All posts tagged comprehensive annual financial report

CAFR Investment Scheme In The United Kingdom


I was asked by a gentleman in the United Kingdom to help him to find a CAFR (or Annual Financial Statement [AFR]) similar to the United States system of uniform financial reporting in order to prove and document that government’s investment scheme. Though I had never searched or looked at one in any depth, I have read in several places that this AFR system is becoming ever more global in structure, and well on its way to merging into a totally global uniform structure of financial accounting. And after my extensive search, I was shocked at how this international financial accounting structure has already been implemented right under our collective noses.

Since it took me quite an effort today to search and find such an annual financial report in the UK, I wanted to share what I found with you folks across the sea, and how I finally found the CAFR (AFR) equivalent of the UK in England.

After much searching with different terms I finally found this official letter from the City Of York Council (CYC), which explains the statutory requirements of the Annual Financial Report and its “Statement Of Accounts” in the United Kingdom. This term “Statement of Accounts” seems to be the key word to find these financial statements online for each local City or government there, and the first sentence (Summary) of the letter below is fairly uniform in most of these reports, meaning that searching this term brings up many “AFR/Statement of Account” (.pdf) files for different UK governments.

Here’s what that letter says from the City of York Council:

Audit and Governance Committee 27 September 2012 – Report of the Director of Customer & Business Support Services – Final Annual Financial Report – Statement of Accounts 2011/12

Summary…

“This report is for Members to Note the Annual Financial Report – Statement of Accounts 2011/12. Members will then approve the Annual Financial Report – Statement of accounts 2011/12 following consideration of the Annual Governance Report – Audit Commission, which follows on this agenda.”

Background…

“The draft pre-audit Annual Financial Report – Statement of Accounts for 2011/12 were signed by the Chief Finance Officer – Director of Customer & Business Support Services – on 29 June 2012. This is in accordance with the revised Accounts and Audit Regulations 2012, which require authorisation by 30 June each year.”

“The Annual Financial Report – Statement of Accounts 2011/12 has been prepared in accordance with the CIPFA Code of Practice on Local Authority Accounting in the UK, in line with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS).”

“It is a statutory requirement to produce an Annual Financial Report – Statement of Accounts every year by 30 September.”

“The Annual Financial Report – Statement of Accounts provides a technical financial summary of the activities of the council and assists in providing the Council with a viable financial position in which to base it future budget projections. It is a statutory requirement that the Audit & Governance Committee approves the Statement of Accounts after the audit by 30 September 2012.”

“Members are asked to Note the Final Annual Financial Report – Statement of Accounts for 2011/12 in order that they can receive the Annual Governance Report of the Audit Commission also included on this agenda. (The Annual Financial Report – Statement of Accounts 2011/12 will be approved by members following the Annual Governance Report – Audit Commission.)

Reason…

It is a statutory requirement that a committee of the Council or Full Council approves the Statement of Accounts for 2011/12 by 30 September 2012″

LINK–> http://democracy.york.gov.uk/%28S%28yridobusdxi2uduraqdiggyh%29%29/documents/s75558/Final%20Annual%20Financial%20Report%20Statement%20of%20Accounts.pdf

–=–

So we now know these reports are statutorily (legally) required for all cities in the UK. So my next step was to pull up the City Of York Annual Financial Report to see what I could find, with the goal of finding the equivalent habit of the United States governments in UK financial reporting of the hiding of current assets with future liabilities. And here is what I found…

City Of York AFR link (download page link)–> http://www.york.gov.uk/downloads/file/543/statement_of_accounts_2011_12_8_00_mb

First, we look in the index to find the equivalent Statement of Net Assets as in the United States – a listing of basic assets, liabilities, and total assets after these two sections are totaled.

On Page 17 we find listed the “BALANCE SHEET”. This is the only page we will be addressing here today, though it is in no way a comprehensive look at these Financial Statements. The notes are integral to a full understanding of this report, as well as utilizing this same examination technique to the reported individual fund (reserve) balances below – which are also covered up with similar creative accounting principles to lower the reported balances.

The first thing I noticed here is that where the United States refers to its investment funds as “Fund” and “Fund Balances”, the UK government apparently uses the name “Reserve” and “Reserve Balances” instead – same thing; different language.

I also noticed that the “TOTAL ASSETS” final total is equal to the “RESERVES” final total, signifying that the reserve (funds left over) balance of cash and investments is called the “RESERVES”.

Also interesting to note is that under the ASSETS section, the government lists “LONG-TERM ASSETS”, which is a very deceiving reporting of what in the Untied States are called Capital Assets – buildings, property, etc.

These “LONG-TERM ASSETS” as property with fluctuating values should in no way be confused with future income or tax revenue, which would account for and equal out to zero future debt payments as reported in the Long-Term Liabilities section. In other words, just like in the United States, this UK government is using FUTURE LIABILITIES (future payments on debt to be made years or decades in the future) to cover up the CURRENT ASSETS (RESERVES) of today (end of fiscal year of AFR). In this way, the reserve (investment fund and cash account) balances can be hidden from the public, creating the illusion that these CURRENT reserves (assets) are matched by CURRENT liabilities listed as Total Assets.

And this is the scam… for the future debts (liabilities) will be paid for by future revenues (taxes/assets) collected, and therefore the CURRENT assets should not be affected by the future York debt payment schedule – no more than your personal bank account balances today are effected by your own future car or mortgage payments of tomorrow. A reporting of assets held today should not be effected by debt payments tomorrow, unless someone is attempting to purposefully hide today’s assets.

Thus, this obfuscation and cover-up of actual government wealth in government financial reporting is uniform and perfectly legal throughout the world.

The people are still sitting on their collective asses here in the good ol’ United States, but maybe ya’ll over there in the Queens land might actually do something about this – maybe some of those famous riots I so love…

So let’s take a look at what the real financial position of the City Of York was on September 30, 2012…

The 2012 reserves include ($=British Pound):

“USABLE RESERVES”
General Fund Balance – $13,441,000
Capital Receipts Reserve – $992,000
Housing Revenue Account Reserve – $10,811,000
Major Repairs Reserve – $574,000
Capital Grants Unapplied – $4,541,000
Earmarked Reserves – $23,541,000

“UNUSABLE RESERVES”
Revaluation Reserve – $130,489,000
Capital Adjustment Account – $347,342,000
Available-for-sale Financial Instruments Reserve – $0
Financial Instruments Adjustment Account – $(-2,060,000)
Pensions reserve – $(-181,934,000)
Collection Fund Adjustment Account – $169,000
Employee Benefit Adjustment Account – $(-5,321,000)

These are the same types of investment funds which in America are called “Funds” (debt service fund, golf fund, water fund, sewer fund, capital improvement fund, etc.). The purpose of these reserves as investment funds is to put restrictions upon that revenue reserve in order to take it out of the taxpayer base and into the business-type (non-governmental) base (no longer able to be used in the taxpayer budget) – where it can be invested into treasuries, securities, and utilized and loaned for interest bearing purposes. This is the purposeful draining of taxpayer money from taxpayer services, and it is fraud. For this, I think you all should give me at least one good riot!

You see, you in the UK also have the same criminal hiding (obfuscation) of these assets as we do in America, by applying future liabilities to current asset totals, and excluding the actual value of assets on the budget report for the people.

My last article explains this scam in America, here: https://realitybloger.wordpress.com/2013/02/27/unmasking-the-cafr-scam-in-every-city-usa/

And in UK reporting, it is the same…

Under “LONG TERM LIABILITIES” York has listed $443,631,000, meaning that these are future amortized loan payments, pension, or other liabilities (payments) that will be paid in the future by future assets collected and investment returns earned. In other words, today’s actual balance is being effected by tomorrows debt without consideration of tomorrows revenue as tax-money collections or interest earned in the future on these above listed investments (reserves of fund balances).

“LONG TERM BORROWING” is listed at $252,766,000 for instance, meaning this is taking the reported budgetary balance of assets down by this much in value, literally hiding the wealth and investments of today.

And also listed as a long-term liability is “LIABILITY RELATED TO DEFINED BENEFIT PENSION SCHEME” for $181,934,000. This represents the amount of future assets that will be put into the pension fund “scheme”, but in no way effects the available balance of today’s assets. Again, future asset and revenue collection will pay for this future pension liability.

And yes, the pension system is certainly a scheme, no different than any insurance or banking investment scheme out there. It is simply a way to justify more taxation to “match” the pension payments made by government employees with taxpayer monies and invest those monies into the global markets.

And so if we add up just these two “long-term liability” line items for “pensions” and “borrowing”, realizing that they have nothing to do with the balances of today, we see that total assets should read as $434,700,000 higher than are reported here on this “Balance Sheet” report. That brings our actual total usable money today (Total Assets) in cash and liquid investments to a total of $777,340,000 instead of the reported $342,640,000 – more than double of what the people are led to believe on their budget report.

This will be the uniform way of financial reporting throughout the governments of the UK. So if you can find your City’s AFR and then go to the “BALANCE SHEET” in the index, you will find an equal report for every government in the UK.

***Note again that I use the $ sign here only because I don’t know where the pound sign is on my computer.

–=–
What About The Rest Of The World?
–=–

As this was the first I have heard about the “International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS)” as reported in the City of York Council letter above, I took a quick peek to see what this was all about. As with most things – like the International Social Security Administration (ISSA) with over 130 countries under its administration, and the International Bar Association (IBA) with untold participation of all countries and legal systems including the United States, it appears that the IFRS is yet another glimpse into the globalization of the world financial and legal framework into one working “system” and standard of global practices.

A cursory search for this IFRS and how it was being implemented both in the United States and globally brought the following results:

“International Financial Reporting Standards have truly arrived in Canada”
Link–> http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=eafd7f7e-f1e9-42d0-96ac-d6d229be5d8a

“Managing The Transition To International Financial Reporting Standards – An Oracle White Paper”
Link–> http://www.oracle.com/us/products/applications/056877.pdf

Excerpt:

EXECUTIVE OVERVIEW

This white paper identifies the many challenges companies face when implementing International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in corporate reporting. It also explores how Oracle’s IFRS-enabled enterprise performance management system can ease this transition. The Oracle solution provides the high level of analysis and transparency that companies need in today’s demanding and uncertain global financial reporting environment.The world’s capital markets ebb and flow continuously, and participants in that marketplace must have access to financial information that faithfully reflects their economic performance.

INTRODUCTION

Since the early 1970s, the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) and its predecessor, the International Accounting Standards Committee, have worked to develop a single set of international standards, the IFRS. The world’s capital markets ebb and flow continuously, and participants in that marketplace must have access to financial information that faithfully reflects their economic performance, is consistent among companies around the globe, and is governed by a trusted and respected authority of corporate compliance.This massive international endeavor is one of unprecedented scale and complexity—one that is now bearing fruit, despite some minor setbacks. These setbacks have included, for example, the well-publicized amendments to International Accounting Standards (IAS) 39: Financial Instruments: Recognition and Measurement. Nevertheless, IFRS have gained acceptance and traction in all major regions of the world.

Europe

The most-notable progress has been in Europe. In June 2000, the European Commission published the document, EU Financial Reporting Strategy: The Way Forward, which proposed that all publicly listed companies prepare their consolidated accounts in accordance with IAS by 2005. Remarkably, given the scale of the undertaking, more than 9,000 listed companies are now using IFRS when generating their consolidated financial statements.In addition, member states of the European Union (EU) allow companies to use IFRS for corporate income tax statements. Today, most EU countries require companies to generate reports that are in compliance with local Generally Accepted Managing the Transition to International Financial Reporting Standards Page 3 Accounting Principles (GAAP) for tax purposes, but those reports don’t have to be in compliance with IFRS. In practice, companies may be implementing IFRS anyway, as local GAAP guidelines increasingly converge with IFRS.

United States

Following Europe’s success in implementing IFRS, there is renewed focus in the U.S. to merge U.S. and international accounting standards. Presently, there are approximately 11,000 companies whose securities are registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), of which about 1,100 are non-U.S. companies. Since 2005, non-U.S. companies have been allowed to submit their financial statements to the U.S. SEC in compliance with either U.S. GAAP or IFRS, as long as they reconcile discrepancies in the results between the two. But in November 2007, the U.S. SEC voted to drop the reconciliation requirement for financial statements for the year 2007. This represents a major step forward in a long process as U.S. GAAP and IFRS converge. IASB Chair Sir David Tweedie has said that the two sets of standards could be completely merged by 2012. According to SEC Chair Christopher Cox, “The SEC’s decision could put a shine on the image of the United States in the global capital markets system, improve capital-raising opportunities for companies, and provide better comparability of financial statements for investors.”The shift from the rules-based U.S. GAAP to the principles-based IFRS is intended to improve transparency rather than simply enforce compliance, as it allows for some judgment by implementers. However, there are many challenges ahead for the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) and for the finance executives of U.S. public companies who will be making the transition. For example, fair value accounting, a key practice in IFRS, should be familiar to U.S. finance executives because current FASB accounting rules require fair value accounting for such items as derivatives, securitizations, intangibles, and employee stock option grants. However, assessing the value of other assets and liabilities in the absence of active markets could be very subjective, which could make financial statements less reliable. Nevertheless, the FASB is moving forward to enforce fair value accounting in specific areas—pension and lease accounting proposals are currently up for discussion. IFRS even eliminate long-standing practices, such as “last-in-first-out” accounting for inventory valuation, which will be replaced with the newer “first-in-first-out” method.The shift from the rules-based U.S. GAAP to the principles-based IFRS will improve transparency rather than simply enforce compliance.

Canada

In 2005, the Canadian Accounting Standards Board announced a directional change, favoring the use of IFRS over the use of U.S. GAAP. In 2007, the board established a fixed deadline of 2011 for Canadian companies to adopt IFRS for financial reporting. For publicly listed companies, IFRS will be required for interim and annual financial statements relating to the fiscal years beginning January 1, 2011. Canadian private companies and nonprofit organizations are not required to use IFRS, but are permitted to adopt IFRS after 2011.“With the date firmly established, enterprises can plan for the changeover with certainty about the timetable,” said Paul Cherry, chair of the board. “A significant challenge lies ahead but it will be made far more manageable if business leaders prepare early.”“A significant challenge lies ahead but it will be made far more manageable if business leaders prepare early.”—Paul Cherry, chair Canadian Accounting Standards BoardCanadian companies will have to provide comparative data based on IFRS for the previous fiscal year. That is, enterprises must start using IFRS by 2010, and should begin preparing for the transition in 2008 and 2009.

The World

Regulating bodies in countries as diverse as Armenia, Costa Rica, Kuwait, Peru, Australia, and South Africa require reporting from all publicly listed companies to be based on IFRS. In addition, the International Organization of Securities Commissions has recommended that the world’s regulators permit companies to prepare financial statements based on IFRS for cross-border offerings and listings. The IASB has also begun a project to merge the Japanese GAAP with IFRS.

End Excerpt

And for a generic description, Wikipedia states:

IFRS began as an attempt to harmonize accounting across the European Union but the value of harmonization quickly made the concept attractive around the world. They are sometimes still called by the original name of International Accounting Standards (IAS). IAS were issued between 1973 and 2001 by the Board of the International Accounting Standards Committee (IASC). On April 1, 2001, the new International Accounting Standards Board took over from the IASC the responsibility for setting International Accounting Standards. During its first meeting the new Board adopted existing IAS and Standing Interpretations Committee standards (SICs). The IASB has continued to develop standards calling the new standards International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS)…

IFRS are used in many parts of the world, including the European Union, India, Hong Kong, Australia, Malaysia, Pakistan, GCC countries, Russia, South Africa, Singapore, and Turkey. As of August 2008, more than 113 countries around the world, including all of Europe, currently require or permit IFRS reporting and 85 require IFRS reporting for all domestic, listed companies, according to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

It is generally expected that IFRS adoption worldwide will be beneficial to investors and other users of financial statements, by reducing the costs of comparing alternative investments and increasing the quality of information. Companies are also expected to benefit, as investors will be more willing to provide financing. Companies that have high levels of international activities are among the group that would benefit from a switch to IFRS. Companies that are involved in foreign activities and investing benefit from the switch due to the increased comparability of a set accounting standard. However, Ray J. Ball has expressed some skepticism of the overall cost of the international standard; he argues that the enforcement of the standards could be lax, and the regional differences in accounting could become obscured behind a label. He also expressed concerns about the fair value emphasis of IFRS and the influence of accountants from non-common-law regions, where losses have been recognized in a less timely manner.

It is interesting to note here that the above mentioned “International Accounting Standards Committee (IASC)” was created and based in the City of London until 2001, and that the United States was a member through the private association called the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), the United Kingdom and Ireland (counted as one) were members through the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW), Scotland through the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland (ICAS), Ireland through the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland (ICAI), and in whole the United Kingdom through the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA), Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA), and the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountablitity (CIPFA) – among other countries.

The fact that the United States was a member of this London-based organization dovetails on the very threat of a loss of United States borders and sovereignty that I have been warning about for many months, and other for years – through the utilization of private, non-governmental associations such as these drawing in most of the positions of trust and power within the United States; specifically via appointed (not elected) offices like Public Accountants, Financial Officers, City Managers, and through private NGO associations like the National Governor’s Association (NGA) and the National Mayors Association (NMA). These private non-governmental associations promote uniform legal codes and standards on a national and global basis. In short, government has changed so dramatically that it is now virtually unrecognizable; run and administered through private associations that are non-governmental, supposedly non-profit, tax-exempt, and completely nationally and internationally appointed without consideration by and of the people.

In the case of the International Accounting Standards Board, we see the following progression:

On January 25, 2001, the International Accounting Standards Foundation (IASF) was incorporated as a tax-exempt organization in the US State of Deleware. On February 6, 2001, the International Financial Reporting Standards Foundation was also incorporated as a tax-exempt organization in Delaware. The IFRS Foundation is the parent entity of the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), an independent accounting standard-setter based in London, England.

On 1 March 2001, the IASB assumed accounting standard-setting responsibilities from its predecessor body, the International Accounting Standards Committee (IASC). This was the culmination of a restructuring based on the recommendations of the report Recommendations on Shaping IASC for the Future.

The IASB structure has the following main features: the IFRS Foundation is an independent organization having two main bodies, the Trustees and the IASB, as well as a IFRS Advisory Council and the IFRS Interpretations Committee (formerly the IFRIC). The IASC Foundation Trustees appoint the IASB members, exercise oversight and raise the funds needed, but the IASB has responsibility for setting International Financial Reporting Standards (international accounting standards).

So who is it that this totally independent Foundation appoints to be the members of the board?

Members

The IASB has 14 Board members (12 are full time members and 2 are part time) each with one vote. They are selected as a group of experts with a mix of experience of standard-setting, preparing and using accounts, and academic work. At their January 2009 meeting the Trustees of the Foundation concluded the first part of the second Constitution Review, announcing the creation of a Monitoring Board and the expansion of the IASB to 16 members and giving more consideration to the geographical composition of the IASB.

The IFRS Interpretations Committee has 14 members. Its brief is to provide timely guidance on issues that arise in practice.

A unanimous vote is not necessary in order for the publication of a Standard, exposure draft, or final “IFRIC” Interpretation. The Board’s 2008 Due Process manual stated that approval by nine of the members is required.

The members (as of July 2011) were:

Former IASB members include James J. Leisenring, Robert P. Garnett, Mary Barth, David Tweedie, Gilbert Gélard, Warren McGregor, and Tatsumi Yamada.

So America… who is setting the accounting standards for your elected and appointed politicians so that obfuscations like the one shown above can be uniform throughout the world?

Well, CEO’s and bankers from around the corporate and government world for starters – from Japan, South Africa, France, Sweeden, Germany, China, United Kingdom, Brazil, New Zealand, Australia, and the Netherlands – and from such mega-corporations as Bear Stearns, Deloitte, Volvo, Arthur Andersen, UBS, Coopers & Lybrand, and KPMG.

Note that of the 14 appointed members, only 4 are from the United States. And the chairman is from Netherlands. And so the supposedly sovereign United States (or any country for that matter) can be out-voted by the consensus of this group. Does that sound like sovereignty to you???

As for the City of York Council and Cabinet we see the same problem of delegation of the functions of elected officials to appointed officers and employees. It is their responsibility according to York’s own constitution to “appoint the Chief Executive (Head of Paid Service) and designate officers as the Monitoring Officer, the Chief Financial Officer and Proper Officers under the relevant legislation designate Proper Officers has been otherwise delegated in this Constitution… appoint representatives to outside bodies unless the appointment is one that must by law be made by the Cabinet in relation to its functions or has been delegated by the Council.” “Functions which are the responsibility of Full Council may be delegated to a Committee (including a Ward Committee), a sub committee, an Officer or another Local Authority. Functions which are the responsibility of the Cabinet (called “Cabinet Functions”) may be delegated to a Committee of the Cabinet, a Ward Committee, an individual Member of the Cabinet, an Officer or the Cabinet of
another Local Authority.”

(Source: See Part 3 of York’s Constitution, here: http://democracy.york.gov.uk/ecCatDisplay.aspx?sch=doc&cat=12830&path=0)

–=–

This has been a long process of incremental change over many decades, and within the United States dating back to the late 1800’s. These private associations and NGO’s have taken over the entire framework of government, and are ghostwriting the legislation and laws of this and other countries around the world – all through common standards and practices originating from a global board on a global committee.

Understanding this reality of the structure of our now completely infiltrated government is the first step to understanding the full scheme of investments and greed that have now shaped the world economy. And the lies and obfuscations allowed by international law to be implemented as an international standard of financial reporting is already upon us.

Welcome to the global machine…

.

–Clint Richardson (Realitybloger.wordpress.com)
–Monday, March 4th, 2013

32 Comments
by realitybloger on March 4, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in CAFR - The World System, CAFR United Kingdom, Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports, Globalism
Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Posted by realitybloger on March 4, 2013

https://realitybloger.com/2013/03/04/cafr-investment-scheme-in-the-united-kingdom/

Unmasking The CAFR Scam In Every City, USA


As more and more cities, counties, districts, and states across America falsely declare their near- insolubility, bankruptcy warnings, fiscal deficits, and budgetary quandaries, I am left with the sinking feeling that “the people” just can’t wrap their heads around how to point out these misleading and downright fallacious claims made by their councils, mayors, and professional con-men in places of public trust.

And personally, I’m tired of watching…

So today I want to share with you a simple way to factually stand before your local or state political “leaders” and give indisputable proof that, when stating the “facts” about their own budget shortfalls, limited choices, and necessary raising of your hard-earned monies as taxation (revenue) to “balance the budget”, your own little criminal syndicate of elected mayors and council men and women are lying bold-faced to the entire citizenry through the act of subterfuge and omission.

This little factoid is uniform throughout the entirety of the financial structure of government, as reported in the audited Comprehensive Annual Financial Report and required by Federal and State laws. It is always reported in the same fashion and under the same heading as all other governments (municipal corporations). The figures are not disputable. The truth is unshakable. And yet the doublespeak will never end… For even as you present this one simple line item to the scoundrels themselves behind their raised and protective pedestals, they will still attempt to deny what is undeniable, be it in ignorance or in deceit; usually a mix of both.

So, here it is… a tool for all people to easily use:

Step 1:

First of all, you must find your city/county/district/or state CAFR, which can sometimes be challenging in and of itself.

A search on your favorite search engine of “Your City” “Comprehensive Annual Financial Report” “Year” will generally do the trick. You may need to add the state after the city, or you may need to go to your government’s website to find these CAFR’s. If they are not to be found online, then your government is required to hand over a hard-copy or digital copy to you upon request. It’s the law, folks!

Now that you have the CAFR in front of you, you are probably overwhelmed with all of the nonsensical figures, financial wizardry, and creative accounting that is presented in over 100 pages of a pure accounting nightmare.

But don’t worry, you can ignore all that. For our purposes, we are only concerned with one single page of this entire report. And this page is specifically listed in the index as  the “STATEMENT OF NET ASSETS“. This page is generally in the first 10-30 pages of the CAFR report, and will always be listed in the index.

For the purposes of this lesson, here is an example CAFR from the City of Pacifica, Ca.I found this with a search parameter of “Pacifica Comprehensive Annual Financial Report 2011”, and clicked on the 5th link down which took me to the finance department of the “City Of Pacifica” website.

LINK –> http://www.cityofpacifica.org/depts/finance/cafrs/default.asp

Click on the “2011”  link to open the CAFR .pdf, and go to the index.

Here you will see, as with all other CAFR reports, an entry for the “STATEMENT OF NET ASSETS“, listed under the FINANCIAL SECTION, and under “GOVERNMENT-WIDE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS”. This tells us to go to page 17 of this particular Comprehensive Annual Financial Report to find our “statement of net assets”.

That’s it! This is the hardest part of the whole process.

Now breathe… it’s all simple from here on in – and quite an eye-opener!!!

Step 2:

Now that we are on page 17 (or your own CAFR page listing the “STATEMENT OF NET ASSETS” graph), we see a page full of large figures.

Don’t worry… you don’t need to know these. They are irrelevant to our goal. Fortunately, we are only concerned with the three or four line items that prove the budget lie and omission of the CAFR facts.

What we see here is a statement of three financial columns.

1. “Assets”

2. “Liabilities”

3. (Total) Net Assets.

In basic accounting, we add up the “ASSETS” and then subtract the “LIABILITIES”, which gives us our balance called “NET ASSETS”.

But we must remember, there is nothing at all “basic” about government accounting. In fact, it is the most complicated structure of obfuscation I’ve ever encountered. Berny Madoff would even be proud…

Step 3:

Now that we are familiar with the layout of this graph, and since we already know that comprehending government accounting is like untangling a mile-long set of Christmas lights that have been kicked around by a kindergarten class that just drank 20 gallons of Coca-Cola, we can fortunately find the few line items we actually need quite easily here.

Now, under the ASSETS column, we see that TOTAL ASSETS  are listed as:

———————————————————

Governmental Activities: $103,806,744

Business-Type Activities: $57,517,150

Totals: $161,323,894

———————————————————

***Note: “Business-Type Activities” may also be listed as “Non-Governmental Activities” or similar language. This represents government acting in the capacity of a corporation offering a “service” to the people, but not as “taxpayers”. Instead, this is a business that earns money, and the taxpayers are instead “customers” of government. In this way, government wears two hats. Often, as in Utah with its self-proclaimed “Alcohol Monopoly” – were government controls and profits as the only legal seller of high content alcoholic beverages – or in the case of “State Lotteries” run solely by State Governments as a monopoly, the government is acting as any for-profit corporation might, and taxpayers voluntarily purchase this service and products from government as “customers”. Thus, these types of governmental activities are considered “non-governmental” or in Pacifica’s case “Business-type Activities”.  For our purposes, this is certainly important to understand but not necessary to our stated goal. It is simply a way to transfer money out of the taxpayer base and into the business-base of revenues, leaving the taxpayer budget short.

Under the Liabilities column, we see TOTAL LIABILITIES listed as:

———————————————————

Governmental Activities: $45,403,706

Business-Type Activities: $37,792,153

Totals: $83,195,859

———————————————————

We will come back to these figures in a moment, as the big lie is within this LIABILITIES section.

Finally, our TOTAL NET ASSETS are listed as:

———————————————————

Governmental Activities: $58,403,038

Business-Type Activities: $19,724,997

Totals: $78,128,035

———————————————————

Assets minus liabilities equals total assets. But we must now expose the fraud written into these so-called liabilities…

Step 4:

Now, since I have written extensively on what all of these facts and figures mean within the full report of the CAFR, we will not be reading between the lines today. Again, we need not understand the whole financial report to understand the crime of omission happening in every government across America (and the world for that matter). All we need to know is this one method of “creative accounting”, and with it we have more ammunition than we could possibly need to call foul on our elected holders of public trust. So for now, don’t worry about all this other red tape. If you want to learn more about all of this, you can scour my articles or watch my movies for explanations of this CAFR information. Again, we need not get sidetracked with anything but these few line items that prove massive fraud on a national level.

Listed here are the ways in which these “totals” are restricted, invested, and unrestricted. But again, this information is irrelevant to our goal, for it is based on the lie we are about to expose. Without the continuity of the big lie, these “restrictions” mean nothing.

In order to understand this lie, we must now go back to the LIABILITIES section.

Remember, we only need to read this one graph called “STATEMENT OF NET ASSETS”. Nothing else matters for our purposes of establishing basic fraud through omission and obfuscation. So for now, ignore the rest of the CAFR.

Under the LIABILITIES section, we see a line item titled “NONCURRENT LIABILITIES”.

In our Pacifica City Corporation CAFR, these are listed as follows:

Due Within One Year:

Governmental Activities: $4,283,958

Business-Type Activities: $2,458,072

Totals: $6,742,030

Due In More Than One Year:

Governmental Activities: $38,527,849

Business-Type Activities: $34,108,234

Totals: $72,636,083

And there it is… Perhaps you still don’t see it, and that’s OK. For most people have hope and faith that government has integrity and honesty even within its own required Federal and State accounting principals. Perhaps you have even heard your mayor, council members, and even your governor talk about their “intent” to do right by the people? But in reality, nothing could be farther from the truth. For intent means nothing until it is written down on a paper, signed, notarized, and filed as a legally binding contract. Only then can the true intent of politicians be guaranteed. And only then can the law be broken – for a broken promise of ones good intentions is not against the law!

So what just happened here that is so darn eye-opening, as I claim?

Glad you asked…

For it can easily slip past your cognition if you aren’t ultra aware of what you are reading. In this case, the City of Pacifica has just listed its current assets and compared those assets to its future liabilities.

Why is this significant?

Well, imagine if you were reporting your own assets and liabilities to the IRS after it informed you that it required this information for an audit. And let’s say you wanted to play a creative accounting trick on the IRS to hide your real current asset holdings. While this little trick would actually be illegal for you to do, in government it’s perfectly OK and legal, and even promoted in standards of practice. After all, government wont punish itself for its own lies – for the lie is the basic foundation of government accounting as recommended by itself!!!

So when Agent Smith comes a knocking at your door and asks you for your STATEMENT OF NET ASSETS, you give him your list that you made, which includes the same creative accounting methods used by government. On your list you itemize all of your assets, including your home, your car, your equipment, and any other property you might own. You then list your bank checking and savings accounts and any liquid investments you have in your investment portfolio, just like government does. And once you’ve listed everything you can possibly account for as one of your assets that you have right now at this very moment in time, you then begin to list your liabilities.

And here is where the creative part comes in – the act of obfuscation and trickery to fool IRS Agent Smith into believing that you have more liabilities that effect your asset balance than you actually do. Here’s how that works…

Firstly, you list depreciation of your property values if indeed the market or blue-book values have decreased over the last fiscal year. But this is another accounting trick we will ignore for now.

Second, you may account for assets that are “receivable” in the short term – say within one months time or so – in the form of payments, interest or capital gains, refunds due, rent due, etc. These short-term “future” assets can be considered “current” assets for the purposes of reporting total assets to government.

And finally you report your current liabilities that may affect your total stated list of assets. This may include “future” short-term loan payments, interest accrued within the next few weeks or in a fiscal month or quarter, capital losses, depreciation, and other forms of liabilities and/or write-offs.

At this point, you have now listed your CURRENT ASSETS and your CURRENT LIABILITIES to the best of your ability and integrity by law. And even though this figure includes some very short-term assets and liabilities, your report to the IRS is really an honest and to the best of your knowledge perfect representation of your CURRENT financial position. You have not omitted anything, and you have not purposefully attempted to hide your wealth from the IRS.

For this you get a gold star and a pat on the back for being such a good little debtor, filling governments bags with the proper amount of revenue in the form of taxation (extortion).

But government doesn’t do this, you see.

Because government is not reporting to the IRS as a taxpayer.

Government is the tax collector.

And government is a profitable business.

So how does government hide its wealth from the people?

The same way that you would hide your wealth from government… that is, if it was legal – like it is for government to hide its wealth from you.

If you were to follow the creative generally accepted financial accounting practices (GAAP) of government in your own financial accounting list, here is what you would have actually given to the IRS:

Step 1: Do exactly what you did as listed above, stating an honest and perfect representation of your CURRENT cash, property, and investment holdings, taking CURRENT liabilities away from that total.

Step 2 (Creative accounting): While reporting CURRENT ASSETS, hide the true value of today’s assets by subtracting your FUTURE LIABILITIES of tomorrow from your ASSET totals today.

That’s it! You’ve just hidden most or all of your current wealth and assets. You’ve successfully fooled the IRS into actually believing that despite your actual money, property, and investment totals that can be seen clearly listed on your report, you have somehow made that money, that property, and those investments magically disappear from your balance sheet and claim to not actually have that money, property, and investment capital in your accounts today!

Wait a minute!

Did we miss something?

How exactly did this happen?

Just how can I make my current assets magically disappear by listing my future liabilities?

The answer: Exactly like government does!

Here’s what you did…

Let’s say your home is worth $500,000 and your two cars are worth a combined total of $100,000. Not bad man! Your doing pretty good I’d say. Better than most now-a-days, right?

Oh, but wait a minute. We can’t forget that these little property assets called “capital assets” didn’t come for free. It turns out you are not so different than the majority of people out there, and you have bank loans which hold as collateral your “capital assets”. In other words, you’re up to your neck in DEBT!!!

Debt is a future liability.

And so with a total property value of $600,000 in current capital assets (the total current value of your home and cars as of today that you are reporting to the IRS), we see that unfortunately you also have a debt in the form of loan totals plus interest of about $400,000 that you must pay over the next 20 years. Suddenly wealth takes on a whole different meaning, and your debt is certainly a future liability – which means that the total asset value for your “property” as capital assets in the form of “equity” is only about $200,000 today when this debt is considered. Remember, this is the CURRENT ASSET VALUE for this day, which for your purposes is the end of your fiscal year as reported to the IRS.

For Pacifica, California, its fiscal year always ends by law on June 30 of every year. And this report was published for the dates spanning from July 1st, 2010 – to – June 30, 2011.

So you report that your assets are worth $600,000, and you report that your cash and investments are at $100,000 total.

In the end, when your future payments and interest are taken into consideration, you report the following to the IRS:

Property value: $600,000

Cash and investments: -$300,000

What?

How can you report a loss and negative balance on current cash and investments of –$300,000 if you have +$100,000 in the bank and in liquid investments?

This is how government financial reporting works, friends. All you’ve done is to create a false paradigm that utilizes the payments and interest payments of your future debt repayment amortization, including interest that hasn’t even been charged yet upon your balance principle in the future, and applied that negative liability to your current balance of assets.

But in order for this to work, you must not take into consideration your future income, investment returns, and other forms of revenue that will come into your total asset balances in the future. In other words, you report your future liabilities and ignore the future assets that will ultimately pay for those liabilities.

If you were really devious, you could then file bankruptcy and get those future debts eliminated from your record while retaining your current assets and equities.

Welcome to government creative CAFR and budget accounting!!!

–=–

Now, back to the City Of Pacifica Municipal Corporation CAFR…

Again, our liabilities are listed as:

Due Within One Year:

Governmental Activities: $4,283,958

Business-Type Activities: $2,458,072

Totals: $6,742,030

Due In More Than One Year:

Governmental Activities: $38,527,849

Business-Type Activities: $34,108,234

Totals: $72,636,083

To be fair, we will treat the listed liabilities that are “due within one year” as a legitimate line item, and to cover any type of short-term future assets that this government corporation might have actually reported.

And so, we have a total left over in the “due in more than one year” category of $72,636,083.

When we look at the line items in the “Assets” section, we see no reporting mechanism for the declaration of future assets due in more than one year”. The “long-term pre-paid pension asset” is an investment into the pension system, and not a future asset in the form of revenue. Thus, we have no hint or clue of a reporting on how much this City will collect in future revenue or what will be collected via taxation or business income, which would obviously be what pays for the future debt liability payments that are reported here.

In other words, the City corporation just used FUTURE liabilities to hide its CURRENT assets.

If the fact that future assets to be collected as revenue were reported in this graph, the $72,636,083 that is reported as a liability effecting the current asset balance would be cancelled out into a zero balance. All future liabilities would be accounted for with all future assets.

But this is not the case.

If this true accounting were to be stated here in the Statement of Net Assets, then the Total Net Assets would change from this:

Governmental Activities: $58,403,038

Business-Type Activities: $19,724,997

Totals: $78,128,035

To this:

Governmental Activities: $58,403,038 + $38,527,849

Business-Type Activities: $19,724,997 + $34,108,234

Totals: $78,128,035 + $72,636,083

This gives the municipal corporation of Pacifica, California a sudden increase in its actual CURRENT ASSETS to a total of $150,764,116, almost double what it actually reports within its Statment of Net Assets.

And there you have it – creative accounting at its finest. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the financial scam being perpetrated over you in every city, district, county, and state, USA.

And this can be used by anyone to call out your council, mayor, and any other financial planners that try and bullshit you into believing that your government has no money. And this is only the tip of the iceberg…

Remember, this in no way represents the total gross wealth of your government, but only shows one single method amongst many methods to legally cover up the true financial situation of your government entity. This can also be applied to other balances listed in the CAFR, including the “Statements Fund Balances” and within Pension Fund CAFR schemes.

–=–

Finally, to test this instruction sheet for accuracy and to prove my claims herein, lets randomly select a few other CAFR’s from governments around the country…

I just sat for a moment and thought of what should be the only City in America that may be an exception to this rule, a government that actually may be in dyer financial trouble. And the name Detroit came to mind…

Here is a link to the City Of Detroit municipal corporation (incorporated 1806) CAFR for fiscal year 2011 on the Detroit City Government website:

LINK–> http://www.detroitmi.gov/Portals/0/docs/finance/CAFR/2011%20Detroit%20CAFR%20Final.pdf

Detroit lists its Statement of Net Assets on page 37 of this CAFR. And this City lists the following Net Assets:

Total Assets (and Deferred Outflows): $10,030,113,247

Total Liabilities: $10,059,121,604

Total Net Assets (Deficit): ($29,008,357)

So here the City of Detroit is reporting that after all CURRENT ASSETS and LIABILITIES are considered, the City is running a deficit of over $29 million dollars.

But what happens when we look closer at the liabilities section line items and apply the “creative accounting” lesson we just learned?

Amazing things, folks. Amazing things happen…

Listed as “LONG-TERM OBLIGATIONS” here, Detroit lists the following under its “TOTAL LIABILITIES” section:

Due Within One Year: $313,944,768

Due In More Than One Year: $8,366,493,713

It also lists certain liabilities in the form of toxic debt instruments as:

Derivative Instruments – Swap Liability: $612,067,105

Now, though we wont include this in our total, the fact that your government is even in the investment schemes of derivatives trading, including toxic mortgage backed securities, should be enough to storm the gates and handcuff your political leaders. But we’ll save that discussion for another time, even as your governments collectively invest in this type of securities crap!

So again, if we simply consider that the future liabilities (due in more than one year) of the City OF Detroit will be paid with future assets collected by City Of Detroit from its taxpayers and customers (totals include “Governmental” and “Business-Type Activities”), then the City government of Detroit actually has CURRENT assets which should be listed like this:

Total Current Assets (and Deferred Outflows): $10,030,113,247

Total Current Liabilities: $1,692,627,891

Total Current Net Assets: $8,337,485,356

So the City Of Detroit is covering up more than $8 billion dollars in CURRENT assets by its creative accounting of future assets due more than a year away that will be paid for by future assets that are creatively not reported in its own audited CAFR. If I was a resident of Detroit, I’d say it was time to hold certain lying councilmen and the mayor accountable to the people. And in gangland Detroit, the word accountable would and should be a very frightening thought to those crooked political figures in power over the trust of the people!

The lies know no end in government accounting standards and practices…

–=–

Ok, how about one of the largest Cities and Counties in the nation, Los Angeles.

By some accounts, L.A. is one of the largest 20 economies in the world. So let’s see what just the City proper and the separate County proper is holding within its CAFR as CURRENT Net Assets.

Here is the link to the 2011 City CAFR for City Of Los Angeles: http://controller.lacity.org/stellent/groups/ElectedOfficials/@CTR_Contributor/documents/Contributor_Web_Content/LACITYP_019904.pdf

And here is the link for County Of Los Angeles: http://file.lacounty.gov/lac/cms1_141548.pdf

Starting with the City, the Statement of Net Assets lists:

Total Assets: $48,314,850,000

Total Liabilities: $27,828,798,000

Total Net Assets: $20,486,052,000

But again, in the LIABILITIES section, is listed “NON-CURRENT LIABILITIES”:

Due In More Than One Year: $23,808,794,000

And so the actual CURRENT NET ASSETS total for Los Angeles City government is in fact $44,294,846,000.

–=–

And now the County of Los Angeles:

Total Asset: $26,447,190,000

Total Liabilities: $10,317,696,000

Total Net Assets: $16,129,494,000

But again, in the LIABILITIES section, is listed “NON_CURRENT LIABILITIES”:

Due In More Than One Year: $7,224,245,000

And so the actual CURRENT NET ASSETS total for Los Angeles County government is in fact $23,353,739,000.

And so in just these two governments within Los Angeles, we have quickly and easily uncovered over $31 billion in hidden assets. With this simple technique, you and your friends can show anyone out there how government is lying to the people through omission of accounting facts. This is organized crime, indeed…

–=–

Here is a random School District called Minnetonka, in Minnesota, showing this scam in even the smallest of districts and cities:

LINK–> http://www.minnetonka.k12.mn.us/administration/Budget/Documents/District_Audit.pdf

On page 33 is the Statement Of Net Assets:

Total Asset: $161,323,894

Total Liabilities: $83,195,859

Total Net Assets: $78,128,035

And when we realize that most of these liabilities are what are called “NON-CURRENT LIABILITIES” on this report, we see that of these listed liabilities:

$72,636,083 is listed as “Due In More Than One Year”

This nearly doubles the actual CURRENT ASSETS to a total of $150,764,118.

Yet another example of the endless sea of lies and obfuscation that has for generations been pulled over the eyes of the public.

–=–

I hope that this information will be of use to your future endeavors in trying to understand the actual financial position of your local or state government. I’d say its time to get up and go to a council meeting near you. Any one will do… all you need is a few minutes to find and add up these figures, and you are good to go create a firestorm of citizen outrage that needs to be spread through the actions of people like you.

As a homework assignment, why not pull up your own City CAFR and amaze friends and family with your new magic trick. Before today, only the Federal Reserve could pull millions or billions of dollars out of its butt! And while your at it, please leave a comment below about what you have found. Include the amount in millions or billions hidden under future liabilities, and also the link to your CAFR so that others may enjoy. Please pass this on and let’s see how many we can post here. That would be great!!!

Be well, and stop playing the fool!!!

.

–Clint Richardson (Realitybloger.wordpress.com)
–Wednesday, February 27, 2013

86 Comments
by realitybloger on February 27, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports, Government Wealth
Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Posted by realitybloger on February 27, 2013

https://realitybloger.com/2013/02/27/unmasking-the-cafr-scam-in-every-city-usa/

California Fools Californians Into Higher Taxes Again


With the help of the mainstream media and its rags, the California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS) is yet again using its over $233 in reported investment fund wealth to somehow claim it is in a deficit, despite having an investment return this fiscal year.

(Note here that the actual gross fund balances are generally many billions higher, and were reported as $245,848,527,000 in 2011, and $204,727,543,000 in the 2010 CAFR’s.)

USA Today put out the following story, which was of course originally printed from the false-news clearing house, Associated Press:

“SACRAMENTO, Calif. – The nation’s largest public pension fund collected a dismal 1% annual return on its investments, a figure far short of projections that will likely bring pressure on California’s state and local governments to contribute more money, officials said Monday.

The return reported by the California Public Employees’ Retirement System was well below its projected return of 7.5% for the fiscal year that ended June 30.

The investment returns are critical because taxpayers are on the hook for the difference if the pension funds fail to meet their performance targets.

“The last 12 months were a challenging period for all investors as the ongoing European debt crisis and slowing global economic growth increased market volatility and reduced equity returns,” said chief investment officer Joe Dear. “It’s a clear reminder that we must remain focused on performance, risk and internal controls in today’s financial environment.”

The fund was most impacted by a negative -7% return on global equities. Half the pension’s assets are in equities, Dear said.

The fund, known as CalPERS, runs a $234 billion pension system for more than 1.6 million state employees, school employees and local government workers…”

–=–

In this first three paragraphs we can see the entire scam played out in front of us, as told from a master story-teller who is trying to sell sunglasses to a blind man. But even a blind man should be able to read between the lines here…

So far, we have learned that the CalPERS Pension fund has earned a 1% increase in its investment portfolio, which for this year would have been over $2.2 billion dollar in gains on investments. Yes, that’s $2,200,000,000 when spelled out properly. And this is of course reported as bad news!

Why?

Simply because CalPERS did not reach its “projected” goal. It wished upon a star, and failed to reach that star. It did not lose value or money, it only failed to miss its desired gains. It still did fine, and has no problems whatsoever meeting its “obligations” to pensioners. In fact, if CalPERS liquidated all of its investments today at today’s market value it could easily pay future pension benefits for the next 15-20 years.

So what’s the problem?

That’s just it, there is no real or tangible problem. You see, governments across the country are crying broke or bankruptcy based on this type of situation – hiding assets with future liabilities, without reporting the future assets that will pay for those liabilities. With billions in assets, all of this hoopla is based on nothing more than throwing a temper tantrum because the CalPERS fund didn’t reach what it wanted to reach this year.

It’s true. Nothing bad has actually happened here, as we will see in a moment. But the government creates any excuse it can in order to collect higher taxes,  or to funnel as much taxpayer money into the pension system. Case in point: here the article states that “California State and local governments (will be forced to) contribute more money“. In other words, the government wishes to keep its investment wealth untouched instead of liquidating it to pay for pension obligations to its employees. And so it will raise taxes instead, as the article states here: “taxpayers are on the hook for the difference if the pension funds fail to meet their performance targets.” Remember, taxes fund government. So government contributions means taxpayer contributions, despite the fact that taxpayers receive absolutely no benefits from the pension system, only employees of the government receive pension benefits.

Now imagine if Target, Bank of America, General Electric, or any other corporation out there forced all people in America or in an individual State or local government to pay for its private employee’s pension fund costs. How would that make you feel? Well, that is how the pension fund system works, as this article tells you.

Note here as well that the so-called “loss” on the equity value of stock and investments does not represent a loss of the actual number of stocks or investments. Just because a stock goes down in value for a 1 year period, does not mean that it will stay down. The same amount of stock is still held, and that physical equity has not changed, only this years value.

For instance, the following capital gains for 2010 and 2011 fiscal years were stated by the CalPERS pension fund in its Comprehensive Annual Financial Report:

CalPERS (2011) – $41.1 billion gain in net assets after all benefits paid.

“CalPERS reports 20.7% investment return for fiscal year“

“The California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS) reported a 20.7 percent return on investments in preliminary estimates for the one-year period that ended June 30, 2011.

This is our best annual performance in 14 years, said Rob Feckner, CalPERS Board President. For the second straight fiscal year, the Pension Fund exceeded its long-term annualized earnings target of 7.75 percent.”

(Source –> http://www.opalesque.com/IndustryUpdates/1880/CalPERS_reports_investment_return_for_fiscal_year188.html)

CalPERS (2010) – 13.3 % increase with a $23.2 billion gain in net assets after all benefits paid.

“The California Public Employees’ Retirement System, the largest U.S. public pension, earned a 12.5 percent return in 2010, led by gains in private equity and U.S. stocks, Chief Investment Officer John Dear said.

The $228 billion pension fund earned 17.3 percent from domestic equity and 21.5 percent in alternative investments such as private equity, Dear said today. Its real-estate portfolio lost 5 percent while its fixed-income investments gained 12 percent“.”

(Source –>http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-20/calpers-earned-12-5-return-in-2010-chief-investment-officer-dear-says.html)

–=–

Also, in 2009 fiscal year, as with all fiscal years, the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report show the following contributions from employees and separately from taxpayers (government).

Employees: $4,154,388,000

Taxpayers: $7,605,532,000

And here is a USA Today article with the headline:

“Calpers posts 16.7% gain for fiscal year“

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) — Calpers, the biggest U.S. pension fund, earned a 16.7% return on its investments in its fiscal year ended June 30, (2004) best returns in six years, the fund said Tuesday.

(Source –>http://www.usatoday.com/money/markets/us/2004-08-10-calpers-portfolio_x.htm)

And in 1998, CalPERS reported a record 19.5% gain in its investment portfolio. Yipee!

So the question you might be asking yourself is… Why don’t the taxpayers get a refund of all of that money they are putting into the pension system when there is a good year, when we have to be “on the hook” to support the fund with more taxpayer money in a bad year?  Not that this was really a bad year, mind you.

–=–

Notice here that I am not mentioning 2008 in this list, and instead giving the reader the impression that CalPERS has gained every year in its portfolio. That is what the news does, you see, but not me. In 2008, Calpers lost a butt-load of asset value to the tune of $58.8 billion due to the financial crash of that time. This was big news of course.

The point here is that a portfolio such as this is designed to acquire as many assets as possible, knowing in advance that those assets will go up and down in the short term, but is designed for the long term. A slow year or a loss is expected every once in a while, of course, and events happen and the economy goes bad and the strengthens again. This is an established reality that any long term investor will tell you.

So let’s here what CalPERS itself says about this years portfolio:

Press Release
July 16, 2012
External Affairs Branch

CalPERS Reports Preliminary 2011-12 Fiscal Year Performance of 1 Percent

Real estate portfolio earns nearly 16 percent exceeding benchmark

SACRAMENTO, CA – The California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) today reported a 1 percent return on investments for the 12 months that ended June 30, 2012, falling short of its benchmark that returned 1.7 percent. CalPERS assets at the end of the fiscal year stood at more than $233 billion.

The small gain – despite continued volatility in world markets and economies – was helped by improved performance of CalPERS real estate investments. Investments in income-generating properties like office, industrial and retail assets returned approximately 15.9 percent, outperforming the pension fund’s real estate benchmark by more than 3 percent.

CalPERS performance was negatively impacted by significant allocations to U.S. and international public equities.

“The last twelve months were a challenging period for all investors as the ongoing European debt crisis and slowing global economic growth increased market volatility and reduced equity returns,” said Joe Dear, CalPERS Chief Investment Officer. “It’s a clear reminder that we must remain focused on performance, risk and internal controls in today’s financial environment.”

CalPERS 1 percent return is below the fund’s discount rate of 7.5 percent, a long-term hurdle lowered recently in response to a steady decline in inflation and as part of CalPERS routine evaluation of economic assumptions. CalPERS 20-year investment return is 7.7 percent.

“It’s important to remember that CalPERS is a long-term investor and one year of performance should not be interpreted as a signal about our ability to achieve our investment goals over the long-term,” said Henry Jones, Chair of CalPERS Investment Committee…

Returns for real estate, private equity and some components of the inflation assets reflect market values through March 31, 2012 (not June 30, 2012). Final performance including the last quarter of the fiscal year will be available after asset valuations are completed.

Investment returns are based on compounded daily earnings over the year, including continuing member contributions and benefit payments, and do not precisely correspond to one-year changes in CalPERS overall portfolio market value.

(Source –> http://www.calpers.ca.gov/index.jsp?bc=/about/press/pr-2012/july/preliminary-returns.xml

–=–

In another listed report, the CalPERS system shows that “CalPERS Outperformed Its 7.5 Percent Target 13 out of the Last 20 Fiscal Years (FY 1992/93 – FY 2011/12).

–=–

So what does this all mean?

Remember, this reported bad thing of an over $2 billion gain in net assets for the fiscal year is being reported after all benefits have been paid out to the employees of this pension fund. And so there is no loss at all for the year, and this gain is all profit for the fund.

Also notice that for the last 20 years, this fund has attained an above average return on investments, 7.7% compared to the desired 7.5%. This is the wonderful aspect of the CAFR – it allows you to see previous cycles so as to not be fooled by media sound bites. Here, CalPER’s confirms the data in the financial statements that prove that this fund is wealthy beyond even the stated CalPER’s long term goals.

Simply put, this whole media frenzy was a false flag scare tactic – utilizing incomplete information for the CalPERS fiscal year report as stated by CalPERS to pre-program the people of California to accept unnecessary and unneeded increases in taxation, and all for a pension fund that will benefit the taxpayers in no way whatsoever.

We will not know the true statement of CalPERS financial situation until the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) is released for fiscal year 2011-2012, sometime in the next couple of months.

The problem is, most taxpayers have never heard of the CAFR, and place blind trust in their government and their media when they report such ridiculously contradiction data-sets as we have seen here from the Associated Press. And as government forces taxpayers to contribute taxpayer money into the public pension systems of the Federal, State, County, municipality, and district funds on an involuntary basis every year, the taxpayer base looses over $900 billion into the either of public pension black hole each year. This is to say nothing of what the employees of government are also forced to contribute.

If Walmart or Haliburton corporations required taxpayers to fund their pensions at no benefit to the taxpayers in any way, there would be riots in the street tomorrow.

And if they tried to get away with trying to convince the people (or for that matter the IRS) that their over $2 billion dollar gain in investments was somehow a bad thing or was somehow a loss requiring more taxpayer infusions into the Walmart or Haliburton corporate structure, there would be attorneys, accountants, CEO’s, and Board members hanging from the nearest tree…

What gives America?

.

–Clint Richardson (realitybloger.wordpress.com)
–Saturday, July 21, 2012

6 Comments
by realitybloger on July 21, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Posted by realitybloger on July 21, 2012

https://realitybloger.com/2012/07/21/california-fools-californians-into-higher-taxes-again/

A Request For Help


For the last two years, I have been what can only be defined as a full-time activist. If I were to die today, I feel like I would die knowing that I have left at least some positive mark within this never-ending fight for the dissemination of information and freedom. And if I have my way, my hope, I would very much like to continue with my efforts and keep my websites going (with a new one on the way)…

http://thecorporationnation.com/
https://realitybloger.wordpress.com/
http://clint4p.com/

I am sitting on a half-finished Lethal Injection (Part 2) Documentary video, one other fully completed script, two half-written but mostly researched scripts, and snippets of research for other projects. I have what I consider to be the most important information I’ve ever uncovered sitting next to me here in my little digital storage devices. And I mean revolutionary “stuff”.

I have never asked for money or donations for my writing, movies, radio hosting and interviews, or other charitable work. My creations are and always will be placed into public domain as soon as they are published on my blog or on YouTube (and then censored by Google of course).

For the first time, I am asking you who are reading this to consider making a donation to my future efforts, for future documentaries and endless hours of research, and for my attempt to get on the ballot for President of the states united as a free-natural born man without corporate status (as a people, not a person).

I have watched as the Ron Paul campaign collects multiple 10’s of millions of the people’s hard earned money, without a chance of winning the Republican nomination. I watch as “Super-PACs” transfer billions of dollars in an effort to skew the public’s opinion about the millionaire candidates who pretend to be for the people and of the people. And here I sit unable to imagine being able to afford to even pay the $500 fee charged by my corrupt corporate State to even get my name on the presidential ballot (part of what I am fighting as prima facie law)!

And so today, I have reached the point that I must seek the help of the people whom I hope have benefited from my work. If that is you, I would ask for your help. I am trying to raise $7,500 dollars to support myself for the next 6 months. That is rent, food, and bills. No time or budget for fun! If I can’t raise that, I simply cannot continue this in a full time effort and expect there to be food on my plate and a roof over my head.

Thank you…

*** I cannot seem to place a donate button on this page/blog. Please go to http://clint4p.com/ if you wish to make a donation.

As of Friday, March 2nd, 10am: $115 donated – Thank you.

I had honestly thought that by now some obscenely wealthy person would have offered to sponsor or fund some of my projects, simply because they understand that their wealth requires others (like myself) to be in poverty, and that their dollars are in reality nothing but blood money that may be gone tomorrow. But my idealism is obviously my own.

Is there anybody out there?

.

–Clint Richardson (realitybloger.wordpress.com)
–Thursday, March 1st, 2012

16 Comments
by realitybloger on March 1, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged , , ,

Posted by realitybloger on March 1, 2012

https://realitybloger.com/2012/03/01/a-request-for-help/

The Corporation Nation 3 – Ron Paul And The Federal Reserve


I get the impression that this presentation might make more enemies than friends. Pointing out these things about Ron Paul is a long time coming. And the truth often hurts.

But not telling the truth and going against popular “opinion” is the true measure of a man.

Have you read the Federal Reserve Act?

Did you know that the “dollar” is actually partially backed by many millions of ounces gold?

Do you want to know the truth?

Or are you more comfortable thinking about the bank that is the Federal Reserve as a monster and not just a bank?

I’m betting that 99% of those who wish to end the Fed have no idea what it actually is, and have never even taken a glimpse at the CAFR or the Federal Reserve Act.

Well here it is…

–Clint Richardson (realitybloger.wordpress.com)
–Sunday, October 30, 2011

12 Comments
by realitybloger on October 30, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports, constitution, Fed, federal reserve, Walter Burien
Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Posted by realitybloger on October 30, 2011

https://realitybloger.com/2011/10/30/1148/

CAFR School: What Is Wall Street?


Did you know that the stock market is a series of private, publicly traded corporations that trade their own stock on the very markets they run, receiving compensation for each trade that happens in the trading day?

I didn’t either.

But government owns these corporations too.

Now I know why day-trading is “allowed” in the markets. $-% per trade.

This was supposed to be an excerpt from my new full-length movie, The Corporation Nation 3: Ron Paul And The Federal Reserve. However, I am being censored by youtube, who will suddenly not allow my movies due to bogus copyright violations.

Coming very soon…

.

–Clint Richardson (realitybloger.wordpress.com)
–Friday, October 28, 2011

3 Comments
by realitybloger on October 28, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports, stock market
Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Posted by realitybloger on October 28, 2011

https://realitybloger.com/2011/10/28/cafr-school-what-is-wall-street/

AA+ Downgrade Is By Government Owned Corporations


The truth has been so twisted and turned that our belief system in America has become our biggest enemy.

We believe that the stock market is an independent structure, operating within government guidelines… But when we open up government’s Institutional Fund and Pension Fund investment portfolios and asset listings, we can easily find that the stock market is owned through stock investment by government funds.

Here, for example, is what just the New York Pension system holds:

.                                                                Shares            $ Market Value

NYSE Euronext                                 1,044,464               18,695,906
NASDAQ OMX Group Inc                 539,840               10,570,067

How about the Dow Jones?

Dow Jones                                             201,002                 7,899,379

And most importantly, the rating companies:

Moody’s Corp                                     1,001,702                71,581,625
Barclays plc                                         2,558,517              29,889,010

The moral of the story is that while we listen to the government owned media report to us that the government owned stock market is taking a nosedive because the government owned rating companies have downgraded the government owned economy of the United States, we actually believe the lie!

And that is just sad…

A puppet show of this magnitude needs to be torn apart and examined to its core, and that is why I spent 8 months collecting this information into a movie:

The Great Pension Fund Hoax:

01:14:00 – 01:18:00 Government owns China and the Oil Companies

01:42:00 – 01:57:00 – Government owns the media, Diebold, Monsanto, General Electric, etc…

02:27:00 – 02:42:00 – Government owns the banks and rating agencies

4 hours of your time will explain the whole shell-game.

Otherwise, just keep on believing…

.

–Clint Richardson (realitybloger.wordpress.com)
–Sunday, August 7th, 2011

14 Comments
by realitybloger on August 7, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports
Tagged , , , , , , ,

Posted by realitybloger on August 7, 2011

https://realitybloger.com/2011/08/07/aa-downgrade-is-by-government-owned-corporations/

« Older Posts
Newer Posts »