The Financial Crisis Was Well Under Way in December 2007

Here is one clear indicator of when the Financial Crisis actually started with a vengance, although its roots go back to the Clinton Administration at least and the repeal, in stages, of Glass-Steagall.


Source: Institutional Research Analyst and the FDIC

The Next Bailout: Pension Funds Imploding

It is in times like these that Pension Fund Managers, and the Other People's Money crowd in general, are showing how they earned their pay, or didn't.

Aren't you glad the Bush Administration did not achieve its objective of putting the Social Security Trust Fund into the stock market?

Although its not clear how much difference that is going to make in the long run.

We are still in the calculated and deliberate 'general looting of the country' phase and the tide has not yet turned. The financiers are still in control.


Chicago Business News
Pension bombs going off
By: Paul Merrion
March 02, 2009

Exploding pension fund shortfalls are blowing billion-dollar holes in the balance sheets of some of the Chicago area's biggest companies, forcing them to make huge contributions to retirement plans at a time when cash flow and credit are already under stress.

Boeing Co.'s shareholder equity is now $1.2 billion in the hole thanks to an $8.4-billion gap between its pension assets and the projected cost of its obligations for 2008. At the end of 2007, Boeing had a $4.7-billion pension surplus. If its investments don't turn around, the Chicago-based aerospace giant will have to quadruple annual contributions to its plan to about $2 billion by 2011.

Stock market losses also pounded pension funds at Abbott Laboratories Inc., Caterpillar Inc. and Exelon Corp., with others sure to emerge as companies file their annual financial reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission in coming weeks.

The pension gaps underscore a growing conundrum. Unfunded pension liabilities have to be subtracted from shareholder equity, weakening balance sheets at a time when it's already tough to borrow money. Barring a reprieve from Congress, companies may be forced to make more layoffs or curb capital investments to divert cash to shore up pensions....

The Chicago companies are symptomatic of nationwide woes. Last year, the 100 largest corporate pension funds in the U.S. saw their net assets decline by 21%, while liabilities increased 1.2%. Applying those averages to any of the region's top funds puts almost all of them into the red by at least $1 billion....

Thoughts for a Sunday Evening in Times of Uncertainty

"God has created me to do Him some definite service; He has committed some work
to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission. I may never know
it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next.... I am a link in a chain,
a bond of connexion between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall
do good, I shall do His work; I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth
in my own place, while not intending it, if I do but keep His commandments and
serve Him in my calling.

Therefore I will trust Him. Whatever, wherever
I am, I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve
Him; in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him; if I am in sorrow, my sorrow
may serve Him. My sickness, or perplexity, or sorrow may be necessary causes of
some great end, which is quite beyond us. He does nothing in vain; He may
prolong my life, He may shorten it; He knows what He is about. He may take away
my friends, He may throw me among strangers, He may make me feel desolate, make
my spirits sink, hide the future from me --still He knows what He is about."

John Henry Newman, Meditations and Devotions