The next big crisis: Retirement Funds! UPDATE #1 &2

I had several friends tell me I scared them on this story 2 posts below. I didn't mean to do that but realized I had not provided any answers to the question, So what do I do about it? The answer to me is to consider investing in more hard assets than paper products such as money, stocks or other derivatives. Consider buying things like Gold and Silver physically, not the paper stocks which trade it. Also consider buying rental income properties, which can generate cash flow positive returns, especially with the prices down so much and mortgage interest rates at the lowest level in years. If you can get these properties, they are hard assets. People can live in them and you can own something which will rise in value, as inflation rises. Inevitably it will, because of the massive amounts of dollars and Euro's in the world being printed out of thin air.

Most have their current retirement funds in accounts they have little or no control over. They are suppose to be protected not just by "promises" like IOU's, but physically there for when you retire and start to draw the funds out. Most of my retirement funds are in my own accounts, as I am self employed and set up a Defined Benefit Plan in which I am able to manage my own investments. (The average person does not have this luxury. And I am at an age where in a few years I can start to draw it out.)

The government stands behind the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. so I am not worried they can't print the paper and do what's necessary to help it should it need it. The overarching problem, in my view, is that it makes money appear to be worthless, as the government can print all they want to solve almost any problem. Here from the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp.'s 2008 Strategic Plan is what they say can be a key issue:

Key Factors Affecting Achievement of PBGC Goals
Plan Underfunding
-Financial and operational risks facing the pension insurance system continue to fluctuate significantly because of the sensitivity of underfunded pension plans to changes in economic conditions. The necessary monitoring of these plans and their sponsors strains PBGC resources.

Plan Terminations
-Continued growth in the number and magnitude of pension plan terminations and the number of participants in trusteed plans increases the PBGC’s workload and the need for supporting infrastructure. This larger workload and increasing customer expectations challenge the agency’s ability to deliver quality customer service.

Complexity of Assets in Terminated Plans
-When an underfunded pension plan terminates, the plan’s existing investment portfolio is absorbed by the PBGC, which commingles the assets with its own assets under management. Assets from recent large plan terminations have included complex investment mixes that the agency manages until the assets can be liquidated. The handling of complex assets in the PBGC’s portfolio, and particularly assets that it would otherwise not hold, increases the PBGC’s investment management costs.

It is this last statement, which is the most troubling, as sure as you can count to ten, you know these are probably troubled assets or "toxic assets" on their books too.


Money will always be here, as long as it can be printed. You need to know when to hold it and when to invest it, when to invest it in soft versus hard assets. Right now inflation is all but non existent, but that will change over the next few years.

UPDATE #2 May 6th 7:30am PST

Surprising employees, today Wells fargo announced they will no longer be contributing to its traditional Employee Pension plan, cutting the total compensation of its workers only 2 weeks after announcing record first-quarter profits!

Best 4 days in a row in the stock market in a long time.

I was very, very pleased to see the markets rise again today for a 4th straight day. I find myself wrestling with my Ego here wanting to say it was inevitable, given my earlier premise that Wall St. wants the consumer to forget about their stock portfolio's and go shopping. But on the other hand just happy I was able to point the way for some to make money this week. It was the best week in a long time.

Here's what I did today. I wanted to report that I sold my Ultra Pro ETF shares, symbol, SSO, for average price of $25.10/share. These are the shares bought at $19.35, so I have a lot to be thankful for a 24% profit in less than a week. Also I purchased 20,000 more shares of Ford Motor Co. at the open for $1.70. And lastly, I was able to buy the ETF Ultra Short of the S&P 500, symbol SDS, for $90.50/share. The idea here is that if the market drops next week due to very poor Retail Sales, I will make money on these shares. These are the same shares I bought at $88/share and sold at $118 last Thursday. The idea here being to make another round trip if the market goes down.

With the additional major news item of the day being a terrorist attack in India, the markets have a lot of pressure to go down next week. On Friday, you might consider buying this same ETF, symbol SDS. The Dow closed at 8,726 today. If you believe we are in a trading range and most likely will stay in that band, then playing it to your advantage is important. I believe the top of that band on the Dow is about 9,500 and the bottom is at 7,000, the half way point is 8,250 and we are above that point. That would mean there is better than a 50% chance we will pull back some. However, we are not that much above the mid point so it can just as easily continue up for a few days but we are still just below the 20 day Moving Average on the Dow and S&P 500. What I do in that case is to start buying 1/3 of the total shares I want to purchase of SDS at $90/share and buy 1/3 more at $88 and another 1/3 at $86/share.

Happy Thanksgiving.