US Politics Mega-thread - Page 7958

On June 28 2017 06:18 Plansix wrote:
So threatening members of your own party with a primary challenge doesn’t pass legislation? I’m shocked, shocked I say.

On June 28 2017 05:32 KwarK wrote:

And yet I looked up the actuarial reports on my pension plan and it turns out we're also underfunded. Which is insane.

There is no mathematical explanation for this.

On June 28 2017 08:19 IgnE wrote:


must be fraud, kwark. better start investigating

On June 28 2017 08:22 xDaunt wrote:

One thing that the actuary monkeys often do is presume unreasonably high rates of return on the pensions' investments for years. This often leads to many years of rosy reports when things actually aren't going so hot.

On June 28 2017 08:19 IgnE wrote:


must be fraud, kwark. better start investigating

On June 28 2017 08:33 ticklishmusic wrote:
the groups that oversee pensions or large trusts end up farming out big chunks to other investors. while a nice, simple total index or mid/large cap blend has a very solid chance of netting a pretty solid 5% annual return, an overly complex allocation strategy erodes that return despite loud protestations to the contrary. you invest in a fund, which invest in another fund, which invests in another fund and each one is taking its management fees along the way.

On June 28 2017 09:01 KwarK wrote:

Interestingly the Nevada Public Employee's Retirement System ($35b AUM) has averaged 9.3%/year over the past 33 years and is run by one fund manager who basically comes into work, checks that index funds are still the right way to go, and then just reads the papers. He's an American hero. Alas I am not in Nevada.

On June 28 2017 09:05 ticklishmusic wrote:


yeah. also there's like the harvard endowment which earns like 20%, or the grinnell endowment which is not as well known but grows at a tremendous rate (warren buffet's alma mater)... but on the other hand you have yale which is growing at like 3%.

On June 28 2017 08:52 IgnE wrote:
does 5% make sense given this graph?



goo.gl

well fuck it i'll fix it later i guess

For months, Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, have been pushing the Trump administration to expand the number of foreign guest-worker visas issued to help businesses in their states prepare for their summer peak. The two senators are also considered crucial votes on the health care bill currently floundering in Congress.

So career staff at the Departments of Labor and Homeland Security took note last week when senior political officials ordered them to immediately draft a rule that would increase the number of H-2B visas, specifically mentioning innkeepers and fisheries in Maine and Alaska, according to three people with knowledge of the discussions.

Paul Ray, counselor to Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta, has been pressing staffers inside the agency for a rule to come out as early as this week, the sources said. While no one in political leadership invoked the health care bill specifically, they said, the sudden urgency and apparent desire to tailor the rule to specific states has drawn concern.

Career staffers have bristled at being told to find the data to justify the rule, the sources said, and have raised questions about whether a regulation benefiting specific industries over others would hold up in a court.

As a result of the pushback, some of the specific details have been scaled back and the latest draft would target a broader set of industries that experience a late summer spike and, as a result, missed out on the first round of visas earlier this year. In addition to certifying they’ve attempted to hire American workers, businesses would also have to attest that they would likely fail or suffer serious financial harm without hiring guest workers.

As an interim final rule, what’s being drafted would take effect immediately without the long period of public comment that usually precedes new regulations.

A Labor Department spokesman referred questions about the rule to DHS, which declined to comment on whether there was any connection between the timing of the work and the health care bill.

“The administration and the department are committed to protecting American jobs and U.S. workers,” DHS spokeswoman Joanne Talbot said in a statement. “DHS is only seeking to provide visas to truly seasonal industries that would be severely/significantly harmed by not receiving H-2B visas, which would adversely impact U.S. workers employed by these seasonal businesses.”

Staff for Murkowski didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. A spokeswoman for Collins said, “There is no link — and there has been no attempt to link — this issue with the health care bill.”

On Monday evening, Collins said she wouldn’t support the health care bill as currently written. And on Tuesday, Collins and Murkowksi were part of a group of Republican senators who met with President Trump at the White House to discuss health care.

The H-2B issue has been politically incendiary for years. Even as Trump made promoting American workers the centerpiece of his presidential campaign last year, he has secured H-2B visas for foreign guest workers to serve as waiters and cooks at his Mar-a-Lago resort.

Conservative outlets such as Breitbart and the Washington Times have been hammering the Trump administration for what they see as a potential betrayal in any increase in the number of H-2B visas.

At an appropriations hearing last month, Murkowski pressed Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly on the importance of the visas for Alaska.

“For most of these communities, for most of these regions, if there is no one to process the seafood when it comes in, there is no place for the boats to deliver,” she said. “If the boats can’t deliver, there is no economy to that community at all.”

Kelly responded: “This is one of those things that I really wish I didn’t have any discretion. And for every senator or congressman that has your view, I have another one that says, ‘Don’t you dare. This about American jobs.’”

The issue came to a head in January when the agency in charge of administering the H-2B program received more than 80,000 applications for 33,000 slots available during the first half of the year. In previous years, that quota had not been filled until March. In the face of increasing demand, Congress had allowed additional workers who had received H-2B visas in the past to return without counting against the quota. But Congress failed to renew that measure this year, significantly reducing the net amount of visas available for the full year.

In March, a bipartisan group of senators sent a letter to Kelly expressing concern that the cap had been reached, freezing out many employers with a need for labor in the late spring and summer.