This is your daily pension announcement: Here is a slightly more technical hot take on what happened at AIMCO to lose $2 billion. Apparently, not learning from the mistakes of the sub-prime mortgage crisis is bad! #ABLeg
"Value-at-risk calculations like the ones AIMCo used were partly blamed for underestimating the risks of the subprime mortgage derivatives that fueled the 2008 financial crisis, leading banks to incur far larger losses than they had expected were possible." #ABLeg#AIMCOfail
Remember the (super thin) review of the VOLTS strategy is on the AIMCO website. I am left with some questions. In particular, the review included:
• the role staffing resource constraints may have played
• the role the design of our compensation framework might have played in the incentive structure for management
But, none of the conclusion addresses these issues(?).
Incentive design is important because of bonuses.
If bonuses are structured inappropriately they will incentivize the wrong behavior. #ABLeg
Not addressing this factor in the recommendations is a bit perplexing. #ABLeg
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This is your daily pension announcement. The Pension War Room™️ can't believe this needs to be said again. But, after some side comments from some local UCP MLAs, here we go:
1. The GOA is a minority (49%) contributor to the
teachers' retirement plan. #ableg
2. The GOA does **NOT** guarantee pensions. They are guaranteed by the assets in the plan. (There was a guarantee until 1992.)
3. Since the GOA contributes 49%, they appoint half the Board Members to the ATRF Board. #AbLeg
4. The ATRF Board is the trustee with a fiduciary
duty to the plan members. Selecting investment
strategy and **in any normal world** hiring
investment managers is their responsibility. #AbLeg
This is your daily pension announcement: The Pension War Room™️ is awash in the irony that is the TBA faction of the UCP caucus. Did the slide deck used to convince caucus of DS's latest flaky idea have data from a fake polling firm? I feel the need to know. #AbLeg
We are expecting the @ATRFPension Annual Report (to Aug 23) to come out this week. We will be able to see just how far @aimcoinvests has come to saving us $40 million each and every year. My informed opinion is they have saved teachers $0. Every claim AIMCO made was false. #AbLeg
Here again, for posterity's sake, is the **top level** analysis done by AIMCO and provided to TBF. This really shows two things: AIMCO can't recognize the Mother of All conflicts of interest, and is AIMCO is incapable of calculating a risk adjusted return. #AbLeg
This is your daily pension announcement. The Pension War Room™️ reveals this King's Bench pension decision. If you recall, LAPP, PSPP and SFPP are holding @aimcoinvests and GOA accountable for $1.33 billion dollars of VOLTS losses. #ABLeg canlii.org/en/ab/abkb/doc…
It looks like the GOA tried to sever themselves from the (top secret) arbitration hearing. So your hardworking pension plans needed to go to King's Bench Court to have the GOA again added as a defendant. Which they were, with costs. #AbLeg
This is a thorough ruling. It is hard to think that they even argued such a stupid position: that the GOA had no responsibility for @aimcoinvests even though they own them and are responsible for appointing board members. #AbLeg
The Pension War Room™️ notes that you must be disappointed if you expected someone with a medical background as CEO of AHS. Instead you get Athana. Famous for pension misinformation back in the day. (She was DM of TBF during pension theft.) #AbLeg
A bunch of my old tweets got new life with this announcement. I had catalogued stupid and untrue things she had said about pensions. Stuff like "the GOA assumes all of the pension liability" and "the GOA pays for public sector pensions".
She seemed unaware that teachers, for instance, contribute 51% to their pensions and assume 51% of the liability.
She also seemed unaware that ordering a fiduciary trustee to use certain investment managers will bite the GOA in the ass again and again. #AbLeg
The Pension War Room™️ will again sink into the effluent of pension discourse with a cautionary tale from 1992. The teachers' plan was seriously underfunded (mostly due to GOA).
Teachers were talked into a solution that involved them contribution 1.6% of pay. #AbLeg
In hindsight we see that was a number with little basis in reality. And, after teachers started making that contribution it was found to be "wrong" that they needed to contribute 3.1% of pay. Nearly double.
Bait and switch 'berta style. #AbLeg
I'm afraid that the APP is following the same proven strategy. A lowball contribution rate until **after** decisions are made. Then **mistakes were made** and the contribution rate is all of a sudden higher than CPP. #AbLeg
The plan funded ration is up to 99% (up from 81% in 2014). This all important ratio means that assets almost = liabilities. This improvement is the result of important work the ATRF Board did over the last 10 years. #ABLeg
If you recall, some years ago Redford and Horner tried to cut the other provincial pension plans because they thought their funded ratios were too low. (maybe 80%)
Fast forward: all those plans above 100% and looking good. #ABLeg#neverbelieveapolitician