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不光是欧洲有问题，美国自身的问题也在慢慢浮现。因为就业连年疲软，美国各级政府入不敷出。目前有两个隐患，一是政府财政破产，另一个是养老金难以为继。
因为今年是大选年，随着大选的进程，这些问题会越来越被选民重视。需要注意的是，这些是财政问题，大本的货币政策是松是紧，对财政问题来说都是药不对症。
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Municipalities Losing Their Will to Make Debt Payments
By Michael Aneiro
With two large California cities – Stockton and San Bernardino – deciding to seek bankruptcy protection within the past month, there are growing signs that municipalities are simply becoming less willing to make their debt payments.
In a report Thursday, Moody’s Investors Service says “willingness to pay debt obligations may be eroding in the US municipal market” as cities start viewing bankruptcy as less of a stigma and more of an expedient means to make up for a lack of political willpower to raise taxes or make further service cuts. It says the efforts by both Stockton and San Bernardino to cut spending or reduce services before opting for bankruptcy were “weaker or later than expected and less than other other cities have successfully done.” More from Moody’s:
Instead they chose to pursue bankruptcy as means to extract concessions from city employees, suppliers, and creditors including bondholders. These cases raise the question of whether distressed municipalities will begin to view debt service as a discretionary item in their budget and whether defaults will increase. We expect that a growing but still small number of financially strapped governments will take a more calculated approach to weighing the costs and benefits of default or bankruptcy.
Moody’s says only one out of the 71 local government defaults seen from 1970 through 2011 was due to a lack of willingness, rather than an inability, to pay, when the town of Cicero, NY voted not to appropriate funds for lease payments to service debt on a failing ice-skating rink.
During the last year, however, Moody’s says four cities – Stockton, CA, Scranton, PA, Wenatchee, WA, and Moberly, MO – have made deliberate decisions to miss payments on debt even though they may have had the resources to make these payments, in addition to San Bernardino, where the city council announced its intent to file for bankruptcy but has not filed yet.
Moody’s says these examples don’t yet represent a wholesale shift in willingness to pay, but that it’s watching closely for signs of a more systemic shift and “reconsidering our long-held assumptions about municipal behaviors and attitudes toward debt repayment.” Moody’s says defaults could become more frequent if the stigma of bankruptcy erodes as it did for corporations in the 1980s and personal bankruptcies in the past decade.
Local governments in California may be more susceptible to an erosion in willingness to pay than those in most other states like Michigan or Rhode Island, Moody’s says, because of California’s hands-off home rule policy, limited ability to raise revenues and generous employment and retiree benefits extracted from governments during better economic times. Also a new California state law, AB 506, creates a pathway to bankruptcy court for stressed municipalities.
Moody’s adds that certain debt structures – in particular those whose debt service payments are guaranteed, rather than directly issued, and those subject to appropriation without consequence for default –may be more heavily exposed to a potential erosion in willingness to pay.
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Fitch: Expect More Lousy Public Pension Returns
By Michael Aneiro
After the California Public Employees’ Retirement System this week reported a measly 1.0% return on its portfolio last year, Fitch Ratings tells investors to get used to the idea of lousy pension-fund returns.
“Given the disappointing market performance for the year that ended June 30, the fiscal year end, and actuarial valuation date for many major public employee retirement systems, Fitch expects numerous systems to report similarly disappointing returns,” Fitch says in a note Wednesday. “This is likely to further pressure pension systems’ funded ratios and lead to higher annual contributions for state and local governments.”
Most major statewide public employee retirement systems have historically relied on investment return assumptions averaging 8%, a level that Fitch calls “optimistic.” During the two decades prior to the 2008 recession, actual market performance often exceeded such 8% assumptions. But massive losses incurred in 2008 and 2009, and uneven returns in the years since then, have resulted in ongoing, often sizable year-to-year declines in funded ratios for pensions.
Fitch says many pension systems are still absorbing the losses of 2008-2009 in their actuarial funded ratios, and now the disappointing returns for fiscal 2012 will further weigh down funded ratios and pressure annual contributions. More from Fitch:
It is important to note that numerous pension systems have taken steps toward reforming their pensions, including by lowering their investment return assumptions. (CalPERS is one such system, having lowered its assumption to 7.50%, from 7.75%, earlier this year.) Continued weak performance of pensions’ investment portfolios is likely to underscore the need for additional changes to benefits, contribution policies, and assumptions including the investment return assumption. Fitch believes such actions, even if they result in lower funded ratios in the near term, ultimately improve the sustainability of pensions.
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狗仔卡
发表于 2012-7-19 02:24 PM
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明天打包去加拿大，到女侠家打工去，，，