Word: pension
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...authors present a convincing argument for a radical new view of pensions as not simply the deferred income of millions of hard working Americans, but a source of power and welath that could provide the solution to the capital squeeze facing the Graybelt. Pension assets, they point out, now constitute the largest single pool of capital in the world--over $500 billion. But this pool is almost solely controlled by the bankers and brokers who send it to the Sunbelt and to Taiwan. Because pensions are basically propping up the stock market--because the Fortune 500 are using those assets...
...book explains the various kinds of pension funds (corporate funds, collectively-bargained funds, public employee funds, funds for the self-employed), the legal issues over their control and use, and the pension investment strategies that the bankers and brokers have used. The main strength of the book is its detailed documentation of economic trends, quoting labor, Congressional and industrial leaders and analysts to add color to what could have been a very bleak subject.Even if Rifkin and Barber's next book, on the economic significance of the evangelical movement in the U.S., denotes a return to radical faddism, The North...
...Stanton site--a factory shell built by Chrysler in the early '70s but never occupied--and threw in a 95 per cent cut in local taxes raised by offering to build rail and highway links to its site. Pennsylvania matched that, and as a clincher, persuaded two state pension funds to put up a $135 million loan to help VW set up shop in New Stanton...
...MOST innovative part of the pennsylvania package was Shapp's use of state pension fund money to help finance the VW plant. By persuading the funds' directors to make the loan, Shapp recognized that states should use the vast capital pool of public employee pension funds to advance their own economic well-being, just as workers and communities should use their pension funds not only to asure future incomed but present income, jobs, growth as well. The problem with Shapp's package was that it only subsidized Volkswagen, and increased Pensylvania's dependence on the private sector. That $135 million...
...glue in the works is that control of most pension funds resides with the bankers and bromkers, the corporate management fiduciaries--the same individuals who opt for expanding investments in the Sunbelt, in Taiwan, in South Africa, and the desertion of the northeastern and central states. These managers claim their pattern of investment is necessary to produce the highest return, so that future retirees are guaranteed pensions. In boththe shourt and long-term, however, this profit motive works to the disadvantage of the beneficiaries of the funds...