reform - sparked immediate concern from credit rating agencies that Latin America’s largest economy was failing to put its financial house in order. Brazil’s generous...

February 21, 2018
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