CalPERS Fail

Despite the awesome bull market this year, CalPERS again missed its return target, earning only 5.8% vs. its required 6.8%.

CalPERS has missed its return targets for the trailing 1-, 3-, 5-, 15-, and 20-year periods.

When CalPERS fails to make its' required returns, California taxpayers are liable for making up the difference for California's uber-generous public pensions.

Maybe teaching racial division and hatred wasn't such a good idea after all

Doctor cycling in California run down, stabbed by driver screaming about ‘white privilege’:

A doctor cycling along the Pacific Coast Highway in California was mowed down by a driver who then got out of his vehicle and stabbed the cyclist to death while screaming ‘white privilege’ slurs.

Dr. Michael Mammone, 58, of Laguna Beach, was on his bike in Dana Point when he was struck by the driver of a white Lexus.

The driver allegedly sped through a red light at an intersection before running over Mammone on Wednesday afternoon, KABC reported.

He then jumped out of his vehicle and stabbed the victim multiple times in the back before bystanders tackled him to stop the attack.

Mmmkay....

President who usurped Congressional spending authority to issue an executive order handing out hundreds of billions of dollars right before an election will lecture nation on "threats to democracy."

Seems legit

WSJ:

Calpers’ stock portfolio returned minus 13.1%, while bonds returned minus 14.5%, the pension fund said. Those losses delivered a double blow for retirement funds and other savers who have long relied on those two assets to move in opposite directions.

Private equity and real estate returned 21.3% and 24.1%, respectively.

It's a CalPERS miracle! 

Everything with observable market prices went down, but everything CalPERS values subjectively went up! By double digits!

Quotations from Chairman Varones

 Inflation is progressive utopians encountering resource constraints for the first time.

Taxable brokerage vs. traditional 401(k) account

The common wisdom says pre-tax 401(k)s and IRAs beat taxable accounts hands-down. But it's not so clear to me. If you put buy-and-hold stocks or index funds in a taxable brokerage account, it's actually remarkably tax-efficient because of the ability to defer capital gains, and the preferable tax rates on dividends and capital gains.

Here's a spreadsheet where you can play with the assumptions (you'll have to make a copy for  yourself to edit): link. 

Yes, traditional beats taxable in simplified base case, but this ignores:

• tax loss harvesting 
• HIFO withdrawals 
• foreign tax credits
• higher potential future tax rates

With the federal government running perpetual deficits of 3% - 5% of GDP, is it really out of the question that tax rates on wealthy retirees could hit 37%? That's about the point where taxable beats pre-tax even before considering HIFO and tax loss harvesting.

AOC has Covid

Anybody else think horse paste might be worth a try?