A lot of companies have frozen their pension plans in the past few years, and presumably they think it’s a sound business move. According to a new study by three Watson Wyatt Worldwide consultants, though, the stock market doesn’t reward companies for…

Missouri isn’t the only state where bonuses for pension fund managers are causing controversy. In California, the Sacramento Bee reports today that CalPERS and CalSTRS, two of the nation’s biggest public pension funds, paid out millions of dollars in bonuses to their…

Giant pension funds in Missouri and Illinois are tallying their losses from the great bear market of 2008, and it’s not a pretty picture.

According to the Columbia Tribune, the scorecard in Missouri looks like this:

• Public School Teachers Retirement System, down $7.8…

There’s a lot of difference between a cash investment — essentially short-term, liquid securities that you could sell at any time to pay your bills — and a Ponzi scheme. But cash is exactly where the Missouri State Employees Retirement…

Missouri’s new state treasurer, Clint Zweifel, says he learned something disturbing in his first meeting with the Missouri State Employees Retirement System, known as MOSERS. The big pension fund, he says, lost $3.5 million in Bernie Madoff’s giant Ponzi scheme.

According…

The Great Bear Market of 2008 was one for the history books. But before we can write history gets written, companies have to figure out all the ways in which it affects their own books. One big effect comes through…

A lively debate has erupted over labor costs at General Motors, Ford and Chrysler. Figures of $70, $72 or even $75 an hour are often cited as evidence that the companies and the United Auto Workers have not made the sacrifices necessary to compete with…

The bear market passed its one-year anniversary last month, and that year took a $4 trillion toll on Americans’ retirement savings. According to Boston College’s Center for Retirement Research, about half of that $4 trillion was lost in defined-contribution accounts, such…

The Kansas City Star has an extensive report today on spending practices of the Public School and Education Employee Retirement Systems of Missouri. The revelations include a $600-a-night hotel stay, an open bar at Christmas parties for board members, and the…

If you’re keeping score, we’ve already seen well over $1 trillion worth of bailouts this year, for everybody from Fannie Mae to the nation’s nine biggest banks. Jeffrey R. Brown, a professor of finance at the University of Illinois, says we…