The following information was provided by the National Institute on Retirement Security. It clearly demonstrates that retirement security is not and should not be a political issue. Most Americans have suffered from weak real wage growth for decades. As a...

One of the true positives for me in getting involved in the Butch Lewis Act legislation (H.R. 397) has been meeting (through social media) passionate advocates for pension reform such as John C. Anderson, a retired member of the teamsters,...

In a follow-up to our August 2nd post titled, "OPEBS - Just How Awful is the funding Issue?" I've come across some excellent work by the folks at Milliman, who have produced the following graph. The funded ratios for the...

A LIMRA Secure Retirement Institute (SRI) study "finds 8 in 10 private-sector DB plan sponsors (who also offer a defined contribution plan) are at least somewhat interested in a pension risk transfer transaction (PRT). Four in 10 plan sponsors say...

For many of us living on the East Coast, August was a beautiful month to spend time on the beach. Unfortunately, it wasn't as pleasant for those managing a U.S. defined benefit plan, as the "perfect storm" hit with both...

A Unique Perspective on CTAs I normally dedicate this blog to matters pertaining to pensions, pension funding, and the social and economic impact from our failure to do that effectively, but I also like to discuss other aspects of pension...

Having just reported on the current condition of the U.S. high yield market, we find it somewhat disconcerting that the U.S. investment grade bond market continues to see record-breaking issuance. According to an article that appeared on Bloomberg and written...

According to analysts at Goldman Sachs, 2019 is shaping up to be a very challenging year for the high yield market, as the three-month trailing annualized default rate is running at nearly a 5% clip up from a low of...

I had the great pleasure of speaking with Traci Dority-Shanklin last week about the multiemployer pension environment generally and more specifically about the Butch Lewis Act (H.R. 397). It was a great conversation because Traci had a firm grip on...

Now, before everyone gets upset, I am not referring to generic drugs. I am specifically speaking about generic indexes to replicate liability streams for pension benefits, which seem to be all the rage these days. Corporate America has been derisking...