When last I checked in on Maine's new teabagging governor, he wanted to repeal the state regulation that prevented using toxic chemical bisphenol-A in baby bottles. (Says there was no "science" behind the ban.)

Now, under Paul LePage's proposed budget, teachers and other state employees will be required to increase their contributions to the pension system, from 7.65 percent of their salary to 9.65 percent. Of course, the teabagger governor has exempted himself! And is this to build up the state's pension system? Nope. It's to pay for $203 million in tax cuts for Maine residents in the top 10% income and estate brackets.

Isn't "shared sacrifice" great?

While public employees and teachers face this increase, as well as a raise in the retirement age, a freeze on cost-of-living adjustments for current retirees and a 2 percent cap on future cost of living increases, LePage's personal contribution rate to the retirement system will remain the same, which means he'll be paying $21,420 over four years.

If LePage faced the same increase as state employees, it would cost him $5,880 over his term.

Unlike teachers and state employees, however, the size of the governor's pension doesn't depend on how long he pays into the system. As soon as he leaves office, he'll begin receiving a three-eighths of his salary, which works out to $26,600 annually.

For comparison, a Maine teacher would have to work for more than 25 years to receive this level of benefits.

Confidential employees, those that are not represented under union collective bargaining, also are not seeing their salary contributions increased to the same rate. They'll continue to pay just 3.65 percent of their salary to the pension fund. At the same time that most employees are to be forced to increase their contributions, the state will reduce the amount it pays into the retirement fund.

Maine currently contributes 5.5 percent of an employee's salary, less than the 6.2 percent it would have to pay if these workers were enrolled in Social Security rather than the more efficient state pension system.

It is difficult, then, to take LePage seriously when he says, "I know some teachers and retirees are struggling, but we need honest and shared solutions to solve our pension problem," as he did last week, or when his spokesperson talked about "shared sacrifices" as they announced the budget.

So now we know who the real death panelists are!

After the mortgage business imploded last year, Wall Street investment banks began searching for another big idea to make money. They think they may have found one.

The bankers plan to buy “life settlements,” life insurance policies that ill and elderly people sell for cash — $400,000 for a $1 million policy, say, depending on the life expectancy of the insured person. Then they plan to “securitize” these policies, in Wall Street jargon, by packaging hundreds or thousands together into bonds. They will then resell those bonds to investors, like big pension funds, who will receive the payouts when people with the insurance die.

The earlier the policyholder dies, the bigger the return — though if people live longer than expected, investors could get poor returns or even lose money.

And really, who could possibly have a problem with that? Why would we think that enormously powerful financial interests would want to, you know, protect their investments by making sure our health care is less than optimal?

Such poetic irony, don't you think? The deaths of the little people working for corporate behemoths goes to pay bonuses to their company's top earners. Hey, it may be legal - but it sure lacks class.

Banks are using a little-known tactic to help pay bonuses, deferred pay and pensions they owe executives: They're holding life-insurance policies on hundreds of thousands of their workers, with themselves as the beneficiaries.

Banks took out much of this life insurance during the mortgage bubble, when executives' pay -- and the IOUs for their deferred compensation -- surged, and banking regulators affirmed the use of life insurance as a way to finance executive pay and benefits.

Bank of America Corp. has the most life insurance on employees: $17.3 billion at the end of the first quarter, according to bank filings. Wachovia Corp. has $12 billion, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. has $11.1 billion and Wells Fargo & Co. has $5.7 billion. (Wells Fargo acquired Wachovia at the end of last year.)

The insurance policies essentially are informal pension funds for executives: Companies deposit money into the contracts, which are like big, nondeductible IRAs, and allocate the cash among investments that grow tax-free. Over time, employers receive tax-free death benefits when employees, former employees and retirees die.

Though not improper, the practice is similar to what is known as "janitors insurance," an insurance-on-employees technique that has long been controversial. Critics say the banks' insurance contracts are a way for companies to create tax breaks for funding executive pensions. And some families have complained that employers shouldn't profit from the deaths of their loved ones.

Apparently you weren't the only one living on the "get it now, pay later" plan, huh?

Last year's stock market collapse left the nation's largest private pension plans with a deficit of more than $200 billion, a study released Wednesday said, which could force companies to invest more money in their plans when they can least afford it.

The nation's 100 largest corporate pension plans were underfunded by $217 billion at the end of 2008, holding only 79% of the assets needed to cover estimated long-term liabilities. That compares with an $86 billion surplus — 109% of estimated liabilities — at the end of 2007, according to Watson Wyatt, a human resources consulting firm.

Pension plans' assets fell 26% last year, primarily because of investment losses, the study said. A separate study released Wednesday by Milliman said the nation's largest plans lost an additional $54 billion in February.

It's not unusual for companies to have underfunded pension plans, and the deficit typically doesn't affect payouts to near-term retirees. But to avoid future problems, companies with underfunded pensions are required to increase contributions.

Companies are also facing stricter federal funding requirements for pensions, says David Speier, senior retirement consultant at Watson Wyatt. "This combination will require employers to make staggering pension contributions over the next couple of years, at a time when they can least afford them."

via AlterNet

The rapidly growing, aggressive advertising boycott effort of the Sinclair Broadcasting has already had a measurable financial impact on the company, whose stock dropped 10 percent over the past week, closing on Friday at an all-time low of $7.04 ? a $60 million loss in value.

The boycott is just one among Sinclair's increasing list of woes. A financial analyst from Lehman Brothers has warned that showing the film is "potentially damaging, both financially and politically." William M. Meyers wrote in his analysis for the company: "In a best case scenario, we believe that this decision could result in lost ad revenues. In a worst case scenario ... the decision may lead to higher political risk. As management has increased the company's political risk, we are reducing our 12-month price target to $9 (from $10)."

Meanwhile legal experts such as Stanford professor Lawrence Lessig predict that Sinclair shareholders will surely file lawsuits against the company's management. According to David S. Bennahum, Senior Fellow at Media Matters:

[A]s a publically traded company, Sinclair Broadcasting Group directors have a responsibility to ensure that Sinclair takes actions consistent with enhancing shareholder value. Sinclair's decision to air "Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal" places partisan political interests ahead of shareholder value by jeopardizing the renewal of FCC licenses, stimulating grassroots advertiser boycotts and triggering potential investigations into the company's misuse of its licenses to use the public airwaves.

Media Matters is urging anyone who may be a shareholder in one of 20 mutual funds and six pension funds that invest in the company to request that their fund manager immediately divest their funds from Sinclair. Atrios says, "I haven't had this much fun reading a stock message board since Enron was in free fall..."
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